The kids and I moved one year ago tomorrow, February 3rd. *That* was one long, difficult day.
2006 was one of the quickest years of my life. I'm glad it is complete and I have gotten through a lot of the cultural-change growing pains.
Some of the cultural change pains won't go away, I've simply got to learn to deal with it better. I'm the visitor after all. We are not here to change the culture.
We're all here to serve and help the people God puts on our path. Sometimes we do it really well, sometimes we just barely do it. We're just humans doing our best. Our best is not always all that impressive.
The blog from yesterday about advice ... yeah, when Troy made the "advice" de-motivational poster, and I wrote up the blog, he said "Someone will be offended and not know it is just a joke." He was right.
We are allowed to get tired of being corrected on the way we do every-day simple *life* things, aren't we?
Maybe not.
There are some who think we are supposed to be 110% always-tolerant and perfect. But, see ... we're not. We're normal. Sorry if that bums anybody out.
Whatever your opinion ... It is important for all readers to know that we would not be here if we did not have tremendous love and respect for the people and a desire to help in some tiny way to make things better or maybe a little bit easier.
We see the suffering all around us here and our hearts ache for the hurting. That is why we're here.
In doing that, we get tired, we get overworked, we get verbally assaulted, we get discouraged, sometimes we get lied to and cheated. That is not a complaint list at all, it is simply the reality.
Our best defensive mechanism for that fatigue is laughter. It always has been. It is a good one and it works for us. If teasing and sarcasm is offensive to you, we can certainly understand that ... but in that case, you might be reading the wrong blog because it is who we are. We laugh. We tease. We are jerky sarcastic fools.
On a rare day, the poster below will apply.
Thankfully, we serve a God of infinate grace, compassion and forgiveness. If we allow Him to, He picks us back up, brushes us off, and off we go again.
So ... We're writing to say --- We're going to keep it real and keep being ourselves and sometimes that means our blogs are not all roses and sunshine and sometimes we'll be sick of things. Sometimes we'll tease and joke and even be irreverant.
We'll all have our ups and downs and God will keep loving us right where we are and will carry us through it.
Our blog-free weekend has just begun.
Enjoy the Super Bowl. Enjoy your weekend.
With Love-
Tara, for all of us
PS- If anyone was offended when I called Punxsutawney Phil "lame" -- I apologize for that too.