I Am Blessed by You

Well...I'm on my last day of absolute peace and quiet.  My teenager comes back this evening after five days of worship and service with 35,000 teens.  I am so looking forward to hearing his stories!  ( My husband and youngest are still at a lacrosse camp until the end of this week - and the teenager will be at marching band camp 9 hours a day - so I still have lots of time to myself before real life is back.)

So many of you told me that I would miss them all - I laughed.  But it turns out that I did.  Perhaps it has more to do with everything that happened around here while they were gone.  I spent hours glued to the television, mourning the losses at the movie theater and wishing I had my family to hug.  Every time that I sat at my craft table, I saw the Archivers bag with stash that I had purchased after I dropped my last family member at the airport - that Archivers is a block from the movie theater.  It made it all so close, yet still utterly unreal.  It is beyond imagination that those murdered ranged from 6-years old to 51-years old, including so many in their teens and twenties.  My prayers are with everybody touched by this tragedy.

On a smaller scale, there were so many issues relating to troubles at my own church.  One of my husband's favorite sayings is that Jesus did not just come to comfort the afflicted, but also to afflict the comfortable.  And I think Jesus thought that my little church has gotten a little too comfortable.

I spent the first few days of my quiet time just catching up - digging through the piles on my desk and either deciding to throw out the cards that never quite came together or working on them a little more.  I had the pieces to this card cut but never quite found a way to finish it.  Yesterday, it came together - I'm not sending it to anyone specific, but it goes out to all of you who sent loving words to my inbox this week...

• Stamps: Clear Dollar Stamps Tag Blessings
• Paper: Stampin' Up Crumb Cake dsp and cs, Raspberry Ripple dsp and cs
• Ink: Stampin' Up Crumb Cake and Raspberry Ripple
• Accessories: Stampin' Up Raspberry Ripple ribbon, My Favorite Things Fishtail Flags, Martha Stewart doily tags