Am I still out there?

The last commentor on the "Awwww" picture asked just that. It can be taken two ways: Am I OUT there? Like, yeah, I am way out there :) or Am I out there? like "Am I still blogging?" The irony is that as I was driving today I could feel a blog boiling up inside me. I hate that I had to really rein in what I was truly feeling and experiencing in my blog because "bullies" were creating conflict. Much of what I write now is light or a picture review (still valuable to friends and family, I hope) but the gut of me is curtailed.

Someday I will get back to real blogging but right now, there is still concern and worry. Suffice it to say, the last four months have been excruciating. I wonder why I have lost ten pounds with out really trying and I know. It's the famous "Grief Diet". The one you can't write a book about because the causes of grief are so awful: death, divorce, suicide, cruelty, and on and on. And all of ones I just listed have been going on in the lives of people near and dear to me. Death: the sister and two nieces of my sweet friend. Divorce: One of our closest guy friends is being dragged through this pit. Suicide and attempts: Too many. Cruelty: At least four different men who are batterers, violent tempered, alcoholic and threatening bullies to women I know.

The bullies are ones I have such disdain for. I hate bullies. Is that too strong a word? I think because I love, I must also be able to hate. It is so abhorent that someone thinks they can control another by their horrific words, their accusations, almost always false, and their violence. Two recent news stories in IL rang too close. One, the mother whose two young sons were killed by the deranged father who then killed himself, pleaded with the courts not to allow unsupervised visits. A judge denied her requests and now they are gone. The other, another deranged man, killed the sister of his girlfriend and her father and her grandmother. Their funerals are tomorrow. Is it drugs, mental illness, alcohol, a lousy upbringing? I don't know but the numbers just continue to grow. I can't believe the thoughts I have in thinking of ways to make these people go away.

All I know for now is that God sees and knows and hears the prayers of those who are threatened. He, in His time, will make all things right. I am reminded of Romans 8:28, Katie's verse.

"And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purposes."

May it be so.