#62 Friends that tell me the truth

People who tell the truth are the best, even though I sometimes get my feelings hurt when I don't love what they say. My new friend Melanie, for example, always tells me the truth (I call her the Jewish mother I never had!) so I have learned to not ask her if I can't handle the response I might get. :)

When I'm really down I also need to hear the truth.

The last few days were a mental health wasteland for me. Now that I am out of it, I can't believe how far down I was.

I did have the wherewithal to call a dear friend that I absolutely trust with anything. We were only on the phone for about 6 minutes and I was crying in the midst of the pain and pity I was feeling for myself. She listened long enough [read: not as long as I wanted to go on and on] then suggested I make a gratitude list and explain to myself why I was grateful for those things. I heard her loud and clear: I was circling the drain and needed to get my mind into a better state. My feelings were stung a little and I felt embarrassed. 

Later I did make that list. I still haven't written why (I wrote it at midnight! I was tired!) but just thinking about the "why" helped me change my attitude.

Feeling a little embarrassment and humiliation is a small price to pay for being vulnerable enough to reach out for help. Though I don't always feel good when I "tell on myself", I always feel better later.

The sheep are back!

Okay, I've grown addicted to to the sheep.

image courtesy of Creative Commons

Counting them, actually.

When 2015 ended, the spiritual discipline of daily finding and writing about something I'm grateful ceased and left a little hole where it once lived. During the last 3 months, every so slowly, the gratitude that had built up in that little place got all used up, leaving behind a melancholy that responds well to gratitude.

I also miss writing every day. There is something cathartic about forcing what's going on inside into words that I know at least a few people read.

And so, the daily counting resumes.

The sheep are back!

#115: The goodness of children

Listen to this!  This is always the best Saturday of my month!

Today at Come to the Banquet, our monthly meal for the hungry in Boise at St. Michael's, I was at the door greeting people and a little girl around 8-9 came in with her mom.  She did not look like most of the other patrons, but I greeted them as everyone else.  The mom said they were looking for a woman they had met before that her daughter had raised money for, and could they have a look to see if she was eating with us.

After a while they came back to me.  They hadn't found the woman but decided to donate the money to Come to the Banquet instead!

The woman she was looking for had asked her for money when she was out with her mom, but they had no money to give at the time.  So the little girl went to school and for two months colllected money among her classmates.  Her plan was to give the money to this woman, but her "Plan B" (her words) was to give money to our ministry.  Said this 8-9 year old girl.

WOW!!

We took a picture, she told me her story, and as she left, I was filled with awe and gratitude.  A volunteer told me she had donated $40 to our ministry.