I have finally made a moment to have a thought. It isn't a very interesting or profound thought, but just taking a moment to think is a minor victory.
I have discovered that it is, indeed, possible to care for people without caring about them. I can be deeply concerned with the welfare of some of the people I know, and yet not value their opinions of me or what I do. I'm not sure if I like this or not. I have always been a very empathetic person, and people's feelings are still very important to me. But I think, in this case, that I consider the hyper-critical attitudes of people I know to be more of a fault to be overlooked than a valid emotion to be concerned over.
Many things have kept me busy this month, not the least of which is job searching. I'm not unemployed (or else it would be highly unlikely that I would waste precious minutes on this journal), but I am anticipating a change soon. I have roughly 10 weeks to get my affairs in order. It's going to be a grand adventure, I'm sure, and yet another opportunitty to trust my God to make things happen. Faith, however, doesn't mean I sit under a tree and eat birdseed until Jesus drops a large bag of money in my lap. Faith means I blow about fifty thousand copies of my resume into the market, make all the phone calls and handshakes I possibly can, and trust God to show me where He wants me to land.
I have a different concept about this whole Jesus Freak thing that a lot of people do. Some people say they believe in God, and try to hold Him at arms' length, aloof from the mundanities of life. I figure if God went to all the trouble to put me on this particular planet, in this particular country, in this particular point in history, He's probably interested in other parts of my life as well. I'm willing to accept that I may be wrong, but I would rather be wrong on this one than get to the end of the road and find out this was the answer.