Catching Idle Butterflies

Another Perfect Piece to This Puzzle of Life.

The problem with having over 400 blog entries is the inevitability of repetition. I think of a topic and then remember I’ve written about it before, darn it.

Revisiting a topic can be a good thing, however. For one, I could have learned something pertaining to the original that gives it a deeper meaning. It also gives those who never read the first one an opportunity to see how I think about a subject.

Plus, if I don’t remember everything my favorite bloggers have written, it’s safe to assume people will not remember everything I’ve written either.

There’s a downside to that as well – having people not remember or never having read certain entries. I want to add to past events, and either have to recount them so they make sense, or add links to those entries for those who otherwise wouldn’t have a clue what I’m talking about.

Saving my older entries have served as a time capsule of my life and I noticed a picture emerge – or more accurately – a puzzle. Each entry, each piece of this puzzle of my life may seem random and perhaps even useless, nonetheless have their perfect place. I didn’t plan it that way; that’s simply how life works. I just never notice until I look back.

I’ll start with my 103rd entry "Emotional vampire"  written February 27, 2006. I talked about reconnecting with my biological father after 20 years of silence.

In my 433rd entry "Of Endings . . . and Beginnings . . . and Love of Words"  written February 2, 2007, I mentioned that I gave my father my phone number.

Entry 436 "Contact!"  written February 14, 2007, I discussed my first telephone conversation with him.

Those show a grand picture of reconnecting with an estranged father. There’s a lot more that I have yet to talk about, only because it’s so special, putting it to words is difficult.

We’ve not chatted on the phone much, but we still email each other regularly.

I then wrote "Write me a prayer, or is it pray me a writer?" , "Inadequately Effective" , and "Little-Bacterium-Me"  (entries 468, 471 and 475 respectively).

I want to highlight a portion of the comment rose_shadow left in the last one: I've been going through some spirtual valleys lately--that "dark night of the soul" kind of thing where it feels like prayers get no further than the ceiling--and began to wonder what you were talking about here: does God really care about me? Sure He loves me, but does he *care* about the little darknessness of everyday life?

Now here’s a portion of an email my dad sent me not two hours later: I want to spend more time studying prayer. Vanessa got me a great book for Christmas on prayer by Philip Yancey. The title is “Prayer, Does it Make any Difference?” It is truly an honest look at prayer and I am just at the beginning. He talks about how the promises of God seem to be hard to realize down here on earth, yet the promises are there.

I am really interested in prayer and why it seems so hard for me most of the time and also why I seem to have limited results. Do you feel the same? I know God hears me, but it seems like the prayers bounce off the ceiling sometimes.

What made his email so eerie is I hadn’t talked to him in a few weeks, let alone talk about prayer to him. And to have him echo rose_shadow so precisely and at the same time? Wow.

It was enough I had to email him those three entries. He wants to talk to me more about it, so I have my phone charged and ready!

What makes my heart glad isn’t the timing or the small coincidences, but the chance to build a stronger relationship with my dad.

That’s a portion of this puzzle of life I’m eager to keep building and see where it goes. Quite a different attitude from my first mention of him, isn’t it?