consecrated

I'm back from California! And a Happy Birthday to me it was....Took in the creepy, neat-o Tim Burton exhibit at LACMA with the most perfectly imperfect guy ever--the out of my league one-- followed by Dim Sum on Xino's rooftop on Santa Monica Blvd (a restaurant with a strange male/female-conjoined-by-a-mirror bathroom).  Toy shopping for my boy squad. Stuck in traffic for two hours getting back to Orange County...but surprisingly didn't mind a bit. Then a great birthday dinner out with California friends near and dear, including my old buddy The Roller Disco Pimp, with a follow-up stroll around the decadence of Fashion Island and some birthday gelato. Oh, and cupcakes the next day, ordered for me by Ninja and M. Lots and lots-o-cupcakes (!) which I took with me to share as I went from friends house to friends house, causing them all to love me [even more].It was all simply lovely :)

~~~

The day I flew out to California, my sweet friend, Heidi, showed up at my house first thing in the morning with a bag of chocolate covered strawberries for my birthday. In fact, she woke me up...but chocolate and a bestie are pretty great things to wake up to. Anyway, she sat on my bed and talked with me for almost an hour--and listened. She's a fabulous listener. I told her pretty much everything I said on the blog for the last two posts but in a more specific nature: about being scared by my blessings because of their generally fleeting nature. About wanting to fall apart yet being unable to. Her reply: "I know everyone in this life struggles with something. I just know some seem qualified or stronger to handle more, and you're one of those--one whose struggles are very evident. I know I couldn't do what you're doing. But somehow it's all going to work out for you."

I agree. I think. I mean, I don't know when it's "all going to work out" or even what that means, but one word did come to mind:

Consecrated.

I know the Lord has promised that all the struggles, trials, and even disappointments I have, am, and will pass through are consecrated for my good. Which means 'dedicated to a sacred purpose....at some point'. Like future kings and prophets of the Old Testament who had their heads anointed with oil and were set apart and promised great standings--some day. 

It feels so often to me that I am one who gets to hold such amazing POSSIBILITY of all kinds in my hands for a few moments. To see and feel how "just right" things could be. But doomed not to hold onto it. To be the one forever congratulating (and happily so, too...I promise) other people on getting the break, the acceptance, the book published, the raise, the new car, the new house, the love of their life. And I wonder, too, why God does that? Gives me peeks into how things could be, even going so far as to let me hold what I perceived as perfection for 13 years, before needing to take it? Is it just to get me to raise my goals a little higher each time? Work harder? Run faster? Stay humble? Stay closer to Him? Doesn't He know if I hadn't seen such riches, I could live with being poor :) ?

For now, I will just trust in that concept of **consecration.** All things reaching their divine potential in time.

My Mr. Perfect has decided to ride off into the sunset with someone else. And as bittersweet, make-a-lump-in-my-throat as that is, I cannot help but cheer him on because it makes him happy--like trying to suppress an adorable, goofy grin when he says her name happy-- which makes me happy because it reminds me that such happiness exists and I love seeing people find it. And I made another great, talented, funny friend out of the deal. I wouldn't change a thing. Hardly.

So, I'm going to just sit my consecrated, cupcake-filled bum down here on these dusty steps and wait for the next horse leaving for the sunset--the one meant just for me--questioning and a little teary, but content that everything works out just the way it should. And that's all I'm going to say about that.