Death of many forms...

I'm typing this while my computer's in safe mode, because yesterday the screen suddenly went blank on me. Hours of pondering, researching, wondering, and random frustrated yelling :) only seemed to make the poor thing worse, and now when I try to start it normally, it gives me the blue screen saying "There's a problem. Window's has been shut down." Which makes me chuckle, because the fact that there is a problem is pretty darn obvious... We say here that our computers are our lifelines, very literally, and now even though Cindy and Lindsey's computers are at hand and useable, every 30 minutes or so the red-flagged message pops into my brain: "My computer's dead! Ahhh!"

One such red-flagged message started me thinking today of when I was in 6th grade, and people would ask me what I wanted to do with my life... I would answer, "Well, see, I'm not really gonna have to worry about it so much, cuz I'm going to go work in Chicago trying to help people in street gangs and get shot by the time I'm 21 years old." Sigh. Part of this way of thinking, I realize, comes from the section under my personality type listed as "needs to figure out a correct way to deal with pain"...even though it's not healthy, I'd much rather jump to the death rather than struggle in the pain. Especially right now, looking at the changes ahead and at everything that will be "dying" over the next few weeks, I'm reflecting on that part of my personality with a little bit of anger towards everything; myself and how I am, life and how it is, etc. How does one figure out a correct way to deal with pain?

If the computer's one of the first things that has to die, so be it. How we'll get through the pain of all the deaths ahead, I don't really know. But bring it on... It's a good thing our God is one of resurrection...