Interesting-although I'm not really sure why.

I was about halfway through my blog post on Saturday and crying my eyes out when my mother-in-law called to see how I was doing. During the course of our conversation, she told me for the second time in as many weeks that it was time for me to start living my life again-that her son would not want me to heavily grieve for him for the rest of my life. He would want me to live my life and be happy again. I love her for recognizing and encouraging this. I can't imagine that is easy for her to do.

After I finished my entry, I decided I had two choices: I could sit around the house and cry all day or I could go out and remind myself that life goes on. I felt like I should sit around and mourn-like that is what I was expected to do but though I felt guilty for doing so, I decided to get out of the house.

I started by going to my godson's soccer game. I thought it would be good to practice my action shots. They didn't turn out as well as I would have liked but I got a few good ones. Not of my godson, unfortunately, but I will have plenty of chances for that. We won the game 2-0 despite the ref's every effort to give the game to the opposing team. Apparently, he did not get the memo that referees are supposed to be impartial. Pretty much every foul was against us regardless of who was at fault (my godson was fouled for getting elbowed-that's how ridiculous it was).

After the game, I headed across the river for a pottery painting event with the meetup group. I have now been to several events with the girl that organized it and I really like her. She is really nice and so welcoming to everyone. I am looking forward to (and a little afraid to) see how my bowl turned out!

The interesting part came after I left. I was in a weird parking lot and was planning to turn right out of it. The parking lot has spots in front of it as well and I couldn't tell what the driver a couple of spots down was doing and I didn't have very good visibility to turn right. It was only slightly better to turn left but I decided to do that instead. Turns out that was what I needed to do to begin with as that was much closer to the freeway. I pulled up to the stop sign behind a car with the license plate "Psalm 24." My first thought was "Yea, as I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," which of course is from Psalm 23. My next thought was "The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want" which of course is also from Psalm 23. I decided to look it up when I got home. Many years ago, Mom gave me a Bible that has a listing of verses to read every day for a year, finishing the entire Bible on 12/31. I set out to do this but unfortunately, this is one of those Bibles that is very hard to understand so I didn't get very far. I looked it up online and Psalm 24 states that the earth and everything in it is the Lord's. I just picked up James' Bible and turned it to Job, where I found a piece of paper with the title "Where to find comfort and encouragement in the Psalms. This is the first time I have ever opened his Bible. Maybe this isn't about the verse-maybe I was supposed to find this piece of paper. Or maybe I was supposed to find the marker in his Bible is on 1 Corinthians 13 and the following verses are highlighted:

(v 4-8) Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.
(v 11) When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
(v 13) And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

It was raining as I drove home-typical for February in Portland. I was driving a bit under the speed limit due to the rain and was thinking about Volunteer Guy and how I was an idiot to let myself believe I could possibly have a chance with him and how I was glad I found out he is either back with or trying to reconcile with his ex before I completely embarrassed myself by asking if he'd like to get together sometime, like I was working myself up to do. A Jeep pulled in front of me. My mind grasped that it had a personalized plate but registered the right half (STL) first. "STL," I thought. "Okay. St. Louis." Then it registered the left half was DNT. Don't Settle. Okay. Psalm 24. Don't Settle. The Jeep then changed lanes again, pulling in behind a truck with a plate that read Wild 4 u.

Psalm 24, Don't Settle, Wild 4 U. It is said our angels send us messages while we are driving because whether we admit it or not, we tend to zone out while driving. I feel like there is a message here but I just am not getting what it is. Several months ago, I was told that before I met MH #2, there would be a sign but I wouldn't realize it was a sign (typical) so now I am always wondering "is this my sign?" When are my angels going to learn I need a clearly spelled out billboard? Neon, of course, so I don't miss it. This is bugging me because I know I am supposed to be getting something here-I can feel it with absolute certainty-but I just can't connect the dots.