Happy Birthday, One Year Old!

You are one of my deepest joys.

Oh, I love you to the moon and back.

45 years ago this evening, Rob and I had our very first date. After weeks of flirting, breaking into his locker to decorate it with signs and goodies before each basketball game, he finally asked me out.  So what do seventeen year old kids do on their first date when they have no money?  Attend one of their best friend's church basketball games, of course! Not the best way to steal a girl's heart, but I think he had captured mine weeks before as we spent hours together, typing yearbook copy on manual typewriters in a claustrophobic pie-shaped room.  I already knew there was something different about this very intelligent athlete. I wanted to learn more.
For me, the night was perfect.  We spent half-time walking hand in hand around the country school building on a cold Kansas night and barely made it back inside for the final buzzer. Our conversation came easy and I didn't want the night to ever end. 
45 years later, I wish it never had to end. I loved that seventeen year old boy with all my heart.  

Broken computer...broken phone...broken heart = blank blog.
While waiting for all three to heal, I have poured my thoughts into letters (yes, the old-fashioned on pretty stationery kind.) It's somewhat of lost art, isn't it?  I received heartfelt encouragement scrawled on lined paper in the darkness of early December and I was inspired to do the same throughout the holidays and now, into the new year.
So what's been stirring in my heart?
I finally spilled to a friend yesterday: I think I've lost my passion!
The three plus years before Rob's cancer, I poured myself into the fight against human trafficking. I researched, lobbied, and most importantly, prayed for those affected by this heinous evil.  I thought I would return to my work after Rob's death, but to this day, the passion is absent. Oh, I still pray and stay informed, but there is no fight in me.
Is it gone forever? Does He have for me a new battle to fight? I simply don't know.
I attended the memorial of a "Hebrews 11" lady yesterday.   Barbara did things in a grand way, but she also worked quietly to glorify her God. Very few of us knew that she fed spoonfuls of peanut butter to children living in an African slum in her early adult life. 
Pretty awesome stuff, don't you think?
So I ponder my own life; am I to live large?
Does God expect each Christ follower to pursue grand causes, grand passions or are some of us asked to find the grand in the mundane? Can passion lead some of us to show-off? Are we simply called to show-up? 
So I keep asking and wait for an answer; what does real passion for a Savior look like in my life.
What about yours?