Welcome to Paul and any other who may be reading this

     I too have experienced a slight delay in noticing the arrival of the one for whom, at least in large part, this blog was designed to communicate.  Welcome Paul, I am glad you finally found me here.
     You mentioned in your comments a couple of week ago the potential for some really nasty earthquakes on both coasts of the United States.  However, since I live in the middle of the USA don't think me complacent or unaware of the reach of the hand of the Lord in this place as well.  Perhaps you already know, but right down the middle of America is another fault line, one potentially more dangerous that the San Andreas fault.

     It has not rumbled much.  I can only remember two times.  Once, just following my decision to be baptized (just over 37 years ago); the second time was a few years back, shortly after a 100 mile move to the University to allow my children a place to live besides campus housing.

     The first quake I personally noticed and noted as a message to me from the Lord. The second, my wife asked me in the morning if I felt it.  I had slept through it and only heard of it from her and later that morning on the news.  This second quake was a memory jogger, a reminder of the first, but otherwise it was not seen by me to have any personal significance such as the first one did have.

     I am going through a difficult time now, mostly my own fault, which makes the depression all the greater as I struggle with what to do next.  Please pray for me.  I do not think that moving again is an option at the moment.  I have asked the Lord many times if He needed me in some far flung mission field and His answer before has always been that he needed me to stay right where I had been placed.  He needed me to give the message to my own people who needed His message as much and more than many abroad.

     Some go to foreign fields willingly like Paul or reluctantly as did Jonah; some are taken against their will, but make the most of it, like Ezekiel and Daniel.  Then there are those who stay put until the last moment, like Jeremiah, or until martyred, like Isaiah.  Perhaps rarely there are others we have not heard of whose place, like Enoch and Elijah, is beside the throne.  For many, that still small voice says go tell the world; yet others are told to bravely stand your ground.

     However, I am not sure what path to take at this very moment.  Pray that He leads me as well as giving me renewed hope.  Some here in America are listening to you.  Not always will as much understanding as you would like, but with a desire to better comprehend and to dialogue.