cup half full, rather than half empty

My hopes and dreams are in the heart of God, and I trust him to work things out for my good, but I still struggle on a human level with the things I talked about in the previous entry.
Mostly my cup is half full and I generally have a positive outlook despite my circumstances in life, but I do have wobbles from time to time and this is what happened on the 12th January 16.

I am grateful for the blessings of a home, and where the home is,  of money and  the chance to give voice to the autism community, whether in small ways or larger.

I am grateful for food and technology and medication that keeps me healthy and enables me to loose wieght even if slow and concentrated.

friendship is hard and until I have people around me who understand that I suspect this will always be the case, I know that there are individuals who care for me, and I am grateful in turn for them.

But I want to be a friend to them, even if I don't know how and struggle with the needs of providing friendship because, I don't feel able to be a friend because I am not certain they understand.

friendship,community&brokeness in these things

I emailed the lady who used to lead the community I worshipped in. I said that I hoped I would cope ok now that the structure had gone, but that I had struggled in similar situations in the past, her response was, that relationships had been a minefield in the past.
But even after 10 years of  being part of them they did not get it and never made me feel they wanted to know, about friendship and relationship in my life or to be a friend to me, because that is the whole issue, after the last friendship I had nearly 20 years ago, I lost confidence in my ability to make friendships, and nothing happened to change apart from one person, who doesn't have much time free.
You see nothing I have experienced in the last year within COBH or GG as was has given help or confidence to me that anyone wants to have anything to do with me, apart from this one lady and two other friends who are friends in a way but they are more supported by mum and come to meals and visit infrequently, because they have jobs or family that makes life busy.

When I hear teaching saying we are not alone, the host of heaven are all around, these are said by people who have family, and basically have to make space to be alone.
I have Mum and I live with her but I struggle even in this because I don't know how to be her friend or relate to her as a friend. At 49 years old I feel more broken in this area than I ever have and I truly want this to change, because it hurts to be alone and see other people going off and doing other things with friends, that I feel I would like to do, and it is hard because I don't have confidence to travel on my own and never have, so perhaps I am not meant to, but it still hurts because I want to be part of something, but noone seems to care apart from Mum and three other people.

People like JS, who says me hugging her the first  time she came down  AITP for EW, was one of the factors in her moving to Wales and I think that was very important but I have not felt any real desire from anyone who comes to approach me as a friend and the sadness of this has multiplied since the end of 2015 with the ending of GG, as a meeting group and noone has contacted me for me, like they want to spend time with me. Apart from two visits before christmas.
I also feel alone over health issues and having to cope on my own, now mum is getting older and what will happen in the next few years, without friends who can be like family, as I don't experience this now and maybe never have, even when I had GG to go to.
Anyhow I need help for things to change, indeed I want things to change. 

The Hum of the Earth - it's voice is the rain

Things are changing I can feel it in the bones of me. I feel the rain and the flooding are tears of awakening of the land.
I feel the sadness of all the people suffering damage to homes and loosing precious things they value and all the money and wastage cause by this happening, but there is something deeper at the heart of all this, something we have yet to understand, yet to appreciate the value of.
Material wealth is needed to live, poverty is not nice.
People are sad about pictures and memories that were washed down the drains into sewers, and no way to replace, and that is about family and that is precious, but furniture costs alot and yes it is nice to have nice things and I would be upset like them if I had worked hard to buy these things, BUT we live in a society that has been taught that perfection, is the only way, there are people who look down on people in poverty.
I know that it won't be the same people who do that, who are the ones who have been flooded out over the last weeks.
The general feeling of entitlement to have what we want, how we want it, when we want it, can become an obsession, and a source of pride. I have compassion for the suffering, and I feel the despair of having to recover yet again from something that has left you low, but poverty is rife in the UK and people need to realise there is more than one type of flood that lays people low.
Loosing a job, which looses a house, where the family or individual are homeless and loose everything. Poverty because of illness or injury, after being healthy and the torrent of grief that follows such things.

I realise that the floods have been a major happening, and have caused pain and grief in very deep ways, but the pain that goes on every day of the year is just as bad, but it is hidden, unspoken and does not have a voice.