Thursday, March 17, 2011

Seasons

Not sure if anyone follows my blog anymore or not, but for anyone out there who might be reading:

My dad is coming home from Nashville back to his house in Winchester.   :)   This means that he has made it through the hardest part of his recovery and is on the mend!  Praise God for restoring his health and bringing us all through this trial. 

Life is full of so many trials.   This should not be a surprise to us - the Bible told us it would be this way.   Our job is to figure out how to navigate through our trials, do what we can to make our way through them and leave the rest to God.  Life is hard.  Our family seems to have been through MANY trials the past few years and I often wonder how much more we can bear, but then I stop and think of those people who are suffering major trials in life - the death of a child, the terminal illness of a loved one, a family member away at war.......and I am forced to stop and be grateful - to count my blessings.

I am in a very hard place right now.  A place of decisions.   A place of trying to decide what is best for my children.  A place of feeling like I am alone with no support.  It is a hard place to be.  But, we all come to a point in life that we have to do what we know is right for us.  A place where we quit trying to live for others expectations of us. 

I have made so many mistakes in my life and REALLY "should have listened to my mother".   Funny how we learn that way too late in life, isn 't it?   There is so much irony in the fact that we don't listen to our mother's advice until we ourselves become mothers.   But, I am learning to forgive myself and to let go of my guilt and my burdens and to realize that God's grace abounds.   His grace is never ending.  His love for me is even bigger than that!  Thank goodness, because I need to know that.  I embrace it and cling to it right now and it is what helps me through every day. 

My sister and I are moving into a new season of life right now with taking care of an aging parent and I am moving into a new season of my life with raising teenagers and the increasing possibility that we will be downsizing our home fairly soon if possible.   Life changes, and with that change many times comes difficulty and I praise God that I have faith.  I simply do not know how people get by without it.

My blog today was more therapy than anything and for anyone who happens to read I hope you glean something from my babbling.   Love to all ~ 

“Remember to be gentle with yourself and others. We are all children of chance and none can say why some fields will blossom while others lay brown beneath the August sun. Care for those around you. Look past your differences. Their dreams are no less than yours, their choices no more easily made. And give, give in any way you can, of whatever you posses. To give is to love. To withhold is to wither. Care less for your harvest than for how it is shared and your life will have meaning and your heart will have peace.”

Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Love

I am endlessly amazed by the people who only show love to others based on the conditions they place upon them.   This concept confuses me and I have never understood it.  I so many times have seen it cause hurt to others and also the name of "Christianity".   

I pray today that we would all show the love of Christ and not our own self-centered love. 

1 Corinthians 13:1-13
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;