Today is a new day!
Isn't it amazing how much better it makes us feel to know others think the way we do--especially when it seems a little crazy? Today my glass is half full. I am looking for the positives. For example:
My three children have two ear infections and and eye infection between them, but everyone seems to be feeling much better. After two straight weeks of illness, we are on the mend.
My husband is not on call this weekend and our calendar is fairly sparse. I just returned from the grocery store with ingredients for chili and vegetable soup. I feel a fire and family time coming my way!
It is 14 degrees outside but we own a home that keeps us warm. We do not have to worry about where we will lay our heads at night. We own blankets, coats, mittens, hats and warm socks.
I opened my washing machine this morning to find that I had washed 5 mini tootsie rolls, due to my failure to check little boy pockets. The good news is that I caught them before they went into the dryer.
Thanks to good cough medicine, my whole family got a full night of uninterrupted sleep. Everything feels better with sleep.
P is still out of school today due to a high temperature yesterday, but we are enjoying precious time together. This morning he said, "Mommy, I love you so much I can't descwibe it or count it or say it." My heart felt so warm and fuzzy I couldn't feel that tight grip around it I had been feeling for the last few days.
After reading your comments and thinking over it some more, I have developed a new theory about the January Blues. I think the start of a new year brings us such promise of all the ways we are going to make ourselves and our lives better. We have lists and goals and visions of our new and improved life...then within a couple of weeks, reality sets in. We are stuck inside, with little sunshine, confronted with the reality that we are still the same broken people, living in a broken world with challenges, foibles, fears and sin. Real lives don't look like the articles in Real Simple magazine.
And I am so glad they don't! Their depth and complications make finding those beautiful moments like a treasure hunt. The dark places make the bright ones all the more glorious.
Today I choose to look for the blessings and trust God to help me keep a right perspective. I will not close my eyes to the hurting around me (or my own fears for that matter). Instead, I will hand the anxieties over to my Lord--He's the only one with shoulders strong enough to carry them.
10 comments:
I'm over from Kelly's Korner and glanced at your page and have spent the last 20 minutes reading your story! WOW!
While it is 20 degrees here in OK, and everyone complaining about the cold...I too have spent the day saying, "but you work inside; you have coats; homes; hot showers; resources." I almost take the TINY bit of cold I feel as a reminder to pray for those who need His warmth more than ever. Your comments on a warm home, blankets in closets...made me share!
I await my prince with 8 bridesmaid dresses and 25 shower hostess gifts in my life...and know HE has my provision waiting!
Blessings - Kate Stanton
Blessings on a family filled weekend!
Gosh--- as usual you are the "up" in uplifting blogs. Three sick kids and you give it such a positive spin. I remember when my 2 were that young and I was not the up.
Bless you!
Amen sista! So well spoken! Thank you for that uplifting post and we all get that way (yesterday) from time to time!
I may just have to write my own blessings post! ;)
Blessings always!
Any funk I was in yesterday, was instantly healed by hearing about the amazing mercy of God upon the people of that flight that landed in the Hudson River. I've been in tears almost all day, just thanking God over and over for having such mercy upon EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. I've been praying that every one of them will pause and give God the glory and praise and recognize Him as LORD. :) Now that is enough to raise any of us from our Jan. funk. :)
Amen, Sitesx6! I had similar thoughts.
I need a little uplifting like that in this cold weather and funk! Thank you!!
Aren't emotions a roller coaster?! Sometimes you just have to ride them out. God is so good to allow us to experience both extremes because we appreciate the good days so much more.
I also wanted you to know that your post about loving people in pieces touched me very deeply. God used that to discipline me regarding some areas in my life. I just wanted to say, thank you!
I know you already read a ton of books, but I just started one called "Having a Mary Heart: Allowing God to Change us from the Inside Out" By Joanna Weaver. I would describe it, but wouldn't do it justice. It is about exactly what you are wrestling with. I struggle with the same things and thoughts and the first chapter had me in tears because I was thinking "She is writing TO ME!". Glad to hear things are looking up today.
God is good and faithful, isn't he?!
I usually have the "post-Christmas" blues in January. So much so that we started going annually to Disney World for a few years (until THIS year) to have something BIG to look forward to after all the fun and festivities of the Christmas season. I think it's natural to have a let-down after such a big occasion - I know I did after each of the weddings of my three children as well. So much build-up, so my hype, so much dreaming and then BOOM it's all over.
So it's only natural. Add to that bombardment of diet program and fitness club ads (let's make ourselves feel even WORSE about ourselves why don't we?), grey skies and working off both the weight gain and credit card balance gain and you have trouble in paradise. But realizing it will also end soon helps. By the time January is almost over, I'm thinking about Valentine's, having folks over for game nights, etc.
So don't kick yourself - it's cyclical and has to run it's course. Emotions - can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em. :)
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