Reflections

As this year draws to a close, I spent some time reflecting on the year that is soon to be a year past. I will admit that I am glad that this year is ending. It has been a challenging year to say the least. Overall, it has been a year filled with lessons. Lessons on waiting, hoping, praying, pain of various kinds (physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual), walking by faith, getting to know who God is and where was He in and through all of it. And then, just when you think you've got it and everything is looking up and all is well again, here comes another lesson, different mind you, but just as difficult, if not more so.

This year has seen me in various states of my worst. Dealing with pain, having a child diagnosed with a autoimmune disease for which there is no cure, raising teens, tweens, a preschooler, and a toddler, and whether I would remain at my church, stretched me to the very limits of what I felt I was. Each morning I received another opportunity to try again, to get it right, to do it better, to be better.

With each lesson and through each challenge, I learned that His mercies are new every morning and Great is His faithfulness, even when I have been faithless. So it is with some joy that I say goodbye to 2014.

And with great hope that I say hello 2015!

So Long 2014

I came across this on Instagram by @Womenbychoice and would like to share with all before this year comes to a close.

Thought for the Day

"Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Thought for the Day

Real Thoughts

The outside of my door is decorated in autumn finery-- pumpkins, fall wreath, and brown crisp leaves on the lawn. On the other side of my door, you will find our family's Christmas tree, the stairs embraced with holiday ribbons and garland and our children's stockings hanging from the mantle. Two very different scenes indeed. Indicative perhaps that I am moving too fast, too quickly into the next chapter without fully completing the previous one. And just as my house indicates two very different scenes, I too feel the tug of war, the battle that wages on within. The outside desiring, demanding to appear totally together, ready for everything and anything at all times, hair in place, smile in place, right clothes and shoes on with everyone in tow smiling too. But the inside tells a starkly different story. One that is filled with anxiety, fear, pain and anger at the charade--the calls, pleas, and demands to be more than I am, to do more than I should, the expectations that are too high, the fear of disappointing others, and the demand to like it all. This side which lies hidden and protected behind the wall, threatens to tear the wall down, collapsing the perfect or wanna be perfect facade that demands its disappearance. And at the height of the battle, when it is raging and at its fiercest, I cry out to God and fail to get a response. It is then that I feel that I'm going it alone. And just when I have given up, I hear BarlowGirl sing their song entitled Never Alone. The lyrics remind me that even when I feel totally alone, do not give up or give in, continue to hold on to what I know. What do I know? I know that I am never alone because Christ is a part of me and even when I cannot see or feel him, He is with me; even when everything in my reality is saying otherwise.