January Third - Change

Rom. 3:23 “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.”

January 3rd, 2019

“Make a POSITIVE change in the world by changing YOU first.” Joni

I’m full of these quotes. I think I’ll put together a book of quotes that are solely mine or should I say soulfully mine! I thought with the new year I’d see a change in people. I dunno, I think I expect people to realize the minute things in life like I do and sometimes they can’t even grasp the big things. I have to shake my head, I’ll pray in hopes I’ll see SOME change this year in others, not just myself. 

Change is hard stuff, I know. It’s not to be all puffed up in words, change is about taking action to move! How many people make new year’s resolutions, only to set themselves up for failure. How good that must feel when people tell themselves what a failure they are because they couldn’t change ONE thing. I never make resolutions and I never ay I'm going to do something and not do it, what a letdown. Stress-free living is not about letdowns.

Today the dismantling of Christmas took place. With the absence of Adam, this Christmas decorating and tearing down had a new back-breaking meaning! Talk about change! My son is now at his own place making his own rules and doing his own thing, while we had to accept the change and do things a little differently this Christmas.

Last night, I took all the ornaments off of the tree and boxed them up, readied them for the basement. I didn’t overdo it because I was sitting in my wheelchair and hubby placed everything on a small tv table so I had easy access to wrap and box the tree ornaments. He would do the tree and lights while I would do the other ornaments, mainly my snowmen! 

On this day, the tree came tumbling down so to speak, and we had the house looking like its old self in no time. I even had time to take a shower. Ah, the beloved shower that I missed for well over thirty days! Don’t get me wrong, I used the old-fashioned bucket and rag to bathe but it certainly is not the same as cleansing the whole body shower! 

We are now finding peaceful common ground. He is relaxing in taking care of my every need, and I am finding a sense of peace in being able to care more for myself. I have new freedoms in washing, and cleaning and do the Suzie Homemaker jobs that I LOVED before my accident. It was a stress-free Christmas and a relaxing calendar change, so much so my blog became a memory for a spell. I need to get back to telling my story but wanted some fill-ins for the New Year! 

The New Year - a blank page for you to write in every day to make a CHANGE! Change is free, not easy but free! Find the freedom in CHANGE! 

Dismantling Christmas!

Rom. 1:25 “Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.”

On December 31st I began dismantling Christmas and all the bells and whistles left behind. You celebrate Christmas, you might ask? Yes in my own way of course. I’m not one to take the Pagan holiday at face value instead I celebrate Christmas as a season of putting your past behind and preparing for a new year to begin.

The tree, a symbol of life, sits with every ornament of memories from years past. Some from my mother, others we bought each other to mark each year, while others were ones of Adam and his years of Christmas’ with us. Each one holds a cherished memory within.

The twinkling lights on the tree are a symbol for the light that shines in me in many different hues. My Christmas this year was colored by many days of darkness so the lights on the tree were the only source I could see of the light inside of me.

On the thirty-first I began tucking my enormous amount of snowmen tightly in their yearly trunk and pulling out every nic-nac that I had put away for the season. I took a deep sigh as I released a horrible year and not a very good season to ME. 

The tree came apart on the first of the year, as the New Year was moving forward. Branch by branch I dismantled the tree, as pieces of me felt like they were being placed in there, putting behind a year I hope I never remember. Of course I will because the year is embedded in my memory but for now, as I embrace the new beginning I choose to put the disorganized, disheveled mess of a year in the basement, locked tightly in a box!

Dismantling Christmas is more than just putting the season away in a box, it is in a way, realizing that clutter has consumed you and you put the distorted mess into some kind of organization that you can either release or hold onto. 

This past year, my life was dismantled. My faith was shaken by outside influences that profess truth but are full of lies. I couldn’t put my finger on the reason people seem to want atempt to shake your faith. Not all people are the same and we believe in many different things whether they are truths or lies. Not that I ever doubted my faith but maybe the origins of truth? Because I listened to the OUTSIDE source my mind and soul became disheveled, confused, throw some death in there and life was like a swirling cyclone. 

As I put away the Christmas season, I realize I need to be more active in putting outside influences far away from me. This is going to be a crazy year wrapped up in lies, insecurities, people consumed with themselves so much they become blind to their inner beauty that they lost along the way. I cannot focus on these falsities that dance around like water on a hot griddle. 
While I claim this to be the year of change, I know it is I who has to change. 

Did you ever go back to the old house that you grew up in and everything seemed so much bigger, the yard, the rooms, everything. Life is like that; we make things bigger than they are and it isn’t the yard or house that changed sizes it’s our perspective. I need to change my perspective in what I want to drink out of the fountain of life. We don’t live forever so it is not a stretch to want to put my eternity into a clear organized perspective instead of the dismantled mess that has sat before me for the year. 

Dismantling Christmas means to me: Putting the past behind me to forge ahead into the future, the new future of change that I claim for myself! Good or bad...I will embrace the change.

“Any fool can know. The point is to understand.” 

~ Albert Einstein