Quotation Saturday ~ More to think about

Eph. 1:4 “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:”

HEALING 

“The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it...” 
― Nicholas Sparks

Pain feels like a fast stab wound to the heart. But then healing feels like the wind against your face when you are spreading your wings and flying through the air! We may not have wings growing out of our backs, but healing is the closest thing that will give us that wind against our faces.” 
― C. JoyBell C.

“Each of us has a unique part to play in the healing of the world.” 
― Marianne Williamson

“Change, like healing, takes time.” 
― Veronica Roth

BULLIES

“People who love themselves, don’t hurt other people. The more we hate ourselves, the more we want others to suffer.” 
― Dan Pearce

“Haters and bullies are always cowards, you know. They like to pick on little guys.” 
― Scylar Tyberius

“They will hate you if you are beautiful. They will hate you if you are successful. They will hate you if you are right. They will hate you if you are popular. They will hate you when you get attention. They will hate you when people in their life like you. They will hate you if you worship a different version of their God. They will hate you if you are spiritual. They will hate you if you have courage. They will hate you if you have an opinion. They will hate you when people support you. They will hate you when they see you happy. Heck, they will hate you while they post prayers and religious quotes on Pinterest and Facebook. They just hate. However, remember this: They hate you because you represent something they feel they don’t have. It really isn’t about you. It is about the hatred they have for themselves. So smile today because there is something you are doing right that has a lot of people thinking about you.” 
― Shannon L. Alder

BLAME

“We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from that offering with trust, respect, kindness and affection.

Love is not something we give or get; it is something that we nurture and grow, a connection that can only be cultivated between two people when it exists within each one of them – we can only love others as much as we love ourselves.

Shame, blame, disrespect, betrayal, and the withholding of affection damage the roots from which love grows. Love can only survive these injuries if they are acknowledged, healed and rare.” 
― Brené Brown

“We habitually erect a barrier called blame that keeps us from communicating genuinely with others, and we fortify it with our concepts of who's right and who's wrong. We do that with the people who are closest to us and we do it with political systems, with all kinds of things that we don't like about our associates or our society. 

It is a very common, ancient, well-perfected device for trying to feel better. Blame others....Blaming is a way to protect your heart, trying to protect what is soft and open and tender in yourself. Rather than own that pain, we scramble to find some comfortable ground.” 
― Pema Chödrön

“If the soul is left in darkness, sins will be committed. The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness. (Monseigneur Bienvenu in _Les Miserables_)”
― Victor Hugo

MOVING ON

“It happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you've known forever don't see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.” 
― Nicholas Sparks

“Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.” 
― Steve Maraboli

“Moving on is easy. It's staying moved on that's trickier.” 
― Katerina Stoykova Klemer

“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” 
― Lyndon B. Johnson

Graduation

Prov. 8:10 Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold.

Well this is it, two more days and my son graduates from high school. I remember five years ago when we moved to Nebraska and Steven said we should put him in school. I was so not up for putting him in school.

You see, I home-schooled Adam. I didn’t feel society had anything to offer him and putting him in school would only taint him. Boy was I wrong. When we mentioned sending him to school he got all excited. As I often do when I’m faced with a task or something, I pray. And pray I did. Adam and Steven were already on board with the whole school thing and now I needed some guidance.

Adam was seven when we moved to Texas and now at thirteen we were moving to Nebraska. I was shaping him and forming him for the world and now I had to let him go into the world and see how he’d respond. Would society accept him? Would they taunt and tease him? Would they take away from him all the work I did?

His first year of school was ninth grade and they saw that he was different; he was a ‘home schooled homeboy’. He had a lot of city upbringing in him and he was among the country folk who have a whole different way of living. Wouldn’t ya know it, it was the outcasts that accepted him first.

His first year was rough with all of the bully’s eyes on him. He was different, he stood out, he had different beliefs than they had. Sure this was a God loving place but you see, when kids are normally taught God and thrown into society at six, it is society who shapes and molds them. God shaped and molded Adam so he was different in that aspect. It was obvious that society had not shaped him.

I clashed with the rules of the system big time. When Adam got pushed I told him to push back but the system was different. When someone walked up and punched you in the face, you were told to go to the office and NOT hit back! I was raised in the city and if someone hit me, we hit back or get a worse beating the next time if we ‘tattled’. When I see the bully NOT get punished because, “we just want to get him out of the school.” But Adam got punished for hitting back? Yeah, something is wrong with the system!

And we wonder why these kids are getting bullied and going back to the school and killing many? I don’t wonder at all. I know they are angry at a system that sees these kids as their property, not individual human beings! When a school has a dress code and no one abides, there is no punishment for non-adherence. The girls are allowed to wear up the butt tight shorts, but bullies are allowed a free pass? Something is seriously wrong with the system.

By eleventh grade it was a little better, except now Adam had his own mind formed and was learning rights; the rights of the people. He’s not a stupid kid, he could see where the kids rights were stamped on at many levels and this angered him, so much so he wanted his future to be as an activist.

By this time he was seventeen and I felt he was old enough for violent video games. I had never allowed them but now at seventeen, he was obviously his own person able to make his own decisions on what he wanted. Video games didn’t shape him but they allowed him to get out some pent up anger.

Did I force him to get all A’s, no. Did I force him to become like everyone else and aim for college, no. Is this a mistake I made? I don’t feel it is. He is his own person and knows what he wants. He don’t want college and while everyone is telling him it is wrong not to go to college, he knows his rights and he knows that college would just force him into doing things he DON’T want to do.

Now it is graduation year. He is eighteen and knows how to be a human being in society. Sure it is going to be hard, who in this world has it easy? Are any of you in the career that your college choice has you doing? Did you go to college and now work at McDonald’s, farming, the job of your choice? So what was your point in college again? I know, I know, many chose astrophysicists, a teacher, a doctor and that is your line of work, but again, it was YOUR choice right? Or did mom and dad make you excel and you went to college and now are NOT working in your chosen field?

Life is hard. I wasn’t given a handbook saying this is the right and wrong way; I had to wing it just like millions of others. Was all my choices right? By no means. Are they wrong? Not at all. But God gave us the freedom of choice and living in a supposed free world where our rights are infringed upon daily, Adam has a choice and he CHOOSES not to go to college. Is it a mistake? I don’t know. But if it is, it is HIS mistake to make not mine.

I do know that sending him to school was the best choice I could make for him as a child and as graduation day approaches I can SEE the choice I made living in him. He wrote me a Mother’s Day card last week. He told me how he loved me and thanked me for allowing him choices; to choose God, to choose his future and to be able to choose anything he wants in life.

To me… that is what parenting is. To realize that the little human being that has been entrusted to you be allowed the freedom of choice. By allowing society to raise and shape them, graduation day will be the results of that product. Sometimes there will be good results and sometimes not so good results but as I see it, my choice has rewarded me with good results.

I thank God every day that He brought us to Nebraska. Adam was formed by God, shaped by poverty and molded by the land and his surroundings. When Adam receives his diploma, I will see God finishing up what He brought us here to do. My baby is no longer mine to do with what I want, he is now a product of God’s and my best advice to him will be, ‘Go with God.’ I don’t often hold pride in my hand, but on this day I will stand proud of the young man that Adam has become. After all, he is Adam Omega, my first and my last. 

Joel 3:14 Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision: for the day of the LORD is near in the valley of decision.

 

 

Addicted to the Internet

1 Tim. 6: 18 That they do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to distribute, willing to communicate;

It wasn’t until eleven years ago when I was first introduced to the computer. My brother-in-law gave me an old one that he said would be good for my writing, and my niece came around, and hooked me up to the internet via an AOL ‘try me free’ disc. And the rest is history so they say.

Before this humming machine rattled into my life, it was a much simpler life. I gardened; I swam in my aboveground pool, relished the seasons, and cherished the solitude of living the mundane life. It was a life where the real world was all I had, good and bad, it was mine. I had my family, albeit a family in dire need of the strength I seemed to give them, I had my dog, but something was missing. I was living but something was missing.

I never owned a microwave, hadn’t touched a cell phone, I didn’t even have a dryer; I hung my clothes on a clothesline! Then it happened in 2003. The internet happened. I was addicted to solitude, then the internet came along. When one has an addictive personality, don’t we always seem to give up one addiction and replace it with another?

This post came to mind when a friend, asking for prayer, mentioned he thinks his child is addicted to the internet. He and his wife took it away, and my heart sank. I totally understood her connection to the virtual world that holds many of us in its grasp. I’m sure he and his wife have outside lives where they connect with humans on an hourly/daily basis, but me, I really conjured images of me and my absorption of the internet.

I saw me, upon awakening, turning on my laptop computer, THEN making coffee. I saw my son awakening, with his ipod attached to his hand like a third limb. I saw my beau wake, and sit in his desk chair as the desktop computer behind me hums to life. I didn’t like the images I saw. I saw three people addicted to a virtual world that they lived in, on an hourly basis.

What has become of the real world and where did it go? I get in the car and ride down the dirt road, drinking in the beauty of it all: the sky, the endless farms, cows, birds and it seems like a picture ripped out of a magazine. It doesn’t feel real.

I think of taking it away, from all of us, and I feel like we would just lash out in anger at each other until we all gave in and re-entered to zone of the web. That’s pretty sad! BUT I don’t think I’m alone on this web of suffocation.

Sure, I’ll justify my actions by saying I’m using it for writing. He’s using it for writing, and Adam is using it to connect with people that in the real world don’t give him the time of day. We all justify our actions and it makes it okay? I don’t think so!

I have to be honest, I think giving up alcohol was easier than even the THOUGHT of giving up the internet. I gave up drinking at 21, and for seventeen years after that I lived without a computer, so I know a life without one can actually take place. Adam has only had his ipod for about three years and I know he had a life before the ipod came along, and at first it was used for games and music, until he found apps that took him outside the realm. I do think beau was a computer geek since he was a young man; still, a virtually good fella. (pun intended)

On a positive note, this summer I didn’t spend much time on this thing. No writing freed me up to play Chess. Yes, I play the game that came with my computer because not many enjoy the game I love so much! My days were spent cleaning, mowing, gardening and enjoying my surroundings. My arthritic pain kept me tied to my sofa a lot, and we watched movies at night and since I would rather be on the computer than watch what the TV has to offer, the net is a safer venue for me. No ads, no clutter and I CHOOSE the good and positive I can glean from the net. Is that justification? Denial?

Now that I’m back writing, I look around the house, YouTube blasts in the background, (through earphones mind you), keys tapping an almost melodic accompaniment, Adam with his third limb goes off to his bedroom and I sit here writing and peeking in on the active frenzy of my writing friends on facebook. Picture of a perfect, loving, Frisbee playing, ball tossing, family romping through the tulips of life, eh? I live in a non-communicative household and a world of communication at my fingertips. Go figure.

 
Hello! My name is Joni and I have an addiction. The first step is admitting it, right?

How to...

Remain a writer!

**************

I’m here to tell you that YES, I am a writer. It has been proven by the long hard struggle I had after never wanting to write again, and as I faced the dark, the fear of writing again, I gained clarity that I had never expected.

I wanted to throw in the towel of writing, as ripped to threads as the towel was; I was tossing it in and giving up. But like I said, something happened, I went back to where my love of writing began.

I signed up for the class, and ask anyone around me that knows me personally and supported my ups and downs, knew I was resurging again and my love of writing would return. Granted it was not the session I had foreseen, but then again, is anything really as we foresee? No, that is why we have the unknown.

I was stepping into the unknown not knowing how old and new friends alike would receive me. I was coming out of the dark and allowing whatever slapped me upside the face to do as it pleased. I walked out with my head held high and continued the journey that I feel; God himself had set me on.

You see, God gave me this gift of writing and when I was down, I knew I had to rest and sit back a ways from it all and drink in everything that had happened. I meditated, prayed, and asked for something that would surely fill my life again.

Sure enough, as beau got his license back after being blind for three years, he found a job, and here I was not writing? Well we can’t have that now can we? So the class was my first step in reclaiming what was rightfully mine, my writing.

From the very first week I was bubbling with words. I was blogging again, writing my poetry, and I was feeling whole. Yeah there is always something that wants to knock you back down a few rungs, but I was determined to keep on climbing! While being isolated and kept away from the rest of the course and what could have been an exciting re-entry into the world of writing for me, it turned out to be less than the glitter in my step that I sought. If you can say BORING, it was that and so much more.

I kept climbing week after week, writing and enjoying my time writing, everything and everyone else disappeared into the backdrop of my mind. As the classroom dwindled to barely anything there, I kept going on, encouraging the two or three that was there still plowing ahead, and I myself was feeling like a hermit, alone in the catacombs of life.

Instead of allowing myself to feel bitterness and vengeance, I chose to ride above the clouds, and saw to it I had an end. Closure is what I feel now. I never got that last year because I was too busy being hurt, so in this session, I sought closure and I got it.

I can now turn and be the writer that God wanted me to be. If He wants me to teach you all, that is fine. If He wants me to be a novel writer, I’m going to be the best novel writer I can be. As many will now move on to NaNoWriMo, I will stand back and let them frolic, while I soar. I might do it alone, but I am doing it from a much better place. I’m HEALED and I AM FREE!

Welcome back to the writing world Joni!

Back in the Saddle

Matt: 16:14 For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you:

Well I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I’ve decided to come back to my writing blog to teach you what I know of writing. With many of my friends encouraging me to continue and much support of my friends edging me forward into this writing journey I’m on, I felt it was time to jump back in and write.

The bad news, well there really isn’t any bad news. My coming back is a good thing and will be beneficial to you all.

My first step to getting back in the saddle was a long break from the writing sites that I was affiliated with, f2k and WVU. I’ve slowly backed away, I paused, prayed, and a lot of meditation and thought went into my return.

The second step was forgiveness. A cleansing of my spirit washed over me. I cleaned the darkened slate and forgave all of those that did me wrong, attacked and immaturely took some kind of firm stance in getting me out of their way. What they didn’t take into consideration was my strong faith that would forgive them. Sure I was knocked down and dragged through the mud, all for my right to Freedom of Speech?

What I say on my blog, is a part of me exercising that right and I never name a soul, without their permission, and never in any way mean malice to anyone. Have you ever read a book or short story, and in between the covers, saw you, in one of the characters? Well did that writer know you personally? No, you just FELT that it was you. A good writer can make you feel that way. That is exactly what got me into the bad karma, if you will, of these people.

As I said, their immaturity left them no one else to hate because my words, seemed to be aimed at them, but they never asked, they just assumed. I forgive you, now I move on into a better place and am taking back the reigns of who I am as a person, a writer who will continue to write, with no specific people or persons in mind, but if you see YOU in my words, then I’ve accomplished my goal of being a doggone prolific writer.

What a better world this would be if people really understood the act of forgiveness. It is not just a word, it is something you feel within for someone who has done you wrong. You move on, not holding the remembrance of pain and anguish they caused you, over their heads. Imagine a world where people forgave one another and moved on. Is that possible in the dark days in front of us? I believe with my whole heart and all my faith, that forgiveness IS divine!

My heart bleeds for those who don’t know forgiveness because their souls are wrought with guilt and shame, pain and illness claws at their bodies unwilling to let go; gnawing at their being is hatred just waiting to spew at anyone who does them wrong or doesn’t fit into their circle. Is that YOU?

So as I get back in the saddle and move on, I have healed, my illness is behind me, not defining me. I am embracing the writing world once again. Because in no way has writing turned its back on me!

Quotation Saturday

AUTUMN

Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.
~George Eliot

Bittersweet October. The mellow, messy, leaf-kicking, perfect pause between the opposing miseries of summer and winter.
~Carol Bishop Hipps

It was one of those perfect English autumnal days which occur more frequently in memory than in life.
~P.D. James

Besides the autumn poets sing,
A few prosaic days
A little this side of the snow
And that side of the haze.
~Emily Dickinson

ON BEING ME
 
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
~e.e. cummings, 1955
 
All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even self-contradictory. I was naïve. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have been born with: that I am nobody but myself.
~Ralph Ellison
 
A man who is "of sound mind" is one who keeps the inner madman under lock and key. ~Paul Valéry
 
The great majority of us are required to live a life of constant duplicity. Your health is bound to be affected if, day after day, you say the opposite of what you feel, if you grovel before what you dislike, and rejoice at what brings you nothing but misfortune.
~Boris Pasternak

It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
~e.e. cummings


BEAUTY
   
Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson
 
Our hearts are drunk with a beauty our eyes could never see.
~George W. Russell

When you have only two pennies left in the world, buy a loaf of bread with one, and a lily with the other.
~Chinese Proverb

Never lose an opportunity of seeing anything that is beautiful; for beauty is God's handwriting - a wayside sacrament. Welcome it in every fair face, in every fair sky, in every fair flower, and thank God for it as a cup of blessing.
~Ralph Waldo Emerson


MOVING ON
 
Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak; sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go.
~Author Unknown

Sadness flies away on the wings of time.
 ~Jean de La Fontaine
 
Sadness flies on the wings of the morning and out of the heart of darkness comes the light. ~Jean Giraudoux

Walking, working, barely breathing
My thoughts, far away
Heart aching, mind racing
Sleep does not come easily, nor last long....
~Peter Winstanley

so long f2k...

Moving On...

Let go of those who bring you down and surround yourself with those who bring out the best in you.

author unknown
***

It’s not all about me, and it certainly isn’t all about you. Every time I write a post someone says, “I know you meant that for me.” or “That was targeted at me.” I say, “Please get over yourself, it is NOT about YOU!” I guess their arrogance gets the better of them. Watch this, I’m going to say, and YOU know who you are, and I’ll catch all kinds of backlash for that.

This is a writing blog. This is my experience with writers or those that wish they were writers, or those that pretend to be writers, or even for a good Christian friend, who might want to become a writer. This blog is for those who want to grow in the writing world. Not walk around in a psychopathic state and grab a bunch of demented others to drive on the insanity train with them.

I’ve decided to move on safely. After yesterday’s sermon about, “It’s not about ME, Lord, it’s all about YOU!” I have decided to move on in the writing world and join a few writing sites that cater to my type of writing. Maybe a poetry site, perhaps a Christian site but truly as far away from the idiotic, impractical, irrational, irresponsible, loony site that I have been associated with and is now trying to put me on the deranged train also? I don’t think so.
 
I call it a frenzied place, because even after an apology, I am continuously attacked, and taunted, all the while I watch as some people (supposed friends) stand by and support that type of evil. I honestly don’t need that in my life and I am glad that my Father has seen that I am important enough to save from the paranoid people who live in their own little fantasy world.
 
We’re writers, there is bound to be a little loony behavior, but when it borders on the unhealthy cusp of evil, vindictive, back stabbing behavior, I  move on, not a problem.  Does that mean that evil wins? No, surely not. I have forgiven them, I have prayed for them and the Light of God will wash over them and their skin will burn because of so much love encompassing them.
 
I don’t hold a grudge and I have no hard feelings to those who think that their life is full and complete if they taunt and torment. I hope they realize their life is empty, and I pray for them to wake up and act like they have some sense; or don’t, but you will have to torture someone else, because My Father has asked me to put this little fiasco, behind me.
 
And just think the next lesson up is Dialogue. I wonder what ‘they’ll’ think if I blog about ‘their’ Dialogue? Oh my. Remember, nothing is secret. My life is sacred!

***
 “If you can keep your wits about you while others are losing theirs and blaming you, the world will be yours.” -Rudyard Kipling

I'm Done...I Move on...

I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him. ~Booker T. Washington
***

Well I’m done with it all. I’m done being attacked, spit on on, trashed and made to feel like an incompetent piece of crap. I am, and I know it, a much better person than that, and I, like all of you, deserve respect. We live in such a hateful world, that I think moving on is best for all involved.

I was raised to sweep everything under the rug. Never confront an issue, keep it all hidden, be pleasant always, therefore pretending, supporting things that you just don’t believe in. Well, when I was sexually assaulted at a young age and my elders did nothing, (swept it under the rug like the good soldiers they themselves were raised to do) Joni developed something new at the ripe old age of fourteen. I gave my life to God and asked HIM to guide me.

Wouldn’t ya know it, He wanted me open and honest? Truthful and trustworthy? He had me forgive my assailant and I did, quickly moving on in life. I found joy in writing because it was a form of releasing all my pains and heartaches, it was my way of dealing with such a sad life that I had gotten myself into.

The recent events had me reliving past events where evil entered into my (or tried to) life and made me feel incompetent. When something is not from God, I have no other name for it. And when it attacks me, it is not from a good solid foundation based on the Lord, that’s for sure.

I confronted the issue while everyone else cowered and climbed in their shell and just wanted it to pass over like a toxic radiation cloud. Can toxic radiation really pass over, without causing any harm? Well I was not about to let it ‘pass over’ me and destroy me, instead I opened the door of ‘communication’ so the problem could be resolved.

Again I was attacked, again I was the bad guy, but all in all, I’m good because now I see this person(s) for who they really are. They play the pity card well, they have all their ducks in a row and are happy and content with that and I wish them nothing but godspeed.

I am not a bitter person, I don’t hold grudges and allow them to cling like leaves to wet pavement. My best bet is to move on, be done with it all and find a new place. I don’t like being judged, and won’t allow the torture that my psyche has had to endure. I am moving on to save myself.

I am an adult, I at least expect my elders to act like adults. When I find that they really can’t...then I move on.

Love and hugs to all who have supported me and comforted me. Those who KNEW what *I* went through and were there for me, I thank you. May you all have a blessed day.

Next up: Quotation Saturday.... godspeed...

The price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less. ~Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice, 1968

I have decided to stick with love. Hate is too great a burden to bear. ~Martin Luther King, Jr.

Day 5: Letting go...

Isa 23:7 Is this your joyous city, whose antiquity is of ancient days? her own feet shall carry her afar off to sojourn.
***

Today is Friday! YAY! This is the last of my “pity-me-my-son-is-not-here” posts. I’ve had to do some soul searching this week as I let my son go out into the great beyond called, The World. It’s been an enlightening week for sure.

Letting go is a hard obstacle to maneuver around. The last time that I let anything major in my life go, was about seven years ago when I left my home in Maryland and moved to Texas with a strange man, and brought my son on the journey with me. He was only seven at the time and we both had major adjustments to get used to.

I had been married for twenty years, and the marriage disintegrated quickly after I got a computer. The obsessive type of man could not bear me having friends whether online or off. Paranoid and controlling did not work for me, fun and fancy free, so we both parted ways. I left everything.

Steven came and picked me up, rented a small u- haul to hang on the back of his truck and it followed us to the grand state of Texas. Not before letting go of all my worldly possessions. There were treasured nic-nacs, favored dolls, ornaments, some books, memorabilia, and yes, the beloved home, a cape-cod surrounded by trees and a garden full of birds! Not to mention, my family.

No one came on the day I left except my niece. (I have four brothers and a sister) I had seen my father, mother and sister’s clan the prior evening, so on the day of my departure, I walked alone. Only I wasn’t alone, I had Adam, my life support.

Now I know how Adam must have felt on day one of his first day at school. The same way I felt when I left home. Lost, lonely, scared, uncertain of what the future holds. But I sit here almost eight years later and can see that had I stayed, I would not be the woman I am today. I’m a writer! Back home I was a wife, mother, servant, in that order. Today I’m a mother, writer, fiancé, servant of God. I wouldn’t change a thing.

I’ve often been asked the question, “If there was one thing in your life you could go back and change, what would it be?” My answer then and always will be, “Not a thing!” You see, if we change one thing, then everything that followed that one thing would change. Everything would be different. Your life, your family, your SELF. I would not change my SELF because I like who I am!

Sure I’ve lived, loved and lost, but I am who I am today BECAUSE of all of my experiences. Sometimes we just need to let go so new doors are opened for us. The winds of change will not be able to swiftly blow through your hair if you leave the door closed.

For Adam’s sake and my own...IMNOPENDOOR!

Thank you all for your support during this time!

Job 8:19 Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth shall others grow.

Quotation Saturday

Isaiah 17:11 In the day shalt thou make thy plant to grow, and in the morning shalt thou make thy seed to flourish: but the harvest shall be a heap in the day of grief and of desperate sorrow.
***

The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.
~Anna Quindlen (1953 - )

Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew.
~Saint Francis de Sales (1567 - 1622)

The conception of two people living together for twenty-five years without having a cross word suggests a lack of spirit only to be admired in sheep.
~Alan Patrick Herbert

A great marriage is not when the 'perfect couple' comes together. It is when an imperfect couple learns to enjoy their differences.
~Dave Meurer, "Daze of Our Wives"

Intimacy is what makes a marriage, not a ceremony, not a piece of paper from the state.
~Kathleen Norris

Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.
~Bob Newhart (1929 - )

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me to be the most civilized music in the world.
~Peter Ustinov (1921 - 2004)

Now on to my Christmas joke of the week:

A family had twin boys whose only resemblance to each other was their looks. If one felt it was too hot, the other thought it was too cold. If one said the TV was too loud, the other claimed the volume needed to be turned up. Opposite in every way, one was an eternal optimist, the other a doom and gloom pessimist.

Just to see what would happen, on the twins' birthday their father loaded the pessimist's room with every imaginable toy and game. The optimist's room he loaded with horse manure.

That night the father passed by the pessimist's room and found him sitting amid his new gifts crying bitterly.

"Why are you crying?" the father asked.

"Because my friends will be jealous, I'll have to read all these instructions before I can do anything with this stuff, I'll constantly need batteries, and my toys will eventually get broken." answered the pessimist twin.

Passing the optimist twin's room, the father found him dancing for joy in the pile of manure. "What are you so happy about?" he asked.

To which his optimist twin replied, "There's got to be a pony in here somewhere!"