Inspirations

As I was debating over what to share today, I had many thoughts and they were all good. However, the events of last week were still fresh in my mind and I suppose in some ways my emotions are still raw.  At the end of last week, my husband and sweetheart was laid off from an organization that he had been with for twenty-five years; that's a loooong time!  While I was not the one who got the "pink slip", the feeling of loss was just as great because my spouse is a part of me and something cannot happen to him without it hurting me as well.  I came "face to face" with the realization of how much I had taken his job for granted.  I had not appreciated it nearly as much as I should have.  I guess I just assumed it would be always there. It was a small job and felt like more of an annoyance than anything else.  Crazy right?  I complained and got irritated with his work bbut as soon as it was no longeer there, I was angry about it.  Yet as crazy as it i...

It was eight o’clock; two hours left of work.   I was working the closing shift.  It was a retailer’s nightmare. I had about a bazillion things to do and not nearly enough time in which to get the tasks completed.  It felt like Deja vu.  I had been in this situation many times and it had NEVER ended well.  We had lines of customers all wanting service, and equipment needing to be cleaned.  Add to this, the fact that there was only two of us to get everything done.  The stress level was rising and I just knew we were going to finish late.  I have to confess, I was beginning to stomp my feet inside.  I didn’t WANT to stay late to finish cleaning.  So, as I was snatching a few minutes to wash a few dishes between customers, I said, “God, help!  I really don’t want to stay any later than I have to.”  As nine o’clock approached, I realized that, amid all the chaos, we had somehow managed to get caught up and we w...

Tomorrow my sweetie and I will be celebrating twenty- nine years of marriage.  What an amazing journey!  I have to confess that when we were first married I had some preconceived ideas of what love and marriage would be like.   I thought love was having my spouse with me all the time, holding hands doing everything together, never having a disagreement.   I thought my darling sweetheart would never let me down or hurt me and everything would be perfect for the rest of our life.   Wow!  Can you believe how incredibly naïve I was?  After twenty-nine years what I realized is that no one could live up to the ideals that I had set because we live in an imperfect world and we are imperfect people.  I know, you’re thinking, “It took you twenty-nine years to realize this?” Nah I realized it after the first year.   I still smile how over the years God has changed my definition of love.  Don’t get me wrong there is n...

We’ve been making some changes.   We are moving to an upstairs bedroom and making our old bedroom a den/study.   The thing about cleaning is that you always find things that you never knew or forgot you ever had.  It’s truly amazing!  I can’t even imagine why we kept some of the things we found.  We spent a lot of time throwing “junk” away.  Today, we cleaned the closet.  Wow!  As I was cleaning and throwing things out I was amazed at how much junk we had stored in a 3x9x 6 space.  One thing we dragged out of the closet was a box of old electrical/ computer cables.  Really!  Technology has advanced so much that not one of those cables would be good for anything now, unless I want to tie someone up. I’ll admit some days the thought has crossed my mind, but not today.  They went to the curb along with countless other articles.  As I was sorting, keeping, giving and throwing, I thought about my life.  What d...

As my children have gotten older, I find I have a new struggle, letting go.  These young adults that consumed hours of my time when they were young are now grown and ready to be on their own.  They don’t need a parent.  Sometimes, if I’m honest, I’m not ready for them to be on their own….. I want them to need me.  There is a part of me that still wants to nurture and protect them.  Some days as I watch them struggle in their life, everything in me wants to come to their aid and shield them from these problems.  As I was lamenting over this with a friend the other day, she reminded me that it is similar to when they are babies and learning to walk for the first time. We watch nervously and joyfully as they try to walk.  We guide them and encourage them.  As adults, they may fall, they may make bad decisions but we shouldn’t discourage them from making their own choices and being on their own because they may fall.    I wonde...

It’s in the past!   What wonderful knowledge!  I rejoice in the knowledge that God is not concerned about what we did in the past.  Isn’t that amazing!  When we come to him, the past is, well, past.   God does not care about it or hold it against us.  If God is not concerned with the past, then a person’s past should not concern us either as long as it is the past.  Our past does not need to define who we are now and we should not define others by what they were in the past.  Sometimes we all need to remember that none of us is without sin, we all have a past.  It’s easy to forget when others and even Satan can remind of our or other’s past that we need to let that past be the past.  How freeing and empowering to know that God is more concerned with the present than he is with the past.  Anything good, or bad that you’ve done in the past is just that the past.  God says, “I’m concerned with where you are no...

I was taking my aunt to see my mom in the hospital.   As I drove, our conversation turned to spiritual things.  As we talked she said, “How can I know I’m going to heaven?”  Wow!!!  Talk about an open door! This opportunity does not happen every day.  I began to explain that the only thing we need to do is believe and trust God.   Then it happened.  She said, “Well, I already believe in God."   I thought this is going to be easy.  Nope!   I asked, “Well, do you trust God?   Will you let him direct your life?  Suddenly she had a billion excuses for why that was impossible.  I would love to tell you she committed her life to Christ that day, but she didn’t.  Yes, I was sad and disappointed that I could not make her understand that believing IN God was not enough.  Since then I have heard many others say I believe in God yet, sadly, their life tells another story.  As I read James, I come to a verse tha...