Releasing the Burden

Yesterday at church we were challenged to take 25 minutes of our day to spend with God. During this time we should pray for someone who needs forgiveness. It's often easy to pray for yourself but difficult to pray for others, especially when those others have deeply hurt you. Forgiveness isnt always a happy go lucky experience. Sometimes people respond positively and other times negatively. It is important to remember that God forgives us every day even on the days we hurt him the most. Forgiving someone isnt always about mending relationships but about letting the burden go. You are saying I forgive you for hurting me even if you are not sorry. Think of all the weight we could lift off ourselves if we could learn to forgive one another. I think about my own family and the grudges that are held because someone hurt someone else. I think of how different things could be if we all just forgave and let those burdens go. This week I am challenging myself to spend time with God every morning and pray for those in my life I need to forgive. Who can you forgive? What will it change?

Never Satisfied

I have done a lot of reflecting over the last few years and I have come to realize that I am never content. As a child I always wanted to be older, then things would be great because I could do whatever I wanted. As college came I wanted it to be over so I could get married and start my career. As my career started I couldnt wait to finish graduate school so that I could really start my career and eventually start my family. The pain I have endured these last few years have caused me to want to go back to my childhood where life was simple and the world made sense. My heart is truly broken right now and I am not quite sure how to fit all the pieces back together. I have pretended for so long that everything was ok that it is the only thing I know how to do. I am reading a book called Calm Your Anxious Heart. It is all about living your life for God's purpose and to be content. I began to wonder what is my purpose..what is God calling me to do? The truth is I dont know, I havent really listened. I dont believe that makes me a bad person, it just makes me human. So often we get so wrapped up in our to do lists and wish lists that we forget what our true purpose is here on Earth. This weekend I am challenging myself to listen to God and to learn what his purpose is for my life. Once I have discovered what it is I can learn to be content in today and not look to the future for contentment.

Suffering

As the Easter holiday has come and I gone I cant help but think of the pain and suffering Jesus endured for us. Good Friday has always been an emotional day for me in thinking of what happened and Easter always comes as a day of rejoice. The past few years have been difficult ones for me and for my family. Things happened that we could have never foreseen, hearts were broken, tears cried. This Easter especially I began to think of what Jesus endured, as the song states, to take away the sins of the world. At church Friday I was reminded of something..God wont relent until he has us all. I consider myself a strong Christian, a women of faith so to speak, but as a strong women and person in general it is sometimes difficult to let go of your burdens and just give them to God. I have a lot of burdens, a lot of sorrow, and I hold onto a great deal of it. It weighs me down more than it should, it dampens my spirit, and doesn't allow me to worship God and the life he wants me to live in the way I should. This weekend I did something I should have done a very long time ago...I let it go. I felt a peace wash over me as if God were saying it is going to be ok, I am here to walk with you. I feel the excitement and joy I once had about life. God has given me a passion and a gift to help those around me and if I haven't helped myself how can I expect myself to help others. I now feel I can help others in the way God wants me to. I am excited to see where this new spiritual path takes me. I am ready to help those around me in God's name. Thank you Jesus for dying on the cross and for rising from the grave! Sometimes we need a reminder of the pain you endured to know that we don't have to hold onto our sorrows and pain, you can take that away from us.

Life Is Good

Wow! I feel like so much has happened in the last week. Both Ryan and I accepted jobs and are set to start this coming week. I am so excited about what the future has in store for us. Through Ryan's new job I believe we have begun a spiritual journey that I have been seeking for us for quite some time. Finding a church home is a difficult thing to do, but for me it was necessary in starting our life together on the right foot. I have grown so much spiritually these last few years and church was something that had become important to me in a way it never was before. By God's grace the church Ryan landed the job at has been exactly what we have been looking for in a church. I know that great things are going to come of this. I too accepted a position and I start on Tuesday. I am so excited to have landed a position doing what I want to. I really enjoy working with the elderly and this is the perfect stepping stone into a therapy position with this population. Since I put my notice in at my previous job I decided it was time to do things for me instead of for everyone else. This is something I have struggled with since I was a child. I always put everyone else before me, and although this is an endearing quality I believe there is a fine line between not respecting yourself enough to put yourself first and being too selfish and putting yourself first. Over the last week I have really come to terms with what I want out of life. I have finally been able to organize our house and start to work on decorating and completing the house room by room. This has been liberating for me as I have wanted to do this since we moved in but could never seem to find the time. I am learning that you make time for the things that are important. I have completed the office and am now moving on to our bedroom. Doing it room by room helps me to be less overwhelmed. This way little by little the house will be completed. I have also gotten back into my healthy eating and work out routine. Up until the wedding I was eating healthy and working out everyday and it felt great! Unfortunately for me after the wedding we went on a cruise and then returned to all of the holidays. Packing the pounds on was not only easy but inevitable. After about a month of on again off again I am finally back into a routine and I must say it feels great! I have made goals for myself as I progress. I read in my health magazine that you should set rewards that don't involve food. As obvious as that sounds I used to reward myself with a cookie or going out to eat not even thinking of what I was doing. So this time around I have rewarded myself with things like work out clothes and a bathing suit. I am excited to see where this new journey takes me! I am happier than I have been in a long time and it feels incredible!

Change although Scary isnt always bad

A lot has changed since the last time I wrote. I have been married now for almost four months. It is hard to believe how fast the time has flown by. November although very stressful for me ended with the most incredible event in my life thus far. I married the love of my life and my best friend. Our ceremony symbolized everything our relationship stands for. It was simple yet meaningful, and we were surrounded by all those that are important to us. I think we thought that getting married wouldn't change anything because we have been together for so long, but we were very wrong. It has made me complete in a way that I could never have imagined. There are seldom times when I feel that my choices or my actions are 100 percent correct, but marrying Ryan is the best decision I have ever made.

I also have begun the adventure of starting my career. I accepted the first position I was offered after graduation. It was for a mental health tech at a juvenile delinquent residential facility. As much as I loved it there and the boys I was working with I wasnt getting the professional experience that I needed to advance in my career. I put my notice in and began looking for another job. Today I am going on my second interview with AAA, no not the car company. AAA is the area on aging agency. Their primary goal is to link the elderly and disabled to resources to prevent them from premature nursing home institutionalization and to better their lives overall. I am really excited about this position and the potential it brings to my future. Although I assumed graduating from college would be exhilarating I never imagined how terrifying it would be. For the first time in my life I am completely and utterly on my own. The choices I make effect my life and what kind of future I will have. Although I know that I want to help people and eventually be a therapist it is very difficult to find an entry level job that you love and will be something you love after you complete graduate school. Since graduating I have learned that it is ok to try new things, and its ok if you dont like them. Sometimes I forget that is why I loved this profession so much, it has such a broad range of populations that I have the ability to pick and chose who I work with and know if I dont love it then I can move on to another population to find where I am truly passionate.
Thats all for today......

Sometimes you just have to trust him

As yesterday passed I guess I some how expected by pain to be put behind me. As if the year marker would make all the hurt go away. While yesterday there were no triggers today was not so forunate. A year from yesterday my dear sweet uncle gave up his long fought battle with cancer and although I am so thankful he is no longer in all the pain my pain still seems to be very present. Coming six short months after my grandfathers unexpected death I was still very much in shock when we learned he would not have much longer. I was there everyday that week and as long and as tiring as the week was, it was special because I was there with him every day until he was ready to go. I remember that last night we went home late and I slept a very light sleep until the phone rang and I knew. I drove across town early that morning to be with my cousins, aunt, and to say a last farewell to by uncle. I dont like to say I have a favorite aunt or uncle but as my only uncle on my mom's side I feel it is fair to say he was and will always be my favorite. I miss his phone calls and his always caring and comforting concern about how I was doing in school. He knew how much harder school was for me than for my brother and sister but he never made me feel bad about it, he just wanted me to do the best I could. I only wish he could have been there this Christmas so I could tell him I was a grade away from straight A's something that has not happened since elementary school. As much as I wish he was still here I thank God for taking him when he did, you see we didnt think he was going to make it when he was first diagnosed with the cancer and he made it a miraculous six years after that diagnosis. Six years I had with him that I could not have had. Six years he was able to see grandkids be born and grow. Six years he was able to see me fall in love and get to know the man I will soon call my husband, my family. As I have finally been able to let these feelings resurface I hope that I can soon find peace with losing such an incredible man that I was fortunate enough to call my uncle for twenty years of my life. I hope I make you proud and will continue to for the rest of my life. I love you so much and miss you everyday!
p.s. you have a beautiful granddaughter whose smile lights up the room, something we all need

2009

Normally when the New Year rolls in my resolution is always to lose weight as normally by this time I have put on some extra weight and want to start a healthier way about myself, plus I have always had weight issues so it just seemed like the obvious thing. This year however I was already two weeks plus into a very dedicated way of eating healthy and exercising so there was no need to make this a resolution because my new way of eating and exercising was already very much a part of my daily routine and I was and still am loving it. So I thought about some other things I struggle with and the other big one was finances. I have never been much of a saver even as a kid I would spend my money just to spend it, even if I didnt find something that I really really loved. So this year I have decided to spend on more of a need basis than a want basis. I need to keep track of my finances so that I dont overdraft from the trusty savings account and put the many dollars that I owe back to my savings account. This is something I have wanted to do for a very long time and while sometime it sticks it always stops. I want to get this down because in December when I will for the first time have a career not a 7.00/hr part time job I want to know how to save my money and not go through an entire paycheck all at once. So today I embark on my journey of saving and being more conscious of what and where I spend my money. To a bigger savings account and a better feeling about my money instead of a sense of panick between my paychecks!