How Are You Doing?
Today is the sixth day of January. As we’re making our way into the new year, I wanted to stop to ask just how are you doing?
If you had high hopes as you rang in the new year for changes that you wanted to make during the new year and may have fallen short already on those changes you were doing to make, take heart! The year is still relatively new, and you can ALWAYS start again! So you had great intentions to eat healthier and blew it just a few days in. That’s okay. Get back up, dust yourself off, and start eating better today! If you planned on drinking more water but substituted sodas or tea instead, focus today and decide that today will be your day to drink more water.
You CAN do this!
If you haven’t stepped foot into the gym, that’s okay, too. You can exercise at home. Just DO it, as the Nike commercial says. Get off of that couch and walk to the beat of your favorite song. Even if you’re walking in place, that is still exercising. Grab a couple of cans of beans in your pantry and do some curls while you’re making dinner. Or, my personal favorite, grab your honey and dance to your favorite tune!
Try not to focus so much on having “failed” so early on in the new year. It’s only January 6th. Begin again TODAY! Right where you are!
If you were planning on saving more money this year, pay day is coming at the end of the week. Sock some money away right off the bat into your savings account. If you get into a habit each week, pretty soon, you won’t miss the money that you’re putting away for a rainy day. Maybe you’re planning on saving money for that dream vacation, or you’re more practical and want to save it for new tires on your car. Whatever you are saving for, start this week. If you wanted to start with the first pay period in the year but missed that, just start now!
How about this? A gratitude jar! Doesn’t that sound interesting? Instead of beating yourself up already on what you’ve failed to accomplish in this new year, turn your focus on positives that have happened or that you’ve achieved since the clock struck midnight on December 31st/January 1st! I bet that will make you feel a lot better if you think back and begin writing down good, positive, encouraging things for the past six days. DO it! Save those slips of paper and store them in your gratitude jar so that at the end of the year you can open that baby up and read all the goodness that this year held for you. Or, if you are having a really bad day later in the year and need a little pick-me-up, open that jar and pull out a handful of things that happened earlier in the year that made you feel GOOD! It will get you back on track.
I’ll be honest. This post was as much for me as it was for you. I’ve not exercised like I had planned. My daughters will be my accountability partners, though! We’ve already discussed it! I’ve tried eating better, and I have tried drinking more water. But we all fall off the wagon at times. I am making better food choices, and I feel good about that. I would like to encourage you to just stop beating yourself up! Just get back on track. I’ve wanted to start saving more money this year, and I will … beginning this pay period.
AND … I am most definitely going to go back over the past six days and write things down that have spoken to my heart in this new year. Things that have made me smile, that have warmed my heart. Things that I will want to hold on to and remember.
I will begin today.
YOU CAN, TOO!
Now We Return To Our Regularly Scheduled Program
My children were off for two weeks for the Christmas holidays. The great thing was that this year I was able to be home with my children for the two week break! While I love my job, I love my children more and looked forward to the time at home with them.
We did a lot of talking, connecting, reading, watching movies, and sleeping in! My husband was able to take off a good bit of time with us as well, although not the entire two weeks. We went horseback riding every chance we could when there was good weather. We went riding on the property behind ours (33 acres – with the owner’s permission), down the dirt roads where my parents live out in the country, as well as going to a 2100 acre forest dedicated for equestrian usage, and also rode our horses on the beach twice! It was great fun!
We built a fire and roasted marsh mellows while saying goodbye to things of the past that were weighing us down by tossing pieces of paper into the fire with those things that we needed to let go of once and for all. That was freeing!
My family and I spent quality time together, which we always love.
We gathered with other family members during the holiday season as well as our friend from Illinois that visited at the beginning of the month to kick the Christmas season off right.
Lots of Christmas songs were heard and sung as we remembered the real reason for the season – the birth of Christ, our Lord!
Then as the Christmas activities came to an end, we ushered in a brand spanking new year! Woo Hoo!! Good riddance to 2014 – and a big ole Southern howdy and welcome to 2015! We look forward to many good times and wonderful memories that will be made this year.
And now we sit here preparing for the return to school and work. My daughters have already groaned a few times, but now we return to our regularly scheduled program.
It is nice to have a break, but we do need to return to a normal routine. And so, we shall, but we will go back to school and work feeling refreshed and renewed as we prepare for great things to come!
Feeling Forgotten
In December of 2014, I joined a group that took encouragement from the computer screen to your home mail box. It was a way to reach beyond the blog posts and social media. Having never done anything like this among bloggers before, I was excited.
The idea was to send Christmas cards to people in your assigned group. The groups were relatively small, with about six to seven women.
I went out and purchased my cards, and I had the list printed with all of the names and mailing addresses. I was ready to begin, and I looked forward to writing my thoughts and sharing my favorite bible verse in the cards that I was going to mail.
There were deadlines as to when the cards should have been mailed by, and I made sure to have mine prepared and out in the mail promptly.
At the end of the first week, I received my very first snail mail card from this group! I was very excited and made sure to carefully open the envelop and slide the card out to read all of the goodness that it held inside. This person took great care in visiting my blog prior to penning her words on the card as evident by what she shared. That meant so much that she took the time to do this. She got to know me by visiting my blog and reading in the “About Me” section first before she ever formed her thoughts to put inside of that card. What made it more special is that her maiden name was the same as my last name, so it felt like some where out there we could have been long lost relatives. Maybe that is a long shot, but it did make me smile when I read what she had written.
She took the time, put forth the effort, and made me feel special with what she wrote in that card!
I was encouraged and felt really good about this group.
The second week, I got out my cards again and prayed over the lady that would receive the card. I included my favorite bible verse yet again because it is powerful and means so much. I was hoping it would mean that much to the recipient as well.
I checked my mail box that week waiting for another beautiful card from a precious lady in this group.
Nothing came.
Week three, I did the same routine as before in preparing to mail my card to the next person on the list.
Again, nothing in my mail box this week.
I was beginning to feel forgotten. I did not like this feeling.
Still, I continued in sending my cards and blessing the one that would hold it in their hands.
Week four and then week five came and went with nary a card in my mailbox.
I learned a lesson. Just because I did everything I was supposed to do or need to do in order to participate, that did not ensure that others would reciprocate. Sure, they were “supposed” to as well, and they knew the instructions and what they had signed up for when they signed up. However, no more mail came from the group.
I realize that it was a busy time of year as everyone was involved in the spirit of Christmas, trying to find that perfect gift for their loved ones, making delicious recipes, baking cookies, and attending Christmas parties and church functions.
I believe in extending grace, too. Yet, week after week, I could not shake this feeling. I even thought perhaps it may have had something to do with where I was positioned on the list, as I was the very last one. The instructions were to start with the one above you until you circled around on the list to get everyone, even if that meant the first person on the list circled to the last person and the second on the list went to the first on that first week only to then circle the next week to the last on the list. Maybe the instructions were “clear as mud” thus the reason I only received one card. Yet, the ladies on the list were all intelligent enough to follow even those instructions.
Finally, I reached out to the admin of the group. She said she didn’t think it had anything to do with where I was on the list but that people were busy. She suggested that I could even write in the group mass Facebook message about it, and after careful consideration, I did but in a way that wasn’t insulting to those that did not include me when they mailed their cards. Instead, I thanked the one person that did take the time and put forth the effort to include me and make me feel special the moment I opened her card.
What I have learned from this is that it is so easy to get offended by what people do or do NOT do as in this case. However, my worth and value does not come from whether people remember me on a snail mail group listing or not. When I was feeling forgotten, I turned to God who never ever forgets about me. He loves me so much that He died on the cross to give me eternal life.
If I ever get discouraged with things of the world or people of the world, it only takes me shifting my focus and remembering who has me in the palm of His hand, and that, my friend, is Jesus Christ!
Sure, it would have been nice to have been included in the group and to have received the cards from others. However, even when that did not happen, I did my part, and that is all that I could do. I was not in control of others. I was only in control of myself. If I did what was required of me and went above and beyond, I need not feel forgotten. Instead, I needed to shake it off and go forth in the knowledge that God will never leave me nor forsake me. I am His, and He loves me. He knows every single hair on my head. He knew me before I was formed in my mother’s womb. And that … THAT is a great feeling!
If you have felt forgotten before in life … or maybe you’re feeling that right this very minute and can relate to how I was feeling, too … will you shift your focus just as I did toward God? He will take these feelings that threaten to overwhelm you and pull you down and replace them with such peace and love, if you only turn to Him and allow Him to work in your heart and life.
Blessings to you, dear friend. You are never ever forgotten by God above!
