I need to learn something....

Well, here we are, in the grip of winter. Snow piled upon snow. Snow everywhere.

And cold. Really cold.

So, as I was watching one of my favorite channels this morning, "The Weather Network", I heard one of the announcers say "And it's only 18 more weeks folks!!!"

It grabbed my attention.

I figured I was the only person with a huge countdown going on every year. With me, of course, it's Christmas. I always put my little sign up on the wall at work stating that it's only "110 days 'til Christmas".

Well, I listened to her. She said that we should be working our way quickly through winter since it's only 18 weeks until the May long weekend!!

I figured I was just as bad as she was in wishing away my life in terms of wanting something else, something more, something different from what I have right now.

No wonder my life seems to be running faster than a herd of flees....tic...tic....tic.....

I keep wanting winter to be over so spring can come.

I want spring to be over so summer can come and we can go on vacation.

Hurry up with fall already. I want winter, with Christmas, to be here.

Notice I didn't even include wanting fall to come. I don't like fall to begin with.

So, this is it folks. I need to start appreciating every season and not wishing it away. Like my own life too. When I experience good things, I need to appreciate them and not complain about anything. Why would I complain anyway??? And when not-so-good times come, I need also to learn from those times and not wish them away like they are going to destroy me. One day, they will destroy me..........and you........when we die. But until then, I need to learn that lesson. To appreciate all things that are handed to me and learn something from them.

Today it's cold. At least I'm healthy. I have a home and a husband and family and food and a job and 2 vehicles and books and more clothing than I need and a computer and phones and glasses so I can see and good friends...........see what I mean. I need to learn to appreciate today and everything in it. Everything.

So, here's to TODAY!!!

Cheers! (although it may take me a lifetime to learn this lesson, I say to myself....)

I simply remember my faaaaavorite things.....

And then I don't feeeeeel sooooo bad..........

People I know have been saying farewell to their children as they head off to their own homes and places of education, far enough away that they aren't within a day's travel.

It's difficult.

No fun.

It's grieving.....a separation from someone we love.

It happens in our house too, when our children return back home again. (I must remember that home is no longer P.A.)

Anyway, those are the times when we need comfort and someone to let us cry a bit and let us mourn.....or even sing......

Remember the good old Julie Andrews song "My Favorite Things"?

It helps. Some of it goes like this.....I think.....I could be wrong.........

"Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens

Bright copper kettles and warm woolen mittens

Brown paper packages tied up with strings

These are a few of my favorite things!

Cream colored ponies and crisp apple strudels

Doorbells and sleigh bells and schnitzel with noodles

Wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings

These are a few of my favorite things!

Girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes

Snowflakes that stay on my nose and eye lashes

Silver white winters that melt into spring

These are a few of my favorite things!

When the dog bites, when the bee stings

When I'm feeling sad,

I simply remember my favorite things

and then I don't feeel so bad!"

I can hear you................:-)

Don't you just feel a wee bit better???

A fence cone and the like....

I think, if I were a kid and all, I'd go outside and take a whopping big bite out of that snow cone that sits atop our fence.

Wouldn't you?

I sometimes enjoy doing things I did when I was a child......eating snow, making footprints one way and backing up carefully so it looks like someone just stopped in the middle of nowhere, shaking a snow-laden tree really hard when someone is under it, or make a winding path through a field of fresh snow and then just sit down in it.

I think God likes it when we play in his creation. He made it just for us after all.

I think on my day off Friday, I'll take husband into the forest to play. Who knows what kind of fun we'll have.;-) I'll take my camera too....just in case........

Psalm 37.....

This Week of Prayer, today being Epiphany (day of light), has kept me near the cross.

Today I read Psalm 37:1-9 which says in The Message:

" 1-2 Don't bother your head with braggarts or wish you could succeed like the wicked. In no time they'll shrivel like grass clippings and wilt like cut flowers in the sun.

3-4 Get insurance with God and do a good deed, settle down and stick to your last. Keep company with God, get in on the best.

5-6 Open up before God, keep nothing back; he'll do whatever needs to be done: He'll validate your life in the clear light of day and stamp you with approval at high noon.

7 Quiet down before God, be prayerful before him. Don't bother with those who climb the ladder, who elbow their way to the top.

8-9 Bridle your anger, trash your wrath, cool your pipes—it only makes things worse. Before long the crooks will be bankrupt; God-investors will soon own the store."

Lord God of heaven and earth, this Epiphany, this "Day of Light", keep my ways shining as brilliant rays of sun..........even as bright as a full moon on a dark night.

Amen.

The prophet Jeremiah...

says these words in chapter 17:9-10, 14 about our hearts:

"Who can understand the human heart?

There is nothing else so deceitful; it is too sick to be healed.

I, the Lord, search the minds and test the hearts of people.

I treat each of them according to the way they live, according to what they do.

Lord, heal me and I will be completely well;

rescue me and I will be perfectly safe.

You are the one I praise."

Being prayer week at Gateway, I have found myself going again and again into a time of confession, of letting God know that I'm acknowledging what he already knows and telling him I am sorry.

So, I pray for myself, in those secret places that only God knows about. Those things I don't want to say out loud, for fear others will hear. Those things that I dare not talk about. I think you know about those things too....

I pray, O God, for me and my friends, those of us caught up in lies and deceit, of self-absorption and self-righteousness, of scheming and coniving, of loving everything else but You.

O God, hear my prayer of confession and repentance.

Bitter....

Yes, the bitter, biting, beastly, frost-laden days of winter are upon us.

Minus 36. If you say it quickly while you sneeze it doesn't sound near so bad.

The sun appears to be rising sometime after 9 a.m. and setting around 5 p.m.

The snow continues to rise in drifts of hard-packed ridges across fence lines and piles of it are puffed up on fir tree limbs.

It makes for a wondrous sight.

And in the middle of all this cold, Gateway will hold Prayer Week 2009. Within the confines of the sanctuary, sit stations of prayer and quietness and opportunities for expression of praise and petition to God.

A beautiful way to begin the New Year.......acknowledging God...who has given us every bit of creation for us to enjoy.........even at -36C.

May THAT God be the focus of my life and my world in the coming weeks and months.

The Journey Part 2....

This book has me journeying back to my own personal Shack...the place where God once sat with me and held me and allowed me to see value in myself. He spoke to me of grace and offered it as a gift. I sat a very long while in that Shack before I would accept his gift, but eventually, I did.

Reading this book by Paul Young, is giving me new insight as to what God may or may not look like. It looks "outside the box" of the Christian view of the Trinity. I like what I'm reading. Sometimes, for various reasons in our lives, we look at God like some kind of harsh father figure, or the Holy Spirit as someone who is elusive and a non-entity and Jesus as a brilliant miracle worker who lived some 2000 years ago and we celebrate his birthday every year at Christmas. The book is a revolutionary thinking to me. I know I need to keep it in perspective, but it seems like that kind of thinking has been proding me for some time now so I will keep on. It will be a learning time, I believe, when all is "read and done".

So, I'm journeying back a bit. The one good thing about going there this time is, that I can simply follow my own footsteps back out to today, whenever I wish. I remain there only because I want to and because I may learn something very valuable this time that I can take back out with me.

When I'm finished and begin to read it for the second time, I'll be doing some underlining. I like doing that. It reinforces things for me. Things I need to learn or remember so my life can become better, more loving and kind, more gentle and gracious.

Going back to The Shack will bring about some changes in me, I'm convinced. Things I thought were healed long ago, perhaps are not. We'll see. At various times, when we have experienced deep pain in our lives, we find it difficult to go back to that pain. But it is a must. We must face the things that hold us captive and eventually find peace there instead of the pain.

The journey back continues. There are lessons yet to be learned.