Wow how the time is flying. I am truly blessed this day. I am feeling joy down deep inside a little more each day. This is so exciting! As I go back and reread "One Thousands Gifts" I get something new each time. My big realization this last week was the waste of my life and the lives of my friends and family that I have caused by carrying around this anger, frustration and even hatred for the things that have happened to myself and my family in the past. I have made my immediate family suffer because of my hurts and abuse that I suffered. I have kept them at bay and have not trusted anyone including my husband and son. Now that I am finally seeing things in the light of my God who loves me and has been gently calling me to his heeling, I am beginning to trust. It is slow but it is coming. I am beginning to be vulnerable to my husband. It has been hard but good. I am so thankful to an understanding husband. I am finally looking past the circumstances and focusing on God and his love. It has been very interesting to me to see how this blog of mine is reaching out to so many. I am thankful that my hurt and recovery is helping others. It has been good to hear how others are counting there blessings. Even a newspaper article in the statesman journal for Tuesday Nov 29th is titled Attitude of gratitude is life changing. WOW!!
A paragraph in the book that stood out to me this time says: "You would be very ashamed if you knew what the experiences you call setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances really are. You would realize that your complaints about them are nothing more nor less than blasphemies-though that never occurs to you. Nothing happens to you except by the will of God, and yet [God's] beloved children curse it because they do not know it for what it is." That has truly been me. I am trying hard to get out of this as this is not what I want to be. The hard truth of this is I need to see these setbacks, upheavals, pointless disturbances, and tedious annoyances as grace and gifts. Not sure I am any where near that but to not focus on the circumstance and focus on the grace and gifts around me is helping. As pastor Kendall is teaching on the Holy Spirit so Ann Voskamp says in the book " Senses are impaired if they don't sense the Spirit". It is all about focus. What do you focus on? Do you focus on the negative as I have for way to long or are you focusing on the grace and gifts even in the ugly beautiful. The ugly beautiful for me includes this weight loss journey that I am on. I have plenty of food, obviously and I use it as comfort food for my hurts and stress and anger. That is changing slowly as well. What is your ugly beautiful? It is a matter of perspective. So challenge to you, can you find the beautiful in the middle of the ugly?
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