With the holidays upon us and a another year coming to a close I’m reminded once again of how quickly time is speeding by. 2019, had its high moments, but it also came with loss, reminding me once again how fleeting time can be. In thinking about my family members and friends that died this year, I realize just how powerful and impactful a single life well-lived can be. They touched areas in my life that I’m still discovering. Missing them is like a constant limp and hole where they used to be.
Every day I’m alive is not a given but a gift. Another chance to get it right. A simple smile or a kind word can brighten a day. Joy can be found wrapped in the ordinary, like relationships, creation, or the peace of the familiar. Laughter is refreshing and tears a necessary release. There are profound moments, down moments, and some silly ones. Some days are filled with awe and an almost magic like quality when life and special events cross paths.
May your holidays be filled with sweet memory making moments and love. To love and be loved is the most precious gift of all. Those who strive to make the world a better place through kind deeds do make a difference. L’Chaim! To Life!
I love Thanksgiving. It gives me time to pause and think about my life. From my great grandparents, to my parents, my husband, and sons and their families I have been blessed to know love in my life. It is a cause to celebrate and be reminded that it is people not belongings that make life worth living.
Every picture tells a story, every life is a song to sing, we are the legacy of time. One generation gives way to another, but our lives are built on the foundations left by those who have loved us. There are some missing this year. Gone too soon, but etched in our memories, we limp along with the ache of where they used to be.
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours. May you be filled with love, kindness, and generosity as you share in the blessings of the day with those you love both family and friends.
“Patience is the calm acceptance that things can happen in a different order than the one you have in mind.” ― David G. Allen
Life often throws a few curves at us. It’s something everyone experiences several times in a lifetime. We can make plans, but still, things often happen out of order. I have found learning to be flexible, and to roll with what life dishes out is definitely an acquired knowledge needed for survival.
At times, out of order can actually be what’s best for you. All of sudden, events come together like a melody, or a perfect rose, and for one single moment life takes on new meaning and direction. You know the kind of moment I’m talking about; events that take you by surprise and make an ordinary day special. A gloomy day takes a turn for the better when a person smiles at you or encourages you along the way. What a difference they can make in an otherwise nominal day. An autumn day filled with gorgeous colors can leave you in awe, or one single moment of understanding can burst upon you and change your life for ever. I can still remember one occasion when it hit me that all people are made in His image and have a deposit of him within them. It matters not who they are, just that they are! People are amazing and sharing life with them (or a shoe) is what gives life significance.
During another out of order moment, I found writing or writing found me. Either way it rescued me at a hard time in my life. I have so much to learn about the process which keeps me interested every day that I sit down at my computer. What is the best way to say it, which word will show it better? How can I take the characters from being flat to alive using descriptive words? I’m grateful for something so simple yet complex that it challenges me on a daily basis; something to grow in, and to improve at, and in the process it changes me.
Out of order doesn’t necessarily mean not working. It can simply mean a new direction
Life isn’t always easy, and sometimes I feel a tad wobbly at best. But I’m also a bit of an optimist. You know the type; a this to shall pass kind of person. I find if I focus on the good that the good I see gets even better. If I look for the best in people, most of the time I find it. No I’m not totally naïve, but I’ve always had an amazing hope that at any moment any situation could get better. It could happen! In spite of the roller coaster ups and downs, life can be quite awesome.
Hope is my inner voice that keeps cheering me onward. On some days it is faint at best, but on other days it shouts loud and clear telling me to keep dreaming, and yearning for something just beyond my reach.
Hope is my family, and friends. Hope is found in the wisdom I’ve learned from experiences, some good and some hard, that are woven into my life like footprints leaving their marks. They are my reminders I can make it if I don’t give up. Hope is the still small voice that tells me to put one foot in front of the other and to keep, keeping on. I march on to the beat of time grateful for every day I get in this crazy, wonderful life.
I’m getting ready to go to my high school reunion this weekend. Let’s just say my graduation was a long time ago, and leave at that. The coming event has me going through old photos and ploughing through the cobwebs of my mind to recover memories of a time, which went way too fast some days, and oh so slow on others. Especially, waiting for the bell to ring in one of my least favorite classes, Physiology.
I loved high school. From the football games, to friends, and yes, even some of my classes, I enjoyed it all. I think that’s one reason I love the fall to this day. The cooler weather brings back memories of a new school year, and going to football games in my friend’s old 53 dodge. (No, that’s not the year I graduated). It was built like a tank. Strangest thing happened when she turned the corner, the car horn would randomly honk, and the passenger door would fly open. We got so the person closest to the handle would hold the door closed and the next person would hold on to her. Safety didn’t seem to be uppermost in our minds. We couldn’t do anything about the horn. but laugh, and wave at the other cars we passed as we turned.
Those years are a bit of a blur. They moved quickly. When I ask myself where did the years go, all I can say is, I was busy living them. Beauty School, state boards, and Bible College, marriage, along with children filled up many years. Laundry, mounds of laundry, and meals for my eating machines were part of the hectic years of raising three boys, along with going to every game imaginable. Priceless, crazy, busy, but filled with happy memories. More time slipped by as I taught women’s classes, worked outside the home, and took writing classes.
I am the author of eight books and counting. I never saw it coming, although I dreamed about writing someday. I am somewhere to be found in every book that I’ve written. I’ll never tell where. Jessie Reynolds might be my alter ego, at least in my dreams.
It’s true life is short, and time moves swiftly, but this small trip down memory lane has reminded me that I’ve really had a wonderful life.
