My ChRiStMaS StOrY!

This is my Christmas story 2014.  Can I just say that at the beginning of December I realized I did not have any Christmas joy.  I know, that's sad.  I tried very hard to find it, but it was nowhere to be found!  I was looking forward to the whole holiday season with Thanksgiving,  Christmas and New Years, then right after Thanksgiving I felt my Christmas spirit leaving.

I used to have bins and bins of Christmas decorations.  I went all out for many, many years decorating for Christmas.  I decorated the house and the yard.  I decorated the office where I worked.  I loved baking Christmas cookies and goodies and sharing them with friends and family.  I usually did all the decorating by myself.  Sometimes the kids would help for a moment or two, then they were off.  My husband never participated, but that never stopped me, though it would have been nice to have him share in that.  I loved Christmas as a child, and I wanted to make sure my kids loved it too.  It was my mother's favorite holiday.  She couldn't decorate enough.  My dad loved it too.  You know what, I was successful because, my children do love Christmas!  They both are sharing that love with their children and spouses.  I love that too!  It makes my heart sing!

Now, I'm down to half a bin of decorations that I keep in my daughter's attic.  She took it down for me when she got all of her decorations down from her attic after Thanksgiving.  I brought the bin home, hoping that I would find my Christmas joy in it.  I took out my Christmas tree ornaments and unwrapped a few.  They are very pretty and I love them.  I looked at them, wrapped them back up, put the lid back on the bin and took it back to Heather's house.  There was no joy there.  It really made me sad to look at them.  I was so hoping that my joy was in there.  Being sad to see things that should have brought me joy was puzzling to me.  I had been hoping to recapture that Christmas joy I had as a child, but it evaded me.

This is my second Christmas season, single. (Really it's been 3 years, one was while I was separated.)  Maybe that's it.  Maybe that's where my joy went.  Maybe it left right along with my marriage.  Maybe it went away with all those years of hoping and dreaming of sharing Christmas and for that matter, every holiday, with someone who loves them all as much as I do.  I'm not sure.

My children are the only reason, as an adult, that I loved Christmas, or any holiday for that matter.  My husband made sure he sucked the joy out of every holiday.  Every holiday for 38 years.  Actually, honestly, he sucked the joy out of every day.  I know it doesn't seem like there could be someone alive that found absolutely no joy in anything, ever.  What I've come to understand recently, is that even though he did that, I still allowed it to happen.  I'm going to have to be honest and accept the blame for that.  I had to find a way to get joy back.

I guess my post divorce expectations were way too high.  I thought that as soon as I got divorced, surely the man of my dreams (Because I certainly hadn't been married to him.) would show up and my life would be filled with joy!  I had this fairy tale attitude about it, I guess.  Two years later, that has not happened.........yet.  I say yet, because I know it's going to happen.  I just don't know when.  I guess one of the hardest things for me to put into practice is that I must make my own joy!  I know that I am the only one who can make me happy.  I know that is my responsibility.  I'm ready for that challenge.  I am learning that lesson.  I am making positive strides towards that goal.  I have come very far but I realize I'm not there yet.

I did finally buy a wreath for my front door, at the urging of a good friend and I also sent out Christmas cards, which I haven't done for probably 15 years.  I was thinking that maybe I would find my joy in those.  I did enjoy doing those things, but I did not find my joy.  Then it happened!  God loves to surprise me with His wisdom unexpectedly.  He knows I'm a sucker for surprises!

Two weeks ago I went to the dollar store.  I was looking at the ornaments to add to a Christmas shirt for an ugly shirt contest.  By the way, I was hoping to find my joy doing that, but I was only going through the motions.  It seemed like out of nowhere, a woman about my age stood beside me.  I didn't really pay her much attention.  She was looking at the decorations next to me.  It startled me when she started talking to me.  She said that she thought she bought a 3 foot Christmas tree but it's 4 feet and she was getting some ornaments to fill in the extra space.  Really I was wondering to myself why she was telling me all that!  I told her I didn't even put up a tree.  I told her I think the grinch stole my Christmas this year.  She started saying things like, "Jesus being born is the reason for Christmas. And the cross is the reason to celebrate.  And that Jesus gave it all for us, etc."  Then she just walked away!  I didn't even have time to respond.  She left as fast as she had appeared!  Isn't that amazing?  I know all the things she said are true!  I believe all of them!  I try to live them!  Her words resonated through me.  I don't think she knew just how much I needed to hear her say those words.  From that brief encounter which probably didn't last 2 minutes, I found my Christmas joy!

It just came flooding back and I started to smile!  Now, I'm getting ready for the after Christmas sales!  I'm going to buy some new decorations and a tree!

I've decided that I'm going to rock Christmas next year.  When I was a child, we had a silver aluminum tree with the color wheel.  I always loved that tree!  It used to make me so happy.  I would sit and watch it for hours!  I hadn't thought about that tree in many years and I'm guessing it came to mind because it brought me so much joy.  So guess what tree I'm buying for next year?  You guessed it!  A silver aluminum Christmas tree with a color wheel!  It's going to be AWESOME!  I've learned the lesson!  I have my joy and I'm not going to lose it again!

To that mystery lady who helped me find my joy, thank you!  It just goes to show you that you never know who your words will inspire!  I found my joy!  It was there all along, I just needed to be reminded of it.  As a matter of fact, I'm going to rock every holiday from now on! What used to be a source of hurt feelings and emotional pain, I am going to use to spread love!

To all my wonderful family and friends, Merry Christmas and I love you all!  Christmas blessing to all of you.  Enjoy your family, safe travels, and make some wonderful memories!  I hope you have a Joyous Christmas!  I know I am!  Joy to the World!  The Lord Has Come!

Joy To The Newborn King!

A God Moment!

I just had a God Moment!  Thank you, God, for that moment!  I have had a few God moments before, but they are rare.  They are also, at least for me, at the most unexpected time.  That said, they are awesome!

I had to stop what I was doing and write this down.  I was in the kitchen making some breakfast.  I have been in a lot of pain for about 4 weeks.  It had gotten worse the last week and I was struggling with managing the pain, but back to my moment.  I was just talking to God in thought, and saying in my head, "God, Why am I always in pain?  I just don't understand why I'm always in pain?"  The very second I finished that thought, God said, "You are always in pain because you don't think you are good enough.  I said, "What? I am good enough.  Remember, I already worked on that."  God repeated louder, "You don't think you are good enough, but you are.  You are always in pain because you don't think you are good enough."

I really started thinking about that. Why would God be saying that?  Being good enough is the very first thing I started working on with myself when I first became single again.  I thought I had that all figured out, but God was telling me that on some level I still feel,
"not good enough."  Being made to feel that I was not good enough my whole life has caused me more pain, emotionally and physically, than I could ever express.  I've read a lot of writings about how we get back from the universe what we put out to the universe.  I believe that.  If God was right, and let's face it, God is always right, then he just gave me the key I needed to unlock the blessings of my journey!  Wow!  I am blown away!  You see, without knowing it, I had stopped for an honest, pure moment to talk to my Father.  Not begging, not whining, not crying, not pleading, just asking!  And He talked right back to me!  Stop and take that in for a few minutes!  Isn't that just amazing!  Mind blowing! Life Changing!  God just stopped to talk to me!  How "good enough" am I that my Heavenly Father spoke to me!

Can I tell you something else?  In that moment, I felt "good enough" all the way to my soul.  All of the "not good enough"
moments in my life seemed to disappear and were replaced with God's love!  I don't feel angry deep down inside, I feel peace.  I don't feel hurt deep down inside, I feel love.  I feel good, deep down inside.  I've never felt good deep down inside.  I think I'm going to love this:)


What I have figured out is that, I thought I had fixed the "not good enough" in me, but I didn't even consider that I needed to allow God to fix it. I had been asking "god" to help "ME", when I should have been asking GOD to "help" me.  I had unknowingly put myself ahead of God.  That shocked me that I would do that, even unintentionally.

I had been having problems lately with several things I thought I had taken care of and fixed in myself.  Little feelings kept coming up and causing struggles that I thought were no longer issues.  I was spending a lot of time trying to figure out why this was happening.  It didn't make any sense.  After all, I fixed it, right?  I was trying to find answers all by myself.  I would talk to God about them, but I always asked God to show ME how to fix them.  I'm not going to do that anymore.  I'm going to remember that I don't have any answers and I cannot fix anything in myself, but God has all the answers I need and He can fix everything in me if I will just stop trying to do it myself.  Now that's powerful:)

 GoD MoMeNtS RoCk! 

Changing Things!

With the change of season, I started thinking about how much I've changed over the last 6 months.  Change is good!  It is, even though most of the time I change because I have to, not necessarily because I want to!

I love it when our world changes from winter to spring, but I'm not very excited when it goes from summer to winter!  Now I know fall comes after summer and before winter.  I like the fall, I guess.  At least I like it much better than winter!  I like how fresh the air feels.  I like the crispness in the morning and I like the decrease in humidity.  But winter!  I do not like being cold!  I don't!  I don't like having to wear long pants and socks and closed in shoes!  I like flip flops.  No, I take that back, I LOVE FLIP FLOPS!  Don't even get me started about having to wear a

hat, coat and gloves!  I don't like that my car is cold inside!  I don't like those few minutes when I start my car and I'm waiting for my seat heater to warm up my seat!  Ok, so I know all my friends up north are laughing hysterically right now.  They are saying, "Really.  You live in Florida!"

What about me has changed over the last six months?  I decided to pick one thing about myself that I didn't like.  I'm not talking about physical attributes.  I'm talking about something on the inside that I just didn't like.  There are several things I wanted to work on, but God showed me that I have to start with only one.  More than one thing at a time was just too overwhelming.  I think that's where I always made my mistake.  I tried to change too many things at once and I could never reach my goals.

The first thing I chose was how much I disliked being alone with myself.  I didn't want to spend time with me.  I was very discontented and bored with myself.  I couldn't see what I had to offer myself.  Then things started to change!  How you ask?  I asked God to show me how to be content with myself!  I needed to learn how to be content with being all by myself, all day and night.  Instead of telling myself how bored or lonely I was, I decided to try telling myself the opposite.  What I've found is that I like my own company.  I like being with me.  Of course, I think I'd like being with me even more if it wasn't cold or rainy and I could go for a walk or bike ride or I could lay out in the sunshine!  I do love the sunshine!

Now that I've mastered being alone and liking it, my next conquest will be to have power over the thoughts in my head.  I've been working on this one for so very long.  At my age, I've dealt with an awful lot of stuff.  That stuff, mostly bad, likes to play over and over inside my head on a moment by moment basis.  I've decided that my brain loves to live in the past.  I can have a pity party all by myself, all day long if I want to.  The thing is, I don't want to anymore.  I've found that it is easier said than done.  I have tried many different techniques to try to elevate the need to replay the past over and over.  I'm still a work in progress but I'm proud of the progress I've made!

What I've learned is that change is very, very hard.  It's so much easier to stay the way you are.  If you don't like who you are, which I didn't, then understand that the work is tough, progress is slow, but the results are so worth it!  I just hope that I can move much faster at change than I have been.  I want it now!  I want the new and improved me today!  Reality sinks in again and I realize that no matter how bad I want the new me, it is a process.  Just like bad health, I didn't become the me I am overnight and I can't become the new me overnight!

I Am Changing Daily and I Love It!