Faith!

I love faith!  Faith is the ability to step into the uncertain.  Faith is a confidence, not a certainty.  Those are the words that our youth pastor used to describe faith.  And he is right.  Every time I have had to have faith it was for the unseen, or the unknown outcome. 

Jesus said, "The simple truth is that if you had a mere kernel, a poppy seed, say, you would tell this mountain, "Move!' and it would move.  There is nothing you wouldn't be able to tackle."  (Message Bible, Matthew 17.20)

This is one of my favorite bible verses, though, before divorce, I'm not sure I understood exactly what it would mean to me.  From almost the minute I realized my marriage was over, I used many, many verses from the bible to get me through the toughest time in my life that I could ever imagine.  The above one, though, I think I have repeated millions of times, and still do!  It wasn't until recently though that the definition of "mountain" became so clear to me.  That's what I want to share.

Every one of us has come upon hard times.  Every one of us at some point in our life, didn't think we

could survive today, let alone tomorrow.  I know I was surviving second by second, and even that at many times seemed unattainable.  Now I had faith that God would get me through it.......eventually.  I'm not afraid to admit that there were many times that I lost faith.  Times I was so frustrated and so angry at God for taking soooo long.  After all, I needed to move on.  I was ready!  Or was I?

The other morning, as I was walking on the beach and having my usual morning conversation with God, faith and moving mountains came to my mind.  All of a sudden it hit me.  At least in my case, God was not talking about a physical mountain.  He was telling me to move the mountains out of my life!  Move the mountains that are keeping me from moving forward.  Move the mountains out of my way!  When I hit one of my mountains, it's like hitting a brick wall.  I stop!  I get thrown back a few feet and I fall down!  Sometimes I almost have a panic attack!  Then I have to pick myself up and re-take those few steps forward, again!  This revelation is huge! I can see all the possibilities now!

So what are some of my mountains?  Fear, self-doubt, and uncertainty  Fear is by far my biggest mountain.  I have made great strides though in the last couple of years!  I've definitely been able to conquer some of my fears already, but there are many more.  Each new adventure is a "mountain moving" experience and I'm loving it! 

This is what I do now that I've figured out what God was telling me:  When one of those mountains get in my way, I say, "Ok mountain of ___________, GET OUT OF MY WAY!  For me that seems to give me enough courage not to give up! 

So maybe, just maybe, the next time you are facing a mountain of your own, you will try my experiment and demand the mountain to get out of your way!  Then have the smallest amount of faith that God will move that mountain for you.  He absolutely will!

I feel a new tattoo coming on!  Just saying!

FaiTh MoVeS MoUnTaiNs!

Saying Goodbye

There are so many ways we have to say goodbye. Some are temporary and some are permanent.  Goodbyes can be happy or they can be unbelievably sad.

When someone you love comes to visit, whether it's family or  friends, when it's time for them to leave, it's tough to say goodbye.  Of course you know that goodbye is temporary, but you still get that aching in your heart.   When someone you love dies, that's a permanent goodbye that's very hard to accept.  It takes a long time to get over that goodbye. You leave a job for a new one or you retire and you have to say goodbye to friends that have become like a second family to you.  That's hard, but you have the opportunity to keep in touch. You also get to start a new chapter in your life.  Beginning new chapters is what life is all about.  Nothing ever stays the same forever.

I had to say goodbye recently.   For those of you who follow my blog, (And I thank every one of

you!), a few blogs ago I decided that it was time to put my heart back in the game of love!   When I figured out that in the heart is where love lives, I had no choice.  How else am I ever going to find the love of my life?  I knew it was risky.  I knew I was going to be taking chances, but to find love, my guy, I knew I had to risk my heart.

A few weeks ago,  I met a great guy.  I was hoping that he was my guy.  After all, I put my heart back in the game, right?  God promised me He would protect my heart.  I was set. I was ready.  How could this fail?  So what happened?  He was not my guy.  I had a wonderful time though.  I got to experience so many things I had never done, food I had never tried, and places I have never been.  That said, it was sad  to realize that he was not my guy.  I have to tell you that I had the opportunity to make the most wonderful memories!   I get to use these awesome memories to start replacing a lifetime of memories I would certainly rather forget!  Wow!  How blessed am I?

The hard part was having to accept that as great a guy as he was, he was not my guy.  You see, if I haven't learned anything else, I've learned that I have expectations for my guy that I cannot comprise on.  I have things that I need.  My guy is going to fulfill all of those and more!  I know that!  It is God's promise to me.  That I do not doubt!

So right now I'm going to take some time to regroup.  I'm going to give myself a break.  I'm not going to think too much.  I'm just going to enjoy the adventure that I've been on!  I'm going to rejoice in the fact that I was brave enough to give love a shot!  And brave enough to say goodbye when I realized I needed to!  This is such a huge breakthrough for me! 

I'm going to eventually pick myself up, dust myself off, pray a lot and get back out there in the game of love!  After all, my guy is out there waiting on me to be brave enough to try again!  I can't let him down now can I?

My Heart Will Find A Home!

Oh My Soul!

All day today, I've been getting the same message.  I can't quite figure it out, but it's about the soul.  It's tugging on my heart, so I guess there is something I need to say about the soul.  Maybe my soul.  I'm just going to start writing and see where it goes.  I hope you'll join me for the ride!

This is what I think about the soul.  I think the soul is kept deep within you.  I think my soul is me.  It's the me I keep hidden a lot of times and the me I try to keep protected most of the time.  I think a big part of my journey is about my soul and allowing it to be vulnerable enough to feel someone else's soul.  I think that my soul has felt the most horrible feelings imaginable, but I also think it has felt, and is beginning to feel the most wonderful things imaginable! Wow!  Are we created amazingly or what?

I know in an earlier blog I wrote that when my marriage ended, I cried tears that came not from my eyes, but "my soul wailed."  That still breaks my heart to think that I was that broken.  There have been a few other times that my soul has cried.  The death of my sweet baby boy in 1976.  The death of my dad and the death of my mother.

There have also been times that I have been extremely happy and my soul has smiled.  The birth of my children.  When my children married the most wonderful spouses and when my grandchildren were born.  There is nothing better than to feel happiness in your soul!

Everything good or bad has left footprints on your soul.  It makes you who you are or better than that, it gives you the opportunity to allow the soul to die, or to allow the soul to heal and be reborn.  The choice is always ours to make.  I feel like the light bulb has gone off in my head and in my heart about this. 

The journey has been long and many of the steps have been slow and painful, but I think it is all about the soul.  I think it's about not letting go of hope.  It's about letting my soul learn to sing and dance.  It's about feeling the good in people.  It's about loving to the best of my ability those around me. It's about feeling the brokenness in them and trying to find a way to help them heal.  Maybe the journey is not about me, but using my life to better someone else's!  It's about letting you know you are worthy.  It's about letting you know you are loved.  It's about never, ever losing hope.  It's about finding a way to mend someone else's broken soul.  Helping someone else so fills my soul!

Recently I have noticed when I meet someone new and I reach out my hand to shake theirs or touch

their hand, I feel their soul.  I feel their goodness, but I also feel their brokenness. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do with that.  It has definitely taken me by surprise.  In saying that, everyone needs hope.  They need to know that they are beautiful and worthy of everything good.  They need to feel the good in the world and the good in the people around them.  They need to be able to heal their brokenness.  Love your neighbor!

I know that I did not know that, but even more, I did not ever feel that.  Today, I can say that I do!  Today I know that I am more than worthy of everything good!  My soul feels the goodness and love that it should.  My soul is happy.  For the first time in my life, I know I am worthy.  That's not to say that my soul will never feel sadness again.  That would be unrealistic for me to think that, but for so, so long, my soul was dead.  It was so unhappy.  I had no hope. 

Today, my soul is so happy and it's singing!  Most of the time, I'm not even sure why. There isn't a better feeling than to feel your soul singing!  I'm going to try to figure out what I'm supposed to do with all this.  I know the message is for me, but I also know the message may be for you.  The heart knows what the soul needs.  That said, no matter what, I'm in it to win it.  I'm going to get it right this time around.  I have to.  My soul is at stake and I'm not going to stop my journey ever!  I want to know why.  I've always needed to know why. The answers are there, I just have to be open enough to see them.  This is good!  I'm so excited!  I am ready to let my soul sing!  How about you?

My SoUL Is SiNGiNg!

The Broken Road

I don't know if you know the song by Rascal Flats called, "God Blessed The Broken Road" or not, but yesterday when I was taking my evening walk on the beach, the song came on and it so spoke to me that I have to write about it.  Normally, I don't listen to music when I walk on the beach.  I like hearing the roar of the ocean, but for some reason I felt the need to hear the music.

The song played and I've heard it many times, but I don't think I ever really let the words resonate with me.  This time, they did.  It seemed to play my life through the lyrics and I haven't been able to get the song out of my head.  That always leads me to believe that God has a message in there for me.  Sometimes it takes me a while to figure out what I'm supposed to understand.

Here are the words to the song.  Now I just need to understand how this applies to my life.  I'm sure many of us can relate.

I set out on a narrow way many years ago

Hoping I would find true love along the broken road

But I got lost a time or two

Wiped my brow and kept pushing through

I couldn't see how every sign pointed straight to you

 

Every long lost dream led me to where you are

Others who broke my heart they were like Northern stars

Pointing me on my way into your loving arms

This much I know is true

That God blessed the broken road

That led me straight to you

 

I think about the years I spent just passing through

I'd like to have the time I lost and give it back to you

But you just smile and take my hand

You've been there you understand

It's all part of a grander plan that is come true

 

Every long lost dream led me to where you are

Others who broke my heart they were like Northern stars

Pointing me on my way into your loving arms

This much I know is true

That God blessed the broken road

That led me straight to you

 

Now I'm just rolling home

Into my lover's arms

This much I know is true

That God blessed the broken road

That led me straight to you.

So, I'm walking along the beach and I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to be taking from this

song, and it hits me.  My life has been a broken road.  I can see it when I look behind me.  I can see all the missing pieces and the twists and turns that didn't allow me to see what was ahead. I've been trying to travel this road for so long, never feeling like I was getting anywhere.  I've tried so hard to repair the road.  I tried to fill in the potholes.  I've tried to resurface it.  Many of the cracks I've tried to jump over.  I definitely tried to go around a lot of them, only to find the shoulder is so soft, I would fall.  I never gave up, though sometimes it was an appealing thought.  I tried so very hard to continue moving forward, but many times I turned around and tried to find another road., Now I think I understand what God was telling me.  He was telling me, Cyndi, "This is your road.  This is the road I have chosen for you.  You must travel it to get where I want you to go.  Instead

of trying to turn around, or find another road, or repair it or go around it, or ignore the cracks and think they will just go away, you need to stay on your road and build a bridge over the rough parts."  The bridge will get you further ahead on your road.  It will get you where you need to go.

I think that my road is still filled with potholes, and cracks, and missing pieces, and it always will be, but I think all of our roads are.  I think that I'm not going to look behind me because that's not the way I'm going.  I think that when I come to rough places in my road, that is where God is.  I think He's there watching me to see how I handle them.  I think that I'm supposed to build bridges over the rough places so I can continue traveling down my road, because just over one of those bridges is the life God has chosen just for me.  Wow!  I can't wait for that! With that in mind, making a U-turn on my road and going backwards is not in my plan.  Not ever. Going in reverse is never the way to go!  I can't wait to see what lies ahead!

Now what?  I'm off on another journey and I'm ready to build my next bridge when I need to! I hope it's not too soon though, because I love where my road is leading right now.  I hope you stay on your road too!  You can't get off!  You might miss the best part of your life!

God Blessed The Broken Road!

 

Where Love Lives!

Where does love live?  Of course, I know where it lives.  It is born and lives and flourishes and thrives in your heart.  At the end of my marriage and the beginning of my new single life journey, I decided that I would not ever allow my heart to be broken again.  When I said it, I meant it.  I remember telling my daughter that more than a year and a half ago.  So far I've done a great job at not allowing anyone near my heart.  The problem with doing that is that every relationship decision I have made since then, is that I have not or will not ever find love unless I let my heart rule. And how did I finally figure this out?

After a few relationship attempts that didn't work out so well, I was talking to my daughter about it and trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong.  She told me that I haven't healed completely yet. Wow!  How did she know that?  At first I was a little upset that she said that.  For the most part I have healed.  No anger, no bitterness.   And I've forgiven, which is huge in the healing process for sure.  What I haven't done is given my heart the okay to feel again.

What she told me after that was exactly what I needed to hear.  She said that I was thinking with my head and that is not where love lives.  Love lives in the heart.  If you don't feel it in your heart, it is not going to happen! You know what?  She is right. How simple is that?  Then she reminded me of what I said about protecting my heart.  I am so afraid of my heart getting hurt that I have been leaving it out of my relationship choices.  I thought that if I left it out, I could protect it.  I did protect it, but in the process, I made choices in my head that my heart would not have made.

I am amazed and proud that I have a daughter that is so in tuned to the heart. I'm also very happy that we have such a great relationship, otherwise I may not have ever connected what I was doing wrong.   Now that I realize what a huge mistake I've made, I am not going to repeat it again.  This is going to be very hard for me, but it is necessary.  Somehow, and I'm not exactly sure how this is going to work, I have to let my heart get in the process!  The heart always knows what the soul needs!  I can hear God now!  He's saying, "Cyndi, I will protect your heart.  Do not be afraid.  You need to listen to your heart and then you need to do what the heart asks!" I figure this is going to take an awful lot of courage.  Seriously, God, you want me to allow my heart to be vulnerable enough to be broken?  I'm not so sure.  That's a very scary prospect to me.  But who knows better than God?  Not me, that's for sure!  So I'm taking a deep breath,  my heart is pounding, and I'm really not sure about this, but I'm going to allow God to bring the right person into my life.!

I know that God's timing is definitely not mine, because I always want everything, NoW!  I know this is going to require me to be patient and just wait.  I'm not good at waiting, I'm just not!  Just in case you're out and you happen to see the guy that's going to melt my heart, could you please try to speed him up?  I'm not getting any younger!

Wow!  That's a life changer!

We Are Movers!

Who are we?  We, was my mother (now diseased), my daughter, myself and probably countless other relatives that I didn't know had this compulsion!

 What is it?  It is the obsessive compulsion to move things!  That means nothing is left unmoved!  We move furniture and accessories, clothes in our closets and drawers, compulsively, and all the time!

Other than shopping, which gives me such a high only those afflicted can understand, moving things is the next thing that gives me such pleasure!  When I say we move things, it's not moving one

thing, it's moving a room or an entire house.  So let me explain.

My mother would move things obsessively.  I don't think I understood it back then like I do now.  My father was a 30 year navy veteran.  When my father had duty, which required him to stay on the ship overnight, my mother would move around the living room.  My poor father would come home after duty, and walk into the house in the dark and fall over things because he had no idea that my mother had moved the entire room!

Since I was married at 18 years old, I have moved things.  I'm not sure what drives the compulsion.  All I know is that it is an overwhelming urge to move things.  Now to explain.  It's not planning to move an entire room.  I could move a coaster.  That's one coaster, and then nothing else in the room seemed to be in the right place.  That meant hours of moving things until I felt like everything flowed cohesively.  It's such a compulsion. It's a driving force not to be denied.

When Heather and I had our boutique, we would get in merchandise, now it could be a tiny amount, maybe a dress, probably 4-6 pieces, and it would create such a moving frenzy.  We would literally start moving one thing to make room and then spend the entire day moving the entire store.  Now that was no small task to move around our entire boutique, but it would create such eupheora!  I'm not sure I can explain it!

Now I live in a small condo.  I spend an entirely huge amount of time trying to figure out how I can move things around.  Really that is not possible in such a small space, but that doesn't mean my brain isn't constantly thinking about it just in case I come up with something I haven't thought about yet!  And storage and space is another thing I constantly think about.  How can I maximize space and create storage at the same time?

 

 

Hayday is a computer game.  Now, I did not want to play Hayday.  It's a farm game.  I Am Not A Farmer!  I love farmers.  I'm just not one!   My granddaughter, Jadyn kept bugging me to play.  When she was at my house one day, she set up the game for me on my iPad.  I told her I was not going to play a farm game.  After all, I'm a city girl!  She set it up anyway.  One day she texted me and said, "Nana, get on your farm, I need something.  I got on because how can you deny the cries of your grandchild!  She walked me through how to get her what she needed.  That said, I started to play and I am so addicted to the game, it's unbelievable!  This is not the game an obsessive compulsive personality needs to play.  What it does for me is it allows me to move things on my farm obsessively!  Compulsively!  And I love it. I get my moving fix in and it satisfies the urge for me to move things. I know it's crazy!  I didn't say it wasn't!

If you can relate to this, I'm glad I'm not alone.  If you can't relate, well you don't know what you are missing! Is it good or is it bad?  I'm not sure. I just know, it's me, and I love me!  Ok, hold on!  Wait!  I see a room that needs rearranging!

I LoVe MoViNg ThiNgS!

Growing Up!

I used to think that growing up was for children. How many times did my mother say, "When you grow up." Or, "Wait until you grow up?"  Many more times than I want to remember.  I always thought, "When I grow up I'm going to do this or that." Or I'm going to do it my way!  Here's what I'm just beginning to realize,  I'm 57 years old and I still haven't grown up!

What is a grown-up?  If you Google it, and I pretty much Google everything, a grown-up is a person that has reached an age of maturity.  I have decided that even though I'm 57 years old, I have not reached an age of maturity.
Though, if you ask my grandchildren they will tell you that I'm very old! Don't you remember when you thought 50 was ancient?  I do. I can remember when I thought 30 was old. Now 100 doesn't seem too old to me!

In the mornings when I'm ready to get out of bed, I do think that 57 is old, but when I'm out with my girlfriends having a great time, I think 57 seems pretty young.  After all, in my head, I'm still 20!  Again, that's until the next morning when I'm trying to get out of bed!  I've decided that my body is much more grown-up than my mind!

When my daughter was young and she was going through tough times and figuring out life, her father told her that sometimes that horse will buck you and throw you off and that she needs to get up, dust herself off, and climb back up on that horse!  This morning my daughter asked me if I remembered him saying that?  I said yes, and then she said, "Well mom, just get back up and get on that horse again!"  Boy did I need to hear that!  As I hung up the phone I started laughing out loud and then I started feeling so much better!  Ok!  So the horse threw me off again!  So What!  Big deal!  Lesson learned!  So what am I doing now?  I'm  picking myself up, dusting myself off, and climbing back on that horse!  This time I'm holding on to the reins real tight. 

I've also decided that while I'm up on that horse called life, I'm going to laugh my way to maturity!  I think if I can just keep my sense of humor going, certainly I will achieve maturity with a smile on my face!  That seems like a great way to get there!  I love being around people. I like to have fun.  I love to laugh!  What  better way to say hello to maturity, whenever it comes!  Until then:

Giddy Up!