Thursday, February 19, 2009
Where Do I Belong?
Last night a Twitter post put me in the mood for this song. "Home" from the musical version of "Beauty and the Beast" has got to be one of my favorites of all time. (And isn't the girl who sings it amazing? I spent an hour with my girls wandering through her videos...WELL worth the look).
For a survivor Home sometimes becomes an uncertainty. A question. Which is why this song speaks so strongly to me. Not every home is a Norman Rockwell painting. Does that make one stop trying to find that place though? Either in the arms of one you love in real life? Or in a song in a musical that carries your mind to somewhere outside yourself for even a short time.
This week I read a lecture for a class I was taking and it came to a part that involved self-hypnosis. The idea behind it is to close your eyes and put yourself in your happy place...your true home...and to visualize yourself doing something that would make you not only happy, but PROUD, with the idea this helps you to change your attitude. Well, I'm game for new things. The problem comes when I close my eyes and try to find 'home.'
Where is home? My mind wanders over beaches and forests, valleys and mountains...looking for that place where I am at peace. Yet I settle no one place for long. I think...that maybe I'm going about this wrong. My life has been without peace for too long...and I'm going to the wrong place to find it.
Peace isn't in a picture from a travel brochure. It only comes from my heavenly Father. So, closing my eyes I seek HIM first. And finally find home.
"But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." Matthew 6:33
Where is YOUR home?
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
No Worries, eh?
Sometimes survival means just getting through that next day…that next hour…that next minute.
Today is one of those, "let’s get through the next minute” days. With one child that woke up in the middle of the night with yet one more ear infection…and another that started throwing up at school and needed to come home…well I know about surviving that next minute. I’m not worrying so much about what I’m going to make for dinner tonight as I am about keeping the little ones calm and comforted.
Minute to minute living serves a purpose that we can never see when we’re IN that state. Only afterwards,do we see it. When we're looking back and wondering just how we got through that crisis (and there was one I remember with five kids sick where both my husband and I had it too….) .
We get through because we have to. We get through because we’re not doing it alone. We get through because God is right there with us as we live from minute to minute, from moment to moment until the crisis is past.
Today over at Pete Wilson’s Blog he was talking about worry and asked the question what things are worrying you. I’m an expert at it. As a child the ability to see what could go wrong in any situation and then act to head it off, kept me safe. Even in my adult life I have used worry as a means of protection.
The problem, though, with worrying is that you never can enjoy life fully when you are. Sure you might have seen that storm coming and were prepared with everything you needed to batten down the hatches, but is it ever possible to live in the NOW and enjoy it fully with the spector of worry hanging over us?
Seems a funny thing to think about when we’re talking about survival doesn’t it? But just because today I’m living today from moment to moment, doesn’t mean that I can’t take those moments like right now when one sick child is curled up in bed snuggly warm while the other is tormenting the cat, and find something to enjoy in them. Like the fact that no one is throwing up right this minute. And that it really is cute the way my youngest drags that poor feline around.
So today I’m exploring a new concept for me. Living in the moment without worry. Surviving…but still thriving.
What about you? What worries have got you down?
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” Matthew 6:25
Today is one of those, "let’s get through the next minute” days. With one child that woke up in the middle of the night with yet one more ear infection…and another that started throwing up at school and needed to come home…well I know about surviving that next minute. I’m not worrying so much about what I’m going to make for dinner tonight as I am about keeping the little ones calm and comforted.
Minute to minute living serves a purpose that we can never see when we’re IN that state. Only afterwards,do we see it. When we're looking back and wondering just how we got through that crisis (and there was one I remember with five kids sick where both my husband and I had it too….) .
We get through because we have to. We get through because we’re not doing it alone. We get through because God is right there with us as we live from minute to minute, from moment to moment until the crisis is past.
Today over at Pete Wilson’s Blog he was talking about worry and asked the question what things are worrying you. I’m an expert at it. As a child the ability to see what could go wrong in any situation and then act to head it off, kept me safe. Even in my adult life I have used worry as a means of protection.
The problem, though, with worrying is that you never can enjoy life fully when you are. Sure you might have seen that storm coming and were prepared with everything you needed to batten down the hatches, but is it ever possible to live in the NOW and enjoy it fully with the spector of worry hanging over us?
Seems a funny thing to think about when we’re talking about survival doesn’t it? But just because today I’m living today from moment to moment, doesn’t mean that I can’t take those moments like right now when one sick child is curled up in bed snuggly warm while the other is tormenting the cat, and find something to enjoy in them. Like the fact that no one is throwing up right this minute. And that it really is cute the way my youngest drags that poor feline around.
So today I’m exploring a new concept for me. Living in the moment without worry. Surviving…but still thriving.
What about you? What worries have got you down?
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes?” Matthew 6:25
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