January | 2017 | itsawonderfilledlife

Archive for January, 2017

Why Do I Write this Blog?

Posted in life, WONDER, tagged Bartender, blog, Blogging, Hairdresser, Purpose, Reason, Shrink, Why, Why do I Write this Blog, Writing on January 8, 2017| 4 Comments »

I just realized that I had not written a post for today, so today’s post is a repost from 2012. As I re-read this one, I agree with ii’s words still …

Last weekend someone asked me “why do you blog?” It was such an easy question to answer, because the one reason I blog is complete and utter selfishness, I blog for me.

After about ten months of writing everything from the insane to the serious, averaging about five posts a week, writing has become something that I rely on, that I need to do, that helps me to keep in balance.

Although there is great jesting in my house about my desire for Oprah to discover me, really, I write for me. This little corner of the cyber world is where I connect with God, where I process my hurts, where I share my celebrations, and where I just get it all out. For me, itsawonderfilledlife is my hairdresser, my bartender, my shrink. And, you who read are the flies on the wall.

Writing has allowed me to have a voice, my voice. In this venue I am still daughter, and mother, and wife, and friend, and pastor’s wife and special ed. assistant, but I am mostly just me. I am just a woman, speeding down the superhighway of aging, who loves her God, her kids and her hubby, trying to make ends meet, experiencing great successes, and dark failures. And this is the forum that I have used to help myself find reason for it all.

When I chose itsawonderfilledlife as my blog title, I did so with pshychology in my mind. I am one who looks for a reason for every event that occurs. I look for wonder, like others might look for chocolate (okay, I look for that on a daily basis too), or luck, or a break. For me, when I can see wonder in my day, I can see purpose for living. For me, a little bit of wonder can make my experiences of living purpose-filled, and in focusing on wonder, I do not spiral down into the dank world of negative thinking.

Recently I was feeling a bit bummed that my stats were lower for a particular week. I pondered different ways that I could bolster them, but that takes time. Then I re-read a couple from that week, and felt good with what I had written, and felt good as I remembered the pleasure that writing them provided. It was then that I remembered, I am doing this for me. So, I forgot about feeling bummed, and felt the pleasure of communing with my God, my thoughts and the computer keyboard. That is why I write this blog, and it’s good enough reason for me 😉 .

Read Full Post »

The Souls of Old Houses

Posted in GOD, WONDER, tagged #, #itsawonderfullife, #oldhousesarebest, #thesoulsofoldhouses on January 5, 2017| Leave a Comment »

An event that seems to be becoming an annual one is hubby and I celebrating his birthday watching the classic movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, on the big screen.

As we watched it last month a familiar conversation stuck in my mind:

George Bailey: OK then, I’ll throw a rock at the old Granville house.
Mary: Oh no, don’t. I love that old house.
George Bailey: No, you see you make a wish and then try to break some glass and you’ve got to be a pretty good shot nowadays too.
Mary: Oh no George don’t. It’s full of romance that old place. I’d like to live in it.

In this time and place I live, people prefer to live in new homes, over pre-owned homes (a definition to add to my vernacular). A common occurrence is for homes that are older (ie. 50 years or more) to be torn down, and replaced with brand new homes (frequently more homes on the same piece of property).

I fully and freely admit to being a romantic, and possibly even more so when it comes to houses.

As a child, I can remember the houses that I was fond of … and the stories of the lives of a lifetime of occupants that I would imagine in my mind.

There was the house down a long, straight road, lined with oak trees. It’s porch across the front of the house, with large, perfectly entered stairs. Though the original green paint was chipped and faded, though the roof looked at risk of sinking right into it’s centre, and the barn only partially standing, I loved it. I would dream of a young man, damp with the sweat of his construction labor, carrying his wife, pregnant with their third child, up those entry stairs into the house that would house their family until the day the undertaker took his aged body from the home that love built.

The house I passed on my school bus, every day, with the decorated Christmas tree in it’s enclosed porch. The turret on the second floor that always made me imagine a couple dancing in it’s candle-lit windows, every Saturday night of their childless marriage, before dimming the lights on the week. Years later, another couple, with grand imaginations bought and renovated the home, redeeming it with their love.

These and so many other homes birthed dreams of stories of lives. Though our homes are merely brick and mortar, they are also the pages on which the stories of the lives souls made of flesh and bone, are written on … the ink permanently staining each page until to the dust of Earth they return.

Read Full Post »

Redeem the Time

Posted in GOD, WONDER, tagged #dontwastetime, #redeemthetime on January 3, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Today is that day that ends my Christmas break. What a fine break it has been.

It was two weeks filled with the celebration of Christ’s birth, times with our family of five, and with friends, (too much) delicious food, books, a miniseries, and SNOW (the best Christmas gift!).

And now that break from the everyday has come to it’s natural end, and I feel it cannot possibly be finished!

Ephesians 5:16a reminds us to “redeem the time” (not intended as permission to drive, as some might think …). It is a reminder that we have only right now, and to use that time for love, to be light, and to be wise with how we spend this vital resource.

May we all, as we begin this new year, redeem the time.

Read Full Post »

Bend Low

Posted in WONDER on January 1, 2017| Leave a Comment »

As we drove home last night from our New Years Eve celebrations, we drove over freshly fallen snow.

The snow created a brightened view of the landscape, and the sky.

As we drove there were branches down, broken by the heavy snow. Hubby made a statement about nature purging the weak.

I noticed the large branches of the tall conifers that line the road to our home, normally out of my reach (even on tip toes), bending low to the ground under the weight of the snow.

Hubby’s words and the sight of the trees bent down made me think of the New Year.

Those mighty trees, held down by the miraculous power of tiny, weightless flakes, as though in prayer.

As I enter 2017, I feel strong, brave and firmly planted in my predictable life. Yet, I can be bent low by the smallest of events … heavy traffic, unexpected illness, things not going my way, putting my foot into my mouth.

Being bent low is not a bad thing. It is a way that my life can be pruned, trimmed of the weaknesses in my core. It is also the best posture to be in to lay my struggles, difficulties and insecurities at the feet of the one who will always hear my cry.

“Together they bend low and kneel down;

they are unable to rescue the images;

they themselves head off into captivity.

“Listen to me, O family of Jacob,

all you who are left from the family of Israel,

you who have been carried from birth,

you who have been supported from the time you left the womb.

Even when you are old, I will take care of you,

even when you have gray hair, I will carry you.

I made you and I will support you;

I will carry you andRescue you.”

Isaiah 46:2-4