One Word.

2011 has been an interesting year.

We had some devastatingly crazy weather {possibly an understatement}.

I made some major changes to my degree plan and long term goals.

We hit some serious {sometimes painful} growth spurts

Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. Spiritually.

I am a Compassion Blogger, in theory. I signed up to be one roughly a year ago. I’ve managed to blog an assignment here and there but I haven’t been as committed to it as I should be. That is changing in 2012. This last week I was reading a mass email sent to all Compassion Bloggers. In the email our coordinator suggested rather than making goals or resolutions for the coming year that we seek God as for the one word her would have us focus on. This idea was originally mentioned to her by her boss a few years ago and it stuck.

Pray.

Seek God.

One Word.

What is the one word that encompasses what God wants you to get in 2012?

I did what was suggested and it seems I was given a letter rather than a word.

My focuses for 2012:

Patience

Priorities

Purge

Passion

 

A Thankful Heart | Day 5.

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Today I am thankful for technology.

We use technology for so many things – life saving equipment, photography sharing, communications, etc. So often we use it that we don’t even realize it anymore. The word technology contrives images of computers and smart phones but there’s so much more than that.

With the use of technology I’m able to snap pictures of my boys, load them to my computer, and either upload them to Facebook or email them globally. With a few clicks of the mouse images are sent around the word. Literally. It still kind of blows my mind how fast things travel in today’s society.

Families who are rarely in the same state {or even country} can communicate easier today than ever before – phones, online chat services {think Skype, Facetime, & other such companies}, and of course there’s Facebook.

It amazes me the advances made in technology just during my lifetime. Computers have gone from being these ugly monstrosities to these handheld devices about the size of a magazine. Mobile phones have gone from these massive blocks that plug into the car to these slim-lined, smaller than your palm, fits in your pocket size gadget that most parents now use to appease their children.

Oh and then there’s GPS in nearly everything – cars, computers, phones. Nice little tracking devices that not only give you directions when you’re lost but help people find you if necessary.

Image.

Let me ask you something.

• Are you a nice person?
• Do you yell at your mom?
• Hang up on your ex?
• Get cranky with your kids?
• Roll your eyes when people ask what you deem “stupid” questions”?
• Gossip with your friends?

I’m not asking you this to find out if you are truly a nice person or not. Stick with me here, I have another question for you.

If you said yes to any of the above questions, would you still do that if there were camera’s following you 24/7?  If you knew that your actions and your words were being recorded and blasted around the globe in various media outlets, would you still be the person you are today?

Is that the image you want people to see? Is that the person you want to be known as?

If you answered no to those last two questions, let me ask you this; why aren’t you the person you want people to see?

Shallow. Hollow. Empty.

Those words describe how I’m feeling at the moment. There are lots and lots and lots of thoughts running around in my head at the moment. Most of them asking, in some form or another, “What have I done with my life?!” And it’s not in a good way necessarily. Maybe the thoughts are more accurately asking, “How has my life influenced other people?”

Does my life influence others to live for God?

Does my life and my actions encourage others in a Godly and uplifting way?

Am I edifying?

I read a blog tonight written by a woman I consider a good friend, minus the fact we’re a bazillion miles apart and only had a few months of hanging out to get to  know each other. She is amazing. And her post tonight was incredibly thought-provoking, as it usually is.

It made me wonder what kind of person I have allowed myself to become. I sit here at the moment ready to have a blank slate and start over completely in order to allow God to mold me into the person I’m supposed to be. Because I truly don’t believe I’m there.

I’ve spent the last few minutes going through my twitter account and looking at who I’m following – all 2000 of them – and trying to remember why I chose to follow that person. I noticed there are quite a few baseball or other sports related people and teams I follow and I’m truly not a huge sports fan unless it’s football, or a team my own children are on. There’s no reason for me to follow most of them. I will be doing some revamping to my twitter account in the near future.

And don’t get me started on Facebook. In recent weeks I have gone through my friends list to remove people I don’t want influencing me any longer – there are still quite a few to go. But, that doesn’t mean I’m on Facebook any less. This has got to change. If I had a dollar for every minute I’ve spent on Facebook this year alone I’d probably have several hundred thousand dollars to my name. How sad is that?!

I’ve noticed recently how often I’ve said, “I can’t” or “We can’t”. That is so NOT how I believe but I’ve let it in and now that’s what’s coming out. It’s never been more true that what you allow into your life, heart, and soul is what comes out. I am incredibly picky of what i allow my children to watch because I know this. As a mom and as a Christian I know that my children will repeat whatever they hear. And, they repeat things I don’t always hear so that I end up questioning them on where they heard it. But, if I know how important it is for my children to have their games, movies, books, etc filtered why don’t I filter my own life anymore? When did if become okay that the world is so screwed up and to not actually do anything to try and change it? When has it ever been okay to look the other way when things go wrong? To write things off as, “that’s just how the world functions”?

When did my life become about me? It’s not about me. It’s never supposed to have been about me. Okay, don’t get me wrong on this. It is about me in the sense I have a family to raise and to provide for but aside from that it’s about Jesus. Why have I not seen this before now? Why haven’t I allowed myself to step out of my life long enough to see someone else’s life?

When did I become such a shallow, cynical person? I do know that in my chosen career field I need to be able to weed out the ‘seekers’ from those who truly need the help offered to them or the resources available. And I do remember an instance where a patient turned out to be an old ‘friend’ from high school. A good guy, who also turned out to be a ‘seeker’ and was just there to get something rather than being truly hurt/injured, etc. I can pretty much pinpoint that incident as my “going cynical” moment but I was headed that way before then.

How do I change this? How do I get back to being that person I once knew? The person who knew how to love deeply and passionately, who didn’t take, “no” for an answer?

When did I start believing that my reality is my reality? Did that make sense? I’m a single mom. So what?! So are 60-75% of single women out there. When did I start letting that influence God’s ability in my life?

For the last year, since I started a blog over here on WordPress really, I’ve been trying to document living a life of passion. That’s been my theme. My mantra. Even the name of my photography studio. A Life of Passion. Somewhere along the way I lost that. Or maybe I never had it to begin with and it’s just wishful thinking on my part. But, as of this moment, I am determined to take over my life again and get things back where they should be. Starting with Jesus.

Ten Day Challenge. Day 10.

So, way over on my facebook page a friend challenged me to a 10 day challenge. Normally I won’t do these things but this one piqued my interest. It’s a quite a bit different than your normal “challenges”. At least what’s considered normal for Facebook these day! 

Here’s the rules:

Day One: Ten things you want to say to ten different people right now.

Day Two: Nine things about yourself.

Day Three: Eight ways to win your heart.

Day Four: Seven things that cross your mind a lot.

Day Five: Six things you wish you’d never done.

Day Six: Five people who mean a lot (in no order whatsoever)

Day Seven: Four turn offs.

Day Eight: Three turn ons.

Day Nine: Two smileys that describe your life right now.

Day Ten: One confession.

 

 

Here’s my Day 10 -

One Confession:

 

 

 

1. I believe in true love. Despite everything I still believe.

 

The following excerpt is taken from a note I wrote February 1, 2009 entitled “Influential People”. This is the kind of love I consider true love. That “hold on and not let go”, deep down, can’t live without you, you make my life complete kind of love. (Go watch “The Notebook” now!) *You can read the whole note mentioned above here: http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=49069322873

The very first job I ever held started in March of 1998 and was as a pharmacy associate at Drug Warehouse in Broken Arrow. It started as a May’s Drug and was transformed over the almost 2 years I was employed there. We had a customer who came in on a fairly regular basis for his wife. Sometimes she was with him but most often not. They were older, 60′s or 70′s, and had spent their lives together starting about age 17. Normally the pharmacy is one of the busiest departments of any store, especially a drug store, but one day he came in when I had absolutely nothing else to do. I went out and sat beside him on the bench and will never regret that decision. I learned more about life in the 10 minutes I spent talking with him than I’ve learned before or since.

 

I asked him how he met his wife. I will never forget the story I heard that day. It was the middle of the 1940′s. They were both at a Fourth of July party with hot dogs, and cotton candy, and other vendors swarmed with multitudes of people. He was with a couple of his friends just talking and hanging out when all of a sudden she was in his arms. Her friends had lit fireworks under her chair and she jumped, straight into his arms. His words that day as he told his story with a smile on his face and tears in his eyes are words I will always remember. He said, ‘I held on to her and never let go’. Those words, the wistfulness of his voice, and the faraway look in his eyes as he told his story encompass the definition of what I believe life is all about. It’s holding on and never letting go of what you believe in, of your dreams.