January--The Month of My Discontentment

January brings with it a cold, wintery attitude that I have always disliked. It makes you rethink and analyze. It makes you restless and discontent. It brings with it the ugly reality of fleeting time and impending taxes.
I have never cared for January. It is a long month of cold, icy moments. I'm not your typically depressed sort of person, although I do tend toward pessimism and negativity, however, January is the month where I battle my mind...I have to fight to keep upbeat and there are moments when I just lose it. All of the ugly tendencies I've buried resurface and make their appearance in January.
January is like a fickle, nagging woman. She exists to make your life miserable. And to challenge the perimeters of your sanity.
December for me is an exciting month. As you all know, I LOVE Christmas. You spend the time with your families...It's a good month for me. I know that isn't always the case for many, and December can be the bad month for a lot of people. But not for me. Then, in blows January, challenging you to quit eating, get healthy, save money, change your bad habits, etc....and I am presented, once again with the opportunity to fail! Laugh out loud! Okay...it should be seen as a time of new beginnings and new opportunities...which again makes me crazy. January asks too many questions and snoops into your private personal life. What AM I supposed to be doing with my life. Questions of wondering....Does my life count for anything important in the scheme of things?? Why do I replace my deep inner emotions with food? Why do I overspend? I want to make a difference, but too often, January reminds me of how very little I have changed in the last year, and laughs at me for being idealistic in my thinking. She taunts me and goads me like she's human. I want to slap January right across her unforgiving face and yell at her to leave me alone! Just when I think, I can't handle January anymore....I get a reprieve....and in rushes February.....the month of LOVE and embraces me in it's arms, promising me that spring will soon be arriving if I can endure a little bit longer.
Then I realize....that even though I dislike January so much, she is needed for my inner growth and OH, how I appreciate February so much more! And the cycle of the four seasons and the cycle of life has come full circle once again....as a reassurance of the faithfulness of the Creator who reminds us that although everything changes......everything also stays the same! Winter, spring, summer, and fall......the Lord God made them all. And even if January is a cold, frigid broad...she serves a purpose. I just don't happen to like her very much!!!!!

Don't You Wish You Had the Answers??

It's early morning...a quiet time to meditate and ponder the complications of life. I have just received one of the biggest miracles in my life and within days have once again been dashed against the rocks and beat up with more bad news. And like always, I fall back in to shouting out the same question I shout every time I am in the same circumstance. WHY! My contemplations have lead me to no real conclusions or answers. It actually just leads to more questions..Life is a puzzle to which we can not begin to have all the pieces without the One who holds the last piece. Life is like a series of doors that can never be opened without the One who holds the keys to ALL doors. Life is a complicated series of problems that can never be solved without the One who holds all the solutions. Just when you think you have managed to figure out or control the things around you....chaos breaks out and once again you are filled with the question, WHY? As the song says...Life is a dance you learn as you go. Sometimes you lead...sometimes you follow. I like that phrase. I sometimes wonder how people without God and without hope get by in this world. If everyday life slaps them up along side the head the way it does sometimes, how do they appreciate the wake up call?? So often, we are just sleepwalking through life. But as long as the waters are smooth sailing, we don't seem to mind that we are not really awake. Then when the sea gets bumpy and the bottom falls out, the storms swirl around us,....Lions, and Tigers, and Bears, Oh MY! We always wake up with a splash of cold water in our face, believing that we, of all people did not deserve that! Where do we get the idea that life owes us? Life is not an ironed out, bump free, happily ever after, it's all about me, fairytale. Life is a gift we were entrusted with...it's our story that has been written out, a play on the stage of life....and it's not at all about the storyline....but it's about how we play it out. Life is precious and fragile. It is tough and harsh. It is mountains and valleys. It's an awful lot like bull riding.... an 8 second, exhilarating, gut wrenching, white knuckled, ride in the scheme of eternity.
But I've learned, mostly, that life is a test....and too often we fail it...because we never learn how to embrace it. To grab on to it's hairy main and hang on for all we are worth! And it's about embracing all of it. The good, bad and ugly. The hellos and the goodbyes. The heartache and tears, the joy and the wonder of it all. We struggle and get so caught up in the individual acts of the play that we lose sight of the underlining message. We are a part of a larger story. A play within a play! "The bigger picture". Our job is to embrace the lines we've been given, play the cards we've been dealt, ride the bull that we've drawn....and our heart attitudes, countenance, mind sets, and actions will determine whether or not we have passed the test! Are you failing your pop quizzes so that it will be impossible to pass the big test? I don't know why bad things happened to good people.....I don't have the answers to all of life's hard questions. But I know the One who does. And someday I'll ask Him. In the meantime, we don't really need to have all the pat answers to life's curve balls. We just need to crawl up on LIFE's back, hold onto our hat......and stay on for our 8 seconds!