Forecast For My Future...

Have you ever been in a situation in your life that you didn't know how to overcome?  Then all at once after forever answers finally come to you and realization hits you like a slap in the face.  That is what my world has consisted of this weekend, realization and answers.
I have been in a not so happy place in my life that has seemed to just deteriorate more in time. For so long I have waited, hoped and even prayed that somehow a sign would appear or I would hear God's voice as clear as day telling me every step I need to take to get where I need to be.  For the longest time though everything stayed the same and it seems like this big cloud of unhappiness followed me.  Of course on the outside I was happy and cheerful and outgoing but on the inside it was a different story and those closest to me knew it.  My mom has been telling me the same thing for years, but I always seemed to push it to the side, hoping things would work themselves out and resolutions would miraculously appear.
Then in August of last year I decided to change some things so that slowly but surely I would be paving the way for my future.  I started this blog and have only heard compliments.  Writing is one of my passions and it gives me a sense of accomplishment and belonging, like this is what I need to be doing.  I never thought I would use my blog for anything but to tell you about my all kinds of crazy and everything in my crazy world.  But tonight I bring you this blog to tell you about finding peace and how peace found me tonight and kind of throughout the whole weekend. 
Five months ago I started going back to church.  It is the same church that my parents took me to and loved.  Actually when I was younger, religion was somewhat confusing.  We changed churches often but always went back to Colton First Assembly.  It was confusing because in between all this I was baptized and made my first communion in the Catholic church.  As time went on I visited churches with people I dated and then I found myself in the same confusing pattern of attending various churches until I just stopped.
 Then for a while the only church I knew was Joel Osteen on TV.  I love him and I would wake up on Sundays trying to decipher what he was was trying to preach to me.  One thing he said one Sunday was..."If you complain, you will remain."  It wasn't long after that that I decided I needed to actually go back to church, a real life church.  I found my way back to Colton First Assembly of God in Colton and I have gone back almost every Sunday morning since.
Ok, so I thought Sunday morning was all I needed and in actuality for a while it was all I thought I could squeeze in.  I was already being told I was neglecting things around the house so I felt guilty, never realizing that I did need more to find my answers.  I went there and inched rows closer to the front each time.  The one thing I never did was go to the front for an altar call so someone would pray with me, I didn't need that, I prayed for things on my own and in due time things would happen, right?
Last week my friend came to my church and I promised I would attend hers this week, and I did this morning.  My daughter and I went not knowing what to expect, except for the things my friend had told us.  It turned out to be a wonderful experience and an even greater message.  I learned that sometimes you just have to cry and let things out to move on in your life.  Her Pastor at The Way World Outreach said ..."You'll never win a race if you keep looking back".  He also said there would always be people in your life trying to deter you from your walk with God.  It's like the service was meant for me, though I'm sure I am not the only one who felt that way.  It's like all the things people had been telling me for so long combined together into this one day.  I walked out of there feeling revived and different.
As I turned down my street my attitude started to diminish and I drove back right under that dark cloud.  The same old routine ensued with arguing and yelling and I found myself crying just as I had last night as I watched "Eat, Pray, Love" and relating to the character Julia Roberts portrayed.  I even went out last night and bought a pizza and drank wine and it helped me feel like I was that movie character.  I was at a point in my life where I started to recently feel stronger but after that movie and church this morning I could finally see some kind of a break in the cloud, but not totally.  Then after all the crazy I decided to go to church tonight.  I went one Sunday before but it wasn't the same.  There was a Christmas play that night with a packed church and a potluck afterwards.  Not tonight.  Tonight the church was more compact and we all sat closer in one section and there were a lot less people.  I felt something different when we walked in and people came and told us where they sat and introduced themselves.  People were loving and welcoming on Sunday mornings but tonight felt like that and magnified.  Someone else besides the Pastor spoke and again I felt like she was speaking to me.  At the end she asked us to come to the altar if we needed prayers answered.  When everyone started going to the front my son just looked at me like he didn't want to be left out so we walked up to the altar and my daughter was even surprised and thought I must be crazy. 
I bowed my head and started to pray and then I felt hands on my shoulders and this familair voice in my ear.  It was Pastor's wife Jessica.  I started talking to her back in August as we exited the church on Sundays and then she signed me up to work in the nursery.  She is always friendly and happy and someone you find yourself wanting to be around.  Tonight as she prayed for me with her hands on my shoulders it was like for the past 18 years she was an invisible presence in my house.  She prayed for things that I didn't know how she would know to pray for and I found tears falling from my eyes uncontrollably.  It was like she was lifting this weight off my life that I needed off of me so that I could move on.  I can't explain it more than that but after she was done we stood there hugging each other as I wiped away my tears. She said things that made me feel like she knew exactly the path I needed to take.  And as I drove onto my street tonight, the cloud didn't seem that big.
It may take me a little bit for me to get to where I need to be but now I know and finally realize I'm not alone and maybe one day the cloud will dissapear.

Hard to Resist

The holiday season is almost over for me.  I say almost because there are still remnants of the holidays in my house even as we speak.  Today is the last day for the life of our Christmas tree standing up and proud in my living room.  Tomorrow is trash day and tonight I will drag it outside and leave it by the bins as if it meant nothing, kind of sad.  Last night I made a pumpkin pie that I had in my freezer and it felt like Thanksgiving all over again, at least the smell did.  And finally, my teenagers are still on their oh so long Christmas break.  When the date first approached for them to be out of school only my son was happy about it and my daughter was sad.  Now it seems like my daughter has joined his bandwagon and is wishing for a miracle of some kind that will prolong their vacation even more-not going to happen.

As for me I am barely getting back into the swing of things and trying to start the New Year right.  I have one big resolution that I am trying to be good at, but so far it is just not happening.  My goal is to lose about 30 pounds this year, hopefully by the summer.  So far it has not been a success.  I started out on a good foot by actually buying fruits and vegetables.  I even actually mixed it up in a salad.  My problem is that I forgot not to just eat those and I added in all my regular junk too…okay, I didn’t forget.  At work we have exercise equipment and I have made it a point to go on each break I have and work out in some way, usually on the treadmill.  It’s something I need to do but I dread to do.  The problem is that along one wall of the workout room is nothing but a mirror.  I can’t help but to glance over once in a while and see my short stubby self trying hard to not be stubby.  Oh well, at least I am making some kind of an effort.

I go places like the mall and I see these pretty girls all dressed up in their cute heels and long hair and I think…”Oh there’s what I want to look like”.  No I don’t mean I want to be their twin, but I want to be cute and have flowing long locks of hair with a perfect figure.  Add to it the fact that usually when I go out to the mall I throw on some jeans, flip flops and a cute t-shirt and call it a day, oh yeah and I can’t forget some hoop earrings.  I once read an article that said even if you go out looking all raggedy some mascara, lip gloss and hoop earrings will make you look fabulous.  I don’t know what that author was smoking that day, because hoop earrings do not work all the time!

I guess I should not be too hard on myself.  Even though I do not weigh less than 100 pounds, I think I am still not entirely a dog either, I think I am cute enough to get by (ok, I think I’m cuter than that!)  My hair may not extend much lower than my shoulders, but at least they are not extensions.  Everything on me is real…except an occasional hair color change! 

So as the first week of January is slowly fading away, so I hope my pounds will be also.  As much as I love the holidays, I can’t deal with all the food from turkey to tamales to sweet baked goods.  Who can resist all that food and what’s the point of trying to resist or begin a diet then, now that’s just crazy!  I will write in the coming months on the progress of my main 2011 resolution and hope it’s all good news…mmm doesn’t pumpkin pie sound good right now?

My Mission Statement

We should take lessons from children because they truly dream with no boundaries.  Do you remember being a child and proclaiming what you were going to be when you grew up?  Nothing seemed impossible and there were no obstacles to get in our way, at least none that we as children ever knew of.  Astronauts, Doctors, Teachers-the possibilities were endless.

As we grew up though, those obstacles became more visible and little by little, year by year we somehow manage to put our dreams on hold and settle for something else that works better for us at the moment.  When I was younger I aspired to be a myriad of things from an actress to a teacher.  My mom always told me that I had a special gift in my writing.  I remember how I used to write all the time, whenever I had time.  I wrote plays, stories, poems.  My mom always said that’s what I should be.  I never really thought of it as anything that could take me somewhere because it came so naturally and I loved doing it.  I mean imagine that, having a career you actually like and that comes naturally.  My writing used to clutter my room and my room always had to be in tip top shape or my mom would do it…hmmm sounds familiar with my daughter.  I remember one time cleaning my room and throwing away so much of my writing because it was just writing and lame poetry.  My mom went out to the trash and retrieved my writing and asked why I threw it away and I told her just that, it was just writing.  I am sure she probably kept some of it.

I have held so many jobs that I thought I would grow into and love more than anything, but even still I can hear my childhood voice dreaming of what I will be when I grow up, because I don’t think I really have.  Oh of course I am older, have kids and have a job I am grateful for, but I am still trying to find my niche in life and where exactly I fit into it.  Perhaps my mama was right , maybe I should be a writer since it is one of those things from my childhood that I always seem to go back to and fall in love with every time.  Slowly but surely I am getting there and this blog has opened up my eyes to the all the possibilities of what a childhood dream can lead to. 

Perhaps one day I will be an accomplished writer and I will send you all copies of my book about the crazy in my life.  Maybe someone will be so interested in my crazy that they will turn it into a cable series where I can compare myself to the likes of Carrie Bradshaw except with a twist that includes kids and more crazy than she ever experienced with Mr. Big.

Yes, I am still wondering what I will be when I am all grown up and I am sure I am not the only one out there in the same boat.  I want to be able to dream like children and live life without boundaries.   That’s the kind of mission statement I want to live by this year.

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

Every day we make more decisions than we can keep track of on both hands.  From the decision to get up out of bed to what time we will get back into bed later that same day.  We make decisions without even thinking about it.  Today at church our Pastor talked about decisions and making 2011 our year.  He said that every decision that we make affects people in our lives either in a good or bad way, but we need to make the decisions no matter what that are best for us.  He also reminded us that every decision that we will ever make has already been planned for us by God.  That is amazing to me that my future is planned out even though I do not even know what my future holds and I fret about it every day.  I wish that I could ask him to let me peek into my future so I would at least have a clue of which paths to take.

Every year I go into January 1st with fresh thoughts of the changes I will make in my life that will better my life and those around me.  Every year, it seems as if nothing changes and I am kept in this whirlpool effect of a rut that is me and my life.  I tell myself that this is how things are meant to be or it wouldn't be this way.  The thing I am missing is that I am waiting for answers to fall into my lap without doing anything to make things happen.  This is something I vow to change this year.

For so long I have wanted to write and last year I created this blog.  While my followers may not be the thousands I long for one day, it gives me great joy to hear my friends and family tell me how much they enjoy my blog and that fills me with happiness.  This is a change I made last year that was for the better and I long for so much more of that in 2011.

Those closest to me know of a decision that I need to make and one day want to make, at least that's what I tell myself.  Yet every year as mentioned before I am swimming in my whirlpool somewhere in the middle of staying in my rut and jumping out of it.  I think I make progress each year, but the need to fully escape this whirlpool is a decision that rules my mind...and to think that God already knows my decision makes me wonder just what to do.

I do want 2011 to be my year, THE year, but the decisions I make this year will be my blueprint for the future and that seems complicated, but I know I can do it or get closer to my goal.  After all, God has already given me everything I need to get there and I have faith.

So as you wake up in the morning think about all your decisions and where they will lead you in 2011.  I know I will.