Looking Forward and Looking Back

Reflections...  Lake Alice, September 20, 2016 Joshua Day!

LOOKING FORWARD:

Today I started the day with a lot of reflection.  I shared with you in my last post about Visions, Goals and Plans.  I am great at making them.  I can make lists like nobody's business.  I can check things off and sustain goals.  But I am NO juggler.  At least in the past I haven't been and sustaining more than one plan, or goal, or vision at a time often derails me.  That is why this year the word BALANCE is so important to me.  I desire to keep a few balls in the air metaphorically.  We are three weeks into the new year. This is the point most people GIVE UP!  The gyms start to go back to their regular and consistent clientele.  Diets go out the window.  Life falls.  We fail.  We beat ourselves up.  We often gain ten more pounds.  I have been there.  I have done that.  I am looking to change that cycle.  

Over the past several months I had set up for myself a pretty consistent habit of scripture study and prayer.  Whether you read self help books, are furthering your education, study the scriptures yourself, or are learning more to improve your job skills...its all applicable.  The holidays derailed me.  Why is it that it takes a rather extensive amount of time to establish a habit, but only a couple days to obliterate it?  That is a question I don't have an answer for.  But some of my conversations this week, including communications with my sister Heather and Beckie have made me realize new beginnings are what life is about.  We are here to renew, restore, revive, relive, redo, and one day (I believe) be resurrected.  Lots of R words going on.  I believe that we are offered NEW BEGINNINGS.  I personally believe that through Christ we can be restored over and over again.  

My ALL or Nothing programming has been a fatal trap most of my life.  A perfect example was at 16 when I got in trouble for a B (my 5 other grades were A's).  What?  YEP!  All or nothing even plays into food, ever praised your child for finishing all their food, or scolded them for not doing so?  I have big food issues (topic for another day).  But I am constantly learning, and I can see things I didn't see and grow.  Grow as a spouse, parent, sister, aunt, friend.  I am clearly starting to see that my ALL or NOTHING belief system was a false system, that didn't work, and didn't serve me, my family, or any other people I love.  

I can Rise.  Try.  Try again.  This week I have learned that TRUE SUCCESS comes from picking up the gauntlet and running.  Don't stop.  You don't have to be the fastest, or have the best technique.  All you have to do is work to improve your OWN TIME!  Beat your own Best Record. It doesn't matter if you fell down and have been down a day, a month, years...  losing a battle, or even battles does not mean one has LOST the WAR.  RISE UP!  Be whom you Desire to be.  DO what you are meant to do.  Don't stop.  Pray for courage.  ACT.  DO.  Active verbs keep our lives in motion, LOVE, GIVE, READ, SERVE, WRITE, LEARN, INSPIRE, TRY, TRY AGAIN.  DO SOMETHING.  Do anything.  You can do this.  You can pick up your foot and put it forward.  Stop setting up unrealistic and impossible scales.  How does one eat an elephant?  Our mother taught us ONE BITE AT AT TIME.

Now, I also believe that an occasional glance back to measure your progress is powerful.  Just don't live while looking in the rearview mirror.  It's an awful way to drive forward and live forward.  With that said though, pensively considering the past can propel us forward.  So I am including a post from my personal blog that I wrote exactly 6 years ago, titled Looking back.  Maybe it will resonate with you, like it did with me today.  You have totally got this!!!

Love and Light, Christine

Looking back... (January 21, 2012)

Tonight I went to a semi-annual conference that I attend nearly every January and June.  It was wonderful and motivational.  But more than anything it got me thinking.  I thought about who I am and who I want to be.  I thought about where I have been and where I still want to go...metaphorically and physically.  Hawaii is STILL on the list, another trip to Ireland would be lovely, and Alaska with my sweetheart would fill a dream.  But beyond that...where am I headed, where have I been.  Have I done my best, can I give a little more?

Having buried two parents when I was just 35, and 38 (just months ago)...I wonder if I am unusal in my thought process.  For I think often about my funeral some day.  I wonder if the chapel will be full or empty.  I wonder what will be said about my life and if I will be worthy of the praise that often follows death.  Have you ever noticed how sometimes even the meanest of temperments are elevated to saintly status upon death.  Frankly, I want no false accolates.  And in order to live worthy of praise, love, and support...while examining myself tonight I realized there are some things I could do better.  We are all our worst critics I suppose.  While it may appear so, I have NO desire to self depricate.  I merely suggest that I could do a little more, be a little better, be a little kinder, be a little more grateful, a little more patient, a little more loving, a little more forgiving.  Not all at once, but if I work on it, a little at a time, I will get better and better.  Looking back, I clearly see my flaws and imperfections.  Sometimes they haunt me like threatening skeletons pounding on the inner door of my closet.  But I refuse to let them control me.  I have come a long way!  And though the road has not been completely traveled, and the journey is not over, I am pleased with the progress.  Gratitude though has poured over me tonight, with the recognition that I still have what my parents no longer do in this life...Time to get even better, to do even more good, to reach out, to lift, to help, to support, to strengthen, to love.

The most important thing in life is not where we have been.  Though that It is substantial.  The past does shape us.  But it does not irrevocably define us.  The MOST important thing IS the direction in which we are headed!  That will be a great determining factor in where we ultimately end up!  So square your shoulders, chin up...you are fabulous, you have control of your direction.  You have totally got this!