How to Change Who we are?

I have this vicious cycle I am on.  I feel guilt for many things and in return I cause guilt by complaining when people don't meet my expectations.  Example...I feel guilty because I am not working and my husband is working ALOT!  I have pain, but it comes and goes, so I have good and bad days. On my good days, I think I should be working. Sometimes I have a good day turn into a bad day because I do too much.  I want to feel productive and like I'm contributing to society, but I don't feel I am.  So I feel guilty.  Then I feel angry at people, mainly my husband, when he doesn't recognize my pain.  Example...I stand at the stove and cook, my knees aching and stabbing pain in my neck but I won't stop and lie down.  I wait and expect my husband to see the pain I'm in and sympathize, offer to take over.  I do this with other's too but mostly I leave my highest expectations for my husband.  He is a great guy and always my biggest supporter.  I usually voice my complaints.  I just think I've voiced them so much that people have stopped hearing them.  Why should I complain when others have it so much worse.  There is that guilt again.   How to change who we are?  That's a tough one!

What Really Matters.

I've put my housework on hold 'cause I feel the need to write something on my mind. I was feeling sorry for myself 'cause things I'd like to do and see happen aren't happening for me now. Then God brought to mind those post's on Facebook that I'd read earlier of people who are struggling with sickness in their lives and families lives.
So what does really matter?
I went through about two years of depression. It wasn't the worse depression. It was a nagging feeling that I didn't want to live life. It started I believe with a post traumatic event. After I watched my mother-in-law die of cancer. She so wanted to live. She kept believing she would. When she passed I kind of gave up hope of miracles. Then I experienced my own personal problems, with nerve pain and menopause. Then came the death of our beloved dog, my mom and brother-in-law. My mother's death even though anticipated and even longed for (because of her deteriorating condition) made me feel worried about my own future. Would I have Alzheimer's? Getting old was something I did not want to do!
For almost a month now I've felt better about life. I've started on a road to recovery, I hope. But most importantly I've learned that life is what you make it, to be cliche. You can either take the good times and really enjoy them or you can worry about the future. When you are down, you can hope for better days. That is all we have...hope.
If the petty things in life have taken over your thought process just read your homepage on facebook and you'll almost always find someone struggling. When it's you, share and other's will care. When it's not you, pray and lift other's up.
Thanks be to God that I don't have to be in control of my future. It's His and I just have to do the best with each moment He gives me.
My troubles are not over, I'm sure. I'll have plenty of bad days, feeling sorry for myself. But I thank God that Today... my family is healthy, my faith is intact, and I have people to care about and vice versa!

Giving

Somehow, not only for Christmas
But all the long year through
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.
And the more you spend in blessing
THE POOR AND LONELY AND SAD,
The more of you heart's possessing
Returns to you glad.

-John Greenleaf Whittier

I am overwhelmed by the gifts I hear people are buying at Christmas. I feel obligated to keep up with the Jones'. I worry that Erik will return to school and upon comparing Christmas gifts with the other kids he will feel shorted. But I refuse to give into this material pressure. It is not the gifts that will make him happy. But the time spent with his family. As I watched him pogo around the cabin we rented for Roger's birthday or as he and Roger play the video game Erik bought him we are creating a memory that the toy itself cannot compare with. Toys, and things get discarded, we get bored with them. If we could just give a little more to the poor, lonely and sad and a little less to ourselves I believed we'd receive more joy. I have a family that is blessed with all their needs and then some. I know there are so many without. There are so many I wish I could just share with. Still I cannot fix the world's problems: the hunger, the abuse, the sad, the lonely, or even global warming. But I can try and make a difference in small ways. In the end it is God who is in control and no matter how much man tries to fix things we can't. We all play just a small part in this great big world.

Luke 14:12 Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

It is fun to give to our loved ones, especially little children whose faces light up when they open a present. It is great to show our love through thoughtful gifts. I enjoy preparing a special meal for friends and family. I think there is so much pressure sometimes with the buying, the preparing, and it is harder and harder to find the perfect gift. I think the perfect gift I could get from my children would be a letter each year from each of them that tells me of the happy memories from that year, or what they appreciate and are thankful for. I wish I'd thought of it sooner so I could of started sending one to my mom each year. Only a mom could appreciate a gift like that. Or maybe we all could???

Getting off my soapbox

Can you still love others and disagree with them? YES! I just need to be more compassionate and look beyond the surface. When I don't agree with someone, I need to know that I am often wrong too. I am not the perfect parent, the perfect christian, the perfect partner, the perfect family member, or the perfect friend. Life is about relationship. We need to learn to share our needs with each other, not judge and pray for one another. It is easy to see the speck in our neighbor's eye and ignore the beam in our own. Luke 6:41

Putting Our Backs to the Past

"We must remember that we're each in process. We each have the messy, the mundane, and the delightful in our lives to a greater or lesser degree at one time or another. The most destructive thing we can do is envy others their triunph, rejoice in their messiness, or become discouraged by our own in relation to others'."- Sarah Zacharias Davis from "Confessions from an Honest Wife"

I read this and it seemed relavent to what I just wrote in The Day to Day to Day to Day STUFF.

Today in church Pastor Jim (a visiting pastor) talked about "Embracing the journey to fulfill your destiny" and "Moving foward living with our backs to the past." I've known people that say they have no regrets in life. Usually they say this because every decision we make, makes us who we are. I do regret decisions I've made. But I hope I've also learned from them. I know somethings that seemed so hard at the time have changed my life is such a remarkable way. I've asked God many times "Why?" Sometimes we never see the reason. Sometimes we just see that God will open another door. The world teaches us not to forgive. It teaches us to not get mad to get even. Sometimes we let our old hurts keep us from moving forward. As a demostration the congregations all got balloons and blew them up. Thinking of someone that had hurt us, a parent, a friend, a sibling, etc...Then we all let go of the balloon and let the hurt go. It was neat seeing all the balloons fluttering around releasing air, releasing peoples hurts. Most people have hurts. As Pastor Jim said some people may not even know they've hurt you. I can think of many instances where I've had to let things go. Sometimes it's taken years. It is hard, but we are freer if we can live with our backs to the past.