Happy New Year!

Have a Happy and Safe New Year!

December Sunrise

 

I snapped this picture quickly with my phone while in Connecticut the other day. It was 6:19am and the sky was a beautiful red along the eastern horizon.

 

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Where is your walk?

Recently I have been thinking about where my walk is leading. You know, my walk in life, where is it headed? I am not going to get into any details here, instead I am going to throw out a bunch of questions based on my own thoughts and my own observations. People near me, people whom I have interacted with and around, family members, friends, and more have impacted this thought process recently. Some of these words I write today have been swirling in my mind for weeks, some will hit me as I get through this.

So, where are you headed? Do you know? Do you care? Do you have a plan? Are you going in circles because your focus is on someone or something that is as unstable as you are? Is it someone else’s fault, because you don’t want to own the decisions you make everyday? Do you even think about such things?

Are you walking towards God? Are you walking away, or are you hiding along the way? Are you walking towards God after being gone for some amount of time? Are you ready to face the responsibilities that an errant walk from God will ultimately reveal? Can you walk and talk at the same time? Would you consider including God in the conversation if you haven’t already?

Are you walking with your spouse? Are you nervously slinking around in the shadows, peeking in the windows (so to speak) to see what your spouse is up to because priorities, or communications, or both, are way out of whack? What do you want in a relationship with your spouse? What have you done to get it? Do you have more to give? What are you waiting for? Isn’t it the most important relationship you could ever have with another mortal? Are you walking hand in hand with your spouse because you’ve put God, each other, and the desire to love in their proper places?

Are you in harmony with yourself? Do you look in the mirror and like what you see? Can you look yourself in the eye and talk honestly with yourself? Do you lie to yourself? Did you decide to be happy today? Did you know you could? Do you stretch truths in conversations with others, and tell yourself the truth? Do you want to improve on that? Do you have faith in yourself? Do you believe in anything bigger than yourself?

How are you with your family? Have you made a list of the people you want around you when your days are coming to an end? If you haven’t, will you? Do you know when it’s all going to end? Do you care if it all ends tomorrow? Would you walk in a different direction if it was going to be the end of your days within the next year? Are you walking towards your family? With your family? Away from your family? Did your family make it onto the list of people you were making? Who else would you want with you at the end? Are you close to them now? What will you do to make sure those people are close to you before you’re close to the end? Did you know that the clock is already ticking? Really?

I ask myself these things and thousands more. I don’t always like my answers. I don’t always like my direction. I work at it. I pray about it. I ask others whom are far wiser than myself for advice, I ask for guidance, I ask them if they’ll share their experiences with me so that I may learn. I observe, while trying to be much better at both listening and observing. I walk too. Where is your walk?

God’s Plan – A Tribute to Marjorie Leech (Peterson)

It would be Marjorie’s Birthday today. Remembering her, but looking forward to our next meeting.

1inawesomewonder

Somewhere around the world today there was another selfless soul born, of that I am pretty sure. And even with all the newborns today, there’ll never another Marjorie be.

I ended the phone call with …”my thoughts and prayers are with all of you.” As I promised I would, I dialed the number to my parents house and waited for Mom to answer. Usually, it’s been her making those dreaded calls to me, but tonight I had a message to pass on and an inkling that she already knew what I had just confirmed. She answered the phone and both of us seemed a bit scared to say the first words, knowing why each of us was on the line. I passed on the message I had promised to share and we talked about what we feared to be the case. Our dear, sweet Marjorie had passed, no more than an hour…

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Dad, Turn Up The Heat

I wondered from the other room, why was the TV turned up so loud. I walked into the family room and this is what I saw…

Jacqueline watching a show with her new ear muffs on.

Maybe I just need to turn up the heat.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

My Favorite Day of the Year

Honestly, my birthday, December 23rd, is my favorite day of the year, besides Christmas Day. Mostly the reason is not about me, but about celebrating my birthday with family and friends while everyone is so excited about Christmas. This year we celebrated my birthday, and our immediate family Christmas on December 23rd, at our house, with my wife and all six kids (some are adults now). Loved it!