Blessings Come in Different Places

Due to some rough life stuff,  I’ve been in kind of a spiritual desert 🌵 lately. Things have just been dry and HARD. Not fit for growing much. Or maybe it has been all for growth and I just didn’t do very well. But I digress.

We left the desert (literal) for a new job. A job that never came through. So, after two months of being in a climate that should have been ripe for much growth, we are back.

And if you just look around you see a lot of dry, brown, dirt, a few sad cactuses, dirt....and sometimes a dust storm comes along to make it really make it pretty. (Ok, I'm exaggerating but you get the point)

(The best picture I had of the ugly landscape around here-even though this picture shows some of my biggest, most obvious blessings 😉)Blessings

And then there are the sunsets. Oh. My. GOODNESS. So, tonight, it hit me. God blesses different places and lives in different ways.

Maybe I was looking down at the ground for my blessings. Maybe I was looking for trees and grass when my blessings, my sign of His goodness are in the sky.


I’m not as well traveled as some people for sure. But I’m not untraveled either. And West Texas has some of the most glorious, beautiful sunsets of any I’ve seen.

G’bye 2018

                                         

So, normally I’m not a “wishing time away” kind of girl. (And clearly I’m borrowing time back if I call myself a “girl”).

But 2018 can just suck it. I’ll show it the door-and I don’t care if it hits it on the way out. 2018 has been a rough year for this family. 

The pendulum has swung from highs to lows. Hubby working so many hours that our family life suffered tremendously (cancelled plans when he was required to work on a weekend he was supposed to have off) for most of the year, followed by 2 months (so far) of unplanned, unpaid “vacation”. 

The only way we could get through the working-so-many-hours-you want-to-die part was reassuring ourselves that we were saving for a house! (Yay! Getting out of the camper!!). But when the next job doesn’t start when you were told it would, and things keep going wrong....the dreams of that house get flushed down the toilet quickly. And it’s ever so hard to pull yourself up out of the pit of hopelessness.  

I’ve always loved New Year’s. I stink at resolutions and I’m not a partier so I’m not really sure why. There’s just something about the fresh calendar and even the fresh bill folder. Empty file folders and a new number to write with the date. (Kinda like the first day of school and new books and supplies-if you’re not a nerd I may not be speaking your language.)

2019 needs to see some surrender I think. I need to surrender to whatever it is that God has for us. His plan certainly doesn’t look anything like mine. And fighting it doesn’t seem to be getting me anywhere. I’m just tired. It’s kind of like dog paddling. You look really busy and you’re breathing really hard but you’re just going almost nowhere. 

I’m not saying I’ve “arrived”. And that there won’t be some kicking and screaming worthy of a spoiled, rotten three year old. But I’m going to work on this thing. Not as a resolution. We all know those usually hit the toilet around mid-January. 

“God has not promised us skies always blue, flower strewn pathways all our lives through...”

I get it.