Waste is only waste if we waste it

 The lessons God teaches me in the grand curriculum of my life sometimes really crack me up.  You know from past blogs that I've been a little grumpy lately. I've been struggling with gratitude. Struggling with my empty nest. Currently struggling with my displacement since my house flooded. The trials keep coming in droves!  

I've been working on preaching to myself, counseling myself with techniques I have been taught to use on others. Pulling myself out of the mire using gratitude techniques and mindfully being thankful for everything God has given me.  It's not always easy.  I'm a visual person and God knows I sometimes need visual lessons to help me grasp a point. 

I went to visit my mom and dad this week and my dad was showing me some videos that he likes to watch on YouTube.  He & mom kept telling me about a guy they watch who gathers scrap metal. (They think it's fascinating all the things they can find on YouTube that people get paid to video!)  I thought to myself, "Well, this sounds like a lame thing to watch."  But after the first episode, God made it evident that this was my gratitude lesson for the day.  I'm going to attach his video below so you, too,  can view the lesson.  :) 

I watched this man drive through neighborhoods so early in the morning going through people's garbage looking for scrap metal and vacuum cords filled with copper wiring. He then drives to the scrap yard to turn in his haul and get paid for the poundage of metal he brings in.  As he drives around looking for trash, he is so joyful and talks not only to his camera audience, but talks to God.  He thanks God for bigger things he finds. He thanks God for the measly $20 he might make in a day, and he is overjoyed by God's goodness to him when he gets a more lucrative haul.  At the end of his videos, he thanks God for the beautiful sunshine, for his energy to work that day, for his truck to scrap in...literally everything!  

His joy comes from his thankful heart. "A joyful heart is good medicine." Proverbs 17:22

If the Scrap and Pallet Man can be joyful and thankful digging through trash for his provisions, then I can be thankful for all the things God has given me.  I can take what sometimes feels like trash in my life and be thankful for it.  I will now start looking for value in what seems useless in my life; what seems like waste. 

What a fun lesson in gratitude. 

Here's the link if it doesn't pop up on your phone. Here's the link

2020...the best?

Wow.  My last blog post was September 2019.  I had fully planned on blogging during numerous events last year and I knew a lot of it would make amazing blog fodder. ;) Then, 2020...

I could literally stop this story right there, because anyone can just say "2020", and everyone nods their head in agreement because we all understand the pain.  I didn't blog most of 2020 because I was so busy with Evan's senior year as well as working on our homeschool association's yearbook and loving every second of it.  I had been praying in 2020 for God to give me wonderful, quality time with my children knowing when we all moved to Oklahoma that I would enter an empty nest.  Alex would be moving to the next town over to work and start school.  Evan would be returning to North Carolina for college. I was spending lots of time with God to help me mentally prepare for what I knew (or thought I knew) was coming. Then COVID...

The COVID pain, the losses, the disappointments, the shaming, the controversies, the hatred to one another, the discouragement.  There really isn't much positive to say as everything spiraled downhill...not just for us, but for everyone.

Well, God answered my prayers.  I then had TONS of time with my kids as their schooling became online and as their jobs ceased. We were all home together non-stop from March until we moved to Oklahoma in June to join Michael who had already moved there for a job.  It hurt our hearts that Michael wasn't with us as COVID nearly killed him mentally since he's an extrovert who was quarantined away from people for months on end. But we finally all arrived stressed to the max to Oklahoma after a long, arduous drive cross country in June. Anything that could go wrong, did go wrong, so we were thankful that God delivered us here safe and sound.  

We started the process of making Oklahoma our new home. We moved into a house.  Alex found a nice home to rent about 45 minutes from us and began working.  Evan came back to NC to start college at University of North Carolina at Greensboro.  I stayed busy to not notice their absence in my life. At semester's end, we enjoyed a fabulous Thanksgiving and Christmas with all the family and enjoyed our time being all together again.  I didn't realize the depth of the joy I was missing until all the pieces were put back together. 

I had been working hard to overcome the empty nest grief. No one ever told me how painful that void is.  So, if you are reading this...prepare yourself.  Prepare to feel your purpose being ripped from your arms. Prepare to feel a deep sense of loss of all the fun times your family had. Mostly, prepare to feel a loss of a presence that brings you comfort. The holidays brought all the joy back, but when everyone went their separate ways again, the grief  returned.  Then our house flooded...

2021 was suppose to be better than 2020...at least I had hoped.  January 3rd a pipe burst in our house flooding the entire house.  As I write this, I am sitting in a furnished home we are renting a month after this event, waiting for our house to be put back together.  God has had a lot of time to work in my spirit about all the things that have been happening to me. I feel like Mary in Luke 2:19 "but Mary kept all these things in her heart and pondered them often."

My joy was found in my family.  My peace was found in my home and my belongings; ah my king size bed!  My comfort was the most important thing to me. About as important as an idol to worship.  Don't mess with my comfort.  Don't mess with the things that make me happy.  Momma doesn't deal well when you take things from her. Then, God...

Trials are a way for God to redirect our thoughts.  Change our perspective, if you will.  God had not "taken" anything from me...He simply repurposed things. I read something during this trial period  that said "fill your vision with Him so that you know Him." Nothing fills your vision with Christ any better than trials.  I love my family, but my joy HAS to be found in the immutable Christ who is never changing. My peace can only be given from God and is not found in things of this world. The comfort I so crave is a gift from the Holy Spirit, the Great Comforter, who sees my grief and holds my tears in a bottle (Psalm 56:8). My family, my peace, my comfort are all good things...but Jesus is better.  2020 sucked, but Jesus is better. 2021 needs to step up it's game for me, but still yet, Jesus is better. It's something I'm going through at present. Learning that He is better.  The best. 

And who doesn't want the best?