Happy New Year!!

Today I start my first Pfysical New Year. I had the revelation back in April and in case you wondered, these things I write really come from my heart and impact my life! I haven’t forgotten about the new word I made up nor the intentions behind.

I spent the first part of June just trying to recover from the pandemic, the school year, the trials of the last year, in a cocoon of sort, it was much needed respite. Then I emerged determined to be a new creation rather than the tired old slug that drug herself into that cocoon. Determined that even in this late season of my life – I can still fly. We actually make the decision to fly or die everyday, somedays the choice is more clear than others.

Reflecting on Half A of 2021: Even though this was Half A of the year, I would certainly not rate it an A. We faced some terrible, awful, horrible, bad things, like continuation of cancellations, quarantines and restrictions from stinking COVID, five days below zero with no electricity, no heat, no school, the abrupt tragic end to Ryan’s career dreams, the passing of what should have been our 35th Wedding Anniversary (which is still way more BITTER than sweet) and certainly last but not least Grandma Nina fell and broke her hip in June. BUT Paxton graduated with his Cyber Security degree in April, we got to finish out the school year, in-person, Ryan got engaged in May (then actually married on June 1st at the courthouse, but they are still planning a wedding for next year!), I got to witness their first vows, I got to go with my new daughter to select a wedding dress. I’m so grateful for these crazy kids in my life that took over the month of June with love and new and madness when I would have wanted to just focus on what was lost! I restarted in-person GriefShare and have the sweetest group of people in my summer class, I’ve returned to in-person church with my dear old lady friends (ironically it’s the oldest of our group is the only one who doesn’t embrace our “old lady” moniker, one even likes to refer to us as hell’s grannies, but how do we have hell’s grannie’s Bible study?!?!) and have had lots of lunch dates with sweet friends since schools been out.

Reflecting on June 2021: My scripture theme for June was Friendship. It’s funny how you’d think by the time you’ve been on the planet almost 59 years you’d surely know all there is to know about friendship. I struggle with social media. We have a strong love/hate relationship. I guess it comes from my own struggle to put myself out there so I am therefore uncomfortable with others putting themselves out there. I struggle with this “friending” concept. How do you decide to “friend” someone or “unfriend” accept a “friend request” or ignore it? Am I defined by how many friends I have? Just because our paths crossed briefly should we forever voyeuristically “follow” each other?

I learned from scripture writing that it is a misconception that we get to choose our friends. Scripture tells me that I am to love others, sacrificially even, not just those that are easy to love, that love me back, or I feel deserve love. My take-aways were: we need each other, we need to let things go, we need to build each other up, we need to pray for each other, we need to be kind to others, we don’t need words, we shouldn’t take our friends for granted, we are called to love, Love, LOve, LOVe, LOVE, everything we do for others is for His glory, really everyone should be treated as my friend and who I choose to walk with really matters! I became aware that I have a very selfish view of friendship. I thought I get to pick my friends and it’s okay if that group is really small. But I need to develop a broader since of friendship that is much more like kinship which is a sharing of characteristics or origins. I need to be more friendly, I need to be more open to the friendship of others, I need to quit over thinking motives and motivations and just love and accept others. I need to just focus on all the times I commanded to love others and let the rest of it go. Not be a door mat, which I won’t be because I’m loving others for the glory of God not selfish gain.

Looking forward to Half B of 2021: My pfysical resolution is to focus more on the SWEET than the bitter. I know life will be bittersweet, but I get to choose what I focus on. I can let the bitter make the sweet so much more enjoyable and by focusing on loving others and building others up, I’m choosing to spend more time in the sweet! I want to walk more steps, say yes to more opportunities and overall just focus outward more! I get to witness the relationship of my son and daughter-in-law (that is still so weird to say!) grow. I get to see them both launch new careers, a new life and see them dream big and love large. I’ll, hopefully, get to see another son take off in the world and do great things. I get to plan a wedding! I get to be mother of the bride AND the groom because they have no other. I’ve got a front row seat to a wonderful show!

The thing about it is … I know that my hang ups are my sinful nature. I know that I’m not taking my sinful nature to heaven. If all God saw was our sinful nature, none of us would get in, because none of us are worthy. So why do I let my sinful nature rule me now. I am called to love period. I’ve been ruled too long by my sinful nature, I’ve lived my life to this point too small. I know that much of that is because living large opens me up to pain and heartache, but I’m learning that the pain and heartache are wholly unavoidable so I now want to experience my pain and heartache knowing that I’ve loved others, without defining a relationship, to the best of my ability.