Progress...

So I'm starting to get the ball rolling and things are going slow but they're going... about a week ago I felt a little tug on my heart about how I spend the time that is given me everyday... 24 hours isn't a lot but since September I've come to understand more fully that there will come a day when I don't have 24 hours left. So wisdom must be applied to time... and of course change is needed.

First thing to change was the amount of my time spent with Christ daily, to be honest it has come to down to slim-none for a couple of months and my attitude shows it. I've found myself being outwardly snarky, and I hate that. Since prevention is the best medicine I've decided to follow the advice of Joyce Meyer and stay alone with the Lord until I feel like I can go out and act like a decent human being, which is apparently about 3 hours and means getting up much earlier than normal besides.

Things are changing in my heart already and it's refreshing... kinda like the cool side of the pillow on a hot night.

May this continue and I pray that the nearer I get to the heart of God the deeper in love with Him I'll find myself. More change is yet to come for sure and Christ will give me the grace to go one step at a time.

Like water for the soul...

Music. It's great eh? Last night I laid awake for hours listening to Micheal W. Smith on my new Mp3 player... he has this song titled "Healing Rain" it's very refreshing to listen to him sing about God's love and Amazing grace and all of the beauty that comes through the pain of life... I've been in a bit of a funk this week. Re-evaluating a lot of things in life and looking closer at my priorities, but listening to the right songs at the right time is like taking a good shower, everything is fresh and full of life and hope.

Staying put while moving forward...

Sometimes I get extremely restless, during my restless periods I start looking at apartments in Alsaka and wondering how much it would cost if I wanted to move to New Zealand... the phase usually doesn't last very long and I usually get in these moods when it's raining or when I'm sick or bored with my life. For some reason I always lean towards major change, as if moving to Alaska would fix all the problems in my life and I could be really happy if only there were a moose in my front yard and everyone ended sentences with "Eh?"

I'm starting to understand that sudden major change isn't something that we as humans can handle easily or should be exposed to often, even if we want it. I'm starting to wonder why we want everything to change at once, maybe it's to get everything fixed in one swoop and avoid the painful process of self anylization and slow changes by making better choices day by day. Sometimes I guess that we all want the grass that is greener.

So often I look at my life and think "if only"...

If only I would have gone to college right after high school
If only I would have called him back
If only I would have stayed away from that crowd
If only I would have payed that bill on time
If only I would have gotten my oil changed sooner
If only I would have said I love you
If only I could lose that weight
If only I had the money
If only I hadn't lost my job

The If only's are everywhere and we all have them, they're a constant reminder in the back of our minds that life isn't what it could be if only.....

My current if only's are making me feel very restless, but my current circumstances aren't providing me with any way to make a sudden change and turn it all around at once. I have to stay in my one bedroom apartment, I have to keep sending out resumes and taking calls and interviews for jobs I don't really want, I have to pay as much as I can on those bills and I have to hope that things will get better soon.

For now and probably for a while I'll be going through that painful process of making better choices everyday and analyzing why I'm here and how I got here. So for now, all of those if only's don't matter.

Moving forward, finding room to breath.

So I'm restarting this blog and am restarting at the same time as I'm beginning a change in my lifestyle, simplifying. Everyone's doing it, and those who aren't want to. Now it's my turn. I spend so much time being unhappy with where I'm living and the way that my apartment gets so cluttered so fast with junk mail and flyers and you name it, so it's time for a change and I'm going to start today.

A few weeks ago I started recycling and now my bins are full, already a 20 gallon trash can full of junkmail, it's insane REALLY. Last week I bought several canvas shopping bags to prevent plastic bag overflow and I made a bag holder out of some old fabric and ribbon I had laying around. Now it's time to go through every corner of my place and get rid of things that I no longer want or need and do some craigslist posting to get some of it moved out.

I plan to document my progress toward enjoying my life just the way my Father in Heaven intended, it will be a long journey so join me won't you?