I have encountered many "I didn't plan this" moments this week and I am proud to say that I stayed calm and positive throughout everyone of them. Well, almost all of them. When I was working on the large print bulletin it kept going crazy on me and I couldn't fix it. I did share some momentary tears, but quickly pulled myself together, took a deep breath, said a prayer and started over. Well, God came to my rescue, like He has always promised. My boss came out and saw the frustration in my eyes and face, I am sure, and told me to 86 the large print bulletin for this week. He said lets see if anyone complains or asks about not having it and then go from there. I said thank you and deleted the stinkin thing.
I started the newsletter today and so far it has been a successful project. I am NOT doing it in Wordperfect, rather in Publisher. I know Microsoft products and know the formatting in it. Wordperfect deals with codes and key strokes and all that crazy mess. You hit enter and the everything below it is all messed up. After yesterday the bulletin will be moved to publisher quicker than I had orginally planned. Wordperfect is just more stress than it is worth and it is completely unecessary when there is a program that will do just as well if not better!!!!
I haven't had a chance to read much of Karol Ladd's book, Thrive don't simply Survive, but am ready to have some free time so I can. I definitely feel like I am just surviving right now. I am so tired and barely have enough energy to make it through a day at work. When I get home it takes almost more energy than I have left to eat.
Just had an "aha" moment. A few weeks ago, the guy I was dating decided he just wanted to go back to being friends. I was upset for that day, but not so much about the relationship with him ending, but more about the fact that it was another step backwards in my love life. Well, God knew what He was doing, as He always does. I haven't had time to even think about dating someone in the last few weeks.
Could where my life is right now, career wise, be the reason that I am still single? It is a strong possibility. I mean, God knew this day would come where I was handling an office by myself and in charge of everything. God knew that I would take way too much on and not ask for help. God knew that I would feel the need to bring work home in order to get it all done, instead of asking for help. God knew all of this and it has all come at a time when I am single and don't have many other obligations. I am free to take this on and make it my own. Hmmmmm It's interesting what you figure out when you sit still and just be with God and when you listen to that little voice in your head. Yes it also could be that the man He created for me isn't quit ready for me. Only God knows and I am going to worship and praise Him while I wait.
Thursday, May 13, 2010
Monday, May 10, 2010
Great News!!!
Today was my annual check-up with Dr. Watkins, my Oncologist. The report was great!! Cancer is still in remission, November 1 will mark 16 years that the cancer has been in remission!!!
Today was a good day. I was able to get the deposit done and made as well as the attendance completed (today was my first day to do that) and I did it without any problems. I was unusually calm today and when the phones started ringing and people were coming in I did get irritated like I normally do because of the interruption. I was actally able to go right back to what I was doing and I rarely am able to do that.
I did not stay in constant prayer/communication with God today as I hoped I would, but I guess there weren't any decisions to be made or anything that caused me to react negatively. I feel that making the effort to stay positive and choose to take things minute by minute, duty by duty, that it relieves alot of the stress and anxiety with all the new duties. I am only one person and I can only do one thing at a time.
Not a lot of exciting things happened today. Hope everyone is having a great start to their week.
God Bless,
Feather
Today was a good day. I was able to get the deposit done and made as well as the attendance completed (today was my first day to do that) and I did it without any problems. I was unusually calm today and when the phones started ringing and people were coming in I did get irritated like I normally do because of the interruption. I was actally able to go right back to what I was doing and I rarely am able to do that.
I did not stay in constant prayer/communication with God today as I hoped I would, but I guess there weren't any decisions to be made or anything that caused me to react negatively. I feel that making the effort to stay positive and choose to take things minute by minute, duty by duty, that it relieves alot of the stress and anxiety with all the new duties. I am only one person and I can only do one thing at a time.
Not a lot of exciting things happened today. Hope everyone is having a great start to their week.
God Bless,
Feather
Sunday, May 9, 2010
Mother's Day
Well, today is Mother's Day, so Happy Mother's Day to any mom that reads this. Church was wonderful this morning and it had me in tears again. Two Sundays in a row of tears is a rare thing for me. Went to lunch with my mom, dad, sister and her family and brother and his family. We ate at Texas Roadhouse and it was really yummy. Despite the seating mix-up, I think everyone had a really good lunch. I came home, did the laundry and just relxed and watched some movies. Actually all I did yesterday was watch movie and relax.
Anyways, on to the disappointments of the life I didn't plan. I just pulled myself together from an "out of the blue" melt down. I was looking at mother's day pictures that all of my friends have posted of them with thier husbands and kiddos and I lost it. Don't get me wrong, I am so happy for all of them, but being a wife and a mom is really all I have ever wanted and it hurts so badly to not have that. Most of the time I am completely fine and it doesn't bother me so much, but today it just hit extremely hard. Our Pastor talked about how different things are today. How girls use to desire to be a mom and how now to some it seems to be a burden or they are too busy to have kids. The whole time all I could think is here I sit, full of desire to be a mom and a wife and yet I am as single as they come.
I do know God is working in me continuously to mold me into the Godly woman he created me to be and if this is where he wants/needs me to be to do that, then this is where I will be. I will stay joyous and not let satan steal my joy because my life has yet to turn out how I thought it would.
On a lighter note, tomorrow is Monday and I have a different outlook on how to handle all my old and new duties at work without getting overwhelmed. In Sunday School we are reading through the bible. Right now we are in Nehamiah and what I have noticed as I read is that Ezra and Nehamiah are in constant prayer/communication with God. Therefore, I am going to listen to God's word and make my best attempt to stay in constant prayer/communication with God. I am going to do my best to pray when I start getting frustrated, stressed, overwhelmed, tired and ask for God's help. I KNOW that with God's help I can do this job and do it well. Please say some prayers for me as I face these challenges tomorrow.
God Bless,
Feather
Anyways, on to the disappointments of the life I didn't plan. I just pulled myself together from an "out of the blue" melt down. I was looking at mother's day pictures that all of my friends have posted of them with thier husbands and kiddos and I lost it. Don't get me wrong, I am so happy for all of them, but being a wife and a mom is really all I have ever wanted and it hurts so badly to not have that. Most of the time I am completely fine and it doesn't bother me so much, but today it just hit extremely hard. Our Pastor talked about how different things are today. How girls use to desire to be a mom and how now to some it seems to be a burden or they are too busy to have kids. The whole time all I could think is here I sit, full of desire to be a mom and a wife and yet I am as single as they come.
I do know God is working in me continuously to mold me into the Godly woman he created me to be and if this is where he wants/needs me to be to do that, then this is where I will be. I will stay joyous and not let satan steal my joy because my life has yet to turn out how I thought it would.
On a lighter note, tomorrow is Monday and I have a different outlook on how to handle all my old and new duties at work without getting overwhelmed. In Sunday School we are reading through the bible. Right now we are in Nehamiah and what I have noticed as I read is that Ezra and Nehamiah are in constant prayer/communication with God. Therefore, I am going to listen to God's word and make my best attempt to stay in constant prayer/communication with God. I am going to do my best to pray when I start getting frustrated, stressed, overwhelmed, tired and ask for God's help. I KNOW that with God's help I can do this job and do it well. Please say some prayers for me as I face these challenges tomorrow.
God Bless,
Feather
Friday, May 7, 2010
Changing
Today was a good day. I started settling in to my new "office" at work. My co-worker retired and her last day was Wednesday, May 5. My boss decided it would work best if I moved back to her old office area. The church is not going to hire anyone, so I will be doing it all. It was a little overwhelming when I found out and I am still a bit overwhelmed, but it will all work out.
Today I got the phone bill for the church in the mail. When I opened the bill I noticed it was a bit higher than usual. I started looking at the detail and there was a charge for something that I did not authorize. In this situation I generally get mad and raise heck with the company. However, I chose to be positive and keep my cool. I found out it was a third party charge. AT&T put a claim on it and a block so that no more third party companies can put charges through our phone bill. Turns out it was from a company that had called twice with all kinds of bogus stuff. They wanted to send a packet of information and a 14 day trial for a new website. I told them we didn't need it because we had a website. Well I thought that was the end of it, not so much. I finally got it all straightened out while staying positive and keeping my cool. I thought that was pretty great progress for me. Through out both conversations I kept focusing on God and staying positive and I am amazed at how well it worked for me. I pray that people begin to start seeing Jesus through me in my actions and words. I also noticed that I wasn't anxious over anything today. I felt relaxed, calm and at peace!!!
Today was also the day I went for blood work and chest x-ray for my annual checkup. It was the usual 4 vials of blood and 2 pics of my chest and out the door I went. If the results are good then I will have been in remission for 16 years. Since my first check-up, after going into remission, I have always been crabby and plain horrible for the week before my appointment. It was several years before I made the connection and realized I was acting that way out of fear of what the test results would be. I remember the day I was told I had cancer like it was this morning. I remember laying in my day bed thinking to my self "I have cancer...I have cancer...I have cancer." Anyways, the thought of hearing those words "You have cancer" or "The cancer is back" terrified me and frankly it still scares me a little. However this past week I was fine. I have felt at peace which is wonderful.
I spent the rest of the day with mom. We went to dinner at Cheddars and then got snow cones at Bahama bucks. Then I headed home with a sack full of groceries from mom's pantry and fridge.
Tomorrow is going to be a wonderfully low key day and I can't wait. Praying everyone has a wonderful weekend.
God Bless,
Feather
Today I got the phone bill for the church in the mail. When I opened the bill I noticed it was a bit higher than usual. I started looking at the detail and there was a charge for something that I did not authorize. In this situation I generally get mad and raise heck with the company. However, I chose to be positive and keep my cool. I found out it was a third party charge. AT&T put a claim on it and a block so that no more third party companies can put charges through our phone bill. Turns out it was from a company that had called twice with all kinds of bogus stuff. They wanted to send a packet of information and a 14 day trial for a new website. I told them we didn't need it because we had a website. Well I thought that was the end of it, not so much. I finally got it all straightened out while staying positive and keeping my cool. I thought that was pretty great progress for me. Through out both conversations I kept focusing on God and staying positive and I am amazed at how well it worked for me. I pray that people begin to start seeing Jesus through me in my actions and words. I also noticed that I wasn't anxious over anything today. I felt relaxed, calm and at peace!!!
Today was also the day I went for blood work and chest x-ray for my annual checkup. It was the usual 4 vials of blood and 2 pics of my chest and out the door I went. If the results are good then I will have been in remission for 16 years. Since my first check-up, after going into remission, I have always been crabby and plain horrible for the week before my appointment. It was several years before I made the connection and realized I was acting that way out of fear of what the test results would be. I remember the day I was told I had cancer like it was this morning. I remember laying in my day bed thinking to my self "I have cancer...I have cancer...I have cancer." Anyways, the thought of hearing those words "You have cancer" or "The cancer is back" terrified me and frankly it still scares me a little. However this past week I was fine. I have felt at peace which is wonderful.
I spent the rest of the day with mom. We went to dinner at Cheddars and then got snow cones at Bahama bucks. Then I headed home with a sack full of groceries from mom's pantry and fridge.
Tomorrow is going to be a wonderfully low key day and I can't wait. Praying everyone has a wonderful weekend.
God Bless,
Feather
Thursday, May 6, 2010
Waking up
This past Sunday the sermon spoke to me in ways that I have NEVER been spoken to before. It was on Radically waiting. Let's face it, I have spent most of my life waiting on one thing or another and if you know me well, you know how much I despise waiting. Patience is not one of my strengths. I want what I want and when I want it. Well, God doesn't do things on our terms, on our time tables, or how we think they should be done. He does them on his terms, his time table and perfectly how he knows they NEED to be done. I have lived a lot of life in 31 years and it wasn't until Sunday that my eyes were opened. I feel like I have been asleep for 31 years and I am just now waking up to see what my life is and what it could be. Tonight, I attended the Mother/Daughter Banquet at First Baptist here in Odessa. The speaker was Karol Ladd and she is an amazing woman. She spoke on "Thrive, don't simply Survive...Passionately Live the Life You Didn't Plan (this is how I came up with the title for this blog) and it is the title of one of her books...(yes I bought it). I realized tonight that I am simply trying to survive what is my life. It seems that since Sunday, everything is leading me to this one truth...God has put me in this place in this time for a reason. I may not like my situations, but I have two choices, I can dwell on the negative, or I can rise above it and look upward and find the good and positive in it.
Before our Pastor began the sermon, two of the men in the church did a "drama dialogue". They were stating questions that many of us ask in everyday life. I could read what was going to be said on our TV monitors in the choir loft. Before they got to the second question I was in tears. I am not talking about a calm tear flow, I am talking about wanting to bawl right there in front of the entire church. I know it was God that held me together, to a point. I shed many tears in that hour and wanted to get up and run off the stage, but I managed to stay in my seat and not completely fall apart. The whole time I am thinking, how unstable do I look up hear. Just before that I was fine, then out of no where all these emotions came swelling up and I couldn't find the strength to hold all of it in. The questions were regarding "why haven't I found my love" "when will I get to hold MY baby" "what if the tumor is malignant" "something regarding finances". If you know me, you know that those four questions covered my entire life and the more they asked the more I cried.
Needless to say, that sermon changed me forever. For the first time in my life I feel like a different person. I actually look forward to reading my bible everyday and spending time with the Lord. It's not that I didn't look forward to it before, I just didn't make it a priority and now it feels like it is my life line, the one thing that is keeping me breathing.
I will be reading my new book by Karol Ladd and do my best to post daily about the changes I am making in my life and how I am going to begin Thriving and Passionately Living the Life I didn't Plan.
I almost forgot. My co-worker retired and yesterday was her last day. The church is not going to hire anyone to take her place, I will be doing it all. I see a HUGE test coming on in my life. I will basically be alone everyday at work and I live alone, I am wondering if God is teaching me what True contentment is. I thought I was content with where I am in life, but apparently I am not.
God Bless,
Feather
Before our Pastor began the sermon, two of the men in the church did a "drama dialogue". They were stating questions that many of us ask in everyday life. I could read what was going to be said on our TV monitors in the choir loft. Before they got to the second question I was in tears. I am not talking about a calm tear flow, I am talking about wanting to bawl right there in front of the entire church. I know it was God that held me together, to a point. I shed many tears in that hour and wanted to get up and run off the stage, but I managed to stay in my seat and not completely fall apart. The whole time I am thinking, how unstable do I look up hear. Just before that I was fine, then out of no where all these emotions came swelling up and I couldn't find the strength to hold all of it in. The questions were regarding "why haven't I found my love" "when will I get to hold MY baby" "what if the tumor is malignant" "something regarding finances". If you know me, you know that those four questions covered my entire life and the more they asked the more I cried.
Needless to say, that sermon changed me forever. For the first time in my life I feel like a different person. I actually look forward to reading my bible everyday and spending time with the Lord. It's not that I didn't look forward to it before, I just didn't make it a priority and now it feels like it is my life line, the one thing that is keeping me breathing.
I will be reading my new book by Karol Ladd and do my best to post daily about the changes I am making in my life and how I am going to begin Thriving and Passionately Living the Life I didn't Plan.
I almost forgot. My co-worker retired and yesterday was her last day. The church is not going to hire anyone to take her place, I will be doing it all. I see a HUGE test coming on in my life. I will basically be alone everyday at work and I live alone, I am wondering if God is teaching me what True contentment is. I thought I was content with where I am in life, but apparently I am not.
God Bless,
Feather
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