Up the Sunbeam

-- I'm not sure who originated the idea (anybody know and want to tell me the story?), but many of us who blog have adopted the practice of asking God for a word and a picture to go with it as a theme of focus for the new year.  This is my second time joining in--last year my word was ABIDE and I focused on abiding in my Father's love, looking to Him in eager expectation while I learned to settle down and rest in adoring relationship with Him. Abiding will be a lifelong focus, so I am not dropping last year's theme for a new one, but this is a year of newness for me and that being the case, 2012 needs it's own word.  The word I believe God has been repeatedly bringing to my heart the last couple of weeks as I prayed about my One Word is:   CHALLENGE. At 48, I am not at an age that is typically characterized by new beginnings or launching points, however, 48 or not, I am beginning something new.  I am picking up the reins of a dream I let go of when I ...

"For He . . . is not a God of confusion and disorder  but of peace and order." 1 Corinthians 14:33a AMP My dining room is overrun with boxes. I find myself flashing back to the height of my work as an office supervisor with Census 2010. I can hear again the dull roar of whirring printers, dozens of voices, a crazy array of telephone ring tones and people scrambling to find which phone to answer. In that mad rush to count our county's million or so residents ( 1,049,025 to be exact)  on a single day in the decennial year 2010, we had every inch of our office, the entire 4th floor of the office building, literally stacked floor-to-ceiling with boxes.  It was the only way we could organize our efforts to facilitate and manage all the binders, supplies and papers going out and coming back in, forms to be evaluated, sorted, data-entered, quality-checked, returned for corrections, shipped to headquarters, you name it, we had a box for it. Everything had to b...

"There is always another perspective." Dewitt Jones "What are you hoping to accomplish this year?" he asked.  For once, when Hero Husband asks me questions like this, I had an answer I didn't have to ponder long. "I need to get my physical well-being in order," I said, stating the obvious. The weight I have to lose feels to me like I wear my weakness and failure all over myself.  I can't get away from it, can't hide it, can't deny it, can't defend it. Strangely enough, at every weight I've ever been, from high school until right now, I've felt exactly like this--okay, maybe to a lesser degree at lower weights, but the same thoughts were in there, critiquing, fault-finding, guilt-heaping.  I look at pictures of myself from many pounds ago thinking, "Sheesh, I'd love to be THAT size again!"  Then I recall looking at those same pictures when they were new, feeling just as crummy about my weight and my shape and ...