Notes on Life

Since I last wrote on this blog, many changes have taken place in my life. I started singlewivesclub as a widow who was grieving and in pain and now I write again, as a bride who is loving her new life.

I've been married two years to a wonderful man but I never want the memories of my thirty-three years with Mike to be lost. Today I'm sorting many of the remnants of that life.  I have an old trunk that was my grandpa's.  I want my son to have it one day and I've started adding things to it that document that other life I also loved. Some are tangible items like Mike's Bible, and some are old golfing hats with logos that our son would remember his dad wearing.  Then there's the Real-estate papers to our first house that cost $15,000,(my grandkids may find that interesting one day) Mike diplomas, and the letters he wrote me when he was in college, just before we married.  One of them says "I just found out that my draft is #288 so I'll probably never be drafted."  Other letters talk of his job interviews with Citgo and Gulf.  At any rate, as I sort the fragments of 62 years of living, there are years of notes. I'd love to say they are organized and categorized but they're jotted here and there haphazardly--a scrap of paper here, scribbled in the cover of my bibles, pages torn from notebooks, whatever was handy to write on the minute I heard whatever.  You get the picture.  Many are quotes that I heard that impacted my life and some I still live by and have memorized.  Some come from books I've read and others via testimonies I heard.  No one will ever want to sort such a mess so I'll post some of my favorites.   It will make it easier for me when I want to read them too. : )

Note for writers:

All need the message we have within us.  Let's not take this message within to the grave...let's write.

Notes about Faith:

Faith is nothing but one small step of obedience after another.

Stay in faith because without Faith it is impossible to please God.

Faith comes from hearing and hearing from the Word.

Faith is based on our relationship with God not our performance for God.

Note about Obedience: "Obey one step at a time, then the next step will come into view.  God will not give us a blueprint of the future; He still insists that our walk be step by step in faith.  As we practice obedience, the Voice becomes clearer, the instructions more definite.  Perhaps it shouldn't surprise us that with guidance, as with anything else, we learn through practice." Catherine Marshall

Note about Forgiveness:

Forgive - to cease to feel resentment against.

             - to pardon

             AND renounce any form of retaliation

             Love by choice, not by circumstance or feeling

             Forgive daily those who have sinned against you

             Forgive yourself - let go of your past failures.

             Forgive God - sometimes we blame God for a situation

             Forgive your family, husband, sister, brother,

                     parents children, friend, etc.

                 Do a heart check.   DO YOU RESENT anyone?

                 FORGIVE THEM. Forgive them NOW.

Note on Contentment:  Realizing that God has already given me everything I need for my present happiness. I Timothy 6:8

Understanding that if I am not satisfied with what I have, I will never be satisfied with what I want.  Ecclesiastes 5:11

Knowing that the more I release earthly possessions, the more I can grasp Eternal treasures. 

II Corinthians 4:18

Note on Prayer: Do we want our prayers answered?   We must let go of ALL resentment, bitterness, grudges--no matter how justified we think they are--these wrong emotions will cut off our flow to God.

Note on Peace: Peace is an inner "knowing" that your actions are approved by God.  "Let the Peace(soul harmony which comes) from Christ rule (act as umpire continually)in your hearts(deciding and settling with finality all questions that arise in your minds, in that peaceful state) to which...you were called (to live).  Colossians 3:15 Amplified Bible

Problems are inevitable, but joy & peace are optional. They come when our mind is renewed in His Word and we become doers of the Word, not just hearers.

Note on Pride:  Taking God's glory for yourself

Note on Motherhood: A Mother's highest calling is to raise Godly children--pouring out your life sacrificially into a child that will grow up to serve God.

Notes on this life: "Although this world is full of suffering, it is full of the overcoming of it." Helen Keller
Do you wonder if God is finished with you yet?  Are you still breathing?  If so, He isn't finished!
Our actions are controlled by what we have on our minds.  IS my mind on Jesus and His Word?
God isn't looking for ability but our availability.  

You don't get to choose how or when you are going to die, but you do get to choose how you are going to live.

Notes on People:  It's not my job to see through people but to see people through.
Others will not care how much you know until that know how much you care.

Notes on Love: Preoccupation with another's needs

Notes on Grace:  God's grace keeps pace with whatever I face
Corrie ten Boon - "Daddy, how can I bare to go through persecution?"
 "Corrie," he said, "when do you get your ticket to ride the train?"
"As you get on the train."
"That's how God's grace is, when you need it, you get it."

AND TO THAT, I SAY AMEN!
PS  many more to come but that'll take more hours of sorting!