It is hard for me to believe that a whole year has gone by since I last wrote here!! I truly did have such good intentions with my blog but I guess the time got away from me. I will say that it has been one of the most difficult years of my life…it was filled with a lot of change and some disappointments as well as some devastating loss. It ended on the most loveliest of notes though with my daughter’s wedding on New Years Eve!!
And so 2019 has begun with the promise and hope of love and happily ever after!! The wedding went beautifully…it is so fun to watch them get settled in as newlyweds… and now after the hustle and bustle of the Christmas season and wedding planning, I am adjusting to the quiet of winter. I actually don’t mind the winter months (as long as I can have a fire and my cuddle duds so I can keep warm!) and I enjoy the opportunity for quiet reflection and looking ahead to the more productive seasons of the year. Like so many people I usually set some goals for the coming year and even adopt a “word” of the year. This year though, God taught me a really good lesson about resolutions and goals… For our Christmas dinner, I pulled out my favorite serving dishes as I always do and served my family our traditional dishes and recipes. After dinner I cleaned up, put away, and washed dishes. If you know me, you know that I collect ironstone dish ware and to protect these treasures, I hand wash each piece. So, this year at the end of the day, my husband John was putting away the dishes for me (as he often does… what a great guy!) and showed me that the handle of the favorite ironstone serving dish that I often use was now broken. I was so sad and angry with myself for being careless. Initially, I thought what am I going to do with this broken dish? But, as I looked at my favorite dish (which I had always thought was so beautiful), I realized that the dish was still beautiful and still usable even though it had a broken piece…And that is when God reminded me that just like that dish, I have broken parts of who I am but God still thinks that I am beautiful and God still wants to use me! I also realized that even if I glued the broken piece back on to the dish, there would always be a scar and no amount of super glue would ever remove the scar of that broken place. But that is okay, because even though our scars remind us of where we have come from, they don’t define where we are going. And that is when I realized that my goals and resolutions are like the super glue – they can’t remove my scars or change my past, they very simply help me be used by God… I decided right then and there that I would always keep and use my beautiful serving dish!
I hope each of you are having a great start to your new year and I look forward to hopefully conversing with you more in the weeks to come! Meanwhile…here are a couple of pictures of our bride and a picture of my puppy Scarlett who is now full grown!!
Happy Winter!!
Indiana Girl 