Tag Archives: change

Whirlwind Day!

Watch this campfire oil painting come to life in 2 minutes (time lapse)

Mellow music, marshmallows on a stick, and dancing flames – a fire can be welcoming and sentimental – childhood memories, family vacations, and warmth on a chilly evening… or, it can be devastating, ravishing, and life altering. Today’s was life altering, but in what looks to be a good way. Instead of a Dumpster fire, it was like a campfire on the last night of summer camp, when everyone sings sentimental songs and wishes they could be with their best buddies forever, but just around the corner summer will end, school will start back up, and the days toward adulthood will fly by.

A dear friend was thinking of me today and texted me. She has a spiritual gift of contacting me right when I’m going through a major life change, and is a calming force. I say “force” because her method of reassurance is helping me see a situation for what it truly is. This isn’t a passive kind of help, it’s the real kind that makes a difference.

Well, after some conversation about how things stand, a few things were meanwhile happening. One thing led to another and there was a flurry of calls, texts and e-mails between me, a realtor, and my husband. It all started when I got fed up with refreshing the rental listings screen yet again and finding nothing new. I wondered if the housing market in general was short on houses. So I checked homes for sale and found quite a few options. I wondered if we were too soon to give up on the possibility that we could buy a home sooner than planned.

I requested information about a house and was surprised to get a quick response. It turned out that this home had no garage, and my husband is a woodworker, so that’s a deal breaker for us. Of course if we truly had no where else to go, we’d do it, but we still have a short while to make something wonderful happen. It seems too early to give up and commit to a house that we don’t want. So, I explained this to the realtor who’d listed that house, and she started asking me what we were looking for.

I told her our situation, how disappointing the rental market is, and how we’d planned to buy next year (because my husband’s new job doesn’t start until June), but we have to vacate this rental by May 31. I said we can’t find a house to rent and we may need to see if we can buy a house earlier than we’d planned.

I’d imagined spending all of next year getting excited about the new house, saving money toward it, and organizing, packing, etc., then happily house hunting for as long as it took to find our perfect house. Because, every move we’ve ever made has been under a fast deadline with few choices and a fair amount of panic. I wanted a fun home buying experience. But, deep down I guess I knew that’s not how we roll.

We went the other direction- instead of less pressure, we’ll do MORE this time around. LOL, well, maybe that’s how the best of me comes out. I thrive under pressure. Even so, I’m happy that my friend got in touch with me today- she was holding me steady when all of this broke loose.

The realtor put my husband in touch with a local lender who got the ball rolling for us. It looks like we will be buying a house!!!! I’ll know more tomorrow, but my fingers are crossed and my prayers are lifted high! After years of this long journey and several detours, we may finally be HOME!!!!! I can hardly keep up with how fast my life is changing. Now it looks like the GOOD kind of change! Isn’t it wonderful how I knew that all along, and was completely calm and cool the whole time? HA HA HA, if you’ve been reading my blog you know better. 🙂

Still, there’s a long way to go from “working toward financing” and being settled into our new home. We haven’t even started looking at houses yet. So, easy now. I’ll see what tomorrow brings (but it’s okay to shout out a WOOT!). 😀 Thank you for your thoughts and prayers. Let’s bring ’em on home, keep praying!

I hope all of you are doing well. If you’re also dealing with unexpected changes, stay strong! God bless and keep you. May His face shine upon you and give you peace.

First Day of Spring!

See this oil painting of a robin with a nest of eggs come to life in 2 minutes (time lapse)

How did you spend the day? I sang a few hymns with a virtual church who didn’t know I was there on the other side, standing with the congregation in my little space near the computer, singing every note. But, most of the day was spent organizing and packing for the unexpected move I’ve been telling you about.

It was in many ways cathartic to see our life represented in our possessions, and to let go of things that no longer represent us or who we want to be. Mostly, though, I feel weary of following the laser pointer to wherever this journey takes us next. I’m guessing many of you feel the same way, even though your life circumstances don’t involve the same struggles. All of us are being tossed around by the winds of global change and are feeling the burden of this chaos. For many, it is a time of grief, anger, disbelief, betrayal, resentment, hardship, and fear.

These are challenging days. May we rise to the best of who we are, and still find hope even when it’s difficult to do so. Seasons change, and spring is upon us. Stay strong, resilient, resourceful, and creative. God bless you and keep you, may His face shine upon you and give you peace. Happy first day of Spring!

Letting Go – Again

See angel releasing dove oil painting with real beach shells come alive in 2 minutes (time lapse)

I’ve used this same painting for a very similar blog post called “Letting Go”. In that post I said these wise words “We may not have control over time, and future events, but we always have a spiritual choice about how we respond to change.” Ha! I better take my own advice to heart, lest I be a hypocrite. The past couple of days I was in a sour sullen snit about the shocking news of learning that we have to move in about two months, when we intended to continue renting this house until after my husband’s graduation (he’d gone back to school after losing his job when the company he worked for moved out of the country, and he’s nearly done- graduates in June- but too late to get us out from under this predicament).

Today I pushed myself to start the taping of the Easter show even though that was the last thing I wanted to do, as I need to start packing! But I’d already committed to doing the show and had invested in it. Yesterday I finished making my dress and I finished the set design this afternoon. Taping has begun! The first segment is done- and it went much better than I thought it would. No matter what’s going on in our lives, we have to choose whether or not to let those temporary circumstances paralyze, discourage, or destroy our purpose. I could have canceled the show, but that would have been wrong.

Letting go of worry, anxiety, dread, fear, resentment, bitterness, despair, and anger is a perpetual experience. Life will never be perfect and if we allow our human condition to stop us from acting on our plans, we will leave things unsaid, inspirations never created, places never traveled, and destinies never reached. So, we must plow through and do the things our heart is stirred to do, even when we don’t feel like it. “Fake it ’till you make it” is real. Not only will we get to where we want to be if we keep doing it, regardless of how close to the bottom we are when we start, but we’ll also become joyful if we fake feeling joy.

Today’s work on the Easter show included dressing up in an outrageously festive gown and singing songs that are truly joyful. I may have started out faking the joy, but shortly after I forced myself to be joyful, I really was! I had a happy time today. I am glad I gave up my stubborn attitude and chose to let go.

My stressful circumstances will change, with or without my cooperative attitude. I can stomp my feet and tantrum my way through this ordeal, or I can aim for high energy to work at a smooth transition. I can look for positive serendipitous events that fall neatly into place. If I look for these things, I will find them. If I work for a smooth transition, I am likely to have one. Change is often difficult. We can hate every minute of it and be no better off. Or, we can rise to the challenge and fake joyfulness until we feel the joy.

Can we Trust Ourselves?

See this oil painting of a field of lilies come alive in 2 minutes (time lapse)

Can we trust ourselves to always feel or act in a predictable way? Do we ever take ourselves by surprise by doing something that seems out of character? The above painting, “Consider the Lilies” isn’t in my typical style. Sometimes when I sit down to paint, my art doesn’t flow the way that I expect. It doesn’t mean that the new style is bad, even if I don’t personally like it. It only means that it’s different, not what I expected. That’s true of life in general.

There are times when we don’t do or feel, what we’d ordinarily do or feel, and this may be unsettling. But it may be a good thing to let ourselves be unpredictable from time to time, especially if we eventually settle back into a peaceful space of stability and authenticity when we’re done trying something new. We can choose to adopt the new direction or go back to how we usually do things, seeking calm and balance once again. Change can be good, whether temporary or permanent. It’s when we worry about change that we open ourselves up to stress, anxiety, fear, and sabotaging our happiness.

Matthew 6:28b-30a: “Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you?”

How amazing it is, the beautiful intricacy of nature! All creatures fit together into the tapestry of this world, even common flowers like lilies. What a blessing it is when we can simply “be”, when we can accept our place in the tapestry without worry.

When we see ourselves sliding off our normal course, we might feel as if we can’t trust ourselves, as if we’ve betrayed our true nature. But change doesn’t have to mean that we’re losing who we were before and turning into someone we won’t recognize. It’s possible that we’re only expanding who we already are.