Abide

So, as I was assessing 2012 at the end of December, I decided that one of my goals the things I really wanted to do in 2013 was to write more on my blog.

And I jumped right on that as you can tell...being how it's February 21, 2013 and all...and how I've written only a couple of times so far this year. Or maybe just once.

In my defense, and admittedly a weak one...I've started this particular post about 20 times and each time I delete it (I really don't know how that would be a defense of anything).

When my sister, Leanne, and my daughter, Holly, decided that I really needed a blog, they set it all up and sent me on my way. Not gonna lie, the whole thing was really intimidating to me and I just "let it set" for quite a while. I'm not the most tech-savvy person you've ever met (I'm sure those two would agree)!

Plus, there's the whole putting-yourself-out-there thing. It's scary. I don't like conflict, and the thought that someone would judge or criticize me for something I might write...that unnerves me. Of course, this would assume that anyone besides me reads this blog. I'm a pretty private person, and I keep my family close to my heart in good times and bad. I'm not one to air out my "binness"--good or bad--around town. My thoughts are my own, and are based on how I was taught by my parents growing up, my experiences during my life so far...and my convictions, which come from God. I guess I also probably have some thoughts on things that are just my preferences, for whatever that's worth. I've learned a lot from my mistakes, but I'm far from having "arrived." I have to rely on God daily, because, as my Grandma Ellen used to say, things "go to hell in a hand-basket" when I don't. And there are times when I don't. More times than I want to admit.

I'm a slow learner.

Anyway, it's one thing to write a Christmas letter, or a funny Facebook status...and yet another thing to peel off the layers and share pieces of my life...my heart...with anyone other than my family. Which, was the whole purpose behind starting this blog...for my family. Because, really, other people would never understand me. Like, how I tend to use humor to cope in/diffuse situations, even when it's not appropriate. Like the time at my GRANDMOTHER'S FUNERAL when, during the service, mind you...we joked about how we should've dressed her in a Hawaiian muumuu and a lei...maybe a camera around her neck...and how she would have just DIED of embarrassment at the tackiness! We were laughing so hard that our shoulders were shaking and our noses were running. I'm sure everyone thought we were overcome with sorrow instead of trying not to laugh. My Grandmother was the opposite of tacky. She was always "put together" and lady-like. She is the one who asked the florist at my wedding to please match her corsage to the color of her fingernail polish. So the funniest thing to us was picturing her prim and proper Southern self all decked out like a tourist.

See? That's such an easy train of thought for me to follow...easier than thinking how much I miss her, especially now that my own Mom is gone; how I used to call Grandma every Saturday for 20 years, and she would frustrate me one minute, and have me cracking up the next; how God used her to impact our family, thru my Mom, thru my sister, Robin, in ways that are immeasurable.

So you can see how people might not understand how I think...how I handle things.

And I was also thinking that, after the stress of our move, and Holly and Aaron's subsequent move, I just wanted a new focus for our family in this new year. Something besides the boxes and the mess and all of the frustrations. I wanted something new, something fresh. I wanted a WORD FROM GOD...a word that would take the way I had been thinking...and refocus my thoughts on GOD and on HIS plan in all of this. But what? What word? Peace? Contentment? 

And then I read THIS post from a blog that I've never read before...

And God showed me His Word for me and my family this year:

ABIDE

It was everything that I was not...
the waiting...
the enduring without yielding...
the bearing patiently...
the remaining fixed in a state...
the continuing in a place...
the accepting without objection...

I was fighting against it all, and I don't know why. Because, even reading it just now...His way sounds better.

So, I'm done.

And it feels great...

to abide.

"...abide in My love." (John 15:9)