22 Things!

Here are some things I have been thinking about the past few days. Some are trivial and some are, rocking my world, and some are heavy (for me at least).

1.)People say the dandiest things. At first it shocked me, now it can be humorous. Now I realize that they are just trying to help but don’t know how. How can people help? By saying,” I don’t know what you are feeling,” (even if you lost a best friend you cannot possibly understand another’s feelings). “I love you and I am here.” Keep it simple and stay away from clichés like, “it won’t hurt always, you will get past this someday, she is not is pain so focus on that.”

2.)Why do I grieve? I don’t grieve for where Ali is. I grieve for her family and friends and myself that now have to learn to live without her. I grieve for those moments I have to fight picking up my phone to call her. I grieve for the moment we will not share together in this lifetime. I do not grieve for her and yes, she is pain free and in a better place.

3.)I have discovered that I should no longer type my postings in the blogger post box. I will use Microsoft Word and then cut and paste. I am a lazy writer and make lots of spelling and grammatical errors. I hope this will help.

4.)I discovered that if you leave fruit laying on the counter when you go on a trip, you come back to fruit flies. How is this, there were no fruit flies when I left the house Friday?

5.)I realized how I literally left my house with blinders on. Clothes were in the wash and now stink up the downstairs, trash in the kitchen can needed to be thrown away. We had a huge storm on Thursday and all my yard furniture was toppled over.

6.)If you go long enough without sleep at some point you completely shutdown. I did this last night. So did the girls. We went to bed at 8:30 and woke up at 9:30 this morning. Totally forgot to take them to school. Today we will clean the house and spend some quiet alone time together.

7.)My dogs knew the smell of our home town before we even pulled into it. They perked up and started staring out the windows of the car around 15 miles up the road.

8.)My girls have an overwhelming capacity to love and understand. At the end of Alison’s service Mackenzie got on my lap, wrapped her arms around me, hugged me, said, “I love mommy,” and patted my back while rocking back and forth. Madison put her hands on both sides of my cheeks and said, “Mommy your sad, it’s OK for you to be sad, we love Auntie Ali, you be sad, it’s OK!”

9.)Bad or sad things don’t happen when life is perfect. You are hit when you are down when times are tough. God uses it to draw you closer to him. To bring you to your knees. To make you realize you need a relationship with him. Eternity with him is forever and this life is just a blink. He is always calling and the more you cover your ears the harder it will be to hear. You harden you heart. But he is always calling.

10.)Realizing the importance of all that has gone on has led me to question what I need to do to strive for that relationship. A conversation I had with someone close led me to an article on Can you get to Heaven on good deeds? And this was the response. “You may have heard of Jesus Christ or know things about Jesus Christ but as long as you do not know Jesus Christ personally then your soul is lost, no matter how many good deeds you do. The main part of getting to heaven would be to know Jesus Christ as your personal savior and accept him as God and then have a daily relationship with him through prayers and upholding all his commandments. The bible says no one can approach the father except through the son (Jesus). Thus by believing in Jesus Christ and having a personal relationship with God is a good start off point to gaining entry into heaven.” We are not perfect and to imply that we are by saying, "if a am good enough I go to heaven" is putting a quantitative value on Jesus’ blood. It is priceless and we can never measure up. Only one person walked this Earth perfectly. That was Jesus. My relationship needs to be stronger and I need to try harder to follow his Commandments. Knowing this though and applying it is two different things. We all fall short of the glory of God. That is the point. I am sure someone will call me a hypocrite. These are my beliefs and you don’t have to believe them. I am not forcing it on you. We all have free will and it is a choice. What I am saying is that I have a lot of work to do in my heart and with my family. That is all.

11.)I noticed how beautiful our country is. How amazingly breath taking this creation of God is. I am in aw. I have caught my fair share of flies over the past week.

12.)God brings people in and people out of our lives at specific times for a reason. We learn, we apply and we teach ourselves and others through our experiences and all should be for his glory and only his.

13.)On the day God created Alison he said,” Now watch this one. She is going to do some amazing things for me!” And on the day she was called home as her job was done he said,” Job well done, now enjoy eternity with me!”

14.)All my potted plants are dead. But that is OK! I will get more and it will give me an opportunity to pick new ones out and to plant them with my girls.

15.)I am blessed. Through every bit of joy and heartache. I am blessed.

16.)That there is goodness is every one. If I am patient and look for it I will see it. Most of the times, when I least expect it.

17.)That yes, I should surround myself with people who lift me up and are more positive than negative. However, I should not close off people who are the opposite. How else can I make an impact in their lives? Lead by example. People change not by coercion or guilt but by the examples of others.

18.)If you think you can hide food away from your dogs in your car you better put it in a locked plastic or metal box with a lid. I found this out the hard way. Came back to my car after checking into our hotel to find our dinner half gone and smeared all over the interior of the car. I attempted to hide it in a cardboard box at the very back of the car, thinking the dogs couldn't get over the seats and into the boxes. Where there is hunger there is a way. When you are a dog, your motives are carnal and you could care less of the consequences.

19.)Madison and Mackenzie get along 85%-90% of the time and fight the other 15%-10% of the time. Not bad in my book.

20.)Tangible things are just things. Love has a life of its own and that is what life is about. So get rid of the junk and clutter and make room for more love. On your death bed you won’t be wishing you bought something, or finished a project, or made more money. You will be thinking about your friends and family, the memories, what time you should have spent with them, what time you did.

21.)I now see how much FEAR has ruled every decision I have made in my life. How much of LIFE I have not lived. How much I want to change!

22.)I have noticed that this list keeps getting longer every second! Isn't this amazing? Thanks Ali! Thank you Jesus!