Bye March!

This has been an incredible March. For several years March has always been a special month for me. I always mark March as the month to (fill in the blank). I don't know why I chose March. Maybe March chose me.

March marks the beginning of Spring.
March is my mother's birthday.
March is the month that I ended my last relationship.
For me, March is the month of lessons and new beginnings. Not January but March. I entered 2012 with high expectations. Big dreams. Huge hopes. It is only the third month of the year and my expectations are already being met in ways that I didn't even expect. I am overwhelmed.

A few years ago in March I learned that I cannot be a vegetarian. Another year I learned that 31 days without alcohol is no big deal.

This March I learned that no matter how good a mother I think I am, I can't stop my kids from disappointing me. Honey, I was ready to give up motherhood for Lent. But God is using these circumstances to teach me patience.

This March I learned that I am stronger than I ever believed I was when I completed my first 8k in less than 53 minutes.

This March I learned that it's never to late to start over when I decided to go back to school.

This March I learned obedience when I enrolled in classes seven months earlier than I had initially planned.

This March I learned that if I take one step, God will take all the other steps.

This has been an incredible March. I'm almost sorry to see it end. But I cannot wait to see what the rest of 2012 has in store. My expectations are high.

Goodbye March!

How High?

I've said since the first day of the year that my expectations for 2012 were high.

How high?

Super high.

But it doesn't matter how high my expectations are or how big my plans are ... God always manages to outdo me. He blows me out of the water every time.

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD (Isaiah 55:8)

School wasn't even on my radar on January 1st. Now, it's the only thing I can think about. Truth be told, I thought this was going to be the year that I really learned to accept love and begin a relationship. **shrugs** I've been single for two years and I've been just fine on my own. In fact, I've learned more about myself in the past two years than I ever have.

God has a plan.

For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. (Jeremiah 29:11)

Happy New Year!!

What Lies Ahead

I have been meditating on Philippians 3:13-14 for the past week:

I do not consider, brethren, that I have captured and made it my own [yet]; but one thing I do [it is my one aspiration]: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead,
I press on toward the goal to win the [supreme and heavenly] prize to which God in Christ Jesus is calling us upward. (Amplified Bible)

The Message puts it like this:

I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. Friends, don't get me wrong: By no means do I count myself an expert in all of this, but I've got my eye on the goal, where God is beckoning us onward—to Jesus. I'm off and running, and I'm not turning back.

I turn to this particular verse often when I’m in goal-setting/goal-reaching mode. I tend to focus on verse 14 which says that I press toward the goal to win the prize.

Nothing wrong with that.

But what I’m discovering is that (for me) the most important part of the scripture is in verse 13 where it says that I need to forget what lies behind.

In other words, it is necessary to forget what is behind me in order to focus on what is ahead. How can I successfully navigate the road in front of me if I can’t take my eyes off the rear view mirror?

Ding! Ding! Ding!

It hit me like a ton of bricks this morning. I am impeding my own progress because my mind has a tendency to wander back to the past. I replay past events constantly and it is not serving me well at all. I have to purposefully forget the past by purposefully focusing on the future.

As the Original OldGirl LadyLee would say: do it on purpose.

I do not have to allow whatever drops into my mind to stay there. I can set my mind on the positive things that lie ahead instead of continually going back over what has already happened.

So that’s what I’m working on. Leaving the past in the past. Accepting that whatever happened, happened for a reason and just let it go. I can’t change the past. I have to forget what lies behind and work on shaping my future. I know that God has incredible things in store for me but I can’t get those things until I release the things of the past. It’s impossible to live in two worlds at the same time.

I will let go of the past.
I will enjoy the present.
I will look forward to my future.