New Year's: Look Not behind Thee

I have three goals in mind for this year - improve my relationship with my husband; treat my body as the sacred temple it is and respect the stewardship I have been given over the money and resources I have. To take a line out of the video posted here, I'm striving to believe that, [in all of those three areas], " ... [my] future can be better than [my] past.

All the very best to you in 2011!

Arrgg...

Do you ever wonder why it is you do the things you do? Do you find yourself irritated and aren't sure what's up? Do you find your anger toward someone or something to be out of proportion [ as in way over the top] toward the person or incident? And, lastly, do you ever find yourself on your knees, either physically or mentally, asking for help to overcome these tendencies?

What you ask for, you get - I guarantee it!

I have been struggling with being more generous in opinion, less judgemental, more loving, kind, giving and forgiving - in short - more charitable. 'Charity is the pure love of Christ' and when you love that way you aren't quick to be irritable or angry and so I have been praying for more opportunities to practise these traits.

Now, I consider myself to be a nice person - loving and kind normally and I don't usually have trouble keeping myself under control but lately... wow...there's a Mrs. Hyde popping out!!!

That doesn't deter me, though, from asking, again, for opportunities to show I can do it.

It's funny - aka strange - that I no sooner get off my knees with all the best intentions in the world and within 5 or 10 minutes I totally blow it. Even as it's happening I can see myself and in my head I'm saying, "Diane, this is not charitable - you know better than this - now you stop it," and just as quick I ignore the admonition and keep acting badly. The process continues to my admitting I did badly, vowing not to fall into that trap again and putting another smile on my face....for about 10 minutes! Yikes... here we go again...

This is day four of this fiasco but I'm not quitting. This is obviously something the Lord knows I need to have down pat and so I will continue to submit to His teaching process. I've long believed that if you cultivate good habits, you will automatically fall back on them in situations where you don't have the time or opportunity to think clearly. I want to have charity so deeply a part of me that I am automatically charitable.

We all walk this earth with our burdens, trials and tribulations. We all need charity and so, we ought to give it to others. I love it when someone overlooks my less than kind attitude or cutting words and just loves me. It takes my bite away, I find myself feeling accepted -warts and all- and I gain the strength to tackle this desire again.

I figure if I want it, I better throw it out there freely so when the bread on the water comes back it's not full of worms and mold ;)

I hope you have a great day. Take care.