Seasons endings and beginnings

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

If you know me at all you would know that I don't do new year's resolutions but that if I need a change, I change. However, I still like to take stock at the end of one year and the beginning of another and see where I've been and then make plans for where I want my next 12 months to take me. Though, I can only see a small way into that journey and the path always takes places I had not planned and could not forsee. Sometimes I walk the path easily and other times I have to be pulled kicking and screaming and murmuring. But somehow I seem to be able to put one foot in front of the other and keep plodding on, and on, and on.

To tell the truth, lately that is how my journey feels- plodding through miles and miles of thick, goopy mud. The kind that sucks your shoes off with each step with that loud slurping noise until you pull your foot out with a pop. And if you are lucky enough to still have your shoe, you have a thick layer of goop stuck on the bottom that you try to fling off, but only end up getting covered in the goop and you are left messy, goopy and shoeless and want to sit down on a rock and cry. Except that just leaves mascara streaks mingled with all the mud and goop.

I have a sister that chooses a word of the year each year. And then she tries to live up to that word.  I have done something like that in the past- usually with a theme. When I read my sister's post on her past year living with her word, I thought that maybe I would again live this next year with a purpose. So I began my quest for my purpose. But that is a really scary prospect for me right now because with every word I thought of, I could only see the ways the Lord could possibly help me learn that concept:

*Patience- was never in the running because we all know what happens when you pray for patience
*Faith- see patience
*Hope- ditto
*Freedom, love, light, abandon, ... I think you see where this is going.

Clearly I am a wimp and a coward. I want the end of the path, but don't want to walk the path. I am tired and weary and just want the goop washed off and to ride in the wagon, or rather the air conditioned, comfy car for a change.

The bishop (we have a new one) and I had a discussion about my life. I don't remember the last time someone cried for me and my children. That alone gave me courage and strength. He challenged me to read in the scriptures and pray about my situation and the next steps to take.  No air conditioned car for me but hard, slogging work I guess.

Sitting in church yesterday listening to our ward choir's annual Christmas program I was struck by a couple of thoughts:

Integrity- Live this next year with integrity

Ephesians 6- Stand up and take a stand against Satan in defense of your family.

So now that I have learned how to be healthy in my body and deal with my chronic health issues so they are not so much of an issue but rather one of maintanance, I will now be strengthening my family and speaking out more vocally about those things that have been working away at the very foundations of my family and pulling at not just my children but every child in this world.

My 2011 looks to be one filled with fiery darts, slogging through muck and mud and mostly just putting one foot in front of the other. But in the end, a year from now, I will look back and see that I have made progress and I will be triumphant.

(it won't be easy and you may learn more about evil in the world than you want to know, but I can no longer sit in this mire and whine about the unfairness and how I didn't sign up for this and I don't want this. I have been chosen to do this, so I rolling up my shirt sleeves and getting to work. And this is totally not where I had planned this post to go.)

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Indeed.