Made To Thrive

Writing again.  It feels good.  I always say I need to write more, I need to take the time even when I'm busy.

But life these past few months has had a way of pulling me away from the things I love and pushing me to just do what I need to do.  Even my computer has been keeping me from writing.  It works occasionally, then one day it won't start up correctly, or it will just close the window I was working in randomly without notice.  Too much hassle.

Anyway, life has been busy.  We are about to start something new today on the dairy (at least, I hope it's today, it has gotten pushed back so many times!).  The cows and workers are going to have a lot to adjust to, and it will be a challenge.  But we are ready for this next step, we've been ready for quite a while. 

I'm in no way complaining about how things were the past 5-7 years.  We've learned a lot, and while I wouldn't want to relive those 5 years (for me it's been 5, for others it has been 7 years), I don't think I would have changed a whole lot.  I've seen growth in my life that wouldn't have happened if life would have been all smooth sailing and comfortable.

When you go through a hard time, you have a choice to make.

Let the trial shape you and learn the lesson God is teaching you the first time.

Or struggle against the change.  Fight, deny, run away from anything that is hard and disrupts the comfort of the mask that I'm wearing.  Instead of learning to be the person God created me to be, accepting the weakness and imperfections, I would learn nothing and stay in a self-created wilderness.  Tossed by any wave of difficulty and never finding what I really need.

If I had a theme song right now in life it would be this one by Casting Crowns:

 



I had a dream last night that I remembered (I don't usually).  I was somewhere, probably with family, and I had been playing my guitar, but I put it back in the case to go eat or something.  When I came back to it and opened the case, I discovered a completely different guitar.  Someone had come to "fix" mine (it has a rattle/buzz sometimes) and left one of their guitars in it's place.  Now this guitar was a much nicer and more expensive brand than mine and I'm sure it worked beautifully for the person who owned it, but in my hands the frets were much too small for more than one finger and it was broken off 3 frets down from the top and tied on.  It still played (that was a miracle itself), but I could do nothing with it.  Then the person brought my guitar back and said he had found nothing to fix on it and it played beautifully!  He asked me what kind of strings I had on it, and I told him, "the ones it came with."  He was amazed and said that had to be a miracle.  And that is all that I remember.

So as I was thinking about my dream this morning, I realized it applies to more than my guitar.

I don't need a better brand/ more expensive instrument to be a better guitar player.  I just need to use and practice the one that I've already been given.

I don't need to imagine a better life or a more ideal me, I just need to learn to live the life that I have and be the person I have been created to be.  Then I will not just be struggling to survive, I will be thriving.