Feline Friendly Friday
All posts by A Labour of Love
A Wasted Verb
Prairie Dog: “Thank you for sharing your lunch with me. I’ve been waiting for someone as nice as you to share.”
Regret: verb-feel sad, repentant, disappointed over (something that has happened or been done, especially a loss or missed opportunity).
How many times in our lives do we use the word regret? Why?
Not to long ago I had a learning opportunity to speak with my children about that word. We discussed that regret should not be a word that they use in their lives. It’s one of those words that is like the word Hate. We should never hate anything. We may dislike something, yet we don’t hate something. Regret is much like that. It’s another strong verb used to describe something that is unrealistic. You’re likely asking me what I mean by that.
Well, I have said for years that using the word regret, only makes one then realize that if they regret one thing, they have to regret a whole lot of things. If you regret a decision you made that had disastrous consequences, then you have to regret a lot more things that went along with that decision and you also have to regret the lessons learned from those decisions. It’s like a gerbil wheel that keeps on spinning and never stops.
If you regret marrying someone, then you would also have to regret having children as well as those years spent with that family, likely calling them wasted. If you claim to regret that you didn’t get a higher education, then you also have to regret the path you then chose to take, even if it was a necessary decision to make you realize you needed that higher education. What about a decision made regarding health? Goodness knows that doctors, family and friends can all make us feel guilty about how we eat or how we take care of ourselves. Yet, when the time comes that our eyes are opened to better ways, if we regret the earlier path we would not be able to see how far we’ve come in progressing to a better place. Or even when it comes to some pretty serious medical decisions. Should chemo be the best option? Should alternative medicine be the best? What about those mammograms and preventative screenings? If and or when something changes with our health and we become seriously ill, what is the first thing many people say? “I regret not doing that….” Like I said, a strong verb that can only bring about more sadness than necessary. A word that contains a whole lot of disappointment and many times can be tied in with a whole lot of guilt.
I remember some years back when my mom and I had discussions regarding some decisions I had personally made in my own life. I was young enough to be under the roof of my parents yet old enough to be considered an adult. My mom said she had regretted allowing me to do this or that and that she felt guilty over not guiding me in a different direction. I remember thinking about that and also saying that I didn’t regret it and that she shouldn’t either. That the decisions I made, no matter the outcome, were learning lessons in my own life. I needed to go through those things in order to become the woman I am today. If I had not learned through that school of hard knox, I’m not sure who I would be now nor where I would be. I’m not saying that it’s not sad that I made some wrong decisions, yet those wrong decisions led to an understanding about how I needed to grow. They helped me to see who I wanted to be and where I wanted to go.
I’ve used a lot of “I’s” in that last paragraph, of which is normal when speaking of one’s self. However, it is with great joy that one of those lessons learned was that “I” was not in control of any of it. Something greater was awakening within me of which I was not even aware until a few years later. A generic definition of sanctification is “the state of proper functioning”. To sanctify someone or something is to set that person or thing apart for the use intended by its designer. (BibleStudytool.com) When God opened my eyes and began to show me who He is, I also began to realize that I could not have gotten to a place of peace and understanding in Him until I had gone through the things that most people want to call “regret”.
There are so many blessings that have come out of my personal walk on this journey in this life. All of which I can honestly say came from “lessons”, not regret.
You may be asking yourself where in the world am I going with this and why blog about this. Well, to explain, the last week I’ve intermittently been listening to a documentary on the truth about cancer. I have watched many in heartache over their own “regret” in lack of knowledge. It has made me consider how many people go through their days regretting how they live, what they say and what decisions they make. Sorrow overtakes them and they forget that each decision or action or word spoken that makes them have that regret has actually led them to a place of recognition. So I felt that I needed to share with others that rather than letting sorrow or disappointment over take you and your future, pray about what you have learned and ask for guidance in going forward.
Don’t waste your energy and time in regret or spend time in bitterness over disappointment, be grateful for the opportunity to learn and grow. Perhaps, this recognition of the past is the beginning of a new journey going forward. Perhaps also, a door has been opened to see something new and to learn new tools in dealing with situations going forth.
Isaiah 35
The Ransomed Shall Return
The wilderness and the dry land shall be glad;
the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus;
it shall blossom abundantly
and rejoice with joy and singing.
The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it,
the majesty of Carmel and Sharon.
They shall see the glory of the LORD,
the majesty of our God.
Strengthen the weak hands,
and make firm the feeble knees.
Say to those who have an anxious heart,
“Be strong; fear not!
Behold, your God
will come with vengeance,
with the recompense of God.
He will come and save you.”
Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened,
and the ears of the deaf unstopped;
then shall the lame man leap like a deer,
and the tongue of the mute sing for joy.
For waters break forth in the wilderness,
and streams in the desert;
the burning sand shall become a pool,
and the thirsty ground springs of water;
in the haunt of jackals, where they lie down,
the grass shall become reeds and rushes.
And a highway shall be there,
and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;
the unclean shall not pass over it.
It shall belong to those who walk on the way;
even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.a
No lion shall be there,
nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it;
they shall not be found there,
but the redeemed shall walk there.
And the ransomed of the LORD shall return
and come to Zion with singing;
everlasting joy shall be upon their heads;
they shall obtain gladness and joy,
and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.
Feline Friendly Fridays
Happy Anniversary….
“I would rather share one lifetime with you than face all the ages of this world alone.” (Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring)
22 years and counting.
I love you sweetheart, happy anniversary. Through thick and thin, through moves, job changes, illness, raising children, youth to middle age, and many more adventures, we have stuck it out, loving one another and supporting one another. That’s how we’ve made it thus far.
Not through our own doing, yet through the hands of the Lord who considers us worthy to be counted amongst his children. A heavenly Father who has guided us, secured us, and holds us close. We praise the Lord Jesus for the strength to carry on through it all. May those of you who are reading this be as blessed and be carried as far in your marriages. Trusting in His plan for your lives. Nothing is by accident, everything is by divine design, by only He who has created you.
If you have a wonderful anniversary story to share or a praise of the years you’ve celebrated, I welcome to hear them.
Until next time….I’m off to celebrate with the love of my life, the husband of my youth. 🙂 Cheers –
Feline Friendly Friday
There has been a lot of drama the past two weeks, between the sale of the cottage falling through after I spent a week of packing, moving and selling off items, to the hardwood floors that were installed in our living room that were installed terribly. I ended up firing the floor install guy and had to hire someone else to finish his work. Drama….
Anyway, on a brighter note, I had the pleasure of taking care of the kitties next door while the family went on their first vacation since the parents honeymoon. It was a pleasure watching the cats knowing that they were visiting our third home, Disney!
Watching these three is not without it’s own adventure. I told my friend that I am absolutely comfortable watching her children yet her cats terrified me. Two of the three take meds, one is older and a bit sickly, one is just plain old mean to anyone not her family (hence her nick name of so-ferocious) and the third is so darn sweet I could have taken her home because she didn’t want me to leave after each visit. Well, on their day of return I decided to have a little fun with my friend and made several attempts to write notes and take the cats pictures next to them. It ended up working out and my friend returned home to her sweet ones.
The last picture was a bit fun in that my husband actually walked over to watch the Michigan vs. Michigan State game and ended up setting off the alarm. We all know how that worked out in the end….
Then, during the week I had turned on some lights so that when I went over that night it wouldn’t be so dark and when I went back over later on, the lights were off. That was because my friends husband can turn off all lights from his cell phone, of which he had done. Then while I was there he proceeded to turn on halloween lights. Sounds a little Stephen Kingish don’t ya think. ha ha ha
Please read…
To all my readers, please click onto the actual site in order to view pictures as they were originally posted. For some reason they turn when you get them on your phones, iPads, or if you just open my post from your mail.
Sorry for the inconvenience. 🙂
Feline Friendly Friday
We have the best zoo… It was about a year later that they became a mom and dad…Aren’t they sweet!
The Heart Not The Shell
Bittersweet – adj. pleasant but tinged with sadness
I have heard this word close to a dozen times in the last few weeks. I guess you could say that it’s the word that fits the circumstances best. Pleasing to the mind that we have one less wasted expense, yet sad that something we hoped for as our future and enjoyed in our past is now being passed on.
We’ve sold three homes and now two cottages, the last of which was to one day be our retirement. It was the place we actually lived, without the hustle and bustle of everyday life, without phones and with minimal distractions. We shared our time with friends new and old, enjoyed nearly 10 years of Christmas memories, and submerged ourselves in the beauty of the northern woods. Hence the bitter…..
We rejoice in the plans that God holds before us, in the future we know not. We know that His plan is greater than ours and that He will provide for us a retirement filled with even greater blessings than a house made of wood. Ahhh…. the sweet…..
As the kids and I pulled off of the expressway two weeks ago to begin the packing and moving process, we each silently, without words, wept. We drove the 8 -10 miles with tears streaming down our faces…. up the driveway, knowing what was yet to come. When we first got there, we sat at the bottom of the driveway looking around at the cottage that silently waited our return, looking then to the leaves that have taken on their new look with brilliant colors of yellow, orange and red. A memory not soon forgotten.
We managed to pack enough up that what was left over was significant enough to attempt a rummage/garage sale. So, at 4 p.m. I went out to buy signs, put them out for the next day and we loaded up the garage. I was stunned to see that by the next day at 4 p.m. we had sold more at that sale than in any sale I’ve had in my 20 years of hosting them. We took the leftovers to Goodwill, filling an entire bin. In two days we had cleaned out and packed up the basement storage room, two bathrooms, all the linens, the basement living area, one entire bedroom, 85% of another bedroom, 2 closets and all of the decorations/wall hangings except those on the mantle. It took us one more day to finish two more bedrooms, one closet, and the garage. We also packed a trailer, my truck and at the end of the trip another car. There is still more to do, yet we are hoping that we will enjoy a little bit of our last week up there when we go up to close. Knowing how much we can accomplish in such a short time, we are thinking a week will provide the closure we need to this chapter in our lives. Prayerfully this time with fewer tears. 🙂
After we had packed up most of the house, we looked at the empty rooms and realized that it is just a shell… a beauty of a shell, yet still a shell. The heart of the house is in those who dwelt there and the memories that were made there.
Some of the memories this trip: Packing, rummage/garage sale on last minutes notice piggy backing on someone else’s advertisement without our knowledge, Elk farm where we saw the babies, taking senior pictures in the woods and in the beautiful leaves, leaf crafts …. we really like Pinterest! and all of the animals that came out to say goodbye!
Leaving, God blessed us with some amazing sights. We saw the doe who gave birth to triplets this year walking through the yard, the wild turkeys walking by the driveway and in the yard (too many to count…) we saw a beautiful orange fox with a huge fluffy tail and a bald eagle that soared over our heads. It was as if they were all saying goodbye to us as we left our native state.
Bittersweet…a word that made it’s debut in the early 1600’s to describe something pleasant yet sad.
The heart of the home!
Do You Have The Most Accurate Angle?
Perspective
1. the art of drawing solid objects on a two-dimensional surface so as to give the right impression of their height, width, depth, and position in relation to each other when viewed from a particular point.
2. a particular attitude toward or way of regarding something; a point of view.
I had the privilege of speaking with a friend of old yesterday. Someone whose voice I had not heard in about 25 years. We had been emailing for several years now, commiserating and sharing about the last 25 years, however yesterday we actually spoke to one another. It was such a delightful conversation and hearing her voice took me back to our childhood, minus the new southern “twang” she’s picked up in TX. (wink)
As we spoke about our children, our health, families and the hurried life of motherhood we hadn’t noticed that time on the clock was ticking by. So quickly in fact that my daughter held up her violin at one point and asked quietly if I was ready to leave for her lesson. A lesson which takes 20 minutes to get to and we had 15. OOPS!
I continued to chat with the phone attached to my ear, grabbed my purse and my keys and out we went. We continued our conversation for a short time longer and then said good-bye. Upon hanging up, as I sat in the parking lot of violin, I smiled with joy over the blessing of reconnecting and hearing her delightful voice. I also realized that she is the oldest friend I have, knowing her since I was in elementary school, the same age as her youngest. Whilst I pondered our conversation, I looked down and realized that I still had my pajama bottoms on with a silly t-shirt, no makeup and my hair was unbrushed and pulled up in a sloppy hair clip. Another OOPS!
It was all I could do to drive carefully home so as not get pulled over or get into a car accident. After all, what would they think? I mean really, it was 5:30 at night and I looked like I just woke up. The perspective someone may have if they saw me could be construed in other ways as well….slob, depressed, terrible mother, the list goes on.
I asked my daughter when she got into the car if she had realized I had on my pj bottoms and she gave me this corky teenager look with a simple yes, and looked away. I wonder what her perspective was? Future therapy? That she would never do that someday? That my priorities are completely messed up? Although I didn’t ask her then, I may have to now. 🙂
As a reader, I am wondering what perspective you are considering right now, or, now that my friend knows about the pj bottoms, I wonder what perspective she has at the thought.
Depending upon the angle one looks at a situation, many considerations can be observed. Isn’t that something we do each and every day? We look at something or someone, make an observation and sometimes an unwarranted judgement and take a perspective without knowing details of the situation or person. We jump to conclusions based on our perspective because of the angle we looked at something. I wonder how our perspective may change if we changed the direction that we looked at something? If we turn the view of the object we based our conclusion on and ponder it for awhile will we see things differently and will our perspective change? Something to consider when jumping to conclusions or when life overwhelms with situations we feel are out of control.
As a reader, I put this in your ball court as well and hope that together we can learn to look at or view a situation from a different angle, giving us a different perspective which may lead us to a different conclusion.
I need to say in closing that yesterday I took my morning to get my daughter set with her school work for the day, got nearly all my meds in and then decided to tackle cleaning one more room, closets, cupboards and dressers. I took a short break to get some water when I checked my email and saw my friend had emailed. It had been months since I’d heard from her and I knew that she was coming into a busy time of the season. I shot her a quick text addressing something she needed to see at that moment because of something she wrote, and I told her I planned on writing more later. I began to get up to get back to work, yet, due to the nature of her email I felt compelled to sit back down and lend her some moral support. As I typed I thought that it was great that I had the time to do that, however, wouldn’t a phone call be more suitable? So I called. Shortly thereafter she called back and hence the reason for the pj bottoms. It’s all about perspective! From my point of view, I was not a slug, I was not depressed, I was not anything other than busy doing some cleaning before my husband returned home from a business trip when a friend reached out and I gladly lent an ear. After all, that is what kind of friends I enjoy the most. Those that will take the time when I need them the most and who can hear my plea for an ear. A friend that will not look at time, but that will be there. A friend that has the ability to take a perspective that is not about self, yet can reach out to someone else.
(Just have to add that I did get cleaned up and showered before my loving husband appeared in the door. God is so good that He provided all the time I needed in the day. )
Perspective!
Feline Friendly Friday
“Oh that again? You’ll get over it, I’m here to stay!”
