I want to celebrate that it's been a year since I retired! What have I have liked most about this time of my life? Accomplishments, is that what is the most important? At first I was addicted to Pinterest. Now I don't pin too much, mostly use it as a resource. In the Spring, I got so busy with selling my dvd Learn to Swim with Miss Bea with a facebook page, another blog, and my Amazon sales that kept me so busy! Now I am taking a break from that. (Except I have an idea to put a special 2 for one sale for the Holidays!)
The garden and the beach, the birth of grandchild number 5, and being with my kids and other grandkids and husband...
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| Isabella |
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| 5 grandchildren! Love, love, love! |
I am not afraid of time passing. I am sometimes afraid that I am "wasting" it. How can it be? Time is mine and no one can take it away from me because now I choose what to do with it. It has become more valuable because it is all mine. No other person is directing me. Since I choose what to do with my time it I feel responsible never to waste it.
Last week I didn't have any commitments to my kids and grands, and I realized that I had so many choices of things to do but I wasn’t wanting to do any of them. All were things on my list, a list that I had made! Reading them I found that I didn’t want to do any of them! And I didn't! God gave me this time to relax and enjoy and I'm giving it back to God!
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| Caroline at the park |
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| Micaela |
In her magazine of Sept. 2011, after she stopped her daily show, Opra wrote about her frustration with time as she struggled to start her new TV station:
“Everywhere I turn, new beginnings and big changes abound for me. The inevitable truth is that everything changes. We’re not meant to look the same or act the same year in and year out. Growth brings new potential. And I know for sure that when you’re open to receiving them, the possibilities just keep on coming.”
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| Andrew, Lauren, Isabella |
My father loved the song, Turn, Turn Turn by the Byrds with the words of Solomon in Ecclesiastes and we used to sing it for him with my sister playing in the guitar. I even learned to play it on the guitar. But now that I am retired, the words have a different meaning.
- To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
- A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, a time to reap that which is planted;
- A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
- A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
- A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
- A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
- A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
- A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.
In AD Chronicles by Boede and Thoene Cantor explains the words of Solomon to Lily, to look at time as God sees time eternally. From the book about the lepers, page 222:
“Fear not… Fear nothing. Fear no man... From the earliest days, the Lord has taught his ways to Israel through the prophets. We can understand any event through the language of God’s Word… We may only see a fragment of his plan and misunderstand… and always, the events continue to unfold beyond our short lifetimes...
See that? The light from that star began its journey to your eye perhaps ten thousand years ago. So it is with everything set in motion on this earth. Solomon wrote that in each life there is a time for us to be born and a time to die. There were twenty-eight things Solomon wrote as the Times in our lives between birth and death. But I tell you the truth: When we follow and believe the master plan within God’s Word, we are beyond the reach of time…
Every step is marked out for you… just walk. What you and I do now for God is like the light of that star. To someone yet unborn you are a distant star. What good you do now may shine forth, yet it may not be seen or received by anyone during your lifetime. But then your act of kindness will someday change the destiny of someone far in the future. A thousand or two thousand years from this moment. What we do now matters eternally. The written Word of the Almighty lets us study and see how the eternal picture is unfolding through generations. Whatever we suffer now? We can have faith that, in the end, even our suffering will be golden thread in the eternal tapestry….
Our destiny is already recorded in the Book… Everyting matters. Every word, Deed. Thought, Prayer. Fear not! It is time that makes us fear. Fear of running out of time. There is no time where we are going… The prayer we pray today…we think God does not hear? It may yet be answered for our grandchildren, or their grandchildren…
God is the God of the living, not the dead. No matter what happens in this life, Fear not."
Just live and laugh, like Micaela my newest niece!!!
