My upcoming radio guest Felice Gerwitz is guest-posting for me today! Make sure you tune in tomorrow at 3:00 central to my radio show and enter the weekly giveaway!
My wish list when I was younger:
If only I was taller.
If only I was smarter.
If only I was thinner.
If only my parents weren’t so strict.
If only I didn’t have so much homework.
If only he liked me!
My wish list when I became older:
If only I could get that job.
If only the weather will be great on our wedding day.
If only our kids will be healthy.
If only I could sleep through the night without a baby me waking up.
If only I had more time in the day!
We can spend our entire time wishing or we can live our lives. I’ve decided (and age is a great factor in my decisions) that if we bottled up the times we’ve worried about things that didn’t ever happen, our lives would be so much easier! Not only on us, but also on the lives of those we love. How often do you spend time hoping, dreaming or wishing for things that are really beyond your control?
Hindsight is a beautiful thing, if we can look and learn from it. When I look at my life there are so many things to be proud of and as many or more that I wish would just go away.
1 Corinthians 13:11 puts it so beautifully:
“When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.”
I did get the job, the weather was great during my outdoors reception, the kids are all healthy, the babies finally all slept through the night . . . the time-thing . . . still working on that one! Yet, as an adult I’m still doing it! I’m looking at the “if onlys” and forgetting the here and now. The list and focus may have changed however so many of us live in a place that makes us unhappy. I realized later, as a young adult that only God could make me totally happy. This realization came when the knight-in-shining-armor that I married told me. He said I was trying to make him into a god and he most definitely was not. He continued on, and I half-listened through a teary, newly-wed episode, that if I continued to expect perfection out of him, I would always be disappointed. He, very wisely directed me to look to God.
And I did.
Thankfully God gave me the grace to do this, to take the love I had for my husband and keep it in the correct place. God showed me that through loving him, he would perfect my husband and me into the creatures he wanted us to be! I began giving God the little bit of time I could snatch, a minute here and a minute there.
After 33 years of marriage, five children, homeschooling, and dealing with a special needs child, we are still happily married. Two of my children are adults, one with a family of her own and I have five grandchildren. The legacy to those who follow the Lord through all the bumps and bruises in life continues on. Not perfectly, but with a single focus.
I challenge you to give God one minute, just one, and see the difference it will make in your life!
Felice Gerwitz loves the Lord, her husband, family and is an avid baker! In her spare time she is an author, publisher, speaker and podcast host. She blogs on occasion on her website for authors, http://www.WritingandPublishingBlog.com. Additionally she hosts webinars for homeschoolers and a monthly inspirational get-together for Christian women, Mommy Jammies night (http://www.MommyJammiesNight.com). She owns Media Angels Publishing and you can connect with her on all social media websites.
*Photo credit: Image courtesy of nuttakit / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
“We can spend our entire time wishing or we can live our lives.” I agree completely!