NEW BEGINNINGS
Sometimes, when we least expect it, life brings major changes into our lives which require us to make many new beginnings. When we are young we don’t think about building our tomorrows the way we want them to be; we just live and life happens. As we grow older and have experienced much of life, both good and bad, we develop a list of “I wish I had not done that.” and another list of “I wish I had done that.” While yesterday is finished and can’t be changed, tomorrow is yet unwritten and is a gift from God to those who would use it wisely to affect, not just their meager time on this earth, but their eternal life.
I am writing this blog because my husband of 52 years, and friend for 54, died very suddenly June 21 of 2011; and my life has seen many changes over this past year and will see many more. Now I have some very definite ideas about what I want to do with my life and want to document what I do so that it might be of help to someone else.
I met my husband Jim when I was only fourteen years old. Even though we weren’t married until I was eighteen, we started making life choices when I was only fourteen and he was nineteen. He decided that he would not wait any longer to be accepted into pilot training. Instead he would opt out of the Air Force when his time was up and go back to college. We decided I would work while he went to college; so I began to take business courses in school instead of calculus and other courses required for college. After I graduated from high school and his time was up in the military, we moved from Austin, Texas, to Arlington, Virginia, where he enrolled at American University in mechanical engineering; and I took the Civil Service test and went to work for the U.S. Patent Office, Commerce Department, as a stenographer. Arlington was the bedroom of Washington, DC; and we commuted over Key Bridge every day to school and work.
“The best laid plans of mice and men…” I’m not sure whether Jim really wanted to go back to school or that is what his Mom and Dad and I wanted for him and for ourselves. It wasn’t long until he expressed his discontent with that path and an interest in going into business for himself, which, as you can imagine, didn’t please either me or his parents. It was a rough period for us. He tried running his own gas station for a while. Since we did not have the resources at that point to purchase a well-located, money-making station, that lasted for about a year. Then our children began to come along; and he realized he had to do something much more substantial; thus began his twenty-five-year career with IBM. Though we would have preferred he finish his college education first; his parents and I were certainly happier with him working at IBM. Truthfully, he was not ever sincerely happy; but he stayed with it for twenty-five-years for the sake of our family. By that time we had four sons who needed college educations. So, you see: “life happens.” Whether you are fourteen, eighteen, or twenty-eight, life does not always go as you plan and you have to adapt as best you can.
I never wanted to be “left behind”, either by the Rapture of the Church or Jim’s death. I wanted to be the first one of us to leave this earth for our heavenly home; and pleaded with God many times that it would be so. Obviously, that was not a prayer God could answer; because it was not His will. Even Jesus prayed, “If it be Thy will….” God has a purpose for my still being here or He most certainly would have answered my fervent prayer to be taken home first. I don’t know specifically what that purpose is; but I intend to focus the rest of my life on Him, His Word and prayer; and I am sure He will lead me where He wants me. No, I am not going to be “too heavenly minded to be of any earthly good”; because I am quite sure God has left me here to be of earthly good! But spending lots of time focusing on Him, reading His Word and praying will open my ears to hear His Spirit speak. The devil has his will for my life; and God has His will. The devil masquerades as an angel of light; so he will make his will seem attractive. I want only God’s way; so that when He finally calls me Home to Heaven, I can hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant….”
This blog will chronicle my new beginning: focusing on hearing and obeying God’s will for the rest of my life and enjoying all the new beginnings that come to me through His good and perfect will.
