The Bountiful Gal - Standing For Truth

Do you ever take a pause in life to reflect on the good moments?   Those moments of reflection are my favorite days.  The days where I'm in tune with my senses that it brings back the best memories.  I hear a song that takes me to a happy place.  I smell a scent that reminds me of home or my mission.  I feel the sun on my face or wind in my hair and I am at total peace.  These are the days that I absolutely love!  The days that I can reflect on all that God has done for me.  I remember a good memory and I can see all God's blessings for me from that memory.   This last week, in the midst of all my stress at work, I heard a song that took me back a couple of years ago to a moment with Abree and my other 2 nieces her age.  We were driving from DC down to Williamsburg and got stuck in 4 hours of traffic.  I introduced them to Celine Dion as we drove.  They laughed hysterically at me while I sang karaoke to Celine's song ...

(Zac and I on the ferry coming back to Seattle) I didn’t want to go. I was being a little bit of a baby.  Can you imagine a 40 year old tantrum?  Well that was me all last week. I was stressed out at work and had so much to take care of and organize. The work was just going to keep piling up.  I had to stay on top of it and get it organized.  You'd think that I forget I don't run the business by myself.  I have an amazing staff that is very capable and yet, I seem to take on all the workload myself. I was beyond tired! 2 weeks and 10-12 days is extremely wearing on someone but top that with my chronic fatigue flaring up and that’s an exhaustion only a person who suffers from it can understand.  I was in pain. The stress and lack of sleep was sending me into a fibro flare up as well. Everything hurt! My family was in town. I haven’t seen my mom since May and I just needed time with her. Wednesday night when she walked in the door, I broke down in tears....

 I belong to a church that believes in making covenants with God.  I have always believed in making covenants even though I wasn't sure what it meant.  I knew it meant happiness!  I saw it in the people around me who made covenants.  I saw an extra brightness and goodness around them.  I felt it and I knew I wanted it.  I grew up knowing that I would make covenants at certain times in my life and it meant life would be good and without realizing it, I think it meant easy. As life has progressed, I have made these special covenants with God and life really has been good.  But since making these covenants, I have found life isn't easy.  Life is actually a little harder!  Why is that?  If I'm making covenants with God to keep Him more at the forefront of my life, why would life be harder in some ways? I've studied over the years and have accepted the answer of how everyone needs trials in their life.  That is the whole reason we c...