Cha-Cha-Changes

This has been one busy week.  And the weekend looks to be even busier. So forgive me if I slur my words here as my fingers go flying over the keyboard.  I am in a bit of a rush to get everything done around here.  Been like this all day long.  It has made my morning breakfast of champions pretty sad looking.  Yes a handful of medication chased down with my Cinch shake.  Why sad when I love the shakes?  Well because I have been too busy to really play with many of the flavors this week.  But I do love it when I mix it up with apple juice and cinnamon...now that is a crisp fall morning in a glass.

We all get busy with life.  And find ourselves rushing from one project to the next.  So much so that sometimes we look back and shake our head trying to figure out just how we managed to get some things so screwed up.  Oh yes, we all do in one way or the other.  This last few weeks I have had several people ask me about events in my past.  How come I decided to do the things I did.  And why did I feel it was important at that time.  Well, I did and that is that.  You know.  Those things you prefer not to share anymore.  Yeah that one you just thought about!

Well that is the way of life.  Now what I find most interesting is that some people think that your previous actions define you.  That you can only be that one person.  Never changing.  And that makes me laugh.  I mean we are ever changing evolving beings.  For example my Dear Hubby had a scary horrid drinking problem in the past.  Now he does not have a single drink.  And he is night and day difference.  Thank God!  Granny M feels that some of the people she knew as teens must have the same actions as adults still.  How could we get stuck there and never change or grow.  I believe we all are ever changing.  And who we were at one time may not be anything as to who we are now.  I pray that we change for the better but that is not always so.  Personally I am not the girl I was a teen scared of the world.  Nor when I was in my 20's and thought I was in one constant party.  Nor my 30's when life was the most confusing for me.  But now leaning on the door to my 50's I am much more mellow.  And accepting too of many things I did not know I could understand.

I was reminded of all of this while I was reading Terri Blackstock's book 'Showow in Serenity'.  This was my fun read this week.  Set in small town Texas (gosh just like where I live), Carny has settled down.  Leaving her past well....in the past.  Or so she hopes.  Knowing that she must guard her previous life from others thus not to be judge she finds that she is pretty aware of what is going on around her most of the time.  And those old bells and whistles are clanging when she meets up with Logan.  Yes he seems to be cut from the same cloth she use to be from.  Now here is the deal.  Carny has to know does she allow Logan the chance to see if he really has changes as she did.  Or should she warn those around her so they will not be scammed?  Where is the fine line of privacy and being a good citizen.  And if she does will the townspeople see her for who she is now and not in the past.  More so, will she still have Logan in her life?  Oh how God plays games with us at times.  Letting our hearts open up when we have held it closed for so long.

I am glad to read that Carny learns to trust in what God has put before her.  To forgive over and over again.  And to love freely without fear.  I myself thank God for just exactly this very thing.  He taught me to trust my heart, believe in change and to forgive til there is nothing left but the pure love he has given me.  It has made my life much easier and infinitely happier.  Thanks also to Zondervan for sharing this book with me.  Of course this is my take on it....unpaid and purely because I adore reading.