Greetings web-friends and Happy post holidays!
I love the holidays and am also glad when it's time to get back into a routine after the excessive food. laziness and shopping! My birthday is January 2 so it's always been the day to go back to school, back to work and it's generally the end of all parties and celebrations! LOL!
Thanksgiving 2011 was an interesting and joyous occasion, as always! Perhaps more diverse than any previous holiday I've experienced in days gone by. With the variety in the crowd that graced our home throughout the day, we enjoyed parents, grandparents, children and children's children, siblings and their families and the special treat of my step-daughter and her family as well as some new friends from work who have recently come to work in the states. There was one couple from Tokyo and another colleague from Russia. We had a group of 30 altogether, kids included and of course food in ridiculous abundance!
Mack had everyone introduce themselves and Dad McBurney had the prayer, after telling a Thanksgiving joke about a little boy and a turkey. :) We visited into the late afternoon and the children all played together very well - there were 8 in all from 2-14 so that in itself was a blessing!
That experience and my work with our HR department has been a valuable tool in teaching me some life lessons, recently, with regard to myself and my newly acquired family.
Let me explain! Just as at work, I encounter "diversity" or differences in working with my colleagues due to various backgrounds, cultural influences and a variety of additional factors, I also find it so in my home! Recognizing and embracing the differences is taught as a must in the workplace but it can be a different matter in the home! When I realize that I have "biases" to work with that determine how I think and what approach I take to various encounters, I have to consider the inclusiveness piece to the puzzle or "embracing our differences!"
When I got married, I was all about this formula. Recognize and embrace the differences, negate our biases and be inclusive to all within our home. My husband's values and ideas merited equal importance to mine! I wanted to be "in the know" on all subjects relating to my new husband and his family, including talks with our kids, knowledge of each others family situations, etc. and it was going to be happy days including close relationships with my step-children and lunches and outings with my sisters in law as added "best friends" to the grand mix I already had in my life. (I had no shortage of girlfriends in my world and was so excited to add luncheons and shopping dates and girl secrets shared....) and as has been common in my life over my 47 years, I was disappointed yet again as the idealist always is when all did not happen exactly as I had envisioned! :-D
I also realized that I stumble on the "embracing the differences" piece in my home! LOL - it's more like "This is how I see it and if you see it that same way, we are good! Otherwise, let me help you correct your erroneous thinking!" :) There were some wonderful times in 2011 and some difficult ones but one thing is clear. I'm learning so much day by day!
One of my goals for 2012 is to practice this diversity/biases/inclusiveness relationship in our home and to lower my expectations of people and situations in which the outcome depends on more than just me! I also want to be kinder to myself. I am a person with many lofty goals and disciplines in my life and when I don't reach the pinnacle of success at the appointed (by me) time, I tend to be hard on myself. I want to walk in grace this year and to do all that I can with what I've been given and in those things I cannot control, they must be relegated to my "God box." I want to take it to him and leave it there for his perfect resolution and timing according to his great purpose!
Happy New Year, girlfriends! Let's make it one full of grace and truth!
Wednesday
Passionate Living With Purpose - it's URGENT!
Girlfriends!! Sometimes I marvel that I am 47.....47! Almost 1/2 a century - whoa! And man do I look good for an old girl! LOL! Cracking myself up!
Girlfriends this is urgent! I realize more each day how little attention I paid to time and purpose when I was younger. It seems urgent to me now to daily recognize that each 24 hour period can never be recovered to be lived over again! What is there to do but live this day, this time, our "right nows" with passion and purpose!? It's essential! I am an admitted dreamer and think BIG when it comes to squeezing all I can out of a day and striving to make a difference somewhere along the way and while I struggle with being tired by early evening, due to my 4:30 a.m. start with a fat-blasting work-out and a 70 mile round-trip commute to work, as well as the various stresses of concern for my kids, friends, job responsibilities, etc. that we all carry to one degree or another, I can never apologize for striving to seize the day! It is my passion and privelege to squeeze all I can out of this life I've so graciously been given to return back to my Creator!
What is your passion coming in to 2012? More importantly, how are you going to embark upon fulfilling it? Unlike many, I LOVE the opportunity to make New Year's Resolutions! It's simply a lifestyle continuum for me to set goals and measurements to reach them. I don't always manage to do so - I was going to have my book written last year and now it has been moved ahead to this year but I try not to be TOO hard on myself as I got married, worked through a few set-backs, family needs and some big and wonderful changes in my career that took a lot of focus...so onward I go to reach that goal with a little delay on completion time. BUT my point here is that I do set goals and I hope you do, as well. One thing is for sure. If we don't set a goal, we won't reach it!
In living with passion and purpose and thinking of goal setting, ask yourself a few questions. What do I care about? What are my priorities? What relationships need my attention or need to be modified? How is my spiritual life? What kind of physical condition am I in and does it need improvement? As you walk through these questions, you will find your goals coming into view and can begin to work on measurements or ways to reach them. Be sure they are a stretch from where you are now but not out of reach! Be bold, take risks, be reasonable with yourself!
Let me know how it's going. By week's end I will have had 3 lunches this week where I was asked for some encouragement and help with motivation for the new year. This is what I love and am passionate about. It's wonderful to set our goals and even better to bring some others along on the journey!
Have a great week and if you are struggling to find your passion and set your goals, get in a place of prayer and ask God to reveal his start-up plan for you. Believe he has direction - I promise He DOES! He is more than interested in accomplishing his purpose in a willing vessel!
Blessings!
Still Climbing,
Cher
Girlfriends this is urgent! I realize more each day how little attention I paid to time and purpose when I was younger. It seems urgent to me now to daily recognize that each 24 hour period can never be recovered to be lived over again! What is there to do but live this day, this time, our "right nows" with passion and purpose!? It's essential! I am an admitted dreamer and think BIG when it comes to squeezing all I can out of a day and striving to make a difference somewhere along the way and while I struggle with being tired by early evening, due to my 4:30 a.m. start with a fat-blasting work-out and a 70 mile round-trip commute to work, as well as the various stresses of concern for my kids, friends, job responsibilities, etc. that we all carry to one degree or another, I can never apologize for striving to seize the day! It is my passion and privelege to squeeze all I can out of this life I've so graciously been given to return back to my Creator!
What is your passion coming in to 2012? More importantly, how are you going to embark upon fulfilling it? Unlike many, I LOVE the opportunity to make New Year's Resolutions! It's simply a lifestyle continuum for me to set goals and measurements to reach them. I don't always manage to do so - I was going to have my book written last year and now it has been moved ahead to this year but I try not to be TOO hard on myself as I got married, worked through a few set-backs, family needs and some big and wonderful changes in my career that took a lot of focus...so onward I go to reach that goal with a little delay on completion time. BUT my point here is that I do set goals and I hope you do, as well. One thing is for sure. If we don't set a goal, we won't reach it!
In living with passion and purpose and thinking of goal setting, ask yourself a few questions. What do I care about? What are my priorities? What relationships need my attention or need to be modified? How is my spiritual life? What kind of physical condition am I in and does it need improvement? As you walk through these questions, you will find your goals coming into view and can begin to work on measurements or ways to reach them. Be sure they are a stretch from where you are now but not out of reach! Be bold, take risks, be reasonable with yourself!
Let me know how it's going. By week's end I will have had 3 lunches this week where I was asked for some encouragement and help with motivation for the new year. This is what I love and am passionate about. It's wonderful to set our goals and even better to bring some others along on the journey!
Have a great week and if you are struggling to find your passion and set your goals, get in a place of prayer and ask God to reveal his start-up plan for you. Believe he has direction - I promise He DOES! He is more than interested in accomplishing his purpose in a willing vessel!
Blessings!
Still Climbing,
Cher
Saturday
Exodus from an Amish flavored lifestyle - Part II
...As I went that evening to Outback Steakhouse for some dinner, I sat near but not in the bar area. I had a notepad and pen and was writing down thoughts, pros/cons, questions and answers all related to my decision of whether or not to leave the church. I ordered a steak and just sat observing people and trying to understand how this would feel to be part of "regular society" again. I watched a couple at the bar, in particular, as they were sharing wine, talking and laughing. I noticed as the evening wore on and after several more drinks, the couple wasn't so fun to watch anymore as they were both more than tipsy. You know how it is when you are not drinking and you are with people who have had too much? :) I knew as I watched that scene that, although I was leaning into the decision to leave the church, I was not drawn to that lifestyle. I wanted to continue to walk with God and to live a "clean" life, as I was accustomed to doing, but with the freedom to do so independently of a strictly planned lifestyle that offered little opportunity for variation or the individual expression of talents and choices.
I finished my dinner and went back to the hotel with mixed emotions and thoughts. There is much to be written about this time in my life as you can imagine in making such a huge transition...relationships were affected, huge adjustments were and still are experienced, the lasting scars from the wounds of being expelled and considered a lost soul who has turned their back on "the truth" and the process of healing over time, with God's grace and the loving support of family and friends...I will further expand in my book but for my blogging with humor purpose here, I will move to the time of my actual departure from the church.
Back home, once my decision was made, I faxed a letter to the 4 ministers and 2 deacons describing my intention. As a point of interest, that is the communication Mennonites most often utilize en mass since they normally don't have computers in the home and, if they do, they likely don't have the ineternet unless strictly for business purposes and then it is heavily filtered against unwholesome content access.
I told my boss and co-workers at the fish plant that I would be leaving my position as Health & Safety Coordinator and front office girl as I knew I could not work there being expelled which would come soon enough. I had been offered a job by the attorney who had handled my divorce. BTW, I did not file for divorce as that constitutes a law-suit and is forbidden by the Mennonite church so my husband filed and I simply responded. I left the 18 year marriage with nothing but some furniture, 1/2 of the proceeds of the sale of our house and 1/2 of our debt, which took care of the small amount of money I received.
I walked into the attorney's office to talk with my lawyer and formally accept the job offer and the young woman at the front didn't even recognize me. She is now one of my dearest friends and helped create both my blog and website! I had been in the office a number of times during the divorce process and had taken cookies, a plant and a thank you for all the assistance in getting through it while I was still a member of the church. I told her who I was and she was like, "What?! Wow!" She proceeded to the back telling everyone that I was there and he wasn't going to believe it! lol He and I had discussed my decision so he was expecting me. When she took me into his office, he said, "Come in here my little Mennonite girl." Everyone in the office gasped when I walked in the door in a suit and decidedly non-Mennonite. It carries some humor, as I recollect but was a very stressful time for me. It's good I can recall it with a smile some 9 years later and many similar incidents where people in town recognized me. Running into my Mennonite friends was a different experience as they would look at me and cry and ask me to come back to the Lord and the church...they didn't believe I could be a Christian outside the church.
The judge in town and his wife, from whom I rented my house in the country, took me under their wing and "re-introduced" me in town. I began my new job and a little later, when I discovered the 2005 Mustang had come out and was retro designed to be very similar to the old 1960's series, of which I had learned to drive with my dad on a '69 Mach I with a stick, I decided I must have one. My dad had recently passed away, suddenly, and I missed him, terribly! I had been driving "plain" vehicles with (white, silver, black - or other non-attention drawing colors for Mennonites) for some time and was ready to have a little flash and splash in my life again! I bought a white mustang and, while I was at the dealership, noticed a Shelby on the front of a Car & Driver magazine there that was red with white racing stripes.....I decided, with little thought as to how FLASHY it would truly be, to have red racing stripes put on it. When it came back a few days later for me to pick up, I was shocked as I realized what a statement it was and that there would be no going incognito in it! I lived in a town of 5,000 people and was pretty well recognized by everyone, before, as the girl who had come to the Mennonite world, was on the front page of the Religion section in the Little Rock Democrat Gazette and worked at the fish plant and now as "that little ex-Mennonite girl" so this was a pretty bold move, even though I really didn't see it that way at the time. I can only imagine how my dear Mennonite friends thought I had lost it and I do mean lost it as in my salvation. I don't say this lightly to be coy, just to give you a picture of the situation and, as I've said, see a little humor in a very tough place in my life. But I felt free to actually be authentically ME again. Since I was a toddler, my mom will tell you, I loved glitter, glamour and bright colors~ and now I loved "my pony!" I really enjoyed that car until I wrecked it 2 years ago on my way to work one morning. It has a special place in my heart as it represented thoughts of my dad, my childhood, the expression of who I am and the early days of my integration back into the societal norm.
To see a picture of me and my stang, check out my FB photos. I now drive an Infinity but it still has a sports package on it.:)
Hope you are finding humor in some of your past dark places. The Bible says, "Laughter does good like a medicine" and I've found that to be very true.
Everyone have an awesome Labor Day weekend and remember to have a positive effect on someone in your world, today, with a smile, a hug and some encouragement that there is grace, hope and help in the tender mercies of our heavenly Father.
Still Climbing,
Cher
I finished my dinner and went back to the hotel with mixed emotions and thoughts. There is much to be written about this time in my life as you can imagine in making such a huge transition...relationships were affected, huge adjustments were and still are experienced, the lasting scars from the wounds of being expelled and considered a lost soul who has turned their back on "the truth" and the process of healing over time, with God's grace and the loving support of family and friends...I will further expand in my book but for my blogging with humor purpose here, I will move to the time of my actual departure from the church.
Back home, once my decision was made, I faxed a letter to the 4 ministers and 2 deacons describing my intention. As a point of interest, that is the communication Mennonites most often utilize en mass since they normally don't have computers in the home and, if they do, they likely don't have the ineternet unless strictly for business purposes and then it is heavily filtered against unwholesome content access.
I told my boss and co-workers at the fish plant that I would be leaving my position as Health & Safety Coordinator and front office girl as I knew I could not work there being expelled which would come soon enough. I had been offered a job by the attorney who had handled my divorce. BTW, I did not file for divorce as that constitutes a law-suit and is forbidden by the Mennonite church so my husband filed and I simply responded. I left the 18 year marriage with nothing but some furniture, 1/2 of the proceeds of the sale of our house and 1/2 of our debt, which took care of the small amount of money I received.
I walked into the attorney's office to talk with my lawyer and formally accept the job offer and the young woman at the front didn't even recognize me. She is now one of my dearest friends and helped create both my blog and website! I had been in the office a number of times during the divorce process and had taken cookies, a plant and a thank you for all the assistance in getting through it while I was still a member of the church. I told her who I was and she was like, "What?! Wow!" She proceeded to the back telling everyone that I was there and he wasn't going to believe it! lol He and I had discussed my decision so he was expecting me. When she took me into his office, he said, "Come in here my little Mennonite girl." Everyone in the office gasped when I walked in the door in a suit and decidedly non-Mennonite. It carries some humor, as I recollect but was a very stressful time for me. It's good I can recall it with a smile some 9 years later and many similar incidents where people in town recognized me. Running into my Mennonite friends was a different experience as they would look at me and cry and ask me to come back to the Lord and the church...they didn't believe I could be a Christian outside the church.
The judge in town and his wife, from whom I rented my house in the country, took me under their wing and "re-introduced" me in town. I began my new job and a little later, when I discovered the 2005 Mustang had come out and was retro designed to be very similar to the old 1960's series, of which I had learned to drive with my dad on a '69 Mach I with a stick, I decided I must have one. My dad had recently passed away, suddenly, and I missed him, terribly! I had been driving "plain" vehicles with (white, silver, black - or other non-attention drawing colors for Mennonites) for some time and was ready to have a little flash and splash in my life again! I bought a white mustang and, while I was at the dealership, noticed a Shelby on the front of a Car & Driver magazine there that was red with white racing stripes.....I decided, with little thought as to how FLASHY it would truly be, to have red racing stripes put on it. When it came back a few days later for me to pick up, I was shocked as I realized what a statement it was and that there would be no going incognito in it! I lived in a town of 5,000 people and was pretty well recognized by everyone, before, as the girl who had come to the Mennonite world, was on the front page of the Religion section in the Little Rock Democrat Gazette and worked at the fish plant and now as "that little ex-Mennonite girl" so this was a pretty bold move, even though I really didn't see it that way at the time. I can only imagine how my dear Mennonite friends thought I had lost it and I do mean lost it as in my salvation. I don't say this lightly to be coy, just to give you a picture of the situation and, as I've said, see a little humor in a very tough place in my life. But I felt free to actually be authentically ME again. Since I was a toddler, my mom will tell you, I loved glitter, glamour and bright colors~ and now I loved "my pony!" I really enjoyed that car until I wrecked it 2 years ago on my way to work one morning. It has a special place in my heart as it represented thoughts of my dad, my childhood, the expression of who I am and the early days of my integration back into the societal norm.
To see a picture of me and my stang, check out my FB photos. I now drive an Infinity but it still has a sports package on it.:)
Hope you are finding humor in some of your past dark places. The Bible says, "Laughter does good like a medicine" and I've found that to be very true.
Everyone have an awesome Labor Day weekend and remember to have a positive effect on someone in your world, today, with a smile, a hug and some encouragement that there is grace, hope and help in the tender mercies of our heavenly Father.
Still Climbing,
Cher
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