Waiting

Time and waiting.  We wait for time to pass, and we wait for time to come.  We're always waiting for something.  If we learn not to mind the waiting, then we'll enjoy life so much more.

At the end of waiting comes the long anticipated moment.  It's just a moment.  That one moment that also passes.  They all pass, the good and the bad.  At the end of that moment begins another waiting process, but in that space between 'the end' and 'here we go again' is the sadness of departure.

I've always been the kid who took the ending of a good moment so hard.  I fretted about it hours before the end arrived.  I tormented myself by wishing it wouldn't end.  Rather than enjoy what happened, I sorrowed over it ending.  So when I saw this quote, it was like spokes of sunshine.  I have a new perspective.

Don't cry because it ended.  Smile that it happened.

How about that?  Rather than lament, celebrate and savor the memories.

This past Labor Day holiday a dear college friend came to visit me.  I enjoyed every moment of her stay, and we had lots of fun.  It was sad to say good bye, but we made new memories to revisit--new silly memories to relive and laugh over them.

Trying on hats and masks...yes, I did too, but those pictures are on her camera

Words

Words are the dress of thoughts; which should no more be presented in rags, tatters, and dirt than your person should.--Philip Dormer Stanhope

How do you answer tough questions?  How do you respond when offended?

In the Christian circle grace is mentioned often.  "God's grace is sufficient" is often quoted usually in the context for doing a job or tolerating a personality. Something a friend said recently caused me to evaluate my behavior in light of grace.  The mark or evidence of grace in your life is demonstrated by how you react to a person or situation that offended you.  Question is: were you gracious?  Was I gracious?  

I'm not the type of person who speaks everything that crosses my mind.  I filter.  However, I don't think the fuming thoughts I harbored could be excused even though I didn't express them.  The quote above is apropos.  I spend time and effort to make myself presentable.  The words that I speak should be selected with greater care than the clothes I wear.

Clothes make the man.  Naked people have little or no influence on society.--Mark Twain (http://www.quotationspage.com/quote/253.html)

Change

All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy, for what we are leaving behind is part of ourselves.--Amelia E. Barr

I hadn't viewed change from that perspective before.  To me change has been the cattle prod that shooed me out of my comfort zone.  Sometimes it's unchartered territory (in more sense than just geographically) that would cause me to obsessively run multiple scenarios of how the change will unfold or affect my life.  Sometimes its arrival is too sudden for me to anticipate the possible outcomes.  Sometimes it's good, and sometimes it sucks.

It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change.--Anonymous (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Change)

Change can strengthen you.  It can also test how strong you are.