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Sunday, January 2, 2011

Humble Pie

Last year, when 2010 started, there were several times throughout January and February that I would write the date as 2011 on accident. I would joke around and say "apparently 2010 is going to suck, and I am just trying to skip it."  It was all fun and games until my life was turned completely upside down at the end of February.

As everything in my life started falling apart, I developed a very close relationship with my Heavenly Father.  I could feel his spirit and his presence around me all of the time.  I could feel his promptings so clearly that it was almost like I could hear his voice.  I developed a very clear knowledge of what it is like to have a prayer in your heart all of the time.

As the days following Wayne's death turned into weeks, and weeks into months, I was still being dealt blow after blow.  I lost my home, my car, my job, and I had to move across the country leaving my family and the majority of my possessions behind.  Somewhere in there, I also lost that really close relationship with my Heavenly Father that I grown to treasure more than anything else.  I thought that he was stepping back and forcing me to stand on my own two feet, proving to me that I really did have the strength to endure. I resented it and I grew very hateful toward the year 2010 and I couldn't wait for 2011 to finally get here.

I stopped living and started just breathing.  Day after day I would get up, go to work, come home and go to bed.  I had no motivation to do anything else.  I would occasionally try to break out and do something different, but I kept falling back into the same old routine; sleep...work...sleep...work.  I just kept telling myself that if I could make it to 2011 I would be fine.

Yesterday, I woke up to 2011 and I had a new energy in my step.  I looked around my room and said "holy cow, I haven't even finished getting unpacked from when I moved here."  I looked in the mirror and said "holy cow, what have you done to yourself."  I look like I have aged 5 or 10 years in the past 6 months.  I felt like an old furnace that was just kicking in after having it's pilot light re-lit.

This morning, I woke up and thanked 2011 for bringing me back to life.  I started to gain hope for my future.  I felt like 2011 was the key; that this year is going to be so much better.  I opened up my computer and started to write this post about my new hope.  But, every time that I started to write, it just felt wrong.  I would delete and start again.  And then it happened.  It started as a little nagging thought in the back of my head that grew and grew until it was a fully formed realization....I had removed my faith from my Heavenly Father and placed it in the beginning of a new year.  Somewhere along the way I stopped leaning on him and asking him to help me and I started hanging on to the notion that 2011 would be my saving grace.  My Heavenly Father didn't leave me to learn to fight my trials on my own like I had thought, I had pushed him away.  I turned my back on him.

The next realization that I had was that this feeling I am having right now...that feeling of hope and awakening... was offered to me months ago;  I just never accepted it.  I was so focused on 2011 bringing me happiness that I didn't even notice that it was being handed to me on a silver platter, all I had to do was partake and it was mine.  I never took into account that Heavenly Father's time line doesn't work the same way that ours does.  He doesn't dole out blessings or his love based on the calendar year.  My trials had nothing to do with 2010 or 2011. 

So I now sit here eating my humble pie, and in a few minutes I will be on my knees.  Who would have thought that the calender could become a false idol?

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