Happiness Is... OR... 10 Things I Forgot To Stop And Love

Okay...I have to admit it, I've been a royal grouch for the past couple of weeks.  There's really no good reason for it.  I could try to chalk it up to stress and worry and (my personal least fave) change, but that would be unspeakably lame; because...news flash...life ALWAYS has change.  So, I'll just call this one likes I sees it...I have stopped seeing all the lovely things God has blessed me with.  In short, I have been a schmuck.

When you've realized you've been a schmuck, it can set you back on your heels a bit while you figure out how to, well....de-schmuck.  A good way to do this is just to pull your head out from the self-involved hole you've stuck it in and look around at God's provisions and blessings.
 
And so...without further ado...

Happiness is ... OR 10 Things I Forgot to Stop and Love:

1.  Happiness is finding a Bible verse that makes your eyes water because the truth hits you so hard and so wonderfully.

Mark 11:23-2423.  "I tell you the truth, if anyone says to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and DOES NOT DOUBT in his heart but BELIEVES that what he says will happen, it will be done for him.  24.  Therefore, I tell you, WHATEVER you ask for in prayer, believe you have received it, and it will be yours."

2.  Happiness is belting out an old favorite while cleaning your decimated kitchen (yet again) to help keep the joy in your heart pumping through you...even in the face of baked on gunk.

3.  Happiness is being asked by your hubby to sit watch tv with him (even if it is an NCIS rerun) and holding hands the whole time.

4.  Happiness is hearing your kiddos oooo and ahhhh over how cool you are cause you know how to make caramel sauce from scratch to pour over their popcorn.  (who knew melted sugar would make me such a rock star)

5.  Happiness is picking green beans and cherry tomatoes with your boys, rubbing them on your t-shirt  and eating them right off the vine.

6.  Happiness is surprise flowers brought to you by sweet girls that you love very much.

7.  Happiness is listening to your son's voice change from boy to man, and regularly confusing him for his daddy when you walk into a room.

8.  Happiness is when your nugget jumps in your bed at 7a.m. and squeezes your face and tells you "Mommy I love you the whole wide world and outer space" as he kisses your nose.

9.  Happiness is a kitchen windowsill full of the spoils of summer...as the season glides away.

10.  Happiness is the ability to recognize what happiness is...
As the school year starts and new challenges come, I'm sure I'll have new happinesses to add to this list...and may God keep reminding me to stop & love every one!!

Considering the Concept of Catharsis or Don't Go All "Pet Cemetery" About the Dead Stuff

     So I've been thinking about the idea of catharsis lately. You know, looking at old things, sometimes painful things, right in the face and poking at 'em a bit to see what pokes back. I think the older I've gotten the more I've learned to live without this whole "process". This could simply be that I am too tired to invest any sort of real energy to this sort of "disinterment". Energy that could be better used washing underwear and cooking dinner (not necessarily in that order, and definitely not together).

     Or it could just be....wait for it...wait for it...that I've just gotten more mature (audible gasp). I have also noticed the older I get, the exponentially slower I am to be offended. I would like to chalk this up to growing up, but I have to admit there's also a healthy dose of just not wanting to have one more thing on my plate that needs to be cleaned up. So, the question is...Is the "exhumation and examination" (as a fellow philosopher has dubbed it) of the past a good & healthy thing (which, goes without saying, is not as enjoyable as a "Good and Plenty" thing...mmmm yummm...good and plenty's ...uh, sorry.) or is it, instead,  just a bunch of self-indulgent moments peppered with alotta  touchy-feely big words?

     Well, like every other doggone thing in the world, there is no easy answer (with the notable exceptions being: dating your girlfriends ex-boyfriend; whether to bring your babies to a rated "R" movie; or eating any, and I do mean any, sort of meat that has been left in a hot car all day. The answer to all of these is Always, ALWAYS, NO!).

     So, I guess it's a balancing act. If your need to unearth and open up the past is so great that it has you having imaginary (possibly ranting) conversations with yourself (what..don't act like you don't do it too), then maybe this is a good time to hand it to God and walk away. Let Him worry about the fixing and mending, and you just be about the business of living right now...here and now.  Stop mucking around in the pigpen slop pit of yesterday (Cause, honestly, have you ever driven by a pig farm? You need a cauterizing iron and a HAZMAT spray down to get that stench off of ya, and who wants to walk around giving off that odor?) and maybe just Let It Lie, Lucy (for now, anyhow, hmm?).  I guess I've gotten to the point that when I most feel like I need that "catharsis" is the exact time I should walk away from it and give it to God, and later (sometimes much much later; and possibly never) God will deliver the "catharsis" to me...long after I've actively accepted that the only doggone thing I need for comfort and healing is Him. 

     However, if you have way more than moved on, and catharsis comes to pay a call, I say...let it in, brew a cup-a and settle in for a gracious but candid visit.  You need the candor because graciousness by itself isn't gonna cut the mustard.  In the interest keeping things all nicey, nicey; graciousness may only exhume a work of revisionist historical fiction that probably isn't all that true to the original story.  And where would that get ya but a whole lotta no where.  And graciousness?  Well you need that because we could all stand to be a wee bit more forgiving,  loving and kind to one another, don't you think?

     The real trick is to just remember to give that long dead stuff a proper RE-burial and send it all back from whence it came.  Because, while a little sojourn in the past is okay (and maybe even fairly purgative), the here and now is where we should be camping out to make our tomorrows.

     Oh and PS...I do soooo love my Good and Plenty's...they leave this ghoulish white and black gunk on your tongue that you're just not gonna find anywhere else...what's not to love!! :)