I have never blogged before nor read a blog someone else has written. For reasons unknown, I feel compelled to memorialize my thoughts in 2011. Perhaps its accountability I am looking for. To who? I have no idea. I don't have any followers.
We are a handful of days into 2011 and no matter where you turn people are talking about goals not met and a desire to set new ones. I was not quick this year to think about it although I knew for some reason 2011 was going to be different. I feel different, and the messages I am hearing are different too.
I finished the book 'same kind of different as me' yesterday. It's a book that has been sitting next to my bed for months. God has a way of putting things in your hands exactly when you need them, and this book was no exception. I picked it up the night before my family would be leaving for our annual New Year's trip to the beach. The timing just felt right.
Finishing this book gave me the same feeling I had when reading Og Mandino's, 'The Greatest Miracle in the World', some fifteen years ago when it literally fell off the shelf in the public library. Both stories are true. Both stories represent the lives of two men. Both stories represent the "lesser" man (one a rag picker and one a sharecropper) leading the richer man to a more fulfilling life with Christ. I am not rich or poor...or a man. However, I am struck by the power of God speaking through one individual to another identified not by the color of his skin, the balance in his bank account, or what church he happens to belong to. God loves all people whether they know him or not. All people. And he asks us to love each other in the very same way.
I turned on the radio this morning and Glenn Beck's show was beginning. More messages. He was talking about a book that he has been working on for the last two years. It's out today and called 'The Seven". He shares his journey of the last fifteen years from suicidal alcholic to his success today. He said, "Yes you can be at peace with yourself and be the person you were meant to be. Change your enemy and change your world." He talked about changing yourself today and watching your family and your country follow. I was lucky enough to hear grown men call in to report that they had turned on their radio at the precise time as me. They were being saved from themselves at that very minute. It was powerful. More than powerful. It was a miracle.
I truly believe we experience miracles everyday in our lives. In 'same kind of different as me' a homeless man explains why he is so happy. "He woke up! And that's reason enough to be happy." Life is a miracle and we should all be thankful that we woke up this morning. God gives us this day as a gift. I plan to thank God each day for waking up my heart to do something different with myself in 2011. I have no expectations as to where this journey will lead me. I am just along for the ride.
Happy New Year and God's Peace.
LizzieB
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