Sally Forth Mama - Eyes Forward

Today I'm contemplating failure.  Failure to self, failure to family, failure to faith... all the bad stuff from all the years.  I mean like...since I was big enough to know the difference between right and wrong, good and bad, kindness and meanness. It's a lot. It's a bunch. I find myself sitting and imagining myself going back in time and undoing things and then doing them differently, but I know this is a fruitless exercise.  You can't go backward. You can only look back there and grieve the mistake or be embarrassed by whatever it was, then take a look at your present, say you are sorry and that you'll do better next time and move forward.  Somebody wise once said something like "Don't look behind you, you aren't going that direction".  But, I look over my shoulder incessantly.  It's like I don't even want to forget.  Like some sort of disease. Why am I like that?  Don't know.

Today I'm contemplating Mother's Day and what it is to be a Mom. If I could just go back in time.  LORD, if I could go back and do some things differently.  (see above paragraph related to the reason I should not be wasting my time thinking these thoughts).  How pleasing to know I have really great kids despite my inadequacy. How thankful I am that God provides what we need despite our humanity.

Today I'm contemplating just forgiving myself. I've asked my Creator for forgiveness.  He said yes.  I also feel like He might have rolled His heavenly eyes at me as he did it.  You know... "how many times to I have to say that before she gets it?"  I think the problem is that it is STILL my tendency to continue to do the wrong thing and that thought has me all sideways.  Even after I face the consequences of a misdeed I'm still trying to be selfish. And I do believe THAT is the true disease.  Man I need to stop to that.

Today, I'm contemplating stopping that.  Better yet I should stop contemplating at all and just stop it.

HBOB
LRTSGD

Little Green Men and the Hunt

When Patrick was about 4 or 5 years old, he received a Fisher Price Robin Hood's Forest play set. It brought him (and his sister) many years of imaginative play and was one of his favorite toys.




As time progressed, the way time always does, he outgrew Robin Hood and started playing video games. We took his toys and boxed them up and put them in the attic for safekeeping. Fast forward to 2010 when we moved to another city. As we were moving things around and packing up the house, a little green clad fellow from that set appeared out of nowhere. Obviously, he had been hidden away under something for a very long time. He ended up in box of miscellaneous items that didn't really belong anywhere and was brought along to the new townhouse. We lived there for about a year before we bought a new house and I have no idea where this guy was hiding during that year, but he made his appearance again  once we got into the new house. Specifically, I found him hanging from the towel ring beside the sink in the kid's bathroom. As I was straightening up in there, it caught my eye and I rolled my eyes, grabbed it and shoved it in the center drawer between their sinks. I didn't think too much of it except that it was weird. The next time I was in the bathroom, the little green guy was back, hanging for dear life to the towel ring. I laughed and threw him back in the drawer. This went on and on, until one day I saw this little guy on top on the door frame in the hallway. I took him down and decided this was obviously a game to the kids so I found a new weird place to put him. This has gone on for eight years now. All four of us participate in moving him if ever we catch a glimpse of him. The other day I was thinking about what a tradition this game had become for this entire family and I wondered if the kids would fight to own the little guy when they left. To avoid a Solomon-like division of the figurine, I got on eBay and found another one. I'm telling you... you can find anything on the internet. So now we have two and I can rest assured that both my kids can own him after they leave here. I have a feeling that maybe I worry too much about things like this but I can't even describe the peace I feel about owning two. Now if I could just get them to leave. OH STOP IT! I'm kidding.