Becoming Janel

When I started playing with Wordpress in November, I had hopes that I might blog again in a laid back, journal style that would be more of a brain dump and less of a grammar nightmare. The two pieces I put together over New Year’s proved to me that writing in any form is still challenging.

As much as I would love to share the fresh wind and closure I’ve been living in the last couple weeks, it’s going to have to wait. In the meantime, my archives are still brimming over with all sorts of thoughts and inspiration.

Until whenever,
Janel
{hugs}

Yellowstone National Park - 2005

After four months of not blogging, I kinda miss it. I kinda don’t. I’m really glad I stopped. I needed the break. It helped me collect my thoughts. But after waking up in the middle of the night crafting amazingly insightful posts on more than one occasion (well, at least they sound that way in my head at 2 am), I decided I should write them down because maybe I miss blogging a bit more than I thought. e’hem

I started playing with Wordpress a couple weeks ago. Finally getting it to install on my webserver after 3 or 4 previous failed attempts over the past couple years seemed like a good omen. So here I am with a fresh clean blog and a new journey into the New Year. Seems fitting, doesn’t it?

Being all shiny and new, can I confess that I’ve been in denial about how much our life has changed over the last 2 years because of the accident? Some of that change has been for the better, and some, not so much. Mostly I’ve notice the things that frustrate me. It wasn’t until a couple weeks ago when I picked up Margaret Jensen’s book, First We Have Coffee, that I realized how deep some of the changes and denial have been.

I heard Mrs. Jensen speak 10 years ago. She and her daughter, Jan Carlberg, hosted a lovely day with laughter and tears  stories of Margaret’s parents and growing up with Jesus. I bought a book from each, enjoyed them and put them on my bookshelf nary to be cracked again.

In September we started reading Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series for school. We’re 3 books in and really enjoying it. Wanting to know more about Laura’s later life, I dug out a biography on her that belonged to my grandmother. Leafing through the pages made me sad. I can’t exactly explain why, but it did. It was the biography and the wonderful Little House stories that made me think of Margaret again.

In the last 2 weeks I’ve devoured Papa’s Place, A Nail In A Sure Place, Jan’s Welcome Song, and am currently reading my way through Lena. (All God’s Children Got Robes showed up in my mailbox this morning.) These are captivating stories of real Christian life with the joys and struggles of those who wished to live for Jesus. Margaret tells a good story but she doesn’t sugar coat the fact that Christian life isn’t always easy. While it may not be easy,  it can be very rewarding if we have the proper perspective.

So what do I really have to confess? That in all the misplaced thoughts, fatigue and blender brain, I forgot what waiting on God, serving others and the simple joy of scrubbing the floor is all about. I lost my perspective.

Realizing the loss has been a breath of fresh air. It’s not that I haven’t been praying or doing devotions or Bible study like a “good Christian” or even that I’m mad at God. In the haze and my physical pain and discouragement over another huge trial right after 2 others, I just forgot. And to be fair, it’s complicated. It’s not all spiritual. There is a very real physical component involved.

But all is ok. God is on his throne. I am still me and I’m still being transformed by the renewing of my mind. I’m becoming Janel. I just never expected it to be quite like this.

{hugs}