Post Thanksgiving Post….

*** Hey blog friends…this is my email I sent today to my class and others who have signed on to that little treasure I send out every week. You all have the inside scoop if you visit here daily…but just indulge me. I have a tree to decorate and a bunch of lights to put up outside and a layer of dust to remove from the furniture and don’t even get me started on the bathrooms….so enjoy a different insight on last week’s email failure <3

Hello to you and happy last day of November…or as I like to call it, the day I realized it is perhaps too late to get my act together for 2017.

And so I shall take on the cry of all the loyal Cub fans I know and sigh…maybe next year.

I hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.

Did you know I wrote you? Only if you read the Journey Onward blog on the internet (link at bottom of email) would you know this. Because I shared the letter I sent you Thanksgiving morning on last Friday’s post.

Since it was a holiday, I had decided to forego sending a note out, but as I was preparing our food for the noon meal, I began to think of so many of you who have “stuff” going on and I was praying for different people and decided to send a note of encouragement.

But whether it was the Black Friday overload on the internet (which we all know started wwwwwaaaaayyyy early and is still hanging out there for dear life along with #givingtuesday and #cyberwednesday and #endofyearclearance…etc etc etc…) or gmail had a fluke…every single email got returned to me.

All 107 …. for three days in a row…

So I am a little nervous about today’s.

I am wondering if I will be multiple deleting or if this will actually land in your mailbox.

I have been doing this little email for many years and this is the first time ever that I have had it returned like that.

So let’s say I started the email five years ago and send out once a week….I would have sent it 260 times…and one time I hit a snag.

Do I approach today with a focus on 259 times of success?

Absolutely not.

I am already mentally and emotionally gearing up for failure based on last week.

Anybody else operate like this?

I do believe that part of my struggle here on planet Earth is one I have had as long as I can remember and will probably battle until I am called Home.

My natural tendency is to zero in on the dark cloud and not the silver lining.

And my second default is to compare myself with those sweet, upbeat people in my life who are grinning up at the same image and reaching for their sunglasses because they can’t take their eyes off that blazing glory of light.

I want to be them and not me.

I need Jesus.

Every single moment of every single day.

I need Him to help me shift my focus.

I need Him to remind me that He made me the way I am for a reason and it is to bring glory to Him and to enjoy Him and that He is always transforming me…that it will always be by His grace that I fight the fear and dread of past failure.

I need Him to inspire me to try again, whether my success to failure rate is 259 to 1 or 1 to 259.

He is my success story.

He is my example.

He is my silver lining and He is the maker of the dark clouds that highlight His goodness.

I hope and pray you know His love for you – personally and individually TODAY!! Whether this makes it through to your inbox or bounces back…you are loved <3