The Morning After

Today is the day after Christmas. This is the first time in twenty years that I have not been at work to open the restaurant on the day after Christmas. I am going in this evening to work the evening shift. Up early with nothing to do, I went to Lowe's to see what was on sale. Unable to leave the store empty-handed, I bought a new Shop-Vac. Then I went by Bojangles for a biscuit. So this is what normal people do??

I came back home and decided that I should write a blog post for the first time in more than two weeks. I moved from my spot on the couch to the dining room table in the hope of inspiration in my writing. I don't think that it is working.

I went to church on Christmas Eve.We had a good crowd there and the service was good. The sermon dealt with how we react to situations and handle events and issues in our lives. When something happens in our lives, we can view that in one of two ways. They are "Burden or Blessing?" The thought struck a nerve in my mind and has caused me to have a great deal of thought about it since then.

On the ride home from church Christmas Eve, I found myself missing my mother very much. She's gone now, but left us to go forward in our lives. "Burden or blessing?" It's a gimme, "blessing".

On  Christmas Day, I cooked our Christmas dinner and then washed the dishes and cleaned up afterwards. Burden or blessing?? I'm still thinking about that one!!

It is almost a certainty that I will leave my job at Tex & Shirley's in the next few weeks. Burden or blessing?? While I would love to stay there with my friends in an environment where I am comfortable, I know that I must go. The environment and my job there are both changing and I don't want to stay for that. I would rather go somewhere else and do something else than stay under those conditions. I am sure that there are some friends there that I will lose contact with upon leaving, but there are many with which that will not be the case. Is losing my job a burden or blessing?? I'm going to go with "Blessing". This will force me to go do something different. I received an e-mail from a friend several weeks ago with this note at the end; Talked with Elizabeth this afternoon, she said: “Sometimes God forces us to do something we would never have thought of – that is the best thing for us.” That’s our prayer. I have realized that this advice is accurate and I am going in that way.

We will be meeting at Tex & Shirley's sometime in the next couple of weeks to determine my future there. I think that God has taken care of that decision for me. Burden or blessing?? I'm sticking with blessing.