Grace for today

I've made a few self discoveries over the last couple months during this move of my families'. The first being I don't always have the best time management… I mean, yeah, I DONT have any skill when it comes to time management. I have a huge list of books I planned on reading, a room full of boxes I planned on having unpacked and totally organized, and a new city i planned on exploring and knowing everyone there is to know by about this time. I have not done any of those, but, here is what I have done. I re-furbished a piece of furniture the family before us left behind. I started reading three books (yet to finish any of them). I've built several fires, drew up plans for several Christmas project DIY-ers, watched countless tv shows, packed and unpacked my suitcase four times, and slept in an equivalent of a week. Oh, and I did help get out Christmas decorations and decorate two trees and three banisters and four bushes…. :) I LOVE CHRISTMAS!  -- I've baked apple dumplings, rolls, bread, cake, and more apple dumplings. But, I've still yet to look for a job, or go make friends in this new city. 

It's hard most days to feel like I'm not wasting away doing nothing. Hrmph. 

The second self discovery i've made is: I don't and i mean really really really hate, being the new person. I despise it. With everything that I am i soooo dislike being the newbie. It's so hard. I have never realized that I am horrible at making friends. When I am in a totally new environment, I suck. I get all awkward and avoid anyone who breathes. I am more than a wallflower, I think I am a wall. I kick myself every time I think about those social interactions in the past month. There have been three or four film groups from dad's program to come out to the house to shoot and I've been zoo awkward. Im not normally an awkward social person, I mean I use to be a guest producer for a tv show for crying out loud. It's ridiculous. 

I was reading one of those three books i've started weeks ago (and yet to finish). There was a quote that stuck with me and still is bouncing around my head. 
"…God gives me grace only for the present. It's hard to experience grace for the future…" 
It's so true… thanks God for the proverbial bag of bricks to the head. God's grace is new every morning and he proportions it for the day. Today, He has given me grace for the abnormal socially awkward me at church today. Today's grace covers the moment I should have talked more to the girl who was visiting for the first time sitting next to me. Of all people, I know VERY well what it is to be at a church for the first time. HECK that WAS me a couple weeks ago. God's Grace for today covers it. Im all good. I can go to sleep and try again tomorrow with a new dose of Grace.

The author goes on to give an awesome quote from the famous educator Booker T. Washington, he said, "Success is not measured by the heights one attains, but by the obstacles one overcomes  in the attainment."  

It's in a way about perspective and definitions… what is Success?-- the destination you achieve once tasks are completed? or the lessons learned and obstacles worked out along the way?  

I will leave you with some photos of the buddy I've been spending most of my days with here. :) I do believe that this is a measure of my success a couple days ago -- getting Bogart to sit in a respectable pose for just long enough to nab a sharp photo of him. 

Hope you enjoy. 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 

                  Love, Bogart