"One day God will have enough of your foolishness and demand that you hit your knees before Him. You can either do it willingly or He will put his hand upon your head and shove you to them."-Marie Lane

I was out in the blogosphere tonight and from June Cleaver after a Six- Pack I came to a site called Shoved to Them. I found the above quote in her header. Now I would like to say I merely was intrigued by the name...but truth demands I admit while intrigued, I was also on an ego trip. This mama from Shoved to Them liked a comment I made at June's so naturally I had to go and see who this mama with excellent taste was.

If you haven't read her post from today and you are a mama, especially, you really need to do yourself a favor and read it.
Hi-freakin'-larious,
but this is really not why I am talking about her...
no
it's all about me actually...

Ever since I posted the question nay demand, 'tell me what you learned this year' I have been trying to decide just what that looked like for me and I couldn't.

Mostly because, if I say I learned it, there is an underlying suggestion I won't trip on the same kind of question on another test...now that would be stupid wouldn't it? If I were to trip up, I can only hope the next exams wouldn't be posted for everyone in the free world to see and the Universe would certainly set that up, if I make a big stink about learning it in the first place. Right?

If I say I have come to terms with something then I don't ever get to whine about it again...ewww...that kinda sucks, too. Why don't I just give up a half a bottle of wine every other night while I am at it?

The fact of the matter is both demand far more accountability than I am comfortable with providing.

Oh yeah, and I don't do resolutions.

I used to.

I got in fistfights with myself until about the end of February, licked my wounds until May, made excuses and basically determined none of these resolutions had any veracity until the end of summer, had them annulled by October then suffered short term memory loss through the holidays so that by December I felt the pull to slip back into self actualization mode forgetting the self inflicted black eyes and split lips of late winter/ early spring all together.

It was a sick little game I played with myself.

I was in a really bad wreck,
I lost a couple of good friends, got brave and earned one back,
met some really fine people like B, D, Katana, Sgt Grumpy and J
and
found a deep passion for milsupport.

My friends who go through the angst of knowing me face to face
walked me through
a cancer scare
crisis es of faith
insurrections
and some really great Mother's Nights Out

with the flat of their sword or well spoken word knights and poets taught me a few needed lessons I hadn't signed up for while my husband always returned me to tone.

None of it in this order and with some repeats, I lived through it all.
It didn't kill me.
I was pretty sure it would
and I still have a healthy respect for life's ability to want to be clear about it's intentions especially when my neck is so stiff I can't look up or down at it to see what it is trying to tell me at times.

I have no answers for where I have been or even if I clearly recall what all those places were without revision or embellishment.

I am sure that my biggest weakness is self love and that my greatest strength is love of others.

What I have for my 'tell me' is it is easier to love myself if I am not so willing to take my own word for it as much as I am God's. I don't know that I trust Him anymore than I did before, but I know I want to trust Him more and I know that he has sent me some really great people so I can practice.

Who knows what 2008 will bring, but I know whatever it is it involves practice--lots of practice.

Bring it.