i never said it would be easy, i only said it would be worth it

greetings awesome readers,

hope your week has been yummy sweet.  mine has been hard and i am glad to have a break from work.  but i am glad to have a new challenge in my career, i am.  and i do expect it to take some time to adjust to the new position.  it will come, with time and experience.  and yes, i am very pleased with my amazing encouraging coworkers.  i feel very encouraged to succeed at starting up this new branch.  i am very pleased that i get to be part of this new endeavor.  and i tell you, time is FLYING by quicker than anything right now.  i look at the clock and i can’t believe how fast it has moved since the last time i looked.  i am forgetting to eat, so i need to do better about being good to myself and regular.  but i have the biggest grins on my face lately, i do.

been pondering something.  what brings readers to my blog?  why are you here?  the blog stats are so fascinating to me.  i just noticed that there are three posts that have had lots of interest, the most interest, since i started this so grateful blog.

in this order …

1) my profile … (cool, you want to most know who i am)

2) my r#pe story when i was 18 … (amazing, since i opened up about this experience in my life, my blog and readership has changed in a way, i have been way more open about sharing the painful moments, not just the perfect happy moments.  i used to only write a blog post about only positive things.  i hesitated to share, to write a post, when i was struggling and hurting over something.  so many women have contacted me wanting to talk about this real and hard subject.  i not dwelling on the past and the pain, i am open about it, and i refuse to let past hurts stop me from enjoying and truly savoring the life i have now.  there is so much joy in it now, in the people i get to share it with.  but this subject is very real and if anything i say here or in my alaska life about it helps another, i am glad for it.  i was very open about discussing this with my teen daughters because i never want them to have to experience what was done to me.  if you can help prevent somebody from that kind of hurt, i’m all for it.) 

3) my conversion story when i was 36 … (so many have also been so interested in reading this experience that brought me to a point in my life where i decided to put God in the front of my life, instead of as a back burner on occasion. God and prayer and stuff like this was never important in my life until three years ago and life feels more peaceful and content to me since choosing this, too.  i think our lives can feel much more peaceful if we have some higher power who we call upon, no matter what that is.  i will never try to force my religious choice on anybody because i resented that being forced on me so much when i was growing up.  we all have free agency to make and embrace the choices in our lives.  and i love how so many of you who give me the time of day do not feel like you have to be the same religion as me to get me.  i welcome all our differences.  how boring it would be if we only spent time with people who were exactly like us.)

i have liked blogging so much more since i decided not to make myself write a blog post every single day.  i ended up feeling like it was just another obligation in my life and it took the fun out of it for me for awhile.  i like it so much more since i decided to ONLY post when i am in the mood to really share something … silly, sweet, or gut wrenching hard.  but i have to want to share.  if i don’t, i am just wasting time here for me and for you.  there are too many things, obligations, stressors going on in life to make this HOBBY one of them.  you know how good it feels to me to pour it all out when i want to about something?  so good.  so freeing.  and i wish that i never told anybody in my alaska life that i have this blog.  i wish this were more anonymous, but i am not going to change my blog name now.  how would you know it is really me if i changed everything identifying on it?  i like keeping my blog name and my blog template the same and consistent all the time.  i have no interest in changing millions of things about it all the time.  i want this to be the same, comfortable, like a fleece blankee, or a sit by creek when you come by.  i love the picture on the top of my blog because it always always makes me feel peaceful when i look at it.  and so many of you have told me countless times that you love it, too.  thank you.  my regular visitors here are awesome.  you keep telling me so many amazing kind things.  you make this an added joy to participate in this bizarre blogosphere.  i am glad i happened upon this a year ago after my church burned up and there was a link to a blogger talking about the fire status.  i got hooked on checking on that blog that weekend and had to start a blog that week.  i had started a blog but just for quotes years before.  i added them here.  but i didn’t stick with it because (now i know why) … because it wasn’t my writing, too.  i like blogging sooooo much more when i also share what is on MY mind and in MY heart.  and cyndy got me thinking of this a bit today, too.  i love blogs and people like this … who share the real stuff, talk from the heart, share the good stuff and the challenging stuff … you touch my heart so much, you make me laugh so much, you make me cheer you on when something great is happening, you make me ache for you when you are hurting.  but i love the real blogs and people so much more.  blogs and people where everything is sunshiny perfect all the time bore me.  they are too perfect.  not real life.  real life is hard, but it is worth it.

reminds me of a quote and picture of Jesus that i have hanging over my front door … “I never said it would be easy, I only said it would be worth it.”

love the reminder.

how shallow our lives would be if we had everything too easy.  the best stuff sometimes happens because we had to fight so hard to grasp hold of it to get it, to savor it, to embrace it.  feeling blessed, i tell ya.  yup, i’m giving that talk in church tomorrow.  and it is going to be a good and meaningful experience.  i hope to speak from the heart and share with conviction how my life changed so much for the better when i started praying, too, every day when my teen daughters ran away and were missing for 3 weeks and 4 days.  it became so real to me during that hard experience.  the best things sometimes come from the hardest experiences.  and it was gut wrenching to not know where our minor teen daughters were for those 3 weeks and 4 days.  i relied on God completely, more than ever, during that time … and i did experience a sense of peace and a sense of calm in my life that passeth all understanding.  i clung to that, to Him during then, and i have reflected on this countless times since.  and i never imagined that my husband would start praying with me every night during that experience.  but he did.  and since the girls were retrieved and safe, he has continued, to this day (now nine months later) to want to pray almost every single night with me.  he is the one who most of the time reminds me.  no kidding.  that’s why i joke that aliens came in and replaced him because this is not something he ever did before.  and i am glad he reminds me most of the time now, too, because i forget and get distracted.  we can be a help to each other.  if it took a hard adversity for me to gain a comfort and peace that God is real, He feels as real to me as a friend standing right next to me, gently resting a hand on my right shoulder, nudging and encouraging me on … i’ve said this before and i still feel it, then i say i would humbly gratefully take the hard adversity again in a heartbeat. 

i have this thing about talks.  i eat up talks where the person looks right into your eyes and they don’t read to me .. or they use very little notes.  when it was my previledge to talk in church on faith 12 feb 2006, i was grateful and it felt sooooooo good to speak from my heart and maintain eye contact with my church family as i talked for those 21 minutes.  it was envigorating and peaceful and powerful feeling.  and i felt spent when i got home that day.  why am i saying all this?  i don’t know.  i just love how that feels when someone talks right to you or when you can with someone.  i look forward to the talk in the morning.  i hope it goes well.  i hope it feels so good.  i hope even one person is touched by anything i might be able to say to touch a heart.  this is one of the things i really like about my church … how the bishop (or the pastor or whatever he or she are called in other churches) does not do all the talking.  the church congregation (the ward) is expected to take part actively.  to teach and to share with each other.  it is a sweet experience.  i look forward to having the spiritual batteries re-charged a bit tomorrow because i was out of town last week (snowmachining trip with hubby, remember the tip i shared).  and i so look forward to seeing my little kids i get to have the priviledge of teaching.  hugs and smiles from them are the best candy.  well, talking with a close friend is the best candy, too.  i am eating up the happy moments lately … even though there are hard things going on at times, i still am relishing the simple pleasures that have been given to me.  may you notice them today, too.

peace today, kathleenybeany xo

ps. and karen cracked me up this week how she told me all is well in the “land of beany.”  he he.  a couple of my friends love to call me beany and i think it is adorable that they do.  **grinning at ya**