Sunday 2 March 2014

A Simple Reminder

Yesterday was the beginning of good old Autumn - my second favourite season of the year. I generally dislike Winter and Summer because of the weather extremes; too cold or too hot. Summer coming to pass has made me realise how quickly the year is going. With a guilty look at my glowering school work I can unfortunately see how already far behind I am. It is a disappointment, but I'm trying not to be too hard on myself and just carry on.


     On Friday Dad, my brother and I went over to the Northland Field days for a few hours. It was so odd without Mum! We've never gone to the field days with somebody missing, so you can rest assured that it was extremely weird. Mum's still staying with Nana, but we're planning on going to pick her up this week sometime. As she's been away nearly a month it is going to be funny seeing her every day again, but I'll be glad to have her here again as running after everything here on my own is beginning to be a tad tiresome. And it'll be good to have someone have my back when the two guys team up against me as they like to do. I've missed having her around.

     It was hot at Field days, as per normal. However I wasn't very clever in wearing a black singlet and no sunscreen, so my shoulders and back of my neck got rather burnt, I paid the price, especially in the shower the first night. But it was the last day of Summer so what can I say? ;) We didn't see anybody we knew there, which was a shame because it's always interesting stopping and chatting for a while to people you haven't seen recently. Instead we plodded along after Dad as he stopped at Bank exhibits, shed companies like Total Span and different car dealers to look at utes. At Holden I got to have a good look at my dream car while Dad talked to the dealer. The bright green Holden Barina Spark *sigh*. I love that car, it's cute, small and nifty (I never say that word!) and it's my favourite colour, so there's no surprise of my liking it! Until then I'd never seen inside it, and I was not disappointed. It's lined in some places with the same colour green as the exterior, overall it looks really comfortable and neat. I could definitely see myself in that one day. The great part about it is that it is so cheap! 15-20 thousand for it new, which is pretty cheap. Of course I couldn't get away with taking it to milking! But I really would love to have that or something similar one day. People say it's a grandma car, but I think it's cute!


     Yesterday I heard of a three car crash in a section of road that is notorious for bad accidents. For the past few years it's been an 80kph zone yet there are continuous accidents that occur there. What really got me was that for the second time in a couple of days there's been an accident only a few hours after our driving through, which reminded me of something my youth leader said on Wednesday, "Remember to be thankful, not only in the good times, but for the bad times especially". This made me stop and think. Yes it's sad that there were accidents, but gosh I'm glad I wasn't a part of it. Another youth leader gave us an example of being thankful during a bad time - when the house he rented out caught fire and was mostly destroyed.
     He said, "One part of the house was ruined by the fire, and the rest of it was ruined by the tenants...Instead of being angry or upset I just stopped and thanked God for what was happening and was overcome with a feeling of peace..." It was not the best thing to happen but it meant that he had a good reason to get rid of the messy tenants and the insurance money was able to build them a brand new house that they could design how they wanted it, and now they've got awesome people living in there. A lot of great things came out of a bad situation!! This story was followed up with the honest reminder to not complain when you have to do the tedious dishes, because it means you've eaten. And it may be a pain having to make your bed, thus be thankful because at least you've got one to sleep in.
     But it was upon hearing of the crashes that reminded me of what they'd talked about and it made me realise how we should be more thankful more often. So for the next little while I'm going to keep an eye on myself and see how thankful I really am. Last night I thought of a few examples - for instance. We're overrun with work so much so that we have to turn some people away. Yes, it's a bad thing to be doing as we may lose good clients, but hey, at least we've got work! Another thought was when Mum was in hospital last month, which was a really horrible thing. It is hard to be thankful in a situation like that, but the biggest thing I'm thankful for is that she's still with us. And finally I'm thankful for my Nana and the strength she has. I don't think I've ever met a stronger person, to go through what she's going through would take some serious faith and strength - of which she has both.

     So considering that thought, from now on I'm going to just stop and remember to be thankful, but not only in the good times. Because quite honestly, I've got it pretty good.

1 comment:

  1. Most of us have it pretty good. I agree. You don't know what you have until you don't have it. Then you become very thankful for everything God's given you.

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