Welcome 2011

I got my new daily calendar email set up today. Last year, I did a daily trivia calendar. This year, I am doing a Women's Devotional. So, if I come across ones that I really like, I will share them here along with my thoughts. This may be done everyday or every once in a blue moon. If you know me well at all, you know not to count out either possibility.

Today's Words of Wisdom for Women:
Our lives will be much easier if we learn the skills to deal with what comes at us and don’t focus our energies on trying to control everything with which we come into contact.

I really find this one to be timely today. As with most people, I did a lot of reflecting as we went in to the start of this new decade. I also thought back on previous decade beginnings and realized something a bit alarming. New decades are not kind to me at all!
2001 was by far the worst for me and my family as well as the nation. We saw job loss, floods, death and 9/11. I felt for nearly the entire year that I was just barely hanging on and that at any minute I might collapse entirely.
1991 was an awful year. It was the year of the divorce. I spent most of that year trying to find myself and trying to find my way out of troubles I had caused for myself and those around me.
1981 brought in a few tumbles of its own. I was too young to really remember most of it but I do know that my dad got bit my a poisonous spider and nearly died. This injury is still affecting him today.

I do not know what 2011 will bring for me and my family but I have to learn to face things as they happen and not try to control everything. I am nearly 40 years old and this lesson is still one that I have not seemed to get a grip on. I don't like things that I can't control. I don't like feeling like the things that happen around me are beyond my ability to control and deal with. But, by the grace of God, I will endeavor to yield control to Him. I may be entering 2011 a bit cautiously but I am also going in more prayerfully. I may not like all that 2011 throws at me but I am leaning on the strenght of God to see me through.