Ironwood: Here's to change

On New Year's Eve we put our Christmas away. I told Scott I was over Christmas, but never over Jesus. So within an hour, all of us working together, we had taken the ornaments down, dismantled the tree, wrapped the nativities, and packed away the wreaths, candlesticks, stockings and everything else. I like change. I've been thinking about it lately. There are two kinds of change in my life- the external, like putting away the stockings, or moving the furniture around; and the internal, like seeing life with a new perspective. I've learned that most changes in my life are good for me. They may not seem like it at first, but something good always seems to come of it in the end.

After the cleanup, the girls and I walked the beach. Since winter began we haven't been there much. It was interesting to see the changes in the landscape. Seaweed and algae covered the old part of the reef. The colors ranged from green to tan to a reddish brown, with purple patches here and there. You can see the gradual change from one color to another. The changes in the beach, since I last looked, and the changes from one color to the next got me thinking about the new year. One of my mottos is "People change, they get better." It reminds me to give people the benefit of the doubt. It reminds me that we all make mistakes, but we learn and improve. I've learned that most real change, lasting change, comes gradually, a little at a time, over time, "by small and simple things are great things brought to pass. . ." It all starts with baby steps- heading in the right direction, and when I stumble on those baby steps, I know I can get up and try again. God and life have helped me to calm down and accept life and people (myself included) with greater patience, to take them as they come, knowing that we can change, we can become better, we can be who we are meant to be.