By nature, I'm a "fixer".... For this reason, whenever I hear someone complaining (or announcing on social media) about why they're unhappy, I feel the need to try and "fix" them. Many times encouraging words or actions by me or other friends seem to help, but on occasion the complainer just responds with additional negativity. It's then that I have to remind myself that some people just don't want to be "helped". I think it was Abe Lincoln who said this: "Most people are about as happy as they want to be." There's so much truth in those words!
I ran across the following excerpt from a blog recently that was shared by my sweet friend, Susie, and it really rang true for me. "Other people’s negativity is not your problem. Be positive when negativity surrounds you. Keep smiling while others are moaning or complaining. It’s an easy way to maintain your enthusiasm and focus. Don’t ever let someone else’s bitterness change the person you are. You can’t take things too personally, even if it seems personal. Rarely do people do things because of you. They do things because of them." So, for all of my other "fixer" friends out there, just keep your end positive and don't let the weight of the world bring you down! Keep smiling! Need a little motivation? Here's a super short video to get you inspired! Our sermon at church yesterday was especially good ~ it was about forgiveness and why it can be so difficult for us all. We were reminded how human nature often turns our anger into resentment and how quickly we can make and keep a “scorecard” of hurt feelings. And everybody knows it’s even harder to forgive when the other party doesn’t reciprocate. But then the question was posed, “How can we accept God’s mercy if we can’t do the same for others?” This is so true and it’s definitely an eye opening reminder.
Recently, I’ve had several friends who’ve been dealing with hurt feelings and the struggle with forgiveness that we all encounter at times. If you’re in a similar situation, maybe some of these reminders will be helpful. • Life becomes easier when you accept the apology you never got. • Forgiveness means loving someone enough to pursue healing instead of punishment. • To forgive is to set a prisoner free, and then suddenly realize that the prisoner was you. • Anger is an acid that can do more damage to the container in which it’s stored than anything on which it’s poured. • How nice it would be if we could forgive others as quickly as we expect God to forgive us. • One who can’t forgive breaks the bridge over which she herself must one day pass. • The first to apologize is the bravest. The first to forgive is the strongest. The first to forget is the happiest. • To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable because God forgives the inexcusable in us. ~ C.S. Lewis Our pastor recently told the following story during the sermon. (Here’s the gist of it, not the exact story): A little boy (I’ll call him Jimmy) from a very disadvantaged home was invited to attend church with his friend from school, (a boy from a more affluent family). Jimmy worried all week about what he might wear because his family barely had enough money to buy groceries, much less nice clothes. For church that morning, Jimmy dressed in the very best thing he had, which happened to be a worn pair of denim overalls and some clean, but scuffed, tennis shoes.
His friend’s parents picked him up, and they headed to church. Although he was apprehensive, Jimmy thoroughly enjoyed Sunday school class! He loved singing the hymns, listening to an exciting story from the Bible, and drawing a picture of his favorite character from the story. At the end of class, the Sunday school teacher called him aside. She said, “Jimmy, we’re so glad to have you with us this morning and we surely hope you’ll be back next week. But you need to remember next time, you don’t want to come back unless you’re wearing your very best clothes. We always want to look our best at church.” And that was Jimmy’s last visit to church. The sermon was about hospitality and not just being warm and welcoming to our family and friends, but showing that same kindness, love, and acceptance to everyone, no matter how different from us or whether they may or may not be in our “circles”. And as that old song goes, “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” A good reminder for us all. I read this story recently, and loved the analogy! Such a good reminder for us all!
How heavy is your glass? A psychologist walked around a room while teaching stress management to an audience. As she raised a glass of water, everyone expected they'd be asked the "half empty or half full" question. Instead, with a smile on her face, she inquired: "How heavy is this glass of water?" Answers called out ranged from 8 oz. to 20 oz. She replied, "The absolute weight doesn't matter. It depends on how long I hold it. If I hold it for a minute, it's not a problem. If I hold it for an hour, I'll have an ache in my arm. If I hold it for a day, my arm will feel numb and paralyzed. In each case, the weight of the glass doesn't change, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes." She continued, "The stresses and worries in life are like that glass of water. Think about them for a while and nothing happens. Think about them a bit longer and they begin to hurt. And if you think about them all day long, you will feel paralyzed – incapable of doing anything." Remember, all we really have to do is just put down the glass. My daddy, Robert Floyd McMillan, was a special man – a kind and gentle soul - beloved by so many. He passed away suddenly and unexpectedly early Easter Morning, April 5th, 2015. Though our hearts were broken, we were thankful for the many wonderful memories we shared. The day after he died, I sat around Daddy’s kitchen table with my sisters Christy and Jackie, my stepmother Edith, my stepsister Robin, and Aunt Betty. We compiled some memorable stories about Daddy that we thought people would enjoy hearing. I wanted to read it myself the morning of the funeral, but Howard was afraid I couldn't hold up. (he was probably right) But sweet cousin Bobby Reed was so kind to jump right in early that morning at the last minute when I called him and read this for us during the service. It added such a light hearted and personal touch to daddy's service, and I have no doubt that Daddy would have loved it...
Daddy’s family and friends have many, many funny stories and fond memories of him through the years. Here are a few of them to share with you that we compiled: When little sister Betty was a preteen, there were steps leading down into the basement of their home. One day Betty had found a pack of cigarettes and decided to light one up in the basement. Robert came walking up from the farm for lunch and spotted her smoking and said, “I’m going to tell Mama on you”. Betty quickly replied, “Go ahead. Then I’ll just let her know about those necked women playing cards of yours I found.” So needless to say, Robert kept his sister’s secret. Always the ladies’ man, Robert started early. Whenever he was going on a date to the movie as a teenager, his parents, Bryce and Tode, would force him to take little sister Betty along. Since he didn’t want Betty going with him to the girl’s house, he’d drop Betty off early at the movie theater before it even opened and go and pick up his date. Then during the movie, poor Betty had to sit a mile away from Robert and his date. After the movie was over, he would leave Betty to wait on the curb with the night watchman while he took his date home. Finally, he’d come back and pick her up. Unfortunately for Robert, Betty was one who liked to get even. By the time they had neared the cattle gap at the driveway to the house, Betty would have her tears all worked up. Then once they got inside the house in front of Mama Tode, Betty’s tears would flow about how mean Robert had been to her and then Robert would get a whipping with the fly swatter. During his teenage years, Robert drove the school bus for Batesville Elementary. Little Betty and future wife Edith Ferrell were two of his “students” on the bus. Quite often the girls arrived late to school. Although Robert was always a speed demon, his bus ended up arriving late quite often. He frequently picked bad places to turn the bus around, so he would end up landing in ditches, and then would have to wait for someone to come and pull the bus out, making everyone late for school. Robert’s love of fast driving continued throughout his life. One year when leaving the coast from a high school state basketball tournament, he was leading a convoy of cars back to Batesville. His speed was so fast that not only did he (while driving a camper) get stopped for a ticket, but the three cars in the convoy who were following trying to keep up with him all got speeding tickets, too! Robert loved vehicles, and one of his favorite vehicles was a Ford bronco, possibly because they had two fuel tanks and he could just keep on going without stopping for gas very often. Daughters Christy and Molly once had a wreck in his green and white bronco on Macedonia Road turning a corner in the loose gravel, but Robert loved that bronco and was bound and determined to keep it. Later on, daughter Jackie and friends Danielle Broome and Dovie Hardy flipped the same bronco on Highway 51. At that point, the bronco was damaged beyond repair and had to be replaced by Robert’s favorite, yet another bronco. Finally, he flipped the new bronco himself on the Tallahatchie River levee and his love affair with broncos came to an end. Though the stories of all of Robert’s escapades are far too many to name, here’s the gist of just a few more of them --- He once shot the glass window out of a car while trying to get a big buck on the other side of a field. Another memorable event was when he decided to buy a buggy for his horse to pull. It seemed like a great idea, but on the maiden voyage, the buggy hit the horse in the rear-end and broke the buggy’s axle throwing all of the passengers out onto the ground. Another time he was shooting at a snake in a pond and accidentally shot a hole in his boat. And last but not least, once after a huge rain, he and his buddy Billy Magee took off in a boat over flooded cropland and they killed every duck in sight, and not necessarily on their own cropland either. An avid sports fan, Robert loved watching football, basketball, baseball, boxing matches, and golf on television. During a game, Robert was always actively engaged. He would dodge every punch and kick every televised ball all from the seat of his recliner. However, the one sport he knew very little about was soccer. While at his grandson Calvin’s first soccer match, he looked over at Molly and said, “Why doesn’t Calvin just pick up the ball and throw it?” She answered, “Daddy, it’s against the rules to pick up a soccer ball,” to which Robert replied, “Well, I’ll be damned”, which was his typical response whenever he was surprised. Robert always said that whenever his time came, he wished to “go fast like Jimmy Meek”, his good old buddy. It just so happens that his wish came true and there was no suffering for him. Saturday afternoon he spent his time out in the yard with a guy who came and tilled up the garden. Robert and Edith were looking forward to planting during the upcoming week. He was so proud of the guy that did the tilling that he called Jackie and said that it was a “good hundred dollar” investment. The final four Kentucky basketball game was the last thing that he watched. Although he was rooting for Kentucky, right before it started, he mentioned to Edith that Wisconsin “surely did have some great big ole boys on their team.” After the game, he said, “Well, they did it” and he dozed off peacefully while watching the commentary. And for this, our family is forever grateful. I just can't help it. I love a challenge, and I love new year's resolutions. I've been making them annually for the last several years. Do I always keep them? Not all of them. Why have them? Well, if I have zero resolutions, I'm bound to accomplish zero of them. You can't accomplish a goal that you never set. I like to have something to strive for... and writing resolutions down makes them, for me, much more achievable. I love reflecting at the beginning of a new year and thinking of all of the changes I'd like to make, goals I'd like to set, and things I'd like to do. A new year really is a new book, I think, just like they say... 365 blank pages lie ahead for us to write all over them. Today, I'm still mulling over exactly what my resolutions will be, but I did find this list this morning, and I'm planning to add these to my bunch. I think they're really good and definitely worth striving to keep!
Ok, if you've ever been to our house, you do know how much we LOVE this place! The jaw-dropping views are one of a kind.... especially here in Mississippi! We've worked tirelessly over the last few years to widen roads, clear out land, level the pond levee, perfect the food plots, and make the entire place into a turn key property. And now... we've decided to take a leap of faith.... and sell...
If you've ever visited our place, you're probably thinking, "Have y'all lost your minds?" Good question, and maybe we have! Well, even though we're crazy about the home and property (not to even mention the VIEW), we really want want a place with a little more acreage, but also a little less house. (There are three of us here, and we have FIVE full bathrooms. Plus, Calvin's in college... so one day there will only be two of us here with five bathrooms - ha) Now we definitely realize that this price only allows a very select number of buyers to be able to afford this property. Will it appraise for this much? No. But we think with the land layout, wildlife population, and view like no other, it's a property that's pretty much impossible to replicate around here. However, if the right buyer doesn't come along, we'll just stay put right here, keep on loving & enjoying this place, and I'll just keep cleaning those five bathrooms myself. ;) You can check out the listing here.... someone please pass on to Miranda and Blake ~ I think it would be a vacation home that would suit them just perfectly! :)) http://www.mollyhawkins.net/4177-macedonia-road.html This year begins a brand new chapter for me ~ retirement from education from a career that spanned more than twenty-five years! Though I've loved it for over half of my lifetime, I'm thrilled at the prospect of new adventures and having a full-time (no more part time!)career in real estate. The excitement of helping people search for and locate just the right property and bringing buyers and sellers together cooperatively is something that I have really grown to love! So, though I'll miss seeing my sweet students, amazing colleagues, and friends on a daily basis, I'm ready for new challenges and triumphs, so bring it!
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