One Wee Spark

When I was much younger, probably only in fifth or sixth grade, I became acquianted with the music of Amy Grant. My first cassette (I'm not that old..but I do remember cassettes!) was her Tennessee Christmas album. I must have played it nonstop from Christmas through July that year! Afterwards, I found some of her older cassettes on sale at a Christian bookstore, and increased my collection of her recordings. One of my immediate favorites was her song "All I Ever Have To Be". The song spoke to me right where I was, in the midst of an unhappy childhood, in the midst of people-pleasing, in the midst of never being good enough. I understood at 10 years old the fear of not being good enough; I wrangled with it daily. And although at the time I was not able to grasp the solution in Christ that Amy was sharing, the song got me through many dark times. Flash forward to the last ten years, as a wife, mother, and employee. The effects of my childhood were still haunting me, and I ...

Last night, I posted about my negative experience yet again on the A&E forum. Now, after a decent night's sleep, I want to reflect on what happened and how I ended up back at that forum reading comments when I knew for a fact that the board has a tendency to be hostile to those who appear on the show . I am moving on. But I find it helpful (for the next time I'm weak or needy and tempted to do something stupid again) to identify the triggers within myself that cause me to throw caution to the wind and act compulsively. So why would I choose to go there? What in me was so needy? I think I've figured it out, and now I just hope that next time I'm in the same place, this experience and this entry will be there to remind me to choose a different outlet. I needed validation that what I did, what I am doing now, and what I will do in the future for my mom was, is and will be the right thing. It's really easy to say that I shouldn't need outside validation. I wish ...

Albert Einstein is quoted as saying: “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Sigh. And now I'm stuck. The episode of "Hoarders" that my mother and I were on was on rerun tonight. I didn't watch it. I don't need to right now. And besides, I have it on DVR should I have some need for a pity party. I'm over that part of my life now. Or so I thought... Tonight, in a case of bad judgment, I went to the A&E discussion forum to see what "new" comments there might have been. And almost immediately, I found a comment directed at me. It wasn't nice. It wasn't pretty. It wasn't encouraging or sympathetic. But I knew that the A&E forums are hostile. Why did I go there? What part of me was so needy tonight that I went there looking for someone to say, "Good job! You did something admirable. I can only imagine how tough that was for you"? Instead, I got a character assassination from a per...