May 27, 2013 Greetings My Friend, I turned on Joyce Meyers and I am learning as I watch her program. It is a lesson I know and continue to learn. You reap what you sow. My words affect the outcome of my life overall. If I am constantly critical then my words will come back to me in a harsh way. If I am kind and loving I will reap kindness and love. Through the years I have also learned that the way I think or those private thoughts also affect me. I may say nice things but think critical thoughts. Those critical thoughts will come back and haunt me. I have been struggling for more than a decade to leave the anger from a previous life behind me. I have tried and tried and finally I have started asking God to help me. God has been faithful and for the first time in many years I can go days without fear and anger trying to rise up at the back of my mind. I marvel at God. Through the years I have learned to pray for those I struggle with emotionally. When I first married Junior he insisted that I learn to pray for my ex. For some reason when I pray for people I don’t harbor hatred and anger. I have struggled with fear but that is now finally leaving me. We can’t seem to lift people up and want the worst for them. I truly don’t hate my ex. I don’t want to be near him but I don’t hate him. I even marvel that I can finally admit that at one point I even loved him. I have hated admitting to myself that. Still there was a point that I did find him attractive. I now know peace with a man. Junior is gentle, kind and loving. He is the first man I have met in my life that is not constantly giving into his anger thus scaring the daylights out of me. Junior does get angry but I know he will not shove a fist at me in his anger even when I’ve screwed up and I find that amazing. When I drove the car in the ditch for the second time in a year, he was pretty angry. I knew he was not happy with me. Junior gets irritated with me frequently. I have been struggling big time with the way he works. He works on several projects at one time. I know that part of it is his back. He needs to move into another job when his back is hurting him and he will come back to it when he can. Still I struggle to see 3 projects going at the same time and nothing is finished. For me I start a project and work at it until it is done before moving onto the next thing. It is who I am. Junior is who he is. I find if I can focus on Junior’s good qualities then I am able to accept his hard to accept qualities. He is too good of a man to constantly be upset with over the way he works. I learn to appreciate Junior for the person he is, not the dream I have in my mind’s eye. When I kept writing Junior notes and telling him about his good qualities I found myself overlooking the annoying things he does. I find myself not wanting to criticize him because he is different than me and I begin to see his unique ways. As I begin to accept his unique ways I see his creative ways and I find I enjoy them immensely. Junior is very talented and he comes up with unique ideas that I totally love. He does that by the way he works, not by the way I work. The more I accept Junior and his ways I also find that he is tolerant of my hyper ways. He doesn’t seem to notice that I have an overly active mind. I can change subjects in a conversation often. Through the years I have seen people get irritated with me because of this trait. Junior is cute. He often says “she’s just that way.” He doesn’t seem to get that I am over active. He knows that is what I do and frankly he accepts that quirk in my personality. I find the more he accepts me just the way I am the more I strive to accept his strange to me ways. It seems to keep coming back to accepting people where they are at. Not everyone is into being overly organized like I am. When we go to MI I try to set up dates with various family and friends so we know what day we see certain people. It is what makes me comfortable. I have a few people on my list that will not set up an advance date with me. It drives me nuts. Still I try to accept them for who they are and we generally find time to get together. I am learning to call them on my way or when I get to MI and somehow we hook up. Junior likes the house with clutter. I don’t. I am learning to leave a few things alone and the house doesn’t get awful. I come from a family of hoarders. It is in the bloodline and I am fearful that the things in my life will one day overtake me. I want to be vigilant at keeping clutter under control. Junior is teaching me that clutter does not have to rule me. We can have an item or two out of place and not live in piles everywhere. When Junior gets up from his chair he will take the dishes we’ve brought into the TV area with him. He often will come into the area and if I’ve gotten something to eat he will walk off with my plate. The more I accept where Junior’s comfort level is the more he strives to be neat for me. We have a balance of neatness that works for the two of us. I am not constantly upset that he doesn’t pick up each item the way I like. He is not upset that the house is too neat. We meet in the middle. That is a very nice feeling. Do you accept your spouse for the person they are or are you trying to make them more like you? May God bless you and keep you, make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet