A New Day

A New Day

           

            Regrets.  We all have them, don’t we?  Missed opportunities, lost time, moments when we wish we had chosen differently.  Regret is a very powerful emotion that will latch onto us and influence our lives, our relationships, and our productivity if we allow it to.  It’s a leech.  And yet, it’s still a burden from our pasts that we tow along behind us everywhere we go.

            Another aspect of our pasts that we all have a tendency to cling to is our memories.  The good ones, I mean.  The mental snap-shots of laughter and good times with friends and family- the “good ole days.”  These too stick with us wherever we go.

            My birthday is tomorrow, and this morning, as I was lying in bed, I began to reflect upon my life.  My childhood, my teenage years, my schooldays, even the past year, the past few months, and the past weeks.  And my reflections were plagued with a tumult of happy memories and painful regrets of lost opportunities.  The memories far outnumbered the regrets, but somehow, my attention was drawn to the cracked portions of my past instead.  Isn’t that always how it is?

            Regret is a part of life.  We all make mistakes because we’re imperfect human beings.  Therefore, we’re bound to stumble and leave behind craters as reminders of where we’ve fallen.  Regrets are inevitable.  But regrets are also persistent, no matter how many times you dismiss them from your thoughts when they arise.  You can repent to the Lord and receive forgiveness for your mistakes, but those regrets can still continue to nag and haunt you with feelings of shame and guilt.  “Why didn’t I…?” or “Why did I…?” we all ask ourselves at some time.  “Why didn’t I spend more time with her while I still had the chance?”  “Why didn’t I tell him I was sorry before it was too late?”  “Why didn’t I have the courage to step out of my comfort zone when the Lord asked me to?”  “Why didn’t I tell her about Jesus?  I had so many opportunities.”  “Why didn’t I listen?”  “Why did I choose that path?”  We all have our own set of questions to deal with, questions that we ask but can never answer.

            When I ask myself these, I often find they lead me to another question: “Why can’t I just go back and do it differently?”  But life isn’t a Microsoft word document you can delete portions from; it’s a book written with pen and ink that can only be written once. 

            Regrets are detrimental and are one of the Enemy’s greatest universal tools for all of us.  But sometimes danger lurks in the unexpected as well.  We love to remember good times, don’t we?  Memories put a smile on our face, make us laugh, make us think of loved ones.  I’m a big supporter of holding onto memories and times past.  I have songs about holding onto memories: Every Moment by Joy Williams and Souvenirs by Switchfoot.  But even happy memories can be an obstacle in our lives.  Perhaps even more often than my regrets, my memories are a stumbling block for me.  I get tripped up here a lot.

            Life gets more complicated as we get older.  And we do get older; it happens to the best of us.  As children, we didn’t worry about finances: our conception of money was the amount of one-dollar bills in our piggybanks.  We didn’t worry so much about what other people thought of us.  We didn’t have the pressures and drama associated with relationships and our world’s “dating game.”  We didn’t have a family to provide and care for: that was our parents’ responsibility.  Sometimes I miss those days.  I miss the fun times I used to have with my sisters when we were all younger and used to have time to sit out on the front porch on summer afternoons and laugh and take crazy pictures together.  I miss rough-housing with my dad in the bed on lazy Sunday afternoons after church.  I miss playing Polly Pockets with my mom in the village we had built behind our family room couch.  I miss receiving letters in the mail from my best friend before text messaging was available to us.  I miss the days when I would draw on our driveway with sidewalk chalk as I waited for my dad to get home from work and those evenings after dinner when we would run out to meet the ice-cream man in his truck. 

            It’s very easy for me to get caught up in yesterdays… even more recent yesterdays like our stay on the Amish farm only a few weeks ago.  It’s easy for many of us to.  But as wonderful as memories are and as important as they are for us to hold onto, they can often cause a root of discontentment to grow within us.  It’s great to remember good times, but when we begin longing to return to the “good ole days” is when memories become detrimental to the task the Lord has place before us right now.

            Both regrets and memories are part of our pasts, and both can be hindrances to our here and now and to our future.  Both can hold us back from receiving all that the Lord has in store for us; both can keep us bound to our pasts.  They’re very strong ties.  Too strong for any of us to break on our own. 

Regrets can leave us broken-hearted, discouraged, and burdened, but that is not the will of God for our lives to be laden by the former things.  And memories can breed in us discontentment and distract us from what the Lord wants to do in our lives in this season.  But today is a new day.  The morning has dawned afresh, and we can embrace the hope of beginning again.  The Lord had plans for our future if we’ll only let go of the things of our past and allow Him to move and use us in this present moment.  Where the Lord has placed you is no accident and the people and situations in your life are no coincidences.  Like Esther, you have a divine calling for this time and season; you have been placed where you are “for such a time as this.” (Est 4:14)   

This is a milestone birthday for me, and I encourage you to make it a milestone day in your life as well as you release your regrets and discontentment and begin to walk in the freedom the Lord offers you.  That doesn’t mean you won’t ever struggle with regret and discontentment again when you think of your past- you’ll probably have to relinquish your hold of these things to God all over again tomorrow morning.  It’s a process, but allow Him to teach you from your past mistakes instead of allowing your past mistakes to control your life.  I’m learning it’s time to let my mistakes go, so I’m going to begin this new stage in my life by releasing the regrets of my past that I’ve been holding onto and by being grateful for the memories I have but not allowing them to breed a root of discontentment in my life.  No longer will I yearn for the “good ole days” and for the lost opportunities in my past, but today is a new day to begin again.  To look forward, to move ahead expectantly, and to walk in the hope of the future and the plans the Lord has for me.  Join me in making tomorrow a milestone to remember.

 

“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland.” Isaiah 43:18&19

 

*Looking for some songs about moving forward?  Check out two of my favorites: Brand New Day by Fireflight (I prefer the acoustic version) and Feels Like Today by Rascal Flatts.

 

*Also very soon, I’m going to begin a new little series of posts here on Heart-chords.  Right now, I feel the Lord leading me to share with you all a study of the life of Judas Iscariot and the lessons we can all learn from him.  So excited to start sharing with you some of the little in-depth details of this man’s life and the truths it holds for our lives today!  The Lord is opening my eyes to recognize parallels between us and this unlikely Biblical character, and hopefully, I can begin posting about those lessons soon in near upcoming weeks.  Definitely something we can start looking forward to!

 

Photo courtesy: www.123rf.com

 

 ~We’ve all heard of the phrase “pulling on her/ his heartstrings,” but heart-chords?  I was struggling to decide what to name my blog.  I wanted it to be a name that was both creative and meaningful.  As I pondered, my gaze fell upon my acoustic guitar where it stands in my bedroom, and the Lord reminded me that our hearts- our lives- are instruments.  They are constantly in song, but what melody our heart plays is each of our own decisions.  They can play a melody for praise or for entertainment.  A musician selects his songs according to his audience.  So do we.  Whether our audience is the world or the Lord, our song will be different.  This blog is designed to first, increase my awareness in finding God and His guidance in my every day and second, to share the music lessons He teaches me in tuning my heart to learn the chords of praise He longs to play on my heart-instrument.  Music is a powerful tool.  Use it for His glory.  “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.” Psalm 40:3

                                                                                                              

 

 

 

 

 

           

 

 

Niagara: The Falls and the Fort

Niagara: The Falls and the Fort

        

        In my last post, I told you all I would be sharing four more posts about my family’s trip to New York and Pennsylvania.  In those, I said I would share with you all some of the lessons I learned from our experiences up there.  Well, as it is, plans have changed.  To be entirely truthful, I don’t feel the Lord’s leading in my writing of those posts.  The lessons were great, but I feel Him calling me to share with you lessons from the present and to move forward expectantly and wide-eyed to what He wants to share with us now, rather than what He taught me during those weeks past that are growing farther and farther away.  I found myself not truly enthusiastic about writing those posts and yet, eager to write them so I could move forward and share with you all lessons the Lord is teaching me now.  I hope I’m not causing any great disappointments to any of you by my decision.  However, here are the pictures of Niagara Falls and Fort Niagara that I had promised to share with you all.  I wish I could show you all a video of the falls as well to give you the full effect, but if you’ve been reading Heart-chords for a while now, you know that I don’t have much success at uploading videos and getting them to play properly.  So I suppose pictures will have to suffice, but like any breath-taking experience, they don’t do Niagara Falls justice.

American Falls (left) & Bridal Veil Falls (right)

 

Rapids leading up to the American Falls

 

See the very top of the boardwalk where the water's crashing down?
My dad and I went all the way up there and it felt like a hurricane! I thought I was going to get blown away! I screamed even.  :)

The observation deck
(the post's main pic is the view)

The Skylon Tower restaurant in Canada

The Horseshoe Falls
(view from the Maid of the Mist)

The Horseshoe Falls

Niagara Falls: American Falls,
Bridal Veil Falls, and
the Horseshoe Falls...
 all lit up at night

The Fort Niagara main quarters

Leopold- the adorable and friendly
property cat


 

Bridal Veil Falls
(Love the name!)

 The Rainbow Bridge leading into Canada
(view from the observation deck)

The Maid of the Mist boat tour

 Water leading up to The Horseshoe Falls

Fort Niagara

The Powder Magazine

Lake Ontario

Southern Style Goes North

Southern Style Goes North

            Hello, everyone!  Two weeks ago, my parents and I returned from our trip up north, and I’m finally resuming my blogging.  I so appreciate you logging back on again after so long a time.  Our vacation was wonderful, but I missed sharing with you all here.  I apologize for my extended absence; it’s taken me much longer to get back to my blog than I had expected.  But now I’ve finally recuperated from our busy time, settled into my routine again, and have transferred some of my reflections from my mind down onto paper to share with you all. 

            I’m so excited to be back and have this big post ready for you all to read!  I have four posts already planned in which I’ll highlight the lessons I learned from our trip, along with correlating pictures.  I’ll be posting these within the next three weeks.  For that reason, however, I’m going to keep this post brief and concise to the overall agenda of our trip, although of course, I can’t resist tossing in a few insignificant but interesting peculiarities we encountered.  Still, short though it is, I hope it’ll serve as an introduction to my other posts about our trip that will follow.  In addition, for those of you that have been following my The Avid Author blog as well, I’ll be resuming my series of “Writer’s Tips” in my next post.  If you’re new to Heart-chords and are not already familiar with my writing blog, here’s a link for you convenience, and I hope you’ll check it out to see what’s new with my latest literary projects: www.theavidauthor.blogspot.com.

            Even more than my enthusiasm over this introductory post though is my excitement to share with you all a very special surprise I’ve been working on these past two weeks since my return home.  This was primarily the reason why it’s taken me so long to resume my blogging, but I hope you’ll consider it well worth the waiting.  I’ll save that surprise for the end of this post though.  Anticipation always makes an ending much sweeter.

            So for a brief account of our trip.

            Wednesday, September 26^th, my parents and I left Atlanta, Georgia early in the morning.  Our flight was short- only an hour and fifteen minutes- and the weather was agreeable for flying, with little clouds for turbulence.  I’ve flown several times now, so no longer does it bother my stomach.  In addition, one of our flight attendants was an ideal figure for a character of a novel (I find such people everywhere I go), so a portion of the flight I spent imagining a story plot about a flight attendant like her and the handsome young pilot character I would create for her.  I can devise a book plot about virtually anyone, but some people are just book-character figures.  Anyways, it passed the time in an entertaining way at least.

Lake Erie

            Once we arrived in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, we rented a car and began our long drive of several hours to Buffalo, New York.  It was raining that day, but the dreary weather had little effect on our plans since it wasn’t a day planned for sight-seeing anyhow.  The drive went by pleasantly, filled with music, audio books, and conversation.  Time is always enjoyable when you spend it with people you love.  We stopped at Lake Erie on our way, and although we didn’t step out because of the rain, we drove along the docks and took pictures from our shelter within the rental car.  As one of the Great Lakes, it didn’t look quite like we had expected.  It just looked like a big lake and not nearly as massive as we had thought it would be, but it was still beautiful.  As we drove around the streets of Buffalo to find our hotel, we admired the houses.  Living in Georgia, we’re used to seeing large plantation-style homes on spacious wooded plots; these houses looked like colonial-style cottages.  They were so different from what I’m accustomed to, but I loved their quaintness.  That night, we ate at The Cheesecake Factory for my very first time.  If you’ve not been to one of those restaurants before, it’s worth a trip.  Very impressive décor. 

Our hotel was incredible!  We were staying at a Residence Inn, but our hotel room was a two-story townhouse with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a living room, and a full kitchen complete with refrigerator, stove, sink, and dishes and cookware in the cabinets.  Needless to say, I loved my own little apartment I had on the upper story.  In a quaint little nook at my bedside, I even had my own little desk which I made good use of when staying up late to write one night.  It was an author’s paradise!
 

My Creative Workshop

       The following day, we visited Niagara Falls.  I won’t go into much detail here, but I’ll share more on our experience in one of my four upcoming posts, along with more pictures.  I will say that it was breath-taking and beautiful though, but that’s a terrible understatement.



Niagara Falls

           The next day, we toured Fort Niagara in a little town called Youngstown.  Again, more details and more pictures on that to come.  We also saw Lake Ontario that day and ate in a little restaurant called Apple Granny.  It was in the small town of Lewiston near Youngston.  Lewiston was quaint and had your hometown feel to it.  I loved it immediately.  It would be the perfect setting for one of my books someday.  If you’re familiar with The Andy Griffith Show, I’d compare it with the town of Mayberry.  Lewistown even had a one-room barbershop with a bench outside the big front window and just inside, a checkerboard set for a game.  It was just like Floyd’s barbershop in the TV series.

            A few interesting details about our experience in Lewiston.  For the second time on our trip, we saw a black squirrel.  Now if you’re from up north, this probably isn’t a big deal for you, but down here in Georgia, we don’t have black squirrels.  So that was a pretty cool thing to see for us tourists.  It was also in Lewiston that we finally realized why everyone kept looking at us like we were tourists.  I was wearing my blue jeans tucked into my brown and blue cowboy boots.  The turquoise-blue pattern is pretty bright and very conspicuous, and no one that we saw in New York or later in Pennsylvania wore cowboy boots.  I truly stuck out like a sore thumb.  As we walked down the sidewalks lining the main street, people would first look at me as I passed by and then their gaze would fall to my cowboy boots.  One man even gave me a double-take.  It was very embarrassing and made me feel a little self-conscious, but nonetheless, it gave us quite a laugh.  It was no wonder they knew we were tourists with such an obvious give-away like that.  We also saw parked along the street a three-wheel motorcycle that was very oddly painted.  I thought it looked like it had a face.  It was very unlike anything we had ever seen. 

 

That evening, we lingered inside a Starbucks coffee shop with our drinks as we waited for night to fall, and once darkness came, we returned to Niagara Falls for our last sight of the cascades.  The display of colored lights on the water was beautiful.

            When we awoke, it was Saturday, and that day, we drove south all day from Buffalo, New York down to Exton, Pennsylvania.  Exton is near Harrisburg and near to my aunt and uncle’s house.  Again, the drive went by quickly for us.  We spent Sunday with our extended family, attending church with them in the morning and then visiting with them at their house afterwards.  My two younger cousins and I put on a concert for our parents.  My youngest cousin and I sang while my other cousin played the guitar.  What fun memories to create!  On our way to their house after the church service, we passed a telephone booth; an icon of the past, right?  Strangely though, it was a Verizon Wireless telephone booth.  Another peculiarity of our trip.

            Monday morning, we drove to Lancaster County.  Here was the big experience I had been anticipating for weeks!  We drove to Gordonville, Pennsylvania, a little city just outside of the town of Intercourse.  We met up with my aunt and uncle and cousins again and spent several hours browsing through the little shops in Intercourse with them.  That afternoon, we checked into the guest house we were renting on an Amish working dairy farm called Beacon Hollow.  That experience was about to become one of my favorite parts of our trip.

The Sight & Sound Theatre

            We stayed in Gordonville that night, as well as Tuesday night.  On Tuesday, we attended a play dramatizing the Bible story of Jonah at the Sight and Sound Millennium Theatre.  This was our second play we had seen here at the theatre, and like the Joseph play we had seen prior, Jonah was also excellent.  Very professional, incredibly done, and immensely enjoyable.  If you’ve never attended a Sight and Sound production, it’s very well worth the trip.  For more information about the company, check out their website at www.sight-sound.com.  Afterwards, we closed the night by stopping at our newly discovered restaurant for dessert.  While in Buffalo, we had dined at a place called Friendly’s for dinner one evening.  We had never heard of the restaurant before, but it became a favorite of ours.  They have delicious ice-cream sundaes!  If you’re from Georgia, you know that we unfortunately don’t have Friendly’s restaurants franchised here though.  Needless to say, enjoy the place if you have one in your area, and next time you’re there, eat a sundae for me.

 

            The following day, Wednesday, my family left the Amish farm and drove to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.  It was about an hour’s drive.  We toured the Gettysburg Civil War battlefield that same day.  For someone who loves history as much as I do, this was an opportunity of a lifetime.  It was fascinating to see the information I had learned for years in my school history books come to life before my eyes, to see the sights of all of the famous charges and encounters I had only ever read about.  We purchased an audio cd to guide us along a driving tour and spent the day driving from stop to stop.  I admit it didn’t look like much.  It just looked like a bunch of open fields with a ton of statues all over the place.  But for the creative imagination, it was much more.  I’ve written several battles and war scenes for my stories before, including an American Civil War battle, so it was no difficulty for me to imagine a chaotic scene of gunfire, cannon shots, screams, yells, and… yes, bloodshed.  It was sobering to be sure.  I couldn’t help placing myself in the position of a soldier in that decisive moment in America’s history, and likewise, imagining what it would be like to be back at home and receiving a letter bearing the fatal news of your loved one’s death.  The battlefield looked like all of the other fields we had passed by on our long drives, but somehow these fields were different.  These fields had been drenched with scarlet puddles of blood.  Blood that ran in little rivulets across its grassy ground.  This was soil that been soaked and steeped with the crimson blood of these men who made such an incredible sacrifice.  That blood-soaked soil hadn’t been removed from that battlefield; it was the same soil I walked upon.  It was… haunting almost in a way, but the emotion I experienced was more that of reverence.  Of reverence and gratitude for the men and their families who had sacrificed so much- even their own lives- for freedom.  For me and my freedom.  It kept me pensive and solemn, and our stroll afterwards through the Soldiers’ National Cemetery did nothing to break the spell.  To walk by and see the white tombstones of soldiers from all different wars, the Civil War memorial markers bearing only a number and not even a name… it was heart-gripping.

 

 

 

Devil's Den

           

 

Soldiers' National Cemetery:
the sight of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address

 

 

 

 

 

 

Civil War Memorial Markers

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       

        We drove a few hours back to Pittsburgh the next morning and caught a late afternoon flight to Atlanta.  Again, we were blessed by an easy plane flight and landed before nightfall.  We had arrived home, and I had already begun to prepare for sharing my experiences with you all.  It was a memorable trip, and one that I’ll never forget.  My sincere gratitude to my parents for the magnificent photographs they took, for I was too awe-struck at it all to capture any pictures.

 

Autumn Colors in New York

And now for the ultimate surprise you’ve been waiting for.  I realize many of you are probably intrigued and eager to know more particulars about our stay on the Amish dairy farm since it’s such an unusual experience and, as I mentioned, one of my favorites.  Unfortunately, I can’t describe it well enough for you to fully appreciate the farm.  It’s one of those things you just have to experience for yourself… so I’m going to let you.  That’s why I’ve written an entire narrative sharing with you in thorough detail our two-days staying on the Amish farm so you can experience the place and the family for yourself.  You’ll be reliving my time there, complete with my true thoughts and emotions.  It’s a unique opportunity to learn about an Amish farm and an Amish family from a first-hand experience, a chance to read the longest piece of my writing that I’ve shared with you all yet, and it’s a great chance for an exclusive glimpse of my personality that few people ever take the time to get to know.  You can find my story on The Avid Author (www.theavidauthor.blogspot.com) under the post titled The Riehl Deal.  I think it’s safe for me to say that you won’t want to miss reading this.

            If you have any questions about my trip or about my narrative describing the farm, feel free to ask away!  Just leave your question as a comment either here or on The Avid Author, and I promise you a reply as well as an answer to the best of my ability.

 

~We’ve all heard of the phrase “pulling on her/ his heartstrings,” but heart-chords?  I was struggling to decide what to name my blog.  I wanted it to be a name that was both creative and meaningful.  As I pondered, my gaze fell upon my acoustic guitar where it stands in my bedroom, and the Lord reminded me that our hearts- our lives- are instruments.  They are constantly in song, but what melody our heart plays is each of our own decisions.  They can play a melody for praise or for entertainment.  A musician selects his songs according to his audience.  So do we.  Whether our audience is the world or the Lord, our song will be different.  This blog is designed to first, increase my awareness in finding God and His guidance in my every day and second, to share the music lessons He teaches me in tuning my heart to learn the chords of praise He longs to play on my heart-instrument.  Music is a powerful tool.  Use it for His glory.  “He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God.  Many will see and fear and put their trust in the Lord.” Psalm 40:3