Old Habits die-hard

Back on April 3, 2009 I had been to my Aunt’s funeral and thought I should work on changing my life. For a while (about two months) I worked hard on being a better person. That entry for my blog can be viewed here: http://adayandalifeinfortwayne.blogspot.com/2009/04/things-we-discover-and-shame-we-bear.htmle.blogspot.com/2009/04/things-we-discover-and-shame-we-bear.html . Sometimes old habits die-hard so I fell back into doing those things that I knew in my heart were wrong. Now, I haven’t written to my blog much lately. I have been feeling a little down and with the issues surrounding my children I just haven’t felt like posting to my blog. For about two months I did really well at being a better person, then I fell back into my old habits. I guess that too was a little depressing.

On August 3, 2009 I came to a turning point in my life. I am just plan tired of feeling guilty about doing things I know are wrong. I am tired of feeling that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I vowed to do everything in my power to do the right things and not do the things that I knew were wrong. It has been a struggle, but I feel like God knows I am doing my best now and that feeling of being sick in the pit of my stomach is gone. The church I go to believes that you must repent of your sins and begin a-new (be born again). Am I a born again Christian? The answer to that is "NO". I, however; refuse to do the things that I have been doing. It, for me, is a constant struggle on a daily basis and I remind my self-every second of the day of what not to do. Trust me there has been a lot of temptation by Satan.

One of the things I started doing after high school was cussing. Unfortunately, the truth is, at times I could make a sailor blush with shame. There wasn’t any cuss word I wouldn’t say. Today, I am doing really well with this. It had been two and a half weeks since my last occurrence of cussing. The few times it has happened when I am really frustrated and forget my self. Today it happened after I put the kids in the car and closed the doors at the zoo. I was really frustrated and one of the phrases I would say started to come out. I stopped mid-sentence. I know I shouldn’t have said what I did, but I think God knows I am working hard of this. I am hopping eventually this will too be a thing of the past. The other items on my list I think God that I have been able to have not repeated them since August 2, 2009. August 3, 2009 may quite possibly have been a great turning point in my life.

On August 10, 2009 my two kids and I went to the Anchor Room book store. The local Christian book store. Unfortunately these tired old eyes of mine needed a little bigger print than the bible I had would afford me to read. I did purchase a giant print bible to remove the eyestrain from the picture. I have placed my sister’s bible that she gave me on the bookshelf in my room. It is there if some night I want to read and don’t want to go out to the living room for the bible I bought it is there for me to read. I have read the first book of the bible (Genesis) and I am three forths of the way through the second (Exodus). My goal is to read the whole thing.

My son was there and wanted a bible of his own. Now, he is only eight years old and was willing to buy this with his own money. He had thirty dollars and the bible was thirty dollars plus tax. I told him he didn’t have to buy this with his money that I would buy it for him. I bought him the version of the bible my church believes in (King James). I thought he might just look at it and put it aside, but he has actually been reading it. He took it out and started reading it that day.

I know that for me the struggles will get more difficult not to pick up the old habits. I vow not to ever do those things again. And I hope that at some point the issue that I have with cussing when frustrated I am at least able to stop before the words get out of my mouth. One thing I have found interesting is that some of the TV shows I really liked before don’t seem to appeal to me now. My sister loaned me some old TV shows on DVD from the 70’s and 80’s, which seems to agree with me more. I am hoping in this case that old habits don’t die hard they just fade away.