{"id":549,"date":"2019-01-13T16:53:42","date_gmt":"2019-01-13T16:53:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/shop.honestreflections.net\/?p=549"},"modified":"2019-02-25T20:13:14","modified_gmt":"2019-02-26T01:13:14","slug":"distracted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/2019\/01\/13\/distracted\/","title":{"rendered":"Distracted"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>&#8220;Delight yourself in the&nbsp;Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. &#8221; Psalm 37:4 ESV<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I should be studying.  Let me tell you that upfront.  I have 10 chapters to read and a Discussion Post to write.  Granted these are personal goals, not necessarily the school&#8217;s goal.  Classes start tomorrow and I don&#8217;t have anything officially due until next Saturday.  However, because it is ALL new to me, it is taking me twice as long to get the work done. I have to learn the system as well as do the work.  It&#8217;s exhausting to say the least.&#8217;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So here I sit, writing a blog when I should be studying.  It&#8217;s such a good one though I just had to share.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I&#8217;ve been dealing with some pretty difficult heart issues over the last couple of months.  God has really been doing work in me as I work through it.  I&#8217;ve never felt closer to Him than I do now.  It literally is overwhelming.  In order for Him to do this work in me though, I&#8217;ve had to be very intentional about keeping my eyes on Him.   There has been so much going on around me to distract me.  It&#8217;s very easy to lose focus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This morning as I was getting ready for church, the Lord reminded me of when He first taught me this lesson.  I was somewhere in my early 20&#8217;s.  I had flunked out of school twice in Pennsylvania.  My family was giving me one last shot before they were done with me.  I moved to Virginia.  Lived with my brother and enrolled in school here.  Third charm wasn&#8217;t the charm for me, but I did manage to finally graduate.  Eventually!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I worked at a local hotel to support my efforts at school.  I met a guy there and fell madly in love.  MADLY!  Took me years to get over him when it was all said and done.  What I thought was going on between us and what he thought was going on between us were two totally different things.  My heart was broken.   I found out he was in love with one of the other girls.  A friend of mine I worked with as well.  AND we still had to work together.  I needed the job.  It was how I was getting health benefits at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It was then, God taught me to not worry about what is in your peripheral vision.  Only worry about what is in front of you.  You don&#8217;t need to know everything.  Every time my mind wandered into thoughts of what they were doing, I&#8217;d remind myself.  &#8220;They&#8217;re not in front you.  God isn&#8217;t asking you to deal with them.  It&#8217;s none of your business.&#8221;  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I preached that too myself for years.  I&#8217;m still preaching it to myself.  I&#8217;ve gotten a lot better at it after 25 plus years of practicing.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yesterday, I drove a friend around Williamsburg, sharing my life there with her.  Even introduced her to Cody.  The hotel where I learned this lesson, it happened to be the first thing I told her about yesterday.  I learned a lot working there! I&#8217;m still using it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Delight yourself in the&nbsp;Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart. &#8221; Psalm 37:4 ESV I should be studying. Let me tell you that upfront. I have 10 chapters to read and a Discussion Post to write. Granted these are personal goals, not necessarily the school&#8217;s goal. Classes start tomorrow and I&hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/2019\/01\/13\/distracted\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Distracted<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","without-featured-image"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":598,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/549\/revisions\/598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.honestreflections.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}