Monday, Monday (Yes, I have a calendar.)

Today is a Monday for those of us in Williamson County who have students in the public schools. And, boy howdy, it was Monday morning all of the way with onions on top!!! I crawled out of bed and hunchbacked my way to the kitchen to get the coffee going. I had to go back and forth to my thirteen-year-old's room umpteen times in the first ten minutes to get him upright. Then it occurred to me that I probably should make some breakfast. It was a lot of fun trying to talk through the crack of the closed bathroom door forty thousand times to let the youngest know that the oldest would miss the bus if he did not vacate the bathroom. Imagine my unhappiness when I had to fetch the other three kids in the carpool and then swing back by my own house for a kid with no socks and shoes on, the temperatures below freezing. Lucky for me, I have great kids in my carpool and we were soon laughing and joking on the way to the middle school.

I have an orthodontist appointment to take someone to, followed by the all-important decision as to whether my kid gets a small t.v. or an airsoft gun for his birthday and, if so, which models. All in all, a tame day, when compared to the itinerary of, say, a head of state or a neurosurgeon. Such folks would consider my daily life time off from work!

I will try, once again, to be thankful. I will purposefully do what I can do to enjoy my day, to honor God in it. I will work to make Him the center of it.

Good Morning Earth Beings!

Good morning, friends and fellow sojourners on this earth! No, I am not a "Trekkie"! I simply woke today with the understanding that we are all facing something. That thing is called "life." It pitches us various challenges on a never-ending basis, and no one is exempt. Today, with the help of my heavenly Father,  I will squeeze the beauty out of it. Like I mentioned a couple of posts ago, I will decide today to enjoy my blank journal page (i.e., this new day). I will choose to celebrate the life God has given me.

About a week ago I was having a terrible day. Thankfully, it was drawing to a close. My husband would be home from work within a couple of hours. I opened my email for some reason and there was a message from him. I opened it and there was a photo of a black-and-tan-dapple dachshund like ours, except that it was short-haired. It was wearing a lovely red sweater. "Charlie (our dog) needs a sweater," was all the message Gary had typed. My sorry day took a lovely turn, and I smiled at that beautiful dog in the gorgeous sweater. May your day be filled with lots of moments that give you two perspectives: 1) Life is not only about the dull, minute details of your duties. 2) Beauty will surprise you, just when you have lost hope.

He did it!

God answered the prayer that arose from the worry I described in my last blog post. He answered it completely, set the situation to rights, and I emerged victorious. Not surprising. What is surprising is that I would ever fail to pray, ever doubt God. The truth is, I do not doubt God, I get twisted in my priorities and, like a little child at Christmastime, get distracted by every bauble the world and the devil hang in my face, then run to God in a crisis, my spirit too muddied by my sin and worldliness for me to feel worthy of His favor or to know whether or not I am really hearing from Him!

Enough! Going forward, when I fall, I will just get up. I will let the grace of God dust me off. I will believe that He cares about every detail of my life!!! Look, falling is going to happen. It's a part of being human! It cannot be an excuse to wallow in the mud. When we do that, we're just being selfish. It's not about us, anyway. Get up, let God help you into some new holy clothes, and move on. Don't spend any time in condemnation. It's just self-focus, plain and simple.

I Choose, Part II

Last night I was presented with a little opportunity for worry. Imagine that! As I drove through what was suddenly the gloom of night to pick up my son from basketball practice, I hit upon a stark truth. I started a prayer, actually, before I ever left my tiny cul-de-sac.

It went something like this: "Lord, I know that when I worry, I am simply out of touch with all that matters. Following the leading of the Holy Spirit, serving You, that's all that matters. The most important things in life cannot be taken from me, those being my relationship with You, your flowing love, my love back to you. When I worry, I am failing to surrender."  As I passed along Mack Hatcher Parkway on the short jaunt to the YMCA, I saw lights on throughout the first floor of a home in a neighborhood that backs up to the busy parkway. It made me think of the many dramas that have played out (and ended with God taking care of my family in that perfect, redemptive way He always does) in my house. "Worrying just means that I have not surrendered," I prayed. "Because Your will for me WILL be done, when I surrender."

His will for me is good. Pefect, even, according to the Bible. Why would I let my heart wander from Him, and accept the broken, disjointed nothingness that results?

I Choose

Each new day is like a blank sheet in a journal. I can write on it whatever I choose. Even if my responsibilities dictate certain activities for the day, I can choose how I will approach them and with what degree of excellence I will carry them out! I love it that I can forget yesterday's foibles and greet the morning with a cup of coffee and an expectation that today will be better. I remember hearing  a preacher (probably one of those religious men with a "pulpit" voice) saying "Some people are so heavenly minded they are no earthly good." I thought then and now that such a mindset is STRANGE! What is there on earth or in heaven other than God, my heavenly Father? It has always been my dream to write a book. Someone suggested that it did not have to have a Christian theme. "Well," I remember saying, "I don't have anything else to write about." It's true. Though my actions frequently do not reflect my innermost values, there's reallly nothing in this life outside of Jesus Christ. Everything of value is connected to Him. Back to the blank sheet in my journal, this lovely, overcast Thursday morning. I CHOOSE to see my particular journal as a gorgeous pink book with lots of flower and butterfly detailing on the cover (maybe a little cross stitch). I choose to write something inside today that reflects Jesus Christ. I choose.

Another Day, Another Crossroads

I am at a little crossroads in life at which it feels like my "get up and go" has, well, left the building with Elvis, as it were.

I have not thrown in the towel. I am not at a bus station in Idaho, with plans to go where the road takes me until the fifty bucks left in my pocket is gone. I am simply a little, well, stuck.

It's a bad feeling when you have all grades of remorse over the things you are not accomplishing on a daily basis, the one million little things that, should you stay on top of them, would make your life so much richer, so much sweeter (keeping the house pristine, trying new recipes often). It's even worse when you drag the heavy ball and chain of missed opportunity behind you (people you have not witnessed to, dinner parties you haven't hosted, the umpteen years of your kids' lives you have not scrapbooked) and find yourself hooked behind the boulder of "ALL I HAVE GOING FOR ME THAT I AM NOT UTILIZING/ENJOYING."

"Aw, you're just depressed," you may be thinking, or even saying out loud, right about now. But it's deeper than that. It's worse than that. It occured to me the other day that I have lost all motivation because I have ALLOWED the disappointments in my life to callous my heart straight over. So a few days ago I wrote all of those disappointments out in my hit-or-miss prayer journal. There were twenty-five of them. I asked God to forgive me for letting them come between me and Him, and for letting them turn me rebellious. I did not write out all of the things I am thankful for. That list would fill many books. At the top would be what Christ did for me at Calvary. How He suffered horribly, how He died to save me. To pay the price for all the stupid mess I do every day. To let me be in His Father's glorious, love, peace and joy-filled presence.

Here's to new beginnings! I get one every single day of my life.