Stalwart or Stubborn?

Bull’s eye!  I get it!  It took me a while!  This morning my phone started ringing off the hook at about 9.  Normally I am up and out on Saturday mornings, but this morning I just decided to hang!  It was one of the best mornings ever!  In talking with a friend on one of my phone conversations this morning, the person I was talking with mentioned a dilemma they were going through.  I listened and didn’t say much, because as I am learning, we (ALL) have to learn to work through our own situations.  After a few more phone calls, I finally got dressed and took our dogs for a walk, and it was then that I heard the tiny whisper of God in my heart.  What I heard in answer to the dilemma I listened to this morning (and then out of the blue applied to myself?) was that in any situation where we feel the need for change, we need to make sure that while we are running to something, it is not because we are running away from something else.

Let me explain what that means and I will use my own situation as an example.  We are all quite aware of the current economic conditions and as small business owners my husband and I are navigating waters we never anticipated.  My husband has remained stalwart in his convictions about our business and I at times might have complained that he seems more stubborn than stalwart.  The difference being that stalwart is determined and committed versus stubbornness’ being inflexible and obstinate.  Let’s not split hairs over the definition though.  I on the other hand, see what I think is the handwriting on the wall in regard to business and proceed to make overtures in a new direction.  Some might think that was wise, I mean I did!  But here is where this lesson I just came to understand comes in; I tried to circumvent God’s will in my seizing control of my steps.  I was running to something I thought was a good and an admirable thing and wishing to pursue it to benefit others (another good thing) BUT by doing so, I was relying on me to fulfill our monetary needs rather than trusting in God’s provision.  I was running to something good but it was because I was running from what I feared. 

So, what’s wrong with that?  Well, apparently because I still haven’t gotten a job in the career I was running to, I’ve had to re-look and re-examine my motives.  And what sticks out like a sore thumb about to encounter another blow by the proverbial hammer, is that God wants me to trust Him and to stop trusting in myself.  Money is an idol – an idol is anything we have that we value more than we value our relationship with God.  So, in my having enough money, I don’t have to rely on God for anything because I am self-sufficient.  I've been mocking God; saying I believe but not believing, because I wasn't even secretive in my approach to pursuing my own way.  And what I found out was that God will NOT be mocked!

In the four years my husband and I have struggled, we still have a roof over our heads, clothes on our backs, and food on the table.  We’ve had to cut back in a huge way but in doing so, I have “unstuffed” my need to try and glean satisfaction in things.  So, now what do I do?  Well, now that the realization has presented itself to me, I need to deal with my fear and I do that by facing it.  Do I have faith or don’t I?  I need to name my fears and then deal with them.  Most of our fears are groundless and never actually become reality and I’m not just trying to make light of fear!  Some of mine loom large!  That said, sometimes in succumbing to our fears, we in fact force them into being.  An example is one who worries about being sick, so much that they worry themselves into the state of sickness.

I have a friend who also lost her way.  She thought the road she was taking was the road God was leading her on, and that road turned out to have nightmarish details embedded in it.  What I admire about this friend is that she recognized this and is now seeking to retrace her steps back to the field she once enjoyed with both passion and success. 

Money is a real problem these days.  I have numerous friends who have shared with me their stories about tithing.  Unfortunately until recently I haven’t “bought” into it.  But I am now in the process of trying it and you know what?  Just as my friends depicted and as is mentioned in the Bible, giving (and it has to be with the right heart, so joyfully giving) has resulted in a recent influx of God’s blessings in my life.

There will always be enticing things that want to lead us down paths we should probably never consider.  The grass usually does look better when it is growing over a septic tank, but do we want to put up with the stench that comes with it?  What I would suggest when presented with a life changing choice is that we make a list – why do we want what we want but then we also need to make a list of what we are leaving behind if our dreams became our realities.  Then we need to take the rose colored glasses off.

I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m willing to bet that somewhere in the grand scheme of our dreams, the issue of money is buried.  Like many out there, my financial future is questionable at best, but sacrificing my joy has not been worth it.  We will always find something else to want and the hole inside us was only meant to be filled by God.  Because of the gift of free will given to us by Him, He will allow us to continue on our way, if or until we finally realize that nothing will ever be enough.  And in that day, we will finally have to relinquish our desires and learn to trust the One and Only One who can make us complete. 

Looking up!~

Barb

Assignment - what would your obituary say about you?

The assignment, read the Christmas List by Richard Paul Evans, the reason initially was the continuing education credits for Hospice, but then became and more importantly so, to afford myself the opportunity to realize that the life we are living at the present moment, may not be the life we want to be remembered by.

The premise of the book was that the wrong man is being eulogized in an obituary.  The thing is, it wasn’t so much the wrong man, because the writing hit the proverbial nail on the head for the man reading what he thought was his own obit, but, it was not true for the true identity of the man who had actually passed away.  The only thing shared in this instance was the same name. 

This made me wonder what my obituary  would say about me!   Have you considered yours? Have we looked at life as one big opportunity of the survival of the fittest?  In the Christmas List, the main character is a well-known businessman, who awakes one morning to read his obituary.  What this man reads about himself, he never gave a second thought to as he built his empire, because he employed the win at all cost mentality.   Initially he is shocked by the remarks made, especially those of his supposed friends, his shock then  leads to anger and he begins to think of ways of revenge.  He also reads of the woman he is in the process of betraying and she, of all the people who could possibly have the most hateful remarks, instead recalls the man she initially fell in love with.  This confuses him but when he confronts one of the people he is supposed to love and who is supposed to “be” in love him reality makes him take another look at the life he is living.

This past week, a high school classmate passed away after a battle with cancer and this made me stop and think a bit.  While I knew of her, I didn’t really know her, but based on some of what I read, she was very well thought of.  On my part this isn’t about self-recrimination, because many people pass in and through our lives and we aren’t afforded opportunities to know everyone, but in saying that, do we seize the chance for the people whose lives have intersected ours? Have we taken the time or blown through them as we try to grab the brass rings in life?  What would our loved ones have to say about us in  our obits?  Would they say we got what we deserved?  Can I do an accurate life review of myself?  Some pretty tough questions have just been elicited here.

Anyway, the story goes on to say how this particular man handles those questions and then it also raises another important one.  If we do get the chance to change, do we change because it is our heartfelt desire, or do we make the change for show only?  In other words, is the change genuine?!

This book stirred my emotions.  I volunteer with Hospice, and when I say that, it usually elicits some kind of “bless your heart” statement, which by the way is a southern euphemism, which I only recently learned can mean “you’re a fool” but in this particular conversation, I would hope that that wouldn’t be the case!  But I digress.  I don’t volunteer for the accolades, and I actually feel embarrassed when I do receive them.  I’m not a Dolly do gooder.  The point is that I don’t want it to be about me, but instead about them.  It has been my experience that people are afraid to admit their needs, whether it be of a need of help, or an ear to listen to them.  The recurring theme being that we are just too busy trying to achieve our goals we forget about people.  We ALL have a story to tell.  When you take the time to slow down and listen, you also hear people’s need to feel like they mattered to someone, somewhere at sometime and everyone of us feels that way, even if we say otherwise.

When my best friend/sister-in-law passed away, I asked if I could do her eulogy, and I was blessed to be one of 4 who spoke.  I hope that it was a fitting portrayal of someone I loved as a sister.  Was she perfect, no, and I didn’t try to make her so.  Am I perfect, no but neither do I try to be.  But what I hope came across was that we shared a relationship of love, honesty, and respect.  I remember her saying to me, shortly before she passed away, that she didn’t want me to forget her?!  Really?!!!    It both shocked and saddened me, to hear her admit that, BUT, that is a very key feeling with the patients I now come across in hospice.  They want to “hear” that they mattered and my challenge is to want to make sure that the people in my life don’t have to question that whenever it is they leave this world.

The main character in the book is “big” enough to face his wrongs, but only after he admits his weakness.  And it is when we are weak, that God is able to show His strength. 

So, to answer my own questions, it isn’t that I want to be remembered as much as it is that I want others to feel significant and to have mattered to me.  To be able to learn is one of the greatest gifts and there is much to be learned, at any age.  When you stop learning you are either a fool or dead. 

The Christmas List is an easy read, I’d love to hear your comments!

Looking up! ~

Barb

Acting your age, not your shoe size!

Well today was none other than Wacky Wednesday.  This morning a friend sent me an email from the Weight Watchers site and asked if I was up for some fun?  After ribbing her about that sounding similar to “For a good time call…..” I downloaded the attachment.  This afternoon we let our inner child out to play – as the Weight Watcher article suggested, on a play ground!

Can you imagine two mid-50 year old women cavorting around on a school playground?  We arrive at the school at approximately 3:45 p.m. thinking that schools have been out for at least an hour by this time.  We expected to find the playground empty, it wasn’t.  There must have been an after school care going on because we counted at least 20 kids and 2 adults supervising them.  Not wanting to embarrass ourselves... (?!) And I can just imagine those reading this thinking, we should have gone home if I really meant that about not wanting to embarrass ourselves…..my friend and I went to the area without the kids.

What I want to know is what happened to the playground equipment of our childhood?  Everything we encountered today was made out of some kind of pipe.  What we were supposed to do was swing, working our abs, our biceps and our legs, but there weren’t any swings at the school we went to.  There weren’t see-saws or even jungle gyms.  Even that whirling dervish thingamajing, you know the thing you spun around on that looked like a clock with pipes on it that made you dizzy and ultimately sick to your stomach, that wasn’t even there.  Sliding boards that stood tall and proud now are plastic instead of steel and I was wearing shorts, so that plastic and my bare thunder thighs proved not to be a good match!

So now that I’ve set the scene, you may be wondering what we did do!  Well, we started by climbing up a four foot high slide??? But took 2 steps at a time, as was suggested by the Weight Watcher’s article.  We then skidded our way down – well, for me it was more of a peel and stick ride down the slide, and then proceeded to run around and do it 9 more times.  Believe it or not that was a workout!  While we were laughing at this, the adults with the children 50 yards away, were looking at us as if we might have been challenged.  One remarking….that looks like fun, in a very sarcastic voice!  A young boy wandered over to us and he started climbing on some of the apparatus in our area.   When I asked him if they (meaning the school), had any swings, he replied, yes.  When I asked where, he said at home.  Obviously he missed the implication of my meaning the school!  Anyway do you know the ladder like thing that is parallel to the ground that you use your hands to walk hand over hand on?  Well, now that thing has triangles instead of just the rungs.  Anyway, this kid is very adroitly swinging from one grip to another and we watched admirably.  That was the next thing on the list of scheduled activities.  Well, when he dismounts, I go and try to “hang” from this, but of course I’m too tall, so I then try to lift my legs, by bending my knees, well there is no way my rotator cuffs are going to support my adult abundance!  I drop to the ground with a thud landing on my knees.   As my cohort and I start cackling, this child says, I didn’t know old ladies liked to play on school equipment!  Old ladies?!!!  I then felt like Methuzela’s mother!  And don’t even ask me who she is….it’s a phrase I remember from my childhood meaning someone older than dirt!  The next thing we head to is some kind of climbing device that looks like it has oversized cup handles, again it is made out of pipe, the handle things are transitioned below a bar which is on a 45 degree incline.  Not knowing exactly what to do, we start climbing it and we are pleased to at least feel like we are having an inner thigh work out.  From there we stand with our feet in these cup things and push and pull ourselves in and out, kind of like a push-up against a wall.  While we aren’t exactly following the article, we are at least exercising.  The last piece of equipment we decide to tackle is what I’m going to call the waffle slide.  Sliding boards back in my day were pieces of sheet metal that were maybe 7 feet high, with metal sides.  The waffler slide is made out of plastic (ok at least it was heavy duty plastic), but the slide sides are rippled like a waffle potato chip (which by this point I’m craving and the reason I’m in need of doing these crazy workouts!).  Well, looking at this contraption, I admit to my workout partner, that I’m worried my hips won’t make it through, she goes first and I absolutely crack up.  Her hips fluttered through this thing, just as I feared mine would.  Because I laughed, she made me do it as well.  I will let you know what the bruising looks like tomorrow!

Anyway, we left the playground amidst the sly chuckles of the other adults in the area.  While our bodies might be bruised (ya think?), we decided to do our bicep curls with a glass of wine to sooth our inner adult!  I will admit that my inner adult much preferred its exercise in comparison with my inner child’s spanking!

Life is too short to have dull moments!  J

Looking up!

Barb

Identity Crisis

Each of us is fearfully and wonderfully made by God.  Do we truly recognize this?  Or do we look at others comparing ourselves and always coming out on the short end of the stick?  Do we then further that error in judgment and complain to God (the molder of the lump of clay that we are) that He gave so and so, better attributes?!

I have recently found myself in positions of compromise and comparisons.  I remember reading a book several years back about the way to achieve success.  Besides just having a spirit of adaptability, it suggested I find a mentor to embrace whose method of achieving success was one I  could emulate and then to go and pursue that method.  I think I must have skipped what should have been a big part of that message because the only way for true success is in making that method your own.  Copying anything usually winds up as a cheap imitation for the real thing – I don't know about you, but it does for me!

When I went to college to become a physical education teacher, I based my decision to pursue that career based on my athleticism and on the teachers/coaches I looked up to.  While I had the knowledge, what I found out part way through, was that I no longer had the passion for the field.  I graduated with the degree and eventually taught.  But what I found out was that the lack of passion I felt in college in regard to that particular field was still evident.  But part of me is/was a perfectionist and I looked to those I was working with, and put that success quotient I mentioned above into practice.  I had some very good role models, but what I found out was that I felt like a farce and if you know anything about kids, they can “out” a fake a mile away.  With the staff, I was organize and professional but with the kids I felt a serious disconnect.  In fact, I felt like I was babysitting, not teaching and that had never been my preference!  I love kids….my own and there are some others I also enjoy, but on a day to day basis, teaching was not about imparting knowledge as much as it was about coddling.  And I was teaching at a private school!!!  Add to that the politics that were involved….I lasted about 3 years and don’t miss it in the least.

But that still left me in a quandray to what my calling was!  My husband and I opened our own business – we design and sell kitchens.  Hubby is a very gifted designer and loves sales.  Me, not so much!  Oh, he taught me to design and that is fun, while you are busy, but the sales end of it is not my forte.  Last night I finally said to him, I do not like trying to close the sale.  Um……this took me exactly 15 years to finally admit.  I’m all about the education of the product I just don’t feel persuasive enough to ask people to depart with their money!

So many years later, I do have an understanding of my God given “gift.”  My “gift” if you will, is in caring.  My husband made a pretty astute remark the other night and I’ve shared it with a few friends…..some people are paid to care, I want to be able to care and get paid.  So how does one recognize their gift?  It’s easy.  You will recognize it is the “gift” when you feel “alive” while pursuing it.  Describe alive?  When time passes and you have no idea of it, when what you are doing isn’t about you so much as it is about what you are doing.  I only know this, because I have felt it and I’m now trying to embrace it and move in that direction.

But once again, I was met with a detour.  Once again, I feel I am trying to be the square peg trying to fit into the round hole. I feel I’m being shown how to follow a model of success, but balking at wanting to walk that path.  So why would I go this route, when my heart seems to be going elsewhere?  Good question.  And the answer is because I’m letting friends steer me, instead of looking to God as my GPS.  I have a great friend who wants me to be part of her team and initially I said yes, because at the time I wanted to be open to all possibilities, besides she made it seem so easy.  What I found was that I was quickly out of my comfort zone and out of my sphere of influence, but if I embraced the model of success, I would be able to overcome my inadequacies.  Here’s the thing though, I’m back to the same place I was when I was teaching and to boot, I’m having to learn how to “close” sales.  Um……what part am I not looking at?!!!

Somehow in my friend’s view and I will admit with my own voice I have said, I want to help others and she, being the dear friend that she is, hears what I am saying, but from her viewpoint.  And that is the position we all hear from……our particular context!  So, she has mentioned repeatedly about how much fun she is having pursuing her brand and seeing some of our similarities means that I should have the same fun if I gave this a chance.  Well, I am giving it a chance, just not on a grand scale and I’m feeling the same way I felt when I taught and that is like a phony. 

There is nothing wrong with me, as long as I am true to me.  Another thing I realized was that I like operating on a small scale.  Some people are meant to be movers and shakers on a large scale, meaning that their sphere of influence is grander.  Mine I learned is not.  A friend and I cook breakfast for the homeless at a local church.  She would like to take a try at serving the actual food we prepare, me, I’m content to stay behind the scenes, I’m just a behind the scenes type person.  One is not better than the other…just different and that is ok.

Want to know two of the best compliments I ever received?  One was that what I was doing I was natural at (I happened to be doing caregiving and while I did hear this same thing from my instructor and appreciated this, it was the evaluator who also made this remark while I was taking my test.  One did not hold greater significance over the other, but the instructor by that point had also become my friend, which shouldn’t negate the outcome…..over analyzed!!)  The other compliment was that I made this one person “feel” and it referenced something I had written to her.  The essence is that I was able to “reach” someone where they were rather than on a grand scale.  In education, I always hoped for these type of light bulb moments, when a person connects and finally "gets" something.  It is from this vantage point, I feel I can then further advance whether it be about a particular product or more importantly about a relationship with God.  But first I feel you have to know your audience and meet them where they are.  Someone else looking at my methodology might just say I like to play it safe.  And they wouldn’t be wrong.  But once again I say, this is the way God molded me and I’ve decided to start embracing that.  I don’t need anyone’s permission and that is the point I’m finally learning.

You too are fearfully and wonderfully made and if our paths should cross I’d love the opportunity to know you better.  I’m all about fun and good times, but I’m tired of gimmicks and games that are supposed to make me into a clone of whatever it is society is viewing as the next best thing!  I might not be perfect, but in God’s eyes, I’m exactly who I’m supposed to be. So I say to myself and to any others reading this,  Celebrate you, by remembering who and Whose you are!

Looking up! ~ Barb