Attitude - a new one needed?

Do you know the story of Mary and Martha from the Bible?  Mary is the gentle, laid back woman who sits mesmerized at Jesus’ feet while her sister, Martha, complains about doing all the work in preparation for houseguests, namely Jesus and his entourage.  In Luke 10:39 and 40 paraphrased by me, Martha comes to Jesus and says “Lord, doesn’t it seem unfair to you that my sister just sits here while I do all the work?  Tell her to come and help me.”

As noted in the Woman’s Friendship devotional, Martha’s problem isn’t in her having to serve the meal, she is quite capable, no, her problem is in her attitude toward serving.  Further down in the reading, it suggests that she had a major attitude adjustment after her brother Lazarus died for 4 days, because once again, when she was serving a meal to Jesus, she didn’t stomp around her kitchen bemoaning her circumstances.  Death (even though her brother Lazarus’ death only lasted 4 days) had shown her what really matters.

At the end of the reading there is always a prayer and then a quotation.  I loved this one.  It goes “The higher and truer knowledge we have of the goodness and unselfishness of God, the less anxiety, and fuss, and wrestling, and agonizing, will there be in ones worship.”  Hannah Whitall Smith.

I can’t speak for anyone but myself, I admit to moaning and groaning when life seems too hard, or too unpleasant or when things don’t go the way I want them to.  As I mentioned yesterday, I am shedding my cocoon and in its shedding I will encounter trials.  And as the story goes about the butterfly, without the trials, I won’t get the caca off my wings to be able to learn to flap them and be able to fly.  Trials are to life as weights are to strength training, but at the core.  God is at the core, He gave us life, but we still are the ones who have to live it.

While I sit here typing this, knowing I need to gather up my stuff and head back from the beach to finish packing up the house for our subsequent move to the beach, I am dreading this endeavor, but to get to point C, I have to add points A and B.  There are no ifs, ands or buts.  Complaining about it only serves to make the task more difficult.

Dreading the task at hand doesn’t get it done.  I have said the serenity prayer 3 times today already!  “God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Bruce is not coming back to life – I can’t change that and wouldn’t want to change it.  He is a treasure stored in heaven.  Selfishly I want him here with me, but to have seen heaven, there’s no way, I would want him to have to settle back into a world of pain and suffering, doubt and disappointment, sadness… I on the other hand, am still here and God is giving me the courage to step out and see the beauty that can exist amidst the heartaches described above.  Did you see the shift.  Heaven is perfect, our world is fallen, but with the right attitude, our world can and is beautiful. 

Am I fearful of changes? Absolutely, but I trust that God is leading me to a place of beauty.  Will it be perfect?  No, not until the day I die and enter heaven, but it can be pretty darn good, as long as I keep my attitude where it needs to be.  See, the thing is, my journey isn’t complete until God says so.  Could I have stayed where I was and ventured out beyond my home – sure, but I felt that God wanted me to take a different path.  Does it mean giving up the comfort of the “family” I have left?  Yes, but as I keep learning, painful trials are what makes you grow.  Without growth, there’s no life.  I have fulfilled my parental duties, we raised our children to the best of Bruce’s and my abilities.  Leaving them to stand on their own two feet (soon to be 6 feet per couple) isn’t as selfish as some try to make me think.  Rather, I hope to be showing them that life continues on.  That there can still be joy after sorrow.  That they too can not only cope, but survive and thrive on their own.

When health becomes an issue, the wagons circle for protection which is great.  But the pioneers of yesteryear, knew they had to keep moving on and as difficult as it was, they mourned and pulled up stakes and continued their trek to destinations unknown.  Without the brave doing so, would we have ever founded America, or California or any of the states in between?

We of aging parents or as the aging parent forget that as people we still have hopes and dreams and as long as we are physically able, we need to be able to live those dreams.  As children of aging parents, we wonder why they balk at our insistence to know what is best for them.  Really?  Didn’t they diaper us?  And while we may now be diapering in reverse, don’t think for a minute that they don’t cringe at the role reversal.  As a widow, I am grateful that my kids don’t look at me as being incapable, but many times that is the exact attitude that is adopted when a parent dies.

Attitude is the key to living life.  What does yours say about you?  Circumstances will be what they may, but we can choose our attitudes about the service we provide.

 

Looking up!

 

BArb

When I look in the mirror, what do I see OR What does my face say about me?

I just read an interesting tidbit about Thomas Jefferson.  At some point in his presidency he and his entourage were trying to cross a rain swollen river.  They looked for its narrowest point and were about to cross, when a man stood up at its banks and looked each man in the face.  Thomas Jefferson was near the end of the group and as he was about to cross, the man asked if he could ride with him.  Thomas Jefferson said yes, and the man hopped on behind him.  Once they had crossed, the man slid to the ground thanking TJ.  Another man, came up to him and asked him how he had dared to ask the President of the United States to take him across the river.  The man was appalled, and stated that he didn’t know that TJ was in fact the president and apologized profusely.  He then added that as he looked at each man, only Thomas Jefferson’s face/eyes said yes, all the others had a look of “NO” on their faces.

I was looking at a picture of myself taken shortly after Bruce had passed.  It was taken at Atlantic Beach, and I was a bit sunburned, but in delving deeper I noticed a “softness” in my expression.  Now, I know that as much as I would like this to be my everyday look, it isn’t.  But at that particular time, having had the most profound “worst” already happen to me (although I continued to be battered that year), I realized that the most important thing in life was about loving others regardless of anything and I do mean anything.  I was at that particular moment in a numb state or protective bubble, having been placed there by God.  There is no good way to describe that other than to say, I didn’t care about personality defects, bad attitudes, bad circumstances or any other negativity.  In retrospect, I was being comforted by the hand of God – although I will admit that I didn’t know it at the time.

As I am in the process of shedding my cocoon now, I am becoming aware that as I step back into life that I am once again “bothered” by what people say and do.  I again am becoming prideful and wanting things my way.  But here is the thing, now I am aware of it and even more profound is the fact that once aware of being blessed, to be heading back in this direction is NOT something I want to be doing.  The key to seeing is in the eyes and I don’t mean that to be a pun.

When one experiences a death of a loved one (or in my case several in the course of a year) one has a choice.  You can become bitter or better.  You can try with all your strength or whatever term you want to use to stay or regain control or you can become aware that none of life is really in our control and then relinquish that need to try to lay claim to it.  That is the softness you see in the eyes – the actual “giving up” and instead relishing peace.

Another interesting thing I read was about an atheist who was dying.  A hospice volunteer was trying to ascertain this woman’s stand with Christ.  She spoke and prayed with her daily, and finally the dying woman said that she was an atheist and had no interest in changing.  Later in her last days, this woman began hallucinating about being tormented by fire climbing up her legs. 

While these two very different readings might be a stretch to be tied together – the central theme in the message is about peace, beyond our understanding.  When we are unwavering in our desire to control or to put it another way, be the god of our own destiny we are claiming in a manner of speaking atheism.

Look in the mirror what do you see?  Do you see the glint of steel – the look of no one is going to “get” me?  Or do see the softness of acceptance and with it the peace of knowing that even though we may be undeserving, we are accepted and loved unconditionally!

 

Looking up!

Barb