I've gone over the edge! A funny story about a baby frog found in a friend's toilet

I've lost it.....apparently.....the stress needed to be dealt with and so, when a friend called me quite upset about finding a frog in her toilet, I responded.....I did and continue to maintain that this is just a fun piece and a play on words....without getting smutty...  I think I need to get a job!  Ha!

Once upon a time there were 3 frogs named Tad, Pole and Sweet Cheeks.  One afternoon they were sitting around croaking their stories when Tad decided to ask about Pole's and Sweet Cheek's interesting names.  Tad began with, my name is boring, but I am my father's son and they didn't want to call me junior so I got stuck with Tad.  How did you guys get your names?  Pole looked at the other two and blushed, I was ribbiting away one day in the winter and someone dared me to sample a basketball pole saying the ice on it would quench my thirst.  I bought into the premise and lo and behold, my tongue stuck to the pole, hence my name.  Tad and Pole looked expectantly at Sweet Cheeks, who was wishing he'd just out and out croak.  After stammering a bit, he spoke.  As a younger frog, just past infancy, I want to feel cool, so I decided to join a gang.  Unbeknownst to me they had a initiation, part of which was learning to roll my tongue and growl....I placed my tongue on the roof of my mouth and expelled air sounding like a cat.  One day the guys stopped by an apartment and when the woman inside wasn't watching, they dared me to pop into her home.  My intent was to go in and come right out, but the door got shut too soon.  I was desperate knowing that my skin needed the replenishment of water, so I set on a mission to find some.  I hopped about and finally found a room with its own water source, it had a makeshift kind of lilypad and so I attached myself to it.  During the evening I mainly stayed hidden because the water source became a white water rafting center complete with rafts and logs.  During the day, for the most part everything seemed quiet.  On those occasions I would sometimes venture out.  One day, I did just that.  I was minding my own business when I noticed an eclipse.  Not sure what was going on, I started humming to myself making that growl noise.  I was kind of nervous at the amount of time it was remaining dark, so I stuck my tongue out to get a sense of what was going on. My tongue touched something, I wasn't quite sure what but it was sweet.   Apparently this was the wrong move because the sun suddenly appeared and I heard all this shrieking going on.  I sat glued to my spot trying to blend in but this was virtually impossible.  The next thing I knew the white water rafting center was exploding and a raft of spongy material provided a way for my exit.  As I rode the waves I exited into a stream very far down field.  When I explained my dilemma, other frogs smiled and nodded in agreement.  A few days later they announced my arrival as a charter member of the horny toad frogs and named me sweet cheeks.

LOVE is...

We all (should) remember "love means never having to say you are sorry."   What a crock!

Or  Tom Cruise saying in a movie I can't recall its title....."You had me at hello."  Again what a crock.

What, me  dispeling the myth of "love?"  Yes.  Love is not meant to be a myth.  It is meant to be shared between people, regardless of their sex, because LOVE is NOT sex.  Love is an intimate relationship between people.  And intimacy does not have to mean sex.  Instead, as a very wise writer pointed out....intimacy if taken phoentically is INTO-ME-SEE.

Most of us hide from this type of exposure, mainly because one of the two parties present doesn't feel worthy as a participant.  If we look at our naked bodies we (well, most of us anyway) inwardly cringe.  No way do I want THAT on display.....it's bad enough I have to look at it.  Well, and I'm chuckling as I write this, because my BFF just this morning called me an overthinking upside down friend.... INTO-ME-SEE is the allowance of our naked souls to be seen and shared with another.  I will just add, that God sees all anyway, so for this context I'm speaking about sharing our souls with one another.

What is love?  Go ahead, re-read 1 Corinthians 13.....I'll wait.  Yeah, all that, but what does that mean, the stuff of not being  jealous, about being kind and not proud....etc?   What, oh wait, you mean we are supposed to take that quite literally?  Oh, I thought it was just something nice said at weddings!!!  Am I the only one saying ouch?  I don't need a band-aid here, I need a darn tourniquet.

The thing about love (my view) is that it is not about us, but instead is an extension of us for the recepient.  Huh?  Let me ask a question.  When you love someone, do you want your own way?  If you answered that any other way than to say yes, you are kidding yourself.  Of course you want your way...your way is to be loved back.  Can you demand that someone love you back?  Well, you might try, let me know if it works for you!  No, love is about wanting to reach out to the person whose attention you are trying to attract and meeting them in their space.  The sad part of love is that all too often, it is one-sided.  Either one is too needy or one doesn't know how to receive it and thus patterns are formed until one day you wake up and find yourself saying....hey, wait a minute, what about me? ( if your are the "lover") or what happened? ( if you are the "lovee.") 

When was the last time anyone met you where you needed to be met?  Love can't be forced and as my friend was reading to me out of the book "The Shack".....God even loves us enough NOT to force our hands.  Anything forced isn't love, but control.  Love to me is active listening and involves hearing what might not be necessarily said, or maybe even said in a passing way.  It is then portrayed through action because we all know that talk is cheap (or should know) and is heard and most often filtered down to drivel when action doesn't back it up.  Love is the sharing act and once again, I'm not talking sex.  Sometimes the activity is a surprise, sometimes the planning of the activity can be part of the fun of sharing as well.  What keeps us from enjoying life is that because we are so darn busy and need to plan even our bathroom breaks, we miss out on opportunities that allow two people to demonstrate their acknowledgement of one another.  Bluntly said, look at your calendar and see if the 3rd Saturday from never is available because I need between 15 - 30 minutes to see you to let you know I care.

Wow, and to the one friend who likes to say to me....no one has "pissed" in my cornflakes this morning.  I understand responsibilities, yeah, I like to eat and sleep with a roof over my head.....but when material things come before loved ones, I guess you could say I do overthink and am culturally upside, backwards, inside out or whatever it is I am.  Am I angry....maybe.  The one constant in everyone's life is that they want to be what they were created to be and that is LOVED!

How do you ask for it?  Can we even walk up to our families and just say.....love me without getting some strange look, or maybe hearing them say back to you, "I do love you."  Huh?  Obviously we aren't getting the message.  So, how do we get the message....again, I point back to active listening.  I have a friend who loves horses.  I saw this google thing and it talked about a trail ride.  Neither she nor I have much in the way of money, and yet God seemingly let Goggle intervene and a deal was made apparent to me via the web.  This is a small gesture of love, but hopefully it makes her feel heard and valued (at least I hope so) and guess what, I get something in return, the pleasure of enjoying her enjoyment and maybe even some of my own, once I get passed the fear of falling from a moving animal.  I also get the opportunity to pursue other things I enjoy....the outdoors and photography opportunities.

I am blessed to be married to a man who is very generous.  For our 25th wedding, he asked me what I wanted.  I'm simple, I said something with the family.....he took that idea and ran with it and unbeknownst to me until shortly before the event occurred, he planned a cruise for the entire family.  There were 31 of us all total and he paid for all the immediate family adults!   Those with kids, paid for their own kids. Talk about love. This cruise happened 5 years ago and is still talked about as one of the best vacations any of us have ever taken.  And now....as now, as he faces an uphill battle with cancer, the care, love and support we are being shown is beyond description in its aura!  Family is THE most important relationship to me.  But and I truly mean this, Family is not just blood relatives.  Family is those who love you despite your faults and care enough to want to share in your life without terms and conditions. 

For God so LOVED the world, he gave his begotten Son..... If we can't understand the concept of God, how can we possibly understand the magnitude of HIS gift?

That is what love is.......

Looking up!

BArb

Talking about Rhythm (picture musical notes)

When last I left you I was speaking about life rhythms…. and being ever the witster (not) every time I hear the word rhythm, my mind, for whatever reason goes to Catholic birth control. Don’t ask me why, maybe it is an upbringing thing…I’m not practicing. Ok, don’t go there either, I’m in my mid-50s.
I was reading with a friend this morning, a devotional in which it talked about the need for levitating. Ok, now I’m sure to have grabbed your attention thinking I’m going on a hocus pocus theme. Truly I’m not. What the devotional talked about was how one-tracked our minds are and how that track usually belongs somewhere in NASCAR. Again, not trying to upset race fans. As depicted, because we are such a busy people, we rush everywhere. If we levitated and looked at our lives from God’s point of view, we would only laugh at ourselves. The vision given in the devotional was of an elderly couple on a drive, meandering (probably going the speed limit – emphasis mine), chatting about their grandchildren with me driving behind them, late for an appointment. Can’t you just picture it? Red faced, scowling, road ragist?! Or, a couple on their way to their oncologist possibly about to hear news they don’t want to hear and not wanting to rush to get there…boy can I relate to that one! Well, levitate and look down on yourself, what do you see? How do you feel now? And my only remark is that if you still feel the rage inside yourself, how sad!
Rhythm allows for a variance in speed, but wants to slow down to enjoy the sights. I truly enjoy conversations (that have depth). But to get to the crux of the story, one has to set the scene, it is after all a story. Does a joke not build? Do you just come out with the punch line? No! So, when telling a story, one has to sometimes go in a circuitous route to get to the point. When interruptions are made, the story sometimes gets lost. But in our rush, we want the facts and only the facts. Not me, I want the story. I want people in my life to KNOW that I have time for them and enjoy their stories. People need to be heard. People need to be valued. And that is quickly becoming an obsolete art. We continue to devalue human contact, replacing it with device contact…ATMs, texting, instant messaging and even as I say this and get ready to post this on FB, I know I am guilty. But….given the opportunity, I’d rather be face to face because then I can pick up the true story.
Are we distracted talkers and listeners? Yes. Anytime we try to do two or more things at the same time we are either talking or listening. Does the person whose presence you aren’t in, but still in communication with know you are distracted? I do and I don’t think I’m unique! Again, view it from above.
When I volunteered with hospice, we had to take a CEU class on Anticipatory Grief. Underline the word anticipatory. That meant we had to listen to what was NOT being said and be prepared to broach topics that were being talked around but not about. Sometimes we all need what it is we are so afraid to admit to. I’m a thinker/an analyzer and an anticipator, sometimes I am wrong, but my track record to date tells me, not often. Again, it isn’t about how "great" anyone thinks I am, because truly I can only say I’m not anyone different than anyone else. It is only that I allow myself to listen to what is being said. I’ve slowed my rhythm (or in some cases have had to enhance it) to the speed of the person I am in conversation with. I love this. I love the connection. Sadly, too few want this type of connection.
That said, I don’t analyze content for judging purposes, but instead to allow the person to vent and in some cases come to conclusions that have stymied them. I too need that type of person in my own life. It is the feedback that helps one get over the road hump. Again in another devotional it was depicted as driving in a fog, but then scaling a hill thus getting above the density and looking and seeing it from a different perspective, but then descending back into the mist, hopefully with a better understanding of what may lie ahead.
Can’t you just visualize life that way? In the parable about Jesus in the boat with the disciples as it crosses the lake in a storm. Jesus lies in a restful sleep, while his friends are terrified of the storm about to capsize their boat. They wake Him, questioning how He could possibly sleep. The commentary provided by Joyce Meyer sums it all up quite simply. When we have storms going inside us (fear, anger, resentments, lack of trust, lack of faith, lack of self-esteem, etc.) how can we possibly quiet the storms going on about us in the world (health issues, financial issues, marital issues, child issues, whatever other issues). We have to quiet the inner storms first. How? And I alternate on this point at different times in my life, now being one of them. How? For me, it is in giving the problem to God and trusting that HE will render the solution in HIS time, which unfortunately doesn’t always coincide with my time. But when I am able to look back on whatever the issue was, I ALWAYS see that HIS timing was perfect. I dislike pain, as much as anyone else, but without pain, I don’t grow. Sometimes God needs to sever the deadwood I’ve allowed to accumulate in my life. Why I want to hold onto something that has no benefit for me, I don’t completely understand. In terms of a boat, it is like having barnacles attached that only weigh it down, possibly to the point of sinking it.
Anyone? Maybe it is why I like the beach so much. I look at the surf and see it ebb and flow. Sometimes the waves are rolypolies, other times they are stormy, but always they make their way into the shoreline, but always retract. Rhythm.
Looking up!
Barb

Rhythm Part 1

Rhythm.  The music is playing and for some of us, our feet can’t help moving, trying to feel that pulsating beat.  It isn’t a nervous foot jiggle, as my husband demonstrates, you know the one where when sitting with toes only touching the floor the heels start bouncing….aka the Motor.  No that’s the one that sets the dishes sitting on the table jiving making everyone hyper until the death look captivates the jiggler or someone goes over and physically places pressure on their knees to lower the heels and make it stop!  I don’t know, maybe in the jiggler’s mind they are moving to some beat, just one unheard by anyone else!  No, rhythm, as I intend to portray is of a different cadence.  Whether it be to a waltz or a jive; somewhere in its pace is a regularity of tempo.  Rhythm can build in its pulse, but then once it reaches its crescendo, drops back to its pattern.

Are you aware that life too has a rhythm?  Do you know when yours is out of sync?  If truth be told, I am only now learning to pay attention to life’s rhythm.  Before I was too frantic in my life approach to even think about it.  I have often remarked about life’s busyness and its ill effects on us.  The point I never fully explained was this point about rhythm.  I am in NO way a dancer, I’m much too klutzy for that, but I do fancy myself to enjoy music and be able to keep time at least moderately well.  The thing with me though, is that I have to hear the music.

Well, life doesn’t always play its music so that we can hear it, either that or we’ve become deaf to wanting to listen to it.  And that is  until something happens in your life that makes you slow down and pay attention to it, which in turns makes you wonder why it took so long to do so.  The rhythm in life is as soothing as you allow it to be.  Here’s the thing though, too often we aren’t listening to “our” life song, instead we are listening to someone else’s, because their beat sounds somewhat more appealing than ours.

In the Bible, Jesus comes to visit Martha and Mary.  I’m a Martha.  I want to be prepared, house cleaned, food warmed, everything just so.  The problem with that is that when the guest of honor arrives (in this case Jesus), Martha continues to fuss over the tiniest of details completely missing out on the enjoyment of her guest.  Mary on the other hand, stops what she is doing and dotes on her guest.  Martha gets PO’d enough to even try to convince Jesus to tell Mary to get off her ever loving butt and get to making things right.  Two distinct people, two distinct different rhythms.  Yet Jesus tells Martha, Mary’s got it all right, she IS doing what is important.  Whoa.  In Martha’s mind, Mary was being a slacker.  In Jesus’ mind, Mary was anything but a slacker.  She was honoring her guest by being present in the moment with Him.

As I age, I am becoming increasingly aware of life as an agenda.  Unfortunately, that agenda seems to center on everyone else’s time frame.  Do this, be there, look here and most often the word that follow those is the word…..NOW.  My husband and I are not independently wealthy, so I don’t have the luxury of thumbing my nose at life and saying kiss my grits.  I (we) do, to a certain extent, have to be responsible adults – only if we want to continue to enjoy having a roof over our heads and food on the table.  No, I’m talking about what comes after responsibilities have been met.  How do we allow ourselves to enjoy our own timely progressions?

Stay tuned….

Looking up!~

Barb

Steps along the Journey

Recently, in the mornings, I have had the privilege of sharing my morning quiet time going through my readings with a friend.  Said friend has been on a quest to better understand herself and the world as she perceives it.  Whether or not she is aware of it, something she said last night spoke volumes.  It is interesting, at least to me, that yesterday morning she “couldn’t wait” for our readings today, but last night she had made the first of many “right” steps towards independence and health.  Instead of joining me this morning via telephone, she opted to meet up with another and share, talk and walk with her.  In reading this, she might think she committed a faux pas, that is not how I perceive it.  I believe she is being led where God wants her headed.  She is blooming where she is planted!  And I applaud that!  Too often we rest where we feel safe, and while safety cushions are ever present, they don’t help propel us forward.  A journey is not stationary and each of us is on a path of God’s design.

Yesterday’s readings spoke of this journey.  In Luke 9:23, Jesus implores each of us to come after Him and take up our crosses.  Well, it use to be when I read that passage it sounded like gobblety gook to me.  In the “Message,” the translation read loud and clear.  Simply stated, if we plan to walk the walk with Jesus, we have to let Him lead and sometimes the walk brings us to places of suffering.  The crosses we are to pick up, are those sufferings.  Why?  Some think that following Christ means they get to live a life of charm, still others (especially those who don’t want to begin that walk) are afraid that when they do journey on the path with Christ, they will only meet up with suffering and therefore resist Him because they are afraid.  As the song “Blessings” by Laura Story goes, sometimes our hardships are our blessings in disguise.

Suffering isn’t fun.  I can’t think of anyone, except Mother Teresa who would readily sign up for that.  Which brings me to another point.  Maybe Mother Teresa didn’t really want the hardships her life encountered, but and this is a big but (which does not mean BS), she truly wanted to walk with Christ and did what most of us can’t, deny ourselves and put others first!  At times I think I’m doing this, but at any given moment my selfishness points its incriminating finger(s) back at me and says “fraud!”

Moving on to what I read today, in Luke 9:48….For he who is least and lowliest among you – he is the one truly great. This scenerio was portrayed in Steven W. Smith’s book “The Jesus Life.”   I arrived at this same passage where he was depicting how he and his wife made a spiritual retreat out of a barn in Colorado. The place is called “The Potter’s Inn” and someday I hope to be able to go there! He remarked about how varying the stature of the clients who come there, for their soul care, and how no one knows who has made the visit, because of the cloak of anonymity.  I love what he says in regard to marveling at the situation “Somehow it became appropriate and often funny for me to look around and say, “Has my life come down to this, to my workplace being a barn and my pulpit a manger?”  Getting back to Luke 9:48, it reminds me that our status isn’t what God looks at, but instead what we do for one another out of love, regardless of its complexity and who or who may not know.

How do we aid those afflicted with disease, whatever the disease?  Do we repel them, because we are afraid that what they have we might catch?  Or do we strive to come closer, to gain an understanding of their suffering?  Does it depend on the disease or whether or not it is socially acceptable or whether or not it is deemed self-inflicted?  Humanity is a sea of complexities and I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t have the answers to the causes behind our sufferings.  I just know that I want to be part of the healing process, somehow, someway.  I’m not sure what that looks like today.

That process is never a more daunting plea than when your loved one(s) is (are) in the midst of their dilemmas of suffering.  They battle “the” disease, but those of us on the outside battle a different skirmish with them.  It can be an ordeal of unknown proportions.  They do the work we can’t even begin to imagine.

In conversation yesterday, my friend and I discussed how when reading the Bible, we don’t necessarily “get” passed the words.  The point was made, that in our approach, we need to ask that God allow His Spirit to read along with us and then stop us at the point we need to focus and learn from.  In reading this way, I came across this passage, again in Luke, this time 8:50, Jesus is talking with a father whose daughter is ill.  He says “But when Jesus heard [it], he answered him, saying, Fear not: believe only, and she shall be made whole.”   The fear mentioned is the opposite of faith.  Fear is doubt, created by Satan and is a choice by us.  Really?  We choose this?  Yes, resoundingly yes.  Again, why?

This stops me in my tracks.  This is the crux of the whole matter.  Everytime I allow myself to wander down the alley of fear, I’m saying God doesn’t have this(whatever “this” represents).  Our humanness embraces this fear, this is the stigma birthed to us from Adam and Eve and yet God PROMISES us, through Christ, that we do not have to choose this path.  So why do we?  Why do I?

A friend of mine, who battled breast cancer 2 years ago is profound in her belief.  She doesn’t say she is in remission, because that allows for doubt.  She professes to be cured.  She will have none of Satan stealing her joy.  I am uplifted when I hear her speak.  She lovingly corrects my mental sourness.  There is NO room for doubt if for no other reason than it negates God’s ability to perform His miracles.  The battle(s) waged are in our minds!

Each of us has our own issues where we need God’s sovereignity.  Make your choice, faith or fear, the outcome should not come as a surprise!  With every ounce of my being I’m choosing faith!

FEAR not, BELIEVE only!

http://www.pottersinn.com/ check out the link!

 

Looking up!

Barb

Wedding countdown

This weekend is my daughter’s wedding and up to this point, I have not been stressing out. Last night though life started taking its frantic grip and lo and behold, this morning finds me stuffing my face with ice cream for breakfast. I could very well rationalize this as my attempt to clean out the freezer because I need to store bags of ice there….maybe I will just do that.  The beer and wine does need to be cold after all!
On top of that, knowing that I need to fit into a dress I tried on 2 months ago, isn’t stressing me out a bit. No, not at all…yeah, right! The temperature on Saturday will not be conducive to my wearing a sausage skin, because hot flashes in 90 degree heat will make my hair wilt! Oh, the things we women try to do to appear to look as if we have it all together! To that point, I’ve just applied self-tanner so that my bat wings blend in better rather than remaining lily white so as not to point out to the world that the last time I exercised was last year right before my son’s wedding. I just couldn’t afford the "Malibu Barbie" tanning experience again this year. Funny thing is, the aroma from the self-tanner is exactly what I remember! No one better point out to me on Saturday that I missed a spot!

Upon gazing in the mirror this morning, hoping that Christy Brinkley was gazing back, aw shucks….I then had the realization that my hormones aren’t sure what they should be doing. Just the other day, my son thought I had something on my lip and he tried to brush it off….unfortunately it doesn’t brush off, the old "hormones" are giving me both pimples AND a mustache, adding to my "nan, nan". Life isn’t fair. On top of that, my "plucking" abilities are fouled up because I had lasik eye surgery 6 years ago and at the time I thought it prudent to have a "near" eye and a "far" eye. This enabled me to be able to read both a phone book and see in the distance (not the future obviously, or I would have seen the necessity of investing in a scary as hell make-up mirror that magnifies EVERYTHING, even the stuff not supposed to be seen!) As I stand looking in the mirror, tweezers in hand, I keep attempting to find that stray hair, I keep plucking at air and have gone as far as thinking I should just take Bruce’s razor to try and hunt it down. Thing is, I don’t want to then end up with a chinstrap in the future! Sorry, to my future son-in-law, who looks good with one!
　
All in all, I would have to say we are as ready as we are going to be. One would have to expect to be unnerved if 60+ people were about to descend on one’s home don’t’ you think? And that is just the rehearsal dinner. With my luck, I will have forgotten to change out that one roll of toilet paper that had one square of TP left on it and the one who will find it, will be the one friend who always seems to find it and I never leave it that way on purpose! But mine is a mind that sees the humor in life and I try to just roll with it! Get it, roll, TP….ah, forget it.

These are the things running through my mind, 3 days before the big event. I can’t say whether or not this is normal. What I am not worried about however, is whether or not the kids are right for each other. I have watched them in the four years they’ve known one another. They are committed to each other and have already had to see that life is not just a bowl of cherries. (Why cherries, I’d rather them be a different fruit….who came up with the cherry idea anyway?) But I digress, both Brooke and James have dealt with moving, job changes, illness, and even death and in each instance they have withstood the challenges together. They know that married life isn’t going to be any easier than it was the day before, but in making their vows understand that before God and their families they promise to work together through it all.

In opening our hands and releasing our daughter’s hand to his, we are gaining a young man we consider worthy as a son. We appreciate the lessons they have taught us and hope they can appreciate our lessons in return. We look forward to this union and the joy that it brings both now and in the future. So, no it isn’t about the stuff I’ve been joking about, I do understand that, but the picture wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t share the imperfections that allow for us to be human.

Looking up (and forward)!
Barb

Mandates

I saw this quote and thought it was the funniest thing I had heard in awhile…but then after a few minutes, I re-thought my thinking and came away with the idea that it was maybe the saddest thing I had heard in awhile. The quote came from Billy Sunday and it went "Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you an automobile."

Please make note that I am NOT poo-pooing about going to church. Instead I’m speaking about those who unequivocally think that showing up to a building on Sunday mornings, then sleepwalking through a sermon to turn around and come home thinking they have done their weekly duty are better than those who choose to open God’s word and LIVE out the meaning of what they read. That sanctimonious (feigning piety/righteousness) viewpoint has been tried out on me and I’m having none of it. Church is a building with four walls. Instead I’m of the mindset of church being a community of believers and whether that community is of singular or plural dimensions, I believe that Jesus will meet you where you are as long as your heart is open/available and seeking His. Church is about being fed. Interestingly I googled how many times Jesus mentioned the word church in the Bible and the number was one (but still counting). And yet, it is stated that whenever two or more are gathered in His name, then Jesus is in the midst of them! Ah…..didn’t see walls as a prerequisite there, did you?

With all that said, I’m not trying to make being lazy about one’s relationship with God an easy out for those who are spiritually seeking. I’ve been on the lazy end of things for much too long in my life. Being too busy isn’t an answer to put God at the bottom of your to do list either…..and I’ve done that as well. This is a tricky blog for me to write, because I don’t want to misdirect anyone’s footsteps in their journey to understand God. There is a huge responsibility associated with this journey and that is one I am not quite up to speed in adequately portraying. The thing is though, far too many people have the idea that showing up to a building on a given day of the week is the end of that responsibility and they then judge those who don’t even make that attempt. What they are missing is that God is the judge….not them!

Why does man "mandate" that we follow a prescribed set of rules? Just this morning I was reading in Luke 6:6-9 (my paraphrase) as Jesus, on a Sabbath day sees a man with a withered hand and asks the man to stand amongst the Pharisees. He then heals the man’s withered hand and the Pharisees become irate. Jesus then asks them, is it unlawful or incorrect to do "good" on the Sabbath? The Sabbath is supposed to be that day of rest, where one doesn’t "work." And that is a whole other blog for another day. The point I was trying to get at, is that the Pharisees (the religious leaders of that day) were all about enforcing the rules of religion, so much so that they would deny saving someone’s life (or as my bible stated – denying someone something if they would derive an advantage from it.)

Recently I’ve become so much more aware of the mandates people impose on one another. We are so bound up in our schedules we need laxatives to allow ourselves the time to relax. And all puns are intended in my saying that! Good grief!

I am not speaking about irresponsibility; but I’ve reached the threshold of trying to juggle too much of life at one time. It just keeps coming at me, faster than I, in my own power can possibly deal with. This is a lesson in faith for me. You see, it is in my weakness that God can show HIS power. As long as I am in control, He will allow me to believe that I can do it all. For awhile it seemed as if I was doing quite well, but when the storms of life started showing up at my door, I quickly became aware of just how unprepared I was! And if you think admitting that was easy, let me assure you that it wasn’t, but pride no longer stands in my way, especially if in sharing these little nuggets helps someone else! No don’t read that as false piety, I truly want people to relate to life in a real way, but also to realize that even in times of aloneness, with God we are never abandoned. I don’t want someone to have suffered the sting of sanctimony and felt rejected and think that God isn’t there for them because they haven’t stepped foot into a "building." This is a misconception of great proportion. It was even uttered by one of my own family members in regard to my husband’s health. Let me reiterate this point. The act of going to church does not atone for the event occurring IF the follow through isn’t pointed in the same direction. If you need that in sports terms…..shooting a basketball at a goal won’t land the ball in the basket if at the end of the shot your hands aren’t pointed to the goal. And with that said, just because you go to church and you try to clean up your act, won’t make whatever the event go in your desired direction. Each of our lives has been planned by God. Whether or not we live by His plan, we have all been given a prescribed number of days. It is our choice in how we live those days. What choices have you made?

Free will was God’s gift to us. He didn’t "mandate" that we follow HIS way, but HIS way is the way that gives us the best of the best. Unfortunately too many of us find this out too late. We snicker and sneer at those who choose His way rather than going for the gusto of self-absorption. Personally, as I said to a friend this weekend, I’m tired of the mandate of agendas. I don’t want to think, feel, nor have to do anything at any given moment. Instead, and not irresponsibly, I want to allow myself to live in the moment trusting that I will be directed and able to enjoy the moment at hand. It is so freeing to let control go. In opening my hand to release my control, I can then accept the hand of the one who seeks to take me on the rest of the journey of my life.

Looking up!
Barb