At The River's Edge...Wading or Waiting

It's a hot and sticky day... sweat is dripping it's tickly drip down the back of my neck.  I long for a cool breeze, but it is off to another place.  The sun is beating, it's hard to think through the haze.

In the opening, just up ahead - YES, the river.

I waltz to the edge, loose my feet from their wear and dip toes into refreshing water.  It sends it's power from toe tips to the top of my head - how does it do that?  Aaahhhh....

Wading in the river's comfort on a hot day fills me with the rejuvenation that my body desires.

Waiting for life to give its refreshing is very different from this wading.  Waiting is waiting.  Wading is doing.

There is a time to wait.  But even in the waiting, I must venture in action in the wading.  Seizing the refreshing that is in the river, because it's there and available and calling to me.

The Gentle Beautiful Season Transitions

Transitions can be difficult.  Moving from one place, either physically, mentally, emotionally or spiritually seems to come with challenge.  Sometimes very great challenge.  Yes, transitions can be difficult.

Each life season follows a transition of sorts from the previous season.  Many times I find that we as people move from one season to another in a 'kicking and screaming' manner - hands and feet leveraged against the doorway that lies between.

Doesn't this seem stress inducing to you?

Why do we fight it?

Perhaps if we could just see the beauty in it all.  The graceful movement, like that of a highly skilled ballerina, gliding gently, beautifully from one place to the next.  There is a change happening -she is leaving on season with it's defining qualities to enter into the next.  Things will be different here.  She will be changed.  Probably, in every area - changed.

Instead of seeing these changes as negative, stress-producing challenges, why not look at them as wonderful works in progress - beauty unfolding?  Different, YES.  But why not let the struggles and stress fall away and receive what is next with gratitude, excitement, humility - that attitude of the optimistic optimizer.

Let's let today be today, not hoping that it is tomorrow or lingering in yesterday.  In reality, today is what we have - not yesterday and not tomorrow.  Simply today.

There is hope, power, and rest in taking hold of this reality and living the life of the optimistic optimizer.  In every change - in every season, accepting with a smiling face, and making every effort to seize hold of it for good.

It is beautiful, this changing being that we are.  Each season displaying its own 'soul dance'.  Each transition taking us in its arms to glide gracefully into the new.

Patience is better than power???

I read a verse in Proverbs about patience being better than power: Proverbs 16:32

Patience is better than power, and controlling one’s temper, than capturing a city.  

I've thought a lot about that since.  It seems that God is working His patience teaching into me.  Just when I thought that His patience teaching could have taught me all I needed to learn in that area...

So, this verse has given me a bunch of encouragement - that the instilling of patience is worth IT.  

Patience is better than power???  Power is very, well.... powerful.  Patience is what?  Does my patience have influence?  What does it accomplish?  It certainly helps me NOT to go crazy.  It helps me to train my children without exasperating them.  It helps me to hold my tongue sometimes.  It helps me to avoid unjustly judging others.  It helps me to stand back and let things unfold without whipping myself into a frenzy and trying to make life go MY way.  It helps me NOT to get divorced.  It stays me when my first impulse leans in a specific direction and WAIT until I know better.  It helps me to be content when things are challenging.  It helps me to slow down and realize the moment's blessings and be THANKFUL.  And it helps me NOT to go crazy.

Those are my first thoughts about it.  So, is patience better than power?  At times it feels immensly empowering to be patient.  Other times, honestly, I feel like a doormat, "Sure, walk over me, I can take it, I'm patient."  

Maybe there is a depth to this type of patience development within my character that makes the surface floating power seem shallow and less valuable?  Perhaps the VALUE of the patience in my being surpasses the VALUE of power in the moment?  Perhaps power is fleeting, like a pleasure, and patience is a staying sustenance?  Perhaps the power is only power in the world and patience endures through eternity?

I don't know, but I have a new and beautiful hope in the hard work of learning patience and the value of having learned it - more and more.

Life's Distractions

Sometimes I think that we try to walk our life's journey but get bombarded with 'distractions'.  You can imagine what I mean by distractions - I'm sure you have a set of your own distractions!  

And we let these distractions distract us from the journey.  Psst, psst - little do we know, that they are part of our journey and that we must engage them as so - not as distractions- but as part.  

Sometimes the beautiful ugly.  Sometimes the unexpected.  Sometimes the hard.  Sometimes the wind that makes the trunk of our souls curve over like a tree about to snap.  Sometimes little hands that want to stop us and love on us, but we're busy.  Sometimes growing girl thoughts that want us to stop and listen, but we're busy...

Life is life.  Journey in the storm, amidst the chaos, the calm, the creative, the smiles.  

I am determined to leave a touch of love as I walk through those distractions.

How to Have Kids that Behave...

How do you Swipe 90% of Parenting Problems off the Top÷

There is no greater challenge than to raise children to be positive, productive and successful members of a community.  It is a 24/7 ‘job that takes an immense amount of patience, an unending supply of unconditional love and loads of time.  

There are many philosophies regarding rearing and training children.   Without going into the debate over which is best, let’s consider something that will benefit all:  first time obedience.  It sounds simple, yet if you are a parent you know otherwise.  But, think about it...if your child did what you asked him to when you asked him to, it would make life enjoyable for all.

Whatever method of training you decide fits for your family, employ it faithfully and consistently to teach your children to respond to your requests right away with a positive attitude.  No kidding, it will swipe away many of your parenting troubles.  

It is vital to remember that this training is a process and will take much effort on the part of both parents.  Parenting is never a completed task and your training will need to be retrained and reenforced many times over and throughout your child’s growing years, and perhaps beyond.

Do not lose sight of the importance of relationship building with your child.  While it is necessary to teach obedience, it is most essential to cultivate a positive and loving relationship with your child.  These two things go hand in hand when motivated by a caring, tender heart committed to faithfully train a child out of love for that child.

Give it a shot.  First time obedience.  

True Community

Even though I do not know exactly who I am... I’ve lost myself along the way, I do know who I want to be:  His.  In some ways this is true now, but in others ways I journey on.

Abiding in Him as He is in God and God in Him, He in me...  This is what I long for and only see in part.  To surrender all that I know and think about myself and go bare and naked before God with the want and desire to soak up the truth from Him of who I am in Him.  And to become the outpouring of His plans for me.

There is a giving up of myself in this, yet in the giving I know a rebirth of life and truth will emerge.  Fresh, tender and growing.  Real, valid and a genuine ‘fit’ for me.  It only seems like a ‘giving up’.

Perhaps this is what someone would call a mid-life crisis.  I think that maybe it is more an unveiling of truth; a taking off of the blinders.  This life seems to be full of blindfolds.  A putting on of distractions and life living that creates in us blindness.  We grow dull in our ability to perceive truth and find ourselves drifting in and out of other people’s boxes of who we are supposed to be.  A matrix of sorts.

The pain of life seems so tangible and real, yet I wonder if it is because we are too full of ourselves.  The seeking for some type of personal fulfillment.  Perhaps this fulfillment of the personal type is the great deception.  Temporal vs. eternal.  Exchanging the unseen for the seen - or even the exchanging the personal for the spiritual.  The communal living with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In that communal living, the abiding with Him, a spiritual co-existence, we would be able to find true fulfillment, not of the personal kind but of the eternal kind - the spiritual dimension kind.  Other worldly.  In His world, being fully who He intended for me to be as a part of Him.  

I am lost without this.  Lost.  Empty.  

Simple steps to go 'green'

It is easy to get caught in the easy trends when it comes to lifestyle.  Let me just share a few VERY EASY changes that you could make to your lifestyle that would be moving you toward a more eco-friendly resident of the earth.

1.  Get a few old, no longer used t-shirts from the back of your drawers.  Cut them up into pieces about 1 ft. by 1 ft. in size.  Store them in a very accessible spot in your kitchen (maybe in a container on the counter or a drawer...)  Use these in place of paper towels.

2.  On nice days, hang your clothes on the line to dry instead of using the dryer.  There is an amazing, beautiful, enjoyable rhythm that you will find in this simple chore.

3.  When you are done showering, take a moment to wipe down everything.  This will save you from having to use toxic bathroom cleaner.

4.  Carry a travel mug with you at all times for coffee or hot drinks that you may purchase instead of using a foam or paper cup.  Also, get in the habit of filling your re-usable water bottle and carrying it with you so that you don't have to purchase plastic throw away water bottles.

5.  Whenever you can, use containers (preferably glass) with lids to store your leftovers.  It will become rare for you to need either saran wrap or aluminum foil.

6. RECYCLE as much as you can, of course.

That's enough to get started for now.