Piece for Peace

The puzzle pieces didn't fit today...
and you know what happens when you try to make them fit.

 

"So, Lord, I don't know this piece, but you do. So, I give you this piece, 

so that I can have your peace today." 

Rinse and repeat.

What Inspires You??

Every single day, if I'm paying attention, there are so many things to inspire...

... sunshine poking through rain clouds
,,, a new handbag :-)
... a tearful reunion
... running up our town hill (and actually making it)
... Bush Pasture Park's ever changing landscape & the miracle of regeneration
... people sharing their dreams
... tenacity
... seeing another side of God.

So what does it mean...Inspired?

Dictionary.com says this,
"Aroused, animated, or imbued with the spirit to do something by or as if by supernatural or divine influence"

Today I'm particularly inspired by a book our youngest son Alex gave me for my recent birthday (thank you honey) called "The Magnolia Story" about Joanna & Chip Gaines of HGTV's design show, "Fixer Upper". (If you don't know who they are, you must not own a television -- and that's okay. But seriously you're missing some good design content!)

It's not your typical "rags to riches" story, but more the inspiring journey of how two ordinary people learned (and I suspect, are still learning) how to occupy the space they've been given and to take risks to follow the very unique dreams that God has put in their hearts. It's really exciting to see their story unfolding. I'm only on chapter 4, but this will be one of the few books that keeps my interest until the end...I'm loving it!

It couldn't have come at a better time either. Yesterday, I put action to my dreams and opened a booth at our local antique store in Mt Angel, The Blackbird Granary. I've always wanted to do it, so finally, I did! Am I scared? Yes! I'm still not sure what it's going to look like - or even exactly what I'm going to sell. I just know that my basement needs to be cleared out before we can move and that I love antiques...their beauty...the craftsmanship, the story each one tells. I love design and way a space can go from blah to beautiful when someone provides the inspiration. And I love to bring people joy & hope that somehow my little booth will provide that.

I'm following one of my dreams and it feels so good.

What inspires you??

"Delight yourself in the Lord, and he will give you the desires of your heart."  Psalm 37:4 (my favorite Bible verse)

Love my new bag! Thanks B! I love you.

T.I.M.E. -- The Intangible Monetary Exchange

Just when I think I've had an original thought, 'ol Thoreau 
comes and ruins it for me!

Well, even if it's not an original thought, the subject of Time as a Commodity
is something on my mind today...

If "real" time (or the Present) is a nonrenewable commodity, 

what am I given in exchange for my investment of it today?

What started this whole train of thought this morning was as I was "spending time" with God I started thinking about time as a commodity that when invested can never actually be returned (once gone, it's forever gone)...

 Yet on the other hand, what a smart investment it is to "spend my time" connecting with God and his brilliant mind and love-filled heart for me as it yields returns that are priceless and far-reaching.

But not all of the things for which I exchange my one and only life
are as wise an investment... or even an investment at all.

If truly I am the proprietor of my time (because who really owns time but God) , and I've been given 24 hrs/day x 7 or 168 hours in a week:

• How much thought am I giving to my current time "spending" habits? 

• Is the value of my time worth the exchange?

• Or am I bartering something I can never get back                         for something I don't even want?

There are so many ways to invest our time,
and the point is not
to get all twisted up in 'time management"
and have our lives so regimented that we don't even want to participate.

I think the short answer is simply to be more aware of what we have chosen to spend our time on... and do we want to continue doing it this way? Maybe the answer is yes. But if it isn't then a little soul searching with God acting as the guide, never hurts.

Life is always calling to us like vendors at a swap meet-- "Come here." "Buy This." "Do that!", and if you don't know what you're looking for you'll probably come home with things you don't really need or even want... 

Such is time. 

We want to look back at life and realize that although far from perfect, we "paid" attention and "spent our time" on what really mattered. 

Eph 5:15-18 So be careful how you act; these are difficult days... be wise: make the most of every opportunity you have for doing good. Don’t act thoughtlessly, but try to find out and do whatever the Lord wants you to.

FASTING -- To Be or Not to Be...Fasting, that is.

“No act of virtue can be great if it is not followed by advantage for others. So, no matter how much time you spend fasting, no matter how much you sleep on a hard floor and eat ashes and sigh continually, if you do no good to others, you do nothing great.”

John Chrysostom c. 349 – 407, Archbishop of Constantinople

Okay, can I just be direct?

As the New Year has brought talk of participating in any sort of FAST-- it has been like a four letter word to the "other girl" (aka: my flesh girl).

Why?
Because Fasting suggests to my 'Black-and-White' way of thinking,

that I do it ...  or I don't do it 

there's no in between. 

And I've given up Fasting at the first stumble so many times that I've been afraid to start again... I haven't wanted to fail.

But this year is different...

I'm truly dedicated to the pursuit of what will make my Spirit Girl healthier so when our Pastor reminded us today that our church would be starting a voluntary Fast in February...i felt the pressure to respond (granted, the pressure was not coming from the pulpit, but from something inside of me that knew this was my year to participate.) Ugh!

...I felt sure he was going to say yes I should Fast and that he would choose candy because it's the thing I feared giving up the most. So when I asked Him, and then immediately heard..."Candy".

I thought, "Great!!!   I knew it! Ugh!"

(Quick backstory: I dreaded giving up candy because as a child, it seemed to gratify many of my unmet needs. As an adult, I've struggled with the dependence formed by relying on sweet treats: from helping me to feel better temporarily, to providing a sweet distraction from the bitternesses of life, of loneliness or even the frustration of not knowing how to solve my problems.)

But then a funny thing happened,.. 

I heard another voice say,

"Why don't we try this?"

Huh? I thought we'd already made a decision? Can we just get this over with? 

But instead, I heard the Father say, 

"How about whenever you get home from work and you're going to sit down at your computer to relax, go on FB, etc... and you haven't yet connected with Me for the day, come and connect with me first before you go to the computer?" 

He continued, "We're trying to get away from this 'black-and-white' thinking, right? This ALL or NOTHING? So when you come to me first, your needs for connection, for relaxation, for reassurance and so many others will be me met with me. Isn't that the reason you go to the computer after you've been on one all day at work anyway?"

I was so afraid that God was going to say candy, that I just told myself candy so I could just get it out of the way and not having to deal with making the decision.

But what God showed me was
that at the end of the Fast,
where would I be?
How would I be different?

That's why he instead suggested that a better Fast would be learning how to come to him first, even before I knew I had needs, so that He could meet them and then I'd no longer need to find what I was looking for in spending time with the computer or ultimately eating candy.

My unmet needs would now be met...by Him.

If you enjoyed my story, you might enjoy this article about Pope Francis and his take on fasting:

http://time.com/3714056/pope-francis-lent-2015-fasting/

Spirit Girl vs. Flesh-n-Bones Girl - The Battle Royal!

My adirondack chairs: Before & After

I'm considering chronicling my journey. 
No, that sounds too cliche...

I'm considering chronicling my adventure.
Ugh. That makes it sound like I'm a world traveler or something...

Okay... how bout this?

I'm going to record, scrawl or scribble the things I discover about what it takes to Restore...me.

(I really wanted to include the pic of my adirondack chairs
because they're so cute...
oh, but also so you'd have a visual :0)

What I'm not referring to is the typical diet & exercise resolutions for the New Year (although I'm sure I'll deviate there sometimes). What I really want is to discover what I need to feed and nourish my Spirit Girl - to restore her to perfect health in 2015 and then to write about it. 

Spirit Girl? (Is that even in the Bible?) Heh..heh...

Well, since I'm not a man, I'm taking liberties here and calling the other part of me, Spirit Girl. And if it she sounds like a Super Hero, I don't think she's too far off, because whenever I've listened to her, I get stronger in all the right ways. 

These cute glasses will help me focus.

So, this year, 2015, I'm going to focus on what it takes to give my Spirit Girl what she needs...
to focus on Being a Spirit Girl instead of just a Flesh-n-Bones Girl 

(although I'm still working on being able to see more of my bones -- )

Hey, I ran a mile today and I'm proud! 

But had I not listened to my Spirit Girl 

who has a really great connection to the ONE 

who loves me the most, 

I know I would've listened to that Other Girl & skipped the gym! 

Spirit Girl = 1 point.

And this example is just one of the reasons why I MUST find out how to strengthen my Spirit Girl's heart & voice...so that I will hear/do the things I don't want to do that end up giving me the very things that I desire the most!
I HAVE to find out what She needs to get stronger, to be in charge more often, & to grow her confidence.
Because the truth is...
she hears directly from Jesus...

and I want to hear Him more too.

How do I see you, when I can't even find you?

I know it's Thanksgiving and we're supposed to be recounting all the things for which we are thankful. My cup is usually at least half-full on a daily basis (hopeful optimist) so this exercise is typically a no-brainer for me...

...but NOT today.

I'm having a rough day.

Just the culmination of lots of rough days...hitting me all today...I suppose because I have a day off so I have time to think about it all.

So the last straw this morning was when I was attempting to be "productive", before going to Thanksgiving dinner, and trying to hang garland now so December 25th doesn't sneak up on me and I don't get to use my beautiful new garland from Costco. :0)

Well, I couldn't figure out how to get it to stay on the mantle without nails, tacks or anything else that would damage it. I tried duct tape, zip ties, velcro and even those Command strips, but it kept falling...ugh!! The meltdown ensued...

...I cried... (this went on for awhile)

Then I asked, no, complained really:

"God! Why aren't you helping me do this??! It should be so simple! Why won't you just help me?! Oh, am I not being positive enough?? Are you really even here right now? Or is this just about positive thinking and I'm not being positive enough??? Is that when you help your people, when they remain positive through the trials in their life??? (Whoa! where did that come from??)

This went on for awhile too...

Then I heard him say, "Just lay it all down --- the garland".
(I didn't want to do that because in some silly way it meant I'd failed. But I finally set the garland down on the ground again.)

Then, through my tears I heard, "The pure in heart will see God".

What does that mean exactly???

He said to my heart, "I have a window or vehicles that allows you to see me. Just like when you want to look at particles that are invisible to the naked eye you have to use the microscope to see them (and you don't complain that you "have" to use them). The vehicles I've given you to see me are faith & trust. "The pure in heart will see God" is not so much about being perfect before you can see me, but it is about the heart's focus...

...A singular focus...on Me."

I listened.

"You can try to use other vehicles to see me, but I've given you trust in me so you can see me. It's the window you will need to use. This distrust that you've had in your heart needed to come out. It was blocking you from seeing me."

"I will help you... Ask your husband for his assistance."

Okay, so truth is I didn't want to ask my husband because I've been nursing a hurt. But as soon as I did, he figured out a way to anchor the zip ties and in no time at all, the garland is now gorgeously (is that a word?) displayed on our mantle.

Lord, just as a muscle grows through use, so it is with Trust. When my focus is darting everywhere, and I can't find you, please refocus me on who you are and that your character of Love never changes. This will cause me to see you so I can trust in that amazing care you have for me...

...and Thank you so much Lord, for giving me my thankfulness back.

Isaiah 65:24  "I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers!"

Whether we like to admit it or not, we reneg on our landlord/tenant agreement with God all of the time. What???

When we struck up our contract with God, through Jesus his son, what were the terms? Our whole life, for his whole life. He would take up residency in us through the Holy Spirit and we would now live the life we gave to him by his direction and stop wandering aimlessly on our own!  But we renegotiate that deal all the time. God never goes back on his contract. He never leaves us. He loved us so much that he signed the contract in Jesus' blood. But we, as my 11 year old puts it, "we signed with pencil and an eraser."  We are constantly taking parts of our life back as if somehow God is too inept to coach us in those areas.


I think the reason we do this is b/c we forget who we belong to so we stop growing in trust towards him. Even though we accepted God's contract for our lives, we somehow forget that learning to trust him is a process.  And we forget WHO we're learning to trust. Not only is he the God of all the universe but more importantly he says that he's LOVE. It's not just one of his many names, but it's who he is. It's not just what he does. He is the substance of LOVE. (Ok, that's another blog all together!) But I guess my point is that the way we start this process with God is the way we need to continue it. We have to give this relationship time to develop. We have to spend time getting to know him so that we can learn to trust him. And as we learn to trust him, we can more readily hand over the day to day decisions. We can not just expect him to do everything for us but we now have a partner in life who really has our BEST interest in mind and who will partner with us every day, in every way.