Thriving...in Spite of It

Recently, while threading a needle to sew a button back on my husband's shirt* (see footnote below) , I had to laugh for just a moment. With my daughter finishing her freshman year in college, and my son on the verge of marriage, I've become increasingly convinced that life is flying by so quickly. It seems such a short time ago that I was a teenager, too, trying to figure everything out. As I sat in my designated chair, squinting to thread the needle, it occurred to me that I was in a moment that could be a meme: Threading a needle at 15 -- "Lord, please don't let me stick myself with this needle!" Threading a needle at 45 -- "Lord, please help me thread this needle!" When we first venture into life, unaware, uninformed, and unspoiled, our challenges and concerns are all wrapped up in one possible end-of-the-world scenario after another. With so little experience and so much passion, how could we help but feel that way? In our immaturity, with all ...

Two of my favorite all-time episodes of The Andy Griffith Show are "Man in a Hurry" and "The Sermon for Today." Both episodes take you on a tour of a typical Sunday, our designated day of rest, disrupted by unreasonable endeavors, and the mayhem, distress, and personal clashes that always makeup the fallout of such untimely activity.  We laugh because we've been there. How many times have we overloaded ourselves on holidays, vacations and weekends, and wound up ten times more exhausted than when we began? The humor lies in the irony -- in trying to power-pack our leisure time, the way we do the rest of our schedules, we completely sabotage our own efforts. We turn our "down time" into just another version of our "up time" -- multi-tasking, scheduling, hurrying, exerting....exhausting! As women, we tend to guilt-trip ourselves about resting. Resting isn't loafing. When Proverbs 31 talks about how the ideal woman doesn't indulge in i...

As I peruse an ever-growing list of elusive deliverables and bothersome to-do's for today, my empathetic heart swells for all my friends out there who will hit the snooze button at least twice, opting for a pony-tail and 2-minute face to delay hopping into the shower, then the daily hamster wheel, just a little longer. Do you ever feel like this? (the little critter in the wheel) Sometimes it seems like we are just tumbling from one task to the next, almost mindlessly, so caught up in the urgency to get things done that we forget to weigh the value of what we are doing. When I say, "meandering-mind-Monday," I'm talking about the weekly recurring panic that sets in as I see the days dwindling away until an upcoming event, with so much left to do that I start to feel that roller-coaster adrenaline start to surge---you know that feeling you used to get the night before a final exam, when reality hits--you don't know half of this stuff, there is no time to le...

This week, I engaged in a team-building activity with some fellow committee members. We actually filled out some personality assessments, and it was just as enlightening as it was entertaining, as such things often are. It could not have been a more timely exercise, given the fact that I had been pondering my purpose that morning, and how it matched or clashed with my lifestyle and many commitments. Between gulps of coffee, and handfuls of vitamins and stomach remedies, I rushed to cover dark circles and brush my long hair (as in, long overdue for a decent haircut) into a presentable state. Between wardrobe changes, and checking my blood pressure (insert frowney face), I bypassed the scales and checked off a list of to-do's that were no less urgent than my dog's whimpering to be let outside...a typical empty-nest morning for me, now. As I looked over my still half-unchecked to-do list that evening, I wondered if it was any more than that, in some cases. What is this endles...

Most of us grew up hearing about the value of inner beauty -- perhaps not as much as I did, or without as much emphasis...  I wasn't a homely girl at all, I'm told, but I wasn't at all popular. To this day, I remember the sting of the chiding cheerleaders that day they bounced into the bathroom my freshman year as I was refreshing my lipgloss. "Don't bother!" one said, and they all giggled. It would have been less painful--and less enduring--if she had punched me in the face...  It's silly how much I still think of that... Why? Is it our vanity or our pride that is most injured by such attacks? " Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us."  (note: I am POSITIVE that my heavily educated son would be put out with me, as I almost made the error of attributing that q...

Let's begin at the beginning. You have challenges. You have issues. You have enemies. All of the above would be true for any of us -- from slacker to slave, from victim to hero -- but there is actually one very small but highly distinguishing characteristic: perspective. Yes, the thing that makes mountains out of molehills--and vice versa--is undoubtedly the key to success or failure, and the common thread through the story of every hero. Something interesting about perspective: it can be found, lost, and regained -- although sometimes elusive, it's always attainable.  Through the next week, we will explore the various things responsible for our lost perspective, and talk about how to get it back. I was about to say that there are three things that generally rob us of our proper perspective, but that would imply that it can be taken from us, by force. The fact is, unfortunately, we sometimes "lose" our perspective as easily as we misplace our keys, cell phone, ...

When you are stuck the middle of the proverbial worst case scenario, living life in a joyful, productive way involves more than just wading through the hurts and horrors with merely your vital signs intact. I have been there—dreading the alarm clock, and literally dragging yourself to work with the solitary, lofty hope of making to 5:00 without quitting, jumping off the building, or throwing your coffee on someone. Don’t look for your worth among the feedback and flack of your workplace. Don’t allow your job’s daily ups and downs   to be the barometer of your spiritual well-being. Don’t let the pressure of looming deadlines, impossible expectations, and unreasonable demands turn your day into a heavy yoke you begrudgingly put on every day, weighing your head down and robbing you of a broader, higher view. You were intended for greater things than just surviving – you were designed for something better: thriving, in spite of it. Jesus said that He came to give us life—not...