Relax

My husband and I, for the second year in a row, were blessed with the opportunity to create some Ukranian Easter eggs this past Sunday (Google if you don't know what they are). And I must say, I'm pretty pleased with how they all turned out. True, both of us can nitpick with our a bit and let each other know why this or that doesn't look as it should on them. But given we don't do this on a regular basis, I'd say we did pretty well with them!

Part of the difference for me this year was I managed to relax about the whole process a bit more. I didn't have it in my head I needed to create a work of art or anything. I just needed to (or try to at any rate!) take my time and just enjoy the process. And I could just have fun with it.

I'm starting to realize, too, how I need to be this way as a Christ-follower. No, I'm not supposed to be lazy, sitting around and letting all those around me go about the work of the kingdom. But I'm not supposed to compare myself to others (Gal. 6:4-5), nor am I to carry around all my worries and/or concerns (1 Peter 5:7). I'm to be who God created me to be, doing what He made me to do. Because when I compare myself to others or worry about this, that and the other, I will often end up finding myself confused as to God's will and wandering down some road I need never to have travelled.

In Psalm 119:11 the psalmist wrote of how he had hidden God's Word in his heart so he would not sin against God. And that's what I need to remember to do for all areas of my life, too. When I focus on God, get His Word into me and allow it to be worked out in my life then I'm not all in a knot about what others are doing or what I'm not doing. Why? Well, I'd dare say it's because I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing and my focus is right.

Oi, I could ramble on for a bit here (and with the time since my last post, could afford to!), but speaking of getting some work done ...

Hmpf

This whole 'post on Friday' thing, as you may have noticed, is not exactly working out. Maybe I should just aim to update on a monthly basis instead . . .

Ahhhh!

So here I am at home, happily clicking away on my computer with this 'n' that before realizing, once again, I have not managed to do a proper blog update on the new update day. :-P

Not good, to say the least.

But a teaser of what's to come: Sometimes God likes to do things backwards. Okay, more accurately, He does things in a way which seems backwards to *us*, but when we take the time to actually take a proper look at things, it makes a grace-full amount of sense.

A New Day, Perhaps?

So I'm sitting here with many things around me that need to be taken care of, and I'm realizing I need to change my schedule. Oh, not my work schedule because that's set by people other than me and I really have no complaints about it. No, I'm realizing I need to change my 'non-work' work schedule. You know, housework and writing and family time and all that.

I used to clean houses for a living, and found the most popular days were immediately before or immediately after the weekend. The former wanted things to look nice for any company and the like, the latter wanted things cleaned up after the company had left. Some people had me come on both a Friday and a Monday, to experience the best of both worlds as it were.

Growing up, my mom got her laundry and the 'big' cleaning of the house done at the start of the week. She still does, in fact. Then it's done and out of the way and she only needs to spiff things up as the weekend approaches. I used to do that myself, but have tried other things the last little while that haven't worked out too well (a.k.a. working on my mad procrastinating skills, which I need to change!). Honestly, as the week progresses I want to be able to tackle other projects. And one of those is writing.

As such, a new goal will be to update this blog on Fridays instead of (in the fits-n-starts I had been accomplishing the task) on Mondays.

So all three of my followers, you have been notified. ;-)

Musings

I grew up in a small town
Wheat fields for a downtown kind of place

--Paul Brandt, “Small Towns and Big Dreams”

Under the auspices of doing research for a novel I'm working on, I headed out to the town I grew up in awhile back to refresh myself with the scenery. It was the first time in recent memory I was there without my husband, parents, and/or siblings. I wasn't going with the intent of looking up any of my old friends who still live there (though I did see a couple of familiar faces). I wasn't so much trying to reconnect as I was trying to re-familiarize myself with things. I wanted to see how good my memory actually was in regards to some of the 'particulars' – an important thing for me to do as the town has changed over the years.

And yes, there was a degree of nostalgia mixed in as well. Driving around the building I spent the last five years of my pre-university education, I remembered waiting for the school bus – and later heading out to the car in the parking lot on the days I was allowed to drive in – mixed in with visits with friends and the faces of teachers. There were the things I thought were so important back then (the usual things we stumble through, I think, on our way to adulthood) and the confines I am, quite frankly, thankful to be free of. And I realized not only has the physical location of my 'growing up' years changed, but I have changed as well. I've married. I've moved to a different small town. I've made new friends, done things I never thought I would when I first ventured out of my home town and away from the expectations of others. And I thank God for where I am now.

There is truth to the saying about not being able to go home again. Okay, physically you can go home again. But what I think the saying means is you can't go back to your past. You can go to your childhood home, but you may find your room has been converted to the grandkids' room and the bitty TV is now downstairs and the layout of the kitchen is totally different and sure, get rid of the squeaks in the hallway floor now that we're all out of the house!

Ahem . . .

So I can go and visit my parents in their home and wander down the streets I would often hurry down on my way to one place or another. But I can't recapture fully who I was back then or the way things were when I was growing up. I'm further up the path with new things to see and old things to possibly see in a new way.

To quote a certain fictional traveller: Allons-y!

DIY

“If you want a thing done well,
do it yourself.” -- Napoleon Bonaparte

We are all familiar with do-it-yourself projects. Such projects are touted as being easier, faster, and – most importantly nowadays – cheaper. As a certain hardware store chain likes to remind us, we can do it and they can help.

We also like to undertake such projects with ourselves as well under the 'self-help' banner. With goals of losing weight, gaining confidence and turning back the clock we buy books, watch videos and subscribe to the philosophies of various gurus. Even Christians have their 'go to' people in this arena. And this isn't necessarily a bad thing. Many are familiar with the passage from the Apostle Paul's letter to the church in Philippi:

". . . work out your own salvation
with fear and trembling . . .”

--Philippians 2:12c (NKJ)

Woo – that is pretty serious stuff. And it is something we can do, right? We can work out our problems and issues so that we are in right standing with God, right? We'll pray and read our Bibles and change all our bad habits and just be awesome Christians! Yes we can!

Only . . . can we really? I don't know about you, but I sort of suck at the whole 'self-improvement' thing. Some days I can very closely identify with the following words Paul wrote to the church in Rome:

“For what I am doing, I do not understand.
For what I will to do, that I do not
practice; but what I hate, that I do.”

--Romans 8:15 (NKJ)

But what about Philippians 2:12c? Isn't Paul contradicting himself? Isn't God contradicting Himself?

In a word, no. Because what we often forget to do (and I'm including myself) is to read Philippians 2:13:

“. . . for it is God who works in you
both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (NKJ)

“God is working in you to make you willing
and able to obey Him.” (CEV)

What how now?

God gives me these standards to meet and live by and then He'll help me do it?

Talk about going against the “do it yourself” grain. And it sounds somewhat impossible and, well, wrong, doesn't it? Perhaps it will help you, then, as it continues to help me to follow the example of Abraham. Talk about a man with an impossible-sounding promise laid out before him – he was told by God he would become the father of a great nation, a nation whose numbers would be up there with the galaxy of stars and the grains of sand on the seashore. This promise was first given to Abraham when God called him to leave his homeland and extended family at the age of 75 (Genesis 12). He was reminded of it most significantly almost thirty years later (Genesis 17) and after he had a son with Sarah's maidservant Hagar.

Yup, Abraham and Sarah took on a 'do it yourself' project when it came to God's promise of a son. Yet God is always faithful and He fulfilled His promise of a son, a direct heir, when Abraham was 100 years old. And better yet, even with his mistakes and attempts to get ahead of God's timing, we read the following about Abraham, also in Paul's letter to the Roman church:

What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own."

-- Romans 4:3 (Message)

Paul then goes on to explain what this means for us:

If you're a hard worker and do a good job, you
deserve your pay; we don't call your wages a gift.
But if you see that the job is too big for you, that
it's something only God can do, and you trust Him
to do it – you could never do it for yourself no
matter how hard and long you worked – well, that
trusting-Him-to-do-it is what gets you set right with
God, by God. Sheer gift.

-- Romans 4:4-5 (Message)

So we can't do it ourselves, nor do we need to. God is there, ready and willing to help us, to give the necessary means if we will only agree to do it His way.

Beats doing it yourself, doesn't it?

Oh, and as for Napoleon Bonaparte, the 'do it yourself' quote giver? Well, his 'do it yourself' project didn't end so well. He was defeated in his final battle at Waterloo, which in turn led to his exile to the island of Saint Helena where he died six years later.

Progress or the Lack Thereof

So I've spent most of this morning avoiding tasks that need to be done.

Pile of dishes in sink? Still there, with today's breakfast dishes added to the mix.

Laundry? Still not all done.

Manuscripts? Incomplete and/or unedited.

Exercise? Oi . . .

And I am totally, compleately frustrated with myself. It is the 18th of January 2010 and while I have made some progress, it has been minimal. My procrastination skills are still rather top-notch, mind you. %-P

It is also incredibly easy to whine about it, too. So what am I going to do today and this week and for the rest of this month to get myself out of the rut(s) I am so tired of being in and get on the right track?

1. Don't make things harder or more daunting than they actually are. Just as Paul admonished fellow believers to not forget the simplicity which is in Christ (2 Cor. 11:3), I need to remember to take things a step at a time.

2. Make a plan and stick to it, but don't be so rigidly adhered to it I miss God's leading. His ways are perfect and He knows the way I need to be going, the way which is truly the right way to go. In other words, correct course as need to but set a course so I don't keep going in circles!

3. Be accountable. Case in point: Hubby and I are planning a holiday to a tropical locale in October and I have told people about it. People will quiz us about it. Darn it, my husband quizzes me about it! This is a good thing as it helps me keep going in terms of looking into things and making plans and such so we actually make the trip.

4. Acknowledge my mistakes, but don't dwell on them. It's not how many times I fall, but how many times I get back up and keep going. And I need to remember to forgive myself and then be able to receive God's forgiveness. As my pastor says, if I don't, God wont't.

So here's to keeping on swimming, but with a destination and a plan to get there. Even Dory had a destination. ;-)