1. Examine the "problem." This will require some discernment. Many of the things we consider "problems" in our lives aren't problems at all, they are our painful attempt to squeeze ourselves into someone else's habit!

2. If you determine that you DO have a problem (i.e. you are a chronic gossip, or fearful, or an alcoholic or drug addict, for example) then it's time to face it, repent (which just means to turn around and go the other way), and ask God to help you fix it. You may need a plan, or some wise counsel, or a good old-fashioned dose of grace and mercy from heaven. All are available to you just for the asking.

3. But if your "problem" is just a matter of you trying to fit in the wrong frame, it's time to start creating a new frame. While that sometimes involves changing jobs, or changing locations, more often than not it just requires a change in perspective - a paradigm shift - in the way you view yourself and what you say about your life. James chapter 3 talks compares the human tongue to the rudder on a ship. The rudder determines the direction, or the course, of the ship. It creates a frame for that ship to take.What direction are your words taking you?

"I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil - this is the gift of God."

Before railroads, the only way to get turkeys from Vermont to market in Boston was to walk them there.  And that, throughout much of the nineteenth century, is exactly what Vermonters did, including Vermonters from the northern-most parts of the state.  Townspeople put their birds of a feather together, and, accompanied by wagons with camp supplies and tons of feed grain, they escorted as many as 7,000 birds at a time all the way to Boston.  Drives of three to four thousand birds were common in the 1820s and ‘30s.  Historian Charles Morrow Wilson says that about 1,000 birds was the minimum necessary to make the150 to 350-mile trek worthwhile.  It was a long haul.  The flocks could make only ten to twelve miles a day, and at least one drover was required for each 100 birds.

Boys scattered shelled corn feed in front of the birds, so they would walk forward, while others herded from behind.  Flocks might spread out for more than a mile, ranging in width from a few feet to fifty yards.  To protect the birds’ feet on such a long hike over rough terrain and November’s frozen ground, Vermonters sometimes coated the birds’ feet with warm tar.  They lost about ten percent of the turkeys to forded rivers, fox, hungry farm families they met in route, and other perils of the journey.

Two key facts to keep in mind are: big birds, little brains.  Wherever they were when the sun set, that’s where they perched for the night.  Their collective weight shattered trees.  Occasionally, so many birds perched on a farmer’s shed or barn that the building collapsed.  They sometimes mistook the shade of a covered bridge for dusk and simply stopped.  And so the drovers would have to go in, pick them up, carry them through the bridge and into the sun, where they’d perk up again and head on their way.

The advent of railroads and then, in the 1850s and ‘60s, refrigerated box cars were the beginning of the end for the great turkey drives, but some lasted into the twentieth century.  The notion, in the twenty-first century, of driving thousands of turkeys, or even two birds on a leash, from Island Pond south all the way to Boston is charming in its absurdity.

In the early West, turkeys were trailed like cattle in "drives" to supply food where needed. One of the earliest turkey drives was over the Sierras from California to Carson City, Nevada. Hungry miners coughed up $5 apiece for the birds.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

There's a slew of materials out there for "teaching" gratitude, from journals to coloring pages. Thankful leaves on bulletin board trees, and grateful feathers on construction paper turkeys made from the shape of a child's hand are wonderful visual reminders of what we're thankful for. But annual craft projects aren't enough to generate the lifestyle of thankfulness we want our children to experience.

"Historical accounts say that for the first Thanksgiving in 1621, the pilgrims went out and killed the deer to eat and gathered food for the three-day feast.There were no worries about what groceries had what on sale. Why? Because they ate what they had and gave thanks for it.

I’m not encouraging you to stay home from the grocery store this week. I’m not encouraging you to boycott Thanksgiving grocery sales.
Instead, I’m encouraging you to take some time to remember the reason for the holiday.

 The pilgrims threw a feast like no other because they were thankful."

This is a reblog of an earlier post. I'm going to see "New Moon" in the theater this weekend, Stephenie Meyer was on Oprah, authors are screaming about how unfair her success is, and vampire books, movies, and television shows are springing up like dandelions. What's the fuss? Without getting too religious about the moral value of the vampire myth, let's just look at a possible reason for its broad appeal. Something is drawing people to the Twilight Saga... could it be a driving inner thirst, not for human blood, but for love? For a Savior willing to sacrifice Himself for us?

I confess, I'm a closet Twilight fan. With no movie theater in town, no kids in public school, and a personal distaste for all things vampire in nature, Twilight never even blipped on my radar screen. I saw the books by Stephenie Meyer at Wal-Mart, but wrote them off as "young adult" novels. And then my daughter and her fiance brought the movie version home on DVD.
Edward's appeal is his willingness to lay down his life and deny his own desires for the sake of the woman he loves. What woman doesn't want to be loved and desired so deeply, so intensely, that the man she loves is willing to risk himself – not just physically – but emotionally, socially, and mentally as he reveals the deepest secrets of his heart and exposes his true identity, to her?

My recollection of physics class is vague, at best.  
(I love this picture, had to share.)

I do remember "every action has an equal and opposite reaction." Never has that truth been so painfully clear as it is during this season of raising teenage boys.

These aren't bad kids, mind you. They're just young men on the verge of adult independence, and they keep flapping their big, stinky wings and threatening to jump out of the nest before I'm ready. I'm convinced they make as many choices as possible based on how many gray hairs they believe it will produce on my scalp.

I know, I know. They don't. They aren't even thinking of me when they do what they do. "This is all normal teenager stuff." "I deserve it because of all the horrors I inflicted upon my own parents." Yada, yada, yada. "It's karma come back to haunt me." Whaaateeevveeerrrrrr. (Can you hear the sarcasm?)


So OS (Oldest Son - I don't know if that's proper text lingo, I just made it up.) has this long-distance relationship going via text messages and phone calls. Yesterday, he brings home a kitten he found at the recycling center, with the intent of giving the feline to said girl as a gift.

Note: OS is allergic to cats. Husband is allergic to cats. Dogs in home like to EAT cats. Said cat is currently dwelling in my little camper where I keep my craft and sewing stuff.
"Um, how are you going to get it there?" I ask, aware that TG (text girlfriend) lives more than four hours away.

"Oh, I'll just drive over there to her house Saturday."

My face freezes into that "mother" look.

First, there's a nasty winter storm blowing in, and the trip would entail him driving over one of the worst passes in the state on a weekend with his limited driving experience.

Second, we don't "do" the one-on-one dating thing. Family dates, church group stuff with adults present, and boy A and girl B never left alone, even if it means little brother is forced to serve as evil chaperone for brief periods of time.

Third reason, and possibly the most important one, I AM NOT OKAY WITH THIS, AND I'M THE MOTHER, AND BECAUSE I SAID SO, THAT'S WHY.

Yeah.

Now we've entered the negotiation stage. Where OS keeps hammering away at me, trying to convince me that I need to give him "more freedom."

HELLO???? Has this long-haired, eyebrow and ear pierced, heavy metal t-shirt and spiked skull bracelet-wearing child looked in the mirror lately?

He subtly hints that the consequences of not doing so would be regrettable. This sort of threatened action, of course, triggers my automatic "jerk back on the reins" reflex, and I consider divesting him of all personal rights and property and setting up a Guantanamo Bay-style incarceration center in the spare room. Waterboarding instead of snowboarding this year, yep. Sounds like a plan.

But even as I contemplate the relative peace of having him stowed away in a giant playpen, (crate training for teens?) I know that won't help. It won't help him grow up into maturity and the fullness of who he's called to be in Christ. It won't help him become a man. He'll just be an immature boy in a man's body. And we have more than enough of those running around.

Nor do I get to throw my hands up in the air and resign as a parent, any more than I could have quit when he was three and refused to remove his Batman suit for weeks on end.
So we have this strange dichotomy, like Dr. Dolittle's pushmi-pullyu animal. We're going to have to work together to get anywhere.


I need to find places to yield to his desire for greater independence, and he needs to yield to my desire to keep him safe, healthy, and whole. I have to listen for the leading of the Holy Spirit, like a handheld GPS, guiding me through the swamps and deserts and dangerous terrain, and trust Him to speak to my OS as well, to give him grace for the place he's in.

Our ultimate goals are the same. I hope he realizes that.

My fellow blogger/writer Jill Kemerer gave me something truly precious yesterday.
She nominated In Truer Ink for an Inspirational Blog Award.
It's the first blog award I've ever received. You've probably seen them lining the columns of various blogs you read and wondered, like I did, where they came from. Well, at least some of them are given, like gifts.

I'm honored and thrilled to receive this award. (Think Sally Field, "You like me! You really like me!") But there's something else Jill gave me that means more than an award: the gift of kind words.

In Truer Ink Niki Turner writes with candor about issues many of us struggle with, and she manages to refresh my spirits with each post.

You may have heard of the book "The Five Love Languages." The premise behind the book is that there are different ways, or languages, through which we express and receive love. There are quizzes to identify your "native" love language and that of others. It seems we all have a tendency to love others with the language we understand first, but if they don't speak that language well, your expression of love may seem to fall flat.

Of the languages - physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, and acts of service - I tend to be a words of affirmation kind of girl. It's taken me a LONG time to figure that out. And an even longer time to figure out why other people don't always respond to words of praise as strongly as I do.
Seriously, I puff up like a hen on parade. I physically feel those words of affirmation as if someone poured  warm honey on my head. One time our pastor's wife mentioned how proud she was of my husband and me for planting a new church in a rural community. I burst into tears.

As a pastor's wife myself, I feel terrible when people come to church looking for love and we, because of our failure to be multilingual, don't express God's love to them in ways they can comprehend.

God speaks all five love languages. Fluently. And He can show us exactly how to communicate love to the people we care about, minister to, and want to help or encourage. Jill did that for me yesterday. Her words affirmed my sense of purpose and motivation, not just for blogging, but for pursuing my writing full time.

Words are either a tool or a weapon. With them we bless, or curse. If I can use the gift of stringing vowels and consonants together in some semblance of order to bless someone's life, to encourage them to keep striving toward their goal, or just to make them laugh and enjoy a brief respite from an increasingly gloomy reality, then I've accomplished something more important than selling thousands of books, getting a movie deal, or finding fame and fortune. (Although I wouldn't turn those things down, either!)

Conversely, if I use my words - written or spoken - to abuse others, to tear them down instead of building them up, or to spread half truths, accusations, and verbal venom, then I've effectively undone God's work in my life and possibly in the lives of others.
So today, I'm challenging us all to practice becoming multilingual in the languages of love:

• Speak words that encourage and edify your children and spouse, instead of dashing off a list of chores they've failed to complete or requirements for them to go out on Friday. 

• Offer a hug to someone who might not expect it from you.  (That may be your children and spouse, too.)
  

• Spend thirty minutes chatting with your elderly neighbor instead of rushing off to take care of your to-do list.
  

• Replace the toilet paper roll without griping about how "you aren't the household t.p. fairy."

• Pick up a simple, inexpensive gift for someone, even though it isn't their birthday, and offer it, no strings attached, just because.

You don't have to do them all today. Just try one or two and see what happens... it could be just what YOU need to improve your day!

(Don't forget to visit Jill's blog! http://jillkemerer.blogspot.com/)

So I'm standing in line at the grocery store the other night surreptitiously eyeballing the tabloids. You know, the ones with the headlines that have Brangelina splitting up on one page and adopting quadruplets in the next issue? Or the ones with pathetically Photoshopped baby aliens climbing out of a VW van exposed during glacial melt in Alaska?
What's disturbing is that our "regular" headlines - newspapers, Internet, and the evening news - don't look much different than the freaky tabloid rags. They are all guilty of using shock value to provoke emotional reactions from their audiences. It used to be called "yellow journalism" and it was frowned upon. With today's ability to tweet and retweet and blog and reblog at the click of a mouse, "news" is transferred at fiber optic speed and we've all become armchair journalists.
Have we lost the ability to tell the difference between a news story and an opinion? Do we no longer have the ability to discern the difference between fact and fiction? Based on the number of absolutely fraudulent emails that pass through my inbox, no one cares whether or not a story is factual, as long as it agrees with his or her viewpoint. 
In much the same way proofreading (editing) has gone the way of the dinosaur in the publishing world, it seems fact-checking is no longer considered a viable aspect of journalism. I'm sure it's related to the time factor. To get the "scoop" on a story we have to publish or post without taking the time to verify sources or data. The result? Embarrassing stories like last month's "balloon boy" saga, in which a father hungry for the spotlight devised a scheme to capture the attention of the nation for a few hours.
So whose responsibility is it to check the facts? It used to be relegated to "fact-checkers" locked away in the bowels of the New York Times and the Chicago Tribune. We expected truth from our news sources. Did we get it? Hard to say. My grandmother never did believe man had really landed on the moon - she insisted it was a big hoax, filmed on a Hollywood set.

Today, you have to be your own fact-checker. It's your job to research and verify the information you receive and believe. And it's especially important to do so before you pass that information on to someone else.
The Bereans, we are told, "...were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true." (Acts 17:11)
Notice they weren't rebuked for checking out what Paul said, they were declared to have "noble character." Both the Old and the New Testaments admonish believers not to accept accusations against others without two or more witnesses. Proverbs says the man who answers before hearing the WHOLE story is a fool.
Does that mean when we mindlessly pass on a sound bite, or out-of-context quote or photo, or someone's opinion as fact, without examining it for truth, relevance, and context, that we are demonstrating a lack of  integrity? Or that we're acting foolishly? At the very least, we've fallen into the category of "yellow journalists," selling our point of view with falsehoods. When people start jumping on bandwagons before they figure out where the bandwagon is going that's called "mob mentality" and it usually comes to a bad end.
Pull out your fact-checker glasses (they'd have to be cat-eyes, of course, with the little chain attached to the ear pieces), grab your theoretical red pencil, and start doing your homework.
Become a Berean when it comes to those tear-jerker forwards and wildly biased political statements from one side or the other. Carefully review the accusations that come your way and don't formulate an opinion until after you've checked all the facts, on both sides.

And yes, that's me... thanks to yearbookyourself.com via 1960. The hair is really bad, but I love, love, love those glasses!

We might all have different amounts of money, health, and talents, but we've all been given the exact same quantity of time in a day. Each day every human being has 24 hours to spend, no matter where you live or how old you are. There is no such thing as "free time" just like there's no such thing as free money!
If there's anywhere resistance to progress rears its ugly head it's in the realm of time. Time gets wasted, squandered, and lost, often in spite of our best efforts.
I have the privilege of writing the local history column for the newspaper here. I use the archived copies every week to pull interesting tidbits of news and gossip from the old papers. Without computers, telephones, cell phones, automobiles, vacuums, dishwashers, washers and dryers, convenience foods, microwaves, or any of our other modern contrivances, people lived full lives and often accomplished as much, or more, than the average person accomplishes today.
Of course, they didn't have the distractions we have, either. No TV, no Internet, no telephone, limited options for shopping and travel.
There are some who advocate tossing out our modern comforts for the sake of our health, our relationships, and the quality of life we lead. If you are addicted to your crackberry, or the web, or the television, you might need to fast those items to balance your life. But for most of us, the problem doesn't have anything to do with the devices that are supposed to make our lives easier, it has to do with the choices we're making with those devices, and with our time in general.
When it comes to time, we've got SCUD missiles raining down around us. (SCUD: Satan Continuously Uses Distractions.) And we aren't even aware of them most of the time. Distractions are a huge hindrance!
When my daughter was little and had to clean her room, I'd often find her there hours later, with what looked like nothing done. I called it "getting lost in the details." She'd end up picking through her dresser drawers, or sorting out her jewelry, while the floor remained buried in discarded clothing and toys and general junk.
She gets it from her daddy, who has been known (he'd deny this) to take the most minor of tasks and turn it into an all-day project. Sometimes focusing on the little things is necessary. Sometimes it's a distraction designed to keep us from completing a task. We need to be able to discern the difference.
In order to stop "clock fighting" we have to realize that the clock is not the enemy, it's our friend. If we use it wisely. If Nora Roberts can churn out five books a year (I know, I keep going back to that, because it just amazes me) what could I be accomplishing? I may not have her writing ability, but I have the same old 24 hours in a day that she has! Obviously the difference lies in what I do with my 24, versus what she does with hers.
For myself, it's time to stop making excuses and blaming "not enough time" for my failure to be a good steward over my household, to complete the assignments my Abba Father has placed on my daily schedule, or to attend to the proper care of my spirit, soul, and body. 
With that said, it's time to go exercise, and then head to the grocery. And during my two-hour drive each way, I could spend that time praying or plotting or listening to a podcast, instead of flipping through the radio stations. I could even just -- GASP! -- relax and enjoy two hours of solitude.
Okay, no more clock fighting... you are the master of the tick-tock, not the other way around!
 

In a controlled environment, resistance can be used to develop strength and improve endurance, it can cause you to go further than you thought you could ever go. Let's look at some more ways we encounter resistance as we set out on a quest to attain a goal. Any goal, whether it's finishing NaNoWriMo or getting flatter abs, comes with resistance.
Think about it, where's the fun in a video game with no resistance? If Pac-Man just ate all the dots and the ghosts never appeared to chase him around would it still be a fun game to play? If a basketball team had no opponent, would they still bother to get out there and shoot hoops? Novels without antagonists. Movies without villains... the list goes on. Conflict, or resistance, helps us grow so we can move on and pursue the next goal, which will inevitably be more difficult.

I keep thinking about the French Resistance in WWII. They were very effective, but they weren't out there wearing labels, either. The Germans didn't know who they could trust and who they couldn't, and the intelligence information the Resistance delivered to the Allies was a key factor in the defeat of the Axis Powers.

The daily resistance we encounter in our battle to win, to grow, to succeed, to progress, isn't exactly obvious. You know that fuzzy orange monster Weight Watchers uses to personify uncontrolled hunger? Wouldn't it be nice if "Hungry" really was an orange Muppet you could kick and throw and slam in the door? If resistance to sticking to a healthy diet was so obvious, it might be easier to stay on a plan. Yeah, of course it would. It's those unseen enemies that are hard to battle, the ones that come from the inside.

What is it dragging you down on the road to your promised land? Are you procrastinating? (see previous post) Are you giving in to paralyzing discouragement? Distracted by details along the way to your destination? Compromising with yourself, or with God? Or just plain quitting?
I got distracted AND discouraged yesterday, and didn't even write a new resistance post. I almost "didn't get around to it" today! (I guess that makes me this week's virtual example.) That might be your status quo: a habit of starting and stopping, never pushing all the way through to the end of a thing and finishing it.


via funnycommercialsworld
The unfinished manuscript.
The infomercial exercise program that stays in the shrink wrap until you finally sell it on Ebay.
The painting project.
The scrapbooking kit.
Yada, yada, yada.
We've all got 'em, loitering in closets and dressers and desks.
So what made you quit? Why did you give up before you were through? Our numero uno excuse? Not enough time. That's the answer we all give these days.

I'll hit that one tomorrow. Or the next day... Because right now I have to get to my Nano challenge and exercise, both of which I procrastinated all day.
I'm so thankful God is a finisher! Can you imagine what the universe would look like incomplete? If God hadn't "finished" the work? And I believe He's able to help us finish, too!

No, it's not some kind of strange sexual predilection. A self-saboteur is someone who specializes in willfully and maliciously destroying or impeding his or her progress toward a desired goal.

Why on earth would anyone choose to sabotage themselves? That's crazy! I wouldn't do that to anyone, much less to myself!

Are you sure about that?

The trouble with sabotage is saboteurs are sneaky. Sabotage makes things look like accidents, like unavoidable flaws in the system. And sabotage springs up wherever progress, or change, is underway. 

Think about it. If you want to win a war, sabotaging the enemy's efforts toward establishing permanent change is one of the greatest tools in your arsenal of resistance. 

For today, let's hit one of the most common and basic forms of self-sabotage: procrastination. Procrastination is time thievery. Interestingly, though most of us think the source of procrastination is simply a bad case of laziness, most research suggests a tendency to procrastinate stems from anxiety, fear, and low self-esteem.


Like I said yesterday, I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month this year. Writing 50,000 words in 30 days. That's 1,667 words per day. Not much for a writer, really. I churn out that many words just replying to e-mails, changing my FB status, tweeting on Twitter and writing blog posts! But when it comes to sitting down in the chair and saying, "I'm going to put 1,667 words together in a novel format, so at the end of this month I'll have a completed first draft to work from," the procrastination saboteur sneaks in, grabs me from behind, and wheels me around to another room, to do some other project.


I come from a long line of workaholics, so relaxing makes me feel guilty. I don't go do something fun when self-sabotage strikes (my husband will rent a movie, or take a nap, or plop on the sofa and watch hours of Japanese ninja competition... in Japanese). I'll find myself darning socks (who darns socks these days, anyway?), or watching my computer defragment its hard drive, or suddenly having a need to clean the grunge from around the dishwasher seal.

By the time my inner saboteur is through with me, it's either too late or I'm too exhausted to set fingers to keyboard and be creative. And the inner saboteur slinks away with a wicked grin, mission accomplished.

Students procrastinate homework assignments until it's too late to do the job right. Some students do their work, then fail to turn it in. That's self-sabotage, and it springs from some source of internal resistance. Maybe he or she believes she's dumb, maybe she's afraid of being labeled a nerd or a geek if she gets good grades.


Adults procrastinate balancing their checkbooks and paying bills until their finances are tohu va bohu (Hebrew for "without form and void," or "a literal mess.") Have you ever procrastinated car or home repairs? Our home repair procrastination resulted in a broken arm (mine) and a collapsed bedroom ceiling, all in one night. Oops. 


I know a man who procrastinated a doctor's visit until he was bleeding so badly internally he had to undergo emergency surgery. That's self-sabotage at its worst.


Have you ever sabotaged your own diet or exercise program? Nah. Nobody does that, right? No, we all do, and that may just explain why 70 percent of Americans are overweight. Here's the classic application of dietary self-sabotage: "I'll start my diet tomorrow. But tonight I'm going to finish off this bag of Double-Stuff Oreos so there won't be anything tempting in the cupboard tomorrow."

Image via unprose

The crux of the issue is this:  All change - good or bad - creates resistance. It's just a law. Yielding to self-sabotage just multiplies the resistance that's already there. It's like a boxer hitting himself in the face twice for every swing he takes at his opponent. You're making your own life more difficult, on purpose! 

Right now, I want you to pick ONE project, one task, one action you've delayed or procrastinated (not all of them, because that might push you over the edge of sanity). Is it cleaning the fridge? Calling your mother-in-law? Having that difficult talk with your teenager? 

Just pick ONE thing you can do right this minute. Even if it's midnight, you can still clean the fridge (or talk to the teenager). You could even call your MIL, though that might not be very productive!

Picture yourself squashing that self-saboteur under the bottom of your shoe. You'll be amazed how good you feel when you've broken through that resistance and accomplished a task!