We've had a crisis this month (defining crisis as a time when a difficult or important decision must be made). Our oldest daughter and her husband decided to move out of our shared abode, relocating 50 miles away with my four grandbabies.

In the *real world* 50 miles is nothing. If we were urban dwellers, they'd merely be on the other side of town. In northwestern Colorado it feels like half a continent, at least in the winter. 
But that's not where the trauma lies...  I've spent the last four and a half years interacting with my grandbabies every day. I've babysat while #2, #3, and #4 came home from the hospital. My life is intertwined with theirs, and having them absent is an alarming shock to the system and triggers fear that they will forget me. 

I cried for four days when I found out they were leaving. Then I ran away. Literally.

I corralled my oldest and youngest sons in the car and headed south, on the pretext of doing book research (they were willing abductees.). I did do book research, but mostly I needed distance from my emotions. From Gallup, New Mexico, we headed to Phoenix, the home of one of my dearest friends, who took us in and offered sanctuary. 

For a few days I was able to separate myself from reality, for the most part. 
Once we crossed the county line on the way home the tears started again. 
The house (the part we don't inhabit, except for the kitchen) is empty. 
I cried most of the day yesterday. 
I was doing OK today until my dad came to check on me, and then he cried.

But tears are not fatal, or toxic. Tears serve a purpose: they help us bend and adapt to the changes life demands.Today I did yoga, and I reminded myself that those who survive successfully are those who bend, those who flex, those who adapt to the crap life throws their way. 

It could be worse. 
It could be better. 
It is what it is. 
And so I will bend, I will flex, I will adapt. And I will -- in the words of one of my dear friends who suffered a loss I cannot even comprehend -- I will not allow my response to this situation to define my life going forward, because I have half my life left to live. 
I can bend or I can break.
I choose to bend.

We have a Russian olive tree in our yard. Over the past couple of weeks, one of its lopsided, overgrown branches made its stealthy way into the path of the radio/antenna/dish thingy our new Internet service uses.

Don't ya love the irony of the OLD and the NEW here?

 After three phone calls, the company sent out the service technician. He took one look at the the tree and said that was probably our problem. Out I went with a ladder, a handsaw, and a pair of clippers. Several hours, multiple scratches, and one bee sting to the neck later (I now have a swollen, painful lymph node the size of a ping-pong ball), I had removed the Internet-offensive branch as well as a number of others that were dead, suckers that needed to be clipped, or branches hanging too low to mow around the tree. It took a couple of truckloads to haul them all away to the "pit." (My dad said he has a woodchipper, but I think my mention of it being a great way to dispose of a body made him hesitant to let me use it...)

(This is as far as I got. I'm waiting for a taller person, a taller ladder, and a better saw to take care of those last few dead sticks poking out the top.)

As with most difficult chores, this one came with a few valuable lessons that apply to life as well as yard work.

1. Dead things like to tangle around living things and twist and distort their growth.
 Recognize the "dead stuff" in your life and get rid if it, it's distorting your progress!


2. Dead wood is much harder to saw than living wood.
 Dead stuff can be hard to get rid of, after all, it has made a place for itself in your life and thinks it deserves to stay.

3. Just because a branch has three green leaves on its tip does not mean it's beneficial to the tree.
 Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself is quit clinging to things that are barely alive... let go and move on.

4. Pruning is best done at regular, frequent intervals, not ignored for years and years.
 The longer you wait to purge, or prune, or otherwise perform regular maintenance on your mind, your emotions, your relationships, or your body, the more difficult, expensive and painful the process will be, and you'll look really funny for awhile.

Don't be afraid of the pruning process. It's good for you.
That tree will thank me one day, I'm sure of it.

"Make a careful exploration of who you are and the work you have been given, and then sink yourself into that. Don't be impressed with yourself. Don't compare yourself with others. Each of you must take responsibility for doing the creative best you can with your own life." (Gal 6:4-5, The Message)

Really? This isn't a paint-by-number project?

Remember paint-by-number? You got the little canvas, and the tiny palette of paints and a brush, and if you followed ALL the directions correctly, you were supposed to end up with a wee copy of some loving artistic piece.
IF you followed all the directions.
IF you didn't misread the tiny numbers printed on the canvas and the paint cups.
IF you didn't get carried away with that one particular color....

Yeah. My experience with paint-by-number wasn't very gratifying.

And yet, over the years I've approached multiple aspects of life with that same "paint-by-number" approach of "do it THIS way."

If you're going to be a wife, be the June Cleaver model. (Ha ha. That didn't last long.)

To be a mother, follow THIS method... (It may have worked for that mom and HER kid, but my kids aren't her kids, and I'm not her, and ... well, we ended up following the "seat of our pants, skin of our teeth" method instead.)

To be a writer, one must pursue writing and publishing a certain way. Years ago it was "no vanity presses," then "no self-publishing," and now "no self-published e-books." Meanwhile, hundreds, maybe thousands, of people have written and published their stories without anyone's permission. But for those of us devoted to doing things the "right" way, deviating from the prescribed path is, well, DEVIANT!

And a Christian? The lists and formulas and methods and outlines are endless. Fill in the blanks to get your prayers answered, apply the formula to have a greater connection to and relationship with God, satisfy the requirements and be a better minister.

Don't get me wrong, I turned to Christianity AFTER I failed at all the requirements I ran up against in trying to be a good little New Ager. Wherever you find religion, you find rules and restrictions and requirements. It doesn't make any difference what you call it.

When I found a living, one-on-one, first-name basis kind of relationship with my Creator and Savior, I found the only way OUT of all those requirements and formulas and methods and rituals and performance-based faith. STAYING out of paint-by-number spirituality and IN intimacy with God has been nine-tenths of the battle!


Anyway, back to those verses in Galatians... when I read them, I feel like I've been double-dog dared to "find myself" and then to be the very best I can be as a unique, handmade, God-designed individual. There's only one of me, after all. I am one-of-a-kind, and so are you. Why do we waste our time and energy trying to follow someone else's path or comparing our progress to another's?

Being an individual, a genuinely unique human being, takes guts and courage and bravery and a willingness to step out of the status quo and follow the Holy Spirit wherever He may lead. And if He's leading, you can guarantee you're going on an adventure!

Every time God wanted to help one of His beloved along in the process of transformation, he made them move.

Maybe not geographically (although that happened too, on occasion), but He urged them into places that were 1) outside their comfort zones, and 2) removed from an atmosphere of doubt and unbelief.
I think we'd all agree that in order to make significant change we have to step outside our comfort zones ... outside of the tidy little environments we create for ourselves.

But many of us have never been taught to recognize and remove ourselves from toxic environments.

Huh? What's a toxic environment?

One polluted by fear and doubt. (Jesus tossed out all the friends and family members gathered around the 12-year-old's deathbed... he took the blind fellow out of town before he made mudballs from spit and healed the dude...)

Toxic environments are polluted by religion, especially judgment and control and condemnation. (God was ready to heal, but no one could get through the doors to get to Jesus... the paralyzed guy and his four crazy friends ripped the roof off to get through that polluted environment.)

Toxic environments are polluted by fear, offense, bitterness, jealousy, or unforgiveness. (Legion was so out of control no one even checked on him anymore... until Jesus showed up and cleared the air to restore him to his right mind.)

I could go on.

There are thousands, maybe millions, of potential contaminants to our spiritual water supply. In the same way, there are probably an equal number of ways our spiritual environments can be polluted by natural and/or spiritual sources.

Our job, every day, is to go through a spiritual purification process before we take other steps, make other decisions, or attempt to move forward. Check for...
Guilt
Shame
Fear
Bitterness
Doubt
Anger
Unbelief
Religiosity

Where those things appear, we stop up the power of God, and God, contrary to popular belief, will honor your right to choose things of your own free will. Choose to hold on to doubt and fear and He'll let ya.

I'm not one of those music-y people who always has to have tunes playing in the background. In fact, I've been known to go DAYS without listening to much of anything, even in the car, and would rather have a good audiobook playing in my earbuds than listen to music most of the time.

That said, I have a running soundtrack of snippets of music and lyrics in my brain that pop up at the strangest times.

Tonight, after spending several hours hanging pictures in my new space, I stepped outside to toss some (more) empty boxes and heard, quite clearly, one line from a 1970s Barry Manilow song... "looks like we made it."

Eek! Barry Manilow? Seriously? I don't even know the rest of the song! When all is said and done, that's what's downloaded into my gray matter? Earlier this afternoon my mental radio was repeating the three lines I remember from "Jesse's Girl" by Rick Springfield, circa early '80s pop tunes. Ew. Again, not a favorite and another song I'm surprised to find stored in my memory bank. Maybe I need counseling.

At one particularly stressful time a few years back, I caught myself humming Pat Benatar's "Hit Me With Your Best Shot" mixed with lines from Queen's "Pressure." At least those songs made sense at the moment, even though I hadn't heard either of them in years.

Whether you are musical or not, music is an emotional outlet and form of expression for both performers and partakers. It can clue us in to things we're dealing with in our subconscious.

Barry Manilow? Seriously? That's going to take some serious thought...

What's playing on YOUR personal, internal soundtrack today?

If you have a horse and want to keep it from running off, one solution is to hobble the critter. It's the equine equivalent of wearing a denim maxi-skirt and trying to go up a flight of stairs.

(No, I do NOT want to know why my image search for "hobble" included pictures of women's legs roped together.)

In the same way, we can hobble our heads with hindering beliefs.
Remember this?

Your thoughts + your feelings = your beliefs.

Thoughts and feelings can come from anywhere ... the news, a magazine, a catalog, a friend, school, family, authority figures, experiences ... One bad experience in life, unchecked by truth and wisdom, can grow into a virtual jungle of negative, hindering beliefs that hamper our ability to enjoy life.

Fictional characterizations are frequently based around these hindering beliefs that stem from some experience the character had during childhood. The storyline stems directly out of said character overcoming the hindering belief that has plagued him or her throughout fictional life.

In order to overcome these hindering beliefs, we must first identify them...
Let's look at few popular ones: (taken from Correct Change Required, p. 48-49)

God is a mean God.
I could never do that.
I am not worthy.
I'm not good enough.
I am a failure.
I'm a bad parent.
God does not want me to succeed.
Other people are better than me.
I can't do this because I'm not talented enough.
I can't help people because I'm not friendly enough.
I can't because I was never loved.
I can't due to my past.
I can't love again because life is so disappointing.
I can't forgive myself because God won't forgive me.

That's just a few common possibilities. Finding your own personal hindering beliefs may require some detective work...

Where's the emotional resistance?
(i.e. You may not even realize you have a hindering belief about food until someone tries to put you on a certain kind of diet, at which time you snivel into the meal plan and feel pitiful about life in general... yes, I've done that.) Jesus experienced incredible emotional resistance in the Garden of Gethsemane (literally "olive press") to the degree that his capillaries ruptured beneath his skin and his sweat became bloodied. But He didn't let that emotional resistance stop Him from fulfilling His calling as Savior. Most of us will never experience that kind of resistance, thank God, but what we do go through is difficult and uncomfortable... knowing that emotional resistance is a normal part of the process of change helps! Don't stop and camp out there, in the midst of the resistance! Keep moving!

What labels are you wearing?
Do you think you're dumb? Ugly? Clumsy? Selfish? Lazy? Slow? Where did that label come from? I spent years believing myself physically incapable of aerobic exercise because of hereditary "bad knees." Guess what? My knees were fine. It was my hindering belief that kept me from running, jogging, jumping, etc.

Check your life filter.
If the air filter in your car is dirty or clogged, your car won't run right. If your "life filter" turns everything that happens into a weird shade of negative, just "waiting for the other shoe to drop," you've probably got a hindering belief that's coloring your life.

Hearing trouble?
Where we have hindering beliefs, we stop receiving new information. We can't be helped, because we stop hearing. It's the person who wants to lose weight/stop smoking/find God/save their marriage who holds up a hand at the first hint of "advice" and says, "Yeah, I've already heard all that." Whatever information/ideas/suggestions are presented end up being rejected because of the hindering belief.

I hate hindering beliefs. They've been stopping me up since childhood, caused me great pain in adolescence, and tried to shut me down in adulthood more than once. I'm through. When I find a hindering belief, I'm kicking that sucker to the curb... no more buying into the lie.

I got in trouble in first grade... I know — shocker. We were given a mimeographed picture of cars to color. I colored my cars black. With black windows. The teacher saved it to show my mom during parent-teacher conferences. She was concerned that I was a sociopath or something. It never occurred to her that maybe I LIKED black. My first car and second car were black, my previous and current car are black. All with tinted windows, before tinted windows were cool. Maybe I was having a vision of the future back in first grade, maybe it had nothing to do with my emotional state.
 See how those silly labels and filters get slapped on?
What weird beliefs have hobbled you?

IT'S YOUR LIFE. PICK YOUR OWN DARN CRAYON AND USE THE COLORS YOU WANT TO USE!

I missed posting last night. Sometime before supper my Dad came by to let me know he's taking a load of trash to the landfill today and he'd take ours, too, if we had any. If ?

Not only did the process of moving uncover the fact we were living with massive quantities of garbage we called "stuff in storage," we no longer have a bi-weekly trash pick-up service. (Which is a whole 'nother story and a big rant about recycling and, yeah...)

This is the pile that needs to go away.

So I ventured into the open garage/workshop where everything has been getting dumped for the last three weeks and started sorting. By the time I maneuvered my way back OUT of the garage, covered in dust and webs and who-knows-what, I was exhausted and irritable.

We managed to move at least a small pickup load worth of stuff I thought was marked for the trash. Yes, that's right, our trash moved with us.

And that, my friends, is the problem with mental, emotional, and spiritual trash that piles up in our lives as well. It moves with you no matter where you go, into every situation and relationship. Eventually it overtakes space in your life where you should be LIVING, but because of the trash, you can't go there, can't expose it to anyone.

Practically speaking, you know what I'm talking about... it's the stuff under the bed, or in that front hall closet, or shoved in the crawl space, or hoisted into the attic, or piled up in the garage. It probably served a purpose in your life at some point, but those days are over. Instead of dealing with it, you store it up.

The same is true for the hidden rooms in our hearts and minds, where we store intangible boxes of old "labels" and records of negative conversations and albums of FAIL pictures from our pasts and general other junk. Ever look at someone else's emotional baggage and think, "Why are you keeping that?" Yeah, the same could be said of all of us. And that set of emotional/mental/spiritual luggage, even if we package it in expensive leather cases from Gucci or Hermes, hinders us from living the free, unfettered lives we're called to live. 

I've heard that one of the reasons Native Americans thought white men were weird was because they "saved" their boogers in handkerchiefs and stuff the hankies back in their pockets. To someone who'd never witnessed such behavior, it would indeed seem strange, saving something gross and useless in your pocket.

And yet... what boogies are you saving?
Let's get rid of 'em and move on. Take back your living space!

If you've never had an opportunity to ask why something did or didn't happen in your life, you're either a zombie or a Stepford wife. Or both.

The problem with the question "why?" is that it disables us. The question why (and usually the answer to the question, if there is one) changes nothing. Once we're caught the why cycle, we cease to make forward progress.

Asking why is the equivalent of yanking on a vehicle's parking brake. Until you release the why you aren't going to be going anywhere fast, and you're probably going to pollute the air around you with the stink of burning brakes. Met any stinky people lately? Folks who are caught in a rut so deep it's just a grave with both ends kicked out? It's entirely possible they pulled the why brake on life after experiencing a loss or a failure or some unexplainable event. Now they're stuck.

You might be stuck, too. I have been.

I've spent the last 14 years asking why about the state of the church the Patrick and I planted. Add to that the regular sort of whys like why can't we get ahead financially, and why did so-and-so get sick or have that accident, and why wasn't that prayer answered, and you risk ending up quite spiritually/mentally/emotionally constipated. No matter what you're doing, that ugly question keeps hogging your attention, holding you back, keeping you bound up in grief or anger or sorrow or doubt that can't be assuaged by platitudes or soothed by time.


That's the trouble with the question why. There are no answers, no solutions. More often than not, why is little more than a dead-end.

Are you ready to move ahead? Ready for a change? Ready for transformation? You're going to have to set aside that box of whys. It's ballast, sandbags, dead weight... useless questions without answers.

I'm unraveling the knots that have tied me to the whys and why nots that came with the assignment of planting a church in a community of 2,400 people that already had more than a dozen established Christian churches. I'm disengaging from the whys that relate to my oldest son's two accidents in three months that required emergency orthopedic surgeries, all paid for without the benefit of insurance or Medicaid. I'm untangling myself from the why I find myself back on my parents' homestead as a 41-year-old "boomerang" kid.

WHY am I separating myself from the whys? 

Because they really don't matter. Even if I had the answers, they wouldn't solve anything. I might be able to explain some things, if anyone cared, but I would still be left with the same situations.

Perhaps it would behoove (isn't that a fun word?) us to take a lesson from the greenhouse. (While we were away, my parents added a greenhouse to the back of the garage. I love it. It's a sanctuary for someone who loathes wind and bugs, but wants to play in the dirt. However, it has taken me three days to uncover the dirt.) The greenhouse was "left to itself" for a year or two, and the resulting mess has taken me a few days to clear out ... lots of pruning and pulling and clearing and cleaning.

I should have taken a picture, but I didn't... in the middle of the greenhouse sat a heap of dry, dead vines, about a foot high and 3-4 feet in diameter. Riddled with spider webs and general ickiness, the heap of dead foliage was one of the last spots I wanted to tackle.

I cleared dead leaves and weeds from the surviving strawberry plants, ripped out handfuls of dandelions and bindweed, hauled away the thorny branches I clipped off the overgrown primrose and some sort of cherry bushes. All the while, I kept getting a whiff of mint. But I didn't see any mint, anywhere, no matter how hard I looked.

Today, in preparation for planting lettuce and spinach in the "kitchen garden" section, I tackled that heap of dead vines and uncovered a surprise: a few struggling shoots of fragrant green mint, forcing their way through the dense, dead overgrowth into the light, determined to LIVE.  I wanted to weep over those pathetic little sprouts.

I'm like that mint, and so are you.

Whatever has tried to bury you under a dead pile of whys and why nots is not enough to defeat you. You might be unnoticed, ignored, unrecognized, but the life that is in you is greater than any amount of detritus piled on top of you. Keep setting that bundle of whys aside every time it gets in your way, and press on toward the light and life that belong to you as a child of God! The future is bright... I'm sure those mint sprouts are saying the same thing.

On Star Trek, the Enterprise went out to explore the universe. They might have had even more episodes if they'd set out to explore the human mind.

Fortunately for us, the mind operates according to laws, just like the rest of the universe. Learning to operate within those laws increases our ability to transform our lives for the better.

Confronted with all the "laws" of his day — religious, natural, physical, moral — Jesus told his disciples that they ought to be less concerned with those external laws than with the laws of the mind and heart. From the mind/heart, He said, spring our self-destructive tendencies, the traps and troubles we find ourselves in that bring about human sorrow and misery, aka sin.

In Correct Change Required, Bill Epperhart states, "Your thoughts plus your feelings equal your beliefs. Your beliefs affect your behavior, and your behavior affects the results you get in your life. If you do not like the results you are getting, you must change your beliefs."

I recently heard a radio interview with a woman who suffers from a rare neurological disorder called Developmental Topographical Disorientation. In short, every day when she wakes up, her mind tells her that her world has shifted 90 degrees. The Rocky Mountains that were to the west when she went to sleep, are now, in her perception, directly north. Everyday she has to "reset" her internal compass in order to navigate through her own home. It would, I think, be vaguely similar to waking up in the dark in a different hotel room every night, knowing what's there, but not being able to find it. Over the years, she has learned to push her own "reset" button in order to recalibrate her senses to the world around her.

Think about it... the human mind is powerful enough to convince someone that the mountains moved overnight. That kind of power, accessed, ought to be more than enough to trigger some positive, proactive changes in our lives!

According to Epperhart, thoughts come from four sources: information, personal experiences, memories and imagination. In our modern world of information overload, we have access to more information than we can absorb on a daily basis. Choosing what information we take in is important! We need filters or we're likely to be overwhelmed by the quantity of information surrounding us!

Memories and personal experiences are finite... in other words, they're over, done. What you do with them is up to you. Choose to make them negative and they'll color your world in a negative shade. Draw positive lessons from them and they'll highlight the information you take in and spur your imagination to greater things.

Imagination is the tricky one.
If you're a creative type, you're used to using your imagination to create things — paintings, sculptures, poems, stories, songs — but have you considered using your imagination to create your own future? I believe there's a reason so many of us were discounted for our "overactive imaginations" as children: we'd tapped in to a source of power our parents or caregivers or significant others didn't know how to handle. Heck, we didn't know how to handle it much of the time!

Here's the challenge: Choose one area of your life and purposefully apply your imagination to it in a positive way. What do you see? What you see is possible... if you can simply believe.

More on that tomorrow... I think.    

I need an interruption.

Strange thing to say, I know, considering how much we all despise interruptions in our schedules, our leisure, even at work. But it's one thing to BE interrupted, it's another thing entirely to interrupt ourselves. "Releasing the power of interruption" is an essential part of making proactive change.

www.dictionary.com

You see, the power of YOUR WILL is strong enough to interrupt any course, process, or condition of life. You aren't stuck, no matter what the enemy of your soul might be trying to tell you. If you think you're stuck in your present circumstances (and believe me, I've been there) you're being lied to. You have the power, the ability, to interrupt your "issues" and make a change.

Unfortunately, most of us jump right in and start trying to interrupt things going on externally: difficult relationships, financial problems, chronic sickness, family troubles, etc., and then get frustrated when we can't force things to change. Or, depending on your doctrinal beliefs, you sit back and passively await a heavenly interruption (i.e. a miracle).

All the while, we're focused on the problem and on our inability to do something about it instead of on the possibility and being proactive about it.

In John 5, Jesus came upon a gathering of "waiters" at the pool of Bethesda. These folks were sick, infirm, unable, helpless. They were waiting on an angel who came down (apparently at random) and stirred the water. The first person who made it to the water after the angel's action got healed. Jesus approached one of these folks and asked him a strange question, "Do you want to be made well?"

The man's answer was equally odd. Instead of saying "yes, sir!" the fellow went into a lengthy explanation of how someone else always made it to the pool ahead of him, and that's why he wasn't well. He was problem-centered, not possibility-centered. He couldn't see past the circumstances to the possibility of positive change.

Ever been there? Overwhelmed by the situation at hand? So bogged down in the muck and mire of life you can barely see your way to the next paycheck? You need an interruption. The good news is that you don't have to wait for an angel to come stir the waters. You don't even have to wait for Jesus to show up and ask you if you want help. He's already there, just waiting on you.

When your self-talk is negative and defeatist, when your feelings are on a downhill slide to depression, interrupt yourself! Ask yourself who is telling you all those lies about your inadequacy, your inability, your past failures and your future woes... It's not God.

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jeremiah 29:11 NKJV

Let God put some new thoughts in your head, new feelings in your soul, and allow new possibilities to unfold in your mind's eye!

Today's post will be brief. I just spent twelve, yes, twelve, hours unpacking, cleaning, organizing, and establishing my new living quarters. The Patrick and I have staked our claim on what was once a two-car attached garage. Our garage. The same garage in which I once backed over our dog (he survived), in which we hid our oldest son's Batman toys in a futile attempt to break his addiction, and where at least 15 thousand mice once made their home.

Since that time, my folks renovated the space into one huge room with a wood stove, overhead storage loft, antique tin ceilings and a lovely tile floor. It's secluded, quiet, and makes for a charming studio-apartment space. Yeah, no bathroom (we have to go into the main house), or closets, but those are manageable inconveniences.

Peace and privacy and not being able to hear the television? Priceless.

Ironically, my parents named the space the "recreation room." Hmm. Maybe they knew something we didn't know all those years ago ... that someone in need of "re-creation" would be returning to inhabit the space someday?

That said, let's look at the next step toward proactive, positive, effective change: developing a strategy. Whether it's chess, checkers, Scrabble, or Words With Friends, strategy is crucial to victory. The same is true for creating lasting, desirable change in our lives.


Strategy, or stratagem, is defined as "the science or art of combining and employing the means of war in planning and directing large military movements and operations." (www.dictionary.com)

A simpler definition is the use of deception, trickery, or a ruse to defeat the enemy.

Who's your enemy?
Oh, I could go on a rant about the devil and his minions, but the truth is, we are almost always our own worst enemies.

You're going to have to devise a way to trick yourself into changing, using every technique and resource you have at the ready. Changing your self-talk, your mental ruts, your system of reward and punishment... all are tools you can use in developing a strategy for change.

For example: Let's say you are in the habit of rewarding yourself at the end of a long day (or a hard day, or a stressful day) with a big bowl of ice cream smothered in chocolate syrup. Not a bad reward, unless you're trying to cut back on calories. Devising a strategy for change in that instance might include swapping the bowl of ice cream for a long, hot bath or a good book and a cup of tea.

Yes, you're going to have to shake up your routine, interrupt your environment, and probably do something completely out-of-the-ordinary (translate: weird) in order to implement an effective strategy, but it IS possible. Use your God-given creativity and inventiveness to scheme against your own self-destructive mechanisms.

Think of it this way: No one knows you better than you know yourself, and knowledge is power. If you were playing a strategy game against yourself, you'd have the upper hand, because you know your own strengths and weaknesses better than anyone else!

{There are hundreds, probably thousands, of bloggers around the globe participating in  30-day challenges where you post about something every day for thirty days. For most, it's a way to jumpstart the creative juices, to get into a daily habit of writing. For me (yes, I'm joining the bandwagon) it's a way to document my program for repair and renewal — spirit, soul, and body.}

Today I picked up my second copy (I gave the first one away... Note to self: Do not give away books that have transformed your life unless you already have another copy at hand.) of Bill Epperhart's Correct Change Required. This book carried me through one of the most difficult times I can remember, motivated me to complete my first full fiction manuscript, AND helped me lose more than 20 pounds. And it's not just a poundage issue ... Epperhart's subtitle is "Becoming Who You Really Want to Be." Who doesn't want THAT?

As I've regained about 10 of those pounds in the last six months or so; have multiple writing projects started, but nothing completed; and am at a time when I really need to redefine myself because the old ID doesn't fit anymore, I ordered another copy of Epperhart's book.

Day One:

"Most people lead lives of quiet desperation." ~Thoreau

If you are too far removed from your own angst to grasp this concept, go to Walmart and check out  your fellow consumers. Walmart (and Target, and Starbucks, and every church, restaurant, resort, and shopping mall) are full of people trapped in Thoreau's description of "quiet desperation." They might be:

Desperate to save their marriage or other relationship.
Desperate to make their financial ends meet.
Desperate to regain their health.
Desperate to find peace and joy and satisfaction.


There are only two responses to desperation: apathy or change. You either continue to accept the way things are as your fate in life, or you choose a course of change. Imagine yourself as a caterpillar...
Too fat to eat another bite, so heavy with what you've already consumed you run the risk of falling right off the next leaf into oblivion, all the while knowing you are called to something better, something MORE.

Change happens to us all. Sometimes it's forced upon us by circumstance in the form of tragedy, trauma, or other people's choices. Sometimes we're tricked into it by a combination of internal and external pressures. Often, change is just a product of our temporal existence in this realm. But above and beyond all of those is proactive change: the kind of change that brings about a desired result. It comes when we choose to change and follow through with those new choices to the desired result.

• Easy? Not even.  As someone has said, "If it were easy, everyone would be doing it."
• Essential? Only if you have that hunger for something better and higher than what you're experiencing.
• Available? Absolutely. You are a child of the Most High God, designed in His creative image and given a free will so powerful you can even make choices that are self-destructive (you know that, you've made some of them already). 

For today, ask yourself the following:

1. What change(s) do I desire to make in my life?
2. Am I willing to die to old ways of thinking, believing, and doing in order to make those desired changes happen?

Some of you are clinging to the past—past hurts, losses, griefs, victories, or self-destructive methods and patterns of life. Others are clutching at present circumstances, painful though they may be, unwilling to release situations, roles, relationships, etc., in order to move on to the next phase of your existence. As one who has played the game both ways, may I encourage you? Don't wait until change is forced upon you by the "sands of time in the hourglass," begin NOW to make the changes you most desire to make.

More on the process tomorrow!

One week from tomorrow we will (finally) exit the Land of Limbo—that bizarre, alternate-realm between one phase of life and the next to which we refer when we're between decisions, between jobs, between relationships, or just BETWEEN.

We can thank the Roman Catholic church for the word (not the dance from the West Indies).

www.dictionary.com

Ugh. The definitions aren't pretty, are they? But for anyone who has ever visited the Land of Limbo, you know how accurate they are. Rest assured, our Bible heroes and heroines know something about being in limbo and we can learn from them.

Moses spent 40 years watching sheep for his father-in-law between the time he understood the truth about his heritage and the activation of his calling. The Israelites wandered around the mountain for 40 years in limbo because they couldn't come to terms with the facts: God is bigger than the bogeyman, no matter what form the bogeyman takes. I imagine Elijah experienced a visit to Limboland when the Brook Cherith dried up (1 Kings 17) and he was sent elsewhere to seek supernatural provision in the middle of a famine.

What about Joseph in that Egyptian prison, betrayed by his brothers, and forgotten by his fellow inmates? Or Jonah in the belly of the fish? Jesus understands (probably better than any of us) the state of limbo ... In a way, His whole life on earth was a kind of limbo, a balancing act between the natural and supernatural realms, brought to a climax in the Garden of Gethsemane (translate: olive press), the crucifixion, and the resurrection.

And what about the ladies? Women (ladies-in-waiting) seem to be destined to go through the Land of Limbo. How about the woman whose child died? For her the Land of Limbo was the time it took to go find the man of God (Elijah) and the moment her child was restored to life. What about Rebekah, who waited for years to bear a child for her one true love, Isaac, while he fathered multiple sons with her sister, Leah? (Tell me the Bible isn't full of sordid, reality-drama worthy tales!) I'm sure Sarah took her turn in the Land of Limbo when Abraham came home and said, "Honey, God told me to pack up and move. I don't know where, and we're gonna have to live in a tent until we get there, but..." Or Noah's wife, who watched her DH spend more than 100 years building a boat (no one had ever seen a boat, or rain) because he believed what God had spoken to him was true. Would you have been tempted to have him committed? I might have. Or the (now) highly esteemed virgin Mary—the unwed teenage mother—who had to wait for her husband-to-be, Joseph, to hear from God through a dream that she hadn't actually cheated on him to get pregnant lest she face public execution. Anybody else ever had to wait for a man to hear from God before you can breathe easy? Talk about limbo!

Your Land of Limbo probably has your own personal stamp on it. It could be the transition between childhood and adulthood, between college and career, between wife and mother, between mother and grandmother. It could be waiting for adoption papers to be signed, waiting for divorce papers to go through, or waiting to learn the results of a medical test. It could be as simple as the transition from one job to another, or as difficult as walking through the terminal illness and subsequent death of a loved one.

As a human, I seek understanding during limbo seasons.
As a believer, I turn to God for that understanding.
As a writer, I pray what I learn will translate into words that help, heal, and generate hope.

What to do when you find yourself in the Land of Limbo? Here's what I've learned so far...

1. We will all pass through the Land of Limbo many times during our lives. (My version, the way God give it to me: Suck it up and deal with it.)
2. The only real danger in the Land of Limbo is stopping to dwell there. (My version: Don't camp out in Limboland! Keep moving, be proactive. Do what you can, when you can.)

3. Don't embrace Limbo as a lifestyle, instead, as you journey, embrace the hope of what's possible on the other side. There IS something positive you can focus on, the trick is finding that thing.

I'll close with the following, a song from the 1940s, another era when our nation was in a state of flux. The words of lyricist Johnny Mercer clue us in to what we need to do when we find ourselves in the Land of Limbo. Take special note of the words "don't mess with Mr. In-Between." That's the Land of Limbo, Dear Reader, and it's nothing to trifle with! Forward, march!

Since The Patrick and I can't even hang a picture together without getting irritated, we've agreed that we'll never attempt a DIY home remodeling project. I can't stand it. It's too messy. Too inconvenient. Full of unexpected obstacles and unpleasant discoveries. And, it always takes longer and costs more than expected.
That said, my Abba Father has me in the midst of a spiritual renovation that's turning out to be equally messy, inconvenient, and uncomfortable. Even worse, He seems to be keeping the project blueprints secret, presumably so I won't (again) attempt to perform a DIY version of what He has planned. I just have to keep trusting that my heavenly architect knows what He is doing, and has something good planned, because that's what He promised.

As with most professional renovation projects, stage one involves gutting the existing structure. Oh yeah, that's fun. Not. Wise renovators turn off the power and the gas so they can install new fixtures without risk of electrocution or explosions. Unfortunately, that means when you go to turn on the stove, the stove is not there. When you turn to the sink, the water is off. Everything you've come to depend and rely on is either missing, out of place, or out of order.


That spot where the pipe leaked and warped the floor, and you threw a rug over it? It's now a gaping hole, ready to be properly repaired. The dent in the wall where you threw the toaster across the room in a fit of rage and then patched the wall with spackle and paint? Not okay, according to the pros. Nope, to do it right, they strip it all down to the barest skeleton of the original design. It's quite a process. And when it's taking place internally, it's a bit painful.

And that's where I'm at... almost empty. 14+ years of hidden rot, a termite here or there, some hasty patch jobs, leaky pipes, dangerous wiring, faulty fixtures and obsolete appliances are being systematically done away with.

Spiritually speaking I'm talking about hidden wounds, old offenses, weak doctrines, lies the enemy planted that took root, emotional ruts, "stinking thinking" and old ways of doing and being that are not just futile and ineffective, they are dangerous.

I'm looking forward to the moment when Abba says, "Darling daughter, open your eyes and see what I have done." I know it will be good, better than I can ask or think. But right now? I'm getting back in that cocoon...  

In ballet, an attitude is a particular position of the body. It involves balancing on one leg, while raising the other, bent at the knee, either en derriere, en avant, or a la seconde (to the back, front, or side). It's one of the most graceful, most recognized positions in ballet.

In aeronautics, attitude refers to the incline of an aircraft in relation to the horizon, to the ground, to the wind.

And in psychology, attitude has to do with an individual's perceptions or feelings toward a person, place, or thing. Attitudes can be positive or negative.

How do dancers learn to hold an attitude without falling? What must pilots do in order to maintain proper attitude in flight when faced with variable wind speeds, ground conditions, engine power and more to avoid crashing?

The answer is another "A" word... they learn to Adjust.

The dancer learns to adjust her weight between the supporting leg and the elevated leg and corresponding arm positions. The pilot adjusts the plane's speed to the external conditions with the position of the wing flaps and nose in order to maintain correct attitude in flight.

In other words, having a "good attitude" requires us to adjust to internal and external circumstances and situations.

"But I'm RIGHT!" We insist when the opportunity to adjust our attitude arises.
No, you might have BEEN right at some point, but once circumstances change, you will have to adjust YOUR attitude to maintain balance and "keep flying."

The willingness to adjust may be the key to continued progress and development, whether it's in marriage or parenting or business or any other area of life. Changes come (like it or not) and we have to constantly adjust ourselves to maintain proper position.

What is proper position? As believers in Christ Jesus, the proper attitude is the one that enables us to keep walking in love toward our fellow man, no matter what is going on around us. When we slip over into selfishness and judgment and fear and rejection and unforgiveness our attitude has slipped out of place.

I'm checking myself this week for places where I'm out of place, where my attitude is droopy or faltering, and asking God to help me make the necessary adjustments to get back in position! How about you? Got your leg up there where it's supposed to be?

(I'm a bit late this week, but be sure to check out the other A2Z Take 2 posts for the letter "A"!)

I wonder if the title of this post will get me in trouble?

I'm not talking about breaking in to the computers of some corporate giant, I'm talking about modifying your life for better productivity and quality of living. Simple changes that make a big difference.

Have you seen the Lifehacker site? I love it. Thousands of little ideas and ways to improve your quality of life. Instructables is another site chock full of tips and tricks and DIY stuff. Even Pinterest (latest addiction) has links to all sorts of cool ideas. Like this one...

Using a binder clip to keep my printer cable from falling into the crack between my desk and bookcase whenever I unplug my laptop. Duh. Why didn't I think of that?

Last year we bought two things that improved our quality of life, well, MY quality of life, dramatically. These weren't high-dollar purchases, just little things that never seemed to fit into our budget as a legitimate need.

An electric blanket and a doggy door.
Not exciting, not flashy, and certainly not luxury items, but WOW!
On a side note, the number of Flickr and Photobucket pictures of humans – adults and children – crawling through dog doors is somewhat disturbing.

We got rid of my husband's heated waterbed after my first pregnancy because third trimester + waterbed = beached whale woman. That was in 1991. For two decades we slipped between shivery sheets every night, muttering about the miseries of a cold bed. After a nasty cold spell last winter, DH went to the store and came home with an electric blanket. It has dual thermostats, auto shut-off, and so forth. We turn it on before bed, and slide into a cocoon of warmth. Ahhhh.

And then we bought a doggy door. Our dogs have free reign in our fenced backyard, and they like to run in and out all day long. We'd hesitated to install a doggy door, out of concern that some other furry critters would decide to come in for a snack. We've had skunks, raccoons, and a baby porcupine come through our fence into the yard over the years (and that's just the critters we caught). But my frustration increased exponentially every time I had to get up to let the dogs out, and then get up to let them back in, which occurred, oh, hundreds of times a day. Install doggy door and voila! I got two hours of time per day back for that $100 purchase. Seriously. Two hours a DAY. (Of course, I've wasted most of those hours on Facebook, but that's for another post.)

Archie headed outside after I spent 20 minutes scraping gunk off the doggy door so it wouldn't look gross in the picture.

Why am I sharing all this useless information? Because there are things you've thought about buying, but you keep putting it off and putting it off, even when you have the money, because it doesn't seem like a fun purchase, or there's something else that is more pressing. (There's ALWAYS something more fun or more pressing...)

It might be something as simple as a set of plastic tubs to organize out-of-season clothes and shoes, instead of wrestling with them in an overflowing closet or shoving them under the bed in plastic bags. It might be a pair of really comfortable ear buds for your iPod, so you can listen to something soothing while the shrill sounds of alien battles blasts from the other room. 

I'm going to start paying more attention to those little things that are a regular source of frustration and seek out potential solutions, instead of just continuing to live with the problem year in and year out. I may not be able to resolve all of the frustrations and annoyances and time-thieves, like boys who leave their dirty socks on the floor and a husband who harbors a serious aversion to home repair projects, but what CAN I do? What can YOU do?

Do you ever feel oppressed or frustrated by the Scriptures you've read? As if the things you see in God's Word (the New Testament in particular) are just more things you need to add to your daily to-do list?

Do you battle an underlying sense of failure or condemnation because no matter how hard you try, you can't put an approved stamp beside all the perceived requirements assigned to your life?

Are you tormented by wordless guilt because you know you aren't good enough at anything you do, including being a daughter of God?


I'm convinced the above are symptoms of a spiritual attack designed to convince us that our "arms are too short" to fulfill the plan of God, that we aren't good enough, strong enough, spiritual enough, diligent enough, or some elusive something enough to please our heavenly Father.

Been there?

You see, if you are a believer in Christ Jesus, God has already placed within you the power, the ability, the strength, the capacity and the grace to be everything He has called you to be, most of all, His beloved daughter, complete in Him. Do we see all of those things in our daily lives? Hardly. But that doesn't mean they aren't there, working their way to the surface as we yield.

Our pop culture fascination with zombies, vampires, werewolves and the like ought to teach us something ... transformation is inevitable. God WILL have His way in us. He will, according to His Word, bring to completion (perfection) the good work He has begun in us in Christ Jesus!

I confess. For this week's a2z4u&me post I had to revert to flipping through the "V" section for the Webster's New World Pocket Dictionary on my desk. Yep. I ran out of steam, or juice, or creative Viagra, or whatever it is that keeps us writers going, this week. In fact, my only personal blog post last week was for this meme. Ouch. I feel like a slacker.

My eyes scanned the words... variable, vermouth, vicissitude.
Huh? What the heck is vicissitude?

I'm not sure what kind of a nerd gets a rush out of stumbling across an unfamiliar word in the dictionary, but whatever kind of nerd it is, I'm it. Finding a new, interesting word is almost as good as finding a few extra bucks in my checking account or discovering a brand new Ann Taylor jacket in my size and preferred color at Goodwill on half-price. (Yes, that makes me incredibly cheap: I look for the sale tags at Goodwill.) 

So what is vicissitude? According to my handy pocket dictionary (a Christmas gift from one of my kids) it's "any of one's ups and downs; change."

I don't know about you, but definitions like that are like having "just a taste" of my husband's dessert at the company Christmas dinner ... unsatisfying. So I looked vicissitude up on www.dictionary.com (a favorite site).


Oh my. That's me. That's where I'm at right now ... if I took a picture of myself I could stamp VICISSITUDE on it with one of those big, red rubber stamps no one but government officials use anymore.

Don't get me wrong, I LIKE change. I rearrange my furniture seasonally, revamp my wardrobe as often as I can make the 100-mile one-way trek to the nearest mall Goodwill, and change my hairstyle as quickly as it will grow. But these changes, I don't know... physical, mental, emotional, familial, relational, spiritual, financial... name it, it's in a state of flux (another way to say "transition"). Or mutation. Is that what's happening? Am I mutating? 

Years ago, when my mom was going through menopause, she described it as "puberty in reverse." I think I might finally understand what she meant. Hopefully, this too shall pass... SOON.

How do YOU handle change?

For a selection of much more inspiring posts about the letter "V," check out the following:

Sometimes, just when you think you're really "losing it" (like maybe you took a wrong turn and are now limping down an endless stretch of deserted country road) you stumble upon another traveler on the same path, one with greater wisdom about the journey or just in the same place, and you're comforted. That happened to me today. Bonnie Gray's "What Season of Faith Are You Walking In?" post at Faith Barista spoke to my heart.

Our seasons of faith – where we're "at" in our walk with God, in our prayer lives, in our daily conduct – are subject to change just as surely as the seasons outside the window. And that's all right. Throughout the course of our lives we walk through many seasons. Why wouldn't the same thing be true in our spiritual walk?

It may be a spiritual season of springtime for you right now ... full of new life, fresh growth and revelation, warmth and the rain of the Holy Spirit. All excitement and thrills and power. I'm thinking of a young couple I know. They're having spring. Running to and fro from meeting to conference to meeting, reveling in the presence of God, excited about things to come. They are sowing toward their future in word and action.

Or you might be having summer ... bright, warm days filled with harvesting the good things sown in the spring, enjoying the juicy fruits of righteousness and basking in fellowship with others and with God. This is the season of maturity, of fullness and rejoicing, of moving past just being blessed to being a blessing.

Perhaps you've entered a spiritual autumn. Things seem a bit dry. Everything "looks" different. I think of Solomon writing Ecclesiastes, questioning and testing and examining. Parts of your spiritual experience that were lush and vibrant a season ago have withered away to dead stalks. There's a chill in the air and a sense of impending change. As Bonnie put it, fall is a time of "letting go." I'm about to have to "let go" of my garden, as we've dropped down into the 30s at night here and my squash and tomatoes have already suffered the chill. It's time to put my garden "to bed" for the season. From a spiritual perspective, we "put to bed" our ministry as pastors in July.

Maybe it's spiritual winter for you right now. Everything appears frozen, dead, unwelcoming, and harsh. There's little light and lots of long, empty hours of darkness. Fellowship with others all but disappears. You want to hibernate, nestle yourself away with your Abba and avoid the cold, hard world outside. On the inside, there's light and life and warmth, but it's locked within. Think of Paul, writing to the church at Philippi from his prison cell, life within and apparent death without. I wonder if, at the time, Paul felt like he was in a spiritual winter?

For some strange reason I think I've been led to believe the only spiritual seasons of value are spring and summer. After all, those are the seasons we applaud in our churches and encourage from our pulpits. Watch someone enter an autumn, or worse, a winter season, in his or her spirituality and the questions come. "Is so-and-so backslid? Are they falling away from the church? What's wrong with him/her?" Maybe, just maybe, NOTHING AT ALL. Perhaps the person is simply in a different season.

Just because the leaves fall off the tree in autumn doesn't mean the tree is sick. 
Snow that covers the grass and turns it brown doesn't indicate the death of the lawn. 

What if there's something important, something critical, to be accomplished during a spiritual autumn and winter? The God I know and love wouldn't have created entire seasons that produce nothing.

So what is happening in nature during fall and winter that we're ignorant of? And does that analogy apply to us spiritually?

I'll be mulling this one over for a day or two. I'll share what I discover in my next post.
In the meantime, check out some of the other posts linked up to this subject at Faith Barista...

Last night I caught myself thinking about one of those roles and wondering what it will be like to lose that part of my identity. What will I do, how will I feel, what will it be like to no longer be a _____________________, but to be a _______________________________ instead?
(Feel free to fill in those blanks with your own terms. It could be the shift from student to graduate, from employed to retired, from single to married, from non-parent to parent, or parent to grandparent.)


While I muddled over those thoughts, playing with scenarios in my mind the way a toddler splashes in a puddle, churning my head into a murky mess, I heard the words, "day by day."
Not the song, just the phrase.

Jesus made it pretty clear: "So don't be anxious about tomorrow. God will take care of your tomorrow too. Live one day at a time." Matthew 6:34 TLB

 But how many of us really, truly live that way? Not worried about tomorrow, not fretting about next month or next year or the next decade, just living "one day at a time"?



If I had to give myself a grade for how well I live one day at a time, it would probably be a big, fat, red "D"  or maybe even a "D-".

It's a difficult concept for those of us who are compelled to accomplish and achieve and perform in order to feel worthy of approval and acceptance.


It might be a difficult concept, but it has to be better than living in dread and doubt and dismay, which are the results of worry and fretting about the future!


So there's my challenge... one day at a time. How do YOU do it? Maybe the letter "E" will provide an awesome answer!


Until then, don't forget to visit the other great a2z meme bloggers. I've been blessed by their posts and I think you will be, too.