I’m sure we’ve all experienced a scenario like this one.

A young child, trying to avoid her nap, asks to play with Play Doh before heading upstairs. “Please, please daddy?”

So out come a few cans of the neon colored dough, and the two-year-old begins squishing away. Her Dad makes a sun shape, and a few stars. Our little lady decides she wants to do that too. But it’s awfully hard for a two-year-old to make any shape look as good as her father’s.

Tension and frustration set in. “I can’t do it!” she wails. And before her dad can offer to help, several lumps of Play Doh go flying across the kitchen.

Gotta love those two year olds. Now what?

If you were the dad, what would you do?

1) Say “That’s the end of Play Doh. Time for a nap.”

2) Make our little miss pick up the lumps she threw.

3) Request an apology for throwing toys.

4) Listen to the little one’s frustration, give her a hug and tell her you’ll help her clean it up.

I’m sure you have some other really good ideas. But there’s one idea that I’m sure no one would suggest.

No one would tell the two-year-old “It’s okay. You can throw stuff when you get mad.” Because it’s not okay for many reasons. Bad behavior doesn’t mean the rules get thrown out. It means that more guidance is needed to find better ways to cope.

Our Father in heaven is the best parent there will ever be. He loves us all, no matter what we do. Whether we’re full-on happy, or having an epic snit-fit, his love and devotion never waivers. Just like the young dad sitting at the kitchen table.

I’m not immune from bad behavior. When I let anger get the best of me, God has a lot of options to calm me down. But, like our young dad, one thing he’s not going to say is “That’s okay. You can throw stuff when you’re angry.” Because he knows that’s not okay for many reasons.

My bad behavior doesn’t mean that his guidelines change either. He is God, ever the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. He’s not going to lower the bar just because I’m pouting. Instead, he’ll teach me how to rise up and meet that bar again.

Good parents have patience, and don’t give up or give in when rules are broken. They don’t allow bad conduct just because it’s happening. And that’s a wonderful thing. They will ultimately nurture children who will understand how to deal with sorrow and anger. They will be able to rise up again.

And that’s what Our Father does with me too. His infinite patience and willingness to teach me the way of peace is a wonderful thing. He shows me how overcome, so I can climb out of the pit again, and reach that bar he’s set for me.

All because he wants me to rise up someday, and meet him face to face.

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We Give Thanks

Our Father in Heaven,
We give thanks for the pleasure
Of gathering together for this occasion.
We give thanks for this food
Prepared by loving hands.
We give thanks for life,
The freedom to enjoy it all
And all other blessings.
As we partake of this food,
We pray for health and strength
To carry on and try to live as You would have us.
This we ask in the name of Christ,
Our Heavenly Father.

– Harry Jewell

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I pray that you will have a peaceful and happy holiday with your family and friends. There is so much to be thankful for, and it’s a blessing to have a special day to remember all the graces and gifts we have been given.

When I give thanks, I will remember you and your loved ones. You have made this past year of blogging a true joy for me. May God bless you abundantly for all your support and encouragement.

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Recently, I thought about the demise of my nursing career. I haven’t worked in the medical field for over two years now. It’s a little frightening how fast I’ve lost the facts I had locked up in my head for so long.

Working at an OB/GYNE office for over twelve years, I had a wealth of knowledge about women’s health. I was a good resource for my daughter and daughter-in-law in their pregnancies. I knew which prenatal vitamin didn’t cause nausea. I could tell them how much fish they could eat in a week, and how to make deli meats safe. The ‘click, click, click’ of the stored information hummed along.

But now? I really have to dig to remember those things. Or sometimes, I have to admit that the information has ‘left the building’.

Before I worked in the office, I staffed cardiac floors in a hospital, cardiac cath lab, operating room, and I taught for a while. But there’s no way I could do that now.

Medicine moves fast. The drugs I gave back then are no longer in use. I used to know all the surgical instruments that lined the walls of the stock room. I don’t even want to know how many I’ve forgotten. I’d have to take a refresher course if I had to go back. Maybe I’d should take it twice!

I’m not planning to go back to nursing. I’m still going to give this writing thing a whirl. But I couldn’t help but compare the experience of returning to medicine to the experience of returning to God.

Getting back to hospital employment means school first. Then I’d hope to be hired over younger nurses, and the new graduates. If I was hired, I’d need a period of orientation, working with a preceptor who would monitor my work and decide when I could be left on my own. It’s a long process.

Compare that to being away from God. If I gave up on prayer and got too involved in a busy life, it’d be easy to wake up a few months later and realize that something is missing. Well, someone is missing. The relationship I had with my Father?  Gone. It used to be so easy between us. But now it’s a thing of the past.

How do I get back again? Do I have to take a class? Will someone follow me around and make sure I’m doing the right things?

My thoughts turn to the Parable of the Prodigal Son. That child had it all, and then picked up and ran off with his dad’s money. He cut himself completely off from the family. After spending everything, and starving from lack of food, he decides to go back. Maybe he’ll be forgiven.

There were no ‘maybe’s’. He is immediately enfolded back into the family. No classes. No parole, no ankle bracelet. All he had to do was decide come back.

The return to nursing? Really hard.

The return to God? Really easy.

I just have to decide to come back, and really mean it.

Even now, the Lord says, return to me with all your heart  Joel 2:12

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Linking today with: Unforced Rhythms

Playdates with God

At the beginning of the year I shared on my Facebook page that I had lost the diamond out of my mother-in-law’s engagement ring.

She died in 2010, and I was honored to be given her wedding ring set. I always wore the engagement ring on my right hand. It reminded me of her. She was a wonderful person who never said a bad word about anyone. And she never failed to tell me how happy she was to include me in the family.

I wore the ring when I went to visit my daughter’s family. While feeding my little granddaughter, I casually looked down at my right hand, only to find a jagged hole where the little emerald cut diamond used to be. I was no longer casual, believe me!

How I searched for that colorless stone. My daughter and son-in-law helped me comb through the carpets by hand, check the baby blankets and inspect the kitchen disposal. All in vain.

I kept myself together until I had to call my husband. Good thing everyone else was in bed because I just cried. I know it was just a ‘thing’ but when I wore that ring, it was a reminder that she was with me. Not to mention that I felt I had been very careless.

My husband was great about it. He told me that he worried about me, not rings. As long as I was okay, then he was okay. “You know you’re going to find it don’t you? Don’t worry. Get some sleep, okay?”

I didn’t sleep well at all. I was leaving that day, so after another fruitless search, and promises to to through the vacuum bag, I left for home.

Two weeks went by. No ring. My husband and I decided to figure out what to do with the setting. In the midst of discussing it, the telephone rang.

My daughter joyfully announced: “I FOUND IT!!”

She was cleaning out a closet in the room I slept in when I visited. As she turned to face the bed, a sparkle caught her eye. There was the little diamond, blinking in the sun, embedded in the navy blue rug. My husband was right all along.

Jesus and my Father have never been praised and thanked more in my life. I thanked my mother-in-law and the Spirit for leading my daughter to the stone too.

But you know what I forgot to do? I forgot to invite the Lord to join me in my joy-party. I praised him, but at a distance. Like a young child who thanks his mom for the birthday present, but without a hug. Or without inviting her to play the game with him.

I don’t want to do a happy dance before him, I want to do it with him. He has already invited me to enter “into your master’s joy”. I bet he’d love to be invited to enter into mine.

Next time I celebrate, it will be a dance for two.

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We had a little snow shower with a brush of freezing temperatures about a month ago. The cold didn’t last long, only a few days. But it made quite an impression…on the trees.

On my daily walk, I would see some trees with lush foliage. Their leaves got busy turning yellow, orange and red in the fall sun. But then, I’d see trees stripped bare. They experienced the early snow too, but decided it was time to cash in. They dropped their leaves seemingly all at once, almost overnight.

It was quite a contrast.

All the trees will bud again in the Spring, no worries there. It was just fascinating to me that the same trees, growing in the same place, could react so differently to stress. As I walked along my way, I wondered which option was smarter.

It seemed a little extreme to drop all those leaves. But then again, what if the cold continued? Sap freezing inside, the nutrition to the leaves slowly choking…well, maybe it wasn’t so extreme after all. It’s not going to change the long-term health of the tree, so why not be ready for the winter?

I tend toward the ‘hang in there’ option. I don’t like hasty decisions. Hang on to those leaves of life, and wait for the return of more temperate days. Chances are good that this cold won’t stay. But I wondered if I liked this option because I enjoy the changing leaves. The colors look so bright and beautiful in the sunshine.

Hold on or let go. It’s a confusing decision.

As I wound my way between the trees, I came to a decision. I can’t blame the bare trees or cheer for the leafy ones. Who am I to judge? They are both using strategies that help them make it to the next day, and to the next season. In the end, they will both bloom again.

I believe that the Lord was showing me the futility of judgement, and not just with trees. This little example in nature reminded me that his children don’t need to be judged either. I’ll never know the ‘weather’ that anyone has had to go through. And those struggles often guide choices.

Like the trees, all of us blow in the strong winds of change. We make decisions to prepare for the freezing gusts of winter in our own ways. Maybe it’s a different way to pray, or a different bible translation. We’re all just trying to prepare ourselves for tomorrow, and for our ultimate meeting with God face to face.

Like my own neighborhood trees, even close family members can differ in the way they prepare themselves in prayer, praise and honor to our Father.  But here’s what I have to keep in my heart: If the foundation is with God, and we actively participate in loving each other, we’re well on our way.

Besides, Jesus said I shouldn’t judge. The reward for that is pretty exciting. I won’t be judged either. (Matt. 7:1)

Lucky me! I get to go jetting off to the east coast to visit my fellow nut, my sister! I haven’t been to her neck of the woods for eight years. At our recent family reunion, we decided It’s high time that I come and play in her sandbox for a while.

So I am in Boston visiting my sister, brother-in-law, niece (she’s in nursing school, yay!) and nephew. Then we’ll spend a few days away together. I am so blessed to be able to go, and so grateful that it all worked out. God is good.

Have a wonderful weekend, and I’ll see you back here on Monday!

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Everyone likes ‘before and after’ photos. You know the ones. The before the diet and after the goal is reached; the empty canvas and final painting; or the blank page and the completed essay.

You know what’s not so popular? The photos that show the road between the start and the finish. That’s where the real work is done. It’s the day to day struggle to become healthy or create a work of art. Those days aren’t very flashy. They don’t spark rounds of applause. They’re messy and sweaty and sometimes they don’t show much progress at all.

But to Our Father they are beautiful.

He can see us working; putting up with the pain, the challenge and the rewrites. We are his beloved children, and all he sees is his children learning and working hard to succeed. It just warms his heart.

I remember a college science project that had to be completed to pass the course. I had to get two kinds of microorganisms on one slide. Everyone else seemed to breeze through it. Oh how I tried. Day after day I’d mess up again and again. I’d get one on there, and then flood it right off the slide trying to add the next.

On the last day of class I finally got it right. My teacher reviewed it, said “Good job”, and promptly smeared the slide with his thumb. (I suppose that was so no one else could use it?) I didn’t care, I was so glad to be done.

I didn’t see it then, but the time between the clean, empty slide and the smeared one was holy. I was using my skills, staying on task and not giving up. I know that the Lord was looking down on me, smiling and cheering me on. How he loves to see his little ones use their gifts!

The fast-paced, “get it to me now” mentality encouraged me to skip the joy and beauty of the creative process. I got too caught up in the assignment and the end result. I had no patience or appreciation for the stories and lessons that the middle steps want to tell.

If your project is in progress, try to enjoy the process. If you are frustrated, take a step back. Look at all you’ve done to get where you stand today. There is a holiness and beauty in every step you’ve made. It might not seem like anything is coming along very fast or very well, but that’s okay. Your Father thinks you are doing a great job. Your determination and perseverance reflect his own his own Spirit, and the things that you learn along the way will serve you well.

We all want to finish our projects. We want to complete the job or project that has been given to us by God. I agree that the beginning the project is exciting, and reaching the goal is thrilling.

I just don’t think God wants us to miss the journey. There’s beauty in becoming.

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No one gets where they are without help. That’s especially true in each persons faith walk through life. We all accept Christ into our hearts as individuals, we have to make that declaration alone. But keeping that flame alive usually involves the support of community.

Sometimes I think I have a faith that will never be moved. I pass through days and weeks just sailing on the winds of grace. There’s no doubt that life events can draw me closer to the Lord. Birthdays, anniversaries and graduations are all happy celebrations that give me a sense of being blessed. Blessed to be present, blessed to stand in such obvious grace. But inevitably, hard times come.

I’ll have bad days, and it’s hard to bounce back to a close relationship with God. I get so distracted by my emotions and the craziness of the moment that I start to feel disconnected. That’s when God steps in and sends his children to help support and remind me that he is still there. Yes, his grace is enough for me. And sometimes that grace comes in the body of my friends and family members.

In the Old Testament, these chosen ones were anointed with oil:

1 Kings 1:39  Zadok the priest took the horn of oil from the Tent and anointed Solomon. They sounded the trumpet and all the people shouted…

Exodus 30:30  You must also anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them, so that they may be priests in my service.

The Lord chose his leaders to help his people through war, and to support them in faith. Have you ever thought about the chosen ones who were anointed for you? I know from experience that God wants our pain to be eased and our sufferings to be shared. I may not be delivered from my pain, but having someone near to hear and walk with me is God’s love coming to earth.

In the weeks before my mom’s death, there was so much to do. My brother arranged for a hospital bed at home, my sisters and I set up a rotation of care so two of us were with her 24/7. Whenever I hear the the words: “It takes a village” I know exactly what that means.

We all met together every night to say Night Prayer after my mom was asleep. I know that God was there for us in his healing grace. But even more importantly, we were given the gift of each other. We could express our feelings, support each other and just be present. We were anointed for each other.

I try to be aware, and then be very thankful for the people in my life who have been anointed to support me. It’s an incredibly generous, and greatly needed gift from God and from those people. And I know I will be chosen to be God’s grace to someone else someday. I look forward to that.

Because I know we just can’t do it alone. It takes a village.

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My daughter and I spent a beautiful afternoon driving and hiking through Brown County National Forest. We have had a ‘girls weekend’ together in Brown County, Indiana for the last two years, and this forest is always a great part of our day.

We noticed a hiking trail that wound around a lake, and decided to give it a try. I think my daughter is part mountain goat, she had no problems at all. But her elderly mother had to keep her eyes on the ground. I had to look out for the snaking tree roots, uneven ground and the thin wooden stairs we had to climb.

I felt a little sorry for her, having to keep a slower pace. But, if I hadn’t been looking down, I would have missed this little fella.

He was scooting across a wooden bridge…it seems like forest bugs are always in a hurry. Fortunately for me, top speed for a caterpillar is pretty slow, so I waited until he got to the leaf to take a photo. This guy had a full, wooly coat along with an agenda. He had places to go and people to see.

This caterpillar isn’t covering himself with thick wool for a balmy summer day. He knows that cold and snow are on the horizon, so his body is getting its protection ready. Watching this little fur ball, I asked myself, “How ready I am for any challenges that may be ahead?”

While it’s natural to think about getting ready for the future, I decided to think about a more immediate timeline. How ready am I for next Wednesday? Or tomorrow? Or even five minutes from now? Life moves along in inches, minute by minute. Preparing for any future problems is a good thing, but I can’t ignore the rhythm of life in the right here and right now.

Being prepared to notice the beauty of the moment takes a real act of will. Instead of driving around with visions of grocery lists and kids to pick up and deliver, maybe I can prepare myself to look around a little. Notice the changing leaves, the brilliant blue sky, and the squirrels dancing across the lawns and fields.

Instead of racing to the checkout line, I’d see the worried faces and the harried parents. Letting them go in front of me, I could offer a smile.

I know I’ll need a ‘pep talk’. I don’t always automatically go out of my way to really see and hear the beauty around me, or notice the pressing needs of my neighbors. But preparation is the key to any success, and I want to be a ready for what’s ahead.

So thank you my little furry friend. You remind me to be prepared, to have the right frame of mind from the moment I start my day. Not just for the future mega snow storms in my life. Nah. Just being ready for the next five minutes will be a victory.

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Thank you all so much for making a comment on my last post. You never fail to encourage me, and I’m so grateful. I so appreciate your generous gifts of time and joy. Each one of you make this place a wonderful community, and I hope we will always stay connected.

A special thanks those who signed up to get my posts by email, or ‘liked’ my Facebook page. What fun it will be to stay in touch, and I look forward to seeing you on Facebook too. You will never know how much joy there is in seeing a new FB ‘like’ or a new blog follower. (Think two-year-old with a cookie…it’s like that!)

But now to business. To determine the winners of the give-away, I wrote the name of each commenter on a piece of paper and threw it into a box. After mixing well, I drew two papers. They are the winners of the giveaway.

Drum-roll please!!!!!

The winners are:

Jerralea from Jerralea’s Journey

and

Jennifer from the Deliberate mom

Congratulations to you both! Please use the ‘Contact’ tab on the header to email your address to me, and I’ll get the book right out to you.

Have a wonderful weekend!