I’m back to the gym now that the weather is cranky and cold. I started a few months ago, not because I wanted to (because I didn’t!), but because it’s just too cold to exercise outside.

One freezing morning, I grabbed my water bottle and headed out. After locking up my coat and keys, I went straight to the gym area. It’s about the size of a swimming pool; wooden floor, two walls with windows, two with mirrors. I joined four other people, already intent on their routines, music pumping through ear buds to keep them energized.

I grabbed the equipment I needed and got started. My first exercise required a stability ball, which is an outsized inflatable rubber sphere. Some people use them as chairs at their work desks. Because you’re sitting on a chair that can roll away, you’re forced to tighten your abdominal muscles to avoid falling. Perching on the ball, I grabbed a 2.5-pound weight in each hand. Lifting up one leg, so I’m balancing on one leg and the ball, I’m supposed to start pumping the weights over my head.

Well, I haven’t done this exercise for about six months; so apparently over the summer I acquired abs of oatmeal. As soon as I lift my leg, it looks like I’m doing a new dance. My body is shimmying all over that ball. Best of all? I get to watch myself flailing, like a giant inflatable tube-man, in the mirror in front of me.

You’d think that I would have the decency to be embarrassed. I’m easily the oldest person in the room. The others are planking and grunting and jumping up on platforms eight layers high. My challenge? To stay put on an overgrown balloon without falling. (Hands over eyes.)…

But instead of being mortified, I think it’s funny, so I started giggling. Not surprisingly, that doesn’t help.

Finally giving up, I put the weights down. Concentrate Ceil. What did that trainer tell me when this happened before? Oh right! If I concentrate on one spot, straight ahead of me, constant and immoveable, I’ll be able to maintain my balance. You know what? He was right.

Having a focal point really works. And not only in gym routines, but in my spiritual life too. Every day I meet challenges that make me a bit wobbly. Oh, I have good intentions. I just lose focus. So I wondered. What are some of my spiritual focal points? What do I concentrate on to keep me balanced?

This is what I came up with:

• I cherish my family and the people God has given me in friendship. That love moves me to offer myself in acts of kindness, with a ready ear to hear and a heart ready to forgive.
• God created me to make a difference. That belief challenges me to see the needs of the world, and to do something positive to address them.
• Daily prayer reminds me that I am a sacred, beloved child of the Father. It also convinces me that everyone I meet today is too.

God wants his followers to have a strong spiritual core to keep them upright when hard times come. We all have our own sacred guiding principles, our own ‘North Stars’. Remembering and acting on our guiding lights ensures that we will be stronger and more effective images of Christ in our world.

How about you? What core values guide your life? I’d love to hear about your focal points are in the comment section.

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When my Dad had shoulder surgery two years ago, I moved in with him. He couldn’t get dressed by himself, or cook, or drive to his physical therapy sessions.

He was concerned about his lack of independence, and ‘being a burden’. But I never felt like it was a hardship. It was my joy to help him. I supported his feelings, but I made sure he knew that it was a temporary situation. He’d be back to normal soon.

I think about that these days, as I’m recuperating from surgery for my broken leg. I’m the most boring person on earth. Day after day, my activity level is mostly sitting. The only thing that changes is my chair. Still not allowed to put any weight on my right leg, I can’t do much.

Okay. I’ll let you in on a little secret: Sometimes it gets me down. I don’t like losing my independence, and ‘being a burden’ on my husband.

You should see my kitchen floor. (Or not.) I look around and see what I should be doing-or could be doing-if I was back to normal. Dutifully repeating my exercises three times a day, I wonder if they’re making any difference. Sometimes I look at my leg and think “Why in the world did I have this accident? How could I be so stupid?”

Sadly, this kind of stinkin’ thinkin’ is very common. We are all our own worst critics, and have very little tolerance for our shortcomings and limitations. It was easy to be compassionate with my Dad. Second nature to support a friend’s emotions and physical needs.

But it’s so hard to do that for ourselves.

I think it’s because most of us use self-criticism to motivate. If I’m tired, I’ll start blaming myself for a poor diet, or inadequate sleep. Hopefully, that will help me make better choices. Sometimes that works. But sometimes, like now, it only acts to discourage me. I end up feeling like a boring burden.

The time I spent with my Dad reminds me that these feelings aren’t anything new. Of course I don’t like constraints. No one does. But instead of letting that get me down, I should treat myself like I treated my Dad. With kindness, patience and joy. Feeling tired? Take a nap. (It refreshes and makes me much calmer.) Can’t move around? Find a good book. (Amazon is making a bundle off me these days.) Feeling sorry for myself? Call a friend and complain. (She can take it, and will speak words of humor and support.)

There are hard moments in all of our lives. You might not be recovering from surgery, but I know you have challenges. Let’s remember that our hardships are as sacred as our victories. We can make them holy by practicing tenderness toward ourselves. Why save our compassion for everyone else?

Until I fully recover, I deserve soothing, massaging, warm words, and acts of comfort. And I know just who to tap to get them.

Me.

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Linking today with: Kelly at Ra-Ra Linkup

Thank you all so much for your fun comments on the Bon Appe-Tempt post. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who messes up in the kitchen! I think it’s so fun to share in our blogging community, and you didn’t hold back.

I read about cakes that didn’t cook, flour-less cakes (that should have had flour), volcano chicken, chicken casserole explosions (maybe I should stay away from chicken?), oven fires, tuna fail, exploding eggs and much more. If you have a little time, I recommend reading a few of the cooking adventures in the comment section of that post.

I would like to announce the winner of the Give Away. I numbered each comment, and then had my husband choose a number between one and thirty-five.

Congratulations to: Jeanette Levellie !

Her story was about making cookies “with a bonus” for her Uncle Dwayne.

Jeanette, please email me with your snail mail information, and I’ll get that Starbucks card right out to you!

Again, thanks to all who were brave enough to share their kitchen capers, fails and embarrassing mistakes. If you can’t share with your friends, who can you share with?

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My first Thanksgiving away from home was a mixed bag of emotions. I missed being home, gathering with my big Irish family, but on the other hand…it would be fun to help make a meal for my boyfriend and another couple.

I had never cooked a turkey in my life, so I was nervous. I wasn’t even sure which end of the turkey was ‘up’ in the pan. Fortunately my boyfriend had a lot of experience. He helped me pick out the bird, and he made the stuffing too. All I’d have to do was stuff the turkey on Thursday morning, and roast it. Forever. (Good thing I had a meat thermometer, or that meat would still be crisping up in my small oven in Tucson, Arizona.)

The day arrived. All my guests had to work, so it was just me and the turkey. Confident on the positioning of the carcass (it was placed in the pan for me!), I rinsed the bird one more time, and started stuffing it like a pro. I may have even spoken a little French. I felt like a gourmet chef.

Wonderful smells filled the air of my apartment. I checked and basted every hour. I was so proud of myself, I was near tears. As the guests came in with their side dishes, the smiles and sighs were all the reward I needed. I was the Thanksgiving day mom, and the turkey was my prized child.

After all were seated, the turkey masterpiece was carried to the table, browned to perfection. After grace, my BF began spooning stuffing out of the turkey into a waiting bowl, while describing the spices and seasoned bread cubes he had used.

“What the…?”

The stuffing was coming out in globs now, with clear strings attached like spider webs. The stringy mess stretched without breaking from carcass to bowl. And it stunk. He was devastated. His delicious, home-cooked recipe somehow morphed into an epic fail.

Then came that fateful question: “Did you take the packet of giblets out of the cavity before you stuffed it?”

The what? I didn’t know there were giblets, much less where the evil turkey processors hid them. The clear strings? They were melted plastic from the giblet bag. Um…”Ooops?”

====

A few weeks ago, I wrote a blog post about the lesson I learned from a kitchen failure. You can read it here .

Many commenters related to the theme of messing up a recipe, and some shared their own stories of kitchen disasters. So I thought, why not have a little fun with it, and offer a give-away based on our stories? As you just read, I started us off with my turkey story.

I invite you to share your own natural disasters in the kitchen or on the grill. Let’s have a giggle or two! All comments will earn a chance to win a $10 Starbucks gift card. I’ll leave this post up all week, and announce the winner on Sunday. The winner can soothe those feelings of failure in a specialty coffee, tea, or unburned bakery product!

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When I was growing up, Valentine’s Day was a big deal. My seven siblings and I would present Valentine cards to each member of the family. Some of them were made in Art Class at school, some bought in bunches at the store. Remember the little heart-shaped suckers we’d thread through the cards?

My Dad would always give his four girls a red carnation and a Whitman’s Sampler. They waited patiently for us, carefully placed at our seats at the dinner table. My Mom was all about the holiday too. We’d all get a box of those molar-cracking Conversation Hearts and candy necklaces. Eight kids with sugar-highs and chalky necks. It was so fun.

When I dated my husband, he was a broke college student on the GI bill. Valentine’s Day was a simple meal at my apartment, molar-cracking Conversation hearts included. He’d buy me a card and a small bunch of flowers from the grocery store. To me, they were as precious as golden coins.

So imagine my surprise when my dear husband of twenty-five years decided that Valentine’s Day was no more than a ‘Hallmark Holiday’. I would look at him every year and wonder where people have ideas like that. I mean, I get that you didn’t have big celebrations when you were a child. But since meeting me, and celebrating yearly with our two children, your Valentine Days were full of pink cupcakes, cards, homemade placemats, hearts on the front door, laughter and love and sugar-highs. Oh. And molar-cracking Conversation Hearts.

‘Hallmark Holiday’? Really? Thank goodness the kids were grown and gone.

Oh, I’d get flowers and a card. He’d look at the floor when I thanked him. He was doing a really nice thing for me, but it was given as an obligation. The whole ceremony was so backward and awkward.

Why was it so tough to show me a little joy and love on this one special day?

Well, this year, you can call me a Valentine’s Day Convert. You won’t hear a peep out of me. You see, I celebrated New Years Day this year by falling down some stairs and breaking my right leg. I had surgery on January 7th to stabilize the fracture with a plate and eleven screws. I haven’t been able to bear weight on that leg this year. I am a one-legged, hopping, unbalanced, cast-and-then-boot laden lady. Talk about backward and awkward.

Ever since January first, my husband has:

• Made every meal (except for maybe five donated dinners).
• Made a Starbucks run at least once a week for me, even though he doesn’t drink coffee, and thinks the prices are a “gigantic rip-off”.
• Done all the grocery shopping and the laundry.
• Helped me get dressed for the day, and for sleep.
• Got me off the floor where I fell at 4 a.m., coming out of the bathroom. I hopped over to my scooter and somehow missed it, falling flat on my back like a marooned turtle.
• Slept next to me on a blowup mattress, me on the recliner after I almost passed out.
• Hauled me up the last stair to the second floor, as I jump to my walker, so I can take a shower.
• Served tea for me and my friend so we could have a ‘tea party’.
• Asked me what he can do for me “to make it easier” every day. Every. Day.

I wonder, does a broken leg fix eyes too?

You know what honey? You can skip the flowers and card this weekend. I realize now that I have been getting a love gift from you every single day of this year. Each day is a doggone Hallmark Holiday around here, and I’m just sorry I never saw it before now.

Thank you for loving me so much and so well all these years. This weekend, how about we celebrate with a Starbucks. Or not. It won’t matter, because you celebrate me every day. I only hope I do the same for you.

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Recently, I’ve noticed that some blog friends have read a post here, and then recognized the same things happening in their lives.

I’ve noticed that while visiting other blogs I can connect strongly to the theme there too. I catch myself  nodding and whispering “Yes!” as I read the words that reflect my own heart and experience.

Those are reasons to celebrate.

God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow (Hebrews 13:8). His inspirations to all of us carry the Spirit of unity and harmony. I don’t always recognize it. But then there are those wonderful moments of connection when I read your words, and experience that oneness of the Spirit.

When God speaks, he breathes his being over our souls and reawakens in us his presence and plan. I think that’s what happens when I read a blog post, see an inspirational movie, read a spiritual book or have a conversation with a faithful friend. Our Father moves through the words and stories stirring me to look up. To loosen my tight grasp on the human world, and allow my soul to sing. When I forget myself and my own narrow view, I am invited into his joy in every person and event I am privileged to experience.

I remember the first Christmas I spent away from home. I was a 23 year old nurse who was the ‘last hired’ so I rarely got holidays off. I knew I’d be working that Christmas. Everyone wants that day off, and I had no seniority.

I thought I’d be fine. But I had no idea how hard it would be. I was 1727.8 miles from family  (but who’s counting?), working at Tucson Medical Center.

Trying not to pass along my somber mood, I started my evening shift with a fragile peace in my heart. Entering one of the rooms, I saw a lone figure in bed. He was dozing in front of a muted television screen. As we talked, he told me that his family had been in to visit that morning. Now he was as lonely and alone as I was.

That’s when I felt God’s breath. Out of nowhere I asked, “Do you play poker?”

In between caring for my other patients, I’d duck in and play a few hands. We didn’t have poker chips, but paper clips worked just fine. I don’t remember who won, just that we had a great time. In that hospital room on a Christmas night, two hearts were healed. Instead of sinking deeply into sorrow, joy filled the empty places of our souls. There is so much power in these simple moments. But that’s the promise we have from Our Father who gently nudges us to look beyond ourselves.

My word for 2015 is ‘joy’. I hope to find the joy of God’s life and inspiration in the everyday moments of my life. Allow me to thank you in advance for the joy I will find in your writing, your Facebook friendship, your comments, and your presence here.

May we always inspire each other. Because that’s something to celebrate.

Linking Today With: #RaRa Linkup

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Then he brought me back to the entrance of the temple, and there! I saw water flowing out from the threshold of the temple toward the east.     Ezekiel 47

The healing, cleansing, life-giving water is flowing out of the temple. It can’t be contained, because really, who can contain God? We live and move and have our being in him, all of us. All 7.125 billion of us. Who can even fathom that image.

Have you heard that you are God’s temple? That your body is a sacred and holy place that holds the essence of God in his Spirit? Before we were born, our lives were planned and celebrated until we finally splashed into existence at just the right time, in just the right place. Another baby born, another life takes it’s first breath. A new temple comes to live on earth.

In Ezekiel’s dream, the temple didn’t just drip water, like a pinhole leak from a basement pipe. This is moving, life-giving water in abundance.

We are all living in that flow that roils and sloshes inside us. Hidden in our souls, we don’t see it, but we feel it’s presence. As we grow and mature, we learn more about this place, this holiness. The warm waters move and replenish in us through God’s great gift of grace. The Spirit remains when we love as he loves. But being filled is not the same as being the rushing, spreading water that spills out the doors.

I want to be a temple that overflows with the waters of God. Without even being aware of it, I want to cover the life around me with his presence. I believe that kind of abundance will come the same way it happens in nature. In a storm.

Sorrow. Trial. Burden. When they come; job loss, fractured friendships or illness, it causes deep soul-chasms to form. Huge gaps yawn in the landscape of my soul. It hurts….I don’t want it. But if I hide from the hurt, or give up, my temple remains a pitted moonscape. The grace I had begins to dry up as I turn away from the One who gave it.

But. If I turn towards him…

Our Father will respond by opening his precious flood of grace, filling the deep crevasses and gorges in my dry soul. He won’t stop at just filling them. Oh no. The Lord who changed huge stone jars of water into wine will pour a “good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over…” (Luke 6:38)

Those who choose to journey with the Lord through sorrow, pain and challenge absolutely overflow with grace. God’s light and life spill out through their speech, action and even their gaze. They have followed Jesus, carrying their own cross as he carried his.

Yes, we will break. But the Lord hears the cry of the poor. He will fill us to overflowing, turning our scarred landscape into a living, rushing source of life. Then, our very presence will shout the name of God.

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I woke to sharp pain in my right leg. The dark hospital room was silent, except for the hushed tick of the second hand on the wall clock. It was three a.m.

I had surgery to correct my broken right leg just nine hours ago. The pain from the six inch plate and eleven screws in my fibula was making it impossible to get back to sleep. I searched my bed for the push-button gizmo that would send pain medication through my IV. As I had many times that night, I pressed the button. After a few minutes, I drifted off to sleep again…

Morning came, and I was scheduled to go home around dinner time. My IV was removed, and I was given pills for the pain. I was actually happy about that. Although very effective, the IV narcotic made me really nauseated. My breakfast consisted of raspberry sherbet, scrambled eggs and ice chips. Sounds like a pretty gross combo, but it was staying down.

Late morning, the physical therapist came by to teach me how to use a knee scooter to get around. It’s basically a knee platform with handlebars and four wheels. We worked out how to transfer out of the bed on one leg, and place my knee on the platform. Then it was time to cruise the hallways of the ward.

I was doing well, but I couldn’t go far. I felt so light-headed! The physical therapist frowned a little and we headed back to my room.

“I was going to teach you how to get up the stairs of your house with crutches next. But let’s wait until you’ve had some lunch. You’ll feel stronger then.”

So again, I chomped ice, ate eggs and sherbet. Okay. Ready to go again.

But the same thing happened. I was not feeling very confident about trying crutches, but I needed to get into my house when I got home. I was able to climb the stairs in the PT room, but it took everything I had. That cast felt like it weighed a hundred pounds.

No one felt very confident, especially me. I ended up spending another night in the hospital. It was so disappointing. Why was I so weak? I texted my brother-the-doctor and told him what was going on. He immediately responded, “Are you eating and drinking enough?”

Uh….no.

How simple. Of course I should have tried to eat more and get my strength up, but I didn’t because I had been so nauseated. I’m a nurse for Pete’s sake, why didn’t I think of that? I started working hard on eating and drinking, and went home the next day.

The remedy was obvious to my brother, but not to me. Stress sure can make even simple problems impossible to solve.

Being pressed and stressed is human, but we don’t have to face it alone. Maybe the solution is simple. But under stress, and without support, we’ll never see it. What a blessing that God gives us friends and family to guide us in our need.

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