Please click here to read about the devastation in America and to see how you can help. Dr. Gayla Holley, founder of Moms Against Hunger, is a personal friend of mine who has for years responded to emergencies around the world. I can vouch for the fact that your donations will go to actually HELP! If you are local to me, you may come by the Oasis RMA store and give a donation as well, we will make sure it gets there.
So I went to the doctor today because I wasn’t 100% yet. I had caught a cold last week. I felt better but not great. Then I had a scare where I had chills so bad in the middle of the night that my teeth were chattering and my whole body was tense. Lulu laid her body across me and was licking my face.
That made me scared because they say that dogs and cats know when something serious is going on so I thought okay, if I have some terminal illness I better get to the doctor. So I went in and told him what was up. He was quiet as he checked my ears, my throat and put the stethoscope on to listen to me breathe. Then he sat down and I told him about Lu. He’s a big dog fan too so he smiled and said dogs knew if you were sick.
With a serious look he said, “You’re a big faker.” I said seriously, “You really think I’m faking? I’m not feeling like I’m dying but I don’t feel well.” He said, “No, you’re faking being well.” Turns out I was one sick puppy. Figures. So some antibiotics, some steroids and a couple of inhalers and I’ll back to normal. At least, I am not dying and Lulu the wonder dog is the hero of the story! You go girl!
How often do you put yourself on the back burner? Not just with physical symptoms, but do you really get real about what is going on in your life? Don’t just simply wait until an emergency happens, react when the symptoms are small enough to handle. Take regular assessments of your life. Are you hanging on for dear life, or have you balanced your time equally between priorities and being still? You have got to be your own priority. Stop being a faker pretending everything is fine!
With not an inch of space to walk and the stench of a locker room emanating from the boy’s room, kitchen counters sticky from lemonade making and gently asking for two weeks daily for the sugar spilled on the kitchen table to be picked up before we were visited by ants, I finally flipped out. Granted, the sugar spills were daily in a new location and the sticky countertop was wherever the lemonade had made that day, at 17 you’d think he would pick stuff up right? Wrong!
My 17 year-old said, “You act as if we are doing this TO YOU. We aren’t. We simply don’t think about it. My teacher says you should only do what you are passionate about. Nothing else. I am trying to live that.”
I said, “Yeah well your teacher lies because he can’t say everything he does he is passionate about.”
“Yes he can, he loves teaching!!”
“He may love teaching but does he love getting to work on time, having meetings, meeting deadlines, and all that goes with that? Your dad loves preaching but he hates parts of his job. He does them because they allow him to pursue his passion. With everything you do, there are parts of it that aren’t so great but you do them to get to do what you want.”
“NO! He really doesn’t do anything he doesn’t want to do.”
“Whatever! Do you have groceries in this house?”
“Yes”
“Have you had them here for the last 10 years?”
“Yes”
“Well, I hate grocery shopping so what if I just stop doing that? Since it isn’t my passion?”
The eyes begin to look desperately for the next argument to prove his point.
“You see, you want more responsibility but you aren’t handling what you’ve been given. Until I see that you are taking care of this stuff, I can’t give you more.”
Yes, sometimes we look more like the Roseanne Barr Show than the average family.
There’s a bigger issue here. You see, we’ve created this monster, and it’s not just in our home, it’s in your home as well, and in many other homes. It’s the American spirit that has brought us to this mess. It’s this ideal that I was created to only do what I want to do and we should all live out our lives happy and entitled. Dishes should magically clean themselves and beds should come with a remote control that pull the sheets up. Work should be an afterthought or for the idiots who haven’t figured out what they were created to do.
And just to be clear here, I am not asking for perfection. I’m fine with closing the door to the kids rooms, but when the smell starts creeping down the stairs or when the dirty stinky shirt is on the kid who needs a ride in my car, it’s then that I have an issue.
There are things we do, not because we want to, but because we are part of a community and that requires the good of the whole, not the one. We need to get back to center and it starts in our home first.
Most weeks, two or three come in. For the most part, they’re filled out by women. Primarily they’re checked single with children. I’m talking about benevolence forms. These are forms asking the church for assistance.
We have a team of volunteers that works to get these forms processed. I’m not involved with the process itself, but I see how carefully the team works to choose who qualifies for assistance.
Society tells us that men are unnecessary. We can do this parenting thing alone. We don’t need a man. They’re a nice accessory. After all, they only want one thing right? They cheat, they lie, they don’t work hard enough. Yet, could it be that our expectations are so low when choosing whom to father our children, that we choose a man who is ill equipped? That choice leaves us vulnerable. We can blame the down economy but single women with children have always ranked highest amongst those living below the poverty level.
I read these forms with great sadness. Generally speaking the average seems to be three children, two fathers, never married, no one pays child support, and she has never worked or barely worked because someone had to take care of those babies. There is a hardness and a sadness about her story and when I see her, she’s lost the sparkle in her eye. Yet, society tells her she can do it all by herself.
Could it be that God designed sex within the context of marriage to alleviate this pain? Could it be that in his infinite wisdom and compassion he was looking to save us and our children from this struggle, this life of poverty?
It seems judgmental, even to my own eyes, when I read what I have written here today, and yet, life takes some planning. We, as the church, help with what we can, in terms of goods and services, but it’s a band-aid on a more critical wound. We all make mistakes and we all have to live out those consequences. How do we educate the next generation that just because he says, I love you in the backseat of his mom’s car, doesn’t mean that it’s the right time to awaken love? How do we change the lie, and it is a lie, that life will go on as planned? How do we change the story? Even among my Christian friends, they say sex before marriage is unreasonable and unattainable. A nice thought in theory, but not practical in life. We all stand in freakish awe when someone publicly declares that they are going to wait until they get married to have sex. Surely there is something wrong with them, because we are too smart to fall for a lie.
Women suffer, children suffer even more so, yet we plow forward thinking this time it will be different for her. It’s a lie. There is an enemy of your soul who desires to destroy your dream. There is a Dream Giver who is calling you to take more care. Who will you believe and what has to change within you? Within us?
In God’s economy timing is everything. A day is like 1000 years, a 1000 years like a day. We live submitted to a God who lives outside of time. He’s never early, never late but simply on time, every time.
However we slice it up though, this isn’t the mode of operation for Americans. We want it fast and we want it now. Patience is a virtue, is a saying we’ve heard, but it’s a virtue no one neither wants nor practices.
So it is not surprising when we don’t have the patience while we are waiting for our babies to be born. The nine months it takes to incubate a baby in a mother’s womb is just too long. We speed the process up to meet our own needs. Doctors are inducing labor to make the date agree with the whim of the parents. Whatever happened to the baby who comes when it comes? 10 days early? Fine, we used to say. 10 days late? Okay, we’ll deal with it. Not anymore. We want things the way we want them.
I read an article about elective induction that said that we elect to induce due to busy schedules or convenience. Wow! If you think you are busy during your pregnancy just wait for the next 18 years. If it’s a convenience issue for some, life is about to get really, really tough and ugly.
I understand a medical induction when the baby or the mother are at risk. Of course we must allow for things that go astray. Thank God that there is medicine that takes care of this and that advancement in medicine has come so far that babies have a chance to survive. I believe we wait on God as long as mom and baby are fine. I believe he has a clearer picture on why he chose the date of birth. Maybe he knows something we don’t.
I just wonder what will happen to this up and coming generation that was rushed through their life due to a busy schedule or inconvenience? Lord, let us slow down just a bit and enjoy the miracle of giving birth in the timing the child was created for. I know those last weeks are long and uncomfortable. I remember the feeling of not being able to lie down, or sit up, walk or bend down to do laundry. I will tell you that through that the whole process of inconvenience it has brought me some really beautiful kids and that I enjoyed raising them. It is such a gift. There are times it will seem endless. Have patience! It will all pay off in the end.
What were you worried about last month on the 24th of August? What were you worried about last year on the 24th of September?
If you’re like me, you were worried about something, you always are, but for the life of you, you can’t remember what it was.
Romans 8:28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Somehow it all works out. Just as God said it would.
So relax! That insurmountable thing that is weighing on your mind today will soon be replaced by the next big mountain. One thing is for sure and that is that there is something new worry coming on the horizon because there always is. What is not for sure is how you will handle it. Will you trust God with the faith it takes to work it out, or will you allow it to consume your days?
In the end it will work out. Maybe it will not work out as you envisioned an outcome, but an outcome nevertheless is on its way!
Time management is a great skill to have. Notice I said it’s a skill. A person who cannot self manage themselves limits their leadership ability. People who are consistently late are saying loud and clear that they have poor planning skills. Psychology tells us that people who are consistently late are rebellious and care little about other’s time. They want to inform you that they don’t care about what the expectation is. In their own fantasy of life, they are the king or queen of the universe and you are the servant who will wait to be honored by their presence. Naturally, this is very strong language to be used so usually they deny it, but that realization will only do one of two things: reinforce the boorish behavior or modify it. It is simply a way for the person who is late to show people disrespect without having the confrontation of words. Leaving you waiting is of no concern to them. Actions speak louder than words so the message is perfectly clear.
If you have someone in your life who is chronically late, reassess your friendship. You are not valued by that person and they are not honoring you or holding you in any sort of regard. If you have a person who is chronically late in your workplace, they are quite simply stealing from the company. Time is important, too important to waste on those who think nothing of you.
If you are chronically late, quit making excuses. Everyone’s time is important. Yours is no more so than the people you keep waiting on you.
Running occasionally late happens. Running chronically late there simply is no excuse for.
Luke 5:16 As often as possible Jesus withdrew to out-of-the-way places for prayer.
While listening to the radio the other day on my drive to work, a runner was describing his ability to run 30 miles a day without hitting the wall. Hitting the wall is a term runners use to describe what happens when they are running and suddenly they feel extreme fatigue and loss of energy.
He went on to describe that endurance runners, those who run long distances even cross country, know that slow and steady are the keys to avoiding hitting the wall. He said there was a formula to endurance and that was to run and recover, run and recover, run and recover.
I began to think of ministry and how often we run but don’t recover and we end up hitting the wall. Jesus seemed to understand that the demands on his life required him to run and recover often. Over and over again in Scripture, Jesus heals, meets needs, preaches, teaches and then goes off to recover. Sometimes he takes his disciples with him. Other times he goes off alone but always he is running and recovering and endurance doesn’t seem to be a problem.
How often do you get away to pray alone? Do you make time and have a place in your life where the cell phone and the demands of daily life get left behind and the only thing that goes with you is a desire to pray and hear from God? Are you like some who are hitting the wall and wondering why you aren’t fulfilled in your calling and why you can’t seem to push beyond a certain place in your ministry?
Sometimes the most urgent thing you can do is rest. ~ Anonymous
If there is anything I have learned this year it’s to run and recover without regret. I used to feel lazy if I took a day off to sleep and rest. No longer is that a thought in my head. I use to feel bad if someone knocked on my front door on my day off and I didn’t want to answer. Not anymore. You see, I understand that if I am going to run this race to the finish, then endurance is key and recovery is necessary. It’s not an option. We must learn to be strategic. We must learn to not bow to every urgent need but instead focus and not lose sight nor neglect the important things in life.
1 Corinthians 9:24 Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. 25 Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever. 26 Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air. 27 No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.
Pastor Susan 