Sandcastles

I am currently in three different studies and have been completely amazed at how for four weeks in a row these totally unrelated studies (except that they are Christian based) have had almost EXACTLY the same thing to say to me.  Two Sundays in a row, I had to show the person in the pew next to me the note I had written just a few hours earlier.  The note was almost word for word what the pastor had just said!

Now there could be all sorts of arguments of why this is happening. One is that it's what I'm wanting to hear. I KNOW this isn't true because I am being filleted open and left like a pile of goo on the floor.  Definitely NOT what I want to hear. I prefer to believe it is God operating in my life.  This last week a note that I had taken in my "Sunday morning conversations" and was repeated at my church service has given me an image of what God is doing in my life at the moment.

The note: Repentance only occurs when we change our direction.  Turning to face God and move in his direction. Recognize God's voice and realize when you're not going in his direction.  Like the small child who is wondering around and his daddy calls his name. The child may not hear his name right away before turning and running to Him.

The image: Picture a little girl playing in the sandbox at the park.  Her daddy sits on a nearby park bench.  She is busily working on her task at hand.  She is building a sandcastle. In her mind, she is going to build the most beautiful castle, with turrets and a moat. But it's a sandbox, the sand keeps drying out and crumbling. She takes her little bucket, runs to the water fountain to get a trickle of water. Then runs back to the sandbox.  Back and forth she goes.  Then she concentrates on the task again, building, building.  Every once in a while she looks up to see her daddy sitting on the bench, smiling at her.  "He must be pleased with me", she thinks. She gets back to work. She hears her daddy say her name.  She looks up. He speaks but she can't hear him so she assumes that he is speaking praise at her busy work. He motions for her to come to him to hear what he said. She doesn't have time,  she's busy. Argh a turret crumbled, dry sand again. She runs, runs, and runs; to the fountain, to the sandbox, to the fountain, to the sandbox.  Daddy says something, he must be encouraging her to run faster. Getting back to work, so close, just a couple of more rooms, then the moat... She hears her daddy say her name.  Looking up she sees him walking to her. NO! I'm not done yet! As he gets to her and holds out his hand he says, "Take my hand, let's go to the beach where the sand is better for building sandcastles and I will help you build it.  The sandbox is too little for me to build in." She reaches up and takes her daddy's hand as they head to the beach.

I'm skipping along, holding my daddy's hand, heading to the beach!
I'm living on the eighth day, right now!

A Mother’s Worry

As I mentioned in a couple of posts my 16 year old, Jacob has been having cardiac tests. Their concern was that he had hypertrophic cardiomyopathy or HCM. This is a congenital condition of an extra thick heart muscle. The most common symptom of this undiagnosed condition is SCD or Sudden Cardiac Death! Great! Just what a mother wants to hear. The cardiologist helped some, he seemed to think that Jacob was just EXTRA healthy. Did I mention that he is a nationally competitive speed skater? He trains very extensively. That’s actually how we got him checked; his coach noticed that he got light headed frequently.

The cardiologist was pretty sure that he just had a super healthy heart and a strong vagal nerve. The vagal nerve is what controls our heart rate. We can learn to stimulate our vagal nerve through bio-feedback and breathing exercises. This would actually explain a lot. Through Jacob’s training we have had a hard time getting him to maintain a high heart rate. It seems as soon as he stops he heart rate returns to normal very quickly. He has actually had coaches not believe that he had skated his hardest when he could talk calmly within 1 minute.

Still the cardiologist wanted to do a stress test and an echocardiogram, just to check. The stress test seemed to show that he was good. They managed to increase his heart rate normally. Everything looked good. The echo would just confirm that everything was ok. Then we didn’t hear for almost two weeks!!!

Finally the call came, “we need to schedule an appointment to discuss abnormalities in his echo”. What? Jacob was leaving in two days to train for Indoor Nationals; he would be back for the Fourth of July, then gone again for more training and Outdoor Nationals until August. What “abnormalities”? Does this affect his training? His life? They had no answers and left a message for the doctor. He didn’t call back until the next day. THAT was a stressful 24 hours! Jacob has two congenital heart defects, a bicuspid aortic artery and a mitral valve prolapsed. Basically, one valve has only two flaps, when there should be three and the other valve has a floppy flap. The only time that these can be dangerous is in an un-healthy person. He may be more likely to have heart disease later in life if he doesn’t practice a healthy heart lifestyle.

All of the sudden God’s blessings became clear. Because he is an athlete we were able to discover this now AND he already lives that healthy lifestyle. He will probably always have a cardiologist to check on him on a regular basis. He may or may not need heart surgery as an old man but that is many, MANY years from now. So he is cleared for training as hard as he wants or I should say as hard as his coaches want and we will meet with the cardiologist in August to find out more details but for now, a mother’s worry is calmed!

I'm living on the eighth day, right now!

More Thoughts on Life

We have been having beautiful weather here in Phoenix. May was gorgeous and it stayed beautiful for the first half of June. I had a wonderful birthday day. My husband, Jeff, was home for the weekend and stayed over for my actual birthday (on a Monday). My whole family was here, which is rare, usually my boys are going in four different directions. My daddy called to wish me a happy birthday. It’s a long story but I haven’t spoken to my parents for many years so it was a HUGE present to get to talk to him. We talked for an hour and what a joy to hear that they are doing well. My parents are in their mid 80s so it has been a constant concern of mine. Then I received over 60 birthday wishes on facebook. What another joy! Finally, we went out to dinner at “The Melting Pot” which is a fondue restaurant. It is almost dinner AND entertainment. Three hours of talking, dipping, cooking, laughing, it was sooo much fun!


Because of the weather I have been hiking a lot for my exercise. Sunday, June 13th, I was hiking with my prayer partner. It was beautiful blue sky, a lovely breeze and we were able to pray together and praise God on the top of a mountain. On the way home, my cousin, Kay, called me. My Uncle’s wife Donna had passed away. What? I couldn’t have heard her right. Donna was this energetic, active, healthy lady. When we stayed with them last summer she hiked my tail off. How? As I broke the news to the rest of my family, each replied with, “What?” It was mind boggling. I went a little numb. All the joy and hope I had been feeling just sort of drained from me. My poor uncle, to have found love again after my aunt passed, then for her to be so suddenly taken from him. Thank God for our faith. Donna was a Godly woman so we know that she and Jesus are rejoicing at her homecoming. All I could think of was the line in a song, “… life is precious, life is sweet…” The joy I was feeling that week was replaced with melancholy. Life goes by like a blink of an eye. Lord, help me to make the most of every single moment!!!

I'm living on the eighth day, right now!

Labels

I've been giving labels a lot of thought lately and I think it comes down to being judgemental.  How do we determine what "label" a person is?  Is it because that is what they call themselves?  I don't think that people will claim all the labels they are given.  I think that it is others being judgemental and labeling them.

Immigrant
Illegal
Conservative
Liberal
Righteous
Sinner
Forgiven

So what is your label? What label do you put on people? Aren't we all just children of God, sinners saved by grace? But you say some aren't saved, they're still running around sinning, those are the ones that we need to write laws against and protect our children from. First, just because your saved doesn't mean you stop sinning. Second, isn't that being judgemental?

Here are the labels I'll claim: conservative, liberal, sinner and forgiven.  My ancestors were immigrants and long before there was a legal or illegal status.  I know that some came over during the Irish potato famine so IF there had been an illegal status I believe that wouldn't have stopped them.  They were starving and were getting to America no matter the cost, legal or otherwise.   And I KNOW I can never claim to be righteous, I don't believe any human can!  Only God can use that label.

Yes, I consider myself both conservative and liberal.  I am personally conservative and publicly liberal.  That just made it clear as mud for you, didn't it?  I'll explain, I personally live my life by conservative principles.  I try to live by the "Big 10", meaning commandments.  I KNOW, however, that I fail on a daily basis.  This is where I'm publicly liberal, how I treat others.  Expecting others to live by my principles is just being judgemental.  How can I put my standards and principles on others when I can't even live up to them?  I am constantly reminded of Col 3:13, "... Forgive as the Lord forgave you."  Matt 6:14 even says that if you do not forgive you will not be forgiven (paraphrased). 

I am a sinner saved by grace. Because I am human, it's my nature to sin.  But also, as humans we tend to put measurements (judgements) on sin.  "Well, I'm not as bad as THAT guy!"  Sin is sin, whether you tell little fibs (not a very big one) or are a serial killer (big one).  It's the same to God.  That's where most people short circuit, they can't comprehend how that is the same.  His ways are not our ways.  Here's how I heard it explained once: Suppose God has all of the money in the world (a little more than Bill Gates or the Queen).  A little white lie is like stealing a dollar, serial murder is stealing a thousand dollars.  Both are stealing. 

I also think that God works on each of our sins individually.  For example, a few years ago, God convicted me that soap operas were my way of still gossiping.  They were just fictitious characters so it was "OK".  The sin of gossip was in my heart and God convicted me of that, so I haven't watched soaps since.  Now do I think that everyone who watches soap operas is sinning? NO of course not!  For that person soaps may merely be the entertainment they were intended to be.

When I see "THAT guy", I think, there but the grace of God go I.  I don't think there is enough time in my life or enough wrong could ever be done to me that I could possibly have as much to forgive as I've been forgiven.

So what is your label?  How about judgemental?  Ok, I'll claim that one too... but I'm working on it!

I'm living on the eighth day, right now!

Faults

Something else Ryder said last night has gotten me thinking all day. Actually, doesn't have much to do with business. My mind kinda went off on a tangent (ADHD rears its ugly head) so try to follow my mental bunny trail.

Ryder said that we need to, "not be afraid to fail". I thought at the time, "Ya, that's true, we always learn more from our failures than our successes." Then I went on...

Today it was rattling around in my head, "Why are we afraid of failure?", "What is it that scares us?" Then I realized failure points out our faults and no one likes to think about their faults. We like to think about ourselves as perfect, we're ashamed of our faults and don't want them to be "publicly" exposed. As my thoughts trailed on, I realized that this is another area where God's economy is opposite from the world's. God created us with all of our faults, just special for His purpose. I think He is actually like a proud Papa when it comes to our faults. I imagined this conversation with God, "Look, look at this one!" as He claps His hands joyfully and points to one of man, "See? Look at his fault AND he's a really good man, with My help he's going to become a spiritual leader. He will be a great man, remembered by generations to come! I'm gonna use that particular fault of his to reach his wife! She's is LOADED with faults! Look, look at her!! What a triumphant creation of faults! She's a procrastinator, painfully shy, strong-willed, hot-tempered, disorganized, and almost agnostic (well not against Me but the world's church). I'm going to put her in a business that requires people skills, self-motivation, personal growth, and organization skills. She will be required to go out and meet strangers and THEN get on a stage and talk about it! When people see her story they will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was ME who triumphed because I created her with no skills of her own and a ton of faults to overcome. Whew! What a work she is! She is SO extra special to Me because I had to work extra to make one with so many faults in one package."

We are such a work of art but not by the world's standard. To God, we're more like opals than diamonds. It's our faults that make us beautiful and colorful to Him.

I'm living on the eighth day, right now!

Heart
check 30 Minute Exercise
check ate fruits or veggies
check followed payoff plan
Soul
check Prayed with prayer partner
check Talked to Jeff
check Reached out to one more
Mind
check listened to audio
check read 10 pages
check blog checklist