Some Big Changes

Hey everyone.

I want to share with you about the big changes I'm making to my blog.

For a while now it's bothered me to have the ability to teach and minister, the means to do so, but not the courage to do it in a public forum. I'm convinced that there are folks who don't need major counseling; just a nudge here or there will do.

Or those who DO need counseling but can't afford it. Or are intimidated like I was when I first began my own therapy. Or just people who don't know who they can trust to give them the help they need.

So...

I'm going to begin sharing the same info I use when I counsel. It's all rough right now since I haven't done this before.

But the knowledge I have gained over counseling for 11 years, writing a decent (if I have to say so myself) book on anger management, and just going through my own life experiences should certainly make me credible as a teacher.

While I figure this out I'm sure I'm going to make mistakes. Feel free to straighten me out in posting comments. I'd rather face criticism and sharpen my skills than hear nothing.

In the meantime, please tell others about this blog. Read my book. Get your friends and family to read it. Really, it's pretty useful. Just go to Amazon.com, type in my last name and it will pop up. That's my daughter and son-in-law on the cover, FYI.

Let's make our time reading and writing blogs mean something. In the meantime, pray that I'll have information that may speak to your heart. If there's a topic or issue you want me to address (counseling, parenting, marriage, life...NOT politics!) write in and let me know.

Thanks! And let's GOOOOOOO!

Wedding Blessings

Hey everyone!

I wanted to share really quick how God worked His stuff in the planning of Kari's wedding.

There are a few things I do well; I can create and I can execute plans. But I can't do both of those things at the same time...

It used to bother me that I couldn't do everything to perfection. Believe me, I tried.

But there comes a time when you have to learn something reeaally important:

Delegate!

I've got some amazing friends who stepped in to contribute their talents to the festivities:

One extraordinary seamstress who not only made the bridesmaids dresses but also got me out of a jam (literally!) when the zipper on my dress broke,

An amazing baker who created the most delicious and beautiful cakes I've ever seen,

An excellent caterer, a horticulturist, and bridesmaids who know a thing or two about hair and make-up. One dear friend who was a one-woman support system making sure everything could happen in the first place...

Everything fell into place (or fell apart) as it was meant to and the ceremony and reception went off almost without a hitch.

I want to make sure I thank everyone who made my daughter's wedding so special.

What a great team!

Tightrope Walking

Romantic movies about weddings LIE!

They depict the mother-daughter relationship while planning a wedding to be all fancy lunches and fantasys shared over spa treatments.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Planning a wedding is inherently stressful. No mistake about it.

For example: Put two stressed adult women in an overheated car on a busy highway on the way to yet another possible reception venue site and you take stress to a whole new level.

We're talking nuclear meltdown.

I learned so much about myself while planning darling daughter's wedding this summer. I'm no stranger to planning events and preparing for them. I've been around, see.

I learned to lose lots of sleep trying to be creative with wedding and reception decorations.
I learned to delegate and find the best people for the right task. That was awesome.

But my biggest lesson was that despite all my brilliant ideas and how absolutely perfect they were and how much Kari and Gareth and everyone else would love them...

they still had to be approved by the bride.

Imagine that.

I really thought I was helping most of the time, being objective and trying to accomplish what my daughter was envisioning for her wedding. Yet most of our arguments centered around her impression that I didn't 'get it,' that what I was creating wasn't what she meant and I was stressing her out.

That was tough to hear. I thought I was being a saint, really. I hadn't said half the things I'd wanted to say. I'd also had to give up some ideas I thought were fabulous (even if I do say so myself).

Yet here she was, saying I was trying to do it MY way.

We got mad a lot. We cried a bit. We hugged a lot.

I learned to walk the tightrope of making sure I remained balanced in my desire to have this be Kari's special day and not my interpretation of it. Yes, I fell off a few times, landing flat on my face. Each time I was able to get back on the rope and keep going.

Because I really love my daughter. It was my time to step aside as the authority over her life and let it be done her way (um, mostly).

And we made it. It was a beautiful event.

At least in my opinion.

I'm Baaaaack!

Hi Folks,

I know it's been quite a while since I've updated my blog but I can 'splain.

My daughter got engaged in January and my mind exploded.

Pure and simple.

There's a lot of pressure in being the Mother of the Bride (note the capital letters).
Not only are there a vast amount of decisions to be made, the costs to be tallied, but there is also a great emotional expense involved in all of this.

The self control it takes to offer opinions to the nervous bride and know you have no real say in anything is nervewracking.

I know, I know. Most people assert that whoever pays for the wedding gets the final word.

Those folks must not have children.

There's a mysterious dance a mother and her daughter performs that requires dexterity and a selflessness that I fear I don't possess. Toes get trampled (along with feelings) as both women try to make decisions they can live with without hurting the mother/daughter relationship.
Despite my many missteps I THINK our relationship is still intact.

But it took some pride swallowing on the part of both of us.

I've got so much to share with you about the many instances of God's intervention and provision for all of this.

So get ready for waaaay too much information as I debrief about the last 6 months.

It's been fun, it's been awful, it's been challenging, it's been emotional.

And I'd do it all again (with some revisions). What an awesome experience.

Stop Sleeping on the Floor!

Christian service sometimes feels like a competition: How heavy can we make our workload before we prove that we are spiritual enough? We exhaust ourselves with ladies' meetings, Bible studies, committees, banquets, revivals, etc., in an effort to validate our worth.
All the while we long for rest, yet rarely accept it when it's offered to us.

In my counseling office, I speak to many exhausted Christians who want to get off the hamster wheel of ministry and yet fear the downtime it offers.
What will people think? What will God think? It seems selfish to need time to rest and recharge our batteries.

Most of us lack an understanding of our own motives and why we think we need to keep ourselves so harried. Sometimes fear keeps us pushing and striving to BE someone to God. While we strongly deny that we're trying to work our way into God's good graces, the fact is we don't want to take any chances.

We know we're accepted as we are and are assured of our place in heaven if we accept Jesus Christ into our hearts. But many of us still feel we have to overwork to show God how much we appreciate it.

I equate it to someone who's received a really wonderful gift; she's grateful and so sends a Thank You card to the giver. The giver responds with a Thank You for the Thank You. Then the recipient sends ANOTHER card thanking her for the Thank You for the Thank You!

Have you ever had that happen? I've had folks who've almost made me regret the initial kindness because the gratitude threatened to smother me after while.

I'm not suggesting that God grows tired of our praise and gratitude; He's very aware of the value of the gift. It just seems as if we neglect the freedom we are to enjoy due to that gift. There is a sense of having to repay the debt, which is something we can never do.

It can be very difficult to cut back on our Christian duties and allow someone else to lead, to bless us instead. After all, we were taught to be servants in His field. The problem comes when everyone is a servant and no one allows themselves to be served. Scripture states that we are to serve and be served (Galatians 5:13). Many times we take the hard path and don't allow ourselves to just sit and be blessed. It just isn't right to want that kind of care and attention.

For years I felt that service meant to press on and on. Over time I found myself grumpy and anxious. Then one day the Holy Spirit brought to mind how exhilarating it felt to bless someone and how lousy it felt when it wasn't accepted.

For example:
Imagine that you are expecting a dearly loved and long-awaited visitor. You gussy up the guest room, putting on the finest sheets, blankets and pillows. You purchase special indulgences for the guest bathroom in honor of this persons' importance in your live. You don't rest until everything is absolutely perfect.

Your guest arrives and you enjoy a wonderful but tiring evening together. Ushering her to the special guest room, she gushes enthusiastically over its decorations and thoughtful details. You go to bed thrilled at the opportunity to show this loved one how much you appreciate her.

The next morning arrives and you rise early to prepare a tasty breakfast. Going to the bedroom door, you knock and notice that you don't hear any movement inside. Concerned, you open the door a crack and peek inside.

You can't believe what you see! The beautiful bed that you so painstakingly smoothed and arranged for your company is untouched; not a single pillow or blanket has been disturbed.

Instead, you see your guest huddled on the floor in a pile of dirty, used sleeping bags you'd stored in the back of the closet. Opening her tired eyes, your guest sweetly says,
"Oh, it was too pretty to waste on someone like me!"

Aren't we like that with God? He has prepared a place for us, and has assured us of His loving care and desire to bless us. In return, we sigh and keep on working and striving, all the while ignoring the gifts He provides. Gifts such as love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness and temperance (Galatians 5:22,23).

I know how aggravated I get when my gift is deemed 'too special' to use and enjoy. I'm convinced that there are dresser drawers everywhere holding extravagant gifts to be used 'someday.' And I'm equally convinced that there are disappointed loved ones who would rather see their gift being used than being stored for later.

How about you? Do you consider God's gifts too special to be enjoyed on a daily basis? Do you find yourself sleeping on the floor, and not nestling into the life of peace and joy God wants you to enjoy?

I urge you to consider your own need to be ministered to as well as to minister. Sleeping on the floor is not a way to express gratitude for the life you've been given. Use the blessings, roll around in them and breathe deeply once in a while.

Think of all the money you'll save on Thank You cards.

Christmas Cheer Overload

I have finally experienced too much of a good thing.
We decided to pare down the gift giving for the 2009 holiday season.

The rules were simple:

$10 limit per person. However, each item had to be handmade, resale, pre-owned, repurposed or purloined from someone else (my idea of purloined is asking a friend if they had something they no longer wanted that I could have). The only stipulation was that each gift had to be nicely wrapped-and the paper had to be old/used/pre-owned as well.

I admit I had a blast obtaining items from random places and wrapping them up. There was a reckless abandon in finding things and hiding them. And I like to believe everyone else had fun as well.

Here's where the problem arose.

We put no limit on the number of gifts each person should receive. So when I had 5 gifts for one person that had little or no cost, I kept looking for ways to spend that $10 on them. I think everyone else had the same thinking, especially when we looked at the Christmas tree and the gifts were spilling out into the middle of the living room. It must have taken us several hours to unwrap everything till it got ridiculous.

Too many blessings! So many cool things we either couldn't remember what we had or couldn't fully appreciate them all. Seriously, we all looked a little exhausted as we viewed the mayhem and madness after the fact.

Over the last week I've been reliving that experience, of feeling overwhelmed with TOO MUCH good stuff. It got me to thinking of how God sometimes metes out our blessings in tiny amounts and we wish He'd be more generous. We look at other folks who have things we'd like to have or have the funds to do things we'd love to do and wish we were blessed like that. We're so certain we can handle it.

But I'm not so sure.

How pointless it would be to receive so many blessings we can't absorb them all. I'd hate for them to go to waste, wouldn't you?
And I'd hate to take anything for granted in the blessing process. I want to enjoy it ALL.

I'm already planning our holiday rules for next year. As much as I loved all the time and attention my family lavished on me this year I want it to be more measured next time. I want to oohh and ahhh over every item and hear the story behind where it came from and hug and kiss the giver.

And I want my God-given blessings to be appreciated the same way.

When God Answers Your Prayers

Human beings are an enigma. No. Change that. Human beings are contradictory. Wait. Maybe we're just indecisive; I think so but I'm not sure.

The point I'm trying to make is that we seem to want what we don't have and disregard the cool things we DO have. I don't have to tell you about our tendency to value what everyone else has, either characteristically or materially or even spiritually.
We seem to be so busy evaluating what our friends and neighbors have that we overlook our own blessings.

I wonder sometimes if we frustrate God. He promises to relate to us; to know us so well He sees our hearts and knows our desires. He knows our fervent (and not so fervent) prayers. Yet when those very prayers get answered we sit dumbly and don't know what to do with them.
I'm experiencing that sensation right now.

For years I've prayed for my daughter Kari and son Ryan. I love them both so much.
Recently Ryan made some life-changing decisions that I have prayed for and fully support.
I know those decisions are a direct answer to prayer.

And yet I find myself awed and maybe a little confused in the changes Ryan has made in his life.
God's response to my prayers has altered the direction my son is headed in life. I love it.
So why do I feel confusion when I actually get to witness this answer to prayer?

I think we get accustomed to people being who they are and doing what they do. Despite our hopes and prayers we don't really expect anything to change. We attempt to fit everyone into neat little categories and that's where they remain and that's what we wrap our lives around.

I've seen many wives spend years asking God to make their husbands the spiritual leader in their homes. These women plead and cry and beseech God to do a miracle on behalf of their spouse.

Then it happens.

One miraculous moment appears and dear old hubby 'gets it.'
Suddenly dear husband is repentant (yay!), attentive (double yay!), and eager to change.

But wait a minute.

If dear hubby changes, praying wife must change also. There can't be two head honchos in the same tipi. Someone has to adapt, step back, change behaviors.

This is what wife prayed for but it doesn't feel all that good.

Where we pushed before ("Come ON. Let's go to church") we find ourselves pulling back ("Can't you skip the men's prayer breakfast just this once so we can spend time together?").

That's why we are such an enigma. Do we want the Lord to answer our prayers or not? Do we want our loved ones to experience healing?

I think the question should be: Are we sincere enough in our prayers to be willing to deal with the consequences? Can we give up our identity of being the long-suffering wife (mom, dad, employee) in order to have our prayers answered?

I used to think this saying was a joke. Now that I'm being challenged to accept this 'new son' God has given me, I'm not so sure anymore.

Be careful what you pray for; you may just get it.