Breathe

Another Sunday.  That means another morning of me running from one place to the next, always late, always hurrying.  It is tiring and inspiring.  I love the time to see so many people I only see once a week.  I wish there was a way to space out the time with them so it wasn't all at once.
I enjoy what I do.  It is great to get to spend time with so many fabulous people.  I get to walk with their on their journeys.  I love it. 
Some weeks I have to remind myself to slow down and breathe.  Take a breath.  So that is what I am pausing to do now...

The Middle

I can always tell when I need a vacation. Not the time when you just look out the window and want to be on a beach, I mean when you need a vacation. When it takes you twice as long as usual to do half as much work. When you can't remember something someone just told you because you can't focus. When you work hard and it just doesn't seem like enough. I'm there.
I've been working all day on getting ready for a meeting tonight. I keep getting distracted. My distraction is helping me to get other things done that also need attention, but it is not helping me get ready for tonight's meeting. It isn't a scary or horrible meeting. It is a meeting that requires lots of preparation and then hours of follow up tomorrow. So for the next three hours, I'll keep getting ready for this meeting and keep getting distracted and doing others things. Hopefully by the end of the day, I'll find myself in the middle...halfway between being overly prepared and forgetting everything I should have done.

Good Enough

It is Thursday. Arriving at work, I soon realized this day is not going to go as I had planned. No problem, I'm flexible. By lunchtime, I've been dealing with this one issue all morning. Of course, this is not something from my to do list. It disrupts all my plans for the day, for tomorrow, and for the weekend. It's true, I'm crabby now. Plus, I have to confront someone. I do not enjoy confrontation. I can be good and mad at someone, but when I have to talk to them about it I find myself seeing their point of view and losing my anger. You might say this isn't a bad thing. It isn't as long as I'm not being stepped on or over all the time.
Well, I've eaten my lunch. I've played on the internet while eating to clear my mind. And now I'm going to pretend I've just started my day. I'm going to put the whole morning behind me and focus on what I need to do today! Today will be good enough in the end.

Jeremiah was a bullfrog...

Months ago I said I was reading through the Bible this year. I've been trying to keep up with this even though I haven't been reading as faithfully as I would like. Today, I finished the book of Jeremiah! Woohoo!
And Jeremiah was more of a prophet than a bullfrog...tomorrow I'll be reading Lamentations.

Swim

Just keep swimming!
So I've been taking swimming lessons. If you knew me, you would know what a big deal this is! At my very first lesson, I was in the deep end. I've never before willingly gone into the deep end before!!! Never. I've had about five lessons. Thing continue to improve. I've jumped into the deep end, done some water treading, and swam around in the deep end.
On Friday night, my husband gave me a lesson. We did lots of underwater bubble blowing. I swam underwater from side to side in the deep end. And I passed my swimming test. I decided my own personal swimming test was to jump into the deep end and swim to the other side. And Friday night I did it. I was so proud of myself. I'm not sure what I will do next after this amazing accomplishment. Go, me!!!!

Grace

Yesterday I talked with the children about grace during our kids' time in worship. I'll share what I said at the end of this blog post. As I was thinking about how to speak with them about grace and what it means, I found the lyrics to this U2 song called Grace. It ends like this...
Because Grace makes beauty out of ugly things.
Grace finds beauty in everything.
Grace finds goodness in everything.
Think on that for a bit.


Ephesians 1:3-14
August 22, 2010

This present was left in my office. It looks like it for you. What do you think is inside? (Give each child an opportunity to shake, hold, etc. the box).
Should we open it and see what is inside? (Allow the children to open it and look inside...Inside the box is a piece of paper with the word grace written on it.).
GRACE? What is grace? Why was it wrapped up as a present?
Grace is God’s freely given love for each of us.
What can we do to earn God’s love? Nothing. There is nothing we can do to earn God’s love.
Maybe that is why it was wrapped up in box for us. Grace is God’s gift to us. God loves us each and everyday. We can’t earn God’s love...what we can do is love others like God loves us.
I’d like to give you each a reminder of God’s grace. It is a picture of present with the word grace at the bottom of the page. When you hear the word grace, you can remember it is God’s gift of love to you!

Realize

So today is one of those days that leaves me all tied up in knots...worrying about something that won't even happen for awhile, wondering what others think, pondering things I have no control over...you know one of those days.
On days like this I try (so hard) to realize I can't control everything. I can't control what others think. And I have enough to worry/think about with what is happening soon in my life. Why worry about so far into the future?
I want to realize that I need to stay right here in the present. Do what I can do right now. And not worry, worry, worry!