Category: Miscellaneous

Jun 05

What’s on your to-do list today?

 

My husband has a serious problem.

And what’s worse is the fact he doesn’t even think he has a problem. I have no doubt that when I tell you what his problem is, you’ll be pretty shocked. But perhaps my talking about it in front of hundreds and hundreds of people will help him see what a terrible problem it is.

Better sit down before you read any more.

My husband’s problem (besides eating really blue birthday cake frosting) is  that he doesn’t make to-do lists.I can hear the gasps now. I mean, how can such a wonderful, kind person not make to-do lists? After 45 years of watching me faithfully make these lists and carefully updating them throughout the day, how can he have failed to see the light?

I’ve patiently tried to cure him of this malady by making to-do lists for him. He has responded in one of two ways: either losing the list or failing to cross out any items after he completes them. When I ask him about this latter misstep, he tells me that he knows he has done the task, so he doesn’t need to cross it off.

How can you not cross off a finished task on your to-do list? There is such superb satisfaction in drawing that ink line across the item.

Some of you know exactly what I mean and others of you, I’m afraid, are sympathizing with my husband because you also have a genetic mutation which prevents you from making to-do lists. (And yes, of course I will pray for you–you don’t even need to ask. I’ll just add praying to my to-do list.)

However, my husband is too sweet to tell you (and he doesn’t blog), but I also have a serious problem.

I can get so wrapped up in my to-do list that I may miss something God wants me to do. Or I can be so busy crossing off items that I fail to hear His still small voice.

Here’s what I do to treat my problem. At the top of my to-do list I often write: LOVE LIKE JESUS.  I remind myself that no matter how much–or how little–I accomplish in 24 hours, I always can love like Jesus. While I may have a good plan for my day, He may have a better one. What seems like an interruption or even a roadblock in my day may simply be a chance for me to love and trust Him more. And I may be completing tasks with temporal significance while neglecting ones with eternal value.

So what’s on your to-do list today? How about Ephesians 5:1-2?

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are His dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ.

Or as The Message paraphrase puts it:  Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.

No matter what else gets done today, choose to LOVE LIKE JESUS.
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(Be sure to open in your browser so you don’t miss the music video below: “Love Like Jesus.”

 

May 22

“Don’t look for big things, just do small things with great love… The smaller the thing, the greater must be our love.” Mother Teresa

 

I’m pretty sure the only thing “small” about Mother Teresa’s life was her stature. Nearly 50 years of sacrificially serving the “the unwanted, the unloved, the uncared for” hardly seems to qualify as doing “small things.” But there’s certainly no doubt that this diminutive nun, honored in 1979 with the Nobel Peace Prize, was filled with great love for the poorest of India’s poor. 

Don’t worry, I’m not suggesting you head to Calcutta and take a vow of poverty (although health insurance premiums, deductibles and co-pays may leave you feeling as if you have!). But I am encouraging you to ask God to show you some small things you can do with great love.  No matter how uncertain or bleak life looks, I guarantee you it will become brighter as you reach out in love to others in need.

Cindi, a cancer survivor who lives in the shadow of recurring granulosa cell tumors, says she wakes up each day “knowing my life is very different than most people.

“I’m either overwhelmed with thankfulness for still being alive six years past my diagnosis or just the opposite, and I am overwhelmed with fear that I might not be here for my daughter in the future,” she explains.

“The way I try to cope with it is to live outside myself,” she says. “It really helps to get out of my own crisis and reach out and love someone else. I try to offer acts of kindness toward others—visits, cards, small gifts.”

Cindi says she doesn’t have money or energy to do big things for others so one day she bought a bunch of $3 plants at Aldi discount grocery and gave them to folks who “needed cheering up.” Another day she and her daughter delivered bags of Pepperidge Farm cookies to friends going through hard times.

“I would say everyone who got them cried,” Cindi recalls. “You think you’re going to bless this person, but you walk away blessed. The Lord has given me several opportunities to encourage others and in so doing, I’m the one who has been encouraged.”

Doing small things with great love “really helps me to come out of my own health crisis,” she adds.

I realize it might not sound logical, but the next time you are feeling anxious or worried or discouraged or overwhelmed, try living outside yourself. Ask God to show you even one small thing you could do with great love for another person who is going through a hard time.

 

“Come be My light” were the words Mother Teresa heard Jesus speak to her heart as He called her to minister to the poor.

I believe He whispers those same words to all of us today—cancer survivors and caregivers included.

Come be My light to someone else feeling the darkness. Come be My light even if you think your light is a small one, it is better than no light at all.  Come be My light because when you shine it with great love, it is sure to be a blessing.

“Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world.
God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill.
If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you?
I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine!
Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.”
Matthew 5:14-16 The Message Bible 

Excerpted from Peace in the Face of Cancer. Copyright 2017 by Lynn Eib.
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Make sure you open this article in your browser so you can enjoy the song below by Kathy Troccoli.

 

 

 

Feb 27

I Choose Joy!

“It’s quiet. It’s early. My coffee is hot. The sky is still black. The world is asleep. The day is coming.

“In a few moments the day will arrive. It will roar down the track with the rising of the sun. The stillness of the dawn will be exchanged for the noise of the day. The calm of solitude will be replaced by the pounding of the human race. The refuge of the early morning will be invaded by decisions to be made and deadlines to be met.

“For the next twelve hours I will be exposed to the day’s demands. It is now I must make a choice… Because of Calvary I’m free to choose. And so I choose.

“I choose JOY…

I will invite my God to be the God of circumstance.

I will refuse the temptation to be cynical…the tool of the lazy thinker.

I will refuse to see people as anything less than human beings created by God.

I will refuse to see any problem as anything less than an opportunity to see God.”

I choose JOY.”
(Excerpted from When God Whispers Your Name, copyright 2009 by Max Lucado)

 Will you choose joy today? If you would like to, but your “funny bone” isn’t working, you need to get it repaired.

I recommend you go to the manufacturer of your life (God). Contact Him on His technical support hotline (prayer) and check out His operating instructions for your life (the Bible). God created you and knows just what you need. I can’t promise God will give you a laugh, but I can promise He will give you His deep-seated joy. It begins by choosing to become a follower of Jesus and it continues day by day by choosing to allow Him to direct your life. Then, and only then, will you find a quiet joy in spite of any circumstance. 

Here’s how Jesus explains it in John 15:11: “I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love. When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!”

Will you invite God to be the Lord over your painful circumstances? Will you refuse to doubt that you can make it through? Will you see your irritating friends and relatives as people for whom Jesus died? Will you look at your problems as an incredible opportunity to see God at work? Will you rest in the love of Jesus and be filled with His true joy?

Choose JOY today…because of Calvary you can.
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Please enjoy the music video below “Joy” by For King and Country (open in your browser).

 

Nov 14

10 THINGS YOU CAN’T DO WITH ONE HAND

  1. Put waist-length hair in a ponytail or up into a shower cap
  2. Tie your sneakers
  3. Signal touchdown
  4. Put the little backs on your pierced earrings
  5. Peel potatoes…or cucumbers…or carrots..or anything else
  6. Change a wiggling toddler’s diaper
  7. Hold your playing cards while playing one of them
  8. Give a bear hug
  9. Clap
  10. Type very long blogs

It’s been a little more than three weeks since I fell down a couple of steps and broke my wrist in two places, necessitating surgery. Even though it’s not my dominant hand, there are so many things I cannot do at all and so many more that require tons of extra time to accomplish with only five digits. And not being able to carry out tasks in the normally fastest way possible really drives me crazy.

I’m the kind of person who finds the shortest route to my destination and always uses it (although surprisingly I don’t exceed the speed limit.) All of my life I’ve tried to be fast, rapid, swift, speedy, expeditious and any other synonym you find for  the word “quick.” Second place has always seemed like the first loser to me.

So what am I learning/relearning during these weeks (maybe months?) of recovery and forced delays? That hurrying through my to-do list may not be God’s best plan for me, and I need to take more time to savor my Savior.

How about you? Has life forced you or your loved one to slow down? Whatever is weighing you down–a health crisis, natural aging, financial worries, family strife, or unfair circumstances–believe and ask God to use this “interruption” for His good. And if you’re still going full-speed ahead, I recommend you voluntarily ease back and give God time to transform you into all you were meant to be.

In college I had the following poem on my apartment wall and I needed to read it again today. Perhaps it can be your prayer, too. ( And please don’t miss the music video at the end, “Slow Down” by Chuck Girard. It’s the real message I wanted to share today–I picked it before I had even written a word. )

SLOW ME DOWN, LORD by Wilferd A. Peterson
Slow me down, Lord. 
Ease the pounding of my heart
By the quieting of my mind.
Steady my harried pace
With a vision of the eternal reach of time.
Give me, admidst the confusions of my day,
The calmness of the everlasting hills.

Break the tensions of my nerves
With the soothing music of the sighing streams
That live in my memory.
Help me to know
The magical restoring power of sleep.

Teach me the art
Of taking minute vacations of slowing down to look at a flower;
To chat with an old friend or to make a new one;
To pat a stray dog,
To watch a spider build a web;
To smile at a child;
Or to read a few lines from a good book.

Remind me each day
That the race is not always to the swift;
That there is more to life than increasing its speed.
Let me look upward
Into the branches of the towering oak
And know that it grew slowly and well.

Slow me down, Lord,
And inspire me to send my roots deep
Into the soil of life’s enduring values
That I may grow toward the stars
Of my great destiny.

Amen.

(To view the music video, open in your browser or use this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3FzAk5dgUc

 

Sep 19

Fear is a Liar

Sometimes things move very quickly once you or a loved one gets a life-threatening diagnosis. I guess that’s good because you don’t have much time to think about it, but it also makes life feel a little like a surreal out-of-body experience: Can that really be me/us everyone is talking about?

My cancer was discovered on a Tuesday and in less than a week I saw the surgeon, had blood taken, got a chest X-ray, “cleaned out” my colon (again!) and had the tumor removed.

Three days later, at 7 a.m., the surgeon and his resident delivered the pathology report as I lay alone in my room. I could tell from their body language that the news ­wasn’t good. They stood against the wall at the end of my hospital bed, as far away from me as they could be.

“Cancer was found in five of twenty lymph nodes,” the surgeon explained matter-of-factly. “You will need chemotherapy and radiation.”

I cried, but no one moved to comfort me.

“Have you ­ever known anyone who ­under­went chemotherapy?” he asked, seeming to grasp for words to continue the conversation.

I nodded, recalling the two people I had known most recently—both of whom had died! I started hyperventilating.

Still, neither doctor moved toward me, but instead the surgeon called a nurse to help me breathe into a paper bag.

“Do you want me to call your husband?” the doctor asked, still at the foot of my bed. I nodded between sobbing gasps into my little brown sack.

Now I was ­really frightened. I desperately needed Ralph. But, for whatever reason, the surgeon did not telephone him. So for several hours I lay in the room alone with my fears.

 

Get a grip on yourself, my head told my heart. What are you so afraid of? Nausea and vomiting? You were sick night and day for six months with all three of your pregnancies. Mouth sores? You’ve had them before. Needles? You’re not afraid of them. Losing your hair? It’ll grow back. Don’t be so vain, my head stated matter-of-factly. But my heart ­didn’t buy it. I just cried harder as I stroked the waist-length hair that I desperately wanted to keep.

Yes, that’s what ­I’m afraid of, I admitted. I ­don’t want to look sick for my children and my husband. I ­can’t imagine watching my hair fall out. I disliked the vanity of my feelings, but it was how I felt.

I ­couldn’t even get my lips to form the word chemotherapy. The fear of facing that, for me, was worse than the initial shock of cancer.

My surgeon obviously did a good job operating on me as I’m still alive and well 28 years later, but his bedside manner wouldn’t have earned such a high grade. It was incredibly impersonal. And not to contact my husband for almost five hours was very unprofessional. I don’t think I should have gotten that bad news all by myself or been left alone for all that time.

But…God used that doctor’s “mistakes” to draw me closer to Himself and help me to face my deepest fears. As I named my fears, they lost much of their power over me and I began to find courage.

Name your fears and lessen their power. Then believe God supernaturally will give you courage to overcome your fears and to live with the uncertainties life brings. Fear is a liar. Are you going to believe a liar or the truth of God’s Word?

I hope Psalm 27:1, 3 can be your prayer today: The LORD is my light and my salvation—so why should I be afraid?…Though a mighty army surrounds me, my heart will not be afraid. Even if I am attacked, I will remain confident. 

 (Copyright 2012 by Lynn Eib, 50 Days of Hope)

[1] M. Scott Peck, Further Along the Road Less Traveled (New York: Touchstone, 1993), pg. 23.

To hear “Fear is a Liar” music video, open in your browser or use this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQTnREEtuNk