Lisa notes

What’s happening in May ‘14

By LisaNotes May 7, 2014 Life updates 19 Comments

I am thinking . . . how happy my f-i-l and m-i-l will be to return to Alabama this week after his heart surgery in Cleveland last month

I am thankful . . . the Lord answered our prayers for a successful surgery with great doctors and nurses

I am appreciating . . . the fun things we got to do together prior to surgery, like visiting Niagara Falls and seeing the ice on Lake Erie

I am discovering . . . I’ve never been happier for spring to get here as this year (it was a long, cold winter!)

I am experimenting . . . with Twitter’s new collage feature

I am playing . . . with the Hemingway App—plug in your writing and get suggestions for improvement

I am watching . . . American Idol (I’m actually caught up!) and hoping Alex won’t get sent home this week

I am praying . . . for those who lost homes and family in our latest round of tornadoes

I am hoping . . . local volunteers continue to help with clean up and aid. Two great organizations we work with are PAR and Keep Volunteering

I am inspired . . . by the great attitude of Pastor Greg Nelson, the head of PAR, whose own house was damaged yet sent us to work on his neighbors’ houses first

I am reading . . . Letters by a Modern Mystic by Frank C. Laubach about his spiritual practice to focus moment-by-moment on God

I am pondering these words . . .

“I shall just live this hour on until it is full, then step into the next hour. Neither tomorrow matters, nor yesterday. Every now is an eternity if it is full of God.”
– Frank C. Laubach

I am creating . . . a new schedule for Do Not Depart’s next memory chapter challenge of Hiding His Word in My Heart to be revealed soon!

A picture for thought . . . a milestone moment for me, walking across this bridge between the U.S. and Canada at Niagara Falls (I’m scared of heights!); my first foray into Canada, albeit briefly

* * *

What’s been happening in your month?

The Simple Woman’s Daybook
…where every day is a blank page

past Daybooks

It matters to me. Does it to you? {Alabama tornadoes}

By LisaNotes May 5, 2014 Compassion 54 Comments

You have 15 minutes before your home is destroyed. What possessions do you grab? Baby albums? Your purse? Jewelry?

But what if it’s my house you’re going through, not your own? How would you know what’s important to me? You might not know to grab my Kali shadow box off the living room wall, or where to find the home videos or the external hard drive with all my photos.

So as I walked down the gravel road Friday in the Coxey community to where Chasady’s home stood earlier in the week, I wanted to know more about her before we started picking through her belongings.

I found out she has a job, she has a son, and she has an awesome cousin (also with us) who was helping her out.

Chasady said she usually ignores storm warnings. But something was different Monday afternoon. Somehow she knew she needed to leave altogether this time instead of just walking to the nearby storm shelter.

If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t even have her car now, the only thing she owns that she assumed was not destroyed by the EF-3 tornado, one of 20 that touched down across central and northern Alabama on April 28, 2014, (three years and one day after the deadly 62 Alabama tornadoes of April 27, 2011).

She couldn’t imagine anything of value remaining. And as we passed other homes on our walk, we saw little reason to hope.

But when we got to her place, and started picking underneath the twisted metal and wet wood, we were surprised not only to find one of her shoes, but also its match a few feet away.

And the more we looked, the more we found. Purses, shampoo, a pink hair bow (whose? not hers), a package of bologna, a throw rug. And many more shoes.

I wasn’t sure what to put in the keep pile and what to trash. This angel figurine? Washcloths buried in mud the last four days? A “Mrs. Potts” toy? All dirty, but salvageable with some cleanup.

It’s hard to know what is important to someone else when you don’t know them.

But I’d rather save too much now and let her throw it away later, than throw away now what she could never retrieve later.

After we’d rescued what we could, Chasady kept digging for two more things: her DVDs of The Bible miniseries and a brand new box of contacts she’d bought days earlier. These were things important to her.

We found neither by the time I had to walk away. She allowed me to pray a blessing over her. We cried. We hugged.

Then I drove home to my intact house, took a hot shower in my clean bathroom, and put on dry clothes from my own closet.

And I lay on my bed and cried some more.

Lord, have mercy.

* * *

We’re rarely in situations that require big decisions like what to salvage after a tornado.

Yet we ALL face mini-decisions DAILY of whether to value or demean what’s important to somebody else by the attention we give or withhold.

Better to pay more attention than not enough. Show more care than too little. Jesus said don’t just give up your shirt, give up your coat as well; go the second mile (Matthew 5:40-41).

How can you honor someone else’s valuables today? Look at photos of their grandkids? Ask about their newest body pain? Listen to their marriage problems?

If someone matters to you, let what matters to them also matter to you.

RELATED:

Mindfulness is Step 5 of my One Word 2014: Compassion
[Step 1 – Learn about compassion; Step 2 – Look at your own world; Step 3 – Compassion for yourself; Step 4 – Empathy]
Sanctify your hobby as ministry
Highlights from Mindfulness by Ellen Langer

“The War of Art” – Book review

By LisaNotes May 1, 2014 Book reviews 20 Comments

“Creative work is not a selfish act or a bid for attention on the part of the actor. It’s a gift to the world and every being in it. Don’t cheat us of your contribution. Give us what you’ve got.”
– Steven Pressfield

That’s the last paragraph in The War of Art. Everything else leads up to it.

Whatever your “creative work” is—a business, writing, a sport, cooking, songwriting—this is a book to motivate you to stick with it. Because it matters. Not only to you, but to others around you.

That’s not always easy for us to believe, but it’s true. As Steven Pressfield says, “Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it.”

Although he’s not writing strictly from a Christian perspective, we can identify godly principles in statements like that. As children of God, we’ve all been gifted with varying talents and energy to live out our life’s purpose of glorifying the Father. We just have to discover what they are, then use them.

Pressfield labels as Resistance those forces that get in the way of releasing our gifts.

“There’s a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don’t, and the secret is this: It’s not the writing part that’s hard. What’s hard is sitting down to write.
What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.”

Resistance can take a variety of forms: procrastination, fear, isolation, rationalization, suffering, etc., and Pressfield writes of each.

For example:

“Procrastination is the most common manifestation of Resistance because it’s the easiest to rationalize. We don’t tell ourselves, ‘I’m never going to write my symphony.’ Instead we say, ‘I am going to write my symphony; I’m just going to start tomorrow.’”

and

“What are we trying to heal, anyway? The athlete knows the day will never come when he wakes up pain-free.
He has to play hurt.”

The book is divided into three parts:

Book One: Resistance – Defining the Enemy
Book Two: Combating Resistance – Turning Pro
Book Three: Beyond Resistance – The Higher Realm

All three sections are very easy to read with super short chapters and an abundance of white space (even though that seems wasteful to me, it always draws me in). I also love the beauty of the type and the headings at the top of most pages—not factors that add to the fundamental message of the book, but they do add to its clarity.

And the clear nitty-gritty is this:

“Are you a born writer? Were you put on earth to be a painter, a scientist, an apostle of peace? In the end the question can only be answered by action.
Do it or don’t do it.”

I hope you do it.

* * *

This book was originally published in 2002 yet continues to receive high praise. Have you read it? What do you think?

On the blog–April 2014

By LisaNotes April 30, 2014 Archives 2 Comments

When change is slow, baby step it (4/30) – I worried about missing my flight, but I worried quicker—that’s a win
Do some heart surgery (4/28) – You don’t have to be a doctor to do open heart surgery, only be human
Slow it down (4/23) – See interruptions as invitations, not as irritations
Reading list for May ’14 (4/22) – Brief reviews of books I’m currently reading
My Man Jeeves book review (4/18) – Review of the collection of short stories by P. G. Wodehouse
Voices at the cross—What would you say? (4/16) – These things were said at the cross; what would you have added?
Are you a spiritual misfit, too? (4/15) – Review of Michelle DeRusha’s memoir Spiritual Misfit
Memorizing Isaiah 55:13 (4/13)
Orthodoxy book review (4/11) – Review of English theologian G. K. Chesterton’s classic book
What are you singing? (4/10) – 3 ways to use music to build your faith at Do Not Depart
Go toward, not away – Empathy (4/8) – My natural tendency is to turn away from messiness, not toward it
The Precipice book review (4/7) – Review of T. C. Avey’s collection of stories of what might happen and how to respond
Memorizing Isaiah 55:12 (4/6)
Happenings in my April (4/4) -Links and personal happenings in April
You don’t choose how you’ll die (4/2) – Lindsey didn’t get to choose how he died, but he did how he lived; quotes from Tuesdays with Morrie

* * *

When change is slow, baby step it

By LisaNotes April 30, 2014 Trust 37 Comments

I’ve known it for awhile—I worry too much. My imagination is deep and wide on things that can go wrong.

I’ve studied about it; I’ve prayed through it; I’ve actively worked to get rid of it.

Yet here I sit.

It’s Friday night and I’m finally headed home after almost two weeks in Ohio. I’m scheduled to fly from Cleveland to Dallas, wait an hour and a half, then fly to Huntsville.

Except that our plans rarely go as expected (as seen around the web lately):

So when my first flight slips ten minutes, then thirty, then an hour, I begin worrying that I won’t reach my new gate in Dallas quick enough to catch my connecting flight, that there will be no more flights out of Dallas on Friday (if I ever get there anyway!), and that I’ll have to spend yet another night in a strange bed, this time without even my toothbrush or a change of clothes.

But then something happens.

The Spirit nudges me through a text from Jenna—yes, the Spirit can work even through iPhone’s autocorrect and definitely through our children!—and triggers a new thought in me:

Maybe all this is God. I’m not saying he’s making my first plane late (but I’m not saying he’s isn’t, either).

Maybe there’s space for contentment and less worries even in this situation?

I begin to feel the gift of grace, the desire to center into his will, to trust that he is in control now and later. Tomorrow can never outrun God’s grace.

And miracle of miracles, the worrying slows down. Peace fills the void. I recognize the change.

Progress! So even though I still worried in the beginning, it didn’t last as long. A baby step for sure, but as long as the gap between worry and acceptance is shrinking, it’s a win.

In the end, I did make my flight. I woke up in my own bed Saturday morning. It was a gift.

But also a gift was realizing that maybe I am worrying less these days, that even if my transformation is far from complete, it’s still alive and active.

And even if baby steps are all I take, I’ll praise God for them. All steps in the right direction, however small, are worth celebrating.

* * *

Are you a worrier, too? What helps you? Please share.

Related:

Do some heart surgery

By LisaNotes April 28, 2014 Community, Encouragement 47 Comments

[After 2 weeks, I’m back home!
Thanks for praying about my father-in-law’s successful heart surgery at Cleveland Clinic.]

The medical center is massive. Clean. White. And crowded with people of all colors, countries, conditions.

In a slightly-elevated open area in J Building—a massive structure with floor-to-ceiling windows—sits an instrument.

This piano.

Because in the middle of our quest for physical health, we still have needs of the soul.

So those walking by the main lobby at noon hear music. Some linger to listen. Others must keep marching.

But we’re all aware.

Of our humanness. Of a touch to our hearts. This we need.

And it’s one way God proves he’s still among us.

It’s my brother-in-law Steve bringing me a cup of ice with my OJ in the morning because he noticed I like that
It’s the stranger beside me from Texas on the flight home offering me a piece of gum when he gets one for himself
It’s Jeff packing real cheddar cheese and Keebler Club crackers when he picks me up from the airport late Friday night

All are gifts from God, passed through human hands, to heal my own heart.

Maybe all who give such gifts aren’t aware it’s God using them, flowing through them, to show his love.

But I believe anytime there is love, there is God.

As my sister Sandy likes to quote, “What a friend we have in Jesus, and what a Jesus we have in friends.”

As you step out into your week, don’t forget to be God’s touch to those near you.

You don’t have to be a doctor to do open heart surgery.
You only have to be human.

* * *

How did a human show you God last week? I’d love to know.