Lisa notes

I struggle to stay present in this moment. My mind drifts forward to things I want to do tomorrow. Or floats backward to a conversation I had last week.

Of course we need to think about the past and the future in the present.

But staying anchored in this moment is where we’re likely to find the most peace when everything else feels out of control. This is the moment where God is with me, where Love is lingering.

There will never be another moment exactly like this one.

“To become free of the tyranny of time, become interested in the present.”
– Jack Kornfield

This book, No Time Like the Present: Finding Freedom, Love, and Joy Right Where You Are, helps me stay more aware of this one special moment.

I love the gentle yet powerful wisdom of Jack Kornfield in his writings and his podcasts. This book takes us through stories and examples on topics such as the dance of life, responding with love, aging with trust, and starting where we are.

Quotes from No Time Like the Present

“Whatever the situation, widen the space; remember vastness; allow ease and perspective. Spaciousness is the doorway to freedom.”

~ * ~

“When we honor our vulnerability and our dependence on the community of life, we open to love.”

~ * ~

“Yes, things are uncertain, but wisdom brings us love, perspective, and the ability to trust. Wisdom invites us to live with a trusting heart.”

~ * ~

“The stories we tell of our past are written on water. Research shows that much of what we remember isn’t true.”

~ * ~

“‘Letting be’ might express the freedom of release more accurately.”

~ * ~

“Forget the tyranny of perfection. The point is not to perfect yourself. It is to perfect your love.”

~ * ~

Do you think more about the past, present, or future? Share your thoughts.

Read More:

• Sometimes You Do Nothing
• This. Here. Now. 
• What Are Middles For? 

You are on Day #15 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“The Lives We Actually Have” {Book 14}

Next:
“Bright-Sided” {Book 16}

• Is your day going perfectly as planned?
• Is today all blue skies and rainbows?
• Is today your happiest day ever?

I can answer for you. No, no, and no. (But if I’m wrong, good for you!)

No day is ever perfect. It’s not how the world works.

Because of that, it’s in these regularly imperfect days of our lives that we most need to receive blessings.

So we ask for blessings and say blessings over each other.

If you need words for these blessings, you’ll find 100 beautiful blessings in this new book by Kate Bowler and Jessica Richie, The Lives We Actually Have: 100 Blessings for Imperfect Days. Each blessing is short, heartfelt, and sometimes funny, too.

The blessings are divided into 10 categories.

Which category applies where you are today?

• Bless this ordinary life
• Bless this tired life
• Bless this lovely life
• Bless this grief-stricken life
• Bless this overwhelming life
• Bless this painful life
• Bless this garbage life
• Bless the lives of others
• Bless this beautiful, limited life

And then a special category of readings for Lent and Advent:

• Bless this holy life

There’s something here for everyone, for every kind of day.

Quotes from The Lives We Actually Have

“Blessed are we who see that this present darkness is not all there is. Blessed are we who say: I am known. I am loved. I can love again. Even . . . especially . . . in this. God, have mercy.”

~ * ~

“Draw me closer to a different vision, one that sees that I don’t need perfection—I need love. Free me from the expectation that life should always be better.”

~ * ~

“God, erase my humiliation about being stubbornly finite. Remind me again how all these limitations can still be called blessed.”

~ * ~

“Love can break your heart. It’s probably in the fine print. Didn’t you click the box at the bottom of the terms and conditions?”

~ * ~

“Turn down the volume of my expectations, and let me hear the birds sing another lovely truth: I am deeply and wholly loved. I am beautiful and somehow delightful even as I am unfinished.”

Have you read a Kate Bowler book (Everything Happens for a Reason: And Other Lies I’ve Loved; No Cure for Being Human; Good Enough) or listened to her podcast, Everything Happens?

What kind of day are you having today? Is it ordinary or otherwise?

Share your thoughts here.

My thanks to NetGalley + Convergent
Books for the review copy of this book

You are on Day #14 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“How to Keep House While Drowning” {Book 13}

Next:
“No Time Like the Present” {Book 15}

• Mop the floors or read a book?
• Start the laundry or take a walk?
• Dust the furniture or eat a cookie?

I’d rather eat the cookie.

But I also thrive in clean, uncluttered spaces, especially my home.

So how do we balance keeping a clean house while also taking care of ourselves?

Especially if we’re going through extra struggles (and aren’t there always extra struggles)?

K. C. Davis struggled with postpartum depression after she had her second child. She began posting TikTok videos of her messy house as a humorous way to cope.

Her mess hit a nerve. She began getting lots of responses from others who also were struggling, feeling guilty if their houses weren’t spic-and-span.

So K. C. Davis wrote a book. As a licensed professional therapist, she knew what she was talking about.

In her book, How to Keep House While Drowning: A Gentle Approach to Cleaning and Organizing, you’ll get to decide for yourself what is acceptable or not for your home.

It’s not about perfection. Or efficiency. Or comparison. It’s about what works for you and your family where you are right now. Davis’s philosophy is very freeing: “Anything worth doing is worth doing partially.”

Davis reminds us that, “You don’t exist to serve your space; your space exists to serve you.”

Keeping a spotless house doesn’t make you a good person. And not folding your laundry doesn’t make you a bad person. The tasks themselves are morally neutral, Davis tells us.

You know what is most important for your family. Set your own goals, do what you can, and allow yourself to be a human.

I still breathe better in an uncluttered space. But on days when I just can’t make it happen and I need rest, it need not affect my worthiness. It doesn’t mean I’m lazy.

Keeping house is a never-ending project. All our care tasks don’t have to be finished before we allow ourselves to rest.

Watch K. C. Davis’s TEDx Talk, How to Do Laundry When You’re Depressed.

Quotes from How to Keep House While Drowning

“Instead of Chores, try saying Care tasks. Chores are obligations. Care tasks are kindness to self.”

~ * ~

“The approach that you are motivated to do and enjoy doing is the most ‘efficient,’ because you are actually doing it and not avoiding it.”

~ * ~

“Five minutes was too big of a goal. I wonder if I could get on for three minutes.”

~ * ~

“You are not responsible for saving the world if you are struggling to save yourself.”

~ * ~

“The schedule isn’t for telling me what I must do or reminding me about what I haven’t done. The way it serves me each day is by taking the burden of decision-making away.”

~ * ~

“Humans are messy, fallible, imperfect creatures who cannot and will not ever get everything right all the time. And this messy, fallible imperfection never detracts from our inherent worthiness.”

How are your housekeeping standards? Do you feel guilty leaving dirty dishes in the sink overnight? Share your thoughts.

You are on Day #13 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“God Can’t” {Book 12}

Next:
“The Lives We Actually Have” {Book 14}

I ask you to do something for me. You’d like to do it.

But you don’t do it. Not because you don’t want to, but because you can’t. 

I wouldn’t be upset. We all understand that. There are lots of things we wish we could do, but we can’t, for all kinds of reasons.

But what about God? There are lots of things I wish God would do for me. If I pray and ask God for something healthy and good, but it doesn’t happen, should I just make excuses for God? . . . Oh, God was probably too busy, or God knew that wasn’t for my good, or it’s probably my own fault it didn’t happen.

Or should I sometimes reevaluate what I’m asking of God?

Maybe, just maybe, what I’m asking from God is something God never promised could be done?

While we talk a lot about things God can do, we don’t often talk about things God can’t do.

Consider some of the things listed in scripture that God can’t do:

• God can’t lie (Numbers 23:19)
• God can’t be unfaithful to himself (2 Timothy 2:13)
• God can’t tempt or be tempted with evil (James 1:13)
• God can’t not love (1 John 4:16)

I imagine every believer could create a varied list of things they think God can and can’t do, based on their specific interpretation of the Bible and their individual experiences and understanding of God.

Because of this lack of agreement among us (who can explain with total certainty the mind and ways of God???), I find books like this one by theologian Thomas Jay Oord fascinating to think about. In God Can’t: How to Believe in God and Love after Tragedy, Abuse, and Other Evils, Oord goes in depth about this topic.

If you, too, like to be challenged in your thoughts of God, especially in light of hard things you experience or see others go through, read how Oord addresses the problem of suffering and God’s love, then come to your own conclusions (although continue to remain open to change).

Because even though we say, “It never hurts to ask God,” sometimes it ruins a person’s faith if what they repeatedly ask for could never come true.

But it might make them love God even more if, based on God’s nature, they could more accurately realign their expectations of what God can or can’t do.

I listened to the audiobook so I don’t have quotes to share on this one. But as with all books I recommend, I’ll give my standard disclaimer with this one, too: take what’s true and helpful to you and leave the rest.

You are on Day #12 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“The Light We Carry” {Book 11}

Next:
“How to Keep House While Drowning” {Book 13}

As much as I loved her first memoir Becoming, I also love this second one by former First Lady Michelle Obama.

In The Light We Carry: Overcoming in Uncertain Times, Michelle Obama continues sharing wisdom that she learned and is learning in her experiences as a daughter, wife, mother, friend, and First Lady.

She is relatable, humble, and kind as she tells stories from her life, with lessons we can all use in our own lives, ranging from feeling anxious in the pandemic, watching adult children make their own decisions, and dealing with inevitable differences in relationships.

Michelle Obama is the kind of woman you’d love to have in your group of best friends.

Favorite Quotes from The Light We Carry

“The unknown is where possibility glitters. If you don’t take the risk, if you don’t ride out a few jolts, you are taking away your opportunities to transform.”

~ * ~

“Another important thing to remember about friendship: What mattered was that we just kept showing up, in closeness, in commitment, in compromise, and even in fatigue. For me, it’s all about showing up.”

~ * ~

“I often say that it’s much harder to hate up close. When we drop our fears about newness and open ourselves to others, we are practicing an important form of micro-connection.”

~ * ~

“With our friends, we are always looking for very simple reassurances that we matter, that our light is recognized and our voice is heard—and we owe our friends the same.”

~ * ~

“Life has shown me that strong friendships are most often the result of strong intentions. Your table needs to be deliberately built, deliberately populated, and deliberately tended to.”

~ * ~

“The challenge is to shift our perspectives and celebrate the value of differentness in ourselves and in others, seeing it as reason to step forward rather than back, to stand up rather than sit down, to say more rather than less.”

Have you read a good memoir lately? Share in the comments.

You are on Day #11 of the series, A Book a Day {Nonfiction Favorites}.

Each day of February 2023 I’m recommending one book a day from favorite nonfiction books I’ve recently read.

The Table of Contents for all 28 books is here, updated daily.

Previous:
“Someday Is Today” {Book 10}

Next:
“God Can’t” {Book 9}