When I Asked My Husband for Advice: Finding the Good

Okay, here's the truth.  In the past, I have been accused of being, shall we say, a "type A" personality.  I call it tightly strung.  Intense.  It works for me most of the time.

However, sometimes a person can tear herself to shreds with just her mind.

Sometimes a girl can over think things.  Just a bit.

In the last few months, as most of the major things in my life have changed, I have done a little over thinking.  Most of the changes have been big beautiful blessings, but did I mention that I tend to over think things?  Just a bit?

Yesterday, my mind chewed on my hopes and dreams.  I chewed on how to stay focused on the potential future and not sell it out for trifles today.

I might have undervalued the gift of Today.

I don't want anyone to know this carousel of thinking that leaves me tired and reeling so I hide it as best I can.  Write or wrong, I make the big decisions deep in my heart and often alone.  Then I share it all over the internet right here because I trust you people.  And also because I have no real idea who you are though I strongly suspect that most of the people who come here share my DNA.

Anyway, the other night, I look up at my husband while he is sitting in his "nothing box" harmlessly watching TV and minding his own business.

I barge right in with this beauty, "So, if you had any advice to offer me, what would it be?  About anything, just one sentence.  What do I need to hear?"

He turned his face to me and just looked for a few seconds.

I looked back.  I smiled a smile that I hoped looked doe-eyed and beautiful but I am afraid resembled The Joker from Batman.

"Quit thinking about tomorrow," and he turned back toward the TV.

What?  Quit thinking about tomorrow?  This from The Man With the Plan?  From the stubbornly conservative person who bought a whole life insurance policy before he was thirty?  Quit thinking about tomorrow?  We have three kids and the four of you hungry people are all going to look at me in about forty-five minutes to find out "what's for dinner?" and I WILL give you an answer because not only do I think about tomorrow, I think about EVERYTHING that happens next whether it is likely or not!

You are agreeing with my husband now, aren't you?

In her Bible study on the life of Gideon, Priscilla Shirer says:

"...what lies ahead in your journey is not nearly as critical as where you are right now.  Wherever you are now is where you are meant to serve now...your greatest impact will be done here--in the ordinary rhythms of your daily living."

I believe what I wrote yesterday, about not selling eternal Tomorrow for junk Today.

However, the gift of Today must not be despised or discarded while I spin my wheels in imaginary Tomorrows.  

Today, right here, my impact is real.  Tomorrow, my impact is unknown.  There is treasure and balance in both times.

Today is real, it is the bird in hand.  It is finite and like a good meal, it will be consumed or spoil.  It must be savored, every moment, before it is too late. 

Tomorrow is potential and magical.  Tomorrow will show the harvest of the seeds sown Today.  Expectation and dependence on one particular Tomorrow will likely disappoint.  Whichever tomorrow comes, it must be accepted with the gifts it brings.

Its funny, sometimes I think I was more "together" when I was younger.  Maybe I was just too foolish to even know what I didn't know.  So I continue trying to work it all out, to learn and grow and love and laugh.  All this is possible because Today and whatever Tomorrow brings, I have hope and a future through faith.

More like this?
Bloom Where You're Planted
The Truth...and I saw it right there in Sunday School
Superman's Secret Identity

Hold Out: Finding the Good

The subtle voice whispers almost constantly in my ear.  To be honest, I want to listen, I want it to make sense.  I want it to justify and speak the words I want to hear.

The air is cold and damp, it stings my fingers.  The voice tempts me, "You can have whatever you want today.  You can get it yourself."

The offer is tempting.  I could use an easy road right now.  Uphill gets old.

Restlessness weighs heavy today as I walk the curved path.  The best part of the walk is ahead.  The path changes from too bright sunlight to rich dappled green and teases off into the woods.   I have walked it for weeks now and I know good and well where that path goes.

Seeing it though, seeing it is like a trick of the soul.  This part never gets old.  My breath catches like a kid whose eyes finally behold what the heart has been anticipating.  The path tricks me every day and every day I imagine that it goes somewhere new.

"What is the cost?"  The words float in my mind.

"You can have anything you want.  You can have it today.  Just sell Tomorrow."

And there it is.  The only part of what the tempter says that is truth.  I can have whatever I want Today, if I just sell Tomorrow.  

Surprise sparks in my mind when I experience a blessed moment of clarity, seeing the lie for what it is instead of swallowing it down.

I take off my sunglasses to see in the shade of the woods.  Everything looks different, the green is more intense, the light dances through the cottonwoods leaves, and the creatures can't hide from me anymore.  I drink up the peace in this place.  And I hear a different voice whispering of hope and future and holding on to what you know is good.

Today is finite.  It ends.  Yes it is beautiful and what Today offers should be seized and lived in and celebrated because it ends.  But it still ends.

Tomorrow is eternal.  Some people say it never comes but they're wrong.  Tomorrow is born fresh over and over.  We just get confused because it changes its name each time.  Make no mistake though, Tomorrow never really ends.  It is eternal.

Selling Tomorrow for chattel Today would only make me a bondwoman, a kind of slave.  

I can have a spotless home today if I sell part of my bond with my children, one precious hour at a time.

I can have a bigger home today if I sell a dream and stop planting the seeds and stop doing the work  that will make that dream grow real.

I can have esteem today if I sell a hundred little moments that I simply won't have time for in a different tomorrow.

I can spend money on whatever draws my eye if I sell the time it takes to care about you and yours.

Now hear me, our Todays and Tomorrows are different, you and I.  My dreams and loves do not judge yours.  We are both safe in this backyard.

This jumble of nonsense and vague ideas is just about holding on to what you know is true, holding on to what is significant and of real value.

Holding on and holding out for real gold instead of running to town with a hand full of shiny worthless rocks like some fool.

The path hasn't changed and it is real Today.  I can seize this moment and love it for what it is, here and now and real and use beautiful Today to do the work for Tomorrow.  I do not have to trade true value for the easy road.  Besides, Today may have an end but it teases and delights with its own surprises.

The merganser duck with the late brood of chicks has only one left.  I don't know where the rest are but after two cold snaps, dogs, turtles and whatever else lives in water, the chick is a little miracle.  It makes me unreasonably happy.  The kid in my heart catches her breath as she sees the fuzzy shape, half yellow, half brown, waddling awkwardly around the duck as an older woman feeds the flock.  The woman points her cane directly at the orange bill of the big obnoxious goose who, all of us park walkers know, is solely responsible for the new warning sign about aggressive geese.  The goose seems to nod his head as if saying to the flock, "Respect the cane."  

Yes, for all my babbling, Today is beautiful too and deserves to be fully occupied, while its still around anyway.

Glass Half Full: Finding the Good

Thanks to The Nester for inspiring and inviting us to link up and share our passions!  This is the first post in a series about gratitude and seeing the extraordinary in the everyday.

This start is humble, but off we go nevertheless...



A warm breeze pushes my skin this morning while I walk.  The dog and I are going for a little over two miles, just enough to work off whatever chocolate might beckon later today.  It's a regular thing, walking at the park after the kids are dropped at school, but it hasn't gotten old.  It's just a nice place with a couple of playgrounds and acres shaded by old pecan trees.  Squirrels crowd just out of reach of a six foot leash and the old folks feed them by hand.  Boston the dog rescues toddlers from aggressive geese.

A few weeks ago, I stopped taking my earphones.  

I just walk and listen and say, "Good mornin" to the people who pass on the sidewalk.

It makes me strangely happy.

The route I like best runs along Soldier Creek.  A third of a mile down, the sidewalk enters a tunnel of trees.  This is the best part.  Off to the side, a man with a sleek, spoiled doberman stands fallen tree limbs up in the shape of a massive teepee.  Vines wrap around it and hold it together.  His dog watches as he works.  The first teepee appeared over the course of a week or two and he has started on his second.  I hope fervently that no one takes them down or tells him to stop.  I hope they just let it be.

Some of the regulars are missing today.  Winston-who-gives-sniffems and his man aren't there.  The snarly terrier must be grounded for her bad behavior.  Callie the Yorkie is at home or late but the shy Aussie with one blue eye greets Boston sweetly.

Blue Jays call, the breeze rattles cottonwood leaves and one baby squirrel makes what I can only describe as "tiny noise" at the edge of the creek.  He is so stinkin' cute its just unbelievable.

The peace is shattered.

Whooping, over and over from up the hill.  WHOOPING, I say!  Like a crazed teenager jumping off a bridge or an entire football team celebrating after a touchdown.  WHOOPING!

A blue tractor flies through an empty parking lot, its big scooper thing raised and a man sitting in the seat, whooping like someone who just won the lottery.

Unnecessary judgments push into my mind.

Is that man drunk?

He sounds happy.

Someone should call the city.

Someone should let him be.

What's wrong with him?  He could...

be grateful for his very life today?

Glass half empty, glass half full.  Choose this day the glass from which you will drink.

As for me and my house, we will choose the glass half full, even if it comes riding in the scoopy thing on the front of a blue tractor.

...singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ...Ephesians 5:19-20

finding good today,
m

Letting Them Bloom

This must be the 13th post in the Bloom Where You're Planted series instigated, yes I said instigated, by The Nester.  I say "instigated" because this blogging every day stuff is hard.  I want to skip it.  But if I weren't writing to you my friend, if I weren't looking for good stuff in my life, I would probably be staring blankly at the TV.  I figure for me, right now, this is better!

This "blooming where you're planted" stuff isn't just for me.  It isn't just for grownups who pout because this fridge is smaller than the other one or introverted moms who would prefer to hide in their own little heads and not make the friends they desperately need.

The kiddos need to bloom, too.

They need to be allowed to bloom, to make their own new life in this new place.

They need help to find their way.

Robert started school at a traditional, public school for the first time in his life on September 17.  This is the right thing for right now.  My high energy, extroverted boy was wilting at home with his introverted momma who used up all her words by noon each day.  Big decisions are always complicated but I have to admit that at this time, it is the right thing for this child.

This week he brought home his second invitation to a birthday party.  I know nothing about this kid, these people, this place.  Nothing.  This is not my usual mode of operation, to drop my kid off with people I don't know to do who knows what.

On several occasions this week I contemplated losing the invitation and hoping he would forget.  "Do you really want to go?"  I asked.

I knew this was my problem, my own personality holding this boy back.

I knew it wasn't fair.  Or right.

Grab the purse and throw in a book, prepared to sit there the entire two and a half hours if circumstances or safety issues warrant my presence.  Take the boy.

It was a small place about eight minutes from my house where people can race some kind of toy car on a slot track or something.  The party was the only gig going on.  The birthday boy's parents greeted me at the door with a big sister, plenty of people to keep an eye on eight boys indoors.

I thanked the boy's mom for inviting my son, the new kid.

Robert's eyes pleaded for me to go.  So I did.

When my husband brought him home, he informed me that the folks there said Robert was the life of the party.  He beamed as he told us about his new friends.

I didn't see this coming, but it's right.

Letting him bloom, getting out of the way, this is right.

learning to let him bloom,
m

If you only read three others from this series:
Love Does, our story
Good to Know...another story about Robert settling in...
When you move back home...

Love Does, our story

This is the 10th, or maybe the 11th post in the Bloom Where You're Planted series inspired by Mary Englebreit and The Nester's 31 Days series.  

Almost 13 years ago, I traveled from Tulsa, Oklahoma  to North Carolina for a wedding.  

My wedding.

Love does that kind of thing.

Sometimes love even goes out on a limb like that.

We married six days after I arrived and settled into my husband's home.  We worked together, faced trials together, made a life together.

Love does that kind of thing.

We rocked three babies together.  We reached across the dark to feel our little ones breathe.

Love does things like that day after day, long night after night.

I was in North Carolina for almost 13 years.  We made a life but every day there was a moment when I was not at home, because my heart wanted to be Home.

This summer, B applied for a position in Oklahoma so that I could be close to my family.  It was a long shot. 

Did you know that divine intervention is real?

About four weeks later, he was in Oklahoma.  I stayed another month and then he came back to get us, to move us 1,280 miles. 

Let's not pretend.  He came back to get me, to move me 1,280 miles.

Love does that kind of thing.  Love goes out on a lot of limbs.

B left his friends to bring me back to my old friends.

Love does that kind of thing.

He left his family so that I could be with mine.

Love does that sometimes.

Love talks and dreams and plans and waits.  These things are sweet and smooth and they feed the soul.  These things blow gently like a warm breeze or soothe like cool water.

But love also does.  Love takes action and wields power.  Love has the undeniable power to blow pine trees over in the night and move the seashore, little by little, like the tide.  There is power in a love that does.

Love is like that sometimes. 

Love talks and dreams and plans and waits.  These things are good.

But I am also blessed by a love that does.

Thanks B,

michele

If I Were Someplace Else

This about the 8th or 9th post in the Bloom Where You're Planted series.  Thirty-one days of learning to put down roots and grow and really live right here.  The Nester started all this so you might want to click on over there and check her out.  To read the rest of the posts in the Bloom Where You're Planted series, go here Bloom.

Wishing to be somewhere else is a dangerous game.  I suspect it would pretty much kill your chances of living fully where you are.

I am not doing that today.

I am going to practice being grateful today.

Today, right here, is a list of things that would NOT have happened if I were someplace else:

My kids playing for hours at the park with their cousins.

Seeing the sunset over the pond while Eight counts frog calls in the dark for Frogwatch USA.

Signing school papers for Almost Ten and listening to him discuss the personality traits of various teachers.  (Apparently Mr. C and I have much in common.  In other words, don't annoy him either due to his tendency toward crabbiness.)

A raccoon standing in a flower pot on my front porch eating bird seed.  (Yeah, I know that isn't a raccoon, apparently my flowerpot is a wildlife magnet cause that's where he was.)

A raccoon/skunk trap in my yard.

Eight getting mad at his daddy for ruining his science experiment by watering one of the four plants meant for his science experiment.  He allegedly watered the one that was supposed to get "no water" when he washed the porch after removing the raccoon trap.

Making Angie's three layer chocolate cake.  Wow.

The kids making plans to spend Christmas Eve at their grandparents, without us!

Things that would not have happened if we were somewhere else. Good things.  

I am sure there would have been other good things, but not these things.  These things are precious, and I am watching for more!

m

More Than an Existence

"The purpose of life isn't to arrive at death safely..."
Christine Caine

Days fly by and it would be easy to give in to exhaustion, to wish for the end of our To Do list.  But is that really what we want?  The end of the list?

Maybe the list should be revised.

Our goal, you and me, is not to survive the day but to thrive in the day.

Our goal is definitely NOT to make it to the end but to make the end, the middle and all the rest as full of life as we are able.  We are to make life.

We are here to live and in life, to glorify.

We are gifted for this.

It is through the life we live that others can see life and want it, too.

Wherever we are today, you and me, live well right there.

I feel a cool, clean breeze in this calm moment where I can complete an entire thought while my children play in the Oklahoma sun.  

Where are you really, right now?

When Your Neighbor is Really a Superhero

Neighbors.  They are always butting in.  Then again, maybe that is just a matter of perspective.  

When you are looking for reasons to settle instead of reasons to run, it's like seeing flowers in the sunlight instead of the dark.  Like seeing them the way they are meant to be seen.

As a family we tend to keep to ourselves.  When we moved to Oklahoma a month ago, we leased a home to give us time to find our way around before buying our "long-time" house. 

We moved into an older house with red bricks and a big porch in a beautiful old neighborhood with big beautiful trees, expansive lawns and swimming pools.

We moved in next to McBride.

McBride is 89.  His grown son lives three houses down around the corner in an ultra-modern home built in the 1950's.  My kids call it The Fortress of McBriditude.  We suspect that is where McBride goes when he needs to hide from his public.

You see, McBride is a super hero.

I don't know how they began to suspect it but we are pretty sure it's true.  

Maybe it is the rumor about McBride climbing on his roof.  This rumor was told to Eight and me over the fence by his own son.  McBride's son said that if we saw him on the roof, we should tell him to get the h#)) off.  Eight told me later that he shouldn't talk to McBride's son without supervision because he cusses.  I tried not to laugh at his self-monitoring...be careful little ears what you hear.

I think we actually got the idea about McBride because of  how he mows his lawn.  He is incredibly fast.  Not for an 89-year-old man but incredibly fast for any man.  His aforementioned son said that he mows fast so that he can get in the pool.  He gets in the pool even when its freezing.  This is Oklahoma people.  It gets cold when the wind comes sweeping down the plains.

About three mornings ago I looked out my kitchen window and there was a ladder leaned against McBride's roof.  I know now that he does get on the roof.  But I also know his secret, he doesn't fly.  I will never tell.

Yesterday Almost Ten climbed up in the old sycamore tree between my drive and McBride's.  My husband was watching from the window as he tested a new freedom. When Bob walked out to check on him, he discovered McBride on his way out.  With a ladder.

McBride to the rescue.

My children are delighted to live next to a hero.  My children are delighted to live next door to McBride.

here's to seeing the flowers in the daylight,
m



The other posts from Boom Where You're Planted:
Good to Know
Bloom Where You're Planted
Blooms Start With Buds
Roots
It Takes Work to Make Blooms

Grateful for Today

This month I am writing for 31 days on how to "Bloom Where You're Planted" and its late and its Friday and I almost forgot entirely.  (Thanks to Kellie R. for remind me tonight that I blog!)  

Part of building a life right where you are is finding wonderful little things right, well, where you are.  And there.  And over here.  So, I don't want to keep you but let me show you just a few of my little things.

Behind every one of them is a big, beautiful prayer of thanks.

Feel free to share your own wonderful things...
m


The other posts so far...
Bloom Where You're Planted
Blooms Start With Buds
Roots
It Takes Work to Make Blooms

Blooms Start with Buds

The Nester challenged us to write for 31 days on one topic.  I don't have it in me so I've asked for divine help and I am Giving Up On Perfect so there won't be any pictures of my actual "bud" in this post.  However, the commitment is made and I am showing up where I am supposed to be!



Change is good sometimes and in truth, I love change.

However.

When your whole basket of life gets thrown up in the air, you struggle to catch it all and it seems like most of it lands in different places than before.  Well, that can be a little hard on a girl.

We moved. Again. My husband and I gave our word to each other.  One more move before the old folks' home.  I mean it.  When we arrived I found myself closed right down.  I didn't want to unpack or put my things in another cabinet that didn't belong to me.  I didn't want to spend another dollar on a house that wasn't mine.  As far as moving goes, I was done before I got here.

Then my kid unpacked the bird feeder.  He was happy with this find, you know the cheap plastic kind with a green roof.

The front window is really big and as we sat in front of it looking out and doing school, we saw a perfect view of a bird feeder.  If we hung one up, that is.  So I found my shepherd's hook and got my purple flip flops dirty when I pushed it into the thick clay.

The grocery around the corner had bird seed.  A smallish bag with no commitment suited me perfectly.

Wouldn't you know it?  There were mums by the front door of the store.  Big, beautiful mums of that unusual orange color.  That bird lovin' boy likes orange right now.

The kids and I marched out with great ceremony and set our stage, hook, bird feeder, seeds and orange mums in a terra cotta pot borrowed from the rented garage.

A bud, all balled up and tight loosens a little.  The first of the fall.  It's a tiny orange mum.  In case you're wondering.



Other posts you might like:
Bloom Where You're Planted
Superman's Secret Identity Revealed
and the big reveal...
The post where I secretly talk about maybe moving to Oklahoma but I can't tell anyone yet.

Bloom Where You're Planted

"Bloom where you're planted."  

Mary Engelbreit

Maybe I have the heart of a nomad.

I moved 13 times that I can remember--before I was 23 years old.  Maybe I am just not afraid to move.

Maybe I know that this world is temporary and so it's hard to feel at home anywhere.

Less than a month ago, my husband and I moved our family 1,280 miles to be near my family.  That wonderful man changed jobs, gave up some retirement, and spent quite a bit of money to bring me back home.

I lived in North Carolina for almost 13 years and now I'm back home in Oklahoma.

I wasted alot of time in North Carolina hoping for a possibility and wasting some of that present.

God forgive me.

Forgive me for squandering a million little gifts.  Beautiful days at the beach or in the cool of the mountains, mild winters and wisteria vines that covered acres of trees like a big, purple net.  Pine trees everywhere and tangy barbecue sauce that soaked into pulled pork leaving only red pepper and a tangy bite that goes perfectly with cole slaw.  Kudzu.  People, this Oklahoma girl had never seen anything like that before, vines like great, green ghosts covering entire miles.

Forgive me, too, for complaining when I finally got what I wanted.  Complaint is a dangerous thing.

Though I have been transplanted and though we are still in the throes of adaptation, I am making a choice.

I will bloom where I am planted.  This time I will bloom.

I will not compare the two lives I have lived.  I will miss old friends and continue to love them and I will leave this house and make more friends.  I will not get  my feelings hurt because I will choose to love here.

I will look for beautiful blooms that I haven't seen in 13 years.

I will make a life right here.

There are many beautiful things blooming already.  

One kid is at home at the local elementary school.  He is blooming.  This neighborhood just feels good.  The time I have had with family is precious, so is knowing it is not limited by miles anymore.  Old friends have come out of nowhere to help us.   I soak these things right up, and I bloom.

Who would have thought blooms came in the form of Braum's brownie fudge sundae and sweet barbecue beef brisket?  The constant breeze that is sometimes a hot wind and how everyone has a fenced yard because everyone seems to have a dog.  All the wonderful geographical names that come from the Native American language and make me smile because as yet I am the only one in my family that can pronounce them correctly.

My children will really know my family.  That may be the sweetest bloom of all.

The weight of what my husband did for me still surrounds me all heavy at times.  It is as powerful as the summer sun and I bloom.

It feels good to have roots in the dirt.  It feels good to bloom.

m

This post is the first in a month-long series where I get to go visit over at The Nesting Place.  This is quite an endeavor, a post every day for 31 days, but it is good to do hard things, right?  These posts, Bloom Where You're Planted, will be in the Inspiration & Faith category.  I am sure you will find lots of goodies there, enjoy!