Paging Through Life

When I joined Facebook a few years back it was at my sister’s prompting so she could use it as a means of universal communication and picture sharing.  Now, a few years later, I have several hundred friends on my account, some of whom I see regularly, some I don’t get to see often, but keep in touch with, some I haven’t seen or talked with since High School graduation and some I have never met or even spoken with.  I have to admit, it’s quite the eclectic posse of comrades.

A few years ago I went to a local book fair and while little captured my interest, there was one book that I bought based solely on its description.  I’d never read anything by this particular author, so I wasn’t sure what to expect; I can be very picky when it comes to what I read – okay, okay, I can be very picky about a lot of things, but that is on a mountain of things that is beside the point.

It turns out the book was good, so good in fact that after finishing the story I wanted to contact the author and tell her how much I enjoyed her work.  So, in this seemingly instant world in which we live, I logged on to Facebook and sure enough, the author had an account.  I ended up sending her a message expressing my enjoyment of the book to which she responded graciously.  Shortly thereafter we became the ‘we-haven’t-met-but-share-common-interests’ kind of friends.  You know, “Facebook friends”.

It wasn’t long before I started to see my author friend’s posts that related, not to her writing, but to her personally. Through them, in a way, I was getting to know this person I’d never met.  One day I saw that she posted a journal entry about her grandmother’s house!  This person and I became ‘friends’ because of her writing, so naturally I was excited to read the article.  

As it happened, the entry was about her grandmother’s house burning down.  Though the event was sad, the article was good, heartfelt and optimistic, but I found myself feeling angry over it more than anything.  You see, in the article she wrote of her wonderful childhood and her loving family.  She painted this wonderful picture of happy tymes with her family in her grandmother’s house.  The picture was bright and colorful and very unlike my own childhood experience and that made me angry.

WHY?  I said to God.  “Why did she get this great childhood when I had to go through what I did?  Why did she get happiness when I got fear?”  Oh, I asked all kinds of questions comparing this friend’s situation to my own until I was about to shake with disgust over the unfairness of it.  But then, just before my shaking point, God answered.  “To help others”, He said.

Even though I knew it, God reaffirmed to me that He had not put me through the hardships of my childhood, but that He had been there with me, helping me through them.  Then He brought some people to mind and made me realize that had I not gone through my trials I wouldn’t be able to understand theirs.  I wouldn’t be able to listen their problems and offer sound and helpful advice.  I wouldn’t be able to honestly tell them that I’ve been there or convey the love and power of God that saw me through.

You see I know from experience that some tymes you just need to hear from someone who’s been there and who’s come through ‘it’.  While every experience is unique to itself, I know that some tymes you just need to see someone’s scars and hear their stories in order to believe that everything is going to be okay.  

In the end I was glad I read my friend’s article because it made me realize – yet again – we all have the same job that God has called us to do: tell others about Him.  Some can use happy memories to illustrate God’s love, while others can use triumph over trials to prove God’s power.  Some can use their daily walk to show God’s faithfulness while others can use their talents to showcase God’s blessings.  

The bottom line is, no one can compare his or her story to that of anyone else.  All each of us can do is take what we’ve been through, what we’re going through or what we’re facing and use it to help others see God.  Because if God knows the name of every star in every galaxy (Psalm 147:4), surely He knows you and me and His plan for each us is long-term-perfect even if the short-term seems far from it.  So as you page your way through each new day, just remember that with God as the Author, you can face any book He asks you to read or write!

My "Lot" in Life

It was the first truly warm, beautiful day we’d had in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia since a rather harsh, seeming endless winter.  The sky, while it started out with some substantial clouds in the early morning, had cheered up to a brilliant blue and a bright, foreign ball-like object in the sky, which I recognized later as the sun, had warmed the air up to 60 degrees. It was shaping up to be a beautiful day – at least weather wise anyway.

My day started at four o’clock in the morning and by eleven o’clock I was already at job number two – and had even managed to get a run in at the gym.  I went from ON-AIR radio host to a worked out security guard with the snap of my fingers and a change of clothes.  I was pretty proud of myself in regard to my productive day until I got posted in an empty parking lot with orders to keep it empty on one of the busiest days of the year for that particular complex.

Have you ever had to stand alone in a parking lot for hours with literally nothing to do? Well, such a task is not fun if you’re geared anything like me.  About fifteen minutes in to my five hour shift I was about to go stir crazy when all of a sudden a brilliant red cardinal flew into one of the trees bordering my lot. This wonderfully beautiful creature commenced to serenade me and for the next forty-five minutes he kept me company with his lovely songs.  I felt like the beneficiary of a private concert – in a way, I was.

Then, in what seemed like way too short of a spell, my fine-feathered singing sensation started to flit around from tree to tree; it was clear he was moving on to the thicket across the busy road.  Before he got too far away I said to the cardinal, Kayden I’d named him, “Mr. Cardinal, you be sure to come back when I’m ready to get off post so I can take your picture.”  With that, Kayden the Cardinal flew away. 

The next four hours on my post were practically torture; the fine weather being the only joy the job afforded. Toward the end of my shift however, the clouds were starting to return and the sun began playing hide-and-seek with them.  In my bored and now weary state I forgot about visitor from before and all I could think about was getting my end call. 

About five minutes before that call came in, who do you think showed up in the same spot of the same tree? Kayden the Cardinal!  He started in on another concert and I listened intently until I heard, “Attention all gates. Bring it in.”  With that I walked with haste to turn in my gear and my reports.  With in minutes I was back at my post, this tyme with camera in hand, and captured some wonderful shots of my beautiful, serenading friend.  I went home smiling and praising the Creator for His handiwork and for sending me a reminder that even when my lot in life seems lonely and weary He is always there to lift my spirits!

Twenty Second Climb

It’s a foreign concept to a lot of people, but I like to work hard and sweat!  There’s something about putting your whole heart into a task that makes a good outcome all the more enjoyable and a less desirable outcome far easier to tolerate.  Knowing you did what you were able and you tried with everything you had, well, what more could anyone ask?

One of my favorite ways to work hard and sweat, get ready for another far-off concept, is to go the gym.  Don’t get me wrong, I love to walk and ride bike outside and enjoy the handiwork of The Creator, but the gym provides me with a much needed and highly valuable structure – and yes, that is subtle of articulating that knowing I paid for my gym membership makes me go and exercise.

There are a lot of workout options at the gym from weights and strength training to treadmills and stationary bikes – the kind with computer screens that allow you to ride through the Italian countryside and such – and so long as you keep changing up your workouts, is easy to stay engaged and excited about exercising.  Of course there are tasks which put that theory to the test and one of them is the stair-climber!

Lately I’ve taken to climbing stairs as part of my workout routine which is great for all aspects of my goal; cardio training, muscle toning and fat burning. The problem is, climbing multiple flights of stairs is hard work! Now I know what you’re thinking and your right, it is fortunate for me that I like to work hard and sweat, but depending on the speed I choose to climb the stairs, well, it’s about all I can do just to make it to the top, and, in the interest of full disclosure, there’ve been several tymes where I came super close to stopping before I reached the top– one such tyme was this past Monday.

As usual, I started out full of determination and pep, prepared for the twenty minute ascent to the conceptual summit, however this tyme I decided to put myself to the test and do my full climb on a level ten as opposed to the level nine/ten split which was my norm.  About halfway through the climb I realized my goal was a bit overzealous and about three quarters of the way through the climb I realized that my goal was completely overzealous and I desperately wanted to press the stop button.

As I fought the battle between fatigue and failure, I noticed that on the machine’s display there was a counter that was nearing its end and when it hit zero it reset for twenty seconds; it was counting down the tyme until the resistance levels changed.  I started focusing on that little counter and said to myself, “You can do anything for twenty seconds”.  Now granted, with five minutes remaining, I had to say that to myself fifteen tymes, but it shifted my focus from the huge, seemingly unattainable goal to a small, easily accomplished one.  I ended up reaching my goal…95 flights of stairs in twenty minutes.

Later when I thought about how I almost quit and what I did to make it through, I realized that in the climb of life, God needs to be my twenty second counter.  How much easier would my tasks and goals if I told myself “You can do anything with God”?  When I focus my thoughts on God and His plans, my seemingly unobtainable tasks on Earth become small, easily managed missions.  God did not intend for us to climb through life on our own and when take Him with us, we don’t have the burden of staring up the endless flights of stairs, we simple have to step up the steps.  

So the next tyme you face a task in life that makes you want to push the stop button and give up the climb, just take twenty seconds and tell yourself you can do it with God’s help.  With God as your twenty second counter, you’ll reach the summit in no tyme!

Navigating the Advice Line

Advice is a universal aspect of life.  Be it during the day-to-day or over the course of tyme, a lot of guidance is steered in our direction.  Some of this advice is good and some of it’s of no use.  Some of it’s given with the best of intentions and, sadly, some of it’s offered with less than honorable intent.  A lot of tymes we take advice at face value if it comes from a trusted source, but some tymes we take advice because it’s what we want to hear, not necessarily what we need to hear. Regardless though of tyme, intentions and sources, if we consider it, listening to all the advice that other people have for us really negates the need to think for ourselves.  Of course such an approach to living life is, well, ill advised.

It’s true, the advice line as an all day, every day entity in life that has many channels and while we need to be aware of it, we should not be addicted to it.  There are tymes to tune it in and tymes to turn it off.  There are tymes to change the channel and tymes to hit the record button for later use. Of course, discerning which action to apply when can prove difficult.  Just like most missions in life there is some trial and error involved, but practice greatly improves our chances of getting it right.

So what are the proper practice techniques for handling the advice line?  I’m sure it’s different for everyone, but for me, well, I seem to use the archive technique – or perhaps it uses me because it usually happens when I least expect it.  For example, the other day I was tasked with a rather large project of adding labels to envelopes.  Oh I know, not a huge task on a normal scale, but this related to a mass mailing, so the effort was far more considerable.  As I sat at my desk, peeling and sticking my stacks of labels I admittedly began to grow weary of my duty and, shamefully, laziness ensued.  

I decided, or rather my weariness convinced me, to relax in my chair and place the labels with one hand as I rested a bit.  As you may have deduced with such weariness came a lack of precision and after a few, well, not so straightly placed labels some of my archived advice line recordings started playing through my mind. Every recording advised the same thing:

Use two hands. 

That bit of advice was a common theme in my younger life.  It was offered in regard to everything from learning to drink from a cup, ride my bike, and catch a ball to learning to drive a car, type on a computer and play the guitar. Of course it had different applications depending on the situation.  Two hands on a cup was meant to steady me while using two hands to play the guitar was meant to remind me that more could be accomplished if I focused on what each hand could do separately as well as together.  The underlying element however was the same; using two hands made it possible to get the job done and do it right.

As my advice line recordings resounded in my mind, I took a deep breath, straightened my posture and I went back to my task using the much more effective, two handed, labeling method. Then, as I sat there sticking away, it occurred to me that the advice I remembered didn’t just apply to tasks in life, but also to life as a whole.

As we walk through life there are many obstacles to stumble over.  Using two hands in such cases is simply a way to, perhaps, cushion the blow of our fall, but if we walk through life already using two hands, we will never fall.  How you ask? When one of the two hands is God’s. When we walk through life holding God’s hand He is right there with us to steady us when we stumble and help us accomplish things that we simply could not accomplish with merely our own hands.     

I couldn’t help but smile as I finished labeling my large stack of envelopes and pondering the new meaning of my archived advice recordings.  I realized that while my advice line can get bombarded with useless and misguided advice, it also receives the helpful and applicable guidance I need to get me through life. Of course discerning which advice to use, keep, throw away or record is a continuous undertaking, but from now on, I’ll be sure to use two hands in the process.

Faith Without Works

Some tymes the idea of doing laundry is daunting to me.  It seems ridiculous to be overwhelmed by such a simple task, especially in this day and age when all you really have to do is push a bunch of buttons and the machines do most of the work.  And really, it’s not the work that besets me, but rather the commitment that the work requires. It seems that any tyme there are steps A through Z with any kind of pause or layover between them I tend not to be efficient at the task.  Why you wonder? Well, it’s because I am easily…

Hey, what’s that over there?

Oh good, I’ve always wanted to see that movie! 

Sure, I can come help you move that cabinet.

Dinner sounds great!  See you at 7:00. –

What? Oh yeah, I am easily distracted!

From the gathering, loading, washing, drying, folding to the putting away, laundry is a process and a commitment.  Now, when I put my mind to it, I’m usually pretty good at the first few stages, but my tenacity for the task tends to diminish when it comes to the later phases.  For example, the other week I got to the drying portion of the task, perhaps not as quickly as I could have, what with the whole getting distracted thing, but I digress.  Most of the items in the load were small so I put them in the dryer, but there was one large towel that I decided to hang outside on the clothes line.  Insert distractions here! 

Eventually, I removed the laundry from the dryer and eventually I got it folded and put away, but I forgot about the towel out on the clothes line.  Oh, there were tymes I saw it hanging out there and thought, “I really need to go get that towel”, but I was busy at that moment and decided I would remember to do it later.  Days went by, it was later, but still the towel hung out on the line.  By this tyme it had seen its share of the elements and I knew that I would have to rewash it, so, why not leave it out there until I was ready to do a load of towels and such.

Finally, one day, more than a week later, I looked out and saw that towel still hanging out on the line and I decided that it was tyme to act. I went out to retrieve it, but when I walked up to it, I was shocked by what I saw. Raging rain, scorching sunshine and whipping wind had all been a part of the towel’s online experience and the results were not good.  The towel was greatly faded from its original, vibrant color and it was beginning to tatter at the edges.  It looked nothing like the towel I hung up more than a week before.

As I walked in the house, faded and tatter towel in hand, I thought about how that towel represents faith.  Faith is a wonderful thing to have, but much like laundry, it’s a process that requires commitment.  You can’t just have faith, you have to work at your faith.  If you say you have faith but you don’t do anything with it, it will fade and start to fall apart just like the towel on the clothes line.  You have to take care of your faith, work with it and put it into action.

James said in chapter 2 of his book that “faith without works is dead”.  Simply having faith does nothing. You can say you have faith, but how would anyone know it’s true?  Let’s face it, the world is filled with Doubting Thomas’s who only believe something when it is shown to them.  Therefore the only way to illustrate your faith is to put it into action.  While God knows if you have faith, He expects us to show it to others through an array of opportunities.  Everything from how we react to a difficult tyme in life to how we treat other people are ways to put our faith to work. 

So let’s not let our faith be the towel on the clothesline. Let’s take it down and use it so it doesn’t and so we don’t fade and fall apart under the rough elements of life in this world.