Giving Grace

Today I had a conversation with someone about migraines.  They told me their history and I told them I hadn't had one since leaving the field of Human Resources.  We agreed that stress can play a major role in getting them.  What I didn't talk about is how I used it as an excuse once for calling out sick when I wasn't sick at all.  For the record, I have untruthfully called out sick twice in twenty years (yes, I know, two times too many from the standpoint that I lied).  This first time was because I had an opportunity to make extra money.

At the time I was 24 years old and worked as a data entry clerk in HR Information Systems making $7.50 an hour.  I was living on my own and trying to save money for wedding expenses.  I had an opportunity to deliver circulars door to door for a landscaper at $10 per hour so I did it.  Stupidly, when I called out sick I said I had a migraine.

When I got to work the next day my boss called me into her office and said that I never mentioned a history of migraines, that she didn't believe me and that if I called out sick again without being sick that it would be an issue.  And then she told me to get back to work.  

Gratefully she didn't first ask me all sorts of questions about my symptoms so that I didn't dig a bigger hole for myself.  I would say that she gracefully let me off the hook.  I felt awful the rest of that whole day, but then I just got back to work.  When I finally did have a migraine about 10 years later, I wish I had never said I had one.  I guess it was karma, and not the good kind!

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Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear from you and the community would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else; most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.

Reflective questions:

1.  Do you give grace when it would be just as easy not to be graceful?

2.  Do you feel guilty about being given grace or did you just "get back to work"?

3.  What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, God, what do you want me to know?)

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.

Picture from Wikipedia, mourning dove.

Life is Hard (Otherwise It Would Not Be Fulfilling)

Last year I journaled about my life being easier because I have taken steps to get out of God's* way.  But I also wrote that "easy" means fulfilling and fulfilling means that there are still challenges and that it's getting through the challenges that give us life.  Today I question that statement and ask God if it's really true.

I ask God this because one of the men I love has cancer.  And I ask God, "How, in any way, can this be fulfilling for me?"  And God reminds me to apply the lessons I have learned.  One, having cancer is not my path.  Two, if I did have cancer it would be my path, and if I would beat this cancer I would be sitting on the other side of many challenges, fulfilled at having met these challenges.  And if I died, I would still be given life.
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Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear from you and the community would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else; most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.

Reflective questions:

1.  Is there a challenge you are dealing with that seems to have no fulfilling quality?

2.  What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, God, what do you want me to know?)

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.

Afraid of Feeling Foolish (Pull off the Band-aid)

I am so thankful for people who get back to me to explain how their world works.  Because, truthfully, I really don't know about so many things.  Previously I was too afraid to ask.  But now I just take a deep breath to allow the uncomfortable feeling to pass, and I just ask.

Here's one example.  In 1997 I wrote a children's book that seemed to hold promise.  A publisher was willing to produce it but I had to put $1,000 towards the illustrations.  That amount seemed daunting at the time so I went the personal publishing route and failed.

I have had hopes of resurrecting the book, dreaming about having a published illustrator paint my words and bring them to life.  As a result I needed to ask someone how that works.  I took a deep breath and emailed the publisher for Elise Parsley, creator of If You Ever Want to Take an Alligator to Work, Don't!  (The illustrations in this book are amazing and tell a story behind a story.)

What happened is that I received a gentle email back stating that the requests usually come publisher to publisher, not direct requests.  I am so grateful to know because now I know what I am dealing with and I can put it on my heart that when I get a publisher, I can request Elise Parsley.  Sure it's a far-fetched dream right now, but only right now.

When we "pull off the band-aid" quickly, without hesitation, it may allow for healing to take place because we have done something and then have given room for the next thing to happen.  This next thing could be new space for other things because we have released what was holding us, or it could be an acknowledgement that we still want something and are keeping it on our heart.  It could mean other things, too, but that's for you to find out when you ask God* directly.
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Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear from you and the community would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else; most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.

Reflective questions:

1.  Is there something you have had on your to-do list for awhile, but are holding back?.

2.  What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, God, what do you want me to know?)

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.

Longevity - Who Decides and What to Do About It?

If I were a monarch butterfly, I would want to be in the fourth generation, the one that is born at the end of summer and gets to make the trip back to Mexico or California.  They get to live six to eight months. The three generations born earlier in the year only live two to six weeks.  They do not get an extended life.  But no living thing gets to choose how long they live, do they? Because, let's face it, if I were born in that fourth generation of monarch butterflies, I could still get hit by a bus or caught in a child's butterfly net.  There are so many variables!

So then, what's the answer if we do not have that piece of information about how long we will live? For me, I think it's living into the mystery that is life itself and listening to what's on our hearts.  A pivotal time in my life was when I no longer felt fulfilled in corporate America.  I felt a strong urgency to quit.  The mantra "You only have one life to live" was in the forefront of my mind.  That mantra came about around the same time that I needed surgery for an early stage melanoma and shortly thereafter a family member died of melanoma.  What I knew then is that I didn't want to die in corporate America.

That's when a fear of dying before really living took over for me.  It won out over all other fears:  of not being good at anything else, of not making enough money, of failing, and so on.  The list goes on and on.

So maybe not knowing how long we live provides the impetus to keep living or get living, listening to what is on our hearts.
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Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear from you and the community would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else; most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.

Reflective questions:

1.  How do you feel about longevity, especially your own?

2.  What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, God, what do you want me to know?)

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.

photo by Kenneth Dwain Harrelson on Wikipidia (monarch butterfly)

God Moments Discovered in the Looking Back

In the last post I said I'd share with you one of my own experiences in the value of looking back.  For me, it's about seeing how God is at work in my life. Often things start as a small seed and then a little seedling emerges while the roots are also setting up, and before you know it something noticeable has taken place.

On April 28 Grace H., a member of a Facebook Group I belong to, wrote, "This is my latest Zentangle drawing inspired by the May Birds & Blooms Extra cover."  It was a lovely piece of doodled artwork of a bird and flowers drawn with white paint or chalk on black paper.  It was really bold.  The image hooked me as did the word Zentangle.  I had never heard of it before so I googled it and learned that it's a method of creating beautiful images through structured patterns. Some of the artwork images that I found during the search were just breathtaking.

Shortly thereafter I was at Barnes and Noble at the clearance tables and I saw this boxed kit entitled Zentangle for Kids by Jane Marbaix.  I "knew" it was there for me so I bought it.  On June 11 I made my first Zentangle drawing, also a bird, inspired by a raven I had just seen in my backyard.  I was so tickled by the outcome that I did a lot of the pages in this workbook for kids!

Also in this kit was a book of suggested projects and I found one that I thought would be fun to do on vacation.  It's a seek and find board that is unique to an individual or in my case I used it with family to create two unique family boards (see the picture at the top).

But even bigger still than this specific example is the theme of creativity that has been running through my journals for months into years.  I see a path forming even though I don't know where it will lead.  But the looking back sure makes it exciting.
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Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear from you and the community would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else; most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.

Reflective questions:

1.  Is there a theme or a persistent thought that has been running through your life recently?  (If ;you journal, do a three-month lookback to see if any common themes emerge.)

2.  What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, God, what do you want me to know?)

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.

Why I Journal (Journaling = Vomiting)

I've had food poisoning a few times in my life and have learned a few things:  1.  Never use the tartar sauce on your walleye if it's been sitting out in the sun at a festival; 2.  You feel much better after you've spewed it from your body.

For me, although a crude description, journaling is like vomiting.  I just write everything that's on my mind and heart, usually first thing in the morning.  I write whatever comes to mind.  It usually consists of things I did the day before, how I am feeling at that moment, and the response I receive to "God*, what else do you want me to know?"  Sometimes it includes a dream or dreams I had the night before and what I think each dream might mean.

Why do I do it?  It allows me to check in with myself.  It makes me feel better. It makes room for the present day.  Don't believe me?  Just try it for a few weeks.  Don't beat yourself up if you don't do it one day or you don't get to it until right before bed, just do it.

The learning (i.e. unrefrigerated tartar sauce on a hot day spells trouble), comes in the looking back.  I don't have a specific formula for how often I look back but when I do I generally start with a three-month look back to see what my spirit has resolved and what I am still working on ("It's gold, Jerry!  Gold!") For me, looking back is part of the adventure.  It's amazing what I find out about myself and about the way God is working in my life.  With the next post I will give you an example.

And regarding the photo:  it's attached to an article about the value of sperm whale's vomit.  See  https://theideagotcrazy.wordpress.com.  It's an interesting article, but I think my journaled vomit is worth a lot more.
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Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear from you and the community would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else; most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.

Reflective questions:

1.  If you were to "vomit" yesterday, what things would it include about your feelings, activities, dreams, etc?

2.  Do you want to learn about or from your own journey?  Why or why not?

3.  What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, God, what do you want me to know?)

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.

A Message to Pursue Passion, Not Position

Right now I am at a place I have been at least two other times in my life.  It's a time when I am being pulled into something new just by circumstance, of where I am right now in this time and place.  I could feel a pull, or maybe a push, this summer when about a third of my vegetable garden was wiped out by the allium leafminer, a garden pest, and I felt called to leave the garden fallow next year.  What I am coming to understand is that this will leave space for other things.

For sure, it's a place of uncertainty.  I am a planner and not knowing what is coming next can be scary.  It can leave my stomach in knots on certain days and on others I am so excited I can hardly contain myself.

So what to do?  First, I need to be open, knowing that God* is in this with me.  I  therefore need to consider things I am reading or hearing as messages.  A recent one for me came from tbe magazine "Living."  It included an interview with San Antonio Mayor Ivy R. Taylor who was appointed mayor in 2014 when her predecessor left to work for President Obama and then was elected in 2015, making San Antonio the first major US city to elect a black woman to office - the city is about 60% Latino and less than 10% black)

She recommended that you pursue passions instead of a specific position.  She apparently likes city planning and progress.  So when she was on city council and the mayor was leaving and he needed to appoint a successor, she was passionate that of those raising her hands, she could do the best at steering the city to a better place.

For me, this is a good reminder that we don't need to have an end goal, like being the mayor.   It's quite possible that if Ivy Taylor had to run for mayor initially she might not have pursued becoming mayor then.  It's also quite possible that the end goal might not be an end goal, it might just be part of the journey.  In my opinion only God knows, so I think I will just hold out a hand and be shown the way.

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Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear from you and the community would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else; most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.

Reflective questions:

1.  Is there some uncertainty in your life right now?

2.  Do you feel a pull in a certain direction?  Are you resisting?

3.  What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, God, what do you want me to know?)

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.

Enough Skin to Go Around

I was at a networking meeting recently and one of the questions each person was asked to answer was this:  "What business advice do you have for the others in the room?"

My answer comes from a marketing club I belonged to years ago with classmates and other alumni from massage school.  What we had in common is that we needed to create a full book of clients for ourselves.  That's when someone said, "There's enough skin to go around."

Think about it.  God* wouldn't call us into something that doesn't have the opportunity for giving us abundant living.  In other words, we don't need to worry about the competition.  We each have something unique to offer.

To the latest group I was with, my response caused a chuckle because no one else there was in the same line of business as me.  But they understood it's meeting:  give your worry the boot, God's got this!
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Now for the reflective questions which you can journal about or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear from you and the community would love to hear from you!  Your comment could have a major impact on someone else; most likely it will be just the right thing at the right time for one of the readers. For me, God* wanted me to know that helping even just one person is wonderfully impactful.

Reflective questions:

1.  What comes to mind from reading this post?

2.  What does God* want you to know about this (ask directly, God, what do you want me to know?)

* I use the term God as a universal term.  You may decide that Great Spirit, Allah, Higher Power, etc. better suits you today.  It is not for me to decide.