Do You Do It Your Way?

I have been very busy these last many months. I generally like being busy, but this has been crazy busy! What I am discovering, though, is that God has me working in my areas of giftedness, with a little pulling out of my comfort zone...just enough to depend upon Him.

Where are you? Are you always only willing to work in your areas of extreme comfort? Do you always say "no" to opportunities where you have to have faith? That might be just what God is wanting for you. Only when you have to depend upon Him and His abilities, can you truly say that God gets the glory. Only when you realize that the only way what you are working on was successful was NOT because of you, but more likely in spite of you...because of the grace of God, can you move out of the way, pointing the way to Christ.

Happy Father's Day!

My gentle Daddy!

Such a sweet pic of my sweet parents!

I love you Daddy on this Father's Day and every day! You have been not only a super man in my life, but Super Man to me!

The Tongue!

Ben and I were driving to pick up the girls from camp the other day. While on drives like that I usually ask Ben a lot of questions...you know, like "What is your favorite memory as a child?"

This trip, Ben turned the tables and asked me a question: If you could, would you go back and change anything from your past?

I did answer one thing, and then it dawned on me....every single one of the other things that came to mind involved issues with my tongue! Things I had said that I dearly wish I hadn't...things that hurt others...things that were an attempt to make myself look better....oh dear! just the thought of them all turns my stomach and makes me sad.

God is working on me still! I can look back and see how far I've come and see that I have improved, by the grace of God...but it remains and will probably always remain a struggle and a weak area. I will continue to strive to the standard that God has set for me.

That Thin Veneer of Civility

I have learned something about my daddy in the last few days. It's something I've always known, and just now confirmed! It thrills my heart and brings a smile to my face.

My daddy is a very gentle man!

HUH? You might be asking yourself. Well...daddy was always extremely gentle. He was tender. He never, and I mean never, raised his voice. He laughed easily and had a great sense of humor. He treated everyone that way.

Have you noticed, though, that many people fit that same description? Most of us know how to "put on" our outward responses to events. Most of us can "keep it together" around others, or at least those we work with or strangers. It might only be in the safety of our own home that we might let loose...let it all hang out. Ben and I for years have called that the "thin veneer of civility". We all have it to different degrees of thicknesses!

But once your mental capabilities begin to fade, you begin to loose that ability to "put on" that civility. You just are what you are. You loose that ability to recognize things in others' faces that might have stopped you from doing or saying something before. In reality, the veneer is gone, and the real you shines through.

In these latter days as daddy has begun succumbing to the wiles of Alzheimer's, his real nature is shining through. I am so proud to say that daddy is still a gentle man! That is who he really is! To the core...gentle! He still has a great sense of humor. He is still tender. And every time I see him when I ask him if he knows who I am, he smiles, leans toward me and whispers, "You are my Lisa." and gives me a kiss.

I treasure that...I will never forget that...and it makes me want to try to be nicer while I have that veneer, so that when it's gone, it really is who I am.

A New Recipe

I have failed spiritually lately. I hate that! It's easy, I guess, for me to think that I have progressed and matured when things are good...but oh! the test of trials and difficulties...even minor ones.

I am weak.

Start with a few things on my plate. Add Ben's stress from seminary. Throw in a dash of daddy not doing well and being in the hospital. Toss that with some big decisions about daddy and some long term care. Sprinkle that with concern over mom and her health and mental well-being. Include a pinch of new-again potty issues and a healthy dose of night time potty issues. Top it all off with the normal things of life: laundry, meals, cleaning, grocery shopping.

Now, if I put all that in a pot of Bible study, prayer, meditation and contemplation, listening, I'd have one fabulous dish of seeing God's will...exuding His peace and presence.

BUT...do what I do and throw all the above in a pressure cooker, place the lid on, and turn the heat up doing it all my own way, and you get a weak, faithless, waif!

Not a delicious, tempting meal by any means. I am now doing what any trying-to-be-a-good-chef would do: stop the madness! Throw out the garbage that has been boiling and begin again....same starter recipe but with all the difference this time: JESUS!