Losing Weight

Me—tethered to the ground

I remember years of stress, trauma and tears, long working hours. losing my marriage and mother whom I had clung to, depending on her too long, then bit by bit my life became simpler, more streamlined as bits of sadness, resentment and fears floated away, left behind without the pain of loss I would have expected. My girls married and left home the same year and I survived both double blows.

 My job, which I had thought held my identity before retiring, Whoosh! Left behind all too soon it seemed. I noticed I had begun leaving behind a few things no longer useful; surprisingly without feeling deprived—I was expecting stress but only noticed an occasional twinge of regret, soon forgotten, surprised at how easy it was to let things slip away.

By my 80th year I see life is simpler now, in my final chapter. Looking back, I see so clearly how He has guided my desires, shaping them slowly but surely, closer to His own. I remember my first awareness that I had reached my peak earning years, so put aside my briefcase and career ambitions and was relieved and pleased there was no twinge of loss; I was free to concentrate now on more important concerns. As I freed myself from those earthly tethers, I felt lighter, ready to float freely.

My physical world shrank as my best (busier) days were left behind. Without a whimper I sold my car and used the cash to outfit my bathroom to more comfortably accommodate my new physical circumstances. In His wise council, God had led me to buy long term care insurance, which financed three years at Horizon Bay assisted living (and is still available for the next time it’s needed) which prepared me for a bigger step. God’s blessed home, my perfect nest, after 40 years of serving me and providing my comfort and temporary haven for others—sold, gone? No, its price is there in my bank statement, so it’s still caring for me.

              

Going from ambitions to responsibilities to freedom from the usual expectations is a gradual procedure. Other bits of life no longer needed I have left in a scattered trail as I go forward mentally unencumbered, including freedom to come and go at will, walking confidently without stumbling, sleeping peacefully the night through, the liberty of making independent decisions, and the newest, asking Sandy to handle my bills and checkbook, confessing to a little whining about my fading vision which made her help necessary. I must admit successfully paddling my financial canoe had privately been a source of pride/,  

me, weightless, ready for take-off

 Less time spent on this world’s needs allows more time to contemplate my extended future!  I’m reminded by frequent aches and complaints that I will encounter a few bumps in the road ahead but it’s thrilling to imagine my next chapter, just beyond the horizon. So leaving the weight of these various bits of life left behind is easy---and a loss, just exchanged for glimpses of my next Home, waiting for me. My Father has so generously given me plenty of time for my faith to grow, to learn how to love Him more, how to find and follow His path through this broken world, ready and happy to lose the weight of bits left behind. These days I sense God’s presence close by and I’m listening for His call.

Creator, Creation

Recently Dr. Jeffress used the illustration of a sculptor and a marble slab from which he carved a handsome lion. Someone asked how he had managed to transform a slab of stone into the likeness if a beautiful, powerful animal. His reply ? “I just used my tools to remove everything that didn’t look like a lion.”

I wonder, though, what if we asked the stone slab its opinion of the process? Might it have rebelled, complained, shrunk away from the sharp blows of the hammer and chisel? Certainly it wouldn’t have been comfortable or pleasant. And when work was complete, might the stone lion have preened a little, just a bit proud of his newfound beauty, forgetting the artist’s technique and physical labor responsible for his transformation?  Don't we sometimes forget the source of our own daily successes  and forget whose Hand was on the tools shaping us?

Today a commonplace description of a successful, well-known corporate leader is a "self-made man". Hearing that often, the man thus described can get puffed up in pride over his success in this world. I sometimes wonder about God's opinion  on this subject. I guess it just depends on which world where you seek to excel and your (and His) definition of success.

A favorite old hymn came to my mind, not commonly heard in this new century:

                Have thine own way, Lord.

                Have thine own way.

                Thou art the Potter;

                 I am the clay.

                 Mold me and make me 

                 After thy will.

                 Here I am, waiting, Lord,

                 Yielded and still.

 I believe I can safely agree to God's definition of success. 

Hugging a Cactus

A member of my family is legally blind, which aside from the expected life’s difficulties, caused him a few memorable embarrassing moments. One in particular represents to me a common human response to some hurtful occurrence they can’t seem to forgive or forget.

While in high school, the boy had a first-date companion at a banquet (his mother had driven and dropped off the couple for their evening together). While mentally searching for something to say to his date, he idly reached out to pick up the small floral centerpiece of their table to get a closer look at it and admire it. As soon as he touched it, he realized his mistake—it was a cactus plant, an unfriendly one he found difficult to put down.

Embarrassed, he ignored the pain in his fingers and somehow got through the rest of the evening without his date realizing what had occurred, although conversation became even more stilted with this distraction.

In the many years since, I have encountered many bitter, sad people who can’t let go the pain they felt; even years later they seem crippled by some wrong, experienced long ago. It seemed to me similar to an untreated wound from a cactus needle left to cause a life-threatening infection.

Seemingly, they are still limping years after having their toes stepped on; hugging the pain is like hugging a cactus. Who wants to go through life with your arms wrapped around a cactus? And yet the hurt is so powerful in our mind sometimes we don’t know how to lay it aside. We all know we’re supposed to forgive, and many try unsuccessfully. I was shocked when a woman told me that she refused to forgive the monster she hated--she would rather go to hell than to forgive the monster who had abused her child. Both she and her villain were in effect chained together. She was allowing him to ruin the rest of her life rather than release the hurt and thus obtain her freedom from this bondage.

When I searched my heart for ways to release this kind of crippling pain, I remembered who my heart and soul belongs to: Jesus. I was created by Him, alive because of Him and my future is in His care. He says He wants to give me His best, if I allow Him complete access to remodel my emotions, strengthen my faith. After a while I began to notice I could remember formerly distressing memories with no heat, no anger. I even began to forgive myself of past mistakes. Now looking back to those early days without emotional baggage, it occurs to me now that I had in fact been changed by those unhappy days. Jesus had used them to begin my growth to what He prepared me to be.

Accepting these as teaching moments instead of obstacles in my path, opens my heart in gratitude. And humans being what they are, there are still people who would be my enemy, yet I realize I have no need nor the right to be offended, if Jesus truly lives in me. Jesus is the One offended, and I must release the offender to Him.

... Dearly beloved, avenge not yourselves, but rather give place              unto wrath: for it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay,              saith the Lord. ...    Romans 12:19

Do You Know Him?

There was a man who went to his doctor for his annual check-up—to pacify his wife, who was a worrier. Waiting for test results, he fidgeted, bored, and was eager to get back to his desk for more important matters. Then he was called in to the doctor’s office for his report and be on his way. However, to his surprise, the doctor handed him a referral slip to a specialist in a huge hospital in a town some miles away.

Grumbling at further intrusion on his day -- indeed his week, he insisted he felt fine and refused to follow up. Huffing irritably, he went on his way. If he hurried, he’d have time to pick up coffee and a couple of Danish and still make his next appointment. Enough time wasted pleasing his wife. He’d risk a little heartburn, just a little snack to celebrate. Maybe his wife would relent on her health campaign and stop hovering, now that he’d seen the doctor.

A voicemail arrived from the doctor. He deleted it.  A couple of days later a note arrived in the mail. He discarded it. He was fine; he’d know if he had a problem. He didn’t need someone telling him how to live. He was capable of taking care of himself; he wasn’t one of those weaklings who leaned on someone else. He preferred to look out for himself, period.

Perhaps you’ve heard this story or can guess his outcome.

Or perhaps it sounds familiar because someone in your life has been placing church bulletins under your nose, leaving you telephone messages from some friend in her church, hinting about some destructive habit, something that could endanger your life, a bad example they say could lead your children astray or land you in trouble if you don’t seek help.

What if they are right?

           

More on Giving and Receiving, Taking and Losing

One Friday long ago I came home from work to find glass from my back door scattered across the patio and the door standing open.  I didn’t go inside, because someone could still be there, looking (unsuccessfully) for a cache of things he could pawn; instead, I went across the street to a neighbor’s house to call the police.

After declaring the house safe, they left and I went inside to check on my little Shadow, a little schnauzer/terrier, and found her safe but trembling in fear under a bureau. Somehow in desperation, she had scrambled under a six-inch space she was barely able to squeeze out of, now that she was safe. She remained traumatized for a week and trembled at the smallest unusual sound.

When I took stock, I found nothing missing that affected my daily life—even my new microwave, a modest TV and record player were undisturbed. Nothing that I’d have to replace for daily living--all that was missing was my mother’s wedding ring, pearl and silver earrings my dad had brought me from Japan, a solitaire ring from my father-in-law and my 4^th anniversary gift, a Navaho turquoise bracelet (that had outlasted the marriage). And I needed a carpenter to repair the door frame—when the thief kicked in the dead-bolted door, the lock didn’t give way--the door frame and a bit of wall were ripped too. One might think that now living alone for the first time ever, I might be especially fearful, knowing how easily someone could break in, but God’s presence was there, day or night always.

When my aunt asked what I’d lost, she became very emotional about the terrible loss of Mother’s ring so I quickly terminated the call. I couldn’t sink to helplessness or fear. A deacon in my church, owner of a construction company, came Friday evening to nail the door shut and repaired it Saturday. I was safe and the repair wasn’t a huge expense. I suddenly saw this episode in a new light.

Whenever my aunt began to moan, trying to get me to grieve along with her, I explained  that since I had been divorced, sold “our house” and bought a smaller one, I had gratefully told God that I considered the house and everything in it His and I was happily His steward in residence.  The few things taken from this home left in a thief’s pants pocket. They weren’t mine so I would not grieve for the loss; they were God’s. Wherever they now were, they were still His. And I wouldn’t stand in the shoes of that thief for riches far beyond their value, when God came to collect what was His!

In the years since then, at various times God brought me someone needing a place to stay for a weekend or a few months and He provided them refuge in His house and His peace filled it. Since I became unable to live alone, the proceeds of the sale still provide for me. My aunt? I regret she never learned what I had learned—the peace of knowing God truly can be trusted for life before Heaven! After her husband died, she kept his closet intact; she refused to give away his suits to a charity where "some dirty bum would wear her husband’s clothes until they fell away in dirty rags". And she slept fearfully the rest of her life, unaware that God was keeping her safe.

The Art of Giving

                                                

     Several decades ago, when my girls were small and eagerly awaiting Santa’s arrival, I hit on a plan to enlist their help in cleaning their closet and toybox and train them in the valuable art of giving. After all, if Santa Claus peeked into their room and saw the mountain of toys, where would he leave their new ones? Next door? Across the street? Would their stockings be empty Christmas morning because Saint Nicholas would believe they were greedy, having all those toys and still wanting more? 

     So around Thanksgiving we began the family tradition of sorting through toys and clothes they had outgrown or grown tired of, but were still attractive enough to make someone else a little happier on the holiday. Giving away a beloved toy is a hard sell, even with the trade-off of knowing there are more to come very soon, but the girls enthusiastically approached this project without tears--until they saw those long-forgotten toys so attractively perched in cartons leaving the house. And I got a cleaner, clutter-free house for the holidays. 

     Through encouraging my children to learn to enjoy giving happiness away, I learned a thing or two also, lessons that became embedded in my heart. It all relates somehow to the Biblical  promise that His children shall become as vessels of living water, which didn’t sound all that significant to me until I heard a preacher describe the difference in the quality of water in a flowing river and a stagnant, smelly  pool, dammed up, no longer releasing any water. 

     Water flowing freely is purified as it travels and shares itself all along the riverbed, whereas by holding onto what it has, the stagnant pool deteriorates and its water becomes polluted and no longer a blessing.

     My goal in giving is not to receive more for myself, but to learn to become a conduit, readily sharing what is given to me. The benefit to recipient and giver is clear and ongoing as each one shares, as illustrated in the movie a few years ago Pay It Forward.

     Although I give with an open hand; God gives with both hands and my hand is still open to receive and share again. Whether or not the gift is appreciated, giving blesses me. Whether the recipient  receives a blessing with my gift is not my responsibility; it depends on  the openness of his heart to be a blessing to others. 

     After thinking about the principles involved, I concluded this is a fairly effective way of dealing with life: discard those things, habits and attitudes that ill serve you and make room for growth and blessings in return.

Food for Thought

“Food for thought" is no substitute for the real thing”

On the Cooking TV Network I heard someone say that this morning.  This was his humorous promotion of the upcoming cooking show. But as I listened to his words, I realized His words could lead to a more important truth, depending on what “the real thing” meant.

In the world, “Eat, drink and be merry” is a common call. No thought required for that. Yet thought is extremely important for long, productive, satisfying life: “Look before you leap” means “think before you act” and doing so can save a lot of missteps which lead to disaster.  

What we think casts a longer shadow on our lives than what we eat and is therefore more important.

 

         Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever 

         is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--    

        think about such things.                  Philippians 4:8















food for Tjought