Stop. Think. Change.

Ever since I read Mike Ashcroft and Rachel Olsen’s excellent book, My One Word, I’ve chosen one word to focus on each year, as the authors suggest. The first year, I chose the word finish. Throughout each day of that year, I reminded myself to finish whatever could be completed at that time. Rather than flit from task to task, as I tend to do, I’d simply remind myself to finish! I noticed a big change in the amount of work I was able to get done. And I did my work more efficiently and with less stress.

The second year, I chose the word love. Many times each day, I’d look for ways to express love to people. Apparently, I did pretty well with that, for a Christmas card my husband and I received that year commended us for the many ways we extend love and care to others.

This year, I’ve chosen the word change. Whenever I catch myself doing or saying or feeling anything that's contrary to the better person I want to become, I’ll say to myself, “This is not good. Stop it! Change!” (After all, I do have a choice, and I can choose to feel and behave differently.)

By systematically making one change at a time, followed by another and another, it shouldn't be all that difficult. However, it will demand constant awareness--and constant follow through. And, of course, I'll need to continue to remind myself to finish and to love.

Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Consider your ways!"

Haggai 1:7, NKJV

Savor the Simple Pleasures!

As I write this, my mother-in-law is scheduled to move to a nursing home today. I feel incredibly sad for her and for our family, for she has been like a second mother to me for over 50 years. I wonder how she feels as she prepares to leave her home and go to an unfamiliar place.  I wonder how I will feel if I’m ever in that situation.

As I sat at the breakfast table this morning, I noticed this quote on the cover of the March 7, 2016, issue of Sports Illustrated: “There’s no way I’m not gonna have fun. I never fail to savor it.” Feeling drawn to know more about that, I turned to p. 30 to read the article Rick Reilly had written after interviewing Steph Curry who plays for the Golden State Warriors.

I learned that the quote on the cover had come from Curry, who said he knew how great it felt to win, after having spent four years before being on a winning team. He also said, “I know the league is so fluid. One trade, one bad free-agent signing, and it’s over. So there’s no way I’m not gonna have fun. I never fail to savor it” (p. 32).

A pot of homemade, nutritious soup simmering on my stove. Yum!

I realized how his determination to savor the good times is also crucial for you, Dear Reader, and me. Alas, we often take simple pleasures for granted, don’t we? For example, sleeping in our own bed, sitting in our favorite chair, eating favorite foods, enjoying looking out our own windows, caring for our personal needs, going and coming whenever we want to….

Such simple pleasures are easily overlooked; but once we lose them, we will realize how wonderful they were. So, let’s resolve to savor all of them—and, of course, to thank God for them! 

A Good Life

I couldn’t help overhearing the conversation between two ladies who were sitting across from me at the doctor’s office. Although they conversed as if they were old friends, they were strangers, or so I learned as they openly discussed their current health problems and reminisced about the past.

The heavy-set woman, who was wearing a loose-fitting floral dress and a floppy hat with an upturned brim, spoke with an easy drawl, even though she was describing experiences that had been extremely hard.

As she continued to talk to the tall, thin woman seated beside her, she stared straight ahead; focusing, I assumed, on people and places of the past. She said softly, “I planned to have lots of children, but ended up with only three.” After a short pause, she offered this explanation: “I got the fibroids early.”

The gaunt but regal-looking woman whispered, “We don’t always get what we want.”

“No, but the good Lord knows what He’s doing.”

They nodded in mutual agreement and then sat in silence for a moment,as if reflecting on that truth.

When they began to talk about their childhood experiences, I smiled at them and listened openly as they described a world about which I, also a country girl, had a smattering of knowledge: butchering hogs, eating from a table loaded with the bounty of the land, going barefoot in the Spring and Summer, sleeping with windows opened and doors unlocked….

A gentle smile spread slowly across the thin woman’s face and stayed there, as she said, “It was a good life.”

The heavy-set woman chuckled. “Yes. But I didn’t know it at the time!”

As soon as she said that, I remembered reading these words of another woman: “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.”

How true! Why, each of us would be so happy if only we’d savor the current moments of our lives.

Someday you and I, like these three ladies, will look back on this time in our life—with its challenges and stresses—and long for it again. But, we won’t get to re-live it. We’ll only be able to look back on it and wish we had realized the preciousness of people and places that have been relegated to the past. We, too, will get a faraway look in our eyes and realize, too late, that we spent far too much time complaining about our circumstances—and yearning for the next phase of our lives—instead of enjoying the blessings that were ours at that time.

If only we’d reflect on our lives and savor the moments of each day, how quickly we would acknowledge, “I have a good life.” How quickly joy and gratitude would fill us! How quickly we would echo the words of the psalmist, “Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name.  Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits” (Psalm 103:1, 2, New American Standard Bible). How quickly we would give thanks for all the blessings that are ours this day, this season of our lives.