We all were born with the capacity to dream. To envision a life that could be… that will be… and the pathways to get there. To imagine a tomorrow that’s better…
Safer…
Happier…
Stronger…
Lovelier.
“Be fruitful and multiply,” He said. That’s the stuff that dreams are made of. We dream of fruitfulness. We dream of abundance.
But life on this side of the Garden sometimes aims our dreams toward the mirror. Nighttime comes to the soul, and our imagination gets lost in what once was. Of those we once dreamed with or about, but now for whatever reason are lost to us. And it hurts like hell. [click to continue…]
Know what’s always messed me up with New Year’s resolutions? New Year’s Day is a holiday. So all those goals and new beginnings typically start around January 2 and I’m already a day behind. Then I need to put up Christmas stuff and I’m two days behind. I’m getting tired just thinking about it. So I need some mental rest from the holidays. Three days behind.
So this year I brightened up and decided that this will take a bit more planning and thought. And yes, I’m talking slap-dab in the middle of the Christmas holidays.
So I’m writing this to myself, but inviting you to come along for the fun. Here are ten suggestions to prepare for the coming year – do all these by December 31, and you can have New Year’s Day off. I know, I know! You’re welcome! Click here to get started
It was Christmas Eve morning, I don’t know, about 12 years ago, I guess. I got up way ahead of everybody else, and for some reason had to go to the grocery store. And for some other reason I can’t remember, it wasn’t our regular grocery store.
When I walked in, I noticed that the supermarket had a case of 24 Christmas gel candles marked down to a buck apiece. On a whim, I bought an entire case of them and hauled them home.
I was inspired.
(By the way, completely irrelevant side note, but that’s just one more reason to do your Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve. Black Friday’s got nuthin’ on the bargains you can find the day before Christmas. More here.)
I got back home and everybody was still settled in to their long winter’s nap. So I went to work. I sat down at the computer, grabbed a sheet of labels, and printed 24 that read, “Thanks for the light you bring to our lives every day. Merry Christmas, The Wood Family.”
Boy, was I inspired. Click here to see what happened
Many years ago the cartoon character Cathy expressed the anxiety many people feel this time of year. She says to her boss: “My left brain is making lists of people I haven’t sent cards to yet. My right brain is at the craft store, thinking up creative gifts I could make before Christmas. My nerves are at the mall, worrying whether I should have gotten the other necktie for my Dad. My stomach is still at last night’s party begging for more Christmas cookies. My heart is stuck in traffic somewhere between my mother’s house, my boyfriend’s house, and the adorable man I saw at the post office.”
Her boss asks, “What is it you want, Cathy?” Cathy replies: “May what’s left of me sneak home early and take a nap?”
For many people, Christmas has become something other than a celebration. It’s more like a mission. The holiday, instead of being a holy-day, has become a holocaust. The celebration has become a sale, “Silent Night” has become replaced with “Walmart Fight.”
And have you noticed how guilty you always seem to feel at Christmas?
You spent too much money, or didn’t spend enough.
You didn’t get everything your kids asked for, or the present wasn’t the right size.
You didn’t give enough to the church or the Salvation Army.
You “put Christ back into Christmas” and were “too spiritual,” or you had too much Santa Claus and reindeer.
Do you ever wish you could just somehow go back and start over? Football coaches have a good term for this: they call it going back to the fundamentals. Let’s give that a try this year. Let’s make Christmas a celebration again… 100% guilt-free! Click to see a great idea for connecting with people
Remember what it was like as a kid to go to sleep on Christmas Eve?
Stockings hung with care, note and snack left near the tree…
Listening with both ears for any sound that resembled, well, anything…
Sneaking a peek out the window to see if you could see, you-know-who…
Trying to go to sleep cause you-know-who can’t you-know-what until you’re fast asleep.
[Cue the choir…]
Then came the morning! Wow! Where to start? All that stuff!
And then… [click to continue…]
Davidson High School, Mobile, Alabama. Circa 1974. My freshman year. I’m standing in the cafeteria line, waiting to decide whether I was going with the hamburger or whatever today’s chef’s choice was. It was there I spotted her, headed toward the faculty dining room. This was worth losing my spot in line for.
She was our school guidance counselor, and also an experienced English teacher. She was wise about things I was ignorant of.
She also happened to be my great aunt.
“Aunt Helen!” said I. “I wanted to ask your advice about something.”
“What’s that,” she replied.
“Well, see, I’m writing a book – a novel – and I wanted to get some advice from you about how to get it published.”
(I should pause here to interpret what “novel” meant. I probably had about five chapters, about five notebook pages hand-written each, about a tough-guy high school kid who winds up dying for the girl he loves, who happened to have the same name as the girl I was fixated on in the ninth grade. Anyway…)
Her advice was sage – way wiser than my 14 years. She didn’t write off my dreams and tell me that 14-year-olds don’t get published as novelists. She didn’t boggle my mind about query letters, agents or publishing houses either. She offered me words of encouraging truth. [click to continue…]
This just in, in case you missed it. Christmas is less than a month away.
True confession: Yesterday I snarled in my journal, “I’ll just be glad when it’s over.”
But today, in honor of the late Zig Ziglar, who passed away yesterday, I’m “doing a checkup from the neck up.”
Every year, we have the same choice when it comes to the enchantment and the challenges of the holidays. Do we hunker down, sit tight, and hope for the best? Or do we seek to flourish? To make the most of our relationships, our worship, and even our painful experiences?
Survive or Thrive? It’s up to you. It’s up to me.
When it comes to being a thriver, here are five suggestions, for how you can come out of the bunker and actually have a season of delight:
[click to continue…]
Old friend called yesterday. It had been a while.
“I’m calling to ask you to pray,” she began. “I’ve just had a bombshell dropped in my lap.”
Like you would do, I’m sure, my mind started racing at the possibilities. Family? Finances? Health? It could be anything.
I won’t tell you what hers was, but it really doesn’t matter. What matters is that she was handed some bad news she didn’t see coming.
Kabloom!
What matters more is that she was really making some progress in some areas of her life, and this jeopardizes all that.
Kabloom again!
And what matters to you is that next time it could be you.
Have you ever noticed that when you start moving in a positive direction, life has a way of testing you out of center field with alarming or disarming stuff? And it comes dressed in any number of ugly outfits. [click to continue…]
Time to let you in on a little secret weakness. Sometimes I hate being reminded. Especially when I’m already doing the thing I am being reminded of, or I’m already aware of it. Now let me hasten to say that when somebody reminds me of something I have totally forgotten, I’m usually very grateful. But the obvious? The no-brainers? The already-doings? That’s another story.
Does this ever happen to you? You’re locking the doors before retiring at night and a voice from the other room hollers, “Don’t forget to lock the doors!”
Or maybe you’re buckled into that airplane seat, starting to get lost in whatever you’re reading, and they start that handy demonstration explaining how to use a seat belt?
I had a little visit with the Lord about this the other day. Not airline safety demonstrations, but this issue of hating to be reminded. Let’s just say it was His idea. [click to continue…]
I rarely get to sit at weddings. But I’ve stood in more than 200 of them. And may I say, I usually get the best, um, standing position in the house.
I’m not talking about seeing the bride make her way down the aisle – everybody gets up to see that. The best place to stand in a wedding is next to the groom. When they fling that door open and she comes in on Daddy’s arm, I can sense it. I can feel it. Heck, sometimes I can hear it.
There in that least-photographed moment, an otherwise robust, strong-hearted man melts. I’ve seen grown men cry. I’ve seen them rendered speechless. I’ve sensed their breathing and pulse increase. I’ve heard them say under their breath, “Ummph,” or “Wow,” which sorta says it all.
Friends and family have helped his beloved adorn herself. For him. And in that moment, there is nothing he wouldn’t do for his bride. Nothing he wouldn’t say to express the depth of his love for her and the level of his commitment to her.
And after that, they both live happily ever after. [click to continue…]
