Category Archives: Life Lessons

January 7, 2015 · 4:32 pm

Time on my Hands

There’s been a word chasing me.

It’s January and time to choose a word for the year  which is a great idea and the third time I’ve done it.

I rather like being able to focus on a word and the way it shapes the year ahead.

My word has been preparing me, through my own journal writing though I didn’t realize it at the time.  Last September I began a study from the book of Proverbs and my focus was on health and how I want to focus on it as I move into my senior years.

I asked myself a question, “What brings health to my body and nourishment to my bones?”

In my post menopausal years I’d think its exercise, good nutrition, clean air and vitamins and I’d likely be right.

However, as a believer, there is more for me ‘to do’ …I am to trust the Lord with all my heart and not lean on my own understanding.  That tells me to stop trying to figure out all the details of my life as I am prone to do.   Acknowledge God and he will make my paths straight – plural, ‘paths’ –  more than one path.  That’s exciting.  I get variety.

More reading tells me not to be wise just by my own eyes.  This means I need more than just my own counsel.  I am to fear the Lord and shun evil – stay away from it.

I read, took my notes and acknowledged the gleaned nuggets of truth.

Then I put the journal away and kept on with my daily life.

CHANGE

I was “motoring” along just fine, by attending a fitness class twice per week, played pickleball that much or more, took an occasional beach walk  or a tour around my neighborhood and did a little writing.  I was even working on a painting project – of the canvas type, not a house renovation.

Facilitating a group at Freedom Session, a healing/recovery/discipleship program, was once again part of a weekly commitment – helping myself and helping others.

An upcoming vacation for February 2015 was in the planning stage.  I often visualized the trek to join some snowbird friends  in the south to go on walks/hikes, golf, play pickleball, swim, soak in a hot tub and repeat often.

The holiday was a BIG deal and I was looking forward to it.

 

Toward the end of November I was involved in an accident.

Three vehicles – bang!

 

Here is where the word CHANGE comes into my new year.  Am I willing to accept the change – like physiotherapy twice per week, at least once per week massage, twenty minute walks rather than my usual hour, twice per day neck exercises and stretches instead of heading off to play pickleball for two hours?   Ice?   Heat?   Rest?    …and this is what I get to repeat.

Am I willing to allow the tears of frustration to come out and then just get on with doing what is before me – put myself in the drivers seat of a car and go – be content with a good book to read instead of going to the gym – accept I am not going on my long awaited vacation?

How am I doing?

I am healing.  I’m aware things could have been much worse.  I’ve had to check my attitude, fears and self-pity. I’ve gone back to my September journal writing with fresh awareness seeking to make wise decisions, to trust beyond myself and accept I can’t figure out all the details of my current life.

Now it’s time to actively work with the change which is happening whether I willingly participate or not.  I choose to participate willingly.

For my writers group I wrote about how I’ve been affected regarding the accident and I believe the process assisted me to get unstuck and here I am, ready to believe good change is possible and is coming.

In future posts I hope to continue to share how I:

adapt to change,

accept change,

understand change,

can create change,

challenge change,

can be the change.

I have no idea what all this means but I’m getting ready – after all I do have some extra time on my hands.

 

How about you?  Is there some part of life that is asking you to change?  How are you doing?

 

 

 

 

 

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August 13, 2014 · 11:48 am

Learning Curves and Nerves

Learning curves have been coming from several places this past month and they sure keep my mind alert, especially at night when I’d rather be sleeping.

One nice thing is when I roam the house at night my totally dedicated Thomas the Cat joins me.   If I give him some treats or soft yukky food from a can that he loves, he will then curl up near me and contentedly snore away the rest of the early morning hours while I write or read.

About those learning curves…dealing with health issues with a strange pain in my left lower abdomen and discovering the world of Diverticulosis and Diverticulitis and the difference between the two hasn’t been fun.  It adds up to nausea, pain and 10 days of two different antibiotics which in the end the same said pain is still lingering.  More waiting for tests and more waiting for results.

I was excited as a newly formed art group was being hatched and unfortunate me, I’ve now missed two opportunities to join in as I lay on my bed or couch or even as I sat out in my special spot in the back yard, moaning, whining, and wishing I could be anywhere but where I was.

My Happy Spot

My Happy Spot

In the month of feeling uncomfortable and then downright ill for ten plus days has taught me a few things and maybe even more than a few.  I am still processing what I’ve learned.

I have a lot of things on the go, me being one of them and I didn’t enjoy being sidelined.

I have writing projects in piles that I wonder what I’ll do with in the end (finishing is a good idea) and now that my ren0’d sun room is done, AKA the art/writing room and table where the cat perches I have no reason to avoid being in there, working.

I say working, though there currently isn’t any pay attached to what I’m doing.  I just have a need to ‘do it.’

As a new member of InScribe Christian Writers’ Fellowship  I am attending a writing conference near the end of September in Edmonton and  I’m preparing for that.  I entered a contest.  Following the guidelines for submission, fighting with my inner critic who kept telling me all the reasons why I shouldn’t even bother, plus battling nausea and weakness from above health issues almost kept me from getting my little story sent off.

In the perseverance and determination to submit something, I’ve been reading  FellowScript InScribe Magazine and getting introduced to my new, as yet unmet friends in Inscribe via their writing, sharing their hearts and giving away their insight and knowledge.  It has helped me with the courage I needed to submit one itty-bitty-little story.

I currently write in two different journals each with its own focus.  One is called Your Ears Will Hear – A Journal for Listening to God by Steve and Evy Klassen along with other contributors.  (www.markcentre.org)

There is a short story on each page, with a question or two, a scripture reference and room for me to write my response.  I purchased this journal last year while attending a weekend away with the Prayer Team formed from Freedom Session of which I am a part of.  We pray for one another and during the mid to latter part of the nine month healing/discipleship/recovery program, am honored to pray as a smaller team of two or three women with others who request it.

My other journal is a mish-mash of thoughts, rants, prayers, potential stories, requests and worries.  It is on those pages I can pour out the jumble of words that need to be ‘said’.

All this reading, writing, pondering, praying and soon to be painting on canvas again takes time.

And what I’ve learned is this: I’m a ponderer-planner-procrasinator-organizer-avoider-then doer kind of individual.

A few months ago I posted a note to myself that I created on my desktop screen which says, “If only for today I do a little bit then for my tomorrows I will have done a lot.”

I like to be busy, but busy can be a cover up for hiding…hiding my words or hiding what may be a pull to listen to God’s leading. As this is a year determined by me to move forward  I’m paying attention to the inner call, to others wisdom and taking one step at a time.

It is fun, threatening, empowering and nerve wracking to take steps into the unknown.  I don’t like to make mistakes yet would be the first one to tell others to just try it, and so what if some mistakes are made – at least try.

What I’m wondering is, is this just the mind of creations in process, of constant percolating images and words swirling around and around until the mix is right and spills out onto a screen, a canvas or a piece of paper?

How do you other creatives out there process?

Whew, so many questions.  I’m going to go back outside to My Happy Spot and take a break.

 

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July 7, 2014 · 7:15 am

Reno’s, Guests, Gardening and Retirement = Avoidance

Getting focused takes time.  In my case I had the pleasure of distraction to keep me occupied and not write a blog post.  Four months of distraction.

My son and his wife moved.  My husband and I participated in packing, moving, unpacking, painting and often were the clean-up crew.  By choice.

I made the decision to make a change in employment.  At age 60 I can do this and I can call it retirement.  It doesn’t mean I no longer wish to earn an income.  I knew it was time to focus on writing and get back to splashing some color on a canvas and I haven’t figured out the details of income just yet.  I’m going to avoid that topic for now.

Kind of like I’ve been avoiding the urge to write here. It seems like the more I’ve been busy getting connected with writer conferences and other writers, the more I realize I’m exposing myself, the more my nervous system has kicked in, AKA fear.

The more nervous I’ve become, the more I’ve found to do elsewhere such as the home renovation projects that line a full page of paper my husband and I have posted on the kitchen cupboard – all color coded with dates attached as to when they will be done.

In perfect timing, friends that were planing to come to visit this spring decided to arrive just one full week after my last bit of employment ended.  I spent a week cleaning my own home and prepping for guests.  We had 10 great days with them and then I had to face my avoidance again.

So what did I do? I began to paint the walls in what we call our sunroom.  This was stage two of the renovation in that room. Stage one was re-insulation of the ceiling and addition of new ceiling tiles.  I was the helper and my husband was the general manager, contractor and construction labor person.

The sunroom is where my acrylic paint supply live, where all my writing instruction books hang out and where the collection of books I like to read and won’t throw away gather on the book shelves.  Everything needed to be sorted, cleaned, rearranged and taken out of the room for the walls to be painted. Then the whole room needed to be put together again.  That was a job worthy of several days of avoidance.

And then my flower and veggie garden need constant tending.  The garden is my best go to place to putter and bury my fears.  Flowers, color explosions to admire, pots to rearrange and weeds to pull all serve to allow my mind to wander, dream and create.

I spent an eight hour day last weekend soaking up my inner calm, in the garden.  In the make up of who I am, things seem to need to be in order inside before I can take a step forward in a new direction. Inside also means my outside surroundings.  I suppose that is what I’ve been doing with all this avoidance – just getting ready.

Ready.  Moving forward.

 

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February 18, 2014 · 7:55 pm

As Darkness Falls

Recently I spent 17 days in Mesa, Arizona at Val Vista, (http://www.cal-am.com/resorts/resorts_details.php?resorts_id=2&search=quick) among hundreds, possibly thousands of Snowbirds – the name given to people of the retired age who fly or drive to live or vacation in the many Southern parts of the world.  Sitting around the pool, or riding my borrowed bike to a local Pickleball court to join up with a friendly group of women that I met, or simply bundling up at night for a stroll around the park, (the temperatures do drop) made it a challenge to even think about the vacation coming to an end.

Waking up to the nearly every day sunshine and an overhead blue ceiling produced an abundance of energy, which was needed to accomplish all the bike riding, Pickleball, walking, swimming, exploring and shopping that I and my husband Ross managed to do.

One evening, after a full day of play and entertaining myself and while Ross was still out on some golf course, or rather traveling home from one, the sun was setting and I happened to look outside our rental unit to see the sky change from blue to pink to shadows.  Of course I grabbed my camera and captured the moment.  I remember a sense of calm which came over me, the belief that all was well with my world, the awe of a day closing and feeling safe, secure and at peace. I nested within myself and as I think about it now, it was as though a warm blanket covered me, protected somehow as I watched darkness fall.

Sunset @ Val Vista

Sunset @ Val Vista

I do love that cozy feeling of the sun setting and my adjustment as evening takes over and I turn lights on but it wasn’t always like that as darkness covered me.  I often wrestled with darkness when I was young.  As a child, I dreaded the night for that was when I listened to arguments, when shadows revealed scary wind, branches that scratched at the window, the fear of being alone and various behaviors of others that tore off my security.  Instead of sleep, too often my mind remained occupied with thoughts of being robbed, of my parents marriage breakup and my splintered family.  Under the weight of darkness evil lurked at every corner of my imagination which produced a wild and uncontrolled panic within.  I took all those realities and imagined fears with me into my teenage and young adult life, until one by one I was able to look at them in the daylight and dismantle their power.

As a young adult and a new spiritual awareness of God, who became my strength and healer; with family, friends and a long process of support, my unstable childhood receded into the shadows – still there but lacking power to control.

So that one vacation sunset day stands out among others as I took pictures and listened to the hum of days end, as lights blinked on and the smell of barbecues cooked up an evening meal.   I absorbed all that my senses could take in, then settled onto a couch to read a book until my man arrived ‘home.’

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