I recently had occasion to re-evaluate something that happens, yet we often don’t even realize it for what it is. I had a situation at work where we were aware of another company where I had formerly worked, shutting down their local operation. They had many Realtors working there, so it meant they would all be shuffling around possibly frantically, trying to find a new place to hang their license.

Having gone through this process myself several times over the past 20 years, I immediately thought of the people I had known there and what they would be going through. The people whom I had known and who came to mind were mostly women over fifty and single, no great surprise there!

While I am not a natural recruiter, and even though my company gives a reward for bringing in good new talent, those things don’t motivate me as much as knowing that if someone hadn’t called me to tell me about this small and wonderful firm, I would have been at the mercy of the big conglomerate offices, which really never suited me very well.

I called my Broker to tell her I was going to email and or call a few people, only to get her husband on the phone who told me had just sent out an email to everyone at the company and he had used my name. Now you gotta know I love this guy and he is a dear Christian and a very motivated and helpful marketer for our office. There was just something about “using my name” without me knowing how or giving permission that struck me as a little uncomfortable.

I did go on to call and write those people whom I knew personally, and left it in God’s hands as to whether they made an appointment to go meet and speak with my broker. Yesterday, while talking with another Christian friend I somehow got on the subject as it related to a situation her husband was going through at their church.

Often I think we forget to realize what is involved when we are using God’s name. We may even subconsciously include it to cover a ministry situation,  when we are leading a Bible study or even when disciplining or advising our children; our intention is to be saying or doing what we think He would have us say or do. However, how often do we really stop to ask His permission for our well intentioned words or counsel? Do we do it every time, or just once in awhile? I wonder if He ever feels like I did,  pausing to think that while I trust you and I know you love me, is what you are saying exactly what I would have wanted you to say?

All the thoughts,  feelings, motivations and passions of my life are embodied in my name. Is Christ any different? Only more so, if you ask me. So my thought for the day is, when considering what we say and do in His name, shouldn’t we first remember to ask His guidance and input on what we are about to say and do in His name? If we follow through on that, every time, I don’t think we will get out of alignment and then need  His correction further down the line.

The preceding post may have seemed long winded and heavy, but I do know it is something that is a struggle for many people I know. There isn’t a simple answer or solution. It can be difficult discerning God’s will and His plan for our lives. We are entering the period of our lives that we grew up knowing as “retirement”, but most of us are working harder and longer than we did before, some with the added responsibilities of grandchildren or aging parents to care for.These are not days that most of us thought we would be navigating totally alone.

The upside is that God can always bring something or someone unexpected into our lives and redirect our course in a split second. I know that most of my christian friends are excited about this time being wide open to new directions and experiences. I feel like there is an untapped well of enthusiasm that is just waiting for the new opportunity that is about to cross my path. The peace that I have come to know as God’s leading in my life is easier and easier to notice and proceeding one step at a time is not only the way He often reveals His plan, it is the best way for me to follow it.

We don’t know, nor do we need to know, everything that follows. We just do the next best thing. The lightness that accompanies a life lived like that is amazing in  contrast to the heavy struggling we have all known at various times in our lives. Were we struggling against Him? Perhaps, in some cases. Surrender is the hardest thing to do, and yet it yields the most results with the least amount of effort. Sometimes we learn it at a very high cost. Sometimes we decide to choose it and let go of our own need to feel like we are in control. The best thing we can do as we get closer to Him is lighten up! Carry as little baggage as possible, and be ready to go wherever He calls us.

Now there’s a journey to pack for! Remember having the bag ready for the trip to the hospital when your first child was about to enter the scene? You knew that no matter how prepared you were, your life was about to change in ways you could never imagine. That’s the way I feel these days, and I think a number of women I know feel the same way, perhaps the men do as well. It is as though God is birthing something new within us, and we are full of expectation, surprise and wonder that He could. Personally, I am thinking of whittling my necessities down to a backpack to make the traveling even easier!

I am remembering Dear Abby, and all the others who gave us their take on this or that social dilemma growing up, where there seemed to be a correct answer to handling a social situation between people. Today there is so much information available, it is mind boggling, and yet it seems we still struggle with how to be appropriate, how to handle social interactions, how to heal without hurting others.

I am struck at this point in my life at how differently I look at the dating scene than I did the last time I tentatively passed through. Perhaps this has to do with having fully surrendered my life to Christ, not just in word, but in deed. I can quickly process through inquiries on a website, because if they don’t list a relationship with God, or attendance at a church and/or Bible study as important to them, I know that they would not be the people God would be bringing into my life for any long term purpose. Even ten years ago, this would not have been a problem or even a part of my sorting process. I would have thought that I could bring that spiritual dimension into someone’s life. No longer do I feel that way.

I am too far gone to go backward, even for the sake of someone else and their journey. Not that I am not supportive; I will do anything to offer God’s love and encouragement to another on their path to knowing Him intimately. It is just that once you have known Him as brother, friend, Father, provider, and husband in your own life, it would seem worse than divorce or death to leave Him out. Fortunately, for the way He presents Himself in our lives, He can and is an important third party in any relationship going forward. To have Him in common brings an instant knowing and sense of family to people who have just met, who  may have very little else they would normally share as like interests.

I was struck today by two friends my age asking for my help in their relationships with the opposite sex. How to address people in their dating lives in words and yet not say anything hurtful or misleading. I think that as Christians, it is even more difficult to navigate the dating waters, because we are so conscious of acting in His name, and wanting to represent Him well. I have a few concerns about the church and its approach to older singles. I feel they often ignore them. I feel they are missing a golden opportunity to provide a safe and comfortable arena for older singles to meet each other on non-dating terms, without the fear that they may find someone who is actually leading them away from Christ rather than toward Him.

I believe, and have for twenty years, that there are ways to facilitate this process and keep the hearts and mind of those precious people safe. I believe they are just as important to Christ as are His youngsters stepping out for the first time into the arena of love and relationship. In some ways, it is even more critical that we do not get hurt or lose our way, as we have already found what is most important. I do not believe that God only wants for us a life of serving and showing up to fill the many volunteer capacities that a church always needs filled, for which  older singles  always seem available.

I believe that God wants to partner some of them and use them even more effectively as couples, people who have testimony to share, to offer hope for how God heals and provides and blesses, even after tragedies have separated them from the path their lives were originally taking. I am confident that He is beginning a new work, where the churches will begin to step forward into an incredible opportunity to minister to those who already occupy their pews every Sunday, who for the most part would never think of asking anything of their church for themselves. It is just the way we were brought up, and it is something we would probably see as a selfish request. If asked we would answer, “I’m OK, God is good, He is taking good care of me, I am fine”. But my question is, is that really God’s Best for that person? Would  even some of them find a more complete healing and wholeness and ability to serve Him if they had a supportive partner for this unique time in their lives. It is a time they have so much wisdom to offer, and yet are so often burdened by just accomplishing the everyday tasks and finances alone, having no one to share that journey with, yet never wanting to burden their children or their church with their happiness and health issues.

Is it possible for me to eat alone almost every meal of my life and be grateful? Absolutely. Is it God’s best for me? I won’t believe so until He personally informs me. As of yet, I have not heard that still small voice saying anything of the kind. I am listening, however, and I hope He will give me direction for something that weighs heavily on my heart, because I know that I am not alone in this feeling. It is the burden of the others that He has placed on my heart that makes me speak up where I would normally push my own feelings aside.

I have some ideas for ways to address this within our churches, how about you?

When  my sister sent an overnight refrigerated package to my Mom at Christmas, we were all anxious to see the contents. Fortunately she said refrigerate immediately and eat as soon as possible! So we dove into what turned out to be two packages of cheese curds. Now I don’t personally ever remember having these, but this particular sister has an amazing memory for things involving our mother, and so I am pretty sure there is a story behind it somewhere. In the meantime, I enjoyed tasting the soft and funny shaped cheese that was a by-product of some cheese making process, but when I talked with my sister, I of course said but now that I have my curds, I still can’t find my whey!

She laughed, but the nursery rhyme (who was that eating her curds and whey?) stuck in my head, and later that week when I was back home, I was shopping in Costco and stumbled across….you guessed it, Whey! In fact such a huge bag of it, it will take me a year to drink it all. However, I was surprised to see it had amazing amounts of protein and muscle builders and who knows what else, in a chocolaty powder you mix up with water.

So after I brought that home, I could not help but go around the house singing “Ive found  my way”….which was naturally followed by “love came just in time, you found me just in time, and changed my lonely life that lovely day!”

How funny if that puts a new energy into my christian dating scenario, giving me a renewed vision for the possibilities if I can manage to stay focused. I have decided to be looking for a good grandfather for my  pre-conceived grandchildren. That gives me a better and once removed way of looking at potential dates…would they make a good grandfather? That is an easier concept than would they be right for me? My standards for my yet unborn grandchildren are bound to be higher than anything I think I could put up with myself, so I think I will give this one a try!

Certainly takes the heat off me  for the time being, while God is still working on that.

Of course, after I consume all this whey, I may just be a huge muscle mass and not very attractive to the good grandfather prospect!

I offered to lead a Bible Study that was starting at our church last night. I have been on the receiving end of so much growth in the previous three that I have attended, and I felt God was leading me to step forward this time. I was thrilled with the enthusiastic turnout that greeted me at my table, and definitely felt I was the fortunate one as none of these women need leading (maybe corralling for all of us?).

As we proceeded through the getting to know you phase that always opens the first night, I saw I had a group of rebels and thinkers, they are way ahead when it comes to finding a way to get to the heart of the matter and simplify the route! How refreshing that was. I am known for a bit of that myself, and here I am surrounded by a tribe of gifted rule breakers!

I am thrilled with the upcoming opportunities for all of us, and as I told them, I am just keeping God’s seat warm, ready to turn over the reigns whenever He shows up at our table…..as He will frequently do. Since there were more women than chairs last night, He may well need my seat! I know that when women turn their hearts to Him, He always shows up and has incredible things to share with us. I am always thrilled that “I’ll take a rain check” is not part of His vocabulary!

I apologize for being somewhat off the radar getting this New Year off to a great start by doing the things that always drag me down first (getting tax stuff compiled for my accountant, etc.) But having done that, I expect to be way more present for the things happening daily in my life and the things God points out that I might share with you. I am wishing all my friends and readers a spectacular new year, full of new possibilities for dreams come true!

This morning I woke early to start on the completion of my one New Year’s resolution…to log in a budget and get my financial info online so I can see it and use it (no more missed bills?). So that next year, doing my taxes will be easier, and instead of spending three days (as I just completed during the Lost Week…yeah for me!) as I just did, or dragging it into April or even July as is most often the case for me, I will just pull up the figures from one spot! That will give me three extra days, and untold anxiety-free hours I wasted procrastinating, to put toward something new and different in my life!

There is a video I go back and watch when I need a little extra fuel to get something done (filing, cleaning the refrigerator, etc.) that my niece put on her face-book page. I am trying to get it here as my first venture into adding videos to my blog (another unfulfilled resolution last year). If it is here, I have succeeded. Thanks to my son sending me a course in word-press email, that I just subscribed to this morning ( I won’t tell you how many months ago that email is dated!). I just watched the one on adding videos…so easy, I can’t believe how long I feared it and let it sit unwatched in my inbox.

Jessica has more raw energy than I can get from anyone my own age. When I watch her, I remember being a kid and I rewrite my history with Jessica’s theme. Instead of beating myself up remembering failures, I just absorb her attitude and go out to greet the world today. Who knows how much time I can make up for with that positive courage!  Lookout world, here I come!

it took several tries, but I did it before the day was over, Yeah for me (and thanks, Jessica)! Happy New Year! Be sure to cut it off after jessica…I think it links endlessly to who knows what…that wasn’t in the video cues I got, how to stop it!

I was so amazed by this that I nearly forgot to add it to my posts. So many people said that was such a great testimony I thought I had best include it. I often forget God’s miracles because they are so much a part of my daily life, it sometimes takes another person noticing for me to realize just how significant sometimes they are.

The day after Christmas was the day my son and I were to return to Florida from our holiday in Vermont. On Christmas Day, we never turned on the TV, only the music. We were gratefully spared all the pre-storm fear that evidently was rampant around the country at that point. We awoke at normal time the day we were to leave, as our flight was not until 5pm and we were two hours or less from the airport. It was at that point the news started seeping in. A concerned call from returning relatives followed by turning on the news to see that all major airports on the east coast were bracing for a huge snowstorm. I woke my son and we tried to get the airline on the phone (useless) and find out online what was happening and what our choices were (also unproductive, though scary). It appeared there were no more available seats to our destination for three days!

I put in a quick call to a friend who works at the Jacksonville airport and she went by the USAir counter and called me back. She said while it didn’t look good, our best bet was probably to go to the airport and hope for the best. That is what we decided to do. My son and I packed up our things, took off in the rental car at about 11am and headed to the airport in New Hampshire.

When we arrived to return our rental car we were met with a totally empty lot. One employee met us, and he was going off duty soon. He advised us to keep the car and go back where we came from. There had been no flights leaving that day, and while our 5 o’clock was still posted ‘on time’ he knew it would be canceled shortly. We thanked him for sharing and proceeded to the check-in counter where there was no one in line (day after Christmas…has that ever happened?) The nice lady at the counter advised that our flight was the only one not canceled, but as the weather was not improving anywhere it was only a matter of time…an we were still five hours from departure.

I looked at my son and said, what do you think? and he said, lets check the bags to Jacksonville and go wait it out. So we proceeded to the gate, through security check where we were the only passengers in the area. The security head offered that we should probably be looking for a hotel room and to be sure to hit the restaurant because they would all probably close by 3pm and that would be the end of the food. Though we had grabbed a quick lunch before we left home, we heeded her advice as far as ordering a sandwich to keep just in case, we went to the gate without checking hotel availability. There was one other person at the gate, and we all sat there reading books in a dead airport for the next three hours. Our flight changed from ‘on time ‘ to ‘ delayed, but it was still not joining the list of all the others that said canceled.

A very strange thing happened about 45 minutes before the original scheduled departure time. People started flowing into the gate area. A very nice agent took his position at the counter and started informing us what was happening. Our flight was delayed and had not departed from DC but was to leave momentarily. Some of our connections had been canceled, ours had merely been delayed inbound as well. The fight came in, left with a full load and hour and a half late and arrived quietly in DC where we deplaned and awaited our next flight. Again, in a very quiet airport, we ate our soggy sandwiches and listened to the roll of canceled fights as they were announced. I looked at my son over our meal and said do you have any fear that we will not get out and he said No. I didn’t either.

Two hours after the scheduled departure, we were boarding our full flight, being told that we needed to board and be in the air in twenty minutes or our flight would be canceled because Jacksonville’s airport shuts down at midnight. The pilot was determined to get us there, and everyone hustled to get their bags tucked away, and off we went. In all this time we had not seen more that a flutter of snow, very few airplanes anywhere, and less people than I ever remember in an airport. They were probably told what we were: stay home, don’t come, turn around, etc.

As we arrived home only two hours late and stood claiming our bags , it began to sink in how fortunate we had been. The traveling mercies I had asked God for on our drive to the airport had been very visible the entire day. What was totally missing was any confusion or fear. We felt like we were in a protective bubble of some sort. We caught the bus for the parking lot and thanked God for His amazing guidance and provision through the storm. Sometimes you can be in the eye of a storm and not even feel it around you, if you trust God to take care of you. It was a very smooth ride.

This has always been my favorite week of every year. It is the one most people take off if they can, but rarely has it ever been vacation time for me. It was just a week that no one thought about buying a home, or selling one. Since most people were dismantling their Christmas decorations, no one thought about painting their home either…until the first week of January when they noticed how empty and colorless it looked after the decorations were removed. Anyway, no one ever really needs me for anything during this week, so I am left to deal with myself and the things I never get to do for myself (read, I welcome those excuses and there are none to be found).

It always gave me  a week with no income, to think creatively about how to start out the coming year adding sufficiently to my next year’s income. To do this correctly involved a review of the past year as well. I spend most of the ‘lost’ week trying to sort out last years financial information. I have found that if I get it to the point where I can hand it over to my accountant in January, it is a very good start to the year. If I don’t get it to that point, and instead start the year with one foot in the previous year, I will be dragging it all the way through April 15th, and possibly through an extension into July as well. Instead of flying into the new year with great ideas and hopes, I will feel like I am trying to run with cement Ugg boots! This is one of the most debilitating ways for an entrepreneur to start their new year that I can think of, and yet it is already weds of that week and I have yet to start my financial adventure.

I will spend today trying to neaten up the room in which I will begin the process. This is a distraction, of course, and I think I would do better to grab what I can of receipts and bills and go to the dining room table. However that table holds memories of my Dad working on taxes for months at a time, and I will have to overcome that mental block first. It will remain a contest between old mental images and the new one I am trying to visualize showing a competent me overcoming the temptation to procrastinate into the New Year. If I could actually get this done in the year we are about to leave, I truly would not need a single resolution on January 1st. I would have already accomplished the most important one! Time to take out my post-it notes and plaster them all over the house where I will go to avoid the obvious. Look out refrigerator, bathroom, TV, books, here I come!

I will let you know who wins out

I sing in the key of G. I didn’t know this until I was in my late 40′s.

My Dad was an amazing singer/piano player. He taught himself to play by ear. He never learned to read music. He accompanied himself, found lots of warm and wonderful songs in the key of C, and musical friends who either played, sang, or just enjoyed listening in the key of C.

As I listen now to the radio station playing the songs he sang and loved, I realize I know all the words and music to over a hundred songs by heart. I can’t read music either. I learned them by listening to a father I adored. I was fairly musical as a kid, singing alto in my schools A Capella choir, and being the lead singer in a guitar folk band of three. I loved finding unique harmonies to complement the melodies. It seems I sang by ear also. I sang with my father only when he invited me to, often in front of his friends at parties given frequently at our home. I was only asked to sing Scotch and Soda; a funny choice I often thought for a preteen daughter, but I guess its notes were neither to high nor too low for my range so I didn’t disappoint him and upon finishing I was always greeted with a round of applause,  after which I went back to serving horsd’oeuvres.

I later had a son, who not only bore his name, but seemed to inherit his genius for music. I thanked God that I had been a ‘carrier’ of the music gene. When he was in his teens, my son asked me to accompany him on a CD of songs he was making for a fiftieth anniversary gift for his grandparents. I said I would without hesitation, because I trusted my son would not put me, or himself, at risk.

He transcribed some songs for me that I knew by heart but couldn’t sing without stretching my voice. He said merely “Here Mom, you’ll be more comfortable in the key of G”. It was a slight modification, and one that seemed easy for him, but it was a revelation for me. The notes flowed easily and I never feared that my voice would crack somewhere, embarrassing me or anyone else who was listening.

In the key of G, I am a singer. But please don’t ask me to sing in the key of C. There is such a difference in trying with all your heart, but just missing the mark, and easily and competently using a God-given talent. One slight correction and you can have a completely different outcome; for a song, for a life. How much I value those who can hear the solution and offer a simpler, easier path. They are teachers, coaches, parents, children, and  open-hearted people  everywhere. Keep your ears open, you might just hear that note for someone. Imagine the harmony in a world where everyone could sing the notes they were born to sing.

I am visiting my Mom for the holidays in Vermont, close to its border with New Hampshire. Needlestosay the signs of New England colleges are all around us, but never so present as on the backs of the vehicles. I did notice that most of the vehicles were nearly identical, a Subaru all terrain four wheel drive version being most noticeable, due in part to the frequency of snow here I am sure. One begins to wonder if after graduation all students run out to purchase the same cars,whereby a terrible kind of group think mentality comes to mind. Certainly not what we hope for our best and our brightest.

Does one drive more carefully behind a car that says Dartmouth College than one that says New Hampshire State (If there even is such a campus, I am not sure). Is there a respect afforded the driver of a vehicle with Harvard on its rear window? Do we stay further behind, realizing the occupant may well be a lawyer who could sue the pants off us should we get too close?

I wonder. Some of those cars will be traded in one day, and will  the stickers be removed by the owner prior to the changing of title? We wouldn’t want those signs of our accomplishments driving off with some n’er do well, now would we?

I have to say, I am not that impressed. One could easily stop by any college campus and pick up a sticker that represents nothing but the fact that I know my way to the bookstore on that campus. The one I really admired was one that boldly displayed the colorful letters DD. We all instantly recognized the signature icon for Dunkin Donuts!

As we drove off at the next exit to get a warm cup of hot chocolate and a honey glazed treat, I really believe that guy had more impact on our immediate happiness and comfort than anyone in all the other cars with their impressive college affiliations. Hard to tell what all that expensive education produced in many of the vehicles, except a predisposition to purchase an identical car, but we were certainly grateful the donut guy wore his insignia so proudly!