A Woman's View

Let's throw off those tired old messages and forge our own way

Not long ago a group of us were discussing what drives us.

One man said, "I'm an adult and I make my own decisions, based on my own values."

The woman to his left said, "That's not as easy as it sounds. My mom used to freeze us out when we misbehaved and I hated it! But once I had children, I found myself doing the same thing and it was like I couldn't stop. I really had to fight myself not to go all cold and silent. Getting past that took me a long time and a lot of prayer."

Then another gal said, "I know now that my husband is just like his dad. Neither of them can turn off work at the end of the day."

After that everyone chimed in with their own story about childhood messages that still influence our lives.

One friend lifted everyone's spirits when she said, "Well, there were good things to pick up, too. My parents made lots of mistakes, but they were crazy about each other. My brother and I loved it that they laughed a lot. So did our friends. That's what sticks with me."

We leave imprints, too 

From the beginning we intend to bless our children's lives. We want our daughters and sons to grow up healthy and balanced, with sound values and faith that will carry them through. We aim to be the best mom or dad any kid ever had.

The trouble is we're human and nobody parents in a vacuum. 

Dealing with the non-parenting part of life often leaves us exhausted. We're too tired to listen enough or laugh enough, let alone be the wise and wonderful parent we imagined we would be.

While we're beating ourselves up over our failures, life goes on.

And as we rush here and there, trying to be all things to all people, our children are growing up.

Here's what I know now--and wish I'd known all along. Every child ever born, no matter where, no matter when, experiences good times and not-so-good times during their childhood years.

What a son or daughter remembers depends on them perhaps as much as on us.

As the friend who recalled laughing parents said, "Maybe that's what I choose to carry with me."

The past only looks easier because we're not living in it

Raising children is hard, anywhere, anytime. It always was. You and I weren't aware of all the pressures and challenges our parents had to deal with.

From today we look back and count up the ways our imperfect mom or dad failed us and nurse our pain. We may have told ourselves that's all ancient history, but if it were, thinking and talking about old hurts wouldn't arouse such strong feelings.

That's a clue this is a burden that drags us down. If we're ready to be free of it, the Apostle Paul lays out our how-tos, this time in Colossians 3:12-15.

. . . clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.

It's comforting to remind ourselves we survived our flawed parenting. In fact, we may be stronger because of what we had to overcome.

Instead of stuffing down memories of childhood, let's sift out the good and thank God for it.

Then let's pray our children will do the same for us.

Your comments?

Blessings,

Lenore

 

 

Take a fresh look at trials and sufferings

Maybe right now you're in the midst of a long, hard time in your life.

Maybe you've reached the end of your endurance. Sometimes you wonder whether God has turned his back on you. Otherwise, how could you pray and pray, yet nothing changes?

Been there, thought that, sometimes.

That's when we try to make sense of it on our own. Every one of us can think of times when we "knew" how "A" would lead to "B," then inevitably to "C."

Except it didn't.

Then it's time to remind myself what I know. I see only today. God sees yesterday, today and tomorrow. He loves us and promises to be our strength all through life, in good times and in the worst of times. 

That does not guarantee our life will smooth out and be pain-free. All we can do is keep on trusting and keep on walking.

Someone sent me this YouTube. The song was new to me and so was the singer Laura Story. Her song touched my heart. She says what we all need to remember when we're slogging through one of those misery times.

I hope these lyrics speak to you as they do to me.

Lovingly,

Lenore

Story Blessings song http://youtu.be/1CSVqHcdhXQ

Encouragement for your down times

Listen to the news, talk to your neighbor or to your friend at church and chances are, you won't come away feeling optimistic. We live in troubling times. Most of us have taken some kind of financial hit. Many around us have lost their jobs--or fear they will.

Experts argue about root causes and symptoms and possible solutions, which may or may not make a difference. People like you and me feel the pain and wonder what comes next. 

Nobody knows. So we hunker down. Tomorrow might be (gulp!) worse. Maybe expecting the worst is the way to be ready for the next blow.

So we stand still and hang on tight.

That's about as exciting a way to live as being a plant stand.

Re-think your thinking

You and I cannot change the world, but we can change where we fasten our thoughts and my friends, it is time.

It is time.

Whatever our personal situations(s) may be, here's what we know for rock-bottom sure:

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.    --Hebrews 13:8

Does that make us immune to a sense of loss when we or someone we love gets a pink slip or when investments for retirement shrink, along with our dreams for the future? Of course not. Get real.

The difference is we don't park in Pity Land. If anyone knew about suffering, it was the Apostle Paul. He wrote these words. (Try reading them aloud and listen with your heart.)

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this is all-surpassing power is from God and not from us.

We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed ... Therefore, we do not lose heart.    --2 Corinthians 4:6-9, 16a

I confess, sometimes this "jar of clay" gets discouraged, too, even though I believe every word of these passages. That's why I love this phrase from Psalm 103:14:

. . . for he remembers that we are dust.

Whenever I start beating up on myself for not being the shining strong example of faith I want to be, I think of these wonderful words and remind myself I am only dust. Imperfect. Human. God knows my weaknesses and loves me, because I love Jesus. That means I can forgive myself and move on.

We see what we look for

Here's what God said to His people through Moses--and to you and me.

I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the LORD your God, listen to his voice and hold fast to him. For the LORD is your life . . .                                                                                                                                                             --Deuteronomy 30:19-20

This question is for me as much as for you: Which will you choose?

Comments, please.

Lovingly,

Lenore

Here's proof that labels and diagnoses need not define a life

Sometimes problems crowd in on us, don't they? That makes it a good time to remind ourselves about a few of the individuals who actually faced the big hurdles.

You probably know of Joni Eareckson Tada, who as a teenager was paralyzed from the neck down in 1967 when she dove into a too-shallow lake and broke her neck. During her initial bout with depression she found a deeper faith in God and also a new calling. She speaks to groups, does television interviews, has authored fourteen books and is a fine artist. God has used her to bless countless people with or without physical challenges. (Google her name to learn about the organization she founded, Joni & Friends, a resource and advocacy organization in the disability community.)

History is full of overcomers who chose to keep going instead of giving up. One man, raised in extremely humble circumstances, became a storekeeper and went broke. After that he ran for office and lost election after election. We know that "failure" as Abraham Lincoln. 

How about the student labeled "mediocre" in chemistry, whom we know as Louis Pasteur, the scientist?

Or a boy called "too stupid to learn," who went on to develop the theory of general relativity, effecting a revolution in physics. Albert Einstein became known as the father of modern physics and was one of the most prolific minds in human history.

Then there's the boy called dull and hopeless, who flunked the sixth grade, the one we know as Winston Churchill.

Tell a youngster who loves to sketch and draw that he has no talent. He surprises everyone by growing up to become famous as Walt Disney.

Take a couple who survived a Nazi concentration camp and feel their pain when he is paralyzed from the waist down at age four. They could not know their boy would grow up to become internationally acclaimed concert violinist, Itzhak Perlman, who consistently plays to sellout crowds. 

Could a person born with cerebral palsy who never managed to speak clearly ecome a minister and a much-in-demand public speaker? Ask David Ring, who speaks to over 100,000 people every year at conventions, in churches and at gatherings. His recurrent line is, "What's your problem?" (Google his name if you want to know more about him and hear the details of his story.)

I read a list like this and ask myself, "What's your problem?"

Suddenly everyday frustrations shrink to their proper place.

After all, peace does not come from problem-free living. Once again the Apostle Paul says it best, in Philippians 4:7:

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Here's to joy-in-the-midst,

Lenore

What do you call yourself?

The words we choose to describe ourselves and our lives determine how we think of ourselves. Our view of ourselves dictates our view of life and
therefore, what's possible for our future.

I am not exaggerating.

While listening to a favorite radio show I heard a clear illustration of that. The host introduced his guest, a professional counselor, and spoke with her awhile. Then he opened the phone lines so people could question her. The topic of the day was, "Are you a victim?"

A couple of callers related tales of marital conflict, abuse, strained relations with parents and the like. Then came a woman who struggled to tell her story. "I am the victim of a rape and beating last year. That attacker ruined my life."

I could hear the pain in her voice and I couldn't tear myself away from listening.

After a few moments I took notes.

Asked whether she had family or friends, the caller said, yes, her family kept trying to reach out and her fiance still said he wanted to marry her.  "I don't want to see them--or anyone else," she said between sobs. "I know they simply pity me and I don't want their pity, so I don't go out.

"People tell me I'm depressed. I suppose it's true, but why wouldn't I be? My life was good and I had a good job. Now I can't work and I'll never be the same. Once you're a rape victim it changes everything."

Who could argue with that?

The next caller sounded strong and confident. She said, "I was raped, too. That followed years of being molested by my stepfather. Like your previous caller, I saw myself as a victim. I was so angry! I kept asking, why me? I hugged my pain around me like a warm blanket.

"Then one day I realized I had lost myself. So long as I considered myself 'the victim,' I locked out everything and everybody. I was tired of living that way. From that day on I built a new life. A better life.

"I want to say to the woman who just called, it's true you won't forget this. But you decide what you will do with this experience. You can rename it. Call it a bump in the road, which everyone has. If you stay in your present thinking you are letting this bump in the road become a fork in the road.

"Hitting a bump in the road can give you a bad jolt, but it doesn't have to stop you from your journey.

"See that one event as a fork in the road, however, and it changes the direction of your life. It means you turn away from who you were. Instead you choose to see yourself as injured. Damaged. Powerless.

"I know your pain, I really do. I hope you can hear me. Forgive me, I know it sounds harsh, but that awful man did not make you a victim. You're doing that all by yourself."

When she hung up, the radio host and the counselor said nothing for what seemed a long time.

I understood why.

Perhaps these two women sound like extreme examples and they are. I think their story clearly illustrates how what we think determines our lives.

Maybe some of us feel unworthy and unlovable today, for whatever reason. Then it's a good time to think on this Bible verse, which provides the remedy fo leaving the past in the past.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he (she) is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!                                          --2 Corinthians 5:17

'Nuff said.

Lovingly,

Lenore

Finding Real Freedom in the Land of the Free

Fourth of July fireworks and patriotic songs reminded us we live in the land of the free. Are we living free?

And what does it mean to "live free," anyhow?                                   
Each of us will answer that differently. It took me years to understand that freedom comes from within, not from without. 

You may have been a fan of Nick Charles, the popular and much-acclaimed CNN sports announcer who recently died of cancer. He dearly loved his wife and doted on their five-year old daughter. Listen to what he told CNN's Dr. Sanjay Gupta not long before he died.

"I'm a forward looking person but also a living-in-the-moment person So I wake up every day expecting to have a good day. It may sound trite, Sanjay, but life as you get older is about 20 percent of what happens to you and about 80 percent how you react to it."

You've probably heard that said before. I have, too, but never with more power. 

If Nick Charles was a Christian, his words are understandable. Christians believe that faith in Jesus the Savior ensures us eternal life, so he would know will see his wife and child again.

Whatever his faith (or lack of it) Nick Charles spoke truth. How we react to what happens to us determines our lives. How we react depends on what's inside us, in the core of our being. That's what drives us. 

It took me a long time to grasp that. Then I read an old book, "Man's Search for Meaning,"  by the late Viktor Frankl, M.D., Ph.D.

Before World War II, Frankl, his wife and his parents lived the good life in Vienna. Then the Nazis invaded Austria. Like almost six million other Jews, they were sent to a Nazi concentration camp, separated, of course, and never saw each other again. Even Frankl's wedding ring was taken from him.

During those anguishing days in the Camp he realized a great truth. Here's how he summed it up.

"Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way."                                                

Viktor Frankl in a death camp. Nick Charles close to death from cancer. Both of them in crisis mode and both said the same thing: We can't control everything in our lives, but we do control what we think about it.That dictates how we respond.

The Bible said ir first, in Proverbs 23:7:

            As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he . . .

We hang the labels on what happens to us.

We choose to park our minds in a lousy place or in a good place.

Young or old, rich or poor, in or out of crisis, to know this can change your life.

Take it from one who knows.

Lovingly,

Lenore

 

Knowing the power of the words we speak

Some of us got a bum start in life. How about you?

Perhaps we wore cast-offs and hand-me-downs kept clean and patched by loving hands, with shoes that never quite fit right. Maybe we ate frequent "mystery meals" made up of whatever was inside the bargain dented or unlabeled cans just opened. We may have grown up with two parents in the home or only one.

Yet if our childhood home rang with laughter and love, that's what we remember.

If our house echoed with silence and gloom, punctuated by dire predictions, we hear those words even now.

One thing is sure. Like all children, we believed what parents and other adults told us, true or not, because we had no long-range perspective.

Maybe when we were growing up someone who mattered said, "Don't expect too much out of life. People like us never get the breaks. We have three strikes against us from the start." 

The funny thing about childhood messages is that they never go away.

So the polished executive still hears his mother's voice. You don't try hard enough and you never finish what you start. You're going to be living on the streets, I just know it.

The slim, attractive woman cannot silence childhood taunts still playing in her mind. Fatty! Elephant hips! Here comes the blimp!

The other day I scribbled down a remark I overheard:

"Don't think you know who I am because of where I came from and don't think you know where I'm going because of where I am now."

None of us can rewrite the past, but we can decide not to live there anymore. We can decide we will make the present better for ourselves and our family. All it takes is to remember that our words matter, probably more than we know. As the writer of Proverbs said in 25:11:

A word aptly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver.

Here's the surprise. The words of love and strength we speak to others will come back to us as blessing. As we give out kindness and love to others it heals the empty places within us.

And isn't that more lasting, more valuable than even gold or silver?

Peace and joy,

Lenore

Encouragement for when we're scraping bottom

Have you ever said to yourself, "I've never done anything special and probably never will. The future looks like more of the same.  What's the point of going on?"

I haven't read The Noticer by Andy Andrews, but a quote I read makes me want to. According to a synopsis, the main character, Jones, tells a hopeless individual the reasons why he or she is still living: 

Hop1.  God has a purpose for every single person.

2.  You won't die until that purpose is fulfilled.

3.  If you are still alive, then you haven't completed what you were put on earth to do.

4.  If you haven't completed what you were put on earth to do, then your very purpose hasn't been fulfilled.

5.  If your purpose hasn't been fulfilled, then the most important part of your life is still ahead.

6.  You have yet to make your most important contribution.

(Chapter 6, pp. 83-85.)

I can't know what's going on in your life right now, nor you mine. But we're still walking around, so that means we haven't yet fulfilled our purpose.  That makes every day vitally important, doesn't it?

It doesn't matter if we look back on the past with yearning. It doesn't matter if we feel unsure about today or tomorrow. It doesn't even matter if at the moment we feel no hope.

Robert Browning put it this way:

"Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made. Our times are in his hand who saith, 'A whole I planned, youth shows but half; Trust God:  See all, nor be afraid!'"

Psalm 139:16 tells us: 

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

What will tomorrow bring? None of us can say. But we know we will have the strength to meet the challenges. God says so, in Deuteronomy 33:25: "As thy days, so shall thy strength be."    

So if today is "one of those days" and we're at a low point, it's time to look up from the pits and look past our problems.

You are alive and so am I. We cannot know how God already is using us in someone's life. We cannot predict how He will use us tomorrow, but He will.

Let's take a deep gulp of fresh air and get on with living.

Lovingly,

Lenore

Does faith in God make a difference when we face obstacles?

It's a line we hear a lot, especially on talk shows and newscasts, "He/she never really had a chance."

Oh, yeah?

Meet Anthony Robles, a senior at Arizona State. In March, 2011, he captured the PAC 10 NCAA Wrestling Championship in the 125 lb. class. This came after a season in which he scored 36 wins and 0 losses. 

Imagine the shock his 16-year old mother felt as she gazed at her son for the first time. Their problems looked to be insurmountable. 

Not necessarily.

"My mom always told me when I was younger that God made me this way for a reason and I didn't understand what that meant," Anthony says.

He told one interviewer he can't remember ever feeling sorry for himself. His mother and stepfather raised him to believe he could do anything he set his mind to.

"I grew up thinking that way. I didn't think of my condition as something that could hold me back. I just thought this is how God made me and I'm going to make the best of it . . . . "

So seven-year old Anthony decided it took too long to put on his prosthesis and abandoned it for crutches. Nobody thought he could do it, but he rode a bike at age five and later played football. A few years ago in the fall he covered the ASU one-mile track in ten minutes. By spring he did it in eight. Regulars got used to seeing Anthony lifting weights, "running" mile-after-mile on the track and climbing the Stadium stairs as part of his training. He even climbed rocky Squaw Peak with his team, making it to the top in half an hour.

"My parents raised me to believe there was nothing I couldn't do," he says.

Coach Thom Ortiz says Anthony never asked for nor expected any special treatment. That reflects his mother's attitude. She told an interviewer. "He is a blessing. Don't treat him like he's something, but don't treat him like he's nothing, either. Just treat him like Anthony."

After college he plans a speaking career. This young man won't need any visual aids, because he is one. He has a powerful message about living with challenges. "It doesn't have to be a missing leg. You could have any obstacle in your life . . . Don't stay concerned with the negatives--what can hold me back, what my disadvantages are. I stay focused on the positive thing--what I have, what I can do."

Judy Robles fascinates me as much as her son. What enabled her to stay instead of walking away from her one-legged son? What kept her from becoming an alcoholic or getting strung out on drugs? Where did she find the strength to go on as she watched her little boy struggle and fall down, again and again?

She could have handled it by saying, "Oh, you poor thing. Here, let Mommy do that for you." Instead, she taught Anthony that God made him the way he is for a reason and if he set his mind to it, he could do anything.

Two kinds of mother love. Two kinds of motivation.

Since we know Judy Robles is a Christian, it seems reasonable to think she depended on God and on Bible verses like this for comfort and to keep her going.

I can do everything through him who gives who gives me strength.                                                                                --Philippians 4:8

You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book 

                                                                              --Psalm 56:8 (New Living Translation)

So what do you think, does faith in God make a difference in how we face obstacles?

You tell me. 

Lovingly,

Lenore

Note: Quotes come from the numerous newspaper and magazine articles I found when I Googled "Anthony Robles."

What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?

Sometimes we forget that everything starts with a dream, a vision of something that is not yet reality.

But what sane person would stand before a mountain of granite and imagine that he could hammer it, beat it or blast it into this grandeur?    

                     

Gutzon Borglum, that's who. A man who didn't give up on his dream. This vision became a burning passion that took over his life.

We visited Mount Rushmore National Park when our girls were growing up. The stunning blue sky you see here, along with eagles circling, provided a magnificent backdrop. We stood there transfixed.

Before us were these four faces, each one 60 ft. high. It seemed we could look into the eyes of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Theodore Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. What's more, it was as if their eyes followed us when we walked from one side to the other. We stood there a long time, asking over and over, "How on earth did they do that?"

"They" wouldn't have done any of it without one man and his "crazy dream."

Borglum made it happen. He was 60 years old in 1927, when he drilled the first holes. Over the next 14 years he and 400 other men blasted away and chipped away more than 450,0000 tons of granite. One exhausting day followed another.

In October, 1941, the Mount Rushmore National Memorial was officially declared done. Borglum had died of an embolism six months earlier.

Some of us have a tired old dream we've been chasing around for years. By now we've convinced ourselves our mountain is way too big. We have no chance. Besides, it's too late.

Maybe we've said, "But that will take ___ years. if I start now, I'll be ___ years old by the time I'm finished."

We can't let that question lie there as fact. The obvious answer is another question. "How old will I be in ___ years if I don't do it?"

If that's where you are, you'll cherish this promise of God as I do.

       As your days, so shall your strength be.                --Deuteronomy 33:25b (RSV)

Question for you: What's your dream?

Here's to counting on God to bring us through,

Lenore