Someday

It has been a very trying week, month, year. I really don't know when it all started. But I have a glimmer of hope that things have turned the corner. Adjustments to schedules, added work, more responsibilities. Perhaps I needed to find my stride and settle in. Some times it is just too much to handle.

Music for me is a wonderful way to express my feelings and gives me inspiration and hope. This past month I came across in fact a top 40 song, that I actually like. It was resounding 'loudly' from my daughters bedroom and something about it just stuck. So I clicked and dragged it from her playlist to mine and have listened to it most everyday since. Perhaps is was a way of someone saying, 'listen up'.

So...maybe someday we'll figure all this out
Try to put an end to all our doubt
Try to find a way to make things better now that
Maybe someday we'll live our lives out loud
We'll be better off somehow someday

'cause sometimes we don't really notice
Just how good it can get
So maybe we should start all over
Start all over again



I shared with someone the other day who was feeling a bit low. I said, 'most days I just have to take it a minute, a second, a day at a time. I realize that I am grateful for a my faith, my health, my family, my home, and just what I need TODAY. I don't have it all figured out. But what I do know is I am OK for TODAY. Someday is someday, but TODAY is TODAY!

P.S. And TODAY was a great day. Carpets cleaned and look BRAND NEW! Haircut/color, manicure and pedicure, and lunch at my favorite place. Now if I could only have ONE more day, I would watch movies all day in my pjs and fulfill creativity bucket scrapbooking the day away. Well, may be not tomorrow, but 'someday'.

Back on the gravy train I go. ONLY $14K left to go to hit $100,000. Track meet in Iowa City. Chocolate chip cookies, an early morning bike ride, and reconnecting with my housekeeper.

But until that day comes I plan to enjoy the last few hours of TODAY, in my pjs, wrapped cozy in a blanket. surrounded by those I love the most.

A Rollercoaster on Ice

This year's winter has been a record breaker! Week after week we have been hit with snow, ice, and below zero temperatures. Weather is something that doesn't bother me too much, however I must say 'It's getting a little old living in the tundra'.

At dinner the other night, our family was visualizing the smell of spring, freshly mowed grass, a warm 70 degree day, flowers in bloom, and bare feet on the payment. We all oohed and awed over how wonderful the thought of spring and how much more we will appreciate it this year after the winter we have experienced.

After our most recent mixture of snow and ice, a week later the streets are still partially covered with deep pot holes, ridges, and patches of ice and snow making for adventures travels. At the end of our street a large ice and snow mix had developed and froze making for a challenging trek through it's whindy, slippy curve. I had to laugh yesterday as the car slid into one track and then fishtailed to slip into the next icy track as I rounded the corner to our home. I felt like I was on a ride at an amusement park when your car switches from track to track and you gimme back and forth in your seat. By the end of the day, I was actually looking forward to my amusement park ride as I navigated my way home with a smile on my face.

It brought to mind the thought of living on the edge and living in the moment. How much more fulfilling my life would be if I simply lived with what I was provided for each day, never knowing where or how tomorrows provisions would arrive.

I think of what a 'hording' society we are with our freezers full of food, our storerooms stuff full of 'what I will use someday', our closets brimming with clothes 'I will fit into again', and the ever present 'kitchen junk drawer'.

It makes me wonder with all my 'stuff' I am trying to manage am I really valuing the 'important' things in life?

The thought takes me back to when Milo and I were first married and living in married student housing while attending college. We had a 'tiny' one bedroom apartment with a corridor kitchen, we ate in the living room, and the bathroom was large enough to accommodate one person at a time. Our grocery bill was about $80/month and consisted primarily of ham sandwiches and pancakes. The 'major' decision at the time was if we could afford a car payment of $80/month for a used Ford escort and the highlight of the week was having enough empty pop cans to redeem for a refund in order to take in a $2 show at the movie theater.

17 years later we manage a household budget thousands times more and we have enough bathrooms to accommodate each member of our family. We have a kitchen, dining room, a living room, a sitting room (we we never sit in), and a rec room. A bag full of cans redeemed at the can shed ($12.00) only pays for 1/2 the cost of the movie and the good news, we don't have any car payments!

So am I more happy now with more money to manage and more space to accumulate stuff?

When God called Abraham he said, 'Leave your country, your people, and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.' So Abraham at 75 years old performed a life changing act and he gathered up is nephew, his wife, all his possessions he had accumulated, and the people they had acquired in Haran, and they set out for the land of Canaan.' Genesis 12

WOW! Abraham put his life totally in God's hands. God's call to him was a call to separation. A call to lose his life and love God more. A call to put off the old self and put on the new self. God said get out of your comfort zone, leave back much of what is familiar to you, and set out on a NEW journey. God promised Abraham that He would make him into a great nation and that he would be blessed and all those that followed him would be blessed as well.

So I ask you today, are you just comfortable managing all of your stuff? What has God called you to do today that you have not yet responded in obedience too? Are you willing to ride the roller coaster of life with all of it's ups and downs, it's shifting track to track, and it's unpredictability in order that God can work and do amazing things in your life?

Take a chance on God, you won't be sorry that you did.

Jill

What! I can't bring my make-up!

After a summer vacation to the Black Hills, my husband got the 'biker bug'. Although he had been talking for some time about getting a motorcycle, the bug bit him bad while visiting the famous Sturgis Rally! The thought of the freedom of the road and leaving your cares behind had him convinced that he wanted to be a biker dude. I will have to admit that I wasn't all that excited about the thought of becoming a 'biker babe', however in support of the cause I went along for the ride.

This fall we scheduled a weekend without the kids for us to spend some time together and of course it had to entail the NEW bike! Being a new biker, he was still learning the ropes of riding and so to branch out, we decided to go on a mini road trip. Now by mini, I mean 30 miles outside of Cedar Rapids to the booming metropolis of Anamosa. We had heard of a great new restaurant in town and thought a day on the bike enjoying the fall weather and then a nice dinner would be a great weekend treat. Believe it or not the only hotel in Anamosa was full, so we had to make our hotel reservation in the next town which was an additional 30 miles away.

Being a bit of a high maintenance girl, as I was putting things together, I am thinking that after a day on the bike I planned to shower, do my hair and make-up, put on a nice outfit, and go out for dinner. However in order to do that, I would need to get back on the bike and ride 30 miles back to my dinner destination, thus completely defeating the purpose of doing my hair and make-up. So on that pretense, I made the decision that I was just not quite ready to be an official biker chick and that while he drove the bike to Anamosa, I would follow in the car with my suitcase in tow!

During my quiet time today, as I continue to study Matthew and Mark, I had to chuckle as I read about how after Jesus called His disciples, He then sent them out with specific instructions. Those instructions were "Take nothing for the journey except a staff, no bread, no bag, no money in your belts. Wear sandals but not an extra tunic. Whenever you enter a house, stay there until you leave that town. And if any place will not welcome you or listen to you, shake the dust off your feet when you leave as a testimony against them." Mark 6: 8 - 11

WOW! No food, no suitcase, no money, no clothes, and ONLY ONE pair of shoes! I thought and I can't go 30 miles without my suitcase chucked full of all my stuff!

Jesus was beginning His ministry and now He had equipped His disciples to go out and heal the sick, share His message, and drive out demons. While His following was growing, there were still others who were against His teachings.

I put myself in the disciples position. What must have they been thinking? "You want me to go out and do what you have been doing, rely on others to provide shelter, food, and wash my clothes, and when someone rejects me, simply 'shake off the dust on my feet' and go onto the next one. Come on, can't I pack just a little carry-on bag, just in case?"

Jesus instructed that no carry-on was allowed and then went so far as to share what would also happen to them on their journey. And by the way, you will be persecuted,arrested, flogged, and men will hate you because of me.

But you know what the disciples did? THEY WENT ANY WAY.

How often do we step out in faith? In November, I shared a blog that faith was just a few steps at a time. I think that was the mentality that the disciples took, when they set out on there journey. "OK, lets just go to the first town."

Jesus promises us that "Whoever acknowledges me before men. I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven." Matthew 10:32-33

Our stay on earth is so temporary, but our stay in eternity is FOREVER! Where will you spend your eternity, because of your choices and decisions here on earth?

Are you willingly to step out in faith and share what God has done for you in your life? Not knowing how it will be received, are you willingly to take a chance? Are you willing to give up a comfort in your life in order to carve out some time each day to spend working on your relationship with Him? What are you willingly to give up?

So while I am still working on being a biker chick, what I have learned from this lesson is that it is OK to mess up my hair. May be the freedom of the road is not such a bad thing. May be just taking off with only the clothes on my back and just seeing what happens, is an exciting adventure I want to be a part of! May be it is easier to leave all my stuff at home!

Jill