$10 Challenge

It's an interesting thing to give to someone in need or undeserving. My friend, Louise has chosen to partake in the $10 Challenge and has challenged the rest of us to also. Bill Coffey started the challenge and you can follow the link to his site to read it fully.

At this time of year, there are many who give selflessly, thinking of others and not of themselves, others who give thinking only of themselves and still others who give because they have to (I'm thinking of store clerks who are harried at this time of year). What can I give willingly that might make a difference to someone's day? No matter if I can only afford a $1, what can I sacrifice to help someone else feel a little bit of the love of God at this time when we celebrate His Gift to us? $10 seems like a small thing, a tiny token, but it can change the life or at least day of someone we come across.

My Mom occasionally gives the store clerk a chocolate bar, what if we were more prepared and had little cards in our purses/wallets to give along with it with a note of encouragement and/or thanks for those people who work double-time this time of year? Whether you do a spur of the moment gift or put some forethought into it, please let me know what it is you did, pass along your ideas so others can share them.

God bless you!

The Assault of Grief

It is a strange thing to grieve, to need to grieve. It assaults you, comes in waves, attacks at inopportune moments and lasts for years. You cannot gauge or predict how long it will take to go through the grieving process. It varies from person to person and is not something to be ignored and brushed away. You can't brush it away in fact, because it will jump out when you least expect it, demanding attention and refusing to be set aside again. If we choose to resist facing it, it affects our mental health until we stop and look at it face to face.

I grieve. Some days more than others. Some things I take out in little pieces because I fear that to face it all at once would be more than I could bear, and yet there are times when it threatens to overwhelm me and I must find a space to breathe.

I have tried to resist grieving, to put it aside until a better time, but there truly is no better time. If we grieve in the moment of our pain, it is easier to own, easier to share. When we put it off, we are misunderstood, we lose the support of our immediate community. There is still support, but we must be willing to seek it because most will think we are "over it". The truth is that the thing that makes us grieve, also makes us who we are. It becomes a part of us, a part of who we are.

My grief has brought me to envy the sibling relationships of other people, to encourage them to appreciate every moment, every memory they make with their siblings, to not let insignificant things come between them. There are days when just hearing someone talk about their sister brings me to tears, days when I still, almost 4 years later, think to pick up the phone to call either my brother or my sister, only to remember they aren't there.

The truth is though, that I will forever carry them in my heart, that they will never be far from me unless I chose to let them go. If I refuse to talk about them, if I refuse to remember them or look at their pictures, then they will disappear. I will not allow them to disappear. I will tell their stories, and hopefully in the telling, they will live on and enable others to live past the moment of their pain.

Maybe, in our grief, we can help others walk the pathway of life in a better, truer way. It is one way that our pain can bring good out of bad.

It's another Blog Carnival Tuesday! This week's word is "Grief". To read other blogs on this word, click here.

To Stay or Go?

Today I was reading on BibleGateway for my devotional and came across these verses:

1 Peter 2:22-25 (Contemporary English Version)

22 Christ did not sin

or ever tell a lie.

23 Although he was abused,

he never tried to get even.

And when he suffered,

he made no threats.

Instead, he had faith in God,

who judges fairly.

24 Christ carried the burden

of our sins.

He was nailed to the cross,

so that we would stop sinning

and start living right.

By his cuts and bruises

you are healed.

25 You had wandered away

like sheep.

Now you have returned

to the one

who is your shepherd

and protector.

It made me stop to think. Sometimes we read verses like this and assume that because Jesus didn’t sin or complain or retaliate when He was abused that He did nothing. The truth of it is that there were many times that He just walked away – like when they tried to stone Him or push Him off the cliff. He allowed them to abuse and murder Him at His death because that was the plan all along and there was value in it. He doesn’t ask us to stay in abusive situations unless He has a plan that will bring about good in our lives and to His glory.

Is God asking you to stay where you are? Or are you choosing to remain in an abusive place out of a misconception that that is how Jesus insists it be done?

Community

There have been some things in my life lately that have left me feeling alone, isolated; but God has brought back into my life an old friend who is able to help me see things more clearly. Then last night a friend caught me on Facebook and both have helped me realize that I truly am not alone, there are others who are going through the same experiences.

What I remembered last night while chatting online with my friend is that without community we truly do stand alone. The Bible encourages us to share one another's burden (Galatians 6:2) and yet our society tells us to keep our burdens to ourselves, to not bother others with our lives or our stories. Last night as my friend and I chatted she kept apologizing for bothering me with her stories, with her pain. I do the same thing, I bury my pain deep inside me and then wonder why I feel isolated from the world and my friends.

If we do not speak up, if we do not talk to others about all the things in our lives, good and bad, then we do not have community and it is our own fault for it. If I share with you only the good I make you a fairweather friend in my head, if I am willing to be vulnerable enough to share with you the negative in my life then I give you the opportunity to help me bear burdens, as the Bible asks us all to. When I keep silent, then I deprive you of that same opportunity.

A true community shares all of life, hiding nothing from itself. When we do not stand up for each other, care for each other and bear the burdens of our neighbours we have a superficial community that will not stand up for long against the trials of the world. It will fall apart and leave us without even the semblance of a safe place.

I encourage you to step outside of your fears, be vulnerable and share some of your fears and burdens with those in your community. If you feel completely isolated, chose one or two safe people to be vulnerable with (call a hotline if you need to!) and reach out to those around you, parents, siblings, coworkers, friends. It will change your life for the better.

I am participating in Blog Carnival. Today's word to write on is: Community. If you want to take part, or to read the amazing posts from fellow bloggers, please go here and immerse yourself in the wonder and the magic of being connected to an amazing community of thoughtful folk here in cyberland.

Remembering

My siblings were born 6 years and 6 days apart. In fact, my baby brother was due on our big sister's birthday but he chose to wait 6 days and hence the 6 day difference. It tends to make this week a difficult one for me the past few years.

Birthdays are big for me. They are a time to celebrate life and love and family and I can still celebrate that for them, but not with them. Instead their birthdays have become a time to grieve and to remember that time with them is lost for now. It is a choice. I have chosen a time that it is okay for me to miss them terribly, that allows one day to be a painful one of intense memory and missing. To be sure I miss them intensely on other days, days that sneak up on me and hurt just because they are not here to be with, but on their birthdays I give myself permission to think about all the times we had and miss the times we will never have.

I started this when my brother died, his birthday is Nov 12 and I connect his death with the war that we all fight against Satan. The Bible tells us in 1 Peter 5:8 to "Be self-controlled and alert. (because) Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour." Satan stalked my brother and won, that is the naked truth of it. I am joyful that just because Satan won the battle does not necessarily mean that my brother lost the war. I look forward to a time when I can see him again. Remembrance Day for me has evolved into a day when we remember those who fought/fight these earthly wars but it also extends a day longer and is a day when I remember my brother, the sacrifices he made along the way and the lesson he left behind to help us make wiser decisions along our way.

One of the reasons I chose to remember my siblings on their birthdays is because I chose to NOT ruin the holidays with grief over missing them and wishing they were with us. My sister died just a couple days before Christmas and I refuse to allow Christmas to be ruined by the grief that comes from remembering the way she died or how much I miss her. My children and her children deserve better.

We need to set aside a time for remembering, lest we forget. We need to remember all of those who have died in the course of life, for whatever reason, to learn from their life and mistakes, to follow our own path without dying in our grief.

I chose the week surrounding Remembrance Day to also remember my sister Angela and my brother Cory because their birthdays straddle it. Cory's birthday is becoming a day to celebrate who he was and what he meant to me, I am sure that with time, so will Angela's.

What day will you choose to make sure your loved ones are not forgotten? A day you give yourself permission to grieve and remember them?

Silencing the tapes

I sang this weekend with a professional singer and the entire time I was practicing with her, I battled my "tapes" that were continually sounding off that I wasn't good enough, that I would ruin her performance, that I would mess it up and everyone would know that I really am not a good singer.

See, Friday night we met to practice. There was one other lady, also singing back-up for The Singer and we were learning new songs and learning harmonies to those songs. For this other lady, she has a college degree in music, it's simple for her to pick out a harmony and sing it - she loves to do that, it is one of her strengths and joys and she's good at it. I love to sing melody. I'm content to let someone else harmonize, I love to just sing it out. I can't do that as back-up singer - The Singer gets the melody, I have to learn a harmony. That's okay, I can learn it, and as I discovered this weekend, I can even pick one out that sounds pretty good. As we practiced together, The Singer chose the other lady to sing duet with her in a few parts and even to lead out on one of the songs. That helped set off my tapes of not being a good singer, and of sounding badly.

The point is, I did it, and I did it fairly well. I stretched myself beyond my own feelings of capability and came through. I wasn't perfect, I did mess up and miss a few things, but it still sounded good. I discovered that I can actually harmonize, I can do something different and still succeed. Most importantly, I learned that even when I can't turn off the tapes, I CAN fight past them and refuse to believe their lies.

See, the tapes this weekend were so huge that I even dreamed that THE singer had asked me to not sing with her. I was in tears trying to learn parts - not because it was hard but partly because of my fear and my ongoing tapes (and partly my exhausted emotional state). Sometimes the tapes don't give up. I have big dreams, I want to sing in a big way, to share a message, my testimony through song, to hopefully change lives with my story and music. In the past, I have allowed that dream to be trampled on and crushed and now that I have chosen to let it live again the tapes are louder, they are fighting to be heard, to kill this recently replenished dream. I am choosing to ignore the tapes. The longer I ignore them, the more I prove them to be untrue, the better able I will be to give that dream true life, to embrace the opportunities that come my way and hopefully, one day, see my dream come true. This time, I chose to NOT give up on it, to stretch and push until it comes to fruition.

I couldn't silence the tapes this weekend so I did the next best thing. I fought past them, I kept going despite them. Then, most importantly, I found a friend and confessed to her my need and my fears and I asked her to pray for me. I know that she did because I felt God's strength in my heart and my voice as I sang. Through the performance, I sang and I sang it right and the tapes were silenced. I didn't ruin the songs or the worship. God sustained me and gave me abilities that I didn't know or believe I had before. I praise Him because only He can carry me through. Only He gives me the strength and the ability to push past my fears and anxieties to succeed and accomplish something new and scary.

He is an amazing, mighty God and I am grateful that He is the one who carries me through.

Last night, after climbing into bed, I had the perfect thought to share here today. However, of course, this morning it is gone. Sometimes my best thoughts are when I am lying down in bed, of course, it is at those moments when I don't have a pen & paper or computer to write them down and no real desire to get up to find one.

Sometimes life is like that. The best response to someone's comments come after we have walked away, the best comeback to an insult is thought of the next day. Sometimes this is a good thing. Sometimes, however, when a response is necessary, a pause can be misinterpreted. This happened to me last night. I was on the phone with a friend and, as we were discussing a rather sensitive topic, I was being careful with my words. Unfortunately, she felt I was distracted or too tired and we left the conversation for another day. I was pretty tired, so perhaps that is okay. I can research my answers and give her a proper Biblical response when we meet again later this week.

It's okay to put a conversation on hold to a later time. It helps to organize thoughts and present them in a non-offensive way that may be more easily heard. Sometimes, it just changes your frame of mind. Sometimes we can't put off the conversation, but during those times we can be sure that God will present the answers and guide our words if we only ask Him to. We just need to use our discretion and wisdom in every situation.

God bless you today. May your words be a blessing to others as you open yourself up to serve Him today.