Control Relinquished

This morning I pulled into Wal-Mart and as I parked, I heard a very loud, ringing bell. The sound seemed similar to that of a fire alarm, so my eyes scanned the area for unusual activity. I saw nothing abnormal, so I proceeded into the store. I expected to see or hear chaos or receive some sort of acknowledgment or explanation for the disruption. Instead, I was greeted by normal activity. In fact, everything seemed so normal that I began to wonder if I was the only one who could hear the obnoxiously loud bell ringing from the entrance! Isn't that how the messiness of life is? We have the obnoxious, blatant reminders of our shortcomings blowing up in our faces and yet we somehow seem to tune it out, ignore it, and continue on as normal. I'm talking about our misbehaving children, a difficult diagnosis, a crumbling marriage, financial pressures, discontentment, jealousy, rage. We hide it all too well. Our insides are falling apart, but we plaster on that smile and say al...

I believe many would agree that Mondays are usually one of the hardest days of the week...recovering from the weekend, getting tired kids ready for school on time, and motivating ourselves to tackle the week. Typically, Mondays are not the ideal day for anything to go haywire. This morning was no exception, so I quickly tossed in a load of laundry in the midst of packing lunches. Realizing that I was out of detergent, I grabbed a new container and set it on top of the washer. Being in a rush, I forgot to place the new container on the shelf after my load began. As any washer does during the spin cycle, it shakes quite a bit and it's likely no surprise to you that this is what I found at 8 am on a Monday morning: A lake of detergent gushing from the container that had inched its way off the washer! Surprisingly, I did not flip out. For the most part, I remained calm, cool, and collected as I began the complicated task of cleaning up soap. But there was one thing that DID...

In the past few weeks, I have had several encounters with deer...and no, I did not go hunting this year! The first encounter, I was driving on the highway with my daughter. Out of the blue she yelled that a deer was crossing the northbound highway. I didn't see it, but hit my brakes anyway. Suddenly, I spotted a buck-gone-wild jumping towards my window. By the grace of God, the deer crossed in back of my vehicle. Then a few days ago, I spotted this lady munching in my yard. I watched her for awhile and she watched me, somehow aware that hunting season is over! Different from my last encounter, this one was filled with peaceful serenity. Then, last evening I had yet another encounter, unfortunately similar to the first. I was driving through the winding, wooded area of Nolde Forest with my son and his friend following archery practice. The roads were empty, so it was easy to cruise above the speed limit. Suddenly, as I rounded a corner, I saw a flickering shadow in the wo...

We all are familiar with the age-old cartoons of Winnie the Pooh and his friends. It's easy to laugh at the extreme polor-opposite personalities of Tigger and Eeyore. Tigger is joyful, energetic, and excited about life. Eeyore is monotonous, bored, and depressed about life. In the last few weeks, I have noticed an irritating pattern in my conversations with various people. I have realized that only a few sentences into a conversation, and the person is complaining or negative talking about the weather, their job, their spouse, their kids, school, or just life in general. In one situation, it only took one negative person and soon two others were drawn in and I was surrounded by three people talking badly about their spouses or their jobs.  What causes our society to bounce from the Tigger extreme (Life is fine and great!) to the Eeyore extreme (Life is horrible and everything is miserable). I know life IS hard and we need to be real and vulnerable to people know we know well a...

I recently had experiences with two vastly different women and they each brought out a different side of me. The first scenario was at a local store. I approached the busy check-out lanes and noticed a lady standing off to the side. Assuming she wasn't claiming a spot in any of the lines, I proceeded to walk around her to a check-out that had just finished with a customer. Suddenly, this lady's booming voice pierced throughout the entire check-out area, "EXCUSE ME, MISS!!!!! I BELIEVE I WAS NEXT!!!"  Lots of eyes turned towards the recipient of these harshly spoken words---me! I apologized and told her I did not realize she was waiting in line and left her go in front of me. In an equally harsh tone she scoffed, "I have places to be, for goodness sake!" That last comment lit my defenses into an open flame and I'm ashamed to admit I spat back, "Well, I do too!" Even though that was the truth, as I had to pick up my kids from schoo...

There has been a tree on the lot next door that has intrigued me for awhile. From the front, it looks like a typical evergreen and you would barely notice that it is struggling to survive. But a quick side view reveals that this tree has a major nutrient deficiency or health issue! As you can see, the tree is completely bare on one side and definitely not a picture of "thriving".  How often do we find ourselves like this tree?  A picture of health or perfection on the outside for others to see, but inside we are wasting away.   Sharing the highlight reel on social media, but hiding the raw and ugly side of life.   Our roots are shallow and lack of "Son-light" prevent us from being spiritually nourished . The first core value at my church is "Be Authentic", a growing challenge to be real and not fake. Are we willing to let people see the broken, exposed, and hurting sides of ourselves? Or will we choose to continually fool...

I think it's safe to say we all struggle to "just be" in our always-connected culture. It seems to be a daily wrestling match in my mind--is this a memory I should capture by taking a picture or should I just soak it into my memory? My problem is that my memories are often triggered by photos and I want to "snap away" with my camera so my kids can remember! It's also a reality that phones are no longer "just phones". They are to-do lists, grocery lists, cameras, bank account ledgers, e-mails, Bibles, online stores, radio stations, podcasts, calculators, flashlights, weatherman...not to mention a source of entertainment! No wonder it's so hard to put our phones down and disconnect! I had an observation at the park this evening with my kids. There was a concert going on across the street and I was amused by some of the older people dancing the night away. But then, I turned around and saw this young boy absorbed in his phone rather th...