At Home in Wyoming

Less Is More

 

This is the old bank in the little western town of Meeteetse, Wyoming.

I am constantly reading decorating books, mostly French (I have no idea why...Wyoming is about as far away in culture as you can get from France...but there you have it) and I am told that one of the first lessons in decorating a home is that less...is more.

I think that is true also of our lives.  I tend to junk mine up with big time wasters simply because I am too fragmented and/or lazy to look at the details of my life and figure them out.

But Proverbs 27:23 says that we are to "Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds." 

In other words, pay attention to the details of your everyday life.  Take the time to think things through.  Keeping it simple means cutting out the things that aren't working.  The clutter.

For example, I have been a member of a credit union for over 20 years.  I liked it...but they moved earlier this year to a bank building that is difficult to get to in the tourist traffic.  It is oddly situated in a place where it is easy to get killed because there is no turning lane, and it is at the top of the hill. 

There is a credit union that is a lot closer to my home.  It is smaller, it is cozier.  It is safer!

For some reason it never occurred to me to switch credit unions until this week.  The credit union that worked for over 20 years had changed in a way that caused me stress, but I never thought to change it, because I had always banked there.

I think that keeping it simple means paying attention to the way that you do little things, and if it is not working...hit that delete button!

Because sometimes less...is really a whole lot more.

 

 

 

A Little Sunday Reading

 
This little western church is St. Andrews Episcopal Church in Meeteetse, Wyoming.  I have been inside this church, and it is just as sweet on the inside as it is on the outside.

Is that a bird sitting on top of the cross on the church steeple?

 
Yep, this bird knows where he should be come Sunday morning!

Anyway, this church has a mystery...look at the side of the building.

 
The church appears to be held up on one side by a series of steel bars.  I wonder why...was it tilting, or did it need some extra reinforcements?  Or maybe more people sat on that side of the church than the other!

If you live in Meeteetse and know the answer, please solve this riddle for us.

Anyway, in honor of churches everywhere I am going to poke a little fun at the time honored tradition of the church bulletin.  (You know, the thing everyone is reading instead of listening to the preaching). 

The following are some of the typos or mixed up wording in actual church bulletins...see if you can figure out what they MEANT to say...

 

"Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale.  It is a good chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house.  Bring your husbands."

"Today the pastor will preach his Farewell message, after which the choir will sing "Break Forth into Joy!"

"Easter Sunday we will have a 9:30 worship service.  The 11:00 will be hell as usual."

"Tonight's sermon-"What is Hell?"  Come Early and Listen to our choir practice."

"Thursday night--Potluck supper.  Prayer and medication to follow."

 

See what fun you are missing if you don't go to church?!

So What's The Shape of Your Herd?

 

This is my favorite kind of trespasser...and I can say that because I lost all my petunias to her.  Now she is grazing the neighbor's yard, looking for bigger and better flowers...

 
I was reading something in the book of Proverbs today (a Proverb a day keeps you from backsliding away...there are only 31, so you can read one every day of the month, and it won't hurt a bit).

In Proverbs 27:23 it reads...

"Be thou diligent to know the state of thy flocks, and look well to thy herds."

It got me to thinking, what was going on where a landowner and owner of stock wouldn't be paying enough attention to know what was going on down at the barn, or out in the pasture?

Could it be that even in biblical times people were struggling with their life running them, instead of them running their life?

I don't know about you, but sometimes I just am plain too busy to pay much attention to the state of things, my 'flocks'.  I am always playing catch up, always running behind.  And because I am not paying attention, a little thing ignored often becomes a bigger (and usually more expensive) problem. 

And this is true of relationships as well as the details of life.

Today I slowed down long enough to pay attention to the state of some of my 'flocks', and realized that I was overcomplicating things because of lack of attention.  I need to get rid of some things, and pay more attention to others. 

And it is not easy to figure out what to pitch overboard...but when a ship is starting to sink you gotta lighten the load to keep afloat. That will give you time to figure out what is going on in your life, with your responsibilities.

This little gem of a Proverb gave me a lot to consider today.

So I am asking you, folks...what is the state of your 'flocks'?  Have you been looking well to your 'herds'?

 

Pain, Pain, Go Away

Walking past my neighbor's yard, I saw that I was not alone!  I think I may have disturbed her lunch of leaves and her dessert from the neighbor's flower garden...

  

"Look for a long time at what pleases you, and longer still at what pains you."   Colette (a French author)

Now there is a statement that is a mouthful!  We spend a lot of time looking at everything pleasing, but how many of us spend time looking at what pains us?

I think that 99.9% of all addictions in this country are rooted in running away from the pain in our lives. 

Pain hurts. 

So we hide from it in alcohol, drugs, food, tobacco, shopping, sex, constant activity, constant noise...you name it, there is an addiction to any means that you can find to avoid facing what pains you.

The problem with that is twofold.

One, the coping mechanism of addiction is just giving you ONE MORE THING that is causing you pain.  It compounds the problem.

Second, God won't help you with it. Why?  Because you are too busy avoiding it...running and insulating yourself from it...that you won't face it long enough to take it to Him to heal.

It takes courage to face the pain in your life.  It takes defiance to meet the pain head on, to refuse to let the pain defeat you.

Ask God to give you the courage.

I have had some experience with this.  Here is what I have found...

You gotta face it.  Dead center, head on.  You've got to accept that it happened.  What you did, what was done to you.  Rip that band-aid off and dwell for as long as it takes in what happened.  And how your life changed as a result of it.

Then ask God to heal you.  Like my pervious posts on forgiveness, I have found that this is often a process. 

He shows you things.  It takes awhile to walk through it.

It's hard.

But after dealing with it, you will find that while the situation itself may not change, you will have changed in how you react to it. 

God heals.  Pain doesn't hurt anymore.

It is hard to walk through, but in the end it is worth facing it with God to guide you through.

So think about it folks, what pains you?

 

 

The Sacred in the Ordinary

 

This was taken up by Trail Creek, outside of Cody.

I happened upon a magazine article last week written about one of the Judd daughters...I think the one that is a movie actress.  She is doing some sort of social work, in the Congo I believe.  (Sorry for not being more specific, I was distracted while I was skimming the article). 

Anyway, she said something that made me think.  She said that she wanted her life to be an act of worship. 

If your life is an act of worship (and isn't the purpose of living to glorify God?) then that means that the WHOLE of your life, even the little mundane daily things, become worship.  There is no distinction between sacred and secular activities. 

In other words, is scrubbing my toilet an act of worship?

Well, I know it is an act of obedience from the following scripture...

"She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness."  (Proverbs 31:27, where the woman after God's own heart is described, and there are many more...Titus 2, for example).

Obedience yes.  But worship?

This is what I think.  God cares about every single aspect of our lives.  He is not limited to the Sunday service at church.  He cares if we argue on the way home.  He cares that our home is not chaotic, He cares that we have beautiful sunsets to look at, He cares about music, and art.  He cares about what we have for supper, and what we are watching on TV. 

He even cares if my toilet is clean.  

I don't think that God is just the God of Sunday.  I think He is also the God of Tuesday morning, and He cares about how I spend my time.  So trying to bring order to my home is more than just an act of obedience.  If I work at it, it is glorifying God.  It becomes an act of worship, because I am serving Him by serving my family.

A 16th century monk, Brother Lawrence, put it best.  He said,

"The time of business does not with me differ from the time of prayer,and in the noise and clatter of my kitchen, while several persons are at the same time calling for different things, I possess God in as great tranquility as if I were upon my knees at the blessed sacrament." 

Isn't that beautiful?  He took God out of just church on Sunday, and put Him smack in the middle of day to day life.  God doesn't distinguish between sacred and the ordinary.

Because in serving God, He makes the ordinary...sacred.

Because that is just the kind of God He is!

 

 

Peace At Last

 

I ended up having a very good lilac year.  My bushes have scented the air, and I wonder if this is what Heaven smells like...

Today I want to share with you the process God took me through so that I could find my way toward forgiving others.  And by that I am talking about forgiving BIG stuff, not the trivial little nit-picking things that hurt, but don't alter the course of your life.  (If you are just tuning in here, please go back and read the previous three blog entries).

As I shared previously, I was willing to forgive and move forward, but I was stuck in the pain and bitterness.  Then I read a little book called the "Christian's Secret to a Happy Life", which encouraged me to ask God to conform my will to His Will.  My will was to hate the person until I died, His Will was for me to forgive an move on.

So I earnestly prayed, told God that I was willing to forgive, but couldn't get there by myself.  I asked Him to conform my will so that it became His Will.  

When I got up off my knees, I wish I could tell you that I was instantly relieved from the burden of bitterness that I carried, but that was not the case.  Looking back, I realized that from that point God began taking me through a process toward forgiveness.  I know that God works with different people in different ways, He custom designs our sanctification because he knows us so well.  But I will tell you how he worked it through me.

Day by day, I began to go back and remember things about the person that I wanted to forgive.  Things I had forgotten that the Holy Spirit was bringing to my mind.  Painful things.  Everything was re-exposed over a period of time, and I was almost reliving the grief.  For awhile, I was only more ticked off than before I began the process.

Now why would that be going on?  Perhaps because  the pain was like a boil, it needed to he cleaned out, the infection of bitterness needed to be exposed to the sunlight.

And I went through weeks if not months of that.

Then I began to examine myself honestly to see if I played a part in it.  As the saying goes, it takes two to tango in relationships.  If I was brutally honest with myself, once everything was out in the open, I had to see where I was wrong, too.  So He led me through all that.

Next came something interesting.  I was convicted by the scripture:

"Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone, if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother." (Matthew 18:15)

In other words, if you have a beef with someone, it is your responsibility to go to that person and get it straightened out.

So in some cases where you want to forgive someone, that is the correct thing to do.  Work it out between the two of you.  But what if the person is dead...or an abuser where it would put you in danger if you went to the person.  What if it is a coworker where it would cause problems in your office if you did that, or you were a victim of a crime, or you are bitter because a crime was perpetrated on someone that you love?  What then? 

Sometimes you need to confront someone, and it is impossible to do so.  But I think you still need to follow the principle...you need to confront the person that harmed you.  It is important for your healing, or God wouldn't tell you to do it.  So how?

What worked for me was to pick a time when I could be totally alone.  Took the ringer off the phone, put the dogs in another room, made sure I wouldn't be disturbed.  Got a box of Kleenex.  I pulled up a chair across from me, and visualized that person in the chair.  (If you have a picture of the person, put that in the chair).

I know this sounds nuts, but stay with me.  You might want to try this.

Visualize that you are talking to this person, and tell them how they hurt you.  The repercussions of it.  The pain.  How it affected your life.  Get it all out, every bit of it.  Talk to that chair as if you were talking to that person.

Once out, if you had a part in it, confess that.  If there was anything positive that the person did for you, tell them that.

Then when you come to the end, tell that person that with God's help, you CHOOSE to forgive them.

So I went through all that. 

And then, the miracle.

Slowly, over months, my heart began to form a scab.  The pain slowly began to leave.  The bubble of bitterness began to leak.  And eventually, I was able to say that I had forgiven that person.  I no longer hurt, I was no longer bitter.  I had moved on.

I think the whole process took over a year.  And I was led the whole way by the Holy Spirit.

I did this blog because none of us get out of this world unscathed, and we need to work on these things honestly with God.  Things that hold us back.  This was how He worked with me.  He may send you through a different process, or He may heal you all at once. 

I don't know how He will do it, but I know that He will, if you will let Him.

It was a hard process to go through, but at the end of it is...

Peace.

 

 

Forgiveness: How To Get There From Here

 
Up early on Saturday, I noticed firetrucks all up and down Main Street.  Was something on fire... was there a natural disaster?  Nope, just the firemen spraying down the sidewalks.  I guess we needed a spiff!

 

Last week I promised that I would share a few tips that I learned over the years about forgiveness.  If you are interested and haven't read the last few entries, please scroll back.  Because today, I want to talk about forgiving the BIG STUFF.  The wrongs that have affected you for years and years, and you just can't seem to move beyond the pain.

So what's in it for you to forgive?  Peace.  Acceptance.  And a God given balm for the pain.  Plus all the blessings that you get when you are in obedience to God.  If you can get to the point that you know you need to forgive and move on, but don't know how to go about doing it, you are halfway there.

Because once you figure out you can't get there by yourself, you are ready for God to help you!

Jesus said, "I am the Vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me, ye can do nothing." (John 15:5)

So there you have it.  You were wronged, and you need to forgive so you can heal.  And without Jesus you can't get there from here.  Without him, ye can do NOTHING! 

So now what?

Years ago when I was reading all the Christian classics, I stumbled upon a book by Hannah Whitall Smith titled, "A Christian's Secret to a Happy Life".  And in it she talked about our will versus God's Will.  My will was to hate the person till I die, God's Will was to forgive and move on.

In order to do that, she said that you have to be willing to conform your will to that of God's.

OK, so I was willing.  Not able, but willing.

I talked to God about it (I had been talking to God about it for years) but this time instead of self pitying stuff, I told Him that His Word said I had to forgive this person, and I was willing to do it, but I couldn't get there by myself.  But I was more than willing for Him to conform my will to His Will.  I asked Him to take my self will, and replace it with His Will. 

And I was deadly serious.  My mind was tired of all this.

After that prayer, I checked my heart.  Nope, I was still not forgiving...nothing much changed that I could see.

But I was wrong.  When I look back on it, God began a process of healing with me.  It probably took about a year to go through, but at the end of it I can say with certainty that I have forgiven and moved on, thanks be to God!

Tomorrow, I will describe the process that he took me through.

Are You Hurt, Or Just Miffed?

 
The carnival is in town!  Can't you just smell the cotton candy?

 
Can it be that summer is almost really here?? 

 

The last time I blogged I was talking forgiveness.  If you didn't read that blog, go back an entry and read "They Done Me Wrong".  (I would link to it, but I never learned how to do that).

If you are a Christian, then you gotta forgive.  The Bible tells us so.  If you are not a Christian, you gotta forgive too, because if you choose not to, the bitterness will eat you alive.  The Bible talks about the root of bitterness...I see it in my mind like a dandelion root with tenacles that wrap around and warp every area of your life.

And who is up for that?

I am going to lump things that are done to you into two categories.  The first are the people that did trival kinds of things to you that just ticked you off.  Like someone blowing through town and not stopping to see you, someone owing you money and forgetting to pay you back, someone gossiping about you at the town cafe.  And on and on.  Little stuff.

Those kinds of things can hurt your feelings.  You are miffed. 

For those kinds of things, take them straight to Jesus and tell Him that they done you wrong.  And He will point you back to His Word, where He talks about the definition of Love.

"Love is patient and kind.  Love is not jealous or boastful or proud.  It does not demand its own way.  It is not irritable, and keeps no record of being wronged.  It does not rejoice about injustice, but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.  Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance." (1 Corinthians 4-7 in the New Living Translation).

In light of that, the trivial sort of pales in comparison, doesn't it?  Ask yourself if these are the kinds of things that are really worth losing a relationship over, and then ask God to help you let go of the matter. 

Disipline your mind to quit digging it up and chewing on that old bone.  Choose to forgive them.  God can do that for you if every time your mind goes to the matter, you ask God to help you let it go.  He will, honest. 

You'll find that is relatively easy compared to the big hurts, the life altering hurts, the hurts that you can't seem to move past no matter what, and that are affecting you to this very day.

I am going to tell you what worked for me on Monday. 

Have a good weekend, folks!

 

They Done Me Wrong!

 

Surprise!  You never know what you are going to find behind the bushes around here!

 
They done me wrong!

I don't care who you are, at some point in your life people (your mother, father, sister, brother, inlaw, coworker, church member, husband, wife, child) is going to hurt you.  Hurt you bad enough for the pain to become life altering.

If you tell me that has never happened to you, then you are either lying...or just you wait.  It is one of the immutable laws of life.

 So, someone over the span of your life has inflicted you with pain that is too great to bare.  Do you know what you have to do? 

You have to forgive them.

Why?  Because God says you do, and the reason that He says that is because the hurt can make you grow bitter. 

Honestly, it is like a cancer that grows and grows and takes over your thought life, your relationships, your life.  If you don't forgive, the only person that you are hurting is you.

And you have been hurt enough.  Right?

So you gotta forgive them.  For your own sake. 

Over the years, I have learned a thing or two about forgiveness.  The first is that you can't do it in your own strength without God.  The second is that it is often a process, and can take minutes...or years.

Tomorrow I will share with you some tips that helped me.

 

"And when ye stand praying, forgive, if ye have ought against any:  That your Father also which is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses."   (Mark 11:25)

 

Little BIG Things

 

This is the Shoshone River, just west of the rodeo grounds.  Somewhere down there are hot springs...which would have felt really nice on such a cold and cloudy day.

 
It was garage sale Friday.  I had the dog loaded up in the truck, my newspaper clipping to show me the addresses, the map my husband drew for directions (for some reason they were all in the country that day) and the Dixie Chicks on the CD player (Dixie Chicks the early years, when it was all music and not political noise).  I pulled up to the little roadside stand for some hot coffee, and realized I had forgotten my wallet.

But the nice lady told me not to worry, she would buy my coffee for me that morning.

Earlier last week, a sweet lady from the Bargain Box, the one who gave me beautiful hand made doilies because she knew I loved them, flagged me down again with ANOTHER bag of doilies.  They were so beautiful that they took my breath away.

Both of these women were strangers to me.

We all want to do big things for God.  Not to earn our salvation, because (1) we never could and (2) Jesus did it in his finished work on the cross.  But we want to serve...to show Him what his gift means to us. 

Sometimes I think that the big things we do for God are the little things, acts of kindness, that we should be doing day in and day out.  Holding that door open for someone at Walmart, buying a stranger a cup of coffee, giving away some of the bounty of our garden or making cookies for a shut in.  For folks we know, and folks we don't but whose paths we cross.

Maybe not one BIG thing, but a whole lot of little things   might just be what God called you to do.

Remember the buzzword about 'random acts of kindness'.  How about purposeful acts of kindness to reflect the goodness of God.

Maybe all those little things add up to a whopping BIG thing.  And to God be the glory!

 

"For whosoever shall give you a cup of water to drink in my name, because ye belong to Christ, verily I say unto you, he shall not lose his reward."  (Mark 9:41)