Words!  They can be life or death!  Honestly, I have a problem with words!  I have a conversation with someone and promise to keep a confidence, but later, words slip out!   I have information that another person asks for, or I want to get someone’s attention, or sometimes I just want to get a laugh.  When I was in high school, I chose to memorize and meditate on Psalm 19:14 to help me with that problem.  “Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer!”  Fortunately unwanted words don’t slip out as often as they used to.

I want to be the kind of friend that keeps confidences.  I want to be a person who is safe to be around because you don’t have to remember what you've said to me and what you can’t say because you don’t want me to repeat it to someone else.

Today a friend was talking to me.  She was basically thinking out loud and working through an idea.  She stopped herself, paused and said “You understand what I’m saying.  You know my heart and even if I’m spewing junk right now, you understand that I’m just processing out loud, right?”  How healing for my heart to hear that!  It confirmed what I want to be true​!​

“Feel Free” by Carolyn Arends

You can fill my crosswords in with ink 
Speak your mind before you think 
Wear your shoes inside my house 
Wear my clothes and wear me out 
You can lose your head or spill your guts 
I'm your friend I'm not your judge 

Feel free to laugh or cry 
Feel free to wonder why 
Feel free to dance or grieve 
You are safe when you're with me…Feel free 

You can change your plans or change your mind 
A million, billion, trillion times 
Raise the roof or pound the door 
Climb the walls or hit the floor 
You can run with scissors if you must 
But it'd be better if you just 

Feel free to laugh or cry 
Feel free to wonder why 
Feel free to dance or grieve 
You are safe when you're with me…Feel free 

To pray or scream or say or dream anything you want to 
To tell me every secret thing about the ghosts that haunt you 

And you can open up your closet wide 
There's no skeleton inside 
Worse than ones I call my own 
Rest assured you're not alone 
And together we can face that stuff 
Till at long last both of us

Feel free to laugh or cry 
Feel free to wonder why 
Feel free to dance or grieve 
You are safe when you're with me…Feel free 

I have a hard time making decisions.  I have a long history of having a hard time making decisions.  I think I would be much happier if someone else in my life made them and then I could deal with it and grouse about the results.  I’m wrong.  Fortunately my husband knows that I’m wrong and he isn’t afraid to remind me of some pieces of wisdom that I heard my mother say.

When I was little, my parents were more apt to make the decision for me, especially if it looked like I was going to make the “wrong” decision.  But I did learn a few things about decision-making from my family.  I think it was out of frustration, my mom had a mantra.  (Did I also mention that I was v…e…r…y……s…l…o…w…?) I think it was supposed to speed up the decision process.  She would tell me, “We choose from what’s available.”  I can almost still hear her voice when I think about that line.  But it’s true!  There is no sense pining away for a choice that is not available.  Sometimes it takes a tremendous amount of trust in God to let go of the pining, but in the end, whether we want to or not, we choose from what’s available.

As I got older, I started watching the choices that my older siblings were making and they started adding to the advice.  I’m sure that these bits of wisdom were borne out of their own experiences. 

I heard one sister say since I am the one who is going to have to live with my decisions and the results of them, it is better to “Make your own decisions.”  I think she’d had enough of making decisions that she thought would please someone else and was tired of dealing with the consequences herself.  Despite the effect that my decisions have on others, they primarily affect me.  They shape the course of my life.

Another sister added that if I make a decision that I don’t like, I have two options: 

#1, You can change the decision, and #2, If you can’t change the decision; you can decide to like it.  I know it’s not rocket science and to some it might be obvious, but I need a little more coaching than most. 

I’ll often think through this as I make decisions.  It’s helpful advice, right up there with the advice given by one of those sisters while she was helping me clean out my dresser drawer-full of second grade worksheets “Barbie, are you going to still want this fifty years from now?  (No.) Let’s get rid of it now!”

November-Gratitude

     Spending the month of November thinking about the things that we are grateful is a discipline that I have tried to encourage in our family.  We started with a tree that I put on the wall.  We added leaves where the children (and parents) could write something that they were thankful for.  Then I made a 3D tree from cardbopard and we put it in the middle of our table.  Over the years I have saved the leaves.  Last year I transferred some of the leaves into a notebook as decorations on some of the pages.   I made a "Gratefulness Tree" on the cover to maintain the tree theme.  Inside, I pasted the words to the song "10,000 Reasons."  My goal is to list 10,000 things that we are thankful for!  Last year we were preparing for a move and only added a couple items.  I already have the book out this year and will be encouraging our children to add to it each day.