Success

Sometimes success looks like a smashed cutting board

Who knew?

As we stared at the shattered cutting board, and I made sure nobody had gotten hurt, we all had the same idea. The older son put words to it, “Yes, I’ll get the Hoover but first, a picture.” (Hoover, for those of you unfamiliar with the term is used for all vacuum cleaners by some people, including, it turns out, some of my children.)

I knew the moment needed to be recorded, but my reason was likely different from that of my sons. I imagine they saw a beautiful shatter pattern and a crazy thing they’d never seen, a cutting board shattered by the impact of a knife. (And it kept cracking for several minutes: it was really phenomenal!!)

I, however, saw a moment of freedom from my normal startled reaction to loud noises and broken stuff. I felt a release from the temptation to yell at the one who had caused it. I was able to be present, to focus on what actually was important in that moment (that nobody got or gets hurt) & figure out what needed to happen next (the cleaning of the shattered glass, with nobody walking on it).

Cliché but true, no rainbow without rain

Without a potentially triggering event, I would not have known that my reaction could be so… grown up. I could be an adult, even if my kid willfully damaged something. (He was frustrated and chopping a bit, uh, energetically, because I asked him to chop the celeriac thinner for the recipe we were making.) I could have yelled at him. I could have cursed, screamed, all the things. But they would not have helped. Besides he didn’t intentionally break the cutting board. And maybe he learned to be more careful next time. Who knows?

Right on the edge, where our experience butts up against the unexplored, that’s where we grow best. Not in the familiar, nor in over our heads… No, it’s right here. On the edge.

A friend was recently telling me tales of her failure, how she knows not to say the thing, but says it anyway. I’m not convinced that’s failure. It really depends on what she does next. Sure, you cannot take words back once they leave your mouth. And there are plenty of things best left unsaid. But apologies are worth more than gold when correctly applied. Our kids can learn how to recover from their own similar mistakes with words. Our spouses and friends can see our humility when we apologize. And maybe, just maybe, we can learn not to say the thing the next time the opportunity arises? More than half the battle is the awareness NOT to say the thing. She’s on the right track, for sure!

*Whatever The Thing is varies for each of us. We’re meant to speak life, but it can be so tempting to say other things, unkind, untrue, unhelpful, etc.

Pain, it’s not always bad. It might mean we’re walking on beautiful seashells 😁

The next day I was bicycling. I’ve been gradually getting back into biking, after a more than 25 year break. So I’m trying to increase the intensity to build muscle and endurance, to up my cardiovascular strength, etc. I’d heard of interval training and how good it’s supposed to be for you. (HIIT, anyone?) So I try to apply that whenever the bike ride isn’t already kicking my butt.

Anyway, there I was, going up a hill that used to kick my butt all by itself, when I decided to apply a little interval training. Go really hard for 30 seconds to a minute, take it easier for a couple of minutes, repeat the process. Yeah, this is working. Oooh, wait this is killing me!! I’m not sure I’m going to make it to the top! Argh!! I’m a failure!

Yes, my mind went to what a failure I am, how I overdid it and now I can’t get up the hill, how badly I hurt and therefore how I’d botched it. That’s when I saw the parallel. NO, I’m not a, failure. I’m living in the growth zone, the place where what’s become easy for me meets where I want to go, who I’m becoming, who God created me to be. And this is success. With God I cannot fail!

Stay in the place of growth and see who you are becoming

I made this vase. It doesn’t hold water. Nor does it hold the flowers how I’d like it to. A learning process for vase shape and mixing different clays

Excuses, excuses

What’s your excuse?

We are expert at making excuses. Our ability to make excuses is rivaled only by our ability to convince ourselves that our unfounded fears are legit and that the resulting sins are not as egregious as the sins of other people.

I know that I’m guilty of it, too, so please call me out (gently but firmly) on my lame excuses when you hear them. I’m really struggling not to roll my eyes when people feed me BS excuses. Seriously, if you don’t want to …, just say so. Don’t insult me with your excuses.

I cleaned my room; tidied journals & pens into a pretty box

I don’t trust the Belgian drivers!

Someone explaining why she doesn’t bicycle

A friend went on the defensive as soon as she saw me biking. No idea why because I certainly don’t go around preaching about bicycling, barely back in the saddle myself. But it must make her feel guilty because she started on excuses. “I don’t trust the Belgian drivers.” OK, well I don’t especially, either. But I do trust God and know that my protector/defender goes with me wherever God calls me.

God was with Daniel in the lion’s den and with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the fiery furnace. God can certainly protect me on Belgian roads, just as his angels protected me on I-70 outside Lincoln, Nebraska in 1995 when I was sideswiped by a semi truck and walked away without a scratch. The car was beyond totaled, but my door opened just fine. The driver’s door was, in fact, untouched in spite of the car bouncing back and forth between guard rails on either side of two lanes of rush hour traffic. I had whiplash and some bruises, but no open wounds. It was a true miracle.

Anywhere God calls me to go is the safest place for me to be, in an eternal perspective