Be silent, Be still

At the risk of reminding a lots of my Wayland friends of a long retired, easily repeated movie......  here goes! (This ones for you Leigh!)
She's all that.....Rachel Cook walking out on the stage in a skin tight white body suit calming the disturbing scene that just took place. The weird stand up performance....am I recreating it for you yet? If not it is ok. But her line is basically, "Be silent. Be still." I'm so reminded of this today as I have just been lost in thought. So lost at times that it is confusing and you wonder how you got so far down a road of thought and you start backing out and tracking it. As if that works. Usually I wind up more confused or it leads to another fork in the road.  The Lord was very faithful to remind me that we are a society so lost in thought sometimes that we cripple ourselves instead of simply doing what we know. Being who we need to be without having to think about it. Sure every one of us probably has had to take some "me time" to think and recall and process certain situations or circumstances. Things that are important enough to think about. The most important thing sometimes is to just be silent though.

I have such great friends, Jody included, who just listen. They let me process or rather just tolerate me sometimes. But for them I am so thankful. In a sense they are helping me figure it out and get back to helping others instead of spending time on me. After all, I think it is funny when I get frustrated with myself for needing this time to process but in reality it is imperative. Some of are most important decision are worth the time. I need to be patient with myself as well. I am willing to do it for others but I do not extend that to myself very often. So for my reminder today I was inspired to write again for something I think is beautifully crucial. You can "Be silent, be still" all you want but I like this ending much better.

Be STILL and KNOW that I AM GOD.    Psalms 46:10

Yes! That is a place where all the confusion is lost in the "does this really even matter." No it really doesn't. Sometimes in this world of me and self and "I commit to this and that" or facebook and twitter.....we forget....I forget. All of the wrestle is life. It is fun until we start carrying more than we can stand and thinking that it has something to do with us. That breath of "be still and know that I am God" is my reminder that (goodness knows) I can be lighter than I am because I picked up too much and think that it depends on me. Thank goodness. Be still. That is a crucial place and ACTION. Be still and Know. A crucial mindset. Be still and KNOW that I am God. He is so wonderfully patient.

Hard Pressed

I have felt hard pressed lately. Overwhelmed. Sinking. Don't really know why other than I bottle it and try to hold it all together. Sometimes I wonder why the Lord made me such a bleeding heart for people. I love to get someone talking and just listen. The shocker is always when the listening turns to talking that leads to healing for me as well.  Frustrating for me to be vulnerable with so many of the great friends I am blessed to have, but so freeing. After today, I'm less overwhelmed and more relieved to be reminded that none of us have it all together. Thankful that people accept me even when I don't. Blessed when others choose to share with me about their life, what they have come through, and where they are now. I'm blessed by the real answers. Not the fake ones we coin and practice to keep the act going. I love when people are real enough to just be themselves and not feel the need to put on a front. I have great friends whether it is from childhood, past or present and I really would not be strong without them. They teach me so much about the beauty of life and friendship. They remind me to be brave but never fake. We were put here to live life together and thankfully I feel like I am getting to do that. I had a sweet friend take me for a long overdue coke run tonight and she will always be special because there's not an ounce of faking happy in her body. She loves pure honesty, raw laughter and the truth. There are so many others that come to my mind right now and I just smile.  I'm just blessed by others and hopefully somehow along the way I want to bless them for blessing me. To bring joy and laughter and clarity into their day just like they did for me.....without even knowing it. These are the people who push me and remind me that I have to give more than I take because others need that.
Ephesians 3:20

Recent Excerpt from Matt Chandler

This is a very short excerpt from Matt Chandler's The Explicit Gospel that I thought was worth sharing.

"We live through faith, and we die through faith.  Everything else is garbage. Even works of righteousness, if not done through faith, are works of self-righteousness and therefore filthy rags.  Be very careful about going to church, reading your Bible, saying prayers, doing good deeds, and reading books like this through anything but faith in the living Lord.  Because the result of all that is belief in a phony Jesus and inoculation to the gospel.  You can end up knowing the jargon and playing pretend.  Be very careful. Watch your life and your doctrine closely ( 1 Time 4:16).  Some of you are so good that you've deceived yourselves.  God help you."

This made me really think again. With the last sentence it better make me think. I am not so hard that I will ever think I don't need work and I definitely don't have it all together. Of course Matt Chandler has a great way of getting your attention with his unapologetic and skillful wording, but even that is God given. He just simply reminded me that especially with the above, that Faith is the only way to please God. Not just faith by itself. Faith in the Living Lord. That is it in a nutshell. Hard for us because it stretches us beyond our comfort. Calls us to let go, which is incredibly hard to do. Then give it to someone we can't even see. Well, as a very wise camp pastor once told me, I will leave you with this. 

I don't know exactly how electricity works (and for those of you that do....think of another example that puzzles you.....try anything medical that doesn't work exactly how we expect it to!!) but I'm not standing around in the dark to figure it out! How true. I'm going to the source even though I don't understand everything about Him. He's far too great to us to understand everything about Him. I understand enough to know that He is who He says He is and He can do what He says He can do. There's no one who gives me the hope and promise and love that He offers. 

Faith? Yes Lord, I pray that I have enough to please you!

Jonah

Jonah 4: 9-11
Considering that last chapter and verses in Jonah, I had a great eye opener this morning. It states that Jonah was more worried about the plant that God sent him to give him shade, withering up and dying. He was throwing a fit over a plant. God then enters and asked him why he had a right to be angry because (in a nutshell) Jonah didn't make the plant or tend to it, so why was he mad about it? God poses the final question like a dagger....shouldn't you care more about Nineveh than a plant? Basically, shouldn't you care more about people than your own comfort.
   It was a great reminder that our perspective is usually self-centered and it takes God to open our eyes to that. He wants us to care more about others that our own silly comforts and wants. He wants us to care about others more than all of our stuff. What a funny story to use. I can just picture Jonah sitting under his little plant, totally content with the shade and pitching a fit the next when it died like a 2 year old. Stomping his feet, throwing his arms down to make his argument, then enter GOD. Funny how often God probably shakes his head in love, mercy, and patience over me because it probably looks the same way....but Lord I hope not. I just want to say yes the first time instead of running, getting swallowed up and spit out, then pitching a fit like Jonah. Really when we all read the story of Jonah we find ourselves saying, "Stop. Get off the boat! The fish is coming stupid!" kinda like we might holler at a movie as if we can change the outcome or ending. The Lord was just good to remind me that if I think Jonah looked ridiculous and his running was futile, then why oh why do you think you can do anything beyond my reach? Point taken Lord!

Mustering Strength

I found myself sad today as a chapter came to a close. I hate goodbyes and having to step back and evaluate....did I really do a good job and did I give it all I had. I'm exhausted and can say that for me at this new energy level that runs out far before I want to stop, that yes I think I did. Could I have given more? A resounding yes, but I always tried to give my best. I gave each patient all I knew, which sometimes still falls so short. I tried to give my best everyday but again I feel that each patient teaches me far more than I give them. I know that for thoseI help, it is just that feeling you are left with when someone teaches you something great...about them....about yourself.....about life.....and about what walking with the Lord looks life off paper. It leaves you grateful, thankful, and sometimes yes....in tears. I felt that so many times especially today with my patients that were sweet enough to say kind words and a simple heartfelt thank you. It overwhelms me that people still take the time to say that and slow down enough to remember not to forgot after the opportunity is gone. We've all done it, me included. "I'm so glad I met you. I'm so glad our paths crossed.".....but why didn't I say that to their face, we think to ourselves.

So my mustering strength is not physical, but mental and emotional. I'm exhausted. I had so many grateful moments today that left me in awe of the people that were nice enough to stop and just share their thoughts and some their heart. These are the people that give me strength to keep on pressing when others are probably wanting to say to me, "don't you think that's enough. what else now?"  It is not what else now, but WHO else now. Who else now can I help if I push a little harder a little longer, more into what I don't know.....to get to know for someone else who needs the help (PT). Yes I will admit I am an info addict because I want to know all I can so I can be more helpful. It is a bit of a bad thing at times, but when you are sitting before someone who needs the help and has not found it other places, that is when it pays off. To be able to offer a service or sometimes just a listening ear, these are the moments that I was made for. Mustering strength is never up to us. All we must do is ask a capable Savior to fill us, make us, mold us, and then pour us out.

Can you tell I love what I do??!!

1 Corinthians 8:1-3
Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that "all of us possess knowledge."  This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.  If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.

The Genius in ALL of Us

At one of my most recent courses (Foundations with CrunKeyser), they suggested this book to read.....and like the follower and believer in them that I am.....I wrote it down on my suggested readings page in the course binder. These two men that taught the course are unbelievable. Humbling to be in a room of such art and genius, but the humility that they carry is even more challenging.

The Genius in All of Us by David Shenk

I have only just begun but immediately like many of my other readings that they have suggested: Blink, The Tipping Point, Outliers......this book echoed the very training I have received to this point.  It encompasses both the passion I have for the bible and for manual therapy. It discusses the purposes that perfect practice and the amount of practice can grow in all of us. I read a few passages to Jody and just gripping the book I felt like my heart would explode just because something could be saying the very things that I have been telling myself over and over again.

  It has been a process in me that started when I was very young. Piano by our wonderful local organist in the town where I grew up. She was composed and pretty. And demanded the very best out of a person. Pushed for it. Never settled for less because she saw the untapped potential in each of her students. She saw what we could not and helped us, encouraged us, corrected us as any good teacher would. She was truly great because rather than stopping at good she pressed for us to practice and practice some more. She taught us the art of being disciplined. Through that there were a few of us that grew up together and by the time we were in high school we all went to competitions and excelled and ALL placed at state. That teacher knew the benefits of hard work and practice and taught us how not to quit when things/songs/days were tough but to keep on pressing and perfecting. She was the greatest artist I knew at that age and I cannot thank her enough. Those very things she impressed upon me through countless lessons about piano have far carried over into life. They are precious lessons now. I long for my kids to want to work hard and see the results of hard work and practice. (and not be allergic to it!!) I hope they will love hard work and dedication as much as I do. This is a scary time when it seems that more and more people (kids and adults) are just not willing to tap into their fullest potential. Although this is not a christian book, I apply these principles the same. God deserves are best...not our leftovers. Not my bad attitude. My focus, my hard work....committed only to Him. Let me close in sharing a short passage from the book by David Shenk and hope that it spurs you as much as it did me!

......There is an explanation, a simple and good one, but it implications are radical for family and for society.  It is this: some people are training harder----and smarter----than before. (It gives the example of Ted Williams in baseball.)  We're better at stuff because we've figured out how to become better. Talent is not a thing....it is a process.

...In recent years, a mountain of scientific evidence has emerged that overwhelmingly suggests a completely different paradigm: not talent scarcity, but latent talent abundance.  In this conception, human talent and intelligence are not permanently in short supply like fossil fuel, but potentially plentiful like wind power. The problem isn't our inadequate genetic assests, but our inability, so far, to tap into what we already have.

....But the new science suggests that few of us know our true limits, that the vast majority of us have not even come close to tapping what scientists call our "unactualized potential."  It also suggests a profound optimism for the human race.  "We have no way of knowing how much unactualized genetic potential exists," writes Cornell University developmental psychologist Stephen Ceci.


This was my FAVORITE:
Our abilities are not set into genetic stone. They are soft and sculptable, far into adulthood.  With humility, with hope, and with extraordinary determination, greatness is something to which any kid---any age----can aspire.
Partial Excerpts from David Shenk....The Genius in All of Us

What good is it?

Last week we wrapped up our James study by Beth Moore. There were so many good parts to the study, but the one that keeps standing out to me is her question, "What good is your faith?"
If you are familiar with James then you know that he drills in the point that faith without deeds is dead. Faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness. Oh to have that faith. Just when I think that my faith has grown, the wave of doubt sweeps me. The wave of questions (that I am all too good at asking) takes control. And I am left in the wake. Wondering.....what good is my faith? Funny how the devil would love to play off that. Not so funny  how we crater and let him sometimes.
   I was overwhelmed again tonight by returning symptoms, bad labs, and the frustration that I should be over and done with this. I do finally have a new referral after too long....but I am thankful that Monday I get a second opinion. Excited and nervous.
    So I will tell you what good my faith is. I know that there are critics and skeptics and the cynical. Sadly I could be any one of those. We probably all could at times. But what wins. Hope. Love. Faith. Yes that is not following the 1 Corinthians order but after the James study I am inclined to say Faith yanks you off your tail, reminds you that there is hope in a Savior, and Love drives you to care. Drives us to remember that though doubt may enter, it will not reside. Doubt and fear are funny cousins. They couple and arrive almost in the same moment. But that is "what good my faith is". When they sweep and leave us overwhelmed. Leave us defeated and afraid to make a move. They tell us that there is no point or whatever lies we have all heard at some point. Interesting. I pictured myself on a beach, waves beating over me and then relenting back. Over and over again. The next part is the best. When I first pictured this I was sitting on the beach in sand, the waves coming again and again for a time, never letting up. But when the water finally retreated, I was left sitting on a rock. The rock of Jesus. That is our Faith. A faith that pulls me up, telling me the point is God's love, God's purpose. A faith that never fails because it is built on the Rock.  It reminds me that there is a great cloud of witnesses and I have no excuse to feel alone. My situation is small in comparison. The great have gone before us and are cheering us on. Encouraging us. Counting on us to continue the legacy of great faith. Faith that can be counted as righteousness. Faith that brings hope and expects God to do more than our ability and our circumstances. Expects HIM to show up. What a beautiful thing, this Faith. Faith is the doing it, not talking about it. What good? ALL THE GOOD I say because in those moments God makes me practice it and I know He is growing it!! Oh to have the faith in Hebrews 11. We are so very loved!

This one is for you Crystal.......... God is good, all the time. All the time God is good!!