Ten Commandments

This week in Sunday School, we spoke of the 10 Commandments, what they are and how we teach them to our children. Well, maybe that isn't what we really spoke about, but it was the message I got personally.  Unrelated, today as I was having a down moment, I decided to look around on the World Wide Web. Surely there is something in the WORLD that can cheer me up.

I decided to look around on one of my favorite blogs, Momastery and I was led eventually to the Happiness Project. This project was introduced to me a couple of years ago by my friend TJ, whose amazing blog The Gladdest Thing Under the Sun is listed here on the left.  Low and behold, I came face to face with Commandments again, but those of Gretchen Rubin, not Jesus the Christ.  Although they are not divinely inspired words of God, I found her commandments to be the little bit of sunshine I need right now.  How did she know back when she posted these ideas in 2008 that I would need them in 2012? The girl may be smart and psychic.

Maybe I should come up with my own Commandments and when I feel lost, turn to them.  TJ did it, and she is one of the happiest people I know.  So here they are in no particular order as of today (4/23). My plan is to come back and alter these puppies and hone them down to perfection over the coming weeks/years/decades.

1. Breathe.
2. Accept what cannot be changed.
3. Remember the big picture.
4. Be in the moment.
5. Sing and dance. Always.
6. Recognize my patterns.
7. Act the way I want to feel, not the way I feel.
8. Take time for myself.
9. Live how I want to be remembered for living.
10. LOVE.
11. Be aware of the Love Language of my family members and show them the love in ways they understand.

Who I am

I love the story below about Christine Eberhart.  So many times I have to remind myself that my self worth is not based on the job that I have-I am much more than that. I am not defined by my occupation, I am defined by how I live and how I treat others. That is what makes me who I am.

Clearing the decks: Parking services monitor wins Chancellor’s Award
By Sara Freeland | March 26, 2012

Service with a smile is something Christine Eberhart takes to heart.

A senior parking services monitor at the Tate Student Center parking deck, Eberhart was named the 2011 recipient of a Chancellor’s Customer Service Award from the University System of Georgia for her sustained superior performance and exemplary customer service. She accepted the award at a ceremony in Atlanta in November.    

The nomination noted her infectious smile, courteous nature and ability to call many deck customers by name. She also received a Customer Service Award from Finance and Administration at the division’s recognition event last May.

She’s worked in the Hull Street, Performing Arts Center and Tate Student Center parking decks for the past seven years and before then spent 14 years working as a housekeeper for University Housing.

Anthony Brown, a supervisor at the Tate Student Center Parking Deck, said Eberhart is a very uplifting person.

“If you’re in a bad mood, she’s going to lift your spirits,” he said. “She is always smiling—no matter what the situation is. She’s always positive, upbeat—and that’s very refreshing to have first thing in the morning.”

Her secret?

“I love what I do. I just love people,” Eberhart said.

Through working at the deck’s pay booth, she’s met people from all over the world and even had a customer bring her back a good luck bracelet from India. Students who have graduated have come back to give her flowers.

Eberhart said that one of the perks of her job is meeting the occasional celebrity or university notable. When she worked at the Performing Arts Center Deck she met actress Cloris Leachman and got her autograph. She’s also met Gov. Nathan Deal, Congressman John Lewis, Mary Frances Early and a number of current and former student-athletes. She’s met Vince Dooley and says that Mark Richt is always very nice when he comes through.

Not all customers are as friendly as UGA’s head football coach. Some deck patrons aren’t aware they have to pay to park.

But Eberhart believes in the golden rule.

“I want to treat people the way that I want to be treated,” she said. “That does not make me mistreat you. I do not want to do that.”

She even admits to liking the challenging people who come through the deck to see if they’ll change or if she can diffuse the situation.

 “The first instinct of a  lot of people who get cursed out is to curse back. Don’t curse back,” she said. “Being ugly doesn’t help.”

 Eberhart follows the advice of her late husband, who passed away in January. He would always tell her to think before she spoke.

“And if you do that, a lot of time you make the best choice,” she said. “I’m not saying I do it all the time—you have to think sometimes, be quiet a minute and then just let it blow over.”

One of the activities Eberhart enjoys when she is not working is singing with her church’s praise team, Anointed Voices of Praise. In addition to performing at her church, the group also gives performances at other area churches.

But for Eberhart, singing isn’t exclusive to church and practice.

“I sing when I’m going through the deck a lot of times. I used to love to sing in the Hull Street Deck. I’d go out to the top level and sing before the customers came in,” she said.

Lent is over, Lentspiration can live on

I am not promising to be a devout blogger 365 days a year, but what I am going to do is post when I find a moving story. Those that inspire me to rejoice & live in the moment.  Those that remind me that there is good in the world. Those that move me. Those that make me say, "Thank you, Lord Jesus. Amen!"  Those like the one below.

From Yahoo news:

6-year-old’s lemonade stand raises $10,000 for Dad’s cancer treatment

By Eric Pfeiffer |


Three months ago, Randy Cox was diagnosed with seminoma, a rare form of cancer. That's when his 6-year-old Drew decided to use his lemonade stand to help raise money for his father's medical bills.

"He is so important to me, we love to play with each other," Cox told Texas TV station KLTV. "Lots of times we like to play games."

At first, Drew's lemonade stand was a small operation. After all, how much can one small child really hope to raise toward paying for an expensive series of chemotherapy treatments? It was the thought that counted but not one that was likely to make a serious dent in Cox's mounting medical bills.

But after word got out about Drew's heartfelt effort, the fundraising cause turned into a "block party," on Saturday morning with cars lining up around the block to contribute to the effort.

By the end of the day, Drew has raised more than $10,000 with the help of his Texas neighborhood community.

And the fundraising effort has now spread beyond Drew's lemonade stand.

One of Randy's childhood friends has also set up a GiveForward account to help raise money for his cause. Tameka Loyd Royal has set a fundraising goal of $5,000, with $3,790 having already been donated toward the cause.

On the donation page, Royal writes: "Doctors gave an excellent prognosis and thinks he only needs 4 cycles of chemotherapy using 2 medications. He goes 6 hours a day for a week and then off for two weeks before the next cycle begins."

"Randy is a loving husband to Tonya Cooley Cox and has three adorable little boys Drew (6), Jake (4) and Micah (7 months). This is a family that has cast their worries upon God and has many prayer warriors."

"As a grade school classmate of Randy's and dance class friend of Tonya's, my heart went out to them when I saw Randy's post on Facebook about his diagnosis and wanted to get them as much financial and spiritual support as possible."

The GiveForward fundraiser is scheduled to end June 1.

If you want to make a direct donation to the Cox family, Royal writes that you can send a personal check to: Randy or Tonya Cox to: 330 Walnut St.; Gladewater, TX 75647, and specify that your donation is to help pay the bills connected to his cancer treatment.

"From a small child, you know that love can come from a small child, and just blossom into something so amazing," Robin McDaniel, one of the contributors to the fun, told KLTV.

It is finished

Easter was yesterday and Lent is officially over.  Now it is time to reflect on my Lentspiration journey and assess its effectiveness.

I can honestly say that throughout this Lenten season, I have been more appreciative of the things I have in life, and I have not focused on the things I do not have.  I have been able to talk to my husband about disconcerting subjects and tried to point us towards the bright side of things. I have come to ask, "Will this matter a year from now?," and let things go when the answer is no.  I have had a happier disposition overall.  My level of anxiety has been down- again, overall, not always in heightened situations.

Will I do this again next year?  I will think on it. I think the payoff of Lentspiration has been huge for me. But, I think the time commitment of a blog is something I didn't anticipate.  Although I am not writing a novella every day, reading + blogging did become annoying to me as far as time constraints go, especially on weekends when I was trying to appreciate time with my family. Maybe it was the devil (I was raised Baptist, you know I know about the devil.) making me resentful.   The good part is that it did make me sit back and focus, which is just what I needed.  My husband often says, "The easy way is generally the wrong way."  I didn't find this easy, maybe that is my sign that it was right.

-God. Thank you so much for this time of reflection. I pray that I am able to reflect on my own without having to type out the words.  I ask that you please help me to carry this new positive disposition into the coming year and help it to make me a better wife, mother, person, and follower of Christ. Amen.

Day 40- The Art of Love

Today I am not going to talk about TLL or DSTSS. They have served me well the last 40 days and I will reflect on how this blog has changed me tomorrow. As for today, I want to look at the purity of love.

I just read a blog entry that inspired me to stray from the books. It is from a Yoga Journal blog - HA! Yoga, just like I discussed yesterday regarding inner peace. I am going to cut and paste the entire entry in case the link becomes broken:

By Jessica Berger Gross

As a girl, I didn’t feel beautiful. I felt chubby, unloveable, and unsure of myself. Home was not an altogether safe or supportive environment. It wasn’t until I found a connection to my body beyond the surface that something clicked for me.

I was 15 and saluting the sun during morning warm-ups at a life-saving summer theater school. Then, a few years later, I was 20 and spending my junior year abroad trekking the mountains in Nepal, taking yoga classes in Kathmandu. Back home, at 26, after more years of too much drinking, smoking, and personal turmoil, I found my way to a yoga center in New York City.

There I felt beautiful.

Still, that feeling—that beauty that comes from the inside out; that my body is beautiful because of what it can do not just how it looks—is something I can feel in my daily life, but a feeling that I can easily lose, too.

Lucky for me, I’m a mother.

Children think their mothers are gorgeous. They see us as we truly are with no concern for modern beauty standards of stilettos and extensions.

Yesterday we were driving in the car when Lucien insisted I open the mirror of the driver’s sun visor.

“Why?” I asked distractedly.

“Because I want you to see how beautiful you are.”

Wow. There’s nothing like a child’s love.

Except maybe a mother’s, or father’s, love.

This is the sort of beauty that I seek. The kind that comes from the inside out. A glow. A connection to something deeper. The sort of beauty Lucien sees in me, whether I’m in sweatpants or my best little black dress.

This is beautiful. I love the description of blind love. This is the love God has for us. I don't remember if I have mentioned this before in this blog, but after I had my first child I told my mother that I know why God allows us to have children. I said that it is the only way we can truly understand unconditional love and how he feels about us. Of course, being the Southern Baptist that she is she scoffed at me and told me how wrong I was- we are here to worship him, duh. She made me doubt my newfound revelation, but the past 5 1/2 years of being a parent has led me to believe that I am right.

Innocent, pure love. The kind a child has for his mother. The kind a mother has for her child. The kind Mary had for Jesus. The kind God has for us.

As we approach Easter, I cannot think of a more appropriate message. We all know the verse, John 3:16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son..." How strong and powerful that love is. How grateful I am to be able to experience it with my own children. The blessing of love is the best gift we have been given.

-God, Thank you for allowing me to feel pure love. Thank you for showing me how much you gave for our salvation by way of your son, Jesus. May we be eternally grateful for the sacrifice. Amen.

Day 39- Be Bored

Today, DSTSS recommends that you take time to be bored. What starts as boredom will eventually give you feelings of peace. My favorite quote from this chapter is, "People are no longer human beings. We should be called human doings."

Relating this back to religion, I think of monks meditating and the practice of yoga. Both require being still and in the moment and can leave you feeling peaceful.

1 Timothy 4:16′s Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all.

Psalm 1:1-2: Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.

I personally think that although boredom isn't synonymous with mediation, we can make a conscious effort to be bored - like Carlson says- and find inner peace once we adjust to doing nothing. This peace can become meditation. Cleanse the mind. Fill it with space and nothingness. Help us to find contentment in the moment. Focus on our breathing. Hear the sound of an exhale and realize how temple-like our body truly is. Be thankful for it. It is God's creation and our gift. Thanks be to God.

Amen.

-I pray that I can begin to make a conscious effort to be bored. That during my boredom I may find inner peace. Amen.

Day 38-Life Isn't Fair

Carlson says you must surrender to the fact that life isn't fair.

What a perfect sentiment as we approach Good Friday and the Passion. One can easily say that life was not fair for Jesus, the only one of us who never sinned. Thank God for the afterlife and the promise of Heaven, otherwise the story of Jesus would be too much to bear- it almost is even with the knowledge of the hereafter.

Just because we know life isn't fair doesn't mean we quit seeking to find fairness in it. It also doesn't mean that it is okay to live being unfair to others. It means that for those things we cannot control, we need to be able to let go. Bad things do happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. What we have the power to control is how we react when life isn't fair. It is the attitude we take that makes all the difference.

--I pray, God, when life isn't fair that I handle it in a positive way. That I always remember to be thankful for life and the happiness it can bring. That even when bad things happen to good people, Heaven will not hold these evils in the afterlife. Amen.

Day 38- Will it be important a year from now

DSTSS suggests that when you are getting all worked up over something to take a step back and ask yourself if this will matter a year from now. If not, relax.

I remember the fist time that I read this book, I really liked this suggestion. Will it matter a year from now if someone cut me off today? Nah. Then why not let it go?

As I was writing this post, I hit a sort of writer's block. I thought, okay, what else needs to be said about this? I decided to Google Richard Carlson and find out a little bit about him. I am ashamed to say that I didn't realize that, like Pausch, he is deceased. Whereas Pausch new he was dying of cancer and had months to prepare and say his goodbyes, Carlson suffered a pulmonary embolism on a flight and died without warning. Pausch left behind a wife and three children while Carlson left behind a wife and two daughters.

I have to wonder, did Carlson practice what he preached? I truly hope so. I hope that his last days in life were those of appreciation for the things he had going for him: a successful career, NYTimes Bestsellers, but mostly a family who loved him.

Carlson's wife, Kris, went on to publish "An Hour to Live, An Hour to Love," an extended love letter by her deceased husband. This book focuses on what you would do if you only had an hour to live. What would you do? What would you say to the people you love? The book "shows the importance of treasuring each day as the incredible gift it is." I guarantee you that if Kris and Richard got to live his last day over again-December 13, 2006-they would not worry about things that would not be important a year from then.

I need to begin to focus on things that matter. The things that matter. The things that matter. I hope that in addition to pushing aside "small stuff," Richard Carlson also knew God. I hope he was a believer. That isn't small & it does matter a year from now.

-God, help me to focus on the things that really matter: love, salvation, worship, faith. Help me to push the unimportant things to the side where they belong. Help me to concentrate on things that will be important a year from now, things that will continue to build up my family and yours. Amen.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Kris Carlson

Addendum: I found this out while obsessing over this newfound information. I am so happy that Carlson did this. From Publisher's Weekly via Amazon:

On their 18th wedding anniversary, in 2003, Richard Carlson (author of the bestselling Don't Sweat the Small Stuff) presented his wife, Kristine, with a short manuscript called An Hour to Live. He imagines he has an hour to live and poses questions originally asked by spiritual guide and author Stephen Levine: whom would you call? what would you say? and why are you waiting? Uncannily, the text foreshadowed Carlson's death three years later, at age 45, of a pulmonary embolism. Though he had no chance to make that last phone call, his wife (and the reader) already knows his feelings for her and their children. We also know what was important to him, which boils down to the old chestnut: no one, on their deathbed, ever wishes they'd spent more time at the office.

Day 37-Look for the best in everybody

"If you wait long enough, people will surprise and impress you....But in the end, people will show you their good side. Almost everybody has a good side. Just keep waiting. It will come out."

- Jon Snoddy as quoted by Pausch

Someone once told met that no one thinks they are a bad person. That has stuck with me for years. If no one thinks they are a bad person, then they must see some good in themselves. I should try to look for that good too.

Jesus looked for the good in people: prostitutes, sinners, tax collectors, drunks. He is about forgiveness and waiting for people to see the light. As a believer, I need to follow suit.

--God, please help me to wait for the good in people. Help me not make snap judgements about people or discount them. Amen.