"At the end of the day"....

It’s the last day of 2012. There is always the wonder of what the next year will bring. We wonder especially about a year ending in 13. That can’t be good, right? So, I thought it was a great time to share my philosophy of daily life. It can work for everyone regardless of your faith or circumstances. It has been one of my most powerful tools through the last few years.


It is this- “At the end of the day, all that really matters is that I was the kind of person I wanted to be that day.” It’s deceptively simple. But simple does not always mean easy. At the beginning this can be very hard. Step one is to know what kind of person you want to be. That can be the hardest step for some. Look to who you admire, people who have traits you wish you have. Look at your list of regrets- the “wish I hadn’t done that’s” in your life. Choose to do the opposite in the future.

This step was probably the easiest for me because I want to be a true follower of Jesus Christ. I am lucky enough to have a guidebook and many examples to learn from. In the beginning, many circumstances found me chanting my mantra, “At the end of the day, all that really matters is that I am the kind of person I want to be.” Like when my ex or his wife made choices that hurt me deeply, did I want to lash back and hurt them to ease my pain, oh, yes, I did! But at the end of the day would I be happy with that choice? Nope. So I chose to act as kindly and graciously as I possibly could. The amazing thing is the power I felt over myself and how each time became easier. I was in charge of me- nobody had the power to change who I am anymore because I wasn’t giving them that power.

Part of the reason this works is the already proven method of taking one day at a time. This breaks it down to one event at a time, one moment at a time. I stay in the moment or event and remember who I want to be at the end of the day. It has taken many reactions out of my life and turned them into actions. And I REALLY needed a tool to help me with that.

On my first Greyhound bus trip to Texas last year, I had many opportunities to test this theory. Perhaps the toughest was a confrontation with a young “street” tough woman who got really pissed when my handbag bumped her as I walked down the aisle. Boy, she was PISSED and I really thought she was going to hit me. She stood up and took a stance. I didn’t need my mantra to apologize, that came naturally but I was chanting it in my head as I thought out my choices if she did swing. I was truly ready to stand there while she hit me and do nothing back. Anyone who knew me way back when would know how huge a step that was for me. I didn’t want to fight and nobody was going make me. I didn’t even get angry back. I kept apologizing and talking kindly. She backed down and sat down and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. It was only later that I realized how amazing this moment had been.

There is not room in my blog to share all the experiences I have had with my “philosophy”. They have all been good. I would love to start a movement like the “pay it forward” thing. “At the end of the day” could change the world but I’m satisfied that it has changed me. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

The Littlest Angel

One of my favorite Christmas stories is the story of The Littlest Angel. Until this year I had assumed that everyone in the world knew about The Littlest Angel but its not so. My husband is one of the unfortunates who had never heard the story. This year I obtained a dvd of one of its many versions. This particular one was the TV special I remembered from my childhood. I’ll tell the story just in case there are others who have never heard this lovely story.


Back in the days just before Jesus was born, a small shepherd boy died. He went to Heaven but he felt so lost. He had loved his Earth life and Heaven was nothing like earth. He felt out of place and although he tried very hard to fit in, he just kept getting in everyone’s way. He was sad and lonely. He especially missed his “treasure” box. It was an old wooden box filled with things a little boy would treasure. It had a bird’s feather, a blue robin’s egg, some unusual stones and a few other things. He loved it with all his heart.

He was very persistent about wanting to go back to earth to get his precious box. A kind angel who knew how hard the young boy had been trying let him go back to retrieve his treasure. He was happier now that he had his box but a new dilemma presented itself. The Son of God was about to be born. Everyone in Heaven was busy preparing special gifts for the Christ child.

The littlest angel was in despair. What could he give? He had nothing good enough to give to God. As he watched the others give their gifts, he thought hard. The only thing he had was his treasure box. He loved it but it wasn’t good enough for God’s son, was it? It was what he loved the best…..it was all he had….yes…he would give the baby his box….the thought made him happier but as he waited for his turn he began to doubt. The other gifts were so glorious. All he had was his old wooden box.

His turn finally came. He held out his small box. God took it, raised it up so that all could see and said, “This is the best gift of all. Our littlest angel gave the things he loved the most, things that my Son will love, too, as a little boy.” And then He placed the simple wooden box filled with treasure and given with love high in the sky. It became the North Star…..the guiding star…the star of Jesus.

I love this story!! I think that we all feel like the littlest angel at times. Nothing we have to give to God is good enough. We don’t fit in. We compare our worst to others best and always fall short and yet……God takes what we have to offer, adds to it and suddenly something amazing happens, something glorious. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Peace Amid the Storm

This is a blog that I have long wanted to write but wasn’t really sure how. When the worst things you can imagine actually happen in your life there is a gift that comes from the experience. It may not even be recognizable until you are well past the survival stages of grief. I don’t think it comes to those who get stuck in the anger and bitterness phase. It comes slowly side by side with the gentle healing of a broken heart. It seems to accompany the acceptance stage of grief. It is a gift given to survivors of all sorts of trauma. It is simply put…a gift of peace.


I will try to explain a little better. You know the expression- “Don’t sweat the small stuff”? After surviving a major trauma everything is small stuff. The daily frustrations of living disappear. You see clearly how trite they are. You have lived through something that required you to take not just one day at a time but one minute. Time changes for you. Each day races by but each minute drags on forever. You are so sure that you can never survive this……..and then you do.

After such a soul shaping experience you look around and realize how silly your fears are, how petty your worries have become and how precious each moment truly is. This gift does not go away as long as we hang on to it. Life has become very dear and time is something to treasure not waste.

Robert Fulghum wrote of a conversation he had while still a very young man with a Holocaust survivor. The older man was trying to teach him the same thing. Fulghum writes that he didn’t really get it until he was much older. He said that he had finally learned that “a lump in your oatmeal, a lump in your throat or a lump in your breast were totally different things and that only the last one was worth spending energy on.”

My worst’s have happened. I don’t doubt for a moment that more will come but I know that it is possible to survive them. I also know that in the meantime all the rest is small stuff. It is something that I have often wished I could give to someone else. I see and hear people every day caught up in the meaningless things of the world. I wish I could put the peace I feel into their hearts. Sometimes I just wish I could shake them, slap their face and say, “Snap out of it!” And that’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Driving Lessons

My teenage daughter has been getting ready to get her license. This has meant several hours a week of us riding in the car practicing. I have always thought that the best defense is a good offense so I have tried to think of all the situations she might have to drive in and had her do it with me. I felt that this was the best way to insure her safety and my peace of mind.


We drove in several different weather conditions including the high wind that our area is well known for. We have driven on the freeway, in the city, in the country, in small towns and in large ones. We drove on new blacktop, gravel and a number of old, narrow, broken roads.

We drove along the river and up to the mountains. We drove up Cabbage, a steep, twisty, scary climb and back down again. Down was even scarier! We drove through Pendleton, a labyrinth of one way streets.

We shopped, which required parking of all kinds, parking lot, curb and even parallel. We went through drive thrus, ate while driving and even answered a cell phone. I knew she was likely to do it anyway and I wanted her to see how distracting it could be.

As we drove, we talked about everything under the sun- dreams, fears, boys, friends, etc. It was great!

After a few weeks she started to tell me about her friends that already had licenses. Imagine my surprise when I realized that she was telling me how envious they were of her. Apparently many of them are not allowed to drive at night or in the city or on the freeway. One of her friends has had her license for two years and still has not done these things.

My daughter’s friends are still scared to drive and they are jealous of her growing confidence. But that is exactly what I wanted for her. I didn’t want her to get her license until both of us could feel relaxed with her behind the wheel.

I understand that there are many different ways to parent children but I have always felt that a parent’s greatest role is that of teacher. I remember reading once that a mother’s job is teaching her children to live without her starting at birth. It’s the one job that if done well puts you out of work. I believe that!

In all areas of life, we should be preparing them for the world they will find themselves in someday. Teaching skills to our children help their confidence grow. It gives them security. I am blown away by how many teens leaving home can’t do laundry or cook or make appointments or balance a checkbook. We might think we are protecting them but in truth, we aren’t doing them any favors. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

A Broken Hearted Christmas

On Friday (Dec. 14th), I laid in bed awhile thinking about my blog for the day. Feeling that I had a good handle on what I wanted to write I crawled out of my warm bed and headed for my computer. I wanted to write about the idea that God has messed up the world. I was planning to ask how we can feel that way when He has clearly laid out the guidelines for happiness and we keep ignoring them. If we run the red light and get caught, is it our fault or the cops?


But as soon as my computer warmed up I saw the breaking news and learned of the tragic shooting/killing of a classroom full of first graders and their teachers. Can a reaction to such tragic news even be described in mere words? I began to sob and cried unto the Lord, “O God, we can’t keep living like this! Our babies, our babies, our babies…… we can’t keep doing this! Please bring an end to it all soon. How much more wicked can the world get? How much more must happen?”

I know some of the pain that these families are experiencing. Again there is no language available to describe emotional pain that cuts to your very core and leaves you unable to breathe. It is pain so intense that you are sure your body can not possibly survive it. But broken hearts don’t stop beating even when you wish they would.

And our hearts break with them. What kind of hate and hurt would cause someone to slaughter these innocent children? They have just barely entered society and have only begun to learn its ways. While all of this countries shootings have saddened, this one devastates.

This is the time of year when our minds are on children’s joys and surprises. We share secrets and talk of Santa, Rudolph, Frosty and other childhood delights. We remember our own childhood Christmas traditions. It is a time of family, fun and even worship. And now it is a time of mourning…..not just for a few but for all who have ever loved a child.

Christmas as we usually know it has been destroyed this year. But the true meaning of Christmas…the birth of that beautiful baby so many years ago….has not changed. “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.” That babe was born to bear our burdens and our pain. He was born that healing would be possible. He was born that we might live again. He was born that love might always conquer evil. It always does. It always will.

Even just one day after the horrific event, the outpouring of love is tremendous. We hear of heroes, we hear of sacrifices, we hear of love and caring in every shape and form. The entire country is “mourning with those who mourn.” Evil abounds but so does goodness. So does love. And that’s what Christmas is all about. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Living With PTSD

Thirty years ago this week my first husband died. I still think of it every Christmas season. I have written about it before. But this year is different. My entire being is filled with the fear…no, make that terror that it will happen again this year. I am convinced each time that I send my husband off to work that he will not return home.


No amount of prayer, self talk or reassurances from him are alleviating my dread. The phone ringing paralyzes me. Thoughts of what it might be like are sending to me to the bathroom to be sick. My hands are shaking even as I am typing this.

I have planned out all the steps I might have to take. I know who I’ll call first, who I’ll ask others to call and how I will handle other details. This brings a little relief but not much. The real problem is that I have been through this before and I know how completely devastating it is.

The other problem is I don’t know if this is a premonition (something I have experienced before) or my post traumatic stress disorder acting up. It has been 3 years since a huge “bad” thing has happened. Daily life has been “normal” for quite sometime. I haven’t had to move for three years. That might be a record. We have daily, weekly and seasonal routines in place. That is something I’ve never been able to say before.

And it scares me….life being sweet, peaceful and happy. That is one of the drawbacks to a traumatic life. Peace is something I can’t believe in. I wait for the other shoe to drop because it always does. Is it because I don’t believe I deserve to be happy? I don’t know. Is it because I’ve never before experienced prolonged peace? I don’t know.

What I do know is that as each day passes bringing me closer to Christmas- my anxiety increases. I wonder, is it today? Each night that my husband returns to me I am relieved and terrorized at the same time. Yes, he is home but what about tomorrow?

I know how sick and crazy this all sounds but try living it. It is making me crazy!! I should say…crazier!! But on the bright side (yes, there is a bright side) I have shared much of my deepest gratitude and love for my husband. I wasn’t able to say goodbye to my first husband. I am making up for that in spades now. I am telling him all the things I want him to know if we never see each other alive again.

He thinks that’s great and I guess maybe he’s right. We should be saying those things to each other anyway, don’t you think? That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

Heroes

A few weeks ago on one of our weekends with my daughters we found ourselves at an impasse over what to watch on TV. Our choices are limited to a dvd from our collection or streaming live from Netflix. My husband was home for the night. He wanted action, I wanted Christmas classics, and the girls, ages 11 and 14 were only sure they didn’t want any of our choices.


We settled on the TV series, “Heroes”. We asked the girls to watch one episode. If they didn’t like it, we wouldn’t watch anymore. Well, they liked it. Actually, they loved it so much that we had to make a promise to each other to only watch it when we are together so everybody can keep up with its many twists and turns.

A short intro for those of you who don’t know the show: people discover that they have “abilities” or “powers” and basically face the challenge of choosing what they will do with them. Will they use them for good or for evil? I’ve been thinking of the fascination we humans have with “powers”. Super hero movies are all the rage. Batman, X-men, Spiderman, etc. the list is endless. Even the Star Trek and Twilight franchises show people with extraordinary talents. And we mustn’t forget Harry Potter and his friends!

We are so obsessed with the idea that ordinary humans could have “abilities” that we overlook the fact that we already do. There are so many “gifts” out there that it is impossible to find someone who does not have one if you look hard enough. “For all have not every gift given unto them; for there are many gifts, and to every man is given a gift by the Spirit of God. To some is given one, and to some is given another, that ALL may be profited thereby.”

The scriptures go on to list some gifts, healing, faith, wisdom, knowledge, discerning of spirits, leadership, testimony and speaking / understanding languages. I want to share others I have observed. There are the gifts of gentleness, compassion, creativity, respect, graciousness, forgiveness, happiness, enthusiasm, kindness, just to mention a few.

There are the gifts of abilities, being artistic or musical or organized or disciplined or mechanical or good with animals or children. Some people learn quickly, some teach well, some are intuitive, some have the gift of integrity or the gift of decisiveness. There are those who are amazing athletes, they work well with their bodies. And others do amazing things with their minds.

There are people who have an incredible drive to do something and yet others who have the ability to be content. There are some of us that always say the right thing. There are others who always do the right thing. I know people who have been given the capacity to love with all their hearts. Often these gifted people might not have many of the other gifts of the world and struggle to fit in. They are celestial beings trying to live in a telestial world. I think they have been given the best of all gifts!

This is the season of giving. We are celebrating the greatest gift of all- a Father’s beloved Son’s birth to bring healing to a broken world. Will you join me in looking at the people in your life as He does? Look for the “abilities” they might not even recognize themselves. And instead of a gift card or present…..maybe you could share what you see in them. With so many in today’s world feeling hopeless, worthless and unloved, the gift of a kind word could truly give some healing. Isn’t that what heroes do, after all? Save the world? That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?

"Wrapped up like a Douche".....

A random click of the mouse led me on an interesting journey yesterday. I’ll share but with hopes that my readers will be tolerant of my wanderings. That first little click was to see a short video that featured song lyrics that are often misheard. It was fun.


Until the lyrics for “Blinded by the light came up”, particularly the line “wrapped up like a douche”. What?? That IS the lyric!! I’ve sung it that way for decades. So I had to check it out myself. I have sung it wrong.The true line is “revved up like a deuce”. It is referring to the hot little cars called Deuce Coupes. And the song was written by Bruce Springsteen! No way did I know that. (Now that I’ve seen his version I think that letting Manfred Mann do it their way was a good choice.)

But now I’m checking out the Manfred Mann band and am blown away to realize that some of my favorite songs have been done by them over the decades. They started back when the Beatles did! Two of their popular songs back then were “Do Wah Diddy Do” (you know- “here she comes just a walking down the street……..”) The next hit was “Quinn the Eskimo”( come all without, come all within, you’ve not seen nothing like the Mighty Quinn’’).

The next revelation was that “Quinn” was written by Bob Dylan (again, his version sucks in comparison). They also recorded his “Just like a Woman”. His version definitely gets my vote as the best way to do this song.

Another click crossed paths with the band Queen. I thought I knew everything there was to know about Queen. Not so. I have never known that they sang the song “Fat bottomed girls” (“you make the rocking world go round”). I’ve sung that a zillion times with my husband in his truck. No clue it was a Queen song!

I realize that knowing this trivia will not change my life but there was something oddly comforting about seeing lives and talents intertwine. It reminded me that success comes in many forms. It takes many people coming together to ensure that the end result is great. In a world saturated with people looking for their fifteen minutes of fame and not caring who they trample in the process, it was good to be reminded that the ladder to true success is still climbed one rung at a time and never without help. That’s the view from my side of the street, what’s yours?