Where Is Your Happy Place?

I love the movie "Finding Nemo." 

I love the Dad, Marlin, who will go to the ends of the earth to search out his son. (He reminds me of my Heavenly Father Who has gone to the ultimate length to save me.

I love Dory who not only can't remember what she did 2 minutes ago, but also doesn't remember how grumpy Marlin is to her, and never wavers in her loyalty to him. (She reminds me of my children who have seen me at my very worst and yet love me anyway.)

I love Crush, the sea turtle, who is the coolest surfer dude dad ever. (He really doesn't remind me of anyone I know- maybe because I live in Texas? Not many surfer dudes here!)

One scene where I always get a chuckle is when the child-terror Darla, the fish killer, is banging on the aquarium tank, and the starfish, Peach, is saying, "Find my happy place! Find my happy place!"

Sometimes, when life is getting turned upside down on me, I think of Peach, and try to find my happy place.

Up to now, my happy place was picturing myself on a big, cushioned swing hanging in a screened-in porch in the Colorado mountains, with the sound of the rushing river in my ears, a Dr. Pepper by my side, and a good book in my hands.

But today I found a better happy place, even than that:

For in the day of trouble He will conceal me in His tabernacle;
In the secret place of His tent He will hide me;
He will lift me up on a rock.
Psalm 27:6

 Why is this a better happy place?

1. God is the One Who conceals me, hides me, and lifts me to the spot. I don't even have to GET there by myself. My Father, who loves me, takes me there, and then He hides me away in safety.
2. Just look at where He is taking me!

• Tabernacle: where I can PRAISE Him.
• Tent: where I can recover with rest.
• Rock: where I can be secure with a firm foundation.

It just doesn't get much better than that.

So where is my new happy place? In the arms of my loving Heavenly Father, who hides me away in the midst of life's storms.

What could be happier than that?

Where is the Control Z?

My life on the computer was made ever so much easier when I discovered "control-z".

What I know about the computer I have figured out through trial and error. I am from the generation which is NOT intuitively computer savvy. I have learned a great deal over the years, but most of it the hard way.

Every time I make a new discovery on the computer I can literally feel the light come on as I realize how many applications one little key stroke or tool can have.

But the best one ever is control-z.
Undo.

I don't like how that looks?
Control-z.

I accidentally highlighted and then erased an entire paragraph?
Control-z.

I completely messed up this freecell game?
Control-z. Control-z. Control-z.


Today I am wishing for a life control-z button.
Or a do-over.
Or a backsies.

But life in this world with people and stuff and mess and mistakes and sin does not have a convenient button to undo the stuff we mess up.

Thankfully God says:

You are My servant, I have chosen you and have not cast you away;
Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.
Isaiah 41:10

How amazing.

God does not require for us to figure it all out.

He looks at us in the midst of our sinfulness, sorrow, and pain and He. Holds. Us.

And today I need to be held.

I cannot undo what has been done, but I can lay down in the palm of my Father's hand and watch Him help me.

I am so glad I don't have to figure this one out.

Enduring Love

I have to admit that yesterday, as we walked into church, I really didn't want to be there.

It wasn't the church.
It was me.

My heart was a conflicted mess and I don't do well when it feels that way.
I felt unloved.
And I felt unloveable.

And then the music began, and the first song:

Give thanks to the Lord, our God and King,
His love endures forever.

As I soaked in those words, which hope longed for but self-condemnation denied, there followed the sweet whispering in my heart, "You are my beloved. You are loved."

I was completely overwhelmed.
Not just because of the humbling fact that the God of the universe reassured my heart of His love, but because I was agonizingly cognizant of how deeply undeserving I was of this love.

His love endures forever.
It endures my bad moods.
It endures my inconsistencies.
It endures my contradictions.
It endures my hot spells and cold spells.
(And it endures my hot flashes, my emotional unreasonableness, and my mood swings.)
It endures my angry outbursts.
It endures my worry, fretting, and complaining.

His love for me is not limited by time, distance, location, weather, circumstance, or situation.

Because His love is based upon Who He is, not who I am or how well I am behaving.

So at a moment that I could not think of another thing to thank Him for (and there were untold number of things to thank Him for- I just couldn't think of them in the jumbled mess of my mind), at that moment I was filled with the healing, sustaining, completing, invigorating fact that My God Loves Me and that Love Endures Forever!

For the Lord is good;

His lovingkindness is everlasting,

And His faithfulness to all generations.

Ps 100:5

Happy Birthday George!

One of the best perks of having been a homeschool mom for the past 20 years is that I learned all sorts of things I never knew before.

Take George Washington.

My knowledge of Washington after 12 years of public school and 4 years earning a history degree was as follows:

• He chopped down a cherry tree and learned not to lie.
• He crossed a river in a boat with some soldiers when it was cold and won a battle.
• He had a really bad winter in Valley Forge.
• He had wooden teeth so he never smiled.
• He won the Revolutionary War.
• He was our first president.

Impressive amount of knowledge, don't you think?

After diving deep into the waters of our country's founding, time and time again with my different students, I have learned a bit more

But this time around, going through it again with my youngest group, I discovered some very interesting facts that I had totally missed before.

The most illuminating one was this:

• George Washington lost more battles than he won in the Revolutionary War.

That's right.
He fought in 9.
He lost 6.
He won 3.

And because of that there were politicians calling for his resignation.
There were critics that hurled insults.
There were generals underneath him who thought they could do a better job.

And it seems he had nights of deep questioning and severe doubts about what he was doing and why he was doing it.

Listen to this quote:

"I have often thought how much happier I should have been, if instead of accepting of a command under such circumstances, I had taken my musket upon my shoulders and entered the rank, or if I could have justified the measure of posterity, and my own conscience, had retired to the back country, and lived in a wigwam."  ~George Washington

I understand how he felt.
I have thought many times that a "wigwam" in the back country would be a marvelous idea.
Away from the struggles.
Absent of the dissenting voices.
Ignorant of the climatic events that are surrounding me.
Free from the worries of the future.

But just like George, I have no choice but to keep on fighting.
As a woman of honor with a higher calling than myself, I must keep trudging on in the face of apparent defeat, without enough supplies, hearing the nagging voice of doubt ringing in my ears, all the while attempting the look of confidence for those who are following behind me so that they aren't tempted to give up.

In the end, it didn't matter how many battles George won.
It mattered WHICH battles George won.

He won the last battle!
He won Yorktown. The one that mattered. The one that ended the war.

So keep fighting. Whatever war or battle or difficulty or obstacle that you are facing, however many times you have already been defeated, however bleak the future appears or hopeless the circumstances seem......keep fighting.

It does not matter HOW MANY battles you win.
It matters WHICH battles you win.

Don't. Give. Up.

"Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up."   Galatians 6:9