Pen in Motion

Several years ago I read an article on house cleaning in which the author offered a proven method to getting into the “cleaning spirit”: start with the kitchen sink. The author reasoned that the sink was ground zero for cleaning an entire house; clean the sink, then move on to counters, then the stove, then the floor, and then the rest of the house.

The article was a bit quirky and fun to read, but I did not put much thought into it until I came to the point where I could not ignore the spatters, stains, and dusty bunnies any longer. At the time, I lived in a two-story house with too many rooms to figure out where to begin. I used to begin with my bedroom, but that almost always led to me re-arranging my closet and wasting most of the day without making any headway. So on that day, I decided to try the advice out.

Before I could clean the sink I had to empty the pile of dirty dishes into the dish washer. After that, I scrubbed the sink until it was shiny and clean. I was (and still am) amazed at the instant feeling of accomplishment I felt over cleaning a sink. From there I moved on to the counters and the stove top, cleaning and scrubbing every inch of surface. I wiped down the oven and the fridge, and then swept the floor.

By early evening, I had cleaned most of the house AND cleaned more thoroughly than usual. The kitchen sink was the catalyst that motivated me to be productive. My task was not overwhelming because I began with something small and simple. That initial wave of accomplishment was my motivation to keep going. To this day, I still begin cleaning with the kitchen sink.

Humans are like dirty houses – we have many rooms and levels that make up who we are. Too often, we fail when we try to clean up our houses because we seek the whole picture and get overwhelmed at trying to do everything at one time. Adopt a “kitchen sink” mentality – start with small goals and let the motivation carry you along. Instead of feeling hopeless of the 100lbs you need to lose, set a goal to shed 5 lbs instead. Then set a new goal, and keep going until you get to your ideal weight.

Staring at two + more years of college at the time was disheartening, but I decided to just focus on one semester at a time. (And eventually I finished!) My mother has often reminded me of the correlation between overcoming a mountainous task and eating an elephant – one bite at a time. So grab a sponge, or a spoon, and get to it. Eventually you will get there.

A funny thing used to happen to me – I broke toes. Not all of them at once, and usually just the little ones. What makes this funny is that is always happened around the same time each year. It even became a running joke between my ex-husband and I. When February rolled around one year, my ex commented to me that “it must be that time of year again – for me to break a toe.” Ha.

Normally I broke toes the normal way – bumping into furniture and such. One time is special though, and uber-embarrassing: I was trying to learn how to salsa dance, and I was barefoot. And it gets better…I was going off some videos and step-by-step guides from the internet. My sister used to show my tap and ballet moves from her dance classes at Baylor, and that is when I became a secret dancer. I would never dance in public, but I often twirled and boogied about in the privacy of my home. I had always wanted to learn how to salsa, so I decided to teach myself.

I will not go into all the fun details, but the end was not good – a broken my pinky toe. My ex-husband got a good chuckle out of it as he helped me hobble around the house for a few days. By this point, I was a toe-breaking veteran, so I knew there was not much a doctor could do. And I also did not want to have to explain to my doctor how I injured myself, and what possessed me to break out in dance.

Even though I was using simplified and probably inaccurate information, I decided to just go with it myself. I went off-script and ended up getting hurt. For one, I also should have been wearing proper shoes – or any shoes.

Moving from Houston to Tulsa was a big step for my husband and I. Granted, it wasn’t like we were going off to Timbuktu, but it was still big. We were leaving everything that was comfortable for us, and going somewhere unfamiliar. I learned a lot about walking in faith, and it’s actually not that different from learning how to salsa – there are specific instructions that must be followed, proper attire required (the armor of God), and going off on my own will lead to troubles.

It has been a while since I have broken any toes – I am more aware of my surroundings and I watch where I am going more often. And I wear shoes. The same can be said for my walk in God – my feet are ready and protected, and I am keeping my eyes on my path so that I know where I am headed.

The human body is really amazing – so uniquely and beautifully designed. Every part of us, big and small, plays a role in every daily function. If one system is out of balance, it can affect the whole body. It took a slightly weird and very painful experience to remind me how special my body really is.

This whole ordeal began with a simple broken nail – the shorten version of the story is that my finger ended up getting very infected. My doctor prescribed antibiotics, but that did not make anything better. I could not drive, type, or write. Even showering became a long and laborious process. I had little use of my left hand and arm.

Sleeping was another chore because I had to position my hand just right, so as not to bump it on anything. I am almost embarrassed to admit that my finger made me cry on more than one occasion (the few times I bumped it on something). It was both funny and frustrating how this one finger had so impacted my whole body

After a week, my doctor decided that my finger needed surgery. Nothing major – a simple procedure to get rid of the infection. I won’t go into all the details, but in case anyone is wondering, I do still have my whole finger. Anyway, I marched myself down to the Would Care office to be sliced and diced.

The process of numbing my hand was not a fun experience at all. (I am curious why the needles used for local anesthetic have to be so long) Within 30 minutes, the operation was over and my finger was bound in a cocoon of gauze. I stopped by the pharmacy to fill a prescription for pain medication, and then went home.

That first evening was way too much fun for me to ever repeat again. My finger throbbed so badly, I thought my heart had set up temporary quarters in my fingertip. I spent the next several days with my left hand above my heart to keep the finger from throbbing.

The pain subsided, but I still had to be careful. All told, it would be another six weeks before my finger was healed enough that I could begin to use it again. My finger saga lasted a total of two months. Two months for a finger! That one little finger was much more important than I realized, and it being injured had hampered me.

The Bible calls Christians the body of Christ, with Jesus as the head and the church as the members of the body. Every one of us has an important role to play, regardless of what you may think. It is easy to see yourself as small next to spiritual giants like Oral Roberts and Kenneth Copeland, but God needs you just as much as He needs those men.

Jesus tells a story in Luke 15 of a shepherd who lost one of his sheep. Now he had 100 total, so it would seem rational to forget about the one and concentrate on the 99 that were not lost. But every member of this man’s flock was important to him; he searched for, and found the lamb that was missing.

If one member of the body is faltering, then the body cannot function as effectively. Everyone is necessary and special. Every part of the body is important – from the brain to the pinky toe. Nothing and no one is insignificant.

In 2007, I was hired by a retail company that required its employees to wear closed-toe shoes. For most people this would not be a problem, but for me, this was very unpleasant news. Up until that time, I had been the proud owner of one pair of shoes. Yes, one. Uno. Solo.

Why is my collection so exclusive and singular in its roster? I could lie and say I am a most unusual and extreme elitist. But really, I have ogre feet (think Shrek) and comfy shoes are hard to come by. As a matter of fact, I almost abhor shoe shopping. I have been content in my almost too-big “Ye Olde Nurse Betty” sandals until the time came to find new shods for my tootsies.

The time arrived for the dread event, and there I was, on Sunday afternoon, trying on shoe after shoe after shoe as my sister worked hard to compete with – well herself really – in the quest to find my glass slipper. My feet had not seen the inside of a sock in months, let alone pretty Tommy Hillfiger tennis shoes. Yes, she won. They were unfamiliar to me and my feet, and I tripped over those pretty white sneaks more than once. I am very much out of my podiatric (is that a word?) comfort zone.

It is not a lot of fun to be thrust (sometimes literally, and with socks) into a place or situation that demands immediate change. But there is always a choice…stay in your bubble of complacent comfort with sandals that give blisters when you walk in them too much because they do not fit properly, OR slip into new shoes that may feel a little weird at first but are a better choice in the long run. Cinderella had it easy.

I experienced a tragedy a few years ago when my father went to be with Jesus. In the midst of my mourning, I also found myself mourning something else – repeated failed attempts to give something of myself to my dad, a poem or prose to honor him, and to express my thoughts and feelings. Even before he died, I was searching myself for inspiration to write something as my way to honor my dad.

But sadly, nothing surfaced. I tried penning a few poems, but to no avail. I doubled my efforts in the days following my dad’s passing, as I was hoping to have something ready for his funeral. It really bothered me that I was having such a hard time writing even a simple poem.

A little over a year before my father died, a wonderful woman in my church went to Heaven. I had known Stephanie and her family for almost 20 years. We were not close or anything, but our families knew each other from church. The morning following the news, I wrote a really nice poem for her and gave it to the family. So why couldn’t I do the same for my dad?

The answer = relationship. I had a relationship with Stephanie Barnes: we attended the same church for over ten years, I went to the same school as her girls (though they were a good 10 yrs younger than me), and again attended the same church up until she died. The relationship was not close knit, but I still knew her.

I cannot say the same thing for my dad. The past had long ago been forgiven, but that did not magically create a relationship. As I listened to friends and family give testimonies about dad, I realized just how much I really did not know him. The poem I was trying to write would not come because I did not have anything to draw from. I need to know dad; and more, I needed relationship with him.

The truth is, we all need relationship…it’s in our bones, literally. God made us in His image, and made us to desire relationship – that is why Adam was lonely even though he walked with God every day and was surrounded by every animal imaginable. So God took a bone and gave him a companion. Hebrews 10:25 tells us not to “forsake the assembling of ourselves together.” While that verse is certainly referring to coming together for church, I think Paul was also exhorting believers to not forsake relationship with one another as well.

My new church in Tulsa has, in addition to weekly services and activities, small group meetings called Connect Groups. There is a Connect group for every age group, married couples, singles, divorced members, single parents, different nationalities (including Native Americans), different biblical topics – you name it. The pastors understand how important it is for Christians to connect with one another, especially in a church of several thousand members.

We were not made to be loners – we need people, and people need us. My dad was able to bring his family (or most of us anyway) back together again. I reconnected with cousins and uncles/aunts whom I have not seen in almost 20 years. We have all vowed to not let each other slip away again. It took this tragedy to remind us how fragile life is, and how important we are to each other.

Thanks Dad – for bringing us all back together.

I was recently sharing stories and experiences from my past with a friend.  Some of them occurred several years ago, but I could still recall almost every detail. As I was describing events and conversations, there was a tiny light bulb from somewhere within…deeper than just my mind…my soul perhaps that demanded to be heard. You can still remember this? Why would you even want to? Why are you still holding on to all of this? What does it matter now? When your soul speaks, it is usually a good time to listen to it.

The past is so alluring…the victories, the good times, the hurts, and everything in between. There is a big part of me who wants to scream “Enough!” to those old thoughts and memories. I want to forget it all and go on. It is rather masochistic how many times our past pain is actually a source of comfort, like a thorn covered security blanket. It hurts, but we have had it for so long that we would not know what to do without it.

Truth is, letting go can be scarier than we want to admit. Than I want to admit. But how can I ask for integrity from others when I refuse to demand it of myself? To the degree that you are willing to be honest with yourself is how much you can heal and move on with your life. We can be honest to everyone except the person looking back at us in the mirror. It is much easier sometimes to remain victimized within ourselves.

I am tired of being scared and keeping an emotional distance because of something that happened to me in the past. Sure it was a big deal, but was/is it go great that I will allow this wrong to dictate my life? It is like I swing too far either way; not opening up at all or spilling my guts (which is what I did). There is a happy medium somewhere in there…just need to locate it. There are time when I feel as though I have almost found myself. But she can be a fleeting nymph, so the chase is still in progress.

I went through times in my life when I allowed the hurts and bad memories rob me of being hopeful. I don’t want to be jaded, seeing the glass as both half-full and being made of a breakable substance that isn’t worth caring about.

I remember a poem I wrote several years ago that began with “Flood the corridors of my soul with rays of a dawning hope…”

“Love like you have never been hurt”

Someone recently sent me an email that included the statement above…it really stuck to my brain and got me thinking on the subject of love. Has our idea and definition of love become so eschewed that we no longer really know what it is? Do we just view love as an emotion for the sappy and hopeless romantics? The sad thing…there are a good number of men and women who feel that showing love is actually a sign of weakness.

But love is such an amazing and powerful force – it can have the strength of worlds, and also be so fragile that a few harsh words or even one action can break its bonds in a mere moment. But yet, it can also only take one word (or act) to restore those broken pieces as whole again. Yes, love really is wondrous. And it does make the world go ‘round. It makes God who He is, and is what bridges us to our Abba Father.

And as for being weak? To love is to be rather strong and courageous. I believe one of the bravest decisions you can ever make in your life is to love. That takes a lot of guts, because it’s not just romantic love either – but compassion for anyone who may cross your path (lovely and unlovely alike). Contrary to what some may believe, Love is neither blind nor naïve about the darker side of humanity; it just chooses to see the best in all people, and to chase away that darkness with its light. That kind of love can only come from Jesus.

The second bravest thing you can do is to be able to love the person staring back at you from the bathroom mirror each morning. When Jesus said that we had to love our neighbor as ourselves, he had no idea what he was asking of us. It seems easy enough…loving yourself, right? Except that many times we can be our own worst judge and lover – because we can never seem to forget our wrongs.

I think this is one of the reasons why God made it so simple and easy to repent…because he knew it was in our nature to make the forgiveness process within ourselves so difficult and drawn-out. We can find it so easy to love everyone else in the world ten times over, but we struggle and often fall short when it comes to loving ourselves. Thing is, what Jesus did on the cross can not have as much meaning for you as long as you refuse to love yourself.

Jesus loved every side and shade of mankind enough to die for us. He was not dragged and yanked onto that cross either; he went willingly because he knew what was at stake…that is some powerful love. He chose to love us like we had never and would never hurt Him. We not only have to be willing to love others with all courage (like no one has ever broken your heart), we must love ourselves in the same manner…just like Jesus.