relationallychallenged

We have lived in Colorado for 4+ years. The front of our house is facing south so our backyard is facing north (obviously). Every year we have shoveled our patio snow onto the grass and it piles up and stays on the grass all winter long. When spring comes and melts the snow, a large spot of dead grass emerges, and it takes 2-3 months to fill in from all the snow that was laying on the grass.

This year, I decided to shovel the snow off the grass so that I wouldn’t have the same dead grass patch that I have had for 4 years. Here is what it looks like after shoveling it off the grass.

It was about 4 feet high on the grass and it is now about a foot of snow. I hope that my effort today will help to give the area the necessary time to blossom and not die this spring (which is 3 months off). When the snow covers the grass and doesn’t allow the sun to permeate the blades of grass for months on end, the shoots begin to die.

It reminds me of my life at times. Snow in this case represents various things in my life that cloud over and cover areas of my life (and maybe yours as well). Take for example our physical life. When we allow the -5 degree temperatures to keep us inside, our body begins to lose it’s fitness and we move into laziness and atrophy of our muscles. If we cover our minds with the destructive elements of politics and governmental structures (as well as other mental knowledge that is negative), we will begin to lose our ability to see how the Lord is still in control of this world. If we begin to listen to the negative messages of our relationships and don’t uncover and get rid of those messages, we will begin to disconnect from those persons that we need to be connected to. The relationships will begin to die.

During the darker times of life (the winter seasons), it is important to shovel the snow (the coverings in life that have stopped the sun (SON) from permeating and burning off the coverings. Once the coverings have been removed, our grass (relationships, personal perspectives, body fitness, etc.) might have a chance to grow and not die.

The first step in this process is to evaluate what is covering areas in your life so that the sun can’t come through. The next step is to shovel those coverings so that life might emerge. Happy shoveling.

On June 1, 2020, my oldest daughter Deborah wrote her first book entitled Embracing Uncomfortable; Facing our fears while pursuing our purpose. Gary Chapman, who wrote the best selling book 5 Love Languages wrote a wonderful forward to the book.

I got one of the first copies and read the whole book in less than 24 hours. I couldn’t put it down. I know it was my daughter’s first book, but it is a book for our present time. Due to the pandemic that we have been facing for the last few months and the recent protests and riots caused by the brutal death of George Floyd, we need some insight as to how to deal with the uncomfortable present issues in life.

All of us have and will experience uncomfortable life experiences and have a tendency to try to squirm out of these experiences. We sometimes try to deny their existence. We can run from them as they are difficult. None of these choices are healthy for us in the long run. Embracing the uncomfortable situations we face and seeing how these circumstances can be a tool for our personal and corporate growth is the road to experiencial growth.

I am just her father, but I highly recommend you getting this book, as it can cause personal and community transformation. You can get the book on Amazon:

https://amzn.to/2UFkTmC

You won’t be sorry you got this book. It’s a book that can help you in your journey thru life.

The pandemic of the coronavirus has done a number on our worrying about our life. Tens of thousands of people throughout the world have died because of the virus. Hundreds of thousands have been hospitalized. The virus has crippled the economy of most of the nations in the world. Fear has crept into every aspect of our society. Millions of people are out of work. They have become fearful as to how they will pay the bills and feed their family. Debt keeps climbing for individuals, communities, counties, states, and the nation. Everywhere you look, devestation is occurring and each of us are being impacted by the corona virus.

It is very easy to slip into worry because of the present circumstances that we are living in. Jesus was concerned about this kind of worry and the impact it would have on our perspective of life when He wrote about the four soils (Mark 4). Jesus identified four different kind of environments in which His word could be planted. We are the soils, the seed is His word, and our choices will determine the kind of soil the seed is planted in. You can read the parable of the 4 soils, but I want to focus on the third soil in which He talks about worry and it’s effect on us as His followers. He says, “Others are like seed sown among thorns; these are the ones who hear the word, but the worries of this age, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” Mark‬ ‭4:18-19‬ ‭CSB‬‬

The pandemic has contributed to our focus being put on the worries of the world. When we focus on all the news that saturates our minds with what is going on, we have a choice. We can focus on all of the negative messages that the pandemic has created. It will heighten our worry and cause us to lose focus on things that are important in life. Or we can choose to dwell on the things that we are thankful for and for what God is doing in our lives and the lives of others. Producing qualities of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control only happens in our lives when we don’t allow the worries of this world, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things to enter our thoughts and emotions as we go about our daily lives.

On this journey in our world, I’m not minimizing the impact that the pandemic has had in all phases of our culture. We have a choice on whether we focus on the circumstances of life, or focus on God who is bigger that all of it and is able to make sense of what we need to do on a daily basis. Choose wisely.

I love feeding birds. I have been doing it for years. I know that if I don’t feed the birds, they will get fed, but I love sitting outside fairly close to the bird feeder and watching the birds as they come in to feed. Most of my feed has been sunflower seeds I get from Bennington Mercantile here in Castle Rock. I went there awhile back and they were out of sunflower seeds, but they had this premium bird seed on sale so I bought a bag.

I took it home and loaded it into the three cylinders of my bird feeder. I set it in the tree and waited for the birds to arrive and eat my bird seed. It took some time, but the birds finally perched on the bird feeder. To my surprise, the birds began to throw the seed off onto the ground, looking for the sunflower seeds that I had been putting in the feeder. This premium seed did have some sunflowers, but most of the seed was the small variety that you can see on the feeder.

I saw the lark buntings sitting on the little polls in front of the openings and throwing the little seed out to get to the sunflowers. Once they tasted the good quality seeds, they weren’t going to eat the other seeds.

It reminds me of tasting of the Bible for so many years. God’s word is the sunflowers to the birds at my feeder. Once you get a taste of the truth of His wisdom and insight regarding love, forgiveness, grace, doing relationships, etc., It’s difficult to read other things that give us opinions of others, but doesn’t give us the truth we can live and grow by.

On this journey, it is important to choose the kind of food that will nourish our souls, our choices, and our decisions. Choose wisely the food you want to eat today.

In Colorado you never know what you will wake up to. This is what we saw when we put our feet to the floor and opened the shades.

God can bring beauty to your personal circumstances to change our perspective. It’s a matter of looking at what we do have rather than what we are missing. On this journey today, we have the opportunity to open our eyes and see what’s before us.

Being a proud person is not necessarily a good quality to have, but when it comes to my children, I am proud of all of them. They have given me great joy as they journey through life. One event that occurred yesterday brought this to my attention as my oldest daughter sent me a text about her first book that will be published in June entitled Embracing Uncomfortable. It is already at Amazon and Barnes and Noble and can be pre-ordered for when it comes out.

We all have fears in life that we are constantly dealing with. Public speaking. Snakes. Starting or quitting a job. Confrontation. Relationship issues. Spiders. Driving on freeways. Fears come in all shapes and sizes and can debilitate us from experiencing life to the fullest. This book speaks to these fears and how we can move on from our fears to experience our true purpose in life.

I would highly recommend you buying this book. (From a very proud father). You can pre-order it on amazon.com or on barnesand noble.com. Begin your new journey by experiencing victory over your fears.

You have heard the saying, “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.” Well it can be said of your’s truly. Nadine and I drove to Owasso to help my youngest daughter move from Oklahoma to Colorado. We have been packing box after box. Rolls of packing tape. Little boxes. Medium boxes. Large boxes. Picture boxes. You name it we have packed with it. Until we came to a mirror that was too big for any of our boxes that we had.

No problem. We called an Aaron’s furniture store and asked if they had any larger boxes. A woman answered the phone and said that if they had any boxes that we wanted, they would be in back of the store. We took off and within a few minutes we arrived at the back of the store to our surprise.

What they had done is that when they wanted to discard mattresses or couches or cardboard boxes, they just opened the back door and threw it out the back. It was the craziest thing to see discarded trash anywhere they could find a spot.

What we really wanted was a large cardboard box to fit the large mirrors in and so I had to go dumpster diving. To my surprise I found the treasure that I was looking for

As I said, “Someone’s trash is someone else’s treasure, namely mine. Where there is a will there is a way. On this journey, you never know where your next treasure will be. You sometimes need to be creative and think outside the box. Happy Hunting.