Decisions Decisions

Some of us live our entire lives waiting to fall in love. Is love something we fall into?  Something we don't have control over?  Something that we just get blown into no matter what our minds may tell us?  I sure hope not. I hope we would not give that much control to anything or anyone. 

How about happiness?  Is that something that we are at the mercy of our circumstances to experience?

How about joy?  Are we just blowing around in the wind until we get blown into a major vacation or a stupendous event to experience joy?

I hope and pray we never give that much control over what we define as a feeling. Sure, we may have a lot of chemistry and attraction to certain people more than another, and it may be mistaken as love. But I am suggesting that love is a decision. Chemistry is great but if that's all there is then it's not love. 

Love is caring about the needs of another person over your own. Has nothing to do with chemistry. When you have been married a while and the honeymoon is over and your spouse gets up and is fussing about dumb stuff then you don't fall out of love with them that day. Instead, you decide to love them in spite of their unattractive behavior. When they bring you flowers for no reason you don't fall deeper in love with them because their behavior is attractive. You decide to love them more because they put your needs above their own. 

When you have a wreck and total your car, you decide to be happy because there were no injuries. When your plans get cancelled that you looked forward to you decide to be happy because it is an opportunity for you to binge watch a show you have wanted to see. You see, it's all about our attitude. 

Joy, happiness, and love are not feelings. They are decisions. And the sooner you choose happiness, the sooner you will find peace has crept into your life because you are not allowing false feelings to blow you around like a rag doll. Marriages are not lasting when built upon chemistry. Unless we decide to love that person outside of the chemistry. The decision to Love at the worst of times is actually very attractive. And you feel like you have control over your life rather than being blown around to and fro at the mercy of whatever feels good at the moment.  Feelings don't last. Decisions stick. 

So young folks, when you look for a mate, pick someone with a bag of faults you can live with. We all have faults and some faults we can't stand. Other faults we can overlook. For example, I couldn't live with someone who spent every dime he had. So I found someone who pinches pennies and accounts for every dime spent. Some people couldn't stand living with someone who makes you account for every dime. Some people can live with an alcoholic. Some can't. Some can live with a boy who has a lot of toys. Some want one more reserved. That is what dating is for. To find out which faults are deal breakers for you and which faults you can overlook. Then when you find someone to marry, you know which faults you can't live with and you pick a person who has faults you CAN live with.  

Let's talk about soul mates. No.such.thing.  The concept of a soul mate is daunting. To think I have to find the ONE person in the whole world I was meant to be with is obnoxious. I went to Lipscomb and found my mate there. If I had gone to college at Pepperdine I would have found a mate there and been just as happy. I'm not discounting my love for my husband, I'm just saying that love is a decision and we pick from our pool of eligibles that are near our location at the time we are ready to get married. I picked wisely. And I would have picked wisely had I been somewhere else also. Yes, there are some who we can be happier with than others, but if we know which bag of faults we can live with and choose wisely, then we are set up to choose to be happy with our decisions. 

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control are all fruits of the spirit. When we have the Spirit within us then we can choose the fruits of the spirit no matter what circumstances come our way. Desisions decisions. 

Make today the best day of your life!

Jennifer

Equipped

I have always heard people say that God gives his most difficult battles to his strongest followers. I have also heard it said that God won't give you more than you can bear. In my old age, lol, I have come to question a lot of things I have heard throughout my life. Like the things I just mentioned. 

Are the parents of a special needs child stronger than the average person so they were given a differently abled child?  I don't think so. I think those parents are just the same as you and me. I think they received a special needs child and then God molds and grows them into just the right parent to care for the child. 

Are God's strongest warriors diagnosed with cancer because they can handle it?  I don't think so. I believe cancer strikes folks and then through prayer, God equips them with the strength and determination they need to fight it. It's all a learning experience. You see, we learn to deal with what we are given. None of us are just naturally stronger than another. I believe it all depends on our attitude and willingness to learn through hardship that makes a person stronger than another. 

If God truly picked his strongest people to give his hardest battles to, then I believe it would leave those strong people wishing they were not deemed as strong so they wouldn't have to deal with their lot in life. When we are all equally strong and our ability to deal hinges on our attitude toward the lot and our prayerful requests to be equipped to handle such a lot then we don't question "why me", but instead ask "why not me". 

When our faith is such that we know we are just an actor in God's screenplay then we can truly count it all joy when we fall into various trials because we know that God will equip us and mold us into the people He wants us to be.  It's all a matter of trust in God and faith that He will give us what we need to handle what is given us. 

I hope you make today the best day of your life!

Jennifer

 

Stereotypes

I despise stereotypes. Assumptions made about who a person is or what they stand for. Makes me furious when people judge a book by its cover without taking the time to fact check by getting to know the person before deciding what they think about said person. I have a gift of being able to hang with all sorts of people. I am just as comfortable in a tattoo shop as I am at church or at a swanky corporate event. I realize everyone isn't this way so they don't have the opportunity to get to know all sorts of people. If you stay in your same puddle all the time I encourage you to branch out and make friends with all kinds of people. It broadens your horizons and helps you see that there is life beyond the end of your nose. It also helps you burst through stereotypes. The child who was labeled in first grade as a troublemaker has problems overcoming that stereotype if he is never given a fresh start. The homeless person will never overcome his stereotype of no one gives him a nonjudgmental chance. The Christian never has a chance if people think all they will do is condemn you to hell or try to convince you to go sit in a church building. Tattooed people never stand a chance if the first thing you think is that they are a hoodlum. The fact of the matter is that we all could be stereotyped in one category or another on any given day. I feel like part of my purpose on this earth is to shatter stereotypes about people who are heavily tattooed. When I dressed in a full length sequin gown to attend a swanky corporate event with my executive husband, no one would guess that I was heavily tattooed underneath. Am I a thug?  No. Are heavily tattooed people thugs?  No more than people who don't have a single tattoo. I am 99.9% sure no one in my church of 1500 members is as heavily tattooed as I am. But since they knew me before I got them, they don't think I'm a thug now just because I chose to decorate myself. Just because the first grader misbehaved one year doesn't mean he will the next year. Everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. I encourage us all to wash our minds of stereotypes on people. To give folks a chance. Heavily tattooed, biker club guys and girls are some of my favorite people and in a pinch they would beat most of my church friends to help me. But I wouldn't know that if I allowed myself to be closed minded and shut off from stereotypes of people. I hate labels. We are all differently abled and no one is stereotypical anything. Don't allow yourself to think anything about anyone until you give yourself a chance to know them. You may learn to agree with me that nothing is stereotypical.

Make today the best day ever!
Jennifer

Roots

I haven't blogged in a few months, not because I haven't had any thoughts but because I just haven't taken time to write.  I hope that all my readers had a great holiday season and also am mindful that the holidays aren't happy for all people.  Special thanks to those who sacrifice their family time to protect our country and community on banner days and every day.

I had the best Christmas ever.  Not because the gifts were good but because the company was good and the memories were strong.  As I sat at my parent's home on Christmas Eve, I did my usual introverted thing and retreated into the recesses of my mind thinking about a lot of things.

I am blessed beyond measure.  I remember as a child wishing we could move into a different house.  Not because I didn't like my house but because I thought it was cool to move.  We didn't.  Then when I got married, I was beside myself to move to a different state and see new things.  That zeal lasted about 6 months and then reality set in that my home was in Tennessee.  We lived in Georgia for 6 years and the Lord blessed us with a job in my home town.  We moved back.  My zeal to move back was exponentially better than my zeal to move away.  I have not moved away again.  All my family lives within 5 minutes of me and I love it like that.  My children have grown up being in their grandparents homes and knowing their grandparents.  My roots are so deep in Hendersonville, Tennessee that it would take a massive effort to uproot me.


Back to Christmas, I sat around my parent's home, my childhood home, and realized how special it is that I am able to celebrate the holidays or any day in the home that I first skinned my knee.  The home where I learned multiplication at the kitchen table.  The home where I decided where I was going to college.  The home where I brought my fiance'.  The home where my aunts and uncles ate coconut cake and barbecue.   Oh the memories.  How blessed am I to be sitting in the home where I grew up, now with my grown children who grew up being in this home also.  I sat and listened to my mother play Christmas carols on the piano and my girls harmonizing.  The sound was so melodious it was that of angels.  I am so very blessed.  My mother cooked Christmas dinner.  It was perfect.  I am so blessed that she is able to cook for us.  I treasure that so.  Roots.  I realized that nowadays, that is incredibly unusual to have roots as deep as mine.  Most people move around and don't stay in the same place for one reason or another.  Not me.  My parents bought their home new and have lived there ever since.  I have spent 47 Christmases there.  Wow.  How blessed am I.

I hope your roots bring you memories as great as mine.  Happy New Year to all of you!!

Jennifer

Be a Blessing

Yesterday I spent my day flushing my head in the toilet over something most would be elated about. You see, my youngest was going to be inducted into the Honor Society at school last night. I was proud but I wasn't. I was excited but I wasn't. The "wasn't" part is what I was plagued about all day. Why was I not thrilled about this?  After much prayer I pinpointed what my feelings were. 

I was going to go sit beside the parent who pushed and punished their kid into the honor society.  The parent who grounded their kid for making a B or a C. The parent who thought they had reached the pinnacle of their existence with their child being in the honor society. 

The pinnacle of their existence is not thet their child makes great grades because all that really means is there is a letter on a paper. It isn't the gauge that measures a child's purpose or intelligence or performance. Parents reach the pinnacle of their existence when their child walks with the sad, eats lunch with the new kid, includes the underdog when others shun them. They reach the pinnacle when their child loves God first and is a blessing to everyone they meet. Not when they make A's on a card. 

I realized that my youngest was a blessing first. Every day when she comes home from school I ask her who she was a blessing to that day. My last words before she gets on the bus is "Be a Blessing". And she is. The honor society is not something I aspired for my children. I aspire for them to be humble and kind. A friend to all. I also realized that the honor society was something she desired for herself and worked hard to achieve. I realized that she knew what was important in life and she also aspired to make good grades-on her own-not because I was wanting it FOR her or making her achieve such. 

So I went to the ceremony last night and burst with pride knowing that my child is a phenomenal human first, and makes stellar grades because it's what she wants to do. Something to truly be proud of. Developing character is a life skill. No one cares what grades you made in school once you are an adult. They care how you treat other humans. 

Friends, go be a blessing today. And if along the way, you decide to be the account executive of the year, or teacher of the year, or top salesman of the year, or Sergeant in the Army, then work hard to achieve that, but be a phenomenal human first. 

When I grow up, I want to be just like my kids because they are fantastic humans first. 

Jennifer 

The Best Day of My Life

Today is the best day of my life. Not because I am getting married or having a baby or my child graduates or my first grandchild will be born or because it is my 50th wedding anniversary or I am leaving for vacation. But more because I am alive and I am finding joy in sitting by the pool in the warm sunshine and enjoying my family. 

It's funny, people who spend time with me regularly laugh when I say "This is the best day of my life." I say it every day at some point during the day. I may say it when I order my favorite ice cream or get a drink at Sonic. I may say it when I cross the finish line at a race. I may say it while I sit on my deck and hear the birds chirping. 

You see, if we wait till the big events in life to have a best day, then we spend most of our lives in mediocrity. Don't live in mediocrity, live the best day of your life every day. It's all in your perspective. Look for the good in every day. Find joy in the little things. Happiness is a decision. It's a conscious decision we make every day. We can be like a sailboat tossed to and fro by our circumstances or we can decide to be happy and give thanks in all things. 

May today be the best day of your life. I know it is the best day of mine. 

Jennifer

Able

I am disabled. I can't turn a cartwheel. Have never been able to do that so that makes me disabled. I also can't do a pull up. I don't have enough upper body strength to do one. Even several years ago when I was on a bodybuilding regimen I was unable to do a single pull up. I'm disabled. I am able to jump really high. Some people can't so they are disabled. I can run 48.6 miles in 4 races in 4 days. Most people can't so they are disabled. I can draw really well. Some people can't draw a stick figure so they are disabled. 

Today I would like to challenge your thinking by bringing to light one of my pet peeves. I despise the term "disabled". NO ONE is disabled. We are ALL differently abled. I am able to run long distances but because you can't doesn't mean you are disabled. It means your ablilities lie in different areas. Because you can do a pull up and I can't doesn't make me disabled. It makes me have ablilities that lie in a different area.

 A person in a wheelchair can do a pull-up because their upper body strength is better than mine due to lack of leg strength. Differently abled. 

A person who is deaf can communicate with their hands. Differently abled. 

A person who is mute can communicate with the use of a computer. Differently abled. 

A person who can't make eye contact with people is exceptionally smart. Differently abled. 

What if God had made us all with the same ablilities?  What would our world look like?  Who put certain people in the category of disabled?  Why aren't all the people who wear glasses labeled disabled?  Because NO ONE is disabled. We are ALL differently abled. 

Today, look around and notice all the different ablilities people have. We are all able. In different ways. 

Thanks for reading my blog!

Jennifer