Emotional Health – Page 31

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Goodbye 2018…

December 31, 2018 gregoryjoel

Thoughts From the Porch: My body clock tends to get thrown of schedule when Christmas and New Year fall in the middle of the week. When I was in corporate America, I was always grateful for a holiday in the middle of the week. Now that I work from home, not so much. I’ve become a creature of habit. It takes days to get back on a regular schedule. I’m becoming my father…

I wasn’t sure I should write this today. A “year in review” seems a little too cliché for me.. However, I’ve spent the last couple of weeks looking back and made some decisions about the coming year. It’s not about New Year’s resolutions mind you. I’ve paid for enough forgotten gym memberships and Blue Bell ice cream to know they’re pointless, no matter how well-intentioned. However, the post-Christmas, pre-New Year’s lull is the perfect opportunity to learn from the past, dive in to today, and look to the future. Year-long increments make it all easier to digest.

The past year hasn’t been the best of years as far as finances are concerned. Starting a new business in a field I’ve been away from for some time hasn’t been easy. There’s been a definite learning curve. I’m grateful for the ability to learn today.

There’s been some lean times where more month was left than money. Looking back, even those times afforded new opportunities for growth and trust in the God of my understanding. God has never let us down. I can say that without reservation! However, I tend to forget that when I’m in the middle of life’s difficulties. Forgetfulness causes a lot of unnecessary stress and anxiety. Fortunately, I’m haven’t been as forgetful this year. I keep placing one foot in front of the other. Let the proverbial chips fall where they may…

Whatever difficulties may have presented themselves this past year, they fade in the light of God’s goodness to us. Many of you know about Unity Unlimited, Inc., Ms. Opal Lee, and Opal’s Farm. For me it was a dream come true. I’ve shared some of the events leading up to the farm. I see God’s hand all over it: one miracle after another. We ended the year by finalizing the Lease Agreement with the Tarrant Regional Water District and so it begins! You can learn more about Opal’s Farm by going to our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/unityunlimited or www.unityunlimited.org. Don’t forget that it’s the last day for a 2018 tax-deductible donation either…

I also want to take the opportunity to give a shout-out to the new friends this last year who have become a favorite part of my week – the members of the Fort Worth Development Group. I started looking for networking groups and I received so much more. Thank you to Brenda Ryan and The Referral Resource Guide (https://thereferralresourceguide.com) for getting us all together.

I may not make New Year’s resolutions, but I plan on spending some time asking myself some of the same questions I ask my clients. I can easily get caught up in the minutiae of day-to-day work and lose sight of what’s important: to my family, my business, my clients, and myself. I encourage you to as well.

Who are you?

Who do you want to be?

How do you want people to see you?

I can’t think of a better time to ask these questions than at New Year’s. Knowing who, and most importantly, whose I am fills the coming year with joyous anticipation!

I also need to stop and say thank you to the WordPress community for making my first year with you all a blessing. I hope that you all have a blessed, prosperous, and Happy New Year!

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Christmas Spirit…

December 24, 2018 gregoryjoel

Thoughts from the Porch: It’s become harder to get in the Christmas spirit this year. The exact reason has proven elusive. It could be that Christmas music starts blaring the day after Halloween, but It probably has to do with the fact that Mom and Dad are both gone now. This is the second Christmas since Mom passed and the sixteen of them without Dad. You’d think I’d be past it by now, but grief is what it is. It wasn’t until this morning that the season rushed over me and my soul felt revived with Christmas spirit.

I have a scheduled meeting every Sunday morning at 9:00AM. It’s one of the highlights of my week. I get to carry a simple message of hope to hurting people. I don’t know who benefits more – them or me. The spirit of giving tends to do that. Uncommon sense again – the more you give, the more you receive. But I digress…

I drove to my meeting yesterday morning somewhat short of my required coffee quota. I wasn’t paying attention to the radio or much else until I heard an angelic rendition of “Silent Night” come flowing from the speakers. I wish I could tell you who the vocalist was, but I had to hop out of the truck and get to my meeting before it finished. All I know is that I felt different. I was more “Christmas-ee”…

My family never celebrated Christmas as a religious holiday. Being good fundamentalists, we couldn’t celebrate something that the Bible didn’t state for certain. To most folks that sounds silly. Now that I’m older I can’t say that I disagree. Still, we celebrated Christmas as a secular holiday of giving and family. Santa Claus was alive, and Jesus’ birthday was up for debate.

Ironically, Christmas carols were always in order even if they were religious in nature. The Sunday church service before Christmas always included religious carols, and mentioned the birth of Jesus (you know, since the rest of the world was focused on it) but it was “to celebrate the season”, not the birth of our Savior. I never quite got the logic in that. Anyway…

I no longer hold to the strict religious traditions of my youth. Jesus may or may not have been born on December 25^th. It makes little difference. This is the season which people have chosen to celebrate his birth. I can’t find anything wrong with that. The point is that he was born. Emmanuel – “God is with us”.

Listening to “Silent Night” this morning it hit me full force; “God is with us”, and just like us. Just like me. Just like you.

My sons may be adults now, but I can remember the day each was born as though it were yesterday. I didn’t need a manger, livestock, shepherds, or wise men to make both moments holy, just as that moment some two thousand years ago. Maybe that’s why God chose to enter in to our world the way he did. I’d like to think so.

The authors of the four Gospels tell of the man and his teachings, but they record little of Jesus’ life growing up. I’d like to believe that he wasn’t much different from my boys. I don’t know what was comparable to spaghetti in First Century Palestine, but I’m sure that most of it ended up everywhere but his mouth. Mary probably had to give many an after-dinner bath during those first couple of years.

At the risk of sounding a bit sacrilegious, I would like to think that Jesus ducked out of Hebrew school to go fishing with his buddies. After all, He had an affinity for fishing and hung out with his fishing buddies…

The only reference we have to Jesus’ young life is an incident when he was twelve years old. Instead of going home with the rest of his family he hung back in Jerusalem. I can only imagine the panic Mary and Joseph felt when they realized he was missing. I freaked out when one of the boys hid behind a clothing rack at the store…

I’m no Biblical scholar, but I’m pretty sure that Jesus was “just one of the guys” for most of his life: content to live like everyone else in his town. It’s telling that the townsfolk response to his first recorded teachings in the Gospel of Luke is “Isn’t this Joseph’s son, the one we’ve known since he was a youngster?” (Luke 4.22).

It’s easy to concentrate on Jesus as divine, as perfect, and forget that Jesus was one of us. That, above all, is the miracle of Christmas. God chose to enter His creation through Jesus, an everyman, dirty diapers and all. He lived and worked among us as an ordinary guy. He laughed and hung out with his buddies. When all was said and done, He stepped up to announce that,

“God’s Spirit is on me;

he’s chosen me to preach the Message of good news to the poor.

Sent me to announce pardon to prisoners and recovery of sight to the blind.

To set the battered and burdened free,

To announce, “This is God’s year to act” (Luke 4.16-21 The Message)

The rest, as they say, is history.

So, I’m in a bit more of the Christmas spirit this morning. If Jesus could walk among us, “Loving God and loving others” then I’m inclined to follow in his footsteps. It isn’t always the popular thing. After all, he tended to upset the proverbial apple cart. “You’ve heard it said… but I say to you” tends to rub some people the wrong way. I guess we all tend to do that…

I’m so glad that God chose to enter the world the way he did. “Emmanuel” – God is with us.

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Merry Christmas y’all!

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Holy Moments

December 18, 2018 gregoryjoel

Thoughts from the Porch: Holy moments. If you’ve experienced them, I don’t need to explain them. You know. They are the moments when time stands still, vision and hearing sharpened, and the wonder of the universe pours over you. In a brief instant, everything fades away, but we momentarily touched eternity and saw beyond our little world.

I’ve experienced them before. They always come on the cusp of change, as if God says, “watch this”. It happened a couple of nights ago. I stand in anticipation of what to do next…

I had finished dinner with Margaret and was cleaning up the kitchen. Terribly mundane stuff I might add. A song, “Lead Me to the Cross”, played from the other room causing me to stop what I was doing and retire to the desk to listen.

A wave of emotion rolled over me. Sometimes I forget just what grace cost the Creator and grantor of unending grace. Sometimes I forget that worship and praise for the God of my limited understanding is the only response to the miracles in my world.

The song ended, and I retreated to the porch. Darkness had fallen, yet everything appeared brighter, the stars more visible even in the city lights. I could, “a mouse pee on cotton” as Uncle Carl used to say. Yet, everything was perfectly still. I was struck by the stillness while being amazed and overcome with awe. Even in the windless, motionless quiet of the evening, everything around me was in constant motion: bound together by a mass of whirring atoms. All was well. Nothing had changed, yet everything had changed.

A holy moment can come anywhere, at any time. Ironically, they rarely happen in churches…

I’m not sure how long I sat there. Cleaning up, working on the next appeal letter or blog post, the things that make up daily living – they all faded away. There was nothing to do but stay in the moment. Maybe that is what God meant when He said to “be still and know that I am God”. I couldn’t help but be keenly aware of the holiness of this precious moment.

Slowly, the world began to spin once again. The sound of cars on the nearby freeway began to creep in. My first thought was to write about this incredible experience. I rushed to the desk and stared at the keyboard for several minutes. I realized there was absolutely nothing for me to say. To anyone who shared such an experience my explanations would only deal an injustice to the moment. To anyone who hadn’t, well, they just wouldn’t understand.

Ironically, the song that started it all, “Lead Me to the Cross” was extremely short-sighted. I’m grateful it was the impetus for my holy moment, but the path doesn’t stop at a cross. It leads to an empty tomb, a resurrection, and a new life of abundance, joy, and a whole new definition of what constitutes common sense.

Margaret often reminds me of how blessed we are to get “to live two lives in one lifetime”. Holy moments are reminders of that. Resurrection people know what I mean. They know what it is for the self-centered ego to die and be reborn – to emerge from the tomb, so to speak.

I’d love for you to share your “holy moment” or moments. What inspires you to live better? that.

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An Attitude of Gratitude

December 14, 2018 gregoryjoel

Thoughts from the Porch: I wasn’t going to write today, my thoughts anyway. I have a ‘to-do’ list a mile long. It’s a blustery, chilly morning so ‘porch time’ was brief. The coming days bring more pressing matters to the ‘to-do’ list. It’s all good stuff, mind you, but suddenly there seems to be a shortage of hours in the day.

Even though our time on the porch was brief, my wife made it a holy moment for us both. She recounted a phone call yesterday from a friend. The gist of the conversation was how much her friend appreciated my wife. Both of us were a bit teary-eyed by the gratitude we felt. Prayer came easier afterward, even if all we could muster was “thank you God”.

I write of gratitude often. Probably more than anyone wants to hear if I get honest. I remember a friend told me several years ago there were only two topics worth talking or writing about: grace and gratitude. It’s taken a few years, but today I know what he meant. I hope that you, gentle reader, aren’t bored by my seeming lack of topical diversity.

In my interactions with other folks I’ve noted that those who have experienced the depths of God’s grace have one common denominator: gratitude. Gratitude seems to be directly proportionate to grace. The deeper the experience of grace the more gratitude one feels and lives out.

Gratitude changes the way I see the world. I’m more patient, courteous, and giving when I’m grateful. I’m more honest when I admit my own faults and in turn, more tolerant of other folk’s faults. I experience far less conflict and greater serenity. I don’t feel obligated to have “my” way as often. “Enough” is word I understand today.

I don’t always stay there. I still slide into worry, morbid self-reflection, and stubbornness at times. I’ve also come to acknowledge my own humanity with all its imperfections. It doesn’t take me as long to get back to an “attitude of gratitude”. That usually is the result of an awareness of grace. Funny how it all works…

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What’s For Breakfast?

December 10, 2018December 13, 2018 gregoryjoel

Thoughts from the Porch: I don’t get to see the sun breaking above the horizon due to the way the houses sit around our little cul-de-sac. Light slowly comes over the roof of our next door neighbor’s house and the porchgrows brighter. It’s much faster now that the trees have shed their leaves forthe winter. Something about watching dawn break makes me feel more alive, more awed by the God of creation. What a way to start the day…

I used to dread seeing the sunrise, especially on Mondaymornings. The weekend was over. It was back to work. ‘Work’ was a four-letter word. It’s not that way anymore, though.

Things have changed over the last ten or fifteen years. I lookforward to Mondays. I know you may find that hard to believe, but I really do. In fact, I like most mornings.

Dawn dispels the night and reawakens the world for anotherday. I’m reminded that I “woke up on the right side of the roots”, as my friend Charlie says. I’m here for another day, another opportunity…

That wise old sage, Winnie the Pooh, was having a discussion with his friend, Piglet, about the first thought they had in the morning. Piglet told himself, “I wonder what’s going to happen exciting today?”

Pooh, being the practical bear that he is, said he asked himself, “what’sfor breakfast?” I like that…

“What’s for breakfast?” has become a mantra of sorts. Itreminds me to take care of what’s immediately before me, to “do the next rightthing”, whatever that may be. Most of the time, it’s routine – crawl out of bed, the morning toilette, and make a pot of coffee. By the time I get to the porch, I have an idea what needs to be done today. I also know God often hasother plans.

I’ve heard the phrase “do the next right thing” for years. If I’m honest, I don’t always know what the “next right thing” is. It’s easy to get caught up in the ‘to-do’ list, head off in another direction, and miss the ‘next right thing’ there in front of me.

I think that’s why my ‘porch time’ has become so important. My friend Edgar likes to remind me that when I take care of the spiritual man, the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of being tends to take care of themselves. Funny how that echoes Jesus’ admonition, “Love God and love others. Do that and everything else will take care of itself”.

The porch gets me ready for the day. Conversing with God keeps me centered and gives me clarity of vision. It’s much easier to see the “next right thing” when it appears. Sometimes that means altering my plans in order to follows God’s…

I hope I become more like Pooh Bear as I grow older. I hope I always ask the right question, “What’s for breakfast?” When I focus on that I don’t have to wonder what exciting things are going to happen. They just happen: a natural consequence of taking care of breakfast first.

So, what’s for breakfast today?