Memory Banking

I took a canoe ride and a walk along a back trail yesterday.  It was a good walk.  When I have a lot of time to myself, I tend to get pretty introspective.  I have wondered with increasing seriousness if this will indeed be the last summer I spend in our home here.  This being the 3rd year that our house is for sale, I have wondered this before.  With increasing certainty, I feel this will be it, regardless of whether we move to Africa or not.  I don't know when God will sell our house.  I don't know why He hasn't done it yet, or even if He will in the way we hope.  It probably won't be the way we expect.  God likes to keep us on our toes!

It really is amazing how beautiful something is when you know it won't be yours forever.  Breathing in the cool, clean air that has a uniquely Alaskan scent of moss, spruce, and swamp decomposition, makes me nostalgic.  Walking through the woods with trees covered in lichen and "Old Man's Beard" moss and being surprised by the bright green patches of wood ferns reminds me how much I will miss.  I know it won't be the same to go for walks with defense items in case I run into a moose mama with her newborn red-haired calf.

When will I ever go back to the house in a canoe across my pond?

These are little gifts of memories that I hope I can enjoy until the time God calls us on to our next adventure!

The Grass is Greener Syndrome

 Having spent the last month in the bay area of California, I have remembered my love of the color green. I was sent rather short-notice and packed a bit too warm for the area.  It didn't take me long to soak in the green grass, blooming lavender and other flowers around my hotel.  It was a sweet consolation for an otherwise difficult job.

Upon my return to a very snowy home back in Alaska, I quickly began to wish for a change of "home."  Why did it have to snow more this year than ever?  (I don't know the exact numbers, but we have had a LOT of snow this winter... so far.)  This means that it will take even longer to see my own lawn this year.
Oh how I miss green grass!
As if God knew this would be in this brain of mine, he set it to my Pastor to quote someone, I forget who, saying, "If the grass is greener on the other side, then it's time to water your own lawn."

I could get all negative and literal, explaining the desire to water my lawn but it's covered in 5 feet of packed snow, but I'll take the figurative intention and realize that I have ways to make my life content.  Most of this "watering" is rooted (pun intended!) in spiritual discipline.  I must admit that I am lacking in this most important way.  When I stop feeding myself with the Word, I feel distracted, flighty, discontent, and ungrateful.  I look at others and pine for whatever they have that seems to be lacking in my life.

On CBS Sunday Morning, a show I must watch every week, they had a little segment discussing the falsity of the literal "greener grass" syndrome.  Let me explain.  When one looks over a fence or what-have-you at the lawn across the way, it often appears to be greener because of the angle of the view.  Grass blades are long and slender, giving the most green color viewing from the side.  When looking upon the same blades of grass from above, the view is more of the tips and edges, and often some dirt, giving a much less green appearance.

Basically it's perspective.  When I think my life is too lowly for me to participate in it, and I feel like changing lawns, what I really need is to get down and roll around; get my eyes to the level of the blades.  This may mean getting dirty, grass-stains and all, to really see what I have.  (There are so many puns & allegorical thoughts here, but I'll restrain myself - they could get very old!)   I have to engage more deeply in the life I have been given to nurture it.  Then maybe, just maybe, someone else will ask what I'm doing to have such a healthy, green life, and I can point them to the Maker and Sustainer of it all.

Makeover

It was time for me to refresh.  The blog and myself.

I made a hair appointment.  I plan on spending a ridiculous amount of money on my hair.  I absolutely hate to do it (really), but this "blah" feeling has got to change!  I think it's time to change it up and I can't do it myself.

Sounds like the rest of my life.  I need to make some long-term changes that I can't do myself.  I've somehow let myself gain some habits that I don't like and don't help me.  Most of these are mental habits.  I realized that my thought patterns are different than they used to be.  I used to be extremely flexible and rarely stressed over anything (to my husband's utter dismay).  I had very little fear in life.

Now I'm afraid.  I'm afraid that things will stay the same.  I am very strange in this, I know, but I've never loved "stability."  I've loved the constant change in life and the new challenges that bring new learning.  The limbo that we are in right now with the waiting of our house to sell (13 months now) is frustrating.  I feel boxed in, closed up, claustrophobic, powerless.

My plan (thanks to the prompting of friends' suggested reading and other ways of the Holy Spirit) is to actually employ the tactics that I have been avoiding for months.  Counting my blessings.  Praising the Lord.  Being grateful.  In other words, being pro-active against my "Eve-Complex."

As spiritual as it all sounds, I still need a physical jump-start!  Thus, my hair appointment next Thursday.

A fresh start.

Stepping Out

Yeah, this moose is just prancing on the top of the quickly melting lake ice.  This is actually a rare sight, as they typically have more sense than this.  Plus there's no food out there.  It's all around the safe shores. But isn't it fun?!  Daring...Exciting, even?!    

 I feel a little like stepping out.

OK, not exactly.  This was my "Easter Outfit."

Notice the rotting ice behind me.  A day or two before this shot and a day or two after the moose was out, I stepped out on the ice and heard a huge POP!  The ice cracked loudly.

The funny thing was, instead of stepping back onto the safe shores, I ran out onto the ice into the middle.    

You see, the ice is really thick in the middle and thinner around the edge.  

I find it really interesting that I chose this direction instead of the safe shore walk.  It would have been longer, but certainly safer.  (The only real danger was dipping a few inches - the ice is still feet thick!)

I feel a little like my life is very similar.  I feel like I just heard the POP and my next move is to jump out, not back.  I'm needing to run out to the middle where even though I know it's solid, my adrenaline is pumping!  I also know that when I get across, I'm going to have to trust that I can jump to safety again.  It also feels like it shouldn't make sense: like the moose, it doesn't feel like there's anything out here.  I'm not exactly sure what I'm doing, and there is certainly a burst of fear-ridden adrenaline, but ultimately I know I'll be safe.  

God does not ask us or push us out to places where we will sink.  He does put us in places where we will sink without Him.  He wants our complete dependence, complete trust, complete self.  I want to step out in complete reliance on my Savior who put Himself on a Cross for me.  There is nothing He will ask of me that will compare to what He did for me.

My "Eve" Complex

Evidenced from my lack of interest in blog-world, I've had a rough winter.

I think it's a combination of several things; lack of sunlight (Seasonal Affective Disorder), Vitamin D deficiency, not enough exercise, and some complacency of negative thinking.  I have happy lights and vitamins, but honestly, I'm having trouble with more exercise!  I'm hoping that with the brightening sunlight and melting snow, this will resolve itself in no time.  I'm also thinking the happy lights could go away til October.

The negative thinking has been a harder one to acknowledge and change.  I have done Bible studies on the topic, heard sermons, and even discussed the benefits of positive mental attitudes, but somehow this winter I just could not see past the things which I did not have.  A wise man (not my husband, this time) explained this as the "Eve Complex."  As wonderful of a life, perfect really, as Eve had it, she still could not see past the one thing (literally) that she could not have.  This has had a huge impact on me.  I have always looked down on Eve and could not understand why she did it.  I don't have quite the perfect life that Eve had, but I had focused too much on what I was missing, and not enjoying what I have, just like her.  This is an extremely simple version, but simple things are not always easy.

I've also discovered that I am a linear thinker.  Almost to a perfectionist level.  Instead of feeling as though things are good if they are "pretty good," I think of things as either bad or perfect.  You can see where this will set me up for disappointment.  I was challenged recently to consider being content with things if they are less than perfect.  Let me share how freeing this can be when practiced!  And practice it takes, at least for me, I've found.

After sharing some about my struggles, I have discovered I am not in a minority.  To avoid the "misery loves company" idea, I'd rather share to help others to avoid this little quick-sand-trap.  I also believe that this is not just a positive thinking idea, but rather a very Biblical model.  Philippians 4 talks about what we are to pursue with our minds.  David prays that God would search his thoughts to check him if he is heading in the wrong direction in Psalm 139:23-24.  Paul talks frequently about the power of our thoughts; among which how we ought to take each thought captive to the obedience of Christ in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians.

Knowing that I struggle with this specifically in the winter, I hope that I can remember the importance of placing my thoughts under the authority of the Holy Spirit who dwells in me.  I'll admit that I often chose to wallow, thinking I'd just get over it in a day or two, but allowing that little bit is dangerous.  Stepping into quicksand just a little is enough to get stuck.  And sink.  Just ask Eve.