BuiltaLife

Offering hope to those on the path behind me

Category: 31 Day Challenge (Page 3 of 7)

“Your future hasn’t been written yet”

10/21/2015 / / 0 Comments

October 21, 2015. The day Marty McFly visited in the ‘future’.

We all wanted to believe that there would be hover boards available by now. But, low there are no hover boards like Marty used. Nor are there Nike shoes that fit to your foot by pressing a button (that would actually be very handy for me, but that is a whole other story).

If you were a child of the 80’s you have likely seen the movies and waited patiently for October 21, 2015. It was all over the internet today. It is an unofficial (or maybe an official) Michael J. Fox day for many of us.

On my drive today, I was really hoping to see a DeLorean. But that did not happen 🙁

At the end of the third movie Marty asks Doc about a blank piece of paper that he brought back from the future. Doc explains to Marty “It means your future hasn’t been written yet. No one’s has. Your future is whatever you make it.”

So how I am going to tie this into a bible verse? If we look at  Matthew 6:34 from the Message:

Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don’t Get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes.

We don’t need a time machine to take us to the future. In fact, we need to only focus on what is going on right now. Do not get worked up about the future. The future is unwritten. But if we stay close to God, he will help us when the time comes.

Sorry for the duplicate verse today, but Happy Back to the Future Day! (And I’m pretty bummed that it doesn’t look good for the Cubs to win the World Series)

God understands our anger

10/20/2015 / / 8 Comments

It has been 4 weeks since our lives changed, again.

I will be honest, I have really come to dislike October.

I was originally diagnosed with cancer in October 2003. In October 2010 I was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer. And now, my husband (although his was actually the end of September).

Does every family have a time period where they just hold their breath and hope they get through without some other shoe dropping?

I have had good days and bad days. Today was a bad day. Not because anything happened, but just because.

I am so grateful that I have a friend who will let me vent and complain and not try to solve my problems. I mean, let’s face it, my current problems are a little bigger than a flat tire. She was able to talk me out of the pit I was finding myself in.

I did a search on Google for bible verses when you are angry at God because I just could not look for an inspirational bible verse today.

Instead I found this article about Jeremiah 20. Jeremiah was angry at God.

Did I learn anything about myself and my relationship with God? YES.

  • It is OK to be angry at God. We are human after all. We do not understand His ways. God already knows we are angry. He welcomes the fact that we will talk to him about it.
  • I wrote about pretending earlier this month. And I still believe that. If you can continue to be faithful, even when you don’t want to be, it will become second nature and you won’t be pretending any longer. But be honest with your friends and yourself. You can be angry at God and still be faithful.
  • Being angry with God does not mean that you separate yourself from Him. Not unlike a parent/child relationship, God still loves us even when we are mad at Him.

My biggest take away from today is that the sooner I acknowledge my anger with God, the sooner I can recognize how God is working in my life.

Are you Passionate?

10/19/2015 / / 0 Comments

Do you have Passion Envy? I used to think I did.

Websters defines passion as “a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or about doing something.”

It seems like everyone is passionate about something. Just open up Google and type in something you are interested in like Coffee and then add the word blog to it. Most likely you will find many sites related to the subject (here is what I found when I searched coffee blog, about 286,000 results).

Everyone wants to have a passion and share their passion.

But what if you haven’t found your passion, or worse (gasp) don’t have a passion? (You can even find hundreds of blogs about that too).

This morning I’m sitting on my back deck, drinking coffee (that I have not blogged about) and wondering once again if there is something I’m passionate about.

I think my problem is the word itself. It evokes such a strong sense of “what am I DYING to share with the world?” The word itself intimidates me.

There are so many things that I love. But I have been a very private person most of my life. Some would say quiet, some would say introvert. But I don’t usually share all of the details of my life. In this world of social media there is the tendency to overshare. I saw a great cartoon about this yesterday. A waiter asked a couple if there was a problem with their food, they looked puzzled and the second caption said “you haven’t posted a picture of your meal.”

Passion heart

While there are things that I am passionate about I hold them close to my heart so as not to lose the importance of them.

I have friends who are very good at sharing their passions. I have even gotten involved with direct marketing companies because my friends are passionate (currently I use essential oils through a direct marketing company. I love the products but I’m not passionate about sharing it with everyone I know, maybe that’s the introvert in me).

There are times when I wish I could exude the passion for some of these things and “Find my Why.” But that has been ever elusive.

This morning as I sit outside enjoying this “fall morning” (I use the quotes because we are in Texas and I’m enjoying my coffee while wearing a light jacket because it is 52 degrees, but later today it will be 85 and I will be in shorts) I realize that my “Why” died on a cross for me. I’m not here to share about the best cup of coffee that I ever had. I’m here to show the world what it means to  love and be loved.

Today’s verse of inspiration comes from Matthew 25:23

His master replied, “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness.”

It is the “well done, good and faithful servant” that I am after. I want to hear those words at the end of my journey.

So I guess my passion is to live a life well lived and to share that with others.

What is your passion?

What Gift have you left unused?

10/18/2015 / / 0 Comments

Have you ever received a gift and let it sit on the shelf, unopened and unused?

I’m sure I’m not the only one that has done that.

But have you received a gift from God that you have been too afraid to open and use? Yeah, me too.

That is what these #write31days have been about for me (yes, I realize we are only at day 18).

My original plan was to write 31 days of encouragement. Then circumstances changed and I wasn’t sure I could do it. How could I be encouraging while life was going crazy around me?

So as the calendar turned to October and I decided to follow through on my commitment to myself and the other 31 dayers, my focus changed. It started out about finding our way in this new situation.

But God has a way of bringing me back around. As the month progressed I started finding different bible verses that spoke to me or encouraged me on this new journey.

And as I wrote, I was feeling encouraged. I was feeling like I could make it through this. I was feeling like God was bringing me back to the plan of encouragement.

You see, I have been hearing about this from God, even started to believe myself that maybe I have the gift of encouragement. I have never thought of myself as having that gift. Living life as a cancer ‘thriver’ never really seemed that encouraging to me. It was just the hand I was dealt and I figured I might as well make the best of what I have.

So today I found this verse from 1 Peter 4:10

Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others,  as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.

Today, and for the foreseeable future, I am going to use the gift of encouragement to serve my husband. To show him God’s grace, that he may believe that there is power in prayer, power in trusting in God, and power in faith.

What gift from God do you need to take off the shelf, dust off and share as a faithful servant?

Love by Actions

10/17/2015 / / 1 Comment

My youngest daughter is a senior in high school. She is part of the color guard in marching band.

I have difficulty going to football games and sitting in the stands due to surgery that I had on my hip several years ago. But this year, I wanted to attend as many home games as possible to watch the band perform. Of course, as you know, the issues with my husband has limited my ability even further to go to the games.

Last night was the big rivalry game with the school that is just 5 miles down the road. It was also the night before the UIL marching contest.

I asked my daughter to text me when they went down on the field to warm up just before halftime and I went up to the field and watched the performance. Luckily we live only a couple of blocks from the school so I was able to get up there in time to see them perform.

I was happy I was finally able to get up to a game and see the band’s show. ‘

My daughter knows that I love her, but sometimes, we must show them how important they are to us.

Because of the time in the hospital (over a week) and the inability of my husband to do too much on his own because of pain and discomfort, I have not been able to do as much as I would like to show my daughter with actions how much I love her.

She knew I was coming to the game last night at halftime and was pleased to see me afterwards. But today, I surprised her even further.

Today was marching UIL contest. Which means all of the schools in our district perform their shows and receive scores from judges. If your school gets a score of 1, they get to advance to Area.

In Texas, because there are so many schools, advancing only happens every other year. This is a year for the size school she attends to advance. The band has not been to state since my girls have been participating (I’m not really sure the last time the band qualified to advance to state). This year, the seniors are determined to change that. Their unofficial motto is #statebound.

As I sat watching college football with my husband, I was reminded of 1 James 3:18

Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth.

Today I decided to let my actions speak for me. My husband has been resting comfortably and I thought I could leave him for a couple of hours and ‘surprise’ my daughter by showing up at the contest.

I got there just as they were marching in and, although I saw her, she did not see me (so focused on the task ahead). I climbed up the steps in the stadium, found a seat that allowed me an unobstructed view and watched with pride as the band performed.

It wasn’t until after the show was over and the band was headed off to take the official pictures, that she saw me. I’m not sure if it was just me, but her eyes seemed to light up when she saw me. My 17 year-old smiled and said “Hey mom. I didn’t know you were coming.” Surprise!

By taking just a few hours out of my day, trusting that my husband would be fine resting with college football on the television, I showed my daughter that, even though I need to spend my energy and time taking care of her dad/my husband more than usual right now, I still value and love her.

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