I have always believed that the Father wants us to learn something from where we are. Whether we learn a lesson about how we got to the place we are in (good or bad), or whether we have a life lesson that will help in the future, it’s good to take every opportunity to dig deep into growing closer to our Abba and His children.
Some of my ponderings lately have been about this isolation we are all finding ourselves in. What can we do to grow as stronger and kinder people amid the segregation?
One of the lessons I’m learning is to appreciate the people in my life. There is obviously something that can be gained from drawing closer to my family and appreciating the gifts, talents, love languages, strengths and challenges that have all been put together in one place.
Learning to Love Family is key.
We have been a family that educates at home for 27 years. We are also self-employed and have fellowship with a handful of other families, so we’re already in the lifestyle of home being the base of everything we do. But through this, there is even more that can be done to draw closer and cherish family members.
Finding out what makes each person thrive, what makes them light up and become a better version of who they are, is my goal. I want to find their love language and their “body part” (1 Cor. 12) and their spiritual gifts so that I can see them come into that “a-ha!” place of, “This is me, and I love it!” Only then can the family function together at its best with everyone doing their part.
The same is true of those we don’t get to see right now.
Each one of our friends and extended family has an “a-ha!” place that we need to cherish. We can use this time to figure out how to celebrate each person we know so that when we are able to see them again our relationships will be even stronger for the separation.
Be honest with yourself, do you tend to look favorably on others? Or the opposite?
I really like how 1 Corinthians 12:21 puts it, “And the eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you”; or again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” Sometimes we don’t understand someone else’s purpose, because it isn’t our own! But what if we were all eyes? How would we get around?
Ways to use this time to love other people:
1) Study the parts of the body, the spiritual gifts, and the love languages, and figure out your friends and family so you can treat them with love the way they receive best.
2) Call people! Build them up and let them know what you like about them.
3) Look for the best in those that may irritate you, celebrate their differences!
If this "body part" idea is new to you, I'll be posting more about how to discover family and friends' strengths, gifts and body parts soon.
If this info is something you enjoy, you might want my guide on How to Thrive and Not Just Survive, to get that you can click HERE.
I'd love to hear how you are doing in this time of isolation? What lessons have you been learning? You can put it in the comments.
I'm excessively frugal!! I always have been.
It started when Gary and I were first married and his boss "forgot" to pay him for about 2 years (or the costumers weren't paying, or some other excuse of the day). Gary loved his job as a fisheries biologist, but he couldn't support a wife and children on hardly any income.
But during this time I became REALLY good at staying within a budget, I was crazy good at keeping our grocery bill extremely low.
The problem was, I was buying trashy food and trashy household products in an effort to spend as little as possible.
The consequence of this was, every time I'd save on groceries, I was spending more on doctors or counselors (my hormones and adrenals were shot from the artificial ingredients I was forcing on my body while thinking I was saving money). I had severe depression, was having miscarriages, was angry all of the time, and spent the greater part of every day hiding from the world.
I didn't know toxic food and products were the culprits, so this lasted for YEARS! All the while I thought I was so wise at saving money.
I finally put 2 and 2 together and started searching for natural things. Again the frugal side of me came into play and I tried to buy cheap "natural" products.... But I saw no change in my health.
Enter Young Living. I was going to fix my health no matter the cost, I was going to heal from depression and feel better. No. Matter. What!
I thought at first that the cost was high, but if you could talk to my husband about what I've saved over the years, you'd be astounded.
I've saved on:
Insurance
Counselors
Doctor visits
Medications
Missed days
Missed relationships
No more worry, sadness, and fear
And I'm still being frugal, still saving money, still being wise financially. It just looks different. It looks better!!
When driving by deer here in the mountains you need to drive really slowly because one may jump out at you at the last moment.
Adelaide asked my why they sit there staring at you and then finally jump toward the car.
It gave me an opportunity to chat with her about stress, cortisol, and "Fight, Flight, or Freeze". (Yes, we have some unusual conversations around here!)
We wondered if deer might have the same response to fear and stress as we do.
When people get busy, stressed, worried, and afraid, our bodies send out a chemical called Cortisol that stops our brain from reasoning, and our gut from digesting.
The reason for this, people think, is that when we're running for our lives, we don't want to have to stop to reason it out or digest our food; we just need to get to safety.
That is why, if you have too much stress in your life, you might be putting on weight or having gut problems... which might look like skin problems, indigestion, allergies, and emotional highs and lows. You also might have fuzzy thinking, concentration problems, and sleep issues.
Also, Cortisol and Melatonin don't survive well in the same system. So the need to decrease Cortisol at the same time as increasing melatonin, is crucial when trying to heal from stress overload. Also, very slowly supporting the adrenals to not overtax is very important. Quick attempts at healing can be devastating to the adrenals, we must go very slow, avoid drama of all kinds, and get lots of rest.
Years ago I had such terrible adrenal fatigue that it was causing me to not know how to live day by day. But I was able to overcome it through prayer, rest, and a nutritional and oil protocol that brought freedom. If you know you need some healing in this area, let me know. I am happy to share with you the steps I took to finally be free.
The deer along the side of the road were such a beautiful reminder to me of where I was and how far I've come. I'm so thankful to be healed!
As I got closer to the kitchen, I thought maybe it was the chicken bucket. We keep a bucket of scraps to supplement our chicken feed. So I put the bucket outside to be taken to the chickens and went down to pray. I came back up awhile later and as I opened the door, I was hit in the face with this hideous smell! OK, it wasn't the chicken bucket, and I WAS going to figure out what it was. I walked toward the pantry and the smell got stronger... it must be rotten potatoes!
Even now, I bet some of you can smell it as I mention it. The smell is quite distinct and unmistakable!
So I searched through the potato box to see if I could figure it out. Nope! Nothing there! I searched around awhile longer, I knew it was there somewhere, but I finally had to give up. I had way too much to do to keep wasting time like this.
Awhile later, as the smell got stronger, I enlisted Gary's help. He agreed it had to be a potato, so he started moving heavy things around. WE FOUND IT! Hidden behind a 50 lb bucket of rice, not just one rotten potato, but an ENTIRE bag of potatoes that had turned to complete liquid!! How did we not notice the smell before? How could that have been hidden for so long?
Then I started musing.... so often we think we look OK from the outside, everything seems to be in order. We've got it all together, everything in its place. But we know that underneath, hiding away, there is something off. And though we think we're hiding it, the smell of something being "not quite right" lingers.
Everyone forgets a hidden potato every now and again, or we wouldn't all know what it smells like. But it's when we keep ignoring the problem that the stench becomes too strong. That's when we might need some help from a friend. We might need to humble ourselves and see if we can get support in "rooting" out the issue.
The longer a rotten potato, or a bad attitude, or an angry heart, or a heart that won't forgive keeps hidden, the worse the problem becomes. The initial stink is pretty yucky, but when it's gone you'll be SO relieved!!
What this means is that our appliances have to work harder, and so sometimes the dishes don't get really clean. I'm not the only one who does dishes in our home, so sometimes a really dirty cup, dish or utensil might escape notice and get put away.
If you have a favorite tea/coffee cup, you know that you want that cup to be ready when you are. You don't want to wake up and find your cup coated with some kind of muck that didn't get washed out in the dishwasher, and then you have to stop to clean it before you can have your first cup of eye-opening coffee or peace-giving tea. When I'm first awake, I need to just grab my tea to get to my quiet time with the Father. I don't want to stop first to clean things.
But here's the rub.... Sometimes we want to be filled with the Father, with his life-giving presence and His overflowing peace. But our heart is so hard that the muck from the day before didn't get thoroughly washed out. It's nasty to wake up to a dirty cup, but it's much worse to not even notice that the cup is dirty! Then you fill it up and take that first scummy sip, and.... YUCK!
Have you considered that you could be mucked up with yucky lies that you've believed or wounds that you've inherited and are passing on to others?
Father has pure water He wants to fill you with, but if you still have nastiness around the edges, that water won't stay pure for long. And, yes, it's noticeable to others when our pure water is mucked up, it's not something any of us can hide for long.
You are one of the Father's favorite cups! He wants to use you! You need to be ready to be used when He wants to fill you and use you for His purposes. Are you dealing with hardness that needs to be softened? Are you sitting there with dirty old scum instead of getting yourself clean so you can be used?
The beauty is, He'll do the washing if you will bring yourself to Him and ask Him to get you ready. He knows the best method for scum removal, He's a specialist!
