The Daily Schedule

For a majority of people, excluding active government agents, those who travel frequently and new mothers, our lives are steady and usual. Each weekday is so similar that a schedule is maintained. It is within the ordinary for this schedule to vary only minor degrees from month to month. For those steadfast individuals it may continue on into years without interruption.

A bomb comes in many varieties. It is always explosive but that explosion can be physically non-destructive, moving us physically from our home, our job or a relationship. Physically it can explode within our health causing damage that requires doctor’s visits, surgeries or hospitalization. A bomb can explode emotionally causing heartache and/or hurt feelings. I will quickly agree that there can be a positive bomb but that’s another blog.

For today’s purpose I refer to a bomb, not necessairly good or bad, but that explodes and changes the course of your daily schedule. What is usual and ordinary; your current schedule ceases to exist. What do you do?

My usual and ordinary changed on June 6th. It was not an unexpected change but I didn’t know exactly how the explosion would affect my daily schedule. Now that it is several weeks into the change I’m going to label the affect a “refocusing”. I have been refocused. Several items that were scheduled before June 6th have lost their place on the list and ceased to be addressed. These tasks I once monitored daily/weekly are currently gathering dust, unnoticed. My blog is among those items that grow dusty in the aftermath of the bomb change.

My small band of followers and subscribers are the motivation that keeps me honing my skill as a writer. Your interest affirms my desire to write; to share my words and thoughts. Although the bomb has shifted the daily schedule it has not removed the desire. As with most ‘bombs’ Helen Steiner Rice says it best, “This Too Shall Pass”.

When another bomb drops, or change occurs, and my schedule shifts once again my blog will reappear on the weekly list. I look forward to finding you all here.

“If I can but keep on believing
What I know in my heart to be true,
That darkness will fade with the morning
And that this will pass away, too” Helen Steiner Rice

What ‘bombs’ have shifted your daily life?

Another Treasure of the Heart

This weekend my husband and I took our seventeen year old to attend a five week, internship program, six hours away, at a major university.  It is a perfect trial run at "off to college" and we all handled ourselves well at the moment of departure.  In recognition of this I'd like to share another excerpt from my Treasures of the Heart.  Luke 2:51, “Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart.” NIV


January, 2004
Mrs. Brower works with the special ed. kids and brings them into Logan's 5th grade homeroom for mainstreaming.  During my volunteer time today she said to me, "I don't remember what we were studying but Mrs. Brammer was asking about the connection between forgiveness and eraser.  Your son raised his hand and said, 'Forgiveness is like the eraser for your soul.'  I thought that was really deep for someone this age." 
 
Do you have a treasure of the heart you'd like to share?

Long Suffering in Marriage; How long is too long?

I don’t follow public figures as a “fan.” I understand the concept of being a “fan.” As a teenager, I was enamored with the cover boys of Teen Beat Magazine but I left that behind with my teens. This being said I cannot express my disappointment when I read that Al and Tipper Gore have chosen to separate after 40 years of marriage.

They have chosen a public life along with representation of national and global issues. This has definately brought intense public scrutiny over many years. It is understandable that this alone would be a heavy burden on a marriage but to add the standard day to day issues every marriage goes through it is no surprise that there has been tough times.  Ending a marriage after 40 years begs to ask the question, “why?” Is there nothing worth salvaging? After 40 years, has the weight become so heavy there is no other alternative?

I am disappointed at the message they are sending to so many. I don’t know what the spiritual lives of the Gore’s are but such a public couple undermines marriages across the gamut. My husband is teaching a course entitled “Understanding Christian Marriage”. He asked his class, “What is a Christian marriage? Christ wasn’t married so how could a marriage be Christ-like. Is it two Christians being married?”

I believe a Christian marriage is ourselves being Christ-like in our marriage. It is difficult to find a full example of a ‘good’ marriage in the Bible. Even the example of Christ as the bridegroom and the church as the bride, the bride is adulterous.

The positive example we must take from the Bible on marriage is how long-suffering God is in his relationship with his adulterous bride. We sin and keep sinning and God continues to show mercy and forgiveness, taking us back again and again. At what point in our marriages do we decide we have no more mercy, no more forgiveness. When do we decide that we have suffered enough and we will suffer no more? At what point do we want God to decide he has suffered over us enough?

What the Bible shows is that all relationships are difficult. All relationships require long-suffering. If we are Christ-like in our behavior and work on our relationship perhaps we will not “grow apart" and our lives won’t get “more and more separated”; we won’t reach a “mutual and mutually supportive decision” to break the vows we made to each other. Gary Smalley is the author of the book “Making Love Last Forever.” It is highly recommended for every couple whether your marriage is strong or weak.

When do we want God to decide that He has suffered enough? When do we want God to decide he has no more mercy or forgiveness for us?

Matthew 7:2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. (NIV)

Unequal Yoking Equals a Rough Journey