Push the button to reset your 2013 goals
When I’m in yoga class standing on one leg with my arms above my head and I wobble, I hear my instructor call out “reset”.
What does reset mean? Merriam Webster defines it as to set again or anew.
If you lose your balance in yoga, you reset. If you lose your balance in life, you can also reset.
We are now almost four weeks into 2013. How’s it going so far? We love to set goals and make resolutions and plan out calendars and workouts and vacations and to do lists when January 1st rolls round. But frequently we set goals and make plans that are out of our reach, below our capabilities or just plain silly. Sometimes we set awesome goals, but find excuses not to attain them. Sometimes life happens and our goals must change.
Goals are important, critical to growth, actually. They’re how we get from here to there, but they are also fluid and need constant revising.
For me, I’ll be celebrating Christmas on Ground Hog’s Day. That wasn’t the plan. It didn’t make any of my lists, but due to family medical emergencies, February is when we can all get together.
RESET
I am thrilled, giddy, honored, humbled and blessed to announce the first two books in my latest series will release in April. I didn’t know have this information on January 1. This exciting news changes all of my writing goals for the year. I need to focus on the release of those two titles. I need to shelve rewriting a novel I was working on and instead start writing the third book in this series. All fab stuff, but...
RESET
Blessed to share the book cover for my newest novel to release in April, It's Complicated.
How about you? Has anything happened to change your plans? If you’re an athlete an injury could switch you from developing new skills to rehabilitating. If your family is moving, you might change your focus from organizing your closet to how to decorate your new bedroom. Those 25 sit ups a day might be easier than you thought, or it might turn out it was taking on more than you could handle to assume you could practice your electric keyboard a whole hour every day.
How are you doing? Are you off balance? Have the wrong foot forward? Did something arise in your life that changes everything? Is something easier than you thought challenging you to push yourself harder? Are you facing the wrong direction? Or are you further ahead than planned? It's okay to change your original plan.
RESET
2 Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here!
I’d love to hear how you’re pushing the reset button and starting anew.
Roses my six-year old picked for me, giving me the best driving lesson of all.
The trickiest moment for me each day is pulling into my garage. Due to some optic issues (three eye surgeries as a child) I have no depth perception. Both sides of the garage seem to be closing in on me, or maybe they’re really far away – impossible to say. After nine years of driving my old car, I’d figured out the angle to head in, the timing of turning my wheel, the exact second to rotate the steering wheel counterclockwise to straighten out. But my trusty Mazda finally gave up, and I got a new one.
After enjoying all the fun new gadgets of a new car for four weeks (like heated seats on a chilly morning and being able to stream all my favorite tunes from my iPod through my speakers) I heard the noise - the sickening, shrill scraping, sound of metal on wood. I felt the pressure of the car against the frame of the garage as if it were pushing directly into my chest. And in this instant I was frozen, but I couldn’t stay there. I could not leave the car half in and half out.
How often in life do I get stuck – halfway between happy and sad, between starting and finishing, between resentment and forgiveness, between selfishness and selflessness, between letting go and holding on, between doing it for my good or for the good of God’s kingdom? Frozen in place, afraid to move forward or back.
If I pulled out, my car would scratch and smash its way out of its predicament. If I pulled forward I would scrape and bang my way in. Either way was guaranteed to cause even more damage. Yet I was forced to move.
Sometimes moving can be more intimidating than getting stuck.
I pulled the car the rest of the way into the garage, cringing as the wood continued to gouge my car’s side. Once in park, my kiddos jumped out to play in the yard, and I disembarked to assess the damage. Thick white streaks of garage paint scarred the black shiny veneer of my new vehicle. But I was safe. My kids were safe. The car still ran. And, I was no longer stuck.
While I was examining the scratches, my six-year old son came running to my side. He held three spectacular ruby red roses, sweet and fragrant. “These are for you, Mama.” He smiled.
Most of my life I’m driving along, happy, busy, content. But, when I’m wedged halfway between where I was and where I’m supposed to go, do I put 100% of my faith in Him? Am I willing to grind a little more, scrape my sides, take another gouge or two, sacrifice some time or comfort or success to get out of life’s traps?
If I come out of a mess with a few scars, isn’t that okay? Isn’t the important thing that I come out holding God’s hand?
Pulling my son close and feeling his warm little body in mine, I remembered what truly matters. Not cars. Not my ability to park or drive, not my determination to do things my way, to stay where I’m comfortable or to cave into the in-between.
When the going gets tough, sometimes it takes a few more scratches to come out of that tight spot. But once out, there is safety and peace and beauty and love. These lyrics from Holly Starr’s song, “My Cry” are the perfect prayer in these moments. “I will not stay here anymore. I’m not the way I was before. I need your strength. I need your help, Oh Lord.”
What do you need to grind out today to pull through the place where you’re stuck?
Every now and then, things need straightening in life. Teeth need braces.
Cars need their front ends realigned.
Mattresses need flipped.
Teeth need braces.
Every now and then things need straightening in life.
And then they need to be straightened again.
I had braces when I was in sixth grade. I had horrible, thick silver bands that dug into my gums. Wads of wax couldn’t provide comfort against the wicky-wacky wires poking the insides of my cheeks. My braces were so large and protruding my lips stuck out like a football player wearing a mouthpiece. Add that to my giant, bug-eye shaped glasses and permed hair, and I had quite the look going.
But thanks to the guidance of my orthodontist, my teeth shifted and straightened. My braces came off. My smile was in line.
And so it went until I was twenty-three and the pain in the back of my mouth felt like bee stings in my gums. My wild wisdom teeth decided not to come in up and down like normal teeth, but sideways instead – those rebels. They pushed along the other roots like dominoes squishing and slanting my smile, until all the work the braces had done was undone. The wisdom teeth were pulled. I got to drink a week’s worth of milkshakes, but the damage they’d done remained. My teeth were once again crooked.
And so, as an adult, I’m sporting braces AGAIN. They’re better this time. They’re clear, for one thing. Although not as “invisible” as their name, Invisaline, may indicate, they’re pretty close. Let’s just say my own mom didn’t notice them. They don’t dig into my gums, and since I pop them out to eat, gross particles of food don’t get stuck in them. But they’re still braces.
Some days as I’m turning down a piece of gum (because it’s impossible to chew with Invisalines on) or drooling with my mouth propped open in the orthodontist's chair, I ask myself, “How can I be doing this again?”
I often wonder the same thing about my life.
How can I need to get on track with my workouts again? When did I fall off track? It’s so hard to get back into it. I huff and puff and my muscles ache.
A venti here, an extra shot of espresso there - am I really drinking this much caffeine again – time to cut back, again. But those first few mornings, I’m soooo tired. I might even get a withdrawal headache. The list and its challenges goes on and on.
· How many times have I rewritten this manuscript?
· I can’t believe I messed up again, and therefore I need to ask forgiveness again.
· I continuously need to work on my patience. Each and every single day.
For some people it’s ‘I can’t believe I’m going back to school! I need to quit biting my nails again. Is it possible that I’m moving or switching jobs or starting a new relationship again?’
Although working on straightening things all over again, is sometimes overwhelming and initially discouraging, it is almost always worth it.
When I get back in the swing of regular workouts, I sleep better at night, breathe better at day and am less stressed. When I cut back on caffeine, I’m less anxious. My skin looks better. Every time I rewrite a manuscript the plot quickens and the characters come more alive. Every time I try to make amends for my mistakes, I feel better for trying to do the right thing. And every day I pray for patience, bite my tongue, or count to ten, I’m thankful I, at least for the time being, avoided doing or saying something I know I’ll regret. And soon, I’ll smile wide and bright and confident that my teeth, are once again aligned.
Make the road straight and smooth, a highway fit for our God. Fill in the valleys, level off the hills, smooth out the ruts, clear out the rocks. Then God’s bright glory will shine and everyone will see it. Isaiah 40: 3-5
Just because I’ve fixed something once in my life, doesn’t mean it’s fixed forever (just ask my car, which must be crushing on the mechanic, it likes to visit him so much).
Every now and then things need straightening in life.
And then they need to be straightened again.
What needs realigned in your life today?
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