Category Grace

Nobody is Born a Saint – Wise Words Wednesday

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Nobody is Born a Saint – Wise Words Wednesday

When it comes to being far from perfect, I’ve got imperfection in the spades. I often beat myself up for having so many flaws and petty insecurities. It’s tough being human. (Do you ever get down on yourself for being less than perfect?)

In his homily this past Sunday, Fr. Tony addressed the challenge that is posed to us by All Saints Day. With tremendous understanding and the right amount of humor, Fr. Tony reminded us that the canonized saints were human too. They struggled with jealousy, anger, fear, and weakness (among other things). In his narrative, Fr. Tony dared us to be like the saints. His All Saints Day challenge is to live with love, compassion, and faith at the center of our thoughts and actions in spite of our struggles.

Nobody is born a saint, but we all have the power to be saintly in our words and works. In the bulletin “Message from Fr. Tony,” he thoughtfully stated, “The simple but reassuring fact is that nobody was born a saint. It’s something we have to strive to become… All Saints Day calls us to something beautiful. It reminds us of our great potential – the promise that lies within each of us. The promise of holiness.”

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Playing for Research – Wise Words Wednesday

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“Play is the highest form of research.” – Albert Einstein

Do you remember when jumping off a moving swing taught you that you couldn’t fly?

Do you remember when lightening bugs taught you that they die in a jar (even if you poked holes in the lid)?

Do you have any idea when you discovered that people don’t like to play with someone who smells “funny”?

I can’t say that I remember these exact experiences from my own life. I do know that it took a couple of these “real life” experiments for the lessons to sink in.

One such learning opportunity came to me in 2nd grade, as three of my classmates played “Annie.” They liked to pretend they were the sad and overworked orphans, while one acted as the mean and bossy Mrs. Hannigan.

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Quarantine Your Judgements

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We are all familiar with the “If you can’t say something nice…” adage, but how often to we put effort into leaving our lousy thoughts out of what we say?

Last week I was angry. Angry at someone I care a great deal about. Angry at the choices they had been making. Those choices felt unfairly selfish to me. When I voiced my anger to my friend Emily, she helped put things into perspective. Emily reminded me that the person I was mad at wasn’t necessarily being selfish; they were being human. Each decision they made was done so because they thought it was the appropriate choice for them.

Of course, Emily was right and I needed to quit being so judgmental.

This week, as I was taking a drive with my friend Chelsea, she was lamenting the overly critical nature of one of her family members. The nature of their hypercritical haptics was exhausting her. We came up with the brilliant idea that people should quarantine their fault finding fascination. The quarantine of unfair judgment and social criticism would be a great way to cure the world with kindness and understanding.

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Everything Hasn’t Stopped

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2020, a year that has stopped hearts, businesses, and social gatherings, has failed to prevent the world from turning, plants from blooming, kids from growing, and changes from coming.

I haven’t liked the anxiety and animosity that have grown the past 10 months, but I have found comfort in the predictability of continuing to raise a family and run our farm. Even the “I hate homework” meltdowns are something to relish because it means my child started learning something at school, and I only have to assist with the reinforcement lessons. I’m not the homeschool headmistress.

Watching our fall calves frolic in the fields brings added joy to our lives because it means we are still growing and producing. That’s what farms are supposed to do. Everything hasn’t stopped.

The dirty laundry continues to drive me crazy. Dishes continue to not wash themselves. The empty milk just constantly finds its way back into my refrigerator (apparently NO ONE in my family EVER takes the last drink). Everything hasn’t stopped.

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An Emotional House Plant – Wise Words Wednesday

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Remember.

You need water.

You need sunlight.

You’re basically a houseplant with more complicated emotions.

We do! We need water. We need sunlight. We are definitely emotional!

While we all have our basic needs, fulfilling those needs is often impacted by our ability or inability to take-in the required air, water, sun, exercise, and nutrition. Similarly, if we do not allow for positive encounters in our day or uplifting words in our speech, it’s really hard to squeeze them in later. After the sun goes down, you can’t exactly be like, “Hey, sun, could you come out and shine for just a bit? I missed you earlier.”

It doesn’t work that way.

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Think, Talk, Feel

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Walking the walk and talking the talk can a be tall order when it comes to being positive. Sometimes positive energy can be hard to find. Other times we have to create that outlook for ourselves.

This week was mid-quarter for my children at school. (Thank goodness our school has made it healthily this far into 1st quarter.) I have started to see a shadow of exhaustion in my daughter.

She is determined to earn high enough grades to be on Honor Roll, practicing 3 to 4 days a week with her competitive gymnastics team, still helping with home and farm chores, and be a normal 11-year old. Not wanting that shadow to become a storm of exhaustion, I devised a way to help her think, talk, and feel positive on Monday.

As soon as my girl was off the bus, I told her how proud I was of her and showed her successful math paper from last week’s homework now displayed on the pantry door. (5th grade math is hard!) Then I had blueberry muffins hot, out of the oven, for after-school snack, and I shared my blog post on The Thunder Tree with her. (She loved Thunder.) I told her to get dressed for gymnastics and surprised her with fresh cup of sweet tea to-go. These may seem like petty things, but when she got home 4 hours later from gymnastics, her mood was lighter than it had been the last few days, and she gushed with the successes of her practice.

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The Thunder Tree

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The Thunder Tree – 2020

“God must have needed a good horse in heaven.”

On August 26th the family and friends of Healing Horses said good-bye to Thunder.

Thunder was a wonder horse.

He was a 20 year-old barrel racing, trail riding, four-legged dream-fulfiller. Thunder’s loss was sudden and has left a hole in many hearts. As we seek to fill that gelding-sized gap, a “Thunder Tree” has been planted.

Just outside the arena where he trained with many riders, a new silver oak has taken root. Soon it will proudly brandish a plaque in Thunder’s honor.

The loss of a good horse is never easy, but the beauty and grace in which Sadie, Thunder’s special girl, has approached his death has helped all of our hearts to find solace in the knowledge that he moved on to a bigger and better arena with the angels.

Thunder and Sadie

The night of his passing, Sadie shared the beautiful belief that “God must have needed a good horse in heaven.”

No doubt heavenly hooves must have galloped to greet Thunder as our tears were falling here on Earth.

Sadie’s innocent incite inspired her to appropriately give the new tree’s planting an added healing purpose as she named the silver oak planted in his honor, The Thunder Tree.

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Freedom of Mind – Wise Words Wednesday

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We all have that one friend or family member who is just never happy. Whether it’s their job, love life, looks, or the air they breathe, they just aren’t happy.

I have been struggling with a friend like this lately. It is my nature to try to fix things when they are not working. The problem is I can’t fix my friend’s attitude. I can be supportive. I can be kind. I can continue to include that friend in social occasions and conversations, but I can no longer let myself get sucked into the constant vortex of the woe-is-me mentality. I have to free my mind from the belief that I can control someone else’s joy. It’s out of my hands; I need to stop letting it commandeer my mind.

Consider issues in your own life that are out of your control but still seem to hijack your thoughts or contentment.

Is there a situation that seems to unsettle you, but shouldn’t prevent you from being successful? Are there conditions in your life that let you down but should be the least of your worries?

“If it’s out of your hands, it deserves freedom from your mind too.”

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Just Be – Wise Words Wednesday

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Just be. Recently, I had the opportunity to visit my sister Robyn and just be calm and comfortable on her couch. The kids were in school. The husbands were working. Her dog Tammy was snoring happily between us. I told Robyn that I wanted her help with the Wise Words Wednesday post for this week.

My invitation was two-fold. One, I needed a post. Two, Robyn has been taking it easy as she is recovering from a recent procedure and this would provide some Intentergy into her day.

So when starting off a Wise Words Wednesday post, I need wise words. After sharing some thoughts that can not posted on this platform, Robyn tapped into her infinite reservoir of memorable quotes and said she her go-to phrase is “Just be.”

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Uncomfortable Can Be a Good Thing – Wise Words Wednesday

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I know that 2020 has been a year of discomfort. And that’s not okay, but in reading Brené Brown’s Daring Greatly, I was kindly reminded that some of the greatest opportunities for growing and learning come from uncomfortable situations.

When speaking to her students about vulnerability and shame, Brené warns them ahead of time, “If you’re comfortable, I’m not teaching and your’re not learning. It’s going to get uncomfortable in here and that’s okay. It’s normal and it’s part of the process” (Brown 203).

This warning made me smile because it reminded me of the supply lists for incoming students to my English I class. After typing up and printing the nice, neat lists, I would carefully (in the scariest handwriting I could muster) write “FEAR” in red ink at the top of each list.

You can only imagine the delight I experienced in seeing the eager faces and ready hands grab at the waiting lists from the holder outside my classroom and then the quick flicker of surprise as that word “FEAR” registered in their already-panicking minds.

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