A life of Focus

I came across the following quote from Oliver Wendall Holmes today:

"I find the greatest thing in this world not so much where we stand, as in the direction we are moving. To reach the port of heaven, we must sometimes sail with the wind, and sometimes against it, but we sail, and not drift, nor live at anchor."

Heaven will be mine, totally by the grace and goodness of God through Jesus Christ. But I want more than just the some day; I want a life of value. When my life here on earth is finished I want to know that I made a difference.

A few years ago I spent some time thinking about what I wanted the focus of my life to be. My pondering brought me to the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 22:37-40 (NLT):

³⁷ Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ ³⁸ This is the first and greatest commandment. ³⁹ A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ ⁴⁰ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.”

I want to live my life whole heartedly for God with Him in the driver's seat. I want my life to be consumed with loving God and loving people in ways that are real each and every day.

Basically I just try to be alert each day to opportunities. Lately I've also decided to periodically take some time out and away from the daily; time with God. Time to review my life and see if there are any things getting in the way of my loving God and people. Time to seek how God wants me to respond to any barriers.

Empanadas

Today I decided to try making empanadas.

I've been wanting to make them for awhile. The ones I've had previously were stingy on the filling so I wanted to make my own.

I found and modified a recipe for the outer dough on Ask.com. Here's my modified recipe that I used:

Empanada Dough Recipe

Ingredients:
• 6 cups flour (plus a little more for kneading)
• 2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup cold water
• 3 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vinegar
• 8 tablespoons shortening (or 1 stick butter)

Preparation:
1. In a bowl, beat the water, egg, egg white and vinegar together. Set aside.
2. In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and salt.
3. Cut the shortening into the flour mix with a pastry blender or two butter knives. Make a well in the center of the flour mix and pour the liquid ingredients from the first bowl into the center.
4. Mix the wet and dry ingredients with a fork until it becomes stiff.
5. Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface. Knead it just until all the flour is incorporated and the dough is smooth.
6. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, but never more than 24 hours.

Tip: If you want to keep the dough longer than 24 hours, you can freeze it.
Servings: Makes approximately 25 six-inch empanadas.

Filling:
Cook 1 1/2 lbs ground beef with finely diced onion and garlic and drain any grease.
1 can of corn drained
1 can of drained black olives, sliced.
3/4 cup Pico de gallo (I have a recipe for this under the Home Life label)
1 1/2 cup mixture of grated jack cheese and sharp cheddar cheese

Roll out dough and cut into 6 inch rounds. Put some filling into each round. Fold over and close ends together with a fork.

Bake in preheated 350 oven until golden brown.

These are delicious!

For the Love of Chocolate

Charlie Bucket:" I wouldn't give up my family for all the chocolate in the world."

Willie Wonka: "That's weird!"

Bible prayer

We were blessed recently to be able to build a family room onto our home. In that family room are several bookcases. Since John & I are, to use his phraseology, "two rivers coming together", we've got lots of stuff to organize - especially books. I was going through books today and found an awesome book entitled "Bible Prayers for all your needs" put out by Victory House Publishers.

This book is comprised of 5 basic needs - spiritual, family, personal, physical, financial. Under each need are various prayers that you can choose to pray aloud. Each of these prayers are directly from specific scriptures which are listed at the end of the prayer.

What an incredible resource!

It's so cool that I found it today because I've been trying lately to have my prayers be based on the word. It's God's timing always perfect?!

This book is definitely going into my nightstand to be available when needed.

Money and values

Church was incredibly practical today. It was about money.

Times are tough right now and a lot of people are suffering financially, losing jobs, losing homes; the government had to do that big bail out.

The sermon was about trusting God and being wise.

I'm so grateful to God for my husband and I's financial situation. If it weren't for the training I've been blessed to receive, I would not have had the sense to be able to be where we're at right now.

As we were driving home John & I talked about it. We just married 3yrs ago. Because we'd both sought for years to be debt free and live simply we came into the marriage with something to offer the other financially and we both had good jobs. We'd considered buying a beautiful (ego feeding) home in the area where I'd been living at the time. We'd looked at houses for months but neither of us had a peace about buying those homes so we didn't. Instead we moved up to this mountain paradise that God had for us and purchased an very modest home (the prior owners had used it as a vacation home) built in the 60s. The home has a lot of charm and appeal and the location is over the top - we go on a trail out our back door that leads up into the national forest. This home was modest enough that we could just plain buy it so we don't have a mortgage.

Now that the market had gone down the house wouldn't be worth what we paid for it but we aren't worried because we're not making payments anyway. After I by faith quit my job and moved here and took some time to be home with my sons for a year and a half, God opened up a job with a much shorter commute than I used to make. We've been able to do some work on the house, bit by bit, as we've had the money, to make it even better to live in. We continue to not be financially stressed and to have money to give to others.

This is a legacy I hope to pass on to my children.

One of my son's closest friends parents have a gorgeous home, new cars and their son always has the latest fashionable clothes. Whenever this son wants a specific video game or new type of cell phone, he gets it right away. Initially my son questioned why we don't have all that because he found it all so desirable. I explained that those aren't the things that matter most to me and I try to build my life around what really matters. Initially my son didn't get it. So I pray and hope that my example makes an impact.

Lately, my son is starting to come around. He's starting to see that it's important to have enough money so it's not always a stress and worry and it's important to work hard at something you enjoy, but that stuff really isn't all that important. That people are what matter most.

In a culture that is so dominated by money and things and how everything looks, it is challenging to live differently. I pray that God in His grace and goodness would continue to help me focus on what really matters. I pray that part of the legacy I leave for my sons is one of placing value where it really counts.

Giving ourselves unreservedly to God

Sometimes life is just plain hard. That's how it is.

I guess the real question is - now what? How am I going to respond?

I've been studying for quite awhile now in Philippians. I chose to study there because it's been called the book of Joy and I'm desperate for God's joy to be manifest in my life. I've read through the book a couple of times on my own and am currently doing a small bible study workbook by Sharon A. Steele..

One of the themes that comes out repeatedly is that praise, thanksgiving and rejoicing is a choice. No matter what, I can choose to do these things.

Steele also made the following point that pierced my heart when I read it:

"Had Paul's desires been wrong, he could have easily fallen into despair. However, he trusted Jesus and his aim in life was to always honor and exalt Christ. Because exalting Jesus was his aim, he could rejoice and praise God right where he was. He knew that God was working in his life that that Jesus was being exalted."

In this workbook, as Steel is helping the reader understand the context of the book of Philippians, she has the reader look up other passages that show what the churches were like in Macedonia (the area in which the church the book of Philippians was written to resides). These churches were very giving, even when they had little resources of their own and you can see Paul reference this repeatedly in Philippians. Once particular passage of this type has caught my heart and I keep coming back to it. The verse it talking about how the church, when it was in meager financial shape itself, could give so generously to others. It's in 2 Corinthians 8:5 (MSG):

This was totally spontaneous, entirely their own idea, and caught us completely off guard. What explains it was that they had first given themselves unreservedly to God and to us. The other giving simply flowed out of the purposes of God working in their lives. That's what prompted us to ask Titus to bring the relief offering to your attention, so that what was so well begun could be finished up. You do so well in so many things—you trust God, you're articulate, you're insightful, you're passionate, you love us—now, do your best in this, too.

That part about them giving themselves unreservedly to God and the other things they are doing (in this instance giving) simply flowing out of the purposes of God working in their lives; that's a WOW concept!

My pattern has been that when hard times come in my life, I struggle. Sometimes I've been known to whine and complain (you can ask my husbands and sons on that one!) I haven't been a person who automatically responds with joy, thankfulness and praise.

When I read the passage in 2 Corinthians 8:5 I recognized that if I will give myself unreservedly to God, I'll be able to respond in tough circumstances with joy, thankfulness and praise. I'll know that He's working out His purposes in my life through all the things that I find so very trying. It will be His greatness, His glory, His mercy, His grace, His awesome wonderfulness that will be what it is all about; not my experiences or comfort.

Venting

I need to let it out.

I feel like I'm gonna explode.

Since no one really reads this any way I can talk freely here. Plus it feels as if I'm telling someone. As if someone actually cares.

I feel SO ANGRY. I'm not even sure why.

It's like I'm running and running and trying and trying but I just keep failing. I'm such a failure. I try so hard but it's never good enough.

My middle son is always telling me how I don't measure up. How I mess up. How I don't do things right, our house isn't nice enough. I'm too mean and expect too much of him, I don't give him enough. I'm not cool like the other parents.

My husband is way too good a man to complain but I know I'm not a very good wife. I get so irritated with him. Instead of making the best of situations and over looking problems or faults I just have to open my big mouth and say something; point out what he's done wrong. What's wrong with me anyhow?

I try so hard at work but feel like very very few people notice. Maybe my business office manager and director of nursing services. Then I feel guilty for feeling this way. It's not about me. It's about taking care of the patients and taking care of the staff. I'm an administrator; I should know deep in my soul that people may frequently resent me and not feel like I'm doing a good enough job and I have to be ok with that. It's not about anything but doing the right thing.

But I don't feel that way. I feel angry. I feel like I try to do so much for the staff to make this a better place but they still complain and complain. I feel like I was set up because I took over from the biggest micro-manager known to mankind so there's no systems in place. Plus, the truth is that even he couldn't do everything so by the time I got there lots of things were out of wack.

But he's a good talker and did everything; so many of my directors are struggling because they feel like I'm asking so much of them. They are really uncomfortable with all this thinking and caring that I'm expecting from them. They want his simple way of everything being black and white and him always being there to tell them exactly what to do.

In my heart I know I'm right; that they can really become outstanding if they'll just work with me. If they'll open up their hearts and let me speak truth, if they'll trust me.

But 2 have left already and another's throwing fits lately because I'm not doing things his way. And I'm honest about it - I'm not telling him I'm right and he's wrong and that I know everything. I'm telling him the good I see in his way but why I believe in what I'm doing and that I have to do what I believe is right when the day is done - and he's not happy. So not happy that he called my boss and complained. I've never in my entire career had someone call my boss and complain about me.

I'm a good person and I take care of my people; and he doesn't care. Today at one point he said he wished he hadn't called but that he felt bad so he had to do what worked for him; but that it didn't make him feel any better but that still he owed it to himself. What's all this about owing it to ourselves. We're a team and we're in this together.

OK so I'm an imperfect person with imperfect kids and an imperfect husband and I work with more imperfect people.

So what's my problem? This is life! Why am I such a baby here crying!