5 Clichés that offer Truth

Christians say the funniest things.

Well, it isn’t so much that the things we say are funny, it’s that we say them so much they begin to sound funny.

Like when you say “Little Italy” seven times really fast. Go ahead. Say it. Out loud. 

Just because “Little Italy” sounds funny when you say it over and over doesn’t mean Little Italy isn’t real. Here are five trite phrases that are truth:

1.     “If God brought you to it, He’ll bring you through it.”

It sounds kinda silly. Maybe because it’s a really lame rhyme. I mean, anyone can rhyme “it” with “it.”

But it’s true. If you are attempting something God has called you to, He will equip you. (In Exodus 4, there is a great example of God equipping Moses, who said he is just not a good talker!)

2.     “You can’t take it with you.”

Typically this is said when someone is trying to downplay gain…or loss. How weird is that?

But it’s true. When my husband was alive, it wasn’t until he was very sick and on Hospice that I sensed this clicked with him. He was no longer concerned things that had consumed him just six months before. (1 Timothy 6 talks about how money/things can cause some big issues, and we came into this world with nothing, and…will leave with nothing.)

3.     “Withholding forgiveness is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.”

This is truer than we even realize. It’s just a little cringy. Because I don’t know about you, but I can’t relate. Outside of a couple Diet Coke’s in my 20s, I’ve not ever consumed poison. But, not only does not forgiving someone else make us feel we’ve eaten nothing but gummy bears and Diet Coke for a year, we’re actually commanded to forgive.

Forgive. 

(Verses in Ephesians 4, Colossians 3, Matthew 6 all talk about forgiving and being compassionate toward one another, relative to how God has done that for US.)

4.    “Worry is like paying interest on a debt you may never owe.”

Think back to something you were worried about one year ago. Social media “one year ago” reminders are really good for jarring our memories. Chances are, the thing you were worried about didn’t happen. But you worried about it.

If you can’t think of anything, try to recall “Y2K,” or look that up.

5.     “Let go, and let God.”

You just rolled your eyes. This is something your Gramma has probably said to you. 

Well, your Gramma is right.

A friend once told me that I needed to open my clinched fists and face them upward. Because something amazing happens when I surrender, and just ask God how HE is going to write the next paragraph:

My hands are open to receive the plan of a God who DOES see the big picture I cannot see. And by the way, He is a God who LOVES you like crazy. His plan is to offer you “hope and a future.”  (Jeremiah 29:11) 

I sometimes think I can mess up God’s plan, even after I’ve surrendered a situation to Him. I can’t. Consider Sarah, wife of Abraham. She wanted to have a child, and even when God promised her she’d have a baby despite her age, she considered how she might take control and make that happen. Her way.

That got messy.

But despite that, God came through on His promise, and she gave birth to a child of her own. (This dramatic story, Genesis 21) 

I guess you could say God turns our mess into a message…a test into a testimony.

But I won’t say that. 

Thanks so much for listening, and for reading. - Kelly

5 Ways to Better Love Your Coworkers (even the ones you don't like)

Workplaces are filled with people. And wherever humans gather, there is bound to be conflict.

And love is a choice, even at the office!

Here are some ways to help you better love even your most difficult coworkers. Five Ways to (choose to) Love Your Coworkers:

1. Take a quick look in the mirror to understand your part in it all. Is there really a conflict, or do you communicate or work differently, creating misunderstanding? It's best to avoid sarcasm, inside jokes and assumptions in general in the workplace, until you really, really know someone, and you're sure they "speak sarcasm" too.

2. Talk to them. If there seems to be a real conflict, or a misunderstanding, go to them, one on one, and discuss it.

Approach gently, and just as is suggested in marital conflict, let them know how something made you feel. "I felt disrespected when..." is far better than, "You were disrespectful when..." Because chances are, they didn't intend disrespect. That's what you are trying to clear up. Avoid involving a supervisor or a third party unless you are at an impasse and your job is directly negatively affected by the conflict.

3. Practice empathy. It's often said that hurting people hurt people. And, guess what? We're all hurting in one way or another. I recently heard that our actions are really expressions of need. Helping to understand where a coworker has come from, or is coming from, personally and professionally, might help you with #4.

4. Forgive. Often and actively. Make grace a daily practice.

5. Accept. We really are all pieces of a big ole puzzle. Consider how you fit in, and how your coworkers fit in, and understand that you were built to offer your own unique gifts to the team, as were they.  Actively work to respect your coworkers' talents, and how you all work together to make a whole.


Thanks for reading! - Kelly

5 Things I've Learned Since I've Been Single

 

1. You should never pay for a home repair until it is 100 percent complete, to your satisfaction.

Get warranty information on parts and  labor, in writing. I have quite a few almost-done repairs that were 100 percent paid for. My mistake.

Also, check Youtube to see if you can conquer it yourself. You will save money, and feel pretty good about it all. You can find some great tutorials in layman's terms. 

I replaced a toilet flush seal last Friday night via Youtube:  "Ya see that ther pipe? Don't know what it's called. Dudn matter. Below that is an orange rubber thingamabob...that's what were gonna replace..."

Yeah...that's right...I dig around in a toilet tank on a Friday night, and I am proud of it.

And...my toilet flushes.

2. You will receive an abundance of advice and opinions regarding your dating relationships or your choice to simply remain single.

Be discerning about whose advice you take to heart. Nobody else is in your exact position in life or dating or singleness.

You may need some new friends. I have some amazing friends from my "old" (married) life, lots of married couples. There is a chance some friends may not understand singleness as it pertains to today, and to you, so find a couple new friends, married or single, who are wise and who understand the challenges.

Don't date in a vacuum. That's dangerous. But be careful whose advice you take.

3. You are uniquely positioned to learn and explore and just be you.

You even get to make your own rules. You don't have to make your bed, unless you like it made. Laundry straight from the dryer is fine, and so is yogurt for dinner, if that's what you want. Take a road trip without planning a road trip.

Travel, see things, take a class, teach a class.

4. You might feel alienated.

The church, your former circle of friends if you were married before, even your coworkers, don't really know what to do with you. If they are married, they feel their life -- marriage -- is the norm. And maybe marriage is in your hopes, plans, too. Still though, timing.

The truth is that more than half of adults in America are SINGLE.  I started a "Singles Small Group" when I realized I was single, which took me a full year after losing my husband to cancer. That ended with a restraining order, so maybe don't do that. But something like that is helpful.

Find your people.

5. You can stretch.

 

Take up the whole bed. Take it up sideways if you want. Or diagonal.

 

...Stretch.

 

 

5 Crazy-Cheap Beauty Products I Really Like

I'm a single momma ...$

with two kids still at home ...$$

who are in college ...$$$

...and the girl is planning a wedding ...$$$$$.


SO...I have found some pretty amazingly inexpensive products to be life savers, or at least skin savers and lip savers. And here they are:

1. This stuff...pink salt bath soak.
It's amazing, and will cost you $5,
and last you six months most likely.

2. This stuff: careful...not all 

Burt's Bees are as silky and 

conditioning as Vanilla Bean.

Not waxy or sticky. $2.

3. That stuff too. Coconut oil...$3.99.
Use it on dry, winter, skin right after
a shower or bath.

4. My mom loved this stuff: Dove...it's not soap

...it's a beauty bar, and won't dry 

your skin. $1.50.

5. Hydrate. 

I love coconut water. $4. 

You either love it, or you hate it.

If you hate it, just find something

hydrating that you like.

5 Things You Can Stop Worrying About

"Worry is like paying a debt you don't owe."
(Mark Twain)

A good friend relayed this to me on an exceptionally worrisome day a few months ago.

I can't remember what I was worried about. Which goes to show you how pointless worry really is.

I have found that healthy concern can draw me into action. Beyond that, beyond the areas I can control, it's nothing but senseless worry. I have been trying hard to discern the two, and let go of what is not mine to worry about.

What are you worried about? Here are FIVE things we often worry about, and some reassurance that may help.


1. MONEY. God is bigger than our money problems.

"Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" (Matthew 6:26)


2. RELATIONSHIPS. God is bigger than our marriage or relationship problems, or our singleness.

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because He first loved us."  (1 John 4, 18-19)


3. CHILDREN. God's love for our children, or our desire for children, is BIGGER than ours. They are His, as are you.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb." (Psalm 139:13)


4. FUTURE/CAREER PATH. God is bigger than our concerns about the future.

"When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze." (Isaiah 43:2)


5. HEALTH/DEATH. God is bigger than our health problems, or fear of death.

"He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4)

5 THINGS To Ask Yourself Before You Speak

WORDS...must be pretty important.

I mean think about it. God SPOKE things into existence. He said, "Let there be light," and there was light.



Now, He is God. He didn't need to speak the world into its shape using words.

Words can do amazing things.


Words misused can do amazingly awful things.

*   *   *

"Scientists cannot explain it," I remember an oncologist saying to me, a half-smirk on his face, shrugging. It was roughly five years ago, and my then-husband, Dan, had begun chemotherapy treatments.

The treatments immediately caused an inflammation around his lungs, their target. It was as if the cancer and the chemo were in some serious chemical warfare, leaving in their wake the evidence of battle.

Strangely, he lost his voice.

He had no ability to speak. Air was simply not moving past his vocal cords in typical fashion. Cords frozen, air that would normally form words was slipping past, leaving him with only barely audible gasps.

WHY...I asked...would a treatment for lung cancer cause a person to lose his voice?

Well, it seems the nerve that supplies the vocal cord travels an unusual road.

It could simply leave the brain, and truck right on down a highway to the vocal cord.

But, no. It doesn't.

It leaves the brain, travels past its destination, a meaningful and meandering road trip south, down and around the aorta, the main artery of the human body which originates from the left ventricle of the heart.

And, "Scientists cannot explain it." It's an "anomaly," a "mystery."

*   *   *

How extremely clever.   God is so...clever.   THIS...is a clever design.

So the words that leave your brain literally must run past your heart before ascending to the vocal cords to then escape your mouth.

Or, maybe, God was implying that they should.


FIVE THINGS we attempt (and often fail) to ask ourselves in our little family before we utter a word of advice or commentary:


1. Is it TRUE?

2. Is it HELPFUL?

3. Is it your place to say?

4. Is it really your place to SAY?

5. IS IT REALLY YOUR PLACE TO SAY???



So maybe it's really a three step process, but that last one is a doozy...and worth repeating.

Most often it's true, and would be helpful, IF it were my place to say. That's been my experience in a lifelong series of vocal mishaps.

Thanks so much for reading today!

Kelly

5 Things You Could Say to Someone Who is in Pain

I froze up on the air yesterday. If you know me, you know I typically do not lack words.

I felt pressured to address the tragedy in Sutherland Springs, Texas, but felt also that I had nothing to say that would properly address it, encourage anyone, or alleviate any pain.

      *     *     *

The facts are that a gunman took the lives of most of the congregation within a tiny church in Texas...26 people killed...17 months to 77 years old...a pastor's teenaged daughter among them, all apparently over a domestic dispute.

Those are the facts. And since those are the facts, what could anyone say to make this better, just one day out?

Probably nothing.

I've experienced some senseless loss in my own life, and there are a few things I know we should NOT say, because they were said to me by well-meaning friends.

Things like, "I know how you feel," or "let me tell you about my great uncle's best friend's Golden Retriever's cancer," or, the worst ever at the wrong time, "God has a PLAN in this, and He will bring good out of it."

I mean, that last statement is TRUE. But it's really not something to say to someone who is in the very middle of the depths of despair and loss. That can and will come later, but not now.

Here are FIVE THINGS you COULD say to someone who is some serious pain. I've gathered these from my own experiences and from those close to me who have suffered inexplicable loss.

1. This really sucks.      ...Or, this really is awful/heartbreaking/painful.

2. My heart breaks WITH yours.      ...Empathy from others is felt when it's real. Just sitting in the heartbreak with someone, right where they are, can take the edge off the pain.

3. You are NOT ALONE.      ...Then, don't leave them alone...just show up, be present...physically or in calls or even texts that say JUST that: "I am here. I am with you. I'm not leaving you alone in this."

4. You are doing GREAT.     ...If possible, be specific: "Look at you. You are standing. You showered today."

5. Nothing.      ...Sometimes saying ABSOLUTELY NOTHING is best.