Boot Camp and Other Brutal Realities

If there is one thing everyone who even half way knows me knows it is this: I do not like to sweat. I loathe to sweat. I was blessed with my Grandmother Hemphill's tall slender genes and for the most part, I have never had to watch my weight. I had read the captions on the glossy magazine covers about diets and exercise plans, but I never worried too much about it. I outgrew my sweet tooth years ago and for the most part, I eat pretty healthy. I could live on Salmon, Tuna, and an array of vegetables.

Something happened to my body over the last three years. Well, it started when I married Charles who likes to snack. That was my first mistake - not marrying Charles, but adapting to his ways. I began to eat peanuts, potato chips, onion dip, ice cream....stuff! And then all of a sudden I put on a skirt to wear to church one day and it was tight...I'm talking even the Spanx did not help. Woe is me. I faced the mirror and realized there was nothing wrong with the light in the bathroom. The fat cheeks I had been blaming on the poor lighting were truly my cheeks. I was blowing up right before my very eyes.

Drastic measures were called for. I needed a lifestyle adjustment...and it had to be fast. There appeared in my inbox one morning the advertisement for a bootcamp lead by one Ms. Tammy Thomas of MS Fitness Pro. She looked like someone who could get me in shape. And so I enrolled.

Three weeks into this and I am wondering when I am going to stop hurting. The good thing is that all of us "happy boot campers" claim to have once been fit. Take a look at the leg photo that looks pretty ragged. You can see we all have a long way to go. Oh, and in the leg photo, I am the one who is lying prostrate flat on the ground. I am already donzo with that torturous contortion.

Frequently Tammy has a "modified" version of an exercise for yours truly. I am the most geriatric of her students.

Actually, I had forgotten how good it feels in my psyche to believe I am improving myself in some way. I am hoping my body will get the message soon...when I can walk again of course.

Makes me think of the scripture in 2 Corinthians about ourwardly wasting away but inwardly being renewed day by day....also about walking by faith and not by sight...I keep thinking about putting on that tight skirt and finding it not tight...I am hanging on to faith that all this torture will be worth it! Cheers!

Getting to "Resilient" at this Point

As I was interviewing our June cover story, Martin Willoughby, local attorney, he mentioned that this book had been a life-changer for him, I knew I had to read it. Gordon MacDonald's books, The Life God Blesses and Ordering Your Private World had been those kinds of books for me years ago, and I was anxious to read this one.

The sub-title is "You Can Move Ahead No Matter What." I think this is another one of those books that go in my stack on the floor...the books that I constantly go back to time and time again because the message so resonates, I sooooo need to remind myself of these wise things, and the words are forever fresh. I can't really imagine why Martin who is YOUNG even read this book except that he is all about the big picture of life and he tries to live so very intentionally. (You can read more about him in the June issue).

But the book is aimed at people my age who are asking the question, "What next?"

I like the concept of resilience and I think it is so very Biblical.  When Paul talked about God working all things together for good in the lives of those who love God...well, I believe resilience definitely is a big part of the equation. I mean, how hard is it give thanks in all circumstances (I Thessalonians 5:18) when you are crying your eyes out over a loss or a crisis? Part of resilience is a little determination to remember that God IS God, but much more is pure grace that God is able to do exceedingly abundantly and beyond all we ask or think. (Ephesians 3:20)

The consolation for me in getting older is that I have a backlog of life lessons - up close and personal - and I would not take anything for them because every hard thing brought me closer to the reality that God's promises are true and that apart from him (John 15) I don't manage so well.

Disruptive moments

I have spent a considerable amount of time the last few weeks either ducking in the bathroon with Daisy and Thurber or glued to the weather information while ducking tornadoes. Spring in Mississippi is definitely a mixed bag. Having lived through the 1971 tornado in the Mississippi Delta, I tend to pay attention to the Weather Channel.

On my way to Birmingham last weekend I rode through the storm ravaged McFarland Boulevard area of Tuscaloosa. My daughter lived there for two years during graduate school at the University of Alabama. The reality was chilling...and much worse than the pictures on the news. I could not begin to guess where I used to turn to go to the house where Betsy lived during grad school. All the familiar landmarks were completely obliterated. Without the landmarks, I was so lost.

Set me thinking. We need those landmarks in life. God never meant for us to get so comfortable on this earth that we forget that it's all temporary. Every now and then He seems to emphasize that concept...but it is soooo hard for us humans to really get it. I am as attached as the next person to the shiney, pretty, great stuff of this life. But an F-5 tornado can wipe it all out...anytime...short notice. Nope. The Only real thing in this life is the next, and NOTHING can separate us from that one. It would be good to spend more time thinking about that fact than worrying on most of the stuff we stress over in this life.

National Day of Prayer

May 5 was the National Day of Prayer. It was the first time I have ever participated in the program on the south steps of the Capitol in downtown Jackson. I grew up during the days we were all encouraged to love our country and to consider patriotism a virtue.  I felt a tremendous surge of that old patriotic emotion as I listened to the fervent prayers from a diverse group of citizens - we were legislators, business owners, pastors, black, white, men, women - just citizens who want to be one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.

God bless the United States of America.

Dinosaurs in the Kingdom

Dinosaurs R Us..or at Least Dinosaur is ME

A little research reveals that dinosaurs became extinct about 65 million years ago. Scientists do not seem to agree on what caused a species that had been around for 165 million previous years to up and disappear from the planet. Theories include everything from volcanic catastrophes to disease to biological changes within the dinosaurs that made them less competitive with other animals. In other words, when it came to the “Survival of the Fittest,” the dinosaur did not make the cut. I personally think I understand.

I am having great compassion on the dinosaur this morning. I think he must have glanced around one day to find a world filled with “new-fangled” critters who were more agile, quicker, and probably smarter than he was. He became overwhelmed that the world was going by so fast and he seemed to be standing still doing the same old dinosaur things he’d been doing for generations.

Technology is overwhelming to me at the moment. My assistant Christi is 27 years old. I do not think there is anything the girl can’t do if it involves a camera, a software program, a cell phone, or a computer. She can also throw a spiral football, but as amazing as that may be, it does not intimidate me. It’s the ease and speed with which she manages all things technological that really get to me.

She and another “young gun” friend suggested recently that I join the professional social networking sight “Linkedin.” They thought it would help me connect with some beneficial business contacts. Christi opened the sight and demonstrated it to me. I thought, “Oh, I can do this.” A few minutes later I had accidentally invited everyone in my address book to my “professional” network. All of my friends, who are dinosaurs like me, quickly e-mailed me quizzically asking, “What is Linkedin?”

Truthfully, most of my friends are either (a) retired or (b) never worked in the marketplace in the first place.

So that tells you a lot. Even so, I will not die happy unless I master a few more things in the world of today. I thought when I learned to execute an e-mail my children should “rise up and call me blessed.” And I have to say, they were a little impressed. But that was ions ago.

And since then, I learned to text and thought, “Surely, I have now arrived.”

And so help me…then there was Facebook. And I complied.

Christi said to me, “You need a blog.” And I complied…kind of…it’s just that my life is not that interesting that people would want to follow it and so I don’t update it as often as I should.

Then came Twitter….and I finally just said, “I’m tired.”

Please….could we have a moratorium on technology and social networking? Can I just use the telephone? But then there is automated answering and I discover the whole world “has stepped away from their desk” therefore, nobody answers or returns calls anymore. What is a dinosaur to do?

Right now I am working on learning how to use the camera I got for Christmas. Will let you know how that goes. My prayers have become very very self-centered….”Lord, help me.”

Going Home Again

A few years ago I decided I needed to read some of the classics of American Literature. One of the first books I chose was Thomas Wolfe’s You Can’t Go Home Again. I plodded through the book…I mean PLODDED. Despite the Southern themes, I did not identify. You see, I find that I CAN go home again and again…and it’s almost as though forty years have not passed at all.

We just returned from my stomping ground…Indianola. There was a party this weekend for my friend Ellen’s son – also my god-son – and his bride. Maybe it is just an Indianola thing…but it’s always like a big family reunion. Lots of hugging, lots of catching up …telling old stories and reveling in the easy conviviality of being among friends…the kind who share your history, who know you inside out and love you anyway.


We woke up on Saturday morning and I gave Charles a tour of my home town, winding through neighborhoods, visiting the building that once housed my daddy’s business, the house where I grew up and more. I pointed out the B.B. King Museum; we ate lunch at The Crown in downtown Indianola and stopped by the cemetery to check on my parent’s graves on our way out of town.


No matter how the years fly…no matter how long I call somewhere else “:home,” nothing is ever “home” in the way Indianola always will be.

 

Once a Mother, Always a Mother

I have been in Birmingham the past few days visiting with Betsy. Having a daughter who is a professional living the single life puts me in a place where I kind of live through her a life I never got to live -. She has a lot of friends, travels, only answers to her two very large Black Labs, and it all looks quite glamorous to me most of the time. However, when she has surgery or a crisis…she has a host of friends I call the “girlfriend brigade.” They swoop in to tend to their own, but she usually calls me, too. And I would be lying if I did not admit that I love to be a part of her life. I love to think that even though she is an incredibly strong woman, there are still times she likes to have the security of a soft place - her very dull and quite square mom around. And in those times, the generation gap seems to disappear.

She was once the cute little cherub girl in the pink smocked dresses and the pink hair bow to match who could stomp her foot and tell me I hurt her heart when I said, “no.” “No” from me was probably a far too infrequent occasion.

My daughter is a lot more articulate at this age, and, thankfully, her heartbreaks are not usually a result of something I did or said. It doesn’t matter since her heartaches still seem to be mine as much as hers. I guess it is so true that “once a mother, always a mother.” It is indeed a life-long sentence.

Still, when you see your child pick herself up, rise to the occasion, and seek her comfort and her peace and her answers in God, you get a tiny glimpse of what it means to “pass the torch” and you think, “Thank you God.” And with the same breath you thank Him that she still needs you, you thank Him, too, that you know she doesn’t need you at all.

Road Trip

Charles and I made a quick trip to Moon Lake last weekend. Daisy and Thurber really enjoyed their travels. Thurber slept most of the way. Daisy was a little more curious. As the old society columns in the small town weekly news used to say, “A good time was had by all.”

I feel sorry for anybody who is not loved by a dog…or two.

The Products

My products…I don’t leave home without them. They are one reason I have a hard time leaving home at all. It takes thirty minutes to stuff all of my quart zip-locks into my carry-on bag, and then I groan my way through the airport with a bag the size of Santa Claus’s. Getting through security always causes stares. I can see others in line surveying my zip-locks and thinking, “That lady is nuts.” I wish I could say that all my creams and potions deliver what they promised, but they don’t. Still, I continue to whip out the American Express, take them home and proceed to glop them on my skin or in my hair. Somehow, I always believe total transformation is just one pump, squirt, or spray away.

I just did a little research and discovered that American women spend seven billion a year on cosmetics and beauty products. I am surely doing my part for the cause.

2 Corinthians 4 talks about an outer body that is wasting away and an inner body that is being renewed day by day. So, in other words…God tells me up front I am fighting a losing battle with gravity, time and the inevitable decline of my physical body.

Even so, I have invested a small fortune in products that promised miracles…and so far I have yet to meet one. The old adage rings true. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is – unless we’re taking God at his word.

The Bible makes it clear that although we tend to size each other up by the outer appearance, God is interested in our hearts. So, obviously, I need to be checking my heart more than my wrinkle quotient. I am old enough to know – not just by what I have read or heard in church – but certainly by what I have seen up close and personal. It IS true. I have watched many a mentor go on to glory and realized the truth of Philippians 4 – that thinking on whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable….that thinking along those lines tends to color your actions…and that your thoughts become deeds that lift up, give to others, and…surprise…come back to bless you, too. Imagine our world if more of us lived with that verse in mind…and lived like we believed it was true. How much joy would we be doling out to others every day just by being in their lives – with or without wrinkles.

Spring IS Coming

Look what I saw on my walk this morning! It may still feel like winter, but the sky is blue today and the daffodils are a certain promise that the cold won’t last forever.

Do you ever get stuck in the muck of life and feel like the way life is at this very moment is the way it will always be?

I’ll miss a fire in the fireplace, and I like a chilly morning walk around the neighborhood – only because I layer up like I’m headed for the ski slopes! But it will be fine with me if I can walk across the lawn for a while without getting cold slimy mud all over my shoes. And I am ready for Freshway Produce to open again, to buy Kimberly Queen ferns and red geraniums for the flower pots, and to see Bradford Pears in full bloom.

Oh, yes….and I think I will buy new Flip Flops!

MoMs

Marietta Pride, Me, and Dewayne Neil

Moms R Us…it’s a lifelong sentence filled with highs and lows for sure. I got to speak to the Jackson Academy Moms two weeks ago and the Jackson Prep moms today. I guess my Mom Tour is over, but it was fun to look at the faces of these really young moms and find out their anxieties are exactly like my anxieties were…and the hard part is well-meaning MOMS, no matter how devoted, cannot fix everything in their children’s lives. But everybody just wants their children at every age and stage to be “okay.” Whether they are 13 or 30 or 50…we want to fix everything. I have always been a fixer…and messed up a lot of stuff along the way of “fixing.”

These get togethers are something Young Life sponsors each school year. They invite moms to hear from other moms in February and dads to hear from other dads in March. All I can share are the things I learned through butting my head against a lot of walls and doing a lot of things very wrong! The amazing truth I have learned at this late date is God’s grace is sufficient, and it was never ALL up to me – and what an ego trip to have ever thought it was! I am more fallen than I realized originally!

My friend Shirley reminded me a few weeks ago that ultimately the Mom calling is to do all you can to get your children to the threshold of a relationship with Jesus. The real transaction is between the child and the Lord and you can’t push, pull, or kick them over. The hardest part is that God does not seem to be on Central Daylight time and even though His ways are higher than our ways…don’t you wish He’d give you a print out of His time table?

Snow Day!

I remember when we occasionally got snow when I was a little girl – I well remember a big snow around spring break in the 1960’s….(I was very young of course) Even when I saw the 100% chance of snow, I was skeptical. I mean…has the weather man ever been wrong or anything?

I got up early to let Daisy and Thurber out and could not believe it! LOTS of snow…inches of it! I also could not believe how much they loved it. Thurber does not venture out if it is sprinkling the slightest bit, but he was prancing through the snow….made me wish we had some sheep or something out there for these 2 Corgis to “herd.” They are forever trying to herd Charles and me.

I spent a few minutes debating whether I should go to the office. My mother NEVER and I mean NEVER let us stay home from school unless we had temperature over 100 degrees and were on the verge of being comatose. I still feel like a shirker if I am not working at something….What is that old proverb about Idle minds are the devil’s workshop or something? My mother ascribed to that wholeheartedly. Imagine how happy I was to see our neighbor’s tree across our driveway. All my guilt was erased. God’s grace was sufficient for me and I went back to bed. I really felt kind of sorry when the neighbor called a few hours later to tell us she had the crews on their way to remove the tree. I kind of liked being stranded.

The Day After

The day after Thanksgiving. This is the scene at Betsy’s.
Still, quiet, and other than an allergic rash from one of her meds, nothing major to report. Walker, the terminally ill Lab, does not seem to be suffering a loss of appetite. I think I noted that today alone, he ate heaping helpings of sweet potatoes, creamed spinach, chicken soup, chicken, dressing, lima beans, and a few handfuls of his own dog food. Every time I plop down in front of the television to munch, I have these two big black bear dogs with huge brown eyes begging me to share. And what do you think? Of course, I share. (Scout is the baby sister in the family – she, too, has a healthy appetite).
Betsy is in recuperating mode. A dose of Benadryl fixed the rash and also rendered her comatose most of the day. We are hoping to journey out tomorrow. She can’t drive because she can’t turn her head, but she can ride….unfortunately her mother’s driving makes her nervous. Who’s to say another little dose of Benadryl is not a great idea?
Back to Jackson on Sunday. Regular life begins again on Monday. I love my girl, and am thankful that after all these years, I still get to be MOM now and then. Life is moving close to the days when our roles reverse and she becomes the mom…I am praying for grace. I am not too excited about relinquishing control and handing over the baton. I understand my mother better all the time.
Anybody know what I mean?

Salvation Army Angel Tree

I was at Northpark Mall on Thursday the 19th of November to watch the Salvation Army kick off their Angel Tree Program. Amazing stuff the Salvation Army does. Christi, Kari, and I adopted an angel. So did my husband Charles.

The recession has left many working moms or dads laid off and unable to provide anything beyond the very basics for their families. And here it is Christmas when little children know only that Santa comes and leaves gifts. Consider adopting your own angel – or check out Charlotte Wingard’s website http://www.thewingardhome.org/ and adopt yourself a “lamb” instead. At any rate, despite your losses, give extravagantly. It’s easier than you think.

Moving Day

We just moved our office. Drama. I am so tired of drama. I am tired of change. I am tired of life-changing surprises. I just want normal and regular…boring looks better all the time. It seems that regular is something I left behind at 405 Heathman Avenue, Indianola. MS almost 40 years ago. I don’t think anything has been regular since then.

However, we love our new space. Wanted to share a little of it with you. If you are traveling down Highway 51 north in Ridgeland , come see us. Thanks to my sweet (and he hates it when I connect his name with “sweet.”) husband we have an office filled with “pretty.” So if you drop in…you will then want to go see him for rugs and stuff...Tinnin Imports.com….they do have the best stuff around.
We set aside this week to move, knowing no matter how great we did our homework, things would not go as planned. If I gave you a list of the corporate entities who completely misplaced our requests or lost us altogether, I would have a field day for all plaintiff attorneys who read us….which is close to ZERO in number.
We simply had more than one opportunity to learn patience. I just keep wondering…how much patience is enough?????

Oh – and I hope you notice the new song. Our friend and food editor Lydia lost her mother recently. This is the song her cousin Cherry sang at her funeral. I have downloaded it to my
i-pod, fallen completely in love with it, and want to hear it every day just to get me over the headlines and the news and help me focus on the things that will be here when nothing else is. In the middle of chaos…or in those peaceful moments when there is no chaos…give me Jesus every time. 24/7…Jesus.

So now we buckle down and think Christmas. Big prayer. May we think Christmas in the true sense of the word.

The Grove

My son Lem is in The Grove today. He has taken his four year old Allie to her first Ole Miss game. I can just imagine how excited she is since he has alternated Amazing Grace with the Ole Miss Fight Song as evening lullabies her entire life. She can raise her arms and cheer “Hotty Toddy,” and she will tell you that her favorite football team is the Ole Miss Rebels, but it has all been as real as Cinderella or Elmo until today. Today it becomes real.

I texted Lem while ago to please be sure to take notes and to just imagine this whole spectacle through her little four-year-old eyes. I am sure even Disney World would not excite her more at the moment. She is finally getting to see the place her dad so loves, meet his college friends, and see something that she has heard stories about her entire life (all four years of it J). She has lived in Washington, D.C. , Denver, Colorado, and racked up more frequent flyer miles than most adults I know, but this is her first trip to Oxford. So far, she shares her dad’s opinion that it is just the best place she has ever been.

There are a lot of times we look forward to something, or imagine something and really want something – and when we get it, it leaves us empty and disappointed. I don’t think Allie is going to be disappointed in anything today. Her father will make sure Oxford and Ole Miss and the Grove are everything he has told her they are. You get the point. We all have a Father like that. Sometimes we forget it.

Facebook

I fought it for as long as I could. I think technology moves way to fast. Just when I think I am “on it” people start something else. I remember the day I learned to e-mail. I had been listening to people talk about it for at least a year and I was too intimidated to even ask what e-mail was. Okay…Now you know. I am old. I was in the first group of Baby Boomers who were fortunate enough to have a television (mostly because my dad sold appliances in the early 1950’s).

I watched Miss Frances’ Ding Dong School and Captain Kangaroo and Mr. Green Jeans. (and green was not about the environment) I guess he could have easily been Mr. Brown Jeans. Green, however, was colorful, and even though we all watched on our black and white TVs with rabbit ears, “green” gave us something to imagine.

But I digress. I am talking about Facebook.

It has opened up a whole new world for this old girl. My high school class recently celebrated their 40^th reunion…which I missed…and I mean I was not only absent but I MISSED and will remember that I MISSED forever. Most of us - 69 in number - went from first grade to twelfth grade together. From learning the ABC’S to Canterbury Tales, we did it together.

And for months we have been e-mailing and reconnecting and laughing over the ravages of time…laughing in a good way. I think we would all like 18 year old bodies with 50+ year old wisdom to go with them. So it is not going to happen. Even so, it is fun…really fun…and life-giving to look back and see the relationships that encompass decades.

We share the same history and the same memories and it is just…beyond words. I understand, from my two hour conversation this morning with my friend Ellen, that the tears were more like sobs in the parting and the togetherness at this season of life had nothing at all to do with anybody trying to impress anybody else. Our class was one, and more than ever, we were FOR eachother. Oh, how I missed it and yet don’t feel like I completely missed it because of Facebook and the pictures and stories we have shared.

I think our class is much like heaven is going to be. Okay…we will probably meet a few surprise residents J, but the joy over being together and knowing we will never ever be separated again…is that a great thought or what?

On the Road Again

Pat Pierce, President of the UMW at Crawford Street, Marilyn, and Phyliis Cowart, Vice President

I had a great time yesterday in Vicksburg speaking to the Crawford Street United Methodist Women at their Fall Membership Luncheon. It was very much a Mississippi gathering – you know when Southern girls get together, we always play, “Who do you know that I know?” Or….as our mothers taught us to always ask, “And who ah yo-wer peopul?” If we talk long enough we can always find a distant cousin somewhere. That’s one of the best things about being Southern.

I used my revised version of my talk on the Five Lessons I Never Meant to Learn. It seems there are always women who can easily identify. I know something about myself, and I am wondering if it is a universal girl thing. I was a very good student in school. I could definitely learn the material and take the test. But don’t ask me anything a week later about the material. Once I got my A, I seemed to completely forget the facts, figures, and anything else pertaining to the test. It was all about the A. So could we say I really learned anything?

Life lessons, however, are a different thing altogether - the ones that knocked me to my knees and left me feeling like there was a gaping hole where once there was a heart…well…I can remember those. I find that I am not strange. Most women feel the same way. I also notice that as nice as it is to be able to call up names and dates from long ago history tests during a game of Trivial Pursuit, the long term effects of a lesson well learned and indelibly written on one’s soul, is even better. Those kinds of lessons help us become a little better than we might have been at People skills and at hearing God’s soft voice in the middle of a very chaotic busy daily routine. I have discovered this fact, too. All women have “stuff-“ heart stuff that hurts.

I realized the other day that the one thing I do like about getting older is that when I sing “Faith of our Fathers,” it is no longer someone else’s faith I sing about. It is mine, too…that thought alone soothes the aging process in ways you can’t appreciate till you get there.

I am gearing up for a trip to Maine next week. Just wait till you see my pictures and hear about my trip. If you are into praying for a prodigal publisher, would you pray that I do not have to spend any nights in the airport and that all my flights depart and arrive on time….That almost sounds like a fairytale like “And they all lived happily ever after” after my last experience. (See Lucy and Ethel Take a Road Trip)

Update on Walker Dog: He got a great report at his last visit to the vet. I think Betsy is into cherishing every second with this sweet furry friend. He even got a pass on chemotherapy last week. We’ll see what this week brings. Will update you. God bless.

Tears, Cheers and HOPE

First of all, an update on my ‘grand-dog’, Walker may have a little “cat” in him – as in nine lives. He had his first chemotherapy last Thursday, tolerated it well, and Betsy is encouraged. The vet says this series of several chemos could mean another year or so of life without pain. If you are not a dog-lover, please stop reading now. You will think we are all nuts at my house.

If you are a dog-lover, read on. You understand.

Have you ever run across the bumper sticker that says, “Oh, Lord, help me be the person my dog thinks I am.” Well, it is not sacrilegious. You have to have been loved by a dog to appreciate the truth in those words.

I, for one, think God can use anything and anyone to teach us lessons that go deep into our souls. When it comes to love in a completely pure way…as one dog-lover to another (since all non-dog-lovers stopped reading at end of sentence #5) does this or does this not make sense? I think most of God’s most profound points He really wants us to grasp during our temporary tenure here on earth involve simple truths – like it feels really good to love and be loved back.

My dog, Daisy, affectionately called the “chemotherapy dog” (the one BETSY found at Corgi Rescue to help me through the chemotherapy I never had) sits beside me when I cry…and I think I mentioned in the magazine recently that I long ago perfected the art of crying. There’s good crying and bad crying. I am a master of both.

You know – sunrises, sunsets…music…good cry. Death, heartbreak…bad cry.

A lot of my crying in this era of life involves being overwhelmed by “the list” of self-imposed “shoulds” and “oughts.” I never seem to complete those guilt inducing categories in any given day, and it is frustrating. I keep getting interrupted by life. Even so, there is some lingering something inside me that bases my worth on how many things I can successfully check off the list of “TO DO TODAY.”

But to come home at night, feeling incredibly inadequate because I failed to get through “the list” and find Daisy waiting at the back door helps me let go of the wounds the day has inflicted!

I read something recently that said when it comes to “balance’ and “time management” Jesus was probably one of the worst ever at planning out the day and having everything fall into place…..”Let’s see from 9 to 10 I will heal the lepers. From 10 – 11 , I will heal the blind…etc. etc. “

He kept getting interrupted by life and crowds and unanticipated “stuff.” I know, I know. If He was God the Son, he knew ahead of time there would be detours, but I think he felt like he had to walk through those doors just to show us how to do it, too – how to let the list go at times and focus on the moment, the needs around us, and just be there.

Life is not a big circle that can be divided into equal parts so that we are balanced people. A big circle divided perfectly would work great if it were not for…real life.

I am thinking I might prefer passion over balance any day…just let me have passion for the things that are God’s passion . Passion seems closer to abundant living than being a bean counter or a list checker…you think?

For the Love of D.O. G.

My cell phone rang late the other night. Nobody calls me on my cell phone late at night or early in the morning except my daughter Betsy…and never when the news is good. In between sobs, she told me that her ten year old Black Lab was having difficulty breathing and a trip to the animal emergency clinic revealed a large tumor around his heart. The cancer was definitely in his lymph nodes as well. He was in pain and the vet’s advice was to put him down.

He spent the night at the hospital and she was to pick him up the next morning to take him to his regular vet to do what she did not think she could bear to do.

You all know Betsy as one of our Single Still Single Again columnists. Her life is rarely dull. Sometimes it seems like her best friends are named Crisis and Drama. In between those two events, however, she can keep a room alive telling her real life stories that keep us all laughing.

But all I could do was cry with her the other night. I searched for the consoling things a mother is supposed to just be wise enough to say, but I could not find any words at all. My heart so hurt for her as the invisible movie screen in my mind played flashback memories of this dog my daughter so loved.

It was in her senior year of undergraduate school at Samford that I entered her apartment and saw a huge wire kennel in the middle of her living room. I sent up an SOS prayer, “Oh, Lord, please let this dog belong to Betsy’s roommate,” but I knew better from the very beginning.

Walker had come from the Birmingham Pound and was almost small enough to sleep in one of Betsy’s shoes…when he wasn’t chewing them up, that is. He grew to be the size of a small black bear and I never understood how petite Betsy managed to “walk” him. My one attempt at walking Walker required an ambulance ride to the hospital, a cat scan, two broken front teeth, and more. It wasn’t that he was bad…he was just enthusiastic about life and completely unaware of his size or strength.

He did not like having to ride in the backseat when I visited. When Betsy was in grad school in Tuscaloosa, the entire staff at the local McDonald’s looked forward to Walker’s weekly drive-thru visit for his Happy Meal.

Betsy and Walker have been inseparable this last decade. Walker has comforted her when there was no human being in sight to comfort her. Through boyfriends, several career changes, numerous interesting roommates, several surgeries, and a close call with the MRSA staph, Walker has been there.

But Betsy has been there for Walker, too. I will never forget the time he was hit by a car and she was on 280 with Walker on the backseat, sobbing into the cell phone to me as I stood in my kitchen 250 miles away that she could not remember where the animal emergency clinic was and could I please call 911 in Birmingham and get the directions for her. It was touch and go that weekend - IV’s and internal bleeding, but I firmly believe Walker’s sheer will to be with Betsy worked in his favor. He was just not ready to think she could handle life without him.

The second vet has given him a special medicine to buy a little time although he tells Betsy it is very little time – maybe days. Walker is eating, showing some responsiveness, and even played with his Lab friends Luke and Maggie yesterday. I am amazed that Betsy can be so brave knowing the inevitable outcome. But she wants that time with her faithful friend, and I so understand.

It’s just one of life’s ironies that something that brings so much joy can bring so much pain as well – I am talking about love. It’s really very dangerous to love – to give your heart away with such abandon – whether to another person or to that pet whose love is about as pure and unconditional as any love God ever allowed us to know. I think the term “broken heart” is just the perfect description because letting someone precious go does indeed leave a heart feeling shattered into pieces.

But you know what? I would rather live dangerously and cherish the good times than to be safe and miss the joy of love given and received.

…But the greatest of these is love…I Corinthians 13:13b

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