Brenda
November 2020 – Perfectionism
Tomorrow’s a new day
To start over again
To make a new resolution
To call an old friend
To see things differently
To make a new plan
To swim in the ocean
To walk in the sand
To see a new sunrise
To watch a flower grow
To do a good deed
To watch a sunset glow
To have another chance
To do the right thing
To hug a stranger
To hear a bird sing
To tell someone you’re sorry
To hear a child’s laughter
To see the stars shine
Until the here ever after
Father God, although I am not perfect, I was made perfect in your sight. Every morning I get to start all over again as I grow and transform into You, My perfect Sacrifice. Trying to be perfect is exhausting, yet, as I live and move and have my being in You I move into your perfection with ease.
September 2020 – Change
Make the Change
“The change” is usually a term women use when they’re going through Menopause…I have not experienced the natural change of menopause, mine was a surgical change, to be honest it was one of the best days of my life…I had a tampon burning party and I still go down the feminine products aisle just so I can laugh because I’m not “blessed with the curse” anymore, Thank You Jesus…
I feel the same way about my “spiritual change.” I received a heart transplant from The Great Physician when I was thirteen years old at youth camp by accepting Jesus into my life. His spirit drew me and was transplanted from Jesus to me, creating a new heart within.
My spiritual change was the best day of my life. It was the day True Life was imparted to me, it was the day my life was forever changed because the curse of death was defeated and lost it’s hold on me. I was now blessed with life eternal.
NOW, when you’re talking a change that I need to make that affects my comfort zone that’s a different story.
I like my house just so, everything in it’s place. Having to confront a situation or person is daunting. Sometimes/most of the time that person I have to confront is myself. Procrastination sets in. I have control in my procrastination but my Heavenly Father has been showing me that procrastinating on what He wants me to do is sin, because almost everything He asks of me involves a change: a change of heart, a change of address, a change in my bank account..ouch…change can hurt that’s why I fight it.
Therefore in 2020 my goal has been to make the change as quick and painless as possible. To ask myself why put off until tomorrow what I can get done today? To allow the change to bring me closer to my Papa. To trust more in Him and rely less on myself.
While writing this I’m hearing Michael Jackson singing: I’m starting with the man in the mirror, I’m asking him to change his ways, make that change…
Change starts with me, every moment of every day, it’s up to me to step up to the plate to participate or sit on the bleachers as a spectator…
Change my heart Oh God, make it ever true, change my heart Oh God may I be like you…
July 2020 – Freedom!
Let Freedom Reign
Freedom is a great word.
It is most often associated with America, home of the free and land of the brave. There is another freedom that comes from knowing Jesus. Accepting what He died and rose again to give us. Yet, we struggle with it because it sounds to good to be true, the saying goes, if it sounds to good to be true it probably is. Like anything else, freedom is an inside job, a heart issue, freedom is there but we have to take it. We have to put one foot in front of the other and seize the moment, seize the day, seize life.
I consider myself a free spirit, I’m creative, I was not created to work a nine to five. I like doing different things, my attention span is all over the place. I want to try it all, I love the freedom to do so, yet, because of my free spirit I have had people try and put me in a box, their Brenda box and I have let them.
In the last eight months I have been able to say no to people and situations without guilt, that is freedom. It is not easy for me to stand up for myself but it is necessary. I just realized a long term friend doesn’t respect me, because of my giving spirit I have been a doormat, and when you stop being a doormat “they” don’t like it especially if they were benefiting from it. Has she verbally said she doesn’t respect me? No. It’s how she talks to me and doesn’t care about my feelings, it’s how she is trying to manipulate me to do what she wants me to do. So, I will have to address it and take the freedom that was freely given to me even if it’s uncomfortable and I risk losing a “friend”.
Freedom is taking the risk of losing something, but maybe, just maybe losing is really winning, Freedom has a cost, are we willing to pay the price to set us free from whatever or whoever is holding us back? That whatever or whoever is usually us and what we allow.
We have the ability within us to set ourselves free. It is a freedom that doesn’t come from a government, our country, or others but, it is the freedom that comes from the one who governs our heart.
Proverbs 4:23
Guard your heart above all else for it determines the course of your life.
June 2020 – What Would I Tell My Younger Self?
What would I tell my younger self?
In my eyes at 58 I’m still my younger self. I am on the inside anyways, until I look in the mirror…then I see a girl that nobody knows where I’ve been, what I’ve been through to get to where I am and who I am today. I realize I’m no spring chicken but I’m no cooked goose either.
Growing up in Southern California, I would have told my younger self to stay out of the sun. The sun damage I have shows the life I have lived.
- I have fished for halibut, trout, marlin and steelhead.
- I have ridden horses since I was 13.
- I have four wheeled and snowmobiled in the mountains of Idaho.
- I have mowed, irrigated and ran my own apple orchard.
- I took flying lessons and have flown solo in an airplane.
- I have whitewater rafted and bathed in the freezing cold river at our cabin because we didn’t have plumbing.
- I have walked my dogs to their hearts content.
- I have played pickleball until I could barely walk.
Yes, I have lived a life in the sun and it’s because of the life of The Son that I live.
In hindsight I wish someone would have told me about God’s grace when I was younger instead of beating me over the head with the bible. Either one of those approaches can accomplish the same result, the only difference is one of the approaches can have a long lasting negative impact on a person.
As my mom would say “you catch more bees with honey”. The honey is grace, the bees are the people the honey attract’s.
Lastly, what would I say to encourage my younger self and others?
You are good enough for God,
Therefore you are good enough.
You are worth it to God
Therefore you are worth it.
You are loved by God
Therefore you are loved…
May 2020 – ISOLATION
My Shelter in Place
“Isolation or Party of One” as my good friend Kathi Landis calls it, is something I am very familiar with. On Valenstine’s Day I asked what she was doing, she said party of one. So, I use her line now. I have been on “my own” for many years physically.
There was a time when I was isolated with my former husband, let me explain. I was born and raised in Orange, Calif. I married in 1989. My husband was a man’s man. After we married, we honeymooned in Warren, Idaho, a town he went to every year to hunt. On the map Warren was listed as a ghost town, but in reality it had eight year round residents. The numbers went up in the summer as people came to their cabins to escape the heat.
When we arrived in Warren in the darkest night I ever saw, I thought to myself I’ve never seen this where I came from. It was like going back in time, a bar, one room schoolhouse, lot’s of cabins from the 1800’s, old gold mines, old cemeteries, and a small airstrip. We spent our honeymoon in an old, run down cabin with eight quilts on the bed to stay warm. It definitely wasn’t my idea of my honeymoon, but it was an adventure.
Long story shor,t we ended up buying a back_-ountry cabin where I spent sixteen summers until our divorce. We had a generator for electricity, a spring box for water, an outhouse, and no phone for seven years. We received mail twice a week at a tiny post office that looked like the mail still arrived by pony express.
This was a place you had to snowmobile into in the wintertime, which we did for many Christmases. What I learned to appreciate from being an isolated back country diva is that we had deer, moose, elk, fox, chipmunks, squirrels in our yard, and salmon in the river. I also learned how to fish, shoot a gun, snowmobile and ride a 4-wheeler. I learned to make something out of nothing as we lived thirty miles from the grocery store and had a small propane fridge.
I took showers on the deck with a solar shower bag and bathed in the river when the water was semi-warm. I wrote a lot of poetry, made friends out of the chipmunks and squirrels, but most of all I learned to be still in the beauty of God’s creation. I found out I was born in the city but made for the country.
In January 2018, I moved to Tennessee and started forging a new life “all alone” again. With His guidance, we have made a beautiful life. I do not isolate well. I love people, listening to live music, eating out, ans doing my poetry. Social distancing is not in my DNA. I still have friends over, walk my dogs, and work at the golf course while practicing this foreign exercise. I know for a fact Jesus is against social distancing, the only time He was alone is when He went off to pray, otherwise He was in the midst of people and I want to be like Jesus.
Thankfully, if I have to shelter in place I have a nice roof over my head that doesn’t leak, food in the fridge and TP on the holder, plus two dogs for company – all courtesy of My Papa God. I find that I really don’t need much anymore.
I was thinking about the apostle Paul, (I am not a bible scholar, I am a thinker and a girl after the heart of God) He was first under house arrest and then put into a literal prison. I think some of his best letters came from being incarcerated. He still encouraged, witnessed, prayed and fulfilled his God-given destiny.
He was in prison yet he was free. We can also be free yet put ourselves in prison. It’s an inside job whether we choose prison or freedom. Paul chose to live and not exist and that is what I have chosen to do in this very unique time that we are in. I have learned to be creative in spreading the gospel of love and not the spirit of fear by using text, email and social media.
I have become bold in asking how others are doing, and really listening. I have become compassionate and sensitive to those who are fearful of the virus even though I am not. I have learned that I have taken things for granted, especially, what I need or want will be on the store shelves like toilet paper. Therefore, I buy extra to give away. I have learned that what I want to eat may not be available or what I need to eat to sustain me.
I was thinking on Genesis 2:18
The Lord says “it is not good for the man to be alone.” I will make a suitable helper for him. We all know He was talking about Adam, but I believe He gave me a new perspective on that scripture. Not only was He talking about Adam, He was talking about me Brenda.
Trust me, I need help and nobody knows it more that my Father. So, He said Brenda, it is not good for you to be alone. “I will bring a suitable helper for you”. And, He did. He sent Jesus to die, to rise, and impart in me His Spirit -“My Shelter in Place”.
He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge, my fortress, my God in whom I trust, because he loves me, says the Lord, I will rescue him, protect him, for he acknowledges my name.
Psalm 91:1-3
April 2020 – Hope
Today I will look on the bright side of things
Instead of the pressures that each day brings
I will choose to ignore that which is negative
And set my eyes upon that which is positive
I will not get caught up in other’s complaints
Instead I will point out the bright side of things
I will learn to appreciate all of my blessings
To start my day with prayer and singing
I will approach each day as though it were my last
Living in the present forgetting the past
I will not worry about what tomorrow may bring
Because today I am looking on the bright side of things
I will focus my attention on being very grateful
For all that God’s given me
In all things I will be thankful
“Let us therefore follow after the things which make for peace and things wherewith we may edify one another…”
Romans 14:9