Dont miss the wood for the trees.

I'm sure you've all heard the saying "Don't miss the wood for the trees" and  I'm guessing I'm not the only who has been guilty of doing exactly that. It is so easy to do, and there are so many ways we can do it!

Sometimes it can be from a cup half empty perspective, we're so busy looking at the rain, moaning about what we haven't got, focussing on the negative aspects of our current situation, we fail to spot the glorious rainbow, the many things we do have, the fact that we do have a cup! Not to mention the fact that a cup can always be refilled!

At other times it can be our inability to see the beauty in the midst of our daily lives. Like walking over a pebbly beach grumbling about how difficult it is and failing to see the brilliant colours, shapes and sizes of those very pebbles. Our senses become blocked so that we don't recognise the joy of hearing a baby laugh, the smell of freshly baked bread or brewed coffee in the morning, the wonderful feeling of crisp, clean sheets when we fall into bed, or the smile on someone's face when they see us. 

We can allow ourselves to be overwhelmed by the dark mornings and dark nights of winter or we can be blessed by the stunningly beautiful sunrises and sunsets that accompany the season.

I'm not for one moment suggesting that life is always peachy, most of us will at some point in our lives go through periods of struggle, hardship, pain, loss, worry and fear but we can make a choice to see only the darkness or to see the light of a sunrise or sunset.

My son Ben achieves this by constantly worrying, talking, anticipating about what's next. no matter what we're doing, where we are he often misses out on the joy of the moment because he's so busy looking ahead. My only regret as Ben's mum is that when he was a baby and young child I was so worried about helping him meet milestones, making sure that I gave him every opportunity to develop the skills we take for granted in "ordinary" children that I often didn't allow myself time to simply enjoy him, love him, hold him close.

We need to make a conscious, intentional decision to seize the moment, stop and smell the roses, look up at the trees! Enjoy the little mundane things that form our daily lives because tomorrow isn't guaranteed.

I think I may be guilty of mixing several metaphors if not reinterpreting them altogether, and I've definitely meandered off the track, (got lost in the woods!) forgive me!  

  

I'll procrastinate...later

What can I say? If there were Olympic medals for procrastinating I'd have multiple gold medals. If there was an Oscar for "putting off" I'd have the lifetime's achievement award. Nobel prize for making excuses and delaying tactics? mine!

I am a master of "why do today what you can put off till tomorrow?" The more critical the task, the more I delay; its not that I'm unaware of the need to get it done, its not that I'm immune to stress, far from it, but it seems that I, for some reason, seem to function best when I'm up against a deadline, when the eleventh hour isn't simply approaching, we're talking two minutes and counting!

Only then do I seem to be able to focus, put aside all the distractions and excuses that stop me from simply getting on with it, and usually, ridiculously quickly find the task accomplished. Every time I emerge from another "by the skin of my teeth" moment I promise myself that next time I will do what ever needs doing as soon as it comes to my attention. I'll set a day (still not the same day) when I have a free day or a good amount of free time and write a note on my planner, on my calendar, in my diary, "Paperwork" appears regularly. In fact, today is one of those "paperwork" days, I've written it  in all the places mentioned, steeled myself to do it, and here I sit, writing a blog!   

It's a bit like sitting down to do a jigsaw, I've got all the pieces there in front of me, I just can't start because I can't find all the outside edges, and who does a jigsaw without doing the frame first? I may get a substantial amount of it joined together but I get stuck on looking for the last few missing bits instead of moving on, not wasting time, building slowly. I get frustrated, put it to one side, and give up.

The ridiculous thing is that my tendency to put things off doesn't help me, it just builds my stress, my anxiety, my worry up more and more so that I can't sleep at night because the task goes round and round in my head relentlessly, growing as the realisation of what the fall out will be if I don't get it done begins to fester.

I'm a numpty, first class, with honours! I know what I should do, I know that I should just do it (I hate the Nike advertisement!) but somehow I just can't seem to break this lifelong habit. I think I need an overseer; cracking the whip, badgering me, hectoring me, motivating me relentlessly and refusing to allow me to waste a second in fulfilling my task.

I still have my paperwork to do today, well actually my Dad's to be exact, I'm going to get it done...tomorrow! One thing I do know is that I'm more likely to succeed if I get up early and launch myself into my tasks, any delay seems to ignite my well developed procrastinatory skills (I'm not sure if that's a real word, but I think it should be!) Today, after a largely sleepless night (worrying about todays tasks) I woke up late, my umph duly fizzled and here I am writing a blog. Tonight I'm going to have an early night, a good read, as much sleep as I can manage and tomorrow morning I'm going to leap out of bed and launch into the dreaded paperwork. I'll let you now if I get it all done (but maybe next week!)

Note to friends, if you need me to do something for you it may be a good idea to give me a deadline, a very short deadline, then my dilly dally delaying muscles won't have time to flex.    

    

Can journaling be a ministry?

This is a photograph of the craft room in the apartment complex where my son, Ben and I live. We'd never used it until a couple of weeks ago when the lovely Sarah Anderson came over for our habitual holiday play date! In the past we've managed in our apartment but after a recent furniture shuffle and declutter we no longer have a suitably sized table or desk to  spread out all our crafty bits and bobs, especially the gelli plates and stamping paraphernalia. On an impulse I asked at the reception desk whether it was possible for me to use the craft room if it wasn't in use by a group or outside activity. Yes! So, Tuesday morning found the three of us able to spread out and enjoy this lovely bright room for our crafty/arty get together.

We left the door wide open so that anyone passing by could drop in to see what we were doing. After not too long an elderly lady popped her head in and asked me what we were doing, she's quite a lonely lady and doesn't chat to very many people, she rarely gets out so the days can be long and tedious at times. We invited her in and Sarah and I showed her the patterned papers we were making, I also showed her my Journaling Bible which I said she was free to look through. She did, for quite some time and was very interested in what we were doing. Ben was busy colouring in one of his (many) Christian Colouring Books, she spent some time watching him and then said "I can do colouring."

She went on her way and our pile of deli papers grew, half an hour later she returned, she handed me a ten pound note which she absolutely refused to take back and insisted I was to use it to by some things for our crafting. I asked her whether she'd be interested in a Christian colouring book like Ben's and she said she would, she couldn't do art or craft but she thought she could colour. A little later the lady who runs the events and activities in our complex came in, she too asked what we were doing, we explained that we were just getting together before the holidays finished but that we meet together as a bigger group once a month at the Salvation Army.

The result? We have been asked to run the group here instead, we can have the room free on the understanding that any residents who want to can drop in, join in, have a go, have a cup of tea or just have a chat. We assured her that they can take any art they create home with them and that they will be made welcome. The group will still be DEN and will still be advertised as Bible Journaling though in the poster I will explain that any art that they attempt can be used for different purposes.

As for our lovely friend who visited, I took up the Colouring the Psalms book and a box of new crayons, she was delighted and again said she could colour but couldn't do "art" I told her we were going to meet regularly and she's going to come along (she hoped it was every week!) and she's even said she might even have a little go at some of the activities if she's well enough. Her ten pounds has bought four packs of crayons and felt tips to start us off when we meet here in three weeks time.

Weekends can be very long, isolating and lonely for people who don't have family or friends to visit them or take them out. DEN can now still be the wonderful opportunity for us to share our faith and enjoy our journaling and love of the Word, but now it can be a witness and a ministry, reaching out and welcoming new people, a listening ear, a hand to hold, a cup of tea and a biscuit, and hopefully, gradually, an opportunity to pray for people. Please pray for our group as we test the waters, we're trialling this till Christmas, and we'll share photos and our thoughts as we go.