Seeing Past Looking…

January 22, 2012 in A Joyful Place Called Home, Basics Matter, Life Lessons with 0 Comments

 

  I love that my husband Les is not daunted by a wife who asks for $10.00 while yard sailing (because she always forgets her purse on Saturdays) and then smiles knowingly when I come back with something that most likely won’t fit in our vehicle that moment,  yet expects it to. I love that when I sit for dinner in our home, or lounge with our family that love is made visible throughout my home by the items Les has loved back to life…including me.

It matters.

The gift of shared vision is not one that came naturally to Les. I suspect ten years ago he had never refinished anything in his life. His idea of fixing something involved a purchase and a receipt. His love for my vision to do and have for others awakened in him a joy in making things happen as I have…and what a joy ride its been to see it in our home, as well as in peoples’ lives.

Chairs that are purchased for $2.50 each may not have any value to you. Sometimes the folks you pass by on the daily journey don’t either…they, like my chairs, may be so covered in grime, scars, and dirt that you simply don’t see the beauty they are….the unique creation they exist as.  It’s not always about refinishing either…often its simply about encouraging them to share their story…which unfolds in such a way you are no longer captured by their trappings but by their heart, experience and story.

What are you seeing where you are today? What is the vision you use? Is it purpose driven? Do Driven? Or are you open to allow that which is there show up in your picture in a more meaningful way.  Each moment we exist there is so much lost in our own directed living…perhaps that is the joy I love about Saturday morning yard sailing with Les…its unpredictable…its unordered…you cannot predict what God will drop into your world that day…whether its the heart that needs to be heard as they empty mom or dad’s home…or the struggle of a young couple trying to “do better” for their children and selves as they fight for their familyhood…

What do you allow in your life?

Who do you allow in your heart?

The memories are touchable in my home….as a visual tactile learner that isn’t surprising…but I know things are simply with me until someone else needs them more, then they, like they came, are hauled away often in a too small car to a new home to be loved by someone else’s family….and I walk back to the door with a smile on my heart and know that soon I’ll ask Les if I can borrow his wallet again…

and He smiles…and knows we’re starting all over again…

I love this man named Les and how he’s taught me to love past what I can initially see…

 

Are You Unplugged?

January 18, 2012 in Basics Matter, Growing Into Lovely, Making It Mine, She's So There with 4 Comments

While I was traveling I came upon a moment when I asked Sarah L Cook to come see why my blow dryer wasn’t working.  I am all but non-visual in the mornings, a bilateral eye issue continues to make mornings creative when I travel. If I misplace my glasses I can’t even see well enough to find them.  I had tried turning on my own blowdryer, I had tried the hotel blow dryer first, nothing was turning on.  Sarah graciously agreed to come see what she could see…she had smartly asked…”Did you push the reset on the fuse?” I shared that I wasn’t sure what that looked like, so she came over and this is what she saw…the dryers were not plugged in.  I had failed to do the most important part of using a blow dryer….I had failed to plug either in to the source that runs them.  In my defense, most blow dryers I use in hotels are already hard wired at the hotel brand I frequent. …it hadn’t occurred to me that the dryer was waiting on me.

What are you not plugging in? What resources do you have right in front of you ready to work if you simply plugged in?  When will you take time to return to the basics of what’s not working in your life? Basics matter….our lives do not work as well if we do not seek God’s plan for our lives…even when His plans don’t make sense…ask me how I know…

Part of my “owning my life” stuff is realizing that I am too often trying to run my life without plugging into God first that day.  My intention is to always seek God first, but darn it I regularly find myself taking management liberties with His plan for my life.  Can you relate?  Then when I am weary, frustrated, and knowing something is just not right….I realize that I’ve neglected to plug in for God’s resources into my life….peace, joy, wisdom, direction, and love.  God is God and the short of it is I am not.

Ouch.

What areas of your life are you unplugged? How are you seeking to “own your life”? Are you walking in integrity with yourself?  I wasn’t.  I would say “I’d like to lose weight” and while my friends would suggest that it wasn’t how much I ate, but perhaps what I ate….that maybe, just maybe wheat and other things were part of the problem. Nonsense I said, I’ve eaten it for ages…then a month came up that I was willing to go without wheat for 30 days…31 pounds later and a WHOLE lotta better health. Because I am a Thomas, I did eat wheat again and when I did,  I could immediately sense “danger Will Robinson…I was swelling.”  Who knew? Wheat sensitive?  When we get so used to what it is our experience, we forget that our experience may be in no way shape or form what THE experience that was intended can be….ever tried blow drying your hair without electricity….waving your hands back and forth in no way makes the same effect happen as a plugged in blow dryer.  So is our life…without God it simply isn’t the same…

Are you unplugged?

 

Are you Ready to Win?

January 17, 2012 in Growing Into Lovely, Living Your Values, Making It Mine with 4 Comments

Winning has a connotation for every one….for many it means a first prize or blue ribbon and the knowledge that they were indeed the best at whatever it is the race was about…popularity, speed, control, earnings….The kind of things we really take for granted are more often the things often overlooked that matter for the real wins….the courage to be who you are created to be…to stand up for what is right, the transparency to own your mistakes, the integrity to live in peace with others and with yourself.

Stephen Covey says the 5 emotional cancers are: criticizing, complaining, comparing, competing, and a spirit of contention present in your daily life. I so agree.  We all seem to have drank the kool-aid that more is more…and as Allyson Lewis so eloquently put it in her book, The 7 Minute Solution, she came to a place where she wanted MORE, not more…MORE meaning MORE service, MORE family MORE joy, MORE of a life she actually wanted to live.

Amen.

As I have traveled on the road the last few weeks with clients on book tours, conferences, and launches, it has been an unusual time of busy reflection.  I speak to strangers, to folks I work with, and to anyone who remotely captures my heart and/or interest all.the.time.  I love people.  What has captured my attention is the overwhelming repeating story that no matter where I am, what role I am being that moment, people are seeking peace and acceptance. People want peace in their lives again, purpose, and a sense that their lives have value past their daily existence.  Individuals are looking for a better life. That life isn’t defined in wealth, but in meaningful experiences and the peace and joy that has left their buildings, neighborhoods, and hearts.

One of the joys of my journeys lately has been to witness the power of human interaction with divine empowerment.  God showing up in the perfect moments looking alot like ordinary humans being obedient.  Mothers praying for their children, folks with illness ministering to those who have no physical illness, but emotionally are much weaker than the physically ill one in front of them. In a prayer room in Dallas yesterday I heard a wise woman tell the person who had sought prayer that she needed to rest in God and allow laughter back in her life.  Seemingly simply…yet oh so powerful…God doesn’t tell us to work all of the time, focus on toil and troubles, nor that we are not enough…no..God tells us to rest in Him, to let Him carry our burdens of anger, resentment, pain, and shame…to allow Him to be responsible for our worries, to release them to Him …for He will meet our needs, not us…if we simply trust Him and are obedient to the life he has for us….

God says in Him everything is possible…

My marriage and family is proof of God’s restoration. In a family who hadn’t experienced ANYONE’s marriage crumbling in the close relatives there I was twice divorced, unhappy, and I did not even get into the motherhood business until I was thirty….yet God restored my broken heart. In the most unusual way of showing up, Les Berry was and is the answer to many nights lament that God would heal my broken heart and allow a do over… happy marriage…and four children and step teens and adults call me Mom..and over twenty more have known me as Mom for a season of their lives…God is good….and he is truthful in what He will do when we choose to trust His word…

For those who know me you can say an “amen” (now let’s not shout too loudly)  but somethings you have to experience to understand.  I.am.a.high.energy.hot.mess.  I love creating, and supporting creative projects that empower people.  The joy of working on projects that reach, teach, and touch people’s lives have created a vertical learning curve for many years for me….whether it was publishing, filming, social media, or strategy….I simply love to learn skills that support living your personal and professional purpose in life..  It has been one of the surprizes of my life that God had a plan for that too….well after all, He is God…but can he really handle a hot mess like me? (perhaps proof again, that He IS God)  Winning to me means running my own race, to live a life of obedience to whatever it is that God brings into my life. To work through the training of mind, body, and spirit until His will is done in my life….

a tough race to be sure….but the joy of this journey is peace….not ease…peace that means even on the hardest emotionally punched day, that God is present.  That when flesh rips and emotions rage because of something fleshy, God is there…if I will allow Him to be.  Winning the race daily means coming to God first…then laying HIS plans straight, not your own…such an easy concept, such a hard course for most of us to lay down our control….

What are you ready to win? Fame? Fortune? Finesse? Or are you seeking to win the favor of God in all that you do? Win the abundance of God in every moment of your life? Win the power and strength of God in your every day existence?  It’s real…and its promised to us if we simply do the seemingly impossible….surrender the race to Him….and let Him redesign the course you are running until like Eric Liddell, you feel God’s pleasure when you run…..

God has set my race….and I can tell you…I don’t know the course, I’m not sure of the distance, I feel inadequate to even line up….but his race I am running….and though I may stumble ….the race is God’s….for I am ready to win peace, joy, abundance, provision, purpose, and the wealth of a life spent using God’s gifts for others…working through the “stuff” that I so need to shed, allowing His love to complete the work He began in me….tough stuff…real stuff…but worthwhile because in the long run, running God’s race for my life is all that truly matters…His approval the only one that counts…

and I’m finally ready to give up whatever it takes….and the list so far has been long, hard, and my fingers are tired from trying to hold on to silly things in my life I was never intended to hold….but God is God and I am not….and so the race begins…..two by four thwack lessons included for my hard head….for it seems I don’t learn by simple reminders….it takes a thwack regularly to get my attention…and it turns out that I’m not very into those 2×4 thwacks…so I will listen more intently, accept more readily, and learn more completely that which God has set before me to do….

Anyone ready to join me for THAT race?

 

What’s in Your Hand…

January 3, 2012 in 31 Days of Pursuing Peace, Life Lessons, Living Your Values with 0 Comments

Many years ago I attended a church service at First Baptist in Springdale, Arkansas where Ronnie Floyd was or may still be minister and a gentleman named Alvin Slaughter and his brother were special musical guests.  It was neither my church home, nor my plan to be in attendance, but it simply came to be that night. Alvin is a powerful musician who obviously loved his gifts and shared it willingly.  He sang song after song as he shared his testimony of being homeless then journeyed with God….to a new place.

One of the songs talked about letting go of what is in your hand and that when you can let go of holding it tightly…God blesses it and multiples that release to empower whatever is before you to be enough….a Biblical message…jars become filled…shouts become enough to crumble walls…and fish multiply, more than once whether in baskets or in water….

The song stayed in my head for years…I probably still could not sing it line per line, but its teach, the meat of what the message said has forever changed my heart. Alvin’s voice and imagery has repeated in my head now for some 16 years….daily.

When we release what little or much we have to God…it.is.enough.

He’s simply waiting for our all.

Have you thought about giving your all lately? Most of us think a portion is tough enough, but God seeks our all.  He created us imperfect without Him, he told us from the beginning he wanted to lavish us with his love.  He created Eden…yet it wasn’t enough….as mankind, we wanted more…we wanted control…

Look where it got us.

What is in your hand today? What are you trying to hold on to? What areas of your life do you think you must control? How is that working for you?  I can tell you that in my life, the fingers kept getting pried off my areas with a crow bar and when I can let go long enough to go…it.is.simply amazing….before I even realize the fall I so feared would ensue, but simply lifts me to a different level and proves to me that He is trustworthy…

even when I fail. make poor choices, trust blindly in people not God, or live my usual messy life…not to mention kitchen or laundry realities….

What’s in your hand? What are you holding onto that God wants?

It’s your choice….hold onto it, or release it to the one who created you and the world you live in…

What’s in YOUR hand you’ve been hesitant to let go of control?

Moments & Memories…

December 31, 2011 in A Simple Joy, Leading, Life Lessons with 1 Comment

The past few months a stage was set to experience learning while flying. Perhaps you’ve had the same moments, that moment of realizing that you are living your moment, being what you are capable of being, and having a meaningful glimpse of what you have worked hard to achieve.

  • Skills were yours to engage, the burden and years preparing were not for naught
  • Moments to remember came like gang busters or waves of perpetual tides
  • Joy was present in every moment of the reason you were engaging

Then you realized, it wasn’t the opportunity that was present and changed your vision, it was that you changed your opportunity.

We choose our lives.  We follow our hearts and inner callings of the Holy Spirit, or we choose to blindly lead ourselves to a place that we rarely should go.

There is a season for each part of our lives….and in my best life, there is respect, diligence, rigor, loyalty, steadfastness, good stewardship, boundaries,  love, and joy in each of them.

In reflecting the last three months, I learned many experiential lessons:

  1. Without adequate advance preparation and peaceful engagement of working together, there is little to gain in pushing forward with new territories, projects, or people….you can have the right skills, but without a thorough understanding of the needs, priorities will not happen.
  2. Relationships take time, trust is not always returned even when given….not every friendly person is friendly, not every harsh one is harsh
  3. Strategy comes in many forms…but the ones I prefer to focus on is always a win/win/win scenario for all- no exceptions.
  4. It is God’s love through our hands that makes the difference, all humans are imperfect, but His love matters.
  5. Regardless of their  passion, purpose, and precedence….trust is established slowly…be cautious in whom you blindly trust
  6. Success will be just as difficult as starvation if you do not identify what it looks like and how to handle it
  7. It’s more important to be who you are, even if they don’t get who you are…help is help if it isn’t asked for…remember your gifts may not be welcome.
  8. When others don’t choose to share your vision, methods, or excitement…it doesn’t affirm its correctness or wrongness, but only their/your experience
  9. God puts amazing people directly in front of you if you’ll simply allow Him to be in charge
  10. Preparation is respected in God’s order…but the order of God first matters more than any preparation you believed mattered.

This quarter, the last one of 2011, has been a meaningful time. 2011 was a year filled with amazing experiences both personally and professionally. I am thankful to have lived through and engaged the life it taught me.  God is God and in short…I am not…but I see his Glory through the work of others and its an amazing view…and every now and then…for a brief moment..I get to be a part of His plan and become aware of how amazing the intricate details were that laced us all together.

What a joy!!!!

What have you learned this year?

The Best Christmas Joy pt2

December 24, 2011 in 31 Days of Pursuing Peace, A Joyful Place Called Home, Growing Into Lovely, She's So There with 3 Comments

Part 2 of Where’s the Coffee…

Click here to read part 1 First

The last two years I have witnessed the joy of work by Deborah Mersino (@DeborahMersino),  Allan Branch and Steven Bristol (@LessEverything), the founder of the leadership group #LeadfromWithin, the amazing Lolly Daskal (@LollyDaskal),  Steven W Anderson, @web20classroom, @MamaBritt, and the ever kind @David_Carpenter and so many many others who as Creatives or Leaders hear daily “how do I keep up with it all, how do I keep first things first?”They live transparently seeking tools and sharing lessons as they go.   I have watched their efforts, interacted with their chats and I know that this methodology of thinking through and acting on life in 7 minute increments is powerful stuff.  Busy people are busy people whether workers, leaders, parents or children yet to have the level of engagement we seek in life, priorities MUST be decided upon. It won’t matter if its my traumatic brain injured clients, the parents of autistic children and adults, the entrepreneurs, or the instructional leadership teams for leadership. This book will matter. This book does matter, This book has mattered already in my family’s life.  It systematically takes you through dialogues to more pragmatically support the evidences of “Why’s” in your core values. It takes a purpose driven concept through the bases to a home run on values driven engagement in life home run.

Does your daily life set up a plan each day to align your values to the blueprints for your goals that day? Owning my life and making it mine has meant for me that yes, Margaret, values matter in my daily existence and need to show up as using the gifts I was given for others daily in my life.  You see, that country girl, raised not 70 miles from my own rural home, has captured it….the essence…of why and how folks can fuel their desire to live a passionate purpose life based on their values driven blueprint. I cannot imagine a better gift for our marriage, my children’s lives, and the young people’s world I am often engaged in. That is why you see me tweeting so much about #Just7, for truly in just 7 minutes at a time I have had the following results the last 24 days after reading this book:

  • I have lost 24 lbs because I have given myself permission to simply BE who I am built to be….a Creative who LOVES to see Art alive in people’s lives as I cultivate projects to empower people. It is as Eric Liddell said “I feel God’s pleasure” when I create strategy blueprints for speakers and projects that allow them to fly and improve people’s lives.
  • The artistic side of my heart has been set free after many years of trying to assimilate into a more analytic world of  non-creatives who only seek profit financially not profiting people’s life existence.
  • My children have noticed (now they are teens and adults…let’s all stop and think on that miracle) and spoke of the joy they are seeing in my life
  • My husband Les has simply said I smile more and more often…which is hard to believe, for I am a happy person in general
  • Laughter has returned to our marriage and home…I have traditionally been the reserved one, trying to conform and work in a systematic method of analytical conformity when I am the girl who would splash the mud puddle on purpose and make mosaics out of the splashes naturally
  • Connected to two new friends whom I was a bit intimidated to engage, but have in three weeks understood they were a God gift waiting on ME.
  • Les and I have completely re-charted the next ten years of our life based on shared renewed purpose of our Basics Matter and A Joyful Place Called Home experiences
  • The dogs (we have 5) want to know what is up with Mom wanting to walk at 4:00 instead of 9, because everything is on track to get 5 done before 11 am and then play the rest of the day.
  • Professionally, I have released some toxic connections that simply needed to be with someone who would “get” their methodology of business, but as for our home, if its not cultivating projects to empower people, we simply do.not.work together. Money comes with doing things well, but nothing is worth the price of working with greedy or folks not living in integrity with their intended business results.
  • We, as a family have simply been more joyful, and joyful in a blended family at the holidays, is a GREAT way to be.

So in short, I never did get that cup of coffee…but what that fellow Arkansan served that day, was a life changing experience…and for that I am thankful…

and I hope you’ll join me in welcoming the rollout of what I believe will be a life work progress as Seven Minutes, Inc fully launches their apps, supportive materials created specifically for individuals and the interactive tools.  The book is available for pre-order now and launches Tuesday, December 27th….and it will SO be worth the read. (and on the 27the you may stream/comment/follow us on @The7MinuteLife and comment on The7MinuteLife.com wall or on Amazon and let us know by commenting on the post at www.the7minutelife.com/launch and they’ll enter you in a drawing to win one of two Nook’s for the after Christmas fun!

So this Christmas Eve…I want to share with you what has been so meaningful to me…with as always…no strings attached…but please, if it speaks to you, do sign up for the free member tools at www.the7minutelife.com and get going on the planner now…it’s free to download with a bunch of other tools I know you’ll find of value.

Merry Christmas!

Sweetie

 

 

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