More Than Just Colors in the Sky

Have you been feeling a little down on yourself lately? Like ordinary just doesn't even begin to describe how you see yourself? Feeling like you just are not doing anything well enough? I think we all feel that way at times. At least I will admit I do. I want to share something with you that I am hoping will encourage you and make you realize there is Someone who thinks you are the greatest - so much so He went out of His way to show you. But you might have never even realized it! Did you know:

No two people see the same one, even if they’re standing next to each other. In fact, each of your eyes sees its own. However, catch one on film, and it can be seen by many eyes at once. You cannot touch one and it is always in front of you while your back is to the sun.

Have you guessed what it is? It is a phenomenon of nature that’s fascinated people forever. Of course, I’m talking about rainbows. Have you ever spotted one of these colorful surprises decorating the sky and felt it was a special gift God created just for you? I know I have. All my life rainbows have fascinated me. I love the variety, the grace and beauty. Each one is unique and breathtakingly beautiful in its own way.

We all know that rainbows are round bands of color that appear in the sky after a rainstorm when raindrops are lit up by sunlight. Even though sunlight looks white, it contains all the colors of the rainbow: violet, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange and red.

But do you know why no two people ever see exactly the same rainbow? This fact delighted and amazed me. If you and a friend stand side-by-side looking at a rainbow stretched across the sky, you are at the center of the rainbow you see. Your friend is at the center of a completely different rainbow with an entirely different set of raindrops. Each of you gets to see your very own, personal rainbow! Isn’t that like our God?

When I thought about it, I am rarely the one who spots a rainbow first. Usually it is my children. As I considered this, I realized my children were in a constant state of expectancy. Whether they spotted a rainbow arched across the sky, a hummingbird sipping nectar from one of our Rose of Sharon or the first lemony daffodil poking up through the soil, they were always ready for the blessing. It didn’t surprise them as much as it thrilled and charmed them. In their innocent confidence they simply believe these wonders of nature were created just for them. Somewhere along the way, I seemed to have lost that sense of expectancy, and that confidence that there were blessings out there just for me. It made me wonder how many times a rainbow was majestically arched right over my head and I never even saw it.

I realized I’d allowed myself to become preoccupied with the mundane details of everyday living. While there are certain things that must be attended to, it was my attitude that needed adjusting. I’d stopped expecting to spot a rainbow. I’d forgotten to simply look up. What an elementary principle that is! It applies to all of life: where you focus determines what you find.

Living in a state of expectancy. God clearly tells us that this is how we are to live in Luke 21:28. I realized I’d neglected this truth. If you’re looking for an argument, you will undoubtedly find one. If peace is what you are seeking, you will be rewarded. If you’re looking for fun, it won’t be long before you’re laughing. If you’re always determined to find what is wrong, you’ll soon end up depressed and disappointed. If you’ve decided to find the good in everyone, your days will be filled with light. If you’re looking for a blessing, God will never disappoint you.

I was so focused on the earthly, I’d forgotten to be like a little child and look up expecting to see a rainbow. Once I learned that God creates a unique, personal rainbow for each person who will look for it, I made an attitude adjustment. God not only makes each flower, fish, snowflake and person special and unique, He even creates a rainbow just for each and every one of us. All we need to do is expect to see one and take the time to look up. After all, if He thinks you deserve one, who are you to disagree?

So if it’s weeds and worms you’re looking for, keep your gaze glued to the ground. But if it’s rainbows you seek, take a lesson from a little child and look up!

Always Awake

I've been reading some very interesting research on the brain. Our brain is the command post of our bodies. I heard one Christian doctor compare the brain to God. He said the brain controls the body as God controls the heavens and earth. I have to agree. One very critical element many of us are deficient in is sleep. And the brain and body absolutely must have adequate sleep in order to function properly.

We can all agree to that, I'm sure. I know if I don't sleep well for a few days in a row, not only do I lack energy, but I find I just cannot think clearly. Did you ever wonder why your thinking is so dramatically affected?

Your brain never really stops working! If it did, you wouldn't wake up. Your brain is busy orchestrating your body's maintenance processes. Dead and aging cells are replaced, muscles, tissues and organs are repaired and renewed, hormones and important immune-boosting chemicals are released. That's also why you are so much more susceptible to getting sick when you haven't slept well for a few nights. Your immune system is compromised.

It also takes any information you learned that day and consolidates it and makes it possible for you not only to remember it but to understand it more clearly. You actually lose about 30% of what you learn on any given day and up to two days earlier without adequate sleep. A study was done on birds and a specific part of their brains replayed songs they learned during the day while they slept. It seems even they depend on sleep for a sharp, well-functioning memory!

In comparing the brain to God, it reminded me of Psalm 121:3, 4 "He will not let your foot slip; He Who watches over you will not slumber; indeed He Who watches over Israel will neither slumber nor sleep." I don't know about you, but that is very comforting to me. It doesn't matter what time of night or day - He is aware of me and my needs.

Your brain is created in such a way that certain functions only occur when you are asleep. So, technically, your brain is not sleeping, but when your body slows down and relaxes into refreshing, deep sleep, certain areas of your brain activate those important maintenance functions that are not activated when you are awake.

So one of the absolute basics for real health, is to be sure to get adequate sleep every night. Your body needs it and you will be allowing your brain to do what it was created to do for you. No matter what is keeping you up and preventing you from sleeping, remember, God is already up - let Him handle it. You know He will do a much better job anyway!

Are You Smarter Than a Three-Year-Old?

Knowing your true identity is a fundamental part of getting back to basic health. In the most obvious way, unless you know your family history you are at a disadvantage as to dealing with possible hereditary health problems. Knowledge is power. Knowing your true spiritual identity is critical to health and wholeness. You are a one-of-a-kind, unique, priceless Designer original! God doesn't create any inferior "junk" or cheap knock-offs.

So what difference does it make to know how God sees you? The way God sees you is your true identity. When you are grounded in that identity, it affects how you approach people and situations. You don't approach them with a distorted perspective. What's a distorted perspective? That's when you constantly tell yourself - I'm stupid, I'm ugly, I can't do anything right, no one likes me, I'll never succeed, this will never work out. Those are distorted thinking patterns. They come from a distorted identity.

Your identity affects how you approach God and how you pray as well. Even though He sees you clearly, if your perspective is skewed and you see yourself through a very distorted lens, you will not approach Him confidently as we are instructed to in the Bible (Hebrews 4:16). If you feel unworthy and inadequate and hesitate to come to God boldly, confidently, knowing He loves you and watches for your arrival daily, you need to work on your identity. Here's a little story to illustrate:

When my daughter Elizabeth was three, my husband and brother owned a restaurant near our house. After dropping her two older brothers off at school, we would go and visit her dad and Uncle Georgie. It didn't matter how many people were in the restaurant, how busy they were or what was going on. Elizabeth would walk in and if she didn't see her dad on the front line, she never hesitated for a moment to walk behind the front counter and into the office in the back to find him. It never occurred to her that she shouldn't do that or she didn't have the right to be back there. After all this was her Dad's place and she had no doubt about who she was or what her privileges were!

Shouldn't we all approach our Heavenly Father the same way? Shouldn't our prayers be bold and confident and full of expectation? Elizabeth never doubted that her dad would be happy to see her. The thought that he would not give her something to eat if she asked for it never crossed her mind. If she walked in there expecting a piece of cornbread, that is exactly what she got. She approached him in total faith and he never disappointed her.

That's exactly how we should approach our Heavenly Father - enthusiastically, full of confidence, boldly and expecting to receive what we ask for. Why? Because He loves us and His greatest desire is to bless us. If we, as human parents treat our children this way, why would we think He would do any less? Sometimes we have to get back to the basics and let a little child lead us. That's one reason why I wrote my book, "The King's Daughter". I am not ashamed to tell you I have probably learned so much more from my children than they ever learned from me!

So, get back to the basics - let God show you in His Word how He sees you and then correct your vision - align your perspective to His. You'll find it makes everything else in life so much better.

On Purpose

Every single one of us was born with a specific purpose we are to fulfill with our lives. We have all the gifts and talents we need to do it and as we trust God and step out in faith, one step at a time, we receive the wisdom we need and God brings the right people and opportunities before us. Of course, we must be operating in faith - believing He is doing so.

Each purpose is a little different, yet there is one basic underlying purpose for each of us as Christians. For example, if you are a doctor your purpose is to heal people. If you are a teacher you are to inspire a thirst and love for learning. If you are a husband, you are to protect and provide for your wife and family. If you are a wife, you are to support and encourage your husband. If you are a mother, raising stable, secure, successful children who know, love and live for God is your purpose. You get the idea.

As a Christian, the foundation of the Christian life for each of us is to know, love, honor and glorify God with our lives. There's a specific part of that purpose I want to focus on. We carry the very power and presence of God's Holy Spirit within us. We have the ability and the responsibility to carry His love, grace, mercy and blessing with us into each and every situation we encounter.

We are to represent Him, be imitators of Him and be His ambassadors to our world. Every person we meet, every situation and circumstance we are faced with should be improved simply because they encountered God in us! To me, that is an awesome thought. I can inspire real hope and encouragement by sharing my faith. I can offer real, practical comfort and support to someone who is frightened, discouraged or facing difficulties.

My goal each day is to sow good seed into someone's life; to improve a situation or circumstance simply by my presence and prayers. My determined purpose is that no matter where I go today, who crosses my path or what I do - I will prayerfully bring blessing and the situation will improve or the person will be encouraged and lifted up. That is my basic purpose for each day - everything else flows from that. How about you? What are you doing - on purpose?

Move in Your Moment!

I have a question for you - how are you doing with your New Year's Resolutions? By now, most people have totally given up on them. I've seen all the suggestions to set goals instead of making resolutions - make them specific - measurable - give them a time frame. Truthfully, while setting goals is definitely important and something I do, I don't think that's the answer in this case.

I think, with both resolutions and goals, we get excited and set these huge, extravagant goals. You know - lose 50 lbs by March, start a new business, begin making an extra $5,000 a month, find my soulmate. While I believe we should "think big" and set goals that stretch us - we forget that no one takes one big step and reaches their goal. The road to fulfilling any goal - whether it's improving health, finances or relationships - is paved with a series of well-thought-out, concrete, smaller steps.

I like to call them "baby steps." Not one of us begins to teach our child to walk and gets impatient and disgusted if they take one or two teetering little steps and then fall. No, we celebrate and cheer them on and when they take three little, tiny steps the next time - we are thrilled that they made progress! Why are we so hard on ourselves?

The Bible tells us in Zechariah 4:10 we are "not to despise the day of small beginnings." That's really good advice. In order to achieve any goal or fulfill any resolution, we have to schedule a series of baby steps. But that's just the beginning. Then we are to celebrate each time we make progress - no matter how small. This creates momentum. I heard one teacher describe momentum as "moving in your moment." I like that!

Every day we have 1,440 minutes to use. We all have the same amount of time. Each one of those minutes is yours to move in. You can move forward, backward or stand still. The choice is yours. To my way of thinking, even moving a half-step forward toward the fulfillment of your goal is preferable to either of the other two alternatives!

So, instead of punishing yourself for not making more progress - congratulate yourself on the forward movement you have made in your particular moment. Don't despise them if they are small. Instead of focusing so much on the size, focus on the direction.

Go back to your New Year's Resolutions or goals - it's not too late - really, it's almost never too late! Break them down into baby steps and see how much progress you have already made! Let me know so I can celebrate with you. This is your year to move in your moment!

In the Mood for Food!

I was reading through some teaching notes I'd taken while listening to a bible teacher on TBN years ago named Aiko Hormann. She was a lovely Asian woman who at the time was in her 60's. However, she didn't look a day over 40. She had such a peace and serenity about her. She was a scientist and I took copious notes on her teaching on the connection of our emotions to our physical health, which I found fascinating.

How many times do we sit down to a meal when we've just had an argument or feel angry or stressed? We don't think twice about sitting down in that emotional state and eating. Some of us use food in that instance as a comforter. But those emotions are very powerful and they powerfully affect our digestion and our health. I want to share some of the examples she taught about because they illustrate the need to be aware of our emotions and take control over them.

She explained it is critical to know what state of mind you are in while you eat. When you are angry, stressed or fearful, those emotions cause biochemical changes in your body. Different hormones and chemicals are released into your bloodstream. Those negative emotions stimulate the part of the brain called the amygdala. In fact if you were to be hooked up to a diagnostic machine, that part of your brain would actually be lit up on the screen because those emotions had activated it. The amygdala is directly connected to the stomach. Therefore, any emotion that affects that part of your brain, also affects your digestion.

It certainly makes sense - think how you feel when you are upset and sit down and eat anyway. It feels like you swallowed a rock! Another interesting thing she shared was that when you generate a toxic emotional response by activating your amygdala through fear, anger or anxiety, those chemicals remain in your bloodstream for 72 hours - 3 days - unless you neutralize them.

No wonder God's Word in Proverbs 17:1 tells us: Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife. The Message Translation says it this way: A meal of bread and water in contented peace is better than a banquet spiced with quarrels. She said a blood sample from an angry person was injected into a guinea pig and it died. She also related a woman who was breastfeeding her child became extremely furious with her husband and breastfed her baby in that emotional state and the baby died. Now, I cannot verify that those examples are literally true, although that is the way she presented them.

A study was done with smokers and non-smokers. Both groups ate the same number of eggs. Cholesterol levels rose rapidly in the smokers because smoking stresses the body and stress will cause cholesterol to rise rapidly regardless of the amount or type of food eaten.

So what to do when you find yourself upset and you just want to sit down and stuff your face? Her suggestion makes sense to me. She related that when people purposely changed their thoughts from anger, fear or anxiety to God's love and goodness, the change in their brain chemistry could be recorded. The amygdala, which had been activated by the negative emotions was switched off. Now the ceptum, which is directly connected to the physical heart, was immediately lit up and began dissipating those emotional toxins. Not only does it neutralize the effects of negative emotions on your digestion, it promotes a healthy heart as well.

It may not be easy to switch off those negative emotions in the moment - but with practice I'm sure it gets easier and easier, just like anything else. The point is to be aware and in control of our emotions instead of the other way around.

Let the Strong Say...

A conversation with a very dear friend last week has had me thinking about a scripture and about strong, Christian women. My friend shared that she has been diagnosed with breast cancer and will have surgery within a few weeks. She shared how she became aware of a problem just before the holidays but did research and did not want to deal with it until after the new year. At that time she very sensitively and carefully broke the news to her husband, saying that she'd had weeks to get used to the idea, but it was now coming at him out of the blue. She busied herself preparing and freezing meals so he would have them ready while she was in the hospital and recovering and paying the bills and getting all the finances up-to-date since she handles all that.

She, of course, has involved him in every decision and at every step of this journey she finds herself on. She lost her father last March so she and her husband went to tell her mom. She shared how she also personally spoke to her two sisters and each of her nieces and nephews because she wanted them to see she was ok and not to be frightened or to worry. She had originally emailed me with this news, but once we'd "spoken" on line, she called because she also wanted me to hear her voice and know she was handling this as she handled every crisis in her life - with strength, grace, courage and humor.

While I was relieved to hear her voice, I couldn't stop thinking about how she has gone out of her way to make sure she put everyone she cares about at ease, comforting and encouraging them. I can really relate to this as I find myself falling into that very same pattern - I am strong and I have to care for everyone else. Even when it is I who may need some comfort and encouragement.

Joel 3:10 says, "Let the weak say I am strong!" The Message Translation says it this way: "Let the weak one throw out his chest and say, 'I'm tough, I'm a fighter.'" I'm beginning to wonder if some of us strong Christian women have perhaps taken this scripture to an extreme. I've been through a few crises in my life (haven't we all?) and I honestly can remember very few times when I was the one being protected and comforted. Perhaps it's been so long since that happened - I don't even know how to respond to that anymore.

I do remember one turning point conversation. We had just moved to NY from Tennessee with two small children so my husband could start a business with my brother. We were living with my Dad and brother in the house I grew up in. It was difficult living there when my mom was now gone. I was having a down day and one of my aunts called. In the course of our conversation I shared something I was upset about. Her response to me was, "Where is your faith?" I immediately knew at that very moment that I was expected to always be positive and in control, regardless of how I felt. That was a turning point moment for me.

That happened 20 years ago and even now most of the time when friends call it is to share their problems, ask for prayer, advice, comfort or encouragement. I find myself feeling the only one I can truly share my fears, doubts and concerns with is the Lord. Everyone else seems to think I should not feel that way, that somehow I'm "past" that.

As I pondered all this it made me wonder if my friend ever gets weary of always being the strong one, the one in control, the one encouraging and comforting everyone else while she may be crumbling inside. Don't get me wrong, through the death of my mom and my grandmother, losing two babies, closing our business and wondering what we would do next and various other crises of life, the Lord has been more than faithful and never failed to strengthen me and to bring us through.

I honestly don't know what I'd do if I did not have a real and intimate relationship with the Lover of my Soul. However, I have to admit to a purely human desire sometimes. I don't always want to be the take-charge one, the one who says to everyone else falling apart around me - don't worry, it will be fine, God is still on the Throne and He will see us through. While I will always know that in my deepest heart and believe it without question, just once in a while I would love for someone else to say that to me.

I don't really know if that's selfish or not - but I do know it's honest. I find it difficult to take any other part than this because I've been doing it for so long. The few times recently when I've admitted to being unsure about something or concerned about an outcome, the response has been genuine surprise that I could feel that way.

So - to get back to basics I guess I am saying (to you and to myself!) that we are after all just human. Regardless of how deep and strong our faith is, there will be times when we feel weak. That's just a fact of being human. I think maybe sometimes it is healthy and necessary for the strong to sometimes say, I am weak.