Our family arrived safely home from Panama late last night. Thank you all soo much for your prayers. Our flights went well and we all were kept safe. I did catch a small "something" but didn't start feeling an uncomfortable stomach until yesterday on the way from Panama to Atlanta. It made for some loong flights but I'm thankful that I didn't feel unwell while ministering IN Panama.
Today, I'm still battling my stomach somewhat but it's tolerable and I'm hoping will go away in a day or so.
So much to do now that we are home. Tons of laundry, lots of ministry work, my parents are here until Thursday, and Eliseo and I have a video to prepare of our missions trip to Panama for this weekend's services.
Please bear with me as I will be sporadically in and out probably until next week when I can really try to get back into the swing of things. I will try to post some pictures and maybe our video that will be shown at church.
It was an amazing trip - I'm more than blessed that our family could experience this together and would do it again in a heartbeat.
~ Dionna
As you read this, I am probably going through Internet withdrawals. I did not take my laptop with me to Panama. I just can’t imagine how I am doing without it! Knowing that my days would be full serving children and ministering to others, taking pictures, and ministering to my own to girls who are along…. I knew it was probably wise to leave the laptop behind. But oh how I miss it!!
I am probably scribbling like mad in my journal trying to get some sort of article down before it leaves my mind forever. I tend to like typing in Word doc because it allows me to pour out my thoughts before they escape me better than writing in pen and paper. But I will have to resort to rudimentary means this trip! Just know that if I have time at all and God allows it – I WILL be pouring out something that He is showing and teaching me on this missions journey to share with you in the future.
Please continue to remember my family and I in your prayers. We will be returning the 2nd week of July.
Some days I really want to write an article and I just can’t find the words. I get in bed at night and am just flooded with words. The things is…I’m tired. I am in bed, people! So I try to toss them around in my head hoping that when daylight comes, I will remember them. Most of the time, I don’t and it drives me bonkers.
I used to have pen and paper by my bed. I guess I need to do that again. I think I’m hit with article ideas at night because that is the time when my body stars to rest and I relive and go through the events and conversations of the day.
I’m the kind of person who really writes well when it’s something on my heart. I don’t write as well when it’s a subject assigned or forced on me. I just don’t seem to have the same “flow” that I do when my fingers just fly over the keyboard out of the outpouring of emotion and passion going on inside of me over a certain thing. So that’s why it’s especially frustrating when I know I have a topic or focus subject on my heart that is ready to come out! If I got up every time the writer ‘bug’ hit me at bedtime, who knows when I’d get to sleep? During the daylight hours, sometimes I will literally fly to the computer to type something out before I lose it. And sometimes, I have a writer’s “flurry” where I will be inspired to write a group of articles all at once – on different topics mind you! I guess I just get inspired. But bedtime is just not convenient for me to be getting inspired these days.
Maybe I can adjust to my “nighttime” writer’s pulse when my kids are older. I might drive my husband a little bonkers but it could work. But for now, I’m just hoping that I can somehow tap into some of those ideas later the next day otherwise there will remain many stories in my heart left unwritten….
**For those of you who write – how do you capture an idea or a subject when it’s not a convenient time and you don’t want to “lose” the thought?
I listen to the “Today Show” a lot in the mornings while I’m getting ready for the day. On occasion, I leave it on instead of flipping to my favorite radio show or listening to a podcast on my IPOD. When I do, I love to listen to Willard Scott do the “Smuckers” Happy Birthday segment. I consistently am in awe as I hear of men and women celebrating their 100th or 110th birthdays.
One of my favorite parts of this segment is hearing Willard talk about the birthday person and what they attribute their secret of longevity to. I hear a wide range of answers – things from “my beautiful spouse,” “traveling,” “a good stiff drink,” “my faith,” or “good friends.” I find it fascinating that these answers range from loving relationships, beliefs in God, and hobbies to habits that would otherwise be thought to shorten a lifespan because they are unhealthy!
One common denominator I’ve seen in these “centenarians” is that everything anyone suggests or attributes to being able to live a good long life encompasses joy. Whether it’s a person, an activity, or a habit – it has brought these individuals great joy.
On my cell phone I have a saying that I typed into the screen. When you open it up it says, “The joy of the Lord is my strength.” Joy. God gives us our joys. He strengthens us in those joys. Joy can heal us when we are emotionally wounded or physically unwell. It’s well-said that laughter is great medicine! Why? Because it brings us joy. So it stands to reason that joy also extends life.
There is so much to be stressful about. We can get wrapped up in the fact that so-and-so hurt our feelings or we don’t have the amount of money that we want. We can engage in so many battles that only deepen our worry lines and our frowns instead of deepening our smiles.
My quest this year is to find what these “Smuckers” birthday celebrants have found. Deep joy. I want to access the joy that I know that God wants to hand to me on a daily basis. I want to laugh more often and deeper. I want to smile, celebrate, and love with pure contented joy in simply being alive. And if I’m lucky enough, someday Willard (or his successor) will be saying my name and wishing me a happy 100th birthday. Oh what joy that will bring me.
RELATED POSTS:
Life is a Journey Not a Destination
What a Blast it is to Give!
Accept Where We Are
I'm Spending My Time....
Accept Where We Are
Those crazy birds are putting mud on our house up under our eaves! Then they are going to build nests. Nice huh?
They are going to town at it. It's all along the upper back side of our house and along the side of our house on both sides as well. It wasn't there the other day! They've made a lot of progress....
I was in awe of it. My husband was ticked.
I had a friend recently ask me how I stayed so close to my girls. She was looking for some concrete and tangible ideas to use in her own home. I was honored that she’d ask for my opinion. I do try to stay close to my girls. As they grow up, I have to get more and more creative or often switch my tactics when I see that something isn’t working to get them to open up to me anymore.
One idea I do think works in my home and that I shared with my friend was the pass-it-back journal. Basically it’s a journal that each individual child and I share. One of us will write in it and then go and lay it on the other person’s bed. Once that person has read it, it is their turn to respond and pass it back. Sometimes it may be the very same day, sometimes a week, even a month or more can pass before we return the journal. It’s not a pressured thing.
The goal is to simply talk through a different means; writing. Sometimes my daughter and I talk about school, friends, gifts she wants for Christmas, makeup etc. Other times deeper subjects encroach into the journals. For whatever reasons, at times, she feels she can open up more through the journal than by talking to me face to face. And although I want her to feel like she can talk to me in person anytime about anything, I am so thankful the journal is around to hear her express feelings on certain issues. To me, it doesn’t always matter how something comes out – as long as she DOES talk to me about it in some form or manner!
My other daughter hasn’t seemed to grasp onto the concept of the journal quite as much. Maybe it’s because she’s younger or hasn’t dealt with as many issues. Maybe it’s just her different personality. But we tend to write less to each other than my other daughter and I do.
I would really encourage anyone who is having trouble getting their children to open up to them or share things in their lives to at least try the “Pass-It-Back” journaling idea. For some children, it might be a less confrontive measure in which they can share their hearts with you. Of course, the journals need to be confidential and you will earn your child’s trust as you go along.
I think it’s good to remind ourselves, too, that listening sometimes matters more than advising. How we respond to what our children say will often dictate whether or not they come back to us again about something. This is something that I myself am working on because it can be so easy to want to shout out “That is wrong!” or “Don’t you ever do something like that!” A positive example can often be just as powerful as shouting out or dictating and pointing at the negative. Journals are great ways in which to do this because you have the time to think out your response before writing back in it.
Give the journaling thing a try. It may not work, it may work wonderfully, or it may just work for a season… but for me, it is a real asset to staying in tune with what my daughter is thinking and feeling – thoughts that I may not have ever heard otherwise.
Have you ever noticed how it’s easier to believe the bad stuff about yourself instead of the good? Recently I shared with a friend how I felt very boring. I don’t know what it was, but for at least the last ten years I have felt like I must be a very boring and forgettable person. I was even left behind on a mission’s trip before! That only solidified the fact that I must not be very memorable.
This friend had made a comment about my “strong” personality so I asked her about it. I said, “Do I have a strong personality?” I was expecting her to come back to me and tell me that I could be bold sometimes or that maybe I came off stronger that I intended in my beliefs or thoughts. I was ready to remedy my behavior and work on some issues that maybe I didn’t know I had.
I was very surprised when my friend emailed me back and told me that she thought I had an AMAZING personality and that I was one of the most “unboring” people she had ever met (and she had met a lot of people!) I was blown away. I was humbled. I was thankful. I was encouraged to tears. Then I thought about how easily I had believed a lie that Satan had filled my mind with. How easy it was for me to believe the bad about myself.
Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. We allow ourselves to feel defeated based on thoughts that no one else has really stated about us. And if they have, we believe them never really thinking that their opinion could be in the minority or that they could be wrong!
We need to carefully filter what we believe about ourselves. Just because someone says something about us doesn’t mean they are right. Instead, maybe we should hold up what everyone says to what God says about us! From what I’ve read in the Bible, He delights in me, desires to be close to me, enjoys me, loves me, believes in me, and fights for me! He even finds me beautiful because He created me with the loving hands of a Father. I am cherished. That’s what I need to remember when I find myself talking defeating “self-talk” to myself.
Whether or not I’m boring, mediocre, or plain to other people really doesn’t matter in the long run. Because I can find joy, purpose, and beauty simply believing in what God thinks of me. Then maybe the bad stuff won’t be so easy to believe.
RELATED POSTS:
You Never Get Over School
Damaging Ourselves
Restoration
Labels
