TJ Hirst

My Daily Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

Building or remodeling a home brings daily questions to the forefront of a family that require continual problem solving and decision making. I’m following Michelle’s story at Scribbit of their family’s major remodel with interest, including her latest experience in choosing and applying paint.

My husband is an architect and building a home together was always our dream. When we proceeded toward this goal four years ago, the reality looked a little more like a nightmare. I never realized the challenges involved.

Despite the imperfections in the process, we now have a beautiful home. Summer sun highlights one of my favorite parts—the garden and natural landscape that surround it. We even grow grass and vegetables in a garden on our roof, which is a whole series of posts in itself.

The negative side of that story or the positive photographs of the end result may present a false impression of life on opposite extremes—one filled with problems or the other as picture perfect. Right in the middle of these extremes is a rather ordinary but hideous hillside connecting our front yard to our back.

During home construction this hillside was a sandy slope that eroded away with the constant foot traffic and dropped off in an even steeper pitch down the side. When we landscaped our yard three years ago, I wanted to terrace it and Paul wanted sod. We chose sod in the end so the hillside could become a pathway for the lawn mower to the back lawn.

Still, the slope is steep, sandy and exposed to an unshaded southern exposure. The grass didn’t survive the faulty sprinkler spray, the poor soil or the harsh sun and is once again eroding. I could blame and insist that I was right. I could say, “We should have terraced it.” But I knew that wasn’t the right solution either.

Life’s problems never seem to cease, but trying hard to deal with the problems somehow makes you dig deep enough that you learn things you’d never understand without the digging. A happy life isn’t about getting what you want; it’s about the attitude you develop toward whatever happens to you, an attitude that lets you grow . . . There is something mellow and enriching about living this way as husband and wife; trying to discover what’s behind life’s problems, together, as a team.

Bruce C. Hafen, Covenant Hearts

My feelings and opinions were subdued enough to listen to Paul’s proposals to put down paving stones and his reasons behind it. In the course of proceeding on that plan, he replaced a part in the sprinkler and adjusted the spray. The slope received water from a new source for the first time ever and the grass began to grow again. On the day we scheduled to perform the work, we determined that we might resolve the problem if we reseeded and nurtured the lawn with consistent care.

With a new outlook on solving problems in marriage, we dug into that hillside together. It became our problem and our blessing.

My Daily Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

Carefree and curious, my daughter peeks out from behind the fabric of the hammock. I capture the moment of calm with my camera and wonder at the possibilities ahead of her.

On another day, my children watch The Incredibles in the backseat of the car. I listen to the blaring action of the movie and the stop-and-go-traffic and wonder why I can’t stop shoving Twizzler Cherry Nibs into my mouth.

The contrasting scenes leave me to wonder—the first with hope, the second with dismay.

Does every mother glimpse the potential in her child, feel inspired by awe and wish for the grandest fruition of those gifts? If so, why do we look upon ourselves with diminished eyesight, only seeing the limitations of our day-to-day reality?

Not everyone is trapped in traffic with too many Cherry Nibs but similar distractions like comparing ourselves to others or toiling in countless activities just fill up our time and emotions until we become less connected to actual people, less fulfilled in what we do and less confident in our choices. Overstuffed but still empty.

When these mixed-up outlooks cage me in, my husband counsels me to “lower your expectations.” At first I think he means stop being a perfectionist and just be happy with who you are and what you have. And he does mean that to some extent. Yet, I don’t believe he means that I need to set aside my dreams. On the contrary, he encourages them.

I might use these words: Hold on to your wonder-filled expectations without worrying about the Wonder Woman expectations.

Most of us do not want to be the woman who evokes amazement or the one everyone admires nor do we seek fame or the superiority of a super hero, but we still want to give our best in our sphere of influence with the talents we’ve been given. A natural desire for affirmation sometimes sidetracks that goal.

Ultimately, knowing and growing in our potential comes from inspiration on the inside and not comparisons or pressure from the outside. Personally, when I look beyond the threads of my circumstance at the awe-inspiring patterns God has created, only then can I see the wonder in me.

This is an entry in the July Write-Away Contest at Scribbit.
Interested in entering? The topic is Wonder Woman and you have until July 16 to enter.

My Daily Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

Our summer shifted this year to incorporate fewer scheduled activities and more unstructured time. Is it working? YES. Surprisingly, each of us is finding the right balance of together time and individual pursuits, down time and goal-oriented projects. I’m going to write about what my children are doing over the next few days, but here’s one that blessed me today.

I sat on my front porch bench photographing the red columbine in bloom in my garden and the biking children on the neighborhood street. But then the game changed, and they invited me in to play kickball with them!

“No,” I said. “I’m just relaxing. I’ll watch.” I’d done my hard work and now I wanted to be the observer.

But then something in me said, “Yes. I’ll just change my shoes.”

I hadn’t played kickball since my fourth-grade days at Becky-David Elementary school where I was never the first one picked for the team. But my daughter chose me for hers. We played a hard game in our driveway, which has been designated as a premier kickball court with natural boundaries. I was glad for spontaneity and to be chosen. But after an hour or so, I happily turned my spot over to the neighbor boy who came just in time to replace me.

Afterwards, they invited me back. “You’re really good, Mom.”

My Daily Question: Have I seen the hand of God reaching out to touch us today?

Today, I had an unfortunate post office experience. I complained.

I had purchased a roll of 100 stamps three days before the price was increased from $0.41 to $0.42. No sign was posted announcing the change that was only days away. Nor did the sales clerk communicate it to me when I asked for this large quantity of stamps. On the morning of the change when I heard of the price increase on NPR news, I seethed. I knew it was only $1 extra for all of those stamps, but they were worthless three days after I bought them without that extra one cent stamp that I now had to return to purchase.

When I went to the post office I told them of my complaint, which was primarily that no one communicated the price increase with words or with a sign. I didn’t think I was rude; I just expressed that I was a little “perturbed.”

The clerk, whom normally has a smile and a joke for everyone, put me in my place with his ultra polite, “Well, it has been difficult for all of us.”

But it didn’t feel like he understood me or even acknowledged my concern. So I upped my emotion. Then he said things like, “You asked a question, can I have a chance to talk, now?” I felt my confidence diminish that I had even stood up to speak.

KH and NH stood beside me during this attempt to express myself. Later when I asked KH about it, she admitted it was a bad scene. “A little embarrassing,” she said. “And your voice was shaking.”

So I wondered, how else was I supposed to handle it? Not saying anything? Act as if it doesn’t matter? I am opinionated, and sometimes I have a hard time knowing when I need to step up and say something and when I don’t.

But the good news is that I am mentoring my own daughter to know how. She received a late slip from the public library for a book she thought she had returned. Apparently she didn’t. She looked for the book everywhere at home. She even stayed after school to clean out her locker just too find it, but still no book. It was lost.

She stressed over it for many weeks. Every time she wanted to check out a book at the library, the outstanding fee prevented it and reminded her of the loss.

She waited until the end of the year to pay the $25 for the lost book and the $5 late fee thinking that maybe it could still show up. For a 14-year-old that is a high price to pay for a book that you won’t even get to read again.

This morning, she moaned about the “consequence” for losing the book and insisted that she had learned her lesson to be more careful. She resolved to pay it with her own money.

At the library, she paid her fee. After, I found her in the young adult stacks. She pulled out a book. “This is the book I paid for.”

“You mean you think it is the actual book that you checked out?” I said.

She hemmed and hawed, not wanting to commit. She explained something about the computer listing only one copy at our library, and that it was lost and paid for, but she said, “This must be from one of the other libraries.”

She hesitated as if she didn’t really believe that, so I pressed her. “Do you think that is the same book you checked out?”

She wasn’t completely sure, but I could tell she felt something growing inside of her. I encouraged her to trust her feeling and tell the librarians.

I sat on a bench with my other children and watched her in action. She took her concern to the front desk. She handed them the book and said she thought this was the book she just paid for.

They checked the barcode. Indeed it was. She had paid for a book that was sitting on the shelf the whole time she was stressing about it. They acknowledged that they should have looked on the shelf first. Two librarians thanked her for coming to tell them, which built her confidence in speaking up.

What a genuine learning experience in so many ways! Why couldn’t my “speaking up” at the post office have looked this good?

Try-It With-Me Tuesday, an interactive weekly time and place to foster connections that challenge and encourage the process to become a well-rounded person.

Spring is transition time, right? During the winter months, my body intuitively wants extra calories to insulate me from the cold. That may just be an excuse for the holidays, birthdays, winter blues, and more holidays and birthdays, but I can’t believe the double digit negative temps don’t contribute to my carb cravings.

Every spring, though, I feel those extra five to seven pounds weighing me down. And this month I challenge myself to eat less and eat healthier. For the first time, all my Try-It-With-Me Tuesday challenges in June will focus on the goal to eat healthy, starting with the June Reading Challenge:

Read food labels this month to be more aware of serving size and nutritional value.

My healthy eating goals include eating appropriate portions for what my body needs, increasing fiber and reducing sugar. While your needs and goals may be different, reading helps us remember and retain. Most diet plans emphasize in one way or another this common practice—think about what I put in my mouth and, ultimately, what I put in my body.

Usually I think before I eat, but most often it is in a general good or bad sense. That just leads to general positive or negative thoughts, depending on what I ate. On the other hand, when I read the nutrition facts before I eat, I make specific, positive choices or treat myself to specific controlled pleasure choices. Reading reminds us that we choose several times a day what we want to be.

Do you want to Try It With Me?

I will report on my progress on Tuesdays and give a final summary on Tuesday, June 24, of my results and yours when I publish my post with your links and comments. Healthy reading to you!

Join in by trying the challenges with me, commenting, linking, or suggesting a challenge. If you want to write a post on your blog about what happened when you took the challenge, I will publish your link. Just link to my website in your post and send me your link. Feel free to use the TIWMT image in your post.