TJ Hirst

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.

Update: This post won honorable mention in Scribbit’s July Write-Away Contest!

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.

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.

May is about as busy as December for a family with children in school. The end of the school year fills our calendar with field trips, concerts, talent shows and award ceremonies. I think it is the school’s way to prepare us for the return of busy summer days. When I finally gave the “back-pack mail” a thorough rereading, I discovered that I had scheduled an appointment at the same time as my son’s wax museum presentation and had planned to transport KH to her field trip a full one week before it was to happen. I need a mental refresher for this week’s challenge:

Give yourself one hour of solitude this week.

It seems weird to schedule solitude, but that may be required to actually meet this challenge. Solitude is the state or quality of being alone or remote from others. I just finished reading Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen, an interesting novel in which the main character’s famous sister voices a serious “Oops” remark on the air of the morning television show she hosts. She copes by retreating into seclusion in Jamaica.

Her solitary time is a luxury, and it isn’t practical for most of us. But similar to her time away to rethink her surroundings, I need regular time alone to regroup and ponder. So, I propose to find one hour away from the computer and Internet connection, one hour away from being available, one hour away from outside distractions, and most importantly, one hour away from my other goals and got-to-do lists.

I’ll take the challenge and write about it next Tuesday, May 20th. Do you want Try It With Me?

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Have you had any opportunities to read to or with someone, yet, for the May Reading Challenge? Although bedtime stories are no longer part of the regular routine with my independent reader children, I surprised my youngest with two impromptu “read togethers” of her almost-forgotten picture books. I especially liked The Quiltmaker’s Gift.

Two more weeks to Try It With Me. . .

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.