Monday, September 8, 2014

Well Rats!

Foiled by my own deeds!

I've been struggling with motivation to do some things I don't like to do. Things I don't want to do. As a friend's sister says, "I don't want to if I don't want to and I don't want to." However, they are tasks that need to be done.

Today is a day I have time to do them. Today is a day I have said I will do them. Today is NOT the day I want to do them!

So, instead of getting started, I turned in my journal to take time to write a few words. Because reflecting and writing in my journal are important - right? And there on what I expected to be a blank page are the notes I've written to myself in anticipation of today. They are not notes about a day gone by. They are notes for the next time I open my journal - as in now. So there before me on the page are these words:
Philippians 4:13
You have time for what you make time for.
Do what it takes.

Philippians 4:13 may be familiar to you. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."
These words have served as encouragement for me and for many others over the last two thousand years or so. When I was a chaplain, I stood at the head of a gurney in the ER. The woman on the gurney had been in a serious car wreck. Her husband had perished in the wreck. Now the doctors were having to do a painful procedure to set her broken arm. At a loss for words, I placed my hands at the sides of her head and and began, "I can do all things..." The woman joined me as I finished "through Christ who strengthens me." Over and over again we repeated those words as a mantra for the pain she was experiencing and for the pain she would face in days and weeks to come.

This verse  is a reminder of something I read on Facebook a few weeks ago. "Whenever I am having a really bad day, I remember that so far my record for making it through bad days is 100%."  A better saying might be "Whenever I'm having a really bad day, I remember God's record for getting me through bad days is 100%." Philippians  13 helps me start the day prepared for whatever comes, knowing God can get me through.

The other two sayings are mantras I developed as part of a Health and Wellness class I took last fall and again in the spring. So alas, I must get started on those "don't want to tasks."

Come Holy Spirit. Breathe your breath of life and energy into me. Light your fire within me that I may serve you in all the ways you put before me with joy and vitality. Amen.