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About Brenda

June 1, 2010

I Did Not Sign Up For This

Filed under: Disappointment,Encouragement,Failure,Hard Times,Index cards,Interruptions,Overwhelmed women,celebrate life,discouragement,priorities — Brenda @ 4:13 pm

I started the morning doing something not on my index card list—cleaning up the dog’s mess. I’ll let your imagination or perhaps your personal experiences fill in the details for you. While doing this with the best of attitudes, I declared loudly for anyone (really everyone) who was in earshot, “There must be a special reward in heaven for moms who clean up pet messes (again fill in your own details).” Seriously, I did not sign up for this.
As I was scrubbing brown from Kerry’s light blue carpet the thought occurred to me, Moms days are filled with things not on their index card. It’s their job description. Of course, the same can be said for every woman. For the most part, we are the core of our families and the nurturers (even at work). We make it happen for those who rely on us.
So how do we marry the urgent, which many times is important, with the list on our index cards?
• Know Your Priorities. I know I have said this a million times, but it is core to fulfilling the life God has for you. How else did Jesus know to stop for the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years, yet not stop for others who were also in great need? (Luke 8:43-48) Jesus knew and lived His priorities.
• Sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. I know this can sound a little vague, but when we lay down our agendas, fears, prejudices, all the things we have told God we will never do, and sinful habits we can more clearly hear the guiding of the Holy Spirit. Then we too can know who we are to take time for and who is not ours to take time for.
• Reign in Your Time Killers. Who or what kills your time? TV, facebook, texting, phone calls, a needy co-worker who never gets enough of you? We give these time killers precious time from our day that could be used for something God has for us, even if it’s ten minutes of peace and quiet before the next urgency presents itself (I was eating a stack of delicious pancakes when Kerry discovered the dog’s mess in my room.) We are big girls now. No more excuses. Reign in your time killers. Give them the appropriate amount of time (some may need to go altogether) and then get on to the next thing.
Kerry’s carpet is clean and drying now. The blog is done and I’m off to the next thing on my index card. My day most likely won’t look like I planned, but it will be what God planned.
How do you handle that for which you did not sign up for in your life?

May 24, 2010

The Gatekeeper of Our Dreams

Filed under: Christian living,Confidence,Disappointment,Encouragement,Failure,Fighting Fear,Hard Times,New opportunites,Rejection,Writing/authors,adventure,discouragement,next step in life — Brenda @ 4:52 pm

“And don’t think we are the gatekeepers of your dream.”
“Well, they are,” I whispered to my friend sitting next to me, holding back the urge to jump up and yell Blasphemy!
My friend and I were at a writers’ conference sitting in on a panel of book editors. The editors were discussing the type of material they were looking for and what they wanted writers to know about their publishing houses.
Our strong reaction to his disclaimer (my friend had nodded in agreement) was brought on by our wrong belief that if the editors would just look at our material they would realize how amazing it was and publish our books and our dreams would come true. But after his comment, we felt rejected before he even looked at our work. Rejection is something a writer must deal with if she is going to be a professional writer.
Actors the same way. Yesterday one of my daughters learned she did not get the part she had hoped for. She worked hard to prepare. She has proven herself by doing the small roles with excellence. Surely, this was her year. The role went to someone less experienced. The rejection hurt and disillusioned her.
Rejection is a part of life. Everyone experiences it. Who hasn’t felt the pierce of rejection
• by a breakup/divorce?
• from children?
• from parents?
• from job loss?
• of not getting the job?
• from friends who don’t stay true?
What do we do when the one we think is the gatekeeper of our dreams locks us out? Our answer determines the kind of person we become and the direction of our life. Here are a few truths to help you with your answer:
1. Don’t take every rejection personally. Unless you have been grossly rude, irresponsible, immoral, or illegal, very often it’s more about them than you. The other person is just that—another person. They have limited knowledge and judgment. They have their own issues. It’s impossible to know why you were overlooked when you seemed to be the perfect one for the job, role, friendship, opportunity, etc.
I tried to give my daughter perspective—This is the opinion of one high school teacher. I’m not disrespecting the teacher or her position, but I wanted my daughter to gain perspective. There will be other roles and other directors.
Own whatever part you may have played in the rejection—real not perceived. Then know that not even Jesus pleased everyone all the time. How can we expect to?
2. Let this rejection grow you. Reflect and decide what you can do better next time. My first book, Queen Mom, was rejected several times before it was published. Each time the editors who rejected it gave me helpful advice to make it better. I listened and used their advice. Three years later it was published.
3. Consider redirection. Maybe this rejection is about you—not personally, but maybe God is trying to get your attention to try something else. My first attempt at writing was a novel. One of my friends has one of those can’t-believe-this-really-happened life stories. I thought God was directing me to turn her story into a based-on-real-life novel. I interviewed her once a week for several months. I wrote my proposal and went to a writers’ conference. A gracious editor from a well-known Christian fiction publisher looked over my work and asked me, “Where do you see the story going?” It was the next logical question, but I was speechless. At that moment God made it very clear that I am not a fiction writer. I went home and started working on Queen Mom.
4. Bottom Line—We are always in God’s hands and whatever comes to us is only through His permission (i.e. Job—as in “The Book of”). Through all my rejections (and there have been many) I rest in the fact that if God wanted me there I would be there and no one could prevent it. This doesn’t take away from my responsibility to work hard, prepare, learn, grow, and be a person of excellence and integrity. But, as we discussed last week, the results are always God’s.

Are you feeling the sting of rejection or maybe rejection knocked the wind out of you this time? Lick your wounds. Then decide, What is the truth in this situation? Now move forward accordingly. Sometimes we can’t make sense of the nonsense, so don’t hesitate to talk with someone wiser.
I would love to hear what you are doing with rejection.

April 20, 2010

Bible Study Tuesday–The Gift God Wants to Give and We Seldom Take

Filed under: Christian living,Confidence,Disappointment,Encouragement,Fighting Fear,Hard Times,Joy,Life as God's Girl,Relationship with God,The Unknown,Trusting God,Waiting on God,Walking with God,celebrate life,confident living,discouragement,facebook,life changes — Brenda @ 6:02 pm

Today’s Bible study started with a skit that Libby Snyder wrote. For the sake of space I did not include it. If you would like to read it, email me (contact page) and I will email it to you. What follows is the teaching portion of today’s study.

So what do you think the sucker represents?
That’s right. Joy. The sucker represents joy. In the midst of our messy lives God wants to give us joy.
The thought occurred to me the other day—in the midst of my messy life God put a tiny piece of joy—I think to see if I would nibble and then He would give me more. But I hesitated. Just like Libby I thought I can’t take this. Not now. I’m not ready for it. I have more to do before I can experience joy.

Have you ever been there? God puts a spark of joy in your heart and encourages you to let it burst into your whole heart, but you tell God, “Not now. Too much going on. I’ll get back to you when it’s the right time for joy.”

God has much to say about joy and as I learned studying for this lesson. The best place to camp for our study of joy is 2 Corinthians 6:1-10. This is a chunk of heavy-duty Scripture to chew on. Read verses 1-10. Go back to v. 1—Receive the grace of God—make it count. Grace here is from the same root as joy in v. 10 which we will get to in a minute. Here it means “divine influence upon the heart and its reflection in life, including gratitude.” So when Paul says, “not to receive the grace of God in vain” he means to let God work in you and change you and live it out, being grateful for everything God has done for you.
V. 2—Paul emphasizes this truth. He says, “Behold, now is ‘the acceptable time,’ behold, now is ‘the day of salvation.’ “ He is telling the reader—this is it. On earth it won’t get any better. We’re not going to get a better offer from God. Now He is offering us His grace—His involvement in our lives. We just need to get in a posture to hear and cooperate.
V.3—Paul tells us how to live out our faith—“giving no cause for offense in anything.” Keep out of trouble and stay away from anything that might discredit the ministry.
V. 4—Then he begins a lengthy list of situations/issues/conditions we may find ourselves in and tells us to present ourselves as servants of God in each one. Read thru them one by one.
V. 10—“as sorrowful yet always rejoicing.” This is the joy God was trying to get Libby to take hold of. The definition for joy in this verse means cheerfulness, calm delight, great gladness. As I said, it is from the same root as grace in verse 1 which means calmly happy or well-off. Paul is telling us as we present ourselves as servants of God we are going to go through some hard stuff, but in it all we are to have calm delight and be calmly happy.

Other definitions for joy throughout the Bible mean to be glad, clamor in acclamation of joy, shout for joy. These are used to describe times of celebration. When we are sorrowful, going through a hard thing, it is not appropriate to shout for joy. But it is appropriate to have calm delight.
But how?
• By knowing God has you covered. Deuteronomy 31:8. God got where we’re going ahead of us. He will be with us when we get there. He will not fail us. He will not forsake us—slow down the car tell us to get out while He picks up another sister, leaving us alongside the road till He comes back our way. That’s not the way God rolls. Because of all this He tells us to not fear or WHAT? What does it say—be dismayed—which is what we learned last week is the same as discouragement and we know what that leads to—disobedience! And we don’t want to go there so let’s back it up and we won’t fear what is causing our sorrowfulness because God has us covered—Deut. 31:8!
• Then we can start to flail closer to God. Get ourselves in a posture that says, “God, this stinks. I hate it. I don’t know what You’re doing here, but I want to be on track with You.”

As a family we end every day in Gene and my bedroom for prayer time (it is short and to the point). It gives us a few last moments to be together for the day. (I know for moms of little ones you have had enough moments in your day! When your kids get bigger you will grasp for each one.) We sit in our room and talk and be silly and Gene and Riley play. This is Riley’s favorite part of the day. When we head back to the bedroom she runs ahead of everyone and sits by the chair that Gene sits in, waiting for him to sit down and play with her. (Show picture of Riley at Gene’s feet.) See her smiling face? See her look of calm delight? Of calm happiness? You bet you do because no matter what happened that day she is now at the feet of her master and all is well.

Can we do that? Can we be as simple as my dog and sit with calm delight at the feet of our Lord?
There we will hear from Him and He may be saying we’re in for a wait, so we will need to get comfortable and in fellowship with Him through this time.
There we will hear from Him what to do next. But we can’t hear if we are at our own pity party. We can only hear Him if we are in a posture to hear.
So flail your sad little self to the feet of God. Sit. Reach out and take the sucker. Take the joy. Enjoy. It may be a long while till the time for shouts of joy come, but “Behold, now is the acceptable time” for joy!

Today in small groups we shared times of accepting God’s joy in the midst of a hard time and the challenge of doing so. Please feel free to share with me and the other readers your experience of taking God’s joy in the midst of a hard time or your struggle to do so.

As my youngest daughter would say–Sadness! Next week is our last week in Princess Unaware. I will continue to blog, but next week is the last lesson from Princess. See you next week.

One more thing–recently I took up residence on facebook. If that’s your thing check out my Brenda Garrison fan page and leave a note. I would love to see your pic on my page.

February 12, 2010

Mini-Blog for Moms (and Dads)

Filed under: Christian living,Disappointment,Encouragement,Fun,Kids,Teens,celebrate life,discouragement,moms,parenting — Brenda @ 2:57 pm

I need to share my heart with you. It’s too much for a tweet and not meaty enough for a regular blog, but I’m sure someone will get a morsel from it.

My baby girl was terribly disappointed by a friend yesterday. Plans they had made for weeks were abandoned without much explanation from the friend. My baby feels disappointment deep. She loves hard and she falls hard. The cliche goes, “A mother is only as happy as her saddest child.” I don’t live by that, but last evening was tough as I watched her bleed internally.

What is a mom (dad) to do? Calling the other party or other party’s parent was not appropriate in this situation. We’ve got to wisely discern where to intervene. The only thing I could do was to care for my baby. We hugged. She sobbed and sporadically blurted out her thoughts. We hugged some more. 

That’s it.

Today is a day off from school so we will go thrift store shopping for items to redecorate her room (by her design). We will laugh and take the day at her pace (mostly likely looking at just about everything in the store, which drives me crazy–but not today).

So there’s my wisdom.

  • Listen.
  • Hug.
  • Know when to intervene and when not to–most of the time is a “not to.”
  • Affirm.
  • Speak their love language.

It’s simple but not easy. Love on your baby today whether or not she’s having a bad day.

I’d love to hear how you love on yours.