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Category Archives: Renewing Our Minds

What Scaring Turkeys and Catastrophic Thinking Have in Common

I was out of the house for a while one day not too long ago, and when I came back, the kids were very excited to tell me how our 10-pound Shih Tzus, Samson and Delilah, scared off wild turkeys in our yard. Apparently, they howled and howled, diligently assuming their roles as our protectors, and when the turkeys returned a second time, the kids took Samson and Delilah out again so they could give those birds another talking-to.

I thought a lot about how my pups are really not any different in size than these feathered impostors in our yard. And how in that moment of angst, Samson and Delilah took their job seriously, no matter the cost. Yes, they bark at butterflies. They also bark at the black bear that visits our neighborhood each spring and fall. It really doesn’t matter the perceived foe—big or small—they’re at the ready to scare intruders off, tiny Shih Tzu teeth and all.

And isn’t that really what hypervigilance is? Don’t we all get that way sometimes? With some of the anxiety struggles in one of my children this past year, I have remained in a constant state of “watch,” not being able (or willing) to let down my guard. I think at the root of it is a trust issue. I wrongly believe that the minute I take a deep breath and sigh, all of the balls I think I am holding up in the air will crash down on our heads and shatter, never to be repaired. But, isn’t that really arrogant in a way? Do I really even hold them up? When I look in a mirror reflecting back, I see them up there, but it’s not my hand keeping them spinning in the air. It’s an invisible, mighty one attached to my Father in heaven.

#John14_27 #Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you…Do not let your hearts be #troubled and do not be #afraid.

— Bonnie Lyn Smith (@BonnieLynSmith) November 8, 2015

And, the truth is: I have had to scare turkeys this year. There have been wild flocks coming into my life pecking at what doesn’t belong to them. There have been bullies (in adult form), anxiety, depression, toxic people, gossip, malice, slander, you name it! Things have been taken, or attacked, that were mine. And then beyond our own home were dear ones struggling through job loss, affliction, mental illness, death, disease, injury, personal loss of other kinds.

Sound familiar? It’s the world outside of the Garden of Eden—

—And we all live in it.

So, it’s easy to see why we get catastrophic in our thinking after a while. After a year (or even a few weeks) of one thing after another slamming up against us, we don’t live just “at the ready.” We live at Disaster Preparedness Level 10.

And that’s where I was sitting when I went in to see my son’s therapist to check in, only to have her tell me I was readying for a war that isn’t really even on the horizon. And while I wasn’t suited up sitting in a tank, I was definitely eyeing the property line for more turkeys. She more or less told me I could relax my shoulders now. It’s not all up to me. The turkeys aren’t there right now. At ease, Bonnie. At ease.

Say what now? It’s not all up to me?

That was such a huge relief.

I cried for days after that.

Because she was right.

If the Time of Great Sadness comes back into our house again, God will be with me just as much as He was then. Like Samson and Delilah, I will naturally kick into protective mode, but I don’t have to live there all of the time. I can enjoy the in-between moments and live. My Shih Tzus bound around fighting over a rubber alligator and see how many different ways they can jump on my couch when I’m not looking—and practice quick jump-aways for when I am.

The turkeys aren’t actively hanging out in our yard right now. They’re probably a few streets over taking their good ole time crossing a road in rush hour traffic—just because they can. Samson and Delilah aren’t staring out the window in expectation of them. They only scare them off when the need arises.

When anxiety strikes and we can’t let go, we need to know we don’t have to walk around scaring off turkeys. They will find us; they always do, eventually, and if we’re prayerful and consulting with our Father in heaven, we’ll know how to scare them into retreat when they do. But not everything is a wild turkey.

And there’s so much living to do in-between the times the turkeys visit. Catastrophic thinking steals our joy, drains us of the energy we need when it is time to protect, and cheats us of the peace of looking up into the very capable eyes and arms of the loving Peace Giver.

Isaiah 26:3, Isaiah the Prophet speaking

You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you.

John 14:27, Jesus speaking

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

#CatastrophicThinking steals our joy, drains our energy, and cheats us of looking into the very loving eyes of our #PeaceGiver.

— Bonnie Lyn Smith (@BonnieLynSmith) November 8, 2015

This blog has also been shared at any link highlighted here: Mom 2 Mom Monday Link-Up, Make a Difference Mondays, Pick Your Pin Tuesday, Women With Intention Wednesdays, Grace & Truth, A Little R & R, RaRa Link-Up, Me, Coffee & Jesus, Dance With Jesus, Blessing Counters, Coffee & Conversation, Saturday Soiree, Tell His Story, Find Stability, So Much at Home, Faith-Filled Fridays, Reflect His Love and Glory Link-Up, Bonbon ‘n Coffee Linkup, and Christian Mommy Blogger.

More anecdotal stories about an everyday relationship with God can be found in Not Just on Sundays: Seeking God’s Purpose in Each New Day (includes Book Club Discussion Questions).

5 Comments

Posted by Bonnie Lyn Smith on September 9, 2014 in Anxiety/OCD/Depression, Renewing Our Minds, Shih Tzu Shenanigans

Tags: anxiety, catastrophic thinking, do not let your hearts be troubled, hypervigilance, isaiah 26:3, John 14:27, peace, peace i leave with you, shih tzu, you will keep in perfect peace

Eating Pipe Cleaners

27 Aug

It’s true. My dog eats pipe cleaners. There’s no need to call the dog authorities. I hide the craft supplies my younger children enjoy, but Samson the Ornery Shih Tzu manages to find them anyway. I usually have an intense eye on him because of his puppy superhero abilities to be everywhere at one time, but the truth is, one or two small wound-up ones (wound-up circles that used to be antennas? or eyes? on some odd project in my house) came out with the other contents of his stomach. They are so balled up, they aren’t scraping anything on the way down or back up again, but I have to wonder: Why, Samson, why?

It completely perplexes me why he would keep trying this. When I have a rough experience with a local food chain burger, I don’t tend to repeat it for a while.

But then I think about the human tendency to feed ourselves things all of the time that are not good for us, and we know it as we consume it. And I’m not just talking about food.

I’m a crime show freak. I have not one scientific thought in my head pretty much ever, but forensic shows fascinate me. In and of themselves, they are not bad. But I know sometimes I consume too much of the macabre, the darkness of the crime, the visuals that television provides. And it seems to me, at times, that I’m eating pipe cleaners.

Then there are those people in our lives sometimes that spew negativity. Are we wrong to be their friends? No, they need friends too, so that hopefully they once in a while respond to encouragement and look up to the Light of God instead of sitting in their pit of dark. But if we give them permission to define us, our moods, our time, our thought lives—there we go eating pipe cleaners again.

How about the comparison game? I feast on that from time to time. In fact, I make a regular meal of it. Super-Career-Mom-Does-It-All-So-Why-Can’t-I? with a side of Rehearse-My-Failures salad with Her-Family-Lives-Nearby-and Watches-Her-Kids-All-of-the-Time-for-Her dressing. Swallowing down some major pipe cleaners there.

I’m not sure what it is I think is going to happen when I do that, but I know I don’t have too many more brain cells functioning than Samson does when I continue to consume that which isn’t a diet that nourishes. And after a while, if Samson keeps eating rolled-up pipe cleaners, they could straighten and scrape. So can things we take in or feed on. We know they really aren’t to feed our minds, hearts, souls, or bodies, but we do it anyway. And we scrape ourselves along the way.

What pipe cleaners can we stop chewing on today?

Colossians 3:1-2, Apostle Paul speaking

Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.

When the Gardener Comes [Excerpt]

25 Aug

With Not Just on Sundays: Seeking God’s Purpose in Each New Day just weeks from publication, I thought it might be fun to post an excerpt, especially because I am once again in a season of “pruning” in my life. This summer our family let go of some things; some were big, and some were small. It’s not always easy to do that. It can be very painful. But we also opened our hands to new things, and we learn every time that God never leaves us in void. He may not always replace the exact thing we let go of, but He always gives us direction, even if it’s a completely new one. Sometimes someone has to pry what we won’t let go of out of our hands because we are clenching tightly, but once we relax an open palm, prayerfully, He fills us again. We don’t have to be empty-handed. We just have to be willing to let Him hand us what He chooses to give. I feel He does this whole pruning thing in my life quite regularly before each next big step. Like a mom cleaning last year’s clothes and shoes out of the closets, God gets us ready for what is next. I need to get better at remembering that He does this, and it always turns out for the better when my hands relax and stop clenching. So, here I am now, in this moment, and here I was during a different season of pruning, a while ago. What follows is a little piece of my upcoming book, Not Just on Sundays. Whether or not you are a Christian believer, I think we can all understand Jesus’s gardening analogy and draw incredible wisdom from it.

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John 15:1-8, Jesus speaking

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

Ah, pruning.

We may have all the right intentions or even accreditations in the world in wanting to help people, fix a situation, or “do good,” but, for the believer in Christ, bearing real biblical fruit comes only in trusting in Christ, remaining in the Vine. And with that comes an entirely different side: a willingness to be pruned.

As the verse suggests, we are pruned to be even more fruitful. But it doesn’t say that part is pleasant or fun. I’ve read it several times looking for that, and it simply isn’t there.

At times, the signs are all there for quite a while, but when we finally allow ourselves to see a disappointing situation in its fullness, one that we had tried so hard to make better, it can be almost crushing. But the best part of it is that on the flip side, there was so much hope, so much love (within us), that kept us going in the first place, that we can look back and say: “I honestly gave that my all. I gave it the best of me, always hoping and praying for the best.” We don’t have to stop hoping and praying for the best, but we absolutely need to check now and again if our hope is in Christ or in ourselves. That’s the difference between being connected to the Vine and being a branch dying on the ground, completely cut off from its life source.

More frequently than I care to share, I feel the dead fruit being pulled off the branches for me. And it hurts—a lot. Sometimes it costs me a relationship or something I enjoy. But whenever that happens, I know a lighter, more productive time is ahead. It’s a guarantee. After all, mourning dead fruit in my life is a pointless exercise, even though I fall into the trap of wanting to cuddle it for a while before letting it drop off. Dead fruit is not life-giving when it’s hanging dead on your own tree. If you think about it, it’s only dead because it didn’t remain in the Vine. It didn’t get nourished by the Gardener. It’s not as if He were passive about it. He actually cut it off. I don’t always like that, but I can trust it. When the dead fruit falls off, suddenly the branches bear more fruit and grow to welcome other birds—other life—to perch there. Do we want dead fruit, or more room for new life to perch there? The Gardener knows exactly what He is doing, and it’s a beautiful, loving example of both healthy boundaries and incredible growth.

Valley Walking

22 Aug

A friend of mine recently talked to me about her family’s wait through a lay-off and subsequent job-seeking trial. She shared how hard the wait was. This is so true for any wait of any kind when we sit in the valley and can’t see the other side. I haven’t walked through that particular job wait recently, but I have waited out months on several prayer requests that have roots deep into my heart. We all can relate to that at one point or another. It’s the human condition: We sometimes cannot control ending up in the valley. And we do the best we humanly can, many of us, but we ultimately can’t rush the view of the other side, the one where we start climbing back up that majestic mountain of answers. This friend is one of my “authentic” peeps, the kind you can be real and raw around, no pretenses. So I said what I said to so many others in moments like these: “You are in the valley, and valley walking sucks.”

“Sucks” is not a polite word, but I don’t mean it in the way you might be thinking. Maybe I wouldn’t use it from a pulpit or even in my junior high Sunday School class. But sometimes “sucks” just nails it. Because it sucks the life and energy out of us…or tries to. Because it sucks in good and bad, like a vacuum that consumes the Polly Pocket shoe as well as the dog hair and pine needles it was meant to pick up. Because after it sucks it all in, we have to go through the vacuum bag or bagless canister and sort through our trash: what is not good to think on or dwell on—and what is. Because when I am valley walking, I find it is so easy to have my attitude suck in bad things as well; it sucks in negativity and discouragement and wants to then spew it back out.

So I keep in mind these verses below, where God is speaking through Ezekiel the Prophet that He will breathe life into the dry bones in the valley and bring His people back to their land. What? Valley walking won’t be forever! And my friend exhibits this beautifully through her trial. Trusting in this promise is the only way to walk until we get to the other side without leaving shrapnel evidence of ourselves all over the valley as we cycle through anger, disappointment, and grief in the wait. And you know what happens with shrapnel in the valley? It’s a minefield for those walking behind us. And I want to do better than that. I want to believe He will breathe life into the dry bones in my valley—in your valley—because we asked Him to, and that we will get up with renewed “tendons and flesh,” walking out stronger to the other side, His breath of life in us, if we trust Him.

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Ezekiel 37:1-14, Ezekiel the Prophet narrating

The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’”

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Then he said to me: “Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.’ Therefore prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”

5 Comments

Posted by Bonnie Lyn Smith on August 22, 2014 in Grace in Big Gulps, Ministry Moments, Renewing Our Minds

Tags: dry bones, Ezekiel 37, hear the word of the Lord!, valley, valley of dry bones

Freeze, or Burn?

21 Aug

So, the other day I finally got fed up with a painful growth at the tip of my middle finger, that, because of it being my tallest finger, ended up bumping into everything with force, no matter how cautious I was about it. I was sure it wasn’t a wart. I didn’t think there had been a splinter or sliver of glass in there, but I also knew it had been there for two months with no improvement, but also no infection. I figured they’d send me to the dermatologist to get it sliced off and studied like so many other parts of me that lived near the equator for a few years. But I was wrong.

I went in early in the AM and had to quell my own laughter about my middle finger going up all of the time to protect it from getting knocked by accident. The PA who helped me was not amused, but I find I have to laugh in moments like these. Maybe it’s a nervous habit, like when the dermatologist is cutting something from somewhere normally clothed for a reason. I have to crack jokes or else I cry from the lack of dignity of the moment, and sadly, there are way too many of these moments. I am a dermatologist’s bread and butter! And I find dermatologists to categorically be a humorless bunch (if you’re a derm peep, I’m probably not talking about you). Maybe I provide some comic relief from staring at skin lesions all day, or maybe they are so narrowly focused, my stand-up comedy show is really unwanted. I’m socially awkward anyway, so I walk out of these situations at least having made myself laugh and completely unaware of the extremity of how awkward I really was.

Anyway, it hurt like a son of a gun every time it was bumped. She really had no clue what it was initially. She sliced off the top of the bump, saw no signs of wart “roots,” and decided it might be a hemangioma. So she said I could have it frozen or cauterized, and it would dry up and fall off, and maybe then the vascular bump at the end of my finger would be no more.

Um, okay.

Given the choice, I thought some medically induced frostbite would be the better way to go. And I’ve never been fond of smelling my own flesh burning with medical welding tools. No thanks. If we were going to go that direction, why not just hot-glue-gun my finger at home without the copay? Not my favorite thing. Since I’m a wimp, I assumed a needle of anesthetic would be presented. Nope. She barely asked me if I was ready (doesn’t she know I’d love an epidural just to have a mole removed?) and blast that arctic burn right at my finger for what felt like a full minute. I’m admittedly a real wimp with pain, so it was about two minutes before I could breathe again. I was so incredulous she wasn’t turning that thing off after 10 seconds. Really. I kept looking at her with complete disbelief in my eyes as if any second now she was going to turn that puppy off. Finally, between choking down some oxygen (told you I was a wimp), I declared: “Okay, then. I think I’m all set.” She was having way too much fun with her freeze-blast tool, and she looked like a superhero being told to go back to her secret identity when her services were proven no longer necessary.

And you know what? I got over it. I claimed a little social media sympathy over my little experience, sucked it up, and moved on. But it got me thinking how I wish my sin, insecurities, relational hurts, feelings of betrayal could all be heroically blasted like that. That a full minute of holding my breath and twinging would make it be over.

Oh, wait.

They already were. Over, that is. Those of us with faith in Christ believe they hung on Jesus for several hours. It wasn’t quick or painless or pretty, but “it is finished.” It is finished indeed!

John 19:30, Apostle John speaking
When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

So when I’m tempted to dwell on those things, I need to remember that I can live in restored, redeemed relationship with Christ, and therefore with others. My thoughts, my fears, my temptations, my hurts…all taken care of on that cross. Grace covering me like a blanket I never have to take off. I need to look at my finger (it’s tall and the middle one, after all, so hard to miss) and remember He took that all on for me so that I don’t have to dwell in a lack of peace. I can dwell in Him. And there’s truly no place I’d rather be.

What does “It is finished” mean to you?

Facebook: Do We Check to Get Affirmation or to Enter Meaningful Conversation?

20 Aug

Okay. Before we enter into this touchy discussion, let me start by saying I am really qualified to discuss this because I am completely guilty of it. Being a writer, I find Facebook a great place to discuss important issues, test ideas, network, and hone my craft. I try to divide my peeps into different audience lists so they are not inundated with every thought in my head. And we all know those blogs from people (me at times) who post everything we eat, every activity we participate in, and everything brag-worthy in our lives.

I find it hard to draw the line sometimes. I don’t want to brag but to celebrate. I also want to be honest and open about my failures so we all can share the journey and encourage each other. I post honest and blunt posts sometimes, not so much to get a cheerleading squad going for myself but to hopefully bring some encouragement to someone out there also hurting and struggling through a similar day/issue. I realize not everyone knows us on the same level or even reads the written word with the same tone, so I have found Facebook to be a great place (not perfect place) to learn how to communicate better in the written word. It’s not a place to get lost for hours, certainly. And it can quickly become a platform for brag fests that can remind others of their own loss (as an example, Mother’s Day can be a hard one for some folks), love fests that leave others out, passive-aggressive jabs, and insecurity-based posting to catch someone’s attention. I completely understand that. But I also know that the peeps who know me best know my heart’s intentions, and when they think I’m out of line—and occasionally they do—if they take it offline and gently correct me, I can hear them. I can learn to do better.

But the bigger question right now that I ask myself, as a debut author, introvert drawn to intense introspection, and someone still very vulnerable in my craft: Do I check Facebook to see my “like” stats and receive affirmation? To measure who is neglecting me? Who is touching in? Or do I check it with a healthy amount of distance to enter a conversation as appropriate in measured amounts? Do I rely on this as my social interaction? Am I needing it as a fix? And is the motivation to post something to inform, be helpful, and encourage, or is there another agenda? While there will always be someone who may find disagreement with it, can what I’m typing in any way polarize, make someone feel less than, come across too harsh or arrogant?

These are the questions I feel we should each have by our sides when we log on. It sorts out so much of what we have to say and is a great opportunity for self-reflection.

Social media is no longer new. Our learning curve is over. We should now know how to navigate it and avoid the pitfalls. There’s no excuse for me not to be diligent and thoughtful about it. If I need to get on for any of those negative reasons or check incessantly, it’s time for a coffee date with a few friends, a ride on the bike, a walk with the dog, a phone call to a dear one, a good read.

And there are some for whom Facebook and other social media are just too sensitive right now: times of loss, frustrated goals, disappointments, relational struggles, depression. If popping onto the newsfeed brings an instant rise in blood pressure, then by all means, jump off! The challenge is not to judge others for wanting to interact now and again that way because they may be in a good season of life right now, but avoid setting yourself up for unrealistic and irrational comparisons to your own life. It’s not the time to read how awesome the rest of the world is doing (or pretending to be doing). It’s time to engage in meaningful conversation, seek the help you need if you need it, and hang with the people in your life who are your natural cheerleaders through the trials. Social media may have a good meme and thought once in a while, but if you have a hard time filtering out the negative stuff, it’s not worth it. Consider logging off for a while.

I enjoy it like so many other people, but social media is certainly not our savior, not our substitute for anything really, and definitely not a place to gauge our own lives. True that?

I look to the Bible (which I consider the inspired Word of God from start to finish) for my guide to daily discernment, and this verse cried out to me. The Apostle Paul wrote this epistle during his imprisonment in Rome. I think he had a lot of time to think and pray about worthy things on which to focus his attention. Like Paul, I only want to “approve the things that are excellent” when I spend my time on the latest cultural fad/fixation. Social media is not wrong. Like anything else, it just requires healthy boundaries, and Paul spells those out pretty well in his epistles. I think the end goal is the same, I hope, for any of us: “that your love may abound still more and more.” I want me more of that on any given day. How about you?

Philippians 1:9-11, Apostle Paul speaking

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

4 Comments

Posted by Bonnie Lyn Smith on August 20, 2014 in Renewing Our Minds

Tags: affirmation, facebook, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness, posts, social media, that your love may abound still more and more

Give Me a Cape, ‘Cause I’m a Super Pooper Scooper!

18 Aug

(Mattel)

This Barbie inspired me. Truly. The fact that Mattel would market a Barbie that scooped dog logs off the yard has fascinated me for years. In my humble opinion, all she is missing is a cape. And maybe some hand sanitizer. Because the truth is, we adults pretty much live like this Barbie. If we’re a parent, we not only clean a baby’s bottom, but we scour his/her character for years on end. If we have pets, we daily scoop up yard deposits.

Don’t we more or less moment by moment sort out in life what is true and throw out what is not. We scoop out the false and lay hold of what is true. Whether we’re a stay-home parent sorting out the argument between siblings with two very different viewpoints, a writer cutting out unnecessary or misused words, or the scientist testing a hypothesis, we are constantly sorting out and cleaning up. There are very few moments in the day when we aren’t questioning what is around us.

So, while I’m not exactly the picture of a blonde, plastic, somewhat inflexible-but-very-tan, long-legged Barbie doll, and I often head out to my yard in sweats and a coffee-themed t-shirt, with wiry hair frizzing out all around me, Barbie and I share a mission. She shares it with you as well. We are daily cleaning up: laundry, dishes, the toys in the living room, the resident bookworm’s books strewn all over the floor, endless mismatches of socks. We clean our desktops of too many downloads, our cars of too many crumbs and sticky sippy cups, our office drawers of broken pencils and old scribbled notes to ourselves, our iPod song lists of least favored tunes, etc.

We also, I hope, clean our minds. They daily navigate what to dwell on and what not to. And somedays I do this well, while on other days, I get stuck on insecurities, relational hurts or disappointments, bitterness, and frustrations. On those days, I can’t move on. I’m tired of untruths and negative thoughts fogging up my daily vision. How about you?

As I go out with my scooper in hand each morning, I like to pray that God would clear my mind and heart for the day just as I clear my yard. I don’t always remember to do this, but my day has much more peace and grace in it when I do. I see the ugly things that cloud my mind and heart as stinky logs that can be cleared. There’s a solution. I don’t have to think muddied and distracted all day. My heart can be wiped clean for love. And when I take this approach, I feel like Super Pooper-Scooper Barbie with a cape on! I soar to the heights God created me for, and on those days—she’s got nothing on me! She just looks cute in a plastic box, posing for good intentions. I get to act on them. How about you? What can be tossed out of your yard—or mind or heart—to make room for more productive, healthy, positive, peaceful living?

Philippians 4:8-9, Apostle Paul speaking

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me–put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.