PS on those randoms
As we continue to recover from our whirlwind trip to Austin and have logged quite a few hours of drive time for various sports, errands and a concert…here are the two randoms I left off yesterday:
#1 My cousin Betty has a thing for helping other people develop strong communication skills.
She has written a couple of books, started a business and even hosted a conference this year.
You can find her information here –>https://www.cornerstone-ct.com, but I wanted to pass along a genius thing she shared with me on a recent Marco Polo chat.
Simple words…great impact.
She told me she had received coaching advice herself on being more disciplined in the work she has been called to do.
Treat what you do like it was a job, not a hobby.
I think about this blog, the prayer ministry teams I communicate with at our church, the class I teach and the house and family I care for.
And I realize that because there are no set hours or expectations placed on me by outer influences, I tend to feel like what I do is a “hobby.”
Something to squeeze in as time allows.
Only time doesn’t allow.
Time gets snatched up here and there and the things I know I am called to do are not given the focus and attention they need to be effective.
I am not disciplined to complete projects because I don’t have a human boss, or an organization with a time clock or a job description mapped out and filed in the HR department.
In my own mind, I have made what God has assigned me to do as unimportant because it doesn’t seem like legitimate work. And that’s all on me…because the people who love me go to great lengths to remind me that what I do matters.
Betty said she is putting feet on this counsel but making some changes in her schedule that include office hours.
I have some other friends who do similar “work” to what I do and I know from their example that they take their ministry work seriously, even though they don’t have a W2 or a supervisor in house.
It is the hardest thing to feel like you have a legitimate “job” when there is no system in place to hold you accountable.
So just passing that along to you all who may struggle with the same tendency to procrastinate until you have a deadline looming and then you feel like you have the okay to put the time in on what God has called you to do.
#2 I have written about this topic before but it bears repeating.
Somewhere along the toting of children and their backpacks and sleeping in a hotel bed and lugging my own 50 pound carry on in and out of planes and cars, I have managed to develop a pain under my collar bone that had me googling “pain under the collar bone” at 3 am Monday morning.
And I was reminded again of the massive concentration of muscles for the entire pectoral region that call that little piece of my body home…and also about trigger point pain…and how when a group of muscles get over stressed, the pain can be quite..well…painful.
All the rounded shouldering of the extra baggage I was loading on has produced a tenderness as this muscle group was aggravated and irritated.
Stretching, rest and massaging will work the tension out eventually.
In the meanwhile, simple movements necessary for dressing myself and doing tasks send shooting pain through my chest and arm.
A reminder that I was not meant to carry more than a certain amount of extra baggage…you see where we are going, right?
Sometimes in life, we do take on other’s burdens. And we do so willingly and out of love, but it takes a toll on us.
If you have been walking through a time where God has called you to shoulder the backpacks of others or lift that one weary soldier right up in your arms…remember to take care of YOU too…rest…refresh…hand as much of the extra weight over to God as you can…let Him massage and tend and care for your aches as well.
#3 And finally…this is a bonus…I got a great suggestion for a book related to what I wrote about yesterday with prayer and the news so passing this along from my friend Gerry:
https://www.amazon.com/Praying-News-Your-Prayers-Powerful/dp/0830759263
Peace out…have a good day <3