Encouraging and equipping women over 60 to live their best life!
If you have struggled with finding gifts that your family members will actually use and you need a holiday activity, this idea may work for you. I’ve included the gifts I have given/am giving just to give you ideas. Tweak these ideas for gifts that work for your family.
Being a musician for practically my entire life, I can’t help but associate most of life’s events with songs. Lyrics and melodies are powerful and, next to God, can move the souls of people like no other. For example, I turned 64 this year, I grew up hearing the Beatles song, “When I’m 64.” For a…
Do you ponder the question what happens when you die? Today, I am diving into answering this question. If you are a regular reader of my posts, or a listener to my podcast, you know I have been doing a series on Mindset Shifts from a Christian perspective. With Easter in mind, I wanted to…
Sunday, I had the joy of singing in our choir Christmas presentation. This year was different. Jim wasn’t sitting in the men’s section. Unlike last year, when Jim remembered his music was still at home halfway there, I got to the church on time. After the presentation, I hugged my family, who were in attendance,…
You get to decide from the experiences you want to create—beginning with the end in mind. This exercise will help you clarify what is important and once you get this clear vision you can sketch out your game plan from there. The specifics and the details of all that needs to be done will not just come from head knowledge but heart knowledge. If you accept this challenge and take the time out to do this exercise this will change your experience. I think we get so caught up in the doing that we neglect to think about the why we are doing what we are doing. This exercise is a game changer. It’ll help keep everything in perspective.
Advent is about waiting and watching. We are invited to be still so that we don’t miss God’s loving embrace among us. A slowed pace is antithetical to our North American approach to this holy season in the life of the Church. We have the longest to-do list of the year when it comes to Christmas preparation. Our foot is on the gas pedal. We jump out of the car and race around the store. Our fingers scroll through our online buying options, searching for gifts that will be dropped at our doorstep the very next day. We bake. We entertain. We inscribe cards. Even in our churches the pace ramps up as children rehearse for their parts in the annual pageant (which I always love!) and folks brave the cold to go caroling. I invite you to intentionally slow down. When you catch yourself breathlessly rushing toward a neighbor with your own agenda, put on the brakes. Maybe someone is excited to tell you how their pastor outlived a tired church carpet! So, when the adrenaline rushes as you panic over what needs to get done in a December day, breathe deeply. Turn your heart heavenward.
“Everything” doesn’t mean only what is pleasant, good, happy, fun. “Everything” means, well, everything, all that life brings, including the difficult, challenging, hard, sad, and unpleasant. Giving thanks in everything involves broadening your perspective on life and understanding there is always something you can view with gratitude.
What can we learn from exploring the opposite of thanksgiving? We can all agree our hearts can deceive us. It looks different for each one of us. And we all have this same heart issue. Even as believers, feelings of ungratefulness, resentment and discontentment can all creep into our thoughts. We can all fall into the trap of allowing our thoughts to build on themselves, justifying feelings, which can so easily create our actions. And for many people, Thanksgiving, which brings family members together, can reveal conditions of our heart.
A stepparent is in a position where he or she benevolently and naively strolls into an already existing family unit. Even if a divorce between the parents has occurred, the preexisting bonds, memories, and experiences have solidified them before she arrived. There is a security, acceptance, freedom to be oneself, in a safe family setting. Laughter and tears have unified them into a tight, and typically guarded turf. Even if mom and dad hate each other, the family foundation was formed before the stepparent arrived. Any new person, even one that marries into the tribe, is going to feel “outside that circle”. Even when a sibling brings a new person to the table, he or she will typically be embraced into the circle more quickly than a parent’s new partner.
For many women this day specifically designed for feminine springtime joy, often triggers grief, anger and tears instead.
