Paradigm Shift

My husband has a saying on the days that hit him hard.  The days that interrupt his optimism.  The days that stop all forward movement dead in its tracks and it’s as if that spinning colored wheel every Mac user has seen, rears its ugly head.  CONTROL-ALT-DELETE.  Reboot, Reset.

I recently saw a cute video showing the reaction of kids born in the 90’s trying to operate a computer using Windows 95 Operating System.

It was cute. And reminded me of days gone by, and how patient we used to have to be with our computers.  They were clunky, slow, aggravating creatures.  I think I had to reboot my 1990’s era Dells at least 2 or 3 times per day.  If I tried doing too many things at once or too quickly it would jam the computer’s brain.  They had to be treated with kid gloves.  Coddled almost.  Because you never knew what would shut it down leaving 2 hours worth of work in the ether of time forever lost because you failed to hit SAVE before the crash.

And it got me thinking about human beings and how we operate.  What system do we operate under?  Is it the most efficient?  Is it the most stable?  How often do we need to reboot and reset our days?

If I asked any of you reading this article if you would go back to the days of Windows 95 on your computer vs holding your smart phone and streaming music, while looking up facts on a website, while taking to your friends over text, not missing an email, and automatically saving photos and documents in the cloud of your choice…I have a feeling ZERO of you would go back in time to those “good ol’ days.”

It leads me to conclude that the system we operate in matters.  It effects many things in our life.  It either hinders or frees up our time.  It either drags us down or builds us up physically.  It either corrodes our spirit or cleanses it.

My question to you is this.  How long has it been since you’ve taken a good hard look at your OS?

This weekend I listened as my husband spoke to a colleague about the digital world and all its complexities.  He said, “C# is the language.  It’s like Java, or PHP, or Ruby or SQL.  It’s how you tell the computer what to do or how to function.  HTML or HTML 5 is sort of the same but its main purpose is to tell the computer how to take all that data and make it understandable to the layman…in other words how to dress it up and make it look good.  It takes a good language and a good design.  Function and form.

If all these things work well together, the end result is a well oiled machine that works as you expect with little if no downtime due to crashes.

I will never forget the last Dell computer I purchased.  It was in the early 2000’s.  The first time I booted it up, I had to wade through 10-15 pre-loaded software decisions to either keep or delete from the system. (talk about a drain on my time!) If I chose to keep them, they then had to be updated.  The anti-virus software alone was so PRESENT that I could barely function at all without having to approve my every move.(what a drag!) From day one, the computer never shut down properly.  From day one I had to use the KILL switch to get it to turn off (what a downer to my spirit!)  That was my last PC.  I made the decision to toss out the whole shebang and went Mac and have never gone back.

Arguments between PC and Mac aside…for they were used for merely illustrative purposes (sorta kidding, not really).

If you think the meaning and purpose in life is to be successful in the world; to live in a big house, be able to buy anything you want, have people at your beck and call, and get whatever you want….is it working out well for you?

When has a material possession given you more joy than for a short amount of time? When has the adulation of others ever given you sustained joy?  And how long does it take when getting everything you want suddenly seems pointless and empty?

For that matter…it comes down to this question and this question alone.  What GIVES VALUE?

Does God give you your value because He gave you LIFE?  Or do you give yourself value based on your accomplishment?

A band called Altogether Separate wrote a hit song called Paradigm.

A “paradigm shift” is a fundamental change in approach or underlying assumptions.  Here is the video:

The lyrics describe what happens when a person decides to trust God with their lives.

Everybody loves a rose,
but will you be thankful for the thorns?
Love is easy when you’re loved,
But do you curse another when you’re alone?…
Oooooh, I give my life to You
so I can gain it back again
Oooooh, I stand solid
while the paradigm is shifting…

Is it possible to stand solid while you’re paradigm is shifting?  As the music together with the lyrics suggest…it often times means to change almost everything about the way you once viewed life and the world.  OOOOH…you have to HANG ON.  Things are shifting, calculations, data, design…everything…is SHIFTING….

Instead of holding on to what doesn’t work and rebooting and resetting over and over again…often repeating self-destructive patterns that hurt yourself and those around you.  I suggest you try a new approach.  Give it all away.  Let it go.  Allow what hasn’t been working for years to be replaced with a fresh new approach to life.  Try it.  See if it works better than what you’ve been doing.

Jesus said in John 10:10, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that you may have life and have it more abundantly.”

Jesus doesn’t want us to live our lives limping along barely functioning.  The viruses of life that destroy, kill, and steal our joy, time, and love have NO PLACE being tolerated in our operating systems.  He wants us to live an abundant and fruitful life.  Bearing the fruits of the spirit which are first LOVE above all else, then Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Faithfulness, Gentleness, and Self Control.  If you have these things in abundance in your life …count your life well lived.

So on the days that are hard, I suggest this:  perhaps instead of shutting down, thank God for building the fruit of the spirit that is PATIENCE.  When you have opportunity to give your talents to others thank God for the opportunity to grow in KINDNESS and GOODNESS.  When you are faced with a temptation, instead of cursing or giving in to it, exercise the strength that builds the fruit of SELF-CONTROL.  In everything, even in your trials, look for what God is building in you…realize that success in this world won’t mean anything to God.  Your heart means everything to Him.  What he wants you to have more abundantly is JOY no matter what your circumstance.

A STABLE SYSTEM in life is built on FAITH.

James says, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.”

What if you take that step of faith and believe God at His Word to do what he says He will do?  What if you allow that paradigm to shift.  You take that step…GIVE YOUR LIFE TO HIM….and when you boot up that new Operating System maybe everything will be more stable, work more efficiently, be smoother, and allow you to experience a more abundant life?

What if that could work?  I guarantee if you jump in with both feet you will look back on your old life as if you’d been trying to function in Windows 95.  You’ll never want to go back.  Ever.

Up from the Rubble

Cleaning my house is something I detest in life. I put it off until absolutely necessary.  Some women like it, I am not one of them.  I dream of being rich enough to have an Alice.  Remember her from The Brady Bunch?  Instead, I was on my hands and knees along with my husband who took the day off to help me prepare our home for guests who were coming over for my 46th birthday party.

Going through a stack of papers stuck in the corner of my office, I came across an old yellow spiral ring notebook.  In an instant, I knew exactly what this notebook was. I haven’t seen it for seven years. It was my journal I kept from December 2008 to March 2009 (before I started my blog) and covered the months leading up to my first husband leaving my home, marriage, and life.

Leafing through the pages casually at first I was taken aback.  Whoa….I was desperately sad and lonely, I was desperately clinging to God to keep me alive.  My plan was to save my marriage.  I fought so hard and was not giving up.  I thought that made me honorable.  My first husband had already made his mind up to leave though.  I know now that I was fighting a losing battle.  Which meant this soldier was getting pretty beat up.

As my Harry stood at the sink, washing dishes, casual leafing turned into earnest reading of the journal aloud.

December

“Sometimes I don’t want to live anymore.  Heaven seems so much better.  And I do simply want peace.” 

It’s been so long since I’ve truly felt welcome.  All I feel is tolerated, not loved.  So I yearn for more.”

“Im trying hard to just keep taking it all in and trying to figure out what else I have to change in my heart to know what else I have to do before this horrible feeling of isolation and rejection will end.  I feel so unnecessary and unloved.”

January

“Night is so, so hard.  Everything seems worse. And he just is so good at pretending I’m not there.  That is the worst part, feeling invisible.”

“He bought wine and cheese for tonight – special cheese just for me.  It was nice, my heart is sad but my hope is strong.  I’m awkward around him because I don’t know what to say to him.  So what I said was a bunch of small talk mostly.  I asked him if I could hug him.  He’s been hugging me hello and goodbye so I thought it would be okay.  But he said, ‘What for?’ in a voice that was not inviting, so I just said, ‘Never mind’ and walked away.”

I stopped reading and said, “I’m sorry you don’t want to hear this.”  And My Harry said, “No, it’s interesting, keep going.”  So I did.

Page after page, word after word, it became more and more obvious to both of us how intense this time was for me.  And how much my first husband had already shut down.  As I read, I got choked up at times and stopped to say, “Wow, I forgot how sad I was.”  I felt so sorry for this woman I once was.  Often times when I read things I’ve written years before, I want to reach down and tell this woman who was suicidal, that things would get better.  Much better.

February

“I feel like such a nuisance and this THING that won’t go away when he hopes and prays that I would.  That is why I am suicidal.  It just seems the easiest way to get him what he wants…but the kids.  I don’t even care about myself.  He told me I robbed his life and he regrets marrying me and everything I wanted I failed at.  It didn’t matter the caring I showed, the hugs I gave, the love notes, poems, pictures, encouragement, in finding good deals, researching things, helping everything related to the kid’s school and the kid’s health.  None of it matters to him because he wishes I was never a part of his life and that I would just disappear.   But instead of raging like he expects, I am here.  Doing more, helping more, loving more and he thinks it all for him, so he’ll stay but he’s SO WRONG!  Sometime I want to be in the flesh and get mad and yell and logic says in my mind he totally deserves it.  He doesn’t get why I’m loving him.  It’s not because HE deserve it.  He doesn’t.  Not at all.  It’s just because of Jesus.  If it weren’t for Jesus I would be so gone.  But Jesus died for me and I in turn died for him.  My life is not my own.  I gave it to the Lord and before the Lord I made a promise to my husband before my family and friends and I have not one desire to fail in my commitment.  I’m praying every day, at every moment it hits me.  That pain in my stomach, every time I feel the absence of a body hug or caress or a kiss.  Letting go of all expectations but keeping my own tenderness in check.  It’s hard.”

“He walked into our bedroom this morning after sleeping on the couch and I realized I would be ok if I lost everything.  I won’t melt.  I won’t disappear.  I’ve never allowed myself to entertain much thought of him deliberately leaving me and not being my husband anymore.”

“I love him, but I give him completely to you Lord.  Have your way with me and keep me pure in thought word and deed.”

“I have peace, I feel like a tide is turning in me, a letting go – not of fervent prayer for my husband but of holding onto the thing I wanted, instead I want what God wants for me and will trust His plan that will complete His purpose.  Today I may not feel loved but there is always the amazing hope for tomorrow in Jesus Christ who is so mighty and powerful and thankfully MERCIFUL.  I thank God for His love that is never ending, steadfast, unshakable, unstoppable.  Like the song says He is great in battle, wonder, king over all the earth.”

“I have lost my respect for him. He has failed me.  I have no more illusions of him realizing his error.  Not now.  Not when he can plot his escape to leave while his family holds onto any thread of hope.  You should hear my son and his confidence in the Lord that his Dad will honor his commitment and not leave.  It’s so sad.  I’m so sad.”

Remarkable to remember in my own words.  I forgot how much of a spiritual battle I was in.  I really didn’t want to fail the Lord.  I thought giving up meant I was failing God.  I struggled with holding onto every last hope possible.  To be honest, I would do it the same way if I had to do it over again.  Because at the end, I was able to hold my head high and tell my kids that I gave him every opportunity to choose to stay.  It’s was my only choice.  Until he chose to leave.

“There are days like today when I “get” and  even “look forward” to being alone, starting fresh.  Why not?  But it’s not brave to quit.  It’s not brave to say you can’t see a way to do what you said you would do.  It’s brave to trust God and his promises. Because it takes faith instead a lack of faith.  It’s easy to have “not enough”.  It’s WAY harder to say – I don’t know how but I trust you to change my heart and that this is the best you have for me.  I will not look at what tempts me from the world.  I will not entertain worldly solution to a problem that has to do with the spirit!”

March

“Something happened to me the day he moved out.  He went from being in my mind and heart my husband who I was dedicated to beyond measure to someone who crossed a line that I don’t know anymore if he can come back from.  Not the man I thought he was.  I have been accentuating his positive points for so long and would never even let myself go to a place where I really let myself see what I didn’t have.  God gave me a contentment in who he was as a husband and a man but the day he took his clothes out of our house against the tears, pleas and requests from his family – Something died that day.  And I literally feel like what God was shielding me from got lifted and I began seeing him for what HE WASN’T instead of what what he was.”

I continued to read the kind of man my first husband wasn’t.  It was hard for him to forgive – he held grudges and was passive aggressive.  He was in a constant state of self-restraint and my silly kooky self felt almost stifled by his personality.  Not being able to say, “Who cares?!” led to a robbing of a childlike joy I had in my spirit.  He was pleasing to the point of servant-status but did it for all the wrong reasons.  His actions were pleasing – he needed to please – but he did it out of his own compulsion.  He didn’t do it because he wanted to be loving to me as a man leading his home in love.  He always subjugated himself to me.  And he clearly was not putting God first.  He put his own choices and needs before his commitment to God.

And I deserved more than that.  I deserved a forgiving man, a man who would celebrate my uniqueness as a person not stifle it, a man who could lead in love and understanding, and a man who love the Lord above anything else.

At this point, my Harry put down the dish rag and walked around the counter to me sitting on the bar stool.  He spun me around to face him and kissed me soft.  He put his arms around me and then kissed me harder.  As we kissed, I could feel his tears flow onto my cheeks.  I could taste their saltiness.  We put our foreheads together, both of us in tears, and holding my head in his hands, he almost growled,

“Know that I will always love you to the core of my being, and you will never feel alone like that again.”  My face was contorted.  I hadn’t had a shower, my hair was a wreck, I was wearing the shirt I wore the day before and had gone to bed in.  But here he was looking at me as if I was the most beautiful treasure in the world.  I remembered the pain, the despair. I realized the hope I clung to, the God I had prayed to, and the faith I held onto with every grasp of my being had led me through to this moment.  I said weakly,

“I know.  And I didn’t know it then, but you were the one I wrote about.  You were the man I dreamed of.  You are what I deserved in the first place and this is the best birthday present ever.”

We were sniveling but smiling and clung to each other in the deepest most intense embrace.  My life was a disaster and God pulled me up from the rubble one day at a time and led me to a man He had prepared for me.  I would never have imagined it then.  But there is true Joy that can come from mourning.  Life from death.  And Light from darkness.  If we don’t lose hope and keep ourselves in check to honor God with our lives, then, even in pain and disaster – HOPE prevails.

Hardest Month Eveeeer

Have you ever tried to spin 10 plates on sticks while riding a bike?  What if you drop a plate?  It breaks and your tire rolls over it and slowly starts losing air.  You wobble which causes another plate to drop and before you know it you are lying in a heap on the floor surrounded by a bicycle you can’t ride and a mess of broken plates.  The odds of you actually being able to do this without it ending in a mess is very unlikely.  But for some reason…because hope springs eternal….you think you will somehow be triumphant.  Maybe it’s the dream that motivates you to attempt the absurd.  Maybe it’s your ego.  Maybe it’s your desire to give someone something better in life.

For some reason, I thought that I could move to the big city, to the nicest most expensive rental property, two weeks before surgery while trying to sell my house of 15 years, so I could buy a condo for my daughter.  All before Christmas.

Without getting bogged down in the minutia of it all…just think about your closets and what’s in them.  Then your garage and backyard and kitchen.  Now add being physically disabled from a surgery.  Now add the fact that you are the cheapest most financially conservative person you know as you consider your options in getting everything from one place to another, two adult children that don’t want to move, and buyers who have a horribly inept lender who keeps delaying the close of your house for over a month.

That’s a little peek into my life for the past month.  Difficult is putting it mildly.  It’s been a nightmare in some ways. Like after I convince myself that paying movers really is the smartest move and then sitting on a freeway stuck in traffic during the move because an elderly man died while driving in the fast lane and realizing you are paying the movers double time to sit in their truck.  That was a $200 45 minute nightmare.

When I wrote in October about the fear I had of needing to accomplish so many things, I had no idea how truly hard it would all be.  Moving alone has just about killed me.  My surgery was not easy in terms of recovery, I was down more than I wanted to be and pushed myself too hard a couple of times which delayed my recovery further.

But one thing it hasn’t been is boring.

And life was meant to be lived right?  Sadness comes when you say goodbye but excitement comes in experiencing something new.

I’m a city girl now.  I walk up four flights of stairs every time I go to my car and every time I forget something after I’m already there (this tends to happen a lot).  I wake up to the sun beaming through my windows, the sounds of cars and random clinks and clanks of people living around me.  I walk my dog so she can relieve herself three times a day.  I walk to the grocery store.  I walk everywhere.  I run on the beach.  I say hi every morning to the lady who sweeps up after all who live in the building, and say sorry to all the other tenants as we strain to keep our dogs from killing each other.

My house is supposed to close escrow TOMORROW.  You know how many times I’ve heard that?  4 times.  It’s been delayed 4 times.  But…I did get the asking price, and it appraised for the asking price.  And I WILL have lots of money in my bank account come Tuesday.

I left my house for the last time yesterday and didn’t shed one tear.  I’m so ready for this to be over.

Yesterday I put an offer on a condo that I will buy with my money.  I will let my daughter live there so she can be free from the hassle of living in the dorms and I can be free from paying for it.  I don’t know if my offer will be accepted yet.  And if it’s not I will have to figure out somewhere else for my daughter to live in the meantime.  But that is a problem for another day.  Today I will just hope and pray they accept it and we can start THAT escrow process.  If that happens everything will close right around Christmas time.  Funny…perhaps I was able to spin all those plates without falling?  Time will tell.

I’m still waiting for the day I can look back and say, “See it’s wasn’t so hard…” but now I know it was.  Really hard.  So the wiser me will instead say, “It was worth it.”

Soon will come the fun part.  Decorating.  Buying furniture.  Finding our new favorite places.  Making new memories.

Harry has been my rock.  He listens, he acts, he motivates, he makes me laugh.  Had I had to do this all on my own, it probably would have been 5 times harder.  So I’m incredibly thankful to my husband.  In one short month we will celebrate our one year anniversary.

To anyone who has read my blogs from the beginning.  You know what I’ve been through.  When I sat, crying and despondent, on my green couch after my husband left me for another woman, I would never have imagined a life so full of hope and love.  Never.  That same green couch now sits in the center of my loft.  It has followed me to my new life.

To anyone who is having a difficult time spinning those plates in the air, or if you are sitting in a pile full of broken ones, I offer you this encouragement.  Don’t give up.  Keep trying. Learn from your mistakes and adjust.  But don’t give up.  It will be worth it in the end.