My Desk: The Mess

If there is one thing I cannot stand to see at work, it's a mess.
My desk is a mess right now. Everyone knows that a cleared desk day at the office with me is a good day with me. I've got boxes on the corner of my desk that need to be taken to the post office and mailed out. Speaking of mail, I have stacks of that to go through and the ones that have been gone through are in other piles known as "the bills" and "correspondance." Then I have stuff that's waiting to be signed and has been waiting to be signed for stinkin' ever! It makes me nervous to not be able to actually see the wood of my desk. It makes you wonder if it's still there at all. It makes me laugh to think that the others that work here look to see what shape my desk is in to know what mood I am in. They know that if it is clear then they can come and talk to me, but if it's a mess they stay away and peek at the desk every time they walk by to see if I am finished with my work. They know if they try to talk to me, I will just jot down what they need on a sticky note and add it to the pile without another thought about it.



That's how life is a lot of times. We get busy.
We have times when people know "ok, better not talk to them right now." We become so distracted by what needs to be done that we zone out everything else. You feel like there is just simply not enough time to get everything done that needs to be done in one day. You feel like my desk: cluttered. People ask you for prayer, favors, or whatever and you just pull out these mental sticky notes and cover your brain with them, only to find that there just isn't enough room and you start overlapping them. You start looking at the check list and it seems like there are more tasks than checks showing up and you get frustrated. When you get frustrated, you and I both know that is not a good feeling to have.



So, what can we do about it? Stop trying to run the marathon.
We treat most everything we do like a race. "I've got to get to SAM's Club, the bank, post office, pick up lunch, get gas, pick up my brother from class....and I only have an hour to do it!" I've found that when I walk I am always way ahead of anyone walking with me because I just have this instinct to walk really fast. It's a conscious effort to slow down. Running around and trying to get everything done franticaly is not necessarily the most efficient way to get things done. Rather than trying to get everything done in one day, try spacing it out a bit into maybe a couple days. Rather than let things pile up, try doing them as soon as you get them and that way it will be one less thing to worry about later. Rather than going to the places like the post office at lunch break when everyone else is on their lunch break doing the same thing, wait until an hour or so after lunch when the lines are a lot smaller. Instead of eating lunch out all the time, make yourself a sandwich the night before, so that you can stay at work and eat and get more stuff done than if you had gone on an hour or so lunch break. I find that right after I eat I have a boost of energy and it helps me work, but if I take a long lunch out I feel lazy by the time I get back to work because I waste my energy waiting for my food at a restaurant and fighting the traffic. The best thing is the internet because instead of waiting in line places you can order your stamps, supplies, and such online. It's so much easier! My biggest thing is that I don't wait until the last minute to get somewhere. I always try to be at places a bit early so that gives me more time to do what I need to there and it's always good to have that feeling that you have plenty of time, rather than rush.



I blame myself for when things pile up because I know I can avoid it happening.
I work better when I can see that stuff is done. If you have been feeling frustrated and overwhelmed, try thinking of ways to better manage your time and resources and believe me it will be worth it if you stick to it and you will feel so much better for it! Also, think of ways that make you feel relaxed and try to incorporate them into places such as work. For instance, I like little toys that do funny things like spin or bob, so I pull out that stuff when I am frustrated and I take a moment to watch Pluto bob every time I touch his head. It may sound odd, but hey it works!

Rest

Peace, calm, quiet, rest.... Those words would describe my experiance this past weekend. My family is not very quiet. In fact I think they have a gift when it comes to noise. Not necessarily a bad thing, just not exactly something I enjoy. I like it when I can sit alone and listen to the slight drizzle outside tap against the window, birds singing in the trees out in the yard, and just the normal sounds of life. These past several days I was able to enjoy some of those sounds. It was really nice. I like sleeping through the night without anyone waking me up to tell me they need me to do something or hearing the dogs bark because someone is walking around the house at 4:00 in the morning. I enjoy coming home from a long day and taking a nap on the couch without anyone walking through the door loudly declaring their prescence while opening and closing cabinets, clanging dishes to find a glass, asking a billion questions, stomping up the stairs and throwing down bookbags and kicking off their shoes upstairs, and turning their stereo up to full blast while singing along with the music at the top of their lungs. That's when a nice sunny day and a hamock out in the back yard really comes in handy.....nice and quiet. Sometimes I feel like my life is so full of noise, rush, and lack of time that I barely manage to crawl into bed every night only to wake up every morning exausted, unrested, and unwilling to start the process all over again. My household runs like clock-work. Everyone is awake by 6:30-7am and taking turns in the two showers/bathrooms in the house. Try sleeping in? HA!!! That's a joke! You've got my dad singing through the house as loud as he can "Rise and shine!" and "Get up, get up, get up!!!" Then there is my brother blaring his stereo because he says "It wakes me up." Right... Then it's off to work! I actually don't mind much that work is a constant rush of stuff to do, it keeps me busy and the time passes quickly. Between phone calls, faxes, mailings, reports, newsletters, meetings with pastors and donors, files, emails, and so forth, it's nice that I can take a break and pray if things become too crazy. It's great to close myself inside the prayer room, curl up in a nice chair and pray and read the Word. Those moments when it's just me and Father are so full of rest and peace. I can say "Here, Lord, take my day. It's just me and you." We need that. If we constantly rush, we'll just burn out. Take time today to find some rest, even if it's just for a few moments.

The Gap

I spent the day with my junior high class today. It was funny when we planned today out and I told them I would make them lunch. Out of all of the food I could have made, they wanted Italian. But, hey, it was good!
They thought it was the most thrilling thing to take turns sitting in the back of the truck. I had to get onto them a few times for trying to "surf" back there. That made me pretty nervous, but luckily they didn't get hurt.
We picked out a movie at Blockbuster and they each wanted a pack of candy. Wow, talk about the sugar... I was pretty tired half way through the movie, but they were wide awake and insisted on playing a game of two-on-two basketball outside. That was pretty fun.
I think about it now and I really had a lot of fun. Even though I am their Sunday school teacher, there is no reason why I can't be their friend too. I want to start doing something like this at least once a year. It gives me the chance to see what these kids are like outside the four walls of church. They are all pretty amazing. I kept thinking how someday they will be the jr.'s and sr.'s in the youth group and wondering how much they would or would not change.
These past few years God has taught me a lot. Some experiances have been better than most, but God always got me through. I think about it and I wonder how it is that even in the worst times I was going through, I couldn't wait to be in front of that Sunday school class teaching. It's so amazing that when I sit there giving to them, I completely forget my circumstances or troubles. It's like I am so focused on seeing them advance forward that I forget to look at myself for an hour. I may have been crying my eyes out just an hour before class, but the moment I step in there, I feel great. I've spent hours on the floor in that Sunday school room during the week praying for each teenager that is in my class. Whatever passion there is within me to see them on fire for God must be God-driven, because I don't know where it came from. I don't know why it is that particular age always grips my heart. I just know that they represent a gap. I could be involved in this or that and volunteer for whatever, but ultimately in the back of my mind, I'm thinking about that gap.
Maybe it's my uncanny sense to always defend the underdogs. I can remember always being like that from the time I was little. Sticking up for the ones no one else would was a habit of mine that I never thought twice about. I feel like that age of 13-14 yr. olds is so overlooked. They are squished between the children and the youth group. They don't really feel like they fit in either of those places, so they join together and just try to make it through those couple of years. THAT is sad. It's during that age that most teens will make a decision to live for God or not. They are no longer kids and they have new decisions to make. Yet, very seldom are they helped through that period in their lives. They are too big to be kids anymore and then I have heard the 9-12th graders say mean things before about jr. high. That's so upsetting. It's like when you hit those years, you are walking through a hole that everyone just overlooks.
I don't overlook them. If nothing else, I want to continue to be there encouraging them that they are not just an overlooked gap, but they are just as important as the other age groups.
Start looking for the gaps in the age groups around you. If you find one, ask God how it can be filled.

The Creepy

We can so easily surround ourselves with doubt. Once you open that door into your mind, it comes and roots itself deep, creeping in like those plants they call "creepers." Every time you allow a negative thought come in, you feed the thing that grows without you being conscious of it's existance. It wraps itself around your mind and begins to cripple you. Your faith begins to falter because the evil of doubt pushes it aside, due to your willingness to allow it to remain. So many people allow this rotten thing to grow and they never make an effort to be free of it. It takes so many people coming to a breaking point before they can even see how much doubt has consumed them. The moment we call out to God, He can release us, but it takes us getting rid of all doubt and not allowing any of it to remain. Wow, that's not necessarily an easy thing to do. We are told in the New Testament that we are called to "heal the sick" and "cast out devils" and yet we tend to hesitate in those things because of what? Doubt? See how easy it is to have doubt and not even realize that it's there? It's creepy like that! It comes in at the slightest chance and doesn't make it's prescence known all at once. If you have wondered why it is that you can't take the next step of faith, maybe it's time to take out the scope and look around for any doubt. If you find it, God will uproot it, but it takes you recongnizing it and wanting to get rid of it. Even uprooted doubt may leave some wounds, just like an uprooted tree leaves a hole in the ground. But, we have a healing God! He can come in and get rid of the traces of doubt that once existed. He'll even restore you to a level stronger than you were before, so that doubt cannot easily penetrate again. Just like the new wineskin and the new wine, He will create something new in you and renew your mind, so that you can face the new that comes.