Category Archives: New Year

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Monday Morning Moment – Word for the New Year – Trust – the Object of Our Trust Matters

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Photo Credit: Heartlight, Verse of the Day

[Adapted from the Archives]

Following is a brief history of how choosing and exploring a word for the year became a habit for me starting in 2020. If you want, just skip down to the highlighted start of 2025 that takes you to this year.

In 2020 (the year of COVID), I read Debbie Macomber‘s book One Perfect Word. She tells fascinating stories of persons’ choosing a word to guide their year. Finishing her book and praying a bit, the word compassion became my focus. 2021 was a good year for that as we dealt with so many divisions over COVID, race, politics, etc. Compassion for all on both sides of each issue.

At first I wasn’t going to do “a word” for 2022, and then a rapid series of “coincidences” drew me to the word: joy. As that year ended, I had become negative and even a bit cynical. Still having faith in God but not so much in humans, including myself. Even after a year of compassion!!

5 Friday Faves – New Year’s Resolutions, Habit Planner, Year-End Review, Joy – the Word for the Year, and the Last Days of 2021 – Deb Mills

Then 2023 followed, and I chose the word “wonder”. It was inspired by my study of Dr. Curt Thompson’s books. He encourages a pursuit of mental health and healing including staying “in the path of oncoming beauty”. This focus on wonder – in searching out beauty in the context of community and a loving God – brought me through a year tougher than I imagined it would be.

Monday Morning Moment – Word for the Year 2023 – Wonder – Deb Mills

Then at the end of 2023, I’d been lamenting being older (i.e. weaker, more frail). Having lost 2 inches in stature (just in the years of pounding on my vertebra) also made me feel small. I’ve decided to push back against the weakness and seemingly diminished nature of getting older. After all, what does that even mean?! I’m not that old. Right?

In Joshua 14, Caleb was 85 years old. He gives a beautiful and faith-filled declaration: “I am still as strong today as I was on the day Moses sent me; as my strength was then, so my strength is now, for war and for going out and coming in. Now then, give me this hill country about which the Lord spoke on that day, for you heard on that day that Anakim (giants) were there, with great fortified cities; perhaps the Lord will be with me, and I will drive them out just as the Lord has spoken.” [Joshua 14:11-12.]

Talking to Dave (that husband of mine), he commented that Caleb had that strength for which I was longing because he had “a different spirit in him” (Numbers 14:24). Whereas the 10 spies and the Israelites influenced by them were driven by a spirit of fear, Caleb was filled by the Spirit of God. In his determination to obey and follow wholeheartedly, his faith emboldened him. He demonstrated strength physically, mentally, and spiritually.

He would not be defined by age, aptitude, or ability…but by the great and gracious God he sought to serve. That’s what I have longed for in this year soon to be ending. To be strong. In all ways possible. Including strong in my love for God and others. This can only be mine if nested in being filled with the very Spirit of God.

Ironically, or not so much with the Lord, I have struggled with even more physical weakness (a painful and limiting hip pain) but not without working toward being strong again. Months ago, in choosing “strong” as the word for this year, God knew. In this season still, I am reminded of His goodness. “For when I am weak (and it will happen), then His strength is manifested perfectly and completely!” (2 Corinthians 12:10)

He keeps His promises.

Monday Morning Moment – Word for the New Year – Strong (Nested in “Filled” – There’s a Story) – Deb Mills

Now we stand at the start of 2025.

These last days of December 2024, I have pondered what word would be a fixed point for this coming year. New Year’s resolutions and habit formation are both great helps for my slightly scattered brain. This Word of the Year exercise (which will span the next year) has also been a tremendous help.

The word “trust” has come to mind, in my times in the Word, in recent conversations, and in circumstances beyond my control. “Trust” – whew! That word has always been troubling for me. I think we put too much importance on trusting people – we will all disappoint and fail each other. It happens. Will I put that same bias on God, or can I treat Him as He is and as the Trustworthy One He reveals Himself to be?

Trust – Why Trust matters – Psychology Today – Trusting others and being trustworthy matter, but human trust is flawed and has to be handled with some measure of understanding and grace.

The object of our trust can’t be on people but on God. He alone will not disappoint. He alone will always keep His promises.

Praying to trust God more seems to carry the same human-borne threat of praying for patience. Yikes! We want more patience but not the sorts of experiences that will bring it. Is God drawing me to focus on trust in 2025 because I’m going to need it more? No…refusing to think there would be any negative outcome with trusting God more. It is a beautiful thing and He is worthy.

Just yesterday Dave and I talked about trust and what it means. He defined it as having confidence that someone (including God, of course) will be who he/she says they are and will do what they say they will do. Again, as humans, we don’t always prove to be trust-worthy…and we apply grace, not unforgiveness. But God!!! We can have complete confidence in Him. Complete trust.

“The biblical definition of trust goes beyond mere belief or reliance. It involves a complete surrender and reliance on God, knowing that He is faithful and will fulfill His promises. Trust, according to biblical definition, is the means of putting aside our own understanding and leaning on God’s wisdom and guidance. It means acknowledging that God’s ways are higher than our ways and trusting that He is in control of all things. Trust requires us to have faith, to believe in the unseen and to confidently depend on God’s faithfulness. It is an unwavering assurance that God is trustworthy and will never fail us. This biblical concept of trust is not just a casual belief, but an active and intentional decision to place our confidence in God alone.” – Daniel, Prayer Warrior – Bible Definition Of Trust (How The Lord Defines Trusting Him) – Read the whole article!

God Is a Way-maker – How to Trust God with the Impossible – Daniel – Prayer Warrior – DailyEffectivePrayer.org

Photo Credit: Heartlight

I am going to turn my heart toward trusting God in 2025 for small and big things – for situations only He can move toward healing and wholeness. For the prodigals in my life. For a family rift that continues unchanged since 2020. For salvation for some dear friends (and family) I love deeply (and God loves more). For direction in moment-by-moment turns in life (eyes on Him instead of my own faulty decision-making). For grace to trust He is creating beauty even in and through me. Finally, trusting God for all those previous word lessons He has begun in my life to continue to grow into maturity – compassion, joy, wonder, and strength.

Photo Credit: Oswald Chambers, image source unknown

Worship Wednesday – No Matter What I Will Trust in You – Lauren Daigle – Deb Mills

YouTube Video – Do I Trust You? – Twila Paris – my absolute favorite song on trust

Top 25 Oswald Chambers Quotes – AZ Quotes

Photo Credit: X, David J. Harris, Jr.
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5 Friday Faves – “Beyond the Guitar” Doing What He Does, From Cynicism to Delight, the Glad Game, a Great Life & a COVID Death, and Life’s Comforting Rhythms

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Happy Weekend! Staying on the positive in my finds this week.

1) Beyond the Guitar Doing What He Does –Classical guitarist Nathan Mills, on the platform Beyond the Guitar, arranges and performs themes from movies, TV shows, and video games. The last couple of weeks he has showcased two arrangements of his that display his genre at its best.

YouTube Video – The Mandalorian/Force Mashup – Classical Guitar Cover

Photo Credit: Beyond the Guitar, YouTube

YouTube Video – Spider-man: Miles Morales (PS5) Main theme on Guitar

Photo Credit: Beyond the Guitar, YouTube

Nathan teaches privately and via his Arrangers Academy (membership opens twice a year). His music (videos, sheet music, and MP3s) are why we are patrons. Well, and because we love the guy playing the guitar. Beautiful, nostalgic themes. Heart-soothing on every level and on any day.

2) From Cynicism to Delight – With that noise of social media and biased news media, we struggle to know what to believe about what’s going on around us. The tendency is to gradually go cynical, thinking ill of others, moving toward mistrust. Our thinking becomes negative, and we become suspicious of motives, questioning authority, and even disbelieving people trying to do right by others.

Negativity can become a habit…a negative habit.

This is no way to live. Cynicism dulls our thinking and darkens our heart.

How do we upend cynicism? Writer Jennie Allen talks on a podcast about how we can move away from cynicism and toward delight. Now, that is a surprising and almost old-fashioned idea. Delight is defined as “a high degree of gratification or pleasure; joy; giving keen enjoyment”.

Jennie Allen Podcast – Cynicism vs. Delight

What do you take delight in? It requires a measure of savoring, pausing to take note, considering a different possibility. We rush around in life, or at least in our thoughts – flipping channels, scrolling endlessly, moving from class to class or meeting to meeting with little notice to what’s going on around us (or in our own heads). What if? What if? We stopped, or slowed down, our minds and just took note.

Allen talks about the importance of what we put into our minds. Do we even think about it? 20 minutes on social media (depending on those we friend/follow) could begin a stubborn funk in our thinking. What about the people in our lives? She doesn’t encourage cutting people off, but guarding our conversations against the negative –  gossiping, complaining, criticizing, thinking ill.

In the space we intentionally gain from the guarding above, we can begin practicing delight. At how well things are going instead of how badly, for instance. How beautiful the weather is, thoughtful your neighbor, generous your colleague, wise your mom or dad…This isn’t putting our heads in the sand; it is just considering life from a different angle…just as true/real as the negative, cynical take.

Allen encourages taking note of art as a fast track to delight. Whether it is music, or poetry, or painting. The world is full of beauty. We forget that sometimes in our “screened-in” lives. Many of us live in a place of four seasons. There’s always something to marvel at in nature. For many years, we lived in a part of the world with only two seasons. In each was still a myriad of beautiful discoveries. I have always enjoyed watching people, taking in all that’s there for the observer, without intruding. Then, of course, there is the wonder of God. How he continues to infuse our lives with good and possibility.

“The opposite of being cynical is being life-giving, and some might call you naive for it, but for the most part, people just need that in their lives. Most people will want to go to coffee with you because they need someone to speak life into them and actually believe it.” – Jennie Allen

Photo Credit: Empowered Living, Facebook

3) The Glad Game – There is so much we can learn from sweet Pollyanna and young Anne of Green Gables. Either through the book about Pollyanna or the movie. Or Anne: the books or the movies/TV series.

Both these girls were orphans, and both had figured out a way to thrive in their circumstances. Very different ways, but fascinating.

Ten Things Anne of Green Gables Taught Me – Samantha Ellis

Anne of Green Gables vs. Pollyanna – (In the Battle for My Mind)

I was reminded (see Friday Fave #2 above) of Pollyanna’s Glad Game. She was determined to find something good in every situation… something to be glad about.

YouTube Video – Pollyanna and the Glad Game

YouTube Video – You Surely Will (Pollyann’s conversation with the minister)

“When you look for the bad in mankind, expecting to find it, you surely will.” – Abraham Lincoln

Photo Credit: Pinterest, Abraham Lincoln

If Your Behavior Is Contagious, What Will People Catch?

Networking Lessons from Pollyanna and Anne of Green Gables – Marzena Podhorska

4) A Great Life and a COVID Death – As we continue to physically distance during this pandemic, we are beginning to know people who have died from COVID-19. The nearest one to us died just before Christmas. Reverend David Pickard. He was just 76. One of the pastors Mom wanted to preach her funeral. He did. The pastor who officiated at Dave’s and my wedding close to 40 years ago. 

Pastor David has always held a special place in my heart. So full of joy. A smile and presence that would shake the chill off any roomful of people. He genuinely loved God and people. Generous and good, this man.

He always made time. That meant so much to us as first our mom became ill with cancer, and then years later, our dad with Alzheimer’s. Pastor David was no longer in their church, but he continued in their lives.

We have been in separate countries (for awhile) and states now for many years. When we heard he was in the hospital with COVID, we prayed hard like everyone else who loved him. It wasn’t meant to be. His time here was done, but not without leaving a wide wake of love and Gospel truth to everyone he had a bit of time with. He is so missed.Pastor Dave and his sweetheart for life, Mrs. Dottie.

5) Life’s Comforting Rhythms – Here’s to all the rhythms of our lives that we count on and continue to bless us. Christmas cards, even in 2020 (although most of them arrived in 2021 through a weary postal service).

Christmas cactuses blooming right on schedule (how do they do it?).

Kale planted in the Fall still yummy in January.

Daffodils and irises pushing up through the soil with the promise of blooms in the Spring of this new year.

Sharing hot soup on a cold day with old friends (the lunch location altered somewhat by COVID)

And birthday greetings [this one from a lifelong friend who hung with me through our many losses and gains, and my lapses in communication] and a memoir by someone we have also shared through the years – through radio and concerts. #Garrison[Karen, hope you don’t mind. Your note says it all. Especially getting through all the latest hards.]

That’s it for this Friday Faves.  Please comment yourself on the rhythms that comfort you and the things that bring you delight. Thanks for stopping by. It means a lot.

Bonuses:

Ten Habits of People Who Lose Weight and Keep It Off – Gina Cleo

7 Good Things That Came Out of 2020 (It Actually Wasn’t All Bad)

Here’s How to Get Stronger After 50 – Abigail Barronian

5 Things People With Tidy Homes Don’t Do

What If We Have Another Year Like 2020 – Nice Lessons Leaders Should Already Have Learned – Eli Amdur

Amazing Image of Unborn Baby at 18 Weeks Is Called the Photograph of the Century – Micaiah Bilger

Image may contain: 1 personPhoto Credit: Eric McCool, Facebook

All Good Gifts, Anxiety, Community, Conversations, Courage, Decision-making, Depression, Family, Forgiveness, Friends, God, Grace, Grief and Loss, Holidays, Inspired, Jesus, Kindness, Kindness of Strangers, Loneliness, Love, Love Your Neighbor, Neighbors, new beginning, New Year, Purpose, Redeeming & Restoring

Monday Morning Moment – Hope in Christmas Lonesomeness

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Holidays can be lonesome. We all get that. Any of us who has had to be away from family, because of distance or work obligations, know the ache of celebrations missed…people missed. We make the best of it, of course, but we miss the memories not made.

Now, for some, Christmas is not a happy holiday. My dad died on Christmas Day. Other Christmases were spent far from our families. Or we may have other, painful reasons for not thinking of Christmas as a happy time. The lonesomeness can be right under the surface in a room full of people. We may have all the trappings of a happy holiday…but…

Then…add COVID-19.

Writer Joe Pinsker has posted an insightful piece on our experience of COVID 2020 – The Year We Lost – When We Look Back on 2020, Will We See Past All the Things That Didn’t Happen?

He talks about the missed celebrations, the delays in academic and career goals, the mass exit from our public lives…and how we have been affected. He also points to the lack of punctuation that holidays usually bring us…the missed comfort of rituals we have held dear or at least help define who we are as people attached to others.

The general shortage of chapter breaks in 2020 has three notable consequences.

  • First, as researchers have demonstrated, moments of transition can prompt people to reappraise their habits, and perhaps adopt new ones.
  • Second, a year without celebrations means fewer vivid memories—and looking back on vivid memories is one way people mark the passing of time.
  • Third, and maybe most powerfully, missing out on full-fledged birthday parties, baby showers, and so on can feel like cutting pages out of one’s life story. Rites marking important milestones “play a key role in shaping what we call our narrative self, the sense of who we are and how we came to be that person. – Joe Pinsker

This is where I want to pull us back from the edge.

I understand lonesomeness…it is my experience sometime during every Christmas. I miss my Dad…my Mom (who died almost 20 years ago…still miss her every day). We live still separated geographically from many in our family. All the gift-buying-and-giving is stressful, right? The question of “Did I do enough?” is both agonizing and ridiculous.

There is a longing that seems to belong especially to Christmas. A longing for something more…something beyond this world… something that doesn’t hurt. We we find ourselves in this mindset, we have to “pull up”. We have to shake off the darkness in order to see the light.

I am not saying that is easy. COVID has given us plenty of darkness this year. We do not have to let it take Christmas…not this year.

Maybe you like us won’t get to be with family and friends this Christmas. Even our Christmas Eve candlelight service is happening via Facebook Live. It is what it is this year.

We can fight to step away from the loneliness…the ache of lonesomeness. It does take some effort, but our being present, our showing up, matters. Not just to others, but to each of us personally.

We step outside. We use our phones to actually make a call. We pull some cans of food out of our pantry to feed someone else. We forgive. We ask forgiveness. We remember Jesus. He had to have been lonesome for intimacy with his Father in those years he came so close to us. He understands.

We remember. We receive. We re-enter.

Too often we have heard (and maybe said) “I can’t wait until it gets back to normal”. Or “I wonder what the ‘new’ normal will be after COVID”. We don’t have to be passive recipients of what is coming.

We turn the waiting of this year…the isolation of this year…into hope for the coming Savior…hope of the filling that this season can bring, even in the presence of a pandemic.

Photo Credit: Facebook, Contemplative Monk

2020: The Year We Lost (A Year Without Parties, Celebrations or Ambition) – Joe Pinsker

The Story of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s great losses that inspired the carol “I Heard the Bells” – Facebook

To the Lonely at Christmas – a Poem – Secret Angel

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5 Friday Faves – Classical Guitar Loveliness, Spoiling Our Children, Answered Prayer, the Gentling Nature of Christmas, and a Bunch of Great Reads

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Happy New Year! With travel and a family illness, I have been more out-of-pocket than usual. It will show in my Friday Faves. Some of them are carry-overs from previous weeks but not to be missed. Hope your New Year is off to a grand start.

1) Classical Guitar Loveliness – Since it’s been a bit, this Friday Faves includes 3 videos by Nathan Mills at Beyond the Guitar. Enjoy!

  • The Witcher 3: The Slopes Of The Blessure – composed by Piotr Musial.  Arranged and performed by Nathan Mills.

  • Netflix “The Witcher”: Toss A Coin To Your Witcher – composed by Sonya Belousova and Giona Ostinelli. Arranged and performed by Nathan Mills.

  • FRIENDS – “I’ll Be There For You” – composed by The Rembrandts. Arranged and performed by Nathan Mills.

2) Spoiling our Children – What does that even mean really? We all want the best for our children…at least we want to want it, for sure.

Photo Credit: Flickr, Wikimedia

As parents we have many layers of responsibilities plus we are faced with our own inadequacies and outright fatigue. How do we keep from disadvantaging our children by our parenting? Everyone has an opinion – some more educated and well-thought-out than others. Here are two:

The Silent Tragedy Affecting Today’s Children – Victoria Prooday – Prooday is an occupational therapist and educator on parenting all-round healthy children. This article sets up her premise that parents are the most instrumental in providing their children with the foundation for growing up resilient. Her bullet points are easily accomplished in most situations: technology-free meals, chore assignments, time outside, training children in emotions, and teaching them manners are just some of what she advises. Read and consider the other of Prooday’s points. Being invested and emotionally connected ourselves to our children is crucial.

Do You Agree With This Viral Post About the “Silent Tragedy” of Spoiled Children? – Jessica Suss – English teacher, writer Suss sounds a cautious rebuttal to Prooday’s article. She agreed with much of what she prescribed, but she objected to the tone of the “Silent Tragedy” piece. Suss argues that Prooday was talking to wealthier parents rather than those who might not have the means to carry out all her prescriptions. “Healthy food at every meal is a great goal, so long as you can afford it. But when more than 100 million people in America are food insecure, getting anything on the table is a better goal. Playing outside is also great, but if you live in the city or in an area that’s unsafe (as many lower-income families do), you’re not going to be able to complete the daily, hour-long hike Prooday says is necessary for a healthy child. And family game nights and dinners are all well and good, but when parents are working two jobs (or nontraditional hours), that might not be feasible.”

Two viewpoints – one prompting parents to be more intentional and the other giving a pass to parents – depending on the day and the situation, we need both.

10 Alternative Parenting Styles That Might Be Right For You – Samantha Steiner – Interesting Read; 10 parenting styles? Still, interesting.

3) Answered Prayer – I mentioned at the top about family illness. Our youngest granddaughter was very ill for about a week.

I can’t say enough of what it meant that so many prayed for her. We are so thankful for answered prayer and that she is back to her fun, lively self. When life takes us and those we love into the back of ambulances and down corridors of emergency departments of hospitals…we never know what will happen next. So thankful for those who wait with us, and encourage us, and serve us…all when they have their own situations that need attention. Thank God, thank you, and thank God for you.

4) The Gentling Nature of Christmas – It’s long since passed, both Western and Eastern Christmas. We still have our Christmas lights up…just because. It’s winter and feels darker than the rest of the year. Those lights warm the world where we are, so we have no rules as to exactly when we put away all the decorations.

Whether we celebrate Christmas or not, I think it’s true that there’s a gentling nature in this holiday. People are more thoughtful of others, more generous, more willing to give space to others. In general. Even in politics…well, sometimes.

I wanted to just include three short videos with Christmas themes that speak to the beautiful and connecting nature of Christmas. One is a scene from The Andy Griffith Show. The second is a performance of Saviour – The Story of God’s Passion For His People. [On the second video, 14 minutes in, you hear the singer Wintley Phipps. Any opportunity to hear him sing is magical.] The last video is the 2019 John Lewis Christmas advert…so darling.

5) A Bunch of Great Reads – It’s been over a month since I’ve posted my Friday Faves. Lots of stuff that has influenced and enlightened me. I didn’t want to miss sharing it all with you. Photo Credit: Needpix

So here goes. 10 of my favorites from the last few weeks – all very different – take your pick.

10 Simple Ways to Take Care of Yourself

We’re Treating Friendships Like Transactions and It’s Ruining Relationships – Ephrat Livni

What Happened to Richmond’s Thriving Black Community of Navy Hill?

10 Books to Give You Superpowers in 2020 – William Treseder

Emily Norton Opens Up About Battling Depression as a Caregiver – Alikay Wood

What Widowers Wonder at Night – Erich Bridges

Q & A with Sherry Stout – Building Capacity and Collaboration for Energy Resilience [Sherry Stout is a dear friend of ours. Fun to see her in print.]

No One Wants Your Used Clothes Anymore – Adam Minter

The Curse of the Honeycrisp Apple – Deena Shanker & Lydia Mulvany

Who Killed the Knapp Family? – Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn

Bonuses:

The True Story Behind Your Thanksgiving Cornbread – Adina Steiman

Enneagram & Coffee Facebook Page

Photo Credit: Facebook, Country Girls Do It Better

Aging, All Good Gifts, America, Christmas, Communication, Community, Conversations, Disney, Film, Finishing Strong, Friday Faves, Growing up, Holidays, Leadership, Memories, New Year, Work Culture, Workplace Culture

5 Friday Faves – Adulting, Employee Newsletters, Sears, Mission BBQ, and the Rest of the World

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Happy New Year!! Still practicing writing 2019. Here are my five favorite finds of this week.

1) Adulting – Adulting is a funny little word, but finding the cartoon below got me thinking on what those small happy things are in adulthood. In her article on adulting, Kay Steinmetz‘s quotes linguist Ben Zimmer: “Adulting tends to be used by those ‘who find themselves doing adult things for the first time and feeling like an adult’…It is very much attached to people coming of age, where they’re thrust into having to take things more seriously. [Every generation] comes to grip with aging in their own way.”

I would love to hear what makes being an adult a joyful thing for you. For me, it includes grandchildren, being out of debt, friendships that have endured time and distance, being taken seriously…and sometimes not-so-seriously (but it doesn’t matter as much). Adulting…what does that mean for you? Comment, please.

Photo Credit: Just Eat Real Food Facebook page, Hedger Humor

2) Employee Newsletters – Sounds so old school, right? Does your company even have an employee newsletter anymore? When a company has to downsize to maintain their bottom line, often communications, especially internal communication outlets, suffer. The employee newsletter is often sacrificed. Too bad, because this is a great diagnostic of the core values of a company. The ones I like best are those that are filled with employee stories, accomplishments, and dilemmas shared and solved with other colleagues. Employee newsletters can be living documents that connect people and give the reader a sense of the health of the organization. The images below are of two such newsletters. Photo Credit: Campaign Monitor

We don’t need the generic, one-page wellness coaching that we see on the inside of the bathroom stall door. We need lively, engaging stories written by those we rub shoulders with at work. These kind of newsletters give us opportunities to celebrate personal and professional benchmarks…they make our companies human.

Bananatag Internal Communications offers a webinar on How to Write Employee Newsletters. Fascinating and encouraging.

Photo Credit: HuaMConry

3) Mission BBQ – Already a previous Friday Fave, Mission BBQ is one of our favorite restaurants. Their generous customer service and quality food are unique. We are members of their birthday club and receive a free barbecue sandwich when our special day rolls around each year. Besides that, we will get an email occasionally inviting us in for another free sandwich. Today we redeemed our “Merry Christmas” freebies. The food is great, but it’s also an uplifting in-restaurant experience. Mission BBQ sets the bar high in honoring first responders and members (and families) of the military. Sweet. If you have one in your town, don’t miss it. If you don’t, can you suggest your own exceptional business (in Comments below)?

 

 

http://debmillswriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_6824.jpghttp://debmillswriter.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/IMG_6827.jpg

4) Sears– Here’s to  Sears! When I was growing up, Sears was that dependable department store and mail-order business that our parents trusted. They had everything. Clothing, toys, appliances, tires, and tools. You could count on Sears for quality products and solid customer service. Photo Credit: CNN

The Sears Christmas catalog, the Wish Book, was the most delightful experience for us kids. We would pour over the pages of toys, writing down our wish lists for Christmas.Photo Credit: Pinterest

We don’t buy from Sears very often anymore. Walmart, Target, and Amazon all dominate our day-to-day shopping world. Today, I needed a particular service of Sears and drove there to find that it was closing!!

It made me sad.

“Sears was the Amazon of its day.” In years past, Sears gave wide access to merchandise, especially for those more marginalized consumers in our country – farming families and African-Americans in the era of Jim Crow. When the giant Sears shut down its mail-order business, within a couple of years, Amazon took off. The decision-makers for Sears did not take into account the influence the internet would have on consumers. Amazon is hopefully taking note of its own greatest competitor right now, China’s Alibaba. Staying ahead of the market. Forsaking the hubris that can bring down a retail giant.

What Amazon Can Learn from Sears – Yes, Sears! – Lisa Lacy [may require a subscription if you read from a mobile device. I had free access from my computer.]

Amazon vs. Alibaba – Who Is Winning? – Chris Dunne – includes fascinating infographic comparing the two (hopefully you will be free to read the whole article without subscribing).

Thanks Sears…for all those shopping years.

5) The Rest of the World – In the US, we seem absorbed by our own news…what our government is doing, which celebrity is making headlines again, what sports team will make it to the championship. Sometimes you have to search intentionally for what’s happening in the rest of the world. I try to find other news sources that don’t slosh too much bias on their reporting…it’s challenging. Worth the search.Photo Credit: Facts & Trends

Any suggestions you have on good sources for news on the rest of the world? Please share.

Rest of World News – The Times of India

The World in 2019 – Daniel Franklin – The Economist

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Have a restful weekend. Some weeks can be really long and full. Make some space for yourself and for what might come if you look up.

Bonuses

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. – A. Solzhenitsyn

Real Productivity – Getting the Right Things Done – Hugh Whelchel – Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics

A funny take on New Year’s Resolutions by Comedian Dustin Nickerson:

Who’s In the Office? The American Workday in One Graph – Quoctrung Bui

No Star Wars movie this Christmas…we have to wait until the end of 2019:

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Worship Wednesday – Joy to the World – For King and Country

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Photo Credit: YouTube, For King & Country

Rejoice in hope; be patient in affliction; be persistent in prayer.
 – Romans 12:12

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.  – Romans 15:13

Who’s heard this strange and woeful adage: “The world is going to hell in a hand basket.”? It’s a saying that’s been around a long time, and I’m thinking it originated around a holiday family dinner table.

This Christmas we were having one of those conversations about the mess the world is in…we were a multi-generational family gathering of teens to our eighty-somethings. All beloved by each other.

As our conversation spiraled down, I looked around the table at these precious young ones. This was more their world we were talking about than our own. This was the world we were handing them.

Then the realization washed over us all again as our conversation turned. This world pales in comparison to some of the other eras in history…and survived. This world is not beyond the care of God…not beyond His reach…not beyond His ability to save.

We may not take joy in the political chaos we see nor the hardships that surround us, but we can always take joy in knowing that what we see is not the whole story.

The Lord has come! He comes every day into this beautiful, messy world. He created it in perfection, and we have had our sinful way with it. Still, He comes. He shows up every single day in our lives and in the circumstances of the peoples and governments of this world.

For King & Country, one of my favorite Christian bands, has taken the Christmas standard Joy to the World and reminded us of this very truth…Christ has come, and nothing will ever be the same again.

Worship with me on the new beginning of another year…who knows what God will do? Joy…

Joy to the world the Lord is come
Let Earth receive her King
Let every heart prepare him room
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven, and heaven and nature sing
Joy to the world the Saviour reigns
Let men their songs employ
While fields and floods, rocks, hills, and plains
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat the sounding joy
Repeat, repeat the sounding joy
He rules the world with truth and grace
And makes the nations prove
The glories of His righteousness
And wonders of His love
And wonders of His love
And wonders, wonders of His love

It’s remarkable isn’t it?
As Luke said that this baby boy
No family of promotion
No city of impressive nature
Just a manger
No social media campaigns
No presidential campaigns
No private aeroplanes
But he rose up with twelve ragamuffins
And He turned B. C into A. D.
Flipped the world on its head
He’s the most famous name around the globe
The most read book ever written

And the most beautiful news the world has ever known is this
That He reconnected us to heaven
He offered us redemption, a fresh start
Freedom, so that we can hold our heads high
And march through this life knowing,
My friends, that we are never alone
And that’s the greatest news the world has ever known
So let’s stand to our feet tonight
And let’s sing this like we mean it
Joy to the world the Lord has come

Joy to the world the Lord is come
Let Earth receive her King
Let every heart prepare him room
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven and nature sing
And heaven, and heaven and nature sing
And heaven and heaven and nature sing*

“When pain is to be born, a little courage helps more than much knowledge, a little human sympathy more than much courage, and the least tincture of the love of God more than all.” – C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

*Lyrics to Joy to the World – For King & Country

Joy to the World – Isaac Watts – original lyrics

YouTube Video – The One Hour for King & Country Christmas Concert, Phoenix, AZ

10 Bible Verses for a Joyful Spirit – Taylor Yenko

YouTube Video – Joy – For King & Country (Official Music Video)

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Monday Morning Moment – New Year’s Eve Reflection – Auld Lang Syne

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Photo Credit: Pixabay

[Adapted from the Archives]

Happy New Year! As this year winds down, we all look to the next with anticipation and hope. For many, tonight will be a partied out with friends. For us, this year, it’s spent with family…full of food, laughter, games and movies, huddled closely, filling all the sofas in Mommom’s living room.

We’ve already reflected back over this past year…we’ve written out resolutions for the one coming…and now, we mark the few hours remaining until this year is finished and the next begins.[I’m going back to this year’s resolutions to drive them deeper into my heart for 2019.]

When the clock strikes midnight, a song will ring out, for sure in the English-speaking world. That song is Auld Lang Syne. We don’t even know all the lyrics or its exact origin, but it stirs our hearts to remember the gift of old friends. What a gift they are!

Old friends…including the one I’m spending this New Year’s Eve with…

Auld Lang Syne: Should Old Lyrics Be Forgot…What the Song Means, and Eight Things You Didn’t Know About It – Alice Vincent

Auld Lang Syne celebrates those relationships that get us through whatever a year brings. Old friends. Sometimes we find those friends in our families…and sometimes across oceans.

One thing I love about this song is how the melody also lends itself to different lyrics…especially when the lyrics call to remembrance the finest friend it is possible to have in one’s life.

Our lives can take a myriad of turns that take us far from the friends we love. Fortunately, wherever we are…no matter how peopled or solitary our seasons are…there is a friend who is near to us always.

Two Christian bands have put lyrics to this melody and those songs follow. Take heart in these words in a familiar tune. Celebrate with me – as this year closes and a new one begins, there is One unchangeable in His love for us. Constant. A friend who sticks closer than a brother.

Happy, happy New Year.

1) For All That You Have Done by Rend Collective

Your grace will never be forgot
Your mercy all my life
Will be my source forever song
My story and my light

From mountain top to valley low
Through laughter and through tears
Surely the goodness of my God
Will follow all the years

For all that You have done for us
For every battle won
We’ll raise a song to bless Your heart
For all that you have done

You know our failures and regrets
You always led us home
Redemption’s arm has raised us up
Our triumph in the storm

For all that You have done for us
For every battle won
We’ll raise a song to bless Your heart
For all that you have done

(You’re faithful through the ages)

In unity we’ll stand as one
As family we’ll go
Shoulder to shoulder
Hand in hand
Into the great unknown

For all that You have done for us
For every battle won
We’ll raise a song to bless Your heart
For all that you have done*

Lyrics to For All That You Have Done – Rend Collective

2) All Glory Be to Christ – Kings Kaleidoscope

Should nothing of our efforts stand
No legacy survive
Unless the Lord does raise the house
In vain its builders strive

To you who boast tomorrow’s gain
Tell me, What is your life?
A mist that vanishes at dawn
All glory be to Christ!

[Chorus]
All glory be to Christ our king!
All glory be to Christ!
His rule and reign we’ll ever sing
All glory be to Christ!

His will be done, His kingdom come
On earth as is above
Who is Himself our daily bread
Praise Him, the Lord of love

Let living water satisfy
The thirsty without price
We’ll take a cup of kindness yet
All glory be to Christ!

[Chorus]
All glory be to Christ our king!
All glory be to Christ!
His rule and reign we’ll ever sing
All glory be to Christ!

When on the day the great I Am
The faithful and the true
The Lamb who was for sinners slain
Is making all things new

Behold our God shall live with us
And be our steadfast light
And we shall e’er his people be
All glory be to Christ!

[Chorus]
All glory be to Christ our king!
All glory be to Christ!
His rule and reign we’ll ever sing
All glory be to Christ!*

*Lyrics to All Glory Be to Christ – Kings Kaleidoscope

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Monday Morning Moment – a Snow Day and an End-of-the-year Leadership Checklist

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Monday morning. Quieter than usual. 11+ inches of snow has closed down much of the goings and comings of Richmond life today.

Although we know it’s not really a gift of time, snow days sure have the feel of a free day. Work still goes on for some (thank you all in the service industries), but for others we will catch up another day.

Today I am working on Christmas cards but they can’t be finished until husband Dave and I do our end-of-year reflection. We both look back separately, over the highs and lows of the year, and then come together to write a summary for our Christmas newsletter.

[If you hate those newsletters, just throw them in your recycling. They are probably more for the sender as the receiver…so the good has already been done. Happy Christmas.]

Dave works for an international organization. If we had kids or grandchildren at home, he may have just called it a snow day as his office, like many others in the city, is closed. However, because much of his day was already scheduled conference calls with people in different parts of the US and the world, he could work, from his office at home.

I say all this to emphasize how challenging it is to do any sort of review of the year…even on a snow day.

Still, year-end reflections are such a positive and productive activity, both for ourselves and for our workplace.

By year’s end, we are often just trying to appease the tyranny of the urgent. The dilemma is that a work life of putting out fires rarely puts in place barriers that can prevent further fires.

A year-end checklist used by leaders in concert with their direct reports can make a huge difference in accountability, employee engagement, evaluating practices, and planning for the next year.

Otherwise we live and work in the insanity that comes when we don’t block out time for reflection, evaluation, celebration, and development or planning.Photo Credit: Twitter, Seven Quotes

We think we’re doing all those things…but are we?

Below, you will find five links with five different end-of-the-year checklists. Some are longer than others. Some require deeper reflection than others. They are a nice mix written by brilliant thought leaders. [two have the same title but they are very different, by two different leaders].

Tomorrow, I will post my favorite points of the checklists below. Today, maybe you would take the time to look at them, like me, and come up with a checklist you would use…or one of your own making.

A Year-end Checklist That Will Make You a Much Better Leader – Lolly Daskal (2018)

15 Things to Top Your Business Checklist for the new Year – Forbes – 2017

A Year-end Checklist That Will Make You a Much Better Leader – Marcel Schwantes (2016)

A Great Leader’s Year-end Checklist – Les McKeown – 2012

A Leadership Checklist – 10 Things to Do Right Now to Make it a Great Year – Terry St. Marie (2010)

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5 Friday Faves – Leaning Into Relationships, Year-End Review, Coco Guitar Arrangement, Attention Management, and For Better or Worse

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Here we find ourselves in the last Friday of 2017. Such a mix of emotions, closing out one year, anticipating the next. These reflections have definitely colored my selection of these Friday Faves. How is your year ending? How is your week ending? This week of Christmas rolling into New Year.

1) Leaning Into Relationships – Dr. Robert Waldinger is the current program director of the 75+ year Harvard research study (entitled the Grant Study, with a subsequent complementary Glueck study). In a wildly popular TED Talk on What Makes a Good Life?, Waldinger talks about the findings of this long study of men (and later their wives and children). The data strongly support that a long and happy life is not about genetics or socioeconomic status. It is about relationships, relationships, relationships. Not the superficial or fleeting acquaintances often seen today in workplace and community. The “good life” is made up of sustained, deep, nurturing relationships. Relationships you can depend on…long-term.

“Loneliness kills. It’s as powerful as smoking or alcoholism.” — Robert Waldinger

Lean into relationships.

TED Talk – What Makes a Good Life? Lessons From the Longest Study on Happiness – Dr. Robert Waldinger

Good Genes Are Nice, But Joy Is Better – Liz Mineo

2) Year-End Review – Dave and I, like many of you, I’m sure, do a year-end review. It’s a discipline that helps us reflect on the year in anticipation of a strong start to the next year coming. This year-end review becomes part of our Christmas letter. Photo Credit: Pixabay

This year was a hard one, both to reflect on and to write about. It was more a year of hanging tough, holding the rudder steady, persevering. Being thankful for more the big general things (good health, having a job) rather than the small significant events – those highlights that punctuate most years. Please don’t get us wrong: we are still very thankful for all the big general things and for a God who knows our hearts and loves us through the prickly places of personal struggle. Thank God, for GOD.

Through the years, Dave has enjoyed the wit and writing of humorist Dave Barry.  His 2017 year-end review is biting to the point of being caustic. Not the usual chuckle. An atheist and libertarian, Dave Barry’s take on life in America, especially this year, does not hold anything back. If you read his piece, I want to warn you of the graphic and partisan elements you will find. However, the question Dave Barry asks over and over is “Did That Really Happen?”

That question is one that resonates for us as we work and live in a culture so different than we imagined at this stage of our lives. Funny guy Barry turns darkly serious in his take on politics, in particular, and life in America, in general. His last comments, in his long month-by-month year review, return to more his usual funny style. In the end, he actually communicates hope…and, although we come from vastly different takes on life (especially on God), we share his hope. This, because we believe God is at work…and is not bound by politics or religion.

3) Coco Guitar Arrangement – The 2017 musical fantasy film Coco which I wasn’t interested in watching until Nathan arranged this beautiful piece from the film.

It is Remember Me by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. The film depicts the story of a young Mexican boy seeking both his destiny as a musician and peace with his family’s past. Lots of skeletons and spirits in the film, as it focuses on the Day of the Dead (Dia de los Muertos). I may have to watch it now.

Here’s Beyond the Guitar‘s lovely arrangement of Remember Me:

4) Attention Management – As we think of New Years’ Resolutions, one issue that always tops the list (after eating and exercise) is improving our time management. Writer Oliver Burkeman has posted a thought-provoking, down-right riveting piece on attention management as the real key to our struggle with making best use of our time. It’s not about getting our Inbox to zero as it is about thinking through what is most important in life. What really matters? And then being about that. Burkeman highlights below:

Photo Credit: Wikimedia Commons

“The allure of the doctrine of time management is that, one day, everything might finally be under control. Yet work in the modern economy is notable for its limitlessness. And if the stream of incoming emails is endless, Inbox Zero can never bring liberation: you’re still Sisyphus, rolling his boulder up that hill for all eternity – you’re just rolling it slightly faster.”

Personal productivity presents itself as an antidote to busyness when it might better be understood as yet another form of busyness. And as such, it serves the same psychological role that busyness has always served: to keep us sufficiently distracted that we don’t have to ask ourselves potentially terrifying questions about how we are spending our days. “How we labour at our daily work more ardently and thoughtlessly than is necessary to sustain our life because it is even more necessary not to have leisure to stop and think,” wrote Friedrich Nietzsche, in what reads like a foreshadowing of our present circumstances. “Haste is universal because everyone is in flight from himself.”

You can seek to impose order on your inbox all you like – but eventually you’ll need to confront the fact that the deluge of messages, and the urge you feel to get them all dealt with, aren’t really about technology. They’re manifestations of larger, more personal dilemmas. Which paths will you pursue, and which will you abandon? Which relationships will you prioritise, during your shockingly limited lifespan, and who will you resign yourself to disappointing? What matters?” – Oliver Burkeman

Why Time Management Is Ruining Our Lives – Oliver Burkeman

Are Smartphones Making us Stupid? – Christopher Bergland

Monday Morning Moment – Ignoring in the Workplace and the Powerful Practice of Noticing – Deb Mills Writer

5) For Better or Worse – Our dear strong father/father-in-law, John, has Parkinson’s. This disease is robbing him of his strength, his memory, his speech. One thing it will not take from him is Julia. His wife of over 60 years is his primary care-giver.

As we were visiting them over the Christmas holiday, I overheard her talking to our son, Daniel, about marriage. She was helping John finish his lunch. I could see her leaning tenderly over him, as she chatted with Daniel. John doesn’t say much anymore, but Julia still talks to him. Lovingly drawing him back into life.

She was telling Daniel about the vows she and John made to each other all those many years ago. This was the season of “for better or worse”, she told Daniel. Not in a self-pitying way, but in her matter-of-fact wholly committed way. Julia loves God and she loves her family…that love tempered like steel through decades of attending to each.

Over the many years her son and I have been married, we have watched the love between them, her and John, grow even deeper. I remember how he would come in from working in the yard, still neat as a pin, with a little bouquet of flowers for the love of his life. She added those little flowers to the beauty which was ever their homes, richer with each season’s changing. Also Julia was ever faithful at “greasing the tracks” for deepening their walk with God and serving in the church. John’s own strong integrity and high sense of responsibility was boosted by Julia’s strong spiritual devotion.

His days of serving are done, but she continues to serve him and the God who watches over each of them…in these times of “better or worse”. May I be the kind of wife she is.

Those were my faves for this week. What have been yours? Any thoughts about what you’ve read above? Please comment below. Have a safe New Year’s Eve and a joyous reflective start to this next year. May we see peace and goodwill and may we be the start of that for each other.

Bonuses:

Attic Finds – Any trip to my Inlaws makes for tons of sweet memory-making. It also means trips into the attic and retrieving some of the lovely keepsakes MomMom has kept for us over our years of overseas travel. This time we brought home pictures from the pre-digital era, toys and clothes from our kids’ yester-years (including Christie’s wee “zippahs”, and treasured journals/letters.

Quote:  “Do not waste time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.” – C. S. Lewis

Best Seed Catalog Ever (Gardener Dave’s recommendation)

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Saturday Short – Eating Healthy – Elastic Is Not So Much My Friend As a Close Acquaintance

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Photo Credit: Sweet Little Bluebird

Sitting at my desk, I’m sitting very straight with great posture thanks to the corseting effect of jeans that fit me better a few months back. Struggling into those button-top, zippered jeans was one of those New Year wake-up calls. Eating healthier is usually one of my top resolutions, but it didn’t make the list this time…well…yet.

I was going to write how elastic is my friend and then discovered a West Coaster named Aurea has a food blog by that name (Elastic Is My Friend). Then, given my wrestling on this pair of jeans, I’m thinking elastic is more a close acquaintance…not as close as these jeans feel right now, but much preferred over them.

A friend of mine and I talk a lot about language.  Words are a great interest of mine, and it’s fascinating how their usage changes over time. Take the word “muffin tops“. In another “once upon a time”, muffin tops (that bulge over the top of our too-tight jeans) was called “love handles”.  The latter is a much more affectionate or endearing phrase than the first. Both words are a bit of a tease, as in poking-fun-at-sort-of-thing, but Urban Dictionary gives us women, at least, a break. Its definition calls love handles cute, curvy, etc.

Photo Credit: Foodiggity

Anyway, I digress.

Eating healthier would definitely help me become friends with both elastic and these jeans, which are causing me to breathe more shallowly than is probably healthy right now.

What would help me eat more healthy? Not all the diets out there that are either trendy or costly…just not into all that focus on food.

In the not too distant past, I have turned my eating habits around and made jeans my friend using three actions.

  1. Lay off the sugar. – Everything has sugar in it. Well, almost everything. I’m not into extreme food plans, but just getting sugar out of my  diet for a few weeks or months has resulted in weight loss, a change in my appetite, and even my food preferences. Since everything has sugar in it, I’m not talking about everything, but the obvious concentrated sugar foods.
  2. No Fast Food. – When I prepare food, I tend to make healthier food than when I drive-through or pick up something on the run. Not rocket science, but for me, it has to be something I resolve. Just too easy to pull in and pick up a fast lunch or beverage.
  3. Eating Stops at 7:00pm. At some point, I have to determine to “Stop the Madness!” For me, if I exit the kitchen by 7:00pm (not carrying food) and just don’t go back in there…my habits and cravings will change. They have before…they can again.

So mid-way through January, in a pair of jeans I can still fit in…I’m resolved to begin moving in this direction. Not the strongest resolve I’ve had going into a new year, but stronger than I had this morning.

Elastic…aaaaaahhh. Looking forward to peeling out of these jeans and putting on my pajamas later…AND closing the door on the kitchen at 7:00pm.

I’m thinking there could be some sort of conspiracy in the fitness clothing industry how it’s all so stretchy and comfy, with elastic at the waist. Effective for work-outs but just as lovely lounging on the couch in front of the TV…with that enormous bowl of popcorn or dish of ice cream.Photo Credit: NYTimes, NPR, Pinterest

Sheesh!

Focus! Need to definitely keep wearing these jeans until bedtime.

How about you? Any helps in forming habits where we don’t need such close friendships with elastic? Please share in Comments.

YouTube Video – ActiveWear

YouTube Video – Fed Up – Official Trailer