Write a Story of Touch

You are the author of today's story of touch.

You will warm a heart, heal a hurt, generate a smile, just by your intentional narrative of touch.

Who will your audience of one, or more, be?

Write well, my friend.

Touch is biblical. It is real. It is life-giving.

Write the very story of life in your world.

Photographer: Jordan Perry

Abusive Voices

Emotional abuse...cunning, artfully dodging detection because it resides in private arenas.

It usually happens between two people when no one else is watching (unless, sadly, the children hear).

It takes the form of a scathing shakedown of who you are or are not, whatever the abuser's case may be.

It may be loud and angry, or couched in calm, cold language, devoid of emotion.

The target person is left feeling small and helpless and pain-ridden.

The sad truth is that small and helpless and pain-ridden describes the heart of the abuser.

In finding a target--you--he (or she) just unloaded a bit of the dark baggage he carries because the weight became too much to bear.

If you and God are working in tandem to rescue this person, carry on. You will be the bearer of repeated forgiveness until the abuser lets the unconditional love of God take root and begin to grow, for only Jesus is the proper Bearer and burial ground for the abuser's baggage.

If the rescue is not, or is no longer, yours to help execute, step away with grace and determination.

The abuser's portrait of you, painted with those scathing shakedowns, will fade.

Once again, the brushstrokes of Jesus' hope and plan and love for you can come into view.

Reverse the Sequence: Day 5

One final word about reversing the sequence:

Don't miss the victory.

You work for years and years to overcome a mind pattern--or help someone to break his or hers--and one day you cross the finish line of overcoming but your heart is too weary to see it.

The finish line is clouded by tears of effort, of exhaustion, of almost giving up.

I imagine the tears of heartbreak have to all be released so that God can do whatever He does with our tears that He tenderly promises to watch over.

When the victory comes--when the mind pattern no longer has you in its grip--take a little time to rejoice.

Be thankful.

It is no small thing to have overcome a mind pattern that has held you hostage for years.

In the movie, A Little Bit of Heaven, Kate Hudson's character is biting and mean and so hard to understand. But, in the end, you see how her mistaken thinking--her mind pattern--had its fiery grip on her for her entire life. She found victory, but hers came only in death.

If ours comes in life, with more life to come, thank God and...don't miss it.

Reverse the Sequence: Day 4

We are looking at the reality that our mind patterns, if unhealthy, lead us into all kinds of misery.

Yesterday we looked at the mind pattern that led me into poor food choice for oh, so many years. I discovered that picturing the outcome of what I was about to eat in terms of how I would feel was a successful way to reverse the sequence, as it began to deter me from the bad choices.

Another mind pattern is the stress of preparing for any event, any deadline, any out of the ordinary circumstance.

Moving, a dinner party, a work deadline, traveling for a period of time, Christmas--all require prep outside of the usual.

Without fail, stress, bickering, and ridiculous expectations jump onto the scene.

You are packing for a trip? You suddenly just have to put that finishing touch on cleaning or a home improvement that you have put off for months.

A work deadline? All of the procrastination suddenly becomes breeding ground for yelling at everybody though they are not the reason you are late.

When something out of the ordinary is in the works, begin by picturing the end result. Write it out if you need to. Then work backwards. Reverse the sequence.

Here is an example: you are packing for a trip? Get the suitcase completely ready before you allow yourself the luxury of getting the house in order.

Dinner party? Set the table and prepare the food before you tackle the yard, the house, and heaven knows what else your mind tempts you to suddenly just have to do.

The conspiracy of our mind leads us to get all entwined with tasks that take us away from the goal. Then we are sure to be miserable and unproductive.

Maybe God is saying to reverse the sequence, keep the goal as the goal, and not have the extras take over our moods.

In the bombardment of this world--its choices, its dazzling array of all things unattainable--it is a constant effort to feed our strength by choosing our goal and the most practical way to get there.

Reverse the Sequence: Day 3

Today is Labor Day and we promised to feed our strength in examining how to reverse the sequence.

My greatest victory in reversing the sequence has been with food. I am obsessed with food and I have ever so slowly journeyed from complete self-harm to life-giving, self-imposed food therapy.

Though I've managed to always keep my weight within 10 pounds of my goal, I was not in control by any sense of the word.

In junior high, I ate four ice-cream sandwiches and called it lunch.

When my kids were young, I ate a pound bag of M&M's to deal with the stresses known to single working moms.

To offset gargantuan caloric intake, I could easily skip dinner, and then begin the whole crazy cycle again the next day.

In my forties, it occurred to me that food was the secret to health, healing and productive longevity, and I simply asked God to show me His best. In a nutshell, I learned that whole-food, plant-based eating is His best, but that didn't address the engine in my mind that drove my poor eating for all those years.

Poor eating had predictable results: I would feel lousy and beat myself up and promise myself it wouldn't happen again. Know the feeling?

My effort to reverse the sequence began with picturing how I was going to feel before I ate the wrong food and practicing--over and over and over--not going there. After many fits and starts and failures, I rarely to never eat to feel badly. I reversed the sequence by picture the outcome before I began. The power of this picture and spending time pondering how God loves me was the recipe for rewiring the engine of my mind in a new and productive direction.

Tomorrow: another example of reversing the sequence.

PS: If you are on Facebook, invite yourself to Eat More Rabbit Food! Some of us are in an open group sharing our learning in the whole food, plant-based eating arena. We'd love to have you join us.

Reverse the Sequence: Day 2

Yesterday we established that the sequence of our mind patterns may be feeding our weakness rather than our strength.

Perhaps a mind pattern that is doing you harm came into the forefront for you to consider.

I am going to meet my expectations in ________ today without fail.

Eating, exercise, being kind to my family, letting go of that grudge history with that pivotal-in-my-life person, keeping a neat house.

The funny thing about the 24-hour cycle of life is that we get a chance to reset every morning. In fact, God says His mercies are new every morning.

Too bad ours are not. Because in that mind pattern above--the crisis of perfectionism--we ignore reality and our circumstances and move into this dream-like state that we think is attainable. We have no mercy on ourselves.

But shouldn't we eat better, exercise more, employ kindness to our family, let go of grudge history, and have some kind of order and cleanliness in our house?

Yes. The trick is to line up our expectations with a sequence of thinking and action that can be accomplished with some ease.

In my graduate school days, I learned that the trick to getting kids to read fluently is to place them in material they can read mostly with ease, with just a few roadblocks (new words) along the way. The power of fluency gives them the motivation and energy to learn how to navigate the roadblocks.

Our expectations have to work the same way. They have to be set where we can meet them with ease and success--the power of fluency--encountering only a few roadblocks along the way which we have energy to maneuver.

Tomorrow is Labor Day. Could you labor just a little by trying to reset your expectations in the one area that is crippling you--steering you into repeated failure?

Plan out how you might reverse the sequence.

Tomorrow we will feed our strength.