The Three "U's" I Gave Up

My greatest progress in 2011,
the most freedom
I have found in years:

I gradually began to give up
worrying that other people
thought of me as

ugly,
untalented,
unwanted.

I began believing that
negative opinions of me
don't equal absolute truth.

I started realizing that I can choose to reject how others say I should look, act, or live.

I eventually understood that the One who loves me most would never describe me using those three "u" words.

I decided whose opinion I should strive to listen to.

A Not So Bad Goodbye

Goodbyes often stir up such negative images.

But as the days inch closer to December 31, I look forward to that annual farewell with eagerness, anxious to let go of the year's unwelcome hardships and welcome the hope of fresh, untainted possibilities.

It's a goodbye that doesn't seem so bad.

Time brings so much into life that is beyond our control. But the close of a year often motivates me to search for what I do have a choice in bidding goodbye---emotional baggage, hurtful memories, poor choices, harmful habits. Sometimes, when I take even the tiniest, initial step towards dropping such a deterrent, I find a measure of peace. Just knowing I have begun gives me a bit of encouragement.

At some point in 2011, I gradually began caring less about other people's opinions of me. Slowly, I became aware that I was pushing myself a little further towards my dreams, but with a diminished need for other people to approve. Until I began that (still ongoing) process and experiencing a little more freedom and confidence, I didn't realize how often I let other people's opinions determine my decisions.

How many times do we hurt in life because of fears or beliefs we need to cast off?

Maybe we should ask ourselves more than once a year what we need to let go of.

What is interfering with your life that you want to start letting go in 2012?

The Wait Before Bethlehem

A star burned too brightly
for Wise Men to ignore.
Singing angels swept into
sleepy shepherds' night shift.
Mary broke into labor,
frantic for a place--
any place--
to give birth.

The course of history altered.
Lives abruptly transformed.
Earth touched by a miracle
in the blink of an eye.

Sometimes the events
of that Bethlehem night
sound sudden and dramatic--
the strange star,
an ill-timed delivery,
unsuspecting shepherds.

What Is Your Frankincense?

What is your frankincense, gold, or myrrh?
What can you offer a king?
What precious jewel compares to his worth,
what priceless offering?

What could you lay at such holy feet?
How do you measure the price?
What gift reciprocates all that he gives,
what equal sacrifice?

What could you place at his manger bed?
cross, or vacant grave?
What could redeem the anguish he bore,
the sins and mistakes he forgave?

What is your frankincense, gold, or myrrh?
What can you offer a king?
Nothing your hands could buy nor sell.
Only your life can you bring.

Following

"And the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed." -Matthew 2:9-10

Lightly underlined in pencil. I looked up for a moment and squinted my eyes, trying to recall why, at some point, I had underlined that particular verse.

"And the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them.."

The star went ahead of them. I had never noticed that before. My mind still held the Sunday School image of a dazzling star centered directly over the A-frame of a stable---a flashing arrow or an X marking the spot.

From Dentists To Grinches

I lay stretched back in the dental chair on a rainy Monday morning as the friendly dentist poked around my mouth with her sharp little instruments. Glancing sideways at the hygienist, she remarked, "Well, she really doesn't get any build-up on her teeth at all, does she?" A simple comment regarding the health of my incisors, but I felt as pleased as if she had just introduced my mouth as the winning smile on the cover of a magazine. Ah, the little things you feel proud of when you are truly and officially an adult.