Letting God Finish Our Masterpieces

I could see in her eyes that it wasn’t good news. After hours and hours of hard labor with my fourth child, my midwife told me I hadn’t begun dilating. In fact, my cervix wasn’t even fully effaced. Seriously?

I was ready to cry.

With each of my other pregnancies I felt like I had some control. To get my contractions to increase in frequency and intensity, I paced. All over the house. And it worked!

I have proof.

Baby #1 – I arrived at the hospital dilated to a 7.

Baby #2 – I arrived at the hospital dilated to a 6.

Baby #3 – I arrived at the hospital dilated to a 5. And the nurses were awesome. They let me wait to be admitted while I continued pacing and progressed to a 7 or so.

So here I was broadsided with this news about Baby #4.

Death by Castor Oil

Now to be completely truthful, I may or may not have tried to tempt Fate. I was worried that my husband would miss Baby’s debut if we didn’t have her that weekend. So I took castor oil.

Let me give you a hint. DON’T. EVER. TAKE. CASTOR. OIL. No questions asked. Just don’t do it.

So after the unspeakable effects of the castor oil, it seemed to affect my labor like Pitocin. What do I mean? Well, basically my contractions were super hard without progress.

What Now?

So my midwife delivered the news. I was devastated. See…in the past I simply walked off my pain. But now? Suddenly I needed major labor support. I felt so ridiculous! Like something was wrong with me. Here I hadn’t even begun dilating and we had used up just about every one of my midwife’s tricks!

Well…I gave myself a generous 30 seconds to decide my next step. I was really at a loss. But I felt that all I could really do was to surrender.

I had assumed I could control the situation…that I could hurry things along. But in reality there was nothing I could do. Except choose how I would respond.

If I was going to labor for another 5-10 hours, the only thing that made sense was to get some rest. So I chose to let go. We stuck a movie in (I have no memory whatsoever of what it was), and I laid down on the couch.

Understand – laying down was always the most painful way for me to labor. But it felt like the right thing to do.

Time to Give Up?

Let me back up for just a sec. During my pregnancy my midwife told me that when I started to feel like I was done…just ready to give up and go home…it would most likely mean that I was in transition. Interesting concept.

Okay. So hold that thought.

Back to the Story

I laid on that dang couch trying to sleep for about 45 minutes. It took a lot of self control to just stay there and breathe through those contractions. It was pretty miserable, but I already knew that pushing through and trying to make it happen wasn’t working. I didn’t believe for a second that I could progress just laying around, but what choice did I have?

I finally got up to run to the restroom, but as I stood up….OUCH!! I thought I was going to die. I had a horrible contraction, and I was DONE. I was exhausted, emotional, and I wanted to go home and forget the whole thing.

Wait.

This was kind of a deja vu moment. Didn’t my midwife say something about this?….Hmmm. Ah yes. She suggested these feelings meant transition. But there was no way…I wasn’t even fully effaced.

Still, I asked her to check me. She reluctantly did so, and then I watched the panic set in. I WAS DILATED TO 9 CENTIMETERS! The baby came about 15 minutes later. Yup. It’s true.

Letting Go

Isn’t it fascinating? How much time do we spend trying to control things? We want things to happen on our timeline. We want answers now! We want the pain gone NOW! And yet, it wasn’t until I finally let go of my timing and left it in God’s hands that I progressed. And it was much faster than ever before. By a LOT. God did more for my progression in those 45 minutes than I could have possibly done on my own.

Painting Your Masterpiece

Ya know? We all have things we are creating. We have these beautiful dreams we are painting on the canvas of life. And I, for one, am one of those people who just can’t walk away from these masterpieces. I guess I’ve always believed that the painting will never get finished if I’m not there for every last stroke.

Apparently it was time for these beliefs of mine to be challenged.

My baby’s delivery was a defining moment for me. It inspired a lot of questions.

Is it possible that we don’t really make things happen? Could it be that we are only part of the equation? Could we possibly be fighting against a Higher Power when we try to do it all on our own? And in our own way?

Be Still and Know That I am God

Are you good for me to just share my interpretation of all this?

Here goes…We don’t have to do it all. We don’t have to make things happen. We don’t have to be everything to everyone. And we don’t have to run faster than we have strength.

When we put forth our best efforts, we can slow down a bit. Take a step back. Then we can rest assured that Life will take care of the rest. We can let go and trust God.

Consider the peace that will come when we stop and remember that sometimes, in the stillness, the finishing touches are performed by the Master Painter, Himself. And in the end, with nothing more that we can do, our Masterpiece is beautifully and perfectly complete.

Do you need someone to cheer you on and hold you accountable in finishing your own masterpiece? I’m here to help.

Big Goals: Are They Worth the Wait?

About seven years ago I tasted the best chocolate chip cookies ever! A friend of mine brought me a plate of them, and I’ve been hooked ever since. They are made with real butter, oatmeal, wheat flour (believe it or not), and the BEST milk chocolate chips I’ve ever tasted! They are almost golden brown, soft and chewy, and are loaded with yummy, melt-in-your mouth chocolate.

What’s the secret to these delectable treasures? Of course the ingredients matter. They are, in fact, vital. But, believe it or not…the secret is the time in the oven. For real. After tweaking the time, we found that eight and a half minutes in a 350 degree oven, and baking for an additional minute outside of the oven before removing them from the sheet, makes them absolutely perfect. Any shorter time leaves them doughy. (Gross.) And any longer time makes them hard. (Grosser.) Honestly, unless my cookies are baked to perfection, I won’t even eat them. My kids will settle for the mediocrity, but not me. These divine dainties simply need the proper amount of time to deliver the greatest goodness!

Everything in our lives takes its own designated time to develop and become its very best. And it’s worth the wait.

This idea is actually the essence of The Law of Gestation. “What’s that?” you ask? It’s something I learned from Leslie Householder. Every idea, every dream, every creation requires a certain amount of time to “cook” before it is fully developed. We wouldn’t want our dreams to be realized before they reach perfection. I know you want to argue with me. But seriously, we wouldn’t.

I recently set a really scary goal to get ten new customers for my business in two weeks’ time. The deadline was a training I was doing for my team on the Laws of Thought, and I wanted to share with them the success that I experienced. My other purpose for setting this goal was to meet the qualification for an all-expenses paid vacation with my husband (Yah baby!), and to qualify for free product from my company.

Being tempted by failure lurking in the shadows, nothing happened during the two weeks until the day before the training. You can imagine how excited I was when a new customer called me out of nowhere. I placed his order, and I hoped that maybe it was the beginning of good things to come! But, alas. No.

The next morning as I drove into the training I tried to figure out what it all meant, and I wondered why I didn’t get my ten customers. I couldn’t find an answer, so I chose to feel gratitude for my one new customer. Then I thought about all the free product I had received in the past and for all of those customers that made it happen, and my gratitude increased. I felt more at peace and chose to be content to learn the lessons of prosperity one step at a time.

Suddenly a thought popped into my head about why I didn’t get my ten customers. “This is just The Law of Gestation.” Oh! That’s right! And then it became clear. My real purpose was to qualify for the vacation, get free product, and inspire my team. I could still do all three of those things if I reached my goal by the end of the month. I still had four days!! Happy dance!

I chose gratitude and belief that the goal would still be met.

And it happened! It was still a process, but along the way I didn’t see any evidence that it would come through. And yet, by eleven o’clock at night on the last day of the month I had all ten customers! It just came together in the end. I met all the qualifications, and I was still able to share my experience with my team to inspire them to believe they can succeed as well.

We have to have patience and trust that Life will deliver our greatest desires in the right time and in the right way. Remembering The Law of Gestation instills hope when we feel like the wait is endless. (And sometimes it is!) But it’s a great reminder that our big goals will be worth it in the end.

I’d love to help you get YOUR big goal. Let’s chat.

No More Scary Goals: Let Them Meet You in the Middle

Do you think it could really be possible that when we pursue a goal, we don’t have to kill ourselves off to accomplish it? Do you think, just maybe, we actually make it harder than it needs to be? Can we hope for some unseen help to attain our dreams?

I think so. Truly.

I believe there are scientific laws that are steadfast that never change. They simply are. Every night when the sun goes down, I can be sure that it will rise again in the morning. It’s constant and never-changing. (At least so far.) 

There are also Laws of Thought that are constant and never-changing. One law I learned from Leslie Householder is the Law of Cause and Effect. It’s been known by other names as well: The Law of the Harvest, The Law of the Sower, and others. It’s basically this: When you move forward in a specific direction, there is an equal force moving in the opposite direction.

Huh?

Let me say it another way.

When you are committed to an end goal and take a step toward making it happen, your goal will take a step closer to you. Seriously!? Yes! The distance between you and your goal gets smaller every time you take a step.

This is one of my favorite laws because it takes a ton of pressure off of me. (Aren’t we all looking to take pressure off?) Going after a large goal can be incredibly overwhelming when you consider all that it might require. But when you lock onto the understanding of the Law of Cause and Effect, hope returns! A light comes on when you realize you only have to go half way to get there. HALF WAY!!!

You’re going to love this example. At least I hope you do! It makes me so happy!

About 14 years ago, my husband and I decided to pay off our house. We had gotten a fifteen year loan to speed things up, but we really wanted to pay it off in seven years. We set the goal, and we tightened our budget so we could make double payments. We became super motivated when my husband created a chart to mark how quickly we were paying off the principal. Along the way I would have a feeling to look more closely at the budget to see if we could cut more and make a higher payment. I did that each time, and we got closer and closer to our goal.

I remember one day I had the thought to try to come up with $100 more in the budget. I was way excited when I found where to pull it from, and I shared the wonderful news with my sweetheart. He told me that he just had this really strong feeling that the extra money needed to go into savings. Blah. I was totally deflated, but I was willing to support him.

He then reached into his pocket and tossed me his paycheck. I looked down and noticed the amount was different than past ones. He had gotten a $100 (take home) raise! Oh my word! Neither of us knew it was coming, but we were delighted! This meant we could put $100 in savings and $100 towards the debt!

These little miracles happened all along the way, and you can imagine our surprise when we paid off our home in only three and a half years! We had never heard of the Law of Cause and Effect before, but we certainly experienced it! My head is still reeling from that one!

So let’s go back to the original question.

Could it really be possible that when we pursue a goal, we don’t have to kill ourselves off to accomplish it?

Absolutely! Our goals become much more reasonably attainable when we rely upon the The Law of Cause and Effect to keep the effort in perspective. So just relax a minute, take a breath, and believe that when you take a step forward, your big goal will meet you in the middle!

If you are ready to take a step towards your goal and need some extra support, let’s talk!

Gaining Momentum: Why I Welcome Both the Ups & Downs

I’m no scientist, but I’ve been taught my whole life that the shortest distance between any two points is a straight line. Well, I absolutely have to share what I learned a couple months ago when a mentor of mine introduced me to a video clip that challenged that assumption. * It absolutely boggled my mind!

There was this man who set up two tracks side by side. They both started at the same point and ended at the same point. Track One was perfectly straight from one end to the other. Track Two had a dip in the middle that went down and came back up to the same height as Track One. He released a large marble on both tracks at the same time, and you can’t believe what happened!! The marble that ran on Track Two (with the dip) was faster!! I was amazed!

He then set up the track with a huge dip in the middle. Same result!

Three dips in the middle. Four dips in the middle. Every time Track Two beat Track One!

This experiment was super encouraging to me as soon as I put it in the context of real life.

When we set a goal that we are completely committed to attaining, things often pop up that make it seem that we are moving in the opposite…or at least the wrong…direction of our goal. It can be rather unsettling, but I promise it’s just part of the process!

The Law of Rhythm is simply the idea that there are ups and downs in life. When we are at a low, we can be at peace in knowing that an up is coming. This law can be seen all over in nature and in our lives.

For instance – we have four seasons that rotate through every year. (Sometimes there are only two where we live.) But things in nature are always changing. We can be sure of it.

Another example is a woman in labor. Her contractions are up and down and up and down, and the whole time her body is preparing itself for the birth of her child. She usually has a breather in between those contractions (thankfully!), and then it’s time for the baby’s debut.

Rhythm is important on our course of progression and growth.

I guess sometimes the ups and downs may feel like they’re slowing down our journey, or that we may even be off track, but from the Marble Run Experiment…it would seem that they actually propel us faster on our journey! That is a powerful concept!

For about ten months, my car was out of commission. We had four cars that should have been working in our large family, and we were down to three during that period of time. I was grumpy and frustrated about the situation, and I continued to say, “I can’t______, and I can’t_______, because I don’t have a car.” As I learned the Laws of Thought, I realized how I had kept myself in this place because of my frustrated thoughts and words. So I set my intention to get a car.

The very next day my son’s car broke down. Thankfully I had just learned about The Law of Rhythm from Leslie Householder’s book, Hidden Treasures. I expressed gratitude that something was happening and good things were coming.

The next day my daughter’s car got a flat, and as we talked about fixing the tire, she suggested we not even fix the car because it was falling apart. In all honesty, I laughed. This whole process was so strange to me! But I again offered thanks, and I simply expected that it would work out.

Three days after the second car broke down, my dear friend (who knew nothing of our journey or my goal) texted and asked if we were looking for a car. I knew how well she and her husband take care of their cars, and we agreed to buy it sight unseen. (Who does that?) I still had cash on hand from my son not making an intended car purchase, and it was exactly the amount my friend was asking! We went and picked it up immediately, and we now have a beautifully running car. The other two cars were fixed right up as well! Unbelievable!

This is a great law to keep in our pocket when life happens! If we just etch the results of the Marble Run in the recesses of our mind, we can choose a more positive attitude along the way. Expect that the down will turn upward, and that we will gain momentum to attain our end goal more quickly!

If you need support to learn to apply the Laws of Thought, I’m your girl. Let’s chat.

* You can find the marble run video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GJujClGYJQ.

When the Thunder ROARS Look for the Silver Lining

There are two kinds of people in this world.

There are people whose last peanut M&M in the bag always has a rotten peanut in it. And then there are those whose entire neighborhood floods, and they choose to go kayaking down the street in it!

In all honesty I can say that I’ve been both. (I never had my neighborhood flood. But I have jumped and played in a mess of leaves we had to clean up! That’s something, isn’t it?)

I don’t know about you, but I’d like to be in the more positive group. And yet, what are we supposed to do in the middle of opposition?

We’ve all heard the saying, “Hindsight is everything,” and there is truth in that. It seems that every time some major challenge hits, I can find a huge blessing attached to it in the end.

I may or may not have seen the good in the moment. Okay. I seldom saw it in the moment. But that is changing! I’ve learned a new Law of Thought, and I am ready to live it!

So what is this new law?

It’s called The Law of Polarity, and simply stated, it is that there is a good in every bad. (I learned about this law from the writings of Leslie Householder.) We can actually look for the good and believe that more good is coming. Let me share an example.

I grew up in a generation where a man works at the same company his whole life. My dad did just that. However, this has not been my husband’s experience in the software industry where there are layoffs every 18-24 months. My husband has faced many layoffs over the years – some that he survived, and some that he didn’t. And it stunk for all of us.

His very first layoff was the scariest for me. We had three children, and it just seemed like the worst possible news for the family. How would we pay our bills? How would we feed the family? How would we pay our rent? It was probably the greatest challenge I had faced up to that point.

We were without work for just over a month, and we were so relieved when the new job came!

Here’s the cool thing with the “hindsight” I mentioned earlier. We saw a bunch of blessings that came from this challenge.

We had been trying to get our house built for 4 years while living in his parents’ basement. His work required 2 hours on the road each day, so by the time he got home at the end of the day, he was exhausted. Thus, we never moved forward on the house. We had finally decided to purchase a modular home just to get out of the basement. He lost his job at the optimal time of the year to pour a basement. Being out of work for those 30 days gave him and his dad just enough time to get the basement ready for the house to be delivered! He finally had the time he couldn’t find to get us into a house. It was a huge blessing!

He was given severance pay for exactly the amount of time he was out of work!

His new job paid more.

The Law of Polarity is real. Believing this allows us to be classified among those that look for the rainbows in the storms of life and the silver linings on those thundering clouds. And who wants to think about those nasty peanuts in our candy anyway?

Want to learn how to better live the Laws of Thought? I can help.