Get Rid of Your False Limitations!

"You know, I've decided to move to Delaware," announces my new friend as Pete and I gather our rackets and head to the sweltering tennis courts.

"Why Delaware?" I ask, dragging my feet so that I can hear any words she wants to share.

"Lower taxes."

"Lower taxes? Interesting. Do you know anyone in Delaware?" I ask.

"No, why do I need to know anyone to move to a new place? I didn't know anyone when we moved here from Connecticut. I managed. But I don't like the heat here. And the skiing isn't great here - better up north - and Delaware is closer." She scowls and seems to think that perhaps she has over-estimated me.

"Closer?"

"Closer to good skiing!"

"What do your kids think about your moving to Delaware?"

"They don't like the idea. It'll make it hard for them to get in my business. They keep wanting a key to my house and I tell them, 'You don't need a key to my house; I don't have a key to yours and I don't want one either!' "

In a world where most of us focus our attention on what we are afraid we will lose or never achieve, this little lady scans the horizon for new adventures. Who knows if she will move or not, but I would not bet against her. Isn't there something glorious about a woman who, at her age, still believes that new adventures await her? I love that so much!

So what about you? What false limitations are you placing on your own wild and precious life? Is it possible that you have a new adventures waiting for you?

Later that evening, sitting down on the dock and staring across a lake whose surface is smooth as glass, I marvel at the human heart's capacity to find kinship in spite of our differences.

Go For It!

"It's gonna be hot down there, drink plenty of fluids!" The two courts that we practically had to give blood to pay to use are covered and they are...toasty.

"Oh, we will!" We assure the helpful team of women who have assembled to give us the once over and make sure we are not going to cause any harm to the facility.

My new friend is not quite ready to let us go.

"You play pickleball?" She asks, hands on hips.

"We do, in fact, my husband made a pickle ball court in our driveway!" I reply.

"Yeah? Well, you know, they invited me to play pickleball with them here, and I try to be a good sport, so I came over and played in one of their shindigs...but they told me I was too AGGRESSIVE and they never invited me back."

"Wow!" I am well and truly impressed. We're not talking a spring chicken here - this grand lady is in her 80's at least! And look at her agreeing to take up a new sport with so much energy that she does not get invited back!

I am plenty inspired by this bright yellow phenom standing here holding court and waving her tennis racket around to illustrate her perspective. She is strong and confident and clearly large and in-charge of her life. This is a woman who looks like she takes responsibility for herself and expects others to do likewise.

Life can really wear us down, can't it? Thanks to a long line and a lot of red tape, I had the privilege of seeing the possibility for my own future in the presence of an older, wiser woman. Mary Oliver, beloved poet to many, asks THE question, "What do you want to do with your one wild and precious life?" Go for it!

Resurrection is Out-of-the-Box Believing

None of us are familiar with resurrection, are we? Dead people do not come back to life except in horror movies. This is entirely unnatural. But as unnatural as it is, every time I return to this story I find new things to confound and inspire me. In a sermon preached by Barbara Brown Taylor, she says this, "A resurrection is a miracle of another order. There is no continuity with life as we know it. The spark is utterly extinguished. The heart stops...Death occurs, beyond a shadow of a doubt. The living withdraw to get on with their lives and the silence is complete. Then, when everything is over, something entirely new begins. What was cold becomes warm again, and what lay still sits up. Creation occurs all over again - not a spark rescued from the ashes but a whole new fire kindled out of nothing - the gracious act of the only one who can make life out of dust, not just once upon a time, or even at the end of time, but over and over again."

And here is the point that I want to emphasize in the midst of this Easter season. Life is more than what we can experience. Jesus did not die to rescue us from God, Jesus died the way he did so that we would understand that the God we worship knows what suffering and death is like and we are never alone. Jesus rose again, so we know that death is not a final ending, but a new beginning. Now, there's a lot we do not know. God keeps things invisible - like the resurrection - and these invisible truths are more important than anything we can fact check. Paul says in Corinthians that if we do not believe the resurrection "our preaching is useless and so is our faith." (1 Corinthians 15:14). He's a good one to speak on the subject since he witnessed first hand God's mighty power on the road to Damascus. Because here is the thing...

We no longer have to believe that it is up to us keep things alive. Not our children, not our parents, not our spouses or even ourselves. Because we know this - "God has never forgotten how to breathe life into piles of dust."

BTB

In my life, I confess that I have felt a strong pressure to keep struggling or dead or dying things alive. No more. This is God's work. But it is encouraging to know that He works in this way. What have you spent too much time and energy trying to "keep going"? What pressures have you put on yourself that you need to release?