This is the twenty-first year of Book Lunch.
Friday at the end of our meeting at Cafe de France (fantastic chicken and spinach crepes, salad, creme brulee) we took a photo. Unfortunately some had already left, but I forgot to take it before we starting our drifting back into real life...
The twenty-first year of the Lucky Thirteen (there are fourteen of us, we counted wrong when we thought up that title. Okay, we read and think, we aren't so great at counting...)
The twenty-first year of us meeting one Friday a month to discuss a book we have read, what the author was trying to say, how it changed our thinking, amongst other conversation. Sometimes we add a Wine on Wednesday, movie night, or overnight getaway. The attendance ebbs and flows like the tide, we all travel.
I think it is fair to say each of us fourteen have had ups and downs in our lives through the years. We have had parents and family with illnesses, and some pass away. Kids grow up and leave the home, some come back to live at home. Kids graduate from high school, college, get married, get jobs, go back to school. Our husbands work, we work. We vacation. Three of us are breast cancer survivors (I am soon to be the fourth.)
After a summer off, it was the very definition of comfort to be sitting at a table with these ladies. The collective personality of this group is strong and alive to me. So we talked a little about me, not too much I hope.
One question resonated with me all day, I thought about it ever since. J asked, Is it hard to always be so positive?
I answered, Yes, sometimes it is hard. That's okay. Not often though. Most most most of the time it is the way I am.
I have moments such as Friday night a week ago where, after the tough physical day and I was upstairs at the end of the day sitting on the ottoman in my closet. I put my head in my hands and cried, Why does this have to be so hard? Cried for two minutes.
Mike sat down next to me. Don't remember what he said (sorry Mike, but that proves it isn't ever the exact words someone says that counts, as much as how the moment impacts your heart) but I remember vividly feeling his love and unconditional support, added to that of my kids from the fantastic evening. Then I stood up, said, Okay, that's past. Now onward and upward.
Without Mike, without the evening of Mack, Tray, Corey... well, that moment would have been so much harder. So much harder. Not impossible though. But harder. God was right there sitting on the ottoman with me as well. It is just easier for me when His love is shown through physical humans.
Or middle of the night, I am up and thinking... I repeat Psalm 23, slowly. I remember words of encouragement sent my way. I talk to God.
It is a choice to be positive. A daily choice. Some days I have to make it a dozen times.
But those moments of fear are fewer and farther between now, very few. Very far between. God has grown my faith in healing and His presence is so big in this whole cancer adventure. I acknowledge fear and doubt when they pop up, but I try to stop them in their tracks and don't let them grow. I choose to grab them and throw them up to God, let Him deal with it.
I will wander a bit here, thoughts on Joy, Positive choices, etc.. I hope I don't sound preachy.
Choose. That's what it comes down to for me. I can't choose my emotions, but I can choose my thoughts. And our thoughts feed our emotions. I have decided to not let those negative, fearful thoughts that creep in once in a while grow. I choose to choke them out immediately. Choke them out intentionally with positive messages.
I am not ignoring or denying my situation. I know God is healing me thoroughly, and I am doing my best to cooperate, using main stream medicine and any alternative medicine they allow me now (which is acupuncture, as anything else taken into my body might mess up the chemo.) I am choosing to stay in the positive about it. I don't want to waste a single day of life not living in joy.
Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thess 5
Always be full of joy in the Lord. Phil 4
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Gal 5
We are told by the Bible over and over to choose joy.
Joy is a gift of the Spirit living in us, so we are to make our lives a fertile ground for the Spirit to live and grow. For me, this is a continual learning process. I do better some days than others. The days I do best are the ones where I open myself up to God's presence more fully than others. Why don't I do this every day? I don't know.
Joy is intermingled with being thankful. I don't know much more about that, but just that they are two sides of the same coin.
Joy is different than happiness. Happiness depends on your situation. Joy comes from within. Someone said years ago in a bible study - Happiness can come from an ice cream cone, Joy comes from love.
Why and when did I make this choice to stay in the positive, in joy? I don't know. I do know that I have always known it is your attitude towards your surroundings that is important, far more than your surroundings.
I had a good childhood, not the most fun but it had a lot of good in it. As with us all, there were many things about it I would have liked to not experience. But it is those tough times that let me see that I had a choice as to how I react. And they made me who I am today.
I read a biography on Ronald Regan... He said he was thankful one of his parents was an alcoholic, as it made him who he was today, and he was President at the time. So my thought process is nothing new. And I don't have any desire to be President, just in case you were wondering where that line of thought was going.
The first place we lived when we were married, just graduated from college, was a small town in Texas. Mike and I both worked at a chemical plant. It was a dry county, small town of ten thousand people. I was light years away from my home and family in Pennsylvania, and from the energy and friends of college. There weren't many women working in my department. And there weren't many Yankees. The guys in the plant were polite, most of the time, especially when they needed something from me. But I didn't really fit in.
I couldn't wait to leave. Couldn't wait.
When we moved to Florida, four years later, it hit me. I didn't live every day fully in Texas because I was always waiting to move on. I had fun days, made friends, became a mom, grew spiritually, lots of good things happened in Texas, but I was always waiting to leave, like I was never settled. Just passing through. When I move, THEN I can settle down and enjoy life. Then I will blossom and grow.
So it hit me, I don't want to live that way. I don't want to hurry any day through. Each one has twenty four hours, I choose joy for all twenty four.
All my friends and family, you are crucial to my joy. So is the quiet time I spend with God. Reciting the Psalms (I am really enjoying repeating Psalm 23 over and over.) Praying and wandering through the bible. Just wandering. It is a really good read.
You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy; Psalm 16
Staying in God's presence... that brings me joy.
What lasts forever? Our spirits, our souls. And how much time each day do you spend nourishing your soul?
Just a question.
I choose Joy, I choose to stay in God's presence.
This is why I am thankful my body had cancer.
God in His ever knowing efficiency is using this moment to gently turn my eyes back towards Him. I have the chance to stop running and accomplishing, to lie down and be still. He will restore my soul. So that I might know that He is God.
PS. I have been thinking after writing this blog, there's a very important point I forgot to mention. If you want to be of the sort who chooses joy, ask God to help you change your way of thinking. He wants to.
It won't happen in an instant, but over time.
And personally, I keep asking Him to be present and to open my eyes to see as He sees. It is a process. I still have to work at choosing to stay positive.
And if you don't believe in Him, or that He would do something as change your mental processing, ask Him anyway. Just because you don't believe in Him, doesn't mean He doesn't exist.
Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12
PPS. Last Post Script I promise. I know every person reading this has the capacity to charge through and beat any obstacle they find in their path. You and God. I know this!
