#lookingup

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2 min

Getting the Advantage in a Fight

What battles are you facing? At last count I know of FIVE in my immediate family. They are of a varied sort, ranging from health struggles to work situations. And as I have been thinking about them and praying, I’ve just found myself exhausted. This morning I realized that I had been trying to carry all these situations myself. Me, the intercessor, the prayerwalking lady, the one people turn to when they need prayer and problems solved. I was wearing my self-made badge of cou

2 min

This or That?

Real world story. A friend messaged me this morning after reading my Facebook post yesterday about being discouraged. She was confused about her calling. Should she do one artistic pursuit that gave her joy? Or another that she was now struggling with? And she wanted me to give her counsel. I prayed for wisdom. And then God reminded me I was jumpstarting my day without the counsel of his Word. So I opened up to 2 Chronicles 1-4 in my read-through-the-Bible plan and read the p

3 min

It's the Right Thing to Do

“It’s the right thing to do.” I grew up hearing those words from my parents, who were born into what would be called The Greatest Generation. They made do and helped neighbors during the Great Depression. They fought heroically during World War II and kept the farms and factories running on the home front. They took advantage of the GI Bill and attended college in numbers no other generation before them had. They bought from Sears & Roebuck catalogs–even homes–and collected G

3 min

If you plant it, it will grow.

Last fall I wrote about how I had planted 275 bulbs–mostly daffodils and tulips. I have never done well with growing flowers. Years ago I planted 42 rose bushes in my back yard; I’d hoped they would grow into a hedge to frame the outer edges of the yard. They never made it into the second season. One day my friend Hannah came over with a a cute sunflower seedling. She said, “Just plant this. They grow anywhere.” Well, it never made it even to adolescence. I’ve bought and plan

2 min

It's all Relative

For years my mom has been saying, “Janet, how did I get to be so old?” I get it now. Yesterday at 10:30 a.m. she called me and said, “I’m celebrating the fact that at this moment I’ve been a mother for 70 years.” Somehow that backhanded blessing was easier to hear than others. Mom’s been a mom for 70 years. It reminded me of a favorite short story called “Eleven” by Sandra Cisneros. In the story a young girl laments the fact that her insensitive teacher puts an ugly, smelly s

3 min

On Red Roses and Cheetos

The most peaceful day of the week should be Sunday, right? So, how do your Sundays go? Is it a struggle to get kids up out of bed and looking their best? Is there a last-minute shuffle to get out the door with all the things? Or is there a mindset of “do we really have to do this”? To get to our church on time for the prayer ministry I lead, a 50-minute drive on a good day, we have to leave the house at 7:30 a.m. That means an earlier rising time than any other day of the wee

3 min

Conquering the Tech Giants in my Life

I remember lyrics from a song from my children’s youth: “With my God I can do valiantly.” I sang it along with them, praying they would be strong and courageous. And they have. They’ve traveled abroad. They’ve overcome hardships. They finished college and have done well professionally. I supposed someone might say the same of me. But I never have been a courageous person. Risks are, well . . . risky. I have avoided great leaps professionally for fear of failure. Until this ye

3 min

Nine Things to do While Waiting

You’ve heard of The Dating Game, right? How about The Waiting Game? I’m terrible at waiting. Just one example comes from my early teaching days when I chaired our school’s accreditation review committee. If I delegated various writing sections of the report to certain teachers, I knew I’d have to wait until the last minute to put it together. Instead, I wrote those sections myself. Not good, because the report was probably not representative of our whole school. Another examp

2 min

Overcoming My Excuses

I have a fight with myself every day. Every day I tell myself to go for a walk. But then the excuses slip in the door. “It’s cold and windy.” “I have too much to do.” “I’m tired and need a nap.” Yesterday that fight went on for an hour and fifteen minutes. Ridiculous. Whether or not I need the exercise is not as important as the primary reason I walk: prayer. I have been prayerwalking for my community for over 22 years. My book PrayerWalk: Becoming a Woman of Prayer, Strength

2 min

Embracing Aloha

Our Honolulu girl visited for several days over the weekend. Our kids conspired to put together an early birthday celebration for a Big Zero I will face at the end of the month. It’s hard knowing your child is an ocean away. The hellos and goodbyes happen in a blink just once or twice a year. In actuality she’s about seven hours away–the same number of hours away our older son is . . . except that he and his family are just at the other end of the state. The melancholy in me

2 min

Tired of Sitting on your Hands?

Years ago I asked the folks at my publishing house if they might consider offering my book PrayerWalk in audiobook form. It made sense to me, as people listen to audiobooks when they walk, and many times I’d been asked if the book was available in that form. Instead of saying yes, my publisher gave me the rights to produce it in audio myself. Yikes. I had no idea how to do that. So for three years that permission letter sat on the edge of my desk staring at me. “When?” it see

4 min

Finding the Up Side in this Year's Downs

A year of ups and downs, huh? “Ups?” you say? Yes, despite what’s happened, I am determined to keep #lookingup. A year ago Sunday I flew home from several days visiting with my brother and his wife, who live in Palm Desert CA. While I’d heard of the coronavirus before flying there, I had no idea the impact it would make on the whole world and life as we had known it. I should have had a clue when my flights into and out of Palm Springs were nearly empty. I loved having a whol

3 min

Just Do It

Halfway into the closet months of COVID last year, I found myself just paralyzed. I seemingly couldn’t put one foot in front of the other writing-wise. There were many things I wanted to get done, but while I did manage to write blogs daily, nothing else got crossed off my mental list. So I sought the help of my writing coach. Even before our phone meeting, she had prayed for me and asked God for his words of counsel for me. In our conversation she encouraged me and asked how

3 min

#LookingUp When You're Discouraged

I’ve had a couple weeks of struggle trying to launch an online masterclass called Prayer School. The chat experts from the venue have been slow to answer and vague in their responses. Then I realized I created the course in the wrong manner and tried to figure out how to shift what I did into the correct spot. Seemingly, “no can do.” I didn’t respond well. Complaints. Pleas. Tears. I didn’t want to have to create the thing all over again. It had taken me two months to put tog

3 min

On Following Directions, and the Right Way to Make a PB&J

I had a fun unit I did with my students when I was teaching them to write technical language. First, I created relevance for the unit by bringing in appliance and auto instruction manuals. Then I stood in front of the class with a table that had peanut butter, jelly, bread, a bread board, a knife, and a plate. “Tell me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” I’d say. An eager student would raise his hand. “First, put the peanut butter on the bread.” So I’d pick up th

2 min

On Counting Things

My dad was a man of numbers. After church I could ask him, “How many today, Dad?” And he’d tell you the exact number of people in worship that day. When he came home from his job as a department store manager, he’d have his figures in his hand–the total retail sales for his Liberty House (formerly Rhodes) store location. Birthdates, birth weights and lengths, anniversaries, and more were recorded in little leather-bound books he kept in his suit jacket pocket. All the mysteri

2 min

Avoiding Surgery

When I walked into the office at Loyalton High, where I worked, I was surprised to see that our son Josh hadn’t signed up for his second year of basketball. When I saw him next and asked him about that, he said, “I’m not playing this year.” When I asked why, he said, “Because of my knee.” It turned out that many months before then he had ridden a four-wheeler at his friend’s house, flipped it, and been knocked unconscious, also damaging his knee. I’d never been told. What his

2 min

Cheek Turning

How long have you lived in your house? This year will mark FORTY years that we’ve lived in our home. Can you believe that? It seems unreal to me. How can that be? The last year Craig was serving in the Army, we took a risk in buying three lots in our little town in the Sierra Valley and hired a contractor to frame our home and separate garage. He was a slow-moving vehicle, so it wasn’t until a year after we’d actually moved back to California from Kansas that we could move in

2 min

Muddy Boots

I have a cousin Roger, who used travel from the central coastal area of California to our family home south of Sacramento to go duck hunting. There are many marsh areas near there–perfect for his sport. But boy, when he came back to our house at the end of the day, he was covered in muck from wading into those tules. Just a silly teenager, I reacted without thinking one day. “Boy, you’re a filthy mess.” He shook his head at me and said something I’ll never forget. “Good thing

2 min

Places I've Been and Glories Seen

I was just thinking of glorious wonder moments from our travels across this country: – Grand Canyon: the shadows and light that chase each other in that grand hole – Arches National Park: rock that reaches for the sky, then bends back to earth – Zion National Park: walls of wonderment just feet from each other – Bryce Canyon National Park: cathedral-like pinnacles reaching for the sky – Canyonlands National Park: a combination of all of the above–such an underplayed but delig