It has been twelve days now since the post about The Philippians Path to Peace. If you missed it, you can read about it here.

I received many responses, either by readers leaving comments on the blog or sending an e-mail to let me know they were going to begin praying every time a worry knocked on their mind’s door. I also heard from one dear friend who took the challenge and was surprised by what it revealed to her: that she is not a worrier at all, and that her box stayed pretty empty. That would be a good thing to discover about yourself, wouldn’t it?

I’m checking in now to see how it’s going for everyone? I am still firmly on the path, although yesterday I was gone a lot and was quite busy. I found myself beginning to perseverate on a few things of concern, and pretty soon I realized I was not giving them to the Lord at all, but just letting that wicked wheel spin again. I know most of you know this already: that spinning wheel of worry does not bring peace and trust in our heavenly Father.

For the most part, however, I have been praying rather than worrying. I have been traveling on The Philippians Path to Peace and it’s a better route. It has beautiful scenery and delightful weather. There are fewer ruts and there are clear directional signs. There are fresh breezes on this path, pure streams from which to drink, and many comfortable inns along the road where I can rest.

The Way of Worry is a terrible way to travel. The roads are treacherous if there are any roads at all. There are boulders, sinkholes, predators at every turn. The signs along the shoulders of this horrible road trick you and send you in the wrong direction. The Worry Way always results in people getting lost. And the weather! It’s never conducive to good traveling progress. There are usually many fellow travelers on this road, though. And none of them are in very good humor as they trudge.

I had intended to nicely decorate my Prayer Box when we first began, but I haven’t gotten to that yet. I still might do it. But the important thing is that I have my box, I have my slips of paper, and I’ve been putting my prayers and concerns down, briefly and fervently written to God, with thanksgiving, and then I’ve been dropping them in. This is a tangible way for me to bring my requests to God, trusting Him with them, and not worrying about them.

Here’s my beautiful box:

It doesn’t have the pretty wrapping paper I had envisioned yet, but it’s functional. And the important thing is that it reminds me of the passage in Philippians that inspired this March challenge to begin with:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

So how are you doing on The Philippians Path to Peace? Have you taken any detours? Have you learned anything? What does your container look like? Has God answered any of your prayers yet? If you would like to send a photo of your prayer box to me, I’ll put it on the blog.

Let me know how you’re doing, even if you’re still just trying to pray instead of worry.

Blessings to my fellow travelers…

UPDATE:

Here’s our first report from Deb, and a photo of her prayer jar:

“Here is my Worry (morph into) Prayer jar!  I used an empty parmesan cheese container and a picture I printed from the web.  It has a flip top opening that is handy to pop open and drop my prayers into! This has been a GREAT exercise!”

Thank you Deb! I love the ruffle.  🙂

TRUST protects you from worrying and obsessing.

THANKFULNESS keeps you from criticizing and complaining.

–Unknown

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My husband Michael used to be a carpenter. He has built new homes, remodeled old houses, built shopping malls and hospital additions, and colossal garage extensions. He worked inside and outside, sometimes in Minnesota winter weather that was way below zero, but he never complained. Not once.

He took the first house we ever owned, which was a hundred years old and to me almost uninhabitable when we bought it, and transformed it into a beautiful place I loved. He tore down walls, enlarged rooms, hung new Sheetrock and applied new plaster, put in new windows, added two new bedrooms, built up kitchen counters to accommodate my height, put up new siding, a new roof, and more.

He was never quite content unless he was building something, even if it was just a small project.

Now Michael has retired from home building and carpentering, unfortunately out of necessity. He has Parkinson’s disease, which stiffens the joints and muscles, slows movement, robs the speech and brings exhaustion.

But as God would have it, Michael is still a builder.

Even after all these years, he continues to build in our home and in my life — from the inside.

He builds with patience, gentleness, humility and steadfastness. He builds with optimism and prayer. He builds with his few words and his smile. He builds with his kind eyes.

I grew up in a family that had many wonderful strengths, but we needed lessons in building. We were more adept at demolition.

My man is no longer building buildings, but he continues to graciously and quietly build lives.

Mainly mine.

Happy March 1st! That also means Rabbit!! to those of you who are in my family or were in Mrs. Lokken’s second grade class with me at Workman Avenue Elementary School in Southern California.

Michael actually woke me up this morning a little after 4:00 a.m. and whispered urgently in my ear, “Julie? Julie?” and when I woke up startled, and said, “What?” he said “Rabbit!” I could hear the mixture of glee and grogginess in his voice. I was a good sport about it and said, “You got me.”

Anyway, a little while back I posted something about worrying vs. praying, and if you missed it you can see it, and everyone’s great comments, right here.

So today begins an experiment in faith and trust, to all those who read this and would like to grow in those areas. If you would like to take part in The Philippians Path of Peace for the month of March, get your hands on a container of sorts today. I have chosen a large shoebox that I will tape shut. I’ll cut a narrow slot in the lid. If you’re a crafty and creative person (Jessica!), you could make your container into something really attractive. But the important thing is to just get something today, and get started. You could use a basket with a lid, a large jar, a cylindrical oatmeal container, a big manila envelope or an old backpack. Use an item that is secure for your environment, though — this container should be something that can stay private, yet accessible to you all throughout the day. Consider where you might place it so that it’s not in the way of anything, but is where you’ll be able to get to it as much as is needed. I will put mine in my office.

Don’t hesitate to tell your family members what your container is all about and that you’re joining with others in a faith experiment for the month of March, but make sure they know to respect your privacy and leave it alone for you and God.

Here are the verses from the fourth chapter of Philippians on which we’re basing our month-long exercise:

⁴Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! ⁵Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. ⁶Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. ⁷And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

⁸Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

And the paraphrase from The Message is good:

^4-5Celebrate God all day, every day. I mean, revel in him! Make it as clear as you can to all you meet that you’re on their side, working with them and not against them. Help them see that the Master is about to arrive. He could show up any minute!

^6-7Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

^8-9Summing it all up, friends, I’d say you’ll do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious—the best, not the worst; the beautiful, not the ugly; things to praise, not things to curse.

You also need to get several sheets of blank paper and cut them into smaller pieces that are just large enough to write a concern on, but small enough to fold up small and put into your oatmeal container or basket or shoebox. Have these pieces of paper and a pencil near your container at all times.

I googled the phrase Prayer Box and saw, as I expected, that this is not a new idea. Apparently several authors have written about this before and it has been a practice for many people for years. I haven’t personally done this before and had never read about it, so it’s a new experiment for me.

I’m also aware that there are probably a multitude of believers who already pray instead of worry. Even I, myself, sometimes pray about things instead of worrying about them. 🙂  If you are adept at prayer and already have your feet planted firmly on the Philippians Path of Peace, then you can forgo this experiment and pray for those of us who are embarking. But the reason we’re doing this is to learn to pray each time a potential worry presents itself to us. During the month of March, we’re aiming to begin a new, lifelong habit of doing what Paul counseled almost two thousand years ago. We want to pray and leave our cares with our loving God, and not worry.

A couple of thoughts before I reiterate the steps we’ll take, and why we’re doing this. For those of you who are reading this and you don’t even believe in God, that’s okay. This experiment could be something you don’t think will have any effect on you at all, but you’re willing to try it at any rate, just to see what happens. I encourage you to write down your concerns and requests anyway, maybe something like this: “Dear God. I don’t really believe you are there. But in case you are, here’s what is on my heart today. Please do something about ________.  As best as I am able, I’m handing this over to you, if you are there and can do anything about this. Thank you.”

Also, if you know anyone you think might like to join us in this March journey, please refer them to this blog post. I’m going to be emailing a few friends to see if they’d like to come along too.

Each week in March I’ll put up a post about walking the Philippians Path of Peace and ask for your comments. Please share how it’s going. Even if it’s not going as you expected, please tell us your experiences. At the end of the month we’ll see what praying instead of worrying has accomplished in our lives.

Be patient with yourself. If any of you are prone to worrying, you probably won’t jump from fretting to freedom in one day. You might write two requests on slips of paper and put them in your Prayer Box the first day, and find yourself in worry mode sixty times. Keep going. Ask for divine help to begin to pray instead of worry. Don’t give up.

You might want to take a few small scraps of paper with you when you go somewhere – put them in your wallet or in a pocket in your purse, and when something comes up that would invite you in to that useless, destructive place of worrying, pull out your scrap, write down your prayer, and put it in your Prayer Box when you get home. Do what works for you and constantly ask for help in this. I believe with all my heart that Jesus will help us. He’s the One who kept saying, “Don’t be afraid. Come to Me and I will give you rest.” We are going to take Him at His word.

So here are the basics.

1. Get your container and scraps of paper ready today. If you’re reading this after March 1st, start on the day you read. Even if it’s March 15th, get started.

2. Read the passage from Philippians above or in your own Bible to remind yourself why you’re doing this. You might even want to put those verses on your Prayer Box in some way. Seriously ponder what we’re promised if we will do this: the peace of God, and His protection for our hearts and minds. Are there any of us who don’t need the peace of God, who don’t want His protection for our hearts and our minds? I desperately need and want all three.

3. When a need, a concern, a worry, a burden comes to you, briefly write down on the scrap of paper what you are asking God to do. Tell Him about it in print. Yes, sometimes we don’t know how to pray — we don’t know what would be best or we know our own motives are skewed. Write something down anyway, like, “God – help! Please touch my brother. Thank you.” Or, “Lord, help me not to ______! Thank you.” God is big enough to sort out our stuff. We have been invited to bring our stuff to Him, not to figure it all out before we bring it. The purpose of this exercise is for us to immediately bring what’s concerning us to the Maker of heaven and earth, and leave it with Him to work His awesome ways in us and in those around us.

4. Say thank you. If you look at the Philippians Path of Peace, we are to bring our prayers and petitions to Him, with thanksgiving. I think this is really important. With whatever tiny bit of faith we can muster, we present our requests to Him, and we thank Him ahead of time for what He’s going to do. When we say thank you, we take ourselves out of an attitude of complaint or ingratitude and put ourselves into the attitude of thankfulness. I really need to remember this one.

5. Keep a proper perspective. This March experiment is not about seeing how many prayers God will answer if we stop worrying and put all our requests into a box. This is about learning to live in trust and peace, making prayer a way of life and resting in the goodness of our loving God. It’s about not letting worry steal from us any longer. It’s about relinquishing to the Lord the truly serious concerns and even the smaller irritating ones, telling Him and ourselves that we’re going to cooperate with Him as He deals with each detail in our lives, and in the lives of those we love. I have no doubt that at the end of this month, some of us will have amazing things to share. I also know that there will be things that may not be answered as we had hoped. But our goal is to bring them to God and ask Him to take care of them, rather than fretting. We want His peace even in the midst of difficult times.

6. If you need to write down the same request several times a day, that’s fine. It’s better than fretting about it several times a day.

7. Don’t be in a hurry to open your box. Wait until you’re sure you should. I can picture that I won’t open my Prayer Box for a long time – maybe even months or years. The aim is to stay on the Philippians Path of Peace, not to count answered prayer requests. But someday it will be a blessing to open it and see that indeed, God took care of all your needs in ways you never imagined.

8. Keep at it. Anxiety or worry didn’t overtake us in a day. Peace and prayer won’t become a way of life in a day either. Each request written down and placed in your Prayer Box is a step toward God’s peace.

9. Tell someone else what you’re doing and invite them to join you. Traveling companions would be a joy and an encouragement.

10. After you get your container and scraps of paper ready, ask God to help you, to make Himself real to you this month, and to help you to trust Him in ways you never have before.

I’m sure I’ve left something out – if anyone has any suggestions I would love to hear them. I will be thinking of you and praying for you as we begin this journey.

Please consider leaving a comment (you can be kept anonymous if you like) and share if you’re taking this journey with me. I would love to know if I have traveling companions.

God bless you all!

Can you guess who’s coming over to our house tonight?

Clara.....Elijah.....Vivienne.....Audrey

I like to be prepared.

My church has a wonderful group of women who like to get together for dinner once in a while, and sometimes they pick a restaurant and meet there. A couple of times they’ve met at my house, and not long ago we gathered again, and each woman brought something Italian to share, and two rolls of toilet paper.

The food was moan-worthy — Jeri Anne’s homemade Fettuccine Alfredo served over cheese-stuffed tortellini, Carol’s delectable spaghetti and sausage that everyone wanted the recipe for, Betty’s perfect panna cotta for dessert, and more — the table was loaded up with hearty fare that night, plus a few other things.

For starters, the table was adorned with beautiful flowers. My daughter Sara, a gifted floral designer, made a unique centerpiece for us to enjoy. Along with the roses you might be able to see the Scottish heather, the grapes, and the lemon. While our mouths feasted, so did our eyes. You can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Some of you may remember the last time I put up a post about getting together with women from my church for a Mexican dinner. If you didn’t happen see it, you can click here to read about what a disturbed fun and creative group we are. Because of what transpired on that night, we had a delightful continuation at this Italian night.

Our talented and much-loved friend Darlene was given a little book on toilet paper origami by our other talented and much-loved friend Carol. Darlene taught a mini community education class in my kitchen, on how to fold your toilet paper so that when people come to your house, use the bathroom and reach for the roll, they become completely confused and wonder what in the world they should do, and decide never to return to your house again. Here is Darlene (and I wish I had taken more than one photo to show her with eyes opened) getting us started on Toilet Paper Folding 202. Notice that all the dishes from our delicious Italian meal have been cleared away, and several rolls of toilet paper are now sitting on the table. When was the last time you experienced that in your lifetime?

Here are a some of the gals, on their first tries to make The Braid on their TP rolls. From left to right: Darlene, Kim, Carol, Betty and Jeri Anne.

And here’s a shot of another smaller floral design Sara made – she thought the citrus fruit and lemon leaves lent itself to a Tuscan look, appropriate to our evening.  🙂

Back to the table. L-R, Kim, Carol, Betty, Sara and Jeri displaying The Braid on their own personal rolls of TP.

Sara and Jeri Anne nicely demonstrating how The Braid can be made either thick or thin, depending on the degree of impact you would like to have on your guests.

Here’s our lovely Kim showing her TP effort, which evoked laughs all around when we pictured what her husband Rob (our pastor) would do when he found this in his bathroom at home.

And here is my humble attempt at The Braid, which sits on the cabinet in our downstairs bathroom, with a pink ribbon and a few eucalyptus leaves for good measure. I’m not ready to actually hang it on the wall yet.

For me, it’s still a reminder of that February night when a group of fun and loving women graced my house with good food, deep and honest sharing, and laughter that was like a medicine.

🙂

Saw Avatar. Hated it.

The Christian way is different: harder, and easier.  Christ says, “Give me all.  I don’t want so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work:  I want you.  No half-measures are any good.  I don’t want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down…hand over the whole natural self, all the desires which you think innocent as well as the ones you think wicked – the whole outfit.  I will give you a new self instead.  I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours.”

C.S. Lewis, from The Joyful Christian

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I have now lived seventeen years without a mama. My mother, Virginia Sooter, died on February 23, 1993.

I’ve tried to write about her on this blog several times, only to set my attempts aside for another time. Writing about my mom opens up things in my memory that could come out as thousands and thousands of words. I never quite know where to start in telling people about my beloved mom. I will share about her more in-depth in the near future, but for today, I want to write a few words and phrases that described her.

Beautiful. Warm. Musically gifted. Generous. Worry-wart. Plump. Melancholic. Humble. Loving. Witty. Creative. Sensitive. Self-conscious. Hardworking.

She was a good sport and could laugh at herself. She could listen to a song once, move to her Hammond B-3 organ and play it perfectly, in any key. She had over a hundred friends, making them all feel like they were her best friend. And she probably didn’t know she did this. She had a hearty laugh. She was really tall, and had very long legs and a short torso. She had long, slender fingers. She loved to cook and feed people too much food. She was almost crazy with love for her grandchildren. She was easily wounded. She could paint. She loved crafts. She wore a size 11 1/2 AA shoe. She made up a yummy peanut butter and chocolate frosting recipe our whole family still loves to this day. She was lonely, in spite of being so loved. She could hear a song on the radio and identify in which key it was being played. She believed in Jesus. She cried easily. She had two sons and one daughter. She loved to watch cooking shows. She had macular degeneration of the retina. She was very neat. She loved to play Spite and Malice. She died too soon. She would be out of this world in love with my sons-in-law and grandchildren, and would be so proud of my three wonderful daughters.

Typing this is making me sob right now, so I’ll share more another time.

Here is a photo of my mama and me, when I was about 4 1/2 years old. It was taken in my grandparents’ home in Southern California. My mom wasn’t much of a reader when I was little, but she read to me. I can tell she was laughing in this photo as the amazing world of books and words was opening up to me. She was holding a paper cup from In-n-out Burgers, where our family ate at least once a month.

She loved me and told me over and over that she was so happy to have a daughter. I was her youngest child.

I have lived seventeen years without a mama. I know where she is. She is no longer blind, no longer lonely or melancholy, and she probably knows more about my life than I can imagine.

Now I am doing for my grandchildren what she did for me in this photo.

I have so much to say to her when I see her again.

I love you Mom.