Nancy Parker Brummett

Author Writer Speaker

Blogger’s Block

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20140618_171025The photo says it all. Beau and I have both been staring at the computer screen for some time now, but no blog posts have magically appeared. Writing coaches always say the best way to break through writer’s block is just to begin writing. Begin scribbling. Begin doodling. Just begin! So with that in mind I decided to begin blogging about the fact that I seem to have blogger’s block.

Yet I do so with hesitation. You and I both know that there is a lot of blathering going on out there under the guise of blogging. I don’t want to send another useless blog into the blogosphere to add to the glut in existence. Yet I feel I owe it to my faithful subscribers to offer up something. So here it is.

How, you may wonder, could I let all of September and half of October go by without blogging? We’ve had a glorious fall here in Colorado with golden-baked days, blue skies, cool nights, and the prettiest, most awe-inspiring Aspen season in recent memory, yet none of this beauty inspired a blog. During September we traveled to the South to see precious family members and overnighted in Vail with dear friends, yet no blogs were born.

Maybe the reason for my blogger’s block is that I seem to be in a state of suspension right now. Our house is on the market as we attempt to “right size” but hasn’t sold yet. My next book, Take My Hand Again, is at the publisher but hasn’t released yet. I’ve had some success on the Paleo diet but haven’t reached my goal yet.

Still, through all the “not yets,” I wait with a sense of wonder and heightened expectation. That’s because I’m also seasoned enough to know that when we feel blocked, or stifled, or stuck in a holding pattern, it may be because God is intent on getting our attention. In this “not yet” season of my life, He gently whispers, “It will all happen in my time. You do trust me, right? Rest in me.”

I do trust Him and His timing in my life. And so I will continue to look out the windows of the home I’ve loved for 25 years and be blessed by the golden trees, the mountains, the cityscape, the sunrises and sunsets. I’ll continue to enjoy cozy dinners and watching football games with my husband, and cuddling my cats during morning quiet times.

And I’ll continue to be grateful for the mystery of the creative process, however it torments me, and for the readers who connect with me whenever I find something worthwhile to say. Thank you for understanding while I wait for the inspiration to blog to return. Don’t worry. There’s joy in the waiting!

Just Start

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iStock_000014160379_MediumWhen my son Tim gave me a copy of Jon Acuff’s book Start I thought the subject might have come a bit late for me, but I was wrong! I just finished the book and it’s full of motivating advice for Boomers like my husband and me who are launching Act 3 of our lives.

 

I also saw application for elders we all know and love. Even people in their 80s and 90s can “punch fear in the face, escape average, and do work that matters” as this author urges. With thanks to Jon Acuff (who also wrote the wildly popular, humorous book Stuff Christians Like) here’s some motivation for us all.

 
At any age each of us can stop living an average life and start living an awesome one. Acuff says that to get to awesome there are two questions we should ask ourselves: “If I died today, what would I regret not doing?” and “Are those the things I’m doing right now?” Younger people might have feats like running a marathon or going to medical school on the list of things they would regret not doing, but our seniors may list things like, “Call my sister in Idaho and have a nice long chat,” or “Take a walk around the block each day.” The point is to stop thinking about what you wish you were doing and begin doing it—one small step at a time.

 
Moving from average to awesome takes us through several stages according to Acuff. First we learn about the things that interest us, then we edit down to just what we are most passionate about. The third stage is to master one or more of our passions. Then we begin to see the fruits of our efforts; we begin to harvest. Finally, in the awesome life, one gets to the stage of guiding or mentoring others. But that’s not the time to rest on your laurels. Oh no. Once you get to guiding, then you simply start again!

 
When I think of the older adults I know and love, I wonder if they fully realize how much they have mastered, and how valuable and helpful it would be for them to enthusiastically share their harvest and guide others. Even if it’s how to make a pie crust or when to plant spring crops, every older person has something to share. When we encourage them to do so, we will watch them change from average to awesome right before our eyes.

 
Did your mother immigrate to this country as a child? Did your dad serve in World War II? Help them tell their stories to a group of school children and share some living history. Do you know an older woman who might be willing to teach someone how to crochet? The opportunities for “awesomeness” are limitless.

 
As longevity increases, news reports are replete with stories of people in their 90s and beyond who take their first motorcycle ride, go skydiving, or take a long anticipated vacation. But it doesn’t have to be something so dramatic to move older adults from average to awesome. Listen to what matters most to the elders you love, and help them find a way to move closer to living an awesome life. It’s never too late to start.

Savoring Summer

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Funny little girl swims in a pool in an yellow life preserverWhy is it that even though summer days are longer in terms of sunlight, they seem to slip by so much faster than winter days? Each year it seems like summer is gone before I’ve fully embraced it, leaving me to say, “But wait! I was going to go to the pool more. Hold on! We didn’t go to any summer concerts under the stars!”

 
Summer won’t wait. While we still have some of it left, let’s get serious about savoring every single bit of summer we can salvage! Here are some things I still want to do. How about you?

 
Visit a farmer’s market. Even if you’re traveling and can only pick up a few apples or carrots to snack on in the car, take time to stroll through local markets wherever you are and experience the sights and smells of locally grown produce, herbs, and flowers. I’ve been brought to tears by the sight of fresh green beans in Maryland and avocadoes in California. Add whatever you find at your local market to your family’s dinner menu. Fresh always tastes better!

 
Take advantage of free festivals, concerts or theater in the park, parades, and street performances. It only takes a little extra effort to log on to community websites and find out what’s happening where. A folding camp chair and cool beverage is all you need to add—but you have to remember to show up! Write upcoming events on your calendar and go.

 
At least once, walk through the grass barefooted. I don’t care how old you are, it’s not summer unless you’ve felt cool, damp grass between your toes. If you can run through the sprinkler, too, so much the better! The neighbors might wonder about your sanity if you don’t have any grandkids or neighbor children with you, but who cares? It’s summer, after all!

 
Find a shady spot and move a favorite chair into it so you can enjoy reading outside. Even better, plop down on a porch swing or hammock. Forget about the recommended reading lists and “must read” book club selections. Read something that relaxes you and soothes your soul. Doze at will.

 
Eat outside as often as possible. If bugs are a problem where you live, find a screened in porch. Whether the fare is grilled burgers or cool summer soups and salads, dining al fresco is what summer is all about. Don’t miss out this year.

 
Whether you take a vacation or a stay-cation, may you savor summer in a million little ways. If we love it while it lasts, the memories will make us smile during the winter days to come. Happy summer!

Leaning In

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Little Girl with Flowers;istockRecently I scanned portions of the highly popular book Lean In, written by Sheryl Sandberg, the COO of Facebook who is listed on Fortune’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business. I liked what she had to say a lot more than I expected. After all, if you are going to give 8-10 hours a day to your career, shouldn’t you be fully engaged? Shouldn’t you make sure your good ideas are heard, and that your intelligence shows?
I say yes, and so I recommend the book to women still in the corporate world who want to get rid of internal barriers and fully and confidently engage in their work. I can recommend the book because Ms. Sandberg also wisely dispels the myth that women can have it all at once. Make your choices, ladies. If you choose to work in the corporate world, take a place at the table, speak up, and lean in.
What I realized after scanning this book, however, is how grateful I am not to have to do the corporate leaning in thing anymore. The older you are, the clearer your view of what matters in life. That sort of leaning in was important for a season, yes, but I now have more important reasons to lean in.
For instance, I lean in to hear what my husband is saying to me in a crowded restaurant. What if it’s a term of endearment I miss? It’s not enough to nod and smile at him across the table. I want to really know what he thinks, feels, and wants to express at this time in our life together. So I lean in.
I also don’t want to miss an opportunity to stoop down and lean in to the tear-stained face of a child who is upset by one of life’s injustices. What could be more valuable than helping that little soul feel heard, even if the injustice simply can’t be rectified? So I lean in.
Staying physically strong is vital to finishing strong in life, so I walk around our hilly neighborhood. I often laugh to myself when I remember the advice of running guru Jim Fixx, who said that when you are going up a hill you should lean in and pretend you are a tiger on all fours! I don’t feel much like a tiger, but I lean in and keep going, no matter how steep the slope.
Once I started thinking about good reasons to lean in, the list just kept growing! Lean in to smell the flowers and breathe deeply. Lean in to an infant carrier and admire a newborn. Lean in to share a prayer with an elderly friend. And of course, as the old hymn says, there’s joy and comfort in doing all this while leaning on the everlasting arms of God. Life is precious. Let’s all lean in and live it fully!

Remembering Momilies

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A friend from high school recently posted this former blog post on Facebook so I thought I would send it out again, too. Momilies are timeless! Happy Mother’s Day!

DSC03428I grew up in the South thinking everyone’s mother said, “Katie, bar the door” in times of trouble and “I’ll swan” when something truly amazing happened. On a really busy day, there would be “no flies on us,” and when something was perfectly ready it was “all saucered and blowed” (like you do to hot coffee before you drink it). My mom also described someone who talked all the time as having been “vaccinated with a phonograph needle,” and a braggart was “too big for his britches.”

Now that my mom is gone, I’m glad I have these momilies to remember. Momilies are like homilies but a lot less preachy. They are the gentle bits of advice passed from moms to children and repeated with a frequency that insures their remembrance.

“Rise above it” my mom would say when she was encouraging me not to stoop to someone else’s level. Whether applied to junior high gossip or office politics, this simple three-word phrase always has helped me keep my focus.

“It’ll never show on a galloping horse” was my mom’s version of “don’t sweat the small stuff.” A pimple on the end of your nose the night before the prom? A greasy stain on one of the linen napkins you need for a dinner party? Not to worry. “It’ll never show on a galloping horse.”

In fact, horses were the source of a lot of wisdom. “Don’t put your cart before your horse” was trotted out whenever I impatiently scrambled the logical order of events, and “no sense closing the barn door after the horse gets out” reminded me to think about the consequences of what I was doing before it was too late.

There must have been chickens in the same barn, because I was frequently reminded not to count them before they hatched. (They may have been the same chickens who later ran around with their heads chopped off.)

Young girls coming to terms with their physical appearance need all the support they can get. My sisters and I remember our mom telling us “beauty knows no pain” as we squeezed into too-small patent leather shoes or girdles with garters. But since she was a lot more concerned about our behavior than our beauty, we also daily heard “pretty is as pretty does” and “beauty comes from the inside out.” Little did we know it was her subtle way of teaching us the truth of 1 Peter 3:4 which describes beauty as “a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s eyes.”

Whenever we said we wanted something we didn’t need or couldn’t have, Mom would remind us that “people in jail want out.” It was years before I saw the connection between those people in jail and me. I just knew that whenever they came up, I wasn’t going to get what I wanted!

When it came to wanting all the food I saw in a cafeteria line, Mom would say, “don’t let your eyes be bigger than your stomach”—meaning take only what you can really eat!

That particular momily is one I passed on to my own kids. My son said it was years before he knew what it meant, but he sure thought about the possibility of having eyes that big! Since I also warned him not to “cut his nose off to spite his face,” he worried about his facial features a lot.

Although it was always strange to hear the same momilies my mom used coming out of my mouth, I’m glad I passed them on. After all, she wasn’t “just whistlin’ Dixie.”

Sunrise Hope at Easter

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20140317_065922No wonder so many people love to attend Easter sunrise services. A sunrise represents hope, and so it is the perfect representation of the hope we find in the message of Easter.

Few events can be counted on to occur day after day, but the rising of the sun is one of them. Even on a cloudy day, when the heat and light of the sun may be minimized, we can still see that the sun did indeed rise once again!

And how grateful we are for the blessing of the sun in our lives. Without it, we would be in perpetual darkness. Without it, plant life on the earth, including the flowers and trees that bring us so much joy, would shrivel and die. All the beauty we look forward to this time of year when spring begins to bloom would cease to exist. In fact, all of life would eventually disappear from the earth, all because we lost the sun.

Our life on earth is marked by the number of sunrises and sunsets we experience, but do we really experience them? Do we appreciate the sun and the majesty of the Creation that allows it to shine day after day, or do we take it for granted? The first rays of a sunrise are subtle at best. Slowly the darkness begins to fade as the sun makes its way toward the horizon, but then as the giant orb of fire climbs up into view the entire sky changes color. The sunrise can look different each and every day, but because we can count on it to happen without fail, it’s a wonderful symbol for the hope we have in Jesus Christ—the hope that is an anchor for the soul, firm and secure (Hebrews 6:19).

It was a dark, bleak day when Jesus was crucified on the cross—the worst day His followers had ever known. And yet when the grieving women ran to the tomb early in the morning of the third day, after the sun had risen, they were greeted with the glorious news of the resurrection! Praise God we can be sure that those who believe in His Son will also know the glory of everlasting life. We can be even more certain of that than we are of the sunrise! For no matter what darkness our life holds, one day we will be bathed in the light of heaven forever.

The next time we are blessed to watch a sunrise, and especially on Easter morning, we should bask in the hope that it represents. It’s a hope that never fades, and never disappoints.

The End of the Journey…or the Beginning?

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Hope of Glory BoxedIf a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, then the journey to having a book you’ve written appear on your doorstep should begin with the first word, right? Actually, with The Hope of Glory: A Devotional Guide for Older Adults, it began long before the first word was written.

Back in 1999, the Lord placed on my heart the desire to do all I could do to connect older adults with their faith—or to introduce them for the first time to faith in Jesus Christ and the blessed assurance of eternal life that could be theirs. I was at a book group meeting and heard one friend ask another if she would be interested in facilitating a Bible study at an assisted living facility. She said no, she didn’t have time. Even though I only overheard the conversation, I felt the Holy Spirit tapping my shoulder and saying, “That was supposed to be for you.” I followed up with a phone call to the friend with the information a few days later, got in touch with the facility, and began a weekly Bible study with a fascinating group of residents there.

After about a year I realized I needed to devote more time to helping my mom and mother-in-law, so I stopped going. But by then the Lord had planted in my heart and mind the idea for devotional lessons directed to the aging population. I began working on the project as I had time, calling it The Hope of Glory after the verse in Colossians 1:27, Christ in you, the hope of glory. I tried shopping it around to publishers but didn’t get an acceptance, so it just joined other back-burner projects in my files. In fact, as my friend Merrily says, it’s possible I took it off the stove entirely!

But the Holy Spirit didn’t forget about it. In May, 2010, I began visiting my friend Denise in the assisted living facility where she had just moved. At first it was difficult for me to even enter the building, as it brought back so many memories of my mom and mother-in-law, both of whom had passed away. But I kept going back because of Denise, and I began to feel more comfortable there. One day I stopped to look at the activities calendar posted on the wall. I noticed there were no Bible studies listed. The Holy Spirit used that information to get my attention again.

A few days later I was leaving our church, which is almost across the street from the assisted living facility, and I heard the Spirit say, “Why don’t you just go over there and ask them if they need you?” So I did. I walked into the activities director’s office, introduced myself, told her where I went to church, and said, “Do you need someone to lead a Bible study or anything?” She smiled and said, “I left my card at your church, but I haven’t heard from anyone yet.” I got chills as we both realized God had sent me. Not only did I feel that I had a new assignment, I sensed the Lord not putting my writing project back on the stove, but rather of His taking it off a high shelf, blowing the dust off of it, and handing it to me saying, “Now, after all you’ve been through with your mom and mother-in-law, you are ready to finish this.”

Just weeks later I began volunteering, writing a new lesson for the class each week. Once I had 52 lessons, plus five more for special holidays, I began the search for a publisher again. The Hope of Glory: A Devotional Guide for Older Adults, was released by Lighthouse Publishing of the Carolinas in March 2014. I’m not telling you all this to promote the book (although I’d love for you to see what it has to offer the elders you know and love), but to share two important lessons learned from the most drawn-out writing project of my life.

First, if God gives you an assignment, He won’t let you forget it. I hate to use the word “nag” in relation to the Holy Spirit, so let’s call it “encouragement that can feel like nagging!” Second, the completion of this book should reassure us all that God has not forgotten the older adults among us. In fact, His heart burns with love for them, and He sends His people to minister to them and share the life-saving truth of the gospel with them.

That’s why I pray that seeing the book in print on my doorstep, at long last, is not the end of this journey. I pray it’s the beginning of how the Lord will use The Hope of Glory to accomplish His purposes. My job now is to stay out of His way.

Redefining Love

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LoveI remember the Valentine’s Day in elementary school I dumped all the valentines out of my construction-paper covered shoebox and counted them. When I realized I got the same number as everyone else in the class, no more and no less, the valentines lost their meaning.

“They had to give me these valentines,” I thought. “It doesn’t mean anyone really loves me.”

Maybe your kids will come home this week feeling less than loved because their bags of valentines were just like everyone else’s, or they didn’t receive all the valentines they wanted.

Psychologist Myrna Shure, Ph.D., professor of psychology at Hahnemann University in Philadelphia, urges parents to deal with such disappointments by helping children to talk about what they like about the valentine givers instead of the valentines, and to focus on the valentines they did get—not the ones they didn’t.

These are good suggestions, yet they overlook the opportunity parents in this situation have to teach kids three truths about love: First, love sometimes hurts. Second, love also heals. And third, there are many different kinds of love.

These truths are often obscured by the hype of Valentine’s Day. Each year Americans celebrate the holiday by sending over a billion cards and 60 to 70 million roses. All this emphasis on romance and the idealization of perfect relationships can lead children to believe falsely that love is all hearts and flowers.

Yet the young woman facing the break-up of a relationship or marriage knows love hurts. The parent whose child has taken a destructive path on the way to adulthood knows love hurts. The 80-year-old watching a beloved spouse slip into the fog of Alzheimer’s knows love hurts.

Children need to understand that love can hurt so they will learn to appreciate that love can also heal. A hug and a listening ear are signs of love’s healing power at work at any age. Kids need to experience both often.

They also need to learn to recognize the many different faces of love. Charlie Brown will return from the mailbox empty-handed if that little, curly red-haired girl rejects him again, but he will go home to a family that provides for him and a dog that accepts him just the way he is. He is loved.

The single man or woman whose friends call and want to get together is loved. So is the big sister whose little brother waits patiently by the door for her to get home from school so she can play with him.

We need to encourage our children to continue seeking and celebrating love in all forms, in spite of the pain it may bring, because of the incredible power it has to make life worth living.

Leo Buscaglia, in his book Living, Loving & Learning, writes, “I’m really convinced that if you were to define love, the only word big enough to engulf it all would be ‘life.’ Love is life in all of its aspects. And if you miss love, you miss life. Please don’t.”

This week our pastor reminded us of the greatest truth about love: Loving God first makes it possible for us to love ourselves and love others (Matthew 22:37). Tell the kids, and believe it yourself. Love is much bigger than Valentine’s Day.

Happy Fresh Year!

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IMG_3857-001New snow. The first rays of dawn. A crisp apple. We appreciate all these things and more because they are fresh—unspoiled and full of promise. Should we appreciate this fresh, new year any less?

The problem many of us have is not how to appreciate the freshness of the new year, but how to keep it fresh. A diet that includes plenty of healthy fruits and vegetables is always a good idea, but that alone won’t sustain freshness. No amount of Tupperware® or Saran Wrap® will do the job either. We have to make a conscious effort to keep things fresh all year long—beginning with our own attitudes.

What comes to mind when you think of celebrating and sustaining freshness in your life? I’ll list just a few thoughts in hopes of motivating you to think of more:

Fresh marriage. My husband and I celebrated 25 wonderful years together last summer, but I never want to take God’s gift of a second, redemptive marriage for granted. I’m going to look for ways to keep our love fresh as we move toward a time of life neither of us has experienced before—to be open to new places, energizing experiences, and innovative living arrangements.

Fresh work. I’m writing a new book: a creative exercise with all the joys and angst of birthing a baby. I want to keep my work fresh—to use more primary resources and less of my tried-and-true secondary ones. To think thoughts I’ve never had and use vivid, descriptive words so that I deliver a fresh manuscript to the publisher by the April deadline, not a stale one.

Fresh friendship. This year I want to be totally present with friends old and new. To truly listen when they speak and find a fresh level of intimacy with each one. Friendship is a treasure to cherish—and keep fresh.

Fresh faith. A new year means beginning a new daily devotional, but what else will be fresh about my faith? According to Isaiah 43:18-19, we can always count on the Lord to bring freshness and renewal. The Lord said through Isaiah, “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up, do you not perceive it?” I don’t want to miss any fresh, new thing the Lord wants to do in me this year. In fact, I want to recapture the freshness of the hour I first believed.

How about you? How will you keep 2014 fresh until the last day of December? May you have a happy, healthy new year—and may it stay fresh!

Bethlehem Bound

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Adoration of the ShepherdsI recently read that the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem is being restored after 600 years, and was reminded of this column from a few years ago. Merry Christmas to you, wherever the Lord leads you!

Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened…Luke 2:15

How often we look back on the way God orchestrated something in our lives, something so totally opposite from what we had planned, and say, “But, of course, it had to be just as it was.” Such was the case when Mary and Joseph traveled over rugged trails into Judea to the little town of Bethlehem. Certainly Mary didn’t expect to be having a baby so soon, and definitely not so far from home. But the journey fulfilled prophecy, for it is recorded in Micah 5:2: “But you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel.”

Surely the shepherds didn’t expect to be visited by a heavenly host that starry night either–nor to travel to Bethlehem to worship a newborn King.

As Christmas comes this year, the question on our hearts needs to be “Where are you leading me, Lord? What plans do you have for me that I don’t even know about yet?” When we ask those questions sincerely, we can celebrate Christmas Bethlehem bound, ready to go where He leads and ready to humbly worship at the feet of our Lord.

My husband and I were privileged to travel to Israel in 1998 and Bethlehem was one of the stops along our way. We were somewhat surprised by what we found there—not the idyllic scene portrayed on greeting cards, but an enormous, ornate Greek Orthodox church, the Church of the Nativity, built over the spot where Jesus was said to have been born. Pilgrims to Bethlehem step down cavernous steps inside this church into a small enclosure made even closer by the many tapestries and incense-burning lamps hanging all around. In turn, each traveler gets down on hands and knees to peer into a grotto of sorts where a 14-pointed star is embedded in the floor to “mark the spot” where Jesus was born. Jewish tradition ensures this spot is accurate, but it’s now so different from what it once was—and from what we expected.

At another stop along our tour, we saw a typical manger from the time of Jesus’ birth. It was not a wooden structure filled with hay, but a chiseled stone watering trough. Thinking of these things now, I realize there’s no better time than Christmas to set aside all our preconceived ideas. Rather than celebrate just as we always have, let’s open our hearts to the plans the Lord has for us this Christmas. Like Mary and Joseph may we be, in heart and spirit, Bethlehem bound.

(Painting shown is “Adoration of the Shepherds” by Rembrandt.)