Nine Ways to Bend the Curve

Make someone's day

It would be reasonable to think that there are not that many greeting cards bought or sent these days as compared to say fifty years ago. Maybe because of the price of a postage stamp. Maybe because the electronic age is in full swing and has basically replaced what they call “snail mail” because we are all in a super-rush these days. Who has any extra time anyway? And there are so many other reasons too.

So, we might be surprised to learn “according to the Greeting Card Association, Americans purchase 6.5 billion greeting cards each year. Hallmark publishes cards in more than 30 languages and distributes them in more than 100 countries.” https://www.hallmark.com/cards/

Wow! Who knew! And this is just one (major) card company; there are also others to add. 

There may be many among us who still enjoy sending and, of course, receiving a welcome note or greeting from a friend or family member. It’s still fun and can brighten our day no matter what is going on in our lives. Sometimes it’s obvious why the card appears in our mailbox—a birthday, congratulations, thank you, or graduation day. It can even deeply touch our hearts if the card is one of sympathy. On all these occasions, we know someone cares and has not forgotten us.

What Are We to Do?

In these strange and terrifying days we live in right now, buying and sending a card to someone may seem very trivial and of little importance. In fact, there are plenty of merchants right now who are going out of business due to all the confusion, illness, and rioting in our world. We surely have never seen such chaos.

But what are we to do? We may be wrong, but it seems that the only solution to returning to “normal” is to:

Be a good neighbor

First, do our part and be responsible to our worldly neighbors by following the guidelines given by medical (not political) professionals. No. No one is trying to take away our freedom! Do we wear seatbelts in our cars? Do we wait at the sign to cross the street? Do we pay for our food or clothing items at the register? And so on. Why? Because if we do, we will enjoy a better world without chaos.

Second, we can try our best to continue caring for other human beings and strive for normalcy. We all know this is true because we as single-again women have been through a chaotic situation ourselves just getting to this point in our lives. We know how good it feels to finally reach a turning point and have a friend encourage us to keep on, keeping on.

In the same way, we can support, encourage, and care for others in many ways. We can manage to do something instead of sitting around twiddling our thumbs or worse yet, participating in rioting (hatred and anger), destroying businesses (stealing/shoplifting), protesting (complaining), and generally stoking the cause rather than finding solutions to our current problems.                 

Nine Ways to Bend the Curve

If we were asked to make a list of what we could individually do to help our friends and neighbors, what would that be? Try it.

1. Buy/make extra face coverings and handing them out to others
2. Cook/bake a dish to share with someone out of work
3. Babysit for a single Mom
4. Smile and thank the clerk at the grocery store
5. Volunteer at a food bank once a week
6. Leave a larger tip to a waitress
7. Pick up groceries for a shut-in neighbor
8. Surprise a friend with a flowering plant
9. Send thank you cards to the local police/fire station/hospital

Your turn. Go ahead and add to this list.

“As for the rest of you, dear brothers and sisters, never get tired of doing good” (2 Thessalonians 3:13 NLT).

Healing the Wounds

God will hear our prayers

Everyone is hurting right now in some way or another. Even if the virus has not hit our households personally, just watching others suffer is painful. Seeing our family members struggle with job loss is excruciating. Watching multiple members of one family lose their lives is agonizing.

If we can do nothing else, we can all do one thing. In fact, we should be doing this first. We can pray without stopping. God will hear. He wants to see us return to an even better situation than we had in the past. A life with Him and for Him. That IS the solution.

“Then if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land” (2 Chronicles 7:14 NLT).

How Did We Get to This Point?

Beautiful but deadly 

In 1831, Moses Alexander, age ninety-three, married Mrs. Frances Tompkins, age one-hundred five in the town of Bath, New York. It is recorded that the newlyweds were both found dead in their bed the following morning. (True story as recorded in the genealogical tables of the book, Kentucky Marriages, 1797-1865. These facts were found in the book, 2201 Fascinating Facts by David Louis, 1983). Please excuse our morbidity, but it just goes to show, life doesn’t always turn out the way we expect.

Certainly, there are both advantages and snares of our human condition whether we are married or “single-again” --divorced, widowed, or a single mom. Unfortunately, many women dwell on all the negatives and in so doing, cause themselves plenty of grief and anguish. If someone is married, single suddenly looks better. If single, the desire to be married is of utmost importance always in front of their minds. It reminds us of a spider’s web—spun from beautiful silk threads, but sticky enough to instantly trap its prey. It looks good on the outside but is deadlier than we expect! 

Truly, we have numerous opportunities to make the best of our single-again lives and not be weighed down with why, why, why. There is a reason (or several) for where we are right now in this season of life so, there is no need to wonder if we have “missed” something better. We have not. In fact, it is up to us now to unfold our lives exactly the way we want them to blossom.

The Five W’s for Life

Stay with us now and discover where this could possibly lead. One of the most insightful books ever written about why we are here on this earth at this time in history is The Purpose-Driven© Life by Rick Warren 2002, a New York Times bestseller. As far as we see, it is filled with the who, what, why, when, and where to give direction to all of our lives. Be sure to pick this up and read, or re-read, it immediately.

Where will your path lead?

The major point made in Warren’s book is that if we are to find out how our lives are following a certain path, discovering our purpose is the key and it “must begin with God.” He created us and already had a plan for our lives before we were even conceived. That is amazing!

“You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed” (Psalm 139:13, 16 NLT).

Those are simply beautiful verses that clearly say the God of all creation loves each one of us dearly. He cares about every little minute of our lives, every day. Yes, we “hear” some who will say, “Then why did God cause my divorce?” The important point is, He didn’t cause any of that. We, as humans involved in a broken world, did. God never planned for our spouse to have an affair. Or abuse us. Or abandon us. But He did carry us right through that awful time in our lives. We know because we are here. God still loves us!    

            

Blessed We Are!

It’s important we do not allow our shaded past to control what we do now. We have a specific purpose ahead of us. Another chance. A great future. And the best part: God is walking right alongside us showing us where to go and what to do. Who is more blessed than us?

“…In the same way, a woman who is no longer married or has never been married can be devoted to the Lord and holy in body and in spirit. But a married woman has to think about her earthly responsibilities…I want you to do whatever will help you serve the Lord best, with as few distractions as possible” (1 Corinthians 7:34-35 NLT).

Let’s Flip a Coin

Two sides to every coin

Many of us at some time in our lives have probably collected one kind of object or another. Some serious things and plenty of silly things too. A long time ago this writer was a member of the Bell Collectors Club displaying upwards of nearly 100 different kinds of bells including china, porcelain, metal, and even wooden ones from all over the world. At some point, upon moving to a new home, eighty of the bells were broken and such was the end of bell collecting.

The next collection displayed was a teddy bear collection. Darling creatures they were and so fun to gather. A family member even built two long, wooden benches just the right height for displaying the teddy bears! Again, moving to a different city and not having room for the entire collection prompted this collector to donate them to a children’s shelter.

Heads or Tails?

Now, although there was never a coin collection in this home, we know experts estimate there are 10 million Americans who are profoundly serious about their coins (ngccoin.com). That is a lot of people! The largest and most impressive coin collection is in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. that has 1.6 million coin objects which probably makes coins the number one collected item anywhere.    

We heard a quote recently that reminded us of all those coins.

The flip side of doubt is faith.

We’ve all seen two people settle a discussion by saying, “Let’s flip a coin.” So, of course, we know coins have two sides--a front (“heads”) and a back (“tails”). [We pause here just to accurately point out that according to experts, technically coins have three sides which include an outer border called the “edge.”]      

What do we see?

What we are concerned about today is that in our single-again lives, it is most likely we will experience both doubt and faith. Matter of fact, we can’t imagine one without the other--they go together—two sides of the same coin. It may explain why we struggle at times with draining doubt or how we can effectively use simple faith. We are only looking at one side. Are we ignoring one part of the problem to deal with the other?

Doubt. Period.     

The quote above could be turned around. It could say the flip side of faith is doubt and it would still be true. We all share moments when we have a lack of confidence in believing what is going on in our lives. We pretend everything is okay but truthfully, we have a difficult time getting through the day. Nothing seems right anymore. We simply don’t trust it will ever be different than right this moment. We doubt. Period. And we don’t stop to flip over the coin!

What does God say about our doubt? “I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart” (Mark 11:23 NLT).

Keep Your Bible Close

Faith Is Where It All Begins

Let’s flip the coin over to the front. Primarily, the whole idea of faith is trust. If we honestly believe something good in our lives can happen and place our trust in God to guide us, we will begin to act on those thoughts. We begin to learn and understand by reading God’s Word (the Bible) every day that He loves us and wants nothing but the best for us. Faith is where it all begins!    

“You see, his faith and his actions worked together. His actions made his faith complete” (James 2:22 NLT).

Do We Want to Get Well?

We may still at times struggle with doubt in our lives. It happens. We must expect it and be prepared because it can make us ill in more ways than one. But if we keep our faith intact and know where to turn when it gets low (the Bible), we can absolutely be assured God created us, loves us, protects us, and provides for us. And the best news of all: we are His daughters! And that will never change. We can count on it!

“And he said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over” (Mark 5:34 NLT).

 

How is that Working for You?

Ever find yourself daydreaming and playing around on the internet rather than getting busy with the project right in front of you that needs completing today? It happens! We’ve all been there. And it is so easy these days to just wander off on some tangent! It seems the world has made “irrelevant searching” its business to distract us.

We can get very busy rearranging the closet and lose track of time when all we did in the first place was go there to find a handbag to match our outfit. The bookshelf in our office calls out to us to dust and organize the books as we are trying to get a report done. Getting up from our desk chair to stretch our legs leads us to the mailbox and we get involved in replying to a silly request of some sort. It’s maddening!

Thinking About How Life Works

We can try implementing a few new tools to help create better and effective habits. If we give it a chance, it’s a way to get the most important things done in our day without stressing. And wouldn’t that be refreshing? Whether we work from home (while some of us are also taking care of our children), or we work outside the home, we all need to develop a better routine that works for us.

As single-again women (and this includes divorced, widowed, and single moms), all the hours in the day belong to us versus sharing the load with a marriage partner. So, we must decide how to use our time the best way possible. And, yes, it can be done! The clue is realizing and accepting that arranging our day may be quite different than we have ever experienced. 

In the past, we have tried changing things and it hasn’t worked, so we gave up. Who can relate? Any hands raised? Sure, but, we were simply missing the last scrap of the 1,000-piece jigsaw puzzle! The “picture” of our lives is different now and our methods of finding our way through our own labyrinth could benefit from a new “map.”

Five Tips to Begin a Change

Request. Nothing works better for starting our day than spending Quiet Time with God and requesting His help for the day’s moments. He knows our needs.

Scone anyone?

Comfort. Incorporate into your day a comfortable starting point. For some of us it’s a fresh cup of coffee. Or it could be a chocolate chip scone to go with our cup of tea. Soft, quiet music (especially classical) activates our brains to be creative. Really, it’s proven. Whatever puts us into a great mood, use it!

Design. Have a plan (that you wrote out the night before) for what you want to accomplish that day. That’s one main plan or at the most, two projects. Don’t try to reinvent the world all at once. Even God took six days to create the world!

  

Break. And then God rested on the seventh day! Once a week get in the habit of leaving the house to do something fun and enjoyable. It will refresh your mind and body; adding something physical to it, like hiking, biking, walking, etc., is an additional boost.

Repeat. End the day by repeating a prayer. It’s the time to thank God for a productive day and for giving us the strength and energy to find that missing puzzle piece!

Your Own Truth

Only you know your own life circumstances. So, we encourage you to experiment and add what works perfectly for you. The idea is to enjoy what time, talent and resources God has given you to make each day count! We can do this!

“I will answer them before they even call to me. While they are still talking about their needs, I will go ahead and answer their prayers!” Isaiah 65:24 NLT.