Walls...

Doors keep people in or they keep them out.

But walls…walls protect us from the elements.

Walls protect us from heat and cold, from wind and rain…from storms. Walls take a long time to build. There must be planning and design, gathering of materials, and weeks or months of construction. But they can be brought down in minutes—whether by natural disaster, implosion, or a big ‘ol wrecking ball. It doesn’t take much to level a wall.

Homes.

Every home has a front door.
It’s the main point of entry.
It’s a means of protection.
It regulates access.

Unlike walls which are immovable, front doors offer us a choice. We can fling it wide open to our closest friends and family. We can crack it open with the chain to someone we are unsure of. Or we can leave it shut and locked up tight from a stranger or someone we don’t trust.

Too much energy to blossom...  Each week as I feed and water them and inspect them gingerly for blooms, I hear those words in my head.  I know that I learned a lot more from The Home Depot lady than how to care for honeysuckle.  I learned how to grow during the extreme seasons of life.

Life is traveled on an open road. There is a beginning. An end. And a messy middle.

You can drive like a bat out of hell and fly through life at excessive speeds. Or you can poke along like a 90 year old granny with her nose to the wheel and foot on the brake. Either way, you are likely to pose a threat to yourself and others somewhere along the way.

I am a city-girl, which probably makes me the least qualified person to talk about bulldozers. But I am going to anyway because the image just won’t leave me. I was sipping a nonfat latte in the new downtown Starbucks last week, in my city-girl dress and matching boots (see, completely unqualified). I was catching up with a friend, and without a thought in my head I told him, “I feel like a bulldozer.”

We are taught that compassion means paying attention to the people around us, reaching out to someone less fortunate or less able. Showing compassion means seeing someone else’s need and doing something yourself to meet it.

“If you surrender completely to the moments as they pass, you live more richly those moments.”

~ Anne Morrow Lindbergh

As a kid I always chose "truth" in the game of "Truth or Dare" because I was too chicken to take most dares and too square to have any juicy "truth" to share anyway.

But today I am making an exception.  I am accepting a "dare." I am taking Jeff Goins' challenge to s.l..o...w.......d..o....w.....n.

It' a 5-Day "dare" he calls the Slow Down Challenge.

Utterly exhausted at the end of May, I decided to conduct a secret little experiment in the month of June to simplify. You can read more about it by clicking the link to this guest post.

The thought behind it was to begin slowing my life down by letting this one little word “simplify” roll around in my heart and mind all month.

Life is good. Even when it’s hard, life is good.

For me, this always comes in the form of gratitude.

*big exhale*

God is a Planner too. His words, not mine:

’For I know the plans I have for you,’ says the Lord…

Well, it’s a good thing, because I don’t.

This was NOT at all what I had planned.

And that’s a really big deal because well, I’m a planner.  I plan everything…from the next 10 minutes to the next 10 years.  I’ve got it all mapped out for myself.  Or, at least I did.