Staying focused

The first week of school is in the books.  We were all smiles around here and even had enough energy to make it to the Eagle football game.  I think personally the new clothes, new crayons, and new classrooms help give us a push, like pushing off the side of the pool to get a head start when you are in a swimming race.  You push off hard when you want to win.  We push off hard at the first of the year, but it definitely gets harder when the new wears off.  Then, we have to focus more.

This topic is fitting for me this morning because I usually write on Sunday nights after I get everyone to bed.  I chose a movie last night with my kids and put this off until Labor Day morning.  We recorded George Strait’s concert “The Cowboys Rides Away” and it is currently proving to be the biggest distraction.  Between singing old songs and looking up at the big screen to see which special guest is joining George, I am struggling.  My husband is cooking a pot of beans and just got out a meat tenderizing mallet to divide up his frozen bacon.  I thought someone had crashed into the house when he made his initial chop.   I regained my composure, and then had to get up and find his baggies and wooden spoon. 

The kids needed me to help salvage a sausage biscuit and now they are building a tent.    Finishing this column will be a true test for me on staying focused and doing my best!  It will be nothing short of a miracle if I get it finished before the paper calls me.  Blaise just asked if George Strait was married to Sheryl Crow and said she thought Kid Rock was dead.  The thought occurs to me I should take my laptop and move to another room or perhaps the roof of the house, but I am not going to.  I am going to stay put, even though a pink monkey just flew by me and someone is singing the “Meow Mix” jingle. 

We often have to make the choice in life to do just that…to stay put, work through the distractions and storms.  This type of focus and intentional living requires an anchor because without one we will get pulled to and fro, never finishing anything.  Without the anchor of Jesus Christ, the consequences can be worse than just getting tossed about though.  We can totally give up.

We talked about a song yesterday in Sunday school that relates to this topic, “The Anchor Holds” by Ray Boltz.  It is a beautiful song, but the concept is even more beautiful.  The anchor of Jesus Christ DOES hold.  IT HOLDS through cancer, sending a loved one to heaven, exhaustion when the daily ins and outs of life are just too much.  It holds through family drama, teenage drama, addiction, job loss, job gain, and the many distractions we face.  The anchor of Jesus holds through the big storms and the little storms of life, that at the moment do not seem so little. 

The song says “The anchor holds, though the ship is battered, the anchor holds, though the sails are torn.  I have fallen on my knees, as I faced the raging seas, the anchor holds, in spite of the storm. “ My prayer this week is that Believers remember that the anchor holds.  If you do not have the anchor of Jesus in your life, you have to know something is missing.  Someone is missing and He wants to be the anchor of your life.  Pray and ask Him to be. 

Spring, Texas

Life is pretty calm at the moment. I just sat down to knock out my column for the week and I am all alone. All alone, except for the two dogs I just moved in so my cats could eat on the back porch in peace and my bag full of Beaver Nuggets. If I do not get up and go hide the Beaver Nuggets from myself, it is going to be bad! Yesterday I had the privilege of spending the day with my oldest daughter. I was her taxi driver, water girl, and personal photographer at a softball camp down in Spring. We usually go north for everything, so the trip south was an adventure. We were on the road by 7:00 A.M. I was happy with my coffee. She was happy with her favorite blanket and her seat leaned back sleeping. I prayed all the way down there for her and many others I know and love. I prayed for myself too because last week was tough. I enjoyed the silence in the car and had mentally cleared out some junk, including bitterness the Lord had convicted me of. We sailed smoothly until we were a few exits away from FM 2920. Traffic came to a standstill. There was construction ahead and only one lane was open. We had an hour to spare, but being the aggressive and impatient driver that I am, I jumped off the highway and headed west. I assumed that in just a few minutes I could cut over and head south to Spring Cypress Road. I am including the specific street names because If you are a Houstonian, you are laughing already because you know that in Spring, Texas, there is no way to go WEST to go SOUTH and then WEST again. It is the craziest thing I have ever seen. No matter how hard I tried to find a side street, my GPS took me back to I-45 South. I did not give up though. I took the feeder and decided to go one exit back north and try again. It still did not work because we ran into dead end after dead end. After twenty five minutes of trying it my own way in unfamiliar territory, in totally disgust with my own navigating skills, I got back on I-45 South! We eased on down the highway. Only by the grace of God and skillful maneuvering behind the wheel did we make it on time. I must had sounded like a stuck, scratched record because I told Banner over and over that I had learned my lesson. If I did not know where I was going, I would stay on the highway! I vowed to not waste 30 minutes on Plan B because even if Plan A is slow, it is a sure plan! Likewise, there will be things in life that will take longer than we want and we will get stuck, but looking for a way out is not always the best plan. Sometimes the Lord wants us to go THROUGH the battle. He will not always provide us with a way out or a way around it because going THROUGH the hard times will give us faith. Do not even get me started too on how much time we waste when we try to go our own way. It just does not work! It is also foolish to think that you will never have trouble or get stuck! John 16:33 sums it up. Jesus says “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world!” We will never go through trouble alone if we know Jesus, and His plan is always better than mine!

From the heart!

This week is an easy column. It comes straight from the heart. We celebrated all last week that our seventh grader was going to play his first football game! He has played here in the backyard with his brother and sisters, but Thursday was all about leaving a packed gym from the pep rally and going to Palestine on a bus to suit up in Eagle uniforms. We planned out our maroon and gold and decked out early Thursday morning. Brazos wore his Dad’s old game day tie that he wore to every game he played at Bryan Adams High School. I thought about shoe polishing the car, but knew that was way over the top and would get me banned from even going to the game. I came back home Thursday morning and the minute I walked in the door alone, it hit me that this was one of the things I had prayed for. When I was diagnosed with cancer in April of 2007, I started off chemo pretty good and still took on my tasks with kiddos. However, by the time school started the next Fall, I was weak. I remember on many occasions loading up the kids and driving them to second grade, kindergarten, and Best Friends Daycare, that I owed at the time, with tears rolling down my cheeks. When one of them would say Mom, why are you crying, I would say I had allergies. Then, the battle in my head would begin. They never knew that as we sang Aaron Watson’s “Barbed Wire Halo” or Kenny Chesney’s “Don’t Blink” that there was a war raging in my head. I never used my rearview mirror to look at myself because I was wearing a cap to hide my bald head and bare eyebrows; however, I would adjust it just right so that I could see all of them, still in car seats, lined up and buckled in. I would study each of their faces, learn the freckles, creases in their noses, and recall old scars that told a story of bike crashes and sidewalk mishaps from our Dallas years. I would say to myself things like this… Lord, I thank you that I will see her grow up. Father, I am so happy I will watch him play football one day. Lord, I want to watch him walk across the track at FHS and earn his diploma. Jesus, I am glad that I will watch her Daddy walk her down the aisle. Lord, please, I beg of you, please, let me be their Mom and raise them. I pleaded with God on a regular basis because when you have a “cure rate” and a “stage” hanging over your head; you have to look UP! I would look back and then look UP and say, I just want to be their Mom. Every time I Iooked UP to the Lord, I got to know Him more! Prayers were answered and I have been cancer free for years. Why God chose to heal me and take others, I don’t know. I will never understand. I do know though that when I walked in my house last Thursday and realized that I was living out one of the things I asked the Lord to heal me for, I was completely overwhelmed and grateful. It was humbling and I had to redo my make-up because I cried tears of JOY and ruined my mascara. I do not have a verse in mind this week, but I will tell you this…Jesus is real! Jesus is real and if you do not know Him as your Savior, you should! He will take away your sins and heal you from your hurts. I know I am not promised even tomorrow here on earth, but I am thankful for each day and will spend eternity in heaven!

Key word: CANCER

We have a few key words and phrases around here that get everyone’s attention: Bastrop, backstrap for dinner, hunting in Iradell, Madea, smores, GIVE me that electronic, and cancer. The first few are things that we love, like vacation spots, deer leases, movies and our favorite foods. The last two are not as fun. When I am having trouble with a Monico kid and need their attention to be fully focused on the issues at hand, I snatch whatever electronic could be a distraction for as long as need be. Cancer is a key word that here that will always stop us in our tracks. It came up last week. I had a tiny spot on the side of my face frozen off at the dermatologist. The kids did not even know that I made a quick trip to Corsicana and questioned me big time when they saw the blister on the side of my face. I told them it was no big deal; however, it took a few minutes to explain to them all that precancerous skin spots are not a big deal for a former sun worshipper in her forties and that it just had to be frozen off. They hung on the word cancer. One of my little lovelies in particular said…”Mom, you did not even tell us you were going to the doctor, do you have cancer?” It is uncomfortable for me to write about cancer because I made it through it and so many in our community have not. I don’t get it, but I do know that there are some truths that I know came from my battle with Lymphoma back in 2007 that I will take with me forever. The first is that our greatest trials in life are when we will closer to the LORD than ever and know Him in an amazing way. Jesus was so real to me during my trial. I learned to lean on Him and depend on Him in a way that was even more real than my earthly relationships. It is sad that it took a disease to get me to that point of total dependence. Human nature is just such! The other truth is that I took with me is that friends, family, and community are truly amazing. I went an entire summer and never cooked a meal or even went to the grocery store for more than milk and bread. People took care of us. My family was blessed on the receiving end, and givers were blessed too. It worked both ways. When someone offers to do something for you, let them be a blessing to you because it will bless them. The other thing I learned is that without Jesus as my Savior and without knowing His Word, I do not know how I would have made it. When I laid there in the CT scan tube or felt the burn of the chemo in my arm for months and months, I had a verse to say. I had a true word to hold me tight. I would pray every scripture I had ever learned and recite them over and over in my head. I literally do not know what I would have done if I had battled cancer alone, so I beg you to get to know Jesus and study His Word because your trial may never be cancer, but you will have many trials in life. Proverbs 30:5 says “Every word of God is tried and purified; He is a shield to those who trust and take refuge in Him.” Jesus was my refuge when I had cancer and still is every day.

The Pretzel

I declared last week as clean up, clean out the vehicle week. I battled the Accord the first day. It is smaller and a more logical starting point. I tackled the Suburban on day two. When I started working on it, I realized they were as different in size as a mouse and an elephant and yes, more space holds more dirt. I deposited ten minutes worth of quarters and dove into the Suburban. Sometimes there is no other way to begin. I started in the far back and worked my way up. I made sure I had on proper work clothes, nothing nice and all, and contemplated whether I might need a pair of plastic sterile gloves for an extra protective layer. I worked at a decent pace, tossed a few water bottles, chunked a football or two in the far back, and made a mental note to tell my youngest that my car is not her closet. When I found myself tucked in behind the passenger seat in the floorboard like a gymnast in the middle of a front tuck, I got stuck. No, I was not physically stuck in the floorboard, although that could happen as well. I mean I got stuck like I was totally focused on one item and I could not move on until I got it. Time was running out on my deposit, but I did not care! I was on a mission to get a waffle style pretzel that was lodged in between the passenger front seat and the console. I put down the vacuum hose all together, hard decision for a penny pincher to make, and used the seat lever to move the seat all the way up. I shimmied my hand in between the seats, wiggled my fingers, and tried with all of my might to reach the pretzel. It took a few times for me to get it. From my crouched down position and nearly entirely 100% under the front seat by this point and out of breath, I had my “ah-ha” moment of the week…hard to believe there could be a divine appointment in this circumstance I know. I could have ignored the pretzel because our Suburban was cleaner than it had been in some time, and I had come so far in my quest of cleanliness. However, I chose not to ignore it! I wanted all it, and decided from the moment I spotted it that a clean car included getting the one by one inch forgotten pretzel out. Likewise, God wants all of us. He does not want us to leave anything only partially surrendered to Him. Partial obedience robs us of peace and joy. We cannot reason our way through life by thinking that a certain amount of sin, not too much compared to last year, can just be ignored and forgotten. The Lord does not want us to give Him 99% and keep 1% hidden and tucked away. Nothing is hidden from Him. We only kid ourselves when we think that. Just like I was not satisfied with the one pretzel being left, the Lord is not satisfied with us when we hold onto, grip one part of our life and refuse to give it all to Him. So, ask yourself this week. What is tucked away out of sight, but not out of mind? What is hidden and out of view to everyone, but you know it is there and that God wants to take it from you? Get it all out this week. Give everything to Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 2:9 Paul urged the church of Corinth “For this is why I wrote, that I might test you and know whether you are obedient in everything.” That applies today. Are you obedient in everything?

Unexpected

This was a weekend full of unexpected events. Saturday morning I loaded three bags into the trunk of our car and scurried back in to get my coffee. The girls and I had a weekend of shopping, softball, and Nicolas Sparks planned. (His new movie just came out) The boys were staying home for deer season preparation round one and the Freestone County Game Association Dinner in hopes of winning another gun to add to the collection. As I poured my coffee, my youngest nearly ran me over to get to the sink because she was sick. I will leave out the details. I jerked out two bags from the trunk and threw my husband’s bag in. He made a speedy change from boots to khaki shorts and headed to the ballpark. I headed to the couch with my sick little one. This meant Nicolas Sparks was OUT because Dad was going to Dallas and that I had to take the boys to the hunting event if Blaise was well enough to go. I have learned the hard way to nearly expect a Plan B and not to sweat it. A few weeks ago when faced with a similar situation, I manipulated the day to get to do what I wanted and was miserable the entire time. I did not do that this weekend. I simply thought…OK, LORD, you have another plan for the day. There is such peace in knowing God has a plan and He knows all, sees all, and unpacking the bags is better than forcing something to happen that is not in His Will! Unexpected to us is never unexpected to God. Blaise bounced back from her aliment by mid-morning which meant she had to tag along Saturday night with us to the V.F.W. She has sent her Uncle in Dallas a lengthy list of snacks and needed items for the deer lease, but really she is just along for the ride when it comes to hunting. However, when she heard BLAISE MONICO it all changed! She stood right up and marched forward because she won a gun. I jokingly said to the men around me that she would trade the gun for some shoe money. Man, was a wrong! She was so proud of her gun. She called every important male figure in her life who was not present and announced that she won a gun! The funny part was when she tried to recite to her Dad what kind it was. It took five minutes for her to spit it out and it was a “Rosie” like a flower brand rather than a “Rossi.” Her big win was unexpected and her JOY over it was really the unexpected kicker. It made my night. I filled out my first firearm form and we headed out the door with her carrying her very first gun ALL BY HERSELF. I am learning day by day that unexpected does not need to be negative. It is okay when a well planned out plan A goes to Plan B... and it is fun! Paul wrote in Philippians 1 :6 “I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns.” Life is just a work in progress! We are all just works in progress, and I am eternally grateful that Jesus uses the unexpected in life to teach us to settle down and trust Him. There are no unexpected events to Him. He is at work in your life. Will you let Him work this week?

The OAK

It feels like Fall! The cooler temps make the men in my family think about deer season. They think about it all the time, but their brains really get going when we have our first cool snap. I accompanied them on a Ranger ride Friday and all they did was discuss what needed to be trimmed and cut to get ready for hunting and winter. We cut our own firewood so there was a running list going of dead trees that would be perfect for that. I expected at any moment for one of them to grab a legal pad and start taking notes. I did the usual, like close my eyes when we went through the dugout. When I am on these trips too with my family, I have a habit of thinking about what I could be doing at home. I have learned to “Give THANKS” as we ride around. I thank the Lord for the trees, my healthy family, my home in the country, and the fact we live in a free country where we can ride, look, and pretty much do as we please. My mental list of thanksgiving came to a halt when I heard my husband say something about a cluster of trees. There was a decent size Oak tree. My husband then pointed out two smaller Cedar trees were growing right by it and said they had to go! I am no tree expert, but according to the Monico men, the smaller cedar trees evidently were crowding the Oak tree and stealing its nutrients. They were disturbing the root system of the Oak and a few more things of that nature were listed that I missed. I knew at that point that in a strange way, but isn’t life always strange if we are honest, that my life was represented in a way by these trees. I saw myself as the OAK tree and some of the extra things in life as the Cedar trees. The start of this school year has been stressful. I have continuously used the word hard to describe it! I have not been myself. Maybe I need to get rid of some “underbrush” or the cedars in my life that are crowding in and robbing my life of peace and joy. I thought as my kids got older that I would not be as busy. (HaHa) That is the funniest thing that I ever thought! Life was a breeze when all we had to do was play in the dirt pile and think about our next meal or what time Dad would be home. A fun outing was taking the trash to the dumpster. We did that over and over again, one bag at a time, just to get out of the house. Life is more complicated now. I will not bore anyone with a list of what needs to go in my life, what the cedar trees might be for me. That is something I am going to have to pray about. After I pray, then I will have to be obedient because it may be good stuff that has to go. Likewise, It could seem strange to an observer when the Monico men cut down the perfectly two good cedar trees next to the Oak. The Cedar trees are good, but not as good as the Oak. It may seem strange to observers when I or anyone else gets rid of some good stuff in their life to do the Lord’s Will. That is why we must obey the Lord and not others! Deuteronomy 30:19 says “Choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD your God, by obeying His voice, and by holding fast to Him.” I am memorizing this verse this week, praying I can live by it, and do some necessary pruning. Join me!