Free my heart and my mind, O Lord From my own ambitious thoughts and fears. Focus me only on your will and your plan, Frame my being to bring glory to your wonderful name!
Family prayer | Free Photo
Free my children and my family, O Lord From hankering after our selfish desires and goals. Focus our aims and our ideas to be only on you, Fashion us into vessels of worth by your mercy and grace!
Teacher and taught | Stock Media
Free those I mentor and teach, O Lord From the shackles of self-seeking and praise, Focus them to be the remnant that faithfully follows you, Fully committed to live, not for their own gain, but for your eternal fame!
Community context | Stock Media
Free those in the community around, O Lord, From earthly wisdom and distracting carnal ways. Focus them on things above rather than on things below, Finding their security and their rest constantly in your holy place!
World around | Free Photo
Free the populous darkened world at large, O Lord, From wickedness and besetting sin that flows from hell. Focus them on the Word of hope that beckons from heaven, Flooding them with light that leads to your sweet presence!
In a recent discussion with a peer mentor, I happened to mention that I felt stuck. I was not achieving, while others seem to be moving forward and progressing. His comeback was that accomplishing is different from achievement.
I was struck by the truth of this and began to unravel it some more. I found that we often make the mistake of confusing achievement and accomplishment, since we tend to consider both in the same sense. As per sources, achievement is a goal that has been reached while accomplishment is a job or project that has been completed.
Achievement vs Accomplishment
Achievement typically is a measure of an externally imposed standard, whereas accomplishment typically describes an internally motivated goal. Achievement is formal and public, as it has an external reward – praise, etc. Accomplishment is, on the other hand, a sense of satisfaction for which there’s no public acknowledgment or an external reward. It’s a personal task completed, a joy which you experience by yourself, informal and internal.
Achievements are associated with success, recognition, and reaching a certain objective or milestone. They can be both tangible and intangible, such as winning a competition, earning a degree, or overcoming a personal challenge, etc.
Accomplishments encompass a whole range of activities or tasks that have been completed. They can be both major and minor tasks, routine activities, and personal goals. Accomplishments are related to various aspects of life, such as work, education, hobbies, or personal development. They refer to a sense of fulfillment and satisfaction derived from completing tasks, whether or not they are widely recognized or significant in the eyes of others.
In a nutshell, while both “achievement” and “accomplishment” refer to the successful completion of tasks or goals, the former often implies a specific, notable, and sometimes externally recognized success. The latter is a more general term that cover a wide range of successfully completed activities and tasks, including those of a personal or everyday nature.
Life’s Patterns
It is, therefore, clear that achievements are more external and quantifiable, whereas accomplishments are more internal and qualifiable. This fundamental difference ought to help us as we go through various times and seasons of life.
There will be times in our life when we may not, or even cannot, see hard evidence of blessings, success and progress. There’ll be times when there seems to be a deadness or a mundanity or a placid sameness to our existence. Nothing new or exciting is taking place, and everything seems to be just a routine of daily tasks and normal activities.
At such times or seasons, there will be a tendency to initiate or push through or start something new so as to bring back some concrete evidence or achievements into being. The problem with such workaholic or insecure mentality and activity is that it doesn’t allow you to renew, refresh and restore yourself. Result will be running your life on fumes or empty tank rather than on fuel and a full tank of energy!
*Pic courtesy of DEAD Leader Running by Wayne Cordeiro
Adrenaline Rush
Years ago I heard Wayne Cordeiro talk on Dead Leader Running and it was quite an insight. He talks about how when we go beyond the limits of our energy, we end up working on adrenaline. Adrenaline is the rush of energy we get in emergencies and crises that help us act or react as needed. This will enable us to deal with the situation and then relax after it the pressure is gone. Such as a man who is able to jump out and push his car back onto the highway when he ended up in a ditch while driving his wife to the hospital as she is having birth pangs. Later, when his incredulous friends do not believe, he is unable to do the same and prove it to them. Thus, we will be able to do seemingly superhuman acts that we cannot after the crisis.
Tendency to work on adrenaline will cause wear and tear of your body, especially when it is your continuous habit or your lifestyle. Epinephrine (adrenaline), cortisol, and norepinephrine are hormones designed to help us deal with stressful situations by increasing our heart rate, blood pressure, and blood sugar levels. When these are produced constantly, we cannot maintain a healthy quality of life.
When achievements and external goals are your main focus or your only outcomes, then you will be prone to constant stress situations. You will then be prone to heart attacks, high blood sugar, develop blood pressure, as well as other complaints. Accomplishments, with their focus on inward satisfaction, maybe invisible and internal, but produce the needed balance in life. Such satisfaction will trigger Serotonin, which is associated withhappiness, focus and calmness, will help keep your body in health.
Nature’s Rhythm
Nature demonstrates to us the maintaining of such equilibrium in various ways and means. It goes through the rhythm of spring, summer, autumn, and winter when the earth and all vegetation take a break after a intense production cycle. Animals hibernate to rest awhile before resuming active life. The caterpillar shuts itself up in a cocoon to develop wings. The waxing and waning of moon, tides, wind patterns, all reveal the stability of nature. Man and woman alone seem to be the ones who do not understand and live by this cycle of existence.
Our daily life actually follows the sequence of night and day, rest and activity that our bodies need to maintain optimum condition. Our ages go through a growth and decline to enable us to know when to work, when to rest, when to take it easy. Our emotions, our minds, and our will need to adjust to this cycle. Birth, growth, death, all showcase a rising and downing of everything that has life.
One can’t live on highs and not have lows, go through peaks and not have valleys, feel droughts and not know floods. An up is invariably followed by a low, a sweet by a bitter, and a dawn by a dusk. The water that comes down as rain goes back up as vapor, thereby ensuring the progress and passage of life through time!
Weather the Season Well
People today seem to be intent on getting a rush or living by a rush or seeking a high or a hype. There is such a frenzy and hurry to acquire anything and everything, quickly and before everyone else. Folks run after sales, afraid to miss a deal, wanting to get things done fast or ahead of others. There is a lack of waiting to get things done, or the right thing for everything to happen. They push their children to peak before their time, causing them to miss their childhood. Kids are made to enter the rat race too early in life through shows and competitions, or other means of projection and promotion.
Every aspect of life has its seasons, times and terms, each with its own progress and growth. Take away a season and you will end up with a disaster, both natural and otherwise. Each flower has its own season of growth, bloom, and fading away; each tree has a time to grow, flower, produce, and die; each fauna has its own space for birth, growth, produce, and reproduce. Take away one portion of this cycle, or erase and try to quicken this process, you will create an anomaly or a grotesque creature.
A caterpillar must spend enough time in a cocoon to become a butterfly, a baby remain three hundred days in the womb to be healthy, a full year needs its season for life to sustain in every sphere. So also, we go through times of high achievement followed by seasons of rest or relaxation. This is needed to refresh, recoup and be ready for the next frenzy of work. Shorten or skim or skip this portion, and you are likely to end up with ill-health, burnout, and mental fatigue. Night and day, sleep and work, have been given to us to weather our life well, and not check out too soon from life!
Understand your season and live well
Seasons of achievement and accomplishment will alternate in our lives, and it is our look out to understand the season to not be lost. High achievers do not understand the periods of accomplishment is the rule of the day. Accomplishment periods are not understood since they don’t have attending fanfare or a major happening to account for at the end of the day.
These are periods when quiet day-to-day activities seem to fill the day, but truly a time when even a small chore adds to up to a total of a whole. It might be as simple as playing with children, or talking to your spouse, or going for a walk, or reading a book, or even enjoying the dusk while seated on your terrace or portico. It could be doing the dishes, taking the kids for an ice cream, calling your parents, visiting a friend, camping with family, or simply sleeping or counting your blessings. Each of these may not seem to be an achievement where some goal or target is reached, but they will help you accomplish, invisibly and quietly. When this season ends, you may not be able to tally up points, but you will have a sense of wellbeing, a confidence born of peaceful meditation, a wiping out of past and starting afresh, a new perspective as well as a new joy that wells up to help you weather your next season of intense activity.
You would have stored up a residue of strength, a revenue of good will, and banked up stamina for what is ahead. You would have had wiped your slate clean of of past hurts, received or caused, and will arise as a phoenix, with newness of life and outlook.
Productivity can become an idol, and we will be its slave if we do not understand that we more than what we produce. In the Bible, God mandated the sabbath for healthy living and sound or stable family and community existence.
Sabbath rest is important for us to be wholistically well and realistically achievers, and we will do well to alternate achievement with accomplishment!
God loves to choose someone and send, He’s does it from the beginning to the end, He sent His Son from heaven for us to mend, So we would to the world Him recommend!
His people He does call and apprehend, Out of safety on Him to depend, For them, He does others reprimand, As they on earth do Him represent!
If you will but go when He does send, To you His power He’ll always append. You’ll have no fear of how do I spend, For He will your provision superintend!
If you but go when He does send, His divine DNA will be your brand and descent. Son & servant will greatly be entwined, Within you for you’re His marching band!
If you but go when He does send, You will be bold fearing no downtrend. Your words will trumpet a clear gospel sound, Handing the devil a rout or a rebound!
If you but go when He does send, Your life will grow and be on the ascend. The past won’t hinder you to stay and defend, You’ll be on the move, a continual transcend!
If you but go when He does send, He’ll be your constant guardian and friend. You’ll ne’er in confusion reach a dead end, For you’ll really His sovereign will comprehend!
So what do you think you should intend, When you heed His call and do attend? Will you be wise to say I am here for you to send, Or hide in doubt and rather stay behind!
Go into the world today as one who’s sent, By the Master of the Universe as His regent. Fear not, just His witness be, don’t resist, For He’s with you in everything you do entrust!
Be cool and walk the day in rest, He just knows what for you is only the best, He’ll be with you in your ceaseless quest, So just begin to do what He requests!
*Wrote this exactly 6 years ago after hearing a sermon in church
According to sources, Empty nest syndrome is the grief that many parents feel when their children move out of the home. While it isn’t a clinical diagnosis, it is a common phenomenon in which parents experience sadness and loneliness. They grieve the loss of a lifestyle and relationship that was part of their identity.
Research shows that challenges faced by parents who experience empty nest syndrome include: Establishing a new kind of relationship with their adult children. Becoming a couple again, after years of sharing the home with children. Filling the void in the daily routine created by absent children. Lack of sympathy or understanding from others, who consider children moving out to be a normal, healthy event.
Empty nest period ought to be time of rest, relaxation and refreshing. After tackling and conquering a steep and difficult mountain, hikers and climbers experience a sense of euphoria and exhilaration. This enables them to enjoy the period after the event. This ought to be what empty nester should feel, having accomplished the stupendous and strenuous task of raising a family and fitting them for life.
Unfortunately, this is not so, and Mayo Clinic reports that divorce is often common in this period. The reason for this is many; chief among them is that when spouses build their lives around their children, after they leave, find themselves to be strangers. Another reason is that, during the passage of years the couple fail to take pains to stay connected emotionally with one another. A third would be unresolved issues that they have swept under the carpet, which rise up again or resurface with a vengeance at this time!
Couple Goals | Unsplash
Example of Exemplary
My husband and I were in another city recently, as part of a team that did training on parenting. We had the opportunity to stay an extra day with a couple whose children were out of the home because of studies. This couple’s obvious joy in one another and of being a couple, intrigued me. It created a thirst in me for such a life.
Having just moved into the empty nest stage ourselves, with our children out of our home because of study and marriage, I was eager to learn the secret of their success in handling this season well. I observed and watched them intently to see what I could pick up from their daily life. I found them living life intensely as a couple, with perfect understanding of one another, and having a level of intimate relationships that you see in very few. Their demeanor did not at any time show signs or symptoms of being affected by the empty nest syndrome!
I noticed and noted certain essential life habits that helped them achieve marital bliss at this time, inspite of challenges to their health!
Erudite Gleanings
1. Learn to accept and adapt to this season
This is the most foundational aspect of living life in the empty nest period. We are creatures of habit and prone to set ways. Change is something we resist and find it hard because we tend to settle easily. It is even more difficult when you have to do it in your senior season. More so if you have never gone through transitions or transfers but have always had a continuum. Life has to go one and nothing can we do can ever make it the way it used to be. So, make every effort to assimilate this season and into it!
Accept & Adapt
2. Having a daily schedule and right habit pattern
The second basic need is to develop a regular schedule and a constant lifestyle. Having children to care for, whatever their age, makes life well orchestrated by chores. Daily waking up and sleeping, meal and other food preparation, driving kids to and fro for various activities and study, handling their many sicknesses, recreation, etc., automatically schedules family life. When these are gone, managing time will be a big issue. Unless there is a regularity of daily tasks and food/sleep times, lethargy and sluggishness are prone to set in. These then give rise to sadness and somnolence, ending in depression. Therefore, seek to maintain a clockwork-like lifestyle which will be the key to healthy and cheerful disposition at this time!
3. Do things more together as a couple and less as an individual or by yourself
One of the most important traits that is needed during this season is developing and maintaining togetherness. In previous years, it would be okay, not fully right, but tolerable to each go on their individual pursuits or work or such like. Caring for the children and helping raise them would hold a couple together because of common goals and agendas. With the loss of this sameness of purpose, couples tend to grow apart, especially if each choose their own interests. It is crucial to draw closer to one another and safeguard intimacy by seeking to do things together. As much as possible, even mundane chores and duties should be shared. This will promote camaraderie and rapport which can then grow into greater attachment!
4. Talk to one anotherratherthan at each other
Communication is crucial to closeness, and learning to talk to one another is a key habit to develop. However, many couples either do not really talk to one another but at each other. This means they have lost touch with one another due to various reasons. It is important to now overcome barriers to talk and really listen to one another. This is a time that could bring a healing of past hurts and mistakes due to openness to speak amd willingness to listen. Reviewing the past, dealing with unspoken or undealt with issues will clear the air. It would do much to bring an intimacy that may not have been there before. Also, with no one else to talk to or with, husband and wife better communicate with one another. Otherwise, you may turn to become strangers living in the same premises, just sharing an accomodation!
Working together | Unsplash
5. Share meal times as well as recreation times
Sharing talk is not sufficient to keep the flame of relationship burning bright. Work to prioritize and plan meal times during day, or atleast breakfast and dinner! Food and fellowship go hand-in-hand, and nothing is so fulfilling as to have a meal.with a loved one or a mate! Physically eating together as Christians is a signal of spiritual fellowship with one another and the Bible speaks much about fellowship meals as well as food as point of gathering during celebrations. There is something about breaking bread together that builds community and Communion. Therefore, meal times should be give prime place in daily lifestyle and habits!
6. Develop hobbies and hidden or new discover potential
It is important to use time wisely and space profitably to be productive in older years. This will enable a rejuvenation and refreshing of life force, enriching the days that remain. It is a season to discover or uncover hidden potentials or skills, and develop a new way of using time and effort. The days will not drag but gallop when empty nesters pursue unusual hobbies or learn new expertise. In this period, there will be a tendency to lethargy and laziness due to the loss of a known or accustomed lifestyle. This will result in listlessness, growing disinterest in anything, and a general tediousness of life. Hobbies or dreams that have often been laid aside for the sake of children or multitude of tasks can now be picked up, renewed or learnt. This will give rise to new energy and pep up life because new learnings bring new contacts and new occupations which make one look forward to each day!
7. Guard your health and adopt a healthy lifestyle
Crucial to this season is the need to take care of physical health and address any chronic issues that have been neglected till now. Yearly health checkups, proper and balanced diet, a consistent exercise regime, regular meal and sleep times are important will ensure and improve quality of life. Adopting and learning to eat or do what promotes and fosters health is needed so as to enjoy life as well as not be a burden to others. Also, maintain a cheerful disposition, keep up emotional stability and focus on right thought life will help live life fully. One must learn to live rather than just exist!
Meals together | Prexel
8. Care for one another and help each other
Rather than being just individuals sharing just a living space and pursuing different paths, learn to show genuine interest in thre other. Helping one another in weaknesses or infirmities will real heart connection. Understanding the other’s unspoken needs or fulfilling hitherto unexpressed desires would draw you together as a couple. Learn to express your feelings of love, care, and appreciation rather than your woes. Forgive thoughtlessness or misdemeanorsof the past, and begin life anew, like a newly wed couple. Companionship and being there for one another will enhance relationship, forging you into oneness. Real and true heart connection will happen that will bond you together as one. Lending your strength to the other and involving them in every nuance of your life will help alleviate loneliness. Thus, rather going on separate orbits or paths, you become fused and focused as a couple, more solid than ever, making home a safe haven, and not a hell!
9. Serve the community or do social work
Once heart connection is achieved and health habits developed, it is time to look beyond your small and secure circle. There is a whole world outside your small home that needs your expertise and is awaiting for your experience. Begin to volunteer in social work or church projects, step up to teach others what you have learnt in life, train others in what you do best, and be available to help young people with heart issues. Learn counselling and begin to mentor young couples who will benefit from your wisdom and insight. Be involved in and aware of those around you, and their needs. Stop being selfish and start giving back to society, being a contributor rather than just a consumer. Promote measures that enhance the environment, and be involved in preserving our world through participating in activities such as beach cleaning, reclamation of water bodies, etc. Such community or social welfare activities and actions will also gather people around you who will fill the void left behind by your children!
10. Pray together and be part of a community of faith
An important aspect of life at any season is to reach out to God in prayer and praise for daily sustenance and strength. It is more needed in this period of time when, often times, you may feel neglected by your children or have to bear some of their burdens as they download on you. Being available emotionally for your cqhildren, which is what they will need from you as they feather their nest or build it, can be taxing. To be able to cater to them and help them differently requires much stamina and grit, more so now than when they were with you. Therefore, spending time together as a couple in prayer, for them and for others as well as for yourselves, should be an important part of your daily life. Being part of a community of faith in worship and small group gatherings will replenish your strength and energy. Taking active role and part in the faith community, as mentors and counsellors, being available for hospital or prison visitation, and such like will enhance your spiritual well-being. As King Solomon the Wise has proverbially said, as you water others you yourself will be watered!
Community consensus | Freepik
Empty nest period is a sure part of life, both inevitable and unavoidable. It is no use bemoaning or belittling this season, since thats how life really is.
You have the means to make your life enjoyable or intolerable at time. You can make it worthwhile for each other, and cover lost ground in your marriage; or waste these precious moments by not accepting this part of your life.
You can use it well.or waste it in longing for something that is past and cannot be got back.
You can be a boon or a bane for one another and for others as a couple, including your children!
You can be a blessing to one another, and as a couple to community and society.
You can live fulfilling, wholesome and healthy lives, being an example and a challenge, a pattern and a precedent for others going through the same season!
The Spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord Searching deep and long, where no man can see. The Spirit of the Lord is the flashlight of the Lord Illuminating and exposing what’s behind the scree!
The Spirit of the Lord is the voice and sound of God in our soul, With conscience as megaphone, He blows the alarm when we cross the line. The Spirit of the Lord seeks to restore us to His original design, Striving thus to always make us healthy and whole!
Dumb not His gentle whisper that floods your inner being, Deny Him not your ear when He pursues you to make you hear. Dim not His light or cover it with a bushel or screen, Destroy not His witness to the detriment of your wellbeing!
Keep your lamp trimmed such that you are holy and bright, If the light in you is darkness, how stygian is your blackness! When the Spirit of God is near and clear, you will have no horror or fear, Let Him work His will in you that you become a souvenir of His care!
May I live secure and strong, without a hardened heart, Watered and refreshed, running true to my own simple race, Learning not to create a wrong or wound, keeping pace with Him, May I ever walk daily, under the cadence of His saving grace!
Wrote after hearing Ps Senthil preach on the Spirit of man being the candle of the Lord in NLAG Church, Little Mount, Chennai, S.India
From the worms in the ground to the stars in the sky From the fish in the sea to the birds in the air From the grass that grows short to the trees that loom tall All held by His Word and exist under His care, Obey His command and submit to His sway!
From the waters that flow to the winds that blow From the night that falls to the day that dawns From the east to the west, from the north the south From season to season, from living to non-living His power is seen and His glory exhibited!
From birth to death From start to end From creation to destruction From beginning of time to the windup of ages He is lasting to everlasting as He rules and reigns, Potentate and powerful, beyond all, over all and above all,
Amen and Amen!
*Two lines from sunday sermon triggered this poetic outflow!
*Video encapsulation of the poem can be found in Youtube
There is only one thing that Jesus said He will build in Matt 16 and that is the church.
Apostle Paul declares the church to be His bride and the purpose of it in the Book of Ephesians.
The apostle in letter to the church at Colossae points out that Christ is head of his body the church. So, you have another term associated with and related to the church.
God’s intent is that through the church His manifold wisdom would be made known to all.
Today, the term church is mostly used in connection with a building and a place. It is more often a tourist point than what it is meant to be.
It is time to take stock of, analyze and recover our identity.
Life is full of second chances, when things come around a second time, giving an opportunity to change, rectify, reconcile and restore.
Nature itself is full of them, since day gives way to night and night to day. Each year and each season comes around, refreshing the earth and setting things in order.
Every year, month and day is a time to make good what we didn’t do earlier or were not given a chance to do so.
Every birthday, wedding anniversary, and death day is a time to celebrate, remember and be thankful for people, circumstances and opportunities. Work anniversaries and special dates help us mark time and look back, often with a sigh of relief that we have come thus far.
Sadly, many are not quick to grasp second chances and thus lose out on time to make good the lost.
It is important to not miss on second chances but be alert to them.
Second Chances provide new beginnings and give rest to the past, enabling closure of gone by events,
After the glory of summer, Autumn brings with it the beauty of fall when leaves change color, a last hurrah of vividness before the monochromeness of winter.
This vision soon gives way to the bane of the season – falling leaves, a characteristic that gives its unique name. Allowed to rot away on paths, patios and decked areas, leaf matter can become unsightly – and potentially a slippery hazard.
Having to sweep the yard is often a tedious but necessary task for gardeners and home owners.
Patheos.com is the premier online destination to engage in the global dialogue about religion and spirituality, and to explore and experience the world’s beliefs.
Patheos is the website of choice for the millions of people looking for credible and balanced information about religion.
Patheos brings together faith communities, academics, and the broader public into a single environment, and is the place where many people turn on a regular basis for insight, inspiration, and stimulating discussion.
I have begun a column in Patheos and my first article is about a common feature in Autumn – leaf fall!
MULLINGSPICE 