Motivational Destiny

It was getting dark and the street signs were becoming more difficult to see. We no longer had any idea if we were closer or driving further away from our destination. Randoll Mill Rd. was supposed to be right there. But it wasn't. Where did it go?

We were not where we were supposed to be.

The workshop started 30 minutes ago, but Cindy McKinney and I finally arrived at our motivational destination. Missing street sign. Go figure.  "Finding the Creative Writing Genius Inside You" was turning out to be more than a motivational workshop! I have to confess, I was still a little giddy. It's been a while since I was a student, much less a writing student. Cindy and I were pumped on adrenaline and caffeine. Find that creative writer and unleash her. Let's go!

We arrived just in time for the good stuff. Yay!

It was good to be reminded of all those writing lessons long ago. Word clusters, web writing and word associations. Get the creative juices going and just put pen to paper. Don't worry about editing. Just let it flow.

I realized. Somewhere along the road to being a grown up, I had forgotten how to play along the way. I opted, instead, for safety. Safer to walk on the sidewalk than to risk driving into a ditch. Safety.

The instructor pops child development author Joseph Chilton Pearce's quote onto the wall: "To live the creative life, we must lose our fear of being wrong."

The fear of being wrong? That hurt.

I know that fear all too well. That fear has kept me safe, but uneffective. Safe, but unused. Safe, yet withering.

That's it. It's time to be a little reckless. It's time to use the good dishes. Time to make the difficult meals for my family, rather than just for company. Time to step up. It's time to risk denting the convertible and go somewhere. Take it out of the driveway.  Drive it to the store. Drive it on a curvy road with the top down just to enjoy the thrill of the wind on my face and the smell of freshly cut hay.

But aren't you supposed to be writing? Oh yeah.

We were late to the workshop because we had taken a wrong turn. Not the driver's fault. One missing sign meant we couldn't find the right road. We would have never arrived there if we hadn't stopped to get directions. We were wrong a lot that night!

In spite of wrong turns, it was still fun having someone to talk to while we were lost. Cindy and I chatted like junior high school girls at a slumber party.

That's it. I discovered the secret to being wrong. Be sure to have a friend. It makes the ride more enjoyable, even when you are lost and late.

Earth Angel Heart Still Flying High

18 Valentine’s Days ago, I woke up to rain, but I was looking forward to the day of hearts and roses. It was my first Valentine’s Day with my boyfriend, Jon. I wondered what kind of flowers he would send, or where he’d take me for dinner.

The morning passed rather uneventfully. No call. No flowers. No date for lunch.

Harumph. All the other girls' desks are loaded with flowers, candy, cards, stuffed bears, tons of tokens of love from their sweeties.

Late in the afternoon, Jon shows up in my secure access area of work, but without flowers. I’m more than a little peeved -- (I still don't see any love tokens declaring his love for me!), but now I’m fretting about losing my job because he has somehow bypassed the acess card reader. Now he’s joking with my boss about letting me take the rest of the day off! Lo and behold, my stern, by the book, boss, says, “Sure.” But first, I’ll have to wear a blindfold.

Jon leads me out of the office building, and seats me in the car. The rain had stopped earlier in the day and the sun was out, I could feel the warmth on my face. After driving around for what seemed like forever, he finally came to a stop. We were at an ultralight air strip. We had discussed learning to fly these things, but now here I was for the moment of truth.

Well, okay. I can forgive him for not getting me flowers, but have you ever really seen an ultralight? It’s like a lawn chair tied to a kite with a box fan in the back. Seriously. You want me to go up in that, first?

The pilot, who looks a lot like Stephen King and adds an additional reason not to go up, takes me through learning the gauges. Jon did his homework. He knew this was going to be a little more difficult, so he convinced my co-worker Dana to drop hints and tell me how much fun ultralight aircrafts were!

Only room for two, so Jon sends me up first. Don’t forget these head phones, he adds. It’s noisy up there, he says, so here are the instructions in case you can’t hear the pilot. Okay, I think. This is getting exciting.

Stephen King takes me through the gauges and I halfway learn what they are used for. But the sun is getting low in the sky and we need to hustle. Within minutes we are soaring in the sky and it is absolutely gorgeous. It’s like flying. Wind is whipping your face, and oh, I can’t hear the pilot. I can’t hear the instructions in the earphones either. Oh, well. I’ll just enjoy the ride.

The sun starts setting in the west and a beautiful orange hue splays over the fields below. I see something on the ground and my first thought is how did that guy get so much shaving cream in the field. Oh, it spells something. Wait, it’s Jon. The message reads, “Marry Me!” and Jon is holding a large red heart as the bottom of the exclamation point. I love Valentine’s Day! All the pink and red hearts all day long now are quickly becoming a thing of the past. I no longer cared about flowers or candy or anything else. This was perfect.

Stephen King holds out two bandanas. A red one and green one. It’s Valentine’s Day and the red one is fitting for such a wonderful day! I make my selection and wave it proudly to Jon below as we make a low flying pass. In a moment Stephen yells at me and asks me if I’m really gonna say no. I’m confused. Why does he think I’m gonna say no?

He yanks the red bandana out of my hand and stuffs the green one in. “Oh,” I said. I guess it does make more sense that red means no and green means go! I drop the green one and it spirals down to the ground.
After we land, Jon is on bended knee with his grandmother’s wedding rings in hand and asks me to marry him. My heart melts and I gladly say yes.

Then the pilot says, “I’m glad you didn’t drop that red bandana.”

“Why,” I asked, wondering why he was so concerned.

“I didn’t tie a rock in it. I didn’t expect that you’d say no. If you had dropped it, it would have drifted into the propeller and we probably would have crashed.”

Hmmmmmmmmm. God was watching over me in more ways than one!

I didn’t get to hear the actual proposal in the air due to the loud propeller noise, but I did get to hear it when we landed on the ground. The headphones were plugged into a tape recorder with “Earth Angel” playing and followed by the sweetest proposal from Jon.

I’ve since forgotten what the gauges were and am grateful he didn’t really make me learn to fly an ultralight afterall! He still doesn’t do flowers or traditional expectations, and I’ve learned that it is perfectly all right!
Valentine’s Days ever since that one in 1992 always make my heart beat a little faster. And even though Jon is in Afghanistan this year, our hearts are still flying high. I had no idea that 18 years later, we’d still be having this much fun. We love doing the same things and we enjoy discovering new things together. So much to look forward to.

xoxoxo

It's a Tankless Job . . .

It’s been a couple of weeks since I purchased my Rheem tankless water heater and I anxiously await the arrival of my friend to install it.

Last Saturday brought the threat of Texas ice and cold, so the install was postponed a week. Nonetheless, I had the burgers and a couple of bottles of Guinness Extra Stout ready just in case. And a case of Dr Pepper.

Dan Stilson served in Haiti for Operation Uphold Democracy in the mid 1990s with my husband Jon. They both lived and breathed the 245th Airborne Psychological Operations missions and methods for the US Army. We have shared burgers, buzz cuts and boy stories about his twins and our own son over the years. In addition to being a soldier, Dan is also trained as a heating and cooling tech, so I was thrilled when Dan offered to intall the water heater for me while Jon is now supporting Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.

It is awesome to have friends when your husband is afar, but it is even more awesome to have talented friends willing to help! Dan is not the only one who’s stepped up, but right now he’s the one who’s in the spotlight!

Dan is helping a couple of guys get started in home repair. Due to a back injury, he wasn’t excited about crawling around on the roof of my house to vent the tank, so he enlisted Eloy to come with him. He was also figuring out the tankless water heater install because he had not installed one before. Would have taken them a scant couple of hours to install the storage tank type he’s used to, but the tankless ones, well, this is new territory for all of us.

Dan was concerned that I needed to vent this thing, but I wanted to install the outdoor model in the garage, which doesn’t require venting. After a little research, Dan finally discovered that the efficiency on these tankless heaters is 92 percent. They burn so efficient that they can be installed in a basement without a vent. So a garage should be okay too.

I was ecstatic and returned to Home Depot and exchanged it for the outdoor model. Oh, did I mention I was installing it on the other side of the water heater closet, putting the unit in the garage? The unit is the size of an electric panel and that means, I get an entirely huge closet! This is perhaps the biggest motivator for me to get the tankless! Okay, I admit that I have some shallow moments, and sometimes they are daily and sometimes they are very close to the surface, but gaining a closet without having to move a wall is monumental!

A couple of other motivators for going tankless are the 30% tax refund for 2010, 30% energy cost savings here on out, some level of savings from our local electric and gas utilities (I have heard rumors, but will need to call and find out what the actual savings are), and of course, endless hot water!

Because there is no tank, the unit provides hot water only when it is demanded. At 6.6 gallons a minute, that is awesome. It is also rated to handle 2 to 3 appliances/baths at a time! Small additional fact is that it also pulls only 2 amps, so I was thinking if Dan hadn’t offered to put this thing in, I could have done it myself (I am pretty handy around tools and stuff too!). It looked kinda easy on the box and I could carry the thing without any help!

The crew was going to arrive around lunchtime so I made burgers and homemade french fries. We drank some of the Dr Peppers and saved the beer for celebrating afterward (except for Ron who's brew of choice remains Dr Pepper).

Well, I’m very glad Dan and Eloy installed it for me. I really don’t think I could have done it, especially the gas line. Dan read every instruction and made sure the correct parts were available. Eloy did an amazing job of re-routing the gas and water plumbing. He was very conscientious about making it aesthetically pleasing and covered any gaping holes in the drywall (like the one left by the old vent stack into the top of the closet and the existing huge gapping ones around the water pipes. Eloy’s business is called “Honey Do’s” out of Ft. Worth, www.honeydosfw.com or call 817-615-0729. I definitely recommend him.

In fact, the unit looks so nice on the garage wall, I think I need to paint the garage now to make it look right!

In addition to the help from Dan and Eloy, I enlisted the help of Greenville native, Ron Shultz, a 6’6” friend and wannabe taunter! He was curious why I kept referring to it as a water heater. “You know, most people call it a . . . “ he said. “I know. They call it a hot water heater,” I replied. My high school buddy, Mark Palmer already outted me on Facebook and asked me if I planned to heat hot water! Thanks, Mark. :)  It did save me some argument time with Ron! He’ll have to wait to get me on something else, though. They both verbally keeps me on my toes.

But Ron was invaluable for the remodel. He got the task of hauling the humongous old heater out. With a bear hug and a couple of steps, he wrestled it out the back door and down the 4-inch step into the garage. A borrowed two-wheel hand truck made the haul to the curb much easier. It also made it easier to read the manufacturer’s date. The old heater revealed it was made in February 1980. If the unit was purchased within a year of that date, that means it worked in this house for 29 years, nearly double the expected life span of most heaters.

Dumping the remainder of the water of the calcified innards of the behemoth took several more gallons. No wonder it was gasping for air. I am totally surprised this thing did not already overflow or explode.

Dan and Eloy had already hit the road back to Ft. Worth, when I realized we had not taken time to celebrate. I'm holding the Guinness Extra Stout hostage and Dan will just have to come back and visit when Jon returns so we can all catch up without any kind of work involved.

I guess I really hadn’t realized how tepid our water had become. My first shower was heavenly. The shower was as hot at the end of the shower as it was at the beginning and I didn’t have to turn the cold water down at all in order to keep getting hot water!!! I think whatever we save in gas energy, may go to extended water usage due to long showers!!!!

I love my new tankless water heater so far. Does anyone else have one they love or hate?

Clipped by Coupons

My first foray into the coupon savings world was, ah, well, er, -- interesting.

I was dying to leave the small town pickings in Greenville and go to the Metroplex, sure to get a deal and better access to cool “big city” goods, right? Just 25 miles down the road to Rockwall. Heck. If I save 60% on groceries, the $8 in gas, should be well spent.

I chose Kroger because I called ahead and found that every day was triple or double coupon day! Wow. I called every Brookshire in a 50 mile radius, but nooooooooo, they do not double or triple coupons. I should make my gas money back with the double and triple coupon savings alone.

The coupons are triple up to 35 cents and double up to 50 cents. Not bad. That translates into $1.05 or $1. “So long” Brookshires in Greenville, “Hello” Kroger in Rockwall! I even signed up for free to get my Kroger card for additional savings. Yay, me.

But wait, there’s more. Target had my Tide laundry detergent on sale for $17.99 (reg. 21.99 I noticed while I was there). Even better and I’m combining the trip so I’m beaming, because I have now made the trip totally worth the drive.

After clipping my coupons while watching Martha Stewart at lunch, I feel pretty stoked about multi-tasking and I’m certainly not wasting my time watching TV! I’m physically cutting coupons (saving money), eating at home (saving money) and mentally standing next to Martha planting that rhodendrum or cooking with guest chef Emeril and cataloging all the handmade Christmas presents I’m gonna make next year (saving even more money!). That’s a ton of savings going on in one hour!

I studied this coupon stuff ahead of time and learned that planning the menu helps make you buy what you need and keeps you on track. I took stock of what I had on hand already and made “The List” for items I still needed to complete the menus.

With The List in hand and the coupons in my purse, I head to Rockwall, set to buy $150 worth of groceries for $80. I knew I wasn’t as seasoned as the legendary Coupon Mom Stephanie Nelson who could buy $150 worth of groceries for less than $45, so I was prepared to not do as well. I’ll improve as I get this down. But I was prepared for mild coupon savings extravaganza.

Arrival at Kroger was like the first time I walked into the Redwood Forest or New York City. My jaw dropped and I just stood there slowly turning around taking in the tall trees/building/shelves. Anyone caring to notice, would have thought I was a hick and had never been to the city before. Kroger actually had a Sushi section. I’m in heaven. I stroked the edge of the bar to make sure it was real and wiped the drool from the corner of my mouth. Then I spotted the olive bar! Oh, dear. I read every name of all 10 olive selections. I’ll never get out of here in one piece. Yum.

Don’t get me wrong. I get out plenty. But when I was employed, grocery shopping was the worst chore I had. I did not want to spend one more minute in there than absolutely necessary. I was working, so cost was not necessarily a priority. Get what you need, get out. That was my motto. Besides, we usually ate out. I certainly didn’t drive to the swanky grocery stores 25 miles away!

Kroger had about 6 aisles dedicated to wine. Wow, an actual selection. I hyperventilated over some of the labels (I love the designs and typography and sometimes the cleverness of the names). Hence, the reason I bought a merlot named “Mad Housewife.” I even loved the picture on the front of the bottle. A retro looking woman in her late 20s, maybe early 30s. She was classed up and sophisticated with bakelite and faux bead bracelets, a pink frock and pearls. (I love pearls, but that’s another story.) It was humorous, clever, and the teaser on the back was amusing. Besides, it was merlot. What’s not to like? I don’t care for light, fruity wines, but this “Mad Housewife” was literally speaking to me -- and it was just $6.

Now it was time to buckle down and get serious about what was on The List. I spent about 4 hours perusing the aisles and inspecting all the cool stuff. I began to notice that I usually had to buy two or three items to get the coupon discount. Okay, I’ll have enough for two weeks instead of one I reasoned. I ended up deciding against some of my coupon purchases because the coupons would still be good for the next shopping trip and I won’t need them right away. Good thinking on my part. Less cost, less space for the stashed items.

I’m at the checkout lane and it’s my turn to go through the register. I’m excited and I can’t wait to see how well I’ve done.

I had the exact coupons in hand for the items I was purchasing. Now keep in mind, I wasn’t only buying items that had coupons, but I was buying what was needed to fulfill the menu items and utilizing some of the items that had coupons. I still needed things like milk and chicken, but didn’t have a coupon for those. Stephanie Nelson did it, but somehow I failed to find those at this point!

Total of the groceries was $189.51. Well, okay. I got some stuff I didn’t need and weren’t on the list, like the wine. But here come the coupons. Drumroll, please. I saved a total of $7.79, hardly the incredible savings I was looking for. And if you take into account, the fact that I had to drive 25 miles one way to get there, well, it takes me back to about even.. Well, I noticed that the Kroger card saved me some on the actual purchase of items without the coupons, so surely that made up for it. Oh, and the $4 I saved on the Tide will help. I’ll have to figure this out when I get home.

The drive home was not the victory dance I had hoped. Something went wrong, terribly wrong.

Here’s a few lessons I learned from this initial shopping experience. I’m sure I will learn more and get better at it as I get the process down:

1. You’ve got to learn and know the prices of items you buy regularly. I had never paid attention to the cost of items much before now. Take the Tide for instance. I thought because it was $21.99 at Target (in Rockwall), that the $17.99 was a great deal. I save $4. Reality is, I check my local Walmart and the same size of Tide was regularly $17.49. I would have saved money shopping in Greenville and didn’t have to drive 25 miles to do it. Keep a price list. I have started mine in a spreadsheet so I would have really known that Tide for $17.99 was not such a deal. It wouldn’t have been so bad, but I still had a full bottle at home already. I am tripping over the new bottle now! I’d like to know if there is a better way to keep this info updated and handy while shopping. Have you discovered a good price list strategy?

2. Know if you have coupons that qualify for double or triple savings. I realized, after going through this exercise, that I only had one coupon that qualified for the double savings. All the other coupons were 55 cents or higher and didn’t qualify to be doubled or tripled. I could have gotten that same deal locally at Brookshires or Walmart!

3. Get what is on The List and stick to The List! The $6 wine was cute and funny. But it tasted terrible. I ended up with a $6 decoration (if I decide to keep it).

4. Don’t shop hungry. Everything looked so good. While I was able to refuse the sushi and olive bar, it was very difficult and I think it led to several other items purchased that weren’t necessarily on The List or needed.

5. Organize your coupons. I’ve got to find a way to keep from sorting, resorting and dropping coupons while I’m shopping. As I get more, it will get more cumbersome as expiration dates come into play. I haven’t figured this out yet, so if you have any ideas, I certainly welcome them.

6. Find a place to store the extra surplus. When you get a good deal, get lots of it. The one thing that was a good deal was 4 tubes of Crest for $5. I probably should have gotten more than the one set, but I was wondering where it was going to go before we used it all. I am open for creative options here. I already feel as if we are stuffed to the gills as it is. Where would you store 20 extra cans of soup, laundry detergent or toothpaste?

7. It’s definitely okay to clip the coupons while watching Martha Stewart or other TV show, just be sure to find out what they really are worth before you add them to The List or drive 25 miles to use them!

The good news about my shopping trip is that we are still stocked and I haven’t had to go to the grocery store in over a week! We did eat once. So the eating out habit is improving. It also looks like since I am only 1 day away from the 2-week mark since I went to the grocery store, the $189 of groceries will hold us up well for 2 weeks. We ate well and very little has gone to spoilage. I am very pleased with that!

Running Dry

A story I heard tonight has stuck in my crawl and I can’t seem to shake it out. It’s a story about one of the most tragic fires in this country and it took place in the town of Itasca, Texas, just before World War II. The tragic fire took the lives of 263 children in an unsprinklered school. Scarcely a family in town was not touched by this horrifying tragedy. The town went a number of years without school facilities, but as it began to grow and expand, a new school was built with a brand new sprinkler system, the best money could buy. Civic pride ran high. Honor students were selected to guide citizens and visitors on tours of the new facilities to show them the finest, the most advanced sprinkler system technology could supply. Never again would Itasca be visited by such a tragedy. Years later, as the town continued to grow, it was eventually necessary to enlarge the school -- and in adding a new wing, it was discovered that the wonderful and advanced sprinkler system the town had installed all those years ago to prevent another tragedy would have never worked had it been called upon. It had never been connected to the city’s water supply!

My heart immediately went out to all those families touched by the devastation and then quickly to all the rest who thought they were under the grand guise of safety with all those gleaming sprinkler heads poking through the ceilings of the classrooms. I imagined how the administrators and school board felt when they found out they had raised all that money, hired all the right people, planned and plotted and built what looked like a very fine place for their children to learn, only to discover that the very thing that would save them when fire came, had absolutely no way of getting to them. Even if the alarms were pulled properly, even if the fire department was called, there would be no water to drench the flames out.

So many times I find myself going through the routine of Sunday worship, small group and fellowship and all those other “proper” things Christians do, except many times, I forget to complete the connection to the main source. I forget to really connect with God and go one-on-one with Him to draw deeper from His power, His guidance and His friendship. Wow. I can do all the “right” things and allow myself to “run dry” when I need a good quenching!

My grandfather, C.W. Cox, was the music leader for a tiny little church at South Sulphur, just outside of Commerce, Texas, and loved the song “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” And even though he is long since gone, he still ministers to me through this song.

What a friend we have in Jesus

All our sins and griefs to bear!

What a privilege to carry

Everything to God in prayer!

Oh, what peace we often forfeit,

Oh, what needless pain we bear,

All because we do not carry

Everything to God in prayer!

Fortunately, I don’t need an engineer or team of city employees to hook me up. I don’t have to wait for the correct type of fitting or bolt to be ordered or applied. Most importantly, I don’t have to wait until I get everything right. I don’t have to wait until the dishes are washed, the laundry done, all the errands run. I have direct access to God via prayer now. I can connect directly to the main source now. I can do it now, in my jeans or my jammies. I don’t have to wait until I get the right outfit, or all my ducks in a row (and that’s a good thing in my case!). I don’t have to wait until I lose 10 pounds. I can do it now and I can do it often. Friends are better when they are frequently encountered. They get to know you better and you get to know them. What a friend I have in Jesus.

2 Corinthians 4-12

7But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us. 8We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; 9persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed. 10We always carry around in our body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be revealed in our body. 11For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may be revealed in our mortal body. 12So then, death is at work in us, but life is at work in you.

Coupon Klutz to Coupon Queen?

Since I quit my job, I have figured out that one thing I have the most opportunity to affect in terms of our budget is the weekly grocery bill. Every stay-at-home mom, housewife, ex-professional turned domestic diva and thrifty shopper swears by coupon clipping. I watched a video and news clips where Stephanie Nelson, a.k.a., the Coupon Mom saves 70% to 80% on her grocery bill by clipping coupons. Stephanie is a former businesswoman who needed to put her spreadsheet skills to work while she went home to take care of her family.

I liked the way she worked, so I will put my limited skills to the test tomorrow. I have made my menu (part of the success) for the next week, clipped my coupons and plotted my route. It may take me all day, but I'm gonna see if I can at least save something! Since we ate out so much while I was working, my first goal is to see if I can cut the previous budget in half right out of the gate!

Loosing Control

I knew I had to get back into an exercise routine when I decided to leave the workforce. I wish I could say it was because I value the discipline of it or something notable and noble. But, sadly, it’s because my middle age spread is quickly gaining ground! If I plan to live another 50 years, I better get this body back in shape for the ride, or at least keep it up and running.

I muddle through deciding what to wear, what to do and how long I should do it. I finally arrive at the gym ready to go. One of the decisions I make for this new beginning is to get back into my Tony Robbins “Get the Edge” and “Personal Power” CDs. Tony will help me overcome any fears I have concerning leaving my regular paycheck and dealing with the uncertainties that lie ahead.

I fumble through the buttons and answer all the questions on the treadmill.

Speed? Dunno, 3.5, I guess.

Incline? Sure. 6 sounds like a good round number. Not too little, not too much.

Age? Now, hold on a minute. When did these machines start needing that? Okay. I’ll play. 48. (Yes, that’s my real age!)

Weight? No way! This has gone too far. I’m not opposed to entering my real age, but my real weight is something all together, well, um . . . sacred. I look around to see if anyone is watching (I truly doubt anyone is really interested, but I look anyway just to make sure). I’m not brave enough to post it here either. Just suffice it to say that I entered the correct amount! Really.

I begin warming up the conveyor belt and I listen to Tony’s voice encouraging me to get going, telling me that “All I need is within me now!” All the faith, certainty, love, joy, passion and happiness are within me NOW! But there is one phrase that suddenly strikes me as profound. “What’s wrong is always available . . . and so is what’s right.”

Tony has told me this over an over before, but today I stop in my tracks right then and there on the treadmill and let it sink in. “What’s wrong is always available . . . and so is what’s right.”

Hmmmmmmm. I have focused on what’s wrong for so long, would I recognize what is right if I saw it? Am I doing the right thing by going home? Am I really going home to write? Am I really going home to take care of my family? Am I really going to be okay with that?

I struggle with the concept of everything being within me and wonder if I have made the right decision to quit work. Why do I re-visit this decision so often? I know the answer. I am where I am supposed to be. Yet, my mind questions this decision without hesitation and thoughts quickly try to undermine and undo everything I've accomplished so far.

Accomplishments. I’ve come to realize that there are no accomplishments I have achieved on my own. I didn’t do any of it by myself (no matter how much of the 60s and 70s women’s lib brainwashing I succumbed to in my youth – Let the old Enjoli commercial play in the background here – “I can bring home the bacon, . . .  fry it up in a pan, . . . and never, never, never let you forget you're a man! 'Cause I'm a woman! . . . ).

God has been right there all along -- lifting me up, holding my hand and many times literally holding me up and holding me together, in spite of myself and in spite of decisions I have made along the way.

So many times, though, I see God as this external, unreachable force and He’s there only to help me out when I’m in a jam. Kinda like the “God is my co-pilot” story. I read a bumper sticker somewhere or heard it in Sunday School as a kid, that went something like: “God is my co-pilot.” I thought it was a pretty clever concept, but later I learned that putting God in the co-pilot's seat is dangerous business.

If I consider God as my co-pilot, that means I am in control and God is there to “fill in” or to take the wheel when I’m not available. I have considered God my co-pilot most of my life. I’ve put Him in a position to approve my decisions, and of course, to rescue me when I take the wrong turn, or when I land in the ditch or run out of gas.

I am all-too-familiar with sitting in the passenger seat right now while my 15-year-old son is learning to drive. I know first hand now, that the co-pilot seat doesn’t allow me much control or ability to affect much on the driver! My son is in control of that vehicle – for better or worse – and many times I am terrified as he comes close to the edge of the road or doesn’t slow down for the curve coming up. My life flashes before me 3 times before we even get a mile down the road!

But why is so hard for me to allow God to drive? I’ve only been practicing being the co-pilot for about 10 years. (I know, you’ve done the math: I’m 48, I grew up knowing who God is from the time I was practically born and I’ve only been trying to let God drive for 10 years!) I’m a hard-headed East Texas girl and I’ve always thought that God could do amazing things with me if I’d just get out of the way. Somehow I keep mucking up His plans, yet He keeps trying! I still don’t always get out of the way these days, but I recognize my need for control and try to give it up sooner, at least!

Nonetheless, I am working on turning loose of control and l have been letting God drive since 1999, a time when my faith brought me to a place where I would serve Him out of joy, rather than duty. So that brings me to my dilemma. If God is driving, how do I reconcile “All that I need is within me?” I’m working on letting go of the control and let God drive. “All that I need is within me” sounds like taking control back and sitting in the driver’s seat again.

I have to search, but find where John tells us in 1 John 3:34b that the Holy Spirit dwells within us. “And by this we know that He [Christ] abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.” (NKJV).

Oh yeah. God dwells within me, not somewhere up in heaven trillions of miles away as I mentally imagine Him. Not some place far away that takes time to transcend time and space, but within. Within reach. Within me.

As a believer, God is within me, and provides all the love I need now! All the faith, certainty, joy, passion and happiness, is right there, waiting. Not because of me, but because of Him and who He is. And not just for someone else. Not for someone who might be better. Not for me when I get it together. Not when I make enough money. Not when I get my house all together. Now. Right here as I stand here in sweats, struggling to put that middle age spread farther behind me. Right here as I try to remain calm in the passenger seat of life and with a 15-year-old learning to drive. Right here as I approach 50 at the speed of light. Right here as I begin making my home my dwelling for my family. Now.