Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Just Do Something


I didn’t get up and run. I didn’t get the meal plans with calorie counts laid out. I haven’t worked on my blog, paintings or book in the last few days. I had no art plans for the kids. With hands on the steering wheel and eyes on the road, distracting and discouraging thoughts plague my mind. The drive ahead looked bleak and full of more self criticizing stabs.

“This is not how you roll,” a gentle and surprising whisper swept through my soul. This was lazy, full of excuses. It was not me. Not the dust off, get up and go girl who is BLESSED! Now, what can I do? Surely I can do something!? I need a transformation of thoughts....

Romans 12:1-2 says “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Looking down at my water bottle in the cup holder, I knew it. I could drink more water. Not earth changing, but a start. It’s good for me. It is moving in the right direction. Glug, glug, glug. There! I did SOMETHING. It was like holy water, filling me up with a renewed sense of hope. No, there was nothing magical or spiritual about my plastic water bottle. But there is something amazing about our God and how He can even work through a drinking straw. The cycle was broken. The self-defeating cycle of not good enough, not getting enough done, not enough progress was broken. Why? Because I did something. Through a divinely inspired desire for something more. Not something amazing. Just something. Something putting me on the right path and turning in the right direction. What something can you do today? Pick up the paint brush? Write down blood glucose levels? Make the phone call? Lace up the running shoes? Open the Bible? The pattern has to be broken before it can be changed. Today, I will continue to drink more water. And lace up those running shoes too.

To live an artful, abundant life takes a proactive attitude. Artful life is meaningful life and it is worth the effort to be proactive. Make something more beautiful by rearranging; mantle décor, pictures on the wall, or flowers in a vase. Recover the cushion, or move your most precious piece in the curio cabinet to a new place of prominence, where it can be admired! Need to clean, but feel overwhelmed? Just do something…a drawer, a pocketbook, a counter. Intend on doing art with kiddos, but feel intimidated? Grab some paper going in the recycle, scissors and glue and make a mixed media collage on a paper plate. It doesn’t need to be a giant, multi-step lesson with extensive objectives. It just needs to be.