Yesterday afternoon I was purging our office files that I’m pretty sure based on the things I found have been purged very little if any in decades. I found baby dedication letters from 1994, pictures of people who’s smiles brought back fond memories, and form after form that has been updated hundreds of times. 

The temptation was to still keep some of this stuff as it was serious history of our amazing church. Instead, I enjoyed each artifact and then chunked until my arm was almost sore filling up yet another big black garbage bag…..

…..until I ran across this small message note 📝 in my Mom’s handwriting that stopped me in my tracks. Most of my readers know that Mom went to heaven a year and a half ago now. Still seems like 3 months ago maybe. She fought strong and hard with the ugly C word I hate to even mention. It was the lung version and it was aweful. She was so beautiful and such an inspiration singing “Its Your breath in my lungs so I pour out my Praise to You only…” over and over fighting the good fight of faith to the very bitter end. She let us know that she had dreamt of going to be with Her Heavenly Father her whole life. She told me of a story of how she used to ask her Grandmother questions about heaven as a young girl to the point that it’s almost all she wanted to talk about with her. She was completely convinced it was a Win-Win for her and that she would miss us but she had such a real understanding of just how soon she would see us all again. While some may have seen her battle as a faith failure to lose her, I knew she was good if she was healed completely to enjoy another “minute or two” with us from hers and God’s perspectives or to go on home.  I remember as a teenager, walking down into the living room seeing Mom always in the same spot Bible open, sometimes hands raised and singing to The Lord and crying out to Him about her needs and worshipping Him in such an intimate way. Other loved ones and I who like to call ourselves “realists” always felt that Mom was so optimistic that she sort of “lived in the clouds” so to speak but then not really because there was also such a wisdom in her about things at the same time. One thing we agree on is that she was always a bit of a mystery. I think the mystery of how things that are important to everyone else was never important to Mom and so many other things about her is at least in part solved as I ran across this note yesterday. Just a random note – nothing else on it – as if it was from her to me in this very season of my life. It said this. Hold loosley all things that are not eternal.  

She lived this way. God help us to live this way. This could be the biggest clue I have found in my research for my next book called Love ANYWAY.

Ask yourself these questions:

1- Does what you are squabbling over matter? Hold loosely the squabble but hold tightly the person you are squabbling with for they are eternal. People are eternal. Stuff is not. Positions are not. Custody is not. We are hard wired for connection with people – not stuff, or most of the things we battle over.  

2- Does what you are spending your every waking hour musing over and striving for really matter? Challenge what your goals even are and think for a minute – Are they eternal? If not hold them loosely. Certainly don’t stress over them and miss out on the people around you that you love in the pursuit of them. Those people around you are eternal. Instead I pray we all begin to go after eternal goals with people. 

Wow, perspective is everything and when we hold things that are not eternal loosely, stress falls off, love fills our hearts and we are empowered from on High to love ANYWAY no matter what the gory details are of our situations that don’t really even matter.  

Happy Monday!  

G = ❤️ = 😊 

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Register now for Happy Girl 18 — peruse through some past blogs if you need to or shop at the store a minute and register for Happy Girl 18 at happyanyway.org —- Also if you would like to have me come and speak to your office, a school assembly, a Bible study, or a conference I am honored to spread the happy and share the love any chance I get! Just email me at hello@happyanyway.org or call my assistant Juli at 251-471-2914 ext 706.