The Eternal Prize

I know, I know. I said I was taking a break til next Saturday. But I guess the over-achiever-talks-to-much-excited-little-girl me just couldn't do it. 

Last week I went to the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writer's Conference. The name in itself is quite a mouthful to say, but it fits the conference well. For one thing, it's on a mountain. And believe me, we were all climbing a mountain all week. Physically. Mentally. Emotionally. From the moment we checked in, there was one pace—the speed of light.

And I have to share my excitement with you. Awards night is the last night of the conference and my blog won second place! And to think, a year ago I didn't even know what blog was. Little by little, I've learned so much over the last year. One small step at a time. 

When I came home from the conference Thursday, full speed ahead was still the pace because Miranda graduated from high school at 5:30. First of all, how am I possibly that old???? Second of all, yay Miranda! I am such a proud mama! She didn't graduate Magna Cum Laude, or even Cum Laude—David says it's more like Thank Ya Laude—but if you know Miranda, you know what will make her succeed in life. She has personality on steroids, and she loves the Lord. Grades? Not so much. She is all about people. God made her exactly who she is and I wouldn't trade a 4.0 for any of it. So what if the titles of "biggest flirt" and "fastest text in school" don't have the colleges knocking down our door. God has a plan for her. 

If you read the prescription verse, you're probably wondering what it has to do with anything I've written so far. After my full week (including my stomach) I decided to go for a run this morning. If you read my blog regularly or keep up with me on Facebook, you know I started running in November of last year. It's a slow and steady kind of sport. To get the best results, you must eat right, stay hydrated, and run regularly. About a month ago I ran nine miles! Yet today, I struggled to hit two. The busyness of everyday life, a stone bruise on my heel, and the writer's conference last week has kept me from having a disciplined running schedule. Today, as I struggled to hit two miles, I was reaping the results of this last month. My goal is to run a 1/2 marathon someday. I really want that "13.1" sticker on the back of my car. It's a great goal, but truthfully, I don't know if I'll ever make it or not. And that's okay. 

As I ran this morning, though, the verse I used for today's prescription verse kept coming to mind. That "13.1" sticker would be really cool to have on my car, but just as everything else on this earth, it will someday disappear. What does not disappear, however, is eternity. It is in our future no matter what. It won't be okay if we don't meet our goal there. How and where we spend eternity depends on what we do here to prepare for it. We need to have a disciplined running schedule. 

Earthly goals are great to have, but the eternal goals are the ones that matter. 

How are you preparing every day for your eternal prize? 

From my heart,

Celeste

A Little Time for Learning and Celebrating

Okay my friends; I'm taking the advice of Matthew here...

I leave for the Blue Ridge Mountain Christian Writer's Conference on Sunday. When I went last year, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. This year, I'm a little more prepared on what to expect, but I have my work cut out for me! 

This last year of blogging and writing has been a year of learning. I feel a little like I've gone back to college! Now if you know me, you know I can be impatient, and I know this is all on God's time, but I really hope God thinks it's time for me to take this writing thing to the next level! Like with an agent? Publisher? Contract? I'm thinking big, I know. But God does big things...when the time is right. 

So with that being said, I'm taking the next two weeks to soak in all I can learn at the writing conference so that I can produce exactly the product that God has purposed for me. 

As soon as I return from the conference (literally that same day), Miranda graduates from high school. So we shall be celebrating her walk across that stage! (If you only knew how glad we are she is getting to walk across that stage...)  Wow, I'm getting old! 

Anyway, I will be back with you on June 2nd with more {tips to a happier you} and {make a change Mondays} and whatever else comes to mind in between. 

Hope everyone has a great few weeks as we end this school year and begin summer! 

{Talk} to you soon! (((Hugs)))

From my heart, 

Celeste

Make-a-Change Monday~A Time for Bubbles

Well, if you read my post on Saturday, you know I stayed off the computer for the weekend so not too much thought went into the {make-a-change} for today. 

I will share with you what I did instead of writing a post for today, which might just be a {make-a-change} we all need to make sometimes ;)

 

Who say's you can't put bubbles in a Jacuzzi?!? 

Hope you had a wonderful mother's day! 

From my heart, 

Celeste

Tips to a Happier You in 2012~Have a Happy Mother's Day!

To all of you who are mothers, Happy Mother's Day! To all of you who are not biological mothers, you have the opportunity to be a mother to someone. All it takes is love...unconditional love.

Every child has a love language, and all three of my children get their love tanks filled with my undivided time and attention. So this mother's day, whether you are a child spending time with your mother, or a mother spending time with your child(ren), or just spending time with someone you love, my {tip to a happier you} for mother's day is to fill someone's love tank.

I'm filling my kid's (and hubby's) love tank this weekend by putting away my computer. It may seem like a vacation for me, but trust me, it's a sacrifice...especially with a writer's conference coming up next week.

So fill someone's love tank this weekend. Remember, doing something for someone else helps you take the focus off of yourself, and altruism actually has been proven to increase those good hormones in your brain to make you happy!

From my heart, 

Celeste

Make-a-change Monday~It only takes twenty seconds...

Make-a-change Mondays is all about making small changes to become the person I want to be...or more importantly, the person God wants me to be. 


The greatest of all journeys begins with a single step. 


A few months ago the {make-a-change Monday} challenge was to Just Do It. In that post I talked about writing a book and how it took small steps—changes a little at a time. I'm know I'm on a great journey, but yes, I'm still working on the small steps. But what a great journey it has been! 


Have you ever wanted to do something you just couldn't because you were afraid you would fail? 

• I was afraid to begin blogging, but one step at a time, I'm getting the hang of it. 
• I was afraid to attempt to write a book, but God has given me confirmations along the way to let me know I'm on the right track.
• When I had to take the step to conquer m addiction to Lortab, I honestly didn't see a way I wouldn't fail, but one step at a time, with God's infinite mercy, I did it. 

Now I'll tell you a goofy little secret about myself: I'm a granola wanna-be. 

Yep...I'd love to: 

• Be a crunchy-salad-eating-vegetarian,
• Wear no make-up
• Have get-up-and-go hair
• Wear simple, comfortable clothes (which never require spanx)
• And the hardest of all...be a runner.

Now let's be real. No make-up is a little scary, and unless I'm abandoned on a deserted island, I've got to have my hair products, hair dryer and curling iron. And I probably could be a vegetarian fairly easy, but I have a family of carnivores. And I love steak. But I do eat lots of salad! 

But I am determined to become a runner. But just like anything else that's worth accomplishing, it's all about one small step at a time. 

My family and I watched the movie We Bought a Zoo tonight from which I have adopted a new favorite phrase: "It only takes twenty seconds of incredible courage and amazing things will happen." 

I started running in November of last year. I didn't know how important those twenty seconds were, or how much courage they took. My first run, I thought I would die within the first twenty seconds. 

Then twenty seconds became a minute. Then two minutes, Then five minutes. Then two miles. Then three miles. Then five miles. Then six miles. Then one day I ran nine miles...only because I lost my car key on the run and had to keep running til I found it. But still.... nine miles! 

I haven't been able to run very often during the last three weeks, so I'm back to the three-mile run and working my way back up again. But the road to a flawless experience is always under construction.

The secret to those twenty seconds of courage and those small steps is Christ. The ultimate goal is to spend eternity in Heaven with Christ. 

• Blogging each day hopefully inspires others and gets me writing practice for the book.
• The goal of writing a book will hopefully help others, and God will use it to expand the boundaries of His kingdom. 
• My granola-wanna-be desire is a little more selfish. I've never seen how my desire to be "crunchy" could better my relationship with Christ.

Until I started running.

Yes, God wants us to treat our bodies well because they are His temple...He lives within us. 

Do you not know that you are God's temple and that 

God's Spirit dwells in you? 

(1 Corinthians 3:16 ESV)

But for me, running is a spiritual challenge more than a physical challenge. God has to give me those twenty seconds of courage just to get my running clothes on and get out the door! I started out with music like, Eye of the Tiger (from Rocky) and some other fast-paced 80's classic rock. It failed me. Now my running music consists of Mercy Came Running by Phillips, Craig and Dean, This is Home by Switchfoot, and Courageous by Casting Crowns. 

My grace is sufficient for you, 

for my power is made perfect in weakness. 

(2 Corinthians 12:9a NIV)

When I feel like I can't run anymore, I depend of Christ in my weakness. Running becomes not only a physical challenge, but also a spiritual one. And I can do all things through him who strengthens me (Philippians 4:13 ESV).

So if you are still on this train of thought with me, my {make-a-change Monday} challenge today is to take that twenty seconds of courage. Take the first step to an amazing journey. If it's a journey that takes courage, it will also take Christ. And any journey that takes you closer to him is one to be taken. 

From my heart,

Celeste

Tips to a Happier You in 2012~Learning What's Urgent vs. What's Important

This morning I heard a poem on WLFJ that one of the morning hosts wrote, and once again found my self in tears driving down the road. 

The older I get, the sappier I get. 

But anyway, it really goes well to illustrate my {tip to a happier you} today: 

The Letting Go Test

 By Leslie Nease

Nine months of growth inside of my womb

And in what seemed like an instant, she was there in the room

My heart was just bursting – I could barely compose

As I looked her over intently and counted fingers and toes

Eleven days later, I remember so well

Was my first "letting go test" – her umbilical cord fell

The pain in my heart, I could not ignore

As I realized this test was the first of many more

I nursed her eight months, and then it was time to move on

So I gave her some cereal – yet another era gone

When she was five, it was time to let go again

As I walked her to the school bus, she wore a huge grin

"Oh, God! Please protect her! I cannot be there.

But I trust you are with her and you'll keep her in your care!"

And I was grinning, also, though my heart broke in two

As I watched my little girl learn to tie her own shoe

Little by little my girl needed me less

As she picked out her clothes and got herself dressed

A few months later, she lost her first tooth

(I cried like a baby, if you want to know the truth!)

This "letting go test" was a challenge indeed

When she took the storybook from me and started to read

I blinked and in an instant I realized much time had passed

As she went off to middle school – she was growing so fast!

The "letting go test" intensified, I remember with dread

When I drove her to the DMV, and she drove me home instead!

Her face lit up with excitement as we handed her the keys

And she drove off alone as I dropped to my knees

"Oh, God! Please protect her! I cannot be there.

But I trust you are with her and you'll keep her in your care!"

My prayers were more often and more intense, I must confess

As she was gone more often now, and I saw her much less

My girl was growing up and I was completely shook

As she picked her favorite photos for her Senior Yearbook

And just a few months later, my girl turned eighteen

A young woman she was becoming now – what a sight to be seen!

"God, where did the time go?" I began to pray

As our family dressed up for Graduation Day.

She walked across the stage with her head held high

And as she took her diploma, I began to cry

But these tears were so different, more like tears of delight

My girl was a woman now and she was going to be all right

All the "letting go tests" that I'd had over the years

Helped me let go, trust God and release all my fears

The "tests" were sent by Him to prepare my mom-heart

For the ultimate test – when we'd begin to live apart

The day quickly approached and we loaded up the car

We drove her to college – it just seemed so far

We unloaded her things and we hugged her goodbye

And I tried not to do it but I couldn't help but cry

This "letting go test" was the hardest test yet

The drive home was long – one I'll never forget

But the sadness I feel is not the same as before

I feel such joy for her – there's so much in store!

"Oh, God! Please protect her! I cannot be there.

But I trust you are with her and you'll keep her in your care!"

 Are you crying with me yet? With an {eight-year-old-going-on-sixteen-year-old} daughter, and a {thirteen-year-old-girl-crazy} son, and an {eighteen-year-old-soon-to-be-graduating} daughter, this poem really hit home, as it would with many moms. 

When our children are graduating, getting married and having kids of their own, what will we look back and remember?

• Our little girl asking us to sit down and read a book, but we were too busy checking emails? 
• Our teenager wanting us to meet her for lunch, but we have too many errands to run? 
• Our kids begging to go to the pool, but we say it's just too hot outside...so we stay home and mow the lawn instead?  

 What will they look back and remember? 

• How the cabinets and floors sparkled every Saturday night in preparation for a new week? 
• How much fun dad always had playing golf every Saturday?
• How mom sat at the computer every waking hour of the day? (Stepping on my own toes bigtime)
• How dad's coworkers respected him because he was at the office by 7:00 am and didn't leave work until after 7:00 pm? 
• How there was always one more thing that had to be done before they could go out and play? 

There is a huge difference between what is urgent and what is important. In our fast-paced days, the line between the two gets easily blurred. 

My hubby and I can open up our emails at any given moment and have a thousand or more. The urge to clean out that inbox is intense, but how many of those emails are really important?

I have to stop and give God some praise for blessing me with such an awesome husband. I'm sure if he reads this post he will be difficult to live with for a few days, but nevertheless...he loves to play golf, yet he rarely does. To be good at golf, he says you have to play often, which usually means Saturdays. He decided when our kids were little that having a good golf game was not what he wanted to look back on when he was old. He wanted to look back on Saturdays spent as a family. Hiking, movies, swimming...whatever we did, we did it together. And we still do. For David, family comes absolutely first. Not to say that we haven't had tough times. We've had our share of marital issues, especially when I was battling addiction and depression. But by the grace of God, David persevered. And God delivered me. Whew! I sure am glad those years are over! 

Back on topic...urgent vs. important. 

• The grass is up to my knees, but my kids want us to bake cookies and watch a movie. The grass can wait. 
• I'm really not hungry and need to go to Wal-Mart before Marlee gets out of school, but Miranda and her boyfriend want me to meet them for lunch at La Fogata. Am I going to remember going to Wal-Mart (again) or having lunch with my soon-to-be-in-college daughter? So what if they only want me there so I will pay? 
• I have to be up early to work Friday morning, but the premier of the Hunger Games movie is at midnight Thursday night and Trevor really wants to go. 

I was really sleepy on Friday. 

But it was important. 

We made a memory. 

So that's my {tip to a happier you} for today. Make memories. The good kind. The emails, the grass, and the dog hair on the floor will all still be there. Even when you do accomplish those tasks, I promise they will all return again. 

The opportunity to make memories may not. 

From my heart,

Celeste

Plane Crashes, Drug Addiction, and Tomorrow

Sitting here in tears. I just finished reading Heaven is Here, a memoir by Stephanie Nielson, author of the blog, NieNie Dialogues.

In my last post, I told you I'd share a funny story about our flight to Florida last week—the one where I overcame my eighteen-year-old fear of getting on an airplane with my hubby while leaving our kids at home. 

Since I am attempting to write a book and actually get it published, I'm doing a great deal of reading memoirs. While at Wal-Mart doing some last minute shopping for my trip, I noticed a new book on the shelf: 

I made the cover of the book really big for you to see...it is a memoir of inspiration and hope. Not unlike the message I am conveying in my book. So I bought it. 

I was feeling pretty good about our trip. We gave the kids a loving, "so long" as we dropped them off at school, and off to the airport we went. We boarded the plane; I said my trusty trust prayer: 

"God, I'm putting my trust in you today. 

No matter what happens, good or bad, I know you have it under control,

 and it's all part of your plan to create an eternity beyond my wildest dreams."

...And off we went. 

There was quite a bit of turbulence, so I pulled out my new book to keep my mind occupied. There really should have been a little more information on the cover of this book, or maybe I should have turned it over to read the back. Here's how the book starts: 

A voice whispered, “Roll.”          

I fell to the ground and crushed the brilliant flames that licked at my clothes, my skin, my hair. The mangled wreck of our airplane blazed nearby. 

Really God? Of all the books I had to bring with me to read it had to be a memoir about a horrific plane crash? And she had gotten on a plane with her husband and left her four kids at home. Literally, my biggest fear. 

But, as all great writers do, Stephanie Nielson had me hooked with the first sentence. So I kept reading. I couldn't put it down until I knew that she would be okay. I realize since it's a memoir, and she actually wrote it, that she is alive and well today, but I had to hear it from her. Life has been crazy since we returned from our trip, so I just got a chance to read the Epilogue, and I think she has convinced me to take my book in a different direction. 

My story, a seemingly perfect life as a wife, mother, and pharmacist turned up side down by grand-mal seizures and depression, my desperate search to cure myself, and ultimate realization that God is the ultimate healer, is a book in itself.

And it was originally what I'd planned to write.

As you know, prescription drug addiction plowed uninvited into my life and turned a snowstorm into an avalanche. God had to really work on me a while on the whole "transparency" thing for me to be able to make addiction part of my story. Some of my closest friends didn't know I was dealing with addiction until recently. And I don't know if I'll ever work as a pharmacist again. What pharmacy would hire me?

But God didn't tell me to worry about my future. He told me to be transparent right now. 

In writing about addiction, I thought my job was to draw people in with my story and finish the book with the miracle God gave me. I hoped to appeal to a secular audience, so I have not written much about God's part in my life before he healed me in 2010. But God has always been a huge part of my life, even though I didn't realize it. He has always pursued me; I just had not always pursued Him back. My life was perfect. 

It's hard to realize that you need God when everything is hunky-dory. 

In Heaven is Here, Stephanie tells of her life before her accident, during her immediate recovery in the hospital, and life after she returned home. God was a part of Stephanie's whole story, and through the heart changes He walked through with her, her relationship with Him was deepened to a whole new level. 

So in my book—and my blog—I hope to share on a more personal level. It's easy to share the lessons I learned on this journey, and I will continue to do so. But I hope to share more of myself with you. 

I think Satan loves to get in our heads and tell us,” People don't really care about that. Why do they want to know about you? You're not famous, just an everyday person. People will just laugh at you." 

Stephanie Nielson was just an everyday person who had to overcome extraordinary circumstances. She writes that she never would have survived without God. I've never had to survive a plane crash (thank goodness), but I learned so much from her journey...only because I got to know her personally through her book. If I'd simply read a newspaper article highlighting the details of her accident and recovery, I'd have learned nothing of her heart and her relationship with God. And it was God that saved her...completely. 

Prescription drug addiction is the fastest growing drug problem in the United States. In 2010, enough painkillers were prescribed to medicate every American adult around-the-clock for an entire month. Although most prescriptions are deemed necessary for medical use, many end up in the hands of people who misuse or abuse them. In 2010, about 12 million Americans over the age of twelve reported nonmedical use of prescription painkillers in the past year.

There are a plethora of self-help books out there on addiction. There are tons of memoirs about drug abuse—mostly by famous people addicted to illegal drugs. But prescription drugs are legal. Prescribed by doctors every day. To Christians who would never dream of misusing or abusing prescription drugs. Until they are addicted, that is. 

It won't be pleasant digging up emotions that I'd really rather leave in the past or the constant struggle going on in my brain the entire time I struggled with addiction. But I want people to be able to read what I write and know me—like I know Stephanie now.

It will be hard to write; but today, I'm writing this post. 

Tomorrow will take care of itself.

From my heart,

Celeste