Hey All,
April was my first month of running my Mary Kay business for something greater, and I LOVED doing it!! I was able to raise money for House of Hope through sale profits as well as for St. Matthew Kid Care program. What fun to be able to support awesome causes while "working". . .if only all work could be so easy and so rewarding!!
Well, I'm super late on revealing the May cause, but super, super excited to tell you that May, June and July are going to an AMAZING cause!! I'm sure you are all aware of and perhaps some of you have participated in Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, here's the link so you can check it out: www.komen.org. On April 1, 2011, I received a call from a friend telling me that his mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer. Thankfully, it was detected early and she was given a good prognosis. As soon as I hung up the phone with him, I decided that my Mary Kay charity for May was going to be Susan G. Komen.
Shortly after I made the decision, I was on facebook and there was a link in my newsfeed related to the Susan G. Komen 3-day Race for the Cure. A high school classmate, Angie (Butz) Callahan, is doing the Chicago event in August and raising money in honor of her mom who was diagnosed with breast cancer last fall. Here's the link to her personal page: http://www.the3day.org/site/TRC/2011/ChicagoEvent2011?pg=peditor&fr_id=1611&px=5889334. Reading her story, I decided that I wanted my support for Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure to go directly to her fund-raising efforts and a month didn't seem like enough when I gave thought to the fact that Angie and others who are training for the 3-day walk will be putting MONTHS of time into getting ready for an enormous undertaking. Thus, it only seems right that their months of preparation be matched by my months of support. Therefore, FIFTY PERCENT of all my MK profits in May, June, July and August are going to Angie's fundraiser for Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. This includes any and all profits from parties, one-on-one consultations, catalog order, online orders (www.marykay.com/acweiss) and re-orders! In other words, you can buy MK skincare, make-up, spa products and 50% of your profits are going directly to Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure!!
Last week, I was asked to pray for a co-worker's sister who is in her 30's was diagnosed with breast cancer on May 11, 2011. She is married with a young child and starting chemo. I am in awe of her faith and the faith of her family as she begins to embark on a course of treatment that is sure to be anything but easy. I ask that you keep the three women mentioned in this blog, as well as all of the women who are diagnosed each year with breast cancer and courageously fight back, in your prayers!! Part of the continued race for a cure is to pray for a cure. . .let's not be remiss in underestimating the tremendous power of prayer!!
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Life - It's a marathon, not a sprint!
It's been a while since I've posted anything, and it's not for lack of thoughts and ideas. No, it's for lack of time. I feel like the past month has been me running, running and more running, but not necessarily feeling like I'm making ground. There are days when I feel like I am non-stop from the moment my alarm provides it's regular 5:33 a.m. greeting (ACW quirk revealed: I always set my alarms on multiples of 11) to the moment I close my eyes at night, but I don't feel all the accomplished despite the rat-race of the day. On those days I feel like I got just enough done to feel worth the oxygen I consumed in breathing that day, but there's no sense of real accomplishment or fulfillment in the day. In a word, it's a feeling of restlessness.
People who know me. . .in particular, those who are "blessed" to work with me every day, know that I have been in a battle this past week with my not-so-dear friend, insomnia. In truth, I've decided that insomnia qualifies as a "frenemy" because as much as I HATE when I can't sleep, after a few nights of its presence, there is always some revelation that comes from it that makes me oddly grateful for the visit from insomnia. Chances are as good as not that this "revelation" is nothing more than a delusional and exhausted mind that is a byproduct of sleep deprivation, but in my quest to find God's message in all things (even things as ugly as a sleepless night), I like to tell myself that God sometimes asks me to "stay awake" so that He can reveal to me something that I'm missing in the waking hours. I assure you that God and I have had our share of middle of the night arguments, but notwithstanding my valiant efforts at persuasive argumentation, God always comes out the winner. You would think at some point I'd learn to not argue with God, but let's get serious, I'm a lawyer! Asking me to give up arguing with God is like asking me to give up Diet Coke. Neither are likely to happen, and if God didn't sort of enjoy the arguments, He wouldn't wake me up for three, four, five hours in the middle of the night. If I've told Him once, I've told him ever-so-kindly MANY times that if He wakes me up and keeps me awake, He best have something powerful to share with me. That's usually when the arguing starts because His response is generally not speedy and not audible. Earlier this week I literally found myself saying (and by saying, I mean whining), "God, could you PLEASE use your words so I can hear whatever it is you feel is important enough to wake me up for and go back to sleep?!?!?!"
This week was three miserable nights of tossing, turning, looking at the clock and watching it get closer and closer and closer to the morning light. Each of those nights was followed by a day of LOTS of caffeine and a hope that maybe, just maybe, I would be tired enough to knock out the next night. In fact, by Thursday night I invited an intervention from a long lost amigo, Jose Quervo. . .not a lot, but just enough to help the zzzzz's make their way back to my life. Jose did nothing to help me overcome insomnia and gave me a mild headache in the morning which quickly reminded me that there is a reason he is in the "long lost" categories of friends. After three long nights and three long days, sleep was restored, but my restlessness was not. I hadn't yet figured out what I was suppose to gain from laying awake waiting for the message that I was suppose to hear. I can handle less than desirable circumstances in my life, but I struggle when I can't get an answer to the "why?" I think God would tell you that I'm like a two-year-old when it comes to that word. I will ask that question over and over and over and over until I get an answer that either satisfies me or shuts me up. More often than not I am not satisfied with the initial answer, so there is a series of follow-up "whys" until one of two things happens: I get enough of an explanation that I can make sense of it or I get the fateful words that I hate most, the trump card that every parent gets with the birth of their first-born, "because I said so." Well, folks, not to break habit I have been asking "why" for a solid 48 hours, and today is when clarity was restored and the "revelation" that God was trying to impart on me is this. . .life is a marathon, not a sprint!
watch because you can't help but think about all that has gone into crossing the line with hands raised and "I did it!" pulsing though every part of the body!
The root word of endurance is "endure." One dictionary definition of "endure" is "to bear without resistance or with patience;" another definition is "to sustain without yielding." In reading these definitions, I was immediately struck by what seems to be a paradox in definitions. In one sense, it is to "bear without resistance" which suggests a surrender of sorts, right? However, the next definition is "to sustain without yielding" which to me suggests holding firm and not giving in. Is it just me or do these definitions contradict one another?!?!?! Well, in life it seems that both definitions are critical to getting the most out of every circumstance - the joy, the pain and everything in between! You see, there are times in all of our lives when circumstances are completely outside of our control. Admittedly, I am a control freak (in fact, I am the poster child for control freaks). I hate when I feel like I lack control in an area of my life. I hate when I feel like there isn't a dang thing I can do to change what is going on in my life. It's in those moments that my endurance is really a matter of having the strength to know my limitations and to surrender it to God's hand. On the other hand, there are times when I feel like I am challenged a different way because my circumstances require me to fight through something when it would be much easier to give up and call it a wrap. Those are the moments when my endurance forces me to keep going despite the obstacles that lure me to give up and give in. Then there are times in life when I realize that my life is a series of day-to-day sprints. I subconsciously and unknowingly find a place on the shelf for endurance and attempt to run through each day crossing as much as I can off the never-ending "to do" list, but without any thought to the bigger picture. Days go by quickly, but there is a distinct feeling of fragmentation and almost a staccato-like disconnect from day-to-day. It's those days that I often feel like I lose the essence of myself in a whirlwind pace of life. It's almost like life is reduced to a state of mere existence rather than a state of living.
That is EXACTLY what was going on last week when for reasons unknown to me I started doing life as a sprinter rather than a marathon runner. I was doing everything I needed to do. In fact, I felt relatively accomplished in terms of being productive, but no matter how productive I was in any given task, I didn't feel like I was covering ground. I had apparently misplaced my endurance and the days were measured by little more than hours, minutes and seconds. I went to bed tired each night, but it was a restless kind of tired as if I hadn't truly accomplished what was intended for me each day. I incessantly wondered why God felt the need to wake me up night after night after night, and the answer was quite simple. I had never slowed down enough during the day for Him to get my attention. I was operating completely oblivious to the bigger picture and doing little, if anything, to give my full self to each day. The one place and time God knew He could have my undivided attention was the middle of the night, and my attention He got. I needed that reminder that life is an endurance race. I needed the reminder that existence apart from purpose isn't enough for true fulfillment at the end of the day. Not always the quickest to catch on to His messages for me, it took me while to "get it," but now that I understand what He was doing and why, I am super excited about getting back on the marathon course. I am inspired to run with are purpose greater than immediate and instant gratification. The day-to-day sprints were little more than a momentary detour from the race, but I'm back on track and living this beautiful life the way that God intended for me to live it. . .as a marathon, not a sprint!
People who know me. . .in particular, those who are "blessed" to work with me every day, know that I have been in a battle this past week with my not-so-dear friend, insomnia. In truth, I've decided that insomnia qualifies as a "frenemy" because as much as I HATE when I can't sleep, after a few nights of its presence, there is always some revelation that comes from it that makes me oddly grateful for the visit from insomnia. Chances are as good as not that this "revelation" is nothing more than a delusional and exhausted mind that is a byproduct of sleep deprivation, but in my quest to find God's message in all things (even things as ugly as a sleepless night), I like to tell myself that God sometimes asks me to "stay awake" so that He can reveal to me something that I'm missing in the waking hours. I assure you that God and I have had our share of middle of the night arguments, but notwithstanding my valiant efforts at persuasive argumentation, God always comes out the winner. You would think at some point I'd learn to not argue with God, but let's get serious, I'm a lawyer! Asking me to give up arguing with God is like asking me to give up Diet Coke. Neither are likely to happen, and if God didn't sort of enjoy the arguments, He wouldn't wake me up for three, four, five hours in the middle of the night. If I've told Him once, I've told him ever-so-kindly MANY times that if He wakes me up and keeps me awake, He best have something powerful to share with me. That's usually when the arguing starts because His response is generally not speedy and not audible. Earlier this week I literally found myself saying (and by saying, I mean whining), "God, could you PLEASE use your words so I can hear whatever it is you feel is important enough to wake me up for and go back to sleep?!?!?!"
This week was three miserable nights of tossing, turning, looking at the clock and watching it get closer and closer and closer to the morning light. Each of those nights was followed by a day of LOTS of caffeine and a hope that maybe, just maybe, I would be tired enough to knock out the next night. In fact, by Thursday night I invited an intervention from a long lost amigo, Jose Quervo. . .not a lot, but just enough to help the zzzzz's make their way back to my life. Jose did nothing to help me overcome insomnia and gave me a mild headache in the morning which quickly reminded me that there is a reason he is in the "long lost" categories of friends. After three long nights and three long days, sleep was restored, but my restlessness was not. I hadn't yet figured out what I was suppose to gain from laying awake waiting for the message that I was suppose to hear. I can handle less than desirable circumstances in my life, but I struggle when I can't get an answer to the "why?" I think God would tell you that I'm like a two-year-old when it comes to that word. I will ask that question over and over and over and over until I get an answer that either satisfies me or shuts me up. More often than not I am not satisfied with the initial answer, so there is a series of follow-up "whys" until one of two things happens: I get enough of an explanation that I can make sense of it or I get the fateful words that I hate most, the trump card that every parent gets with the birth of their first-born, "because I said so." Well, folks, not to break habit I have been asking "why" for a solid 48 hours, and today is when clarity was restored and the "revelation" that God was trying to impart on me is this. . .life is a marathon, not a sprint!
watch because you can't help but think about all that has gone into crossing the line with hands raised and "I did it!" pulsing though every part of the body!
The root word of endurance is "endure." One dictionary definition of "endure" is "to bear without resistance or with patience;" another definition is "to sustain without yielding." In reading these definitions, I was immediately struck by what seems to be a paradox in definitions. In one sense, it is to "bear without resistance" which suggests a surrender of sorts, right? However, the next definition is "to sustain without yielding" which to me suggests holding firm and not giving in. Is it just me or do these definitions contradict one another?!?!?! Well, in life it seems that both definitions are critical to getting the most out of every circumstance - the joy, the pain and everything in between! You see, there are times in all of our lives when circumstances are completely outside of our control. Admittedly, I am a control freak (in fact, I am the poster child for control freaks). I hate when I feel like I lack control in an area of my life. I hate when I feel like there isn't a dang thing I can do to change what is going on in my life. It's in those moments that my endurance is really a matter of having the strength to know my limitations and to surrender it to God's hand. On the other hand, there are times when I feel like I am challenged a different way because my circumstances require me to fight through something when it would be much easier to give up and call it a wrap. Those are the moments when my endurance forces me to keep going despite the obstacles that lure me to give up and give in. Then there are times in life when I realize that my life is a series of day-to-day sprints. I subconsciously and unknowingly find a place on the shelf for endurance and attempt to run through each day crossing as much as I can off the never-ending "to do" list, but without any thought to the bigger picture. Days go by quickly, but there is a distinct feeling of fragmentation and almost a staccato-like disconnect from day-to-day. It's those days that I often feel like I lose the essence of myself in a whirlwind pace of life. It's almost like life is reduced to a state of mere existence rather than a state of living.
That is EXACTLY what was going on last week when for reasons unknown to me I started doing life as a sprinter rather than a marathon runner. I was doing everything I needed to do. In fact, I felt relatively accomplished in terms of being productive, but no matter how productive I was in any given task, I didn't feel like I was covering ground. I had apparently misplaced my endurance and the days were measured by little more than hours, minutes and seconds. I went to bed tired each night, but it was a restless kind of tired as if I hadn't truly accomplished what was intended for me each day. I incessantly wondered why God felt the need to wake me up night after night after night, and the answer was quite simple. I had never slowed down enough during the day for Him to get my attention. I was operating completely oblivious to the bigger picture and doing little, if anything, to give my full self to each day. The one place and time God knew He could have my undivided attention was the middle of the night, and my attention He got. I needed that reminder that life is an endurance race. I needed the reminder that existence apart from purpose isn't enough for true fulfillment at the end of the day. Not always the quickest to catch on to His messages for me, it took me while to "get it," but now that I understand what He was doing and why, I am super excited about getting back on the marathon course. I am inspired to run with are purpose greater than immediate and instant gratification. The day-to-day sprints were little more than a momentary detour from the race, but I'm back on track and living this beautiful life the way that God intended for me to live it. . .as a marathon, not a sprint!
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Weathering the Storm - A Lesson from the Tulips
The woman that owned my house before I bought it planted tulip bulbs around my back patio. I always forget they are there, and one of my favorite reminders of Spring is when I see the green stems, leaves and not yet opened tulip buds emerge from the ground. I love to watch them as they begin to open and I am always AMAZED by the very simple yet very delicate beauty of each and every tulip that comes to life in my backyard. This morning, the tulips taught me a lesson (yes, I can be taught by a flower) that deserves to be shared. It requires me to go back and start a little bit earlier in the month of April.
I don't know the exact date, but I am going to guess it was sometime in the middle of the second week of April when I first noticed the tulips re-entering my world. I was excited to see them and thrilled to see something green in my life after what felt like a ridiculously long Wisconsin winter. No sooner than they had emerged, enter weather pattern number one - tornado. I am relatively certain that in the four years I have owned my home, I have heard the tornado sirens go off one other time (in August), but April 10, 2011, the sirens were in full force and we were in the midst of some nasty weather. It was raining, it was windy and the storm seemed to have one goal in mind.....destruction. The next morning I woke up and hesitated to look out the window, thinking the tulips were going to be a thing of the past. Not so much. They definitely looked as if they had been through a rough night, but they were still standing albeit a bit sluggishly! Sweet, they had made it!
Fast forward a week and on April 17, the fine and wonderful city known for its frozen tundra decided to stay true to its name and in a matter of hours I saw the following forms of precipitation: rain, sleet, hail and yes, the God-forbidden snow! It was dreadful. It made me think the same thing I think each and every January, "Seriously! Why do I continue to live here??!?!!?" If that weren't bad enough two days later, Mother Nature decided that Old Man Winter wasn't quite ready to call it a day and Green Bay was sacked with a 10" snowfall. I wish I were making this fact up, but it's true. So, to recap, in a matter of 48 hours my beloved tulips were rained on, pelted with hail, greased with sleet and covered in a blanket of snow! I was certain at this point that they had given up the fight and surrendered to the storms.
The snow melted, and much to my surprise the tulips were still there and they were still green. I noticed that they were laying much closer to the ground and looked virtually lifeless (as you would expect given the circumstances). Simply put, they looked wilted and defeated! Seeing them, I was disappointed that I probably wasn't going to get to see the tulips in full bloom this year, but understood that at some point something so delicate had to give against the pressure and strength of storm after storm after storm. I mean, really, can you blame them for checking out on life at that point?!!?
This morning I woke up to a bright sun and howling winds. I looked out my back window and there were the tulips standing straight up with life, with vitality and barely affected by the wind as the branches of the trees blew all around them. I stopped and wondered out loud, "Honestly, how are these dang flowers alive, much less standing tall as if completely unphased by the last month of their lives?!?!!?" And, then it hit me that despite the tornado, despite the rain/hail/sleet, despite the blanket of snow, despite the wind, despite all the storms of the life of these tulips, they stand today reaching for the sun!
It begs the question, how strong are we in the midst of storms? How many times are we willing to get knocked around by things outside of our control before we give up? What storms will we withstand in the midst of our lives and what keeps us going when we feel sluggish, wilted, defeated? You know as well as I do that there are seasons in our lives that feel as if the world is out to destroy us. We start with some fight and as one blow after another hits us we lose a little more of that fight and if you're anything like me, there are moments where it seems easier just to lay down and check out on life until the storm passes. If you haven't had that moment (or those moments), I want your life! If you, like me, have been there you know the feeling that I'm describing. Here's the lesson that legitimately blew my mind when it came to me: Through all of the storms, the tulips stand today reaching for, honoring and worshiping the sun! It's as if they knew that the sun, though maybe not readily visible to them, was always there carrying them through the storms. We, too, have a life-giving, life-sustaining, life-restoring, life-changing "sun," that will carry us through each and every storm that comes our way. We have THE Son! How spectacular that we can stand up when the storm passes, reach high, honor, and worship the Son who picks us up after we've weathered the storm!!
I have a whole new appreciation for my tulips today. I am still excited to watch them evolve from closed buds to beautiful flowers, but I see them in a different light. I continue to see them as a delicate flower with simple and understated beauty, but their tenacity and their will and their fight and their determination to weather all storms that came their way in the month of April 2011 and most of all their commitment to "the sun" through and in spite of the storms is truly what makes me appreciate the beauty of the tulips this Spring. Thank you to the tulips for demonstrating to me what it takes to live a beautiful life!
I don't know the exact date, but I am going to guess it was sometime in the middle of the second week of April when I first noticed the tulips re-entering my world. I was excited to see them and thrilled to see something green in my life after what felt like a ridiculously long Wisconsin winter. No sooner than they had emerged, enter weather pattern number one - tornado. I am relatively certain that in the four years I have owned my home, I have heard the tornado sirens go off one other time (in August), but April 10, 2011, the sirens were in full force and we were in the midst of some nasty weather. It was raining, it was windy and the storm seemed to have one goal in mind.....destruction. The next morning I woke up and hesitated to look out the window, thinking the tulips were going to be a thing of the past. Not so much. They definitely looked as if they had been through a rough night, but they were still standing albeit a bit sluggishly! Sweet, they had made it!
Fast forward a week and on April 17, the fine and wonderful city known for its frozen tundra decided to stay true to its name and in a matter of hours I saw the following forms of precipitation: rain, sleet, hail and yes, the God-forbidden snow! It was dreadful. It made me think the same thing I think each and every January, "Seriously! Why do I continue to live here??!?!!?" If that weren't bad enough two days later, Mother Nature decided that Old Man Winter wasn't quite ready to call it a day and Green Bay was sacked with a 10" snowfall. I wish I were making this fact up, but it's true. So, to recap, in a matter of 48 hours my beloved tulips were rained on, pelted with hail, greased with sleet and covered in a blanket of snow! I was certain at this point that they had given up the fight and surrendered to the storms.
The snow melted, and much to my surprise the tulips were still there and they were still green. I noticed that they were laying much closer to the ground and looked virtually lifeless (as you would expect given the circumstances). Simply put, they looked wilted and defeated! Seeing them, I was disappointed that I probably wasn't going to get to see the tulips in full bloom this year, but understood that at some point something so delicate had to give against the pressure and strength of storm after storm after storm. I mean, really, can you blame them for checking out on life at that point?!!?
This morning I woke up to a bright sun and howling winds. I looked out my back window and there were the tulips standing straight up with life, with vitality and barely affected by the wind as the branches of the trees blew all around them. I stopped and wondered out loud, "Honestly, how are these dang flowers alive, much less standing tall as if completely unphased by the last month of their lives?!?!!?" And, then it hit me that despite the tornado, despite the rain/hail/sleet, despite the blanket of snow, despite the wind, despite all the storms of the life of these tulips, they stand today reaching for the sun!
It begs the question, how strong are we in the midst of storms? How many times are we willing to get knocked around by things outside of our control before we give up? What storms will we withstand in the midst of our lives and what keeps us going when we feel sluggish, wilted, defeated? You know as well as I do that there are seasons in our lives that feel as if the world is out to destroy us. We start with some fight and as one blow after another hits us we lose a little more of that fight and if you're anything like me, there are moments where it seems easier just to lay down and check out on life until the storm passes. If you haven't had that moment (or those moments), I want your life! If you, like me, have been there you know the feeling that I'm describing. Here's the lesson that legitimately blew my mind when it came to me: Through all of the storms, the tulips stand today reaching for, honoring and worshiping the sun! It's as if they knew that the sun, though maybe not readily visible to them, was always there carrying them through the storms. We, too, have a life-giving, life-sustaining, life-restoring, life-changing "sun," that will carry us through each and every storm that comes our way. We have THE Son! How spectacular that we can stand up when the storm passes, reach high, honor, and worship the Son who picks us up after we've weathered the storm!!
I have a whole new appreciation for my tulips today. I am still excited to watch them evolve from closed buds to beautiful flowers, but I see them in a different light. I continue to see them as a delicate flower with simple and understated beauty, but their tenacity and their will and their fight and their determination to weather all storms that came their way in the month of April 2011 and most of all their commitment to "the sun" through and in spite of the storms is truly what makes me appreciate the beauty of the tulips this Spring. Thank you to the tulips for demonstrating to me what it takes to live a beautiful life!
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