Category Archives: Pets

“Your Focus Needs more Focus”

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I was in charge of walking the dog this week. Not a big deal, he’s pretty good about walks now. There was a time, though… a time when that puppy of ours was a bundle of energy and was distracted by every person, stray dog, fluttering bird or swaying blade of grass. He’s older now and a little less distracted… but the odd time he loses focus. Just like the rest of us. Or as the next generation of karate kid training says “your focus needs more focus”. Love Jackie Chan.

Which had me musing this week. Focus. What are we really focused on? The center point. The hub. The nucleus of your world. Focus. The clarity in the situation. The distinct, well defined, finger-pointing “thing” that makes it, well, “it”. Some of us have a goal for a time. Raise our kids well. Focus on a career that will lead us to financial stability. Finish college. Buy a house. Many of my readers will note that I have had a #wordoftheyear for the first time in 2021. I chose it to bring a little focus into my life for the next 365 days. (You can read about it here).

FOCUS

Our physical bodies are often something we focus on as well. How many workouts target one or two “problem areas”. Buns of steel, anyone? Or calming ourselves down by focusing on our breathing, or pulse, or making each step deliberate. It helps keep us under “control”. The control is needed to keep us from going off on tangents, wild goose chases or as a friend puts it…rabbit trails. Alice got into a lot of trouble following a rabbit.

Clarity. Good clarity comes from the right focus. My glasses help me see clearly. Microscopes and telescopes bring clarity to objects our eyes simply cannot see without help. It brings a fuzzy, undefined image into something we can recognize and understand. And often learn from or learn more about with study.

So why focus on focus? It is a strong contender in our ability to keep going. It goes hand and hand with hope. When we lose focus, we easily become distracted… and then the journey is no longer enjoyable. Like our puppy walks. When we had to correct, refocus, pull on the leash and speak harshly to the pup… nobody enjoyed the outing. Sure, truth be told, all of us need a little distraction now and then to break the monotony of tunnel vision. Maybe breaks are even necessary. Yet, focus brings us back to the point.

The beginning of Hebrews 12 reminds us to not only to stay focused on the end goal, but shows us how Jesus was our perfect example of this:

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a huge crowd of witnesses to the life of faith, let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily trips us up. And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. 2 We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne. 3 Think of all the hostility he endured from sinful people; then you won’t become weary and give up. 4 After all, you have not yet given your lives in your struggle against sin.

Hebrews 12:1-4 NLT

His love for us. Our weak faith. Our focus on the finish line before us. What about you, my friend? Does your focus need more focus? Are you pulling in all directions? I know I struggle with this all too often. May you be encouraged to “focus” along with me in the next few days, and set our eyes on the finish line, as we enjoy our walk together.

Into the Unknown

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Happy May 24 to all my fellow Canadians!! The first official long weekend of summer. For the Mitton crew, that meant heading up to the summer home… with all the Covid-protocols still in place and thoughts on respecting everyone’s distance. It also meant another weekend of boarding for the pupp-ers. He’s been once to doggie-daycare. He was fine. Yet, this mama is worse now with the dog than I was with my own flesh and blood. Kindergarten? Send them off kicking and screaming, I say. The poor puppy, though! He cowered behind us, all naked (they take the collars off for safety reasons) and vulnerable… and then off into the unknown…

“Reese”, off on another adventure!

Of course, the dog will be fine. The kindergarteners survive. The teens grow up. And the young adults move out on their own. Still, it had me thinking about that feeling. That vulnerable, alone, exposed moment we feel as we stand on the precipice of something unknown. It might be an exciting adventure that awaits you on the other side of the door. Perhaps one that you’ve waited for and dreamed of. Like, ahem, country homes and chickens. Or the valedictorian speech. Or your Nobel prize acceptance dinner. Maybe it’s the final visit to the specialist who has your medical results and wants to discuss it with you. It’s the parent-teacher interview you were asked to attend. Or the seniors home liaison who wants to discuss hospice options with your family.

Whatever is on the other side of the gate…good or bad…begins with that moment. You have never been here before. You don’t know exactly how it will all turn out. You anticipate. You might even prepare for it. You may have stumbled upon it by accident or out of no doing of your own … like a global pandemic. And yet, here we are. Living through history just trying to get to the other side. No other person has lived this day, this moment, of this hour, of your life. And each tick of the clock propels us into the unknown.

My family is giggling at me as I write up this blog post, because “Into the Unknown” is, of course, the famous ballade from Disney’s Frozen 2 where Elsa follows the “voice” in the wilderness drawing her into the unknown to a place where she finally belongs. Which, to some extent, is exactly what God does. He calls us to follow Him. He calls us to follow Him into the unknown. Into the scary, big wide world out there that whispers to us as we lie awake at night. (Not that I am comparing Disney to the Bible. I did that once. You can read about it here. But just work with me and ah, Let it Go, okay?) Many years ago, God promised His people that He will guide them as they travelled out of their comfort zones and into the unknown. Idols and false gods have no way of knowing the future, nor have they made the paths straight for those who follow them. Only God alone can do this:

“And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground. These are the things I do, and I do not forsake them.”

Isaiah 42:16 ESV

Do you need this encouragement today, my friend? Are you standing at that crossroad of life? Perhaps you are hearing God’s whisper asking you to follow Him. Maybe you’ve answered the knock at the door but you need to climb back on the trail and keep marching forward. Or you’ve already been marching for a long time and are tired and in need of fresh ground. I’m imagining our dog on the other side of the kennel door running free and sniffing every friendly post along the way. Or Elsa flashing icicles at will as she glides into the unknown to a place where all the dots connect and things finally make sense.

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

It’s scary. It’s … well … it’s the unknown. All the same, the verse promises us that He will not forsake those who follow Him. Let’s turn the handle and walk through the door.

Hot Mess

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According to the urban dictionary, a “hot mess” is:

“When ones thoughts or appearance are in a state of disarray, but they maintain an undeniable attractiveness or beauty.”

Often our place is just a plain old mess… no hotness to be seen at all. Recently, the dog has “matured” enough to the point where his “killer instincts” have kicked in … and no stuffed animal is safe any longer than 10 minutes under his newly acquired prowess. “Reese” goes in for the jugular (or the crotch?) and brutally pulls poor Teddy apart from the inside out! Fluff and floof fly everywhere… and we have to be on guard duty for missing eyeballs or bits of squeaker or other intestinal hazards… not to mention cleaning up the stuffing. The living room quickly turns into a warzone with destruction strewn across the floor like new fallen snow. Cardboard boxes also end up gathering in bits under the couch or dining room table. Dogs are messy.

Poor, decapitated chicken.

And then there are the teenagers… home alone to fend for themselves in the midst of online learning and a pandemic lockdown. Not only has my grocery bill gone up… so has the pile of dishes in the sink. And the towels in the laundry. Why do they shower so much? They have no where to go. Hot messes, indeed.

I used to think babies were messy… and they are. Ahh… the good old days of projectile vomit. Sorry. Moving on. Just wanted to make the new moms feel included. Anyway, I am discovering you really never grow out of messes. They just change depending on the season you are in. I suspect our retirement years will be filled with bits and bobs from newly taken on projects, or travel, or dare I say, grandkids?

I used to look at the fingerprints on our glass door and ponder. The window reminded me that the kids were happy, and our house was full of love and laughter… and messes. Messes are part of learning and exploring and being confident to try. Getting down and dirty allows us to feel the Earth and experience the sensations of the world around us. None of us “have it all together”, because life is messy. And that’s okay.

Messy can be a good thing!

The Bible tells us in Luke, that Jesus came to save the lost — the messy — if you will. Those of us who doubt, and question, and weave back and forth on our faith journeys instead of making those bee lines to the pearly gates. In fact, I think He made us with a deep desire to explore, discover and test the best things in this world He made for us. Sometimes, that gets messy. Yes, Life is messy, but Jesus has the dust pan and broom. He takes our dismantled, insides out, missing eyeball chaos and transforms us into hot messes. We won’t be perfect until the end of this life, so we must learn to appreciate the fingerprints on the windowpanes. Take the good with the bad, and rejoice that we are still moving forward… even if we weave a little.

Well, my beloveds, I am off to do the dishes (one more time), but tomorrow when I look in the mirror and my see that slightly wrinkled, finger-nail-polish chipped, post Covid homemade haircut reflection, I hope I remember that in God’s eyes… I’m still a pretty hot mess! And you are, too! Be Blessed.