Have you ever seen a pie plate spinner?  (Pic above.)  They have the amazing ability to keep multiple plates spinning at a time atop tall, thin poles.  It’s quite a feat.  Have you ever felt like a pie plate spinner?  I have.  I am a stay-at-home mom to an almost two year old.  Throughout the day we are playing, reading together, learning numbers, letters, shapes and colors.  We also enjoy watching “Jake and the Neverland Pirates” and “Mickey Mouse Clubhouse”.  I am a small business owner trying to really get my business off the ground.  I have an online children’s boutique.  I am constantly researching, marketing, creating orders and answering the needs of my customers.  I love what I do.  I am the wife of a Pastor.  We love serving the Lord and people.  That’s where our heart is.  We are in the process of adopting internationally.  This entails lots of paper work, self-education and fundraising.  I am many other things as well including a wife, daughter, sister, daughter-in-law, sister-in-law, aunt, friend…  It can seem as though I am standing in the center of numerous plates that may all fall at any moment.  I can run frantically from one to the next spinning with all my might, or I can choose to do something revolutionary.  I can choose to focus the most of my attention, my heart, on one plate.  Sounds impossible, doesn’t it?

It can certainly seem that way.  There is a call on our lives to be utterly in love with and completely devoted to Christ; to give HIM our all.  No plate spinner great commissions exist in the Word.  He has asked us to love Him and love others.  I know our daily lives are filled with tasks innumerable.  I understand that you are worn and weary.  But may I suggest that we are all frazzled and tired because we are spinning all these plates with no regard to the Lord?

Matthew 6:33 says, “‘But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.’”  We have to have our foundation, our hope and sanity, in Jesus.  We don’t neglect responsibilities.  God calls us to provide and care for our families in different ways.  Yet, we have the tendency to do everything in our own strength according to our own will and our own time.  This leaves us drained by a world that wants to do all it can to pull our eyes from the cross.

Colossians 3:17 tells us, “And whatever you do in word or in deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”  Everything we are and all that we do must flow from a heart that longs for the Lord.  We must be selfless.  We can’t do that on our own (John 5:30a), but we must fully rely and REST in Jesus.  We have to let Him lead and prioritize our lives.  We’re all in different places with different callings, but we also all have the same commandment.  The message never changes, but the methods do.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-9 confirms that there are seasons to our lives.  There are times for everything.  Maybe you are a mother at home with small children.  They are your focus, but that doesn’t take away from God’s call to share the Gospel with the mommies He’s placed around you.  Maybe you are a single, busy college or grad student.  Your degree is your focus, but that doesn’t negate the calling to study God’s Word first of all.  Maybe you are a successful working woman.  Your career is your focus, but that doesn’t mean you don’t need God’s direction and blessing.  You may be all of these things.  Each of us needs the purpose of sharing the Gospel and discipling believers to be ever present in our thoughts as we go about our day.  We need one plate to take care of all the other plates.

So here’s a call to be grounded; to find a quiet place and balance in Christ.  To find contentment (Philippians 4:11), wisdom (Ephesians 5:15), peace (1 Peter 5:7) and rest (Mark 6:31) in the creator of it all.  All we need and who we are must be found in Him.  May He grant the desires of your heart, and may your desire always be for Him (Psalm 37:4).  Be blessed!

the blood poisoning spreads to, drop by drop, pregnant and quivering

I won’t compare the world to anybody’s oyster, no matter how

quick and easy you can suck it down if you hold your nose and squint

I won’t compare this poem to plums in the icebox, no matter when

I lurch into an apology, so sweet, so cold, the pit tasting like throat cancer

I won’t compare myself to a plate spinner, no matter how

many clouds drop to the ground and shatter into spheres of safety glass

Today’s weight:  145.5 (woohoo!)

Pounds lost / pounds to go:  5.0 / 10.0

Exercise:  4 hours participating in field day activities with my 3 munchkins – while I wasn’t overly active, the sun completely zapped me today and I am going to pay for it tomorrow.  I did some deep squats picking up “bowls” with my elbows, tossed stuffed frogs into a hula hoop, and beat all the other parents from my oldest daughter’s class in a ping-pong bouncing contest standing on one foot.  I’m callin’ it a day with that!

Do you ever feel like one of those Chinese plate spinners?  I do.  In fact, one of my recent status updates on Facebook was, “I’m not Chinese, nor a plate spinner.”  The point was that it is really tough to give each “plate” the attention it needs to keep it from slowing down, falling, and breaking.

Life feels like that to me at times.  On one plate is my marriage, another the kids, another work, another my spiritual growth, another my physical well-being, and on and on.  Here I am trying to keep all of those plates spinning and moving together…but then I’m asked to do a head stand or support another spinner on my shoulders and the chance of me keeping all of those plates from falling and breaking becomes slim.

Balance within any 24-hour period to me is elusive and maddening to achieve.  Yeah, it’s a great theory but I find when I spread myself into all of these areas every day, I stink at everything.  Instead, I strive for balance over a week or month.  If I decide to train for a half marathon, I will be spending more time running.  If I’m in the middle of a big project at work, my time will have to be focused there until the project is complete.  If we are going on vacation, then it’s important that I disconnect from work.  Get the picture?

There’s a reason plate spinning is fascinating to watch.  A plate could fall at any moment.  The performer who masters it is quite literally super-human.

My advice - pray and buy Corelle wear.

Back in Spain during the earliest years of his fun with academia, there was about an 18 month span when he and Shop Girl attended The British School of Aragón where the uniforms were little gray trousers/skirts, maroon jumper (that’s a sweater – but you should know that by now) sporting a huge navy blue “B” – like the size of the letter on a letterman’s jacket – on the front.  As the dutiful Mom, I would cross the span of our neighborhood and wait for them to descend the steps of the school bus (that looked more like tour buses than the yellow and black things that would come to mind) after nearly an hour of post-school urban trekking.

Of course the first words out of my mouth were, “Did anything fun happen today?”  He’d usually just mutely shake his head but that utterance from me was all it took to prime Shop Girl’s pump before the gush of who-did-what-to-who-and-Maria-had-two-new-barrettes-and-Ignacio-stole-my-candy-and…I’d start to hear the whaaawhaaawhaa like Charlie Brown’s mom’s voice over the phone.  The difference between the two is that one lives it all on the outside and the other on the inside.

Looking at that photo of him mega-tasking, I ask if it is any wonder that he has migraines.  A few weeks ago he got a referral to a pain clinic looking to get accepted into their headache program.  The examining doctor said that he’s never seen someone carry so much tension in his neck, back and shoulders as Best Boy.  Hummmm-there’s news worth the co-pay. Of course, today’s mail informed him that insurance wouldn’t cover any of the 12 scheduled visits so he’s just left with a pain in the neck (head) and ass.  This never helps my cause to get a guy that hates anything medical to try and seek treatment.  So much for that attempt.  No more pain clinic – no more good physical therapy and biofeedback.  I love insurance.  Best Boy doesn’t exactly have $4000 to cover the out-of-pocket expenses since they allow him TWO WHOLE VISITS A YEAR.  Moving on…

When this tiny black and white console TV graced Billy’s living room, the plate spinners on the Ed Sullivan show fascinated me as a little girl.  There’d be that one plate on the far end that would enter into a precarious wobble going slower and slower till it was about to fall and crash into a million pieces.  The spinner would do an Inspector Gadget move, throw his arm out and give that long stick a wiggle when balance was instantly maintained in the universe with only nanoseconds to spare.  Timing – it’s all about timing.

There were too many things I was juggling on the calendar in the next few weeks and I was setting myself up for a crash burn. Today I made some phone calls – shifted things around and all the plates are still spinning.  It helps me to take a step back and really look at all the plates to decide what really needs to happen when, before I get myself into a total frantic mess trying to do too much.

New dates for the basement work at the Mrs.’ place:  end of September.  I was really looking forward to having it all over and done with but August suddenly has me driving to Nashville for a week and then attending four or more baby showers on different weekends – so September it is.  Spin baby spin.