Eat the Cookie...Buy the Shoes: Giving Yourself Permission to Lighten Up Read online

  Our bodies are amazing vehicles. I hear my husband and sons talk in tones of wonder about some new car they admire, and yet our bodies are infinitely more finely tuned and brilliantly designed than any automobile ever made. I just passed my sixty-sixth year of life, and thanks to my new understanding of the importance of celebration, I went all out to celebrate. I decided to have a birthday week instead of a day, and I can honestly say it was the best birthday that I can remember. That was mainly due to my attitude of celebration. I realized that celebrating another year of life as a gift from God was a way of honoring Him. When I was sixty, my family gave me a wonderful huge party. But this birthday was even better, because I really celebrated with my whole heart.

  I was due for some celebrating anyway. We had just been involved in several tragic situations involving people we know and love. I was drained. On top of that, I was behind in my writing schedule due to the time I had to spend on an unexpected writing project, and I needed to get started again right away on this book. My birthday just happened to be in the midst of this time and I used it as an excuse to party, relax, get some new clothes, eat, spend time with people I love, and give to others. All of these very natural things helped me recover from the tragic events and the workload I had just had, and they helped me get ready for the next project I needed to tackle.

  I tried to sit down and start this book without taking time to celebrate, and the only thing I could think to say was “Introduction”! I put that word at the top of the page and could not think of one thing to say after that. I needed to take time to refresh through celebration before creativity would flow again. I decided to have a birthday week, and for five full days I did things that I enjoyed doing. I avoided all problems, made a point of not being around people who are challenging for me to be with, and I took the time to thoroughly enjoy each thing I did. After two days of celebrating, I tried again to write and managed one sentence. After that sentence nothing else came to me. Once again I stared at the blank page on the computer and decided to celebrate a few more days! By the fifth day, I could feel in my soul that I had made a transition and was ready to work again. Today I got started at six AM and have been writing for hours. And I’ve enjoyed every moment of it.

  I feel ready to work and be creative; in fact, I want to work! If I had denied myself the time of celebration, as I had for so many years, I would have been struggling, frustrated and resentful, thinking of how I worked all the time while other people enjoyed themselves.

  I am sure that most of you women reading this book have had plenty of times when you have felt that you do all the work, nobody really appreciates you, and that your husband and children go about enjoying life without ever realizing how much you sacrifice. It is commonly called a martyr syndrome, and I had it for at least one-half of my life. The answer to the problem is not found in someone else doing something for you, although that is helpful. The real answer is you learning how to celebrate your own progress so you have strength to begin the next one without resentment. I like it when other people do things for me or encourage me, but I have decided that if they don’t happen to think of it, I am going to do it myself!

  Celebrate the Ordinary

  Every day cannot be a birthday, and this day may be a very ordinary one for you. Perhaps you have just finished spring cleaning, and sometime before the week is over you need to visit your mom at the nursing home, take her to a doctor visit, go to the grocery store, make it to a parent-teacher conference, take little Johnnie to soccer practice, and watch your husband bowl on Friday night so he feels that you are a good wife who is interested in him. My suggestion to avoid bitterness, resentment, and perhaps a mild nervous breakdown is to take time between the spring cleaning and all the rest of the things on your schedule and do something that you really enjoy that would qualify as celebration. The first thing your mind is going to say is, “You don’t have time to do that.” But I am telling you that you need to take the time. And if you do, the rest of your tasks will go more smoothly and joyfully. If you don’t take the time to recharge your batteries, then you are probably headed for some version of sinking emotions—discouragement, depression, despair, anger, resentment, or self-pity. When you start to feel down, just take the time to do something “up” that lifts your mood and helps you feel better about life in general.

  Cleaning house is an ordinary thing, but getting the job done can still be celebrated. Perhaps we could enjoy ordinary, everyday life more if we learned to celebrate the ordinary. I am actually inviting you to creatively find reasons to celebrate. We cannot always celebrate for days at a time like I just did for my birthday, but even small celebrations can refresh us. Eat a cookie, buy a pair of shoes, go to lunch with a good friend, sit in the sunshine, go for a walk, or put a spoonful of whipped cream in your coffee. Take the time to do whatever is special to you. It doesn’t even have to take a long time, but it is necessary for optimum joy and maintaining a good attitude.

  Too much of the ordinary is what we normally get bored with, but I am convinced that it’s our own fault. We don’t have to wait for something nice to happen to us, we can be aggressive and do something nice for ourselves. For many of you, I know this is a new thought; one that may seem foreign and even unspiritual. But I can assure you that it is part of God’s plan. You can create variety, and it will keep your life more exciting. I sat with my computer on my lap for about four hours this morning and then stopped for a while to do some other things I needed to do. When I went back to my writing, I decided to sit in a different part of the house just for variety. I chose a place where I could look out the window and had plenty of light. Simple little things like this cost nothing, but they are very valuable.

  We don’t have to wait for something nice to happen to us, we can be aggressive and do something nice for ourselves.

  No day needs to be ordinary if we realize the gift God is giving us when He gives us another day. An extraordinary attitude can quickly turn an ordinary day into an amazing adventure. Jesus said that He came that we might have and enjoy life (see John 10:10). If we refuse to enjoy it, then it’s no one’s fault but our own. I would like to suggest that you take responsibility for your joy and never again give anyone else the job of keeping you happy. You can control what you do, but you cannot control what other people do. So you may be unhappy a lot of the time if you only depend on them as your source of joy. The Psalmist David said that he encouraged himself in the Lord, and if he can do it, then we can do it.

  Solomon talked about celebration when he said:

  Behold, what I have seen to be good and fitting is for one to eat and drink, and to find enjoyment in all the labor in which he labors under the sun all the days which God gives him—for this is his [allotted] part.

  Ecclesiastes 5:18

  I can see from this Scripture that the cookie was my allotted part that Saturday afternoon in 2007 at our conference. It helped me enjoy my labor, and since then I have learned a great deal about the art of celebration. I am so sorry that I lived so long without it, but I am fully committed to spending the rest of my life making up for lost time!

  Every day is worth celebrating, but especially the day of your birth. Go for it and don’t hold back. God has given you another year to do the ordinary and the extraordinary, and you are cheating yourself if you don’t celebrate.

  CHAPTER 3

  You Are Worth a Little Waste

  The Bible teaches us to be prudent, and that means being good managers of all of our resources. Yet there are times when God gets rather extravagant with those whom He loves. Sometimes in an effort to not be wasteful we can become downright cheap and stingy. Some people are especially that way with themselves. I know people who are generous with others, but their general attitude toward themselves is that they can do without. They say, “I don’t need that,” or, “I can do without that.” But I believe they are depriving themselves because they don’t feel worth the cost of the indulgence.

  Perhaps we can learn a lesso
n from Jesus. He was nearing the time of His suffering and death, and He went to Simon’s house, where a woman named Mary came up to Him and poured expensive perfume on His head as He was reclining at the table. Since He was at the table I am assuming that He either was or had been eating (maybe a cookie). When the disciples saw what she did, they became indignant, saying, “For what purpose is all this waste?” They talked about how the perfume could have been sold and the money given to the poor.

  Jesus replied by telling them not to bother the woman because she had done a noble (praiseworthy and beautiful) thing for Him. Jesus said that they would always have the poor with them, but they would not always have Him. He said that what she had done had helped prepare Him for the trials ahead (see Matt. 26:6–12). The perfume she poured out on Jesus was probably worth about one year of wages, but her extravagance certainly blessed Him. The love she showed to Him helped give Him the strength He needed to face the upcoming days of persecution, trial, suffering, crucifixion, and death. God often works through unlikely vessels and in unusual ways to give us courage and strength. A further study of this amazing event teaches us that the home Jesus was in belonged to a leper, and the woman who blessed Him had formerly had seven demons cast out of her. It is interesting to note who Jesus chose to spend time with at this critical time in His life: it was not the religious crowd.

  In this particular instance, Jesus was saying that for this time and occasion He was worth the extravagance, or what the disciples saw as waste. We know that ordinarily waste would not be good, but everything is beautiful in its time (see Eccles. 3:11). There is a time to get and a time to lose, a time to keep and a time to give away (see Eccles. 3:6). Jesus certainly believed in giving to the poor. He and His disciples kept money with them as they traveled specifically for the purpose of giving to the poor they met on their journey. But religious legalism leaves no room to be led by the Holy Spirit. Everything is controlled by rules, regulation, and laws when one is religiously legalistic. This is why Jesus had such harsh things to say to the religious people of His day. It is also the reason why, when He wanted to relax with friends, He chose ordinary people who had made mistakes and wanted forgiveness, mercy, and a better way of living.

  The disciples looked at what was going on from their minds and not their hearts, and they missed the whole point. Mary had been forgiven for much and she loved Jesus very much. She loved Him so much that she was willing to take what was probably her most precious possession and pour it all over Him as an act of gratitude and worship. Her wholehearted display of affection ministered to Him in such a deep and profound way that He said it helped prepare Him for His burial. This whole story is truly amazing and contains a wonderful lesson if we really look at it deeply.

  Seeing from God’s View

  When we look at things with the eyes of our heart we are more likely to see from God’s view. The poor are certainly important, but at that moment Jesus needed to be prepared for a world-changing event and it was worth a departure from the ordinary way things were usually done.

  When our ministry takes people to the mission field for the first time, they usually come home after seeing such severe poverty and feel that they should never buy anything again that is not absolutely and vitally necessary, and that they should give away everything else. We went through the same thing but soon realized that while God was asking us to help the poor, He was not asking us to become poor. People who start to feel guilty after a mission trip and begin to live on what they need to barely get by quickly become unhappy, unless of course God has given them a special grace to make such an extraordinary sacrifice. They cannot understand why they are unhappy because after all, they are doing the noble thing. However, they are doing something that is not necessary and that God never asked them to do.

  We cannot labor and never enjoy the fruit of our labor. It is not in God’s plan for His children. Just as we are not built for guilt, we are not destined by God to live with barely enough to get by. He is El Shaddi, the God of more than enough. He is Jehovah Jirah, the Lord our Provider. He said that He was able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above and beyond all that we could ever dare to ask, think or imagine (see Eph. 3:20). He said that if we would be faithful to bring all of our tithe into the storehouse so there would always be enough to help others, that He would open the windows of heaven and dribble out (oops, I made a mistake—He actually said POUR out) a blessing so great that we could not take it in (see Mal. 3:10).

  We cannot labor and never enjoy the fruit of our labor. It is not in God’s plan for His children.

  Certainly God wants and even commands us to give to others generously. You will see later in this book that in the Bible we learn that giving to the poor is part of celebrating our victories and the progress we have made in life. But God never intended that we feel guilty if we take time to enjoy the fruit of our labors. Hard work deserves reward and we must not ever think that it doesn’t. God rewards those who diligently seek Him (see Heb. 11:6), so why would He not want us to enjoy the reward of other things we work diligently at?

  On that Saturday afternoon in the fall of 2007, the cookie I ate part of was a reward for my hard work so far in the conference. It was to me what the sweet perfume was to Jesus. It encouraged me for the rest of the journey I needed to make. It was a principle, and to be honest, the one-third of a cookie had very little to do with it. So don’t get fixated on the cookie and miss the lesson. You could start eating cookies three times a day and not get anything but fat. The cookie could easily have been a compliment from the right person, a hug, some perfume, a neck and shoulder massage, or a thousand other things, but the point was that I needed a little something for me and my emotions. We all have emotional needs, and ignoring them will cause serious problems over time. God gave us our emotions, and it is not wrong to do what is needed to keep them strong and healthy. We must not allow emotions to rule us, but denying their existence is equally dangerous.

  The cookie did not fill me up. I could have done without it, it probably was a waste of calories—I know a nutritionist would say it had no food value. But I did not care at all—I WANTED THE COOKIE AND I ATE IT!

  Is It Waste to Buy More of What You Already Have?

  It can be a waste and a breeding ground for financial trouble to buy more of what you already have, but there are times when it is acceptable behavior. The first thing to ask yourself is if you can afford what you are purchasing. What is wasteful for one person may be totally permissible for another depending on level of income. One way to define extravagance is trying to live beyond what you can comfortably afford. I recommend that you don’t buy or eat things just for entertainment or encouragement if you cannot afford it or if it will harm your overall life in some way. Everything we do should be guided by principles of wisdom.

  Most women like little things like soap that smells good, perfume, earrings, shoes, a new top to wear, or some little thing that is pretty to look at. Do we need all of them? Of course we don’t, but we do enjoy them. And enjoyment has intrinsic value. We need to enjoy our journey through life. My husband loves to go to the golf store and of course I can’t understand that at all since he already has golf balls, clubs, gloves, shoes, hats, and all that golfing stuff. But, he loves to go there and he usually comes out with something, just like I would if I went into an accessory store for ladies.

  Jesus did not die so we could be miserable and deny ourselves everything that we enjoy or that is pretty. He did say that we should deny ourselves, but He was talking about self-denial in order to serve others rather than being selfish and self-centered. Jesus did not go to the cross because we buy and wear earrings or other jewelry, or because of makeup or movies or dancing or card playing. He had to go to the cross because of jealousy, greed, anger, lust, gossip, criticism, lying, hatred, and other such sins. Obviously, there may be times when it is necessary and proper to deny ourselves the item that we already have plenty of, but we have the freedom as individuals to be led by the Holy Spirit
.

  I also believe there are different seasons in our lives in which we may need to follow different guidelines. When God was teaching me that I needed Him more than I needed any other “thing” in life, He told me not to ask Him for anything except more of Him until He gave me permission to do so. This was a season of self-denial in my life that lasted for six months and was for the purpose of teaching me an important spiritual lesson. We all have times like this and it is important to be able to flow in and out of the various seasons of our life comfortably. If I have to shop for earrings or Dave has to go to the golf store to be happy, then we have a problem, but if it is something we simply enjoy, then God will sanction it and even help us find what we are looking for.

  The same disciples who thought Mary was being wasteful when she poured the perfume on Jesus argued among themselves over which of them they thought was the greatest. They saw and judged Mary’s sacrificial gift as waste, but they failed to see their own pride, arrogance, and competitive spirit. They needed to look at themselves rather than Mary because it was their pride that was a sin, and not her generosity.

  Jesus tried to tell them that they needed to clean the inside of the cup and not worry so much about the outside, but most of them never really understood what He was saying. He wanted them to realize that no matter how perfectly they behaved or how many laws and rules they kept, none of it meant anything if their hearts were not right. They never really understood that it wasn’t the perfume or what it cost that was important, but it was Mary’s attitude of heart that was so valuable and encouraging to Jesus. The perfume was just the vehicle that carried the love she felt and displayed.