Chunking Down

by:  Staci Stallings

This lesson is a great one for the holidays because let’s face it, we have overcrowded lives already, and then you add this HUGE amount of baking, buying, wrapping, decorating, packing, driving/flying, celebrating, and then cleaning up on top of it.  It can get to be WAY too much.

The essence of this lesson is very simple:  Don’t try to do a whole task, especially an overwhelming one, all at once.

Chunk it down.

What does that mean?

It means instead of trying to do ALL of the Christmas cards in one sitting, do 10 of them and then go do something else.  Rotating through 3 or 4 different tasks, for me, makes things go faster and I don’t get as frazzled.

I do this with my books.  Obviously you can’t write or edit a 400-page book in one sitting.  So I chunk it down.  I set a goal of say five written pages or 10 edited pages.  When that amount is done, I then have the option of doing a few more or going to do something else.

I often do this around the house too.  Instead of saying, “I’m going to clean the kitchen” when it is an absolute mess.  I say, “I’m going to put 25 things into the dishwasher.”  Often by the time I get to 25, there are only a few things left, and I can finish it with no trouble.  If there are a lot of things left, I do something else for a few minutes and then do 25 more things.”

This one lesson has kept me from going crazy because I don’t look at the overwhelmingness of what I’m doing–I do what I CAN do and come back later to do another little chunk.

So what do you have that is overwhelming?  Maybe it’s cleaning out a closet.  Do one shelf at a time instead of all of it.

Maybe it’s a school project, chunk it down in to smaller pieces and do one or two small pieces.  As you do a few smaller pieces, the whole thing will stop looking so overwhelming until the point when you just say, “I’m going to finish this” or to the point that finishing it looks doable.

Good luck chunking things down!  And I hope your holidays are happy and filled with peace and joy!

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Watching God Work

by:  Staci Stallings

Sometimes a little distance from an event can give you great clarity on just how God works in this world.  I’ve found that when He’s working in my life and His work is really visible, it’s hard to pull apart all He’s doing because I’m in the middle of it.  It’s kind of like how on http://www.MapQuest.com, you can pull way out and see most of the world.  Then you keep hitting + and you get closer and closer in to the map until you can see all the street names.  The problem is sometimes the actual area doesn’t really look like it does on the map.

Okay, so there’s a curve there, but you weren’t expecting trees or that hill that obscure your view, nor were you picturing that there would be no sign to the turn you’re supposed to take.

It’s the same way when you’re in the middle of a situation.  You are bombarded with things so close and coming at you so quickly that really, you’re just living, not analyzing.  When, however, you have a bit of distance from a situation, you can often marvel at how God works.

For example, I’ve recently connected with a writer’s group that is going gang-busters.  We help each other out in the rough and tumble world of social networking.  The neatest thing is getting to watch God work–through them, with them, in them, and with each other.  Three times now we have had a book/author who for one reason or another starts climbing the charts.  That’s the cue to go from passive help to active help–getting the word out to as many people as we can as quickly as possible.

But the thing I’ve marveled at the most is simply watching God at work.

I have so enjoyed seeing Him work in how the other authors rally together, in how creative they can be in coming up with ways to help, and in the encouragement they give to one another.  I have also enjoyed watching the astonishment of the authors that others rally around.  They are often quite literally floored that others would be so generous with their time, talents, and resources to help them out even though they will not see a nickel for their efforts.

In fact, it’s almost a glimpse, I think of what Heaven will be like.  Doing things out of love only, not for the gain that will come to us if we do.  Helping out of our fullness not out of our need. That’s so cool.

I love watching God in each of them too.  They are helpful, yes.  But they are fun and joyful.  They know how to lift each other up–through prayer, yes–but also through just being wonderful to each other.  I love watching that example played out over and over again.

The other night, one member posted something about NOT checking sales numbers on Sunday.  (You can get obsessed with checking. 😉  Well, another member happened to see that post and hadn’t checked in awhile so she went and checked.  Come to find out her book was rapidly climbing the charts that minute!  (And she never would have thought to check without the first post!)

She came on and was all excited about her book selling so well.  Instantly about six of us jumped on the band wagon and started tweeting and Facebooking about her book, and sure enough it climbed nearly 4,000 more spots!  Now on her own, even if she saw the climb, she couldn’t have done much.  A few tweets, a Facebook Message.  But with all of us right there, ready to help, many more people now have a great book about God’s love for them.

This is not a perfect system, nor is it science.  We do what we can, following and doing what God leads us to do when He tells us to.  But it is one of the honors of my life just to get to watch Him work through this group.  He really is an AWESOME God!

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L.I.G.H.T.

By: Staci Stallings

One of my Holy Spirit friends is teaching Sunday School to 7^th grade girls this year. When she first started, my friend was a little lost as to what to teach and what other resources were available, so she innocently asked me if I could help. Little did either of us know where that one simple email would lead. 

 

First, it was just figuring out what song she could use as an opener and then as a closer. I’m a music fanatic, so that wasn’t too taxing. Then as the year progressed, we began working through what it means when things don’t work out the way you thought they should. We discussed lessons—she is the consummate “activity guru,” and I added in insights I’ve gleaned from my writing ministry. Together, we made a pretty good team.

 

Just after Christmas she came over to discuss her newest lesson. She had decided to do a lesson on the light of Christ coming into our world at Christmas. She had already gotten candles to use and everything. We worked out the activity—turning off the lights to start in darkness and then explaining with a single flame that Jesus came into our world and brought light. He gave His light to the early Christians, who passed it down through the generations to us, and now we have the opportunity to give His light to others.

 

The idea was that the first girl’s candle would be lit from the Jesus candle, and then each girl would light the next girl’s candle until all the candles were lit.  We thought it was a pretty good plan—and then she got to class and had two girls instead of 14.  She didn’t do the light ceremony but did do the other activities she had planned to go with it.

 

When we talked again, she still wanted to do the light ceremony, but now she needed new activities. She told me that she was thinking about letting the girls take the word LIGHT and see what acronyms they could come up with.  I agreed that it sounded like a good plan.

 

Then the Holy Spirit stepped in. Being a word freak and having some time on my hands as I drove to school to get my children, I started asking, “What would LIGHT stand for to me?”

 

I came up with some good ones:  Love In God’s Heart Today.  Live In God’s Hope Today.  Then as I got closer to home, I looked down and noticed a fortune from a cookie we had gotten over the weekend lying on the seat next to me.  I picked it up and read it.  The word “Luck” jumped out at me because the book I am currently working on is called “Lucky.”

 

Because I had been looking for “L” words, I immediately thought, “Hmm… Luck… How would that work in the word LIGHT?” Then a thought went through my head. “Luck Is God’s Help.”  Instantly I got excited, but then I realized there was not “T” word.  So I said, “Okay, Holy Spirit but what does the T stand for?” Instantly the answer came… “Luck Is God’s Help… Trusted.”

 

You might think I came up with that. I didn’t.  It’s too perfect. It’s too Holy Spirit! 

 

The cool thing is that for years—literally—people have told me that I was lucky. I always said, “Yeah, and I work darn hard to get that luck to work out.”  Up until the middle of last year, that was completely accurate in my life. I did work darn hard to be so “lucky.” And it was work.

 

However, about the time my friend started teaching, I started putting things in the Holy Spirit’s hands, and life has not been the same since. “Luck” has started literally pouring my direction.  So much so, that when the title “Lucky” showed up for my new book, I knew it was perfect because the main theme is putting life in God’s hands and how it works so much better when you do that.

 

Well, you can be sure that I couldn’t wait to get home and call my friend. Thing is: She called me first with awesome news!  (I love the way the Holy Spirit works!)  Just before Christmas she had taken her teacher’s certification test, and at the time she commented that it seemed that “everyone else is freaking out, but I’m not worried. I know whatever happens, it’s what God meant to happen.” 

 

Then today she calls to tell me that she had gotten her scores in… A 91!  73 out of 80 questions right!  That, for those of you who don’t know, is a slam-dunk on a really challenging test!

 

Now some people might say she got lucky.  But there’s no doubt in my mind that she and I both know that “luck” came because she was living in the “light.”  Luck Is God’s Help Trusted… It’s such a cool way to live!