Norma L. Brumbaugh

Are You Out of Balance?

EVERYONE has issues. Some of these are obvious and others not so much. What is universally true for all people is that what they do with their issues is totally up to them. You can’t fix them. How about you? What you do with your issues is totally up to you. It-is-up-to-you. Let that sink in. Observers can see the need, show you the need, but they can’t change you or the problem. The proverbial, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.

The trouble when we ignore the problem, hope it gets better on its own, is it doesn’t. You have to address the issue. It is up to you to put forth the effort, learn what you can, and determine to stay the course. Speaking from experience, it is so easy to get side-tracked. I get on a kick and go after it gung-ho, but after a couple of months, I let up a little here and a little there. Before I know it, I am almost back to where I started.

I am not happy with myself when I get out of balance in any area of my life. Of course things happen that over-stress the system and have to be worked through little by little. Some things we can’t control, say, like the Caronavirus. Even with that there are areas that we do control such as whether to follow the recommended guidelines.

Speaking of health, taking care of one’s health is not only wise, it is spiritual. Balanced health includes health in physical, mental, spiritual and emotional aspects of being. Ignore one area and it affects all other areas. Kind of like how food issues, too much or too little, bingeing on unhealthy foods or barely eating, lead to health being compromised. You can’t do that for long without it impacting your overall physical condition.

Self Evaluate

When we get out of whack we begin to see discrepancies popping up. We say one thing but do another. To keep in balance one has to self evaluate. You learn to take stock of your whole self. You will zoom out to take a bird’s eye view of yourself and what goes on in your world. Like putting numbers and facts on a ledger, you will sort by putting your positives and negatives in separate columns.

There’s something very freeing in this. You stop running away, stop avoiding the problem, begin taking ownership of the stuff in your life–both now and the things in your past–and you learn ways to deal with it. You become proactive in your spiritual life. This affects all areas in your life. Everything connects to everything, both in-house and relational. Your life impacts other lives. The healthier you are the more dynamic you become in your relationships

A Balanced Perspective

I’ve been rereading The Truth about Beauty written by Kat James. She was unhealthy in her teens and twenties from a food addiction. When the doctor said her liver was damaged and was ready to prescribe medication, she decided to do some research (pre-internet days) before going that route. She was already dealing with her emotional issues by sorting through her triggers and negative messages from the past.

While looking in the mirror one day, she saw the person she had become–overweight, plagued with skin issues, liver troubles, unwell, unhappy. She felt an overwhelming sadness for all that her real self had been through. Her wishes died that day. She quit lying to herself and accepted her ‘wounded,’ struggling self. A form of peace entered at the thought. It became her moment of truth and the start of her transformation, which she did through non-medicated, natural means. (That’s her on the book cover nine years after her transformation.)

A Balanced View of Yourself

This is going to take some work, it always does. No pain, no gain. The gain is worth every bit of effort one puts into it.

Start Here

First, take an objective look at yourself.
Second, begin to work on what you can do on your own.
Next, give the other stuff to God and ask for His help.
Then, God helps you deal with what is out of balance.
Last, begin the process again in another area that needs attention.

Imagine you are in gymnastics’ class. You are on the balance beam, striving to keep upright and get through your routine. You notice what is a little sloppy or off balance. Your coach makes a few suggestions. Then you address it and move forward. To adjust your spiritual balance is a process of dependence on God for the enabling, and dependence on yourself for the initiative and carry-through. For those practically-perfect people like Mary Poppins, I suggest they ask God to reveal to them whatever is not so perfect.

God knows us better than we know ourselves.

Why You Should Care

The things that trip us up the most are related to ‘out of balance’ areas, whether they are activities we engage in, false expectations of ourselves and others, thought patterns that are destructive, or related to our spiritual condition. They can be anything that is hindering your life and not under the control of the Holy Spirit.

When you become healthy and whole, your life has more joy, promise, hope, and life to it. You become a blessing to others for your life graces them with its sunshiny beauty and radiance from God. Who wouldn’t want that? And yes, it is possible for anyone. It is possible for you.

God is ready, willing, and waiting to help you.

Photo by Unsplash

How You Treat Your Bible Does Matter

I WAS LUCKY. I had two Aunt Louises. Both of them went by their middle names. One Aunt Louise was my father’s older sister, Almina Louise, and the other Aunt Louise was my mother’s younger sister, Virginia Louise. Both Aunt Louises’ played the piano. In fact, my dad’s sister was a district roving music teacher for part of her teaching career, and she directed several musicals. My mother’s sister was a student at the time. She accompanied the musical selections in these same musicals.

My parents were probably getting acquainted around that time. They went to sister churches a few blocks from each other in Glendora, California.

One summer when I was a little girl I spent a some time with my mother’s parents. They had rented a little cottage in Burbank to be closer to my grandad’s work as a heavy equipment operator in freeway construction. My aunt was going through a difficult divorce. She was in and out visiting us. I remember several scenes with her. I thought she was exotic looking. She was a cosmetician-beautician-hairdresser and mother to my infant cousin David. The two of us went for walks with her son David in a stroller. One time she bought me a packet of Walnettos. I could tell that my grandparents were anxious about her.

My Aunt’s Bible

My aunt would read in her Bible. She kept a red pencil and a blue pencil on the table next to her. Every so often she would stop and color in a verse with the red or blue pencil. One day I happened to look in her bible and saw that many passages had been colored. That impressed me.

I knew there was a reason she was coloring the verses. They had interested her in some way. I thought the red and blue looked beautiful, just like how I saw her as beautiful. The Word of God speaks to the soul. I witnessed that whenever I saw my aunt reading and underlining passages.

My aunt married again and had six sons altogether. Her life was not easy. She passed away from cancer at age forty-four (?). I saw her a couple of weeks before she passed when Grandma and I went to visit her. I was a student at CSU Fullerton the fall of her passing. Aunt Louise was beautiful and gracious even though she was seriously ill and in pain. I felt sad that she hadn’t had an easier time of it.

Those Dog-Eared Corners

Mrs. Lamb was one of those sweet saints of God. She was devoted to teaching children about God’s Word. Our family attended Grace Baptist Church in Chico, California at the time. Mrs. Lamb would teach us in the church library on Sunday afternoons right before the Sunday evening service. There were my siblings and me and a couple of other children. She’d sit on a chair and teach while we listened to her.

There was the time she talked about “dog-ears.” You know, those pages where the top corner is turned down. She explained that we should treat our bibles with care because it is God’s Word. She held her bible and explained about dog-eared pages. We opened our bibles and thumbed through the pages looking for dog-ears to flatten until they were smooth. She encouraged us to not fold the corner of any page and to use a book marker instead. To this day I make sure my bible’s pages don’t have any dog-eared pages.

Respecting the Word

Clyde C. our church’s then adult Sunday School teacher and I were talking between church services. We were discussing bibles. I told him what I had learned from Mrs. Lamb and how it stuck with me. He chuckled, then he told me he was taught to never place a bible directly on the floor. That was a new one on me, and I felt it had merit. The Word of God is precious. After all, it is the Holy Bible. From then on I never placed a bible on the floor.

I know that’s a small thing and probably doesn’t matter. But it matters to me. I feel like I am respectful of the Word of God when I treat it well. This afternoon I needed to respond to something while I was reading my bible and taking notes. I was in a hurry and the quickest thing would have been to put my bible on the floor. I didn’t want to do that for the very reasons already stated. So I grabbed a throw pillow and put my bible on top of it.

Not all people have a bible. Some countries in the world ban copies of the bible where it is illegal for anyone to have a bible. I have heard stories where one or two pages of the Word is all they have. They treasure those pages. We, too, should prize our bibles. I hope your take-away from this post is a renewed appreciation for God’s Word. It is precious and unlike any other book you own. Treat the bible as holy unto the Lord.

[Top Photo: Left to right, my mother and her sister at the Big Bear Lake cabin.]

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PRAYER REMINDER: THESE ARE CRITICAL TIMES: Some of you have joined with me to pray for our nation on Wednesdays at 9:00 a.m. or whenever you can. This week, please read Ephesians 6:10-20 before or during your prayer session. We are in a global crises that is spiritual, economic, social, political, and physical (pandemic). As Corrie ten Boone would say, God is Victor. Here is last week’s post on A Call To Prayer for those who missed it. Please join us. Your prayers matter.

CONNECTING WITH GOD IN EVERYDAY LIFE