3 KEYS: Organize, organize, ORGANIZE!

Howdy again….sorry...about the howdy... guess I have been in Texas too long folks....

Anyway, welcome back to the Front Porch for more discussion…well, maybe not ‘discussison’ since I have the keyboard and control of the strokes…lade dada, so stick around if you want… 

Gonna discuss another word that came to me. More Lifestyle Living. How to make permanent changes in life, in living, in witnessing, in serving God , in making the most of life, in being the best we can be…as the Army used to say.

Yesterday was PRIORTIZE……well today we will discuss ORGANIZE…

I am not the most organized gal on the block.. Just ask the gals that work with me in the library.  My office....ugh…is usually a disorganized kinda of mess….even I must admit it…it seems there is one project after another….especially this year AND I cannot for the life of me figure out what happened to ‘work smarter not harder’….it just ain’t happening for me!

 I am a public school librarian....started out as a private school teacher…then taught in public school and then when I ‘grew up’, decided to be a school librarian.  Many reasons…most was the opportunity to make books come alive for children…I have an opportunity to be creative…especially where I am now…by the way I am currently at a GarlandISD preschool…yep 850 4/5 year olds…yep it is a ‘real school’.  I see 38 classes a week 30 minutes each…we sing, read books, have puppet shows, act out books, have numerous props and we do check out books for the kiddos.  In addition, 700 of the parents have signed up for library cards and a great deal of them come in to check out books on a regular basis…hmmm real nice!  Other duties include, but are not limited to: lesson plans, class set-up and prep, actual class presentations, serve/assist parents, serve on  various other committees, oversee library budget, order books, process books, shelve books, review books, displays to set up, bulletin boards...whew…just to name a few of the hats I wear…Somedays I come home pretty worn out and weary…now the Preacher (love his little heart) will say something like “why are you so worn out?  All you do is read books to children?”  Hmmmm, gotta love it…and I love it and him and just smile and say ….hmmm.

Anyway, I should be a pretty organized person…ya think?

Well, given any day…my office desk, side desk and floor are filled with papers, books, various props, artifacts…and stuff….IF my desk can be seen and IF I can get stuff off the floor and on shelves, in files or out the door where it should be…I can say “ahhhh”. 

Organize…did you ever think about it…How organized our God is??  Look at our world…amazing, simply amazing.  The seasons, the days, weeks, months….BUT how very cool that we have seasons…even in the tropical regions there is some order of seasons.   How things grow, how animals reproduce after their own kind, how babies conceived and grow into little beings…God arranged, God ordained and God  organized.

Unfortunately, there at times it appears God’s domain is not so organized-especially when ‘man’ tries to perfect or mess with God’s organization.  For example, some babies are born with difficulties or challenges……I do not think God makes this happen…but allows it to happen because of the changes man has made either in the earth and thus the things we eat, drink or breathe are defiled.  Just because doctors prescribe morning sickness pills to women and then babies are born with no or deformed limbs….is not a God thing….no more than a young man who has a form of autism ( a God thing?-there again changes in our environment affect our genes and ???) then he is exposed to countless hours of violent  video games and then for some reason…only known by God…takes from his household arsenal of high powered guns…takes rounds of gunfire and shoots innocent children and school staff…

 Let’s set the record straight, God did not do this…did He allow it…yes, although he is omnipresent, all-seeing, all knowing….. He does allow things to happen…..WHY?? excellent question!  Why did he let Adam and Eve…well, Eve be beguiled and bewitched by Satan in the Garden and thus kinda change things for all of us?  Free will…we have choices…. we are given the ability to live, move and have our being…..hopefully in Him…but look around us…a vast majority are not living according to His plan, His purpose.  Evil surrounds us, permeates into every walk of life, every avenue of life, every crack and crevice is engulfed with evil. One false stroke on this keyboard could send me into a world of darkness and evil of which I somewhat know about…but I am sure I cannot image the depth of the evilness..’out there’.

So, back to organization.  Companies, individuals, merchandisers, make billions in trying to help us with our, “organizational challenges”.  File folders, file cabinets, boxes, baskets, storage units, closet organizers, desk organizers, apps on phones, daytimes…anyone still use those?? Calendars and we all have some form of those …somewhere….all to help us with organization. 

So how does this word fit into lifestyle living?   Good question…Just Do IT!  Take a few minutes and do it…

I had to face the ‘piper’ (what does that mean anyway??).    When my family visited during the holidays, and tried to help in the kitchen…yikes…every drawer, every cabinet was ‘Open at your own risk!”. I kept apologizing (hmmm another ize word we will discuss later) for the mess…  So I took some time this week and organized…got rid of the junk I was holding on to in drawers and cabinets that I would not use, didn’t need, would never need.  Diana Moreno, you would have been so proud of me!  2-3 garbage bags full of junk…Whew…nice, nice, nice…hope it stays that way…wait…there is no hoping to it…it will if I do my part!  Put things where they belong!  Take it out..put it back!  Make a mess, clean it up.  Drop it, pick it up. Use it all…throw the container away.

Well, same thing with serving God.  Organize our day to PRIORITIZE (hmmm.. taught we were finished with that word, huh?)..our time…a must…find some time to spend with Him…can’t stress that enough…just do it.

I recently read an article about how valuable 15 minutes can be…just 15 minutes…this article caught my attention so I read it.  It was about a lady who grew up playing the piano.  Then life began to happen, college, marriage, children…and while she made sure her children were taught the piano, she just felt she had no time to practice and play herself.   Therefore, she did become rusty…lost some of her skills and knowledge…apparently it is not like riding a bike…”once you learn it…you don’t forget it”…anyway, long story hopefully not too long…kids gone…she was still very busy but one day just decided she could begin to devote 15 minutes… little 15 minutes, such a small chunk of time, to once again playing the piano.  She began to take lessons again and practice playing the piano….15 minutes…soon that 15 minutes became 20-30-40 minutes and some days even more.  She fell in love all over again with her music, her piano…just because she organized her time and devoted 15 minutes.

 So start where you are…get on a plan…a daily reading plan perhaps…there are countless plans ‘out there’…find one..if that one doesn’t work…try another…read a good devotional along with your Bible reading plan.  Make the time, get organized so that even a small pocket of time can be used to spend time with God and His WORD.

Organize…simply means to put in order…funny maybe it should have been orderize??  Anyway, put things in order…stuff, bills, recipes, pictures, books, me-my lesson plans lesson plans, etc.

 Organize your thoughts…put them in order…sweep out the stinkin thinkin and replace with a clear cut agenda-organize…throw out the old, bad, keep the current, fresh.  When thoughts-bad-unholy-jealousy, nursing old hurts and wound thoughts creep, sneak in….file, ‘em, put them away, under the category: FORGIVEN, FORGOTTEN now move FORWARD.

As I was pondering on this word, organize, and someone who would be a good example of this word, a person came to mind…..my sister-in-law, Melissa.  She is one organized lady…gets up early, has her day-organized, has her time with the Lord-organized, runs a business-organized, home schools her 2 children-organized, has a part-time job-organized….is very active in her church-organized….she is so organized that when they came to visit us..she referred to their packing as the Texas suitcase, the Disney Suitcase,  The Ohio Suitcase….she had organized snacks, treats for the kids and even brought along their school work…organized.  She is so organized she still has recipes she uses from her home economics class in high school…and still uses her apron she made in that class…organized.

Organization makes life a little easier and sweeter, LESS stressful….Our Lord is a great example.  Look at Creation and how orderly and organized the plan was.  Had it all mapped out, all planned what would happen first, second and then… so on.  So for effective Lifestyle living, make it a point, a purpose, a plan this year to get organized…

So, gonna move on get organized with my day…busy day ahead…last ‘free’ day of this school vacation.   It has been so nice and helped me to organize some things and areas in my life.  Hmmmm, once you get started on organizing… easy to do…but the challenge is to stay…organized…

So until tomorrow, here on the front porch…you are invited to stop by again …I have a Saturday Special…a BOGO deal.... a two for one deal…...two words that go hand in hand… let’s talk….tomorrow see you then.

Oh, almost forgot...just in case that little nagger thought attacks you, "I don't have time to organize, prioritize,"...... gonna leave you with this thought about time:

The bad news is, time flies. The good news is, you're the pilot.

~Michael Althsuler♥