toni lagaras

Whatcha lookin’ at?

I have always loved gymnastics. I took lessons at the YWCA, and I tried out for the team in the 6th grade…and I made it. I was so happy! During my very first back handspring of my very first practice, my arm landed funny…and it broke. I mean really broke it. Both bones in my forearm snapped in half, and my wrist was lying on the floor somewhere back by my elbow. (Gross, right?) The gym was full of girls…crying girls at this point. We were all traumatized. At my first visit back to the gym, some of the girls told me they couldn’t get the sight of my arm out of their head. They couldn’t get that sound out of their head of my bones snapping in half. They couldn’t stop thinking about it. Even 20 years later, I ran into a girl that was there, and she told me, “I will NEVER forget that day!” What we see and what we hear impacts our thought life….

That’s not what you said…

My sweet daughter remembers everything. Out of the blue, she will say, “Remember 3 years ago when we had pancakes for breakfast and you said we could go to the mall? We never went to the mall. Can we go today?” I may be exaggerating, but not by much. I’ve even learned to be noncommittal in my responses to her because if I do something even just a tiny bit off from what I said, she will let me know it. “Mom, that’s NOT what you said!” What happens when what we see isn’t what HE said?

Whoa! What’s happening here?

I had grand plans last week. I was going to take a few days off from posting on my blog to spend some more time in the Word and in prayer…diving deep into His presence. (Read about diving deep here.) But what REALLY happened was – I woke up Monday morning sick. And I was sick for days and days. I mean sick…no strength, go to the doctor, on mega medicine sick. That is not how I pictured my week going at all. So what do we do when things go terribly wrong?

Make a whip…

Have you ever made anything? I mean anything. It could be a meal or a batch of cookies. It could be crocheting a blanket or making a birdhouse. All of these things have one thing in common… a list of materials. Anytime you start a project, you generally start with a list of materials you’ll need to make your project. Unless you’re MacGyver, then you can just look around the room and make a radio from a pocket knife, a paperclip, and some string! (And I just lost everyone who grew up after the ’80’s! LOL) Jesus made something, and we need to make something too…

Choices, choices, choices…

All diets start with a choice. And not just start….there are a continual array of choices. Anyone who has ever tried to lose weight can attest to it. And…it’s not always easy. I lost a ton of weight a few years ago, and a couple months after I started, we had a birthday party for one of our kids complete with cake and ice cream. I did great during the party…didn’t eat a bite, but then it started. I could swear the ice cream was calling my name from the freezer. “Just one little taste. C’mon! A little bite won’t hurt!” Then the fight began. You know the fight…the one in your head where you know you shouldn’t, but you really really want to, but you firmly decide not to, and you try to think of anything else besides that ice cream, but it keeps calling your name, and you resist and resist and resist…..and then you fail. Miserably. And eat the ice cream. Ugh! To reach our potential, we are going to have to make some though choices…

Category: trust (page 11)

Whatcha lookin’ at?

That’s not what you said…

Whoa! What’s happening here?

Make a whip…

Choices, choices, choices…

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