I love this idea of Spoken Poetry.

Listen to Sarah Kay’s Ted talk here, that inspired this post.

“The greatest poetry comes out of lists.”– G.K. Chesterson

10 Things I Know To be True

(in no particular order)

1- Baroque music helps me to focus and get more done.  Really.  I play it daily.  I am seeing more and more of the wood of my desk and am able to write more focused.  Baroque is flowing through my computer and fushioning (I made that word up) into my brain as I write this. It is amazing, and Pandora is free.

2- You need really good friends.  We were made for connection.  This isn’t always an easy thing to find.

“You need at least one friend who will help you move a body. No judgment. There in a second. No explanation.”  Brene Brown

3- The less I value down time, the more I find I have no time to relax.  The more I relax, the more I seem to get accomplished.

“The space and quiet that idleness provides is a necessary condition for standing back from life and seeing it whole, for making unexpected connections and waiting for the wild summer lightning strikes of inspiration — it is, paradoxically, necessary to getting any work done.” TIM KREIDER

4- To tell God’s story in your life, you must tell your story, even if it is hard.

“The place where the enemy has wounded you the most, God can make it your greatest source of strength to you and others.”  Tom Davis

5- Jesus Loves Me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.  Seriously.

(pause blog music at top right)

6- Pairing something pleasant with something unpleasant makes the unpleasant thing more pleasant.  It can totally change your perspective.  For example, lighting a candle while paying bills or listening to a book on cd while washing dishes.  I actually enjoyed cleaning the garage last week listening to music.  You know, it is what I want to do anyway.  I am blessed to have a garage to clean.  Why do I begrudge it?

Time to pay bills…

Can you tell I tried to wipe the counter and move some dishes out of the way so you could see the cd player? 🙂

7- Joy is found in Thankfulness for the ordinary.  And in that, we find the extraordinary.  It is a conscious, practiced choice.

“GRATITUDE unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos into order, confusion into clarity…. It turns problems into gifts, failures into success, the unexpected into perfect timing, and mistakes into important events. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today and creates a vision for tomorrow.” ~ Melodie Beattie

One way to do this is to keep a gratitude journal. My grateful journal has changed my perspective on joy.  Even Peter counted the fish.

¹¹ So Simon Peter went aboard and hauled the net ashore, full of large fish, 153 of them. And although there were so many, the net was not torn.  John 21:11

8- “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”  John 3:16 (ESV)

9- Spending or attempting to spend 15 minutes a day alone, completely quiet and still, doing nothing, is the hardest thing I have ever tried to do. There is this internal struggle with just stopping and being completely still verses guilt that I need to be producing, cleaning, fixing or creating something.

Psalm 46:10 10 He says, “Be still, and know that I am God…”

10- Showing up in life, believing you are enough, and owning who you are (when you sometimes do not even understand it) is courageous.

The real question in life to ask yourself isn’t,

“What would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?”

Instead, the question is,

“What is worth doing EVEN if you do fail?” (Daring Greatly; Brene Brown)

What do you know to be true?

(I would like to think this will be continued…..  When I know 10 more things to be true.)

P.S.  She said if your kids do not like poetry, to just give them this assignment….