My mom sent this link to a YouTube video of Christian comedian Dennis Swanberg, demonstrating how not to have an argument.

Arguments usually start out small, over small things. By focusing on what irritated us, instead of focusing on resolving the conflict, we can cause the argument to grow larger and larger, until it overwhelms our relationship. To avoid this kind of problem, the Bible warns us not to let the sun go down on our anger. That is, deal with it that day, so that you won’t wake up in the morning, still angry over a minor issue.

Click on the link to Dennis Swanberg’s zipper story to find out why:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWH-VToohro

It’s easy to look at your place in life and get discouraged. Most people experience that in a mid-life crisis. Or when their high school reunion comes up and they worry about how they’ll compare to the successes of their old friends. Or when they aim for a high goal and fall flat on their face, then wonder if they’ll ever succeed at any of their goals.

When people get discouraged and can’t lift themselves back up, it’s usually because they see no hope. They don’t expect anything to change, so they don’t see the point of trying again.

I heard Carrie Underwood’s song, “Temporary Home”, as I was flipping through stations on the radio. The lyrics about a single mother trying to put her life back together caught my attention.

Young mom on her own
She needs a little help got nowhere to go.
She’s lookin’ for a job, lookin’ for a way out.
Because a half-way house will never be a home.

A lot of people are struggling these days. Most are not struggling as much as the woman described in this song, but many people are discovering that things have recently gotten harder instead of easier. It’s mostly due to a financial shortage, either from low wages or lost jobs, rising medical costs or costly repair bills. Money that was available last year has dwindled to nearly nothing this year, and everyone has to find a way to cut back, make more money, or both. It requires some creative solutions and a willingness to consider all options, as well as scrambling for work opportunities that we might have normally ignored.

It requires a struggle.

At night she whispers to her baby girl,
“Someday we’ll find a place here in this world.”

When you’re discouraged because you’re struggling, remember that you’re not alone, and that it won’t be this way forever. In addition to the many people tightening their belts these days, we have examples from parents and historical figures who learned how to tighten their belts in decades past. During times of greater depression and hardship than anything we’re facing now.

Many of us can also recall hard times that we had to push through in the past. Looking back at what worked before, we can come up with new ideas to help us deal with the present crisis. Always with the knowledge that we can make it through to the other side of this struggle if we don’t give up. If we don’t presume that our situation is permanent, and therefore hopeless.

This is our temporary home.
It’s not where we belong.
Windows and rooms that we’re passin’ through.
This is just a stop on the way to where we’re going.
I’m not afraid because I know this is our
Temporary home.

The Bible says not to despise the day of small things – that is, the times that are less than comfortable or less than glamorous. Everyone who succeeds in life has also struggled in life. The most wealthy, famous, beautiful individuals still have their share of problems. The question is how prepared we are to deal with them, and whether we’ll give up hope, or keep persevering through to the other side.

If you’re struggling and ready to give up, don’t. Whatever you’re facing, there’s a way out, or a way through. Get wise advice from people you trust, re-think some solutions to your problem, and humble yourself enough to do the necessary work for making changes.

Above all, remember that changes are still possible. No matter what you’re facing, it will change someday, if you keep working at it.

There will be a tomorrow that’s different from today.

Find more reviews of Carrie Underwood’s album “Play On” at amazon.com!

I’ve started a mentoring program for writers. Not as the teacher, but as the student. The program is designed to help aspiring writers like myself create a plan for getting published and continuing to get published. I thought that sounded like a good idea.

I know that I have writing talent, because of the feedback I’ve received from numerous readers, most of them from professional publishing circles.

But talent alone is useless if it’s not applied, and my efforts have always run into dead ends. I try to do the right things, make the right contacts, and do whatever else I need to do to establish an ongoing writing career. But after all these years, I remain stuck in the mud. So what gives?

So I’m starting a mentoring program to find out exactly what’s wrong with me. By the end of it, I hope to be cured of my malady of remaining unpublished (or at least, very rarely published).

The only problem with this foolproof cure is that my mentor is asking me to do things that are outside of my comfort zone. I had expected this, of course. I just didn’t expect, once again, to face a challenge for which I find myself moving straight into another dead end. My mentor has advised me to contact a newspaper to ask for a writing assignment. He suggested having a few ideas for articles when I approach the newspaper, to help ensure my success in getting an assignment. I am realizing, more than ever, that I have zero interest in writing a news article. More to the point, I don’t know anything newsworthy to write about. And yet, I recognize the wisdom of taking this basic step toward establishing a writing career, and I know I have to try it, even if I bomb completely.

I have to try something.

My dilemma is shared by Julie Powell (Amy Adams), a struggling government worker and amateur cook, in the film, “Julie and Julia”. Julie wants to find something that will take her out of the frustration of her high-pressure day job. Like me, she wants to become a writer. Learning that one woman from her circle of snobbish “friends” has started her own blog pushes Julie to start her own blog. She embarks on a unique project, to cook all of the 524 unique recipes from Julia Childs’ cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in a single year.

She struggles through the challenges, when her soufflés fall apart and make a gooey mess on her kitchen floor. She has one breakdown after another when she burns a meal, and questions why she started this crazy journey in the first place. Her ever-supportive, longsuffering husband, Eric, argues, “Julia Childs wasn’t always Julia Childs.”

In fact, she wasn’t. While we see Julie Powell struggling through one recipe and blog after another, we also see Julia Childs (Meryl Streep) before she gained international notoriety. Like Julie, Julia started out searching for something to do with her life, while her husband, Paul (Stanley Tucci) was stationed in Paris for his government job.

Realizing that she loves to eat more than anything else, the bubbly and eccentric Julia decides to enter a professional cooking school, populated entirely by men and managed by a disenchanting woman who regularly attempts to dash Julia’s hopes for success.

Finally meeting two other women who are trying to publish a French cookbook for American homemakers, Julia discovers an opportunity she can sink her teeth into.

And spends the next several years attempting to finish – after which she also must find a willing publisher – for their monumental project.

Julie, likewise, wonders if anyone is even reading her blog, or if she’s simply talking to herself online.

It’s easy to feel discouraged when you’re attempting something that takes great courage. And great perseverance. There were no guarantees that either Julie Powell or Julia Childs would ever succeed in their efforts. But they pursued their passion to the end, and beyond. They believed enough in what they were doing to give it their best efforts, no matter how much disappointment they faced along the way.

When Julia Childs decides that she’s probably wasting her time, her husband, Paul, is adamant that she keep at it. “Someone is going to publish your book,” he assures her. “Someone is going to read your book and realize what you’ve done, because your book is amazing. Your book is a work of genius. Your book is going to change the world.” (Everyone should have that kind of family support. Personally, knowing how much my wife supports me makes all the difference in the world.)

What matters is that you try, and don’t give up when the going gets tough. Find something you’re interested in, something you love, something you want to achieve – and just try. You won’t succeed every time. Every successful person fails at some point. But they get back up and try again. So can you.

So can I.

Ultimately, Julia Childs went on to become a world-famous chef and author of a cookbook that – as her husband predicted – changed the world.

Julie Powell didn’t meet with that same level of success. But she did achieve her own goals of completing the recipes of her heroine, Julia Childs, in a single year’s time. She did garner the attention of newspapers, talk shows, and publishers from New York and beyond. And she did become a writer. The film, “Julie and Julia”, is based on Julie Powell’s book of the same title, and on Julia Childs’ book, My Life in France.

On her final year-long blog, Julie writes:

Julia Childs began learning to cook because she loved her  husband and she loved food, and she didn’t know what else to do with herself. And in the process, she found joy. I didn’t understand this for a long time, but I do now.

So do I. Great joy comes with success, but that soon wears off, and won’t return again until another victorious goal is met.

The joy that lasts is in the struggle. In striving for something greater, while hoping and expecting to do something that’s never been done before. At least, not by you. Clinging to a goal and refusing to let go, no matter who discourages you, and no matter how many times you humiliate yourself with another failed attempt. When you know it’s worth the effort, and you know that you’re pushing forward to accomplish something brand new, you will find that same joy.

The real joy is in the trying.

Just try.

Find more reviews of “Julie and Julia” at amazon.com!

I’m not a big fan of country music. I’m pretty open to most kinds of music – classical, heavy metal, some jazz, hip hop. But country music just doesn’t appeal to me on the whole.

However, it still appeals to tons of people throughout the country. Which is why I even know it still exists, when I’m flipping through the radio dial and come across an all-county, all-the-time station. Or on the rare occasions I’ve traveled to southern parts of the country where nothing else plays on the radio at all. In spite of my disinterest, country music still has plenty of fans throughout the United States. As a matter of fact, for a lot of those fans, country music is as cool as it gets.

It wasn’t always that way, though. Back in the 1970’s, the country music scene and the entire county lifestyle became popularized by songs like “Convoy” by C.W. McCall, and films like “Smokey and the Bandit”, which featured contemporary box office superstar Burt Reynolds. The growing trend was further cemented in the 1980′s by another movie, “Urban Cowboy”, starring John Travolta. In the midst of all the sudden popularity, country-western singer Barbara Mandrell recorded a song about staying true to one’s self: “I Was Country When Country Wasn’t Cool”.

I attended Judson College (now Judson University), in the 1980’s. It’s a Christian liberal arts school, which involved regular attendance at church-type services held on campus throughout the week. That was fine with me, as I had been a Christian for most of my life. Some people didn’t care for it, of course, not having come to the school because of their personal faith. Over time, however, most of those students also came to appreciate the services.

But I remember one of those services, when announcements were being made about upcoming Christian music concerts. In the 1980’s, entertainment involved a lot of glamour and special effects, even in the Christian market. Performers often wore bright, flashy outfits and everyone seemed to focus too much attention on presenting an image and too little on the core content.

At the time, Michael W. Smith had become the biggest name in Christian music. When his name was mentioned among the concerts to watch, the entire student population went wild, clapping and cheering for a long time … over the mention of a name.

It struck me then that some people in that meeting room had grown too accustomed to following fads. Cheering for whoever is popular at the time. I had to wonder, Where will all of these people be when they graduate and leave this college environment, where it’s cool to cheer for a Christian musician? Where it’s cool to have faith in Christ? What will they do when they join the rest of the world, where there are people who insist that standing up for your faith means that you’re immature or brainwashed? Will they still cling to the relationship they have with Christ, or will they be drawn away to things that are a little cooler?

I’m happy to say that most everyone I know from my college days remains fully commited to their relationship with Christ and to what the Bible teaches, just the way they did in that safe Christian college environment, all those years ago. Unfortunately, I can’t say that for every single person. And I have to wonder whether I still hold true to God with the same passion and conviction I once had. It’s a question I need to ask myself every day.

Sooner or later, your supporters will drift away. When you’re left standing alone, and people come in to attack your beliefs, will you stand strong in your conviction? Is your belief strong enough to sustain you?

When it’s no longer “cool”, will you still be the person you set out to be?

Find more reviews of Best of Barbara Mandrell at amazon.com!

And click here for YouTube video of “I Was Country (When Country Wasn’t Cool)”!