Author: Heather Guitar

Last week, my family had a fun get together with all my siblings, nieces and nephews. We played Scrabble, watched movies, took the kids to a trampoline park and a splash pad, and generally had a lot of fun. It’s always so wonderful to connect with my little niephlings!

This week, we also got to meet up with some of my husband’s family and spend time catching up. It was great to see some old and new faces and spend some quality time with his family, which we don’t get to do very often.

Throughout my sabbatical, I’ve been exercising sporadically, and doing different kinds of activities to figure out what works best for me and my schedule. This gave me time to do some research and figure out what is sustainable for me long-term when work starts back up. For the last year, I haven’t had much luck fitting exercise into my schedule with any regularity. I’ve been so tired when I get home that I don’t have the energy to come up with a plan, let alone execute it.

But, now that I’ve tried out a lot of different things, I’ve found what I think will work for me! For the last few days, I’ve been following a trainer on social media who posts free workout videos, and I really like her style. She mixes yoga poses with cardio using interval training, so you’re never doing the same activity for too long. It keeps you moving and guessing. Based on this style, I made up a workout I could do with my favorite poses, put on some fun music, and used a timer to keep me on point, and it worked!

I got a full body workout that is perfect for my skill level/ability and that gave me energy and left me feeling tired but great. My husband liked it so much he said he’d do the workout with me in the mornings before work. It’s about 20 minutes a day, but you can do it every day. When I need to mix things up, I’ll just go and learn a new workout and incorporate new things into my basic plan. All that to say, I loved it, and I think this is something I can easily work into my schedule.

Overall, I think this sabbatical has been just what I needed it to be. Time to relax and rejuvenate, reconnect with family, read and reflect, refresh my perspective, and enjoy the rewards of giving back. With God’s help, I plan to carry over little pieces of my sabbatical into everyday work life.

Oh, and I miss everyone and I’m ready to get back to work on Monday! Yeah!!

This last week has been all about reward & repair for me. I’ve spent almost every morning reading, journaling, reflecting, and embracing the beauty of the outdoors. When it gets too hot to sit outside, my husband Pressley and I have enjoyed spending time together talking, laughing, and enjoying good food and favorite shows.

Last Monday, as I sat on my porch enjoying the morning reading and reflecting, I realized how pretty our patio would look with a few globe lights. I did a little research, talked to my husband, and decided to order a 100 ft. strand of lights to string in our yard. Now, a week later, we have our lights up, and I love it! It will look even better at night :). Plus, it gives us a little spot to sit at night and enjoy a glass of iced tea, and take a little bit of the sabbatical life into everyday life.

We also welcomed two new little babies into our lives this week. We got a couple of baby chicks to add to our backyard flock to ramp up egg production. These two will be blue egg layers, our favorites!

In the mornings, we’ve been reading through our Bible reading plan as usual. Every morning, we listen to three chapters from the New Testament on our YouVersion Bible app. We’ve read through the Bible several times together during our marriage, which has been absolutely transformative. For the last few months, we’ve read through the New Testament 2 times, and we just started our third round. I’ve also been reading the Book of Mysteries that Kris gave us. Wow, there are some good nuggets in that book. It’s given me a lot to chew on and think about during my reflection time.

For my sabbatical reading, I chose to read A Life God Rewards: Why Everything You Do Today Matters Forever by Bruce Wilkinson, author of The Prayer of Jabez.

It was a quick read, but on a very important topic. His whole point was that what we believe determines where we will spend our eternal life; what we do with our lives determines the degree of reward or comparative suffering that we experience in that life. If you imagine your entire eternal existence as a long, never-ending line, our lives on earth are the very first dot on that line. While our lives are short, they determine the direction that line will go for the rest of our existence! Our lives on earth set the trajectory for our lives in heaven, or the rewards that we will enjoy.

Jesus spoke a lot about rewards in heaven because He wants us to enjoy His good pleasure when we meet again. What’s amazing is that our Father is constantly watching and recording the good things we do so that He can reward us in heaven. Even giving a drink of water to someone in His name  (Matthew 10:42) or a prayer spoken from the secret places of the heart (Matthew 6:6) is deserving of a reward in the Lord’s eyes.

I think that many times, the enemy tries to tell us that God is only watching us to see where we mess up. But if you read Hebrews 11, the hall of faith, you see that God doesn’t keep a record of wrongs. (Because God is love, 1 Corinthians 13 is a perfect description of His love toward us!) Hebrews 11 shares the stories of the champions of faith from heaven’s perspective. While we know from the Old Testament that each of these were flawed human beings, the Hebrews account is a record of how God sees them once their sin has been removed as far as the east is from the west. Beautiful, isn’t it? God is not watching us to see how we mess up. He’s watching us to see what we get right, and he is carefully recording the best version of our stories to be retold again and again in Heaven for His own glory.

I’ve been encouraged and strengthened from these moments of reflection this week, and I’m continually laboring to enter His rest. My struggle is that I keep trying to take up my burdens and carry them instead of giving them over to Him. My burdens and worries and cares have no solutions. But He said His yoke is easy and His burden is light. And He always has something much better for me in return if I open my hands and release my burdens to Him. He exchanges a crown of beauty for ashes, oil of joy for mourning, and a garment of praise for despair (Isaiah 61:3). He always has something much better in store for us if we only have the courage to cast our cares upon Him. He loves us so much!

It’s Friday, and I just finished up my week volunteering at Love & Care Ministries. This was just an amazing week for me. Every day, I came home dog tired, but incredibly happy and fulfilled. Here’s the whole team:

On Wednesday night, I went out with Janet to do a street feed. We gave out about 60 meals to people who were out walking on the streets and living in various camps, motels, and homes. The street feeds were some of my favorite experiences from my time at Love & Care!

Janet warned me to put on bug spray for our evening out, and she wasn’t kidding. The mosquitoes were the size of rodents out there! I must have some sort of domesticated variety at my place because these bugs looked like monsters! I asked Janet if they gave out bug spray to the people living in the camps, and she said that they’d give it if they had it. Bug spray and repellants are one of those things that get overlooked as donation items, I guess. I wondered if we might do a bug repellant drive up at work. Collect some bottles/candles/etc., especially for those who live in camps?

On Thursday, we served pasta with meat balls and fried squash that came in from a local farm. The squash was delicious! Then we made a fruit salad for Friday and called it a day. I’m not sure if my feet have ever hurt as much as they did Thursday night. What a workout! By the way, my “exercise” for this week has been walking, standing, and hopping up and down from the back of a truck for 7 hours a day. I think that counts, lol!

Today, I helped out at the food pantry and got to give out sack lunches and weekend kits to our homeless friends. I’ve started learning some names throughout the week and even recognized some faces from our street feeds and from working the kitchen.

As I reflect on the past week, I learned a lot more than I ever have on a mission trip. During the sabbatical, our time of service is intended to be a time to refocus, and working at Love & Care has certainly helped me to refocus. Here are a few of my thoughts:

I need to do more of this. Life is made up of all the little choices we make. Every week, I plan out what I want to accomplish, and I usually get most of it done. I need to make more room in my life for helping others. Not out of some sense of duty, but for the sheer joy of it. Because it makes my heart feel good to put a smile on someone’s face.

It’s not that hard to get involved. It was a lot easier to help out than I thought it would be. And, there are a lot of great ways to help from volunteering for a lunch service, to donating items or giving money.

I don’t really need the stuff I think I need. I don’t think of myself as materialistic by any stretch of the imagination, but I have a new appreciation for “wants” and “needs.” Any time I want buy something because I “need” it, I want to take pause and remember my week at Love & Care. Because I don’t really need it, and I can probably be completely happy without it.

Wealth is not about money, it’s about having a bountiful spirit. I don’t know how many people I served this week who said “I’m blessed” when they were asked how they were doing. They were rich in love and joy, even in the midst of difficult circumstances. I want to be more like them.

Don’t forget to smile! Early in the week, I was concentrating on my work and trying to be helpful, and someone came into the kitchen and said, “Hey, you have to smile if you want to work here!” I can’t believe I forgot to smile! I didn’t get to have long conversations with most of the people I served, but I did get to smile at them a lot for the rest of the week, and I hope it brightened someone’s day :).

Do what you feel in your heart. As with any organization, there are rules at Love & Care to protect the generosity of others and make the most of what is given. But sometimes the rules get in the way of helping people who really need it. One of the topics of conversation in the kitchen this week was about when to give beyond what the “rules” said. Janet’s edict from Mark Hewett? “Do what you feel in your heart.” I think those are good words to live by.

Blessings,

Heather

My sabbatical began this last Saturday, and for a couple of days, I woke up in the middle of the night thinking “Oh my gosh–I forgot to…(fill in the blank)” With work still on the brain, I have been trying to tell myself, just be like Elsa, and let it go…at least for 30 days.

I love my job. It’s fast-paced and deadline driven, and it gets my blood pumping to try to get everything done that needs to get done in a day, and then some. I LOVE feeling needed and appreciated, which I do, every single day.

But, I do need a rest. A good rest. I’ve been so wound up and stressed out for months, that today, I just sat on my back porch, poured myself a chai tea, and had a good cry.

I just feel so blessed in this moment. Blessed to have time to unwind. Blessed to serve at Love & Care Ministries this week, and blessed to be able to sit in my rocking chair and enjoy the sunflowers on a lovely afternoon with my puppy in my lap and my chickens scratching around and clucking contentedly. Life is beautiful.

I chose to start my sabbatical volunteering at Love & Care Ministries because my husband is going to be busy this week in a training session out at the Gold Monarch healing center. So, in order to have a little time off together, we thought we would line up our “busy” weeks, and then play the rest of it by ear.

Spending time at Love & Care has been amazing. Food is one of my love languages, so I love getting to serve food in His Kitchen with Janet, Birdie, Lacy, Mike, and other volunteers. I like getting out from behind a desk and being a part of something so special. Birdie was telling me today that the homeless can get a meal in Abilene on just about any day of the week between Love & Care, Salvation Army, churches, and other ministries. I was blown away by the generosity of our city. Love & Care gets donations of food from restaurants, grocery stores, universities, farms, individuals, and other organizations every day.

Yesterday, we served brisket and ribs, and today we served chicken with cobbler for dessert. I mean, this is good food. I was expecting spaghetti every day, but man! Today, after serving lunch, Janet took me out to feed people on the streets. I got to hand out the meals and drinks, and I loved every minute of it. We scanned the streets and stopped for anyone who looked like they could use a meal. Janet and Mark, who drove the truck, chatted with regulars and new friends alike.

The thing is, I know I’ve done good today. I know I’ve helped feed someone who was hungry. Someone who needed a meal, and didn’t know where that next meal would come from. I know I’ve played a part in God providing for someone. What a powerful feeling! My heart is alive! My soul is satisfied, and I feel at rest.

We are so incredibly blessed. We have so much to be grateful for. A roof over our heads, loving family and friends, a wonderful place to work, life everlasting! And now, to get to pay it forward, even in this small way. This is the life.

I want to thank Kris and the board for giving me this opportunity. Tears are streaming down my face again as I write this. I am overwhelmed by your generosity to us, your employees. This is unheard of. This is unimaginable in most workplaces. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.