All you need is love

A popular Beatles song suggests, "All you need is love, love, love is all you need." Many have debated these words and wondered if they are true. Is love really all we need? Can problems be solved by the profound impact of love? I honestly think so.

Love is typically viewed as something heart-shaped and sweet; similar to "a box of chocolates." It’s an element of love that feels whimsical, passionate and exciting as the spoken words “I love you” leaves an imprint on your heart.

Another component to love is in the love that’s experienced. It’s expressed in actions and goes beyond spoken words. A production of I love you lyrics that becomes a melody of demonstrated words and defines love more completely.

There's also a special kind of love that’s developed in relationships containing the broken fragments of quiet grief, relentless suffering and painful changes.  That love journey becomes a reservoir of tangible and unconditional love unlike any other, which not only sparks at the beginning, but sustains during the bitter middle and ends in a resilient stride.

Loves impact is not exclusive to our personal lives but must also play a role in our professional lives as well. Consider the ease in corporate interaction when solely motivated by love. This may sound idealistic, but it’s certainly possible. Not only when the decision to stand on love is easy, but when the going gets tough with a risk of standing alone.

Love has the power to push fear aside. Love draws new dreams that are etched with hope. Love calms the unknown. Love speaks words inside the heart that become our responsibility to illustrate on the outside through acts of excellence. Love serves as an inspiration to others.

My daughter says, "We love, love". It’s true. We do. From the sappiest of engagement story to the extraordinary medical miracle, we believe love never fails.

Be The Change! Love, love with us this Valentine’s Day.
All you need is love…and a box of chocolates.

A star to discover

"If as Herod, we fill our lives with things, and again with things; if we consider ourselves so important that we must fill every moment of our lives with action, when will we have the time to make the long slow journey across the desert as did the Magi?



Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds?

Or ponder over the coming of the Child as did Mary?

For each of us, there is a desert to travel. A star to discover.

And a being within ourselves to bring to life." -Author Unknown


This Christmas and throughout the New Year, let His light shine in you like a bright star.  Light the way. Be The Change.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 2013!

Do you need some rest?

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Matthew 11:28

Christians all over the world begin Advent season this week. It's a holy time of preparation that offers spiritual nourishment and another invitation to find rest in biblical truths.

Rest for me as a hard-working young farm girl was found by sneaking in some private rest time during my household chores. I'd stretch across the living room sofa and watch TV for a few precious stolen minutes. I loved those rest times and admit to a few burnt meals because of it!

Fast forward to years later and I’m on my own living room sofa seeking a different kind of rest; a healing rest from breast cancer and the kind of grief that scars the soul. Unlike the rest I enjoyed as a young girl, this one I resented because it came forcefully, without my choosing and stole more than simple moments of time.

I developed a love-hate relationship with rest. When I was younger I loved my secret rest times, but now older and no more secrets, I’ve had times of rest I hated. Why did rest have to change?

Rest is definitely not easily found in a world that boasts of faster the better, which makes finding rest even more challenging. I can recall seasons of kid's school events and multiple sports schedules, in addition to varied work schedules, that were years of limited rest. Prior to that were the baby years when four hours of uninterrupted sleep felt like a good nights rest. However, all that paled in comparison to when rare disease filled my days and rest was nowhere to be found.

No doubt, my relationship with rest has changed. Mainly due to a dramatic turn of events that left me with lessons learned and a unique perspective on rest. During my healing rest, I was taught about grace and how it increases when rest is accepted as it's offered. Rest didn't change; it remained available to me. What really changed was my attitude about it. Hate had to change back to a love for rest in order to maintain a healthy positive lifestyle.

During busy seasons and the busiest of times, especially during or after illness, we are inclined to turn down loving offers to help. Ones that might be a good partner to a need for rest. We give polite yet not always truthful responses like, "No thanks, we don't need any help". The next time an offer of help is extended to you, ask yourself if your response is accurate? Could others help you find rest?

When we admit our need for help and humbly receive it we share burdens, however big or small. We find rest in this fast world and in a life that’s impossible to do alone. The exchange not only blesses the giver, but also the receiver and both find rest from the free gift called grace.

I’m a work in progress but I definitely strive to be a better steward of the gift by making room for rest in my life again; like I did as a young girl. I encourage you to join me and take time to rest this Advent season. Even in the middle of busy choose to stretch out on the sofa and rest. Put it on your list of things to do and Be The Change!

"Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls."  Matthew 11:29

Where has summer gone?

The common filler phrase, “Where has the summer gone” is usually spoken as a rhetorical question. In blog retrospect, I want to reply to this typically unanswered question, with no exaggeration.

This is where my summer went...

Spring 2012 quickly moved into the summer fast lane in late May as I traveled the northern highway to my Godson’s high school graduation and later to his open house. In mid June I motored with my driver to Milwaukee, WI and witnessed the wedding of our daughter’s two college friends. Then on the last Saturday of June, in a Trellis garden wedding, my best friend’s daughter married her beloved. Truly, one of the best days of my life.

Early July, our rapid summer stride changed by the sudden death of my father-in-law, Myron. His spirit flowed from his favorite saying, “Ah-da-heck” and through a “life must go on” attitude as my family made tearful difficult decisions. Honoring those words, we altered calendar dates and made our annual summer cabin vacation on Lake Miltona still possible.

 A week later I packed a borrowed cowboy hat, my driver recalculated the GPS and I was on the road again to my first Country Jam experience in Eau Claire, WI. The blue bus shuttle provided excellent transportation as well as additional laughs and stories as I recalled school day memories. The hotel room was a welcome sight after a full day of country music in the Wisconsin great outdoors versus the bus view of tent camping.

During most Monday through Fridays of June - September I was employed by StayWell Health Management in St Paul.  StayWell has a long history with health management for large companies and their employees. It was a great opportunity to bring my healthcare experience into the health and wellness arena. Thanks to StayWell, I was able to learn much more about the delicate balance between healthcare and wellness in day to day application. I leaned on my real life patient-family healthcare past and brought the skills of previous lessons learned into a process improvement transition project for StayWell. That work just recently ended so I’m resting up for a new Be The Change opportunity! 

The crisp autumn mornings still have the radiance of an almost forgotten summer. Fall trips are planned and holiday conversations have started. From my perspective, each season seems to come and go more quickly especially as I travel a road paced soulfully by change. The events of the season, both happy and sad affect the pace and impact the direction of the path I travel next. So the real question might be; is it really the seasons that pass so quickly or is it the pace I choose? My choices, some more difficult than others, illustrate the answer.

Similar to the changes in life, a leaf once vibrant green changes into red, yellow, or hints of both and covers the color of yesterday’s season. It rests in the quiet of winter, trusts in the spring renew of tomorrow and prepares for another busy summer ahead.

Each one different yet collectively intertwined, divinely created and placed on a road to  Be The Change for someone.

I am able

The 2012 Michael Zimanske Memorial Golf Tournament held Monday, August 20th was another success! Again, we were graced with excellent weather and a group of people who demonstrated excellence.

Thank you to the staff at Eagle Trace Golf and Event Center in Clearwater MN. The staff was welcoming and very helpful, which made the day flow with ease.

Thank you Roll With It (RWI) for their hard work in organizing this sixth tournament. We sincerely appreciate your commitment to wheelchair and adaptive sports.

Thank you to family, friends and all who support this golf tournament! Whether you golfed, volunteered, donated or prayed for this tournament, it’s our humble privilege to receive your kindness in memory of our angel, Michael Zimanske.

I spoke some of the following words at the close of the tournament and would like to include them in this thank you blog:

As I thought about the golf tournament this year, the words, I am able kept coming to mind. Coincidentally, (probably not) I am able is what Michael taught us. Despite his changing circumstances and even when a wheelchair became his mainstay, he never backed away from things we thought he wasn’t able to do. Instead, he found another way to do them. Michael consistently saw himself able and demonstrated that to the world.

Now, pressing forward with Michael’s spirit within us, we display the words I am able by our actions. It’s what I see in all of you during the golf tournament. You are able and willing to give of yourselves for the good of others. You honor Michael’s spirit of I am able by giving to this fundraising tournament. Your efforts help others believe they are able too.

Thank you to Jan Larson, RWI Executive Director, Keith Schwichtenberg RWI President and the whole Schwichtenberg family, especially RWI Founder, Heidi Schwichtenberg for leading us and giving us opportunity to say, I am able. Their vision has planted seeds of hope and possibility for many by their response to the words I am able whispered in their souls.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to this circle of love. You organize, donate, golf, volunteer and surround us with prayer before, during and long after the golf clubs are put away. Simply put, we are grateful beyond these words. We feel your arms wrapped solid around us, in loving memory of our hero, Michael, which allows us to keep trusting I am able.

Each one of us is able despite our own personal circumstances or challenges. We are able, however big or small to do something that will make others able.

Say it loud, I am able; able to Be The Change!

I had to change

We are not the same persons this year as last; nor are those we love. It is a happy chance if we, changing, continue to love a changed person. ~W. Somerset Maugham

Michael, my 1990’s shopping companion was about to destroy another display at Cub. With a firm tone and muted growl in my voice, I said, “Michael, don’t touch that.” . The three year old looked up at me with a smile as wide as his face and a can of peas in his hand. In that split second my frustration faded. Although I had spoke those four words to him at least a million times prior, this time I saw it was my response that had to change, not only his behavior.

That little boy couldn’t resist touching everything. It was the way he experienced the world and everything in it. In the grocery store aisle Michael showed me his style of learning and that it was beyond his grasp to do it a different way. In many ways I was trying to reshape his makeup to be more like mine, neat and orderly instead of accepting the way he was created.

From that day on Michael showed me new ways, which helped me learn something about myself and then accept others things that were also, definitely not. what I preferred. Situations that often got messy and extremely complicated, especially with his rare disease.

I had to change.

The skills that Michael taught me flowed through my soul as I coped with my own illness, his untimely death and then the enormous grief, which followed. I discovered another level of accepting the statement, “It is what it is,” along with the extremes of unconditional love and learning what I was created to be.

Again, I had to change.

When we look at others, hoping for a change in their behavior or habits it almost always requires a look in the mirror and first asking what do I need to change? Life is a string of changing seasons that connects parents, children, family members and friends together. It’s important to hold each other loose; allowing changes to be directed by the creator and shaped into a better relationship, which prepares for the next season ahead.

I always thought I would teach my children the ways of the world and instead it was them anointed to teach me how to be the change my family needed. We don’t always get to choose our teachers. Many reside among us in life’s classroom, ready and able to show us a new way.

Stepping forward, I know there are more changes ahead, for all of us. Even at Cub when you hear, "Clean up in aisle five."

Be The Change!

A long way home

Whether we realize it or not, we are constantly in search of the road that leads us home. Every day in some varied and subtle way we look for home.

During the day to day Monday through Friday work grind, we daydream of the highway that leads to the comfy couch in our home. On Sunday afternoon, we wish for the Friday night of yesterday, which holds the promise of two days at home. Even on vacation, we secretly wait for the first evening home to lay our head on the familiar pillow we missed.

It’s stepped out in love that’s found in the mother who waits for her student to step off the school bus and return to the securities of their home. In the late night pace of a father who waits for the sound of the garage door and his teenage driver to arrive home without a scratch. In the parents who anxiously wait for the summer return home of their college influenced young adult. Each in their own individual confines, family members look for a collective path home, even if it’s only shared in memories and stories.

As a young girl I would stare out the window from my upstairs bedroom and dream of a different home that was waiting for me beyond the dusty farm road. Now older, I wonder why I was so eager to leave the gravel lane of my home. Reflecting back, I’m able to return there. In my soul, I still live there. In retrospect, it was all part of the journey.

It’s not a cliché or just a line from an old movie. There really is no place like home.

I have lived in many homes over the years. All of them were beautiful, comfortable and served a purpose. But as the years fast forward and my home dynamics change, I realize I’m most at home with people I spend time with, not the house I reside in.

Home travels with us on uniquely planned paths we stroll through in our world. On roads that are more the same than different when they are viewed with eyes of gratitude. We are not our exterior. We reside in the sacred of our interior that will always lead us home.

What place do you call home? This Friday, after a long way home from your travels and before Monday’s in view, take stock of your own little corner of residence. Be The Change because of it!