Karen M

The ‘All Who Feel Aah Nuh Get No Bat’ Syndrome

Karen M Lowe — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 17:21:03 +0000

I have been asked several times if I am working and my answer is always ‘technically yes, but not getting paid yet’. The next comment is usually, ‘how can you say you have a job if you are not getting paid’? I have been getting annoyed recently with people saying they want to do something, but not doing it because they will not get paid. My question is why? Why not try?

I was doing dishes when all these thoughts came to me followed by the ‘all who feel and nuh get no bat,’ song. When I was young, growing up in Jamaica during recess at school we would play ‘bat and ball.’ One team would field and the other would bat, similar to baseball in North America. Because time is a limited commodity, there is always some who would field and not get to bat. This is an issue because the batting for all of us was the fun part of the game; we accepted that some had to field but we did not like it. So it would hurt real bad when those who got to bat would sing and jeer the fielders who never got a chance with the line, ‘all who feel and nuh get no bat go hide themselves ina toilet…

I feel like many of us are living this syndrome. We are afraid we will play the game, put the work in and not get paid the rewards. The problem is we are living an unfulfilled life. We are unhappy the way we are and until we decide to field, we will not get to the fun part. An acquaintance of mine started her own company. She did not get a penny for the first two years, but when she got paid she was able to put down a sizeable deposit on a house and move out of her parent’s basement with her husband and children.

Many of us prefer to pretend to be happy than take a chance. I know each person’s circumstances are different but I have heard stories of several ‘chance takers’ that make my life seem like a cake walk. I will say up front, IT WILL BE HARD! It will be excruciatingly hard and you may need to try more than once to make it work but it is possible and the rewards will be out of this world!

Let’s stop asking God to take away the hardship and praise him for rewarding you after you have taken the risk. When I am tempted to give up, and this happens a lot, I picture the end result, and this usually lifts my spirit.

The Heart Want What The Heart Wants

Karen M Lowe — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:07:36 +0000

I was thinking about a conversation a friend and I had where she was upset about the fact that while I was going through a rough time this past year, I basically shut out the people who cared about me. She said that everyone had issues and shutting off others does not help. The reason I did that was, everyone had advice to give and after a while they no longer helped, they made the situation worst. Everyone called me with their issues to talk and I just did not have the strength in me any more to be strong for them so I stopped calling or answering the phone. After hanging up the phone I started thinking about how I would answer someone later on in life who will get help from how I handled my year of unemployment immediately after getting my MBA. A thought came to me, ‘The Heart Wants What the Heart Wants’. I know that people can help but right now my heart wanted a job, wanted to feel empowered and since it was not getting it, it shut down. There were advice from everyone but the advice came form their own point of view. It did not take into consideration my own personal experiences and the combination their of. As a result, what was being said did not help. I did not want to be bullied into thinking that I needed to do things a particular way, I did not want to be made to feel like I made the wrong decisions, like going back to school for example. I got looks that said why did you not take the job you got in the summer, even though it was taking ten steps backward? The problem was no one could see things from my point of view.

The most interesting thing happened though, I fell in love with God. As bad as things were I was able to say ‘if things do not get better I will lay down and die (do nothing) but I know that you are still God and still in control.’ While I was falling in love an amazing theme kept coming back to me – ‘testing.’ God was testing me! I was scared and happy at the same time. What if I failed, will he stop in time (I knew the answer was yes but it did not stop me from being scared). I was happy as always that I was on God’s radar but it was complicated. I myself did not understand it. What was I to become through the test? At some point I felt like God was the only one who understand but at the same time I needed human contact, I was in a cycle. I read my Bible and I prayed! I kept seeing the testing and how people did not know that they were being tested. I got encouragement from David who in the worst times of his life said: it is God’s will.

Through my relationship with God my heart became contented and satisfied. I started looking for ways to create opportunities and some people think freelancing is a bad idea and others say it is not even a job, but: The Heart Want What the Heart Wants and right now it want to create a company and that’s what I am working on.

My Grace is Sufficient for You!

Karen M Lowe — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:11:00 +0000

After going through a series of being treated unfairly and asking God why, the scripture that Paul talked about the thorn being given to him came to me. I searched for it and found it. I read from several different versions to get the full effect. My favourite was from The Message. The flesh in ME currently feels like it is winning the battle against the spirit. The things I try to do, I am just not able to. I am constantly felling sad because of the things I do not have and not able to pay for. As much as I know this is not what God wants, this is how I feel. Like Paul, I need to come to the point (and I am getting there) where I can see and experience God’s strength in my weakness/limitations. I recently went shopping with family and friends for 12 hours! We got to the mall at 10am and left at 10pm. I had plan on some money I had worked for but was not paid, my cousin decided to give me some, her account had a problem and that did not work out. I had $0 in my pocket and was not able to change the shopping date but I decided that God did not want it any other way. I went to Buffalo and had an amazing day without buying anything! I was even able to say no thank you when my sister-in-law offered to buy me the most amazing pair of shoes from nine west.

Here is the scripture from The Message Bible:

2 Corinthians 12:7-10 (The Message)

^7-10Because of the extravagance of those revelations, and so I wouldn’t get a big head, I was given the gift of a handicap to keep me in constant touch with my limitations. Satan’s angel did his best to get me down; what he in fact did was push me to my knees. No danger then of walking around high and mighty! At first I didn’t think of it as a gift, and begged God to remove it. Three times I did that, and then he told me,

My grace is enough; it’s all you need.
My strength comes into its own in your weakness.
Once I heard that, I was glad to let it happen. I quit focusing on the handicap and began appreciating the gift. It was a case of Christ’s strength moving in on my weakness. Now I take limitations in stride, and with good cheer, these limitations that cut me down to size—abuse, accidents, opposition, bad breaks. I just let Christ take over! And so the weaker I get, the stronger I become.

At church we are currently doing a series about the seasons in our life. The speaker said something one night that stuck with me: (I am paraphrasing) Winter generally goes from November/December to March and we cannot expect it to end in January. We learn how to live in those months while we wait for spring to come. It is the same thing with the season of suffering, we usually ask God to take away our suffering instead of asking him to strengthen us in it and to help us to pass the test that we are going though. Regardless of how bad things are, He is with me and watching over me and His grace is enough for me. I am stronger when I am weak because his strength is far greater than mine and it is His strength that brings me through.

Day One!

Karen M Lowe — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:09:49 +0000

Many of us will make New Year resolutions and not keep them. Notice I say ‘not keep’ as opposed to ‘unable to keep.’ I tried to lose weight so many times! Paid for the gym and use it only a few times but not enough times to make an impact, paid for five weeks of Weight Watchers and followed the plan for two before giving up. Tried to read my bible daily but fail after the first week. So many things I have tried but failed to finish. My sister in law reminded me of something I have said in the past and have subconsciously used in my personal life: Day One! Let tomorrow be Day One! Tomorrow can be the day you remember: your goals, to lose weight, to start that new business, to keep applying for that job, to call your relative you have been estranged from. Last year my goal was to read the entire bible, I did it! I finished it on December 31, 2009 at approximately 11pm. I did not read it everyday but when I read it, I made up the lost days by reading extra, sometimes I read ahead because I knew I had a propensity to get too busy and not read. The first two weeks I hardly read anything. As a result I was doing double overtime. On January 15^th I had about 12 days of back reading to do. In stead of giving up, I use January 15^th as Day One then read one day from the beginning to catch up. This was a lot since each day was approximately 30-40 minutes of reading. At one point I went on a 21 day fast, a part of this fast was no TV! I almost went crazy but I took the time to read, I am a TV junkie so I had a lot of time on my hands. I did so much bible reading I ended up being two weeks ahead! In the summer I took up running. Some evenings were chilly or I was lazy so I did not go out. It stretched out into a week of not running, when I realize what was happening I decided OK, I am starting over, again!

My Day One concept is just a variation of ‘if at first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.’ Don’t give up because you are not able to keep up and do not say you are unable to do something. You can do anything as long as you keep trying. If you have a hard time doing something, get a partner or partners or if you can afford to pay someone, pay. However, do not do it with someone who will discourage you. Doing it with someone who is like you is a little bit tricky. They may bring you down or you may realize that you are stronger than you thought. I have tried things with friends and end up continuing without them. I once did the lemonade diet (not advising anyone to do it, not worth it!) at my cousin’s house. We both love sweets plus most of the foods that I love she love and we have tried to lose weight together in the past. This time though I am struggling with this lemonade diet thing. I am on my 8^th day and she is standing in her kitchen eating something I loved! I am standing there, watching her eat and thinking of all the ways I can grab it from her. I realize how strong I was when I talked about it and let it go! Even after that incident she will come into the house with stuff that I absolutely love and cannot eat at the time. How cruel my lovely! But… if you want to know how strong you are mentally, try it with lesser mortals and if you fail, tomorrow is Day One!

If you do not have to focus on the steps to achieve your goal, don’t. Try putting a plan on paper with milestones. Focus on the milestones as opposed to the process. If the time for your milestone has passed without you getting it done, tomorrow is Day One! Just don’t lose heart or give up. What ever you do, start over but do not give up!

My thing for this year is to read the entire ‘Our Daily Bread’ devotionals daily and to write least one blog per day, if not this then over on JER Consulting. Let’s see how I do.

Remembering Jamaican Christmas

Karen M Lowe — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 19:50:52 +0000

Christmas in Jamaica… I wonder if it is the same as when I was a child. I have not spent Christmas in Ja in like, forever! Here, Christmas ends at midnight on December 25^th or if I go to bed early. At home (Jamaica) it is not the day, it is the season, the entire three weeks of holiday we got from school way back when. Then, nobody knew about turkey! It was the pig that we were all after. I remember one year my mom was away and my uncle tried to make ham for us… It was horrible, too soft and absolutely nothing like mommy’s but it was the best Christmas we had, ever! Just thinking about it now makes me want to cry. We had gifts galore under the tree and the prettiest Christmas tree ever; we laughed and just loved on each other. I hope I still have a photo of it somewhere.

My entire family (including uncle Gary) have not spent Christmas together in about ten years but thank God for the love we have been able to cultivate over the years that allows us to be together in spirit. Gary will be missed this year even more since he canceled at the last minute!!! Bad boy. Anyway, I cannot imagine a horrible Christmas in Jamaica. I wonder if my sisters remember the time we decided to cook for the homeless put them in boxes and drive around Montego Bay giving out the food. I remember being in the kitchen (generally hate cooking). We had different dishes. I cannot remember who cooked what, except Keisha is the best at lasagna so I am sure she made that, but when we were putting the boxes together we did it the assembly line style. I did most of the driving since I was the only one with the drivers licence back then, now everybody has one:) J We had a blast that day!

I heard a quote recently on Criminal Minds by poet Haniel Long which says, “So much of what is best in us is bound up in our love of family that it remains the measure of our stability because it measures our sense of loyalty.”

My fondest memories of Christmas are when my entire family is around. Christmas represents the birth of Jesus and church for us was and is a part of the modern day celebration. Some years we never had a lot of money (I remember because we would not be able to buy enough at grand market night) but God gave us each other and I want to say thank you to Him for giving me a family like mine. I know I am blessed because I have heard stories so often that has allowed me to be constantly gracious for the gift I have been given in the type of Family I have. We sometimes fight but our love for each other make it easy to get past our issues.

I know I started talking about the Jamaican Christmas and the critics will say I am all over the place but you are wrong! My Jamaican Christmas is wrapped up in the love of my family.

Merry Jamaican Christmas to Gary, Kim, Keisha, Kevis, Kara, Keneisha & Mom in Canada, England and Jamaica! I love you guys!