A New Year – A Challenge to Lobsters Everywhere

What the heck?

I’m starting to read the book 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos to kick off this year. And I’m thinking of using the book as a month-by-month guide. One chapter each month. One rule to set into place. One new mind-set to focus on.

The first chapter is titled “Stand Up Straight With Your Shoulders Back” and that’s a message I need. I hover over a computer all day. I lean forward. My neck and shoulders hurt ALL THE TIME.  I fear becoming one of those ladies who has a hunchback. I’ll tell the youngsters that it’s because I reached adulthood the same time that the internet became popular. I’m in the first generation where we can become victims of life focused on a screen.

I’m about 10 pages in, and so far, I haven’t discovered any actual references to keeping your shoulders back, stomach in, gaze forward. No list of exercises to strengthen your abs. No tips and tricks to keep your neck straight.

Instead, I’m reading about lobsters.

I know. Lobsters.  For the rules for living. Again, I’m just starting the book, but lobsters wasn’t exactly what I was envisioning for my first day back to work in the new year.
What I have learned is that lobsters are crazy territorial…and they are more than willing to fight to keep their land-rights. They need safe places to hide. They remember possible safe spaces even after they have found their own place to nest.  When they are exposed, however, they can shoot stuff out of their eyes to give messages to other unsuspecting lobsters,  telling their size, sex, health…and mood?

Yep. I think my husband often wishes that I had some sort of mood detector…

But there is an amazing fact about the lobster that I didn’t know.

A lobster that has suffered a harsh defeat can literally have its brain disintegrate.  And, incredibly, this doesn’t kill the lobster. Instead, a new, subordinate brain will grow in its space.

What? What does that even mean?

I have a few friends who have suffered some amazing defeats. And after these, life just isn’t the same. They are tentative. They are stuck in jobs far below their ability. They are just, well, sad.

And I have to wonder … has their brain become a few sizes too small? 

Ok, I know that’s not possible, but I believe a person’s spirit can shrink. Self-confidence can diminish. When we stop believing in ourselves. When we stop moving forward. When we listen to the loud, outside voices instead of the still small voice in our soul that tells us who – and who’s we are.

For 2019 – let me share with you some truths.

You are beloved.

You are a child of the King.
You were created perfectly, for a special purpose that only you can give to the world.

You are cherished.

You are important.

You belong.

And you have an amazing, beautiful future – both in the now and the not yet – if you choose it.  It may be hard to see through the haze of bullying, defeat, heartache and murky waters, but it’s true.  You are the only you this world will ever experience.

I know it can be hard to swallow, but you can turn things around. Today is a new day. 2019 can be a fresh start.

So seize it. You aren’t a lobster. Your brain didn’t actually shrink. Get out there and take back your life. Take back your year. Grow your spirit. Maybe that means you have to speak, outloud, throughout your day who you are. What you are made of. 

Let’s be loud in 2019 – loud in reminding the world how we are made – in the image of God our creator.