Do you ever play mind games with yourself to get your work done? Do you ever say to yourself, “If I get this part of the house cleaned, then I will take a break and watch a favorite YouTuber?”

I used to do that, but with age, I’m now playing even bigger mind games with myself.

When I got married right before I turned twenty, I had done very little housework or cooking. My mother was a homemaker, and I could not meet the standards she set for her home. She didn’t even want me to make my bed because I couldn’t do it well enough.

I would leave for school after spending a great deal of time getting ready, and she would make my bed. I don’t remember ever cooking anything other than heating up milk on the stove for hot chocolate. I sometimes made sandwiches or cereal, but that was the extent of my homemaking skills.

I graduated from college in June 1977 with a two-year A.D. degree in nursing and was assigned to be in charge of—if I remember correctly—64-bed geriatric unit, which most of the time was full. At age nineteen, I had an LPN and two nursing aids under me. The LPN gave all the medications. I went with the two nursing aids to do assessments on the patients, turn and clean them, and I was in charge of all the Intravenous medications and checking the sites of the IV’s. We had no IV pumps and all the drops were counted and the IV adjusted by hand by drops-per-minute. I also did all the charting on every patient, by hand—no computers. This was a third shift job. I lived off coffee.

I learned to work.

HARD!

My husband and I started out our married life in a trailer, and for some reason, I could keep up with the work on the geriatric unit, but just folding one load of towels, or washing dishes for me and my husband exhausted me. I think it was because housework was boring to me, while working as a nurse felt important.

Fast forward many years through homeschooling two kids, working as a nurse whenever I could, going back to school to get my B.S. degree, and adding six grandchildren that we keep as often as we can—my work ethic has increased substantially past getting one load of towels folded.

I started an experiment in April. A mind game, if you will. I’ve been blogging about it over the last few months, but you might not know the extent of what this experiment means to me— and to you.

I’ve been watching people around me age. As they age, they do less and less, until they are sitting around and doing hardly anything. And their bodies circle the drain.

I had been taking some physical therapy for my knees last fall, and the physical therapist, Daniel, said to me one day, “When it hurts, keep going. You’re body is designed to produce synovial fluid in the joints when they are under stress, and it will cushion them. They will actually feel better.”

He was right. Working does not hurt— it heals.

About a year ago, my husband and I began planning a huge patio project that we wanted to accomplish at the back of our house. The purpose was to take out more grass to reduce his mowing time (he was very much in favor of that) and to make a larger play area for the grandchildren and family.

We marked off the area and started to dig out the dirt. It was amazingly hard due to the red clay. I could tell my husband, who is 3 1/2 years older than me, was not up to the job. We didn’t want to hire anyone due to the cost.

After watching so many people circle the drain, I decided—I will do this, by myself. It may actually help my knees to work that hard. I didn’t want help from anyone. Plus, no one wanted to help. Who dreams of becoming a ditch digger?🤪

So with a small wheelbarrow and a shovel, I begin the work.

The weather became hotter as time passed and I was still going out, several days a week and digging. I took the dirt down about four to five inches, sometimes six inches in areas.

And little by little, I got to here.

And here.

We had crushed run delivered and one shovel at a time, I moved it to where it needed to be.

We had pea gravel delivered and I did the same with it to cover the crushed run. (We still need one last delivery of pea gravel to fully complete the project.)

I laid a border of pavers my husband purchased from Lowes. Down on my knees, I raked the crushed run flat, adjusted and readjusted the border pavers and leveled them so my husband could put his lawn mower tires right beside them and mow.

My muscles in my arms, chest, and back, begin to look like my weight lifting son’s. I showed our grandson’s one day (his three sons) how big my arm muscles were getting, and they said, “Wow! You look like Dad.”

We had pavers delivered and my husband brought me bags of concrete from Lowes to spread for leveling the pavers on the sloping areas.

I laid and leveled pavers to set two swings on, and a fire-pit.

And here is the finished product.

Our grandchildren helped me and my husband put the swings together in the garage. Our oldest granddaughter helped me put the fire-pit together. The boys (my husband and oldest grandson) had wimped out by that time.

We had a family get together on Saturday, and I grilled out for everyone for lunch. I made a chicken pot pie for supper. And we made smores over the fire-pit later in the evening for dessert.

I look at the finished product and think, Wow! Did I really do that? It is hard for me to believe I actually did. It is even harder for others to believe. But, my husband is my witness. He was here, day after day, as I sweated over the project. And I think to him, it looked easy—if I could do it, surely it had to be easy. As he says, “You’re just a little woman.”

Here’s the truth.

I did it. It was not easy. But, I was too mad at the world to stop. I wanted to prove something. I wanted to show myself and others how big God is and how much we can accomplish if we set our minds to it and daily call on the LORD. I wanted to show how amazingly God created our bodies to work.

I have had a dream for years and had one discouraging hindrance after another to completing it. But, I proved to myself, if I set my mind to accomplish something, I can do it to completion.

And you can, too.

What would you like to accomplish in this life?

Set your mind to it. Ask God to help you. And just do it— one step at a time.

The LORD did not design us to sit and do nothing. Our bodies circle the drain, along with our minds if we do that.

He made us to work!

Here are a few Bible verses to help you get started:

• Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward. You are serving the Lord Christ. – Colossians 3:23-24 (ESV)
• Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. – Romans 12:11 (ESV)
• You shall eat the fruit of the labor of your hands; you shall be blessed, and it shall be well with you. – Psalm 128:2 (ESV)
• In all toil there is profit, but mere talk tends only to poverty. – Proverbs 14:23 (ESV)
• …If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. For we hear that some among you walk in idleness, not busy at work, but busybodies. Now such persons we command and encourage in the Lord Jesus Christ to do their work quietly and to earn their own living. – 2 Thessalonians 3:10-12 (ESV)
• Diligent hands will rule, but laziness ends in forced labor. – Proverbs 12:24 (NIV)
• Those who work their land will have abundant food, but those who chase fantasies have no sense. – Proverbs 12:11 (NIV)

Set your goal.

Dream big.

Go to work.

Win the game.

YOU CAN DO IT!