I can’t wait until my Martha Stewart Living magazine comes each month! I devour it with drooling and zest. The shiny glossy feel of the large pages on my fingers, the bright bold colors to my eyes, the never-ending home decorating ideas, and the recipes (oh! the recipes!) that add inches to my hips just looking at them.

Yes, this is my idea of LIVING! Curled up in my plush overstuffed brocade chair with the matching footstool (still only an idea in my mind from Martha’s pages) and the dark end table of my husband’s grandfather built decades before that’s piled high with various shapes and sizes of books, pens, and stuff.

The new issue was going fine, with ideas erupting all over the place and plans being planned until—until I saw Martha’s house and my excitement plummeted. I looked at the history of the house in pictures over the last twenty years of updated renovations. My eyes would shift from the page to my own home, from her chair with the silk brocade to my more plain linen brocade, which didn’t shine in the soft night lighting as hers did, and my economy carpet verses her French tapestry and woven linen-and-wool one. My economy linoleum versus her hand painted wood floors, oak versus ash cabinets, Wal-Mart versus antique auction, and garage sale versus Fifth Avenue.

My confidence and satisfaction with my hope dropped six feet—briefly—and I stopped to ask myself why. The answer surprised me. Martha was the standard, hers the ruler to measure all décor by, and all of America was watching her, admiring, applauding, and following.

My house could never look like that! I can’t afford it, I cry! Not in a million years! My thoughts went on and on. Suddenly I slapped my soul for getting in this downward spiral. I slapped it so hard I came to—back to reality and reason, that is. HERS was nice but so was mine, I retorted. Mine is just different and I truly like my home’s décor. Besides, even Martha’s interior design items are more affordable if I shopped her line of home items at Kmart, where you could live stylish at a cheap price.

I felt better now, but my thoughts detoured again on a side road—to thoughts of Ellen White and her pedestal. Not the self-imposed one, but the church-architectured one. We also noted the standard to live by, a set of rules, education, guidance. As a child I remember the standard held so high I knew my short spiritual stature would never grow that tall. Sad but true that nausea would too often accompany the reading of any of her literary pieces, but I outgrew that too.

However, this pedestal problem procreates pettiness and pomposity. Putting any person up that high is like building a card house on a pedestal that will surely blow down.

Remember that ethereal word called "principles"? Yes, it’s a "p" word. It’s what we really want to look for in all advice. Not the details.

With Martha, we look for the principles of zest for living with bold and bright colors, style, quality, and creative interesting design. Something of value and worth that colorfully enriches our lives, physically as well as monetarily.

And with Ellen, we see the recommendations of placing our trust in and building upon The Rock, of the value of investing in the eternal versus the here-and-now non-fireproof stuff we collect, to see how simple the simple steps to Christ really are, and how full of joy and color live is when we’re close to our Creator.

It’s not the silk brocade or the many admonitions. It’s not the antique amoire and settee or the testimonies. And it’s certainly not the seventeenth-century Italian crystal chandelier OR the shoulds, haves, musts, and must-nots.

No, you really know what it REALLY is? It’s LIVING. Martha coined the ad, "Take time for living," hence the name of her magazine. And, in a nutshell, Ellen said the same. Really living life to the fullness without God is drab, colorless, boring, routine, and repetitively traditional. There’s no sunshine when he’s gone in your life —only gray and black.

Ellen should most be remembered for unveiling the character of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Comforter, as they revealed themselves to her in their many visits together. Untruths about him made her fearful for the church. I credit her for showing me the steps to take to get my heart’s desire of all ages—Jesus, the form of God we can touch, feel, hold, see and know in all his vibrant living color and warmth.

See? Doesn’t it make sense now? Martha points us to a higher standard—not hers but our own style of "live" living. And Ellen forever points us to the only one True God on the heavenly pedestal who desires to be there. Alone.

My statisfaction and peace with life are abundant when I know my place—down here looking up.

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