I have always heard that God wants to wait to give you something different until you are content with what you have. My entire life, I have heard this. And I tell my kid that (and anyone else who will listen). Contentment is a pretty important thing to have in your life, and while most people can't master it, it is wise to get used to the process of surrendering your will and desires to God and accepting whatever it is that you have at the moment.
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Before you get excited thinking you will see pictures of me with food in my hair, let me just pop your bubble and tell you that the food fight I am talking about is an internal one. Okay, that didn't sound good. A mental one, there we go. This is a fight I've had in my mind, and I've been afraid for a while that I was losing the battle. Now I know I have. My heels were dug in and I braced for impact, thinking my entire personality would change the minute I succumbed. Weird, I still feel the same...
My husband is super smart. Sometimes I call him Einstein, which actually works out, since our kid is Einstein Junior here in blog-land. Anyway, my husband has these opinions, and most of his opinions are founded pretty firmly in common sense. Once in a while, though, he gets carried away and I'm reminded of a fellow high school student who would make up important-sounding information, just to see if anyone would believe him (and since it had a lot of big words and he delivered his speech with nary a smile, people believed him a lot, which only encouraged him to dupe people more often, like a never-ending cycle that only slightly resembles the length of this sentence). I've been reading missionary biographies lately (that my mom actually got EJ for his birthday) and I have been SO inspired! I get chills reading all the miracles God has done in their lives. These people are still alive--these miracles were done in my lifetime! I want to live in such a way where God can work miracles in my life, too. I know I have to first surrender—the missionaries totally sold out to God, giving Him every minute of every day. Trusting Him when they didn’t know their next step. Trusting Him when they did know their next step and it wasn’t what they would have chosen for themselves. Willing to put themselves out of their comfort zone on a regular basis.
All of this sounds scary. A normal person wouldn’t do those things. A normal person would go to church, be moderately involved, read their Bible, pray three times a day, give their tithe, and die. But a normal person wouldn’t be able to look back on their deathbed and, in recounting all God has done through them, lose track of how many miracles God worked. A normal person wouldn’t know the rush when uncertainty, doubt, and fear collide head-on with peace, joy, and God-given courage. I don’t want to be a normal person. I have glimpsed into the lives of extra-ordinary people, and I want that for myself. God has given us all so much potential, and when I get to Heaven, I don’t want God asking me why I didn’t give my potential to Him. Imagine the lives we could touch; imagine the chaos we could erupt, turning this world upside down just like the disciples of old. Will you be a normal person, or will you join me in becoming a conduit for miracles? About a month ago, I typed up a chore chart for EJ--it was quite detailed, listing the chore, how much money he would earn from it, what time he completed it, along with spaces for extra chores and daily totals. Almost immediately, EJ started speculating what he would buy. Cookies, fruit snacks, chocolate pop tarts (anyone notice a common theme here???). Which is fine; we told him he could use this money to buy extra food that we don't normally get. And like all good Christians, we taught EJ how to find a tenth and fill out a tithing envelope. Two weeks ago, he put in his first tithe. (He had earned an odd amount, but I didn't have change, so I just gave him $11--and thankfully he had a dime from something previous, so finding and giving his tenth was fairly easy.) This week, his tithe was a strange, odd amount. It took a while, but his brain got some exercise while he figured out how much he should give if he didn't have any pennies. Everywhere we go, he takes his wallet and asks what he can spend his money on. Everywhere we go, he talks about what he wants to buy, but he never actually buys anything. This morning, he took his wallet to church, and when the offering plate started coming our way, he silently pulled out his wallet and retrieved some change. It wasn't a showy, "Hey, I have some money!" thing; it wasn't a hesitant, "Should I give some money since I have some?" thing. Honestly, I think that money was burning a hole in his pocket, and he finally realized where he could spend it without having to wonder if he could get a better deal somewhere else. If only we all thought like that! (Yes, I am aware this is play money, and no, this is not what he put in the offering!)
Last week, Pastor started a new series: How to deal with your feelings. When he announced that title, I'm sure half the church was with me in groaning, knowing he'd probably step on a few toes. (The other half was probably with my husband, looking forward to hearing how an abundance of feelings have no place in a healthy person's outlook on life. Or something weird like that.)
The first message was about grief. Normally, when you think about grief, you think about the sadness one experiences when a loved one dies. Up until a few years ago, that's all I ever thought anyone would grieve over. Over the past few years, though, my horizons have been broadened and through no real fault of anyone in particular, I have learned first-hand that a multitude of things (situations) can bring real heart-rending grief. I am riding another trendy wave. I am claiming a word/phrase for the new year. I've never really done that before--last year, I made concrete goals that I followed more or less. And this year I have concrete goals again, but this phrase won't leave me alone, so I'm adopting it. Having a phrase for the year is different than having goals. It seems like with goals, you actively strive for and cross off things on a list. With a phrase, it's more like osmosis.
Of course I'm human. We're all human. God created us from dust, and when we die, we will go back to being dust. In the meantime, our sin nature has a death grip on us (pardon the pun) and if we try to do good or be good on our own, we will fail. Miserably. Every time.
This is something that I've always known in my head, but last week, this truth danced around in front of me and I realized for the first time how true it really is. Today EJ and I spent the day at DHR helping sort and catalog angel tree presents for the foster kids in my county. When we first walked in (just after 9 am) one of the workers who saw us (told me later that) she got very angry and was about to tell us we needed to get lost because we were NOT welcome here--with an angry, distorted face.
She thought we were foster kids, coming to claim our presents. I'll let that sink in a minute...All day long, as we received the gifts bought for these kids who will spend Christmas away from their parents, this lady oohed and ahhed over each expensive toy and gadget, claiming how happy it made her to know these kids would be looked after this holiday season. Yet, when she saw (what she thought were) two of those same foster kids, she became emotionally violent. Sigh. I love presents. All the glittery wrapping paper, the big shiny bow, even the smeared name tag--they all scream "OPEN ME!!!" And 99% of the time, I am not disappointed. (There was that one time that I opened the wrong present, and I was disappointed then...) My new gift fills a tiny spot in my life perfectly, bringing me joy--not just when I use the item, but because I think of my wonderful friend who gave it to me.
I am convinced that the moment in which we live is called the present for a very specific reason. Most of the time, we float through life. Or plow, or fly, or trudge, or even a mix of these colorful verbs. And most of the time, those around us fall prey to our hurried, self-centered journey through life. But as a mom, this is a dangerous way to live. To constantly need a personal bubble of space where we can exist in peace, to always have a sharp retort to silence the never-ending questions, to seldom find a smile--just because. On the last day of October, I decided to do something on a whim. I decided to write a novel. I know, writing an entire novel doesn't exactly sound like something people do on the spur of the moment, and normally I think about stuff (especially stressful stuff) a lot before I gently ease myself in, but for some reason, I just couldn't let my sister-in-law write a novel and not also write one myself. Call it pride or whatever else you want, but writing is MY thing, and I wasn't going to let it go without a fight.
On the first day of November, I started my novel. Why? Because November is NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, or NaNoWriMo, for short, or just NaNo for even shorter. There is a website with a gazillion help threads on their forum, and several times a week, everyone gets sent an encouraging email. Most of each email was all about the person writing it, but usually at the end I would find a gold nugget. I would like to share those nuggets with you. |
Who am I, you ask?
In 2006 I had a stroke, and every day my husband encourages me to use my remaining brain cells to the best of my ability. I love to organize, make crafts, and go on adventures (safe ones). I hope that through my blog posts, you will be encouraged to accept and make the best of challenges God throws at your life. Categories
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