Category Archives: General

Brave, Warrior Friends

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I was blessed beyond measure to have lunch with a dear friend today who has served churches immensely.

We had been casual acquaintances for a good while until one special day.  That morning, I had been really feeling like I needed to talk to someone about something I was dealing with, but I just couldn’t bring myself to actually talk about it.  But I kept feeling this nagging sensation that I really needed to share it with someone.  I had a meeting to attend, and when I got there, this lady was already there.  We struck up a conversation, and I asked her a simple question…to which she bravely told me about where she was in life and what she was struggling with.  And it was along the lines of the thing I was needing to talk about!  So, I got to spill my guts too!  

Ever since then, this lady is like one of my soul sisters.  She is on my heart, and I know I am on her heart.  I still find it amazing how God orchestrated that conversation, and I am so glad that she was brave enough to answer my simple question truthfully.  It sure was a big help to me!

I love that I have friends who know my junk, and I know their junk, and we love each other through our junk!  Life is full of junk, and I’m thankful for brave, strong friends who with me on this journey.  Who encourage me, remind me that I am a warrior princess, and help me fight the good fight!

Mandles – For that special man in your life

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Awhile back, a friend showed me the following video:

Funny stuff, right!

This weekend, I was looking through the Yankee Candle fundraiser brochure for Caleb’s school.  When I got to the back page, I saw this:

Mandles

No way!  There are really Man Candles out there!  The scents here are “Movie Night”, “Mmm, Bacon”, “First Down”, and “Man Town”.  And if you get the car jar air fresheners, you can also get the scent “Riding Lawn Mower.”

I have been laughing about this little discovery all weekend!

So, if this sounds like the perfect gift for your man for this holiday season, let me know!  I can hook you up! 🙂

When in times of small talk…

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I’ve said before that I’m no good at small talk. I was in a situation yesterday where small talk was necessary, and I learned something about myself.

I’m no good about talking about myself. I find it really awkward to have to talk about myself when put on the spot. Now, if something pops up in the conversation where I can chime in about something from my life, I’m good to do that. But if you just point blank ask me a question about me, my family, my job, etc., there’s a really good chance that I’m going to come across as awkward.

But I’m really good about asking other people about their lives.

That’s fair, right?!

Quote

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I saw this quote on Twitter this morning.

“Architecture and design should be such that people don’t need an invitation to step inside.”

This really makes me think…

In thinking about church communications and publications, how can we create things with content to where it is an obvious invitation and people felt drawn to the community of people?

If we were going to build a church, how would we design it to be an inviting place?  Where they already feel invited and welcome?

How do I design/change my life to where people don’t need an invitation to enter into my presence or into the nitty gritty of my life?

So much to think about!

Sundays

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After I’ve gotten the kids up, fed, dressed, got them to church barely on time, sat through the worship service with them, got them home, fed them lunch, changed diapers and clothes and put them down for nap time…I’m done!  I’m ready to veg out and take a nap myself.  I am pretty much worthless on Sunday afternoons, and I never, ever get anything productive done.  It’s just the way it is.  And I’m good with it!  So good that it’s not changing any time soon! 🙂

This week after my glorious nap and laying in bed all afternoon (thank you, Chris!), I finally got myself up, threw on some jeans and headed out to LIFE Group which was ladies night at Starbucks and had a blast!

While I was getting ready to leave (pretty much just throwing jeans on), I thought about how thankful I am that I have friends who love and accept me the way I am.  I felt completely comfortable going to meet my friends without having to get all gussied up.  Don’t  get me wrong, sometimes I love dressing up (shoot, I did it Friday night and my mom was shocked that I was wearing glitzy Claire’s jewelry), but there are other times where I am perfectly happy to just be comfortable.  And I’m thankful that I have great friends who let me be me and take me as I am!

The Power of “I Don’t Know”

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I saw this article on cnn.com this morning, and it reminded me just how much I love these three words: I Don’t Know!

I grew up thinking I had to know everything.  I had to have an answer for everything.  We were taught in church to have an answer for anything people could ask you about God and your faith.  And it was very important to have all the right answers.  In school, we had to have all the answers too.  You had to be right, and there wasn’t much room for creativity or even searching for the answers.

When I was interviewing for a job years ago, my very wise husband gave me some great advice.  He told me that I would probably be asked some questions in my interview that I didn’t know the answer to.  And instead of making something up, I should say “I don’t know, but I can find out!”  I remember sitting in that interview and using those words, and I was so glad that he had given me those words to say.  

As an adult, I have fully embraced the words I Don’t Know.  It has become freeing to be able to admit that I don’t know everything.  But it’s also fun to have the chance to say but I can try to find out!  I have learned so many things that I might not have had the chance to learn if I hadn’t admitted that I didn’t know something.  I absolutely love learning new things, so it is extremely exciting to me to find something new that I get to learn.  

Recently I went to an event where I was talking to a girl that I knew a long time ago.  At one point, she asked me a question that I didn’t know the answer to, so I readily admitted that I didn’t know.  This threw her off completely.  In her mind, because I am who I am, I should have known the answer to that question.  She was really flustered and told me that she thought differently of me and was disappointed that I didn’t have an answer to all of her questions.  I just kind of laughed to myself and told her “Well, I’m sorry, but there’s a whole lot that I don’t know!”  And it didn’t bother me one bit that I didn’t have an answer to give her.  If anything, I hope it taught this girl that it’s OK to not know everything.  That it’s really pretty darn freeing to be able to say those words.

The older I get and the more I learn, I realize that there is so much in the world that I don’t know about.  And that’s OK!  I’m happy to admit when I don’t know something, but I’m also thrilled when I get to say that and then get started on learning something new!

Funny Caleb Sayings

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Yesterday morning when we were walking out the door to take Caleb to school, he asked “Momma, am I grounded from Cap’n Crunch?”  “No,” I replied.  To which he said, “Hmm, I must have dreamed that!”

And I posted this one on Facebook earlier this week: Caleb just now after I asked him a bunch of questions about school: “Come on Momma, it’s the 10th day of school! I don’t know much!”

That kid cracks me up!

Conversation Peace

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I attended our church’s Ladies Bible Class this morning, and I’m excited about this study and the chance to connect with RE women!  Our study for this semester is:

Image

The verse that stuck out to me today was James 3:1-6:

“Not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly. We all stumble in many ways. Anyone who is never at fault in what they say is perfect, able to keep their whole body in check.

When we put bits into the mouths of horses to make them obey us, we can turn the whole animal. Or take ships as an example. Although they are so large and are driven by strong winds, they are steered by a very small rudder wherever the pilot wants to go. Likewise, the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark. The tongue also is a fire, a world of evil among the parts of the body. It corrupts the whole body, sets the whole course of one’s life on fire, and is itself set on fire by hell.”

Today’s lessons was very powerful and convicting!  I can think of way too many times that a small careless word uttered from my mouth has created a fire instead of a calming presence.  Especially words spoken to family members.

God, help me to control my tongue, and help my words to be in alignment with you!

Like I said, I’m looking forward to this study and the things I learn from it!

Car Conversations/Loving Our Enemies

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I love the time that I have with my kids in the car (well, most of the time).  More than pretty much any other time we are together, car time is my chance to talk to my kids, impart all my wisdom (ha!) and sing songs.  Car time is awesome!  My kids are totally hostage to mom.  They’re even strapped down!

Lately we’ve talked quite a bit about the fact that if someone is not acting nice, it’s probably because they are hurting in some way.  And if they’re hurting, we need to do everything we can to show them love and friendship to maybe help them feel and act better.  One day last week, I had my oldest son and a friend in the car, and they were talking about a kid they know that isn’t very nice.  I asked them how they could be nice to the child and show him love.  This was a hard question for them to answer.  The friend said that he says hi to the boy, and I said that was good.  Then we talked about more ways that the kids could go out of their way to make this kid feel better.  But it was difficult for the kids to think about these things and even see that they were valid responses to the way they and other kids had been treated.

It struck me in this conversation how hard it is to love our enemies sometimes.  And sometimes we think we are doing a really good job by just not being mean back.  But to truly make a difference in our enemy’s life, we need to be looking for ways to help him, love him, and make things better for him.  To go above and beyond and be intentional.  Instead of avoiding the person and the problem, we might should find ways to be around this person and do nice things for them.

In church yesterday, the sermon was about love.  At one point, our minister said that we have all been enemies of Christ and were apart from him.  But he loved us and was willing to do what it took to bring us back to him and close the gap between us.  God didn’t give up on us, and we shouldn’t give up on our enemies.

 

Dignity. Always, dignity.

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I got a group of 2nd grade moms from my kiddo’s school together last night to go see Singing in the Rain for Retro night at a nearby movie theater.  This is our third year at the school, and I still don’t know all that many people (which I totally blame on the fact that I have twins – my excuse for everything!  For the last two years, my life has pretty much revolved around them.  But they’re older, and I’m a lot more sane now, so I can afford to do a little more in life!)  I have decided that this is the year that I’m going to actually get to know people.  So I set up an event, and it was great!  Except I still need lots of help in the small talk area.  But we can talk about that later!

I’ve never seen the movie Singing in the Rain before, but I remembered after it started that I had seen a live performance of it at some point.  It’s a really great movie, and there are so many great lines in it.

The one that stuck out to me last night was “Dignity.  Always, dignity.”  This part always makes me laugh because Don is on the red carpet trying to act all fancy, but as he’s talking about his past and how he became a star it flashes back to what really happened.  He keeps saying “Dignity.  Always, dignity”, but the reality was that his past was far from dignified.

Up until not so long ago, I felt like I always had to appear dignified.  That’s the way people wanted me to be, right?  And I sort of looked down on people if they were not dignified themselves.

But the more life I live, I find that I am drawn to the people who are not dignified.  The people who aren’t putting on airs to look great to everyone else.  Sometimes the people who are so broken that they have absolutely no airs left to put on.  I yearn for interactions with people who are honest and true to themselves.  I want to talk to the people who are more than willing to share how they are not perfect.  People that are willing to admit that they are a big fat mess.

Because when you’re willing to be real and lay it all out in the open, it’s extremely freeing!  You don’t have to worry about keeping up your image.  Or working yourself sick to prove how great you are.  You just get to be who you really are.  Yes, some people may not like the real you.  But probably, more than likely, the vast majority will!

I’ve found that the closer I am to Christ, I don’t care so much what other people think of me.  And that’s HUGE for a people-pleaser like me!  If Christ thinks I’m OK no matter what, that is pretty special!

So, let’s do all we can to live undignified, true, honest lives!