My Father, the Artist

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My dad is an artist.  He doesn’t paint pictures to sell or sculpt statues but he does tell detailed, captivating stories in a way that come to life in people’s minds when he teaches about Jesus.  He doesn’t build things but he does craft their yard into a healthy, lush, manicured garden of wide variety.  When he taught me piano lessons as a young child, he would draw pictures in my notebook each week so I could fill in little circles in the drawing with my practice times.  While our girls were young he would decorate birthday cakes for them according to the theme of their party that would rival any professional bakery’s work.  Continue reading →

Stay Squishy

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…dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him.  Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.   Romans 12:1-2  NLT

My little brother, sister and I molded and created all sorts of silly stuff out of play dough together when we were little.  My sister had this amazingly fun set of hard plastic molds we used to make all sorts of foods and play restaurant on little plastic plates.  We’d end up pressing, rolling, pinching, cutting and flattening away for hours.  To get the best fruit or pizza or cheeseburger you had to push the play dough really hard so that it filled all the little spaces of the mold.

When my girls were little we acquired our own play dough toys that introduced them to the fun of moldable squishy stuff.  They even had a fuzzy pumper – do you remember those?  Continue reading →

Wise Mary Poppins

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Have you watched a movie you had watched a hundred times as a child and caught lines you never noticed before?  Or at least the meaning of those words had flown right over your head as you sat caught up in the story or what was happening on-screen?  Consider the story of Mary Poppins.  She was one wise gal and seemed to always have just the right thing to say.  You know, like “A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down” and “well begun is half done” and my favorite:  “Close your mouth, Michael.  We are not a codfish.”  One of the things she said in the Disney movie that I missed as a child is “Enough is as good as a feast”.   In other words – stop your grousing, be happy with what you have and don’t ask for more.

Our human nature, from a very early age, causes us to cry out “more, more!” all throughout our growing up years and sometimes on and on, even when we’re “grown ups.”

Give a child a trip to the store and they want a candy bar, too.  Give them a candy bar and they want a slushee to go with it.  Continue reading →

Following Jesus is like Super Mario Bros.

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I was talking to a really good friend today, a mom of teenagers.  She shared something awful they’ve discovered happened to one of her kids when they were really little that probably influenced some of the not-so-good choices made by her child as a teen.  It’s a heavy burden on all of them right now – there’s anger, hurt, and weariness.  You see, this young person just weathered a lot of hard times and made tremendous growth.  He may have thought, “Whew!  That was rough.  Glad that’s over.  Glad God is with me and I’m closer to Him.”  Then this memory surfaced and the pieces of past abuse by a relative fall into place.  It feels like a set-back.  It might even feel to him like he’s back to square one.

As my friend and I talked about her son, I had a thought:  growing as a Christian and following Jesus is like Super Mario Bros.  Bear with me here.  Continue reading →

The Courage of Christ

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My family and I decided to attend the “Journey to the Cross” Good Friday event at our church, not fully knowing what to expect.

In the last few years, this type of observance seems to be becoming popular, replacing services in which we just sit, sing songs and pray.  Those are good things to do but I’m glad people have used their creativity to come up with ways for people to physically walk through, smell, taste, hear and feel the story.  The story of Jesus’ death and resurrection can become benign to those of us who have heard or read it year after year.  It may even cease to really affect us or make us think harder about the gravity of what Jesus did and experienced.

The “Journey to the Cross” is the first experiential-type setting we’ve been through in first person as if walking in Jesus’ place, sensing a tiny bit of what it must have been like for him.  We began by entering a room set up as the last supper, Continue reading →

I actually don’t like running

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John and I were jogging down the path this morning right into a gusty spring wind.  The sunshine was marvelous and being able to jog without having to wear a jacket or hoodie also made me smile.  For a while last year we were jogging about four times a week in the early morning before work.  We built up a pretty good endurance.  Then this winter we went pretty regularly to the exercise room at our apartment complex and ran on treadmills to keep up.  My enthusiasm started to wane there.  Running on a treadmill is so boring, even when I was listening to good tunes on my iPod.

Well, I’ve been a lazy butt the last few weeks.  I fought off a lingering cold for a few weeks and felt puny, then having stayed up late quite a bit didn’t want to get up early this week, telling myself “I need my sleep.  I can work out later.”  Well sometimes “later” never happens.

Today as we started out I felt tired much quicker and panted more than usual.  We had to take frequent walk breaks.  I was so frustrated!  I didn’t think I’d lose so much endurance in such a short time of not jogging.  It took months to build up our endurance and only weeks to lose a lot of it!  Good grief.  I asked John, “Do you think that’s kind of like our spiritual growth, too?  It takes a long time and effort to grow but can take very little time to go backwards and lose endurance?”

I really don’t enjoy running, in and of itself, but I like how I feel afterward and I like how it burns a lot of calories in a shorter period of time.  I could walk – and I may start doing that more.  It just takes more time.

Do you notice after a short time of not spending time with God or not reading His Word or not hanging out in worship with other believers at church that you slide back, feel like you’re losing momentum spiritually?  I may not always like the discipline it takes to grow, or like growing through change and difficulty but the constant effort seems to be really important.  Otherwise I find myself taking two steps forward and a step back.  What do you think?

Arms of God

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In the past week or so, God has hugged us and made us feel less alone through the arms and hearts of some people at the church we’re attending right now.  It’s a beautiful reminder to me that God has not forgotten, He has not gone away, and He loves.  Oh how He loves.

Who are we that we’re deserving of His attention?  Why should He bother to provide those types of things for us?  Who are we that we’re deserving of people’s prayers and time when they have so many other people in their lives and in their care?  It’s humbling.  Evidently all the parts of who we are matter to God and He provides for every need, big or “small.”

Never take for granted how much it may mean to someone just to have a kind word or hug from you, an invitation to spend time together.  Those seemingly small things fill my heart…I’m pretty much overflowing right now.

Thank you, God.  Thank you, friends who are serving as the arms of God to me and my family.

God can pour on the blessings in astonishing ways so that you’re ready for anything and everything, more than just ready to do what needs to be done. As one psalmist puts it,

He throws caution to the winds,
giving to the needy in reckless abandon.
His right-living, right-giving ways
never run out, never wear out.

This most generous God who gives seed to the farmer that becomes bread for your meals is more than extravagant with you. He gives you something you can then give away, which grows into full-formed lives, robust in God, wealthy in every way, so that you can be generous in every way, producing with us great praise to God.                II Corinthians 9:8-11  The Message

Live backwards to move forward

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Lose your life to find it.    (Matt. 10:38-40)

Die to live.    (Romans 6:3-5)

Leaders should behave like servants.    (Luke 22:26)

Rejoice when things are going wrong, in hard times.  (Romans 5:3)

Last is really first.   (Mark 9:35)

Love the haters.  (Matt. 5:44)

Being God’s servant is the only way to true freedom.  (I Peter 2:16)

When I’m weak, I’m actually strong.  (II Cor. 12:10)

Do you see the trend here?  Following Jesus feels as if we’re walking backwards; especially when we look around at the rest of the world and the way they’re walking and living their lives.   Living within the boundaries God sets, however, actually gives us freedom – to enjoy a better, guilt-free, peace-filled life.   It would be one thing to walk this way if we never saw the other way.  Continue reading →

So that…

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All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort.  He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us.  For the more we suffer for Christ, the more God will shower us with his comfort through Christ.  II Corinthians 1:3-5   NLT

All praise to the God and Father of our Master, Jesus the Messiah! Father of all mercy! God of all healing counsel! He comes alongside us when we go through hard times, and before you know it, he brings us alongside someone else who is going through hard times so that we can be there for that person just as God was there for us. We have plenty of hard times that come from following the Messiah, but no more so than the good times of his healing comfort—we get a full measure of that, too.   II Cor. 1:3-5 (The Msg)

My sister and her family swam against a powerful tide and swirling waters of grief, fear, hurt and the big blackness of the unknown and have finally come crawling out onto the shore of the other side – the other side of this particular storm.  Still dripping from their exhausting ordeal, my sis turned around to throw a rope to me as I swim through unfamiliar waters hauntingly like the ones she just stepped out of, sometimes feeling overwhelmed by the size of the waves, sometimes starting to lose heart.  Continue reading →

But it’s hard!

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I’ll admit it, I’m a sucker for talent reality shows, especially American Idol and Dancing with the Stars.  Some of my favorite parts are the “behind the scenes” moments when we see what really happens as the contestants prepare for the night of competition.  Last night on DWTS, several of the celebrities were complaining (and whining) to their pros/teachers that what they were trying to learn was too difficult saying things like “I can’t do it”, “It’s too much to learn” and more.  Shannen Doherty had asked her teacher to simplify the routine this week because last week the judges said she had not so deftly attempted a challenging routine for her first week out.  Her teacher, Mark, refused, saying, “No risk, no reward.  I’m not dumbing this down for you.  You can do it.”   Len, one of the judges, eventually said after hearing several of these stories that the celebrities needed to “Show up, Keep up and Shut up.”  They almost had to call the “waaaaaambulance.”

There were conflicts to be smoothed out, tempers to cool, moments to try patience, threats to quit, Continue reading →