Limbo

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Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
he’s the one who will keep you on track.  Proverbs 3:5-6  The Message

“How low can you go?”

I can almost hear my Heavenly Father’s deep voice say this while signaling his two smiling angel helpers (we’ll call them Gabe & Mike) to lower the limbo bar as I shimmy under for another round.   I’ve never been very good at the limbo, not being very limber or skilled at bending my body completely backwards while continuing to walk.  You know, my knees and spine just don’t like it.  I marvel at the people who can practically lay back on an invisible board, gliding underneath the bar that’s inches from the floor.  That definitely won’t be me.  I’m trusting God knows how low I can go.  Of course, He has a record of showing me I can go farther or lower than I thought I could!

We’ve played the limbo at the girls’ birthday parties with their friends.  I much prefer the job of holding the limbo bar.  Continue reading →

Beautiful flaws

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This video has made me cry three times now.  Every time I watch it I am so moved by the love expressed.  What a beautiful perspective and reminder that we’re all pocked with scars, flaws, imperfections and more.  To think that we’d fondly remember someone’s blemishes or even irritating habits with love, as signs that person is a living, breathing human being, flies in the face of most people’s attitudes toward others.

I wonder why we measure and rate people in our minds against the high standard of perfection when no one can ever meet it or achieve it.  Is it pride?  Is it because it makes our spots and specks seem less ugly or noticeable if we focus on someone else’s?   Continue reading →

I see hope and a bright future

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This morning as I awoke I saw the dim light of my alarm clock telling me it was time to get in the shower and get going.  My little cat gave a “good morning” meow as I stepped over him, walking to the bathroom.  I felt the hot water that soothed and awakened me at the same time, smelled the fresh scents of soap and shampoo.  My mind wandered as I stood there and I said a little prayer in my head for John and for our church family.  This would be a pivotal day for all of us.

I felt the chilly morning air on my face as we walked to the car.  I saw a beautiful blue sky and the warm array of trees in various shades of yellow-green, orange and bright red zipping by my window as we drove along.  My mind wandered to my church family again so I said another prayer, “God protect them, guide them, encourage them.”

When I walked into the church building, I heard the cheerful little voice of Nate, the 2-year-old son of my dear friend who was in the sanctuary finishing up the PowerPoint slides for worship today.  “Hi Mimi, where’s Krissy?”  I heard the clinking of metal as John and I set up chairs for the service.  I felt a little hand on mine and Nate’s sweet voice again, “will you read this to me?” as he held up a toddler’s Bible story book.   What a nice way to begin the morning, holding him on my lap and reading about how God created the world, elephants, butterflies and all.  He had no idea what was going on in the lives of the grown-ups around him.  Sometimes I’d give anything to be a little child again!

I heard the laughter of the worship team as they greeted each other.  The sound of our voices blending together in praise soon filled the room, our hearts warming up along with our voices.  God is good.  We’re choosing to praise Him.  I could almost hear their hearts saying these things aloud.  I felt the familiar smooth keys of the piano under my fingers.  Continue reading →

mishmash

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Photo 270Time for an emptying of the mind from the last few days worth of ponderings and thoughts:

  • As I went through the drive-thru at McDonald’s the other morning before work I saw out of the corner of my eye a brilliant sunrise, deep pinks, red and purple tinged clouds spread wide.  I thought to myself, “that will be so pretty to drive toward” as I paused a moment to fix up my burritos and get situated before heading down the road.  I pulled out of the parking lot and looked up to see only gray clouds and blandly-colored sunlight.  What?!  Where did it go?  It was so beautiful but so fleeting.  I would have missed it completely had I not noticed it just at the right moment.  I was sad I didn’t get to see it fully in the wide open.  I think oftentimes God is at work and I don’t notice, maybe because it is a fleeting seemingly small thing, or something I’d have to be purposefully watching for to enjoy.  In Isaiah God said, “I am about to do something new.  See, I have already begun! Do you not see it?”  (Isaiah 43:19  NLT) I want to see the beautiful things, big or small, that God is doing all around me.  I have to be watching.
  • At a time when I probably should be concerned or trying to figure out what will happen next, I have complete peace.  This is only because of God!  I’m enjoying it.  I think the desperate feelings I’ve had the last month or so have given way to it, because I’ve been pressing hard into my Father.  I’ve been as needy for him as I would be for air if I were held under water.   Corrie Ten Boom is one of my favorite writers and she is credited with this great quote, “When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.”  Choosing to trust lately has been one of the hardest things I’ve done but it has brought me to a place of peace, a place of really trusting the engineer even in complete darkness or thick fog. Continue reading →

Wise words from Grandma

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comfortingIn an email conversation with my dad this morning, he reminded me of a time that was tough in my mom’s life (physically at least).  She had all three of us by C-section and shortly after my little brother was born she had to have her gall bladder removed!  This was back when they didn’t do the tiny little belly button incisions.  She was hurting.  My grandmother, her mother-in-law, told her during that time, “When you’re hurting, somebody needs you.”  This took my mom aback.  Someone needs me?  I’m hurting here!  I’m the one who just had two surgeries almost back to back.  Nonetheless, during my mom’s hospital stay she encountered another patient, a lady who was hurting in her heart, not just her body.  God used Mom to encourage and bless that lady.  It may not have happened if Mom’s heart hadn’t been opened to the possibility by grandma’s wise words.

Wow – this is good truth!  One of the enemy’s biggest tactics to mess me up is self-pity and self-absorption.  There’s no better way to counter that attack, no better way to get your mind off of yourself and your hurts than to look for someone who needs you, someone you can bless or encourage or serve.

It seems that getting absorbed in ourselves and our pain actually multiplies the pain.  What seems to be a help becomes a hindrance.

We’re going through some refining big-time these days, my family and my church family.  We’ve got to lean into it, even when it hurts, because it’s for our good.   Then we need to realize that it’s not only for our good, but so we can be better at reaching to people who don’t know God or His love yet.  It’s not about us.

So I say to the Klotz family and to the New Life family, “When you’re hurting, somebody needs you.”  Look outwardly, strain your necks and hearts to see who you can love on and encourage today, lean into the refining but then keep looking at God and the purpose of it all:  to make us more like Him so we can bring more of his lost kids back to Him.

And thanks, Grandma.

Unrequited Love

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turn awayThere’s someone in our family who over the last few years has drifted away and become very quiet, going through some tough times.  I admit, we didn’t try hard enough to stay in touch, to care, to reach out during those times.  I’m ashamed of that.  I’ve asked forgiveness for that from this person but am not making much headway.  In the last year or so we’ve tried harder to get in touch, send emails, call, reach out, getting no response.  I’ve had dreams in which our family and this person are reunited and reconcile all the differences.  I’m hoping that’s one of those dreams that becomes a “deja vu” moment later in life.  You know when you have a deja vu moment and think “I swear I’ve dreamed this before.”  Does that happen to you?

Anyway…lately I’ve been getting kinda mad that this person won’t respond.  I mean, come on, I’m trying!  The least they can do is try back.  We used to be close years ago.  We’re family, for pete’s sake.  Continue reading →

When You Get There

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I still smile and laugh to myself when I remember our youngest girl, Kristine, at the age of 4, telling me that she didn’t want to grow up.  When I asked her why not she answered, “I don’t know how to grocery shop.  I don’t know how to drive.”

I giggled and said, “It’s okay, when you get older you’ll learn those things.  You don’t have to worry about that right now.  You’ll know when you get there.”

“Well I don’t want to be a mommy.”

“Why not?”

“I don’t know how to take care of babies!”

long-road-walking-walk-score-photoI think I eventually convinced her that although she didn’t know at the age of 4 what she would need to know 15-20 years down the road it was okay.  She wasn’t supposed to.  It would come later.  I tried to help her see that growing up was fun and good, that she would like it and that it’s just what happens naturally to all of us.

God brought this memory front and center this morning and showed me that I do this all the time; I look waaaay down the road and panic thinking “I don’t know how do those things!”  In my heart I try to jump way ahead and figure everything out, I guess so I’ll feel I have some minute amount of control over my life and the outcomes.   The “what ifs” pile up into needless anxiety.

I feel like He’s saying to me this morning, “You don’t have to know what to do when and if that time comes because when you get there, you’ll know.  I’ll show you.  I’ll teach you.  Why are you worrying about that now?” Continue reading →

The view from higher up

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117894839_fd18170369This morning I had the thought that if we could get a higher altitude view of life, especially in the moments when we’re mired down in the weeds or mud of a tough circumstance, it would make it easier to go on.  Imagine walking through a late summer corn field when the corn’s taller than you are, following someone who is cutting a path or design in the field.  From the ground’s perspective it would all look very much the same: rustling rows of green corn stalks as far as the eye could see.  If you could fly up above the field and look down, however, you’d see the design taking shape.  You might even have an “Aha!” moment, smiling and saying, “I get it now.”

If you’re the member of a marching band, from where you march and play on the Astroturf all you see is a large crowd of fellow musicians, all dressed in the same costume as you milling around, looking like a mess.  If you sat high in the stands and watched the same band however, you’d see those rows of marching players become patterns and shapes morphing from one to the other and it would make more sense.  It would be more fun.  The purpose of all the milling about would be clear.

I need God to lift me to a higher altitude when I’m in the weeds of a confusing situation, or one where nothing around me is pointing the way.  Right now I feel like I’m in that corn field, calling out to God, “Okay, which way?” only to hear just the leaves rustling.  I turn and turn but I just see rows.  Continue reading →

Hello, my name is Grumpy

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I heard it many times from the “fair police” in our family as she was growing up: “It’s not fair!”  To which I would reply, as gently as possible, “Well, you know what, life isn’t fair.”

We just returned from several days away, to Dallas, TX, for a conference about churches equipping parents to raise godly kids, to pass their faith along so that when the kids grow up they will remain faithful and involved.  We were challenged, inspired, encouraged, sobered, and taught much during our time there.  It was a lot to take in, hearing from about 10 speakers in two days’ time.  It was also really nice to be away with my husband, get a little more sleep than usual, bask in Texas sunshine outside, and just chill.

poutingIt’s good to get away but always good to get home.  However, as we were getting ready for bed last night I found myself feeling grumpy, out of sorts.  I asked myself why.  We just had a great week, learned lots of good things, had nice time away together.  What do I have to be grumpy about?  I’ve been intentionally trying to have a positive, faith-filled attitude about everything, but some emotion I’ve been pushing down bobbed up to the surface.  As I lay down to go to sleep, in my head I told God, “It’s not fair, God.  Continue reading →

Talkin’ to myself

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One of my favorite classes in college was called “Interpersonal Relationships”.  It was taught by a brilliant, albeit slightly odd, professor with frizzy hair and a laugh that sounded like a happy donkey braying.  For two hours he’d lay out nuggets of wisdom before us: exploring relationships, behavior, interactions with others, and more.  I soaked it up like a sponge.  I wish I still had the notebook from that class.  (Maybe I do – I just don’t know where it is.)  We had a short dinner break, then would come back for the last two hours to practice what we’d been learning by role playing in front of a video camera, then watching our “performance” with Dr. Farmen critiquing and giving feedback.  I have used so much of what I learned in that class all throughout my life.  I’m thankful to Dr. Farmen for pushing us, challenging us, and really teaching us more about people and why they behave the way they do.

One of the jewels he brought out in lecture one night was the idea of a “self-fulfilling prophecy”.  This is when something you think about someone affects the way you behave toward that person, which actually makes them more like the label you’ve given them.  For example, if a teacher labels a child a “trouble maker” then his/her behavior will (even subconsciously) communicate that label and cause the child to be even more a trouble maker.  I’ve seen that happen in the schools where I used to work, even with my own daughter.  One teacher she had saw her “spunk” and overly active little self as a real negative Continue reading →