If You Believe…

There can be miracles, if you believe.  Though hope is frail, it’s hard to kill.  Who knows what miracles, you can achieve ? When you believe…somehow you will…you will when you believe.

I often find comfort in music. Music was a major part of my life for many years, as was prayer.  I was taught from the time I was a small child to believe in the power of prayer.  Miracles could be held in our hands. They were not far off if we only had enough faith to believe.  My perspective on prayer has changed a lot, especially over the past three or four years.  So much has changed during that time.  I have prayed and believed with every fiber of my being…only to have my prayers go unanswered and my hopes dashed.

Hope deferred makes the heart sick.

Proverbs 13:12

My hopes have been deferred for so long now, that I don’t know if I’ll ever again find a place of hope.  I find myself wishing that prayer really could make a difference.  It is just so hard to believe when you’ve been through as much pain as we have.  Then I look at people like the ones in Haiti.  I can’t even bear to watch the news, because I know that there is nothing I can do for them.

I hear religious leaders encouraging their flocks to pray.  But why would prayer make a difference? If it made no difference in my problems, which really don’t even compare, then why would prayer make the literal difference between life and death for these poor people.  So instead I just turn my head the other way.  I turn my thoughts in a different direction.  I try and make myself forget about the hurt around me, because there is no answer.

How cliche it is for folk to say “Prayer Changes Things”.   How I wish it were true, but I just don’t see it.  Truth be told, I’ve never seen it.

How I wish I could be proven wrong on this one.

Failure and Emmaisms

I admit it…I’m a failure.  At least I come by it honestly, right?  So I’m supposed to be blogging about this book daily. If you are a follower of my blog, it is apparent that I am woefully lacking in follow-through.  I suppose in this season of our lives it just isn’t going to work out.  My husband and I both work from home for a wonderful company, but we try to insure we work perfectly opposite shifts so that we can avoid daycare for our three littles.  To that end, it has become abundantly clear that I’m not going to get 5 minutes of uninterrupted quiet to read even a portion of a chapter.  Alas, my book blogging adventure must be shelved for now (pun intended).

Having said that, I’d instead like to introduce you, today, to my precocious little 4 year old, Emma Faith.  This little blonde spit-fire has her daddy and me wrapped around her little finger.  She’s our middle child, you see.

Each day with Emma is filled with what I call Emmaisms.   I’ll share a few today…

Mommy,  when  me  and  Jack  and  Maggie  and  me  are  teenagers,  we’re  gonna get  to  live  here  still (I guess she’s planning ahead!)

Mom,  the  clouds  are  a  girl  color!

Mama,  my  pant  SLEEVES  are  too  long!

Mama, how do chameleons itch their skin?

and my favorite from the past week….

Mama,  sometimes  when  me  and   Maggie  have  a  deal,  we  do  Pinky  Sweater! (ie. pinky swear)

As I’m writing this, she’s  standing behind me singing Pizza Angel.  Such a funny girl, my Emma Faith.  I don’t know what I would do without her…

The 5 Love Languages…Intro

To say I’ve been blessed lately is a bit of an understatement.  After hearing from a friend that Dr. Gary Chapman was hosting a book giveaway on Twitter, I jumped at the chance to win a free book.   Within a few hours, I got a message that I and my friend had both won the contest! We  would both be receiving the book of our choice from Dr. Chapman’s repertoire.  I must admit that I’ve never been much for “self help” type books, but I took this as a challenge to choose something that would benefit my little family.

As you can see, I chose the book The Five Love Languages of Children .  I dearly hope that I’m not the only mama out there who feels as if she and her children speak totally different languages!  I’m excited to see what nuggets of truth I will learn from this book, and I want to extend a formal invitation for you, yes YOU, to join with me.  Pick up the book from your local library, or pull your own copy off of the bookshelf and follow along with me.  For my own benefit,in other words-so I won’t quit reading half way through, I’ll be posting my thoughts on each chapter, daily.  I would love to hear your comments as well! I’ll be including a short poll at the end of every post so that you can participate. I’d love to hear others chime in with your comments whether you’re able to read along  or not.  I’ll check back with you tomorrow, but until then…Happy reading, friends!

30 Days Left?

“Just leave me with a little of myself,
And all the feelings that we fell for,
Love, but love is worth the price of holding on,
‘Cause you don’t know what you’ve got ‘til it’s gone…”

–Jennifer Rush

Do you know what you’re holding, today?  Is meaning in life eluding you?  I heard a friend ask recently,

“If you knew you had 30 days to live, what would you change?”

It’s an interesting question, isn’t it?  We’ve all heard of, and some of us have made, bucket lists. You know how it works…the things you’d do and the places you’d go if you knew the end was imminent.  But the question my friend posted gave me pause. There was a catch in my heart when I read it.  What exactly would I do differently if I knew I was not long for this world?  Two things came to my mind immediately.

1.  I would play with my kids more.

2. I would worry less.

In his popular tune, Live Like You Were Dying, Tim McGraw poses a similar scenario along with a challenge…a challenge to live each day as if it were your last.  I’m sure we all have a less and a more, don’t we?  So what is that one thing that you would do more of?  What would you do less of?  Those are the things I hope we can all do more and less of each day… whether we have 30 days left or 30,000 left.

 

Book Review- Primal: A Quest For The Lost Soul of Christianity by Mark Batterson

“I’ve discovered that when I’ve lost my way spiritually, the way forward is often backward…Go back to that place where God opened your eyes and broke your heart with compassion for others. Go back to that place where the glory of God flooded your soul and left you speechless with wonder. Go back to that place where thoughts about God filled your mind with holy curiosity. Go back to that place where a God-given dream caused a rush of adrenaline that filled you with supernatural energy.”

exerpt from Primal by Mark Batterson

Recently, I was blessed to be a part of the pre-release of the new book, Primal.  Written by such a skilled wordsmith as Mark Batterson; this book touched my soul.  Going back to the place where the proverbial train left the tracks–that is what this book is all about.  If you have lost the passion you once had for our Lord and his Church, I cannot encourage you strongly enough to take a peek inside this book.  I can assure you that you will never be the same.  For me, it was as if the Lord was speaking directly to me through the words on the page, and that is not something that I say lightly.  Take a few quiet moments and let Him speak to you today.

Who am I to judge, but…

Authors note:  Be forewarned that this post is not for the faint of heart.  I intend no offense to fellow believers, and I hope that my readers can assign positive intent to my words

Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations…

Matthew 28:19 NLT

…I have to get this out.  Something has been on my mind this week after reading a fellow blogger’s commentary on “witnessing”.  Now, I’ve come a long way from my sometimes overbearing, sometimes judgmental, usually (well always?) condemning spiritual upbringing.  I was one of the ones who was guilt-ridden because I was too afraid to “share my faith”.  I was left feeling condemned and less-than because I was not corageous enough to walk up to complete strangers and tell them that they needed Jesus.  Yes, I’ve come a long way.

In recent years, I’ve come to learn that many of the spiritual ideas of my youth were askewed.  Well meaning folk simply interpreted the words of Jesus the way they had been taught, and the way the ones before them had been taught.  This, without looking into the real meaning behind the ink on the the fine gilded edge paper.

So, I’m wondering this week…What exactly did Jesus command us to do when he issued His Great Commission?  Was it ever really suggested in the Bible that we should throw caution to the wind and approach every complete stranger we come across at the local mall, grocery or restaurant and assail them with the Good News?  Stay with me on this, because I do have a point. I promise.

You see, in studying the scriptures, I just don’t see it.  Even in the Great Commission, we are told to simply “make disciples”.  We aren’t encouraged to tote a Bible to school or work every day (c’mon children of the 70′s and 80′s, I know you’re with me on this one–what good Christian kid from those generations wasn’t encouraged to do this?!).  The disciples didn’t even have a personal copy of  Old Testament scripture, and the New Testament was still being lived-out.

Jesus didn’t instruct us to pass out “Hell Fire and Brimstone” tracts with our trick or treat candy.  I can’t find the Four Spiritual Laws, no offense to Dr. Bright,  laid out in a neat little package within scripture.

What I do see over and again is grace and acts.  Acts of kindness, acts of love, acts of compassion.  When I look at the life of Jesus, I see a gentle man who went about demonstrating the good news.  When I look at his followers in scripture, I see them demonstrating the love that He showed them.  Blind eyes were opened, lame men walked, hungry children were fed.  When I really stop and think of the logistics of “witnessing” as I was taught in my youth, it just seems so off.  When I read stories of the disciples of Jesus, I see them healing the infirmed, not handing them a gospel tract.

I think part of the problem is that it seems too easy to just feed people…it’s too easy to clothe them or help them find a home.  Surely that’s not what Jesus meant when he said to “make disciples”!?  We get so caught up in thinking that sharing the good news has to be scary or difficult or result in some earth-shattering conversion experience, that we forget the simple grace that Jesus exhibited while he was still walking this road himself.  When I read stories like this one, and I see people actually demonstrating the good news with  no strings attached, it pulls at my heart.   It’s not about preaching to people and having them say a 5 line sinner’s prayer, friends.  It’s about serving, and showing people who Jesus really is.

So, there you have it…who am I to judge my fellow believers for the way they choose to share Jesus?  I suppose I’m totally out of line, but I couldn’t hold it in any longer.  Thanks for listening. I’d love to hear others’ thoughts, and I’ll definitely be back to this subject later…

The Etymology of dis⋅ap⋅point⋅ed

Disappointment to a noble soul is what cold water is to burning metal; it strengthens, tempers,intensifies, but never destroys it.  ~Eliza Tabor

Disappointed

Dis`ap*point”ed\, a. 1. Defeated of expectation or hope; balked; as, a disappointed person or hope. 2. Unprepared; unequipped. [Obs.] Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin, Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled. –Shak.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc

It’s interesting how quickly plans can change, creating disappointment.  You’re heading down a path carefully laid before you.  Then all of a sudden you hit a dead end.  Feeling sucker-punched, you are left to figure out how to get back up and keep going.  Having felt the sting of disappointment lately, it dawned on me that I really didn’t know the true meaning of the word.  I was intrigued by what I found.

dis-

1

Latin prefix meaning “apart,” “asunder,” “away,” “utterly,” or having a privative, negative, or reversing force; used freely, esp. with these latter senses, as an English formative: disability; disaffirm; disbar; disbelief; discontent; dishearten; dislike; disown.

---

Origin:
< L (akin to bis, Gk dís twice); before f, dif-; before some consonants, di-; often r. obs. des-

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.

and then I found this:

Appoint

Ap*point”\ ([a^]p*point”), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Appointed ; p. pr. & vb. n. Appointing.] [OE. appointen, apointen, OF. apointier to prepare, arrange, lean, place, F. appointer to give a salary, refer a cause, fr. LL. appunctare to bring back to the point, restore, to fix the point in a controversy, or the points in an agreement; L. ad + punctum a point. See Point.]1. To fix with power or firmness; to establish; to mark out. When he appointed the foundations of the earth. –Prov. viii. 29. 2. To fix by a decree, order, command, resolve, decision, or mutual agreement; to constitute; to ordain; to prescribe; to fix the time and place of. Thy servants are ready to do whatsoever my lord the king shall appoint. –2 Sam. xv. 15.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

So, it would seem that disappointment does indeed relate to a person being knocked off-course.  But what if, just perhaps, the course one was on was not the course on which she was destined to be?  Could it be that what appears to be disappointment, is really the hand of the divine reaching into the earthly realm to change my course for the better?

All good Christians have memorized Romans 8:28:

²⁸ And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.   ~Romans 8:28 NLT

The question is, do we really believe that it is true?  To think that the divine creator has a plan, and that He would intervene in my little world, sometimes causing (or allowing depending on your theological bent) disappointment.

So maybe, just maybe what we often think of as disappointment is really an appointment.  Perhaps, we are being unwittingly set up for something greater than what we had originally planned for ourselves.  I plan to test this theory in the coming days-an experiment of sorts.  I want to test for myself and see if the divine really does reach down to touch the lowly.  In this time of my life when I feel like I have been abandoned, I think it will be an interesting experiment.  I have my fingers crossed, hoping that the faith of my childhood will be proven right.  Keep watching friends…I plan to report back with my results!

Landslide

Landslide

I took my love, I took it down
Climbed a mountain and I turned around
I saw my reflection in the snow covered hills
till the landslide brought me down

Oh, mirror in the sky, What is love?
Can the child within my heart rise above
Can I sail thru the changing ocean tides
Can I handle the seasons of my life

Well, Ive been afraid of changing
cause Ive built my life around you
But time makes you bolder

Children get older
I’m getting older too

Oh, take my love, take it down
Climb a mountain and turn around
If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well the landslide will bring it down

If you see my reflection in the snow covered hills
Well maybe the landslide will bring it down

I wonder if Stevie Nicks knew how powerful those words were when she first penned them.  Did she know that they would reach through time to a woman who was only a baby when the song was first recorded?  This song is my heart today.  As I get older, I realize that I’ve given the best years of my life away.  Spent so many years seeking approval from others, only to have life crash down around me.   It is time for me to rediscover the woman I was, the woman I was destined to be.  The question is, do I have the what it takes to actually go through with it?  That, my friends is for another day.  For today, the realization alone is enough.

Lessons Learned From a Can of Spam

Growing up in the Deep South,  I had a Daddy who loved him some Spam…Spam sandwiches, Spam & Eggs, Spam “fill in the blank”.  You can imagine my disdain for Spam as an adult.  That is, until about a year ago.  Before the entire country was embroiled in economic crisis, our little corner of the world was having its own crisis.  I had been a stay-at-home mom since my first daughter was born, and my husband had been the main breadwinner in the family.  But times got hard and jobs got scarce and that’s when a can of Spam might as well have been a pot of gold.

Walking through the grocery store one day and having very little money to spend, my sweet little girl saw a can of the stuff and wanted to try it.  Problem was that we hardly had money to put any food on the table at all.  It’s hard to have to look into your child’s eyes and tell her that she can’t have something because it costs too much, even if that something is a yucky can of Spam!

So there we were, the family who once owned a thriving corporation, the mama with a bachelor’s degree from a distinguished university, and three sweet babes all looking for provision.   It was not long until we found ourselves in a foreign place.  It was a door I’d never darkened.  We were forced to swallow our pride and visit the local food bank.   That is where my lesson began.  In that very first (yes, I said first because there would be more to come) visit to the food bank, there in our glorious bag of food was a can of….yep, you guessed it-SPAM.  It’s the little things that mean a lot in times like that.  So, for the first time in my almost 34 years, I taught myself how to cook the stuff that I’d spent as many years trying to get away from.  Lo and behold, it wasn’t really that bad!

You know, I’ve been knocked down so many notches over the last couple of years that sometimes I’m afraid I’ll never climb back up.  I have to take it day by day.  It is easier for me to see now, how smart women can get sucked into a life “living off the system”.   I write this today from a home with four walls and a roof.  I have a computer, a job, food in my pantry and a car to drive.  For this, I consider myself blessed.It is so true that many people are living one paycheck away from homelessness.  The question I ask today is, “What do we do about it?”.  I don’t have the answers.  But I can only hope that the one who holds the world in His hand does know the answer to our needs.

So, now, whenever I see a can of Spam, it reminds me of where I’ve been.  I think we’ve truly hit rock-bottom, and hopefully we’re on our way back up.  Who knows, maybe one day I’ll be able to reach out to other mamas who are walking the road behind me, holding onto their own can of Spam.

Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need. This isn’t a cat-and-mouse, hide-and-seek game we’re in. If your child asks for bread, do you trick him with sawdust? If he asks for fish, do you scare him with a live snake on his plate? As bad as you are, you wouldn’t think of such a thing. You’re at least decent to your own children. So don’t you think the God who conceived you in love will be even better?

Matthew 7:9-11

The Message Bible

Who Put God in That Box?

I’m a sort of Jill of all trades, if you will.  One of the jobs I’ve had over the years was that of an elementary school teacher.  My very first teaching job was in a 2nd Grade class at a small church-run school in Mississippi.  Many of our kids were regular churchgoers, but some had hardly darkened the door of a church in their short lives.  One of my responsibilities at this school was to organize the Christmas musical.  To set the stage for this encounter, let me explain a little bit.  It was the Fall of the year and inside the church sanctuary right in front of the altar, lay a large wicker chest.  Our church was collecting food for the less fortunate,  and this was part of the harvest display.

So, on this particular day my little 2nd Graders, all 10 or 11 of them, were lined up single-file to enter the sanctuary to practice for the Christmas musical.  Of course, like any good Christian teacher would, I explained the importance of reverence for God’s House.  We must be quiet, not run, keep our hands to ourselves and so on.  This is God’s House, after all.  As we entered the church that day, a little 7 year old boy in my class taught me a lesson about God that I’ll never forget.  When he approached the stage, he looked at that big wicker box and asked me…

Is that where God Lives?

This innocent little boy had heard me explain so diligently that we were entering God’s House.  What else was he to think?  After explaining to him that God does not live in the box, we continued with our practice and went on our way.  Those five words have stayed with me through the years, though.

In pondering what that boy said that day,  I have come to realize that we adults do put God in a box.  He’s like our childhood friend, Jack; we crank the handle and out He pops when we want Him.  We let Him out when it is convenient for us.  When times are good, it is easy to let Him out to play.   But when the hard times come, why is it that we keep Him in that box?  We keep Him out of sight and out of mind.  The times when we need Him most are the very times that we shut Him out.  All the while, the child inside is screaming for us to LET HIM OUT OF THAT BOX!!!.

I wonder how long it will be before I have the faith of a child?  The faith that it takes to let God out of the box…The faith that it takes to give over everything to Him and let Him do as He will…It is a hard thing to let God out.  Maybe one day I’ll get there, but I don’t think it will be today.

³And said, Truly I say to you, unless you repent (change, turn about) and become like little children [trusting, lowly, loving, forgiving], you can never enter the kingdom of heaven [at all].

Matthew 18:3

The Amplified Bible