Friday night my amazing husband fried 5 golden pounds of Godzilla sized shrimp for me. He also purchased a cheesecake sampler. We had friends over and all was well with the world. Later that night we drove through a spectacular lightening storm to see a late movie. My children were staying the night at my parent's house.
The next morning I was officially 35 years old. 35 is the first birthday that actually feels fairly solid. There is some weight to that bad boy. If I live to 70, I just hit mid-life. What?!? Well, I will take some consolation that my grandmother is now into her 90's. I think I'll wait until 40 to throw around those words, maybe even 45.
I feel wiser but not what I would call wise. My metabolism and I disagree often. I have been mocked by a teenager. So yes, I am 35.
We spent time Saturday riding bikes and enjoying "Garden of Eden" type weather. Blue skies, temps in the low 70's and a crisp breeze. Not the norm around here for sure.
This is the Gazebo at the 1/2 way point of the bike trail we use.
I have more to be thankful for than I have the ability to think of. I pray I squander nothing and I nurture/multiply all the blessing I have been given.
I recently told a friend "Look I am telling you God has stuff lined up for you that’s going to blow you away, knock your socks off and polish your toes while He’s at it!"
It's true. Trouble free-no, but wilder more profound things that the human mind can figure out will happen.
Greatest miracle of all- turning a heart of stone to a heart of flesh- I am one of those.
Yesterday, as usual I get so wound up pre-holiday that my expectations get in the way of just enjoying the day. So, I determined to "chill-lax" and just take it as it came. (I really have to get rid of this bad great expectations habit of mine, it's way too melodramatic)
So I woke up to cards and peanut butter chocolates. I ate Shrimp Alfredo, fried green tomatoes and Cheesecake for lunch- yes that's just what I wanted. I also sadly ate Cheesecake, chocolate, bacon and cashews for Dinner. I do regret Dinner- as is true often in life, getting what I wanted just gave me a tummy ache, not satisfaction. Note to self, apply more common sense to splurge days.
Motherhood is something I do not regret choosing to embrace for a nano-second. I spent the first 5 years of my marriage convinced that I would make a horrible mother due to my dramatic and explosive temper. After years of counseling, bible study and doing children's counseling myself, I got the idea that I had a God big enough to change me. - (insert dreamy smile as I look at where I am now)
Here's to you mother Duggar and all the other Mom's who have set an example for those of us who need one.
Maybe you can relate, I have struggled with humility. I was born with a healthy sense of self worth. I guess I am lucky that way- it really helped me through the teen years. But as they say your greatest strength can also be your greatest weakness.
About four years ago when my children were passed the toddler age and I began to regain some "me" time, I sought the Lord's advice on what ministry He would want me to get involved in. I had begun singing in church and really thought that was where it would be- more singing or an expanded singing ministry. But what opened up before me was the position of Church secretary. Honestly a pretty thankless job, that is way behind the scenes. As I prayed about how badly I did not want to take this position, God- as he can do with crystal clarity pointed out to me, I did not want the job because it had no "glamour". I wanted people to see and admire what I was doing. Ouch, coming face to face with my own pride was harsh, so I took the position on a volunteer basis to learn a little more about humility. It really wasn't a bad job. I love to organize and had secretarial experience so it was mostly smooth sailing. 3 years later the opportunity came to pass the work on someone else and I did.
Now, I started to pray again. Oh, Lord what would you have me to do? I am all done with the humility lesson, so what new exciting thing do you have for me now? Slowly but very clearly He began pressing on my heart the word PRAYER. Prayer? As a ministry? You know the kind of thing you do alone, at home, by yourself? Sure you can go and pray for people, the home bound, hospitalized, etc... but most of my prayer happened at home. I began to also sense that this kind of ministry would require time, hours of time. Not just a quick little help so and so with this and that amen, type prayer. Wow, at this point you can almost see my face drop right. Could it get any less in the spot light?
Much to my shame I will admit I took this message and sat on it for a year. Surely if I did not act, it would change, right? Wrong-o. I just felt it more and more and more, until it was burning a hole in my conscious. Prayer is total humility. Seeking an all powerful God from a place of total powerlessness. Admitting my own schedule was not as important as hours spent quiet and still thinking and speaking with God. Guys, I am a verb person. I am type A. I do check lists.
I am finally making peace with this. I am beginning the long journey of submitting myself to this call. Over the past year God has been teaching me how important prayer is. How far beyond my minds ability to understand it goes. I have yet to set aside the largest parts of my day for prayer but it's my goal.
This week is the week of the National day of Prayer and I don't think it was an accident that God put it on my heart to share this today. God's direction to His people in His word was to take your relationship with Him and prayer seriously. 1Peter 4:7 "The end of all things is near. Therefore be alert and of sober mind so that you may pray." The following verses remind us to pray and be doing his work for the church and the lost because time is short on this earth, either by death or His return. I pray by His strength and power we would take these words to heart and determine in our hearts to pray like our lives depend on it, because they do and so do the lives of others.
If it happens to be happening to your child it never really feels minor. Luckily today My son's minor surgery went exceptionally well. He was in and out before lunch.
The part me, his dad and his sister will never forget was when the "silly juice" (some kind of drug similar to Valium) kicked in. Wow, he is a light weight. He was slurring his speech and hiccuping. He was a limp rag when his dad lifted him to the gurney to take him to surgery.
In the last few moments before surgery as we were saying bye and kissing him- He looks up totally disoriented and says "Can I go to the office and play on the computer?". My husband and I laughed so hard we had tears streaming down our faces. We finally learned that that sentence is actually a biological instinct for him. This is a kid who will wake up at 5 am on a Saturday to play a Star Wars game on the computer. And now I know as his brain struggles to cling to consciousness it will not be his loving mother who comes to mind but his favorite perch of the office chair.
All joking aside, spending a morning at a Children's Hospital will also give you a strong sense of gratitude for your precious ones and how blessed you truly are.
Count your blessing and when you do- give them a big kiss.
Easter - I think it has to be the best example of how God is not like us. His perfect solution to the problem of sin was one that contained tremendous pain and moments of darkness. It meant that the best most precious person ever born would die the most painful death ever experienced. That one who literally had no guilt would face the very wrath of God. Fortunately I have never and never will have a clue what even a whisper of the wrath of God feels like, much less the full weight.
Pain- we in our earthly minds want to avoid it at all cost. We often falsely see it as the greatest evil. I say this as someone who has no authority to speak on the subject. But greater, more experienced minds than mine have discussed the topic- like C.S. Lewis. He called pain God's "megaphone to rouse a deaf world”. The days before the resurrection thundered with a sound that no ear on Earth can avoid.
My experience with pain almost nil. I am not strong enough to welcome pain but go kicking and screaming into it. My father has Parkinson's. It is the kind that cannot respond to medication no matter how high the dose. He has a clotting disorder than prevents brain surgery. He is one of the most lovely people I have ever known. Humble, kind, gentle, self-less, giving to a fault, and patient. I cannot express how much I love him. As I see him get worse and know that surely things are coming that are the stuff of nightmares, I think about how wrong to my mind this all seems.
A song I recently heard gave me some new angles to frame this.
Knowing the mind of God is not like mine could it be that "We know the pain reminds this heart,That this is not, this is not our home,It's not our home".
Or that "the aching of this life Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy".
Could it be that comfort can have more spiritual danger than pain? Or that loving this world blinds us to the more perfect beauty of the next?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGniRk_GcLs
Listen to the song.
Oh, but the final thought about Easter- oh, that final thought. That gentle crisp sweet dawn-with the perfect golden light rising over the horizon and the cool sweet emptiness of the tomb. God has a twist, oh what a twist. Because He is Love, I have to assume love is something deeper than comfort, more enduring than life, and always perfectly surprising to our minds.
I want to eagerly look for the surprise of Love, the twist a human mind could never dream up, the victory that makes the word victory seem too weak to really fit.
Easter- Resurrection- soak it up
Nervous Ticks- most of us have one. Nail biting, lip biting, blinking, hand wringing, etc.. I have one of the worst. I am a nervous talker. I get nervous and I start to blab. Usually about myself which only serves to make it worse. You cannot talk over me, you cannot slow me down until I have done a good chunk of damage to any likability I may have had.
I hate it. It's almost like I am out of control, like I am watching myself from the outside.
My desire is to be a comfort to people not to cause dismay or pain but once I get wound up- it's a runaway train.
I try to psych my self up before get togethers with friends- "ask questions, show interest in others and for the love of all that is good keep the 'Kellie report' under wraps!"
Not to often do I make it the whole night.
I end up looking like a self obsessed air head.
Once in college my life verse was "Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue." Proverbs 17:28 It's not a new problem for me.
I share this because if I have done this to you, I hope you know I am aware of it. I am praying diligently that God will give me wisdom, a listening ear and ready prayers of encouragement. Don't give up on me yet- He's still working on me.
And if you, like me, have a nervous mouth- don't be anxious over it, but pray.
I read this neat passage in The Power of a Praying wife, the author instructs wives to pray "give my husband a new wife, and let it be me". I really like that (a change so radical you aren't the same), so I am hijacking it- "Lord give my friends a new friend and let it be me".
Isn't hope cool.
The weekend tossed salad of things:
My daughter sang in the town Talent Show- She's 6. She was such a beautiful example to me. She was only mildly nervous although she was the youngest person there. She mumbled most of the words to the song in her tiny voice but she knows them all and had good timing. She smiled. She did not win a thing but had nice things to say about all the many bad singers we had to sit through. I hope to goodness I don’t manage to ruin her somehow because she is so amazing just the way she is.
Spent most of Saturday working in our yard- which is where I love to be. My new rose and iris plant were putting on a show.
Poor husband tried all day to figure out what was wrong with our PTO belt eating riding lawn mower. Score one for very old lawn mower. We did start the process of getting the pool water ready which makes my heart race a bit. I really love to swim. Period, then end, it's a fact of who I am.
Sunday I pondered. Sundays were infact made for pondering if you ask me. I am starting a new book- The Power of a Praying Wife by Stormie Omartain, thanks to a dear friend who is encouraging me to stretch out a little in a good way.
Today as I ran/walked my two miles, which are like medicine to me, I thought about each step I took. When I jogged I thought- In this moment I will jog. I thought that each moment until I made my goal. Really if I was honest being Godly is like that for me. It does not come natural. I am a recovering sinner. I have to think each moment of each day- I will serve God. In some moments, when my feelings get hurt or my "needs" are trampled upon- I quickly switch over to, I will serve me. I want to cut back on those moments with God's power. I don't really do 10 year plans well- so I think the "Manhandling the moment with the Holy Spirit plan" will be a good fit for me.
Rock the moment- love the week.
