I've been waiting for three years to take over this place and I finally have the chance.
Sara is running a bit slow these days, and her lungs seem to be running even slower, so I told her she has to take a break this week and see if she can get some energy back. I promised her I'd let her check back in next week and get back to writing.
Don't worry... I'm the expert in taking care of her, and I plan on leading by example.
I can't tell you how great it was to read all of your answers yesterday... with the thought that went into some of them, I know you all are going to love the gist of this book and what it makes you ponder.
Today I'm linking up to Lisa-Jo, aka gypsy mama, who chooses a topic every Friday and writes for five minutes.
Only five minutes.
And the rule is that whatever she writes about in that five minutes is what she posts. No editing her thoughts.
***Actually, when I checked Lisa-Jo's site, there was no prompt put up, so I'm going to improvise. Since the prompt is - literally - unknown, that's what I'll write about. :) ***
So I'm going to set the timer, write some thoughts, and then I'm going to stop.
Ready? Set. Go.
:::
Unknown.
The unknown can be our biggest enemy sometimes… the thing we put most of our focus on and what we spend most of our energy trying to control.
I sometimes wonder if it's actually more comforting for us to look ahead and live in the future and all of the unknown simply because we feel a desperate need to avoid the present we're in.
Because, let's face it, the present can be hard. We can be broke or we can be sick or we can be abandoned. We can be living in limbo in our marriages or in crisis with our jobs or aching for our children and their needs. The right now can hurt so badly that the only escape is to get lost into the unknown of those "what ifs" that give us the illusion of control.
What if I take this job, or what if we lose the house, or what if we make that move, or what if I get the raise, or what if I try this treatment.
We can live in fear and dread the unknown, assuring ourselves of the worst - or we can live in hope and see happiness ahead with Pollyanna eyes.
But neither of them are truly right.
Both are still guessing games of the unknown.
I'm learning how to fully live right in the middle of the hard, in the here and KNOWN, because if this is my life - if this is where I am at - then this is where God is at, too. And if I’m wasting all of my time and energy trying to control the unknown of the future rather than fulfilling what He may be needing from me right now, then I’m wasting God’s time as well.
It all boils down to this: none of it is unknown to Him.
When I was a little girl, I thought I would be a poet.
{I also thought I would be the next Mary Lou Retton and the next Olivia Newton John and the next Bionic Woman, but those are stories you can go back and read...}
The first poem I remember showing to Mom, she didn't believe I wrote. I was little and out of nowhere my head came up with this:
God gives Himself to each of us, To each a special part. But I am the luckiest one of them all For unto me He gave a piece of His heart.
After awhile I convinced her I hadn't copied it from one of my children's books so it went on the fridge, which was enough for me to consider myself published.
I was little and wanted to make sure I always had God's heart in me, and I knew without a shadow of a doubt that I was in His.
It's easy to believe as a child.
But then we grow older.
And we see our flaws.
And we hide more than we show.
And instead of believing we are in His heart we shift our thinking and we start trying to earn our way in. Into a place where He already holds us as a precious gift.
It's a tiny little book, but it is powerful. I've had so many little daily devotionals over the years that have been nice, and I read them and put them away and went about my day. But this one is different.
This one has made me pause.
Each day is only a few pages long, but Holley doesn't mess around. She starts with an idea, tells you her thoughts and then asks you three questions that stop you dead in your tracks.
Not the questions that you do two minutes before faith sharing because you're running late and they are typical ones you don't have to think about. {Not that I ever did that. Ahem.}
These are questions that dive into your heart, so that you can see yourself more clearly in His.
And after you ponder and pray and realize something new, she gives you a few lines of a prayer you think she pulled right out of your own heart, and then she gives you a pep talk that leaves your ready to face your day with a new readiness you didn't know you needed.
Can you tell I like this little treasure?
Would you like a copy, too?
Good. Because I'm giving one away. :)
If you want to be entered in, all you have to do is leave me a comment finishing this statement:
In God's Heart, I am...
Here's a video with some other people's answers if you need help getting started:
Please, only one comment per person, and the contest will go until 11:00 pm Thursday night. I'll announce the winner on Friday.
This poor robin was in a tizzy trying to get some food on Monday. The feeder s/he was standing on is supposed to be safe against animals like raccoons and chipmunks, so when they stand on the little ledges their weight pulls the cage down and the food opening is covered by the leaves.
Well, apparently the robin had eaten a worm too many and was too heavy to actually get any of the birdseed.
If only the same was true for fast food windows...
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
I did a little food experimenting myself, which is almost unheard of in my world, but it turned out great! I was looking through a blog that had a recipe that filled all of my requirements:
1. I had all the ingredients in my house. 2. It required absolutely no effort on my part.
Because I love you all, here's what you do:
Mix 12oz. of your favorite barbeque sauce, 1/2 cup Italian salad dressing and 1/4 cup brown sugar and put it over 6 frozen chicken breasts in a crock pot.
{I only had three frozen chicken breasts and it seemed perfect to me because I liked the extra sauciness.}
You leave it on high in the crockpot for four hours and then pull the chicken apart with two forks. It is YUMMY. You're welcome.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
This is what Riley and I look like when we're not making great things in crockpots.
Thursday, August 18, 2011
I was so happy that my little yellow flower started to get blooms on it again! I was afraid with all this dry hot weather that the time for flowers was over. I love it when I'm proven wrong.
Friday, August 19, 2011
I was so grateful it was such a beautiful day out for my Uncle Barney's family to have his funeral and celebrate his life. I took a picture of this gorgeous blue sky because I know the gray days of winter are coming soon enough and we need to enjoy these fluffy cloud moments.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
My sweet sister Laura texted me a picture of her and Jeff getting my nephew Thomas settled in the dorm for his first year of college.
I'm so incredibly proud of him and can't believe it's time for him to be on his own already. And right now I'm just hoping his roommate doesn't mind Iowa Hawkeye apparel. :)
Sunday, August 21, 2011
My darling seven-year-old Yodi got to borrow her big sister's cell phone on Sunday and we spent hours – literally hours – texting back and forth. It was so sweet to go over everything from how much we love each other to how sad she is I live so far away to how the pop rocks she was eating feel when they explode in her mouth.
I loved every single minute of finding out everything there was to know about her day on Sunday. I am a lucky, lucky girl.
Thanks for once again sharing my week with me! Click on the button below if you want to go to Jessica’s site and check out the other participants showing off their weekly photos as well:
I remember riding in the car with your Uncle Steve the summer before I was heading to college. He looked at me, his naïve little sister, and said something important.
"When you get to college, there are going to be people who do things in front of you that will shock you. There will be people who admit to doing things that are against everything you believe in. It doesn't make them bad people. It just makes them people who've done things."
He proceeded to list some of the things he'd seen, some of the things he'd done, some of the things that people had told him. And then he told me something else. He said that when he got done with his first year of college he went home and thanked Mom and Dad, telling them, "I may not have always chosen to do the right thing, but at least I always knew right from wrong. That's a lot more than some other kids at college had."
Those two things impacted me more than I can tell you. Because I got out of that car knowing that I did know right from wrong and I could choose right regardless of what everyone else chose, and I knew that I could love people even when they chose wrong.
That they were more than their mistakes.
Just like you will always be more than your mistakes. You will always be loved by me for exactly who you are at any given moment. And I will always be a safe place to turn if you need one.
I have been blessed in my life to have friends from so many different walks of life. I have friends who are so like me I can't believe we're not twins, and I have friends who are so different from me that people don't understand how we can have any kind of relationship. And I love them all the same because every one of them has brought a richness to my life.
So I wanted to write this down as you three start college classes this week. I wanted a place where you could come and read the wise words your Uncle Hoody said to me, because it served me well in college and in all the years of relationships afterward.
Because that's what life is, guys... a series of relationships that shape us and others in profound ways.
Know that while you will learn a lot in college classes and you will shape your future and get your degree, some of the greatest lessons you'll learn in college boil down to this: Be who you are and don't compromise yourself for anyone. But don't shut anyone out just because they are different. Love them. Listen to them. Meet them where they are at and be who God meant you to be ... an extension of Him in the lives of those around you.
And have a lot fun while you do it.
And don't forget your Aunt Sara is here if you need her. For anything. Any time.
I love you. All the way around the world and back.
I have the privilege of "being" at my Uncle Barney's funeral today as he asked that some of my songs be played instead of having a choir sing. I can't tell you how much it means to me that he would want that, and that it's still possible I can give to him in that small way today despite not being able to travel home.
So today, in honor of him, I'm doing a Flashback Friday with a song that speaks to me about the way I want to live out my life.
The same way Barney lived his.
My Soul Desire {originally posted April 17, 2009}
Tonight I had the girls over for our faith sharing night, and this paragraph from Max Lucado's Traveling Light struck me in a big way:
God hates arrogance. He hates arrogance because we haven't done anything to be arrogant about. Do art critics give awards to the canvas? Is there a Pulitzer for ink? Can you imagine a scalpel growing smug after a successful heart transplant? Of course not. They are only tools, so they get no credit for the accomplishments.
Now, at some point in the discussion I think Susie called me a tool, and didn't mean it in the nicest way, but that's not the point I'm trying to make here. :) In every part of the 23rd Psalm, which this book is based on, it talks about all God does for us:
"He makes me..."
"He leads me..."
"He restores my soul..."
And once again I am reminded that I need to be mindful of having a servant's heart. I have to be intentional in all the actions I take, knowing that all I do needs to point back to Him... the One who gets the praise for writing the story of our lives. The story for which I am blessed enough to be the ink.
I'm doing my monthly post over at (in)courage today and I would love for you to go over there to read and join in the conversation, but I also have a favor to ask.
My Uncle Barney, who I mentioned in this post, passed away on Monday night and the funeral will be later this week.
My dad came from a big family, he was one of nine children, and until he died they had never experienced a loss in that immediate family. In the past thirteen months we have lost my Dad, my Grandpa Gerald and now my Uncle Barney. If you would say some extra prayers for my family, especially Grandma Rita, as well as Barney's wife Mickey and their kids Cory, Travis, Cristin and Libby, it would mean a lot to me.
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that all of this was written by God's hand and arranged with His loving embrace, but I know from the past year that it doesn't seem to make the missing them part any simpler. I so appreciate your prayers as all who loved Barney walk that road.
::
Click here to read my post over at (in)courage today: Overwhelmed.
