Give Thanks

This is the day/week/month that most of us stop and reflect on all of the things we are thankful for.  I thought about a 10-item countdown, a miniature version of the 30-day Facebook countdown many have been working on all month.  But in the end I decided to just write about the handful of things that have been heavy on my heart of late.

I am thankful for…

-       A God who loves me more than I can imagine even on days (or weeks) that I barely acknowledge Him.  It is so easy to get caught up in the noisy demands of our day-to-day schedules that God can seem very far away and Heaven a distant dream.  But God is real.  His love is real.  His sacrifice for us is real.  And the relationship He longs for us to make time for is the realest kind of bond we could ever make with anyone.  I am grateful that God pursues me relentlessly in spite of my indifference and offers me the chance to experience that kind of love.

-        The comforts and provisions that I usually take for granted.  I reluctantly went to the store the other evening.  It was damp and foggy, yet because of the many lights in the parking lot and the bustle of people doing their holiday shopping, it felt almost like mid-afternoon.  I suddenly thought of my Malawian friends, sitting in the dark in the brick and straw huts of their villages when the sun goes down, no large convenience store to shop at, no fussy holiday preparations to make.  As I reflected on what it would feel like if that life were my reality, my step slowed, my countenance relaxed and I was even able to navigate the crowded aisles with patience and grace.

-        The current ministry job that I am allowed to take part in.  Without a doubt, God called me to go to Africa in March of 2010.  At the time I had no idea why and for months afterward I chafed that I could not be over there to help fill the many needs I had seen.  What I didn’t realize was that I was going to be allowed to fill an important role of service here, helping to train teams and coordinate Malawi journeys to engage many other people in service.  Although it is a constant learning and stretching for me personally and I fight inadequacy in my role, I love the job I have been called to do.  I am humbly grateful that God chose me and I answered with an obedient yes.

-        My family.  I often feel like I miss the mark on being a very good wife and mother, but yet I am grateful for the opportunity to try.  Even through the repetition of the tedious daily tasks, I have an important role to fill.  My children are my legacy.  As I learned (good and bad) from my own parents, so they will learn from me.  How to live life, how to love, how to feel about themselves, how to view the world and how to incorporate God into their lives.  The task can be overwhelming and thankless, but it is awesome and rewarding as well.  And it is a task that has been entrusted to me.

I am thankful.  Help me to always be thankful.

This day and every day.

Thanksgiving 2011

What's In Your Wagon?

This isn’t my story… it’s actually from Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World.  But I bet there isn't one of us who doesn't need to hear it.

There was a man who met God one day. God asked him to take a wagon with three rocks to the top of a tall mountain. The man, happy to be doing God’s will, set off pulling the wagon behind him.

As the man started up the base of the mountain, a friend asked if he would mind carrying a rock for him as well.  The man agreed, and piled the small stone on top of the other three in his wagon.

As the man went along, more and more people asked him to take their rocks with him.  Since his wagon was large and he was going to the top of the mountain anyway, he continued to load more rocks.  As the wagon got fuller, it became harder to pull.  As the incline of the mountain got steeper, some of the rocks started to tumble out.  The man scrambled to keep all of the rocks balanced in the wagon and bear the weight of the load.  Eventually, the man started to get weary and grew frustrated and resentful with the pile of rocks in his wagon.   Finally, in utter despair, the man thought about just giving up and letting the wagon roll back down the hill.

The man cried out angrily to God. “You gave me a job that is too hard for me,” the man sobbed.  “I can’t do this.  It’s not fair.”  God met the man and looked into his wagon.  As the man sat nearby broken and trembling, God removed the rocks one at a time until only the three stones God had given him were left.

“Let others shoulder their own belongings,” God said gently. “I know you were trying to help, but when you are weighted down with all these cares, you cannot do what I have asked of you”.

This isn’t my story.  But it is my story.

Sometimes carrying other people’s rocks is what God has called us to do.  And sometimes it isn’t.

What’s in your wagon?

Find the entire article here:

http://www.ucg.org/christian-living/wagon-rocks-0/

It's Beginning to Feel a Little Like Christmas...

Yes, ok, I concede; it clashes directly with my previous post.  But sorry cornucopias and pumpkins, as much as I fight for your right to be displayed in my home, you have to make a teeny bit of room for me to at least prepare for Christmas.  Because Christmas is a loud-mouthed high-maintenance child that refuses to go away and play quietly.

Christmas requires being proactive.  And I’m a pro at being active.

I have already been diligently working on my yearly endeavor of making what will ultimately be heaps of Christmas candy.  The present shopping is nearly done and I have started wrapping gifts.  (Ok, this is mainly because there is no more room to hide things in my closet and my winter boots are starting to whine and fuss).  There is a Christmas quilt on my bed.  (Ok, this is because Hannah wet all over my fall quilt so I just went ahead and changed it early).  The annual family Christmas pictures have been taken, cards are ordered, and I am almost finished writing my Christmas letter (post-date goal is December 1…stay tuned!)  We are headed to Branson this weekend to see the lights at Silver Dollar City for the first time ever (season tickets are fixing to expire).  And when I get back from that? 

*gasp*

Full-fledged decorating will start because Thanksgiving celebration is not at my house this year and by the time we get back from stuffing ourselves with dressing and pecan pie it will almost be December and I will not be left unprepared!

Sorry turkeys.  Don’t feel bad.  Two and a half weeks was a pretty good run.

Be Here Now

Be Here Now by Blaine Hogan

I don't normally watch videos that people post because I don't want to make the time.  I can't concentrate on them anyway because my mind is going in too many different directions trying to plan my day and accomplish as much as inhumanly possible.  So when I saw this post on a blog I enjoy reading, I almost just checked "mark as read" and went on with my evening.

But curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to give it 30 seconds.

I had 30 seconds to spare, right?  

I was intrigued enough to let it run a full minute.  And by that point, I could barely breathe.  My eyes swam and I sat uncharacteristically still as my constant need to DO collided with my guilt of never being able to simply BE.  I let it run the full 7 minutes and 30 seconds.  God was speaking and I was listening.

The video is me.  The video is many of us.

BE HERE NOW.

Do we even know how?

We had better learn.

HE IS HERE RIGHT NOW.

Are we?

http://vimeo.com/15715921

Holiday Decorating

Everywhere I look, people are excitedly gearing up to decorate for Christmas.  Me?  I have out my Thanksgiving decorations.  Yes, turkeys and pumpkins and leaf wreaths and cornucopias.  They follow my Halloween decorations, which are preceded by my Fourth of July decorations, my Easter decorations, my St. Patrick’s Day decorations, and my Valentine’s Day decorations.  And sure, also my large array of Christmas decorations.

Am I kidding? Certainly not.  The house undergoes a transformation seven months of the year.

As a child, I remember my mother decorating for all the holidays.  We had ceramic glitter-frosted bunny rabbits at Easter and little green leprechauns for St. Patrick ’s Day.  I’m sure we had Halloween decorations too, but I really only remember the scary backlit-with-a-flashlight gruesome mask carefully displayed in the closet under the stairs around Christmas time.  (That was the closet where the presents were hidden, and I was sent down there to get the wits scared out of me so I would never ever open that closet for any reason ever again.  I’m not sure I ever fully recovered from that…)

When I got married, I started accumulating my own collection of decorations from mail-order catalogues and gifts of homemade crafts from my mother.  It started out pretty simple; a bowl with hearts on it with only $5.99 shipping (Amazon Prime where were you, my beloved…), a Christmas quilt from my mom, some ceramic Halloween figurines that I painted quite handily using the enclosed directions.

But then the collection grew. I used my weird and archaic love of creating things with yarn and plastic canvas to make Kleenex box covers in every holiday design (not to mention refrigerator magnets and wall hangings as well).  My mother began making quilts in other holiday designs besides Christmas.  When we moved houses a few years ago, one of the considerations was whether there was adequate storage space for my many boxes of holiday decorations.

Still not kidding.

And now, the holiday decoration frenzy continues to grow.  Each child’s room has not only a homemade Christmas quilt (with coordinating pillow cases, window valances and wall hangings) but also a quilt set for Valentine’s Day, Easter, 4^th of July and Halloween.  I am working on additional Kleenex box covers for all rooms in all of the holiday designs.  (My sister-in-law declares we are the snottiest family she has ever seen.  She also thinks it’s odd that we have a trashcan in every room.  Well duh…it’s for all of the wadded up tissues after we blow our noses!)  Every birthday and Christmas I open more holiday decorations, some bought, many hand-made and painted by my mother.  And not dorky crafts.  Really cool creations like papier-mâché-coated milk jugs to make Jack-o-lantern faces.  Or an orange-painted accordion dryer hose wrapped into a circle to make a pumpkin. 

It’s a little strange.  It’s a little excessive.  And sometimes it’s a stressful pain to get it all out and put it all away month after month.  But it’s also something really fun my kids will remember and take with them when they leave my house.  Literally.  Those mounds of quilts are theirs to keep. 

I can just see their college dorm rooms now.

Mom's Dryer-Hose Pumpkin creation

Emily's Halloween Quilt

Holiday Kleenex Box covers