Surprise?

Do you like surprises? I think I can say, I do. Believe me, I understand there are surprises out there that no one likes, but as a whole, I think I like them. Now don't get me wrong, I am a planner, sorta. I mean, somethings have to be planned don't you think? Nothing is coming to mind right this very second, but I know things must be planned!

Preacher man and I went to church together yesterday. I know, this use to be something that happened all the time. With our work schedules, it's something that hasn't happened in a while. We had planned it, and knew that after church we would be hanging out with Mom & Dad. That was the plan. I had not planned to hear from God, I was just showing up.

It's been hard lately. Hell, it's been hard for awhile. Having to go back to what I know because the plan that I planned has changed. I mean even the Disciples went back to what they knew, fishing, when Jesus left. It's like a default mode that's inside of us, or at least me. We go back to what we were doing before Jesus showed up and changed our life don't we? Can I get a witness?

I have shut doors in my heart that lead to the what if's and the could be's. I've set up my own protective devises that go off when something or someone try's to open those doors. I'm fine living my life shut down and unexpectant, really.

BUT GOD...

I was able to worship even though the music could have been better. It was the words that cracked the door open. The next thing I know, tears! (I am a firm believer in tears that come straight from the Holy Spirit!) There was the knowing in my heart, I was seen, God has not forgotten me. I looked, and the dang doors were opened again. There is hope...

God does have a plan, even though I don't have a clue what it is. Am I going to be able to let Him surprise me? I hope so. 

God woo's us to Him. Woo means to seek the affection or love of someone. God is the wooer and we are the wooies. He is seeking us, wooing us to Him! Will we let Him?

I'm waiting. It's hard, but I'm waiting on God. I know He could use my help in planning all this out... I know He needs my input and my thoughts about what to do... 

My job, right now, is to wait on God. To let Him open the doors of my heart again and woo me.  

Forgiveness!

Aren't Smartphones the best? OK, they aren't better than Jesus, but you can bet they are a lot easier to carry around than your computer! 

I have been thinking about getting a Kindle, so I can read whatever I want, whenever I want. I got the Kindle app on my phone and I downloaded cool stuff like Whinny the Pooh and I found this free book called "Why we eat our own". It's by a pastor in Colorado named Michael Cheshire. He and a group of friends stated The Journey Church in Conifer CO. Anyway, this book has started to change my life, and I gotta tell ya, I needed it.

Preacher man and I are leaving the Methodist Church. Surprise! In hind sight, everything we have ever done has lead us to leave and jump out there for Jesus in a totally new and different way. Things like starting our own business, running a soup kitchen, running boards, cleaning churches, leaving all that you know to go to seminary, healing and wholeness, prayer, and flat out having to love Jesus and each other into every moment.

For the past three weeks, we have hurt, but we have also healed. I have wanted to reach out and smack a whole lot of folks, but Jesus had something else in mind. 

Forgiveness. It's really an easy concept when you ask others to forgive you. It is something totally different when you have to do it yourself and forgive the people you would rather run over with a lawn mower!

Here's the deal: All I have to do is allow Jesus access to my heart and he will work the forgiveness stuff out.

So the grains of sand in my hourglass are still running, and I don't want to waste anymore time with unforgiveness, self righteousness or justification! So I forgive you Sylvan Hills UMC and all the people that make you what you are as a church! 

In 4 days, we will be out of here and I want to thank the Jepko's, Smith's, Shadle's, Clarke's and Christina for being the heart of Christ to Alex and I. We could have done it without you, but I'm so glad we didn't have to. 

My heart breaks when I think about leaving my sweet, crazy neighbors! The meals, treats, talks over the fence, and just allowing me to be me has made our short stay here so much funner!

We came back to Arkansas to be closer to our folks. So that's where we are headed, Heber Springs. We are not leaving ministry, it will just look different from here on out. You can still contact us the way you always have. I'm signing out of blogging, until we get set up in the new digs. 

Peace out! Forgive!

and hope does not disappoint us, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us. ~ Romans 5:5       

Trials

The trials of life are sent to make us, not to break us.

~ Malthie D. Babcock

I came across this in my quiet time this morning and after it punched me in the stomach, it gave me cause to ponder… I don't know if I agree totally with the statement. Wait, yes I do.

What happens when you break? What comes to mind might be bones sticking out and blood going everywhere. But what happens when it's not physical? Or on the outside, so everyone can tell? So often we think that if your not bleeding, your not hurting. I mean, think about what we say to kids when they get hurt. Let me see, are you bleeding? No, your fine. Get back out there. Yet, maybe they are breaking inside. 

So how do we deal with this not breaking during the trials of life? Well, for me, I produce way too much acid for my stomach to handle, I don't sleep through the night (been up since 12:30 and it's 4 now), I loose weight then gain it right back and I seem to cry during the strangest programs on TV. But the question is, is this breaking me?

I believe that IF the evil one has his way, yes, it will break me. But when I think about God growing me, making me, so to speak, I see this as a test, aka trial. Maybe not just like Job, but so dang close it's scary at times. I haven't lost everything like he did and I'm not sitting in ashes with sores all over me, but let me tell you, it feels like it sometimes.

I have come to a point where I can't be like them anymore. 

Years ago (it just seems like a few days ago), I could let myself fall back into default mode. You know what I'm taking about? I'm going to get all up in your face and kick the living shit out of you! If I can't do that, then I'm going to secretly sabotage you. (I think I might have been a bully when I was in high school, at times anyway. This is not news that thrills me, but I am about being real, and I have warned you about that!)

So, what's different now? Well, I think it's about letting God make me into a new creation without letting myself break back into what I know, my default mode. Let me tell you, for an extraverted, strong willed, might have had tendencies to be a bully, this is hard stuff!

Just when I think I'm at the breaking point, I read something, or someone calls with a kind word. I want to kick and spit, but that's not who God wants me to be. It maybe where they are, but I don't have to wallow in their crap with them. 

Save me, O God,

for the waters have come up to my neck.

~ Psalm 69:1

  

Question One!

Part of my "official training" as a spiritual director had my path cross the path of Rev. Dr. Frederick Schmidt. Dr. Fred has done and continues to do so much for the Kingdom of God. On top of everything else, he is an Episcopal Priest. Dr Fred lost his brother in January to a brain tumor. His brother's name is Dave. 

Dave asked the hard questions about spirituality and the church. While Dr. Fred was one of my professors, he talked about writing a book called The Dave Test. It is now out and his blog is taking some time, in the next 10 weeks, to ask some question to see if it passes The Dave Test. So if I feel like it, I'm going to ask us to think about those questions too.

Taking the Dave Test during the Holidays

Question One: "Can I say life sucks?"

Illness, job loss, divorce, anniversary of the death of a loved one, these are a small showing for things that can and do happen around the holidays. Suffering doesn't take a holiday. These experiences are, by nature, isolating. They cut us off from what and who we have known. I mean think about it, how many people are going through a divorce in your church? Do you know? They usually stop going to church. 

During the holiday's we assume that everyone should be sweep along in the holly jolliness of it all. How many times have you heard someone say "Oh, get over it, it's Christmas!" "Can't you just get in the spirit of the season?" Hang on a minute…let me think about it…."Can I just say life sucks?"

Sometimes I think we forget Jesus was born in the shadow of Herod's raging paranoia! Children, baby boys, were being killed by huge numbers. But God...

Holiday celebrations that pass the Dave test are honest about those realities and people who can say, “life sucks” they are among the best to celebrate with on those holidays. Why? Well, why not? When we acknowledge that life can be hard, we open ourselves up to possibilities of seeing hope. Hope in the people who have suffered before you and lived through it. We might need to celebrate the holidays without ignoring life's realities. We might want to share our story with someone who needs to hear some hope.

So, can I say that life sucks? Well friends, right now it does. But God….. 

       

Giants

I'm going to get something down today even if it kills me. I really do have a lot to talk about, I just can't do it all right now. So, I think I'll talk about the giants that try to define us. 

You maybe asking, What giants are you talking about? They didn't even make it to the World Series this year! The giants I'm talking about are the situations that come into your life and try to boss you around. Some of the giants that come to mind are: most heart wrenching situations, including the loss of loved ones, abandonment, rejection, and betrayal. Each of these situations has tried to paralyze me and define who I was and who I would never be. But God broke in each time to remind me who I belonged to!

When we aline ourselves with God and His will, circumstances around us loss their power to paralyze and define us. When we choose to walk through the situation with Jesus, we are able to let Him redefine things for us. 

This happened to me on Sunday. I no more wanted to go to church than I wanted to eat liver and onions. Which is not any! I kept feeling the nudging to get ready and get out the door, so I did. I received the sweetest greeting from Sande and I could tell by the look on her face that she saw me.

I know that satan has us pinned to the mat and is counting us out, even as I write, but God…is using this for His glory! We are allowing God to shape us into what He has in mind.

    

The Captivating Presence

My spirit has been in turmoil for the past 24 hours. Honestly, it's been longer than that, but I'll say 24 hours for now. This morning for my devotional, I read this by Albert Edward Day and I wanted to share it.

I came to a new understanding why Jesus passed up the religious establishment of his day, the economically secure, the socially prestigious, and sought out the poor, the outcast, the sinner, the broken, the sick, the lonely. He felt as we so often do not feel, their sorrow. He was acquainted, as we too seldom are, with their grief. On Calvary he died of a broken heart.But that heart was broken long before Black Friday, by the desolation of the common people. "In all their afflictions he was afflicted."

Most of the time we are not. We seem to have quite a different conception of life. We avoid as much as possible the unpleasant. We shun the suffering of others. We shrink from any burdens except those which life itself inescapably thrusts upon us. We seek arduously the wealth and power that will enable us to secure ourselves against the possibility of being involved with another's affliction. Lazarus sometimes makes his way to our door step. We toss him a coin and go on our way. We give our charities but we do not give ourselves. We build our charitable institutions but we do not build ourselves into other's lives.

I saw this a lot when I was running the soup kitchen, so that was part of what I told people, give me your money, so I can help them! 

This presence of mind that the economically secure and socially prestigious had in Jesus' time, is alive and well in our time, in our churches, and in our country.

If this slaps you in the face, pokes you in the eye, or makes you want to call me up and give me a piece of your mind...all I can say is take it up with Jesus. 

Simply

I've been thinking about what it means to live simply or to simply live. They go hand in hand now that I've been thinking about it. So what does that look like? Have you ever thought about reducing your carbon foot print? Do you even care? 

Here's some things I've either done or I'm trying to work into our lives.

I'm hanging our clothes out to dry. I know there are people out there that don't like the feel of line dried towels on their soft supple skin, but I personally think there is nothing better than a thirsty towel. Not to mention, that I'm drying my clothes with the help of nature. They smell good, iron up awesome, and it just makes me feel good to do it. 

Something else is recycling our trash. The city helps with this by providing awesome yellow trash cans and picking our stuff up every other week. I enjoy the fact that I have more recycle than trash and feel they should pick up recycle more often than trash! One things has really opened my eye's while we've been doing this recycling, it's how much we package stuff that is just silly and wasteful. If producers would cut down on packaging, we wouldn't have so much recycle to deal with.

These are just some things we've been doing to live simply, which helped us to see how important it is to simply live. To slow down and tune off the world and just be. It's hard to do when you work for a church and live beside small children, but it's the kids that help me see it's all about running as fast as you can, finding that turtle, being pushed on a swing, and eating blackberries. It's sitting on the back porch, watching the birds at the feeder and the ones that are living in the cucumber plants. It's about making enough dinner to last for a few more meals so you just heat it up. It's simple, everyday stuff that I'm doing to help us live in The presence. 

It's all we really have and all we've been promised. Yesterday is gone and we pray we learned those lessons. Tomorrow might not ever get here, so what are you waiting on? 

We're heading out today for some R&R. Just want to sit around and watch birds and eat good food and talk a slow story. Don't want no drama, or excitement, or other peoples issues. Just wanna be in the moment and simply live into it with all I've got!

Take the Step!

During a rock-climbing lesson, Dan Clark stops on the vertical incline, as if paralyzed.
He writes, "I could see an outcrop for my right foot, but no place where I could place my hands or left foot."
Yes, he felt stuck. Hopeless perhaps.
The instructor, not far from Dan on the face of the incline, tells him, "Take the step."
"Are you crazy?"
"Once you lift yourself up you may find something you can't see from where you stand."
"Well what happens if I don't find anything?" Dan asked.
"If you don't find anything, " the instructor says calmly, "fall back on the harness and try it again."

This story fills me with hope! At some level it also freaks me out, to fall back, as in...to let go. Of our expectations or our stuck way of seeing and thinking. It's a message that comes to us when we need it most, if we will but listen.

Take the step, give it a try, see what you can see from a new place. It's like at any given moment, we have the power to say: This is not how the story is going to end! I mean, what's the worst thing that can happen? You fall back and try again!

Fear will keep us stuck if we let it. Once we see fear for what it truly is, a lie, we are able to take that step and see things from a different place. Sadly, this is where some churches live, stuck in the fear to take a step, any step, in any direction. We've always done it this way! (Still the words of a dying church) These are words of fear. I refuse to let fear have a grip on me! I know the truth and it set's me free, to take that step!

No Beans!

One of the cool things we do as a church family is share food! Today was the Chili Cook-off between the men. 9 Crockpots showed up, numbered 1 to 9 and the line began to form. Tasting, sampling and flat-out chowing down took place over the next hour! It was great fun! 

I have come to the conclusion that beans don't really belong in a chili! I like beans, I don't like them in chili, it's just a texture thing for me. Plus if you weren't raised eating beans in your chili, well, chili isn't suppose to have beans!



      

Saturday

Today is day 3 of Shred and I'm doing so much better! I mean the whole penguin walk was cute, but painful. I get a little tired of hearing Jillian, but as I get better and move off of level 1, I'm sure she'll start saying different things.


This evening I made 5 dozen Lemon cookies for the evangelism committee. Yes, Preacher man saw to it that I got on a committee that needed some guidance. We had our first meeting of the year last week and decided we would make cookies for the AA group meeting in our church and the fire departments in Sherwood. So two of us will be heading out on Monday to share cookies and church info. 

I got 3 people to comment from my last blog, one being a fellow blogger, the others were my parents. 

I'm a bit depressed about the Broncos loosing tonight. I miss Tebow! Think I'll go to bed!

There is Room!

Church was eye opening for folks this Sunday. I know this because I heard them talking about it afterwards. Preacher man is talking about the 5 requirements of being a member of the UM church. Yesterday he talked about being present, we promise to come to church, support it with our presence. So towards the end of the sermon, he asked one side of the church to get up, and move to the other side. This left one side empty. Preacher man said, See, there's plenty of room for more! 


We can't just sit around and wait for people to come to church. We have the attitude that they see the sign out front, if they want to know more, they'll come in. I think you can see by this example, No, they will not just come in. It's part of our job, as members of the church, to ask people to come with us. Not just show up at church, but to bring them and to sit with them, and to show them around.

Now, Preacher man explained that there had been times before he was Preacher man and he was just dude, that he had asked people to church with him only to have the Preacher do something really off the wall and dude sat there embarrassed. He said he wouldn't do something off the wall, but having everyone to one side of the church is border line, I think.

The point is this friends, our churches are dying! People aren't coming cuz they feel compelled to be there. They need to be asked! Look at it this way, when we don't ask people to come to church, we are denying the Good News! We aren't letting the Gospel be heard! It's like saying Jesus, I love you and all, but I don't want to force someone to hear that you love them, and died for them, and that they are your beloved! What is that about? It's our job as Christian's, to get out there and make a difference. Jesus is the only thing that can make a difference, I promise you that! So what are we waiting on? To feel comfortable about it? Get over it and get out there and find someone that doesn't have a church home and ask them to come with you to church on Sunday! What's the worse thing that could happen? Beside Preacher man doing something off the wall?

  

Your Daily Sack!

I really am trying to post more often! I don't know what my problem is, I have all these great idea's, sit down to start typing, and poof, they disappear. Plus, I have books I gotta read for class, Christmas cards to order, Bible study to get ready for, and the house needs to be cleaned! So while I'm waiting for the rain to stop, cuz I am not climbing up my ladder to change the church sign in the rain, I'll jot down a post!

We had a great time at church yesterday! I can only speak for me, myself and I, but I think Preacher man had a good time too. It was a 5th Sunday, and he took that opportunity to turn the service on it's head. It was great to see the reactions, which were for the most part very positive. We started out with the sermon and them sang a few songs, followed by the offering and a time of greeting right before the benediction! It really was fun! Then something that this church does is have a pot luck on the 5th Sunday, so we ate!

Something that kept running through my mind was how hard it is for people to change, or to sit through something that should look at certain way and all of a sudden, the bulletin is upside down, the music is not where it should be and we didn't even get to the prayers of the people! The good part is, no one died, or was rushed to the hospital because we did something different. We came together and set our sacks down and had to pay attention, cuz things were not what they seemed and Shelby didn't know when it was safe to close his eyes!

So, what's in your sack? You didn't know you had a sack? Oh, sorry, let me tell you what might be in someone else's sack:
anxiety from our day,
woundedness,
preoccupation with our busyness,
an unfair life,
relationships,
self-righteousness,
our need to impress.
Whatever is in your sack keeps you from living in the presence and steals your joy. How heavy is it? You can find out when you set it down, it's like a burden has been...laid down or something! The problem is, we have a hard time of letting it laying there, while we look around to see what we've been missing out on.

Here's the ticket friends, find a safe place, a sanctuary so to speak, to place your sack down. One of the definitions of sanctuary: a tract of land where birds and wildlife, especially those hunted for sport, can take refuge in safety from hunters. 
I love this! This sanctuary could be your garden, your work room, church, the library, your car... somewhere that the hunters can't get to you. It's a place where you allow your heart beat to slow, where you take time to smell the air, to go within and be with the presence! I live for moments like this.

So today, while I put up this weeks new church signage, I'm reminded that I don't have to carry my sack with me, not today or tomorrow or ever. The sad part is I will look down and somehow the thing jumps back into my hand, but seeing it there, reminds me to lay it down, daily!

Ladders and Letting Go!

I am finding that in the mist of the heat, hassle and hair left on the carpet, that I am just about settled into the parsonage on Reeves Road! The hard part is left...where to stick this stuff I don't want out! But it's coming together and I see another yard sell in the future!


Sunday service was yet again an experience in true old fashioned love. I find myself asking; Can these people be for real? How can it be this easy to be with a group of strangers? This church is the real deal and they are blessing our socks off. We got two notes yesterday telling us how glad they were we were here. I told Preacher man, They have no idea how glad we are to be here! It's just the way it should be. Sure, there's a honeymoon period and it will come to an end. But I am liven large in this moment for as long as it lasts!

I've come to the conclusion that it's about letting go for me. I really don't have a problem being around people and having a good time. But to let go and let them see me for who I really am, well that's something that I'm learning. When you've been burned, you don't stick your neck out there as fast. Thomas Merton said we spend our whole life climbing up the ladder of supposed success, and when we get to the top, we find the ladder is leaning against the wrong wall and there is nothing at the top. He says the spiritual life is about letting go for the false agendas and the unreal goals. It's more about unlearning than learning.


I think when we unlearn our idea of prayer and see that it can be as easy as sitting and being, that's when God enlarges our boundaries. That's when we get freed up to be who God is calling us to be. I get that we have lived a long time with the false idea of what worship should be, prayer should be and how we should act in church. My prayer is that God frees us from ourselves so that we can really be! To just be in His presence, that's what I'm after!