Real Life Reflections

Have you ever spent forty days and forty nights in the desert (sand, rocks, 100 degrees plus during the day while sometimes reaching the freezing point at night)? Without food? For the purpose of being tempted by the devil? Sounds like a party just waiting to happen, doesn't it? Maybe not. Have you ever spent forty days and forty nights in a spiritual desert (spiritual sand and rocks, emotional temperatures fluctuating between anger and extreme indifference)? It's not a party either. And there's plenty of temptation while you're there. Where are you weak? Where are you vulnerable (Despair? Unbelief? Self-hatred?)? Your enemy knows, and he patiently waits until your defenses are down before he whispers in your ear. He doesn't whisper full-out lies. That would be too obvious. He takes a spec of truth and twists it around. Check out Jesus in Matt 4. The Man is preparing for an intense three years of ministry, so He's alone in the desert fasting and praying. After f...

“Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." Matthew 18:3 Become like little children? Really? Children are definitely cute and innocent, but that pretty much covers the positive qualities. On the negative side, however, the list is quite a bit lengthier: demanding, dependent, self-centered, messy, often smelly, expensive, and embarrassingly honest. So why? WHY in the world would Jesus tell us to become like little children? WHY in the world would He want that? What was He thinking?! Well, He was a thirty-something year-old bachelor. Maybe He didn't really know what He was talking about when He said that. I mean, if we come to Him like little children, it's pretty much guaranteed to be messy. We're likely to be crabby, cranky. We might be downright angry. Prayer-ADD is hard to control on a good day. If we're not on top of it, if we don't have our list in front of us to focus our thoughts, we...

My Dearest Momma: The other day this question was asked of me, "if you could have anyone in the world, alive or dead, cook Thanksgiving dinner for you, who would it be?" My thoughts immediately filled with a pantry of famous cooks/chefs: Emeril, Gordon Ramsey, Martha Stewart, Nick Miller ;). What an experience that would be - a gourmet Thanksgiving dinner with all my favorite foods, which, of course, would be made without dairy or any other ingredient that would incite rebellion in my inner parts. These thoughts, however, lasted barely seconds as your beautiful face came into focus. While it may be true that the world at large would choose a turkey a'la Emeril rather than yours, they wouldn't know what they were missing. Preparing a Thanksgiving Day feast is no mean feat, but there's an element that I've missed all these years - so obvious, I never noticed it; so assumed, so taken for granted that it never even touched my consciousness until now. Why would I c...

"Hey, let's get in the boat and row to the other side of the lake! What d'ya think?" We all agreed wholeheartedly. It was a beautiful night. "Great idea!" We doused the fire, tossed our gear into the boat, then climbed in and pushed off. The sky was clear and inky black, sprinkled generously with brilliant stars, twinkling like the eyes of children at play. The surface of the lake was glass. It reflected the heavens above it. Gorgeous. Nature at its best. Then without warning, a powerful gust of wind smacked the side of our boat, then another, and another! At the same time, clouds rushed the night sky and opened above us to release sheets of rain. Waves crashed down over and over and over! We scrambled around in a frenzy, bumping into each other, slipping, sliding as the boat rocked from side to side. We yelled! We cried out as waves knocked us off our feet! We frantically tried to bail the water that was so quickly filling the boat. As we rode a sudden gian...

Trials. Hard times. A rough patch. Call them what you will, we all go through them. It seems to me that the longer I live, the longer those seasons last and the shorter the time between them. Rarely do I wake up one morning to find that all is right with my world. The troubles of the past few months gone with the fluttering of my opening eyes. They typically peter out and they often peter in. Sometimes the end of one rough patch is blurred with the beginning of another, and I'm not quite sure if the first one ever actually ended or just took a breather. We had a guest speaker at our church this past Sunday. He's not really a guest though. He and his wife are from England, but they were a part of our church for five years. He's more like visiting family - family that you want to see and always wish they could stay longer. They're wonderful people, he and his wife. Hearts of gold. Humble. Wise. Fun. We spent the evening with them last night and the time flew by. His mess...

"Those were simpler times." The comment came from my mother-in-law. We were gathered at Grandma's house and had just spent the evening entertained by younger versions of my husband and his seven siblings. We watched as eight children, dressed to the nines (as only Catholic children can be on Easter), baskets dangling from their cherubic little arms, toddled hither and yon in search of the coveted Easter eggs. Her comment came in response to my question, "how did you do it?" Grandma died in 1989. I'm not sure how long before that the above evening took place, but those words have stayed with me all these years. They play over and over in my head. She said it so matter-of-factly. She brushed it off as if raising eight children had been no big deal because "those were simpler times." This past week, Marc and I spent some time at Sam A. Baker State Park. We stayed in a cabin, which afforded us the luxury of heat, a refrigerator, stove, and running wate...

When you ask God for something - peace, patience, healing, answers to work, life, or people problems, etc. - do you stop what you're doing and turn your brain off of everything but Jesus? Do you actually look at Jesus? Or do you, like I so often do, suddenly remember something you told someone you'd pray about for them and rattle off a quick request? Maybe you find yourself in traffic when you're late or unable to find a solution to a problem at work or with your child or a friend, you're frustrated or irritated, you say a prayer something like, "God, help me!" Then you move rapidly on to the next issue at hand. This morning I read the story of Blind Bartimaeus (Mark 10: 46-52). Actually, I read it three or four times. I've read it before. It's a fairly well-known Gospel story, but this time was different. I got emotional as I read it. I wondered why Jesus asked Bartimaeus what he wanted. Wasn't that fairly obvious? I mean, the guy was blind and Je...

I grew up watching The Andy Griffith Show and Mayberry, R.F.D. My childhood in St. Louis was a pretty far cry from the small town life of Mayberry, but my parents taught me many of the same lessons that the folks in Mayberry learned each week in those early years of my life. Somehow, though, Andy, Opie, Aunt Bea, Goober, Floyd, Howard, and Helen made the lessons much more entertaining than my parents did. There's one lesson that I can't quite get though. Remember Great-Great-Great Grandfather Seth? No? I'm not surprised. I doubt he was mentioned in any but the one episode that I recently watched. Apparently, Seth Taylor was one of the founding fathers of Mayberry, and the Mayberry of the 1960s decided to contract a stone-mason to make a statue to honor him. Aunt Bea is flustered with joy over this honor until she and Andy find out that Great-Great-Great Grandfather Seth was, in truth, a swindler. He became a wealthy man through some insider knowledge. When the day comes to ...

I feel the cool breeze as I sail through the air. It's amazing. I fly. I career. I sail. I am euphoric. The early morning sun shines brightly. It's too early in the day for its heat to overbear. Instead, the sun offers the perfect balance of warmth to the crispness of a new day. It colors the sky with pink, purple, and shades of blue. The clouds smear across it like cotton candy across a child's face. Below me, the newly mowed grass smells strongly of summer days. This is what I was made for. This freedom. This abandon. This liberty. This emancipation. To sit, hour after hour, in a confined space. To exist through a span of days without this experience. For life to fly by me when I should be sailing through the middle of it - soaring through the middle of it - is a pitiful existence. Painful. Remorseful. Depressing. True, I've seen better days. I'm not all that I used to be. My skin isn't smooth or blemish-free as once it was. The sun has taken its toll on me. L...

Have you ever been disappointed with yourself? Have you ever attributed to yourself certain admirable traits and then tried to live up to them? I know that's backwards, but that hasn't stopped me in the past. I find it easy to expect from myself what I admire in others. Instead of simply esteeming a particular quality I see in someone else, I (sometimes consciously, sometimes unconsciously) try to emulate it. It's good to reach for something higher, a standard just beyond where you are now. It causes growth and learning. Right? Right. The problem comes in when my desire to better myself isn't actually bettering myself, it's changing myself, and it leads me to have great expectations - too great. Unrealistic. When what I admire in someone else, what I want to emulate in my own life, is completely foreign to my personality, when I reach for something that's not just a little beyond where I am right now, it's completely off my grid, that's when I have a pro...

I love the story of Joshua and the Israelites crossing the Jordan. Picture this: you and your parents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, third cousins, first cousins once removed, second cousins twice removed, great aunts, third cousins thrice removed, great uncles of your eighth cousins nine times removed etc. etc. - your very extended family - wander around for forty years. You live in tents. You eat birds that fall from the sky every day and bread made from some stuff that the dew leaves behind each morning. You've never seen a field planted with corn or wheat because your wandering is in the desert. You hear stories about how you all used to be slaves. The stories speak of the miracles that set you free, but for you, they're just stories because you're only forty years old. You were born on the road. All you know of miracles is in the stories because although your parents always called the food you eat a miracle, you don't really get it. The birds an...

. . . the final frontier. And I don't mean Star Trek. I mean brain-space, heart-space, space for thought. Space for God. Life is full. Each day bombards us with a cacophony of sights and sounds. It takes work on our part to sort through this barrage and pull out the information we need, the information we want, the images, the thoughts that will belong to us and to our memories. In addition to this onslaught of stimulation, most of us carry around a to-do list so long that it wouldn't fit on a triple roll of Charmin written in a size six font. We're a civilization that exists on over-load. Captain Kirk had to risk taking the Enterprise out of its dock in order to explore that final frontier because space doesn't just happen. It doesn't come to us nor does it scream at us for attention. It doesn't jump up and down flailing its arms. Some of us need more of it than others. Growing up, our next door neighbor used to sit out in his screened-in porch for hours every ...

I will eventually move on to a subject other than my so-sweet granddaughter, but for now, I pray, humor this new grandmother. . . Sunday evening, I drove west on I-70. I was headed for my pillow-top mattress and feather pillow. That night would only be the eighth night out of the last eighteen that I would spend in the arms of their incomparable comfort. It has been wonderful to be home these past few days: sleeping in my own bed and finding some kind of routine once again, but yesterday I found myself in a perpetual state of melancholy. It was a watch-the-clock day at work ("only six more hours . . . four more hours . . . two hours. I can do this . . . one hour . . . "). Finally, the work day ended. I headed home. At dinner, I told my husband that I had felt sad all day, but I had no idea why. He hugged me (good man that he is!) and gently asked, "are you having Brooklyn-withdrawals?" Oh dear. Could it be? It didn't take long for me to realize the answer to his...

The waiting is over! Brooklyn Adeline arrived this past Thursday, and while I awaited the euphoria that my fellow-grandparents assured me would come, I found that instead of what I expected, I fell in love. Deeply, unreservedly, unconditionally, in love. Everyone decided to lie down for a nap. I voluntarily sacrificed my nap (that's just the kind of gal I am) to stay with Brooklyn. I mean, what three day-old infant can take a nap by herself?. Someone had to hold her, so I volunteered. I'm such a martyr. As we lounged on the sofa together, she slept. I absorbed every bit of her: the curve of her tiny little ears, the motion of her eyes beneath her eyelids as she dreamed (of what? Being back in the womb maybe? Nursing?), her perfectly shaped lips so like her great grandma's, her soft, so soft, skin with its perfect complexion. I stared at her and basked in simply loving her. I let every part of her sink and settle deep within my heart. This was my first time alone with her,...

Waiting. Ironically, even in our hurried lives, our days are full of it. Don't you just love to wait? What could be better than waiting in traffic? Or waiting for your computer to boot up (especially when you're in a hurry)? Or for your turn at the dentist's office in anticipation of a root canal (oh joy)? What about waiting in the drive-thru lane at Starbucks for a venti vanilla double espresso latte on your way to work when you can barely keep your eyes open for the lack of caffeine? Or waiting at the airport to see your best friend whom you haven't seen in ten years? Yep, we do a lot of waiting during the time we're roaming around this side of eternity, but what a difference there is between waiting for something we dread and waiting for something we're excited about. For example, I'm currently waiting to meet my first grandchild (I write that so calmly, but inside, I'm S-C-R-E-A-M-I-N-G, jumping around, flailing my arms, wriggling, twisting, and hopp...

Today I saw not only one, but two, pearls. People watching at the mall. That's what I'd been doing. I didn't plan to watch the mall-walkers this morning, but I got caught up in it. It's fun to create life-stories based on the age, demeanor, facial expressions, and coiffure of each person unfortunate enough to walk past my line of sight. It's also surprisingly emotional and thought-provoking. There were the two separate women pushing strollers: One with an athlete's body aside from a remainder pregnancy pooch that she is quite obviously determined to walk off. I felt admiration for her resolute commitment to the cause mixed with sorrow for the baby of someone with that kind of drive who could easily be overlooked as mom unwaveringly sets her face towards the goal. The other mother strode through the mall in a body that hadn't seen regular physical activity in at least a few years. Her maternal gaze fixed on her toddler as he danced along beside the stroller t...

Andrew Peterson’s Counting Stars

Our car isn't working properly. Some times it starts just fine, but more often than not, it takes a number of attempts before the engine turns over. We have to get it in the shop for a little maintenance, so it will once again run smoothly - exactly the way its makers intended it to run. Our summer, as usual, has been very busy. Our typical Monday night dates have taken a back seat to the demands of life. The other day, I looked at my husband and introduced myself. It had been that long since we'd had any time alone together (you can imagine my relief when I found out that the man standing in my kitchen was, indeed, my husband. Whew!). Yesterday morning, Marc (said husband), said to me, "the car needs maintenance, so we have to put it in the shop. It's an inconvenience, but we have to do it." He then likened marriage maintenance to car maintenance - just as there's never a good time to be one car down, there's never a good time to drop everything and spend...

So many things to blog about these days! How's a girl to choose? I could go with the light-hearted, nostalgic theme or a deeper, faith-centered one (I've plenty of those lately). I think I'll try something a little different - a collage. A series of "blog-ettes." I'll shoot for 3 (2 faith, 1 nostalgic): Faith Blog-ette #1 Yesterday morning, I had the pleasure of catching up with a friend of mine with whom I had spent all my formative years - from kindergarten through senior high. Somehow during the course of the two plus hours we had together, we touched on the untouchable: religion and politics (did I just hear you gasp?). No worries though, it didn't get down and dirty, and I daresay we parted as friends. She did, however, touch a sore spot. She had moved out of our home state about ten years ago. What she didn't realize before her move was the political/religious make-up of the area into which she chose to settle: conservative, right-wing, republica...

If you've lived long enough (let's say a day or two), you've learned that the people around you - your family, friends, co-workers - don't always (or even often) fulfill your expectations of them. Your idea of what love looks like is different from theirs. This reality hit me hard this past weekend. The hurt and disappointment I felt in my heart was so powerful that it affected me physically. It was in this state of emotional and physical tumult when I went to church on Sunday morning where we sang a song that changed everything. The line that packed the punch? I don't have time to maintain these regrets when I think about the way He loves us. Regret: We generally think of a regret as something we wish we had done or had not done, but regrets are all inclusive. We can regret actions someone else has taken or perhaps, as it was in this instance, actions someone hasn't taken. Regret doesn't assume responsibility in any way. It merely bemoans the fact of an ev...

Perhaps you've heard of the "Boundaries" book series: Boundaries in Marriage , Boundaries with Children , and simply Boundaries . I read the Boundaries book on parenting years ago. I can highly recommend it. As far as I know though, Cloud and Townsend have not yet written a book on boundaries in prayer. Hmmmm. Wonder why that would be. Is it possible that there are no boundaries in prayer? According to Henri Nouwen (one of my favorite authors on prayer), there aren't. I read that little tidbit in my morning reading yesterday. An hour or so later, I checked my email to find that a friend had forwarded to me a devotional thought-for-the-day on the same topic. I John 5: “14 This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we have asked from Him.” The key to answered prayer seems to lie in the words, "if we ask an...

Take possession of the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess. Deut 1:8 I don't know about you, but I'd really like that verse to read something like, "Here you go. Walk in and enjoy. It's all yours." I'd like to sit here and wait for God to plop something in my lap. I don't want to "take" anything. To take means I have to be proactive. Capture, grab, seize, grasp, and snatch are just a few of the synonyms for "take" according to dictionary.com. I like being the background person - the person behind the person, the mom. I like to take care of the one who is in the lime light whether the "lime light" refers to homework, soccer, cheer-leading, youth group, or business administration. It's comfortable here. No one is staring at me. I don't like people staring at me with expectation. I quit softball after a season or two in grade school because standing at bat, knowing that everyone had their eyes set on me was mo...

I witnessed a hug the other day. Big deal, right? People see other people hug all the time. Yeah, but this was a hug that melted my heart. We attended a graduation party in honor of our nephew. It was held under a pavilion. There was quite a spread of food, and each table was loaded with decorations and favors (very nicely done, Ange!). Obviously a lot of work . . . a lot of love was poured into this party. As the evening wound down, many of us hung around to help clean up. That's the un-fun part of a party. The un-fun part of this party became even more un-fun when, in an attempt to dump a drum of trash into a plastic trash bag, wet, gooey, smelley garbage ended up on the concrete floor of the pavilion. It was rank and disgusting, but my sister-in-law (the afore mentioned "Ange.") cleaned up without complaint. When the graduate meandered by shortly thereafter, I jokingly told him, in a scolding voice, that he had better get down on his knees in gratitude for all his moth...

I love getting older. Maybe not the body-falling-apart thing, but I love the security and wisdom that comes with age. Life is so much more enjoyable when you don't feel the need to prove yourself to anyone any longer. I know that not everyone is going to like me, not that I've figured out why - I mean I think I'm a pretty nice person, but now that I've finally accepted this fact, I'm okay with it. I don't have to become someone I'm not in my attempts to make everyone like me. Woo-hoo! Of course, this hasn't been a true statement for all that long. It especially wasn't true in junior high, which is where I've been living the past few days. Oh I know all the hype about leaving the past behind you and how we have to live in the moment, blah blah blah; but a few days ago, I opened my email to find that I had a Facebook message from a girl with whom I went to grade school. Even though I graduated from the 8th grade just . . . ummm . . . just a yea...

There's an epidemic in this country. It may be world-wide, but I don't know that for a fact. No, I don't mean the H1N1 virus. This epidemic is an epidemic of the heart, and it's found among females, typically those in their teen/young adult years. Unfortunately, there's nothing that the pediatrician or family practice doc or even a cardiologist can do about it and neither will your insurance cover the treatment. As a teen, I suffered from it, so it's easy for me to recognize. What is it? It's a desperate desire to be loved by someone of the opposite sex. Key word: desperate. A girl affected by this virus becomes susceptible by the belief that she's worthless. Although typically, that's not a blatant thought. It comes in other more palatable guises. Most prevalent is the lie that love = sex, which at first glance seems to have nothing to do with self-worth issues. However, if you live with that lie long enough, the truth of its root surfaces - a girl...

As I write this, it is the Wednesday before Mothers' Day. One would think that an ode to mothers would be appropriate for today's blog, but I find that there's something else on my heart that I have to share. I'm sure my mom won't mind. Actually, considering where she is, I believe she's cheering me on! I read a devotional yesterday. The topic was the God of the Old Testament. It piqued my interest immediately because, up until recently, that was a trouble spot in my faith. I mean, be honest, reading the O.T. can be a real turn-off some times - all that wrath of God stuff. It's just not pretty. Then God says things like He never changes (Malachi 3:6) and that He's the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). So we're left to reconcile the angry, vengeful God of the Old Testament with the loving, compassionate Jesus of the New Testament. While I completely agree with the writer of yesterday's devotional that "when there seems to be ...

Waiting. I'm not very good at it and my guess is that neither are you - at least not if you're an American. If you think otherwise, take a trip to Africa and hang with the locals. Now they know how to wait! Monday evening, Marc and I watched a movie, Fireproof . Other than Kurt Cameron who plays the main character, we found ourselves laughing and screaming by turns at the lack of talent displayed by the other actors. It's a cheesey Christian movie, but it has a good story line. Nearing the pinnacle of the climax, Kurt Cameron's character has to wait for his wife to fully realize that he's changed, that he still loves her, and that she should stop divorce proceedings. The camera pans the life of this man as he waits. It shows him living his life day by day - at work, at home, walking, praying, cooking, etc. While we watch him, a song plays in the background. I don't know who sings it, and I didn't grab pen and paper to record the lyrics. I enjoyed the movie,...

Not being extremely loquacious, I don't often stand on a soapbox and preach to the masses (or one or two hapless listeners for that matter). I'm amazed at the people in my life who can take fifteen minutes to expound a three sentence thought - and the ones who come immediately to mind are all men. However, periodically passion overtakes my personality and the words flow out unbidden, unrehearsed, and unexpected. This past Saturday such an occasion arose. My friend and I were alone in the car for a little over two hours on the drive home from Kansas City. She, quite unknowingly I'm sure, brought up a subject that ignited my verbal juices. The topic? Giving kids responsibility. Well, that's an easy one, right? Everyone knows that it's good to give kids responsibilities - the responsibility to walk and feed the dog, or brush their teeth every night, or do their homework, etc. Unfortunately, I see more and more parents who apparently believe that those tasks are at the ...

Reins: A narrow strap of leather . . . manipulated to control the animal Control: to exercise authority over. Synonyms: lead, rule, dominate, master, prevail, domineer. See also: power. One thing about life - it's not boring. At least not if you're paying attention. There's so much to learn! Currently, my husband and I are both focused on the issue of control. For him, the one who has always needed to be in control, he's learning to let go and trust God. For me, the one who has always been afraid to be in control, I'm learning that I need to stand firm in what I know is God's will for me. Opposite sides of the same coin. If you want to hear about Marc's side of the coin, you'll have to ask him, but for my side, keep reading. As the youngest of six, I learned at an early age that everyone else knew better than I did (what older siblings wouldn't enforce that "fact?"). I learned to keep my mouth shut and go along with the crowd if I didn'...

How often I tell God that I want to hear Him - especially when I write. I don't want to write vain words without value. I don't want others to read my words and find emptiness. I want them (you) to find something of God in the words I write either directly or indirectly, either by lightning bolt or something more subtle like simply enjoying His creation/His creativity. This morning, I prayed my typical "I want to hear You" prayer, and His answer surprised me . . . Listen. Listen. I will speak to you In the sounds of your day. Listen for Me In the sounds of life. Listen, And you will hear Me. So listen. Just listen.

Cinderella - my all-time favorite fairy tale. Except that it's not a fairy tale at all. Neither is it something that happened once upon a time in a land far, far away. It happens every day right here in the U.S., in China, in Thailand, in Burkina Faso, in Korea (right, Kimmer?), in Brazil, and in Canada. As a matter of fact, it happens all over the world. Every single day. It's the greatest story ever told. Rogers & Hammerstein and Walt Disney don't have all the details straight, but the prince and his love for the unlovely is spot-on. It's like this: You're Cinderella. I'm Cinderella. Originally, we were simply called "Ella," and we were children of an extremely kind and benevolent father, but then we decided that we wanted some independence. We wanted to be on our own; but instead of the freedom we craved, we ended up enslaved by our cruel stepmother. We toiled endlessly, but never made her happy. We ended up covered in ashes, mud, soot, dung, a...

It was just the type of night you would expect for something like this to happen. Sara left the house at 6:45, waving off her mother's never-ending admonishment to be careful. What does she think I'm going to do - stand in front of the store and ask someone to take all the money and shoot me please? "This is the last time you're working the late shift." She said as Sarah shut the door behind her. "Whatever" Sarah whispered under her breath. Why do mothers always think the worst is going to happen? It should be illegal for mothers to watch the news or read newspapers. It makes them way too neurotic. Business was slow, but that was expected. Rain poured down in sheets rather than drops. Thunder boomed, causing the glass in the storefront to vibrate. Lightning lit up the sky as brightly as if it were noon on a clear day, and the wind rolled debris across the parking lot as the storm raged on hour after hour. Growing up in the Midwest, Sarah was used to spri...

How the heck are we supposed to obey that one - especially living in America where coveting is virtually the national past time? As a product of the parochial school system, I studied the ten commandments every year in religion class. Number nine (for Catholics, number ten for just about everyone else) always caused me consternation. How can I possibly control what I want and what I don't want? Teacher after teacher after teacher explained it to us. Without fail, the explanation was that "to covet" meant to want something excessively; to want something more than just a casual "boy, Melissa's got a sweet car. I'd love to have me one of them." They said that coveting implies obsessing over someone else's something, someone else's anything. While this is true, I think they missed the most important point. What does it matter to God if I really really want a car like Melissa's? If that's all the further it goes? If I don't cross a line? ...