Set Aside

It's Thanksgiving!  I am a thankful person by nature, looking for reasons to be thankful, looking for the perspective that sheds some light from God's Bigger Picture on my situation and making it more grace-full.  

But here's the thing: I only open my eyes to the great variety of gifts in my life when I set aside the time to look for them.  I have to sanctify parts of my day for thanksgiving or else suffer grumpiness in the chaos of sharing my life with, you know, other people.  

So, whether you're by nature a thankful person or not, today, of all days, SET ASIDE SOME TIME.  Go away from the crowds for a little while, step away from your chaos, so that like Him, who "often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed", you may be refreshed in order to refresh others.  

Be reminded that His eyes are on the sparrows all around and in you.  He isn't always safe, but He is always good.

Budget 2015, Library and Children's Ideas

* Kids' class, "Praying in Color."  After reading and personally applying the principles described in the CNF book "Praying in Color," offer a class FOR KIDS on this topic.

• Gifts used: artistic creativity, teaching.  
• Universal mandates exercised: prayer, make disciples, let the little children come to me

Books, $15 each x 8 students? --> approx. $120, + art supplies = $150

* Pre-Service Stories. Before the service (or perhaps after service 1 Sunday a month), offer a story time for kids, where I simply read aloud the stories and picture books in the library.  

---------------> the 20 minutes before service, every week. begin when shofar blows.
---------------> Rebecca Weaver, Deb Widrick, Ralph Bornemann, Sr.
---------------> invest in pillows/cushions of some kind, stored in cupboard or bottom of                          closet.

• Gifts used: artistic creativity, hospitality
• Hobbies exercised: reading aloud, love of quality stories

Floor cushions, $62 for set of 4 (Amazon) x 3 (total 12 cushions) = $186 from A. Green fund

* Preschool Story Hour

$25/month x 9 months = $225

* Movie Night

$75

* Sound-proofing material on ceiling

$75/panel x 6 panels? = $450 from A. Green fund

* New materials, $200

* Reference Section improvements, $500 out of A. Green fund

$1,136 out of Andy Green fund

$650 2015 budget request

2014 Budget:

* Sermon activity bags

• Contents: outdated copies of Clubhouse & Clubhouse, Jr. magazine; coloring books; crayons and colored pencils; story books (Arch?); each in a canvas tote bag.

Bags, ($21 for 12 = $2/bag) + (6 bags x $25 contents budget) = $171 activity bags 

* New materials, up to $118

In This Together

November 11, 2014:

Yesterday, after three-plus weeks of growing my baby and nearly three weeks of my body's miscarry process, I spent the day at the hospital and had a D&C.  This brings the physical part of sharing my life with Libi to a close, but our hearts will always have this little baby.  

Today: 

The main thing I want to do here is to say Thank You, to each of you.  Thank you for listening and for reading.  Thank you for hugging me, for praying with me and for me.  Thank you for sharing your stories and words of compassion and encouragement.  Thank you for crying with me, for checking in with me, for hoping with me.  Thank you to those of you who have helped in physical ways, taking care of my children while I go to appointments, providing supper, traveling to visit me, setting aside your day to give me as much time as needed.   

Thank you for being with me through the process.  

Because of Libi, I have been learning in a fresh way just how good it is to be part of the family of God--and more specifically, to be knit together with a particular church family.  It is a really Wonderful thing to walk through the valley knowing you're not alone.  Of course it's more enjoyable to walk through the good things together, but sharing the hard things of life is somehow...richer.  

Immanuel: God with us.  And we are His hands and feet, a gift He asks us to give to each other.  

YOU are my Month of Thanksgiving.  Thank you, my friends, my family, for being WITH me.  Thank you, my Jesus, for being WITH me.  And thank you, Jesus, for the gift that is Libi, who has helped me receive love in new ways.

Thank you, all, for being with me, and for me, and full of hope <3

Riding the Swells

A long time ago, when I was maybe 8, we spent a family vacation in the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  One of my favorite memories of that trip was the time spent with my daddy "riding the swells": he in chest-deep water in the trough of a swell, holding me up and carrying me through the exhilarating up-and-down rocking of the rolling water that would be waves closer to shore.  

It occurs to me, just now, that my sweet memory makes a beautiful parallel with the emotions I've been experiencing through the past week, and today more fully than before.  I can't describe in a tidy paragraph "how I'm doing," because I don't really understand how I'm doing.  I'm rolling with it.  

Losing Libi is an unprecedented kind of grief in my life.  The closest I've related to this before is when my Opa died, and I didn't really grieve him for a year or more.  I finally realized that by choosing to not grieve, I built stronger and stronger walls around my heart, and they would keep me from feeling anything--the Bad or the Good!--to the depth God designed me to feel.  I decided I had rather be vulnerable than unbreakable, and made the choice to feel again.  So in this fresh round of grief, I'm ok with grieving, and the sadness surprises me when I'm not expecting it.

Much of the time this week, I've been pretty decent, with just the background sadness behind the laughter and busyness of life with the boys.  A few times, I cried in the sanctuary of the bathroom while the boys napped, but not for very long.  Talking on the phone with my family, or helping Lincoln understand what has happened--I cried in those times, too.  And then there have been times like yesterday morning, when I felt (for lack of a more gracious way of putting it) more or less over it, ready to move on.  Of course, I knew that wasn't true, that there will be hard days and sadness and at some point I may even be angry with God.  But yesterday morning I was fine.  

THIS morning, I left home early to spend the day at a women's conference called something like, "Lord, I Just Want Some Peace!"  I listened to NPR as I drove down; driving solo is my one opportunity to listen to any sort of international news and discussion.  And man, I was in tears over the professor captured by the Taliban who was able to spend several months of his captivity actually teaching a large group of local shepherd boys.  People just want the opportunity to live, the opportunity to thrive!  And then I cried about everything after that.

So I knew when I arrived at the conference that I was in a fragile emotional state.  

And it's been a full, long, tiring day of grieving in a more concentrated way than I've yet done.  It comes to the surface a lot faster when I'm surrounded by compassionate women of my church family who love me and know what happened this week than it does in the midst of taking care of my wild boys (not to mention going multiple times for blood work in a week...).  And yesterday--out of order, sorry--I got to spend a long time with one of my very best friends and another dear friend who came just to love on me.  It's been a good couple of days.  

But it also feels very good, now, to sit here in sweats and have a cat curled up on my lap.  It is sweet to hear my sons call to me from the other room and describe the whacks they're giving the bad guys in a game they're playing with daddy.  It is very nice to feel the warmth of a mug of tea in my hand and on my face.  

And I'm looking forward to an extra hour tonight to just be quiet.  Quiet quiet.  Riding the swells is good, but its own form of exhausting.   

Libi, My Little, Little Loved One

October 16 was a big day for one reason only: I found out I was pregnant!  

There is a lot of joy in a positive pregnancy test.  And there was even more joy to find this little baby's due date to be June 22--right at the end of the school year, with the whole summer stretched out before us, exactly as we'd prayed for.  

We got one week of pure gladness over the joy of this baby, and then I started bleeding.  

I did not think much of it at first, because at the same point in my pregnancy, I bled a little with Lewis.  Obviously, he's perfectly whole and healthy.  So I hadn't even said anything to Andy yet.  But then it continued, a little bit heavier, and it just didn't seem right.  I spent Sunday morning in the ER, hoping to have a definite answer about what was happening.

They diagnosed me with a threatened miscarriage, but really couldn't give me the definite answer yet.  Through the past week, I have had a total of four blood draws, two ultrasounds, an internal exam, and lots of conversations with the doctors and nurses.  Between that information and my own research, it looks like our little baby started life with the incomplete thing called a "blighted ovum," in which for some totally random reason vast amounts of chromosomal DNA information were just missing.  So my body got all excited to begin manufacturing Baby, and Baby grew until that vital information was needed for the next step.  And she couldn't grow any more.   

My body hasn't yet completed this process, and I am currently hoping and praying that the miscarry of my baby will happen thoroughly all by itself, with no further complications or questions.  We don't know now what the Lord's timing will be, but we know and choose to trust that He has promised us another child, and that His timing will somehow be more perfect than ours.  

We are so, so sad; another baby is a desire of Andy's and my heart, and a desire of our boys' hearts.  A friend of mine reminded me a few days ago of a beautiful thing, though: that even though we will never know this baby here, Someday, when we are finally Home, we will know our baby in her completeness, her perfection.  Jesus is the Author of Life, and every life is precious to Him.  As Dr. Seuss would say, a person's a person, no matter how small.  

And so I've named this baby.  Of course, there's no way to know if we were growing a little boy or a little girl, but we have been praying for a baby girl for months and months. 

Her name is Libi, which is Hebrew for "loved one, dear one, my heart."  And she already knows just how dear she is.  Thank you, Jesus.  

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I have been reading Isaiah, and there are so many wondrous things it holds for my heart.  So if you need some encouragement straight from the heart of the Father, that I have applied to my situation and you can apply to yours, read on:

For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, 'Fear not, I am the one who helps you.' Isaiah 41:13

I will open rivers on the bare heights and fountains in the midst of the valleys.  I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water...that they may see and know, may consider and understand together, that the hand of the Lord has done this, the Holy One of Israel has created it. Isaiah 41:18,20

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.  For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.  I give Egypt as your ransom, Cush and Seba in exchange for you.  Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life.  Fear not, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you.  I will say to the north, Give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made. Isaiah 43:1-7

Even the darkness is not dark to You; the night is as bright as day, for darkness is as light to You. Psalm 139:12

But now hear, O Jacob my servant, Israel whom I have chosen!  Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O Jacob my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen.  For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.  They shall spring up among the grass like willows by flowing streams.  This one will say, 'I am the Lord's,' another will call on the name of Jacob, and another will write on his hand, 'The Lord's,' and name himself by the name of Israel. Isaiah 44:1-5

For the sake of my servant Jacob, and Israel my chosen, I call you by name, I name you, though you do not know me.  I am the Lord, and there is no other, besides me there is no God; I equip you, though you do not know me, that people may know from the rising of the sun and from the west, that there is none besides me.  I am the Lord, and there is no other.  I form light and create darkness, I make well-being and create calamity. I am the Lord, who does all these things. Isaiah 45:4-7

Listen to me, O house of Jacob, all the remnant of the house of Israel, who have been borne by me from before your birth, carried from the womb; even to your old age I am he, and to gray hairs I will carry you.  I have made you, and I will bear; I will carry and I will save. Isaiah 46:3-4

 

 

 

 

Choosing Peace

Last night my hubby wasn't able to be home until after 9:00pm.  These evenings, where my 1-on-1 with the boys lasts until the very, very end, are usually pretty strife-filled.  We just get cranky with each other, and it goes downhill fast.  

But not last night.  Last night I went ahead and did the work of making a real supper, one of the few that my little boys love just as much as Andy and I do: homemade macaroni and cheese.  And it was ready when they got up from their naps, and we set up in the living room, and had family movie night with The Muppets, and they ate all their peas and earned ice cream, and afterward I washed the dishes while they peacefully created works of art on scratch-off paper.  

Peaceful.

That was the entire reason the flavor of the evening was so enjoyable.  And it's got me thinking again about the Peace that passes understanding, the only peace that has lasting effect and can change the flavor of...everything.  

"...the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.  Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you.  NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES DO I GIVE TO YOU.  Let not your hearts be troubled; neither let them be afraid." (John 14:26-27) "I have said these things to you that in me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation.  BUT TAKE HEART: I have overcome the world." (John 16:33) -Jesus

"To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace."  Romans 8:6 

If I can go ahead and discipline my mind to THINK on the Spirit, to CHOOSE the Peace that he offers me, even when I'm mad, even when I'm worried--ESPECIALLY right there where I'm mad, right there where I'm worried--then he offers me LIFE and PEACE.  I have to lay down my "right" to be mad, my "right" to be upset about what's going on around me--from screeching boys to ebola epidemics, from the impatience of waiting for a doctor's appointment to always wishing I had a breakfast chef--and choose to see what He shows me.  

His perspective brings peace, no matter what the chaos.

A New Song: Discovering the Holy Spirit, Part 1

setup "Learning How to Wait"  
background music "A New Song"
error of stoicism "Those who are with us are more than those who are with them" 2 kings 6:16

This is a story about getting to know the Holy Spirit.  Everybody's story is different, because God interacts with His us in ways perfectly suited to our individualities.  But this is mine, and I hope it encourages you.  

Soon after getting married, my husband and I took the new members' class offered at our church.  Ours is a non-denominational, whole-Bible believing, charismatic church.  It is the least "traditional" church either Andy or I have ever been a part of, but in the emphasis on Spirit-filled, whole-life worship, we recognized the opportunity to be stretched in new ways that have been very good for our spiritual growth over the past seven years.  

It was in that class that I first heard of the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" as something more than what I had yet experienced.  To make a distinction: when we say 'yes' to Jesus, immediately the Spirit lives in us, our Promise to remind us that yes, we now belong to Christ.  The baptism, on the other hand, may or may not happen at the start of our walk with Jesus, and is His pouring out of supernatural power on us to minister to other people or to testify of the work of Christ in and around us.  It is always given so that we may bring glory to God and build up the body of Christ--NEVER to seek glory for ourselves.  

Anyway, my initial reaction to this concept, after recognizing it throughout scripture, was essentially to feel gipped: how was it possible to have been a Christian for TWENTY YEARS and to never have HEARD of this thing?  I was raised to understand the Holy Spirit as a member of the trinity, but essentially irrelevant to the present-day Church.  And there are plenty of churches who treat the Spirit this way still--and even condemn the charismatic movement as being completely fabricated--but I need to tell you that those believers are missing out on Someone VITAL.  

And though we can't fully comprehend Him, He's actually not as weird as most of us have believed.  

Trust me.  I'm a skeptic.  

For many years after my conversion I never used any ready-made forms [of prayer] except the Lord's Prayer.  In fact I tried to pray without words at all--not to verbalise the mental acts.  Even in praying for others I believe I tended to avoid their names and substituted mental images of them.  I still think the prayer without words is the best--if one can really achieve it.  But I now see that in trying to make it my daily bread I was counting on a greater mental and spiritual strength than I really have.  To pray successfully without words one needs to be "at the top of one's form."  Otherwise the mental acts become merely imaginative or emotional acts--and a fabricated emotion is a miserable affair.  When the golden moments come, when God enables one really to pray without words, who but a fool would reject the gift?  But He does not give it--anyway not to me--day in, day out.  My mistake was what Pascal, if I remember rightly, calls "Error of Stoicism": thinking we can do always what we can do sometimes. 

-C. S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer