A Valentine From God

 

 

The Bible mentions the topic of "forgiveness" 45 times. It talks about "love" 143 times and "joy" 55 times.

 

In a world that can be so hard & hateful & mean & spiteful & sarcastic & negative & deceitful, I would think it would be the other way around - shouldn't we be reminded to forgive those people who are so unloving and unjoyful more often than we're told to love them?

 

We've been hurt. Oh, how our hearts hurt. We yearn for love. For acceptance. And we've been wronged. Just let us pull out our lists. These lists as long as our arms and chiseled in stone on our hearts. These hurts that it will take a miracle to erase. We're broken. We're hurt. We need to forgive, but can we forgive when these wounds still burn? When these scars still feel so fresh? Surely we need to be taught how to forgive.

 

But...God. Is. Love. The very embodiment of it. You can't get more loving than Him. And He lives inside of us.

 

GOD lives inside us.

 

LOVE lives inside us.

 

If we are truly living love, then everything else takes a backseat. LOVE overshadows everything else. JOY flows from that love. Not happiness. JOY.

 

Joy. Comes. From. Love.

 

It's a direct result. Without love, you can't have joy. You may think you can. Success. Recognition. Fame. Honor. All these can make us feel "happy" for awhile.

 

But does any of it last? No - it's temporal, temporary, terrestrial. It doesn't bring long-lasting, eternal joy. Only love can do that.

 

And what about forgiveness? God knows we need it and need to give it. Could it be that if God-Love truly dwells in our hearts, truly sits on that throne in the center of our hearts, not pride, not hurt, not self, if LOVE truly dwells there, the need for forgiveness diminishes because we're so full of love & joy we don't have time or energy to count, catalog, and categorize the wrongs done to us?

 

Because sometimes isn't LOVE itself a form of forgiveness?

 

"Love keeps no record of wrongs."

 

Why do we want to keep that record? Why do we so quickly compile a list of all that negativity - all the hurt & anger & bitterness? How is that love?

 

Why would I voluntarily carry that load I've been instructed to set down? It weighs me down, hurts my back, bends my head from the weight. And as my head is bent, where am I looking?

 

Down. Earth. Temporal. My feet. Self.

 

This record of wrongs keeps me from looking up. From seeing LOVE. From giving LOVE. From living LOVE.

 

Who is on that throne then? Who is at the center of my heart then? Self. And the record of wrongs. Love is de-throned so I can focus on all the wrongs done to me. All the hurt & anger & bitterness & betrayal & everything that LOVE isn't, that GOD isn't.

 

It can't be both.

 

I can't claim Love, walk under His banner, AS His banner of Love with anything but LOVE at the center of my heart, seated on that throne.

 

God-Love Must. Take. Center.

 

When Love truly fills me, there is no room for anything else:

 

• I can speak beautifully but WITHOUT LOVE I. Am. Nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:1)
• I can know all the theology but WITHOUT LOVE I. Am. Nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:2)
• I can tithe but WITHOUT LOVE I. Am. Nothing. (1 Corinthians 13:3)
• LOVE suffers. As. Long. As. It. Takes.
• LOVE shows/lives Kindness.
• LOVE is not envious.
• LOVE is not proud.
• LOVE is not self-seeking.
• LOVE is not rude.
• LOVE is not out for itself but OTHERS.
• LOVE doesn't have a quick temper.
• LOVE doesn't automatically jump to the worst conclusion.
• LOVE never rejoices in evil.
• LOVE is truthful.
• LOVE IS IDEALISTIC ("bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things").
• LOVE NEVER FAILS.

Love is Outward and Upward Focused.

 

There is no room for prideful, selfish self in Love.

 









Coffee Shop Musings

School had a two hour delay this week because of the snow "storm" that hit Georgia. Most teachers would be more excited about this than the kids. My co-workers all hopped back into their nice warm beds and grabbed some extra sleep. Unfortunately, my husband & I live out in the boonies where cell phone reception is sparse at best. As we pulled out of our driveway, fully awake and fully dressed, my cell phone blipped. There it was: "Two hour delay." Sent 40 minutes ago.

I was frustrated. Not frustrated that I couldn't go back to bed. Not frustrated that I now had two hours to fill and nothing to do. Frustrated that my lesson plans would be thrown off. I plan my lessons one to two weeks in advance. I like to know what's coming and where we're going at all times. I enjoy routine and schedules, and when that schedule is thrown off, I do not cope well.

It's at times like this that I wonder how my poor husband puts up with me. The first words out of his mouth were, "How about we go into town and get some coffee and bagels?" My reaction? Negativity. How could I possibly enjoy coffee and bagels with the love of my life when my routine had been changed? Make the best out of a bad situation? How could that possibly be my first reaction? He tried again. It took three tries before I begrudgingly agreed to spend our two hours together, sipping coffee.

We walked into the coffee shop, inhaling the warm, welcoming fragrance of freshly ground coffee beans. We were the only patrons. What else is to be expected at 7:45 a.m. when the mountains of northeast Georgia have seen an inch of snow and ice?

Jon had brought Scrabble. My favorite. Yet in my stubbornness, I was still determined to show why this was the worst possible outcome for my day. Isn't that how it always goes? When something goes wrong, our first instinct is focus on self. How will this effect ME? MY day? MY plans?

It's disgusting, really. And even recounting it here makes me feel ill. Why is that? Why is it that we can sing all the right songs, read all the right verses, say all the right things, but when push comes to shove, when the rubber hits the road, when we have to put our money where our mouths are, we fall, and we fall hard.

All that I was missing was my first period class that snowy, icy morning, sipping coffee with my soulmate. The solution turned out to be me typing up the notes for each student, and we were able to move right along. On schedule. No delays. No worries. Definitely not worth the time I spent speaking negativity.

So how did I make the leap from snowpocalypse to serenity? Somewhere in-between the vanilla chai and playing "zaps" for 45 points. As I listened to the soft, acoustic, slightly-hipster worship music, sipped my chai, and watched the most amazing man I could ever have asked for knit his brows in concentration over a Scrabble game.

The sun gradually came up outside, dazzling the pure white snow into an unparalleled glory. My anger and frustration melted away, my brain finally basking in the glory of this moment: sip by sip, play by play, minute by minute.

Who knows how many precious minutes we have on this earth? And when all is said and done, who will care one iota if my first period class got to see my PowerPoint on ancient Greek theater? They sure don't. But, and I pray God gives me enough years to make this so, when I am old and gray, maybe, just maybe, I'll look back at that morning: remember the sips of coffee, the strum of the guitar, the glow of the light, the shine of the snow, the love of a husband.

Isn't that just what Jesus was all about? Pulling people from their schedules. Pulling them from their routines. Their safety zones. Their plans. "As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him" (Matthew 9:9). I'm sure Matthew had a schedule that day. He had taxes to calculate. Meetings to hold. Money to make. A job to do. But Jesus called him to something better. Sweeter. And Matthew simply got up and left. Left his job. Left his schedule. Left his plans. For something better. For the Master.

I would love to know Matthew's thoughts at that moment. Unfortunately, the Bible leaves it to our imagination. Did Matthew question what he was doing? Was it an old-fashioned kick in the pants by the Holy Spirit? Did he wonder who would take over his client list? Reschedule the meetings? Or did he just go? Freely. Joyfully.

Oh, Lord, let it be so with me. Next time, please don't let me waste even seconds of the time entrusted to me. Time with the ones I love. Time to rejoice. Time to serve You. Time to relax. Time to just be.

Be still. While the music plays. While the game plays on. While the time ticks by. Be still.
And know.

Soaring With the Osprey

As a new year begins, it's customary to look back at the last year and see what goals have been accomplished and what dreams have been realized. As with anything nostalgic in nature, looking back at one year often turns into looking back on several until one is contemplating one's entire existence. This happened to me this morning as I sat with my coffee and looked out at the gray first day of January 2014. And I realized that most of my life can be summed up in one word. I wish it were something deep like Transcendence or Illuminating. I'd even settle for something like Peaceful or Faithful. No, the word that best sums me up is a negative one: Fear.

We all have it. We all avoid it. We all ignore it. But it's there just the same, like the Boogeyman hiding in our closet or under the bed. This Boogeyman hides away until just the right time, and then when our faith is lowest and our souls the weakest, he pops out from hiding to terrorize us just as the dark did when we were children.

Fear.

Fear has dominated my life for much more than I care to admit and much longer than it ever should have.

Fear.

As with all things not of God, this particular vice seems quite paradoxical when looked at in clear terms.

Fear of failure. Fear of success.

Fear of rejection. Fear of acceptance.

Fear of not being generous enough. Fear of being too generous.

Fear of not living life to the fullest. Fear of death.

Fear of comparison. Fear of not measuring up.

Fear of not speaking out. Fear of saying too much.

In the dark of our weakness, fear seems insurmountable, a mountain we will never even climb much less leave behind. This Boogeyman knows just what to say to defeat us, hold us captive, take our eyes off Christ.

That's what it all comes down to, I realized, watching an osprey glide through the air, coming in for a landing to his nest built high in a tree by the lake. The Enemy will use anything at all to take our eyes off Christ, and once we've looked away, he will throw every temptation, every fear, every distraction our way to keep us looking in the wrong direction. Some people glance away for a moment, some for a day, some for years. But it all comes down to looking away.

Taking our eyes off the cross. Taking our eyes away from the Master. That's when the distractions come roaring in: How will we pay this bill? When did I stop fitting into those jeans? When did she stop talking to us? The Enemy has a never-ending supply of ammunition, custom-made for each one of us.

And with all things, Christ knew this would happen. "But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me." (2 Corinthians 12:9)

I shouldn't fear my weaknesses; I should rejoice in them. Because only then can His strength be made perfect in me. As soon as I take my eyes off the cross, I am no longer dependent on Him; I rely on myself, and as I have shown myself time and time again, that is not how I want to live.

MY grace is sufficient. Not my best laid plans. Not my 401K. Not my nicely organized list. His grace. Grace. Unearned. Undeserved. Given freely no matter how many times I glance away like the wayward child I am.

So this year, I commit to living focused on Him. Focused on the cross. Focused on the Savior. I want to soar with that osprey. He had no fear this morning. No worries. He had a goal he was focused on, and that led him. If I'm focused on the Savior, that should lead me. Not my fears. Not the distractions. I want to live this year without fear. Without having to look back on the time wasted by worrying. I want to soar about the worries, above the noise, above the distractions. And God willing, with my eyes focused on the Master, I will do exactly that.

You can too! Keep your eyes trained on Him. Focus on the cross. Focus on forgiveness. Focus on living without fear. Soar.

Sanity is the Playground of the Unimaginative

This past weekend, my husband and I completed our first "home improvement" project in our new home. The task: the kitchen. The previous owners of our beautiful home loved the color sea green. So do I. But not as much as they did. And since the kitchen and dining room are connected, you can have a double-dose anytime you want to cook anything.

The kitchen wall "before."

 



Two trips to Home Depot later, Jon & I were the proud owners of Rust-o-leum Chalkboard paint and have a beautiful wall that can be a piece of artwork any day of the week. We plan on doing a seasonal theme and change the background accordingly. Not too bad for our first rodeo...

The finished product!

A cute mouse peeps from the vacuum plug

A bluebird sings from the light switches

My signature ladybug checks out my smaller chalkboard

Vines and roses adorn my wine rack

This quote from Erma Bombeck seemed perfect: "When I stand before God at the end of my life, I hope I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, 'I used everything you gave me.'"

A Scathingly Brilliant Idea

I recently had what my mother & I have come to affectionately call, "A scathingly brilliant idea," a term stolen from the Haley Mills classic movie, The Trouble With Angels. This is an idea that we would expect to read on Pinterest and not one we would actually think would come out of our humble heads. These ideas usually come to us after the moment of opportunity has passed us by and then we lament our misfortune and promise to look harder next time. However, perhaps the tides of creative talent are beginning to turn as I recently, as stated above, had a scathingly brilliant idea and had it in time to act upon it.

My husband & I had a swivel spice rack that was given to me as a birthday present several years ago. While some spices were used up immediately, others sat, waiting for the perfect recipe that never came. The other night, I realized that these spices had, somewhere along the line, gotten moisture in them and were too clumpy to use anymore. Saddened, I racked my brain furiously for a way to repurpose the spice rack and came up empty handed. I sat it by the trash can to be taken out the next day. Next morning, I had an epiphany...my scathingly brilliant idea...the first one I've been able to act on before the trash man came.



 

 

I emptied out each jar of its decrepit spices and ran them through the dishwasher. Next, I cut out scrapbooking paper and covered up the spice labels on the lids. (You could use contact paper if you wanted so you could label each lid of its contents if you wanted).

 

 

 

 

I filled each jar with my craft materials of the moment: mostly earring backs and beads, but so many things could work here! Needles, thread, buttons, necklace clasps...the possibilities are endless!

 

So now that you've seen my scathingly brilliant idea, please share it! Keep an eye out for spice racks at yard sales! And when all else fails, threaten your creative mind with throwing something away, and perhaps you'll jog some scathingly brilliant ideas of your own! 

 



 

 



Moving Forward

"We keep moving forward, opening new doors, and doing new things, because we're curious, and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths." ~Walt Disney

My husband and I bought our first house in 2012. Purely by accident. We had no intention of actually buying a home. Looking at houses on-line was just another way to spend the evening: creating folders, scanning through pictures, and visualizing our furniture in various rooms. Then we saw it. Our dream home. Beautiful. Perfect. The perfect number of bedrooms, the perfect kitchen, a basement, a fireplace, a dishwasher (#1 on my list of home "must-haves"), and even a room for my piano. It was a foreclosure selling for 40% of its appraisal value. We decided to get our feet wet in the homebuying experience and scheduled a walk-through. Again, not thinking anything would come of it; we figured it would be a good learning experience. As we walked through the home, however, our readiness to critique and criticize quickly turned to, "What's wrong with this house? There's got to be something wrong with this house." Even the realtor was amazed. 

As I stood on the screened-in back porch, I started praying. Praying for guidance, praying for wisdom, praying for peace. People who know me well know that making huge decisions is not in my genetic make-up. My brain fizzles out or goes on "tilt" like an old pinball machine. "What should we eat for dinner?" No worries. "Can we afford a mortgage?" Brain explodes. I was afraid. Afraid of making the wrong decision, afraid of the unknown. I won't bore you with the trifling details, but we signed the papers and now own our own home...or will in 30 years when the mortgage is paid off. 

The moral of the story? Fear is a powerful thing. Fear of acceptance, fear of rejection, fear of the known, fear of the unknown. Anything we fear has power over us. It takes power over our mind and thoughts and actions. Fear holds us back. Maybe that's why Timothy went out of his way to remind us, "For God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, and of self-discipline" (2 Timothy 1:7). God wants us to move forward in faith, but Satan uses our fear to control us, to manipulate us, to hold us back. Fear of a loved one's death, fear of being laughed at, fear of our fat jeans not fitting us. The process of buying a house was the scariest thing I've encountered thus far in my journey called life. I was so afraid of not being able to make our bills, not being able to eat, not being able to live. Even after Jon & I sat down and crunched the numbers, I was still afraid. Afraid of the unknown and what lay around the bend in the road out of my line of sight. 

Typical, right? If the person in the horror movie could see what was going bump in the night, the movie wouldn't be scary. If we could see the outcome of each scary situation in our lives, we wouldn't fear. Seems great, right? So why can't it be like that? Take a look back at 2 Timothy. God gives us a spirit of power, love, and self-discipline. If we could see what was around the bend in the road, why would we need to be powerful? No need to overpower if there's no problem. No need to act in love if we knew everything would end up all hunky-dory in the end. No need to have self-discipline if we knew there was a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Power, God's power, sustains us when we want to be afraid. Love wraps us up tight and lets us know we're safe. Self-discipline makes us cling to what we know is true, even when things are going bump in the night all around us. We discipline our minds to seek God and rest in Him. The opposite of fear is faith. Faith is the tool God uses to refine us. Fear is the tool Satan uses to manipulate us. Don't be afraid. Move forward. Past the bumps in the night. Around the bend in the road. Into God's future for you. 


Please take a look through a few pictures of our new home. I'm not done by a long shot. 

The living room fireplace with our classics displayed above.

My cookbook/coffee/tea shelf in the kitchen.

The downstairs bathroom wallpaper screamed "Asian" decor to me...

My Music Room! Soon to come: the Beatles Abbey Road poster.

Our bedroom - I love waking up to all the natural light!

The living room - this was actually taken on our first walkthrough before we moved in; thus, the barenness.

Jon's & my dream kitchen

 

With All There Is, Why Settle For Just A Piece of Sky?

 

Two years ago, I lost my job as a teacher at a local Christian school. It hit me harder than I thought it would. My husband was shocked that the job I came home so often stressed about could cause me that much heartache. Sure, I was overworked. Sure, the kids could be disrespectful, lazy, and infuriating. Sure, it got old seeing parents not being able to accept that their child would get a 0 on an assignment because they hadn't turned it in. But it was the job I loved to do. It was what I had spent four years in college training for. It was where I felt like I was making a difference. When that letter came in the mail, dismissing me from my duties because the worsened economy made it too difficult to keep me, I was crushed. This blog was born out of those feelings: the helplessness, the struggle, the hope.

It was hope that kept me going: hope that a new job, a better job, would open up for me. Of course, I hoped it was teaching, but in those hectic, chaotic days of 2010, I just wanted to pay my bills and would take anything. I put in applications everywhere: every school and preschool in town, administrative assistant, secretary, cashier, nanny, I tried them all. Just as I was about to lose hope, I was hired as a nanny for two beautiful children who lived in South Carolina, a good 30-45 minutes away from where we live in Georgia. The commute coupled with the work load of nanny/housekeeper/cook/taxi driver was very demanding and started taking a toll on my health. When a job as a customer service representative opened up 8 minutes away from home, I leaped at it. It was not in my field, but who needs a degree to answer phones and take orders? It paid the bills. It had insurance. But still there was that hope. Hope that something better was coming. And so two years have passed. Let me tell you something: you can be thankful for your job and not be thrilled doing it. I am a firm believer that God can use us wherever He puts us, but it sure doesn't feel like you're making much of an eternal impact selling wood products all day, getting fussed at by customers because an item they want to be in-stock isn't, or getting fussed at because their credit card won't go through. (In fact, it's rather like dealing with problem students once they're grown up; you just can't put them in detention). But you keep plodding because you have to. You keep going. Our reasons for continuing on are different: sometimes because the only other choice is to lay down and die. But there is always hope. Hope for something better. Hope for the future. Hope that our God hasn't forgotten us. Sometimes it feels like we're barely hanging on, that we're trapped, and that there is no light at the end of a very, very long tunnel. That's when the fight is the hardest. We feel like we're fighting for everything: fighting to keep our heads above water, fighting to stay cheerful, fighting to stay positive, just plain fighting to live. Our hope feels like it's almost gone. Maybe our God really has forgotten about us or thinks we haven't suffered enough yet. Maybe what we think we can bear & what God thinks we can bear are two completely different things. Maybe our dreams will stay just those and never come to fruition. And this is something I truly believe: when God has gotten you to the point that you are resolved to that future (whether it be the one you dreamed of or not), He will rescue you. He may rescue you by removing you from the situation, or He may give you the means to stand up under the trials & tribulations. It's what my husband calls "the death of the dream." We have to get past the mourning for the dream, past the anger that we don't have the dream, past the self-pity that we aren't living the dream. We have to truly be OK with the idea that the dream may never come true, and then God reveals the next step of His plan.

My rescue came in the form of a phone call. A school I had applied to two years ago when I first lost my job contacted me out of a clear blue sky and asked if I was still interested in teaching with them. Two years ago, they didn't have any teaching positions open. Suddenly, there was one. That's all. One. Anyone who has been keeping even half an eye on unemployment statistics in the past few years knows that the market is flooded with teachers right now. Right after my school let go of me and 6 other teachers, another local school let go of 150. A few months after that, the local high school fired all first & second year teachers due to cutbacks in the budget. Several hundred teachers. One position. I could have pessimistically said, "Yeah, right. What are the chances?" and not even tried. But I did. I tried. I stepped out in faith. I had hope. I let the glimmer of the dream raise its head. And I got it. Words cannot describe the relief, the joy, the hope experienced in that moment. I got home that day, and my husband met me at the door. He is my best friend and has been at my side through thick & thin in my job drama. "Did you get it, baby?" he asked excitedly. I opened my mouth and tried to speak, but just started crying. Taking my reaction as a resounding no, he started to console me thinking I'd been turned down. I was finally able to hiccup out an, "I got it!" And as he twirled me around the living room, the story came out that it was so much better than I could have imagined: I was offered a job teaching my dream set of classes: senior English, 8th grade English, music, & drama. I would've taken anything, but for me to not only get my dream job but to get to teach every single class I love was beyond comprehension. It gets better: this isn't a regular school. This is a Christian recovery camp for teens in crisis. When their parents don't know where to turn, they send their kids here for a year-long program to get them back on the right track. This isn't just a Christian school in name where you can't tell the difference between them and the public school. Each classroom has a teacher's aide to help with discipline. Discipline is enforced. If a student is disrespectful, instead of an obligatory trip to the principal's office that accomplishes nothing, they do some push-ups, wall-sits, or write sentences. They can learn and recover and discover who God made them to be in this environment. Humorously, when I was offered the job, the administration kept carefully pointing out "negatives" so that I wouldn't have any misconceptions about the job: "The pay isn't as good as public schools..." "That's OK, I've never taught at one so I don't know what they pay anyway." "OK, well, we don't give entire summers off, so there isn't as much time off as you would normally get..." "It's more than the 7 holidays I get off per year now, so anything is an improvement." "Well, we don't really have a classroom for you, so you'll have to float a bit..." "I would teach out in the cow pasture if you needed me to."

And that leads me to my conclusion: I think God allows us to go through times of trials and tribulations so that when a dream is finally realized, it is all the more sweeter. No regrets. No question in our minds. My hiatus from teaching, forced though it was, helped me see that it truly is my calling and my passion. I didn't feel like I was making much of an eternal impact for God's Kingdom fighting with people over whether or not their credit card was declined. But teaching, and teaching where I can actually make a difference in kids' lives for their eternal betterment, is a blessing I never thought I would have again. It was hard. There were times I thought the dream was dead and hope was gone. At times it was just an ember, barely glowing under the ashes, but in God's timing, it burst forth into flame and rose from those ashes to start anew. Please know that, friend: no matter where you are in life, God has you right there for His purpose and for His glory. Hold on to that hope, that dream. He planted it in your heart! He wants to see you rise! Maybe you have a bit more refining to do in that fire; maybe your dream is about to be accomplished right around the corner. Don't give up! What He has in mind is so much better than anything we could have ever dreamed!

This blog is named for a song from the Barbra Streisand movie Yentl, called "A Piece of Sky." In the movie, Yentl, played by Streisand, has gone through many trials and tribulations of her own, simply to be granted the right to study, which is forbidden to her because she's a woman. I highly recommend watching it, so I won't give anything away, but the last song of the movie is one that never ceases to make me cry while at the same time encouraging me on to bigger and better things. This song played in my mind constantly when I first lost my job, and now it plays in my mind again: an anthem of sorts leading me into my new day and new chapter. Please enjoy listening to it below, and remember, even in your darkest time, your Rescuer is right around the corner. He wants to watch you fly.