The shape of our lives

Yesterday the oldest sister and the littlest sister switched places.  Just for the day.  Our baby sister (who isn't really a baby anymore at eight years old) with her sparkling eyes, bouncy curls and sunny personality had been overheard telling people she "hated being the youngest of 14 kids"

When questioned why she would hate it, she always replied, "Cause everybody bosses me, and I don't get to boss anybody!"

EDIT: (We thought this dynamic might change when we got chickens, because at least she got to boss them, but when the chickens started dying, well....)

So for that reason, the youngest and the oldest traded jobs.  With (much) assistance, the youngest was sent to the office to do the payroll for the family business, was assigned to plan the menu, arrange the household chores and prepare the dinner.   We all thought it would be appropriate to balk and complain when asked to help, but the giggles and grins were hard to hide.

By the end of the day the littlest was frustrated and overtired.  I asked her what she thought about being the youngest of 14 now, and she hesitated before telling me that she thought it was okay.

"Then why are you crying?"

"Nobody knows who I am now!" she wailed, burying her head in my shoulder.

"Of course we know who you are!  You wanna know why you're frustrated?"

The curls bobbed up and down, indicating an affirmative answer.

"Well, you know that toy that our little nephew has with the different shaped holes, and the blocks that fit in it?"

She recognized the toy, even though my description was lacking.

"Do you ever notice how hard he tries to fit the wrong blocks into the holes, and how frustrated it makes him?  God made you the shape of who you are for a reason, and trying to fit your shape into another shaped hole is only going to make you frustrated!"

I'm not sure if she got the analogy, but I sure did.  I try so hard to be someone I'm not.  Today I'm going to be thankful for who I am.  Life works better that way.

I'm all about mantras

Yesterday marked the passing of another year of my life.  Something about it always makes me nostalgic, reflective and very excited.


(Note: while I do get excited about birthday cake, that's not exactly what I was referring to here.)


It's a chance for me to examine my life, think about where I've been, where I am and where I'm going. The whole ghost of Christmases past, present and future thing only without the ghosts and without Christmas.


We sat around the dinner table after a succulent Mediterranean style dinner debating who got spanked the most as a child, revisiting the past.  I shared a funny anecdote from my day, dwelling on the present - and now, today, I'm looking forward to what God has in store for me.

"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you, and not to harm you.  Plans to give you a hope and a future." -Jeremiah 29:11

Verses like that are good for days like this.

If I've learned anything about aging, it's that you can't reverse it.  You always have the future, and you always have the past, but the present is just here for a couple of blinks.

...So walk on the clouds today. Laugh at the frustrating things. Smile at jerks. And always remember that letting people bring you down to their level is never worth it.

I wake up in the morning after all this reflection and celebration and expect to feel different.  I still feel excited, I feel older, (but that could be from staying up to late and eating junky food) and I feel inspired to make this next year - just like the last - the best of my life. In a way I am different, but mostly, I'm still me.

I'm still learning.

That decision that was keeping me awake is still hanging in the air taunting me.  I've laid out a fleece before the Lord for direction, and I'm sure He's laughing at me as He tests my patience.

How much do you trust Me?
Not near enough.  The suspense is about to kill me, and He says, Wait a couple more days. 

So I'm waiting.  If I trusted Him enough I would lay my offering on the altar and walk away.  Instead I lay it down and circle around time and time again to see what He will do with it.

I know now that the decision is not mine to make.  I've done all I can and now it's up to Him to orchestrate the details and then make them known to me - but I keep checking back, wondering if I can figure out which way He's decided.

The thing about gifts is that once they're given, you have no say over what happens to them anymore.  If I've given my life to Christ, it's none of my concern how He chooses to use it.

When peace like a river attendeth my way, when sorrows like sea billows roll, whatever my lot Thou has taught me to say, it is well, it is well with my soul.


Not that sorrows are rolling in over my life or that the surface lies undisturbed by change, but whatever my lot, I'm learning that it's okay.  It's better than okay - it's good!

Timely words.

I tossed and turned all night, weighing a decision that I couldn't make.  Not that I couldn't make up my mind, but that it wasn't the right time to decide.

I laid a fleece (see the story of Gideon) before the Lord, and picked it back up again.

I want to make the right decision.  I want Your best.

I laid the fleece out again.

"Put it to rest"


But how?  Okay Father, I give it to You.  You know the end game - the future - aka, Your plan.  I know You want me to trust you with my future, and I do, but you also want me to be obedient, submissive - willing to accept whatever that may be.  How can I accept it if I don't know what it is?


Okay, so putting it to rest wasn't working out for me...

Eventually exhaustion won over the mental flip-flopping and I found myself asleep for awhile.

Until my alarm went off at 4:30.  I groaned.


Exactly why did I think getting up to make breakfast for Dad and the boys was a great idea at 8 o'clock last night?


I was already awake though, so I pushed off the bed, stumbled into the kitchen and stared at the coffee machine, willing it to start itself.   (It didn't work.)

30 minutes later the house was quiet and dark again, and my decision came back to wrestle with me some more.  With one side of my brain I was getting things together, lighting a candle, (just because I could) settling in with my coffee and blanket, snapping this picture and coming up with the caption.   The other side was jumping back and forth until finally I gave up.

Lord, how in the world am I supposed to know what to do!?  I threw the question up in the air before the two sides of my brain caught up to each other and I read what I was writing under the picture I had just taken.

"Thy Word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path"

So excuse me while I go light up this trail I'm traveling on.

Edit: I'm afraid of the dark.  Really.  The verse from Psalms 119 always reminds me of this memory that I have of walking down a trail when I was little and using my flashlight to penetrate the thick darkness ahead, all the while tripping and stumbling, because I wasn't watching my feet - until my older sister pointed out that I really only needed to see the path where me feet were landing... the rest wasn't important at the moment.  

Life. It's good today.

I've had this song stuck in my head for 5 days now.   The message is great - the words, not so much.  I've had to catch myself several times to avoid singing it out loud, because it has words that are unbecoming for me to say.

I've got my toes in the water .......my <something else> in the sand.  Not a worry in the world, a cold beer in my hand -  life is good today.... yeah, life is good today.
It started playing through my mind on Saturday.  I was on a surfboard, bobbing up and down in the line up, waiting for a set to come through.

Life is good today

"As if it isn't good any other day of the week?" I asked myself.

A morning fish fry on the beach with the family gathered around - goofing off, playing silly games, running races and making up competitions - followed by a afternoon surf session.  Not everyday events, but definitely nothing out of the ordinary.

"Okay so maybe 'today' is good" I concluded.  "But that doesn't mean that tomorrow's 'today' won't be great too!"

Cut to Sunday afternoon when I've finally gotten around to washing my car, inside and out.  The sun is shining down, drying the soap suds before I have a chance to rinse them off and as I'm standing there with my feet in a puddle of soapy water the song starts up again.

I've got my toes in the water, my <hmmm> in the sand...... Life is good today.


And again on Monday, laying in the grass with my little brother after working out with him.

And Tuesday evening, doing the dinner dishes with my family in the new kitchen.

In the song, the singer is on vacation in Mexico when he decides that life is good, but it's when he runs out of money and has to go back to work that he learns the good things in life aren't dependent on location or circumstance.  Life is what you make of it.

Today at work I was walking through the warehouse, listening to the birds singing and smelling the rain when I was reminded again.

Life is good today.

Worth the drive

The twelve of us huddled around a table in the lodge, the early morning light streaming through the windows. Other skiers and snowboarders strolled by, sending us curious glances and occasionally staring for longer than was polite.

6am is an early hour for a Sunday morning, but the coffee cups on the table made up for the early part, and the anticipated day on the slopes made up for the drive.

We took turns reading from John 15 around the circle.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love."

"If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love."

"My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you."

(I already knew I wasn't gonna like this topic. Not that I have anything against it, but I've come to see more and more lately how bad I am at loving.)

We started to discuss what that looked like. What it means to love someone - and not just anyone, but to love the body of Christ.

Oh good. I'm in the clear with that one. I'm good at loving my friends. Or I thought, anyways. As we dug deeper into the Word, my conscience was pricking me harder and harder.

"Love is sacrifice."

"Love is wanting the best for someone even if its the hard thing."

"Love is intervention, sometimes."

"Love is desiring to grow spiritually- pursuing spiritual gifts - just for the benefit of the other members of the body."

They were all right, you know. I don't think we completely summed up what it is to actually love one another in our 20 minute Bible study, but I came away convicted and challenged and encouraged.

So it was worth it after all. The getting up early, the long drive - yep. It was worth it. Going all the way up the mountain and not snowboarding, because they wouldn't change our tickets after all - yep, totally worth it.

Oh, and then there's that last verse - the one that I've been mulling over for days now.

"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."

If life had a "rewind" option...

Yesterday was a good day. The late afternoon sun streamed through the open windows while the family gathered in the kitchen to discuss the events of the work day behind us and the evening ahead of us.

I could get used to evenings like this I remember thinking to myself. My family does a lot. We go a lot of places, host a lot of people, do a lot of things - but that evening, it was just us for a little while. Different ones would be going out, and some others weren't home, making it not quite a family evening, just a quiet one. Nobody to cook for, nobody to entertain.

I wandered into the bedroom only to hear voices out the window. Peeking through the curtain I could see our new neighbor walking around the yard, giving her young nephew a tour.

We'd met her 4 days ago at church, and after spending the whole day with us, this was her third time back in just 4 days.

In my mind I played out scenarios where someone could take her aside and tell her that she was welcome to come to church on Sunday, but all the other days of the week she should give our family some space.

To be honest, those thoughts shocked me. Shocked and disgusted me. I wanted to take them back, but there they were, glaring at me, accusing me, revealing where my heart stood on the matter.

"You wanna meet my Pastor and his wife?" I heard her ask her nephew, a hint of pride in her voice.

His answer must have been affirmative, because soon I heard my parents greeting her from the kitchen, their welcome sincere.

Ashamed of my own heart, I drug my feet back into the kitchen in time to see her back, as she carried her nephew away.

"We're a novelty to her" I commented to my dad.

"Hmm?"

I ran out of words to explain it so my dad took it up.

"She likes it here. She get attention and she feels accepted."

If she only knew... you wanted to send her away. My conscience accused me.

Today I read in Colossians 3 the exhortation that says:

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive... forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues, put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.

I just hope I'll have another opportunity to show Christ's love to our new friend. And I hope I won't screw it up.