Category: 2011 Posts

Posted on in 2011 Posts

Forgiven, Fun-Loving and Free to Be Me!

I think we’ve all had times where we feel as though we don’t fit in and as though we have people all around us judging every step we take.  It’s not fun to have these feelings, but I think if we can believe in who we are as Children of the King, we no longer need to be bound by what others think.  Rather, we can be confident and know God created us exactly as we are and He thinks we’re wonderful!  He might not always like what we do, but He loves who we are and has great hopes and dreams for our futures.

When my two older kids were in grades 3 and 5, I got fed up with the public school system and decided to move them to a private Christian school.  I would’ve never had the patience or discipline to do home-schooling and this seemed to be a good alternative.  The school we joined was made up of a core group of kids that had been together since kindergarten along with a few here and there like us who had joined somewhere along the way.  Often, when someone had a child with issues, parents sent them to the Christian school as if it were a cure-all for their problems.  So when my kids started, I felt as though the other parents were watching us and our children trying to decide if these were more troubled children who had joined them or if we were truly there for a Christian education.

My son probably didn’t help the situation because he knew they were all wondering about us so he decided to egg it on a bit.  One time when I picked him up for a dentist appointment, he told his classmates that he was going down to juvenile detention for his counseling appointment just to get a rise out of everyone! In a small school, word gets around fast and I found myself having to
defend my son later because of course, we actually did just go to the dentist.  As time went on, it was interesting as everyone began to get to know us and realize we weren’t exactly trouble-makers like they may have originally thought.  However, we didn’t leave the place without putting our mark on it either!

Rob and his friend, Shaun, were 8th graders and their basketball team was going into tournaments for the championship.  They came home one day and said they wanted to shave their heads.  They told me the entire team had decided to do it for the championship game.  I didn’t see that a little baldness could hurt anyone, but I thought are you sure everyone is doing this?  I
don’t think they cared if anyone else did it or not, but these two were determined to make their mark as they left their school and headed towards high school the following year.

Shaun assured me that his mom was OK with it and so after picking them up from school one day, we drove to their friend’s house who owned some clippers to shave the two heads.  When we arrived his parents weren’t there so I just stayed in the living room while the boys went upstairs and created their new look!  Boy was I in trouble!  I didn’t think my husband would care, but he  did.  And when Shaun called his mom to tell her what he’d done, I could hear her cries from across the room.  Oops.  Shaun  thought his mom said OK!

It ended up that no one else’s parents on the team would allow them to shave their heads so it was Rob and Shaun, once again, making a statement!  They didn’t seem to mind though since they were not all that concerned with what others thought about them.  It made for a lot of laughs after everyone got over the shock and we had a lot of fun with it.

I look at that situation and think about the times in our Christian walks that we worry so much about what others think that we forget to have some fun in life.  Christians and their rules sometimes produce the most stoic, boring people I know!  Of course, we need to follow God’s rules and live a righteous life, but what about the fun?  Do you think others will want to be Christians if we ourselves can’t even enjoy the simple things in life?

We need to never forget that God has a sense of humor too.  He created us didn’t He?  Seriously, He shows His sense of humor for  example, in children don’t you think?  He could’ve had us all be born acting like adults, but He didn’t.  He gave us all cute chubby faces that spend way more time laughing and smiling as children than we ever do as adults.  He gives us teeth, and then allows them to all fall out.  As adults we would be horrified, but as children, it’s just life.  I don’t know about you, but I think it’s funny to see little 6 year olds running around without their front teeth without a care in the world!  How freeing is that?

I may be 50 now, but I hope I never lose the desire for fun in my life even in my old age.  I pray that I never become the person that  can’t find the humor or feel free to do something wild and crazy just for the fun of it!  I don’t ever want to become so judgmental in my Christian walk that I spend my life worrying about what others are doing or not doing; rather, I want to be free to be the person God created me to be.  It may not be perfect or normal, but it is me.  So for now, I’m going to hang onto the 3 F’s in my life and rejoice because I’m Forgiven, Fun-loving, and Free to be me!  I sure hope you can find them in your life as well!

As a side note, it was inevitable that Rob and Shaun would shave their heads whether I helped in the process or not.  They are both currently abroad, serving their country as soldiers in the Army National Guard.  Today in their 30’s they still don’t have much hair!

Posted on in 2011 Posts

Reflections of a 49 year, 363 Day Old Woman

I originally had Reflections of a 50 Year Old Woman as my title, but since I want to hang onto the 49 year old badge as long as I can, I decided to change it a bit!  It’s hard for me to believe that I can actually be that old!  It seems as though being the baby of the family I thought I would never get old.  I thought my siblings only did since they are all much older than me, but not me. However, this is affecting me, as now I feel as though I’m joining the old lady club or something!  Last week I even took a knitting class because I want to be the best old lady I can be and it just seemed fitting I should know how to knit!

Approaching such a huge milestone in my life, I have been spending some time looking back on my life and reviewing.  What am I happy with?  What could I have done better?  What is it I still need to do?  I am typically one of those people who live with little regrets, but even then I have some.  Most of the time, if I want to do something, I find a way to make it happen.  If I feel God telling me to do something, I try to be obedient.  If I have a problem with something or someone, I try to resolve it so that I can get on with my life and not be bogged down by the little things.

As I look back, my teens were fun but filled with things I can’t mention in this blog.  I was all about the social life and parties, etc.  Then in my 20’s I found myself married with two kids and just trying to raise my young family.  I remember when I turned 29, it was a traumatic time…I lost a lot of weight, spiked my hair, etc.  I would say that was my year for a crisis!  Luckily it was short lived and then I was fine!  In my 30’s I was building my business and all about being successful.  When I was 36, my husband left and I was divorced, so my 40’s literally brought me into a new beginning!  When I was 40, I married my husband, Jim, and moved to Cincinnati to join him and his two kids since mine were grown and moved out or off to college.  In 6 short months from the time we met, I had a new town, new husband, 2 more kids, new home, and a new job!  I remember driving towards downtown Cincinnati in the mornings towards my job and being in shock as to how I got there in this big city with all this traffic.  Sometimes I can be so spontaneous it even catches me off guard!

Now as I am entering into my 50’s, I’m feeling the need to reflect.  I’ve been scanning my bucket list in my mind wondering if there was anything I haven’t done yet that was on it!  One of my hearts desires for many years was to write a book.  This past year, God slowed me down a lot and in the process, I finished my first writing!  It is being looked over by some trusted advisors and I hope to soon have it out for everyone to enjoy!  As a matter of fact, I’ve already begun thinking about my next book and am trying to compile the outline for it so I can begin it soon.  I’ve spent all these years dreaming, but now it is finally becoming a reality.  Soon there will be another checkmark on my bucket list!

I had a dream last night that I was a passenger in a boat and someone else was guiding me through treacherous waters.  Every so many feet, a shark or other scary creature would come up and make an ugly face at me to try to scare me.  Typically I would be screaming, but in the dream, I was just as calm as could be as the driver of the boat took me through the sea of monsters. I watched as we weaved in and out of all kinds of obstacles, keeping afloat all the way. When I woke up this morning, I knew today was my day to blog and as I reflected on my dream, I knew exactly what it meant.

When I was 16, I went to the Bahamas with my parents and a friend for a week.  On that trip, we went deep-sea fishing.  How I love to fish out on the open ocean!  It’s so much fun!  That particular trip, I actually caught a shark—one of the most dangerous creatures of the sea.  It took me quite some time to reel in the 6 foot baby, mon-eating shark.  That’s not a typo.  I was in the Bahamas, and that’s what the guy called it—not a man-eating; rather, a mon-eating!  I was so excited to finally get the shark up to the boat only to find out our guide would not let me bring it in the boat.  I kept begging him to let me take it back, but he wouldn’t.  I wanted one of those pictures of me on the dock with this dangerous fish that was bigger than me hanging upside-down so I could show all of my friends!  He said it could attack one of us so he put it back into the waters after all that work of me fighting the beast and finally reeling it in.  That was my first experience with sharks.  As a young person, it was exciting to be face to face with such an exciting animal.  Even though I felt fear, I had more excitement than anything since the part of my brain that says, this animal might hurt you wasn’t fully developed at that point!  This somewhat reflected all of my life decisions being made at that point.

Then in my mid 20’s to 30’s, I became well aware of sharks and their dangers.  Not in a literal way though this time.  But as we were raising a family and building a business, I was swimming with sharks daily.  They were trying to devour me every step I took, but I just pushed though with persistence and tenacity to get to the other side without them hurting me.  I would spend long hours awake some nights worrying and strategizing about out how I was going to win against them in the days ahead.  When I entered my 40’s I was still fighting them, but I was beginning to depend less on my abilities and look more towards God’s guidance and protection.  I was learning that even though I might fight and fight, I get nowhere without God.  He had shown me in the past few years, how I can depend on Him for all things that came my way—the big sharks and baby sharks alike.

Now as I am entering my 50’s, I think I have it figured out.  No longer do I need to fight off the enemy or swim faster to escape harm.  I just simply find myself in the boat–God’s boat. He’s driving and I’m here for the ride. Yes, it is scary because there are sharks circling all around, even as I am writing this morning.   I have even shed a few tears as I write with the knowledge that my son’s troops leave for the Middle East tomorrow–this being one of my biggest sharks right now.  However, I know that God has all of my sharks under control.  I need not worry or be afraid as He is guiding me to the shores of safety along with my son too.

So when I reflect, am I happy with what I find?  Of course there are always things I wish I would’ve done differently.  I know in my heart I mostly tried to do what I thought was right and I just can’t dwell in the past.  I have found that if I stay in one place for long, that’s for sure going to be where the sharks start nibbling and even attacking me!  However, if I keep moving, with God as my guide, the sharks can bite and snarl all around me and I will not fear.  I’ve been 50 years learning how God works and now I can honestly say that even though the waves are crashing all around filled with mon-eating sharks, I am going to be OK.  I trust that God will be here no matter what the threat. No longer do I have the desire to bring the shark in the boat; nor do I worry about what the shark is going to do to me tomorrow.  I am just trusting that God will fight the battles for me if I simply trust.

Psalm 56:3 (NKJV)  Whenever I am afraid, I will trust in You.

Posted on in 2011 Posts

Take Note…TWO Ears, TWO Eyes, ONE Mouth

I find it interesting that God put our eyes, ears and mouths right on top of our bodies. He didn’t put them where others wouldn’t see them, but they are right out in the open. To me, with them being right up there beside our brain, these three things rank high on the importance scale. Even when one can’t see, hear or speak for some reason, God seems to have given them sharper senses in other ways to accommodate as He understands their importance.

I remember when my daughter was younger; she had a cat, Punky, she drug around everywhere she went. One morning, her dad had just gotten out of the shower and before dressing, was standing in front of the mirror shaving. I could hear Jamie toddling down the hallway with Punky hanging from under her arm, telling her she was going to stop in the bathroom a minute. Before I could warn her that her dad was in there, she flung open the bathroom door. I heard her gasp as she met her dad face to face in his birthday suit, then you could hear the door slam shut. Without missing a beat, Jamie continued talking, “I’m so sorry you had to see that Punky at such a young age. It’ll be OK,” as she and Punky climbed the stairs to her bedroom!

Although we’ve all seen things in life we wish we could erase from our minds, we also see things with our eyes that tell us someone is in need, to beware of certain circumstances, or even lead us home from work on a long, exhausting day in the office. I’ve heard it said that God made a point when He gave us two ears and two eyes but only one mouth. Was He sending us a message to listen and look way more than we speak? I find that if I use my ears and eyes more before I speak, that I’m not regretting my conversations as often as I do when I speak first. I am often upset after I’ve had a conversation with someone that maybe I said too much or even failed to say enough when someone needed encouragement or needed to hear the truth from a trusted friend. We can use our mouths to do great good or we can also be very hurtful with our words. It’s very important to be wise in how we use it!

We live in a world of entertainment and iPods and I often see people jogging around the neighborhood oblivious to what’s going on around them because they are pumping music or other noise into their ears through their electronic devices. I’ve heard people say they can do both–hear what’s going on around them as well as hear their music, but I would beg to differ on that. I remember one time when my father-in-law was in ICU dying and our music pastor came to visit us in the hospital waiting room. We had a new song we wanted him to hear so we passed him some headphones and he listened. As the song went on, he began to catch the words and the tune and started to sing along with the lyrics. This is a man who had a great singing voice and made his living with it. However, as his ears were covered with the headphones, he was not able to hear his own voice and as he sang–somewhat loudly–off-key, to the point we were all hysterical with laughter. He had no idea why we were all finding humor in the situation.

I wonder if when we don’t take the time to listen in our everyday lives, if our speaking doesn’t in fact sound exactly like our pastor that day. It was a life lesson for me that no matter how important what we have to say might seem, if we haven’t used our eyes to read the Bible and access the situation at hand, and taken the time to hear the facts, it might come out sounding like we’re all off key and have no idea what we’re saying. In fact, people might even laugh hysterically at how stupid we sound even when we are well-intentioned.

I’ve always told my kids, “Garbage in, garbage out.” If we allow our eyes and ears to see and hear things that are not edifying to God, invariably, our speech will reflect the same. However, if we focus our eyes and ears on the things that God is directing us to see and hear, what comes out of our mouths will typically honor Him and there will be little regret of our words. You can even go so far as to have your ears plugged up listening to good things–Christian music or famous sermons–that you aren’t hearing the cries for help around you in real life.

So this week’s message is simply, “Take heed to what you’re watching and hearing, so that when you speak, others will listen and be glad they did.” I pray for God to open your eyes, unplug your ears, and help your words be His words rather than useless noise to those in your path. Taking that advice, I think it’s time for me to shut up! I’ve said enough, now it’s time for God to do the rest!

James 1:19 (NKJV) my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath.

Mark 4: 9 (NKJV) “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”