A list.



My brother and sister in law are moving. So to alleviate some stress out of their life, last week I got to hang out with this crazy cat:



I love this sequence. It’s when he realizes that the stick he is playing with was used as a bon-fire tool and has ash all over it.

Waving stick in the air.

Seeing something dark on the end of it.

"What is this dark stuff on my hands?"

"I don't like this dark stuff on my hands!"

"Help, please, B!!"

"Listening" for the garbage truck.

Watching for the garbage truck. One of us is serious...

Finally seeing the truck!!! Huzzah!

I just can’t get enough of that kid.

But, I also can’t get enough of cooking shows. So whenever he was napping, that’s what I was doing.

Hey, I don’t have cable. It’s a treat. : )

On one of the shows I took in last week the chef was talking about, and cooking, all of her favorite things. As I was watching I realized that all of her favorite things are not my favorite things. Like chocolate. I am more of a take-it-or-leave-it kind of girl when it comes to that and I know that about myself. But what I was surprised about was that I couldn’t come up with a list of my favorite things quick as a flash. And I thought I needed to be able to do that.

So while I was not watching cooking shows, that’s what I was doing: figuring out all of my favorite things.

And since one chef told hers, I am going to tell you mine.

Not because I think you care (why would you care?), but because I think I should just put this in writing somewhere (and this is where I write).

If knowing my favorite things interests you, continue on, good man (or woman)! If it doesn’t, then yes, you may be excused from the table (did anybody else’s mother have to say that before dinner could be over for you?!?).

A note before I begin: The obvious givens of life, like Jesus, my family, best friends, half-and-half, and Josh Groban are not listed. Because they are obvious givens. (Florence and the Machine, Michael Buble, jazz, Tony Bennett, Claude Debussy, The Civil Wars, and John Mark McMillan are also not listed, because those are also obvious givens.)

 

Drum roll, please. In no particular order.

1.       My morning coffee ritual.

-          This is almost vital to my life. And not just because it involves coffee. No. This is where I sit and pray and read my Bible and journal and get myself all back to center every morning. If this doesn’t happen, I get crabby. And more snobby than I normally am, which is no bueno.

2.       Cooking.

-          Goodness sakes, I love the kitchen! If I cannot cook for myself and for the people I love, gracing them with sustenance and edible goodness, I feel like I am a terrible failure at life. It’s true. I have a theology about food. And I dream about kitchen floor plans and lists of pantry essentials. And savory foods that involve the fat from cows.

3.       Creating/Projects

-          I can’t control myself. I get all of these free catalogs in the mail from really neat stores and rip out all the pages I like and figure out how to make it from salvage/ Goodwill/ curbside finds. “I will not pay money for a lampshade!!!” is a statement I have uttered way too many times…

4.       Being active.

-          Be it biking, running, walking, steps, Richard Simmons VHS, kick-boxing, pilates, I don’t discriminate. I just can’t get enough of it.

5.       Boots, dresses, and big jewelry.

-          Because I can’t differentiate between the three, seeing that I wear almost exclusively these articles only, this is pretty much “my uniform,” a package deal, if you will; to me they all go together.

6.       The country.

-          I cannot stress enough how much my heart loves wide open spaces. Or the woods. Or fields. Or just anywhere there aren’t other people…. Cities make me feel claustrophobic, and kind of like an imposter. I feel like everyone is staring at me and knows I am not from there and they are not fooled by my dresses and boots and big jewelry.

7.       Clean bathrooms.

-          Listen, the only thing in the bathroom that should trigger my gag reflex is a toothbrush gone rogue, capiche?

8.       Hotels.

-          They just make me excited all over! I grew up traveling, so I think it’s in my blood. And…my family is not one to camp…so it was hotels for us.

9.       Sunsets.

-          I can’t see one of these beauties and not think, “So that’s where pink comes from.”

10.   Driving.

-          Bring me the horizon. I love everything about it.

11.   Airports.

-          I don’t even have to be the one flying anywhere!  All the people watching, diesel fumes, long lines. I think it’s just great.

So there you have it. A little bit more into my brain.

Drops.

A while ago I mentioned that I am going on an overseas missions trip this summer. Ah!
So lately I have been frantically running around trying to get my ever-lengthening list done.

And frantic, ever-lengthening lists make me frantic and feeling like "butter scraped over too much bread." And when I am frantic my heart is not at rest.
Which, by the way, I function better with a heart at rest.
Which, by the way, is something I am praying I have on my trip...and in my life.

The task of this trip just seems so....so....big.
Kind of overwhelming.

I mean, who do I think I am? Some stranger, going somewhere I don't speak the language, to an entirely different culture, to a people who live completely removed from how I do, stepping into the middle of their life for some insignificant amount of time. To do what? Tell them how some God they don't believe in loves them and wants to have a relationship with them and has some beautiful plan for this crazy world.

That is so BIG, Wolfies. So big. And I am just so NOT.
I am some girl who runs around frantic trying to get a stupid list done, praying she can handle the heat, feeling overwhelmed by how, even if I did some huge ministry over there...it wouldn't even be a drop in the bucket in relation to the need in the world. Or even in that country. Or that village.

My life here is small. Which I have come to good terms with.
But my ministry there will be even smaller, I feel. Which I suppose I have to be ok with.

Do you know how I feel? Like there is so much to do, but so little time? And the time you do have you fill with things of no value? And even if you had all the time in the world, it wouldn't be enough. YOU wouldn't be enough? You have so LITTLE to give?

Know this: you are not alone in your feelings. Don't think that everybody else gets way more done than you do. Because even I, the girl who lives to do projects, gets nothing done most days.

I was reading through Mark the other day and came across that story of the old widow who put those two coins in the collection plate (Mark 12:41-44). Jesus had just watched the wealthy, those who have much, putting in these large sums, and then going about their days. Then it says he saw the widow come and put in a minor amount of money. Two cents.
Yet, he said that she put in more than any other.
Why? Because she gave out of her lack.
Most people don't give when they have nothing to give. Because they feel it's just a drop in the bucket; they think it doesn't matter anyway.

But, if there is one thing I have discovered about being a Christian and living under the rule of this great and powerful God, it's this:
Whatever the culture will tell you is good and worthwhile and important and of great value, almost always the opposite is actually true.

I know how money works in this world. The more you have, the "better off" you are. The greater amounts you give, the more "generous" you are. The more you save, the "safer" you are.

But....I don't really think that's true....
Not in the actual reality we can't see with our eyes, that is. In this false, Matrix-esque thing we call earth, maybe, but our kingdom transpires that, and that's where our real truth has to come from.

I mean, Jesus said that two cents given was worth more than large sums given, because even when she had nothing she gave out of her nothing. She was willing to sacrifice all that she had left to at least make a little bit more of a difference.

You and I could think that two cents is a drop in the bucket. And in this false reality I suppose it is.
But in the real all-the-opposites-are-actually-true kingdom realiy, do you know what Jesus says is the drop in the bucket?

"Behold, the nations are as a drop in the bucket, and are counted as the small dust of the balance: behold, he takes up the isles as a very little thing." Isaiah 40:15

The nations?! You mean all of that stuff I watch on the news? All of the big governments and rallies and movements and treasuries and presidencies and masses and who knows what else that is national?

Drop.In.The.Bucket.


Because the true Kingdom Reality states:
Two cents = great value.
Nations = drop in the bucket.


So, I have to ask myself in what category do I put my insignificant two weeks helping people I don't know?
Is it of great value? Or is it a drop in the bucket, as my cultural brain would tell me to fear?

From these passages I suppose that depends on my heart.
Will I be there on my own initiative, my own doing? Will I be there in this worldly reality, thinking that nations and great sums are what makes a difference? Or will I choose to think counter-culturally, Biblically, believing that God values when I give everything? Even if I feel like all I have to give is nothing...

And I suppose it depends on what God I will be serving when I am there (me or him?)

Because, if I am doing it for me, I am insignificant and my two weeks will be insignificant, and I will be a drop in the bucket as I feel.

But, if I am doing it for God, two weeks--my drop in the bucket ministry-- won't be so insignificant.
Why?
Because God takes that which is nothing, and makes it something. In his eyes he sees something.

While praying through this thought process of doubt I found myself in the somewhat obscure book of Habakkuk.
Chapter 3:6 "He stood and measured the earth; he looked and shook the nations; then the eternal mountains were scattered; the everlasting hills sank low. His were the everlasting ways."

Isn't that so cool!?!? He shakes the nations---those drops in the bucket--- because they are nothing. They come and they go.
Yet, his ways, all of that madness about two cents being something, those are the everlasting ways.
And all of my insignificancies, in his kingdom, are maybe not so nothing.
Which is a great assurance. That which we do for the Eternal One, even if we think it's just a drop in the bucket to us or mere dust on the scales, to him they weigh more than the shakeable nations.
Which, if I choose to cling to that reality, brings rest back to my heart.

Berries.

I am ravenous.
My appetite seems to have no end.

I just discovered huge patches of wild black raspberries in the ditches and woods around my house and….I just can’t stop eating them. I go out and pick them for like an hour a day, risking life and limb and finding myself in precarious situations, praying I have as good of balance as I think I do, just so I can reach the elusive clusters which seem beyond my grasp.

They are not beyond my reach, fyi. Necessity is the mother of invention and I have invented all kinds of ways to reach the little gems.
Just look at them.

 

They are everywhere. I feel such a huge sense of accomplishment when I finish picking one patch, only to walk 15 feet and find ANOTHER.

Which, really, is posing a problem. Because my eyes bug out of my head and my heart starts beating rapidly: “I AM NEVER GOING TO BE ABLE TO GET THEM ALL!!! They will be gone before I can get to them!” I panic.

Because, the truth is, I really won’t be able to get them all.

But I want to get them all.

In between the picking of the berries, mealtimes have consisted of little else than the eating of the berries. My alarm went off this morning and I smiled. Why? Because I could get up and have berries for breakfast.

And I want to be able to smile for that reason every day.
All year long.
It will be to no avail, however.

So my eyes continue to bulge out of my head and I longingly look out my studio window thinking, “There are berries out there. Ripened by the sun. Ripening RIGHT now. And I am not picking them. I will never be able to get to all of them…”

And then maybe I cry a little bit and drink some more coffee to console myself and make more wedding veils.

See, if I had my way I would be able to pick all the berries in the forest and I would freeze loads of them, and make jam out of loads of them, and invite all of my friends over for smoothies. Then, this winter I would go to my shelves and go to my freezer and eat loads of jam and make smoothies out of frozen fruit and gift my friends with homemade wild blackberry jam made from berries that I not only picked, but canned MYSELF.

That is what I WANT to happen.

I want it to be wild blackberry season all year in my house.
But it won’t be.
It can’t be.
Seasons don’t last that long.

Which brings me to another point. It is finally now getting hot here. Usually by this time I have sweat more than I need to for the whole year and have retreated indoors until nicer weather comes again in September. Nothing is typical this year, however, so it is coming as no surprise that summer is only now settling in.

I told myself this winter I would never complain about the heat again since, remember, winter didn’t end until May here, and it didn’t warm up until June. Never again, I told God, never again would I say, “I can’t handle this heat.”

So I am basking in it. Telling myself to love the humidity.  Soak up the warmth; I know it will be gone again in no time.

Does anybody else feel like that? Feel like summer is already over? How does this happen?

I had my Bible study girlies over all day today. We are taking a break for the rest of the summer and this was our last big hurrah!

We did all typical summer things.
Went on a walk.
Picked berries (obviously).
Ate really good food.
Went traipsing through the woods.
Went “creek stomping,” as they call it.
Cooked food over an open fire.

 All the good summer stuff.

They had leeches on them after this one....grody.

I can't even be in the woods and not make some kind of headpiece.

Dirty the way only summer can make you.

We had to, didn’t we?

I mean, summer comes and goes so fast around here. I can’t take these things for granted.

Like those berries. I can’t take them for granted. So I won’t put up as many as I want to, but this week I am eating my fill of them, reveling in their mad beauty and goodness, thanking God for planting such wild delicacies himself. No one put them there. He just sprang them up, and I benefit immensely. Can you believe that?! What lavish grace. Because giving salvation apparently ISN’T enough to him (it’s enough for ME), he decided to plant me wild black raspberry bushes.

And as I pick all of those berries, and as I sweat with teenage girls romping through a forest, I find myself thinking that all of life is like this. Life, like summer and berry season, goes by so fast. If I don’t pay much attention to it (something I am feeling more and more guilty of the older I get), one day I will blink and then it will be gone.

Berries go bad faster than they come.

I knew these teenage girls as babies not too very long ago.
I was a teenager what seems like less time ago than it actually was.

Life. Seasons. Crazy.

I was at a friend’s baby shower a few weeks ago and something was read about how moms should say “so quiet down, cobwebs; dust, go to sleep, I’m rocking my baby and babies don’t keep.”

I don’t have children, but I have nieces and nephews. Kids who aren’t babies anymore, yet, I feel like yesterday they were babies. It seems they didn’t keep.

I could get all weepy:

Berries don’t keep.
Teenagers don’t keep.
Loved ones don’t keep.
We don’t keep.

But I have a great, sure hope:

Jesus keeps.
And he keeps me.

Praise the Lord.

Because how else in the world am I going to get through any of all of these seasons without being a hot mess unless I cling to him, the Ever Keeping One? There is no good answer.

Fall will come. Winter will even come again, too (please not too soon!), it is hard to believe. And I won’t have as many jars of jam as I wish.

But today, well, today I will pick berries because they are in season, you know. And I will thank him for this season. For this heat and humidity and those teenagers and all the wee crying babies in my life and the all the other things that don’t keep. And I will try not to be frantic thinking about how someday I won’t have berries, but rather, I will praise the name of my God that he decided to plant me a bush in the first place.

Bountiful grace.

Miracles.

You think of me as a broken record, no doubt. I feel like I keep saying the same things over and over again. Someone said to me the other day “There should be a TV show about you! You are so interesting—always traveling and designing and creating and telling funny stories—I would watch it!”
It was a nice comment, but I had to respond in truth, “Oh, I think people would get bored of me pretty fast. I don’t do much new stuff.” Yeah, I may have a life full of those things she just mentioned, but that’s about it. My life is full—of the same things. Over and over again, constantly, I do the same things. My short-lived audience, I am sure, would say, “She’s traveling again?! Been there, done that, not interested,” or “Holy cow, woman! Can you stop rambling about something obscure?!”

The truth is, No. I can’t stop rambling about obscure things.

I wouldn’t know what else to ramble about.

With that introduction out of the way, I have more thoughts on houses. And Jesus. And ministry.

If you continue reading and say at the end, “Well, I have read that before,” don’t say you didn’t know what was coming.
Ha.
: )

Let’s just go ahead and blame it on the duck. That’s right. Let’s forget the fact that I was having these feelings before I saw the duck, but she seems unaware, so let’s say she was the culprit.
Yes. In my brother’s back yard lives a duck. And I watched her all week.

She’s not a pet duck. She’s a wild duck. In she has flown and there she has stayed. Why? Because she has babies on the way. (It should be mentioned, as well, that she is the second duck this year to land in their yard and hatch the wee ones. They think it is because they are the only house in the neighborhood that doesn’t have a dog, so they have gladly welcomed the expectant mothers.) In good fashion of moms of all kinds, she has feathered her nest and is keeping her babies warm while patiently waiting for her coming brood.

 

What a little doll.

Isn’t that cool? She sits there all day. I never once saw her leave. She must have during the night, but during the day? No way.

And as I watched her I couldn’t stop thinking about nesting.

No, not that kind of nesting. I promise you I am having no thoughts or desires towards children at this point in my life. So maybe I should say “Feathering the nest” rather than nesting, because, truth be told, I can’t stop thinking about houses (I told you this topic was coming).
About designing houses, remodeling houses, doing house projects.
Why this came out of nowhere, in such gale-force intensity, I don’t have the foggiest idea. All I know is that seeing the duck sitting on a fabulously feathered nest didn’t help the cause.

God also did not help in calming the harried thoughts. Have you ever noticed how sometimes God answers your thoughts and prayers you didn’t know you prayed? Naturally, since I could think of little else last week,  I found there before me, on a curb, in a posh neighborhood, an answer to a prayer I had not consciously uttered.

It must have been that big garbage day because there, waiting for the dump truck, was this baby.

I am not kidding you.
It came home, needless to say.
See, isn’t that just the way of God? To fulfill a desire you hadn’t really even talked to him about?
Thank you, Jesus.

So, with a week of watching the mother duck in cooperation with making plans for a new sweet table, my mind ruminated on “home” a lot.

I have said it before and, guaranteed, I will say it again, I love the concept of home.

I have been blessed, or really—I have been placed in responsibility—my whole life because I lived my days in lovely homes.

Homes that God has provided (I will tell you those stories some other time). And we all know that if God provides it, we are accountable TO him to use it FOR him.

Ok, so I have lived in lovely houses. And I have both ministered in and have seen ministry happen—and have been ministered to—in lovely houses. By all kinds/to all kinds of various people.

It goes without saying that how you have received love and grace will be the predominant ways you show love and grace, which I think is probably why houses are on my mind frequently: because I have met Jesus in homes.

Not really in churches, not really in missions organizations, not really in classrooms, but in homes.
I am thankful for those of you who have met Jesus in those places I have not, which is a beautiful showing of their purpose, too, it’s just not the case with me.
That being said, I have a really hard time divorcing ministry from home-life; I don’t know how to do it any way else.

Homes, nests, Jesus, and curbside-found tables all make me pray, “Jesus, how do I walk in this? How do I most effectively share you with the world through my home?”

I proposed in my last post that a person who is opposed to Christ and his Christians would not be able to continue that vein of thoughts if he was invited in to a Christian home and loved; shown mercy and grace; not preached at but truth lived to.

Why? Because ministry/sharing the gospel is local. Personal. Individual.

And it doesn’t get much more local than my kitchen table.
Truth be told, I think that’s where long lasting change really happens: in the watching of lives lived for Christ. Lives that have been miraculously changed by his hand.

I know this is true, especially for me. For instance, the one stand-out moment in my life where I learned about the nature of God’s generosity was shown to me around a dinner table in a tiny apartment in Switzerland, eating a dinner of horse, served in a ridiculously lavish fashion by my non-Christian hosts who, not only did I not know, I could not communicate with because we did not speak each other’s language. Still, there they were, overwhelmed that I was finally there, showing me more generosity than any Christian church display I have ever seen.

So, I know that’s where this happens; I could tell you stories for hours of how this has happened to me. I know Jesus is conveyed over biscuits and blueberry pie around finger-painting-and-play-dough-stained tables, so why my hesitation? Why is there something in me I cannot reconcile, propelling me into a life solely devoted to this? Why do I have this nagging fear that in the back of my mind, somehow, it won’t work, despite the fact that I am the product of it working?

A lack of faith.

Sadly, it’s true.

I find myself praying for things, yet not really believing God will do it. Yesterday I was praying about an upcoming situation, yet at the very same time bracing myself for nothing to come of it.

How ridiculous.

But in this cycle is where I find myself. So just call me ridiculous.

In my thoughts about houses last week, I wandered onto a website about all of the mansions on Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. I know it.
Talk about obscure.

But take a look at this manse!

18,000 square feet.

Listen, I have lived in lovely houses, but none quite that big.

I can look at that and go “What a waste. How ridiculous, what good could come from owning a house that big?!?!” and I may have been having those thoughts when I was stopped in my tracks by this picture.

 

That’s the gate to the house.
Is that not the coolest thing you have ever seen?!?!?
I want to know the story behind it. I want to know the miracles that built that house.

Lightbulb.

There is the answer to my lack of faith.
There is why I cannot see how God could, will, and wants to use me and my silly house, why he has chosen to give me the responsibility of a lovely home to use for his kingdom:

Because I am not expecting a miracle.

This is what bridges knowing you possess the tools and seeing the fruition of your labors: Believing that a miracle is coming. Believing that if he has called me to be accountable, he will pull all the pieces together, which really, is there anything more miraculous than God using you and what he has given you to work a miracle through?

You know, I think about that duck. There she sits, day in and day out, on those eggs. Through all the hot heat of July, through the almost-catastrophes brought on by a two-year old little boy, through all the celebratory booms of Independence Day, there she sits.

Why?

Because she is waiting for her miracle.

If ducks have thoughts, I guarantee she has never thought, “But what if there are no babies in these eggs…”
Not a chance.
She has recognized the signs, she has found something to trust in (a yard without a dog), she has gone and feathered her nest, so now she waits. She waits in her nest, doing what she is called to do (keeping those babies safe, warm, and protected) expecting her miracle.

My sister-in-law sent this picture through.

Way to go, mama duck. Way to do what you were called to do.

I guess she got her miracle.

Tabloids.

I feel like there are two kinds of people in the world: Those who like Taylor Swift and those who don’t.
That being said, I spent the holiday week with my fam in the city : )

'Merica.

 Then I drove through one of those gorgeous neighborhoods. I want to live here. 

I had to stop and take a picture of my dream house. Oh man. If any of you readers live in this house, please invite me over.

I would even take the ivy-covered cottage.

 

Stucco. Total swoon. I will pick stucco every time.

Can't get enough of that kid.

Grandma cuddles are the best.

 

American much?

Can't have a vacation without that embarrassing moment at McD's when they ask how many creams you want in your medium coffee and you go, "Ah....ha....um....haha.....FOUR."

God is good. Do you know that today?

I hope so.

~~~

When I was in the city I was at my grandmother’s one day, and, like always, there on her coffee table was People magazine along with Vanity Fair. Not magazines I read at home, but at grandma’s house? Yeah, I page through them, I admit.
Anyway, there gracing the cover of VF was none other than America’s sweetheart herself: Taylor Swift.
Say what you want, I am in the “like” category. I know, I had the same thought: aren’t I a little old for that?
The answer is yes. And no.
Taylor Swift writes about what every American girl either

A.      Thinks about or

B.      Has thought about.

That’s why she is endearing. And I think for a long time she was really liked by the masses. Rightfully so; she is like the anit-Lohan of girls that age (huzzah!). Not a whole lot of scandal with this blond. And sure, she had her skeptics: the pop crowd thought she was too country (give her a break! She lives in Nashville, what do you expect?!), and the country crowd thought she was too pop (give her a break! She grew up in the suburbs in Pennsylvania! What do you expect?), some complained she wasn’t a great singer (but then again, she never claimed to be Celine Dion…), etc. And sure, she apparently thinks about boys a lot. But she is an unmarried girl in her twenties- what else is new.

I don’t care. I think she is fun and adorable, and I had an assistant once who looks just like her, so I guess I am partial. Because I loved that assistant and I associate the two of them together.

How do I ramble so?

As I was saying, I was reading an article about her in VF and it talked a bit about how lately, unlike at the beginning of her career, she is getting a lot of flack. People- other celebrities, tabloids- are saying nasty mean things about her. Being downright ugly to her. Scorning her.

How rude.

Can you imagine, saying in print, or at an awards show, or in an interview, nasty terrible things about some person? Some person who, like the article mentioned, a lot of those talkers had never even met before?
(Sadly, I have said terrible nasty things in my life. And probably worse is that it has always been about someone I know. Of these things I am not proud, but I wanted you to know that I have been in that boat.)

But this article got me thinking. And maybe just the week in general, being in a city surrounded by millions of people everywhere, so much busyness, so much—showy-ness, being out of my cute routined life, reading less-than-kosher magazines, it all got me thinking. It all made me very aware of just how much unholiness there is in this world.

How there is like zero regard for God among the culture of the world.

It turns my stomach.

Taylor Swift seemed to be the only decent story I saw in those glossies. Seeing all the other terrible garbage, well, it made me feel like I was reading one of those nasty articles in the tabloids like the kind that are now being written about her. Only it was as if the whole magazine was a tabloid scorning the Person I love most in the world.

Which, I suppose it was in a roundabout way. Like, those magazines are full of stories and articles about things that are the furthest thing from godly, holy, and while they may not say verbatim “God is the worst idea you have ever had,” it’s advertised lifestyles pretty much say that. They parade around things and activities and thoughts that are contrary entirely to Jesus, his cross, his gospel. Some articles are overtly in praise of things I won’t even talk about, let alone live out.

And, like I said, it made my stomach turn.
Turn the way it would if I was reading in a magazine the slander someone had spoken about my husband they had never met (no, I am not secretly married).
But were talking about him as if they had met him. As if what they were blasting was truth.
As if I was reading how he is abusive and a drunk and how we are getting divorced and he lost all of our money and he is the meanest man in America—except none of that is true, and I know it’s not true, but the tabloids are spreading the word as if it IS true.

I would want to yell from the rooftops “Lies!” and run up to every person I saw reading it and say, “It’s not true! I promise you, none of it is true!”

Do you know what I am talking about? Do you look at the world, read the news, hear conversations in the coffee shop, read Facebook statuses for crying out loud, and just feel the need to apologize? To God?
“Really, I promise they wouldn’t be saying these things if they knew you….they just think they know you. But they don’t….I’m so sorry they are saying this kind of stuff, doing this kind of stuff.”

It’s an ok thought. Not really based on truth, for God does not NEED us to defend him; what the world thinks about him has no bearing on who he is. But my human mind wants to make up for it.

If I was friends with Taylor Swift, at every chance I got I would say, “You know, she actually is really great,” and I would try to prove the tabloids wrong and tell those people-the ones who don’t know her- the truth about who she is.

I guess I have to ask myself the question then—Do I do that for Jesus?

Like, when I hear someone saying nasty stuff about the One I love most, or claiming he is something he is not, how often do I say, “You know, he actually isn’t like that….”
Yeah, I know that’ pretty elementary. And I would hope that when the time comes I would say something more eloquent, but think about the concept: Proving the tabloids wrong.

And think about how to go about this. Imagine that you were someone the tabloids talked about. Say you were the wife in the relationship the magazines had said was breaking up. And you went ahead and invited over for dinner some person who believed that you two were splitting up. Do you think, after seeing an entire evening of you two still in love, still making it work, still a couple, that they would leave still believing the tabloid rumors? No. Of course not. They would know that what got said is not true.

Isn’t it the same about this culture? What if we invited someone over for dinner, someone opposed to Christ and his Christians, and we loved them, got to know them, shared our life with them. We didn’t bring them in “to convert” them, not seeing them for who they are, we didn’t view them as a project, but as a person—would they be able to leave the house still holding the belief that all Christians are greedy haters of everything?

I didn’t think so.

Maybe this doesn’t make any sense, but I guess I just don’t see any difference between nasty, untrue things being said about TS and nasty, untrue things being said about God and the church. Both are wrong, rude, and helping no one. The people who are writing them, speaking them, advertising them, chances are they don’t actually know what they are talking about.

And maybe now I just feel a little more like I want to prove the tabloids wrong. Tell my corner of the world the truth. Because if I would stand up for TS, or if I would speak out about untrue things being said about my husband, then, since I do believe I am referred to as “the bride” in the Bible, I should probably be standing up a little more for “the bridegroom,” huh? Living to tell the truth.

Arms.

I am with my family in the big city this week for the Holiday and Oh Man! I just can't get enough of my nieces and nephews. I just want to hug them and squeeze them and cuddle them and read to them all day every day. Can't get enough. Love those babies.

As I was on my way here I was reading some Old Testament, refreshing my little heart, when I came across a verse in Isaiah that I thought played particularly well for my life this week.

Isaiah 33:2b- "Be our arm every morning...."

I said I just can't cuddle those babies enough.
And now I have a prayer for those arms wrapped around those rug rats. "Lord, be in my arms this morning. Lord, whatever you are: love, truth, tenderness, strength, security, pass from me to the babes...let all of you be in my arms this morning..."

Anyway, I know it's silly, praying that somehow the character of God could be passed through my arms to those kiddos getting all hugged in them.
But maybe not.

Maybe not.

So I pray it. I pray that he will be my arms.

It's a thought.

~~~~

And here is another quick thought: I think we need to pray more. Yeah, yeah, I know.
But there were a few things this week that have just burdened me so very much, and what else am I to do with that burden? Take it to him.

Wolfies, if you have got a burden, you've got nowhere else to go with it. Go with it to him--and just be done with it. You are not supposed to do God's job.

Love you, kids. Have a happy Fourth (for those of you in the States. For those of you not in the States--Happy Day! : ) )