When things get back to normal...

It is hard to believe that it has been almost a month since my last blog.  This month has been busy, focused, unfocused, chaotic, driven... and a whole lots more all rolled into one.

When our lives get turned upside down or don't go the way we planned, we find ourselves saying, "When things get back to normal..."  "When life slows down...."  "When I got caught up ... "

I have found myself saying these things alot through my life.  This made me start thinking, what is normal?  I think everyone has their own definition of normal.  Normal is pretty much a subjective thing.

I look back at the last year as an interesting view of normal.  One year ago I started blogging.  (just about a year ago from today).  One year ago I started really focusing on some spiritual places in my life that needed work.  The last year, like most of the other years of my life, have involved ups, downs, ins, outs, sickness health, richer, poorer.  I would say it has been a pretty "normal" year.  So why do I keep saying, "When things get back to normal..."

This also started me thinking about my comfort zone.  I like when all things fall into place.  Don't we all?  I like when everything works out.  That is normal, right?  We don't like for our boats to be rocked.  But they are.  Time and time again, when we think we have it all together it all falls apart.  When we are travelling safely and securely on one path, that path all of a sudden splits off into seven.

Through all of this, I have decided that being "normal" is not worth it.  If we had normal, would we recognize it?  If we caught up, would we not just have a whole other pile of work to catch up on?  When we do find ourselves in a place of comfort, is that not usually when we realize we are not comfortable anymore?

So today I pray for my uncomfortable, not normal, crazy mixed up self that I am.  I am not normal and I don't really think I want to be.

:)

As luck would have it.

I don't think I am a lucky person.  I don't particularly think I am unlucky, but maybe more that I just don't usually concern myself with luck one way or the other.

This thought came up when today I won a $50 gift card to Amazon.  I completed a youth ministry survey with Spark (yes, I completed a survey).  They gave 5 Amazon gift cards away and I won one?  How cool is that?

Earlier this year, my friend who makes beautiful handmade Waldorf style dolls and sells them on etsy  http://www.etsy.com/shop/imogensgarden .  On her blog here on Blogger, she hosted a giveaway of one of her beautiful dolls.  I posted my favorite flower and why on her blog and was randomly chosen as the winner.  Linnea sits in a special place in my house on my devotional shelf.  (Cade even plays with her every now and then even though he is a boy and won't admit it.)

Even earlier this year, March, I was the 3000th fan on Facebook for Greenling.com.  Greenling is a fabulous food delivery place that delivers local veggies as well as local meats and other fabulous organic goodies.  Check them out at http://www.greenling.com/

I don't try to win things.  The things that I have "entered" this year are things I believe strongly  in.  Greenling is an awesome resource to get great groceries to your door.  They are organic and go local when possible.  How awesome!

Anna is a friend from college and her dolls speak for themselves.  When she gets one made it IMMEDIATELY flies off her etsy page.  I am already eyeing her page for when she releases a little boy doll with a mohawk.  Cade is sure he needs one of those.

And, Spark was working on letting potential customers know about their new curriculum for youth.  I am not totally happy with our current curriculum and will definitely be checking out their options.

But back to this luck thing...

What makes a person lucky?  Can a person be lucky?  I don't think I believe in luck.  Winning is not really a big deal (but it does feel really cool).  It actually made me think of a story in the Bible--

Luke 8: 42 - 48 As Jesus was on his way, the crowds almost crushed him. ⁴³And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,^[d] but no one could heal her. ⁴⁴She came up behind him and touched the edge of his cloak, and immediately her bleeding stopped.
 ⁴⁵"Who touched me?" Jesus asked.
      When they all denied it, Peter said, "Master, the people are crowding and pressing against you."
 ⁴⁶But Jesus said, "Someone touched me; I know that power has gone out from me."
 ⁴⁷Then the woman, seeing that she could not go unnoticed, came trembling and fell at his feet. In the presence of all the people, she told why she had touched him and how she had been instantly healed. ⁴⁸Then he said to her, "Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace."

My faith in God goes far beyond whatever luck may be in my life.  I think this whole letting go part of me that I am going through has led me to just further understand this fact.

Way beyond any contest anyone ever wins is a simple question -- what do I believe in?  Who do I trust?  What is important to me?  In my heart of hearts, I can most certainly answer those questions.

Is it cool to win things?  Yes, of course.  The things I have won have had no risk involved and that is cool.  Is it even cooler to know who I am and what I believe in?  Most definitely.

So what do I need to buy from Amazon?

Defying Gravity

I am a fan of Glee.  You could say it is one of my guilty pleasures.  A couple months ago, Jody bought me one of the soundtracks.  It has a song  from Wicked musical, Defying Gravity. 


The song has become very relevant recently.  The first verse REALLY hits the nail on the head:


Something has changed within me 
Something is not the same 
I'm through with playing by the rules 
Of someone else's game 
Too late for second-guessing 
Too late to go back to sleep 
It's time to trust my instincts 
Close my eyes: and leap! 


I am a people pleaser.  I exist to make people happy.  I feel accomplished by constantly fixing things.  There has come a point this year especially, that I realize this is not healthy for me.  It is not always easy to deny but it is a major change in who I am.  I have usually sacrificed so much of me to keep the rest of the world happy.  This is not a good thing.  


Admitting this to myself is a huge step.  Even more than this step, I am slowly realizing that I can not always fix things.  I can't make everyone like me.  I can't even make everyone happy.  
That sucks.  The ego part of me wants to fix it.  The ego part of me wants to do what the ego part does.  


This is truly a leap of faith for me.  Coming to a place within myself, within who I truly am that can say, I am not always in control of fixing things is scary.  It is a daily learning for me.  


But why do we do this?  Why do we come to a point where we are sacrificing our needs to make other people happy?  I wish I had the answer.  I wish there was an easy fix.  I spend daily time in prayer to better understand why I need to change in this.  


What I currently know is that 
           1. God is in control.  God is and will always be God and I am not.
           2.  I can't make everyone happy.  
           3.  I can't always fix things.  


                                  and that is ok




It's time to try defying gravity.  Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity.  I think I'll try defying gravity and you won't bring me down.

It was HOT today

Ok, this summer has not been a hot one as a whole.  Texas has had a mild summer which is definitely a welcomed change in the grand scheme of things.  This afternoon, I stood outside and sorted through somebody from church's stuff that they were getting rid of.  I was in the garage for about 2 hours and it was HOT.  By the time I got home I was very thirsty.  I drank about half a gallon of water.  I could not drink fast enough.

Thirst is a funny thing.  Often times when we find ourselves thirsty, we grab the closest thing possible.  I am not sure it always quenches our thirst.

I just started a book about thirst.  It is not thirst like you quench with liquid.  It is a thirst for God.  We all thirst for something.  We all find a void that must be filled with something.

Too often in my life, I have filled that void with the wrong things.  Too often I have found whatever I am filling that void with does not quench my thirst.  Sometimes it even does the contrary.  Many times whatever we "fill" our thirst will make us thirstier.

For the past few months, I have found myself parched.  I am not sure I understood it.  I am not sure I wanted to even admit it.  Admitting that you are not as close as you want to be with God is disheartening.  Jesus tells of the Samaritan woman at the well.  Jesus says that he provides the water to quench her thirst.  She says well give it to me so I don't have to keep coming back to the well everyday.

We want the easy answer.  We want the thirst to be filled instantly.  We of course don't want to work to quench that thirst.  All we have to do is drink some Gatorade, right?

 The thing I  constantly need to be reminded of is that my thirst needs to be quenched daily.  Daily I return to God to spend time in God's presence.  Daily I am reminded that that time truly fills me.

AMEN

Appearances are funny things

I just returned from an awesome week at camp.  Most weeks that I get to get away from the world and have bonding time with my youth groups are awesome, really but this one was even better.

Ebert Ranch is a phenomenal place.  It is a camp unlike alot that I have been to in that it is small (only 50 campers or so).  They focus alot of their activities around "ranch life" and the different elements that go into that lifestyle.  Campers spend time with horses, feed chickens, tend to a garden and even get to see longhorns.

I have to admit the first time I met Big, Ruff, Tuff and Peaches I was taken aback.  It is not often that you get to see longhorns from so close.  I am sure the longhorns have an interesting purpose at camp, but to the campers, they are just there for photo op moments.

There is a lot of history to where Tuff currently is that I don't want to get wrong.  Shortened version -- a Herford bull managed to find its way on to Ebert's site and joined the herd.  They had no idea where it came from but it was there.  Dinner (yes that was the affectionate name for him) fought Tuff for leadership roll in the herd and consequently Tuff now has one horn.

This is where appearances come in.

When we drove onto site, we saw a horn lying by the stable and wondered where it had come from.  Tuff was not with the other longhorns as he had been recuperating in one of the horse fields for a few days.  Tuff looked funny.  He was jokingly called the unihorn.  He was a bit lop sided.

Tuff rejoined the herd and regained his place.  The other longhorns didn't look at him as if something was wrong.  The other longhorns didn't laugh.  Maybe they were in their language, but OBVIOUSLY Tuff now looks very different.  Tuff is not the same longhorn he was 3 weeks ago.

It really made me consider how I view appearance and how I view weakness.  So much of life, we worry how others will see us and view us.  It is always interesting to watch junior high girls freaking out the first day of camp because they don't have their straightener.  That is the end of the world.  Also, watching the big tough junior high guys that by the end of the week are singing silly songs and dancing silly dances.  Camp gives kids the opportunities to not worry about appearances, shedding all the supposed masks that we put on around others.

And weaknesses...as a whole, we don't want others to see us as weak.  We put on this armor of strength.  We build ourselves up as strong individuals that will never crack and definitely will never fail.  The thing is, many times, we get broken down to our weakest and most vulnerable.  We don't let others see that.

Tuff showed me a whole new way of the world this last week.  Even in the midst of adversity, in the essence of weakness, while carrying a burden (that made a 35 pound difference), Tuff rejoined the herd.  Now yes, I realize that cows don't do things the way we do them.  I know we our own worst enemy.

Tuff will never be the same longhorn.  So what.  Tuff may be the brunt of many jokes for many years.  Tuff may always look a little lopsided.  They may even make Ebert Ranch games around Tuff (pin the horn on the longhorn).  Tuff has a pretty heavy load to bear.  Each of those horns probably weighs 35 pounds.  That is 35 pounds worth of burden.

Through all of my weaknesses and failures, through all of my adversities, may I be able to hold my head high and not fall.

AMEN
Tuff before

Tuff Now

The big dipper

It seems so silly now.  I always loved constellations.  I usually could never find them but I loved to just stare at the stars and hope the shapes would just appear to me.

As I have said, many many times, I have always loved camp.  I have always felt so much of God's presence at camp and love the opportunity to share that love with other kids even now.  During camp, as I got older, they started asking questions like "When was the first time you saw God active in your life?"  That was a funny question for me and one that I could never quite come up with an answer.

I grew up around God.  Church was always more for me than going on Sunday morning.  I don't know if I always knew it but I did.  But how could I have answered that question?

One night, when I was a Staff in Training YEARS ago, we sat on the upper deck of the chapel just quietly reflecting the day and looking up at the stars.  The question I could not always answer was asked, "When was the first time you saw God active in your life?"

That is when it happened.  I looked up at the big dipper and saw it for the first time.  I had probably seen it millions of times before but there it was.  This feeling of utter peace that I cannot express came over me and I knew my answer.   I have always known that God was active in my life but actually seeing it, I just had to open my eyes.  I had to be open to it.

Millions of times since that night, I have found myself in need of peace.  If I am able, I go outside and find the big dipper.  Except I usually don't have to look for it.  My eyes sometimes know right where to go and immediately, I find peace.

As I sat at Ebert, last night at our first evening worship, I again found myself gazing at stars. Sure enough, I looked up and there was the big dipper.  After the crazy week that I had last week that was what I needed.  I needed that peace, that reminder that God is there.  I don't necessarily have to look for the peace but when I am ready to receive it, it is there.

AMEN

Those silly socks

Ok... so today's blog might not be spiritually based.  Actually, they all end up relating to something in my spiritual life.  Stick with me.

The big joke with my knitting friends is that I am ANTI-sock.  I know how to knit socks.  I love knitting with sock yarn.  Hand knitted socks are ABSOLUTELY yummy feeling.  I don't knit socks.

I know how to knit socks with dpns.  I know how to knit socks in magic loop.  I think I understand toe up socks but have never tried a pattern.  (non-knitting friends -- just smile and nod at Mariesa's weirdness).

Here I sit needing to cast on for a new project.  I have tons of options.  What do I want to knit?  Socks.
I have this really cool rainbow striped yarn that I got about a month ago.  I can imagine NOTHING but socks out of this yarn.  They are begging to be socks.  (Yes, my husband does worry about me talking to my yarn).

And here comes the spiritual part (you knew it was coming.)  Life is funny.  We like our comfort.  We like to do what we know.

Socks for me are a commitment.  You commit to a sock pattern and go clear through the sock pattern only to have to do the pattern over again for sock 2.  Socks, for me, are a break out of my free flowing knitting world into a structured product.  If I don't follow the pattern, the formula it won't work.  They won't fit.

For awhile now, I have been working on my time with God.  I have been focusing on it in many different ways.  The great thing about God time is that unlike making socks -- I can't mess God time up unless I don't do it.  It is a definite commitment like socks and the end product is wonderful.

So... I guess the anti- sock knitter will really make a pair of socks.

God help me now!!!