Category Archives: Life

Take TIME to FOCUS

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After attending an Orange Conference, I usually say, “It can’t get much better than this.” But then I go to another one and say the same thing! While every part of the conference was significant, I think the opening session by Reggie Joiner was the most moving of all.

We all need to consider the TIME we have left with our children. This profound statement continues to speak to me…

“When you see how much time you have left, you get serious about the time you have now.“

Focus

Here are my notes from the opening session and some photos I took of the exhibits. The marbles in glass canisters was a visual impact upon my heart! Each marble represents a week of life…birth through graduation from high school.

Orange Conference: Age 1

My Granddaughter: Layla

I had a lump in my throat throughout the conference just thinking about the time ticking away. We are on a mission to leave a legacy of faith to our next generation. For God’s Glory!  I was challenged more and more to consider the TIME I have left with my children and grandchildren…for the families and friends in our lives.

Our legacy is not for us, but for them. Our history includes the faithfulness of God through the grace of salvation in Jesus Christ. We have stories to tell of God’s faithfulness. We have stories to tell of answers to prayers. We have exciting and compelling faith stories woven into our history. We have TIME to FOCUS on this.

Orange Conference: Age 3

My granddaughter: Isla

Opening Session:

“Losing Your Marbles”

Gave families a jar of 962 marbles, with each marble representing one week. Remove one marble for every week that passes.

When you see how much time you have left, you get serious about the time you have now.

We have a limited amount of time with our kids…We are given TIME

Pray for a heart of wisdom to use this TIME wisely! “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.” (Psalm 90:12)

There is value in numbers! Have I considered the number of days?

When you see the time you have left, you tend to FOCUS more.

Demonstrate to our children how God loves them. The main thing is a relationship to Jesus. That is what matters.

Engage our kids in a story bigger than themselves. They are woven into a history of God’s faithfulness through the generations. Show up and make history with kids.

When you see the time you have left, you make what matters…matter most.

When you see the time you have left, you value what happens over time.

For our children…we can:

LOVE our kids time over time

LOVE over TIME = a sense of WORTH

  • I Corinthians 13: Love is….
  • Accepted, no matter what
  • Significant!

WORDS over TIME gives them DIRECTION

  • Shape the character of our children.
  • Everybody needs somebody to show up…to give the right direction.
  • Someone that has invested TIME…a history together.

STORIES over TIME give PERSPECTIVE

  • We are wired for stories
  • We have imaginations.
  • Craft a story that appeals to emotions.

FUN over TIME gives CONNECTION

  • We are created to have fun
  • Measure temperature of church based on how much they laugh.
  • Joy = an atmosphere of fun
  • There is healing through laughter and fun. Example: play therapy

TRIBES over TIME give a sense of BELONGING 

  • We can be more present for a few…time over time. (Small Groups)
  • To leave a Legacy, we don’t have to be famous. We have to have time.
  • Can’t always see what is happening when you are doing it. Can’t predict significant moments.

Because of God’s grace, we have a place at the table. Because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, we are significant. We have been invited to sit at the table. I am seated at the table!

We belong in the tribe of faith…Christ followers.

FOCUS on the TIME we are given! 

Focus on Time

Lose Your Marbles

The Stuff of Friendship

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the stuff of friendship

I’ve been gone for a week. I traveled with friends to the Orange Conference 2013. If you’ve never been, you’re missing out. I invited six friends to go with me. This was the first time for them to experience an Orange Conference and I suspect they will continue to unpack what they heard and learned for weeks to come.  I’m still chewing on the great stuff I heard. I’ll write about that great stuff later, but right now I’m focusing this moment on the stuff of friendship.

Those six friends that accompanied me to Atlanta are new friendships in the making. They don’t know me well and most have not heard my story of being rescued by Jesus Christ. They don’t know my family, my children and grandchildren. They don’t know about the crazy wild and fun adventures my family has experienced or the deep sadness of loss we have dealt with. These new friends do not know my history, yet they are now part my life story. And you know what, I am now woven into their story, too.

I had to stop and think about that…I am now woven into their story, too. My new friends have opened a small window into their life story and I have offered them a glimpse into my history. The stuff of friendship is messy when everyone’s history is dumped on each other. I realize it takes time for friendships to become engrained with trust, laughter, and acceptance of the real messiness of junk. All of that junk that keeps us bending the knee in prayer and surrendering in submission to God for help. The stuff of friendship means that I give them grace when they mess up and they give me grace when I fail.

The stuff of friendship is built on the foundation of Jesus, the number one example of what being a real friend is. While Jesus was all God (think about that! ALL God!) He was very comfortable hanging out with the “worst ” of people. The worst of people who needed a real friend to impact their history…nasty and messy people with raunchy stories that would soon be filled with supernatural beauty of healing, forgiveness and life change. Jesus added more fun and laughter into their lives. He gave them something real to be happy about!

Those friends of Jesus were transparent before him. They spilled their guts and messiness all over him. They wanted more of Jesus and he welcomed them into a new life of freedom and victory. He took their mess and began to rewrite their stories. Jesus offered them a way out of their messy junked up life. Their history was forever changed.

The stuff of friendship is like that. We are the voice of Jesus into a broken world, shouting beautiful words of hope and joy, sounds of laughter, having fun and sharing stories of real life change. We can help shape another person’s story, add grace from God’s truth and begin to weave it into the life of a new friend’s life story. The stuff of friendship is the stuff of stories full of God’s redeeming grace.

So, I’ve been gone for a week. I walked in the door of our home very late. My husband was waiting for me. When I walked in, very tired and weary, he was there to embrace me and he said, “Finally, you are home! It’s good to see you!”

The stuff of friendship is woven into our marriage, our life together means transparency and acceptance of all the junk and messiness that we are capable of and we continue to love each other through it all.

My husband is a handsome introvert. Introverts find their strength and rejuvenation with retreating into a quite respite by themselves. Introverts are very contented with alone time. I know this about my hubby and since our friendship is woven deep and knotted with life, I am very happy to give him time to be alone.

That’s why I treasure the words he said to me, “I am most contented with me, myself, and you!” No longer is it, “me, myself, and I” but YOU.

The stuff of friendship is about including the people whom God moves into our stories. It’s knotted up in the life of each other. It’s including all of those “YOU’s” out there into our life. We have very little time left to make a difference in the lives of our families, much less into the lives of friends that God brings to us.

We are people needing the stuff of friendship…the catalyst for a deep devotion, and sustaining faith in God.  Friendship and loyalty that can single-handedly make it possible for us to survive.

“Friendship” is a mild word for such an extraordinary and holy connection, for what can be the most sustaining, life-giving, death-defying relationships some of us will ever experience. My closest friends are the reason for my deep faith in God, because through them I have discovered what superhuman intimacy and devotion are. ~Anne Lamott

Boasting in Weakness

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Wisteria Verse

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 of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.  2 Corinthians 12:9

I’m beginning to understand the value of having a thorn in my life. I need the constant reminder that Jesus is bigger than that. Once I jumped into the sweet reality that my weakness is something to boast about, the thorn stopped nagging me, albeit for that moment. Thorns will always grow on the stem of a rose or on a vine of a thistle, but I choose to believe that God has transformed my stubborn heart, like thorny weeds choking life, into a beautiful budding rose, a rose that’s noticed more than the thorns because of God’s all-sufficient grace.

Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses! This week, it dawned on me as I was fighting with that thorn and asking God to please take it away for ever, that I had never thanked him for that thorn. I had never taken the jump into experiencing God’s grace. Jumping into joy by praising God for my weakness.

My conversation with God went something like this:

“Okay, God! Here I am boasting about this junk! Do you hear me? I am so tired with dealing with this again and again. I’ve begged you to take it away for ever but it’s still weighing me down. I need your grace and power because I am about to fail again! Thank you, God for this wonderful trial and constant temptation so I can depend on you for strength to overcome. I’m counting on the truth of your Word. I believe, please help my unbelief. I believe I am more than a conqueror because of Jesus. Show me Jesus, now!”

There is something wonderfully sweet about feeling the prick of the Holy Spirit in my heart. To even feel a sense of happiness for that thorn. It’s there for me to celebrate and jump into God’s sufficiency. He did show me Jesus! Praising God for that!

My heart naturally resists depending on God when I am weak. The noise in my heart, amplified by tough self-sufficiency, can drown out the Holy Spirit’s reminder: “my power is perfect in your weakness.” God meets me at the point of my prideful self-sufficiency and lovingly brings me to my knees in worshipful dependence.   ~Tricia Wilkerson 

Linking up with Five Minute Friday: JUMP

 

The Joy of Running

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Preface: I wrote this piece before I heard the news regarding the Boston Marathon tragedy. This is a horrific and wicked thing. Our family prayed together for the families and people affected by this horror. I pray they are able to run again with joy and peace. That broken lives will mend. Please Lord, More Grace to them.

For the pure joy of running

“Want a strong, solid relationship that is willing to go the distance? Get to know your running shoes.”  –Dean Karnazes

How many pairs of running shoes have I owned? I have no idea! I wish I had kept track of the number of shoes I’ve worn out from the miles of pounding pavement and trails. If I had kept a folder of receipts from all those purchases and submitted copies of said receipts (with a sincere compliment for the brand) I may have won a free gift from ASICS footwear, the brand of running shoes that has been good to my feet for many years. Why change after 32 years of running!

I love to run. But I didn’t used to. In fact, there was a time I would avoid all exercise simply because I hated to sweat. Fast rewind. I had become an overweight and out-of-shape soccer mom who was always too busy with everyone and everything else to focus on my own physical needs. I realized that I needed to make a healthy change. With support from my encouraging husband and close friends to help with childcare, I was able to schedule a several hours each week to walk.

Eventually, the more I walked the better I felt…about everything. These daily walks became a rhythm for praying, listening to music or an audio book, and thinking about solutions to problems. Not only did I lose weight and drop pant sizes, but the “alone time” in walking made me a better wife, mother, friend, and leader.

After several months, the walking turned into “wogging” (which is a walking-jogging combination). I remember buying my first pair of ASICS around that time. After “wogging” for a while, I discovered I could run for a longer amount of time before stopping. Eventually, I was running 6 miles in an hour. My husband also started running and along with our children, we spent many a Saturday morning participating in family fun runs or 10K races.

Here are few things that have kept me sweating for the joy of running:

 1.  Take care of my feet. Wear quality running shoes. Understanding my personal pronation type is crucial to choosing the proper running shoes. Visit a retail sport store that specializes in running to receive the best advice regarding the right shoe.

2. Stay injury free! Practice right running techniques. After incurring repeated foot pain and knee injuries, I investigated how to run injury free and discovered the Pose Method of running, which focuses on mid-foot or forefoot strike versus heal-striking. I also had to practice the correct posture and learn how to run relaxed. I usually feel better after I run due to learning this technique. I’ve also seen a huge improvement in distance and speed when running on trails or grass with the Pose Method.

3.  Run with a friend or join a running group for encouragement. Running with a friend or group keeps me accountable to a routine and motivates me to stay on a healthy running pace. Plus if I can hold a conversation while running, then it’s a good sign that I’m not running too hard (anaerobic) and can run longer and burn more fat (aerobic). 

4. Select music with the right beat that matches my running cadence. I created several playlists featuring a variety of artists to keep my runs interesting and fun. I always run against traffic (facing cars coming head on) so I can move out-of-the-way of an on coming car. I don’t trust drivers to watch out for me so I don’t run with traffic. I always run with my cell phone.

5. Eat healthy and stay hydrated. I need energy (fuel) to run well and maintain hydration so I don’t burn out. When I eat healthy all of the time and drink plenty of water everyday, my runs are much easier and I feel energized after running. Sometimes, I’ll have a light snack before a morning run but always refuel after a run with a healthy meal or blend a kale-protein shake concoction (Really delicious! It’s all about the right ingredients.)

6. Take rest days. Go for a walk instead. It’s okay not to run everyday. In fact, rest is good for the body. Maintain core fitness, strength training and stretching also helps to keep me injury free. I enjoy listening to a podcast or “read with my ears” via Kindle/Audible.com while taking a long casual walk on the rest days.

7. Worship gives me pure joy while running. Many of the playlists I created are worship songs. Often times, I do not want to walk or run due to feeling blah or discouraged or the weather is cold and gray. This is when self-discipline is needed to lace up the running shoes and layer up to face the winter chill. Exercise is good to boost the endorphins and combine that with listening to praise music and worship songs elevate my heart to the right place of focusing on Jesus instead of the blahs. I do this for the joy of running…32 years of pounding the pavement and still counting!

Every physical, created pleasure is meant to serve a higher pleasure; the pleasure of God.  –Paul David Tripp

Stay and Wait Here

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“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.” Robert Brault

Isla Tulips

Stay and Wait. Please linger with me here.

Once upon a time I took the little things for granted. Watching you sniff a tulip’s perfume reminds me that I don’t know that fragrance.

I want to stay and wait here. Capturing every detail of you with my eyes, hearing every sound you make, feeling your small hand in the palm of mine.

I had forgotten how much fun it is to swing until we were swinging together and I began to laugh along with you.

Stay and Wait Here

Here is where I pray for you to stay and wait to see God’s wonder and know God’s grace. That you would stay close and lift up His name. To wait and hold fast to His Word.

Here is where the treasure is. You are a princess, a child of the King. Stay and wait here. You will see the King stretch out His arms for you; to clothe you in royal righteousness.

Here I will stay and wait.

A Walk With My Sister

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Charlotte Walk with Sister

Upon the end of my spring break away from spring in the Midwest , I had a few precious hours with one of my younger sisters. These hours are few and I treasure the time we have together. I wish to have the same amount of time, no matter how short and brief time allows, with my other siblings. Space in distance and expense upon travel does not help to make our visits frequent and planning ahead will be imperative.

This particular walk with this younger sibling was refreshing. Our conversation revolved around becoming more like Jesus and less about ourselves. I heard her voice and she heard mine. We both want more of Jesus.

We walked through her neighborhood while conversing about life. I told her about my angst in starting over in our new home and she told me how God is filling her life with more of Him. This was so encouraging for me! I thrill to hear my sister tell me how she is loving Jesus more; how God has transformed her heart. This sharpens me. Her steady and consistent relationship with Jesus motivates me to have the same.

A walk with my sister

We walked and  talked about all sorts of things that may bring angst and uncertainty to both of us. We stopped along our walk to soak in the beauty of God’s creation. I am in awe of God’s grace. So very thankful for a walk with my sister to help me focus on an omniscient God.

Our ups and downs have no comparison to those who struggle with much more. I feel less in character when I compare our [my] struggles with someone else facing far more than me.

This walk with my sister has caused me to think beyond my sweet home front.

Beyond…

Courageous for Something

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Devotions on the lake

A quick get-away to visit my family has been extended for several more days. I am not complaining! Lots of hugs, kisses, and laughing with my two granddaughters is the best! An unexpected few days on the beach with family was an added bonus too. And now, to be able to have some time on the lake is priceless!

This morning, I had the great pleasure of sitting on the back deck overlooking a gorgeous lake view. I grabbed a large mug of freshly brewed coffee and focused on some needed quiet time…devotions and bible study. Tomorrow, I will leave this place to return home…our new home, which is far away from this place. I’ve been asking God to give me courage during this transition and I’ve been praying for my husband, even more so to be strengthened in courage and resolve as a leader. I found what I was looking for in the book of Joshua.

This is the best leadership text and not for the faint hearted. It is as if God reaches out and shakes me to get my attention. For my husband and me personally, God has called us to a mission, this particular mission away from home and familiarity.  I am challenged that God repeats to us: “Be strong and courageous.”  I once read that nothing in life or in ministry ever happens apart from courage. There is no such thing as courage apart from mission, just as there is no such thing as faith apart from challenge. You’re not just courageous to be courageous, but you are courageous for something.[1]

I learned a few things this morning:

1. I must be courageous for something! God has given us a clear assignment. Joshua had no doubt what God called Him to do. There should be no doubt what we are called to do.

2. God promises that He is with us! God promises to never leave or forsake us. We have confidence that God will keep His promises! God will not leave us high and dry. Being courageous for something means that I fear God more than I fear my environment.

3. Be resolved! Be careful in making the right decisions. Be strong and courageous and do not sway or change course. Leadership is strengthened by acts of obedience. Being courageous for something means I need to take the first step and another step and another and another. I can not run away because of opposition.

4. Anchored in Truth! Success (or failure) in a mission is tied to my relationship with God. I need to be immersed in knowing, really knowing, God’s truth. When trials come, and they surely will, being courageous for something means I must be able to practice and apply that truth. Love God’s book. Live it. Be totally immersed.

This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Joshua 1:8

“Read the Bible praying, ‘Father, hold my mind’s attention. Wake my heart’s affection. Speak for your glory and my holy joy.’ – John Piper

[1] The Call to Courage │Two Ways You Can Become a Cheerful Person (“The Cheery Tree”)

 

After Memories Fade

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After the Storm

My father’s swing in his back yard

He holds fast to the memory attached to this swing. He would watch his beloved read books in the shade while gently swaying. He would sit beside her in the evenings while sipping on cool ice tea. Friends and family would arrive for visits and race to be the first one to sit on the swing. Folding chairs were hauled out from the garage and placed in a half-moon circle facing the swing. Sweet times and pleasant memories.

There has always been a wooden  swing in the back yard or one hanging on the back porch. Pillows were added for a comfortable touch and cozy enough to lay down and take a nap. He would tie a rope on a branch of a tree or from a corner of the porch, long enough to reach the person sitting in the swing. We would stretch out on the swing, give the rope a tug and rock ourselves to sleep.

Things happen and life changes. She was no longer around to enjoy the swing with him. The rhythm of conversation taking place around the swing stopped because she was not there to talk. He never noticed how old the swing was and how badly the paint had chipped around the edges, until after she was gone. He noticed the swing more after the memories began to fade.

He fought back to keep the memories from disappearing. He bought lumber and set out to build a new swing. He created a swing like the original one he gave her years and years before. He built bird houses near the swing because she always loved to watch the birds. He is pleased with his carpentry  knowing how thrilled she would have been and so proud of him. After memories fade, he sits on the swing he built for two and is flooded with peace that he will be with her again one day.

The tree dad planted

The tree dad planted

My Dad

My Dad