I need to learn

how to just *stop singing* so I don't feel like such a stupid idiot on stage.  Worship today was one of the hardest mornings of my life.

It's very difficult to go up there and sing worship when you are so self-conscious. It is the complete opposite of the purpose of worship, which is to glorify and praise God.

#mortified #humiliated

My Gutsy Girl

Yesterday at 4 PM we pulled into our driveway. The girls and I had just arrived home from picking Lia up from school, when I felt inspired to ask Lia how she felt about going door to door.

What am I talking about? School Fundraiser Time, baby!

Lia has been so excited because the class who sells the most coupon books gets rewarded with a CUPCAKE party! And in a manner of optimism that only a 6 year can muster, she was certain that her class was going to win. Little does she know that mommy volunteers with PTA and has seen the numbers. In order to win, every student has to sell, and up until yesterday 3:59PM the only book she had sold was to me--the lone name, address, and order on her fundraising envelope.

I thought about myself as a child and how embarrassed and scared I was to ask someone to buy something from me. I remember sending everything with my mom to work and having her coworkers order the wrapping paper, World's Best Chocolates, or whatever it was we were selling that year. And because of this I never asked Lia to try to sell her fundraising items. I always just assumed she's be scared or too shy--just unwilling to put herself out there, just as I was. 

But when we pulled into the driveway, something came over me. I was so disappointed in myself, and I knew we could do better than 1 sold to mommy. So I looked back and asked her, "Hey baby, what do you think about running upstairs and putting on your School shirt? Then we can walk around the neighborhood and see if anyone wants to buy a book from you."

And her response to me was, "YES YES YES YES!" and up she went and in record time she was back down with her elementary school shirt on and a word track..."Hi. My name is Lia, and I'm raising money for my school. Would you like to buy a book?"

We walked around for an hour and a half. Lia approached every adult she saw outside cutting his lawn or watching her kids play, and gave them her lines..."Hi. My name is Lia, and I'm raising money for my school. Would you like to buy a book from me?" She would even show them the type of coupons that were in the book, and inevitably they would ask how much it was. And she would tell them "Twenty Dollars." 

Lia received a lot of "No, Thank you's" a lot of "It's not a good time" and "I think I'm gunna pass." But she kept on going. She would even pray, "Jesus let this be the house," and up she'd go to ring the door bell. 

Every time she said her little speech my eyes would get teary, and I just kept thinking how brave she is, how amazingly adorable and sweet. Man I couldn't have been more proud of her. 

And you know what?!?!?! She sold 5 books! (mommy's made 6) It was incredible. She worked hard, and it paid off. 

My daughter inspired me yesterday. It's hard to put yourself out there and to be rejected. The easy response would have been to give up, but her belief that God was going to provide her a buyer motivated her to keep knocking, to keep walking.  

Maybe that's you. Maybe you're ready for a husband or a wife, and you keep getting "It's not a good time." Be confident that the Lord will provide for you.

Maybe you're in financial hardship; Maybe you're in a hard marriage; Maybe you're praying for a baby. 

Cry out to Jesus, and Let Him provide! 

Too Tired to Write

My eyelids are heavy
And my words are weak
And my mind is slowing
Along with my ability to speak.

The Struggle

The current of sinful nature

That flows beneath my carefully crusted life,

The molten menacing

That ever so slightly shifts

My continental holiness

Erupts.

The One

All the words welling up inside me--
My thoughts and feelings just bursting at the seams.
And everywhere I turn there's an opportunity
To chime in and pick teams.

My world has become so muddled and foggy,
Where goodness and honesty take a back seat
To selfishness, and self-preservation ,
To politics, and gender/race sensitivity.

What happened to the educated populace?
To where did all the morality flee?
When did we reach a point where babies are killed
Just so I can keep having sex with whomever I please?

Why would people rather kill themselves
Than to own up to who they really are?
And why must I choose a side
When both have everything all wrong?

Do what's good.
And choose what's right.
And be willing to sacrifice
And there are causes worth the fight
There are movements worth the leap
There are charities worth the green
There are people worth the love.

But don't ask me to set aside
The words that express my very soul
The thoughts that God imprinted in my mind
The truths that the Spirit, the world told.

Think about the mighty power held in a voice.
The world created by a single utterance
And my words too have a calling--
To be true and live-giving.

Forget the flattery
And double-sided tongue.
Give me honesty
Give me passion
Give me truth
And give me The One.

Upon us finished

It's that deep yearning--
Calling out for more.

It's the hard thumping
Of my heart beating
And my breath catching
And my soul fleeing.

The beginning

I've had a story tinkling around in my mind for a while, and I feel compelled tonight to type it out. Here's only a few lines, but I figure if I don't post this, I'll never be inclined to finish.

FORWARD
I suppose, as with all stories, it's best to start at the beginning.  But perhaps I'm just one of those girls that never did anything the proper way. It is pretty evident that being so improper is what got me here in the first place.

Where am I? Alone.

Surrounded by a family I never wanted in a life I never asked for.

CHAPTER 1...

Counter culture

Abortion.

Turn away now of you're not interested in what I have to say on the subject of Christians and abortion.

How I Dealt with the News of Your Passing...

Your story blinked into my life late on Wednesday night,

Just a simple click and there you were.

And from the start I knew I shouldn't have,

But I read about what occurred.

And the thought of you filled every fiber of my mind

And the visions were seared into the pits of my soul

And each evil and painful line of your story

Broke my spirit more and more.

'Till I saw your body beaten and broken

Reflected everywhere I turned--

Each time I saw my own daughter, it awoken.

Each time I closed my eyes, your memory stirred.

Then I heard the subtle whisperings
Of the Devil in my ear
Saying this could be your baby's future
And he stirred in me a deadly fear.

And he made me feel the pain you felt
And he helped me see the whole thing through
Making me come up with what I would do,
If my babies turned out just like you.

Perspective

I saw a man
Who lost his son tonight,
Who held his wife in his arms
And cried for a child who never took a first breath,
And my too tight jeans
And my stringy hair
And my un-pedicured heels
And my daughter who shrieks too loudly
And my baby who's still nursing
And my husband who's still limping
And my lawn that needs watering
And my million stupid grumblings
Make me sick.
My God when did I lose sight of my miracles?
Father, how could I let go of the wonder I felt
When I saw my baby smile for the first time?
Lord, why did I ever forget the sight of my
Little girl when she was first placed in my arms.
How dare I behave in any way contrary to
Utter jubilation
And gratitude
And awe.
Father God help me.

Exhausting

My goodness it's difficult keeping up with you--
So incredibly enlightened
So intrinsically good.
I find it exhausting to be constantly wrong
Flawed
Sinful
My goodness if I were meant to be so demure
So submissive
So kind
So humble
So pure
So loving,
Then why was I created so contrarily!

I resent that crisp green line

On my painful, hellish run this morning I saw a man in the distance cutting his grass. It had me thinking about our lawn, and how I have to cut the grass because Lee still is unable to walk, and how I wish the lawn would just get miraculously weed-eated and cut. Instead of the reality of ME having to push the lawn mower later today after this exhausting run.....

All this was running through my mind, as I approached the working man. I noticed him pushing the lawnmower along a narrow strip of grass that stretched between his lawn and his neighbor's. But then he did something that shocked me....he stopped....

He stopped about 3 feet short---the 3 feet that fell into his neighbor's property. It would have taken exactly two strides of his feet to complete that strip of grass, practically the exact width of his lawnmower. Instead, he felt the need to leave a very precise, crisp green line between their lawns.

Credit: CAST

And then I started thinking These Yankees up here in North Carolina are so damn strange! I remember my dad cutting this little square of grass that bordered our lawn and our neighbor's driveway. It was just an unspoken rule that whoever was cutting his grass would cut that little square too. Not just cut one side and leave the other 5 inches longer.  What is that!??!?

That's when I turned the corner running toward my house, and I noticed the crisp line between the side of my house and that of my neighbor's.

Right now that I'm close to PAYING cash for someone to cut my grass, that strip of lawn bitterly mocked me. Lee had been pestering me all week to call someone to cut the lawn, but I couldn't seem to bring myself to take out the $50. So of course, I kept putting it off, and I resigned to the fact that I'm going to be cutting it again. It's super long and it's wet because of the non-stop rains that have visited us almost daily for the better part of a week.

And at that moment I remember thinking, I resent Lee's ankle, and I resent my neighbor, and I resent that crisp green line. 

Just put a magnet on it

My husband doesn't fix things around the house. He's not handy whatsoever, and if you were to ask him about it, he would say that he works with a different type of tool set.

He's a software engineer, and if you need some complex application that can manage 1232345 functions per second, he's your man. But ask him to fix a doorknob, and he's calling Andy Handyman stat.

I'm okay with that because I happen to be handy (at least handier than him), and I learned it from my dad.

As a little girl, I would help my dad build sheds and fences, help him fix the car, or some general plumbing job--always marveling at how easily he calculated all the measurements and angles. My dad just knew how things went together--how they worked. It was something that mesmerized me about my dad, and to be honest, it still does.

So the other day I give him a call. I want to install a cat door and needed a drill and saw to get the job done, and the best man to help me in the purchasing process is definitely my dad. Of course his mind goes beyond big pictures and straight down to the nitty gritty. He asks me how long the blades on the drills are, how thick the door is, he asks what the door looks like and how many volts the drill is, and then he asks what I believe he thought to be a fundamental question, What kind of door is it?

Huh?

Is it metal or wood?

I don't know. I tell him. How would I find that out? 

Then he said it. 6  simple words that blew my mind...

Put a magnet on it.

And I ran downstairs and grabbed a magnet off the frige, walked over to the door and snap! The magnet practically flew out of my grasp to attach itself to my METAL door.

Well there ya go, he tells me... You'll need to use the metal blades on the saw. 

And just like that the crisis is averted.

My dad has this fantastic way of making things so simple. You wonder to yourself, "Why didn't I think of that!?!?" And I wish I had that in me. I remember as a kid him always telling me "Make it easy on yourself."
It's like he always thought I went about things in the hardest, most inefficient way possible. Make it easy on yourself, daughter.

He once told me this was his favorite song, and appropriately so!

Do I have any business leading worship?

I sin on purpose all the time. I know something is wrong but I do it anyway. I often wonder if I have any business leading people in worship when I'm so sinful and broken. And if I want to be honest with myself, I don't always try my absolute hardest to change. My worship is genuine, but I'm always wondering if I'm not just some big phoney baloney.

Am I too Catholic to be non-denominational?

Am I too Catholic to be non-denominational? Does non-denominational = Protestant?

Can someone continue to attend a church when you disagree with some of their fundamental theological conclusions? If you agree on all the big stuff, does it matter that you disagree with some of the small stuff? These are questions I'm wrestling with right now. 

But i should really learn how and when to bring up these topics because now it seems I've become that awkward family member who always says crazy/weird/offensive things at Thanksgiving, and this year you have some friends coming and you have to have that tough conversation like "Hey, you know how you're always saying crazy stuff, well could you, just this once...not do that."

A Memory Lasts Forever Too

I am so used to my digital life, my iPhone with its super cool and powerful camera, my dropbox account that costs me however much $ a month so that I can instantly download and share all of my ingenious family and candid shots.

I am so used to THAT that it takes all the effort I can muster simply to STOP.

Over the weekend my family and I went to the Great Wolf Lodge, an indoor water park, and then spent all day today at the Carolina Zoo. This vacation was on the heels of the most excruciating month we've had as a family. Lee has worked 12-15hr days for 7 days a week for at least 3 weeks straight. We learned so much from this month of over working and under connecting. And we have vowed never to let it happen again.

Me Cheating!! 

So during our vacation there were countless water slides, and magic quests, and meals, and games, and jokes, and stories, but very few made it to my digital photo album.

Instead of looking for a photo op, I was trying to savor the moment. Instead of stopping the laughter so I could quickly snap a few photos, I was just adding my voice to the laughter. Don't get me wrong, I was constantly slipping back into my old habits--stepping back from the fun and clicking away on my camera, but I consciously tried to distance myself from that behavior...

What is that!? Why is it so much more important to have a photo than to be a participant in the action? I feel like we think that if we don't capture it on film (figuratively), then it never happened and no one will ever remember this moment. But what I think really happens is that everyone remembers that moment, you just won't be in the memory. One rarely remembers who took the picture, just who was standing by his side!

I need to be better at being an active person in my family and not just an observant bystander. Hey, there's nothing wrong with capturing moments on your camera/phone. I just know that I allowed myself to be removed from the family time, in order to be the cameraman. I think a nice balance is needed. I'm hoping that I achieved that on this trip.

A while back a wrote a poem about always being behind the lens. If you're interested in checking it out, ---->Click here<----- nbsp="">

On Praying for a Miracle

If only you knew,
If only you could sense the trembling of my soul,
If only you could feel how my spirit shivers,
You would soon realize that it's all been a front,
A Smoke and Mirror expert
Trying to make you feel that I'm more confident than I really am.
Only the LORD knows.
He can feel the breath catch in my chest.
He can see through the mask.
And perhaps only He can bring relief.
So tonight I pray for a miracle, Dear Lord.
I beg you for forgiveness and favor
Both of which I do not deserve.
I wonder what lesson you are trying to teach.
Or maybe this is a form of punishment--
A divine reckoning for active sinning?
Perhaps those I love are suffering
For sins that I've committed?
What is it Lord?
What must I do to end this?
What can I do to have your heavy hand lifted?
Father, please be our guide and our rescue.

Quotes of late--Lia

Me: Lia I love how you love God and Jesus.

Lia: Jesus is God. They're the same thing.

--------------

(I read Lia a book about Mother Teresa. This was her commentary.)
"I like people who are good and help the poor people. I don't like people who do bad things and are mean to babies. But I do want them to say they are sorry to Jesus. So they can go up to Jesus too when the Sun goes larger and larger and we need to get saved."

I feel like sharing

I feel like sharing what I'm reading.

First, there's a book called Worship Matters that my worship leader invited the band members to read with him. As a band, we are discussing the assigned chapters weekly. I'm a few chapters in and the honesty in the book is amazing. Very good read for anyone who needs to check his heart and see who/what he is truly worshipping

Then there's The City of Ember. I've just started, but it seems like an interesting young reader type book.

Also I'm reading Original Intent about the Founding Father's original intent when creating the constitution and what role they felt Christianity held for us as a nation. Did they ever intend this war on Christianity that we see now in our nation? From reading the writing of most of our founding fathers, I can definitively say NO.

Then last night I cracked open The Lost Hero by Rick Riordan. This is a spin-off of his Percy Jackson series, which I absolutely LOVED. I opened "The Lost Hero" and couldn't put it down! I have a feeling that I'm going to become totally engulfed in this series in no time.

Last and potentially least, is The Guardian by Nicholas Sparks. It's good, not great. A thriller with bits of sentimental romance. It's entertaining, but easily put down and not picked back up. (In my opinion)

Here's a list of books that I have checked out of the library and are in a neat stack on my desk:

Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President

Girl in Translation-->this one's for my book club. It's due May 15th. I've gotta get reading!

Rise to Greatness:Abraham Lincoln and America's Most Perilous Year

The Aviary

If you've read any of these books and want to share how you liked them, leave a comment below :D

The Subject/Verb Disagreement rant

So there are a lot of grammatical pet peeves out there in cyber space. Most people post about the misuse of They're, There, and Their, or another common point of contention is the misuse of it's and its.

But I feel there is not enough public outcry against the subject/verb disagreement--a major grammatical error that could strip you of an entire letter grade by its mere appearance in your paper.

Listen up folks. If someone says something, he or she says it, ok!??! Not they! Someone is a single person--not a group. If anyone or no one or everyone or somebody or anybody does anything, he or she is doing it.

Does everyone have their subjects and verbs agreeing? (nope, wrong)
Everyone in this class has an A because he or she learned subject/verb agreement.

Next class we'll talk about split infinitives :) jk

Feel free to share, if you have any grammatical pet peeves or linguistic ones.