A not so good photo taken with my "dumb" phone, but you may get the idea.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
No good thing...
It is a truth universally acknowledged that your favorite tank top (and the only one that will match perfectly with that soft pink shirt you want to wear) can only be found in the bowels of your tee shirt drawer or at the bottom of the abyss of unwashed laundry. Another universal truth is that no good cake worth serving from a cake plate can be made from a box. Why is it that everything good must be so necessarily impossible to accomplish?
Sometimes I have to remind myself of this as I hear that predictable cry a mere forty five minutes into naptime. As I reach into the crib to pull out my squirmy, squishy, red faced William I have to think about how if he weren't so exhausting he probably wouldn't be so great. And then he points to the photos on the wall and coos, looks at me with tears still in his eyes and emits a questioning, "Uhh!?," and I smile. I don't know how I do it, but I guess it is because I know that even for all of the alone time he is depriving me of, he's probably worth it.
My friend Emily showed up at my house on Saturday with her daughter and a box of scary looking art supplies. That mass of pastel paper, sparkly Modge Podge, florist tape, and paint pens made me squirm. I thought we were just making Valentine heart garlands?? She introduced the project: homemade flowers, with individually cut out and painted petals to be wrapped together and set off nicely with the sparkly stuff. I took a deep breath, gave the kids full rein of the house, and dug my heels in. Hours later (and several meltdowns from the little ones... several more from the moms) I was sitting at my dining room table in the dark with my petals strewn around me and everything glittering. Now they are my prize bouquet, and one that will not die, one that I can set at the table every Valentine's Day and be proud of.
I know this is cliché, and I write more as a reflection for myself than anything, and I think that it is appropriate that I reflect on this on Valentine's Day. Marriage just may be the most poignant proof in the pudding.
Sometimes I have to remind myself of this as I hear that predictable cry a mere forty five minutes into naptime. As I reach into the crib to pull out my squirmy, squishy, red faced William I have to think about how if he weren't so exhausting he probably wouldn't be so great. And then he points to the photos on the wall and coos, looks at me with tears still in his eyes and emits a questioning, "Uhh!?," and I smile. I don't know how I do it, but I guess it is because I know that even for all of the alone time he is depriving me of, he's probably worth it.
My friend Emily showed up at my house on Saturday with her daughter and a box of scary looking art supplies. That mass of pastel paper, sparkly Modge Podge, florist tape, and paint pens made me squirm. I thought we were just making Valentine heart garlands?? She introduced the project: homemade flowers, with individually cut out and painted petals to be wrapped together and set off nicely with the sparkly stuff. I took a deep breath, gave the kids full rein of the house, and dug my heels in. Hours later (and several meltdowns from the little ones... several more from the moms) I was sitting at my dining room table in the dark with my petals strewn around me and everything glittering. Now they are my prize bouquet, and one that will not die, one that I can set at the table every Valentine's Day and be proud of.
I know this is cliché, and I write more as a reflection for myself than anything, and I think that it is appropriate that I reflect on this on Valentine's Day. Marriage just may be the most poignant proof in the pudding.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
A thought
I don't usually blog about my thoughts concerning God. They are pretty personal. However, I think a good deal about what it is God has called each follower of His to do and I think I am ready to share some of them. Jesus said to His disciples when they asked Him what work were they to do, "The work of God is this: to believe in the one he has sent." (John 6:29)
He asks us to believe, and I think that evangelism follows. It is not a prerequisite for heaven as it were, but it is a byproduct of our belief. My brother just broke a Virginia Tech pool record in his meet this last weekend. He broke 20 seconds in the 50 free and he is now second in the Tar Heel history of swimming that event. Do you know how many people I have told? Everyone. Every person I have talked to since Sunday now knows about my brother's swimming prowess. At church, on the phone, out in the neighborhood, and anywhere people ask me, "What's new?," I am ready with the headlining details of my little brother's talent.
Perhaps it should be that way for evangelism. Jesus didn't shove it down our throats to sweat, cry, and lose sleep over how to shout his name from rooftops and our back decks. He did, however, sweat, cry, and lose sleep over what it would take to save us. In doing so He experienced the greatest joy-- giving God his own life towards God's glory. He lived a life of service and sacrifice, and yes, evangelism. He wasn't depressed, he wasn't bored, and he wasn't boring. He was fascinating, exciting, an adventurer and a lover of people. He was full. Full of life, full of love, and it poured out in the form of sermons and parables and stories about His Father. He believed in every fiber of his being that God was worth talking about, and so He did.
I don't think the question is how much should I talk about Him, but rather if I haven't talked about Him to someone recently then how much do I really believe in who He is? To say I believe in Jesus, that He is the way and the truth and the life, is one thing. To actually ride the white water rapids of that belief is something so much more terrible and exciting. Where in the name of all that is holy is that raft??
He asks us to believe, and I think that evangelism follows. It is not a prerequisite for heaven as it were, but it is a byproduct of our belief. My brother just broke a Virginia Tech pool record in his meet this last weekend. He broke 20 seconds in the 50 free and he is now second in the Tar Heel history of swimming that event. Do you know how many people I have told? Everyone. Every person I have talked to since Sunday now knows about my brother's swimming prowess. At church, on the phone, out in the neighborhood, and anywhere people ask me, "What's new?," I am ready with the headlining details of my little brother's talent.
Perhaps it should be that way for evangelism. Jesus didn't shove it down our throats to sweat, cry, and lose sleep over how to shout his name from rooftops and our back decks. He did, however, sweat, cry, and lose sleep over what it would take to save us. In doing so He experienced the greatest joy-- giving God his own life towards God's glory. He lived a life of service and sacrifice, and yes, evangelism. He wasn't depressed, he wasn't bored, and he wasn't boring. He was fascinating, exciting, an adventurer and a lover of people. He was full. Full of life, full of love, and it poured out in the form of sermons and parables and stories about His Father. He believed in every fiber of his being that God was worth talking about, and so He did.
I don't think the question is how much should I talk about Him, but rather if I haven't talked about Him to someone recently then how much do I really believe in who He is? To say I believe in Jesus, that He is the way and the truth and the life, is one thing. To actually ride the white water rapids of that belief is something so much more terrible and exciting. Where in the name of all that is holy is that raft??
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