Indiana Jones and the lost suggestion box

It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood, won't you be mine? Oh won't you be mine?  Sorry, I couldn't help it.  It really is a gorgeous day today after the rain and the wind of the last two days.  Irene limped into the area, huffed and puffed and slid on out leaving limbs down and flowers bedraggled by a bit of a beating.  I have to admit, I kind of enjoyed it.  There are few things I like better than a rainy Saturday.  Things are getting back to normal now that the storm has passed.  J is working in the yard, getting all the debris cleaned up and the kids have all gone their separate ways to worship band practice or marching band practice, or video games or homework (hey! a mom can dream!) or whatever else they do while hiding in the rooms acting like teenagers.

I've tried to drag them out and make them spend time together as a family, but it's like pulling teeth.  I know they are at that age when they are establishing their own identity, forging their own way, pulling away from mom to form their own life, blah, blah, blah!  Where did my little boys all go??!  I remember the days when all I had to do was suggest they come sit on my lap, or give me a hug.  There was ever a time when I could simply suggest they clean their rooms and, sometimes, they actually did it.  Now they have turned into these big smelly creatures with a mind of their own.  They don't mind the mess, the clutter, the funky smell.  I can "suggest" till I'm blue in the face, but that room won't be cleaned without, usually, a computer ban threat.  I think my suggester must be broken. 

Lately, I have found my suggestions falling on deaf ears in other areas of my life as well.  It seems the answer to some of my prayers has been no or not yet, despite the fact I strongly suggested otherwise.  I heard someone say once that they had asked God for something and it hadn't happened and, to them, this indicated He just didn't answer prayer.  I tried to be very loving when I informed them, maybe the answer was "no".  They looked at me as if I had lost my ever lovin mind.  Sometimes we forget "no" is an answer.   When we ask things of God, when we share our hearts with Him, He listens. He cares. He feels our pain.  The word tells us He even saves every tear we've ever cried.  He is, however, also an all knowing God as well as an all loving God and occasionally what we think is best for our life, he knows is not.  We can share our hearts with him, thereby deepening our relationship, but He is not a vending machine where you put in the right amount of money/prayer and out pops your desire.  The Holy Spirit does not have a suggestion box.  To live a truly fulfilled life is to trust that he has the right answers at the right time. 

This concept is such a freeing one.  No longer do I feel the need to take a list to the Lord of all the things I want/need in my life.  I can relax and just enjoy spending time with Him.  Sure, I still tell Him what I would like to happen, but I try to remember the answer may still be "no".  I remember the word tells us to seek Him first and He will add all the other stuff to us.  I find as I spend more time with him that He fills my heart with the desires He wants me to have.  When you pray something the Lord wants to do anyway, you can rest assured of that positive outcome. 

My goal this week is to relax in my heavenly father knowing he wants only good things for my life and I won't always know what those things are.  I hope to begin to respond in a way that pleases him when the answer is "no".  I will keep reminding myself that he doesn't need my suggestions on how the world should be run.  He's pretty much got a good handle on things. 

My teenagers are a different story.  I'm thinking of finding a way to move those suggestions into the physical realm, like maybe with a bull whip.  I bet that would get their attention!  Indiana Jones ain't got nothing on me!



Till next time I'll be
Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

Italian dinners and snot nosed apple thieves.........

 The following is a post that was written just about one year ago.  I thought it needed some editing so I never published it. Then, true to form for me, I forgot about it.  But! It made for a great discovery today.  So here it is............


We went to a dinner at church tonight. It was called Dinner and Discovery. The food was great, lets get the important stuff out of the way first, but, more importantly, it was a great opportunity to get to know some other people in this new church we now call home. Pastor Awesome took time after we ate some wonderful italian, to give us an overview of what Church Alive believes and how it came to be. It was a time of discovery, but not only about the church, I discovered something about myself as well. I'm still in there! Even after a thousand years of being a mom, a wife, a writer, a singer, a worker, I'm still me, just little old me.

It's so easy in our busy lives, especially as women, to lose ourselves as we nurture, care for, and give out to our families and others. That is one thing God is working on in me with this relocation. I am in a church that is filled with people and a ministry team that is open to me. They have no preconceived notion of who I am or what I have done in the past. I am just me, with all my strengths and weakness, with all my good and bad traits, my intelligence and stupidity, my gifts, my passions, my goofiness and everything else that makes up who I am.

It's so easy when we have been in the same place for a long time, with the same people, to become locked into what others perceive us to be. It becomes comfortable. We cease to become stretched and sometimes, to grow. The word speaks of a prophet having no honor in his home town. I can only imagine it might be difficult to take seriously the message of God coming from the same guy who used to be the snot nosed kid running barefoot through your yard, stealing apples from your tree.

So the challenge is this; be who you are! Be who God created you to be, not everyone else's perception of who God created you to be. You will probably rock a few boats, upset a few apple carts, and blow a few minds, but it's worth it. To live a life short of what God intends, is to not really live life at all. There is great joy in the freedom that comes from breaking out of the rut, the easy life you find yourself in.

So, take a chance and be who you are, not who others think you are! You don't have to have a relocation to set free the real you from the bonds of the expectations of those around you.  Turn a few heads, shake a few worlds, rock a boat or two, step out and embrace the wonderful you that the Lord created you to be!  There's great comfort in relaxing and doing what comes naturally, whatever that may be!

Until next time, I'll still be,

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

Boats, Mice, and Cheese Pizza

Here I am home, mostly alone, almost at peace.  Aaahhh, you gotta love it when the guys feel the need to run off to the woods and do the "guy bonding thing".  It's been just Scamp and me at home since yesterday morning and, I must admit, the semi-solitude has been enjoyable.  The laundry pile hasn't really grown all that much, there really aren't a lot of dishes in the sink and the clutter in the living room is at an all time low.  I could get used to this.  Of course, it loses some of it's shine when I have to do things like, go out and untangle the dumb 3-legged dog because she keeps getting her line caught in the bushes, or go get the mail, or pump gas, or take out the trash or bring in the groceries or walk the dog or, or, or, ok, it's time for them to come home!  Upon further review, I'm tired!!

I spoke with J earlier today and it sounds as if everyone has had a good time.  They are on a white water rafting trip with the youth group from church.  Of course, J had to start our conversation with something like "well there was only one injury on the river today.......... it was Mumbles"   It seems there were 5 boats but only 2 guides. So 3 of the adult chaperones were "captains" over the other 3 boats.  Mumbles was in a boat with the youth pastor as captain.  The boat with one of the guides came along side and he started to goof off and give the guide a hard time, just playing around. The guide, being of the fairly young variety and therefore lacking a while lot of good judgement, reached out, grabbed Mumbles and yanked him from his boat.  All in good fun ha ha, good joke, very humorous, no harm done. Right?  Well, it seems the guide had forgotten they were approaching a series of rapids right about that time and, after being sucked under the boats and spit out the other side, Mumbles was out of reach of anyone actually inside a boat.  He ended up going through that whole series of rapids on his back, head first.  Thankfully, the Lord was watching over him and he emerged from the other side with only a slightly beat up knee.  It could have been so much worse! It could have been disastrous! 

Here's the thing, I prayed for my boys, just like I always do, but my prayers were concentrated on Monkey Boy and Surfer Dude, who, despite their names, are not the strongest swimmers in the family.  Mumbles, while goofy, is a very strong swimmer so I worried less about him.  In the end, it didn't matter. God had it all under control and no one was seriously injured and some important lessons were learned. Namely, don't give a hard time to someone who has your life in his hands while going down a river. (cue the banjo music)

Once I stopped hyperventilating over the near miss of tragedy and picked myself back up off the floor I started to ponder what had happened in the way only my tilted brain can do.  You know me, once again, there was a startling spiritual parallel.  I guess the moral would be "be careful who you float your boat close to".   Sometimes, in the enjoyment of our life's river we get a little lax and start to float places we don't really need to be.  I'm not talking about strip clubs, bars, crack houses or Chuck E Cheeses (sorry, Chuck, truth is truth, you live in a house of insanity), I'm talking about those times in life where we just simply quit paddling and start to float.  The problem with floating, while relaxing enough, is that we have no control over our destination.  We are at the current's mercy.  Before we know it, our boat has drifted alongside the enemy's boat and, in an instant, he has snagged us and thrown us into the water.   It pays to vigilant.  It pays to stay in control of your path by listening to the Lord and following what he says, not simply going wherever the river might take you. 

Who are you floating near today?  Have you stowed your oars in favor of a relaxing float? Are there things or people encroaching on the space that should be reserved only for the Lord?  Today I'm going to re-examine the current that I'm in.  I'm going to pick my oars back up and ask the Captain for some direction.  Floating may be relaxing, but I'd rather stay in my boat.  I don't want to get my hair wet, I just washed it.

Until next time, I'll be here, paddling away and trying to avoid large grey mice hawking cheese pizza.

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

Why do you ask???

Sooo, this post will be a little different than what I usually post.  I've participating in a fellow blogger's weekly writing workshop.  I've chosen one of the prompts from the list given and the following is the result.  Hope you enjoy this little side track from the usual.....


prompt - Why didn't they ask you? Write a list of 5 or 10 sentences that begin with the words 'No one ever asked me'; then, write about one of them in detail, or use them all in a poem, or use several in a personal description of yourself.

1. No one ever asked me how much I love my children.
2. No one ever asked me how I wish my childhood had been different.
3. No one ever asked me what it was like living on foreign soil.
4. No one ever asked me what super hero I want to be.
5. No one ever asked me if I would like to be a bear.
6. No one ever asked me what it's like to have 5 boys.
7. No one ever asked me to jump into a volcano.
8. No one ever asked me if I was really a woman
9. No one ever asked me why schools consider ketchup a vegetable.
10. No one ever asked me to dance. 


Ok, so there's my 10 sentences. Now, what should I do with them?  Well, I guess I could address them one by one.  First, my children and how much I love them;  I have five gorgeous boys.  They are both spread out in age and all squished up all at the same time.  How is that possible?  Well, the year my oldest started college, my youngest started preschool.  The middle 3, however are only 2 1/2 years apart and none of them are twins!  So, having that many males in my house gets a little busy, busy and smelly.  ( I guess this is really the answer to #6 as well!)  Most of the time my house looks a little like a frat house minus the beer kegs.  The bathroom would rival any bathroom at any truck stop on any interstate in the country!  When we can smell it from outside I make my husband go clean it.  I'm certainly not going in there! Most of the time I know way too much about the latest video game craze, alternative christian music, geeky techno movies and other such strange boy stuff.  I have no help cleaning house, no help in the kitchen, no help with the laundry.  I am swimming in a lake of testosterone and am in danger of sinking.  On the other hand, I am so blessed!  I never have to open a door, pick up anything heavy, carry in the groceries, start the fire, take out the trash, pump the gas, change a light bulb, cut the grass, wash the car, walk the dog, or fear the boogie man will break in and get me.   I never have a shortage of hugs, kisses, snuggles, or laughs.  I've learned it's not the end of the world when the baseball goes through the window, the toilet overflows (again!), there is nothing to eat in the house, the music is loud enough to rattle the windows, there are more teenagers in the house than humanly possible and there is yet another argument between brothers.  My boys. I can't live without them, I can't do away with them. (it would take too much to hide the bodies)
To answer #4, my perfect super hero? I think I would want to be Procrastination Woman!  I've had so much practice already.  When I hear a cry for help, I will answer with "I'll save you.......................eventually!!"  
#5 Do I want to be a bear?  Why yes, thank you, that would be so cool!  Just think of it. A female bear is expected to be fat, her legs are supposed to be hairy, she gives birth in her sleep,  it's her right to be cranky and she gets to sleep for months at a time and no one calls her lazy.  She eats all she wants and no on bothers her.  Sounds pretty good to me! 
To sum it all up, yes, I really am a woman,  there are no volcanoes anywhere around, I can't dance, and since tomatoes are technically a fruit, that makes ketchup a smoothie not a veggie. 


This has been an interesting exercise and I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse into my tilted brain and have not been too traumatized by it.  Come back in a couple of days as we resume our regularly scheduled programing.  Still, as always, I'm ,


Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

Don't give your flowers an umbrella

It rained here this weekend, almost all weekend.  It wasn't a non-stop kind of thing, but it was fairly frequent over both days.  I enjoyed it.  I always enjoy the rain. It's the perfect sleeping weather.  It does make it humid, though.  We attended the graduation party of a special young woman Saturday afternoon. It was a great time with tasty food and wonderful company. It was also hot, not your average, "it's a little warm out here, I need to fan myself hot", but "oh my word! I'm melting and I can't even breathe" kind of hot!  I spent a large portion of the time inside in the air conditioning.  Sometimes it pays to bring along the antsy 6 yr old who can't be still while the speeches are all going on before the cake is cut.  So, Scamp and I sat in the den and watched "Shark Week" as I tried to recover from getting too hot and making myself sick.  Even with that, it was a wonderful party for a amazing person. 

What made it seem so hot and sticky was the humidity.  Sure, the temp was up, but the real culprit  was the rain that had saturated the air and made it so moist perspiring did nothing to cool you down.  I will say, however, the yards haven't looked this good in a while, at least in my opinion.  J sees it a different way.  He was frustrated with his inability to get any real amount of yard work done.  J is a worker. Me? Not so much.  I have no problem sitting inside on a rainy weekend and reading a book or watching tv or taking a snooze.  For J, that is pure torture!  He has to be moving, doing, accomplishing, not sitting.  So, while we need the rain and he was thankful for the rain, he was really wishing it had come during the week and not on one of his "home" work days. 

I had no problem with it. We've already covered the fact that I have a PHD in relaxing, but besides that, I'm really enjoying the results.  The sun is just coming up and it's soft light is dappled by the leaves on the trees giving it a fresh, gentle look, as if speaking of the days promise.  The grass and the bushes look lush and green and plump with satisfaction having taken in all the moisture they could hold.  It really is quite beautiful.  The peace of this lovely scene is broken only by the cat who is snoring as she lays at my feet.  It's always something around here! 

I am also noticing the flowers on my back porch.  They don't look so good.  I've got several pots of some sort of pink and red flowers.  I don't remember what they are, but I've worked hard this summer to keep them alive.  It's a difficult task me for as I am usually where plants go when they have been sentenced to die for some horrible deed in the plant world.  These are still hanging in there.  I have to admit, though, they are the second planting as the first ones didn't make it.  That one wasn't my fault, however, since it was due to a freakishly bad hail storm, but that's a different story.  Anyway, the current residents of my back deck flower pots look a little bedraggled.  I'm sure they'll be fine once they get a little sun, but the beating they received from the downpours have left them less than perky.  (now there's something I can relate to, being less than perky, but that, too, is a different blog) 

All this pondering has deposited a realization in me.  It rains when it wants to rain, not when it's convenient for us, not when it fits into our schedule or our agenda, but when the right elements align, we get rain.  It really doesn't matter what day of the week or time of the year it is.  When it's right, it's rain. 

You know I can't just leave it at that.  Nope, gotta go one step further.  The Lord brings the rain of refreshing into our lives on his time, not ours.   I'm sure, if you could ask mr flower on my back deck if he enjoyed being beat half to death by the rain he would have assured you it was not one of his favorite things.  However, when the sun is at it's highest today and it's beating down on him in all it's fiery strength, that flower will be glad it has moisture deep down around it's roots it can draw from.  I believe that is the case in our lives sometimes.  The Lord can pour out his rain on us until we are nearly drowning.  It can soak us to the point of saturation and beyond.  We can even think "enough!" and yet he still pours it down. But then, the heat of life comes and we have that moisture deep down we can draw from.  If the water doesn't go deep, the roots won't go deep.  Just like that flower, our roots won't grow deep into the soil if there is no moisture there. 

There may be times in our lives when we thirst for the rain of the Lord.  Life is rough, we are feeling dry and there's not a cloud in the sky.  Then there are times when the Lord is ready to pour into us the waters of refreshing, but we are too concerned with what we need to do.  We find it difficult to sit still and allow him to revive us because we have work to do and the rain is hindering us.  The downpour of the spirit's rain comes on his schedule.  When God decides  it should rain, you'd better get ready because, like it or not, convenient or not, you're gonna get wet!

I want to be so attuned to the Spirit I don't ever miss a time of refreshing because I'm too wrapped up in my work.  I ask the Lord, today, to make me child like.  I've seen my kids, when they were small, playing in the rain without a care in the world.  Standing out in the yard with raindrops falling all around them, soaking them to the core, they had no thought to anything, they only felt.  They only were.  Content to soak up the glory of the moment, they had no thought of muddy feet or dripping clothes or the bath that would have to follow.  I want to be as caught up in the moment as they were, so caught up in the flooding of the spirit I have no thought for anything else but enjoying the moment.  Because it rains when God wants it to and not before.

So take a good look at your spiritual sky today.  Are there clouds up there full of refreshing rain getting ready to unleash all over you and your schedule?  Take advantage of it. Don't let what you wanted to accomplish hinder the work the Lord wants to do in your life. Sometimes that is to rain all kinds of blessings of refreshment down on your head. So don't get out your umbrella so you can keep working! Stand out in the yard and soak in the wonder of it.  The rain doesn't come every day so be ready to enjoy it when it does.  Just like those flowers, one day you're going to need that moisture, so soak it up while you can. 

I'll be here, enjoying the view from my window.  You didn't expect me to go out there, did you?  It's hot out there!  It's humid out there!  There is dirt out there with bugs and junk!  No thank you.  I'll enjoy my view from my table by the window.  My idea of roughing it means the pool is closed.  Until next time I am.......

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor


The Secret to Life

Soft, misty shades of green
seem to float outside my window,
beckon me to gaze, dream
as the day emerges from slumber.

I lose myself in the glory
of the newness, the freshness of hope
again within the grasp.

The shadows are dappled,
the air cool,
pure, like breathing champagne,
untainted by a sun not yet harsh.

How simple, how childlike,
how uncluttered is the morning.
Therein lies the secrete to life.

Don't forget to recycle!

It's been a long hot summer around here.  It's been a busy one too.  We've had 2 birthdays, 2 trips to Ga, 2 trips to Wy, 2 deaths and a surgery, not to mention, various trips to dentists and eye doctors, pediatricians, and the like, a terrible tick infestation and a lyme disease scare.  It hasn't left a lot of "leisure" time!  J's birthday went almost unnoticed, unfortunately.  No, I didn't actually forget, J was out of town on his birthday.  I'm not sure he even received much of a present.

I love giving  presents.  I take it as a personal challenge to find the perfect gift to match the person.  I'm sure I enjoy it as much as the person receiving it!  I love to wrap them in unusual ways as well.  I remember one year at Christmas I used the old trick of wrapping J's present in a box that was in a box that was in a box that was in a box.  I don't even remember what I gave him, I just remember how much fun it was to watch him keep opening boxes until he finally reached the prize in the middle.

The Lord brought this image to mind not long ago.  I was sitting with a friend over coffee talking about the freedom there is to be found in Jesus.  I was explaining how I was once in a church I thought was free, then God moved us to a different church and I found more freedom there.  After a while, the Lord moved us yet again and I found a bit more freedom.  After this last move, I can honestly say He brought me into a place of still more freedom.  It was like those boxes, only instead of each one getting smaller, they were each getting bigger.

God wants us to live, to grow, to operate in complete freedom.  That means, not a bigger box, but no box!  I don't mean with no order and rampant chaos, but to live in such a manner that I free God from whatever "box" I have him in and allow Him to do just as He pleases without my interference.  I also realize it's a process, this freedom thing.  It doesn't all happen at once.  He brings us into more and more freedom as we walk with him, and as we walk with him and get to know him more and more, we will trust him more and more.  As we learn to trust him more and more we realize he doesn't need our help.  He doesn't need our schedules or plans or programs or agendas.  He only needs open hearts that are willing to relinquish control to him, no matter what that looks like in life.  I don't want to hinder what God wants to do in me and through me by saying "yes, God have complete control in my life, as long as it looks like this and it can happen within these parameters".

It can be a scary thing to let go and let God be God.  It takes trust to realize he is, in fact, bigger than I am and quite capable of handling the control I so reluctantly turn over to him.  I'm sure things looked pretty out of control for Joseph about the time he landed in the bottom of that pit, but God was doing something too big for him to see at that moment.  We must not fear turning control over to the Lord. (I know!! I know!! easier said than done!!!)  But the word tells us in 1John 4:8 that perfect love casts out all fear.  That's all fear, even the fear of losing control.

So, I say to you, get out of the box!  Better yet, release the Lord from the box and put it in the recycling bin where it belongs!  Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom!  Cardboard is not a good look for you, anyway.  It's so last year!

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor