Don't Jump!!!

I have stepped out recently, no, I don't mean I'm stepping out on J, I mean I'm trying something new.  I come from a long line of women who sew.  Both my grandmothers were incredible seamstresses, making suits and quilts and any number of wonderful creations.  Me, not so much.  I can sew a button on if I have to, and I have even been known to fix a drooping hem, but that's about as far as it goes.  I once made curtains and pillows and covered the cushions of an entire set of outdoor furniture using only my trusty glue gun.  I have decided a glue gun is to a woman what duct tape is to a guy.  Give me enough time and an outlet and I can fix almost anything! lol  Despite my ingenuity with my outdoor decor, I have never taken the time or patience to learn to actually sew.  Recently, though, a dear friend of mine at church started a quilting class.  Something prompted me to sign up so I dragged my butt into gear and my sewing machine out of the closet and went to my first class.  I am hooked!  I loved it!  It's so much fun seeing something come together like that.  Despite the attention to detail needed I am finding it a great outlet for the creativity the Lord has plunked down in my soul.

There are quite a few things I like to put my hands to whenever I get the chance.  You might find me doing needlework, or crochet, or candle making, or even a little painting.  I am really hoping someone decides to teach a class in pottery.  I've always wanted to learn how to do that!  There's something quieting about working with your hands, something so fulfilling to see something spring to life beneath your hands.  No wonder the Lord loves to create!  It's fun!

Anyone who reads my ramblings on a regular basis should know that there is another side to my musings.  You see, I was having some trouble with my quilt block the other day.  I was trying to sew it without using pins to hold it in place before running the seams.  The fabric kept slipping around and making it very difficult to complete the project cleanly.  That made me think. (I hate it when that happens!)   How difficult would it be if a potter were trying to form something on the wheel, but it kept jumping off?  It's a funny image, but that is exactly what we do the the Lord so many times.  We find ourselves on his wheel with the water of the spirit running over us to soften our hearts and as soon as he starts to mold, to form, to work with us, we jump right off the wheel while it's still in motion.  The Lord is faithful, he grabs a spatula, scrapes us up off the floor where we've gone splat, puts us back on the wheel and starts all over again.

How long do you think it will take for the finished product to be usable if we continue to jump off the wheel time and time again?  I know I am guilty of taking that flying leap more times than I would like to admit to.  My other favorite thing to do is to try to mold myself into what I think should be.  How weird would it be if the potter was working his lump of clay and suddenly the lump gave a little grunt and out popped a handle or a spout?  I have to admit the image makes me giggle just a little bit.  Now, we all know that is impossible, but it is what we attempt to do to ourselves.  How many times have we tried to inform the Lord how we should look or just what needed to be changed about ourselves?

There is nothing the clay can do to hurry along the needed changes or to make any of these changes for itself.  Such it is with our own hearts.  The work is the Lord's, not ours.  Sure, we have our part. Our part is to remain on the wheel, to remain in His hands.  It's our job to be open to Him and the work He is doing in our lives and in our hearts. Our job, our focus, should be to stay in and to strengthen our relationship with him.  It is through that relationship that we are changed.  It says in

 2 Cor. 3:18  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord. 

When you read the above passage you can see the way we are changed is by beholding the glory of the Lord.  That is when we are changed by the Spirit of the Lord. This speaks to relationship.  It is by spending time with him, beholding him, if you will, that we are changed from glory to glory.  It is not by working at it or exercising self control or willing it to happen. It is simply by resting in Him, by spending time with Him that we are changed.

Philippians 2:13 tells us:
for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.

Notice whose doing the work here?  It is God who works in you.  If we allow Him (that's our part in the equation, the allowing part)   to work in our hearts He will make the necessary changes there.  That doesn't mean that we then don't have to walk them out.  I tried and tried to quit smoking to no avail. Then I quit, not smoking, I quit trying to quit!  I stopped trying to do something in my own power that I was unable to do within myself.  I started praying about it, submitting my heart to Him and, one day, He did the work.  I knew the moment it was done and I simply walked up to a trash can and threw away my pack and my lighter and I have been smoke free since.  This didn't happen in the middle of a great and mighty revival service at church. It didn't happen after I fasted and prayed and spent a month crying out to Him. Nope, I was simply sitting in the grocery store parking lot talking to Him about it and BOOM! It was done.  I'm not saying I didn't have to decide to walk it out. I had to make the decision not to buy any more, to not give in to the cravings.  The difference that time was I had submitted it to Him and I was walking in His strength.  He had done the work in me to cause me to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.  It was not accomplished by my struggling against it, the work was done as I simply spent time with Him.  I stayed on the wheel and the potter did His work. 

So this week my goal is to act more like a big ol lump of clay!  I will attempt to remain on his wheel no matter how fast it spins.  I will remind myself of the times I jumped off that wheel only to go splat on the floor. 

I don't know what's going on in your life, but I have a feeling you are probably on His wheel too, most of us are.  I pray that when you start to get dizzy and the world starts to spin and you are feeling Him molding you, forming you, creating you to be what you were meant to be, that you stay put!  Stop trying to will yourself into His image and get to beholding your way into it.  Spend time with Him, rest in Him.  Relaxing into Him is the best way to stay out of His way and let Him work! 

Till next time, I'll be here, beholding, creating, giving my glue gun a work out and trying to stay put on His wheel.  So, the next time someone calls you a dizzy blonde, look them straight in the eye, smile and say "Why thank you very much!"

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

Eye-liner, Cyndi Lauper and strained peaches

This is another entry in the chronicles of the ridiculousness that is sometimes my life.  I burned myself the other day.  While this statement, on the surface, doesn't seem to drip with the ridiculousness that you've all come to expect from me, let me further explain.  I burned myself on the outside corner of my eye, right where my lashes end and my upper and lower lids meet.  Again, that may not sound all that strange to some, but such are the people I run with.  It was the manner in which I created said burnt that was different.  I blame my eyeliner, well, my eyeliner with a little help from my lighter.

I was in a hurry to get ready to go somewhere (who knows where!) and I was slapping on some make-up.  Ladies, you know what I mean by that, men, just turn away and go about your business.  When I tried to apply my charcoal grey eyeliner I found it was hard as a rock and refused to leave so much as a smudge on my, as yet unadorned, eyes.  So I did what any red blooded American woman who had grown up in the 80's would do.  I set it on fire to soften it.  Just about any lady who came of age in the decade of big hair, leg warmers, scrunchies and black eye liner would know,(and some men as well, it was the 80's after all!). It was the perfect way to melt your liner pencil just enough to make it go on smoothly.  The trick was to time it just right so it was still soft, but not so hot that you burned yourself.  Well, it seems that 25 years later, I have lost my touch.  To make matters worse, it was still so soft it stuck to the skin and kept burning as I jumped around the bathroom half dressed and shouted things I'm glad no one was home to hear!

It was not to be my last foray into the land of eye liner Hades.

A week later, I was, once again, hurry to get somewhere and was, once again, slapping on some make-up.  I found a lovely soft, raisin colored, eye liner that I had not worn in a very long time.  It was lodged in the back of the drawer in the bathroom.  After the debacle of the last time I had tried to apply eye make-up in a hurry, I was glad to see this old friend that I remembered was so easy to put on.  I outlined my peepers, added a little mascara and was out the door.  It wasn't until later that afternoon that I noticed my eyes were a little itchy.  By early evening, they were weepy and starting to swell.  By bedtime they were burning and weepy and itchy and pretty swollen.  The next morning, they were swollen shut!  It seems my lovely, old, raisin colored eye liner was contaminated!  It has been almost a week now and most of the swelling is down, the itching has mostly stopped and the weepiness has abated.  My friend is in the trash bin and I have sworn off all types of eye make-up for anytime in the near future!

You know I can't leave it here. Nope!  I feel like one of those tv hawkers..... "but wait! there's more!! order now and you'll get the other side of the story!!!"

I learned what happens when you return to your old ways, you can get burned.  Stay with me, I've moved on from eye make-up and I'm talking about life in general now, more specifically, life with the Lord.  As we walk with him we are embarked on a journey of discovery, a journey of adventure. It is a journey of fresh discoveries of both ourselves and of Him.  We do not have to stay stagnated in the same place.  What worked for me 25 years ago is no longer the best thing for me, in life and in make up! Just because something worked for your life 10 years ago doesn't mean the Lord wants you to stay there.  The word says  in Is 43:19

Behold, I will do a new thing,
Now it shall spring forth;
Shall you not know it?
I will even make a road in the wilderness
And rivers in the desert.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying throw out all the things you learned of God from years past. Goodness, no!  I'm saying be open to the new things as well.  Look at it this way, there's nothing wrong with baby food. I have nothing against strained peaches and pureed bananas, but I don't want to eat it now!  Give me a nice juicy rib-eye or a yummy, sweet chocolate donut.  I don't want to go back to baby food at this point in my life. I've moved on to something different, something more suited for where I am at this point in my life.  I still have the ability to return to the smashed veggies of the past should the need arrive, (dear Lord, please don't ever let the need arrive!!!!)  but just because it worked so well for me once doesn't mean I need to stay there.  


So it is in life.  Some of the old ways were good ways, and while we will forever retain the ability to walk in those old ways, isn't it exciting to be allowed to walk in the new things the Lord is doing?  The Lord is never stagnant, He never changes, but also is never stagnant.  We serve a multifaceted God we can never fully understand in His entirety.  If we will allow Him to, He will continually show us new sides of His nature, new depths of His character, new aspects of His personality.  Don't get stuck in the old ways so much that you miss other sides of Himself the Lord wants to show you.  


So this week, my goal will be to look forward, to move forward, to journey into the unknown!  I challenge you to join me on the adventure of a life time.  I'll be moving into the fresh, newness that is my Lord. I may be moving a little slowly, though, the swelling isn't quite gone and I don't see so well!  Maybe I need a spiritual seeing eye dog, or at least one who can sniff out when eye liner has gone bad.  I think I saw that on the discovery channel;  When good make-up goes bad, part 3.  


Till next time I'll be here, itching, swelling, but looking fabulous!  Now has anybody seen my legwarmers and my Cyndi Lauper tape????


Spokenfor

Sisters, Starbucks and Playground Games

I am sitting in Starbucks.  I know that a big surprise to those who know me (insert sarcasm here).  It's a common hangout for me whenever I feel the urge to put pen to paper fingers to keyboard.  I am always surprised at how much I can learn about any number of people just by sitting quietly in here and listening to what is going on around me.  For instance, I now know the guy behind me is getting ready to place a large order for some sort of equipment and the two ladies across from me are having trouble with their grown children.  The lady by the door is spilling her guts about her marriage woes to someone on the phone and the two in the corner are gossiping about "that really conservative church over there in that metal building where all the women wear long skirts with their hair in a bun and there ain't nary a drop of make-up among the bunch of them!"

I am amazed on a regular basis how if you give an American a cup of coffee and a lap top they consider themselves in their own little private world with no one else around them.  It's just like most guys when they get in a car.  They think they are invisible to the world around them.  Have you ever just taken time to watch guys in the car in a traffic jam on the interstate?  It can be quite entertaining!

I was pondering this sad state of affairs over my vanilla latte and I came to a conclusion.  It's merely a symptom of today's society.  We all go along so disconnected with each other we have become almost unaware of anyone not directly in our scope of influence.  This wasn't always the case.  In years past, it took community to survive. People got together to raise a barn, to harvest a crop, to build a church, to celebrate a wedding, a birth, a life departed.  People just plain got together.  Now, in this information age where you can find out just about anything you could ever want to know about a person with a click of a button, we, so many times, find ourselves disconnected. 

It's like this, I could know J's birthday, anniversary date, his social security number, where he banks, where he shops, what he drives, even what he has for lunch every day, but if I don't know that it's a Wyoming sunset that moves his heart, that he dreams of owning his own business, that he has a passion for his work with the boys in Royal Rangers, the other means nothing.  If I can't know his heart, I don't know him.  It's very difficult to know someone's heart without spending face to face time with them. 

The fact is, we need each other, we need community.  You see things differently than I do. I can learn from you and you from me, but not if we never take time to learn the other person's heart.   The word says in Hebrews 10:24 -25, and I'm paraphrasing here, but look it up yourself if you don't believe me!   Don't give up meeting together as some are suggesting, but gather together to encourage one another in good works of the Lord. 

Life can be difficult, it can be hard and stressful and down right messy, but it's always a little easier with help.  I have been very blessed to have wonderful friends in my life and my life is enriched by these relationships.  Think of it this way, life is a great big game of red rover, if you have no one to lock arms with, you're in big trouble! lol  Don't find yourself on the playground of your life with no one to come along side and lock arms with you when the enemy comes rushing at you.  Not only that, but it's a little easier to dodge the fiery dodgeballs darts of the enemy when someone has your back. 

All this community stuff takes a little effort on your part, it takes being vulnerable with yourself and others.  It takes opening up your heart and your life and allowing others in.  It can be scary, but it is well worth it.  The playground can be a dangerous place, don't try to walk it alone. 

So this week I challenge you to look around and take inventory of your friend's list, and I don't mean the one on facebook.  I mean the one etched on your heart.  Do you have someone in your life you can be open and honest with?  Are you hiding your heart behind a superficial, business polite approach to any and all who dare to come close?  Ask the Lord to bring that person into your life that laughs at the same people  jokes that you do, that is walking the same way you are, that sees life enough of the way you do that you are compatible, but not so much so that it gets boring, someone you can share your heart with.  J is my best friend, but I find I need other women in my life as well.  He's not exactly the one I turn to when I need to bemoan the rapid approach of menopause, or the great new place I found to get my nails done, or to brainstorm ideas to make walking this "mom thing" a little easier.  I need other women.

So go open up!  Take a chance, find a friend, be a friend! Reach out and up and be wonderfully surprised by what happens.  Your life will be enriched in ways you could never have known.  Meanwhile, I'll be here hanging out with my crew, my posse, my girls, my swap meet (SWAP, sisters with a purpose). 

Just remember, when you hear that old song;  red rover, red rover, send someone right over, lock arms with your sisters, hold you head up high and say " ok life, bring it!"

Till next time, I'm
Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor