Baseball, A Winepress and Biscuits

It appears spring is right around the corner, knocking on the door, skipping up the walk, coming in for a landing, you get the picture.  It's just about here!  No one, anywhere on the face of the planet could possibly be more ready for it's arrival than I am.  Winter has finally broke my yuckometer!  The calendar may say spring doesn't officially start till March 20th, but I've got flowers blooming all over the place.  Since it's my first spring in the new house I am just now discovering what my yard contains.  I have to admit, I had no idea what some of those flowers were.  I decided, I didn't have to know their names in order to enjoy them.

Spring brings my thought to other things as well, things such as baseball!  I dearly love my baseball.  It doesn't matter if it's the majors, college, high school, little league, or simply a thrown together game among friends.  There's just nothing like it for me.  It's a source of distress for me that, since moving from Atlanta last summer, I can no longer watch the Braves play.  One of the boys was a great ball player.  I so enjoyed watching him play.  I loved the sights and sounds, the smell of the field, the dust, the bad concession stand food, just about everything!  Mumbles didn't start out a star player, in fact, when he started at age 10 he really kind of stunk at it! (don't dare tell him I said that!)  He stuck with it, he persevered and, eventually, after a lot of hard work, the natural athletic ability God gifted him with won out.  He just needed time to develop it.


I was talking with a young person last night, trying to explain something to him with an allegory, and I was, once again, drawn back to the ball field.  I realized, as we talked about spiritual giftings and talents, something amazing.  Mumbles always had everything he needed to be a great ball player inside him, but he had to access it, he had to develop it, he had to apply himself, put in the work, then he saw the results.  It's a common saying that everything about the giant oak is contained within the acorn.  This is a little like that premise.  I believe we are born with gifts and talents.  They can lie dormant for years, or forever, or we can seek them out, discover them and set our hearts to develop them.  They are there, trust me on that.

 In Judges 6 we find the story of Gideon.  Some would say he was not the brightest candle on the cake, yet he still shined before the Lord.  He was the one hiding in the winepress threshing wheat. (what was up with that?!?)  The angel of the Lord appear to him and called him a mighty man of valor.  What?!?  Did God realized this "mighty man of valor" was the one hiding from the bad guys? He wasn't working his land bravely, daring the Midianites to mess with him.  Nope, he was the one screwing up the winepress with the mess of threshing wheat so he could have a little bread without anyone knowing.  (what was he going to do when it was time to use the winepress again and it was filled with the tiny, nasty bits of chaff left by the wheat?? but that's another story for another time)   If you read the rest of his story you will see he did, indeed, go on to lead the Israelites to an amazing victory over their enemies, but it would be hard to believe by the way it started.  In verse 6 Gideon is given a direction from the angel.  The angel tells him to "go in the strength you have".  I have heard this taught that we step out in what we have and God will supply the rest, and that is so correct, but I believe there is something more, as well.

As sons and daughters of God we have each been endowed with certain strengths and abilities and callings.  Many people never develop those gifts and some never even know they are there. That doesn't change the fact they are.  If Mumbles had chosen to never play baseball, to never develop that athletic gift he has been given, it wouldn't change the fact the seed of that ability was in him.  It would have laid dormant his entire life.
We have, within us, the seed, of whatever is needed, to fulfill the destiny God has for us.  God told Gideon to go in the strength he had.  God saw what He had put within Gideon, that seed of strength, of faith, of obedience, he would need in order to follow through with God's plan for his life.  It was already there in seed form, Gideon just didn't know it yet, but God never doubted it.  God didn't expect Gideon to drop the bunches of wheat and march right out and slay the bad guys all by himself.  It was a process.  He had to walk step by step with God while that strength, that calling, was developed.  In the end, Gideon became what he always was, a mighty man of valor.  The only difference was, when it was all over, God was not the only one who could see it. 

What seed are you hiding or hiding from?  I don't think Gideon was day dreaming of delivering his nation from their evil oppressors as he hid in the winepress trying to come up with a biscuit for his gravy.  I think he was trying to survive, but life is about more than simply surviving. Life is about growing, learning, developing what is within us already in order to fulfill our God given destiny and impact the world for the kingdom of Light. 

Today I will ask God to give me His eyes, in only for a moment, to see myself as He sees me.  What seeds has he planted inside? What destiny does he have for me? What gifts have I left lying dormant? I'm gonna do a little spiritual gardening, if you will.  So come on by. I'll be here with trowel in hand!  I just hope I don't run into too many bugs, but that's tomorrow's post!

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

Dismount, the horse is dead!!!

Hello Monday. I haven't seen you in a week or so and I must say our time apart has been pleasant for me. No offense, it just seems you always have more on your schedule for me to do than is humanly possible.  I don't mean to be rude, but it may be time for us to see other people.  I'm just saying......



What a busy weekend it was!  I'm sure this has contributed to my dislike of today.  I didn't get to sleep in Saturday and my Sunday afternoon nap was less than stellar.  Add to both of those the fact that I didn't bed down last night till sometime this morning and you have a recipe for a very grouchy mom.  On the up side, I was up so late last night because I was reading a book I simply couldn't put down.  You may have heard of it. "The Shack".   I only have one thing to say.... AMAZING!  If you haven't read it, get up from your computer, get in your car, drive to your closest store and buy it!  You won't be disappointed. 


How did it get to be Tuesday already??  I was just resting my eyes and, BAM! It's Tuesday!  This week is not progressing the way I had intended it to.  I am without a vehicle, carless, non-transportation endowed, walking, hoofing it, on foot, sans carriage, you get the picture.  I can't go nowhere!  WAHHH!  It seems J's beloved truck has serious issues.  They told us at the shop it would take way more to fix it than it's worth. Undaunted, J found someone else to take a look at it in the hopes they can work a miracle.  I. Am. So. Over. It.  Buy a new one, already!  I am trying to be patient, but I must admit, I do not understand men and their attachment to their vehicles.  After 11 years, you would think he would have had enough of it.  I say it's time to give it a proper burial and go looking for a new mistress, uhhh, I mean truck.

How many times have we held on to something we loved refusing to let God give us something better?  Just like that old truck, I have things in my life that have been there for years, not so nice things, things that don't work too well for me, things that aren't all that pretty to look at.  Yet, I am comfortable with them, they are known to me.  I know how they handle on the curves and how much gas they use, they are simply a part of the fabric of my life.  However true all this may be, if I will trust God, he has something infinitely better.  My goal will be to re-examine my life to see what else I have been holding on to while God has been holding something else, so much better, out to me. Am I driving around in a spiritual rattle-trap when I could be buzzing through life in a sweet little ride?  Am I holding on to something that simply guzzles fuel and costs me an arm and a leg to work with simply because I am familiar with it?  Things once useful sometimes reach the end of that usefulness and it's time to let go.  Are you still serving on that committee just because you have always done it?  Are you still teaching that class, singing in the choir, being a part of that ministry team simply because you are comfortable with it?  Once again my message is move on! Step out! Try something new! You might just be surprised what God has for you.  It's hard to receive something when your hands are full of something else already.  So, empty your hands. Then wait and see what God gives you back.

Don't be afraid of change, sometimes it's hard, but, when it comes from our heavenly Father, it's always good.  Meanwhile, I'll be here.  Of course I'll be here, I can't go anywhere else till J brings my car back! So if you see me walking down the street, have pity and pick me up.  I'm too old to be hoofing it!

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor   

Chicken soup, holy and otherwise

It has come to our house. I was afraid it would, have battled against it, refuse to consider the possibility of it's arrival, but it has made an appearance anyway.  It's the dreaded flu.  Thankfully most of us managed to get a flu shot this year so that's helpful.  It seems this years strain is strong enough that, even with a flu shot, Monkey Boy managed to come down with it.  It really wasn't that big of a deal, one night of fever and a little congestion.  The next day he was back at school.  All's well and right with the world, right?  Wrong!  Because little Scamp was the only one of my offspring to not get a flu shot he was able to catch it from his brother's short foray into the world of illness.  Now my baby is sick and I'm feeling mucho helpless.  He's got all the major players, fever, aches and pains, headache, fatigue and all around yuckiness.  Combine all that with a big dose of extreme 6 year old crankiness and you've got yourself a recipe for fun all around.  As a mom, I feel pretty helpless and very guilty.  I knew I needed to get him that shot but I put if off, then completely forgot about it.  Now he's paying for my screw up.  I know his little body is fighting it off, but it's hard to watch him be so miserable.


I remember a time another of my loved ones was trying to recover, only this time it wasn't an illness that had put him to bed.  In the summer of 2000 my husband and my Dad were working for an energy company in Wyoming.  We had moved there from Atlanta to be close to J's family and work in their business.  My folks joined us in our adventure.  They had never living in Wyoming before and were looking for a couple of years of change before settling into retirement.  After they were both sub-contracted out to an energy company out of Denver they set to work.  On June 29th, while bringing a field of new natural gas wells on line they entered a small fiberglass shed to shut down the well pump.  What they didn't know was, due to the process of purging the lines of oxygen, that little shed was full of methane gas.  One touch to, one little metal chain, changed our lives forever.  The static spark that resulted caused a massive explosion that nearly took the lives of two of the most important men in my life.  I won't go into all the details here, maybe some day, but not now.

I soon found myself caught up in the world of a burn center.  Separated from my children by a 12 hour drive, in a strange city, I found I was one that had to make the decisions, be strong, stand tall, and do what was required.  A burn ward is a surreal place, where massive injuries are inflicted in order to, ultimately, bring about final healing.  During a burn as deep as the ones my men suffered, the skin that remains slowly dies.  The body slowly rots, basically.  The dead skin has to be removed or it will bring about massive infection and a slow, painful death.  There is no easy way to accomplish this task.  Every day, twice a day, we headed for THE ROOM.  It had many names; the tank room, the debriedment room, the jiffy lube, or, as I liked to call it, Hell.  Twice a day, every day, we made our way there to spend our allotted time in the land of pain.  You see, removing the dead skin from a burn is not a painless thing to accomplish. The bandages are removed and the wounds are scrubbed. Yes, you heard me right, the open, raw wounds are scrubbed with an antibiotic soap mixture in order to remove any skin that has died.  It is, to say the very least, not an enjoyable time.

A few days into our stay at University Hospital in Salt Lake City, the doctors had something new for us, graft surgery.  It seems J's burns were so large and so deep his body would never be able to close the wounds with new skin before infection would take hold.  So, one morning they wheeled him into the or and, in his words, skinned him alive.  Skin was stripped from both legs stretching from just above the knee to the hip all the way around.  Then, it was stretched, perforated and attached to both arms, one from fingertips to shoulder, the other from wrist to shoulder.  It was then stapled into place.  The long, painful process of healing was underway.

What followed was weeks of hospital stays, more time in the tank room, more pain, more struggle, more drugs, and months of physical therapy. It was the most difficult time in our lives.  The affects were far reaching and it was years before it all receded into J's memory far enough for us all to feel completely "normal" again. It was during these difficult months God manifested in a way I had never experienced before.  I was so aware of how He was carrying us, strengthening us, comforting us.  As difficult as it all was, J and I both agree we would do it again, if only to know of Him the things we now know.  When brought to the end of ourselves we found Him waiting there for us.  I think there is little in life we could ever face that could shake the knowledge that He can bring us through.  It wasn't always painless, it wasn't often pretty, it was, usually, very messy, but He brought us through the darkness and into the light of healing and of life. 

There is a faction out there who propagate the myth that healing is a soothing, painless time.  I'm here to tell you, baby, it ain't so!  Healing can hurt!  Healing can be painful and I'm not just talking about in your physical body.  To be healed from a wound caused by grief, trauma, abuse, by unkind words or unjust actions, by betrayals and disappointments, sometimes requires more than reclining on our spiritual bed while the Lord brings us holy chicken soup and gingerale. (although, there have been times in my life where I was fortunate enough to receive such tender mercies) Healing can also require forgiving the one who wronged us, it can require choosing to look past the offense and see the heart of the one who offended.  This is not an easy thing to do, in fact, in many cases, I have found it impossible to do in my own strength.  I have had to be willing to be made willing.  I had to subject myself to the Lord for a dose of spiritual surgery to bring my heart to the place where I could do what was needed.  But just like in the physical body, healing, however it is achieved, is worth it.  How many times are we willing to settle for walking through life with joy sapping infections seeping deep into our soul because we fear the tank room of the Lord, the surgery of God, or the antibiotics of the Holy Spirit?

Please don't think I'm saying healing is always a horribly painful thing to go through. Sometimes, it is all about that spiritual bed and Holy chicken soup. It can be all about soothing oils, comforting ministrations, and the tender mercies He gives. Come to the Lord, bring your wounds and your pains. Let the oil of the Spirit soothe the painful burns life has inflicted and bring healing.  Grab the edge of that grimy band aid you've stuck to your heart and with one big yank, get rid of it!

Healing can be so many things; uncomfortable, messy, soothing, refreshing, and yes, sometimes, down right painful, but it's worth it. It's always worth it. 

Oh, and learn from my mistake. Go get yourselves and your kids a flu shot!  I'll be here doling out the chicken soup. I just don't know quite how holy it is.

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

What will I find......

When all is stripped away,
all facades, all hypocricies,
all fears and all dreams,
what is left?
When I find myself
at the end of myself
what is it that I find?
When I have gone deeper,
stretched farther,
peered more intently
into the depth that is me,
will I be surprised?
When I am face to face
with the power that moves me,
the core of who I am,
the breathe of my life,
will I stand in wonder or
cover my face in shame?
When I find myself at the end of myself
I find.....



You, Lord, only You.

What Love Is

Love is not about
champagne and flowers.
It's not about poetry
or trysting for hours.
Love is about the time
you held my hair when I was sick
about helping with the dishes
and saying my middle's not too thick.
It's about listening to me when I ramble
on and on about my day
when your buddies call for you
but it's with me you want to stay.
Love is about rooting for me
when in my own worth I doubt.
Love is about seeing with your heart,
that's what love is all about.

Excuse me, your shoes are untied....

Most of you know I have been blessed to have a 6 yr old in my household.  Being the last in the line of 5 boys and being 7 years younger than his next brother, you can imagine I have a tendency to baby him a bit.  Of course, having 4 teenage brothers he doesn't realize he's actually 6 and not 16, but that's another story. (I'll never forget the first time he called me "Dude"! I think he was 4!) Because I don't in any way push him to grow up, beyond learning to dress himself and forgo the need for diapers, I was happy to leave him in velcro fastening shoes from now till time to dress for the prom.  However, retailers have chosen a different path for me.

Not long ago, as Scamp scampered off the bus one afternoon, he stopped in the middle of the street and turned back a couple of steps.  It was then I realized he had lost his shoe and had gone back to retrieve it. When he climbed in the back seat I could see he had lost it because the velcro strap had broken.  I wired it together with a twist tie from the bread bag (true story!) to hold him through the evening.  After all, it wasn't like we were going to meet the queen, we were just going to run some errands.  His dad took him to buy some new shoes the next day without me, which is always an interesting happening in itself.  Imagine my surprise when I talked to the Commander on the phone only to hear a very upset 6 yr old in the background who was not shy about vocally expressing his disapproval.  It seems Scamp's feet had grown to the point no one actually made tennis shoes with velcro straps to fit him.  Yes, he was stuck in the place between toddlers with droopy diapers and old men with droopy pants, these being the only people who actually wear velcroed shoes.  So it seemed it was time for a shoe tying lesson. It took a while to convince my cranky, stubborn, lovely little child

How many of us need a lesson in tying our shoes? How many times do we walk around with our feet shod with the gospel of peace but our shoes untied? I would say trust would be the laces that keep those particular shoes on our feet.  It doesn't matter how much you paid for your fancy walking shoes that pump air into the soles and promise to give you a nicer...uhhmmm, behind, if you forget to tie them, they are not going to stay on your feet.  The word promises us we can walk in the peace of God, but I believe we have a part in that.  Romans 15:13 tells us ...the God of all hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him...  We can learn from this passage we can be filled with all joy and peace as we trust in Him.  In my life there have been many times when I've had to stop and retrace my steps, just as Scamp did that day in the street, in order to retrieve my shoes.  I have been guilty of looking to myself and not trusting in Him and that has left me with untied laces.

So, tie those shoes up tight. Lean on Him and put your trust in Him and He'll keep your feet shod with the gospel of peace.  That's good news to me in my hectic life.  The next time life hands you heartache, trauma, disappointment, or just a whirlwind of annoyance remember to check to be sure your shoes are well tied, I don't think the Bible mentions anything about velcro.

Now hold still, this won't hurt a bit.........

My life is a busy one, happy, but busy. With so many rambunctious boys in the house we are well acquainted with accidents of many kinds.  Rarely does a day go by that something doesn't get broken, or cracked, dirtied, tainted, or bloodied.  It's usually the last one that concerns me the most.  As long as no one is on fire, no bones are showing, or there's no free-flowing blood loss, I can handle most anything.  When my then 3 year old climbed to the top of the 30 foot windmill at the ranch, did I panic? Nope, just told him to get his little monkey butt down from there. ( ok, you got me, there was a little panic on that one)  When the 5 year old painted various body parts purple, my response was a heavy sigh and lots of soap. When the 8th grader went through 2 hours of football practice after he broke his hand my biggest concern was the fact that it meant I wouldn't get to watch him play for the rest of the season.  Does this make me a failure as a mother? I don't think so. I think it makes me a realist.  Kids are going to get hurt, in all kinds of ways, in ways you didn't know were actually possible.  (I once heard the story of a small boy just barely able to clear the toilet seat while standing up. You don't want to know what happens if you don't make sure that seat is all the way up. He wishes, to this day, he never procured that little bit of info!!)  My point (yes, I do have one, thank you very much!) is for the most part all that's needed is for Mom (in this case, me) to whip out our trusty first aid kit and put things right. 

Have you ever really looked into a first aid kit?  Mine has all the basics; bandages, antibacterial ointment, hydrogen peroxide, tape, an eye wash solution, you know, the basics.  This past Sunday my little 6 year old scamp brought home a different version of this old standby.  He had made it Sunday school.  All the little bandages had scriptures on them or words like "Jesus heals".  There was also a little red heart that said "Jesus loves" with a little mirror in the middle.  He was very seriously discussing all this with his father last night. "Dad" he said "do we have a second aid kit?"  After the chuckling stopped I paused a minute to really think about that.

When troubles hit and things go south what do you reach for? Do you turn to other people, your pastor, a therapist (not saying that's not appropriate at times!! don't send me mean letters!!!)?  Do you grasp for what the doctor is saying or the banker or the accountant or the lawyer and try to use those words to bandage the "boo-boo"? Or do you have a different first aid kit?  I want to build a new one for myself.  I think I'll put some prayer in there, along with positive confessions, the oil of the Spirit, the antibacterial ointment of repentance and a liberal dose of the word, to be taken daily.  I don't want my new kit to become my "second aid kit" or my "third" or even "forth" aid kit, but to be the first thing I reach for.  My help is from the Lord (Psalms 54:4). I want that knowledge to be so ingrained in my heart there's no hesitation in times of trouble, and make no mistake, in this life, we will have troubles.  (1Peter 4:12)  How you respond to those troubles decides if we will limp through them or move victoriously.

So, go. Check your medicine cabinet, make sure you're well stocked.  Stock up on something other than bandages with superheros on them. Oh, wait, maybe that's just me!  I'll be here doing what I do. You know, singing praises, mopping up spilled juice (or blood, depending.....), dancing before the Lord, sweeping up glass, praying, doing laundry, seeking God, chasing the dog. You know, the usual. 

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor

Does this algae make me look fat????

I have a lake. Some would call it a pond, but, it is, in fact, a lake. It's my lake. I don't own it, it's not on my property, I can't even see it from my house. That matters not, it is still my lake. I pass it on my way into town. It's surrounded by trees, there are sometimes little ducks or geese floating on my lake. (I don't mind, as long as they clean up after themselves)

I am often struck by the beauty of my lake. When fall arrived and it was ringed with color it was simply breath-taking. I would pass by every Tuesday morning as dawn was cracking, on my way to take two of my boys to school. For some unknown reason they start an hour later once a week and, of course, mom just has to take them! Every week I would point out the beauty of the scene with the sun rising over it. They were unimpressed. What can you expect from half-asleep teenagers. Even still clad in my pjs, with my hair sticking up, my slippers on my feet, and a death grip on my coffee, I was awed each and every time.

Then, one day, the unthinkable happened. It was a dreary morning, no sun in sight and I was rushed, frazzled, hassled and stressed. I passed my lake and, anxious for a little pick-me-up, looked out across the water and said "eeewwww!" What happened to my lake???? All I saw was murky, muddy, nasty water with no beauty in sight. Where was the awe? Where was the little gasp of delight? Where were the ducks, the geese, the little stab of joy?? Who stole my lake and replaced it with this ugliness?!

I pondered this development as I ran my errands that day. On my return trip home, I slowed as I reached the bridge spanning my lake. I starred out over the water, seeing the same murky disappointment I had seen a couple of hours before. Then, my eyes readjusted. There it was! There was the beauty!

You see, I had been looking at the water. Yeah, I know, it is a lake after all, but I realized something. All those times I was met with the splendor of the lake I wasn't actually seeing the lake, I only thought I was. I was seeing what was being reflected by the water. It was the reflection of the sky, the sun, the surrounding trees that held the beauty, not the water itself. It was a gray day and with not much light shinning, it was easy to miss that reflection.

We are just like that lake, we are our own lake. What are we reflecting? Sometimes when you look at me you will see the murkiness of doubt, the muddiness of self-righteousness, the pond scum of vanity. When the temperature drops and the lake ices over the reflection is dimmed then too. When I get cold to the Holy Spirit, His ability to reflect through me is greatly hampered. But when I allow God's warmth to flood me and His light to shine in me I reflect Him and there is great beauty to be found there. It works the other way too. When I look at you, am I concentrating on the water of your faults or am using His eyes to see the reflection of Christ in you?

Who are you reflecting in your life? When your family, your neighbor, the bank teller, the lady in line next to you at the grocery store looks at you, what are they seeing? Are they seeing a living flow of water or do they see a dead, stagnant pool. Are you brimming with life, reflecting the rays of His love or are you devoid of anything living, dried up, used up and empty? Ask Him for a refill of that living water. Better yet, ask Him to make you a bubbling stream of living water that flows to a dry and thirsty world, one that reflects His glory, His grace, His beauty. Every living lake has a source. Make Him your source. Keep that water flowing!

In this new year, I'm asking God for new vision to see Him in those around me. It's hard to lose your temper and yell and fuss at someone when you see Him looking back at you through their eyes. I have to admit, my kids are really hoping for that one! My exhortation to you is to go, reflect!

So, I'll be here, still enjoying my lake, being reminded of this lesson every time I pass it. You won't be able to miss me. I'll be the one checking my mirror for any signs of algae in my teeth!

Soaked in His blessings,
Spokenfor