Mama's Gotta Brand New Bag!

Isaiah 43:16-19

Heck if I know what I was "supposed" to do with my life. There have been so many plans and changes, detours and failures, really anyone's guess is as good as mine. I have a bachelor's degree in women's studies, a year of law school, several nursing classes (which I often forget I even took!), and am nearly finished with a teaching license. Mostly, I write in notebooks whenever I'm not teaching my daughter how to be a person. I have a specific book idea, a collection of essays, the first three chapters of a really horrific mystery novel, and this blog. So, am I a writer? I feel called to be one, so I guess I'll just myself a writer. God gave this to me. He never said I was a GREAT writer, because that takes practice, which is mainly what I do: I practice. He is also calling me to speak about certain topics that may be helpful to people. How to convince anyone that I know anything about anything is an obstacle he hasn't revealed a way around yet. :)

Mostly, God is doing a brand new thing in my life. Ultimately, I didn't become an attorney because every cell in body knew that was the wrong path for me. I may become a teacher, but I'll teach my daughter first. Writing is sort of the thing I fell into because it's what I've found myself doing more than anything else, besides molding the personhood of this little muffin I live with. As a friend said once, "I don't do anything fancy with words. I just write them."

What does God call you to do today? Are you doing it? Maybe you are in your day job, maybe your calling is outside your day job. What fills you up like a good meal that ISN'T a meal? It's taken me a good decade to figure out what that is for me: it's pages and pages of my sprawling handwriting. It's piles of 30-cent notebooks in the built-in cabinet in my bedroom. It's a blog where I write about praising, questioning, and worshipping God and Jesus Christ, and also where I write about my beliefs on issues of equality and justice. I don't make much money doing it, but it makes me a much better parent than if I were doing something else. For that, praise and thanks to you, God.

Please pray for our brothers and sisters in Haiti today and in the coming days. The Haitians are beautiful people, and need our help.

You can instantly donate $10 to the American Red Cross by texting HAITI to 90999. They will text you back for confirmation.

Here are many other sites you can go to to help. Thanks to Molly Joy Matheson Gruen for this information.

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Haiti Earthquake Disaster Relief Efforts:

AMURT (The group Eric and I worked with. We have seen personally how respectfully and effectively AMURT uses donated funds): www.amurt.net

Another way to support AMURT: Proceeds from all Haiti photos sold on Eric’s website
(Peacephotography.org) will support the work of AMURT in Haiti.

Quick and Easy: Text "Yele" to 501501 to donate $5 to the Yele Haiti Earthquake Fund, started by Wyclef Jean. The charge will automatically show up on your phone bill.

Quick and Easy (2!): Text 'HAITI' to '90999' to donate $10 to the Red Cross to help with relief efforts. The charge will automatically show up on your phone bill.

Partners in Health:
http://www.pih.org/home.html

Covenant Word Relief:
http://www.covchurch.org/cwr

Lutheran World Relief:
http://lwr.org/

Catholic Relief Services:
www.crs.org

Doctors without Borders:
www.doctorswithoutborders.org

World Vision:
www.worldvision.org

Also, NPR put together a list of disaster relief websites, donation lists and support ideas:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/01/haiti_earthquake_how_to_help_a.html?sc=fb&cc=fp

{{ Thank you, friends. }}

Good, Anyway.

1 Corinthians 1:3-6

This past weekend was challenging for me, and wonderful. I traveled with my fiance to visit his grandparents in Arizona. While I was so grateful to be in the warm sun after living in this frigid tundra we call Minnesota, I was unprepared for the amount of patience and grace I needed to make the trip a success.
Well, "unprepared" is maybe not right word. I knew going in that we would be communicating in a new ways that we are not generally used to. I found that I have immense love and feel a lot of protectiveness for my new family. However, there are opinions and practices that are hard for me to agree with, or even find peace with.
So I prayed, and I continue to pray. For their health, their safety, their peace. I did my very best to do good, anyway. Even though I felt frustration, even when I felt annoyance, even when I felt defensive of my beloved fiance; I prayed to God to give me the wisdom and grace to show love anyway. It takes a level of acceptance. This acceptance is possible. For me, it took prayer, and the Lord answered me.

More fun from Glee! Just because. :)

Practice

Psalm 119:89-104

I have practiced yoga with some regularity since I was seventeen years old. Of course, over the many life changes, moves, and caprices of my personality and waning commitment, there have been periods of time where I don't practice yoga for a while, sometimes a month or two. During these times, I become more physically, emotionally, and spiritually distant. I tend to eat mindlessly, be lethargic and irritable, and generally start to teeter toward depression. And so I've learned, over these 13 years of yoga growth, to be as consistent as I can; practice begets practice. It is much the same with my Christian spiritual practices: they take practice! I can't ignore God, my Bible, and my writing for a very long period of time, or I feel detached. From God, from Life, from Love. Faith takes practice. It has taken me a long time to figure this out. But I am nothing if not a slow learner.

That isn't to say that while my attention is averted, God's is as well. The Holy Spirit doesn't get distracted or bored with me; that is an entirely human failing on my part. Barbara Haggerty, in her research on people who are more deeply connected to spirituality,which you can read here and listen to on NPR here, poses the best question I've heard all year: What if our brains aren't like CD players, just processing what we perceive through our senses, but are like radios that we can tune to the "God" frequency? Some people may have an easier time tuning their dials than others. Mystics, prophets, and sages are some examples of people who have high-frequency dials. I am not a mystic or a prophet or a sage, unfortunately, and I need a lot of practice to tune in my dial! I need centering prayer, unceasing prayer, yoga, Bible study, worship services, and writing. These are gifts God has given me to transform my life through Him. We all have these gifts available to us. Praise be to God!

Enough

Matthew 6:25-34

My brain swirls with unfinished tasks, goals, things that I need to control RIGHT NOW, need to get ticked off my list, or surely, the sky will fall down upon me. If I don't put into motion every thought that runs through my head, it will be gone forever, a wave upon the sand.

All that worry for nothing! God is holding me here, today, and saying, "Let me guide you." My passion is writing about God and Jesus and Christian spirituality...so He will enable me to do that, one word at a time. Nothing fancy. Nothing flashy. I can write my truth today, and minister to those who might want to read it. But what if no one reads this? Then I've done the work I can for the day, and the rest is none of my business!

What else am I putting my sticky little fingers into today? My looks, for one thing. I'd better do my hair, apply my makeup, make sure I'm wearing one of my colorful outfits! What if people see my real face? What if they see my plain t-shirts and jeans and tennis shoes? What will they think? They'll think I'm boring! Or...homely! Oh, oh, oh. Hands wringing, glaring into the mirror, fussing with my bangs. Then I pause and send up a prayer: "God, help me stop doing this!"

I have been given radical gifts: the passion for writing, the fierce love of my daughter, the rock-solid love and respect of my family and friends and fiance. It is my perogative to live out every second in the glorification of Jesus, in celebration, in kindness, in service. Not only service to others, but to myself as well. How many hours of my life have I spent applying mascara? Dieting? Obsessing? What if I could teach my daughter to love herself to the very core of her authentic being?

Today I walk with God, I ask Him to have me live truly, authentically, in His honor and glory. And to never, ever, forget to have a good time!

Thorn in my Side

James 1:19-21

Anger is an emotion that erodes my peace. Some people are good with dealing with anger by their very nature. The Good Lord didn't bless me in this way! I haven't had many major events in my life that have cause lingering, damaging anger and resentment. It so happens, however, that an event of that nature happened this past year. An act of betrayal that shook foundations of trust that had been carefully and lovingly built were destroyed, and by the grace of God stand strong once again.

The anger this event caused me was visceral. I've never felt so helpless, hopeless, or carried so much hate in my heart. It ate me up- I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I was anxious all the time. The Me that people knew and loved was being buried and suffocated by this stony resentment, and it was heavy and ruinous.

I knew long before I did it that the answer was to pray for her. But come on, let's get real: NO WAY was I going to pray for her! After what she did! She didn't deserve my prayers after what she'd done to me and my family! God kept calling me out, and I kept saying, "But...But...there's got to be an easier way!"

Bad news: There isn't.

Whatever situation in your life seems impossible to forgive, it will only be shaken loose by prayer. It won't happen fast, either. But it will happen. After I began to stubbornly ask God to loosen the grip this anger had on me, I slowly began to see her as a human being with feelings; one who needs love and affection. God didn't ask me not to be angry, but by channeling that anger into fervent prayers for my enemy, I am finally at peace. I thank God for my new outlook, my relaxed heart, and the love I've found for someone whom I never thought I could love.

...Isn't that the point?

Mark 15:33-41

I like knowing what the likely outcome of a situation will be, what I can expect. When I can predict how something will turn out, I feel secure in the choices I'm making.

It is easy to live as if likely outcomes are facts. It feels good; at least, it feels safe. I caught myself saying the other day, "I'm a really good judge of character!" It was during my prayer time later that day that it occurred to me: judging someone's character is not a virtue. What good does it do any of us in the end to judge anyone's character but our own? Because someone uses a certain tone in conversation, or dresses a certain way, I can make assumptions about who they are? I'm glad Jesus didn't do that!

Thankfully, God loves unconditionally, and is therefore the best judge of character of all. God doesn't place limits on us. He doesn't say, "I'll love you unless you do this; I can't forgive you if you do that." His love and light reach us unexpectedly, by surprise and delight, and are not reserved for only the "good" among us. Who decides who they are, anyway, besides God?

Like the centurion in Mark, this overwhelming Love can touch those of us whom you would least expect. We would do well not to underestimate our fellows!

A few years ago, an elderly member of my home church was talking to a friend who lived in our same small town, but was a member of a different congregation. The friend said, "Oh you attend [that] church! You guys take anybody!" To which the elderly member of our church replied, "Well, yeah...isn't that the point?"

Prayer for the day: Dear God, thank you that no one is beyond the reach of your love.

Thought for the day: God's love has no limits.

Add some "Glee" to your week!