a hodge podge

I recieved an email late last night from our landlord. The owners have decided that they want to sell the house…What?!? (We’ve only been here three months…I’ve not even posted pictures of my cute little house for you all). My first response was to panic and think of all the work that we’d have to do. Then I heard the Holy Spirit question, “Will you trust?”. We will choose to trust.

I shared the exciting news with Daniel, we prayed together and visited Proverbs for some wisdom. Here is what we were met with:

Are you confused about life, don’t know what’s going on?…Leave your impoverished confusion and live! Walk up the street to a life with meaning. (Prov 9)

Talk about a word in due season.

We do have a great peace in this odd time. God has been doing something in our hearts - a course correcting, a calling to a more disciplined, focused life. On our way home from Chicago, we developed an “Anti-Suck Plan”. It’s good. And then this…I think God is working something real good. We will be spending a lot of time praying in the Spirit to get this right. We are really determined to hear and follow. Exciting, no?

Note: Due to a lack of color on WordPress I will, from now on, be changing the color of my text and adding pictures with each post that may or may not be relevant to my writing…but is relevant to the addition of color. This one, unfortunately, is black and white but is too appropriate to not use.

I’ve allowed myself to lose my joy over the past couple of years. Overall, I have been fine day to day but every so often it would hit me and I would have a mini-crisis. I would be overwhelmed by the fact that I don’t have any close friends locally (closer than 45 minutes), that I didn’t have a car and I felt stuck at home, that I felt like we didn’t have a clear direction for our future but knowing it was something important.

As of late, it seems that I have been on a God-ordained, outside of my control, course of discovering what happiness really is. Some or most of this maybe seem silly, immature or plain old ridiculous, but I wanted to put this out there because it is real and because I am thankful. I thought that when I got a car I would be able to go places, have variety, see friends and thus solve my problems. Don’t get me wrong, having this car is great, but it has only reminded me of the friends that are not there. (It also reminded me of how much work it is to take two babies out to do anything!)

This is where I will sound shallow and misguided: With or without realizing, I would like to shop if I was feeling blue. (Disclaimer: I do not have piles of new items and hidden credit card bills…I’m not that far off center!). I recently became aware of this tendency and also of the lack of any lasting satisfaction (no kidding, right?).

I was flipping through a book today and read these powerful words spoken by Abraham Lincoln:

Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

 I read these words and thought to myself:

Snap out of it!

I have a wonderful family, a loving and supportive extended family, incredible friends, a great church, many, many physical blessings…and Jesus who has given me salvation, peace and has promised promises that are more than I could dream up. There is nothing in my life to be unhappy about.

The other part of this quote really has my wheels turning as well: Happiness is not a destination. I, of course, know this. Although, I seemed to have forgotten. Happiness will not be when we are in full time ministry, more involved with missions or have the greatest friends living next door. I was suffering from severe greener grass syndrome. I remembered today the blessings from God. My girls will never be these amazing ages again. We will never have this chapter of our lives back…so we need to live this chapter with fullness.

I’ve been on this journey before to differing degrees but am so thankful that Jesus desired to guide my journey of happiness and do a deeper work in my heart.

…and Anna found it. Ooops.

Ok, I know I just posted but I read an article and found out that using your cell you can send a text to Google with a simple message and within seconds (literally) you will receive a reply with answer. For example, I text “Mexican” to 466453 (or “Google” on most devices) and in under 30 seconds I received a text message with three close Mexican restaurants. Google doesn’t charge anything for this service so the only charge that of the text message itself. How cool is that?

I didn’t forget.

D: this is the driving, direct, demanding, dominant, get-things-done kind of person; can at times be dictatorial and callous towards others. They would say “Give me a job & get out of the way”, “Do it now, my way”. D’s fears might include thinking “Don’t take advantage of me.” D’s are extroverted (need / want to be around people) yet are task oriented.

I, for example, am a “High I” meaning I is the only one above the midline on my graph. In small groups I am an ID. The High I properly illustrates my need for people and my need for fun.

My wonderful husband understands this and allows for my “I”. Last week, he got home from work and I had been working on several projects all week and had not had any social time…which led to high amounts of stress and a feeling of being overwhelmed. I felt weak, crazy, ineffective and…dumb. He gently reminded me that it was okay for me to be feeling that way since…I am an I. I had not been around people and my work-to-fun ratio (as we call it) was out of wack. Through understanding my personality we were both able to logically process behavior.

We use this ALL the time. Almost as soon as we meet someone, we will observe and “label” (for lack of a better word) them. This is extermley helpful. My brother is a C…it is helpful to remind myself that he does things differently than I do…because we are opposites in this DISC spectrum.

Recently, we had a meeting with a person we didn’t know too well. She was very direct, demanding and almost cold. It would have been very easy to become offended. Instead we thought, “Oh, she’s a D…she’s not being mean, she’s a D”.

Now for all you:

Andi : IS

Matt (my brother):high C (not the juice)

Mandy : high I (With CSD just below the midline…so are you a forced extrovert?)

Natalie : DC

Angie : ICS

Annie : SIC

Debbie: IS

Becca: SI

Alece: CIS (with D just below the midline)

Daniel: S (at work…D)

So, what do you think? Are your results accurate? Do the descriptions fit you? What personality stories do you have?

By request…

Our second year of Bible and Missions School was about to begin. It was the fourth night of Word Explosion and T.D. Jakes had just finished a powerful service. But we were hungry so we invited our friends over and we were all excited to eat some homemade chicken strips. I started the oil on the stove, and even though we were right there the oil caught fire. We tried to put it out but we could not. Daniel got some bad burns on his arm and face from the oil. The fire spread through the kitchen and laundry room and our whole apartment and all of our belongings had terrible smoke damage.

Call us stupid, uninformed or ignorant but now we are much more educated on the topic of putting out fires. We didn’t know fire extinguishers are rated for different kinds of fire, that dumping flour on it would have put the fire out or that putting the lid back on would have put the fire out. That information is helpful to know before you have a fire.

Anyways, it was pretty awful. Daniel was taken to the ER in an ambulance (he even made it into the newspaper), our apartment was shot, our stuff was unusable from smoke and from “ceiling gunk” from the firefighters ripping open the ceiling to make sure the fire hadn’t spread. It was pretty amazing that my parents were scheduled to fly in early the next morning for the second half of Word Explosion. It was such an added source of strength to have them there with us.

The maintenance men from our apartment said the management would help us find a new apartment the following morning. That night we stayed with some friends. Well, the next morning management told us they wanted us out in 48 hours because of fire caused by negligence blah, blah, blah (it was kind of illegal what they were asking of us). We spoke with my attorney brother and before things got ugly they changed the tune they were humming. We were able to move in right next to the charred apartment.

We did have renters insurance (I am so glad we did, it was wonderful!). Our insurance paid for a restoration service to come and clean out our old apartment, sort through our things, and clean what they could and deliver our clean items to our new place. We were able to keep most of our things. They made my beloved red couch as good as new. Insurance covered our hotel stay and food until we could move into the new apartment.

Even though it was a few years ago, I’m still pretty uncomfortable cooking with oil.

Emma was playing with play dough and her nose was running. I was feeding Anna so I asked Emma to get down, get a tissue from the bathroom and wipe her nose.

She promptly got down and returned with a wiped nose, tissue in hand and proudly proclaiming, “I did it!”.

I knelt down to her eye level so she could get my important message, “Thank you for obeying. It makes Momma very happy when you obey” (positive reinforcement).

“I love you, Momma” she replied.

Without thinking, I said, “I know you do. When you obey me, it shows me that you love me”.

Ah-ha! My own words sounded so familiar and I understood a little more.

each of my readers seems quite brave to me in her own way. i feel completely un-brave (i know it’s not a word…natalie you can say “not brave” three times now if you like.)

fear is an area that i am tackling. i get so frustrated with myself.

i’m afraid that i’m not hearing the voice of God and will miss His plan for me.
i’m afraid that i am hearing the voice of God and what that means.
i’m afraid that if i hear His voice, i won’t be able to do what He’s calling me to.
i’m afraid i’m striving too much.
i’m afraid of what i’ll be doing once i tackle intimidation.

all of this fear leads me to do…nothing. confusion sets in and i want to throw my hands up and walk away into the world of doing nothing where no decisions are required.

can you relate? what makes you brave? where do you find the strength to be brave?

no pat answers, please.

the first of a new series of outstanding highlights from our church: bethel christian church preached by our pastor, bill farina. even if these are things we’ve heard many times before, i think it is always good to be reminded.

• you can’t skip from promise to fullfilment without prepration.
• we have a High Priest and Advocate in Heaven and a Helper on earth.
• you don’t recieve the gift or the promise by focusing on the gift, but on the gift Giver.
• if i want to get full of the Spirit of God, get a revelation of who Jesus is adn exalt Him in my heart.

last week we started Bible school…for the third time. we started by correspondence in ‘02 taking authority of the believer, then in ‘03 we moved to tulsa for vbi and then last week our church launched bethel Bible institute. we felt that even though we’ve taken these classes several times it would be good to stay sharp and get involved with the school. we are taking old testament (taught by our pastors) and authority (taught by my mom & dad).

bunny trail: i love learning about the new testament - especially the history of the new testament and the life and times of Jesus and the early church. (angie, have you seen this book?) back in college all in one semester i took pauline lit, the book of acts and the holy spirit & the church. it was a fun semester!

ok, all that to say, that as much as i love the new testament i often have a hard time processing paul’s writings. it is so power packed that i feel like i can’t even process one phrase, let alone one [long] sentence or chapter.

part of the assignment from my parents is to read the book of Ephesians. i decided to read in the Message Bible and i’m learning so much and having so much life given to my heart. i have to share!

from Ephesians 1

every time I prayed, I’d think of you and give thanks. But I do more than thank. I ask—ask the God of our Master, Jesus Christ, the God of glory—to make you intelligent and discerning in knowing him personally, your eyes focused and clear, so that you can see exactly what it is he is calling you to do, grasp the immensity of this glorious way of life he has for his followers, oh, the utter extravagance of his work in us who trust him—endless energy, boundless strength!

All this energy issues from Christ: God raised him from death and set him on a throne in deep heaven, in charge of running the universe, everything from galaxies to governments, no name and no power exempt from his rule. And not just for the time being, but forever. He is in charge of it all, has the final word on everything. At the center of all this, Christ rules the church. The church, you see, is not peripheral to the world; the world is peripheral to the church. The church is Christ’s body, in which he speaks and acts, by which he fills everything with his presence.

from Ephesians 2

immense in mercy and with an incredible love, he embraced us. He took our sin-dead lives and made us alive in Christ. He did all this on his own, with no help from us! (my note: He still wants us to rely on Him!)

I went through and underlined any time it said God, His, Him and the verb that God did for me. How’s that for a nugget?! I hope it encourages your heart as it did mine.

ps - anna is getting too wiggly to hold while typing.