perspective

everything has its wonders,
even darkness and silence

~helen keller

need vs. want

my almost three year old made me laugh today.
he's coming down with a cold, so his nose is all junky
and we are wiping it with a tissue about every fifteen seconds.
from all the wiping, it's getting sore and bothering him.

he came to me with a handful of tootsie rolls saying that
he NEEDS the tootsie rolls because his nose hurts.
i asked if he needs them or if he really just wants them.
he said he NEEDS the tootsie rolls because if he's chewing them
his nose won't hurt. (logical...something tasty (and chocolate)
to distract from pain. as a mother, should i be proud that he's
figured this out???)

i let him have one. (he was cute and batting his sweet eyes...)

moments later:
"mommy, i need two tootsie rolls this time,
this side of my nose hurts more."

he's good...very good.

had to laugh

okay...this is how brillant humans are.
cooking one of those freezer pizzas--at the bottom corner:
'cook before serving'

don't forget that!

i need you and you need me

i work at a church. it is something i feel i have been called to as a vocation.
for most of my growing up, i wanted to be a music teacher.
i knew at the core of my being, that was what i was going to be.
then something happened. in college, i had an experience that radically changed my life.
God opened my eyes and i knew i wanted to have a personal relationship the rest of my life with Him.
it changed my plans. it changed my educational direction.
it changed what i thought i wanted to be when i grew up.
i now have church as my vocation and i am grateful.

i've spent the last few weeks pondering over the unique creation of the church.
i'm not referring to organized religion or some cult, but the unique living organism created by a community of believers--people who have asked God to have a personal relationship through the living sacrifice of Jesus Christ.

church is an amazingly complex thing.
simply, it's people coming together under the main thing they have in common--
--Jesus Christ and the love we have for Him because He died for each one of us.
look deeper and you see how God crafted each church/community in infinitely complex ways.

He brought people together--flawed, imperfect people who are growing towards all that He wanted for them to become. He brought young and old, uncivilized and refined, free-spirited thinkers and organizers, creative and analytical and brought them together to change the world by loving one another and living differently than the rest of the world, to live out life as Jesus did when He was here on earth.

the thing i'm learning to appreciate in this community is how God never intended for any one of us to be able to 'do church' on our own. we need each other. God designed it that way. i can't write a sermon to help share Jesus' story with the masses to save my life, but others in my church community can. i am not gifted at making stories from the Bible come to life to the little children, but my church community has people who are passionate and able to make the stories jump right off the pages. for every need, He has brought someone with that exact gift, strength, talent. we need each other!!! in the Bible, God uses the imagry of the body. an eye can't do a hand's job and a foot better not try to do the job of the heart. (what about the appendix? is that one really necessary? i mean, it can be removed and we can survive just fine. hope i'm not the appendix :) )
each one brings a unique contribution that some other part is relying on to help the whole function.
if a part is suppressed or shut down, the whole hurts. it's maimed and not operating at its capacity.
the hand counts on the fingers. the legs need the feet to help them get places. the heart counts on those blood vessels to distribute the reoxgygenated blood to the whole body.
each little part is as important as the next.

it's just a small reminder to me how God put things in me that others need.
God put things in others that i need.
we need each other.

simple lesson

when you learn, teach.
when you get, give.

~maya angelou

my response?

was looking at the book of habakkuk in the old testament. was having a tough time reading through because i was rushing and not looking at the context of things. made myself read again, and then one more time. though this was written in days long ago in situations that i personally can't relate to (national conquest and major violence seen first hand), God has been slowly letting me chew on it...realizing that there are some very pertinent lessons for right now.

first, i decided i would love to have habakkuk as my friend. (would want to come up with a nickname of some sort though--habakkuk doesn't roll off the tongue or type easily) he's bold and he's honest. he readily admits his fears and concerns (with great detail too). he has no problem asking honest questions and asking for a response--why is all this tough stuff happening? don't you see it, God? You can do something about it! he engages in his conversation with great emotion and passion. he cares for what is taking place to him and the world around him. he trusts in a God that is in control of a situation that seems out of control to him, in a situation that appears that God has nothing to do with it.

second, habakkuk gives time for God to talk--even when the answer isn't one that he expected or wanted. i don't know what the real life conversation was like, but here in the text, habakkuk shuts up after his comments and questions and then listens to what God has to say. boy, it's easy to talk--tough to wait and listen.

i think what floors me the most about this passage is two-fold.

there is such an open dialogue between habakkuk and God. questions and answers. feelings and explanations. candid thoughts with loving, honest replies. no feelings or comments were minced or shaded--things were spoken so openly. we can learn from that today--we all can have that type of candor with God. personally, i've learned that when i try to say the right things to God instead of how i really feel or what i really want to ask, i'm disappointed every time. but when i come to God with everything exposed, there is such a tender God there that loves me through--speaking and answering in ways that touch me to the core of who i am. (even though i may have expected God to answer things differently or switch to doing something my way)

i adore habakkuk's response at the end of the passage.
(chapter three, verses seventeen and eighteen)
Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.
God didn't give habakkuk the answer he may have necessarily wanted or circumstances that seemed just in his perspective. but habakkuk's choice was to praise a God that is in control of all things, despite what was going on around him. i love how habakkuk was free to list all the things that weren't going right around him--he was simply showing us that there are all kinds of reasons to doubt God's timing and plan, all kinds of reasons to simply draw inward and cry against a God that would allow such. BUT, there is that last statement:
YET i will rejoice in the Lord, i will be joyful in God my Savior.
in the middle of the difficulties, his response was praise. it was joy (which is so much different than happiness). God is still God despite the difficulties of things around us. He is using those difficulties to shape us to grow more of His character--to be more loving, more kind, more patient, more understanding, more tender, more thoughtful, more forgiving...

i have to ask myself: is this my response? when life is hard and things go differently than i wanted or expected, is my response like habakkuk's? i would like to think so...at least some.

true friends

today, i'm so grateful for my dear friends that take me as i am, that take my family as we are.
tired after a long day, cranky kids that are crashing from their halloween sugar buzz, distracted minds focused on all the to-do's that are piling up around. yet, we sit eating supper and watching a show together--catching up on life in between little ones asking for another cookie, throwing toys back and forth--building each other up while in the tough things of life.
they are a HUGE encouragement and i can't imagine going through life without them.
thank you dear friends!

p.s. the roast was good :)