This morning she asked me if we are dolls in his show. As in, "Is God like a puppet guy and we are his dolls? He pulls us in a direction and we just go?" Yikes. She's seven years old and already showing signs that we have an uphill battle ahead of us. I freely admit that I am shaking in my fake cowboy boots. One child has already made the choice to serve self rather than God. He walked away without a backward glance. What if the other one follows after him?
It's hard not to be afraid but what else is there? She's already admitted that she doesn't like going to church, doesn't pray unless her dad does it with her at bedtime, and that the only reason why she thinks she's a Christian is because she doesn't want to get in trouble. We've gone in circles about what Jesus has done and why he died on the cross. She knows the meaning of Easter and Christmas and why we take communion on special Sundays. The one area I falter in is scripture memorization. I stink at memorizing them myself and I'm even worse at trying to teach them to my kids. Will God hold this against me?
I can't help but feel like there is an urgency to continue praying as fervently as I know how. Not only for all my kids, but for everyone who has wandered away or is sitting on the fence. It's not too late for them. God can change a heart in an instant. It would be so wonderful if that instant would come soon so that I can have peace knowing that they will be ok. I feel like King David today.
"Give ear to my words, O Lord, consider my meditation. Give heed to the voice of my cry, my King and my God,
For to you I will pray, my voice you shall hear in the morning O Lord; in the morning I will direct it to you, and I will look up."
Psalm 5:1-3
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I am not a morning person. When the alarm goes off, I am the lady burrowing deeper beneath the covers until the last possible second. I am the one with the bed-head, fuzzy slippers and the “don’t mess with me for at least an hour” face upon waking up. Recently when I was in Disneyland I saw a t-shirt that I almost bought. It had a picture of Donald Duck with his fists pumped like he was getting ready to face Mike Tyson. The caption underneath said, “I failed anger management.” Whoever it was who designed that shirt must have been thinking of me. I don’t do mornings.
Because I have such a hard time getting up, I got in a dangerous habit of checking email first before I do anything else. For some reason it’s comforting, like I’m reconnecting with friends and family before my day gets underway. I have a chance to see what I missed while I was making dinner, spending time with the kids, and sleeping. The funny thing is, most of the time I haven’t missed much of anything because everyone else was doing the same thing I was. What makes this habit so dangerous is that I made it a priority before doing anything else.
Through experience and life lessons I have learned that God is going to make himself first in my life one way or another. Somehow, some way he is going to remind me that He should be the most important thing in my life and when I lower him to any other status I am only hurting me. I realized this past weekend how true that is.
On Friday my laptop crashed. Saturday was non eventful but Sunday gave me a run for my money. I got up and checked email like I’ve been doing. Then I got in a spat with my husband and we both went to church angry. I stayed that way throughout the day. Little annoyances that normally would not be a big deal sent me through the roof with my fists balled, duking it out with Donald duck. By the time I got home I was angry, cranky, and exhausted. It was a day I was more than thankful to put behind me. I promised God that from now on, He was going to be first.
Yesterday I woke up early and the first thing I did was read my Bible. Not surprisingly, God noticed. My laptop got fixed and a huge prayer request turned into a bigger praise report. It’s amazing how little He asks of me and what happens when I finally surrender and make him the Lord of my life. Prayers get answered and peace returns to my soul. As long as I keep my priorities in order and make God first, Anger Management should be a breeze. That t-shirt looked a bit big on me anyway.
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I had a conversation on facebook earlier that was so entertaining I decided to share it. I’m from a big city. I grew up on a busy city street and went to sleep to the sound of cars whizzing by my house at all hours of the night. There were four different shopping malls and high rises fifteen minutes away in any direction. As a teenager, public transportation was a way of life for me until I learned to drive. When I moved to my current home town at 17 years old, I don’t think I was prepared for the culture shock. I went to one of the only high schools in town (the third one hadn’t been built yet). I eventually resigned myself to the fact that on the way to and from school I was going to see roadkill. Even worse, that roadkill was probably not a dog or a cat. The public bus came once every hour, not once every fifteen minutes. The slower pace, the unique clothing styles, and the bizarre quiet left me feeling like I had unwrapped a new present- only to find Grandma’s old underwear.
Eventually I got used to my new surroundings and learned to feel right at home. I enjoy the quiet so much now that I really can’t imagine living in a big city. All the extra noise would make it hard to concentrate and I like the fact that the grocery store, the mall, and the high school are no more than 30 minutes away combined. When the police get a burglary call 5 cops show up at the residence with guns drawn. The guy at the video store can ring me up by name without having to look in his computer and if I don’t show up at Raley’s on Monday, all the baggers want to know where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing. Most of my surrounding area is farmland. On the way to church I see cows every morning and now when I drive past a road pizza I can tell you exactly what it was before it met its demise.
After more than a decade of country life, I thought I had conformed pretty well until today. Then I drove Alice home. I was doing 50 miles per hour on a two lane road when suddenly I had to slow waaaay down. There was something big and black smack in the middle of the road. I looked at my aging companion and said, “I think that’s a cow! I think that’s a cow in the road!” She quietly nodded her head and said yes that was cow. I slowed almost to a stop thinking that the animal was going to get the hint and mosey eastward. Yeah, that didn’t happen. I cautiously swerved around the beast still staring at it in the rear view mirror. After I made sure Alice arrived at home safely, I drove a little slower going home. Thankfully, Clara the Cow had decided to lunch elsewhere by then and I didn’t have to try and avoid a collision. My conversation with my more countrified friends is as follows.
(Me) I was shocked- the guy just stood there and if I hadn't slowed down I would have hit him. Stupid cow. I should have gotten out and tipped him over. I think it was a girl anyway.
(Deb) LOL.. I think cow-tipping is illegal as well as running them over. Although.... I am thinking it would have been awesome to be a fly on a wall and see you tip a cow.
(Me) Here's how it would play out if I were actually dumb enough to attempt such thing-
Me: (walks cautiously toward inconsiderate beast) "Um, hey would you mind moving your big, fat behind? I'm trying to drive here!"
Cow: "Yeah, I don't see that happening. I was here first. You move."
Me: "Well, see I have a grandma in the car with me and I need to get her home. I don't want this to get ugly so please just kindly move out of the way and nobody will get hurt."
Cow: Like I said. I was here first. If you are in such a hurry, you will get back in that big metal thing and go around me. I'm having my third lunch here and I'd like to eat in peace."
Me: "Ok, you leave me no choice." (Walks over to inconsiderate beast and slowly extends right hand toward stomach area.
Cow: Gives me the stink eye.
Me: Softly nudges beast and jumps back ten feet.
Cow: Gives me the stink eye. Takes one step forward.
Me: Extends right arm, turns around to see Alice laughing hysterically in front seat, and gets back in car.
Cow: Takes another step forward for posterity. Is that thing laughing?
Me: Guns the engine and burns rubber. Cow is a small, smiling dot on the horizon.
(My baby sister, Kristina (born and raised here) haha...try going for a run through Contra Loma and encountering one of those....trust me, cows run cross country too.
So while I may have tried to convince myself that I have acclimated to country life, there are still some things that I will never get used to. Driving around a stubborn cow in the middle of a two lane road is something I can’t wrap my city-minded brain around. I’m just glad I don’t run cross country.
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We were tied at 0 in overtime. During the entire 60 minutes of play we absolutely dominated. It looked like an easy win. This series was ours. Success was just one goal away. Then tragedy struck. One mishandled backhand landed the puck in the wrong net. One misplaced goal rendered us powerless. The Avalanche had won. How could this have happened? How could something we worked so hard for be handed over to the enemy so quickly? It just didn’t seem fair. How would we ever live down this moment? The entire NHL had just witnessed history and at that moment, history stunk. Mr. Boyle went to his dressing room stunned and defeated. His team had worked so hard. Now they would have to work harder. On the morning after that fateful gaffe, Boyle had been asked how he was going to recover from his devastating loss. With fierce determination in his eyes, he answered, “I have to get back out there and I have to play again.” He knew that the story wasn’t over, that he had a job to do, and that his team needed him.
As luck would have it, the Sharks bounced back almost immediately in the next game. Less than two minutes into the fist period, Boyle himself scored the first and only goal in regulation. The game went into overtime and the puck sailed into the net to score the winning goal. The Sharks had overcome their adversary with a seething vengeance. I am absolutely certain that their win can be attributed to Boyle’s perseverance and resilience. He knew that his blunder was not the end of the story, that his victory would not be stolen by a mere fluke, and that all of his team’s hard work would not, could not be in vain. The San Jose Sharks returned home champions. They had outplayed their opponent again.
There was a man who spent his entire life fighting for his cause. He worked so hard for so long and then one day it happened. The enemy won by a fluke. A crowd that had praised his name 24 hours earlier was now condemning him to die. Hell laughed in his face and flaunted its victory. All the saving lives, saving souls, healing diseases- all of it had been stuffed into the enemy’s net with a misguided backhand. The hero hung on the cross stunned and defeated. Then the curtain tore, the earth quaked, and the entire world trembled. The man stood up and walked out of the tomb. He wiped off his hands, shook the dust off his clothes, and emerged triumphant. Out from the ashes he climbed, beaten, bruised, and bloody and silenced his opponent with one simple act. He got back up.
“Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”
Romans 8:37
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I have to say that as far as weird weeks go, this one tops any that I’ve ever had by far. I feel like I’ve stepped into a Twilight Zone marathon and I’m the main character. What the heck is going on? It started with the beginning of the week. I read an article that talked about people who photograph their food before eating it. Does this really happen? Apparently this is a huge trend that I knew nothing about until now. It turns out that countless individuals have made a lifestyle out of snapping pictures of their main dish before they even take out their fork. Why? The reasons vary. Some do it as a means of controlling their weight which I find very clever. If I’m on a mission to lose 50 pounds and I happen to glance at a picture of the Jumbo Jack and fries I ate yesterday, there’s a good chance that I might reach for a carrot instead of a cookie next time. Others do it for social interaction. Meh, ok I guess. If a guy can’t meet women the normal way, I guess there’s worse things that trying to meet them through Flikr. What fascinates me, though are the ones who choose to photograph their food because it’s a hobby. I read about a guy who literally left his wife at the restaurant for an hour because he didn’t have the right lens for his camera and needed to go get it. Is it just me or does that border on obsession? Weird! Or is it? Do you take pictures of your food and why would you do such thing? Food is food, people! It’s meant to be eaten, not digitally documented and posted on social networks for the whole world to see how obsessive we can be. Is it narcissism on overload or just another way to meet people and appreciate the wonder of a good Chicken Marsala?
Let’s see, other weird happenings this week…there’s the estrogen pills in the baby bag I mentioned in my previous blog post, the wedding engagement of someone I never suspected in a million years, and finally, the one that I may never recover from. A person that has been nothing less than obvious in her hatred toward me during the last 8 or 9 years has suddenly come out and asked to reconnect with me. Other minor incidents that I really can’t mention here have also intertwined with everything else this week causing me to shake my head in wonder. A friend asked me, “Was your week weird in a good way or in a bad way?” Honestly, I’m leaning toward all of the above. I’ve cried, I’ve laughed, I’ve shaken my fist in anger, and I’ve stood utterly bewildered. I can’t explain why the home loan mod guys can’t get their act together and just cooperate with my husband. I can’t fathom why someone who has very obviously chosen to be my enemy would suddenly want to talk to me again. I certainly cannot begin to understand the fascination and obsession people have with photographing food. (Maybe someone can help me out with this one?) Above all, I can’t explain the peace that washes over me every time I think about the complexities of life and all the little things that don’t make sense. I know someone who has all the answers. For some unexplainable reason, that’s enough for me. Weird, huh?
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I find it strange how as people we are able to relate to each other so well, even though we might be complete and total strangers. A bad hair day, a horrible break-up, or even a best loved recipe can draw us together and close the gap between stranger and potential B.F.F.
Today I am relating to Keith Urban. While I’m quite sure the song in my heart has nothing to do with the lyrics he wrote, the words and the meaning behind them are very much the same, if only for today.
I went in to see my doctor this morning for a quick check up and a refill on estrogen. Ever since my hysterectomy a year and a half ago, I’ve been learning how to function as a woman in her 30s on menopause. It’s been interesting to say the least. There are the obvious things that I don’t miss and won’t bother explaining. Besides, if you’re a woman you know what they are anyway. Then there’s the not so obvious things that have a way of blindsiding me when I least expect it. Our pastor’s daughter had a new baby a couple of weeks ago. While this whole process might have sent me into a mild depression a year ago, lately I’ve handled it all pretty smoothly. I’ve been to a couple of baby showers, walked through the baby aisle at Target, and even held a newborn without a single tear. All of these things I have counted as small victories to be celebrated. I have fully accepted the fact that my child rearing days are over and I can praise God for the miracle that He gave me in my daughter. Every day is a gift.
This morning however, I was blindsided. I came home and dumped my six month supply of estrogen on the bathroom counter. As I picked up the bag, I noticed the words beneath the pretty colors and designs. “You’re having a baby.” Right then I couldn’t decide if I wanted to laugh or cry. If I chose laughter, I have more than ample fodder to feed my appetite. For instance, I don’t know any women my age who can give advice about hot-flashes, belly fat, and incontinence to their mothers. I can talk at length with my step-mother, grandmother, and the crazy cat lady up the block about memory loss and ways to regain all the missing brain cells. A trip to the grocery store can make me chuckle simply by walking past the “feminine hygiene” aisle. If I happen to hear an older lady at the hair salon talking about her wrinkle cream, suddenly I’m all ears. I want to know what she’s using and how often. These are not typical discussions of young mothers barely over 30 and I think it’s amusing that my new sisters are also my grandparents.
Then there’s the flip side, the crueler aspect of my condition. On a regular basis I am forced to muddle through brain fog, the pea soup-like thing (sorry, I can’t think of a better word at the moment) that is at times a constant thorn in my side. It steals my memory, jumbles thoughts in my head so severely that it’s like I have a giant etch-a-sketch that’s been shaken to oblivion. I can’t concentrate, I can’t put a sentence together that makes sense, and it takes me twice as long to write anything. I get exhausted, cranky, and weepy. Along with the brain fog, my mind wanders to places it shouldn’t go and then I have to pray and ask for help so that I can steer it back to safe terrain again.
I should have been prepared for the punch to the gut I got this morning but for some reason I wasn’t. I should have known that a quick trip to my OBGYN could cause emotional turmoil. I don’t think I was expecting it because I really thought I was past this part. So while Keith and I have absolutely nothing in common and would not be able to relate to each other in the smallest of ways, we do understand sadness. While most of the time I am my happy, deranged self, every now and again I feel like Keith Urban. Tonight I just want to cry.
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There is a reason why Easter only comes once a year. It is afraid of me. The reason why is because I make roasted lamb for dinner. Lamb on any other day may not seem like such a big deal but on Easter? Let’s count the ways it’s just a tiny bit uncomfortable for me. In every hymn book in America you can find some sort of reference about Jesus being the sacrificial lamb. (Think, “Oh Lamb of God”, "Jesus, the Lion and the Lamb”) Song titles and fragments of songs about the cute, cuddly creature bounce off the corners of my mind as I mix together the ingredients for my homemade marinade. As I fire up my oven, it isn’t long before mouths are watering and we’re inhaling the scent of Bambi meeting his demise in my 20 year old G.E.
As the brown sugar, vinegar, red wine, and ginger bubbled and boiled over the main course, I would be reminded later why this particular Easter seemed to outdo all the others. Easter might be afraid of me, but it sure gained my respect this year. We’ll start with the church service. Normally I provide the special music for Sunday worship. This year I had to hand my torch to a more worthy voice, compliments of my companion of late, Bronchitis. (Come to think of it, maybe this was a blessing in disguise. My song choice was “Worthy is the Lamb”) From Sunday service we’ll move on to meal preparation. I should have known it was a bad idea to wear white without an apron. Score a point for the kitchen demons and grab a clean, non mustard-stained shirt that isn’t white. Here’s where it gets interesting.
The San Jose Sharks are winning and everything is coming together perfectly. Score one for Momma. Two hours later the Sharks are down by one and the meat still has another 30 degrees until we can eat it without threat of disease. By the third hour, everyone is starving, the Sharks are losing by 2 points, and the smell of that dang meat is starting to get nauseating. Finally, it’s time to dig in. While everyone raves about Bambi, I am less than impressed and decide that next year I’ll be serving Porky Pig instead of our beloved Disney character. With the passing of dinner and the hockey game I remind myself that even though it’s another loss, we’re still in the playoffs and the other guys aren’t. I turn my oven up to 425 and prepare for peach pie. The kitchen demons are plotting away…
Suddenly an otherworldly stench fills the air, smoke billows through my living room and I am forced to open every window in the house. As the kitchen demons set up their next play, I carefully remove the broiler pan with charred marinade in the bottom and remind myself that next year I will remember to take it out of the oven before turning up the heat. By now I’m exhausted, high from Bambi fumes and depressed from the pitiful performance of my guys in teal. I can hardly think straight as I stuff the charcoal mixture down the garbage disposal. Nice slap shot from the kitchen demons. It will take another hour to get my sink unclogged, the floor mopped up, and the pipes put back together before we can enjoy my frozen peach pie from Claim Jumpers.
Fast forward 10 hours. I fully believed I was back in this game. I had once again opened every window in the house as the heater blasted and upholstery cleaner covered every inch of carpet and furniture. Wickless candles, carpet spray, and burning incense should do it right? I took the kid and the dog to the park expecting to find the charcoal marinade smell had finally found an escape route. It is now 24 hours later. I have a headache from all the incense, the heater is still blasting charcoal marinade smell, and my carpet and upholstery now reek of generic Febreeze. I can’t get that smell out of my house and the brain fog is jumping on the happy train from various scents in the air. The kitchen demons may be celebrating today but tomorrow I will remind them that I married a pastor and there’s a whole year before Easter comes again. I have plenty of time to plan. Next year’s meal won’t come with a shred of guilt. Bambi will be safe, Jesus will still be glorified properly, and I never liked Porky Pig much anyway. I am so looking forward to Christmas.
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Since coming home from Disneyland I’ve been a bit lethargic lately. Bronchitis has had a stranglehold on me and our home mortgage situation is less than optimistic. My mother in-law is back in the hospital with more heart trouble. To say that we are living in a time of uncertainty is an understatement. We are very much waiting on God and trusting and believing in His promises. He is the only One who can make perfect sense out of the chaos.
When I got up this morning I headed straight to my Bible in the hopes that I might hear from the One who gives me hope and strength. My devotional didn’t seem to be speaking to me so I turned to the first chapter in Genesis. There in the notes, was the message God wanted me to hear. “God makes order out of chaos.” My mind went back to all the times in history when this was true. In Exodus, He parted the Red Sea so that Israel could escape Pharaoh’s army unharmed. After finding their way to the Promised Land, God provided Israel with written commandments and rules to follow, thus making order out of their chaos. He sent Jesus into the world to bring order into the lives of every living person corroded with chaos. Thousands upon thousands of stories confirm this truth. God is a God of order.
A little later I came across a story of a woman who witnessed a miracle. She was on a mission to raise funds for her best friend who was fighting breast cancer. At 4am on the day she was set to standup-paddle for 40 miles, she prayed and asked God to reveal himself and His creation. Once again, God heard and answered prayer. Read this amazing story here.
I might not understand everything that is happening around me but I serve a God who still performs miracles and still hears and answers prayer. He brings order out of chaos, restores hope, and reveals himself in mighty, fantastic ways. I have nothing to fear or worry. My God is alive and still making himself known amidst the chaos.
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