Welcome to My Little Corner of the World

Sometimes it's just written on the wind...

2006-06-19T11:37:00.000-05:00

Okay, all my faithful readers, just want to say that I think I'm officially "in" at My New Little Corner. You can click on the link to get there. However, should you actually take the time to type in www.mynewlitlecorner.typepad.com, be aware that the word "little" is missing the second "t." Yes, in my eagerness to settle into my new blog, I misspelled the word.

As a perfectionist I must admit it's been gnawing at my conscience ever since I discovered it.

Oh, well. We can't have it all, right?

In any case, I think I'm blog moving. If you want to adjust your bookmarks and links in your own blogs in order to continue to find me, feel free. I'll leave this site up for awhile, too.

A Blogger Vacation Spot or a New Home?

2006-06-18T20:05:00.000-05:00

Well, for the past 7 hours I've been playing around in a neighboring blogging spot. Despite the fact that it was a little slow-going in figuring out my surroundings in this new blog town, I think I'm actually liking the end result. If you want, take a look and let me know if it's worth a move.

Extreme Blog Makeover

2006-06-18T14:26:00.000-05:00

My dear friend M.K. Lindsey made a spontaneous trip down to my little corner of the world just to hang out for the last 24 hours. It was a lovely weekend of chatting, good food, and coffee at my favorite local coffee place.

But probably what most consumed our attentions was playing around with our blogs. She has wanted for some time to learn how to customize her blog. Some of her vision for her blog sounded like something I've been seeing from the Typepad blogs I read so we perused them for ideas. I even have ended up setting up a trial version to play around with because there are certain elements about Typepad I'm liking. It's a bit different than Blogger. (If I can get it figured out somewhat, I'll throw the link up and let you take a peek and give me some feedback.)

In anycase, most of our evening last night was spent at my kitchen table in front of the laptop. (Sidebar: It actually reminded me of another time we sat together in front of the computer. Remember the eHarmony questionnaire, M.K.? After 2 hours of sitting through the most grueling personality questionnaire, I hit the search button to find new matches only to receive this message: "Unfortunately you're one of the 20% we have no matches for." Somehow, I always knew. And yet, it was so freeing to have a computer finally break the news.)

But enough about me.

It was a most delightful way to spend an evening. I taught her what little I've picked up over the last several months -- including copying a pasting a backup copy of a template in Word before making changes! After playing around with her current template, she became braver than I've been -- she decided she wanted to change her template. Now, I had heard that in doing so you might run the risk of losing everything. I wasn't so confident. But she moved into the unknown with a laugh and a click...and gave her old blog an extreme blog makeover.

The Lake House

2006-06-17T09:26:00.000-05:00

Last night I went with a friend to see The Lake House. I don’t care what the critics are saying; I really enjoyed it primarily because it wasn’t the same formulaic romance. Most romance movies today are based a little more in the here and now. Despite the fact that everything is neatly wrapped up within 2 hours and boy and girl have sufficiently gotten together, we could believe that the story unfolding before us might possibly happen.

But The Lake House depends entirely upon a true suspension of disbelief due to a time travel type plot line. I like that. I actually have to suspend disbelief and step into my imagination. There’s something about wildly depending upon my imagination that is entirely satisfying. In any case, if you enjoy a good romance every now and then and are tired of the conventional, run of the mill ways of telling them, I highly recommend The Lake House.

Packing up is hard to do

2006-06-15T15:27:00.000-05:00

Well, I’m taking a pause from a day of packing. Actually, I have about 2½ weeks until I move so I’ve been trying to figure out how to slowly pack what little in my house is left to my name. My garage sale of a couple weeks ago cleaned me out of my junk as much as it did my furniture and so there’s really not much left that couldn’t be packed in probably a week’s unhurried time.

Because I haven’t wanted to sit in a houseful of boxes for the last 3 weeks, I’m trying to pace myself. Within the last several days I’ve packed all of my books which are also conveniently catalogued online. I also catalogued my DVDs online as I packed them just because I was in the zone. I thought that was a good if not easy place to start my packing…but when the books came off the shelves it immediately felt less warm and more temporary. I’m not sure why, but there’s something about books to me that create home, you know?

In any case, as much as it feels weird to be officially putting what’s left of my life into moving boxes, I’m looking forward to the next stage of life…murky as it still is. For now, my plan is to move to an old haunt from my childhood which is a town about 2 hours from where I currently live. “What happened to Florida?” you’re probably wondering. Well, those plans fell through and newer ones came to the surface in the last month. My parents, having been through some major job transitions since February, are actually moving back to Oklahoma. In doing so, they are going to move into the house that I lived in the first 11 years of my life (which has been a rent house for the last 20+ years). And I am going to move in with them and help them do a major remodel for the next several months before looking for a job.

Why the new change? Well, there are a number of reasons, but the primary and most motivating one is healing. Over the last six months I have realized that I need some time to heal from some definite wounds of the heart and spirit that have come over the last nine years of being in ministry. Over the years I’ve watched a number of the hurt and wounded go from one church or ministry to the other never really dealing with the blows they’ve taken. In so doing, unknown or unseen to themselves, they enter a new ministry or church setting and do a lot of damage because they haven’t taken the time (or maybe they just haven’t realized they need that time) to heal sufficiently.

As I looked at a number of different options, I realized that woman could very easily be me. If I don’t take some time to heal up, I could very well be that woman who just brings her old garbage with her to the next location, you know?

So, for now, I’m taking what I’m calling a Life Sabbatical. I’m not setting any necessary goals other than to put my heart in strategic places for healing. What those places look like yet, I’m not sure. For now, the first step into this is to be around family for awhile and serve them. Hopefully jobs, paychecks, spiritual community, and life purpose will fall into place in time.

New Blog Sidebar Additions

2006-06-12T14:33:00.000-05:00

Okay, for someone who swore never to mess with her blog template (after nearly losing it all by trying to delete some other pesky addition she added and then regretted), you'll notice that I've been slowly adding a few new things.

The first, obviously, is Pandora. This was previously recommended through my friend Jill and I am thoroughly enjoying it. The concept is simple and innovative. A group of musicians and technologists got together and decided that grouping music into a genre just doesn't work. They believe that all music has a gene...and they've done the work in classifying thousands of musicians. If you're curious, you can read more about this endeavor. Pandora, then, is a culmination of this five year study where we can enjoy their hard work. You type in an artist or a song you love and they'll design a station with your listening tastes in mind and recommend new artists. If you haven't already, I highly recommend giving it a try. I personally enjoy hearing new artists and songs that fit into the variety of sounds that I already enjoy. Already I've shared it with a number of my friends and they are now happily enjoying broadening their music horizons.

The other addition is LibraryThing that I saw over on Rick's blog. The idea is similar to Delicious Library...and not. The Delicious concept is just enough to make me think I should have listened to my sister and bro-in-law who live, breath and die Mac. Oh, well. Laptop and I are doing just fine otherwise...

The Amazon.com addition came when I decided to add LibraryThing. When you type in your books it links to Amazon and allows me a small cash return when anybody clicks on an item I list through my blog and and actually purchases it. So, feel free to do all your Father's Day gift giving right here, folks. Just kidding. There's never any pressure here...other than to drink coffee. I make no apologies for pushing the coffee drinking experience on anyone.

Life Changes and Good Stories

2006-06-11T20:20:00.000-05:00

Since Wednesday I have been in Tyler, TX visiting a good friend and her husband. What initially started out with an agenda by my friend and I to “have lots of coffee talk conversations and/or to lay by the pool” has suddenly been taken captive by the reality of life -- my friends have been house hunting for quite some time and stumbled upon a house in the last several days since I’ve been here that has the most potential for the money they’re willing to spend and they needed to make a fast decision. So, because my friend’s in-laws are in real estate, Mom and Dad flew in (Literally – Dad recently bought an old 1940 war plane and flew it from Austin to here!! Very cool.) And since it has been a whirlwind of discussion as well as an education in house purchasing.

The other day after the Parents arrived we went to see the house again. It’s an old house supposedly built in the mid-40s with an unusual exterior of cinderblock. When my friends and I walked through it the previous day, the ninety-year old owner was not at home and we found ourselves trying to piece together the story of this woman’s life – lots of antiques obviously from other parts of the world; no pictures of family or children anywhere; an unusual mixture of slab and pier and beam flooring.

Upon the second viewing of the house we were introduced to Clara Broush Bogard (not sure of spelling), who immediately told us all her friends called her C.B. She was the spryest, most youthful ninety-year old you’ve ever met! After making our way through the house again we began to ask her questions about her home. Turns out she and her husband (both in the Civil Air Patrol) moved into the house in ’47 but when they moved in they decided to change the entrance of the house. So, they lifted up the house (yes, actually lifted it up) and turned the house 90 degrees. They then proceed to add on about another 900 square feet of the house…hence the newer slab flooring. The coolest thing was the story of the cinderblock exterior. Apparently after the war building supplies were scarce. So, Mrs. Clara’s husband individually made all of the cinderblocks from scratch and bricked their house!

We were all totally entranced with Mrs. Bogard’s stories of her life. While you wouldn't have believed for a moment that she was 90, she felt that she could no longer properly take care of herself so she informed us that she was moving herself into an assisted living center and was in the process of eliminating everything that had been home to her for the last 60 years. While she was delighted I think that my friends took such an interest in her life and home, my heart really ached for her. Maybe it’s my own recent events that caused my to identify at some level…and yet, I can’t imagine what it must be like to sell off everything at 90 years old with no children to pass down my stories and precious treasures and willingly move myself into a community of people I have no shared experiences. A place where for all apparent purposes is probably one of the last places to dwell before leaving this earth. It makes me think of my grandparents who also were forced to such measures before they went home to be with Jesus…

Just before we left Mrs. Bogard’s house the other day, she told my friends that she really wanted them to get the house. The following morning my friends made an offer just as a competing offer came in bidding for the same house. Mrs. Bogard sold the house to my friends. It’s my suspicion that after getting to know them that she felt that she was able to leave a piece of her home and her story to some kids who would take care of her story as much as there own desire to create a new home and memories…

Growing in Singleness

2006-06-09T10:44:00.000-05:00

Over the years I’ve realized how hard it is to come by well-written books on singleness. I’ve definitely read my fair share of the “strap up your boot straps and get over it” singleness kind of books as well as the “what planet is this reality based on?”

Recently I’ve picked up Connally Gilliam’s Revelations of a Single Woman: Loving the Life I Didn’t Expect. I’m enjoying Gilliam’s honest examination of being a well-rounded, experienced, thoughtful, Christian single woman in today’s world. If you’re single and are constantly looking for books that help you grow in your perspective, add this one to your “must read” list.

Me too

2006-06-05T23:58:00.000-05:00

Jill did this one so I figured I had to as well. :-) I think it rings fairly close to home...although I wonder about the "quirky." I mean, am I quirky or just weird?

How You Live Your Life

You seem to be straight forward, but you keep a lot inside.
You're laid back and chill, but sometimes you care too much about what others think.
Your friends tend to be a as quirky as you are - which is saying a lot!
You tend to dream big, but you worry that your dreams aren't attainable.

How Do You Live Your Life?

Memorable Moving Sale Moments

2006-06-05T12:00:00.000-05:00

While it was quite an overwhelming weekend of work and letting go of the stuff that has defined my life, there was much to be enjoyed during my recent garage sale. Let me see if I can accurately recount the enjoyment I chose to take out of the last few days…

My friend Andrea’s fiancé, Phil. The first thing you have to know about Phil is that he is quite charismatic: he could sell wind the national government and pass it off as some sort of crucial new weaponry. Recently I shared Pandora with him. For the last three days he did nothing but sit with his laptop creating new radio stations. He currently has 24 music stations. During our garage sale, he sat our table and would tell those perusing our wares that he actually had encountered something that was going to change their lives. He was quite entertaining.

My neighbors who suddenly came out in droves to poke through my stuff. All of them told me they were sorry to hear that I was moving (funny to me, because I never told any of them) and that they were sad to lose such a good neighbor…also weird, because I rarely see anyone out and about in my neighborhood and I wasn’t quite sure how I counted as “good.” Probably because I don’t throw large parties in my front yard and play loud music at all hours of the night…

A little four-year old boy who told us about his mother’s love life. “My mom isn’t married to my dad and she made him move out.” Yikes! As his mom with much embarrassment told him to shush, I realized, it’s not that kids necessarily say the darnedest things as much as they say the honest things, no?

Alex, a most beloved student (recently graduated) who stopped by to say goodbye. He, Andrea, Phil and I had a great time sitting out in the garage telling entertaining stories and watching hilarious videos of comedians online. Most of our customers were highly amused with us…so much that we started saying we'd charge them if they laughed at us. “Nothing’s free at this sale people! You laugh, you pay!” It was great to laugh together.

Despite all the hard work, it was fun and I’m glad that I was able to do it with people. Doing life in any manner with others really enables me to face the hard stuff in life, you know?

Ah, fun times.

going...Going...GONE!

2006-06-04T14:47:00.000-05:00

To say that I’m exhausted is an understatement. I have decided that there is no word to accurately describe how tired I feel. My tiredness incorporates a physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion that I don’t think I’ve experienced in my 32 years.

Over the last several months I’ve been cleaning, sorting, and tossing about 9 years' worth (maybe more) accumulation of stuff since college. Not knowing what is really in the next scope of life I’ve been trying to eliminate as much of my stuff as possible to be ready to go…for whatever the Lord had in mind.

Well, over the last two weeks I kicked it into high clean up gear as it looked like maybe some details were beginning to fall into place. A friend of mine (who’s getting married in August) and I decided to throw a garage sale to rid ourselves of much of our junk. For the last week I’ve lived amongst most of my junk as well as all of it’s dust and dirt. (I’m not really sure if my sinuses will ever be the same!) And as details really began to firm up, it looked indeed that I would be moving (more on my move in a later post). So, what initially started out as a garage sale turned into a large moving sale. Instead of eliminating much smaller items, now I was parting with the much larger items of my life…the bedroom suit I’ve had since high school; my first couch I bought just after graduating college; tvs and dvd players; TONS of books; kitchen and decorative items that have over the years created a sense of home.

And, as of yesterday afternoon, most of my life is gone. If it wasn’t sold in the sale, it’s all sitting out in the garage awaiting a Goodwill pick up scheduled for about a week from now.

My home looks like a skeleton.

Maybe that sounds freaky to say, but it does. I feel a death in my life that it hard to describe and I’m sure for some it is hard to comprehend. My friend’s fiancé kept saying to me throughout the weekend, “It’s just stuff, Blythe. Aren’t you glad to be rid of it?”

Yes. I am. And yet, all this stuff has created a sense of place and home not just for me but for others. Some of that is just a deep expression of my femininity. Some of that just stems from how I have been specifically wired. And some of it is a hospitality gift that enjoys creating an atmosphere where others feel welcomed and at rest. It has been such a joy to share my home (especially this one of the last four years) with others. I feel a loss and a death in my life that is quite hard to shake off so easily.

But, I know through all the different details that have been slowly and yet assuredly hammering themselves out over the last several weeks that God is leading and directing in this. And my heart is His. I want to follow Him and learn how to create home in this next season, you know?

So, today I am wiped. But there is a Hope in my exhaustion that helps me set my eyes upon Him. Over the last couple of days, a verse from Isaiah has filled my thoughts and has deeply encouraged me to hang in there with Him in all this. Specifically verse 21 but the whole passage has spoken to my heart:

Therefore the LORD is waiting to show you mercy, and is rising up to show you compassion, for the LORD is a just God. Happy are all who wait patiently for Him. For you people will live on Zion in Jerusalem and will never cry again. He will show favor to you at the sound of your cry; when He hears, He will answer you. The Lord will give you meager bread and water during oppression, but your Teacher will not hide Himself any longer. Your eyes will see your Teacher, and whenever you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear this command behind you: “This is the way. Walk in it.” Then you will defile your silver-plated idols and your gold-plated images. You will throw them away like menstrual cloths, and call them filth. Then He will send rain for your seed that you have sown in the ground, and the food, the produce of the ground, will be rich and plentiful. On that day your cattle will graze in open pastures. The oxen and donkeys that work the ground will eat salted fodder scattered with winnowing shovel and fork. Streams and watercourses will be on every high mountain and every raised hill on the day of great slaughter when the towers fall. The moonlight will be as bright as the sunlight, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter —like the light of seven days—on the day that the LORD bandages His people's injuries and heals the wounds He inflicted.

Hole in One

2006-06-04T13:29:00.000-05:00

I guess I'm just a little YouTube slap happy today. But this one was in my inbox today and I just have to share. I was on the girls golf team in high school and my extended family are huge lovers of the sport. So this one's for all the fam who pokes in to my little corner now and then! :-) Love ya!

This is just too funny not to share

2006-06-03T22:51:00.000-05:00

I have much to share but am too tired to post. I'll leave you with this that myself and some friends stumbled on today. Chances are you've seen it, but it's just too funny not to share. Enjoy.

West Wing Quiz Revisted

2006-05-31T22:12:00.000-05:00

My new TV on DVD fettish has been the West Wing. So far I am well into Season 2 and am really enjoying it. (I hear shouts of elation and a definite "I told you so" coming from a living room to the state north of me.)

While I'm drawn into the writing (again, creepy murmurs of glee) I love how the characters are drawn. I seriously can't think of which character I love the most. Sorkin does a great job of writing his characters with a warmth that endears each one of them to me in different ways.

Today as I was out running some errands I found myself wondering with which character I most identified. For some reason I kept thinking, "I think I'm kind of a Leo McGarry." I remembered my friend Jill posting this quiz awhile back and so I took it again since I now have a little more vested in the show.

As the captain of the Bartlet Administration's boat, the chief of staff is a work-a-holic. Although he is sometimes haunted by the demons of his past alcohol and drug abuse, because of his character and perserverance there is no one more admired on the staff than he.

:: Which West Wing character are you? ::

Blythe Lane, White House Chief of Staff. Good ring to it, no?

Well, the good news is it looks like I know what my next job should be!

Just some random thoughts...

2006-05-24T21:59:00.000-05:00

So, I’ve spent the last five hours cleaning out some more junk (will it EVer end?) as I’m trying to make sure I have thoroughly gone through everything for an upcoming garage sale I’m going to have in a couple of weekends. I am still mystified as to how I one human being can accumulate so much! It’s times like these that I’m glad for TV on DVD and Amy Sherman-Palladino. Yes, Gilmore Girls is running even as I type. Lane is currently dying her hair purple.

But I digress. Previous paragraph is not why I sat down here to blog.

Tonight I came across a box of old journals dating all the way back to my freshman year in college. I spent some time leafing through some of them…some of it was quite comical. It’s funny to me what occupies the mind of 19-year old girl…and I was one. But it was fun to be reminded of some of the journey. I came across a quote that I recorded my sophomore year after reading something by Elisabeth Elliot and I thought how it was a very timely thought for me right now where I’m at…

…waiting on God requires willingness to bear uncertainty, to carry within oneself the unanswered question, lifting the heart to God about it whenever it intrudes upon one’s thoughts. It’s easy to talk oneself into a decision that has no permanence – easier sometimes than to wait patiently.

Waiting on God. It is the eternal posture of our hearts, isn’t it? Waiting for Him to speak, lead, provide, inspire. Over the last six months I think I’ve felt waiting like I never have before. Not that I haven’t ever waited for a lengthy time on God before, but this time there has been a weight to the wait, you know?

Earlier today I was up at the office finalizing some things and noticed a note to me on our LoveLines Board. (This is a place that students will often write notes of encouragement to other students.) This particular student gave me courage and it was something that I needed to hear today:

“…You show a lot of faith stepping out into the unknown for the next stage of your life…through you I have seen what God can do and that is uplifting…it has been a blessing to listen to you when I was able to, and the [campus org] is losing a real treasure next fall. May God continually show Himself to you in new ways!”

I was and am deeply blessed by those words. As I wrap up what has been the first significant part of my adulthood, it was good to be reminded that while the circumstances and scenery might change along the journey, a couple things won’t…trusting and waiting upon God and investing in people.

It will be fun to see how that takes shape in this next season…

"Call me Mara..."

2006-05-22T19:26:00.000-05:00

Today finds me thinking about Naomi. I turned to the book of Ruth this morning in an attempt to avoid Judges which is where I’ve been for about a month now. Something in me just didn’t have the heart to read about one more battle, you know? Funny, though, how Ruth is a story that is set in the time of the Judges.

And yet, what captured my heart and attention this morning had more to do with Naomi than Ruth. Everything in Naomi’s life seems to have gone bottom up—she’s lost her husband; both of her sons have died; and she’s living alone in the land of Moab far away from her family and hometown of Bethlehem. While she has the comfort of her daughters-in-law, she is very aware that not to release them to go find husbands while still in their youth and beauty would be stealing their own futures. As I got caught up in her world, I really felt the weight of Naomi’s seeming aloneness: “She said to them, ‘Each of you go back to your mother’s home. May the LORD show faithful love to you as you have shown to the dead and to me. May the LORD enable each of you to find security in the house of your [new] husband.’ She kissed them, and they wept loudly.” (Ruth 1:8-9)

And then there is that beautiful moment where Ruth steps up to the plate, pledges not only her love to her mother-in-law, but to serve and follow the God she had come to know through Naomi. Also worthy of note, the Hebrew words Elohiym and Yahweh are used here signifying the difference between the gods of Ruth’s country.

Naomi can’t seem to persuade Ruth otherwise and takes her back to Bethlehem with her. Naomi’s friends and family, while they welcome Naomi back home, are quick to notice the change in Naomi. Her name meaning pleasant, she tells her old friends, “Don't call me Naomi. Call me Mara [bitter],” she answered, “for the Almighty has made me very bitter. I left full, but the LORD has brought me back empty. Why do you call me Naomi, since the LORD has pronounced [judgment] on me, and the Almighty has afflicted me?” (Ruth 1:20-21) To those who knew this once vibrant and agreeable woman, the hardships and blows of life it seems were obvious to all.

In reading this interchange many different times before, I would have blown over Naomi’s reaction chalking it up as an inappropriate response to her circumstances fixing my focus instead on Ruth who seems to have it all together. But today I couldn’t brush away Naomi’s response. Today I saw Naomi in a different light. I seemed to hear her say,

“You know what? Life hasn’t turned out as I expected. Yes, I left here during the famine full of hopes and dreams knowing in the land of Moab Yahweh would provide for my family. And He did for many years. But now, I’ve lost everything and I’m returning in pain. Yahweh has brought this into my life. I don’t hate Him. I’m not running away from His affliction. If I wanted turn my back on Him I would have stayed in Moab and embraced her gods. But, He has indeed emptied my life. I have nothing but the clothes on my back and the love and friendship of this dear daughter, Ruth. Despite the fact that everything in my life hurts right now and I can’t see beyond the emptiness I’ve been given, I’ve come home to Bethlehem….a place where I can recharge…a place where Yahweh is providing for His people. For now, this is all I can see.”

Maybe I heard Naomi’s heart differently today because it gave a description into the current state of my own. It was good to hear…both hers and mine. At this point in Naomi’s Story, she can’t see beyond her current circumstances. And while I don’t yet know the end of my Story, I do know the end Naomi’s. It’s a good one, ending as she never would have expected and even more joyous than she ever would have imagined bearing eternal fruit in the line of Jesus.

If you think about it, without Naomi, there would be no Ruth, you know? While I often want to dismiss Naomi and focus in on Ruth, Ruth’s passionate pledge to Naomi came, I believe, as a result of seeing up close Naomi’s devotion to Yahweh. I think Ruth saw a woman still trusting in Yahweh and willing to return to her home country because Naomi knew that’s where Yahweh dwelled. Despite Naomi’s fallen countenance, Ruth saw a woman who was still clinging to her Elohiym.

Thanks, God, for using Naomi’s pain for good and for helping me to see my heart and be honest with where I’m at currently. Thanks for the picture of Your heart for the nations through Naomi’s relationship with Ruth. Thanks for seeing me, caring for me, and sharing Your heart with me…

Wild Kingdom

2006-05-22T16:09:00.000-05:00

I would just like to say that the Wild Kingdom was not just a TV show, it's my backyard. Today as I was talking on the phone and checking in on my newly planted potted plants, I was shocked to find Black Snake taking in the shade on my back porch. As far as I could tell, he had an eye on a couple of birds also enjoying my back porch. Somehow I think he had dinner plans on his mind and I don't think it included a movie.

Yes, folks this is the drama that is my life.

No Southern Belle

2006-05-19T14:06:00.000-05:00

Now I have proof that I really don't belong in Oklahoma...

Your Linguistic Profile::

65% General American English

10% Midwestern

10% Upper Midwestern

10% Yankee

0% Dixie

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

An Update...

2006-05-18T21:49:00.000-05:00

On the recent trip to Florida
It was a Mother’s Day weekend extravaganza. I flew in (as did my youngest sister and her husband) to meet up with the entire fam. We spent the majority of our time entranced by the newest, cutest, and most entertaining member of the family. As well, some of the fam finally took a day to check out some of the Walt Disney fare. Of course, as is custom with our family, we happened to choose the day it would rain! Our fun was not to be deterred, however. We simply bought Mickey Mouse ponchos and enjoyed Magic Kingdom and Epcot in the rain. It was actually a very pleasant experience as only 17,000 people were spread out this particular day between the 4 parks.

On air travel adventures
I mentioned in the previous post that my trip to Florida was very uneventful. Not so, for the return trip. The flight from Ft. Lauderdale left me and over 200 other persons sitting on the plane for nearly an hour. Evidently some loony decided to pose as a U.S. Marshall. So, the airline had to sift through all the luggage to get the imposter’s luggage off the plane. Curious to me was how this creep got as far as boarding the plane…

As you would expect, the delay caused many to miss their connecting flights in Dallas. As if the previous event wasn’t exciting enough, one couple got cocky and actually started making a beeline toward the front of the plane just as the plane touched down. The flight attendant told them to sit back down but the man told the woman off with a, “I don’t really care. We’re going to miss our flight to Canada.” Yeah, I thought, and now, thanks to you, we all are too! People.

After that drama, I ran as fast as possible through DFW to catch my connecting flight. They had just started boarding First Class as I made my way to the gate. I was glad to get settled on the plane knowing that within the next hour I’d be in my car heading home. However, as I sat down in my seat I discovered to my complete surprise that I was sitting in a pool of someone else’s…well, I don’t know what it was but I was just praying that someone had spilled a drink versus the other option. Informing the flight attendant, she said that it was full flight and I could either sit on some blankets or if there was a free seat, she would exchange out the seat cushion from that seat to the one I was in. Hmm. If there’s a free seat, don’t you think it would just be easier for me to move to that seat??? People. Thankfully the seat in front of me was free and I moved myself into that one.

On the jungle of weeds that is my yard
The most depressing thing about returning home was coming home to my own little private jungle. My lawn mower decided to check out on me the day I left for Florida. Needless to say the lawn did not get mowed before I left town nor was I successful in finding anyone for hire. Until today. Today Blythe met Troy. Troy Bilt. And, boy is Blythe happy. And so is her lawn.

Scenes from an Airport

2006-05-12T11:43:00.000-05:00

Okay, so this trip to Florida wasn’t quite as eventful as the one a month ago although this one did put me in just shy of 1am this morning. However, during my brief layover in DFW I dropped in to my local airport Starbucks in Terminal D for a Grande Non-fat Decaf Caramel Macchiato. I was just one in a long line of many last night who were trying to get their favorite drink to accompany them to their final destination.

Because the line was so long, one of the baristas started collecting orders. While I’m a huge Starbucks fan, I did find it quite amusing to listen to the different kinds of orders and was impressed with the barista’s ability to keep up. Remembering orders like “Venti Decaf Toffe Nut Latte Extra Hot No Whip” is no small feat! After several of these orders, I began to giggle a little out loud at the craziness of those of us enslaved to the Starbucks vernacular. One order in particular set the entire customer line as well as the baristas to chuckling. Apparently late night traveling and the recognition that we all have some serious Starbucks addictions was not lost on us. While the moment was brief, it brought a smile to my face and gave me a little extra energy after a long and emotionally draining week.

One Tired Chick

2006-05-10T19:47:00.000-05:00

It’s been a kind of surreal last couple of days. I’ve been packing up 9 years of an office worth of files, books, and memorabilia. I wish I could say that in my sorting, packing and tossing that I allowed myself to wander back down Memory Lane but to be quite honest I didn’t really want to go there. Just took too much energy and just wanted to be done, you know? Tie up loose ends and be ready for whatever the Lord has in store next.

A couple hours out from closing my office door one last time, I realize how tired I am. I wish I could say that walking in the Unknown is energizing but I have to say, quite frankly, I’m wiped. Would I be whiney girl if I said I’m ready for the Known?

Saying Goodbye to a Season...

2006-05-05T19:14:00.000-05:00

This has been the last week of classes and official meetings and appointments with students. Many of our students are graduating and taking steps toward trying out their degrees. Some are getting ready to spend their summers in exciting overseas worlds and experience people, food, and cultures they’ve never been exposed to before. And some of these guys and gals have decided to do life together, a fact that is proved daily by the steady number of wedding invitations in my mailbox.

Seasons are changing for many in my little corner of the world.

For me, this last week sums up the end of a season of life. Nine years ago, I never thought of my campus ministry life as anything more than a season. Other things were sure to change my season, I thought. Of course, maybe I needed to think it was seasonal because I foolishly thought marriage and family were on my horizon. Of, course, maybe it’s just that women are pretty seasonal beings – so much about our bodies and our wiring, I think, seem created for different seasons of life.

In any case, what began 9 years ago as my single campus ministry life, has ebbed into a newer and less unknown one. “What are you doing?” has been a regular question. My answer, of course, is always “I don’t know” with one of about 50 different inflections depending on the day.

Get a job?

Write a book?

Start a coffee shop?

Do all of it?

Something entirely not on the list?

It’s a weird place to be and yet not a foreign one to the people of God, right? I can think of countless persons in my Bible that had no idea where they were going when they started out. They were merely told to go, to trust, and to let Him work in and through them. Most of them didn’t have it all spelled out. At least, that’s what I keep reminding myself of when the 100^th person asks me that all too familiar question. I do know that I have a deep promise that He alone knows the plans for my life. They are for good and not for harm, plans to give me a hope and a future (Jer. 29:11-12).

So, today as I say goodbye to one season, this melancholy is trying to keep it in perspective that I’m really saying “Hello” to new one…

The Battle for My Living Room

2006-05-02T15:37:00.000-05:00

This article was in my inbox today and I found it interesting. It’s following the recent trends in the drop of moviegoers and the attempts being made by movie theatres to lure customers back in. As a former film major, I must admit that there is something that I really love about going to the movies. It’s why I pursued a degree in it. But with the rising ticket prices and even slimier theatre environments (who hasn’t spent the significant part of two hours wondering what the heck that sticky mess is beneath their shoes? *Gag reflex*), their attempts to capture my pocketbook as well as my comfort might be a losing battle.

In my little corner, movie tickets go for over $8 a pop (significantly lower I know than in other parts of the country) which forces me to be really picky about what movie deserves my hard earned money. Probably even more than the money, watching a movie from the convenience and comfort of my own home these days is worth waiting for a movie to come out on DVD. It’s worth it to me to be able to have comfortable seating and/or enjoy foods/drinks that I like and don’t have to pay through the nose for! (Or sneak them in, but you didn’t hear it from me.)

More Thoughts from Velvet Elvis

2006-05-02T14:11:00.000-05:00

Here are some more quotes from Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith that have resonated with me over the past couple of days...

Why do we do the things we do? Many people react to and are driven by these deep, unspoken forces. They are strong and they dictate huge areas of our lives. And it is possible to be a good Christian and go to church services and sing the right songs and jump through the right hoops and never let Jesus heal your soul. (118)

I have seen many [Christian] leaders who wear their issues on their sleeves. They are raising money to build a bigger building, but the truth is they are still trying to earn their father’s approval. They never unplug their answering machine and take a Sabbath because they still believe their parents’ divorce was their fault. They live in reaction to everybody around them because no one ever taught them to have a spine. They are racked with guilt because they are not doing enough. They are trying to teach people about a way of life that isn’t true of their own life. On a regular basis when I’m with pastors, I’ll ask them if the message they are preaching isn’t the dominant reality of their own life. You can’t believe how many will say that it isn’t.

So my question for leaders – and for Christians everywhere – is, are you smoking what you’re selling?

I cannot lead people somewhere I am not trying to go myself. I don’t have to have arrived, I don’t have to be perfect, but I do need to be on the path. And that’s why for so many the church experience has been so shallow – so many leaders have never descended into the depths of their own souls. They haven’t done the hard, difficult, gut-wrenching work of shining the bright lights on all of the years of baggage and destructive messages.

It is so hard to look deep inside yourself. My experience has been that very few people do the long, hard work of the soul. Maybe that’s why Jesus said the way is narrow. (119)

Netflix Nuances: A Rant

2006-05-01T14:48:00.000-05:00

So, today as I was putting my most recent two Smallville discs in the packet to send back to Netflix, I noticed something disturbing about the mailing address:

Nearest Netflix Shipping Facility
PO Box Yada Yada Yada
To a city OVER A THOUSAND MILES AWAY

Thinking there was some sort of mistake, I pulled out the other Netflix return envelopes that I’ve collected. Each one of them addressed to the City just north of me, a mere 20 MILES AWAY.

Okay, so maybe you’re thinking it’s some sort of weird mistake. Lest you wonder at my sanity, I will let you in on a few nefarious Netflix dealings arousing said suspicions…

Recently my Netflix queue has been feeding my latest Smallville fetish. It’s a no-brainer that my queue is set up to receive the subsequent disc in the series in the order to be watched. Netflix emails you when they receive discs back and then send another email telling you the next disc to be sent and when it is arriving.

On Monday of this past week, my most recent communication from Netflix looked like this:

We’ve received Smallville: Season 4: Disc 2
We’ve received Smallville: Season 4: Disc 3
For Wednesday, Smallville: Season 4: Disc 5
For Friday, Smallville: Season 4: Disc 4

Hmm. Shouldn’t Disc 4 come before Disc 5??? It’s in my queue that way. Sure enough, on Wednesday I received Smallville: Season 4: Disc 5. And on Saturday (yes folks, not Friday), I received Disc 4.

So, after finally getting to watch Disc 4 and 5, I start to send them back and realize they’ve given me an envelope sending discs to a shipping facility over a thousand miles away.

Mere coincidence?

I think not.

All I have to say to Netflix is:

Don’t underestimate the power of the blog and one fiesty blonde, my friends.

Turkeys.

What a Glorious Day

2006-04-29T17:49:00.000-05:00

It may be rainy and overcast in my little corner of the world, but I'm just a little bit giddy -- after days of hauling, cleaning and sorting, Stage One of Spring Cleaning Maddness is complete. Yesterday I hauled all of this junk to the curb for our bi-annual large trash pickup today.

Of course, two hours later, I peeked out from one of my windows as some local dumpster divers parked their van and trailer bed by my curb and explored my trash. Evidently they decided that they couldn't live without the defunct lawnmower and the rusted out grill. I guess the old saying always rings true: One man's trash is another man's treasure!

Again, this morning I looked out and it was a thrilling feeling to see it all gone! While there's still several more stages to go, I'm relishing in this newfound freedom of "stuff."

The Contessa, the Chianti and a Corkscrew

2006-04-27T16:53:00.000-05:00

I am quite the novice when it comes to wine. While I have baked many a dessert incorporating some sort of liqueur, my cooking exploits have not ventured much into those involving wines. So, when the Contessa suggested Chianti for the red wine portion of the sauce the other evening, I deferred to her many years of experience and set out to find something appropriate.

My undertaking was not all that complicated – I just made my way to the red wines section and appraised my options. Someone had told me that the screw top bottles were actually better than the ones with the cork. So, that eliminates some. To make the final decision, I used an old standby method, “When in doubt, which one has the most appealing packaging.” For someone who is slow to make a quick decision in the face of so many, I was proud of myself for such immediate resolution. I made my purchase and went home.

Later, as my friends and I were in the kitchen, enjoying working together to assemble our meal and getting close to putting the ingredients together for our sauce, I brought out the wine. There was much affirmation on my selection of bottle and we were eager to smell the Chianti, each of us amateurs in our wine experiences. I pulled off the label covering the top of the bottle and was met with a cork.

Hmmm. I own no corkscrew.

Now, even if you’re mildly experienced in the kitchen you know that timing is everything in cooking. Seeing as we were very close to the stage where we would be assembling our sauce for the meatballs, we knew we were in a predicament.

Ideas started flying: What about a screw? What about trying to cut it out in pieces with a knife? What if we pushed it down into the bottle?

Ah, we know! The internet! Surely there would be some creative idea there!

Sure enough – long screw, pliers and superhuman strength. (Good thing I’ve been beefing up on my Smallville/Superman knowledge.)

Utensils in hand, we made our first attempt. Hmm. No go.

My brain working fast, I remembered I was a new owner of power tools! Last Christmas I walked away from a Christmas party with my very own cordless screwdriver complete with drill bits and everything! Very proud of ourselves, I put in a dry wall drill bit and started up that baby. My hands, steady as a surgeon, drilled the bit in about ¾ in.

Now for pliers. Hmmm. Apparently I own power tools but no pliers. What would improvise???

I have wire cutters! Two summers ago I rewired my wall outlets and my light switches! Those would work.

One of us with wire cutters in hand while the other two of us braced the bottle, we pulled.

And pulled.

And…snap.

Apparently wire cutters can also cut drill bits.

After the initial shock, and now through tears of hysterical laughter, we scratched our heads.

Maybe our closest liquor store would have, maybe say, a corkscrew?

Meatballs nearly finished browning, time now really was of the essence. One of my friends pulled on her flip flops and flew out the door.

Several minutes later (yeah, that liquor store is surprisingly close to my house), she entered with a free corkscrew. Evidently, they give cheap store ones away! Who knew?

Of course, now our dilemma was getting our corkscrew in around the chopped off drill bit.

We discussed intubating. (We watch them do it every week on House. We’re pretty sure we could do it with our eyes closed.)

We opted for the more risky solution: Ever so slightly, my friend worked the corkscrew trying not to push the drill bit down into the wine.

I pressed a cold compress against her slightly moistened brow.

The corkscrew was in. Again, we pulled with strength that far exceeded our own limits. And once again, the cork removal eluded us.

Smells wafted from the stove. We had to do something fast. Taking the bottle, I placed it solidly between both my feet and pulled like I’ve never pulled before.

Halfway out!

Once again.

With a pop, it was out, drill bit hanging from the bottom of the cork by a mere thread.

It was a close call but our Chianti made a fine recovery.

And just in time for the meatball sauce.

A New Favorite Thing

2006-04-26T10:05:00.000-05:00

I’m kind of a woman of a few passions. My “Favorite Things” nav bar is a reflection of a few things in life that I really can’t live without. I hope that every once in awhile you check them out! I love sharing my favorite things with others in the hopes that they too will find them irresistible.

As of last night, I discovered that I had a new addition to this select group – spending time in the kitchen with an intimate group of friends, laughing, talking, trying a new recipe replete in its simplicity and full of flavor. Ina Garten, also known as the Barefoot Contessa, has grown through a number of her dishes to epitomize this passion best for me. My friend, Jill and I, over the last couple of years have enjoyed trying a few dishes that have always surprised me by the simplicity of the ingredients and yet they are so full of flavor and beauty. Even more than the recipes themselves, Garten’s dishes lend themselves to an atmosphere that you can enjoy community within the kitchen as well as the table because she eliminates the chaos that so many other recipes create in going for the gourmet.

So, last night, in celebration of one friend’s birthday, two friends joined me in the kitchen to try our hand at Garten’s Real Spaghetti and Meatballs. I know that it may not seem an altogether exotic choice, but of all the dishes I’ve explored, I had never made meatballs before. What intrigued me from the recipe was that the meatballs themselves consisted of ground beef, ground pork and ground veal. And among the spices in the meatballs – nutmeg. And the sauce…simple with crushed tomatoes, a few spices, and about a half a cup of Chianti. Neither a connoisseur nor a sommelier of any sort of wine, I was so impressed by the Chianti’s flavor, I think I might just have to become one!

In any case, can I just say these were just the most amazing meatballs I’ve ever tasted? More than that, the fellowship was incredible. It was one of those evenings where dinner lasts several hours and you enjoy lingering over the meal and the conversation. So, if you enjoy incredible food that lends itself to intimate fellowship, I highly recommend the Barefoot Contessa for your next dinner party.

Hurting People Don't Need Band-Aids

2006-04-25T11:18:00.000-05:00

My heart is heavy this morning. All morning it has been weighed down with someone who is struggling to stay afloat as the ugly throes of Depression threaten to strangle life out of her. My heart hurts for her because I remember a season in my life when Depression hung around my heart.

It was one of the most horrible seasons in my journey. I remember how painful everything was…getting up out of bed, sleeping, getting ready, engaging with people. There were some days I just knew that I couldn’t go on. Darkness surrounded me daily and I felt as if I was just inches away from being swallowed completely into a Black Hole.

In listening to this person, I remember as well how many people tried to “fix me.” Well meaning people to be sure, but people who knew my life at a glance and who were only concerned that my countenance would very quickly tidy itself up. After all, Christians are supposed to “choose joy” as one Fixer Upper told me. Believe me, I wanted to be fixed. I made several attempts at bandaging wounds in my heart…but only seemed to end up with a wound that never seemed to heal and often smelled suspiciously of infection.

This morning as I’ve been praying for this person as I recall my own journey, I know that there was no quick fix. What I remember from that time was practically living in my oversized chair and ottoman and pouring out my heart to Jesus. King David’s honesty with God was a model for me. Verses such as Psalm 38:9, “All my longings lie open before you, O Lord; my sighing is not hidden from you” and Psalm 62:8, “Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge” not only encouraged me to stay in the fray but taught me that God alone could handle my honesty – the gross, yucky, ugly stuff in my heart that most people couldn’t hear, understand, or handle.

Looking back over that season, I couldn’t tell you that there was any one thing that snapped me out of depression. It was a slow healing. But, the one thing that I do know is that I learned to run to Him with the garbage of my soul and in time my heart began to finally hear His words of comfort. Maybe in learning to share with Him honestly, knowing that He could take it and that He heard me eventually softened my heart to listen to Him and not the Enemy. And, I know that I learned that Band-Aids, while they can protect from further infection, are not healing agents. Only Jesus can truly heal our deepest wounds.

And that’s what I’m praying for my hurting friend today.

More On "Stuff"

2006-04-25T08:51:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Sandie I was referred to flylady.net for some additional insight for my Spring Cleaning Maddness. I was kind of excited to discover that my decluttering attack seems right on target. If you're overwhelmed by the stuff of life you might find this sight encouraging and helpful.

Now I know why Oscar the Grouch was one...

2006-04-24T20:44:00.000-05:00

Did you ever wonder why Oscar the Grouch was always soooo grouchy? Today, I finally know why. His love of trash ate away at his soul! HA! After spending the majority of the day cleaning, sorting, and tossing again, I find myself asking:

How is it possible that any one human being could have accumulated so much stuff???

It’s not only shocking…it’s obscene really. Granted, I’ve lived by myself for 7 years and in those 7 years I’ve only moved twice. So, nothing forces me to face the lingering stuff that seems to hide itself in places I never knew I had. But still.

While it’s a great feeling to get rid of stuff, I found myself kind of angry with myself. After stuffing trash bag number 5 with another t-shirt hardly ever worn, I couldn’t help but wonder what void I’ve tried to fill in my life with stuff…stuff that just sits out of sight and never really ever fulfills any function in my world. I guess at some point I really believed it would. Stuff I thought I needed and instead it just collects dust or uses up precious space. But, now it just all feels like a boulder attached to my soul.

So, I’m tossing it out into the internet void – I don’t want to live life out of the trash can. I want a simpler life. Free of excessive stuff.

Can you use that in a sentence, please?

2006-04-24T09:42:00.000-05:00

Rebarbative.

The failure to upload posts in a timely and excellent fashion caused Blythe to concede that the rebarbtive Blogger people had conspired against her.

Rebarbative.

It’s the word of the day, folks.

How appropriate.

Working Girl?

2006-04-23T22:26:00.000-05:00

Today I began in earnest working on my resume to begin the job hunt that will inevitably kickoff the next season of my life. Because I’ve been out of the “work world,” I begged the expertise of a friend of mine who is really good at this sort of thing. I mean, she actually likes this stuff!! So, we met at Starbucks this afternoon – me with Trusty Laptop and she with a DOORSTOP of materials intended to help me write, analyze and think through the kind of job I want to pursue.

We hammered at it for a couple of hours until we both hit a wall. Now, I’m home and curiously peeking at different resources trying to figure out how much of me I want to give to this pursuit. I mean, do I just want a paycheck or am I looking for career?

At this point, I can’t answer that question honestly. A part of me just wants the paycheck (a real one would be nice after 9 years of fundraising!). And yet, while I’ve never considered myself even remotely ambitious, there’s this part of me that wants to find that one job that I’m created for, you know? I really thrive on doing things that have purpose and meaning. But pursuing a career means…work. It means wading through this stack of materials analyzing EVERYTHING about what I like, don’t like, skills, etc.

In any case, I’m looking for a job. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that. I’m a little scared but mostly just overwhelmed as I stare at this stack of materials.

Maybe if I stare long enough my heat vision will incinerate it.

Just for Fun

2006-04-23T12:50:00.000-05:00

Respectful Dreamer

Saw this on Rick's blog and thought it looked interesting. I kind of enjoy personality type quizzes. The results rang pretty true for me. If you mouse over the strip, it shows you what the colors mean and your results. Here's what Respectful Dreamer means.

Spring Cleaning

2006-04-22T17:25:00.000-05:00

Life has been busy as we finish up the semester. Unfortunately blogging has taken a back seat to being distracted by the details of life. It seems that all the mental and emotional distractions of late have pushed my Apathy button. Do you have one of those? One of those buttons that seems to get pressed when you feel inundated with all that is on your plate?

Today, however, it changed. Something in me felt the need to actually accomplish something. Despite the fact that I felt overwhelmed with where to begin with my surge of energy to do a little spring cleaning, I just jumped in. While I consider myself a neat/clean person, I am terrible at organizing, sorting, making decisions. I inherited a nasty gene from my father -- Packrat Syndrome.

In most people, PRS exhibits itself by definition as one who is a collector of miscellaneous useless objects. I am not a collector. Just a procrastinator. Bills, letters, and other things to be filed inevitably end up in a pile somewhere in the back office. The thought is always, “I’ll deal with it later when I have time.” According to the near constant state of that room, it would appear that time never finds me. As well, objects, once useful or esteemed, often end up in this room waiting for some sort of decision from me. Toss it? Give it? Sell it? Mostly objects end up here because I feel guilty about throwing something useful away (again, my father). Even though now I no longer have any use for it, I just can’t seem to talk myself into committing to its official demise. In fact, I’ve found over the last 4 years that my back room office is a very convenient graveyard for just about anything I’m willing to avoid.

So, for the entirety of my day, I’ve been cleaning, sorting, and throwing away. First, the garage. Then, the crypt in the back of the house. There’s still a ways to go but I’m just glad I jumped in. Instead of thinking about it all day and popping in the latest Smallville episode. Now, I can watch Smallville and feel like I have something to show for my Saturday.

I'm Pretty Cute...Or So Everyone Around Me Keeps Saying

2006-04-17T16:01:00.000-05:00

Ain't No Mountain High Enough

2006-04-14T15:55:00.000-05:00

Well, after sitting yesterday through an hour delay on the first leg of my flight only to be transferred from one airline to another airline after it was determined that that delay would force me to miss my connection, only to wait out another hour long layover in the rerouted connecting city, I finally arrived in Fort Lauderdale where my niece welcomed me at the airport!

Today Erin Sophia and Aunt Blythe were able to shoo the others out of the house while we had a little coffee talk (She watched in fascination. I drank. But, I spoke of the importance of the coffee. I figure this instruction must begin early.) Other than that, we have mostly just spent our time sleeping, eating, burping and pooping (uh, that would be her, not me).

It has been a most fantastic way to spend a day.

Walking Lamely

2006-04-11T10:41:00.000-05:00

Upon the recommendation of my friend M.K. Lindsey, I recently have picked up the book Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith by Rob Bell. I have been struck largely by the way Bell presents his questions and musings on his journey through the Christian life. Mostly, I’ve been blessed by his writing style – I feel as if I’m sitting with him and a few others over coffee in some trendy coffee establishment engaging around the ideas he offers for discussion.

This morning stumbled across this thought he posed:

Binding and loosing [see Matt. 16:19; 18:18-20] can only be done if communities are willing to wrestle. The ultimate display of our respect for the sacred words of God is that we are willing to wade in and struggle with the text – the good parts, the hard-to-understand parts, the parts we wish weren’t there….The rabbis have a metaphor for this wrestling with the text: The story of Jacob wrestling with the angel in Genesis 32. He struggles, and it is exhausting and tiring, and in the end his hip is injured. It hurts. And he walks away limping.

Because when you wrestle with the text, you walk away limping.

And some people have no limp, because they haven’t wrestled. But the ones limping have had an experience with the living God. (68-69)

It was a picture that gave me courage. Mostly because I think I can often find myself in a Christian culture that unknowingly promotes that the opposite is true: It’s our job as believers to have God all figured out. I am not factoring myself out of the mix – rather, it’s seeing this very thinking in my own journey that has left me pondering why I feel the need to explain those things about God that really are often unexplainable.

Why is this my job? Why am I at times uncomfortable with what I don’t know about Him? Why do I feel that I have to have Him all figured out? Am I trying to gain a knowledge of Him for the praise of men or the praise of Him (Gal.1:10)? Why can’t there sometimes be unanswered questions…and yet, still the firm belief that He is in control and that He’s good (Heb. 11:6)?

Living with a spiritual handicap isn’t at times acceptable for many in the ministry scene. But over the years I’m realizing how vital it is to live openly with one and I appreciate Bell’s picture here. Letting others see the limp in our walk is not weakness but strength. It reminds me of some conclusions that Paul had come to as well:

Therefore, so that I would not exalt myself, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to torment me so I would not exalt myself. Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times to take it away from me. But He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may reside in me. So because of Christ, I am pleased in weaknesses, in insults, in catastrophes, in persecutions, and in pressures. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Cor. 12:7b-10)

So, today may I boast in the journey – boasting in what I know to be true about Him and yet walking lamely as one who is wrestling with what she doesn’t understand and rejoicing openly in the great mystery of the One who wants to live and be exalted in my life through faith…

New Pastime

2006-04-10T20:29:00.000-05:00

Well, after walking out of Gymboree this afternoon, I decided that I might need a third job to support what is sure to become my new habit – shopping for cute clothes for my niece! And, who better to keep my new favorite little gal hip in infant style, than Stacy and Clinton’s best pupil! Moi.

Here are several of my purchases. (I almost dressed up my old baby dolls to do a little fashion show, but they were a little shy. They’ve not been out in play land since the 80s.)

Inspired to Dance a Different Dance

2006-04-08T16:31:00.000-05:00

Last night I went with a couple of friends to see Take the Lead. While they were both eager to see it, I had really not heard much about it. Frankly, I went just to get out and do something and specifically to spend some time with them.

I didn’t realize until today that it’s not getting the best reviews which actually kind of surprised me. I think a word used in one review was “uninspiring.” Funny to me because the word “inspiring” was the exact word I used to describe it as my friends and I left the movie theater! True, it’s not necessarily a movie worthy of an Oscar nod but how many really are by critic standards?

Maybe it’s just that Take the Lead spoke to me on a heart level. A ballroom teacher (Antonio Banderas) decides to get involved in the inner city community around him after stumbling upon one of these kids vandalizing his own principal’s car. Banderas’ character doesn’t see a “discipline problem”; rather, he sees the hurt, anger, loneliness, and woundedness of these kids. I love how he really sees into the hearts of these students! Using ballroom dancing – a style of dancing they are initially repelled by – he teaches them some things about life as well as themselves. It was exciting for me to see these kids really begin to see their hearts and learn how to live beyond themselves. I walked out of the theater inspired to not only see my world through a different lens but to challenge myself to dance a different dance every now and then.

New Reality TV Show

2006-04-08T15:53:00.000-05:00

Just thinking about Reality TV makes me throw up a little in the back of my throat. Mostly it irritates me because I think most of these shows expose the extremes we've now gone to amuse ourselves. More than that, as a writer and one who enjoys the creative experience as well as others who invite me to join theirs, I feel like Reality TV reveals a sort of laziness to create, imagine and tell a new story.

However, this new show came across my inbox today. It seems that Steven Speilberg is getting into the mix creating a show that will feature budding young story creators. Now, this might be actually one that I could get behind...especially if I don't happen to eat some bad sushi just before.

Meet My Niece

2006-04-08T00:40:00.000-05:00

Mom and baby are doing fine!

Getting a little Grandma time.

It seems that this new aunt can go to bed now and dream some new dreams...

Speaking of Babies and Dreams...

2006-04-07T16:32:00.000-05:00

I’m an aunt!!! Yes, as of 2pm ET, my little niece, Erin Sophia, has joined up with this crazy family! She weighed in at 5 lbs. 11 oz. and 18-inches long. She has a shock of red hair, I’m told, but we all basically had bets on that!! Mom and baby are doing fine. My sister had a c-section and now they have put her on a magnesium drip for 24 hours to bring her blood pressure down. It sounds like all are doing well. As soon as I get a picture you can bet I’ll be posting one! Thanks to all have prayed for us!

Shared Dream

2006-04-07T16:28:00.000-05:00

I feel like I’m living off of an entire week of dream energy. In a number of conversations this week I’ve found myself excitedly sharing this little silly dream. It’s at the point that I’ve avoided posting anything on my blog because it feels a little out of control. I mean, I keep telling everyone and I’m going to have to step out and actually pursue this!!!

So, here’s a little piece of the dream for all you kind people who peek in on my blog and have been mildly curious: Anywhere you go for coffee in my little corner of the world on just about any given day, you can find college students literally covering any of these small coffee spaces from wall to wall. On a number of occasions when I’ve wanted to sit in one of my favorite places, their invasion has put me onto an hour long quest moving from coffee shop to coffee shop. In these times, I bemoan the fact that my little town couldn’t hurt from about a dozen more such fine establishments!

It’s out of this seeming frustration that I began to think “coffee house monstrosity” rather than add one more small, quaint coffee house to the community. So, a large part of my coffee house dream has a much larger scale. I know that “small” is the primary appeal to the coffee house popularity which is why I’ve been a little hesitant about pursuing it. But after tossing it out to some of my favorite college students, many think it would be an easy sell…especially since it’s a coffee house with college students as its target: there’s free wifi; a place to print out and make copies; a place to display and sell art; a discount for any who have a current student id, etc. While there’s more to the scope of it (i.e. some ideas about how it could be a ministry), for now that’s all I’m willing to share. Just call me a little overprotective my dream baby…

I have to admit, the other day, I did poke around one particular building I’ve had my eye on for some time now that’s for sale/lease. I even took some pictures, relishing a little longer in the possibilities. Who knows what will happen with all this dreaming, you know? It’s been such a regular part of my thoughts these past few days, I even find myself asking the Lord to cross my path with interested parties and resources if He wants to do this. I’m excited to see what He will do…even if it’s just shaping my heart to be willing to dream openly with Him once again – a road I’ve not let myself travel down for some time…

What's Your Dream?

2006-04-04T00:46:00.000-05:00

Today I shared a dream. Not just any dream. And not just with any one(s).

Over the last year I’ve had a specific business dream that has mentally been gaining momentum as it tries to fixate on possible reality. It’s a dream that seems impossible for me alone to accomplish. I’m not a business woman. The very thought of me handling on the spot decisions (in the face of an array of many endless ones) is quite laughable. Not a good decision maker. People who’ve told me in the past that I have “administrative” gifts REALLY make me laugh. So not me.

And yet, every so often this business dream resurfaces and I give it some new dream-like touches and toy around with its future in actuality. Of course, what is reality for me very quickly takes over and I put it back in the box o’ dreams and go on with life as I know it.

Today, however, I found myself sharing my dream amongst a group of people in which one member has hurt me. As I listened to the ebb and flow of discussion around a certain dilemma up for discussion, I knew this little dream of mine could very possibly give this quandary a fresh and quite out of the box solution. So, tentatively, I offered a small piece of my dream. At first, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to risk putting it so out into the open, vulnerable to criticism and ridicule. And I certainly wasn’t sure if I wanted to share a very significant piece of a heart dream amongst such persons whose hurt still a little fresh. But something in me felt that I should offer it…like I was offering myself and my heart once again. As if I needed to offer “me” as a means to continue a healing process. And, it was indeed quite liberating to share me.

And then later on tonight, I found myself sharing this same dream with my dad. Just before we were getting ready to say our goodbyes, my dad said, “Thanks for sharing with me your dream.” That touched me. I don’t think I’ve ever really felt so validated in dreaming aloud before. Thanks Dad, for being a dreamer and teaching me how to dream. Thanks for contributing to and supporting my dreams…those realized and those not so much. I love you. May the Lord enable your deepest dream a shot in this life…

Campus Conversations

2006-03-28T17:22:00.000-06:00

Yesterday and today a local church hosted GAP (Genocide Awareness Project) out on our campus. In a nutshell, it’s a very graphic display trying to get people to really think about abortion. The images are shocking, graphic, and highly emotional (at least for me). Many of our staff and students were out and about throughout the last couple of days trying to engage people in conversation around these horrific images. I think I watched a number of conversations of small pods of students going on for hours. I was amazed at how easy it was to engage students around such a highly controversial and volatile subject.

Set up near the display was a student group advocating genocide awareness in Darfur. This afternoon, another gal and I got into a conversation with Dustin, one of Darfur reps. What initially began by us asking him what he thought about the display and his pursuit to help the people of Darfur developed into an hour long conversation about his own quest to understand truth and Jesus for himself. He admitted that he didn’t want the “religion” of his parents – he wanted to make his own pursuit, even if that meant he came back to the beliefs of his parents.

Talking to him, I was reminded of me 14 years ago – a heart that was stepping out in faith and trying to figure out the faith that was, in a sense, mine and not my parents. That old memory made me hungry for that place, that freshness of faith pursuit once again. In some ways, I feel as I’m about to move on after 14 years, I’m there again. What have I learned that I need to keep? What needs to go? Will I be able to thrive out there on my own? What kind of woman will I become as a result of moving on?

I’m thankful that the Lord crossed my path with Dustin, today. Not just because I hope that our conversation sparked some new buds of truth, but because his quest and findings challenged me to see my own heart.

One of those days...

2006-03-27T16:46:00.000-06:00

Blythe woke up on the wrong side of the bed today.

Blythe needs a time out.

Blythe must learn the lesson of Grumpy Bug.

Self-Inflicted Punishment

2006-03-26T17:22:00.000-06:00

I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.
I will not mess with my blogger template.

Thanks, Christoph, for getting me back to blogger normal.

"If you're adding to the noise..."

2006-03-25T19:24:00.000-06:00

Switchfoot has a song that I find particularly enlightening about “the stuff” of life competing for our attention. The chorus goes something like:

If we're adding to the noise
turn off this song
If we're adding to the noise
turn off your stereo, radio, video

Last night as I was driving home after spending a great week with Jill and then catching some much needed reflective time with M.K. on my way home, I felt a huge craving for quiet. Normally on long car drives (especially the late night ones since I’m NOT a late night person!), anything I can do to distract myself with music, coffee, etc. the better. But last night as I was tempted to just put on the tunes and coast home, the chorus of this song kept going through my head. I realized very quickly that my heart was telling me to take this opportunity to pursue the quiet.

Plunging the internal depths of my heart, I used the time to think back on some of the conversations that I had either engaged in or listened to from the week. Thank you Jill, Alethea, M.K., Correnta, Sarah B., the Birthday Group for offering your ears and your hearts. As my heart listened in again, I found myself praying through those scenes and asking the Lord what it might be that He wants to pose to my heart. I was surprised by the new questions that found their way to the surface.

The reflective time in the car was deeply refreshing. And today I’m wondering how much of my heart I crowd out of my attention due to a high concentration of background noise? In living alone I admit that I often find myself turning the TV on to just have “noise” – there are a number of times it’s just on while I’m doing something else, mostly just providing some sort of replacement. Replacement for what, I’m not really sure. Sometimes I like the noise because it makes me feel less alone…like someone is in the house with me. Other times, I think it’s just on because it’s filler noise while I’m doing something particularly mundane. (Uh, for instance it’s on now while I’m typing this blog!)

In any case, I find myself wondering today:
How often have I missed questions or thoughts my heart is really embracing (or needs to embrace) because of noise…external and/or internal?
Have I missed something the Spirit is trying to tell me because I’ve fallen into a habit of allowing noise to steal my attention away?

Captain’s Log, Stardate 0321.06: To boldly watch shows I’ve never seen before…

2006-03-21T14:55:00.000-06:00

Normally I’m not much of a sci-fi gal. My friend Jill Pole, however, is quite the aficionado. Since college, she’s done her best to introduce me to the cream of the crop science fiction and fantasy books and/or films that are currently capturing her attention…like the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. While I only got through WOT Doorstop #6, what little affinity I have for sci-fi is all due to her.

So over the course of the last two days, she’s had me testing the waters to see if I’d find some new loves. We finished the series of Firefly (I had actually started watching myself a year ago, had never finished it, and was currently finishing it through Netflix) and I finally got around to Serenity (Very bummed about Wash – Joss, “why, why, WHY???”); we watched the first episode of Stargate Atlantis and the Battlestar Galactica miniseries; and then, finished up with the first 6 epidsodes of season one of Smallville.

While Smallville was hands down my new current fav, I have to say that I think I’m willing to explore the others a little more to see if there’s a new series chemistry brewing…

The Coffee House Conspiracy Theory

2006-03-21T13:38:00.000-06:00

I have long held the controversial and dangerous belief that there is a conspiracy among coffee shop owners -- once you have sat and enjoyed your perfect cup of coffee and have sat in some cozy establishment's corner for at least an hour and a half, they pull the “Freeze Out.” This is where they point the ac blower directly over you with blasts that could give any native of the South Pole frost bite.

I am sitting currently at one such coffee house. While I won’t mention any names, I will say you can probably find them on my linkage to the right….

Bitt-rrrrr.

Life in the Blog Pause

2006-03-17T22:36:00.000-06:00

I have been home just under 3 hours and am enjoying catching up on the blog world that I’ve missed out on for most of the week. After spending nine hours in a vehicle today, it’s good to cozy up with Laptop and catch up on other people’s lives. Currently, I am doing laundry to repack and venture north for the week to visit my dear friend Jill Pole tomorrow morning. I am almost too excited to sleep! I think it’s been a year ago this next week since we’ve been in each other’s presence.

As to my week, my time in New Mexico had both its good and sad moments. The good of the week came from hearing some things from one of our speakers that is enabling me to better think through what’s next on my plate…and to figure out maybe how the Lord is preparing me for the new ministry He has for me. Since I have shared with some of the students that I directly invest in, I feel that I am finally free to express to the blog world that at this moment in my life, I will be packing up and moving to Florida for the next year.

Which brings me back to the sad of the week…while I am excited about the possibilities of this new adventure (and there really are some exciting things that I will most definitely be sharing soon), this week found me fighting the hurts and pain surrounding this decision. I found myself fighting my flesh so much this week as I encountered a barrage of unfeeling questions from the insiders who have known about this decision since January. The fight with the flesh came as I struggled to not give into my perceptions of what I believe others are thinking about me. It was a wearying fight. I don’t feel that I walked out of the week in a way that makes me feel proud. During one of our final worship times as I wrestled with all of these thoughts and feelings, the Lord nudged a thought past me: Blythe, are you worshipping your pain and hurt? Don’t you know that I see you? Worship Me and what I say is true about you…

Later that same day as I spent some time in the Word, He seemed to reaffirm the thoughts during the worship time as I read about the Israelites in Joshua 7. In going up against Jericho, the Israelites were instructed to stay away from the articles of destruction and to spare Rahab and her family. Achan, however, had taken some of the spoil for himself, burying it in the ground outside his tent and it resulted in his life. (Funny to me that in taking what he desired and was forbidden that he couldn’t even enjoy it! What’s the used in having something that you have to bury?)

Go and consecrate the people. Tell them to consecrate themselves tomorrow, for this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says, ‘There are among you, Israel, things set apart. You will not be able to stand against your enemies until you remove what is set apart.’ (Joshua 7:13)

As I read this, I was aware that the recent hurt and pain in my life was something that has an amazing ability to destroy me…and has an incredible capacity to keep me from standing against my "enemies." In realizing this, the Lord lovingly brought to mind those things that I need to remove…and that I need to walk gracefully in forgiveness toward those who have inflicted such hurt. And I just have to say, that identifying and relinquishing these deep hurts lifted the heavy weight that has encased my heart for several months. So thankful that He is a Jesus of rest...

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light. (Matt. 11:28-30)

New Scenery

2006-03-14T17:09:00.000-06:00

Have I told you how much I love the laptop life? Am currently settling in for a little blog time (catching up on my favorite blogs) in Santa Fe, New Mexico. One of my best friends and I have had an absolutely lovely day romping about downtown Santa Fe. For lunch I took her to my favorite Thai restaurant on the edge of the Plaza. Then we did some shopping at some of our favorites – Ann Taylor, J. Crew, White House Black Market. Now we’re both soaking up the local atmosphere in a little café away from the heavy Plaza traffic – Ecco Espresso & Gelato. It is delightful. She’s leafing through wedding magazines; I’m spending some quality time with Laptop. (Have I mentioned that Laptop and I are in a relationship? We’ve hardly had a moment to ourselves all week!)

In any case, I’m enjoying the scenery from a new corner of the world.

He looks like I feel...

2006-03-10T23:14:00.000-06:00

Well, it's been nothing short of crazy the past few days in getting ready to take our students to the mountains of New Mexico. It's been a tradition in our ministry for over 35 years to take students with us to a conference that focuses in on helping them further cultivate their walk with Jesus and be exposed to a lot of practical content from a number of godly older men and women.

As for me, I'm finally packed although looking at all of the stuff to be loaded into the car tomorrow morning, it seems like I've packed everything but the kitchen sink! And, yes, a fresh pound of coffee beans and grinder are ready for some mornings in New Mexico and the fun coffee mug for the week has been picked. Despite a nine hour car ride, I'm looking forward to spending some quality time with my dear friend who's soon to be married. As well, it should be a good week to catch up with some people that I hardly get to see much these days since our lives tend to often go in different directions even though we live in the same town!

In any case, it's time for this pooped pickle to be heading to bed...

Concerned Aunt

2006-03-08T16:13:00.000-06:00

I received a phone call a few hours ago from sister who lives in Florida. She is expecting with my niece around the end of April. Last week she was put on bed rest due to rising blood pressure and the doctors feared preeclampsia. After running all the tests, she was cleared of that. So, that's a praise for sure! However, despite a solid week of laying around in bed, her blood pressure's still on the rise!

So she's currently settling in for a few days in the hospital so the doctors can watch her closely and see if they can't get the blood pressure to come down with meds. As well, they're trying to beef up the baby's lungs with steriods just in case they have to deliver her early. She's at week 33 so they hope to get her to at least between weeks 36-38.

In any case, my heart is full of concern for my family at this moment. If you're passing through I'd sure appreciate your prayers for my little sis and niece! And, that maybe Aunt Blythe will be okay being so far away from her during this time!!

Handling our Hearts

2006-03-08T13:12:00.000-06:00

A recent email from a new visitor got me thinking today about how we handle our hearts. As I found myself thinking about being single and yet living well in spite of unanswered longings, it got me thinking again about how I handle my desires for anything really. I mean, what about that grand desire to be a published writer…or to own my own really hip and successful coffee house…or to get the Lauren Graham style award for hippest and hottest woman in her 30s…or the desire to be heard and validated merely for where I’m at in my journey today. The list could go on and on and be as simple as desiring a new pair of really cute and expensive shoes…

What do we do with this little thing called desire?

In the Christian realm, I’ve long sat under teaching that promotes the attitude that desires are wrong if not sinful. The underlying message: Whatever your heart desires can’t be good. Is that wrong teaching? Well, to be fair, it does say in Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is more deceitful than anything else and desperately sick—who can understand it?” However, I think we’ve often taken this verse out of context. If you read Jeremiah 17 (if not the entire book), the Lord is making a statement about the condition of Israel’s sin…after their hearts had followed after other gods or idols.

What we fail to talk about here is something much deeper…that the heart is made for worship. If the heart is not being filled with worship of God Himself, rest assured it will worship something else! In Jeremiah, the Lord is identifying a heart condition that has chosen to worship other things and not Him. And yet, it’s not the end of the story! If you follow this story closely, you’ll find Him making a statement later on in Ezekiel about a permanent solution to this kind of heart condition: “I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws” (Ez. 26:25-27; similar comment in Ez. 11:19)

To me, it sounds like there’s hope for my heart and its desires. Sounds to me that the solution He’s offering will permanently take care of this condition. The solution: Jesus’ death on the cross, covering my sin, and enabling my heart full restoration. My heart has been fully redeemed and bears the blood-stained stamp of Christ. My heart is new…restored…clean.

So, if that’s true of my heart, why do I often still find myself wrestling with feeling that my desires are somehow wrong?

Again I’m reminded of James 4 which identifies the causes of fights and quarrels among the people of God – he says that they come from “your desires that battle within you” (4:1). What we often do with this verse is insert the word “evil” before desires. (FYI: I believe the NLT version uses “evil” to describe desires – that’s actually a bad translation.)

What James is alluding to is not the fact that desire was evil to begin with. Heart desires are not wrong. It’s not wrong, for example, to desire to be loved. It’s not a bad desire to want to be accepted. It’s not evil to desire security. What James is speaking of is the way we go about trying to make those desires happen:

“You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says: ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.”

I take great hope in dealing with my heart as James basically points us to identify our heart longings (not evil but good) and where we might have gone astray by worshipping other things. The following has been a really helpful picture of discovering the trail of how the normal desires of daily living take control of the heart. It’s taken from Paul David Tripp’s Helping Others Change which is the workbook that enhances his book Instruments in the Redeemer's Hands:

1. Desire: “I want.” Nothing wrong here yet.
2. Demand: “I must.” The desire is no longer an expression of love for God and man, but something I crave for myself.
3. Need: “I will.” Something desirable is now seen as essential. I am convinced that I cannot live without it.
4. Expectation: “You should.” This is where my relationships begin to be affected. If I really believe that this is a need, then it seems right to expect that you will meet my need if you really love me.
5. Disappointment: “You didn’t!” Here the anger breaks out and becomes personal. You are standing in the way of what rules my heart.
6. Punishment: “Because you didn’t, I will. . .” I respond to you in anger (silent treatment, hurtful words, vengeance, or violence.”

In identifying maybe where my heart has gone astray, I find that this enables me to once again yield myself over to the Lord and draw near to Him as James exhorts. In doing this, I’ve discovered how much the Lord delights in showing me that my longings or desires are good…and to entrust the working out of my desires to Him and not my own sticky hands…

Unknown White Male

2006-03-06T10:05:00.000-06:00

My dear friend Jill always has her ear to the ground for which movies are upcoming that are sure to strike up thoughts and conversations of the deep. Here’s a documentary she recently posted that I found particularly fascinating. A few statements from the trailer and the official website left me thinking…

“A person is the sum of our memories…if you wipe that slate clean, how do you figure out what is relevant to you?”

“We watch how he reconstructs a life for himself by retaining what he admires about his former self while casting off what—and whom—he dislikes. It is at once a nightmare and a dream come true: a chance at rebirth.”

What a thought…we are who we are because of the decisions we make along the way, building deep memories that shape and mold us into the person we are today. Our memories tell our stories – the good, the bad, the ugly, the pains, the joys. If those memories are wiped out and we must start over, will we become a different person? Can we become a different person? Or, do you think those memories and events are so deeply ingrained us that even if we can’t consciously remember our own past journey the buried subconscious will inevitably still shape our present?

While I haven’t seen the outcome of this particular story, I wonder what the storytelling might reveal about the deeper journey of Doug Bruce’s soul…and the God-story upon his life that can never be erased…

A Night at the Oscars

2006-03-05T22:33:00.000-06:00

Four gal pals came over and joined me for a night in front of the television for one of our favorite events of the year. Here’s a summary of our highs and lows for the evening…

High
Jon Stewart. We admire his wit and courage…who else can insult you and still look so charming?

High
Ben Stiller as Green Screen Man. Just Ha-larious.

Low
When Philip Seymour Hoffman won for Capote over Joaquin Phoenix. “Joaquin just was Johnny Cash. He put his heart and soul into it. And, he’s just so darn easy on the eyes.” (That’s the verbatim consensus.)

High
Reese Witherspoon wins Best Actress for Walk the Line. Cheers went up in the room. We couldn’t be more proud of our little southern gal.

Low
The film montages…for some reason we never could understand what they were about. However, it could be that we switched to watching episodes of season one of The Office during them…

High
Crash wins Best Picture!!!! You could have knocked us over! We were sure that Brokeback would walk away with it! Crash was truly these gals’ favorite film of the year! Again, cheers throughout. (“Raise your hand if you weren’t in Crash.” Jon, you’re so cute.) Couldn't think of a better way to end an evening.

Fashion Nods from the Fabulous Fashionistas

2006-03-05T21:45:00.000-06:00

Live from a living room very far away from Hollywood and dripping with fashion commentary, here are 5 fabulous fashion gurus pics and pans for this year's red carpet.

2006-03-05T21:40:00.000-06:00

Ah, Jen. Kisses girlfriend. You just look fabulous!

2006-03-05T21:38:00.000-06:00

A picture's worth a thousand words...but we can only get out "ouch!" We would like to know if her hair had to go through security check?

2006-03-05T21:36:00.000-06:00

Charlize! What were you thinking??? Normally we're all about Charlize. So sad. Or, could it be that Charlize is a secret agent, the bow hiding a microphone that she periodically speaks into?

Hmmm....

2006-03-05T21:34:00.001-06:00

Amy Adams. Beautiful gal but really should have rethought the attire.

2006-03-05T21:34:00.000-06:00

J Lo. At least one person in the room wants to be you (ah hem, Blythe). Looks incredible.

2006-03-05T21:25:00.000-06:00

Jessica Alba. She's got our glam vote.

2006-03-05T21:24:00.000-06:00

Ryan and Reese. Kisses. They're just too cute. Many prayers that they'll avoid Hollywood's recent race to divorce court.

2006-03-05T21:22:00.000-06:00

We love the blue. Salma looks amazing.

Confession

2006-03-04T10:28:00.000-06:00

I just wasted an hour and half of a Saturday morning watching Down to You on television. I don't know what it is about cheezy, angst-driven young adult movies that can so easily suck me in. Maybe it's that I have a secret fascination for Freddie Prinze, Jr. (he always seems to star in these mundane script/plotless wonders). In any case, there's an hour and a half of my life that I won't get back.

Bummer.

The blessing of lingering...

2006-03-03T15:23:00.000-06:00

Just finished reading some of the comments (and emails) made during our coffee conversation. Wow. That kind of conversation deeply blesses me! After a bummer last day (nothing huge, just one of those days) the Lord knew that I needed to get my mind on some eternal things today.

One of my most cherished things to do is have people over, put on the coffee, dish out something a little sweet, and linger over good conversation – talking about the way our hearts are processing the Lord and where He currently finds us in our own unique journeys; sharing fresh insights we are learning about Him; celebrating life together in Christ. In reading your comments, I feel as if you all have stepped into my living room and found a space on a couch and lingered...

So, thanks for lingering in my little corner.

Some Coffee Conversation

2006-03-02T13:45:00.000-06:00

Today I'm hanging out at Panera trying to give the rest of my afternoon to some much needed prep for a few responsibilities on my plate for an upcoming Spring Break conference we take our students on every year.

Somewhere along the line I agreed to do the intro at the beginning of the week on how to meet with Christ. My responsibility is to "cast the vision for the value of a PERSONAL walk with God...and how to communicate with Him."

What seemed initially like something that was right up my alley -- I love to help people discover relationship with Christ -- now seems a little daunting! As I've been sitting here pondering this journey in my own life, I feel humbled by this task. I mean, what does that look like really?

How do you communicate relationship with Jesus?
How do you cast a vision for an outcome that happens as a result of yes, doing some specific things to engage in pursuit – reading the Word, prayer, meditating on Scripture, journaling, etc. – and yet is so much more than those specifics?
How do you share a picture for the transformation that is sure to happen when someone encounters real, live, up close and personal relationship with Christ?
How do you paint a picture of the Person you’re trying to probe and how do you communicate the process of allowing Him to do the same to you?

So, I'm asking you -- How do you do this? What does relationship with Jesus look like for you?

The coffee's poured. The comfy seats in my little corner are ready. Anyone have any ideas?

Hope Blossoms

2006-03-01T16:44:00.000-06:00

I feel giddy.

Despite my best efforts to shake it, giddiness is the state of my heart.

The nature of said giddiness just seems too good to be true. Can it be, Lord? Could this really be Your hand?

It smells suspiciously like Him…those intricate little details, twists and turns in the road that no human hand can lay claim to. Details that can only but point to the ultimate proof of His kindness and goodness upon this family.

But it seems misplaced.

Past experience would dictate, Watch it. Don’t get your hopes up! Disappointment abounds!

And yet, the giddiness persists.

God speaks.

Staggered by Hope.

Grounded by Faithfulness.

Surprised by Worship.

Too Wonderful to take the promise of it all in.

Beautiful Day

2006-02-28T17:19:00.000-06:00

Sunny.
High near 80.
Favorite flops.
Now those are some happy feet.

Desire Wide Open

2006-02-26T15:21:00.000-06:00

Today I was thinking through and praying for some different desires for the upcoming year that have been tugging at my heart. As I was offering them up to the Lord, I found myself a little tentative. I was reminded of Isaiah 55: 8-9 where the Lord tells us that His ways are not often our ways and His thoughts not often our own. As I thought about this, I wondered, why offer my desires at all? Why not just keep them to myself, never owning my desires if they maybe aren’t His for me?

That reminds me of something I heard Tullah muse about recently as I rewatched My Big Fat Greek Wedding: “I wish I had a different life. I wish I was braver and prettier…or just happier. But it’s useless to dream because nothing ever changes.” Of course, just as she offers that thought, the music changes and through the window we see John Corbett (“the Beautiful”). Tullah’s life is about to change beyond her imagination!

Tullah’s heart expressed reminds me of my own struggle to own up to desire in my life…feeling that it’s useless to dream because experience has taught me that when dreams don’t materialize, it hurts. I’m not in a hurting place at this point in my life although there have been some circumstances recently that have been deeply painful. Rather, as a result of the circumstances I find myself dreaming again. It’s the being open to the desire once again that kind of scares me…feels vulnerable and risky. And yet, it feels good.

And so, rather than kill desire for the sake of saving myself from deep pain, I find myself today praying for His eyes to see desire answered rather than cling to my version of it…

This calls for some disciplinary action...

2006-02-26T14:19:00.000-06:00

New Fun Coffee Mug #56 has been banished to the dirty dishes side of the sink today.

Today I was spending some extended time with the Lord. I was going through my normal routine of settling into my chair and ottoman and I sat Fun Coffee Mug #56 (filled with freshly brewed HOT coffee) on the arm. I would just like to add, every fun coffee mug has same privilege and has never had any problem sitting demurely by my side. Fun Coffee Mug #56, however, was not so diffident. Just as I settled in and neatly tucked my favorite lap blanket around me, Fun Coffee Mug #56 dumped entire contents of HOT coffee down the left side of my arm and leg.

Hmmfph.

Fun Coffee Mug #56 can sit in the dirty dishes side of the sink and think about what she’s done.

Word Picture

2006-02-25T13:45:00.000-06:00

I got this idea from Jill and couldn't pass it up. I have a huge affinity for words if you haven't already figured this out! It originates from a site called Snap Shirts which searches your blog and generates a "word cloud." Kind of fun.

Is singleness a legitmate means of suffering?

2006-02-25T12:04:00.000-06:00

The decision to bring one more thought to the singleness and suffering table came from a recent comment posted by a new visitor to my little corner. I was going to let it go, but because he touched on some things about singleness and suffering that I am currently in the process of putting into words myself, I began to write a comment that was turning into a blog! So, I thought it might be better for all to see.

Before I go any farther, in the case of the suffering being legitimate to singles, let me clarify who we are not talking about:

We are not talking about the single person who before God has no heart desires for marriage or family.

There are some people who legitimately have none of those desires. I would venture to say that for them, singleness is not suffering.

In order to understand this better, let’s look at Prov. 13:12, brought to the table by our new visitor:

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.”

In the Hebrew, hope deferred has the idea of affliction that comes as a result of actively being drawn or lifted out; being dragged along (like a person roped to the back of a truck and being dragged along). When hope or expectation or desire is a longing unfulfilled (“the heart sick”), this person is bearing a form of suffering or affliction. Adam Clarke offers this commentary on Proverbs 13:12:

When once a good is discovered, want of it felt, strong desire for the possession excited, and the promise of attainment made on grounds unsuspected, so that the reality of the thing and the certainty of the promise are manifest, hope posts forward to realize the blessing. Delay in the gratification pains the mind; the increase of the delay prostrates and sickens the heart; and if delay sickens the heart, ultimate disappointment kills it. But when the thing desired, hoped for, and expected comes, it is a tree of life, ets chaiyim, "the tree of lives;" it comforts and invigorates both body and soul. To the tree of lives, in the midst of the gardens of paradise, how frequent are the allusions in the writings of Solomon, and in other parts of the Holy Scriptures! What deep, and perhaps yet unknown, mysteries were in this tree!

I think most of us have a picture in our heads that suffering is a heirarchy of pain/loss...kind of a "rock, paper, scissors" thing –

broken arm trumps paper cut
love lost trumps broken arm
fighting cancer trumps love lost
sudden death of a loved one trumps fighting cancer

Now, hear me out, those things ARE suffering. I’m just not sure getting caught up in the hierarchy of types of suffering should define what is suffering. And while there certainly are circumstances/pain that some people suffer that are so much harder than singleness, I don’t think it’s necessary to equate it with other forms of suffering to either invalidate it or legitimatize it.

While it’s obvious that I disagree with some of the points made that there is no suffering in singleness, I agree with the comments made that point out a response to suffering. That is what the latter half of Prov. 13:12 speaks to: “…a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Where our longings have found their satisfactions is a tree of life. In all suffering there is a response – how am I going to allow this pain/trauma/hurt/loss, etc to work itself out in my life in such a way that its place in my life transforms me and grows me as a person?

For the believer, I think response to suffering is especially critical! Second Cor. 1:3-7 says,

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort. He comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any kind of affliction, through the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For as the sufferings of Christ overflow to us, so our comfort overflows through Christ. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which is experienced in the endurance of the same sufferings that we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that as you share in the sufferings, so you will share in the comfort.

You see, suffering (or affliction as it’s referred to here) is in the life of every person who walks this planet. In the Greek, the word affliction has the idea of “pressing together, pressure” as well as metaphorically or literally, “oppression, affliction, tribulation, distress, straits.” Yes, even hope deferred. What 2 Corinthians is saying here is that all types of suffering enter into everyone’s lives differently. Critical for those who know Christ is:

How have they allowed themselves to be comforted by God, the Father of all comfort?
How will they use how they’ve been comforted by God to comfort others with the same comfort they’ve received?

As believers, what we’re talking about here is learning to develop a perspective in suffering that enables us to identify with those who either don’t yet know Christ or do know Him but are having a hard time laying hold of His purpose for this event in their lives. Why? Because it was through suffering that Jesus identified with the people He came to die for:

For it was fitting, in bringing many sons to glory, that He, for whom and through whom all things exist, should make the source of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For the One who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one Father. That is why He is not ashamed to call them brothers (Heb. 2:10-11)

Jesus identifies with every human being through suffering. The idea here is humility. It moves us out of the “I’ve arrived” kind of mentality and allows us to be on the same page with those the Lord brings along each of our paths. As ambassadors of Christ (2 Cor. 5:16-21), this is the ministry attitude bestowed upon our lives:

Jesus identifies with my suffering
Jesus comforts me in this area
Jesus wants to comfort others through me

A question was posed earlier in the discussion,

What if you allowed yourself to see your singleness as something worthy of being called suffering?

That question brings great delight to my heart because I know that my response to the kind of woman I want to be in my singleness is affirming it! If you were to ask me when I was a little girl what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would have eagerly responded, “I want to be a wife and a mom.” In college, I thought marriage and family were a given. Since then, there were a couple of significant years where "hope deferred makes the heart sick" was the most glaring thing about me – I was hurt, angry, hopeless. I was a beast for Him (Psalm 73). I felt gypped by God as I sat on the singleness sidelines and watched college students who were getting younger and younger get married and have babies while I only seemed to get older and farther away from seeing that hope realized in my life. Hope deferred made my heart sick. And yet, in all of this, I found myself running to Jesus. Through those times of blatant honesty with Him, He brought comfort to a heart weary in her affliction.

The point to all of this is this: if I had not been going to Jesus during these last 10 years since college with all of my unfulfilled longing laid open before Him AND if I had not allowed myself to be truly comforted by Him, I would have missed the opportunities He’s given to comfort many others who’ve wrestled with similar heart afflictions!

Does this change the fact that my single heart longs for marriage and family? No way! Does this change the way I view Christ in my life and the ministry He lays across my path? You better believe it. For the single, hope deferred can be such a tree of life – living with these unfulfilled desires in a way that brings Christ center stage and reveals that our satisfaction comes from Him.

That’s what I want my life to be known by…that’s the kind of woman I want to be – one that lives life fully in face of unfulfilled longings.

"But as for me, the nearness of God is my good. I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all Thy works." Ps. 73:28

Worship Moment

2006-02-24T09:12:00.000-06:00

I know I've mentioned a number of times that my life is getting ready to change. I hate being vague and soon I'll be able to share a little more of what that involves. In the interim, I feel the need to share that the feelings surrounding this change are at times sad and frustrating as much as they are exciting and hopeful. Lately I have found myself a little more caught up in the saddness of it and a little bit concerned about what the outcome looks like. The other day as I offered this to the Lord, He shared something with me from Deuteronomy 11:8-12:

Keep every command I am giving you today, so that you may have the strength to cross into and possess the land you are to inherit, and so that you may live long in the land the LORD swore to your fathers to give them and their descendants, a land flowing with milk and honey. For the land you are entering to possess is not like the land of Egypt, from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and irrigated by hand as in a vegetable garden. But the land you are entering to possess is a land of mountains and valleys, watered by rain from the sky. It is a land the LORD your God cares for. He is always watching over it from the beginning to the end of the year.

I found myself encouraged by these words. It seems that the Lord is reminding me that He is not only good and is able to provide for me, but He can provide well. I don't need to fret about the outcome. He's the One leading me along this road. This morning in my time with Jesus I was reminded of some lyrics from the Sheryl Crow song, Diamond Road. I know it sounds like a funny thing to say that worship came from it, but her words truly expressed to Jesus my heart and the sometimes aches it's prone to lately. And, as much as this expressed my heart to Him, I was even more sure I could hear Him speaking words back, "Don't miss the diamonds along this road, Blythe. Keep the eyes of your heart on Me. I'm trailblazing this road."

7 Things--Tagged

2006-02-23T23:33:00.000-06:00

Hey! I’ve been tagged by Rick at Mmm…That’s Good Coffee. (Copy these seven things into your post, answer them, and then tag 7 others.)

Seven things to do before I die:
1) Go on an actual vacation.
2) Be a published author.
3) See as much of the world as I can.
4) Own a coffee shop.
5) My checkbook.
6) Own a car whose year is in the same decade I actually live in.
7) Fall in love.

Seven Things I Cannot Do:
1) Dance
2) Watch any movie that has live, talking (yes, moving their mouths) animals kind of movies. Creeps me out.
3) Math in my head.
4) Touch my nose with my tongue.
5) Watch Kevin Costner movies.
6) Go back to junior high. (Thank You, Lord!)
7) Get married before I’m 30.

Seven Things That Attract Me to My Mate:
(Uh, Blythe here. For us singles…seven things that you’re looking for in mate, I guess.)
1) Major heart relationship with Jesus!
2) Heart to serve the Lord and doing it in some capacity.
3) Laughs with me, at me (when appropriate!), and makes me laugh.
4) Adventurous heart and willing to take some risks.
5) Good teeth.
6) Not finicky – will eat whatever I cook (and believe me, he LOVES to eat what I cook!)
7) Looks uncannily like Brad Paisley. I know, I can’t believe it either!

Seven Things I Say:
1) Do you understand what I’m saying?
2) Does that make sense?
3) Hey gal.
4) Ha-larious.
5) No waaay!
6) That’s crazy.
7) For shizzle. (Not really. I just couldn’t think of another one.)

Seven People Tagged:
1) Jill
2) Alethea
3) Joy Hennin
4) Correnta
5) Eaglewing
6) Susanne
7) Sista Louisa

Overheard: New Favorite Movie Quote

2006-02-23T18:15:00.000-06:00

"You better be glad yo' at church cause Jesus done saaaved your life! Hallaluer!" (Madea's Family Reunion)

Can't. Stop. Laughing.

Single Issues

2006-02-23T15:41:00.000-06:00

I don't necessarily want to use my blogdom to get on a soapbox about any particular issue, but this article from Christianity Today was in my inbox today exploring the question, "So, Why Aren't You Married?". If you're single and wrestle with this, or are curious what today's single might be stigmatized with, have a read. I found it quite encouraging.

Scene from a Coffee Shop

2006-02-23T14:50:00.000-06:00

Man just walked into coffeehouse sporting fanny pack. (Again, I ask, Stacy and Clinton, where are you???)

Same man just ordered a mocha with a shot of salmonella.

No, wait. That was some vanilla.

The things you hear when you're only half listening.

Next Gilmore Girls Writer?

2006-02-22T22:24:00.000-06:00

You're a Dialogue/Character Writer!

What kind of writer are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

The Blogdom: Creating Significant Community?

2006-02-22T15:09:00.000-06:00

There seems to be a developing conversation stemming from recent posts and comments on various blogs I’m reading surrounding questions of our motivations in our blogging, blog “stalking” (voraciously reading other people’s blogs either anonymously or known), or blog blogging (writing significant comments on one another’s blogs or discovering new realizations in your comment that might otherwise been a blog post on your own blog). Okay, I’m getting the feeling that I’m on the cusp of developing the first ever Blog language…

ANYway, the question has been raised, are we (the women who are living out previous said paragraph) using this as a replacement for something lacking in our lives…whether that be a spouse, or community, or a venue for processing and being heard.

The question of my own recent attraction to this new world of blogging has been stirring in my own head and heart for over a month now. What is it that I’m finding within the html code that I’m not finding in my own current life? Is it just a mere lack of the social life that plagues nearly every single woman in ministry? (“All work and no play sure make Blythe a dull girl”?) Is it a means of escape from an otherwise uneventful life? Is it a lack of really feeling heard well by people and knowing that my thoughts have value?

I guess my most recent thought is, what if it’s not about what’s lacking in our lives? What if it’s about finding something? Maybe even more like stumbling on some new treasure that we never knew existed – a treasure of sort being found in other people’s lives and perspectives that enlarge our own in some way. It kind of makes me feel like I’m not as alone and disconnected….that maybe my heart, my life and my thoughts are of great value and theirs to my own.

Awhile back I watched the new movie Shall We Dance? There’s a part in the movie where Susan Sarandon’s character is explaining to the detective she’s hired about what marriage is:

People get married because we need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet. What does any one life really mean? But in a marriage you’re promising to care about everything. The good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things. All of it. Every time. Everyday. You’re saying, “Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.” (Susan Sarandon, Shall We Dance)

I think this statement less describes marriage as it does a fundamental desire of the human heart…to be known deeply and to know that your life amounts to something. Even deeper than that desire is that I think we want someone to catch it! We want to be seen. We don’t want other people to miss out on what we bring and offer to the world. Of course, as women maybe this may be just the deep question we’ll always be wrestling with, you know? (For more thoughts on this, check out Captivating by John and Stasi Eldredge.)

I think my blogging, blog hopping, blog stalking, blog blogging (oh good grief!) all kind of reveal that my heart wants to be heard and seen. I want to know that my thoughts, my heart has value and at the same time they resonate with someone else or cause them to think in new ways. So, for me right now, it’s not about replacing as it is discovering. And I’m loving every minute of it.

Engaging Fear

2006-02-21T16:58:00.000-06:00

A couple of posts ago I shared about a family circumstance that tied in to some things I’m currently learning about stepping into the unknown and facing fear. Today as I was reading more in The Insider, I was challenged by Jim Petersen’s thoughts on embracing fear – not just facing it or acknowledging it, but entering into it boldly. He’s speaking, of course, about fears as they pertain to moving toward people in sharing spiritual things, but it spoke to me about fear in general:

Our fears can lead us into greater sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Following God’s leading inevitably puts us in frightening situations. He is bound to take us into things that are way over our head – into things only he can do. It has to be that way. How else would we learn about him? If we just stick to those things we could do anyway, where would the ‘God factor’ be? If we refuse to follow him into such places, we will remain spiritually impoverished. We will never mature. We can either make our fears work for us, or we can let them debilitate us. If we accept our fears, taking them to Christ, they will lead us into a more mature faith. But we will never run out of fears. There is always the smell of fear around the school of faith! (99)

Petersen links fear and faith together. That really encourages me. I think sometimes I can fall into a manner of thinking that all fear has to be eliminated before I can take that step of faith. Well, Lord, I think You’re telling me to do this. If You’ll just line out the specifics, I’ll step in that direction, knowing this is You. Sound familiar?

Again, I am thinking about those Israelites facing the Promised Land (Deut. 1-4). Whether they had gone into the land upon first arrival or 40 years later, they still had to embrace fear. One way or the other, if they wanted to experience the abundant life the Lord was promising, they had to engage fear – the activity thereof is faith. And faith is a pursuit that reflects a heart that trusts God not only with what He says, but the outcome of the unknown as well.

How to Know if You Have B.A.S. (Blog Addiction Syndrome)

2006-02-21T14:41:00.000-06:00

1. Do you check your favorite blogs at least once every hour?
2. Do you frequent your favorite of favorite blogs every 20 minutes?
3. Do you post comments to people’s blogs and check back fairly regularly to see if they’ve commented back?
4. Do you have tendonitis of the wrist from the constant mouse movement up and down your bookmarks list?
5. How often do you find yourself dropping the phrase “my blog” in casual conversation?
6. Do you find yourself scanning through Blogger through the random blogs in the hopes of discovering the next new and upcoming Blog talent?
7. Do you attempt to get some actual work done and find yourself writing a survey for B.A.S.?

If you can answer "yes" to most of the above, chances are you've got it. But, you're in good company. Let's all practice together:

Yes, my name is [insert name] and I’m a Blog addict.

Now, if I can just turn this post into a possible spec for House (some weird disease for blog addicts?), I’d have something to show for myself today.

SFM (Single Female Moment)

2006-02-20T23:31:00.000-06:00

I originally had no intention of blogging this unsettling meditation. Maybe I’ve recently developed a snag in my internet filter or maybe I’ve just become internet brazen, but I’m posting this despite the little nagging voice on my right shoulder. For those of you who are easily unsettled by female emotions, words like “tears” and “heart” are used. You may want to wait till the post drops out of immediate view. Please consider this fair warning.

Tonight I attended an engagement party for one of my best friends. Before she ever went out on her first date with this guy, I knew that he was the one for her. She's gone out with a number of different guys since I've known her, but this one -- just knew it was her "one."

Around the beginning of the relationship I wrestled with discontent and feelings of being overlooked or gypped by God. Through the struggle and the hurt I asked the Lord to help me genuinely enter into the joy of this new relationship with her. After all, I love my friend and the last thing I wanted was to be the self-centered, whiner friend who has no thought beyond what she is lacking in her own life, you know?

The Lord in His kindness allowed me to do just that. Enter in. Enjoy it with her. Weep with her when it was complicated and hard. Laugh and giggle with her as she recounted silly things he’d say or did. Listen when she needed an ear to offer a perspective outside of herself.

In all honesty it has been fun. It’s been exciting to join up with her in journey. I’m grateful that the Lord crossed our paths at this point in our lives and that we got to do life together for awhile. She in turn has shaped a significant part of my own journey these last four years.

Despite all this, I discovered an untapped piece of my heart on the drive home from the City. As I recalled the night’s festivities, complete with the recounting of the whirlwind storybook proposal weekend in New York City, tears began to spill over. They caught me off guard. I knew they weren’t tears of joy but of pain.

What was the deal? I asked myself. I’m truly happy for her! Have I been mistaken? Have I missed an underlying discontent? Has my heart fooled me into believing I was more okay with all this than I am?

No, my heart wept. My pain is for your change…and the lack of celebration you feel.

Oh, yes. My change. Both my friend and I are stepping into life changes. Her change brings celebration. My change…feels tainted by sadness.

I wish I could say that in discovering all this, my heart immediately took courage and claimed a number of well-seasoned Promises. Not tonight. For tonight, I think I’m fine with just letting my heart rest in the discovery. Afterall, tears may come for the night, but joy comes in the morning...

Stir Crazy

2006-02-20T16:43:00.000-06:00

While I’ve enjoyed the inclement weather immensely, this morning I started to get a little antsy. All that snow and sleet I mentioned previously forced me to stay inside for the entirety of the weekend. Literally. The other night after coming back home, the ice had become so bad (and the traction on my tires is completely worn) that I couldn’t get my car back up the drive into my garage! So, for the last two days my car has sat forlornly in the street outside my house.

Determined to emerge from my cave today and head for my heaven on earth (a.k.a. my newest coffee house find), I set about the overwhelming task of trying to move my car.

Tires spun. Interesting smells wafted. Menacing sounds threatened.

After several minutes of switching between drive, reverse, neutral and trying trick my tires into finding some patch of dry concrete to adhere to, I finally got my car to leave her temporary curbside habitat. Of course, none of this went unnoticed by the guy 2 houses down who had let his dog out and was watching with some amusement. (Single woman side rant: was there some sign on my forehead that said, “No, really. I’m the female Jeff Gordon. Got it all under control. Thanks anyway.” Sometimes a little help is all a gal’s asking for. Sigh.)

Currently, I’ve left all of my cares behind as I enjoy some good coffee house time. Ella’s crooning over the speakers; I’m typing away surrounded by a plethora of books on a variety of subjects; and I’m watching people pass by through the big picture window looking out on my little town's Main Street. The view’s exactly like the one in You’ve Got Mail when Meg Ryan’s sitting at the window in Starbucks reading Pride and Prejudice. Very charming. If you’re ever in my little corner, we’ll pay a visit.

Crokinole: A Curling Commentary Followup

2006-02-19T13:18:00.000-06:00

Thanks to a comment from a new blogging friend in Canada, I was given some insight into the probable evolution of curling. I have been informed that curling has many similarities to crokinole, a game that has its origins in Canada. Curious, I did a little research and thought I’d educate us all in the spirit of becoming a more well-rounded blogging community…

Apparently, crokinole involves a wood octagon shaped board where you try to 'shoot' your discs into the center hole or knock your opponents discs off the board. You earn points depending on how close to center the disc is. Only one team can have points at any given time. Says Eaglewing, “It's a fun game when you have a few people gathered around. Shooting the discs with your fingers is probably the hardest part, though using sticks is preferred by some. There's some strategy, but accuracy is more important. Everybody develops their own technique.”

Ah yes, this seems very close to what unfolded before me yesterday morning…only on ice. Further thought on the subject has also reminded me that the game of marbles of days gone by or shuffleboard have their own similarities to curling as well.

Other crokinole facts of note…

While not a Mennonite or Amish originated game, “crokinole has been very popular among many Mennonite and Amish sects throughout Canada and the United States by reason of the fact that the game was viewed as a rather innocuous pastime – unlike the perception that diversions such as card playing or dancing were 'works of the Devil' as held by many 19th century Protestant groups.” Certainly good to know as I’m stuck here in the Bible belt.
Crokinole is one of the few games that can have a high finger injury rate. This is due to the improper use of the finger. If you are experiencing finger pain, here’s a little tip: “the secret of an accurate, pain-free shot is to move your finger up as close to the disc as possible. Don't hit it. Push it!!! Get that finger up really close. Take aim and shoot. Pain will not be a factor, even-as some believe-if you hit the post with your disc. Get your fingernail right on the disc. You will have more accurate shots and no pain.” Uh, I'm going to take the classy route here and refrain from comment.
If you’re looking for a new game that uses special lubricants, waxes, or powder substances, crokinole might be the game for you. Supposedly, there is an on-going debate amongst crokinolists as what really is acceptable here. Most crokinole purists, however, condemn the use of such products. Although a crokinole virgin, I must concur. In any pursuit I would always embrace the purity. It’s why my coffee is always black! (If I’m drinking coffee that has been enhanced with anything, it’s a reflection of the coffee, not the experience. Yes, “My name is Blythe and I am a coffee snob.”)

An Olympic Appeal
All this research and thinking has brought me to some definite conclusions. Based on current research, I have officially decided curling is not an Olympic sport. However, I’m not one to fight battles just to fight battles. “Curling: Sport or No” is not a hill on which to die, wouldn’t you agree?

So, realizing that no one cares what I think about what is sport-worthy or not, I suggest we make some appeals to the Olympic committee for adding some other events that are lacking in “sport.” I think it would lessen the glaring embarrassment for curling, don’t you? What if we suggested adding marbles, or underwater basketing weaving, or billards, or poker (does anyone else think the shocking amount of poker tournaments on tv is ridiculous?), or tv surfing…

Curling: Some Olympic Commentary

2006-02-18T11:15:00.000-06:00

Was reading some other friends posts about the Olympics and felt the need to get in on the conversation – especially after I had myself earlier this morning been flipping through the channels (never anything really exciting to be found on Saturday mornings) and landed on CNBC which was following a curling match between the U.S. and Germany. I was excited to stumble upon it because right before the Olympics kicked off, I remember Katie Couric doing an interview with the U.S. Curling team and I wanted to try and catch some of the event during the Olympics. I’ve always been a little intrigued by it. I remember it being a topic of major conversation when they added it to the winter tier of the Olympics because its fans were excited that it was finally being recognized for the sport it is.

So, I watched it for some time this morning and am a little confused. What about it is sport-ish? Granted, it looked like there was some strategy to it. But, I’m left feeling a little bit gypped on the athletic prowess element. I mean, isn’t that what the Olympics are about? Whether a team or individual event, isn’t the Olympics kind of the granddaddy of supreme amateur athleticism?

While I was engrossed in trying to understand curling (I am, if nothing, a gal who desires a well-rounded athletic awareness), a commentator lauded the fact that the best thing about this “sport” (yes, I’ve got to go with the air quotes here – still unconvinced of its sport-worth) was the fact that you could actually get into the curlers' heads. (Out loud giggle here – do you think that’s what they’re called?...Okay, so full on laugh out loud here! I’m even too ridiculous for myself.) What other "sport" lets you do that, he asked. He said that wouldn’t it be great if we could hear the strategy of our favorite football team up close and personal like that…or hear what is actually going on in their heads. At first thought, it sounds kind of cool, but on second thought, I’m a pretty good lip reader and I’ve seen blips of what comes out of my favorite team players/coaches mouths at certain critical times. Pretty confident that the whole thing would be ruined for me if I really knew what they were thinking…

Okay, so this post is ending up being more of a fizzled ramble than a stand up rant.

Did I tell you it is SNOWING here?

snow...Snow...SNOW!

2006-02-18T09:54:00.000-06:00

Last night I spent some good quality time with some dear friends. It was really good to be able to share deeply from our hearts, the struggles we’re going through, the joys our hearts are embracing, and where we find God in the midst of all of it. It was interesting to note that despite the fact that our journeys have encountered different obstacles along the way, we both found that we needed to keep our eyes on the Lord and who He says He rather limit our vision to our circumstances. Our God is not too small, you know?

Somewhere around midnight I left my friends’ house. What a surprise to step outside into SNOW! While we were inside chatting over nice cups of hot tea, my little corner of the world was being pelted with sleet and a dusting of snow. What a surprise after such a warm winter – 2 days ago it was in the upper 60s! This morning I’m enjoying the backyard view of white. Supposedly there’s more to come later on today. I adore cold days like this! Such a perfect excuse for curling up on the couch with a mug of hot coffee and a good book or movie. Yeah, God! Thanks for the snow!!!

New Coffee House Find

2006-02-17T16:51:00.000-06:00

Today while spending some good catch up time with a gal, I explored a new coffee shop in my little corner of the world. It was a delightful way to spend an afternoon after having lunch together at an equally delightful new Thai restaurant. Good Thai food, good coffee, and good conversation is the nearest thing to heaven in my estimation!

Also, stumbled onto a new thought:

Behind every successful woman is a substantial amount of coffee.

I can definitely assert that I'm closing in on substantial...very eager to see what's around the corner!

Facing Fear

2006-02-15T20:11:00.000-06:00

Tonight I received a phone call from a family member sharing deeply troubling news. The news was not new news necessarily – as a family we’ve often received that same kind of news at various and significant times in our journey as a family. Although the outcomes during these times were at times emotionally hard, the Lord has always led us, provided for us and comforted us. Indeed, it is a comforting thought to look back and know that the Lord is in control and He is good. In spite of that, however, this recent news still left me with the thought of, “Seriously, Lord??? Are we really here again???”

Not soon after this thought I was reminded of my time in the Word these past few mornings in Deuteronomy 1-4. As the time is nearing to head into the Promised Land, Moses is recounting the steps that led this people into their 40-year wilderness wanderings. It was a journey that was only supposed to be 11 days. Despite hearing the Lord’s promise of giving them this land, and the report from the scouts that the land was indeed all that the Lord said and more, the Israelites chose to make a decision based on what they could see – the seemingly mighty Amorites and the ever more terrorizing giants in the land – and they embraced fear.

Actually, I think the key word/phrase used here is the scouts became discouraged and in turn discouraged the rest of the Israelites with their report. In the Hebrew, to discourage or to lose heart is the idea of releasing the hand. A lose grip causes you to relinquish the surety of whatever was in your grip to begin with. The Israelites had the word of the Lord promising them this great land (surety). When their gaze fell upon the possibilities/circumstances that could prevent them from entering the land (loosened grip), they forgot the character of the God who promised the land in the first place (abandoned surety).

And after forty years of wandering…we’re here again. Have the circumstances changed? Seems that they still have to cross over into that land. Seems that the Amorites and the giants are still there. Seems that the potential to lose heart in face of those circumstances is still very real. And yet the God who promised the land in the first place is unchanged – He’s still in control and He’s still good: “For the Lord your God has blessed you in all the work of your hands. He has watched over your journey through this immense wilderness. The Lord your God has been with you this past 40 years, and you have lacked nothing” (Deut. 2:7). Even in their wandering, the Lord takes care of His kids.

So, in my family, yes, we’re here again. And while the circumstances seemingly haven’t changed, I am choosing to embrace the Lord and the courage He gives to walk into the unknown. And it is the prayer I am praying for my family tonight.

Happy Valentine's Day

2006-02-14T16:58:00.000-06:00

This came via email from a friend. Her son is a great little guy and this valentine heart deeply blessed me today.

Finally, brothers, rejoice. Be restored, be encouraged, be of the same mind, be at peace, and the God of love and peace will be with you. Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the saints greet you. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with all of you. (2 Cor. 13:11-13)

Need. Coffee. Now.

2006-02-13T08:43:00.000-06:00

You are a Black Coffee

At your best, you are: low maintenance, friendly, and adaptable

At your worst, you are: cheap and angsty

You drink coffee when: you can get your hands on it

Your caffeine addiction level: high

What Kind of Coffee Are You?

"Oh, I can't stop drinking the coffee. I stop drinking coffee, I stop doing the standing and walking and the words putting-into-sentence doing." -- Lorelai Gilmore

Recurring Thoughts...

2006-02-12T20:08:00.000-06:00

This might be a little strange to throw out into the blog-abyss, but a common recurring thought for me is that the earth is dying. Usually this reflection is brought on by thinking about the many unexplainable and unexpected natural disasters that leave their marks various places upon our earth…volcanoes erupting, tsunamis eradicating, hurricanes conquering, tornadoes devastating. Sometimes these thoughts are stimulated by driving over bridges that once ushered you to the other side of impressive rivers or massive lakes which now merely showcase shriveled tributaries. And sometimes they’re brought on by extreme changes in weather – great warmth to biting cold – much like the severe wind and cold of the past two days in my little corner of the world.

I am always a little surprised when people react to these disasters or seemingly abnormal changes with shock or surprise. I mean, our earth really is dying. The fact that the earth is passing away before our eyes points out to me that 1) a restored creation was not meant for this kind of living space, and that 2) according to Matthew 24, Christ’s return is imminent.

Yesterday as I battled the cutting cold winds (and what are now becoming abnormal February conditions), I found myself in the “earth is dying” frame of mind. And I must confess that it left me sad. At first I didn’t understand why it had affected me so – I mean, the fact that Christ is making His way back soon and will usher His kids into eternity free of all these earthly impediments should cause great joy, right?

Yes. It should.

As I took a deeper look in, I realized something shocking behind the sadness…I didn’t want to celebrate Christ’s return before I had a chance to realize the picture that I have for my earthly life. You know, the one that includes romance, and marriage, and family, and the house in the suburbs…with all of it of course, packaged very neatly in the box of glorifying God and pleasing Him. Grand picture and nothing wrong with the desire of it…but it caught me off guard to think that deep within there’s this drive that would say to Jesus, “please don’t come back before I get to do this or that,” you know?

Even now I’m still not sure what to do with my heart here except to own it and offer it back to Him...

Ah...the Powerful Tug of Vanity

2006-02-11T13:08:00.000-06:00

I've seen this on a few blogs and was curious about my own blog worth.

My blog is worth $0.00.
How much is your blog worth?

Do they have counseling groups for poor blog-esteem?

Week in Review

2006-02-11T11:16:00.000-06:00

Wow. Can’t believe over a week has gone by since my last post! Since Friday last week, life has been full! For those of you who care to know what this gal’s been up to, here are a few highlights:

Babypalooza
Spent last weekend with some old college gal pals celebrating the upcoming arrival of Baby Girl Barton by throwing a baby shower. Boy, did she make out on the gifts! Got to see the baby’s room. Cute, huh? So delightful, I wanted to move into the room myself! It was a refreshing weekend hanging out with old friends. Some good times and laughs were had by all.

Two Days by the Toilet
No need to go into any elaboration here, but somehow ended up with the stomach stuff that has been making the rounds to start the week off! Not fun.

Auntie Training
Wanting to serve some ministry colleagues who lost a family member this week, I hung out with their 3-year old for the day along with some of the gals I meet with on Thursdays. Personally, I figured it’d be some good prep for me since becoming a first-time aunt is just around the corner as well as just a fun change of pace for the gals. We watched Lord of the Beans – HA-larious!! Never seen it before. Then we hit McDonald’s for the playland and the $1 Happy Meal. (Evidently Thursdays are Happy Meal Thursdays. This was knew news to me. Spread the word.) And, we made some attempts to stay in potty training mode. I had no idea how consuming potty training is! I’m not sure how many times I asked this poor child about his bathroom needs! Sure hope he’s not permanently scarred. I think out of 10 attempts, we made 2 of them. And, boy, did we party!

Chinese for Dinner
Then last night I hung out with these same ministry colleagues and helped to entertain a group of Chinese students who are here briefly for a cultural exchange. We made personal pizzas – very fun idea to do with international students, by the way – practiced English, and played with Hudson. Hudson was the huge hit of the evening. At one point he had all the students on the floor around his parent’s wedding album and was explaining the pictures in his best Hudson-ese. Very entertaining way to spend a Friday evening.

Flirt 'em to Jesus?

2006-02-03T13:22:00.000-06:00

One of things we're working on with the group of students that myself and another couple work with on a weekly basis is sharing Christ with the relationships that He puts in our everday sphere. We're reading The Insider by Jim Petersen together and trying to implement its ideas. And as a team, we've committed to figuring out specific initiatives we can take toward these people He puts into our lives and actually do them.

Because it seems that I live in ministry bubble at times, I've been trying to apply this to really taking initiative with the people the Lord crosses my path with at the certain places I frequent. While not at all a normal part of my routine, today I had to make a stop at the UPS store. Braced with my resolve to take initiatives with people I approached the UPS clerk trying to actively engage him in conversation. We had a lot of fun just chatting and asking each other questions and I'm thinking, "This is great. I can do this initiative thing!"

But it was as I was driving away that I also remembered a segment that ran on The Today Show this morning: "Tips for Flirting." Huh. It hit me that the poor UPS guy might have just thought I was flirting with him.

Oh, dear.

Album Covers

2006-02-03T13:17:00.000-06:00

I can take no credit for the goofy album covers. Thanks, Dan, for sharing! Your sense of humor blesses me!

2006-02-03T13:14:00.000-06:00

I dedicate this album to my dad's side of the family.