A bright smile

The picture on the right probably looks unimpressive. It is a picture of Mary holding Jesus, in case you are wondering.  However, I have not only kept this picture for 20+ years, but had it displayed in my various places of residence because it was given to me by a very special girl, LaTosha.

She lived in our neighborhood in the St.Louis-ish area and was adopted into my brother's best friend's family.  The parents volunteered to be foster parents to children coming out of abusive and neglectful families.  She was one of two children whom they adopted.  She had been physically abused to the point where she was in a wheel chair.  However, once you got past her wheel chair, the next thing you noticed was her smile--big, bright and truly happy, as if she knew love all of her life.  She was always cracking jokes and seeing the funny side of life.  But she did not take guff from anybody and knew how to dish it back out--with a smile.  And she loved to draw.  Her wheelchair desk frequently had markers and papers.  This was one of the drawings she gave me.

When college came, I left the state of Missouri (which I nickname the state of Misery because of the weather).  I would see them when I came back on visits during and after college, but not very often.  My brother and their son went to different high schools and didn't see as much of each other.  Eventually, both her parents and mine moved out of the state.  Years after I had graduated college, I found out that she had been experiencing seizures.  In the process of trying different medicines, one of them almost killed her, burning, not only her skin, but also her internal organs.  Yet God intervened miraculously and saved her, though her eyesight and sense of touch was destroyed, ending her artistic endeavors.  She had spent most of her adult life in long-term care facilities and worked on a grass roots campaign so that more people with long term disabilities in Missouri could live in group homes, rather than nursing-home like facilities.

A few months ago, as one of the kids was dusting, the simple frame that held this picture flopped to the floor, destroying the glass but not the picture.  I almost threw it out, but didn't, remembering her joy, her jokes and her beautiful light that shown.  I couldn't destroy this little bit of her light that she had given to me.

Earlier this month, I learned that LaTosha had passed away.  The medical problems had worn down her body and she finally succumbed to pnuemonia.  When Whitney Houston passed away, I grieved because here was a woman given a beautiful gift and wasted it.  Her light had died out long before she was actually dead, stamped out by drug addiction.  But here is a woman whose light shined out throughout her life, unhampered by bad beginnings, unhampered by wheelchairs, unhampered by physical illness, unhampered by having to be totally dependent on others in order to live.  And whereas I am also grieving for LaTosha and her family, it is because we have lost a beautiful light.

A Joyful Sunday

For those of you who don't know, I have become the co-ordinator for Sunday school for the elementary aged kids.  Our church is small enough to need two rooms, one for babies to 5 year olds and one room for elementary aged kids.  Six months ago, the woman who was coordinating wanted to step down and I was asked to take her place.  I knew at the time that I didn't have time to handle it all, but asked if she would be willing to split the responsibility between elementary aged kids and nursery.  Coordinating the elementary group means making sure we have enough people to help out, that those who are helping out have the materials they need to teach the lesson, training and making sure everyone has completed the paperwork necessary to work with the children and choosing new curriculum.  My job is made infinitely easier by the fact that we can use resources purchased or generated by "The Mother Ship."

When I started as the coordinator, we were using "The ABC's of God" curriculum developed as part of Desiring God Ministries established by John Piper, which investigates the attributes, or character, of God.  As we neared the end of the curriculum, I decided to use to "The Promises of God", also a Desiring God Ministries publication.  It investigates God's many promises in the Bible and how He has been faithful to fulfill all of them.  So far, we have discussed God's promise to all people and God's promise to believers.  Last weeks promise dealt with God's promise to unbelievers.  This is not a fun promise to teach because, basically, the Bible says that God's promise to unbelievers is to send them to hell when they die.  I almost considered not including it because, really, who wants to hear all that fire and brimstone message, especially young kids? Wouldn't it be safer to make sure kids hear only about God's love for them and the Sacrifice He made for them?  After praying about it, and knowing that the person teaching that day is wise and loving, I decided to go ahead with the lesson.

Three kids put their faith in Jesus Christ that day--3!  The total number of Sunday School kids attending is 12 and three of them are mine, who have already put their faith in Jesus Christ.  That blew me away.  And it reminded me that God uses the hard messages as well as the loving messages to move in peoples' hearts and of how open to hearing God's word kids are.  It was an awesome day.  I give God all the glory for what He is doing in the church, in the hearts of these precious kids and in the hearts of the people in my church.  Praise God through who all blessings flow!

"The Lord is good to all.  He has compassion on all that He has made."--Psalm 145:9
"If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise."--Galatians 3:29
"For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish."--Psalm 1:6

A 3 year inventory and Game on! update

It is now approaching three years since we moved from Illinois, land of wind, snow and water, to Arizona, the land of five seasons--fall, winter, spring, summer, and hell.  We thought we had just thrown off the last chains tying us down to Illinois by changing our cell phone numbers to give Arizona our sales tax.  However, the Illinois Department of Incompetence, I mean Unemployment, has us going through hoops due to a clerical error initiated by Motorola paperwork and compounded by the state.  If you want to read full details, read my husband's blog.  We have been having glorious weather--cool, spring-like weather in the morning and warm, summer like weather in the afternoon.  The orange and lemon trees are blooming, filling the air with a perfume more potent than lilac bushes and giving misery to those who have allergies.  One realization that I made this week is how few wild critters I see flattened on the side of the road.  I do see some dogs and cats and an occasional bird, but nothing like the native equivalent to raccoon, squirrels, or rabbits.  We live in the center of a huge metropolitan area, where main roads are 5 lanes minimum, including a middle turn lane.  It's funny how I used to get sad whenever I saw a dead animal on the side of the road when we lived in Illinois and now I get sad that I don't see dead wild animals at the side of the road because it means we are in a big city where wildlife is kept in a zoo or preserve.   I think if we lived more in the outskirts of the area, we would see more wildlife, probably of the scorpion and black widow variety.  So maybe I should consider myself blessed :-).

I just finished week two of Game On! with my SIL and many Minnesotans who are either her friends or family.  We are playing it as an individual competition. I am not in danger of winning the game at this point, unless the two lead people crumble at the end  (which I really don't want to happen) and my last two weeks are perfect.  That is the "bad" news.  The good news is that I am losing weight, getting more sleep, and no longer feel as lethargic.  I have discovered that sometimes healthy food is fast food if you stock up on it.  nuts and cheese sticks are my go-to foods for snacks.  The other good news is that I am working out six days a week for about 20 minutes a day doing things around the house.  I am checking out yoga DVDs from the library for stretching and strengthening and doing interval training three times a week.  And there is a high intensity training program on the Game On! website that caused the muscles in my body to yell at  me and almost go on strike for two days at the torture I put them through the first time I did it.  This week, they merely grumbled.  Ultimately, I am feeling stronger and have more energy.  I would like to bring in some Arizona friends to challenge the Minnesotans in an April challenge.  I figure that if I play the game five or six times, I will be able to win at least one of them and maybe even get down to my pre-baby weight.  That is better than winning a prize.  So the question is, does anyone else want to play?

An Inspiration through a Challenge

My SIL, KT, put up a blog post on Sunday that talked about starting up "Game On Diet".  When I went to the web page and got some brief information, I decided that it was a little like "The Biggest Loser" except for one thing--you don't win by how much weight you have lost but how many points you have accumulated over 4 weeks and the competition can be single person or groups of any size.  And you get points for attempting to improve your lifestyle--food, sleep, exercise, establishing non-food related good habits and dropping non-food related bad habits.  There are some deductions for things like obsessive weighing and   And there is grace--a day off of the food plan, getting to eat 100 calories of whatever you want each day and days off for exercise, water, and one meal. I got all this from buying the book on Kindle on Monday, reading it until midnight (which, if I was on the plan, means I would have lost sleep points) and then finishing it in the morning.  The game is starting today, so I thought I would give it a dry run on Wednesday.  I have been wanting a really good excuse to exercise and reverse the upward creep that my weight has been taking lately and I have been feeling very lethargic lately and have been wanting to see if changing the diet would work.  This program seems like fun, seems to be doable and

So all day Tuesday, in between teaching the kids and doing some other work, I started planning my week.  My goal is 8 pounds of weight loss and, of course to win.  My habit to break is raising my voice in anger, though raising my voice to call kids from any point in the house to where I need them to be is okay.  My new goal is to keep the kitchen and my portion of the office neat and organized (both of them, a herculean challenge that will require LOTS of prayer).  My biggest challenges in this program is no butter (sob), VERY limited sweets, and no juices or sodas (not even diet).  If you want to know why, you need to read the book, which does have objectionable language scattered throughout the book, so be warned.  It also has some really funny parts in it, so if you read it late into the night, you run the risk of waking your husband as the bed shakes from your attempts to laugh silently.

I started out the morning drinking 2 glasses of water, which I measured to be 3 cups (350 mL).  I will need to drink nine cups during the day to meet the 3 L minimum. I am going to forgo coffee this morning because I don't want to spend every 15 minutes taking potty breaks.  I can do this because I drink half decaf and the headache shouldn't be too severe.

Exercise:  High Intensity Interval training of walking and jogging in 1 minute intervals with my dog.  I let the dog take marking stops during the walks and he blew one walking portion by needing to have some quality time.  I excercised 25 minutes in all and did some additional stretching when I got home.  I drank another glass of water.  So far, so good, but the afternoon is still ahead.

Meal 1 (7 a.m.):  I started to get myself cereal and milk, before I realized that milk is considered a carb and I can only have one serving of carb.  DRAT!  That also means that cereal is not on the menu for the next four weeks.  I switched to a piece of whole wheat toast with a drizzle of sunflower oil (because butter is on the banned substance list and I don't want to throw away my 100 calorie freebie so soon) and a drizzle of honey (one of the three approved sugar sources).  Then, I realized I needed a protein, too.  I looked over the list.  If I had really been thinking, I would have included some mozzerella cheese or peanut butter on the toast instead of sunflower oil.  I ended up grabbing a leaf of swiss chard we keep for the tortoise and guinea pig, put 1/4 cup of mozzerella in the middle and eating it as a wrap.   It actually tasted pretty good.  Breakfast was more difficult than I thought.  It wasn't exactly satisfying, but I didn't leave the table ravenous.

Meal 2 (9:30 a.m.):  My stomach told me it was time to eat.  I had a plan this time and it worked.  My fourth water.  Not having coffee at this time was a good decision because by now, I would have gone to the bathroom about ten times.   Then I read that I needed to have two handfuls of veggies, not one.  No biggie.

Meal 3 (11:30):  I had to eat a stalk of celery to make it.  Snacking is forbidden except for celery and cucumber.  I can eat all the celery and cucumber I want.  yippee.  I am up to five glasses of water and I still seem thirsty.  Lunch wasn't too bad except for the fact that mayo is another banned substance, which caused me to re-think my standard half sandwich for lunch.  This time, I figured out that if I use half carb servings, then I can have fruit and some other carb, which allowed me to have half a banana and a splash of milk to cover the taste of the too-ripe banana.  Then I had my 100 free points of an oatmeal scotchie.  Unfortunately, I had problems stopping at one and ended up eating three.  Later on, I checked to see how much of a hit I was going to take--20 points!!  I am glad that this is my dry run.

Meal 4 (3:30p):  I felt bloated from the extra sweets I consumed.  On Wednesdays, I have to eat early anyway because I help out with childcare for ESL classes, so the timing worked perfectly. By this time, I was feeling like a pro, though I have to admit, the piece of chicken that was available was a leg, which would probably not be considered a lean protein.

Meal 5 (9:00p):  This was delayed because I had to fill in for someone for childcare at the Bible study held on Wednesday nights.  I fulfilled my 3 L minimum of water. I went shopping for some brown rice and black beans to make lime-cilantro rice for tomorrow.  Tomorrow will be tricky because it is co-op day and I will need to prepare food ahead of time.

And currently I am trying and failing to get into bed by 10 p.m to make the 7 hour minimum and because I am really tired.

Thank you KT for your kick-in-the-butt inspiration.  This is something I am really looking forward to doing.  I really admire the way you have been working to lose the weight you have over the past year or so.  You are awesome!

P.S.  Does this count as communication for tomorrow, since that is most likely the earliest you will read it?

Adoption

So also, when we were children, we were in slavery under the basic principles of the world. But when the time had fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons. Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.” So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.
Galatians 4:3-7


I think I mentioned a long time ago that I have a birth father and an adopted father.  Several years back, I wrote a tribute to both of them.  So I already  know about being adopted by someone who has no reason whatsoever to love me, other than he loved my mother.  Adoption is both a legal standing and a relational standing.  My dad, who started out as my step-dad, went through legal proceedings to make me his own, but legal proceedings don't equate to love.  I supposed that he could have adopted me because my mom made it a condition of marrying him.  But part of the legal proceedings of adoption involved me telling the judge that I wanted him to be my dad and that he was a good dad.  If I hadn't felt love from him, I probably would not have agreed to the adoption and my wishes would have been considered by the judge.  I remember standing before the judge on my 5th birthday and telling her that I was okay with Bill being my dad.  It was actually more than okay.  It was great, because I had grown to love him.  And from that point on, my last name changed and my personality and character started being shaped by him as well as my mother, grandparents and great-grandparents.  When I married, I essentially became adopted into my husband's rather large family and my family expanded again.  And when my brother married, his wife was adopted into our family.


As the verse at the top indicates, I have also been adopted as God's child when I asked Jesus to be my Lord and Savior.  That decision has meant following His lead outside of my comfort (a.k.a. "safety") zone so many times.   But each time, I have been blessed by the people He has brought in my life and I have known that He has been with me in every situation in which He has placed me.  Currently, God has us attending a church three miles from our home in the middle of the poorest section of Mesa.  It has grown out of a combination of a Young Life group and an initiative started by "the Mothership" church we were attending that offers ESL, computer, parenting and other services to the community.  I love the fact that it is a bilingual service, with worship, prayer and the sermon in English and Spanish and that several different "tribes" are represented by the church, brought together by the power of God.  And while some of my worldly interests don't always align with other people (maybe politics, culture, some musical genres), I feel as if God is bringing us all together to give us a little glimpse of what heaven is going to be like, where every tribe, tongue and nation will be gathered together to worship God.  And joining this church, heck, joining any church is kind of like an adoption because, at its best, it is a group of people joining in a family to encourage each other in the faith, help each other in times of need, and rejoice together on all occasions.  


So I have to thank God for adopting me as His own and giving me so many opportunities to be adopted and to adopt others in His church family, my earthly family and in my husband's family.  I love you all!

Is it safe yet?

I originally wrote this during the healthcare debate.  I think the Republicans are also focused on safety in entirely different areas and might also be going a bit overboard in their zeal.  I brought this out of hiding because of a trend called "helicopter parenting" that was the focus on Monday's The Church of No People, which you can read here.  

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The philosophy that seems to be driving the Democrats is that of safety—safety from financial failure, safety from medical errors, safety from high medical costs, and safety from anything that might possibly produce unhappiness. And if they have to take away personal liberty to achieve that goal, then that is the price that we all must pay for safety. Some of those things are acceptable in moderation—making sure companies sell us products that won’t kill us under normal use is a good thing, as is making sure that companies do not enslave their workers. However, I see several flaws in the philosophy of safety.

A fatal flaw in the philosophy of unending safety is that Democrats can’t make us truly safe because the sin in each of us will cause us to always want what is truly bad for us. Given a choice most of us would date the bad boy or girl, smoke a pack or two a day, drive our car after knocking back a few drinks, sit in totally inactivity for long periods of time to watch inane programs while our brain turns to oatmeal, eat foods chock full of saturated fat and high fructose corn syrup and always unplug an electrical device by pulling on the cord. These are the choices we make when we have been "freed" from self-control and reason. You can take a person out of danger but you can’t take danger out of the person is a statement that was inspired by reading a “Baby Blues” cartoon.

 An unintended consequence of this safety-driven philosophy is the inability of future generations (and maybe this one to boot) to learn from experience and become truly wise. Knowledge is defined as the acquisition of information. Wisdom is the ability to apply knowledge to our lives. Sometimes, failure is the best teacher of wisdom. For example, living within my means became a survival tactic when I ended up racking up credit card debt and I learned to ask the important question of “Do I need this?” whenever I wanted to buy something for myself. Now it benefits my family as well. I also wouldn’t have known how to recogize admirable character qualities in men without dating a few stinkers. I have learned a lot about anger and how to control it by having utter failures in anger management. Whenever my kids or I fail at something, I always ask the question to them or to myself: “What can I/we learn from this?” The benefit of such a question is that I/we don’t usually make the same mistake more than a dozen times (smile).  Would Thomas Edison invented the light bulb if he never tried or gave up after the first failure? The same could be said of Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Susan B. Antony and most of the people that we consider today to be “remarkable people.” All were utter failures at one time or more in their lives. And yet, through their failures, they learned a lot and became imperfectly great men and women from whom we can learn.

Yet another problem is that living in a perfectly safe environment erodes our compassion. If we are all perfectly safe, then we have no understanding of suffering and cannot offer comfort to those who are suffering because, after all, it must be their fault.   And if I am pursuing total safety, then if something bad happens to me it must be someone else’s fault. Oops, there goes forgiveness out the door also. So we become a nation of finger-pointing blame shifters when trouble comes to us and hard-hearted judges when trouble comes to other people rather than being a nation of people who forgive and are forgiven and who provide comfort and aid to those who are bullied/failures/ incapacitated or facing any other loss.

As a Christian, this safety driven philosophy also flies in the face of the gospel. The gospel is a story of the intense suffering of one man, the Son of God, who didn’t deserve it and could have given it a smack down and walked away unscathed, had he chosen to do so. In John 18:5, Jesus knocked down a contingent of soldiers coming to arrest him with mere words. However, after demonstrating this power, he submitted to their arrest and allowed them to kill him on the cross so that the sins of the mankind could be attributed to him and thus, fufill the law’s requirements that the guilty should receive a death penalty. And he didn’t do it for a bunch of people who were necessarily deserving of his sacrifice. In truth, He sacrificed his life for a bunch of  us sin-festering slobs, so that we could be made right before the God of the Universe who is consistently, completely right in everything He does, thinks and speaks.

And, out of this outpouring of love, which is God’s motivation for saving us, rather than the worth of our deeds, Christians can and should offer our lives in sacrificial obedience to God. Peter writes in 1 Peter 4:12 and 13: “Dear friends, do not be surprised at the painful trial you are suffering, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed.” Jesus himself in Matthew 10:24 said that the student is not above his teacher nor is the servant above his master. That means that if my Lord Jesus allowed himself to suffer, shouldn’t I? Therefore, Christianity is the anti-safety philosophy, calling people to carry their own crosses for God and give their time, talents, money and adoration unreservedly and unabashedly, rejoicing in being fools for Christ rather than someone else’s fool.

And yet, if I were totally honest, I like the idea of safety. I want my children to revel in their differences without the scorn that comes from bullies and the “in crowd” and homeschooling provides that outlet, though it isn’t the main reason that I homeschool. If I had my way, I would have stayed in the same neighborhood with the same friends all my life. However, God, in his wisdom, chose to move me and my family 1800 miles away from good friends and family. I even have trouble with climbing up tall ladders because their unsteadiness gives me visions of falling from heights to my death. And I hate failing. I hate burning meals, ripping out rows of knitting, starting over on a sewing project, having drips of paint on my walls or floors, failing my kids, my husband, my dog, my friends. Fear of failure is the most reliable source of my procrastination. And yet, I read what Paul says in Romans 5:3-5 and take courage: “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.” So I must become anti-safety, to be an example for my children, to live as a patriotic American and, most importantly, to be a servant of the Lord Most High.

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I would like to add one more thing to this  as an afterward.  God has been making me eat these words and leave my safety/comfort zone in so many ways.  There are times when it has been very hard and frustrating and humbling.  And yet, looking back, I consider myself blessed for the experiences He has given me, the people who I have the privilege to call friends and the awe in how God works so gently and yet so persistently to open my eyes to see His vision of heaven, His vision of me and those around me.  Alleluliah!

One of those "You Know" posts

It has been a slightly rough week at Bridgetender School.  The kids teetered on the brink of sickness for a day before completely falling in the pit with sneezing, coughing, congestion and low fevers.  They are recovering and now I am at that point, taking Vitamin C pills and other preventative measures, like going to bed early, to try and avoid that chasm, especially since I have to teach kids at church this week.  It was a freeing week, too, in which I confessed and repented to my kids that I have been once again hit with the "perfection bug" that causes me to stress out when the house/schedule/behavior of the kids isn't "perfect."  The biggest indicators of me being enslaved by perfectionism are experiencing extreme irritability that cannot be mollified by coffee and having a critical spirit.  It is so hard to confess to my kids, but so wonderful to have them run to me with hugs and offers of forgiveness.  But the original intention of this post was to piggy back on a post made earlier by Jottings by Jennifer, whose blog is like a cool cup of water to a thirsty soul.

Last week, she  posted a "You Know You Are A Youth Group Pastor's Wife" on her blog and challenged those who read her blog to come up with the same theme.  My post is going to be "You Know You are Getting Old."   Here are some of the indicators:

1.  Your favorite Big Hair Band that you loved in high-school and saved up to go to stadium-filled concerts  are now playing the county fair circuit, if they are even together.  They also don't sound the same as they did when they are young.
2.  The creaking noises that caused you to take the car in the shop continue as you get out of the car. (My husband's contribution).
3.  You hear the drum solo from "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida"  played out in your bones as you get out of bed and walk to take a midnight bathroom break.  Actually, if you know the song, "In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida", you are probably old or"being retro."
4.  You realize that you were one of the first people to watch MTV back when all it played were music videos.
5.  You realize that you are as old as "Sesame Street" and when you watch the current episodes of "Sesame Street", you start longing for the good old days when Jim Henson actually made good puppet shows.
6.  All the heartthrob actors from your youth look like old men.  Yes, I am talking to you, Pierce Brosnan and Harrison Ford.
7.  Those ads in magazines for electric hair pluckers now make sense.
8.  You are telling some elementary-school kids that their parents probably heard the original version of "Stand By Me" by Ben E. King only to find out that their parents were kids during the 80's.
9.  You see a video of Lady Gaga and think that she is just a cheap imitation of Madonna.
10.  You walk in your grocery store and hear the music that played on MTV back when it was getting started.
And in the spirit of "Spinal Tap," (which is also an old movie), I will take my list to 11.
11.  You know that you are old when you stay up really late one night and it takes days to recover from it.

Yes, culture is a great way to make you feel old.  My parents could probably come up with a better list and my grandma could outshine us all with her list as she grew up in the Great Depression.  The nice thing to know is that, however old I will be before I die, whether I lose my mind or my body functions in the process, God will be there to help me through each hurdle of old age, just as He helped me through each hurdle of each stage of life I have encountered so far.


Even to your old age and gray hairs I am he

I am he who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you; 

I will sustain you and I will rescue you

“To whom will you compare me or count me equal? 

To whom will you liken me that we may be compared?"

Isaiah 46:4-5