I have a confession. I’ve been known to read People magazine. Occasionally.
I kick back in the massage chair sipping a cappuccino while enjoying the aesthetics of a room that could easily be found in a magazine mashup of Southern Living meets Traditional Home. I flip glossy pages and glance through photos of Hollywood’s elite in these beautiful surroundings. (And I do so without a twinge of guilt because we have had four kids in braces and have helped pay for this subscription, the massage chairs and the cappuccino machines in the orthodontist’s waiting room.)
My favorite part of People is at the back, where they show two nearly identical pictures, side-by-side, and you have to find 10 things that are different.
Lately, I’ve been feeling a bit like I’m trapped stuck in a less than fun, real life version of the magazine. The people in the photos change from time to time, but I’m always in the other photo and I’m also the one with the magnifying glass.
Ann, Dena and Laura have published books. Books, as in, plural and I can barely string together a month of consistent blog posts.
I sast at the breakfast table this morning and read through the pages of Sojourner magazine (thanks Sandra) and was completely overwhelmed by the needs in our world.
Human trafficking. Poverty. Injustice.
All.
Around.
Even in the US.
The list could go on and on.
My friends are changing the world in Africa, Brazil, India, New Zealand, Guatemala and beyond.
Dan and Jennifer went to Haiti.
And here I’m home in Lynchburg, Virginia, trying to stay on top of laundry and bills and grocery shopping.
I know parenting is a high calling. Really, I do. I simply wonder if I’m missing something.
Give Us Your Heart
The words of William McDowell’s song stir me.
“Give us your heart for the nations, for this generation.
Give us your heart for the wounded and the broken.
For the widow and orphan.
Give us your heart for the lost and dying.
We hear your people crying.
Give us your heart for the world that we live in.
For the harvest that is waiting. O God, give us your heart.
…We’re open; speak to us now…
Break our hearts for the things that break yours…
We say, ‘no more! no more!
We’re your people we will rise and we will go.
…Lord, we’ll go to the nations, to our generation.
Lord we will go to the wounded and the broken,
to the widow and the orphan.
Lord we will go to the lost and the dying.
We hear your people crying. Lord we will go.
Lord we will go to the world that we live in.
Reap the harvest that is waiting. Lord, we will go.
Fill us up and send us out. Fill us up and send us out.
I don’t want to get to heaven with my life on full, full of visions unrealized, full of dreams unrealized with no strategy given. Full of songs, full of businesses that could have changed the world but I held on to it because I got comfortable and I got complacent.
But when I get to heaven I want to hear Him say, ‘well done good and faithful servant,’ because I know that I’ve done everything I’m supposed to do. I wanna live a life a poured out.
I wanna live a life poured out.”
For now, I keep doing what I know to do. One load of laundry at a time. One meal after another.
Sunday I hosted a Vi Bella Jewelry party. The company was founded to give “a beautiful life” to women in Haiti and Mexico. (By the way, you can host a party too, and make a difference. It’s easy and the jewelry is beautiful.)
Yesterday I let our boys skip miss school to join me at an Aglow breakfast meeting with an 86 year-old Holocaust survivor. We sat at the table with a man who lived through the Holocaust and on his first trip to Israel just two years ago, came to know Yeshua.
This morning I walked on the trail with my dear friend who lost her husband to cancer three years ago. She’s a single mom of a 14 year old son. And I remember that God cares for orphans and widows.
Tonight I’ll be talking about Anger Management and the love of Jesus to women in jail. (The teacher needs the lesson as much or more than the students.)
And maybe sometime in the weeks, months or years to come, I’ll clearly see all differences in the pictures.
In real life, sɹǝʍsuɐ ǝɥʇ aren’t printed at the bottom of the page.
With apologies to Deidra and Ann V. Oh. My. Gosh! (And I love me some Pic Monkey.)
It seems life is crazier than ever, but in the midst of the craziness, I’ve learned a few lessons along the way. I’m praying tonight I can think of these as gifts instead of counting to ten, right?
I’m sure there’s more, but for now, that’s my story and I’m sticking with it.
How about you?
What have you learned recently?
Linking up with Ann Voskamp for yesterday’s post. I was a little busy yesterday with damage control.
How in the world could I explain separation and divorce to a two year old?
She and her younger brother would be spending the night with their dad, regularly. We wouldn’t all be “together” any more. It broke my heart to think of it.
How could I help her understand when I couldn’t understand myself? And I was a grown up! What words could I use?
As she lay on the changing table, I pulled her feet together. I held those blue canvas Keds sneakers with the white trim, touched her feet to one another and said, “together!”
Then I gently pulled her feet away from one another. “Apart.”
Tears rolled down my face.
“Do it again,” she pleaded.
“Together! Apart!” I repeated the words, trying my best to will an unfamiliar smile across a pained face. If not in the heart, maybe the facial muscles would at least cooperate.
“Again!”
“Together, apart.”
“Again!”
“Together, apart.”
That was fourteen years ago. The thought of it still makes me sad.
I think of those sweet little feet every time I see navy canvas Keds.
That sweet smile.
And the words, “Together.”
Words that tore my heart, apart.
Linking up with Lisa Jo for Five Minute Friday, even though it’s technically Saturday already.
It’s funny. Sometimes you do something when your children are small and you don’t realize at the time how significant that thing might be.
Such is the case with Hannah. Now 16 and nearly six feet tall, she still wants to make Easter Cookies this year. Since she and her brother leave tomorrow to visit their dad for Easter, guess what we’ll be baking tonight?
EASTER STORY COOKIES
The recipe is essentially for meringue cookies but each part of the recipe includes a Bible verse and helps tell the Easter story. I found the original recipe years ago in Home Life magazine.
(Interestingly, just last week Traci left a comment on my CultureSmith blog that her mom wrote the original article back in 1995. How cool is that? And what a small world!)
Ingredients
1 cup pecan halves in a sandwich bag, to be broken
1 teaspoon vinegar
3 egg whites
pinch of salt
1 cup sugar
Bible
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Use wooden spoons to pound pecans into small pieces. Set aside and read John 19:1-3.
Smell the vinegar and read John 19:28-30.
Separate eggs. Add the whites to the vinegar and explain that eggs represent new life. Read John 10:10-11, 28.
Sprinkle a little salt into your palms, then brush it into the mixture. Taste your salty palms and read Luke 23:27.
Note that so far the ingredients aren’t very appetizing. Add sugar and remind the children that we must trust we’ll have a pleasant result. Read Psalm 34:8 and John 3:16.
Beat with electric mixer on high speed for 12-15 minutes until still peaks form. The white color reminds us that God sees purity in those who have been cleansed by Jesus. Read Isaiah 1:18 and 1 John 3:1-3.
Fold in nuts. Drop by rounded teaspoons onto a cookie sheet. Talk about how the shapes represent the tomb. Read Matthew 27:57-60.
Put the cookie sheet in the preheated oven. Close the door and turn the oven completely off. Tape the oven door closed and read Matthew 27:65-66.
Time for bed! Children may feel sad to leave the cookies in the oven. Remind them of how Jesus’ followers felt at His death. Read John 16:20,22.
On Easter morning, open the oven and give everyone a cookie. Point out that the hollow cookies remind us that the tomb was empty and Jesus is risen! Read Matthew 28:1-9.
*The second year we made these cookies, before the kids were awake, I removed the cookie sheet from the oven and hid the cookies. When they went to the kitchen, the cookies were gone. (The tomb was empty.) This made a significant impression on them!
Christ is risen!
What do you do with your family to make Easter special?
Linking up with Ann today. Hop on over to her site for great food ideas.
Creative Commons photo on Flickr by LinzersinLondon.
I need an awakening.
I need God to breathe new life into familiar words, reminding me that He came for everyone.
Every.
Single.
Person.
I need God to crash into my moments, the waking and sleeping chronos that blur together into this life as I know it.
For the second time in as many weeks, I awake suddenly, though this time I’m not afraid. The room is pitch black.
Carefully, I slip my hand over book stacks, successfully avoiding 8 ounces of water. Must find my phone. I have less than a minute to capture kairos in red numerals.
Quietly, I whisper. Peter sleeps soundly beside me.
For God so loved…I whisper their NAMES, the neighbors who for months have harassed me and accused me falsely.
God gave his only begotten Son,
that if NAMES believe in Him,
NAMES will not perish but
NAMES will have everlasting life.
In the days that follow, each time I pass their house, I whisper the words in prayer to God. Use their NAMES. Pray for their children.
I add other words too.
Thy Kingdom come, in THEIR HOME, on OUR STREET, as it is in heaven.
So in need of everlasting life. Me. They. All of us.
“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.” John 3:16.
What about you?
Do you need an awakening? How has God crashed into your chronos with kairos?
I’m late, but still linking up with Jennifer:
Yesterday Peter and I enjoyed a little down time without children. We went for a drive, a hike and visited a new nearby brewery.
I was struck by the beauty of God’s decorations in this tree. Absolutely. Beautiful.
What about you?
When have you had some down time with your spouse? And when have you been struck by the beauty of God’s creation?
Linking up with Deidra and Sandra today.
