Spray paint, chocolate sauce and silly string

The parts of my hair that were not covered in pink, green and blue spray paint were caked with ketchup and chocolate sauce, my arsenal of Redi-whip securely hung in my tool belt, my tomb raider size water guns were snug in my grasp as I snuck around the side of the house hunting down my pint size adversary who was ready to launch anything sticky and sweet in my direction.  Then I felt it hit me on the back of my head, its liquid slithering its way down my back.

A tomato…

Really?

It was war, flipping the safety on my squirt guns that were no match for the rapid fire water balloons that were being launched from the sniper fire behind the bushes.

And then

The ground began to rumble, the thunder grew closer, peeling the silly string away that was obscuring my vision

It was something big

It was something purple

It looked like Barney, but it had four legs

Headed straight for me

I dove for cover

And then it was on top of me

Drool dripping down my face

You painted the dog purple!!?

Your mother is never going to let me babysit again.

Laughter erupting from his little belly as he lay on the ground in a heap of giggles while I surveyed the pool of rubble that surrounded us on the front lawn.

How did these moments become so few and far between?

When did I lose sight of these simple things?  Did I ever have sight of them to begin with?  

These simple moments when nothing else mattered than how much chocolate sauce, whip cream and silly string we could fire off at one another.  When my to do list sat unattended on the counter, when I rejoiced and was glad in the moment God had given me, when I was fully present in the moment.

It will not be the clean closet or perfectly vacuumed carpet that will be remembered.

Whatever it was that I was sitting at my computer working on that was a really big deal to me at the time will long be forgotten. 

It will be those moments of spray paint, chocolate sauce and silly string that will be locked away in our memories that will be reminisced and laughed about over family dinners.

Matthew 18:3

And I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.

This doesn’t mean I should to shirk my responsibilities; working is good, the Bible tells us we must work and we must work like we are working for Jesus, but the song Cats in the Cradle is ringing through my head right now.

I have not fully taken hold of this yet, but I don’t want to take this life or myself too seriously that there aren’t enough of these moments or that I let them so carelessly slip from my grasp when they are given to me. 

I let my mind wander to when he is a grown man and he will say to me

Auntie Kandi remember the time of spray paint, chocolate sauce and silly string…

And I reply, “Yes baby I do”

It is those moments that will be remembered.

faith, hope and a plan

Why didn’t I come to Him sooner?

That question knocks on the door of my thoughts from time to time.

I would be so much further along.

I have often thought about what my life would be like today had I come to Him 10 years ago instead of 4. 

I had sporadic attempts at it, but nothing really stuck, I had a few storms blow through my life that should have brought me to my knees before Jesus, but they never did, instead I plodded along frustrating myself by trying to fix it on my own.

He knew I would come Him one day

He knew He had a plan

And maybe part of that plan was giving me a healthy dose of the world had to offer, only to realize how short it fell in comparison to Him

He knew the incredibly bad choices I would make, and He let me make them, because ultimately it would bring me to this point

Where all I have left is my faith in Jesus.

There have been two times in my life when I felt God speak to me, I am not talking about when I read His Word, or I feel the tugging on the inside, I am talking about those moments when it felt as if He were reaching inside my chest and grabbing hold of my heart and stopping it for just a few moments because He needed my full attention.

The first was last summer when He asked me if I would follow Him

The second was on a very cold wintery day as I was tucked under a mountain of blankets trying to keep warm.  My heart caught my chest; I lost my breath for a moment.

I have something for you.

That is it, nothing else, and I haven’t heard anything about it since, no further instructions, no hint of what was about come, but I needed to know more.

But nothing since that day.

No instructions for the next step, no hint of what was to come

Nothing

Our faith is incredibly important to Him, so much that He will take everything away so the only thing we have left to stand on is our faith in Him to show us that is all we need.   

Faith that He will keep His word even when it looks like nothing is happening

Faith that He has a plan even when your life goes completely off the rails

Faith when you thought you hit a homerun only to discover you were out before even making it to first base.

It is hard, incredibly hard to keep the faith when the silence is so loud; I get that, oh my goodness do I get that.

But what He is doing now is preparation for what He has up ahead, preparation for your protection, preparation for what He is going to ask of you, it is for His glory.

We learn what faith really is when the only thing we have left is Jesus, when we are stripped bare of everything and realize how little we have to offer, and the only thing we have left is to hold onto to is our faith that our God bigger than anything this world can muster up.

to whom it may concern

An epic storm raged through my tiny town this morning, leaving me without power all day, seriously I just got it back a few hours ago, so I apologize I did not have computer access today, I don't have a laptop so when when my power went out so did my computer.  The day before I locked my keys in my car at church, and those are just a few of the minor irritants that have plagued me in recent days, so in celebration of my frustrations as of late I am reposting something I wrote back in December, when the enemy done worked my last nerve and I felt it only neccesary to write him a letter, I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.

To Whom It May Concern In The Underworld:

I am writing to you today after my repeated verbal requests, that I am currently not in need of your services, have apparently fallen in deaf ears. Please remove my name, phone number and address from your call list as I am very happy with my current provider Jesus Christ.

While I appreciate your attempts in recent weeks, trying to prove to me that my current provider is unreliable, you have failed to convince me. I know you were behind the broken patio door, broken garage door, broken coffee pot, favorite broken coffee mug, clogged drain resulting in a river on my basement floor, lost drivers license and walking into a door resulting in a goose egg and cut on my forehead while looking for said lost drivers license, expired library card and standing in line for fifteen minutes to renew it only to find out I could not check out my selection of Christian literature because of unknown library fines. I am happy to report that after much ado all overdue fees have been paid and said reading material was able to follow me home. I also feel I must thank you for the opportunity to stand in line for an entire morning at the DMV, the owner and CEO of my current provider, Jesus himself kept me company and we enjoyed a very pleasant morning together, I also met a new Jesus lovin friend, the goose egg has reduced in swelling and my cut is healing quite nicely, thank you for asking.

While I further appreciate your efforts to woo my business away from your competitor with your promises of worldly wealth and material goods, I feel I must direct your attention to your proven track record of lies and deceit, your reputation of destruction starting with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden precedes you. May I also point out that at one time you held quite the coveted primo position within the company of my current provider and now your competitor, that is until your selfish pride got the best of you, I wouldn’t exactly advertise that on your flyers and business cards. May I also say that I heard you were really quite beautiful back in the day, what happened? If you don’t mind me making a suggestion perhaps a facial and a little waxing, it only hurts for a moment, but that should be no problem for you, as pain and destruction are your specialty.

In regards to my repeated requests for an instructional manual, apparently the postal service needs some restructuring as I keep hearing the promise that it is in the mail however it never arrives, do you even have an instruction manual? If you don’t mind me saying so my current provider has had the same one for over 2000 years and every promise in it has been kept, it can be found in just about any bookstore and there is no other book in print that has come close to rivaling its best seller status, not to mention that the mere sight of it warms my heart. References of proven customer satisfaction on your behalf have also become a little sketchy, apparently those customers have become unavoidably detained, which makes me wonder what they have been unavoidably detained doing.

You have taken enough of my time today and in recent weeks, it is a little chilly on the outdoors today, however, the sun is shining and I plan to take a spin through the woods and get my praise on. If you insist on following me you will only be hurting yourself as I have been told by many that my singing can wake the bears from hibernation, however since it fills my heart with gladness and joy and I am told that it is music to my Fathers ears I am plan to do it loud, proud and for a very long time. So I ask that you pack your truck with your baggage of lies and deceit, put this girl in your rearview mirror and drive away, I will not be moved and you are not welcome here. It is In Him I serve.

Signed,

A Daughter of the King

John 3:16

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

thursday thought

I wondered what they thought of me, the men and women holding up their cups or pounding them on the table as I made my way around the room filling them with juice, actually that is what the shelter called it, it was really just sugar water with a little powdered drink mix added in for flavor.  Was I just someone who gave up her lunch hour once every few weeks to serve them meals to make herself feel better to think that she was actually doing something for the plight of less advantaged, a girl who walked over from her air conditioned office building in her fancy work clothes, a girl who was freshly showered just that morning,  someone who is able to put on clean clothes everyday while most of them having been wearing the same clothes for weeks or even months and who have probably not seen soap and water in just as long, I would leave the shelter and go back to my comfortable life where I get three meals a day when many of them were lucky to get one.

There is something sobering about seeing the dirty and nasty parts of the world, and it is even more sobering to know that what I saw in that shelter was hardly the tip of the dirtiness of the world we live in. I wondered how did they get there and how did I get where I was, why were our lives so different?  Were they even thinking anything at all about me or were they just happy to be putting food in their belly that they couldn’t have cared less about who was serving it to them, and I wondered were many of them thinking the same thing I was, how did they get to this place? Or were they too far gone to even care anymore?

Have we become numb to it? We walk down the street and hardly notice them, sometimes we move a little to left as to not walk to close.  Have they become numb to it too?  Used to being invisible to the world in which they live, have the tears long dried up or have they ever shed a tear?  Tears show emotion and feeling, tears show vulnerability something that will get you hurt their hardened world.  

Speaking of the love of God and the power of Jesus seem like trite words to speak to the woman who is prostituting herself to feed the drug and alcohol addiction she picked up to numb the pain of when her father, uncle, brother whomever it was treated her as a commodity for their pleasure, empty words to speak to the child whose abusive parent would burn them with cigarettes or hold their hand over a hot burner or beat them in a drunken rage, trite words to speak to the woman whose husband abuses her, or the barely teenage girl taking care of her brothers and sisters because her father ran off and her mother is a drug addict or the young person who has lost count of their many  suicide attempts.  There is a story behind every sunken face and hollow eyes, vile stories that make us want to vomit, stories that make our hearts race so fast they feel as if they are going to beat out of chest, stories that keep us up at night making us afraid to close our eyes for fear they will haunt us in our dreams. 

Speaking of the love of God and power of Jesus just seems empty, trite and a little dangerous because the questions come and they will come, they always come, we have asked them ourselves, where was the love of God and if Jesus is so powerful why didn’t He use His power to stop was happening? There are no human words plausible enough to explain the questions away.  We can hug them tight hoping that our touch will somehow heal the darkness and make way for the light, we shed our tears and we can love them we can speak of the love of God and the power of Jesus and pray they have enough fight left in them to want to turn towards the light.

What is that we say and that we do, when the questions come that make us stir in our seats, when saying that God loves you, He was with you and He wept for you sounds like we are on loop recording, what is that we say when we have the same questions with no answers, why did the drunk driver have to kill the young mother and her children why couldn’t it have been drug dealer who is selling his venom on the schoolyard or the pimp who stole the girl to make money for himself by selling her body,  why is it that the crafty and wicked of the world get chance after chance after chance but the one who wants to do nothing more than to spread of the love Jesus keeps knocked down, their plans thwarted and doors slammed in their face.  We know we will never escape sin as long as we walk this earth but couldn’t He just put an end to worst of it? 

We know how this all ends, judgment day will come and everything will be reconciled, evil will be defeated.  One day we will live in a place where there is no evil or wickedness, a place where we will never be hurt again, there will no more darkness only light, we will live in paradise one day the place where we will see Jesus.

little miss independence

I started delivering newspapers when I was 11 years old, and I have been working and earning my own money ever since, I have always taken a certain amount of pride in this little factoid.  I fancied myself as an independent type gal who worked and earned her own money.  I looked on for years as my mother suffered her way through the abuse from my father, and as a stay at home mom raising two young daughters my mother was completely dependent on my father, she had nowhere to go, so she stayed and I learned at a very early age to never become dependent on man for anything. Not the food I put on my table, the shelter over my head, the clothes on my back or anything of the like and for the last 22 years I have been doing this solo gig I have gotten pretty good at it.  I have always supported myself, I was doing life on my terms and depended on no one and therefore no one controlled me, I could leave whenever I wanted, and I did it often.  In and of itself having a little independence is not a bad thing, but when you take it to the extreme that I did, you start to walk on soft ground.

So when I started writing this blog I had a very clear vision of what direction I wanted it to go in, blogging about navigating this life as a single person under my skewed set of assumptions, it didn’t work out that way, because while I knew plenty about being and staying single, I knew absolutely nothing about being single in a healthy functional relationship.   Don’t get me wrong I love my single status, I really do, but enjoying my life only began a few years ago, before that I was working overtime in self-preservation mode and I was exhausted, and I didn’t even know how exhausted I was until I wasn’t anymore. 

So when I entered this season I asked the why questions so many times, Father why would you allow this to happen,  I am single girl, I am my only means of support why would take that away from me?

Ahem….

Do you see it?

Little miss independence is learning how to be dependent, dependent on a God that I cannot physically see or touch, a God whose presence I can’t always feel, I am learning to be independent of my own self and what I think I can provide for me.  My pride has been beaten down, my weaknesses exposed, and my strength dissolved, I am weak in and of myself,  everything  I have is from the Father and not by anything I can or ever will be able to do on my own, and let me tell you something, it hurts a bit.

My greatest fear, my greatest uncomfortable place is to need and accept help from other people, I can do it myself thank you very much.   So what does God do?  He rains down His help through other people, one way or another or He is going to break this girl’s fiery independent streak.

daniel's gloves

I sat, with two friends, in the picture window of a quaint restaurant just off the corner of the town-square. The food and the company were both especially good that day.

As we talked, my attention was drawn outside, across the street. There, walking into town, was a man who appeared to be carrying all his worldly goods on his back. He was carrying, a well-worn sign that read, 'I will work for food.' My heart sank.

I brought him to the attention of my friends and noticed that others around us had stopped eating to focus on him. Heads moved in a mixture of sadness and disbelief.

We continued with our meal, but his image lingered in my mind. We finished our meal and went our separate ways. I had errands to do and quickly set out to accomplish them. I glanced toward the town square, looking somewhat halfheartedly for the strange visitor. I was fearful, knowing that seeing him again would call some response. I drove through town and saw nothing of him. I made some purchases at a store and got back in my car.

Deep within me, the Spirit of God kept speaking to me: 'Don't go back to the office until you've at least driven once more around the square.'

Then with some hesitancy, I headed back into town. As I turned the square's third corner, I saw him. He was standing on the steps of the store front church, going through his sack.

I stopped and looked; feeling both compelled to speak to him, yet wanting to drive on. The empty parking space on the corner seemed to be a sign from God: an invitation to park. I pulled in, got out and approached the town's newest visitor.

'Looking for the pastor?' I asked.

'Not really,' he replied, 'just resting.'

'Have you eaten today?'

'Oh, I ate something early this morning.'

'Would you like to have lunch with me?'

'Do you have some work I could do for you?'

'No work,' I replied 'I commute here to work from the city, but I would like to take you to lunch.'

'Sure,' he replied with a smile.

As he began to gather his things, I asked some surface questions. 'Where you headed?'

' St.. Louis '

'Where you from?'

'Oh, all over; mostly Florida ..'

'How long you been walking?'

'Fourteen years,' came the reply.

I knew I had met someone unusual. We sat across from each other in the same restaurant I had left earlier. His face was weathered slightly beyond his 38 years. His eyes were dark yet clear, and he spoke with an eloquence and articulation that was startling. He removed his jacket to reveal a bright red T-shirt that said, 'Jesus is The Never Ending Story.'


Then Daniel's story began to unfold. He had seen rough times early in life. He'd made some wrong choices and reaped the consequences. Fourteen years earlier, while backpacking across the country, he had stopped on the beach in Daytona. He tried to hire on with some men who were putting up a large tent and some equipment. A concert, he thought.

He was hired, but the tent would not house a concert but revival services, and in those services he saw life more clearly. He gave his life over to God

'Nothing's been the same since,' he said, 'I felt the Lord telling me to keep walking, and so I did, some 14 years now.'

'Ever think of stopping?' I asked.

'Oh, once in a while, when it seems to get the best of me but God has given me this calling. I give out Bibles. That's what's in my sack. I work to buy food and Bibles, and I give them out when His Spirit leads.'

I sat amazed. My homeless friend was not homeless. He was on a mission and lived this way by choice. The question burned inside for a moment and then I asked: 'What's it like?'

'What?'

'To walk into a town carrying all your things on your back and to show your sign?'

'Oh, it was humiliating at first. People would stare and make comments. Once someone tossed a piece of half-eaten bread and made a gesture that certainly didn't make me feel welcome. But then it became humbling to realize that God was using me to touch lives and change people's concepts of other folks like me.'


My concept was changing, too. We finished our dessert and gathered his things. Just outside the door, he paused He turned to me and said, 'Come Ye blessed of my Father and inherit the kingdom I've prepared for you. For when I was hungry you gave me food, when I was thirsty you gave me drink, a stranger and you took me in.'

I felt as if we were on holy ground. 'Could you use another Bible?' I asked.

He said he preferred a certain translation. It traveled well and was not too heavy. It was also his personal favorite. 'I've read through it 14 times,' he said.

'I'm not sure we've got one of those, but let's stop by our church and see' I was able to find my new friend a Bible that would do well, and he seemed very grateful.

'Where are you headed from here?' I asked.

'Well, I found this little map on the back of this amusement park coupon.'

'Are you hoping to hire on there for a while?'

'No, I just figure I should go there. I figure someone under that star right there needs a Bible, so that's where I'm going next.'

He smiled, and the warmth of his spirit radiated the sincerity of his mission. I drove him back to the town-square where we'd met two hours earlier, and as we drove, it started raining. We parked and unloaded his things.

'Would you sign my autograph book?' he asked. 'I like to keep messages from folks I meet.'

I wrote in his little book that his commitment to his calling had touched my life. I encouraged him to stay strong. And I left him with a verse of scripture from Jeremiah, 'I know the plans I have for you, declared the Lord, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you; Plans to give you a future and a hope.'

'Thanks, man,' he said. 'I know we just met and we're really just strangers, but I love you.'

'I know,' I said, 'I love you, too.' 'The Lord is good!'

'Yes, He is. How long has it been since someone hugged you?' I asked.

A long time,' he replied

And so on the busy street corner in the drizzling rain, my new friend and I embraced, and I felt deep inside that I had been changed.. He put his things on his back, smiled his winning smile and said, 'See you in the New Jerusalem.'

'I'll be there!' was my reply.


He began his journey again. He headed away with his sign dangling from his bedroll and pack of Bibles. He stopped, turned and said, 'When you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray for me?'

'You bet,' I shouted back, 'God bless.'

'God bless.' And that was the last I saw of him.

Late that evening as I left my office, the wind blew strong. The cold front had settled hard upon the town. I bundled up and hurried to my car. As I sat back and reached for the emergency brake, I saw them.... a pair of well-worn brown work gloves neatly laid over the length of the handle. I picked them up and thought of my friend and wondered if his hands would stay warm that night without them.

Then I remembered his words: 'If you see something that makes you think of me, will you pray for me?'

Today his gloves lie on my desk in my office. They help me to see the world and its people in a new way, and they help me remember those two hours with my unique friend and to pray for his ministry. 'See you in the New Jerusalem,' he said. Yes, Daniel, I know I will...

'I shall pass this way but once.. Therefore, any good that I can do or any kindness that I can show, let me do it now, for I shall not pass this way again.'

Author unknown

This is not my story, nor did I write it, it was sent to me in an e-mail message from a friend of mine.

winter and road construction

We have two seasons here in Wisconsin, winter and road construction. So I hardly noticed the red lights and siren in my rearview mirror as I was navigating my way down the dark one lane road trying to dodge the orange cones bouncing off my windshield.  Apparently street lamps are not important when you send thousand pound missiles down the highway held together with some bolts and four wheels (the road crew took down the street lights when they started the construction).

Finally spotting the lights and having no idea how I missed those,  I made my way over to the side of the road, my driver’s license at the ready, Officer Friendly appears at my window rendering me temporarily blind with his million megawatt flashlight.

And then another police car pulled up with two more officers in it.

Outstanding.

“Driver’s license please.”

Handing it over, Officer Friendly passes it to other officer standing behind him.

 “Do you know why I pulled you over tonight?”

“Yes sir, I was swerving”

“Yes ma’am, and why were you swerving?”

“I was trying not run over the little thingys sticking out of the road.” (I later found they were drain pipes).

“I see, so you thought it would be better if you took out four orange cones instead?”

“Yes sir, I thought big pieces of rubber that looked like upside down garbage cans would do less damage, they were the lesser to two evils sir.”

“ I see, please step out of the car.”

Beautiful

“Have you been drinking tonight ma’am?”

“Not a drop.”

“I see, and where are you coming from?”

“Bible study.”

And we have crickets, cue the deer in headlights.

I saw the conundrum written all over Officer Friendly’s face, that was the last thing he expected to hear,  he thought he nabbed himself a drunk driver instead he managed to lasso himself a Jesus freak.

“Ma’am, I am going to administer a few field sobriety tests, just to make sure.”

“Okey doke.”

So I walked the line, sang the ABC’s and touched my finger to my nose.

“Ma’am, please turn around and place your hands behind your back.” And Officer Friendly slaps on the silver bracelets.

Oh boy

Swell, I am going to be sleeping in a jail cell tonight, swinging a tin cup across the bars singing, nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen, in a deep throaty voice.

“You are not under arrest we do this for our protection.  If everything checks out with your driver’s license you’ll be free to go.”

 Well Merry Christmas to me!

Then it felt like the presents were snatched from my arms.  If? I carry a strong dislike for that word, it grates my last nerve there is nothing definitive or nice about that word.

If the test results are negative

If the company decides to hire you

If we choose you

I actually filled out a job application once that read: If we think you are good enough to work for us, they didn’t hire me.

So when I heard “if your driver’s license checks out you will be free to go”, the worry sent shock waves of panic through me.  I knew that I had nothing to worry about but what if’s were still beating me up, what if I have a warrant for my arrest that I don’t know about, what if my identity has been stolen and someone went on a crime spree in my name, what if this and what if that.

We made some small chit chat as we were waiting for the other officer to finish up, only then did I catch his name on his name plate, but don’t ask me what it was because it had like 30 letters in it.

One of the other Officers made his way back to my car holding my license out in my direction, “Ma’am you are free to go.”

“Bless you officers and may God keep you safe tonight.” And with that I was off.

I can write and joke around about this now, but at the time I was terrified I really thought they were going to take me to jail and I was going to have to call someone to come fish me out of county lock up.  I am a worry warrior, I don’t know why, most of what I worry about only happens in my own mind.

40 percent of what we worry about never happens

30 percent is in regards to things of the past that we cannot change

12 percent is other people’s opinions that we cannot change

10 percent is about personal health that only gets worse as we worry about it

And 8 percent of what we worry about concern real problems that we can influence.

92 percent of what we worry about is needless.

Mark 4:37-40

A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.  Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher don’t you care if we drown?”

He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still! Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.

He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?