What do you think?

My oldest son Devon facebooked me these two youtubes:

http://youtu.be/1IAhDGYlpqY

http://youtu.be/Ru_tC4fv6FE

He suggested that I first view the first and then the second.

What are your thoughts on these?

Since Devon sent them, added to fact that Devon converted to Catholicism a couple of years ago, makes it apparant that he agrees with the second video.

I love my son more than words can express. I respect the man he's become.

But I can't really agree with the second video. I do not think the rock upon which Christ proclaimed He'd build His church was referring to the local church or religion; I think it was referring to faith in Christ.

If you know me at all you know that I love the local body. I participate faithfully in my local church and raised all three of my sons in church. So I appreciate Devon's love for the church as well. I know that God wants to work through His local body of Belivers in all the locations at which they meet, and I think He ordained the local church to teach and encourage in the faith. But, since the local church and religion are made up of people - it is indeed imperfect at best. Religion and church membership can not make you right with God - only Jesus can!

I'd be very interested in your responses to these two videos.

Gotta love Chuck Norris

As a mother of three sons, one of whom studied Tang Soo Do karate for awhile, I've heard bits and pieces about Chuck Norris through the years. Perhaps what I've heard most are the Chuck Norris one liner macho quips. For some reason my youngest son adores these jokes. You know, the ones that go something like When the boogeyman goes to sleep, he checks the closet for Chuck Norris or Some people wear superman pajamas, but superman wears Chuck Norris pajamas. I'm sure that you've heard them too. I've also watched some of his movies with my sons or husband, it seems that something about him calls out to male psyche. Although my 86-year old mother still faithfully watches re-runs of Chuck Norris' TV series Walker, Texas Ranger; in her estimation, one of the best shows ever made.

But I've never really known anything much about the man. Perhaps that's why, when I was browsing through books to check out from the library and I happened upon his book entitled Against All odds, I decided to check out the CD version.

This weekend, while I've been cooking and cleaning, I've been listening to the book. I was so captivated that I even continued listening one evening after my work was completed. I sat and did my nails while listening, and then just sat and listened.

It's a wonderful book! Perhaps just a bit slow in the beginning with that predictable my life began this way kind of feel. But the book gets better and better as you progress. I also can't say that the transitions in the book are always smooth, but this man's life has just been so incredible that I was mesmerized. He really does have one of those larger than life stories.

He's a hero in a time and place when we desperately need male heroes.

One of the aspects of the book that endeared it to my heart was Norris' honesty. He's an open born again Christian but he, like myself, has failed many times in life. I so appreciated when he was transparent about his failures and called them exactly what they were - sin. I can relate to a Christian who has sinned, because I'm a sinner too. I always have a hard time with the people who have it all together (perhaps that's why I enjoy reading the Old Testament Bible accounts so much, these folks were just like me and really blew it sometimes but God chose to use them anyway!) I also adored hearing about how God in His goodness and grace took even Norris failures and used them, ultimately, for good. Norris shared about what he'd learned in life and about God's goodness, grace, and mercy. I found this book extremely inspiring.

Definitely a worthwhile read.

Praise and soaring with Eagles

Have you ever been super tired? So exhausted that all you longed for was to just crawl into bed and forget the whole world?

I know I have been.

Lately I feel that way by 8PM at night! So weird for me since I've lived most of my life being a night owl. But this job and opening up a whole new operation with another new opening next door in July has me really whipped!

But you know what I've noticed? That sometimes, when I'm super tired and am certain that I have absolutely no energy left and there's nothing left to give, that something can come along to change it all. Maybe an opportunity to go do something really special that I never get to do (like spend time with Devon when he was home, or go to a concert with my old boss), or when I learn that a problem over which I've been trying not to stress (in Christian-ese we call this a "burden") has been solved (Christian-ese: "burden lifted"), or something super encouraging happens. Then all of the sudden my heart is light and my energy is renewed!

Have you ever had that happen?

Reminds me of Proverbs 13:12 (NIV): Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.

This morning during my time with God I caught an insight into this rejuvenating, or renewing, experience in a different way.

To put this into context I'll mention that the work weeks have been brutal for me. There have been times during the past few months when I've planned a Friday night outing with John or friends, but have ended up so frazzled and exhausted by Friday night that I've ended up cancelling; so I've stopped planning Friday night activities. Last night found me crashed in bed, sound asleep, by 9:30PM (quite the exciting girl I must say-ha!). But I woke up at 1:30AM and my mind started looking at my upcoming staffing situation at work from every angle, I kept turning it over in my mind trying to make it work; finally I just got up and spent some time on the computer configuring some things and praying.

This morning when I came to my time with God I found myself singing songs of praise and worship. In my head I thought about how I could be singing all those I-need-You songs cuz I do so need Him. But all my heart could sing was worship of His greatness and thankfulness. Then my reading today was in Psalm 103 and the 5th verse (NLT) hit me in a new way: He fills my years with good things and I am made young again like the eagle. What's being described here is just like those rejuvenating experiences that I'm talking about above!

Praising God can have a rejuvinating effect. Praise can be how we receive these becoming "young", or renewed again, experiences that we read about in the Bible ( Isaiah 40:30-31). Just as an eagle is renewed when it allows the jut stream to carry it higher until it soars, as I rally all of my faculties to praise the Lord, I am renewed!

What about you, have you ever experienced God's renewing though Praise?

Healthier, Qieter, Connected

Healtier, Qieter, Connected - those are my three focus words for the upcoming year.

Healthier
I don't want to set specific goals about how many pounds I'll lose or all the things I'll do but I want to focus on making some lifestyle changes. Just a few at a time. Lasting changes. I'm starting by actually going to the Doctor; something I never do. I'm going to find out my weight by their scales (always a few more pounds than our bathroom scale), cholestrol, and BMI. My work has a personal coach available via phone for a few sessions this upcoming year to set some goals and begin to make changes with an online tracking guide, so I'm going to take advanatage of it.


Quieter
I've become convicted that in the stress of the workplace and life that I've started to get into a pattern of thinking I'm "venting", but what I'm really doing is talking bad of others. I don't want to be that way and, by God's grace and power, I'm going to stop. May He put a guard on my lips. May I come to Him with my grief, anxiety, and frustration; find my peace and solace in Him so that I can give to others.


Connected
Sometimes it's easy for me to go through spiritual motions as it were. I want to have more quality time with God, be more connected. I desperately need Him to become the wife, mother, employee and friend that my heart longs to me. I need His vision and inspiration and direction. Not to metion that He is so great, so awesome, so WORTHY that I want to be connected to Him.

A few choice Words

As I was driving to work yesterday the morning show radio host was talking about new year's resolutions. He said that he doesn't make them. He explained that for him that approach represents a pass or fail situation and he likes a more progress-oriented position. He said that a preacher years ago suggested an approach that he's been using ever since he heard about it. The idea is to pick a word for the year, a focus. His example was that last year he picked "deeper"; he wanted more in his relationships.

This approach appeals to me because I tend to be an all or nothing kind of person. I can get bogged down and discouraged by resolutions. I'm trying to change and to approach life more in terms of the 12-step slogan It's about Progress, not Perfection.


So this concept has been on the back burner of mind, simmering, since I heard it. I'm thinking that maybe I'll pick 1 - 3 words. I'm praying about it.

If you were to do this, what word(s) would you pick?

Who's teaching Who?

There's this woman at work who used to drive me crazy. Then I grew fond of her and thought I could maybe help her in her faith. Now I realize that I'm learning from her.

Our work is a brand new thing, a facility just opening. Unfortunately the large company that owns us did next to nothing to train or provide for my department, which is medical. The week before we opened up I was trying to both orient my employees (when I myself had not been oriented) as well as scurry around trying to figure out what we were exactly going to be doing and how to get prepared for it. To say that it wasn't the best of times would be an understatement.

Enter into this situation Meg. She's a nurse practitioner, extremely bright, and a natural born leader. She's also rather pushy and tends to look out for number one.

Once before we opened, when I was out ordering supplies and dealing with vendors and construction guys, she told the rest of the medical staff that the problem was me. That things were chaotic because I'm not a nurse. But if she was in charge things would be much better. I wasn't sure how to deal with it so I just got them all together and told them that I knew things were crazy but that when times get tough we've got to stick together. We've got to commit to refrain from attacking one another or speaking bad of anyone in the group. I told them that if they have concerns they need to come to me, but that we are to support one another and not attack one another.

Later I confronted Meg in private and she denied the whole thing.

Then the facility opened and that week was terrible. Next to no systems were in place and we didn't know what we were doing. I was working 16-hour days and on the weekends trying to figure this out and make it right. My boss' boss, the VP of the healthcare company that is a subsidiary of the company that owns this facility, was there from day one until the middle of our second week. At first she acted like I was an idiot, but then she realized what was going on; that I had not been trained or given any tools. So she set about trying to give me a 9 day straight crash course in the midst of everything. It was a bit overwhelming to say the least, but at least it helped some. She also told me that Meg had came to her and tried to get my job. But when she found out that I made less money than her, she decided it was better that I have the job. Plus Meg always leaves at the end of 8 hours and saw that I put in long hours.

Since that time she's been supportive of me being in my position.

But I held a grudge.

It was also weird to me because Meg is a very vocal Christian. I've come to see it as just part of her general pushiness. Yet, during all of this, the Holy Spirit began to speak to me. I felt that gnawing of my conscious about my bad attitude toward Meg. So, truly spiritual person that I am, I started thinking that maybe I could be an encouragement to Meg in her faith.

When she told me (now that she's decided to like me) that I shouldn't work so hard because companies just use you and take advantage of you; I very piously told her that I wasn't working for the company but that, as it says in Colossians 3:23, I was working for God. When she saw the warden really giving it to me and later she and I talked about it, I admitted that he was right. I said I was going to go to him; she asked why, he wouldn't come to you, and I said that what others did to me didn't matter it's how I act that I'm accountable for. When Meg and the physician and I were talking one day and we'd all been kind of trashing someone else I finally stopped talking and said how ashamed I was of myself, that I was talking about about another person. Meg said but it's true; to which I replied that not every true thing needed to be spoken. Oh yeah, I was thinking I could be such a great example to her.

Then the Holy Spirit finally got through to me and I realized that it's me who needs to get a grip. It's me who needs God. I'm way too big of a mess up to be an example to anyone. Anything good in me is only by God's grace; and it's His grace that I needed to be extending to Meg. Not His judgement or my self righteousness.

Then I started realizing that Meg's like me; she's an imperfect sinner saved by the grace of God. Like me, she's got strengths and weaknesses. I adored the way she responded when the dental assistant came and told me that her grandfather had died and she would have to miss some days of work; I sat there listening to the girl but Meg got right up and gave her a great big hug. I watched the girl melt into that hug-she needed that. Or when the warden was being grouchy and complaining, Meg comforted him in a bold way that I never could have. Yep, the truth is that I am learning from Meg.

Has that every happened to you, have you ever thought you were so much better than someone else and then God turned it all around and you realized that you could learn from them?

Grateful for His grace

As I was reading in Jonah this morning these words of Jonah's about God delighted me:

I knew this was going to happen! That's why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness! (Jonah 4:1B-2, MSG)

Isn't that just like God?!

And isn't that just human to sometimes be upset when we feel someone else isn't getting punished the way we think they should?

This morning I'm just plain grateful. Grateful for His grace and mercy. I mess up constantly and I need him.

What about you?