His Grace, My Weakness, and a Whole Lot of Sand

I watch as he swaggers over and in a brawny voice says, “Need some help diggin’ that hole?”

I had escaped to the beach for a few precious hours with my girls.  My big girl was completely enthralled in digging a large hole and instructing her little sister to fill it with water. 

  I could have sworn he was wearing chaps and a Stetson, but after blinking my eyes a few times, I realize it is just a pair of Cars swim trunks and a whole lot of sand.

As he approaches, amazingly, my usually bashful little girl looks up at him, grins, and scoots over for him to start digging.  The 'damsel in distress' act continues as he scoots in showing off his digging skills.  At some point, he decides to take his macho display to the next level by punching the barrier they have created around the hole to expose the weak places.  For a moment, my girls stop and hold their breath.  Unfortunately for him, the barriers holds strong, he comes down a few notches and resorts back to digging.

 This goes on for a while and whenever an awkward silence falls, little sister is there to coach them through it with all the charm of Chuck Woolery (the host of Love Connection, for those of you who were babies in the ‘80’s) with comments like:

“Her name is Claire and she enjoys reading, writing in her journal, and playing with Lego Friends. Now, how ‘bout you tell us your name?”

They move to the water and as he swims beyond the water- level boundary that I have set for them. I am pleasantly surprised that they hold back and stay within the no-deeper-than-you-belly button limit. As they watch him swim away, my big girl runs back up to me on the beach and exclaims “ Mom, I think he likes me, like L-O-V-E!”.  She then runs back to join him, as he makes his way back within their boundaries.

 Eventually, “Chuck” makes her way back to the shore, satisfied that she has made an adequate ‘love connection’ and wistfully sighs, saying “Look at those two - so happy together.  They’ll probably get married”.  At this, I am finally able to get my two cents in and deliver a nice, gentle, but healthy dose of reality. 

And then I am struck by my own dose of reality, only, not so gently.

This is a glimpse into my future and the future is not so far away.  My girls are growing up.  The time that I have left to really impact them and fill them with the Word is growing shorter day by day.

 

  I am suddenly glad I wore my super large, incognito sunglasses, as they fill with tears.  

  It is in these times that I feel the effects of my weaknesses as a parent. I question whether I am doing enough to raise them to be godly women.  I cringe as I remember the times I have failed them and missed opportunities to teach them. While it has always been my deepest desire to “train up my children”, the reality is that balancing family life and ministry is hard. It is a constant juggling act.

  Though I try to smile on the outside, inwardly, I cringe when I hear someone say how great it is that I can be a Pastor’s wife and my schedule allows me to be so available to my children.  Ministry life is a 24/7 job (lifestyle). And while I consider it an honor and know that it is what I am called to do, the truth is that the sacrifices that this life requires of my children and our family have been great.  Sometimes, the cost has overwhelmed me with guilt.

   At those times, He reminds me that I must trust in His GRACE.  I must trust in His grace to cover my weakness as a parent. I must trust in His grace to cover all of those times when the responsibilities of ministry have left me unavailable to my children. I must trust in His grace when, despite my efforts to shield them, they have been exposed to the “ugliness” that sometimes happens in church, that no child should ever have to know about or be affected by.

His GRACE is sufficient.

 But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. 2 Corinthians 12:9 (NIV)

The Greek word for sufficient used here is ar-keh'-o.

According to Strong's Greek & Hebrew Dictionary, it means to be enough. But it is also akin to the word ah'ee-ro which refers to raising a barrier.

His grace is enough to raise a barrier around my weak areas. 

Wherever I fall short, His grace come in and strengthens those places in order to keep them strong and protected.

How AMAZING is that GRACE?!! 

  We all have weaknesses. We can’t do it all.  The good news is the barrier of His grace covers us. We can rest assured that when the enemy swaggers in to show off his punching skills and expose your weakness, His grace has made a barrier strong enough to withstand whatever punch he may throw.  So take a deep breath, exhale slowly, and rest in His GRACE. Pin It

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Poo in the Ice Cream Truck

If we are friends on Facebook, you may have already read this, but I decided to post it here anyway. For those of you who haven't read it there ( I would love to be friends on Facebook), I will warn you that it contains a "potty word" that you might find repulsive-and I will apologize in advance for that. There is a reason for using it, and since I became a mom, I find I am less sensitive to those kind of words. They are just a necessary part of our everyday language around here!

 

We try to regularly meet with our children’s pastor to go over upcoming calendar events.  Since they live on the other side of town, and we have four kids between us, we decided to meet at the food court at a local mall, and grab some Chic-fil-a.   That way the kids could play in the play area while we had our meeting. 

  Upon arrival, our children’s pastors wife, knowing I can be a little bit of a germaphobe, said “Are you alright with them playing here –does it bother you?” Trying to overcome these tendencies, I tried to blow it off and calmly replied “Na, it doesn’t bother me –I mean they’ve already been at school all day- they can’t get much dirtier than that, right?”  We ate our dinner and quickly got on with our meeting while the kids played.  I was pretty impressed with myself, enjoying the newfound freedom of releasing my germ fears and not giving thought to the germ fest my kids were happily participating in. 

  We were chatting away when all of the sudden out of the corner of my eye, I saw Ella running towards me, Claire spurring her on with tattle-tale eyes, (You know those eyes -they take on that look when they have something really legitimate to tattle about).  Ella arrived first, with a strained, dumbfounded look, but before she could say anything Claire caught up and blurted out “Ella got her new shirt dirty”. Ella, standing between her father and I, and knowing the cat was out of the bag, lifted her arm to reveal a large brown spot on the arm of her sleeve. 

 Grabbing her wrist to keep her arm extended, so as to not come in contact with anyone or anything, I exclaimed, “What is it?” (using my heebie-jeebie voice).

To which her father replied “I don’t know, smell it!”

“I cannot smell it, you smell it!” I challenged, and being the gentleman that he is, he bravel,y however carefully, and slowly leaned in to take a whiff while we watched, the world halting to a stop around us, to wait for the results.  Although it seemed this took place in slow motion, it was only a matter of milliseconds before the brown spot revealed its truly offensive nature and my husband loudly exclaimed “Ohh! It’s POO!!”  And just in case all those around didn’t have their meals interrupted by hearing that exclamation, I quite loudly replied “ It’s POO! It’s POO! What do we do? What do we do?!”

  Sounding very much like a Dr. Seuss book reading now, I began instinctively ripping the offensive smelling shirt off, and then realized that I had probably scarred poor Ella for life as she was now standing, shocked and shirtless, in the middle of the food court.

  Our children’s pastor’s wife quickly stepped in with her son’s spare sweatshirt and then darted off to inspect our other kids for any signs of poo. Meanwhile, I set off on a course to find the source of the poo. Hearing Claire say she was in the ice cream truck, I headed in the direction of the coin-operated vehicles. 

  At that very moment, I turned to see a father sitting his daughter in the ice cream truck. Placing his quarter in, he motioned to Ella to hop aboard and ride along.  Ella, apparently undaunted by the poo at the thought of getting a free ride, quickly made her way on to the ice cream truck at which point I hear myself yell “NO ELLA!!” 

  The man gesturing to me said, “It’s okay, it’s okay, I don’t mind if she rides along.”

 I quickly replied “No you don’t understand, there’s poo (whispering now like it’s a bad word) in the ice cream truck.” He looked at me puzzled, his brain not quite catching up with my words, and so I reiterated gesturing now “poo in the ice cream truck” and then for emphasis a little louder I repeated “poo!” At this, his brain quickly kicked in, his body responding by swiping his quarter and daughter in one scoop, thanking me profusely, as if I had just saved him from making the biggest mistake he had ever made in all his three to four years of fatherhood.  One crisis averted, I stood there trying to think what to do next when I heard our children’s pastors wife say, “Shouldn’t we find someone to clean it?”  Yes! Yes, that would resolve this once and for all.

  I turned to find a unsuspecting cleaning lady wiping a table nearby.  Approaching her, I said “Can you help me out? There is poo(whispering the offensive word once again) in the ice cream truck.”  Apparently not having lived in this country long and being only vaguely familiar with the English language, it appeared that the cleaning lady was not understanding me and so once again I reiterated “Poo in the ice cream truck” “ Ahh, ice cream!” she replied excitedly.  “No, POO” I said. 

  Wishing I had paid a little more attention in Spanish class; I motioned for to follow me so that I could point out the evidence myself.  That was when I realized that “poo” is not a universal term and I had failed in my attempts to make her understand the offensive nature of this mess.  I watched, as she moved her face closer and closer to inspect the evidence and that is when my gag reflex kicked in.  I realized that to stay and see this job through any further would only cause a larger mess and I resolved to leave it in her capable hands. I walked away inhaling deeply, once at a reasonable distance, and I began to reflect on these events.

  As a playground patron, there are several ways to handle, a “poo sighting”: 

Some will simply upon discovery, choose to ignore the poo.  They like the ice cream truck and like, Ella, why should a little poo stop them from enjoying a free ride.  As long as the poo doesn’t affect them, who cares? 

  Some upon discovering the poo, would choose to sit back and watch the poo be discovered by others.  They might even find this quite entertaining to see the reactions of others as they realize they have come in contact with the offensive mess. What’s the harm in that, as long as they are not involved them-selves? It could even be quite entertaining!  

 Still there are others, like myself, that believe we still have a community responsibility to expose poo when found, even though sometimes loudly and to the chagrin of those enjoying a meal around us, we a have a no tolerance policy when it comes to poo and we will go to whatever length necessary to prevent others from being soiled by it and alerting those in charge so that it can be handled appropriately. 

 Hmmm. Could there be a heavenly meaning to this crazy experience? I think so, (I sure hope so –I’d hate to think I lived through this one for nothing!)  

  How do we as Christians handle our own encounters with "poo"?  

Are we willing to take a stand for for what is right no matter what the cost?  

Are we willing to stick our neck out and do what it takes to expose it even if it means "missing out on a free ride in the ice cream truck" in order to prevent others from being affected by the it?  

If we choose to deal with it, it won't be pleasant and it usually requires some persistence to get the job done, but I believe it's a responsibility we must take. Pin It

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The Author

I’ve been on vacation this week and I totally intended to spend most of it sleeping. 

But something happened…

I started reading The Hunger Games.

Now instead of sleeping, I have spent my vacation reading well into the wee hours of the morning completely engrossed in the lives of these fictional characters. 

By the first chapter, I knew I was hooked. It only took a day and a half to make it through the whole book. We were traveling by car, so I thought I would just finish it, and then have the rest of my vacation to rest.  The problem is that reading this book is like eating potato chips – you can’t just eat one.  And the author gladly obliges by providing, not one, but two additional books in this series. Just to make sure you pick up the next book, she ends the previous one with a nice cliffhanger that leaves you wondering what will happen next, frantically searching Amazon.com for the next book and counting the seconds it takes to download it on your Kindle.  Oh, Suzanne Collins you are good – you are also responsible for the bags under my eyes –but you are good!

  Every good author knows how to use this human curiosity to keep his/her reader engaged.  By nature we are all somewhat curious, but our level of curiosity, can differ individually.  Mine is off the charts. I need to know how the story ends.  I need to know what happens next, and when I don’t know what happens next, it drives me crazy. I know I can’t blame it all on human nature, I may or may not have a slight control issue here but I can’t rest until I know.  It’s been an issue that God and I have been working on for a long time- apparently I am a slow learner.  You see, we have a deal worked out where I let go and He takes care of what happens next – I don’t have to know, I just have to trust that He knows and He is handling it. Then He lets me know when it’s the right time for me to know.  It’s a pretty good deal – the best one out there.  Looking back it’s always worked out to my benefit. But sometimes I forget.  I get worried, frustrated, and afraid because I don’t know what’s going to happen next and then I remember that He does.  How do I really know that He does?  Because He is the Author and He is writing my story.  I am just the reader, reading by faith, as He writes on the pages of my life.

Hebrews 12:2

"Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God." Pin It

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Seasons Change

Chick-fil-A at 12 Noon.  I sit quietly eating my waffle fries.  I am on the quiet side of the restaurant. You know, the side of the restaurant where all the working lunch breakers hover to avoid the greasy-fingered toddlers darting back and forth between the glass enclosed cage playground and the table where their mother resides happy to get one moment of respite. I watch one such mother as she attempts to finish a meal with her two little toddlers. While trying to stay engaged and patient, the sheer exhaustion of keeping up with two little ones day after day resonates on her face and I remember that feeling. I also remember sitting on her side, clad in my sweats, hopefully free of spit-up or other baby body fluids, and looking at the quiet side filled with women who were actually able to shave that morning and coordinate their jewelry to go with their clothing.  Some days, it seemed as if I would never get to eat on the quiet side.

And now…… here I sit….and surprisingly….. I am filled with envy. 

I miss the noisy side.  

I’m entering a new season in life and a lot of changes are taking place.

-         My baby went to Kindergarten and that changed my daily routine.

-         My big girl discovered that she is within a few sizes of wearing my 

          shoe size and that means I will never own a pair of my own shoes 

          again (until she outgrows me).

-         I turn 40 this year and I won’t even go into details about the 

          physical changes that brings! 

At the same time, this year has already brought new friends, new ministry opportunities, and new goals to pursue.

 

 In the book, Same Kind of Different as Me, one of the characters, Denver, makes a statement that “nothin ever really ends that something new don’t begin”. Every new season signifies the end of something else.  Change is tough sometimes.  As women, we face many new seasons in life, but oftentimes adjusting to a new season is difficult because it always means that something has ended, changed, or died in order to bring us to that place and we miss those things.

-         I miss having my babies at home with me.

-         I am going to miss my shoes.

-         I miss my younger body that I used to think was fat and now kill 

          myself at the gym to try to be that “fat” again!

It’s easy to get caught up in what was then and miss out on what is now.  I don’t want to do that anymore.  I want to embrace new seasons of my life (even the flabby ones!) and live out the purpose God has for each one to the fullest.

  Mary, the mother of Jesus, is one of the few women in the Bible, we actually  

  get to watch throughout many seasons of life.

 

-We sense her timid wonder as she as she receives news that she is 

honored and  

highly favored and she humbly steps forward.

-We bear her pains as she bravely gives birth to the Savior in the least 

likely of settings.

-We sense her urgency as she flees to Egypt, away from everything she has known, in order to protect the child entrusted to her.

-We can relate to the worry at the loss of her child, as she searches for days only to find Him in the temple and she steps aside reminded that He is called to a

higher purpose.

-We wonder as she witnesses her Son perform his first miracle in order to provide for her need. 

-We step back with her as her Son’s ministry grows and she becomes a follower of Christ.

-Our heart breaks with hers as she watches the Son she bore; bear her sins and the sins of the world on the cross.

-And we marvel at the completeness she must feel, as her life comes full circle and the woman who first witnessed the birth of the Savior now witnesses the birth of His church.

And through every season, we see that Mary remained “His faithful servant”.

She humbled herself and was willing to gracefully step forward, step aside, and step back – whatever was needed to fulfill her purpose in each season of her life.

 

 I want to walk in that grace and humbly accept each new season with a servant’s heart, ready to faithfully walk out His purpose.  It is easier said than done! Mary leaves us with a great example-still I wonder if SHE would gracefully give up HER shoes!

 

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