Every kid, Every Where, For Eternity

One other truth the parable reveals to us is that ministry is a lot like farming.  It is hard, slow work.  It does not feel very heroic and involves a lot of difficult and mundane tasks.  It involves knowing your land well—constantly walking the fields to check their condition and to stay attentive to what needs to be done (and when).  It is work that’s messy and will get your hands dirty.  There is no way to do it from a distance—you have to be in it up to your elbows.  It is not just a hobby, but an entire way of life (a calling).  It is a life filled with tilling the soil, and weeding, and digging.  It is a life filled with plowing up the hard ground and breaking up the rocky soil.  It is a life filled with doing whatever it takes to make the soil (soul) as receptive as possible to the seed of the Word. -Jim Branch, Reflections



If there was ever a crunch time in the farming industry Jim calls ministry, it would be now.
I leave tomorrow for YL camp in Georgia. Hopefully, it will be all that we leaders build it up to be, THE BEST WEEK OF YOUR LIFE!
A week kids get to have away from their friends, significant others, families, jobs, stress, drama, etc.
They will get to hear the gospel as they never have before in the midst of having more fun & freedom than they have ever experienced.
It will be neat to be on this side of it this summer.
I worked behind the scenes last year, Tawashie Boss, second session.  Meaning that I cleaned toilets, mopped cabin floors, & made beds day after day. 
I enviously looked on as leaders spent time laughing & crying with their kids.  Leading them towards the cross.

I enjoyed my work, but I kept wishing that my friends had signed up for camp.


Well a year later, and here I am.  
Camp kind of snuck up on me! 
I have been preoccupied right up until time to start packing.
But now it's real!
Only one of my high school friends signed up but thats better than none!
But am I ready?
Do I really know how to handle this week?
Am I prepared to put the work in?
Until this point, it has been the slow, steady toiling that softens the soil, that makes it "receptive as possible to the seed of the Word".
Have I done my best?
Have the long hours, the many miles driven, the many lunches had, the soccer games attended really set her up to hear what will be said at camp?


I am anxious & excited. It really will be the best week of her life. I know that. 
But it also has the capability of being the week that changes everything.
I don't have it all together. I don't have all the answers. I don't live a perfect life.
But I have a Savior that loves me, that guides me, that set me free & I so desperately want her to be able to feel those things too. To have hope, joy, & peace.


So if you stumble across this blog, say a little prayer for me, for Savannah, & for all the high school kids that will be at YL camps across the world this summer.
Every kid, Every Where, For Eternity.

Someone

Someone loves you the way you wish anyone would.
Someone wants you the way we all want to be desired.
Someone thinks you are the most beautiful, most perfect, most invigorating creature to ever exist.
Someone knows you  better than you know yourself.
Someone thinks of you every minute of every day.
Someone that calls  you names like my beloved, my cherished one, my daughter, my girl....

It just so happens that this someone is the creator of the universe.
The one that sets the stars in their places, that made the ocean waves, & sent the breeze blowing through our hair.
He, the great I am, is the someone that treasures you above all others.

5-1-12


I wrote this for a high school friend, then realized I needed to hear it more than she did...

Remember Scarlett, and keep her holy

I'm tired of everlastingly being unnatrual & never doing anything I want to do. I'm tired of acting like I don't eat more than a bird & walking when I want to run & saying I feel faint after a waltz when I could dance for two days & never get tired.  I'm tired of saying "How wonderful you are" to fool men who haven't got one-half sense I've got & I'm tired of pretending I don't know anything so men can tell me things & feel important while they're doing it.  Why is it a girl has to act so silly to get a husband? Someday I'm going to do & say everything I want to do & say & if people don't like, I don't care.

-Scarlett, Gone With the Wind

Another Poem

I wish that I was better than I am.
I wish that I could make the right decisions.
I wish that I felt good about myself.
I wish I could be all that I've envisioned.

The waiting & the growing has been painful.
The heartache & the worry brought me down.
The choices that I've made have led me nowhere.
The world,once so tempting, now has me bound.

I dream of shaking off these chains & shackles.
I dream of a bold life, both free & fearless.
I pray for mercy, grace, & guidance.
I pray that You will guide me through my mess.

It comforts me to know your love is endless.
It helps to know you forgive & start anew.
I just know my awakening, transformation,
Will lead me straight, quickly now, to You.

4/26/12

Family Jewels

I stumbled across the most encouraging thought as I got ready for work this morning.
I was almost ready, just needed to put some jewelry on before walking out the door.
Now when it comes to accessories, my collection is not lacking! Just the other day I bought 3 new pairs of earrings. Didn't need them, but I felt as if my ears just had to have them!
The sad truth is though, that it is only occasionally that I spend time sifting through earrings, bracelets, necklaces, to pick out ones that compliment todays outfit.
I have my go to pieces that are always worn & most days, thats just what I stick with!

I'm a gold girl. I don't really wear a lot of silver unless the outfit calls for it.
I just feel that gold is warmer & that it accents my skin tone. But this is all just back story.
My go to pieces aren't necessarily my favorites because of how they look, although I do think they are pretty, but they are my top picks more so because of where they came from.

I wear two rings on my right hand. One, is my mom's birthstone,a piercing green, Peridot, for August.  It was her ring for a very long time, but she gave it to me a few years ago & it's always on my ring finger.
The other is my great-grandmother's class ring from1922!
Her name was Mary Barbour Daniel & she lived to be 105!
I like to wear these rings close together because it reminds me of the sweet relationship my mom had with her grandmother, whom we all affectionately called Honey.
Honey was the family matriarch.  She held us together.  It was in her warm home that we spent time learning about the past, catching up with family members we didn't see as often, or just sitting on the porch, listening to cicada's in the summer.
She was kind & gracious, loving & gentle, wise & vibrant. She was my mother's favorite person. I credit her to helping my mom turn out to be the most wonderful lady I know! I see much of my own mom in Honey, which I think she would love to hear.

On my left wrist I wear 3 bracelets. They were given to me by my grandmothers.  Two more women that I love & cherish. Grandmom, from my dad's side, is one of my best friends.  She & I are two pea's in a pod! We look alike, have the same sense of humor, & it's because of her that I'm such a 'sharp' card player! Nannie, from my mom's side, always reminds me to be a proper young lady.  If it wasn't for her, I'd probably be covered in tattoos.  Which, my apologies to Nannie, might happen anyway.

the scroll ring is also my mother's

My most recent addition to my collection of favorites has been my necklace from Brooke McMinn.
For my birthday this year, she bought me a Diana Warner necklace.  Brooke is not only my co-worker, but close friend, & even though she would hate this term, my mentor.  Other than my own mom, I would have to say that Brooke is the most beautifully genuine, Christ-loving woman on the planet. She has taught & is teaching me so much about life. I am so thankful for her friendship.

I guess my encouraging thought was that even when I feel alone, or feel like I am weak, or that I don't have the ability to make a tough decision, that I have all these wonderful women with me everywhere that I go.
They inspire me to be the best version of myself & if I could just remember them more often as the light catches my bangles or my rings, then perhaps I could live up to that best me.

No Turning Back

The servant leader is the leader who is being led to unknown, undesirable, & painful places.  The way of the Christian leader is not the way of upward mobility in which our world has invested so much, but the way of downward mobility ending on the cross...It is not a leadership of power & control, but a leadership of powerlessness & humility in which the suffering servant of God, Jesus Christ, is made manifest...The loud boisterous noises of the world make us deaf to the soft, gentle, & loving voice of God. A christian leader is called to help people to hear that voice & so be comforted & consoled...He asks us to move from a concern for relevance to a life of prayer, from worries about popularity to communal & mutual ministry, & from a leadership built on power to a leadership in which we critically discern where God is leading us & our people. -Henri J.M. Nouwen

I just got back from spending a weekend in Nashville with some of my closest friends from college.
I had been looking forward to it for so long & was definitely everything I had hoped it would be!
We picked up as if no time had passed.  There was no awkward "Let's catch up" small talk, just us, being us!
We have all been out of college for a year or more, we have all grown up a lot, we have all moved on in life, but throwing us back together for a weekend of wedding festivities brought out our inner 21 year old college selves!
We were living the good life. Hotel in the middle of downtown, walking everywhere, looking fantastic, dancing the night away, we definitely felt very glamorous!

On the long drive home, I started questioning everything about my life....Why am I choosing to stay in a little po' dunk town? Why didn't I go to grad school? Why am I not living with people my own age? Why can't I have that much fun every weekend? Why does my life look so different?
I was seriously ready to pick up everything & move to Nashville...where MEN (not boys) ask me out on dates, where there is live music every night, where people actually have style, where I could have some fancy job...
But then, God brought me back to reality.

He has not chosen that life for me. For some of my friends maybe, a more exciting lifestyle is in their future, but for now, I am staying put.
That's kind of hard to swallow.
It isn't easy. Living here. In an environment where my friends are all in college or high school. Where I am NEVER meeting new people my age.
The free spirit in me wants to go & be a girl of this world, but the holy spirit reminds me of what is really true.
That those desires are merely the "loud, boisterous noises of the world" & that they will always fade away, leaving emptiness.
The still, quiet voice of God is what brings lasting joy.

That is that God has a plan for me & that His plan is greater, much greater, than anything I could plan for myself.
I have committed to the life I am living & He will see me through.
I am so impatient to get what I want. I like knowing what is ahead & I like having a goal to work towards.
Sometimes I get so tried of waiting on the rest of my life!
And I am forever comparing my life to everyone else's...but why would I want anything other than what he has planned?

The words of Nouwen are constantly going through my head...."downward mobility", "undesirable places", "life of prayer", "not about popularity"...these are all things I struggle with.
It's hard to hear that the popular, glamorous lifestyle that I sometimes crave is not what Christ deems worthy!
I don't want to be led into unknown, undesirable, painful places!
Take me down Easy Street!
Lord can't you mold me into the person you want me to be some other way?
But I can feel his hand on my shoulder as he patiently smiles & says no.

For now, really forever, I will trust Him.
Because I know that His promises never fail, & he has promised me the best life, a life more beautiful & fulfilling than I could ever desire.

I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back....

Easter

It might sound odd to say I have a favorite part of the crucifixion story, but I do!
The part that really speaks to me is when the curtain in the temple is torn in half. Top to bottom.
Now that's unexplainable!
What a strong & mighty way to say that things are different.
What better way to prove Christ's teachings.
The curtain that separated people from God no longer exists!!
He left his holy place & is among us. It's incredible!

I love to imagine the people in the temple.
I like to think that it was rather empty.
That most of the people who would be there regularly were at the crucifixion.
But possibly a few stayed behind.
Silently going about their daily duties, trying to ignore the buzz throughout town.
Then, the sky darkens.
The wind picks up.
It blows out all the candles.
No longer can they ignore what is happening in their city.
Every doubt they had about killing this innocent man becomes a throbbing pain in their stomachs.
As the sky turns black & the heavens rumble, they do the only thing they know to do, drop to their knees & pray.
Then in one second, a booming instant of thunder & lighting, sent from an angry & broken-hearted God, the curtain is torn.
The men see it rip.
Top to bottom.
Unexplainable.
One, afraid for his life, runs from the temple into the empty street.
Another faints, & another is weeping uncontrollably, realizing too late what has occurred.

How incredible!
Instant gratification!!
Christ promised to bring us life, to break the barrier between humans & God, to shake the foundations of religion.
And he did.
In the same moment that he took his last breath, all he had claimed, came true.

Father, remind me often of the cross.
For when I think of it, I am comforted.  Why you love me, I will never truly grasp.
But you do. And I am humbly grateful.
Keep me focused on the cross.