Live and Laugh

I have been thinking about my Grandma lately. There are two things I remember most about my Grandma. My Grandma always prayed for me and she had a loud laugh that was contagious (some may have considered it more of a cackle). As I grow older, my laugh is becoming a tad louder and reminds me of my Grandma's laugh. Many people comment on my laugh. I feel self conscious at times when someone brings it up - my laugh can tend to embarrass my daughters when it can be heard on the other side of the restaurant! Then, I remember my Grandma. She had a smile and a laugh even when things didn't seem like they were going quite right. She enjoyed being around us and others. Whenever my Grandma was around people, you could always hear her laugh from across the room. She loved God and she loved people. Her Joy of life would cause those around her to laugh right along with her.

I want to always remember to laugh. I just read an article about the things that people regret while on their death bed. One of the regrets was, "I wish I had let myself be happier". Many don't think they deserve to be happy or feel as adults, that we should not be silly or laugh too much. 

Why don't we let go of our reservations and make a choice to enjoy those around us! Make time to meet people you haven't seen in a while. Reach out, create new relationships and laugh with them. We can learn different things from each person we meet or take time to have coffee with. I have many wonderful people in my life that bring out a different aspect of my personality. Friends to shop with, friends to drink coffee and chat, friends who challenge me to improve, friends to knit with and friends I work with. One thing I like to do with all of them is to laugh! Laughter brings people together and can even bridge a gap with those from other cultures. It is something we love to hear from a baby. It brings tears to our eyes and a lightness to our hearts.

So, what are you waiting for? Go ahead - enjoy life! Drink some coffee. Meet new friends. Share your heart. Give a smile. Thank God for each day you have to share with those around you...and don't forget to laugh!

Set Up by God

It is so funny to me that I look around, see life and the things around me and think I have it all figured out. I have been a sign language interpreter for twenty years, then I was laid off this year. I knew I would be laid off, and I began to seek a part time job even before the end of my job in the school district. I asked a few friends to keep an eye out for me for a part time job that would "fit" me. I almost immediately had a friend tell me that there was a job opening in her salon she works for. It was for a part time receptionist. I love hair and makeup - yes, I'm a girly girl. My idea of roughing it is a Holiday Inn Express. I knew it was a perfect fit for me and was very excited to begin working there even before my career in interpreting ended. 

Working at this salon was an amazing experience. I not only learned new things about hair, hair color and how a salon works, I met some women that became a part of my life. They were easy to talk to, fun to laugh with and I enjoyed going to work - for the first time in quite a while! I knew that God had given me this job, that I was "set up" by God, but I really never "saw" what God was doing by bringing me into this place. Do we ever really know what God is up to? Do we just go about our lives and forget that there is another aspect of what we do - not just the things we do, but how God can use it. Our life is not just physical. It is spiritual. God is always working and moving in our lives even when we don't see it!

Right after being laid off from my full time position, my family and I were able to go on a vacation in Florida, thanks to some friends who loaned us their place to stay! Before leaving Michigan for our trip, my husband ran into an acquaintance that he knows from different groups around our town. This man found out that we were heading to Florida and He and his wife just so happened to be going to the same city in Florida on the same week that we were. They owned a home there and invited us for a boat ride when we arrived. Of course, our daughter did not let us forget this "plan"! She had brought along a friend to hang out with while on our vacation and she was very excited about the idea of a boat ride! Did I say that she did not let us forget this idea? She made sure her dad made the call when we arrived in Florida!

When we met up with this couple to take them up on their hospitality and boat ride, I met this man's wife, who owned a Paul Mitchell School. We began to chat about my new career change and that I was looking for something full time. It is fun to see how God works. I live in Michigan. I met this woman while on vacation in Florida. She owns a Paul Mitchell School in Florida AND in the town I live back home in Michigan. She began to talk to me about working for her at her school back in Michigan. I was "set up" by God.

I have been working for her now for about three months. I love this new job. It amazes me that God would set up an event for me - a vacation to Florida in June (not a prime time to go on vacation in Florida!) in order for me to spend time with someone who lives in my own hometown in Michigan! I am amazed that God would orchestrate the events of our life in order for us to see him working - almost so that we can not take the credit for the things "we" do - because it is so random, you know it must have been God!

I had to give up my part time job at the salon I loved in order to work full time at this new job. I was only there for part of the year, but I can look back now and see a few of the things that God was working on. I now understand that there were other reasons that I was working there other than just to learn about hair and how a salon works. 

During a bible study on Esther, Beth Moore said, "Just to know we are significant to Him and He's willing to orchestrate a holy set-up to speak to us is monumental to every woman who ever feared she was invisible or unremarkable". God "set up" the events in Esther's life - I would recommend you to read the book of Esther in the bible! It is one of my favorite books of the Bible because you can see how God orchestrates life events in order to accomplish His work! We need to realize that God did not stop doing this in the Old Testament and he does not only do this for Queens. He moves in our lives every day, each year. If we choose to follow his direction, he will "set up" events in our lives in order for him to do his work. Take time this week to be sure you are open to God's plan, offer your life to be used by God, to follow his plan and you will be able to look back and see his work in your everyday steps.  

Happy New Year! This can be the year that God "sets up" events in your life in order to work through you. Isn't that exciting?? Now, go read Esther and learn how to be ready to be "set up" by God!

Is Good really Good?

You know what I have come to realize through the years? That it's ok to not be ok. I know you are reading this and are now amazed at just how wise I am. You are probably wondering how I come up with these miraculous quotes all on my own. It does make you wonder how I do it - doesn't it?

Really, though. I think sometimes, especially those of us who are raised in a church, believe we must be ok all of the time. If our life is going bad and things are falling apart all around us, we feel that if we say anything to anyone, it will reflect badly on our God - who is able to do anything. We believe that if God is able to do anything, that he would surely not want us to go through a hard time or to suffer. That is where the confusion lies.

We all go through difficult times in our lives. Some, it seems, have a life full of trouble. When we look around, a few things are caused by our poor choices, and many we have no control over. So, what can we do during these times of hardship? How do we cope knowing God can do anything, and yet - it seems He is not.

In my own life trials and learnings, I feel that we just don't get it. Life. We think this life and our daily living is set up for us. For us to be happy and have all the fun toys to create an enjoyable time while we are here.We think this life is set up for us to be happy and if we are not having fun or we are not happy, then something is wrong. I am not against having fun, being happy or having toys. I love sitting at the beach on my day off and tuning out the world around me for a while. I do think God loves us and wants us to enjoy life, but I don't think that is what this is all about.

If you look back into the Bible, many of the disciples who walked with Jesus had a difficult time.Paul was shipwrecked, beaten and put in prison. If he was supposed to be on earth to be happy, I don't think he was doing such a great job of it!

God uses good and bad in our lives. It says in the Bible, "and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." I don't want to be the bearer of bad news, but the title of this section of the Bible - in my own Bible, is "Present Suffering and Future Glory". I think the future glory is speaking about Heaven. So, where does that leave us? God is working all things out for our good. Yes. I believe that is true! Here is the problem...I think the idea we have of "good" in our life and God's idea of "good" are two different things.

My husband walked through a dark time in his life. It was heartbreaking to stand by and watch as God allowed him to not see the light. To cry and feel abandoned by his God. I became angry at God for a time. I remember taking a walk and yelling at the sky. Asking God why he took away my best friend...he was not really there. It was an empty shell of who he had been. It took a few years to get my husband and best friend fully back. I remember about a year and a half after it began, I heard him laugh. I knew that it was the start of true healing in his life. He began to heal, slowly. When he came out of this dark hour in his life, he was different. He would never again be the same. This, I believe is what that verse is talking about. God brought good from this. This darkness changed my husband to be more like his God. Pain took out what was in the way, so that God could better use him to reach others. Now, those who my husband can relate to are those who are broken by life - or those who are walking in the dark. God allowed this "not happy" time in our lives. This pain was made to work for good in the people's lives that my husband ministers to. God wanted more for his life. He also knew that my husband could not get there without his help - without the darkness.

Because of this experience, my husband wrote a book called, "Pouring Ketchup". This book has many short stories that show how God is walking with us in the small moments of our lives. He is in the dark moments. He is using these moments to create something amazing with our lives - to create lives that will ultimately change those who walk around us and point them to our Creator and Lord. This experience in our family, I believe, was "good" in God's eyes. It was bitterly painful to walk through, but God's definition of  "good" is different than ours. He wants us to depend on him, to find who we really are as his creation. He wants us to look to Heaven as something exciting - something in our future that is so much better than we have here! His good is not our good, but it is always for our good.

Just Plain Ordinary

Ordinary. 

I feel ordinary most of the time. Not too special, not too pretty, not too popular - just plain ole ordinary. Do you ever feel ordinary? Do you feel you live just an ordinary life? I think most of us feel this way some, or most of the time. Even if we feel we are all alone in our "ordinary" world - I really believe most people would agree that their life is "just ordinary".

It seems we are under the assumption that ordinary is not good enough. We look around and see all of the things we would love to do, yet, how could we - just an ordinary person - accomplish a dream like that? God doesn't use ordinary, normal people - does he? I mean, sometimes its hard to even dream about something amazing happening in my life. I'm just ordinary, so it doesn't seem like that dream would actually happen, you know? Why waste my time dreaming about God using my life when I am just ordinary me. I really don't have much to offer anyway. I should just pray for other people who already have all the gifts. That could be my thing. I could be the person who encourages other people to have a dream. My life is pretty ordinary. I'm not as smart or talented as some of those who can plan big events and reach a lot of people. Not really sure what God can do with an ordinary person living a normal, everyday life.

Have you felt that way before, that you are "just plain ordinary"? Did you ever wonder if God could use you in your normal, ordinary life? I have good news for you! God uses Ordinary!! The disciples of Jesus were called "ordinary". When people began to notice their preaching and teaching, this is what they said, "When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus." Acts 4:13

What was the factor in their lives that made someone take notice of their ordinary? The factor was Jesus. It says, "They took note that these men had been with Jesus." The time they spent with Jesus changed their ordinary lives into something that caused others to take notice. God uses Ordinary.

When we take time to be with Jesus, our ordinary will be noticed by those around us. The light of Christ shines through ordinary. God can use ordinary people to change the world! All you have to do is give Jesus the "wheel" (as Carrie Underwood would say). If you give your dreams to God, he will use your ordinary to change those around you and that is how the world is changed. One person at a time. Yes, you may be walking in ordinary, but when you walk with Christ, He can turn your ordinary into ORDINARY.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...

Mirror, Mirror on the wall...

When you look into the mirror, do you see the fairest of them all? It seems that many of us never quite see the "most beautiful" looking back from the mirror. We see many things, but most of them are not what we would see in a fairytale.

Why is it difficult to see the fairest of them all in ourselves? We can look around us and point out all the great qualities of those around us, but when we look in the mirror, we see something different.

I think sometimes our past reflects from the mirror. We see mistakes, regret, guilt, shame and bitterness staring back at us. We try to see what God sees - someone created in his own image - but when we look at the refection, we see words...we see the past.

These words can control your life. Guilt, regret, shame, bitterness. So many words. How do we get past these words to see the true refection? The refection of who God made us to be?

My friend had a refection of shame for many years. She had an abortion as a teen that she had hidden in her past. When she looked into the mirror, that shame and guilt reflected back so all she saw were the words staring back at her - not her true self. Not who God created her to be.

She was able to get past this refection of shame and guilt - she chose to forgive herself.

When we chose to take the very difficult step, to look ourselves in the mirror and say, "I forgive you..." that is the moment that God can begin to change our reflection. As we continue to look into the mirror, forgive ourselves and choose to see ourselves as the person that God created, we will begin to see! We will see our true refection. We will see who God created us to be.

It is not easy, but it is totally worth it! Take a deep breath, look into the mirror and dare to see something new! A reflection of forgiveness and peace - a refection of YOU!

Scars

There are many things we try to hide in our lives. It seems the past can catch up to us when we least expect it. We try to move ahead, only to have our past staring at us again. We forgive ourselves, finally, only to look down at the scars on our arms. Some have scars that show or can be covered up. Others have scars hidden inside from things that are never spoken of.

When we walk around hiding scars, hoping no one will find them, we can be controlled by the past. We see the red marks and think about the past. We relive the feelings and try to push them back down in a place that has been bricked up and covered by years of pain. Anything can cause these scars to resurface. We may see someone who reminds us of the past, we may hear or smell something that brings up this hurt. When this happens, the feelings come along...guilt, shame, anger, pain. No matter how hard we try, these feelings continue to plague us in our daily lives.

In the Bible, it says, "by his stripes, we are healed..." Isaiah 53:5. Jesus died on the cross so that we can ask him to heal our scars. His scars are what heal us...his pain is what can make us whole. What is amazing is, while Jesus' scars heal us, our scars can help to heal others.

God wants to use our scars, our past, to bring healing to others. He can use the pain and mistakes that you have hidden inside. He wants you to share this past with those who need to hear it. Your scars can be the healing that someone else is looking for. If we continue to hide our scars, we will continue to confront the feelings of shame, guilt and anger. When we step out, cry, and share our story with another broken person - that is when we have freedom!

Our freedom comes from showing our scars. Someone else's freedom depends on it! Those who walk by us living in pain will only trust someone who they know walked through what they are facing. How can they trust someone who has not felt the pain they have felt? How can they share their scars with someone who has none?

It is not easy. It hurts. It takes a lot of prayer and a lot of guts, but when you take the step and allow God to use you to show someone else your scars, that is when you will have freedom from your own scars. That is when the scars of Christ shine through your own and bring light into the darkness of their pain. 

I don't like to camp

Camp. It is not my favorite pastime, any of my friends can agree to that statement. I tend to enjoy shopping in air conditioned malls or sipping coffee with my laptop. Camp does not come with these modern day conveniences. I don't really enjoy taking a trek to the bathrooms to begin my day. Now, it seems strange that someone who doesn't love to camp always goes camping one week out of a very short summer in Michigan.  I have done this for as long as I can remember!  I have attended camp as a kid, teen and now, an adult with my own teens!

I always blame my kids for attending camp.  I tell everyone that the reason we still come to sweat out a week in the hot July sun is because our kids love it so much, but my friend saw through my facade.  She said, "you know you love it too". Yes, she is right. I do love it (don't let this get out to others at camp, since they all still believe that I really don't enjoy it and I am doing all of this for my kids. I need to keep my "Mom of the Year" status somehow!). Although, I am not quite sure why I love it, I do know I enjoy being there - on the campground.  Just sitting by our little cabin, I feel a comfort...a reassurance that no matter what happens in my life, or how many changes take place, that God is always with me through every step - every change - every year of my life.

Camp has brought with it a lot of changes in my life.  When I was a kid, it was learning new songs, laughing with friends, learning that boys had "cooties" and seeing that it is pretty cool to love God.  When I was a teen, I learned that God had a plan for my life, that he was more important to my life than trying to impress the "cool kids" and I also learned that boys really didn't have cooties!

After I was married, camp included fun things such as potty training a two year old with porta potties! Not something I would recommend, but my two year old thought that those green boxes were the coolest place to learn this task and wanted to stop every time we passed by! Unfortunately, our little trailer we had borrowed that year was just down the lane from the porta potty and it was on the way to EVERYTHING in camp, and on the way back to our trailer! 

My husband was pastoring a small church up north when our two girls were little. We didn't have much cash, so the camp offered us a deal - watch the toddlers during the morning service for two hours and we can have free camping for the week! We thought that was a great deal, until we found out that the "toddler room" was in the back of the cafeteria. We had to block the kids in a corner with about thirty folding chairs and try to keep 15 three year olds busy for two hours! Let me tell you, it was not a good deal.

As our girls grew, we were able to watch them run around on the campgrounds with their friends, coming back to our camping area only for food or sleep.

I would much rather sleep at a Holiday Inn Express than in a little cabin that is actually a shed with electricity and bunk beds. I would rather have air conditioning than sweating, or a kitchen rather than a table with a fridge and toaster on top. Why do we continue to go back each year to spend quality time with Michigan mosquitoes?

It seems to be the time that God chooses to speak to my husband and I about important decisions in our life. This maybe because we actually get away from our technology, television and busy life for a week. We are quiet and able to listen to God a little easier while away from our crazy life! We go away for a week to focus on life, family and listening to God in sermons, songs and a quiet spot by the lake.

One year, God spoke to me during the songs at the chapel service. I felt like God was telling me that we were moving. We had been at our small church for six years and loved the people there very much. I felt God was telling me that this part of our life was ending. I was very sad but excited for this adventure all at the same time. As I sat down, I noticed the tshirt on the man sitting in front of me. It said, "Embrace new beginnings". My husband was in a back room and was not in the service. He was praying for the speaker and that God would speak to those sitting in the service. After the time for chapel was over, I was outside waiting for my husband. As he walked up, I said, "We are done here, aren't we?". He just smiled and said, "yes". God had talked to him about the same thing, at the same time, in a different room! We had no idea what was next for us, but we knew we had to take the next step. My husband told me later that after we had our short talk, he walked into the bathroom and a man he didn't really know walked up to him. He said, "Do you know that Abraham left everything he had to go to a place God wanted him to go? And he didn't even know where God wanted him to go yet!". These are the experiences we have at camp.

We had things like this happen so often in our camp life, that my husband and I were terrified one year to go to camp. We did not want to move or do any other difficult things we thought God might ask us to do! We still went, and God still spoke, but we did not have to move again. 

Sometimes, God has shown me during a week at camp that I just need to be still. I need to seek a quiet place, slow down my life for a few hours and focus on God and his love for me. To get away from my busy, crazy life and stop. Look up to God and take a breath. This is what we need sometimes. To take a break from life and have some time of quietness where we can really see that God created us and he loves us.

So, in a few weeks, we will once again pack up and head to camp. I will spray myself with mosquito spray and make dinner with a toaster. I will get dirty and have to take a hike to the bathrooms. I will also sit by the lake with a book, take time to talk with God, and wait for what I fear with excitement - his voice telling me what could be next in my life. I will be still. I will seek God and I will find peace. At Camp.