Deep Thoughts

I usually have several inspirational books going at the same time.  I am working through Beth Moore's "New Every Morning" devotional during my quiet time right now (I highly recommend it, it's excerpts from several of her Bible studies in easy, daily reads), but I've also been reading "Hearing God's Voice" by Henry and Richard Blackaby.  

A statement in their book completely struck me the other day.  It so imbedded itself into my mind and spirit I thought about it all weekend.  

The more we focus on the suffering, the more indignant

we can become at God.  When we do this we are allowing

our circumstances to inform us about God.  That is backwards.

We ought always to allow God to inform us about our circumstances.

Wow!!  How many times have you heard, "If God truly loved me, He would never let me go through this"?  Or, "If God is love, why does so much evil exist?".   We too often allow circumstances define for us who we think God is.  Most of us would be irate if people judged us solely on our circumstances.  

They are wealthy, they should be giving more to the church.

They have 10 kids, they must be Catholic.

Their teenager got a DUI, they must not be praying for him.

That married couple fights a lot, I wonder if they're going to get divorced.

I am so guilty of this.  I realized that it is unfair to others to judge on circumstances, how much more unfair when I judge my God's character based on life's circumstances.

God's Word talks about how sovereign our God is.  He will lead us through the valley and never leave us.  We can lean on Him in times of trouble.  We do not need to fear, He is always with us.  What is meant for evil, He can turn into good.

It gives me peace to know that no matter what my circumstances, I serve a consistent God.  That when times are tough, He still loves me, but can use those times to mold me and refine me.  He can show Himself to me through good times and bad, as long as I'm looking for Him.

A Blast to the Past

Last night I got to take G and N on a trip back in time.  We went to the drive-in movies.  The kids I had in my car had absolutely no concept of the drive in theater and the questions I was fielding on the way were priceless.  

"Miss Keri, do people work there?" 

"Mom, is it like that light show we drive through at Christmas only you see a movie as you drive?"

"Where are we going to sit and do they have food there?" 

The last time I was at the drive-in, it was to see the Apple Dumpling Gang with all my siblings in the back of our wood paneled station wagon.  I remember the popcorn and that my mom watched Private Benjamin on the other screen the whole time.  Give her a break, she had 5 kids and I'm sure she saw more than her share of the Apple Dumpling Gang in those days.  

All I can say,  it was SO MUCH FUN!!!  There were about 12 cars in our group, never mind the 2 families we ran into once we were there.  LOTS of people were out with their lawn chairs, blankets, and kids.  It was a double feature of High School Musical 3 and Beverly Hills Chihuaha.  There are no more car mounted speakers, you tune into a radio station for the sound, which is the only time my car stereo has really shown off to its full potential.  Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgins at full blast.....nothing like it!  

G and I getting the back of our car movie worthy.  I had two 4th graders and one 5th grader hanging at our mobile movie hut. 

This would be what it looked like at the other cars.  I would say I sooooo got the easy end of the deal.  You can see N front and center in the middle of all the girls, just where he likes to be!

A quick view of the screen before it started getting dark.  

I threw in a picture from halloween night for good measure.  I have one every year in front of our front door.  G is on the far left dressed as a gladiator and N is incognito in the middle right dressed as Secret Service complete with ear piece and sunglasses. 

Dumpster Diving

What is missing in the top picture?  That's right, a mouth full of metal.  G posed for one last shot of his braces before having them removed about 3 weeks ago.  Between a palatal expander and then braces, he's had metal of some kind permanently adhered to his mouth for a year and a half.

His braces came out once his retainer arrived.  They have come a long way since the retainers of my day.  The plate of his is orange with a longhorn painted on it with the words "Hook 'em" in honor of his beloved UT Longhorns.  I thought it was cute, but had no idea how handy a bright orange retainer would come in some day!

Yesterday, I was at the school all day doing Hearing screenings on all the kids.  I actually enjoy this since it gives me a chance to see lots of kids I know from years of school stuff.  The best is when I had a 3rd grade class with boys that play football with N.  A couple of them were goofing off and in the middle of doing a child's hearing exam, I turned to them and told them they better knock it off or they would do "up downs" for me.  They got big eyes and stopped immediately.  A couple seconds later, I heard one of them whisper to an unknown friend, "It's ok, we know her".  As if to reassure the other children that I'm not a raving lunatic with an audiometer that's going to force small children into torturous physical drills for talking.

Anyways, the day was over and I was leaving when the secretary motioned me over to tell me that G was in the cafeteria because he had thrown away his retainer.  Let me just say, I knew this day would come.  I asked about replacement fees before we even left the orthodontist because I knew it would be misplaced.  I just thought MAYBE we'd make it a month.....at least!

I went and grabbed G and we went dumpster diving.  I was sweet enough to give him latex gloves and my assistance.  We dug through 4 or 5 large trash bags of 4th grade lunch leftovers.  It was disgusting........but true to 4th grade form, not too much uneaten food in there!  I had just prayed and asked God to help us find the retainer when G shouted, "I got it!!".  I could NOT believe it!  We went straight to the nurse's office for some serious disinfecting before it resumed its job of keeping many dollar's worth of orthodontic work in place.  I wonder how long it will be before I go digging through trash again???

Tag, you're it!

Ok, so I've seen this on several other blogs, but have never been "tagged" myself.  It makes me feel so official!!  Thank you, Misty, for tagging me.  www.theytakemybreathaway.blogspot.com

Let's see......random facts and I have to narrow it down to 7.

1.  I got to shake hands with Garth Brooks when I was in college.  He came to Waco for a concert and I got to go backstage.  We presented him and his wife, Sandy, with a Bible.....because we were good Baylor Baptist girls and that's what you do!

2.  I don't mind doing laundry and I never, ever have piles of clean clothes that need to be folded.  I fold it all straight out of the dryer.

3.  I drive everywhere way too fast, but have never gotten a speeding ticket.

4.  I hate getting highlights, pedicures, massages......but will do it all for the pure maintenance factor.  Something about having to sit in one place for hour after hour.

5.  No wire hangers in my closet.

6.  I love Sonic drinks - my fav is Diet Coke with fresh lime.......I can milk a large all day long!

7.  My nickname in college was Toe Rot.  Thank you, Baylor Health Clinic (the Quack Shack).

Now, the rules say I'm supposed to "tag" other people......but I am not very Blog savvy so I have no idea how to do that........I'll play "tag" as soon as I learn!!

C3

Take the cute, but posed, pulling out my hair picture from 2 posts ago, and insert genuine "I'm so overwhelmed I don't know where to start", face.  That would be a true portrait of me right now.

This Friday night is our C3 event at our church.  This is a ministry I've been entrusted with and it has been a real pain in the hiney this time around.  I can say that because it means that God has something great in store and satan is ticked off royally.  The problem is that all that ticked offness filters right down to me, and while I enjoy a good standoff, I'm losing steam.

C3 stands for Coffee, Calories, and Conversation and we have it twice a year.  This time around it was scheduled for one week after Ike rolled through here.  So we rescheduled and then found out a theater group was doing Driving Miss Daisy in our student building where we have C3.  Ok, hurricanes and Driving Miss Daisy, at least we're getting creative here.  We rescheduled again for this Friday.  Half our speaker team can't make it this Friday so we've scrambled to make up the rest of the team.  

I have handed this over to God many, many times.  The ironic thing is that we are talking about how "You Never Know".  We serve a mighty God.  He does mighty things in the lives of broken people.  You Never Know what the person sitting next to you in Sunday School, at work, at school, is going through.  What if you have been chosen by God to be the catalyst in someone's life, but are too busy with your own to even notice.  Don't worry, He will use someone else.  But how incredible to be used by God in His divine workings in someone's life.

speechless

I don't even know what to say about last night.  It was amazing on so many levels.  The first being that a large group from that very church had been to Isreal in March and my sister was their teacher and guide while they were there.  How ironic is that?  I had so many women come up to me to tell me how much they loved my sister and what an incredible teacher she is, that I felt like I was in a room full of friends.

These past few months getting ready for last night have been tough and life changing in many ways for me.  I would do it all again in a hearbeat - it was totally worth it.  I have so much to say, but at the same time, I'm utterly speechless.

I just feel so honored to have been a part of something God was doing in the lives of many of those women.  I wanted to throw up all day, but I got on that stage and the peace of God just flowed all through me.  IT WAS SOOOOOO MUCH FUN!!  

I do have to tell a hysterical story.  I'm sure it struck me as hysterical because I had so much adrenaline pulsing through me when it happened that I was barely sitting still in my chair.  First of all, two very sweet ladies from the church choir were in the middle of their rendition of Amazing Grace when I decided to go ahead and turn on my boy-band mic (which I was earlier told I could leave on because it was muted, but I had turned off in the bathroom because I don't always trust technical people, and having a room full of nice Methodist women listening to me go potty was NOT on my agenda for the night).  Anyways, I thought it was safe to go ahead and turn it on and as soon as I did the LOUDEST screeching noise I've ever heard came out of the speakers.  The over 70 crowd was on their knees holding their ears with all the hearing aids going crazy.  It was BAD!!  My mom was like, "It's you, it's you!".  So I quickly turned it off and played it off like you just can't trust those technical people.  I'm not sure the sweet ladies ever did get back on track with the song after that, but they had an incredible attitude about it!  

Then, my friend, who got me into this whole thing in the first place and was the MC for the night, got up on stage following a funny movie clip.  It's the clip from Fried Green Tomatoes where Kathy Bate's character rams her car into the young girl's car after they stole her parking spot.  That was where the clip was supposed to end.  It didn't.  She's up there ready to introduce me, and the movie is still going.......on full speaker volume.......when in the next scene Kathy Bate's character says something along the lines of "I don't put of with (insert 4 letter word that starts with SH and ends with a T").  Again, the over 70 crowd was on their knees, but for an entirely different reason.  My friend was MORTIFIED making a cut, cut motion with her hand to the tech person (I told you they are untrustworthy) and I'm sitting there hysterical because I know at that moment, that I'm going to be ok.  It was priceless!

I don't think I have stopped thanking God once since last night for asking me to do this and sticking with me until I decided to be obedient.  For giving me the incredible privilege of speaking His word to those women.  For the grace to allow me to get through it all with confidence and for giving me peace.  

It's an incredible thing to be used by God.  I highly recommend it to anyone!

no, no, no, no.........ok

Yes, this is me laying on a pile of clothes (you can see my wedding dress towards the top) and I'm pulling my hair out......well, with one hand anyways since the other was taking the picture.

Let's go back about 5 months when a very good friend of mine asked me to speak at a women's event at her church.  She had barely gotten the words out of her mouth before I was saying "No, no, no, no".   She insisted I think about it, but I was determined that the answer was going to remain, you guessed it, "NO".  

Evidently God had other plans for me and He began the very slow and laborious process of changing my mind.  I think God feels like all His dealings with me can be slow and laborious, but we'll deal with that another day.  After much work on His part, I agreed to do it.

Well, the event is tomorrow night and I'm nervous, jittery, excited, and emotional about it.  God and I have been talking about my subject matter for months now.  Late into the night I will lay awake and dialog with God, we've chatted in the car about it.  I have a special attachment to my shampoo these days because much has been accomplished while washing my hair........do you understand how laborious I am now??  God has to take every opportunity when I'm actually standing, sitting, or laying still to talk to me or I'll completely miss Him.  YIKES!!

Anyways, tomorrow night I'm going to share with about 200 women a message that only God, myself, and my poor sister have talked about for a long time now.  My prayer is that I am completely removed from the equation so He can speak.  I pray that even one woman hears something I have to say and experiences a heart change.  I pray I don't throw up on stage.

Now, for the clothes on the floor and why I'm laying on them.......I'm talking about Cleaning Out Your Closet and that means getting rid of things from the past, getting rid of your skinny clothes (unrealistic expectations), and getting rid of the burden of unfulfilled hopes and dreams (wedding dress).  You have to clean it out to put on the outfit God has designed for us - our spiritual armor.  

It's going to be good and I'm excited.  There will be clothes flying everywhere and who doesn't like a good closet cleaning?  I do, even if it is a slow and laborious process.