In Some of the Strangest Places

The CW network kind of made its name by introducing new music on its shows, or at least having good soundtracks.  Come on, you know at least once in your life you've liked a song you first heard on One Tree Hill.  And that's ok.

So, I admit that I have taken quite the liking to the new CW Show, Hart of Dixie.  I can't help myself.  And, true to form, it's featured some good music.  I admit to catching up on some shows on their website and looking to see what the songs were.  I was pretty sure the pilot featured a worship song at the end, and I was pretty sure I really liked it.  Sure enough, the pilot ended with a song recorded in 2008 by Enter the Worship Circle.  Seriously?  I mean, really?  How does somebody working on a show on the CW find a worship song full of scripture recorded four years ago by a Christian indie art group?

I don't know, but I'm grateful.  Sure enough, I have downloaded the song, and it has ministered to me right on time.  God will put His words and love and romance for you in some of the strangest places - including a tv shot where a New York Dr. is giving birth to a hidden baby in fictional Bluebell Alabama.

Here is the song:

You Are Mine

Karla Adolphe

Verse:

Maybe I don't have the strength

Maybe I don't have the faith

You brought me here in 40 years

I know this trip should take a week

I've shed my tears and shed my blood

Been held ransom by the flood

The winter steals my soul away

In all of this I've come undone

Chorus:

When you walk though the water, I will be with you

When you pass through the river, the waves will not overtake you

When you walk on the fire, the flames they will not touch you

You are mine, you are mine, you are mine

Verse:

I've been a child, I've been a slave

I've grown bitter and learned to pray

Packed my bags and started back

The cost was just to high to pay

How Am I Running?

A friend came to me on Sunday morning, completely exhausted by trying to meet her expectations at work, at church, and at home with her new husband.  She was worn out without a Sabbath.  I have been rather convicted lately about my own lack of a Sabbath and the consequences (I think it's nearly impossible in this town during football season).  Something has to change.

Then, Sunday night I read the scripture below.  A scripture we've all heard and most of us have memorized, whether we "got it" or not.

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?  Run in such a way as to get the prize.  Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training.  They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.  Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly; I do not fight like a man beating the air.  No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others, I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

I Corinthians 9:24 - 27.

God being God and all, He has this way of making scriptures relevant or brand new to you right when you need them.  So, this is what I heard when I read this on Sunday night:

Do you not know that in a race all the runner run (even the lazy or mean people or the people not in ministry), but only one gets the prize?  Run in such a way to get the prize (with some thought and purpose).  Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training (everybody's job is stressful and everybody has a cross to bear and nobody got a PhD or a good job by sitting on the couch eating chips - whether they are in ministry or not).  They do it to get a crown that will not last; but we do it to get a crown that will last forever.  Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly (saying yes to folks all the time and/or people pleasing); I do not fight like a man beating the air (just trying to survive each day as it comes).  No, I beat my body and make it my slave so that after I have preached to others (ministry, but also my attempt to listen to everybody and help everybody and buy everybody's fundraiser item, and whatever anybody asks or whatever I have genuinely wanted to do for others), I myself will not be disqualified for the prize.

Basically, all the stuff written in purple.  And, had I ever noticed the word "disqualified" before??!!  I felt like God was saying "Hey!  Stop doing all this running and pleasing and helping without purpose and boundaries because it's making you worthless!  And too tired to do what I made you for!  Everything is permissible but not beneficial - even when it comes down to stuff that's not "bad".  Don't get disqualified from the race because you're only thinking of and checking on the other runners!  You need to get to the finish line too".

I understand that this could easily wreak of false humility.  I'm not saying I'm Mother Teresa and God has asked me to stop helping others.  I'm saying running without purpose does not get you the prize and I've been more likely to flutter about and people watch or stop to hand out water just for fun than I have been to run the race.  Or that I've nominated myself as official fire-putter-outter when there are other firemen standing around.  And I'm not planning for rest and sabbath.

God, let me run to win the prize.

Ode to Kentuck

Anybody reading this probably knows about our little local festival called Kentuck.  Except, it's not all that little and it's kind of a big deal to the art world (and I may or may not have watched Anchorman on Friday night and may be kind of a big deal).  I hadn't been able to make it the past couple of years and was missing some weird folk people watching.  I didn't get to go for long or see the whole thing, but I did make it!

I was on a mission to visit the Freshie & Zero booth and check out her hand-hammered jewelry.  And see if I recognized her from college.  I had stumbled upon her website a couple of years ago which said we went to Belmont at the same time.  Surely I'd at least recognize her.  That's not weird, right?  To stalk out a jewelry designer?  Turns out, I did recognize but I didn't know her.  We were in different (but conjoined) girls dorms the same years - but she was an art student and I was a biology student, meaning neither of us were music or music business and therefore not on display.  I was overwhelmed by all the cute choices and finally picked a necklace, which is not on her website, so I'll have to post a picture later.

My favorite new discovery was made by one girl.  If I had the money, I would have wallpapered my bedroom walls with her gorgeous art - which is mostly dress form prints made from old patterns.  Her pattern collages were amazing.

Then, there's Amos Kennedy.  He's a local poster maker that has become quite the attraction.  I have two of his Okra Festival posters hanging in my living room.  He actually prints posters while folks stand in line, but he also brings hundreds to pick from.  I just visited his website for the first time and found some for sale there are racier than the ones I'd seen.  Just throwing that out there.  Several of our local rural docs have his health and children related posters in their waiting rooms. Here's pictures of a few of my favorites:

 

Blessings

In the past 2 weeks, two different important ladies have had me sit and listen to the song "Blessings" by Laura Story.  I figured that meant I oughta download it.

At first, it was easy for me to mistake this song for standard Christian radio play.  But, I trusted God sending 2 witnesses to say there was something in this song for me.

I looked Laura up on the internet.  Turns out this song was written after nursing her young husband through a very grave brain tumor.  Oh.  Yeah.  Probably something to learn here.

Here's a bit of what she has to say about it:
“Life is filled with things you don’t expect, but the Bible tells us to respond by trusting God and continuing to worship him,” Story begins. “Martin hasn’t received complete healing—and that can be hard at times when we view God as all-powerful and all-loving. But here we are now saying, ‘Yes, this is how faith works.’ God has proven to be faithful. We have been truly blessed out of a circumstance that at first didn’t seem like much of a blessing at all.”

Among the positives, Laura sees the timing of their new international travel opportunities as no coincidence. Singing and teaching in churches across the United States, Western Europe, and South America, she believes “we have a voice that wasn’t there prior to this suffering. I can hardly begin to tell you of the hundreds of hurting people we’ve prayed with, people going through more than we have. This is a chance to share the gospel.”

And here she is talking about it some more:

Homecoming Queen

As I mentioned before, my college roomate came to visit last weekend and went to her very first Alabama home football game.  This game just happened to be Homecoming.  While we were sitting there in the upper-upper-deck, watching the Governor crown this year's queen, roomate turns to me and says "Remember when I was Homecoming Queen at Belmont?" 
Then, we busted out laughing.  She was the Homecoming Queen our Junior Year.  My housemate was the Homecoming Queen my Senior Year.  Had this been a campus with a secret society of power that made such decisions, one might think I was influential in that group.  But, this was Belmont.  A private Christian liberal-arts school without a football team.  To be our Homecoming Queen, you had to be nice and funny enough for someone to take notice and remember your name when they were asked to check a box on a ballot.  Turns out I was blessed to live with a lot of ladies that were both funny and nice and that's why my roomates became Homecoming Queen.
They were also the funniest folks in the Fall Follies (our own SNL with skits and bands), which is what Homecoming at Belmont was really all about anyway.
Whether she was crowned by the Governor in a stadium of 100,000 or by the school president on the soccer field with a few rows of bleachers, I am very honored to be pictured below with Belmont's 1998 Homecoming Queen.  A crown is a crown :).

Oh, and this one is pretty good too...

Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Romans 15:13

Keep Running, Running

I don't know why Fergie's backlyric from a Black Eyed Peas song came to mind for this title, but it did.

I'm continuing to learn that love, joy and hope are God's gifts, but they're also a choice.  There will be days when we have to be intentional about this choice one hundred times over.  Oprah always has her "What I Know for Sure" moment in the back of her magazine, and what I know for sure is that replacing lies with God's promises works.  If I believe this and see this as truth in my life, then it is something I need to do everyday the same as brushing my teeth and going for walks.  It is good for me. 

So often I ask "God, how long will I need to keep doing this until I get your love to stick in my heart and bones?"  And then I feel so obsessed with my own pity party.  I also realize that I am not very proactive in this fight and that does not set me up for success (a great point made by Pastor Chris during his women's conference sermon on what to do at the end of your rope - fight early). 

When I was doing Weight Watchers a few years back, I realized that I had to be that intentional about my food choices for the rest of my life.  I had to realize that counting points or weighing options and setting myself up to avoid triggers was work, but it was work that was worth it.  I had to reconcile that doing this work was ultimately to my life-long benefit.

I realize the same is true with speaking God's promises over myself if I want victory over the nasties and stinking thinking.  I may have to make myself get out of bed and do it, but it's so worth it to keep me from that downward spiral that's no good for anybody.

This was all sinking in last night during small group.  In our study, Made to Crave, God gave me the scripture Ephesians 3:16-19 and I inserted my name into it when I read it to drive it home.  Turns out, He must be up to something because my friend Brooke just happened to blog on that scripture today.  She says it all in such a lovely way, so check that out here:  http://playing-grown-up.blogspot.com/2011/10/blog-post.html

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:16-19

Friendship - My Double Rainbow

This past weekend was a great weekend o'friendship.  My college roomate was in town, a dear friend from Colorado was in town, I got to hang out with my hometown friends, and our sermon was on covenant friendships. 
(Side note - I should probably call her something other than "my college roomate" since we're at 15 years of sisterhood now).

Friendships are where I find myself most humbled by God's love, and where He most debunks the lies of abandonment and rejection in my life.  I remember being the awkward nerd that didn't remotely fit in for so many years of junior high and high school.  Now, I look at the people God has blessed me with and I'm just excited to know most of them, much less call them friend.  And when I get invited to their baby showers or their weddings, most often I'm just excited that I get to be a part of something in their lives and get to bless them. (Maybe sometimes to the point of previously mentioned geek-dom).  Then, when old friends from out of town visit and my new(er-ish) friends love them just as much as I do, I'm doubly excited! I really struck gold in the friend department.

I find a visit with an old friend is the very best thing at reminding me of who I am and what I was created for.  They are a reflection of me at my best of times and worst of times and call me to keep going and aim higher.  Old friends won't let you sit on your bum or your laurels. 

John Maxwell delivered our sermon on Sunday, and he said "we attract what we are, not what we want."  This is so true and perhaps the most humbling thing of all.  I see it played out for the positive and the negative in people's lives quite often.  If I'm remotely like the folks God has put in my life, then I must be making it alright.  And knowing how amazing they are reminds me again that God chose me at the beginning of time and did not reject me.  It reminds me that I may not have "romantic love" in my life right now, but I'm sure not short on love.

Roll Tide.

It's all about perspective...

This fall, I'm in a kickin' women's small group on the book Made to Crave by Lysa Terkeurst.  It's all about how we're made to crave God, not food.  It also addresses those super fun body image issues women have.  She posed a new challenge to me, and that was to find a good thing about the body part/area of yourself you least like or are most self-conscious about.  Her example was that by having "tankles" she didn't sprain her ankles so much. 
I'm struggling to find God's hidden gifts in back fat and a weird under-eye vein (good circulation?).  However, I have found a silver lining to adult hormonal acne.  We've been fighting each other for an awful long time and it's rarely been pretty.  This battle has included a lot of salicylic acid and prescription grade retinol.  Turns out, these are the same ingredients most proven to fight premature aging and wrinkles.  So, thank you God for that one ;).

Turnout

I love my new black flats because they have a square toe box reminiscent of a ballerina's point shoe.  I find that when I wear shoes like this, I walk around as though I were in ballet shoes and with a turnout.  Especially when I'm also wearing a flowy dress, which I just so happen to be doing.  It makes me want to glissade down the hallway.

A Good Investment

Today, I'm wearing the same dress I wore for my college graduation.  Yes, that means it is 11 years old.  Thankfully, it doesn't look it.  It most likely does not look it because I thought it was too tight and a little racy back in the day.  This cracks me up now.  It's basically a black lycra jersey t-shirt dress.  You can dress it up or down, but I would never venture to call it "racy" by any stretch of the imagination.  However, back in 2000 I was still in the newly post-grunge world of jeans and t-shirts everyday at a Christian liberal arts school, which is much different from the ultra-glam-sorority-girl-cocktail-dresses-at-church-SEC-football world I live in today.  And, thanks to Weight Watchers and a hernia, the dress is not as tight as it was then.  Still, I thought it was "too tight and racy" to wear for several years, which I'm sure has added to it lasting so long.  In retrospect, I wish I had bought 10 of them.

I've thought about this theme a lot lately.  I look at all of the beautiful college-aged women that I get to go to church with and even mentor on occasion, and they are always in great outfits.  I did not do this in college.  Sadly, dressing up for me sometimes included carpenter jeans, skorts, or sweater vests.  Oh, or maybe some khakis.  Even if we went dancing.  I wasn't trying to dress like a man, it was just the late 90s.  Some girls wore outfits and pretty dresses - but only the ones that were commercial music majors and pursuing a record deal.  You know, the same girls that went to a stylist at Trim (which started at $40!) instead of Headstart.  (At least I fancied it up by going to a Headstart in Green Hills). 

Girls grow up so fast now.  Back then, we didn't have a clue that we were "women".  We didn't know that the pretty dresses and accessories and looking diva every day was for us.  We thought it was something we would grow to.  Or, at least I did.  Granted, I also didn't think I was worthy of such things back then.  

I admit I put a lot of effort into how I look these days.  Sometimes it makes me feel materialistic, or makes me afraid that others will perceive me as superficial, but really I mean it as a celebration of life and of the fact God created me as a woman.  I do it more because I get to and it can be fun and because I wore plaid flannel much longer than I should have.  I look at these younger women and wonder if they merely understand this waaay earlier than I did or if they dress like this because culture dictates it and they truthfully have a long way to grow internally.  I dress up  now out of security in who I am, not out of the insecurity of a young woman.  I assume that it is often the reverse for these girls.  (Although there are totally days where I dress up to give myself more courage).  Still, I look at them and wonder if I missed out on something, or if I'd be married now if I had dressed like them between the ages of 18 and 25.

I don't have the answer to that question, but I know God is good and sovreign so I shouldn't spend time worrying about it.  And, I'm thankful that he is showing me how to be a grown woman in my early 30's, because that's for sure something that doesn't come naturally!

*This blog post is not meant to be a commentary on the social control placed on women by using the term "girl" or the issue of whether or not modern Christianity supresses women by having them claim the word "girl" for themselves. Yes, this is where my professor hat and my girly-girly hat meet :).