Are There Any Turtle Shells Available for Rent?

I'm officially in the season of super-duper busy.  I'll probably be here for a while, with a brief reprieve during Spring Break (thank God in the heavens!).  I don't say this to sound like a whiny martyr.  I say it because I'd had a lot of things falling through the cracks, especially people related things, and I'm in a place of needing extra grace.  All around.  And quite possibly in need of a person that can just follow me around and tell me what to do next.  And maybe a turtle shell for curling up in a ball and hiding?

I feel like there's tons to blog about these days, but no time to do it well and in a way worthwhile to others.
A couple of things I will share:

• There seems to be extra awareness of Lent this year and I continued to run across blogs and devotionals about it.  What I was convicted of most for Lent?  To pray for my enemies.  Holy, Moly - we'll see how this continues to go.
• It is important that women be real in the work place.  I had almost cried twice already today but had not followed through with it.  Then, a coworker came to me to discuss something and revealed she had already shut her door and had a good cry this morning and then another coworker offered her a more private place for further crying.  This made me feel way more sane and told me that if I did finally cry by the time the day was out - it would mean I'm normal and not crazy, and that's a mighty big gift.

Despite the whining, I'm thanking God.  Really, I am.  I know it's another day in the life that is taking me to His promises.

Blessings!

All Y'all

At some point in my life that I can't pinpoint at the moment, a Northerner asked me when it was most appropriate to use the term "y'all" versus "all y'all".  (Perhaps I have posted about this before because my computer remembered this title, but again - I don't know when that was.)  I felt this person had a respect for Southern language and was pretty smart to think to ask this question, which I had never been asked before.  I just had need of "all y'all", so I thought I'd share.

The convo went a little like this:

Friend S: "I love your super duper cool friend that just came to visit."

Me:  "She loved all of y'all!"

Meaning - she collectively loved each of the wacky Southern folks she met while visiting.  Yes, I added an "of" when I texted back.  No biggie.

Here is some of the y'all:

Lent is sneaking up on us!

During this morning's Today Show, which is where lots of my life epiphanies take place, I realized that Lent starts this week!  I have yet to decide if I'm going to observe it and how, and it should be a decision you think about for a little bit, so I was a little flustered.  Then, there was a blog post on the observation of Lent waiting for me in my reader, and just now a friend texted to ask if and how I was observing Lent.  Is God telling me something???  Hmm....

I did appreciate this blog's consideration of Lent observation and I recommend it if you're in the boat with me.  Anticipating Easter, Lent, and Sweet Potato Biscuits

I particularly appreciated this Buechner excerpt because I graduated from Belmont and I can't help myself:

Fredrick Buechner, a favorite author of mine, beautifully explains the season of Lent from his perspective in his book, Whistling in the Dark:



In many cultures there is an ancient custom of giving a tenth of each year’s income to some holy use. For Christians, to observe forty days of Lent is to do the same thing with roughly a tenth of each year’s days. After being baptized by John in the river Jordan, Jesus went off alone into the wilderness where he spent forty days asking himself the question what it meant to be Jesus. During Lent, Christians are supposed to ask one way or another what it means to be themselves.


If you had to bet everything you have on whether there is a God or whether there isn’t, which side would get your money and why?


When you look at your face in the mirror, what do you see in it that you most like and what do you most deplore?


If you had only one last message to leave to the handful of people who are most important to you, what would it be in twenty-five words or less?


Of all the things you have done in your life, which is the one you would most like to undo? Which is the one that makes you happiest to remember?


Is there any person in the world, or any cause, that, if circumstances called for it, you would be willing to die for?


If this were the last day of your life, what would you do with it?


To hear yourself try to answer questions like these is to begin to hear something not only of who you are but of both what you are becoming and what you are failing to become. It can be a pretty depressing business all in all, but if sackcloth and ashes are at the start of it, something like Easter may be at the end.

Read This

Hi friends.  Long time no write.  One of those truly rare and wonderful women that I've crossed paths with in life is a guest blogger on the (in)Courage website today.  It seems as though this is a pretty big deal of a website because my favorite Christian type folks keep winding up on there.  This post is by Julie Hunt, who was the head Centrifuge camp counselor my senior year of high school.  Of course, she married the worship leader, Dave Hunt, because they were Belmont grads and that's the kind of stuff we do (just not me, yet).
She has a blog about food, but she's also a social work professor at Belmont and has written a relationships study for LifeWay.  I trust what she has to say because I've seen her in action - and because she's a happily married mom that has mentored some of the most inspiring women in my life.  And because my friend Jonna and I sat in Jonna's car belting out Patty Griffin's "Blue Sky" in the street in front of Julie's house once, and it was completely ok.  

So - check out what she has to say here:  Be Brave