I love words. My new favorite quotes:

“Sin has consequences, yes, but being separated from God’s love is not one of them. Whatever we do because we feel we “should” or because we “have to” is of no benefit. Our motivation is not love – and motivation is everything to God. 2 Cor. 9:7 – only when we are free can we love freely. If we are in slavery because of guilt or fear to “shoulds” we are not ready to love. We must first be set free. Slaves do not love; sons and daughters do.” – Cloud & Townsend

Romans 2:1 “You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things.” – Paul. Gotta love Paul. The Spirit through his words Kick. My. Butt.

“Pre-Pentecost, the disciples were a mess. Unfocused, they didn’t know the simplicity of life. But in the course of time Jesus had formed a community of people who would live in holy obedience. Finally a people had been gathered who, when God said “Wait” would wait, when God said “Go” would go and when God said “Give” would give. Seasoned by failures and some successes, imperfect and ignorant of many things, they were nevertheless a prepared people. And God said “Wait.” Disciplined, obedient, simple, they waited. And the fire fell.” – Foster. The Freedom of Simplicity. Best book ever.

“If we are still in bondage to sin, our serving will flow out of that center…Pride and fear and manipulation will control our actions…If we are still in bondage to others, our serving will flow out of that center. We will be controlled by a desire to impress them, or receive their help. Without Gospel liberty, we will forever measure who we are by the yardstick of others. But once the grace of God has broken into our lives, we are free.” – Foster again. Told you. Best book.

“In my prior image of Jesus, I realized his personality matched that of a Star Trek Vulcan: he remained calm, cool, and collected as he strode like a robot among excitable human beings on spaceship earth. That is not what I found portrayed in the Gospels…Other people affected Jesus deeply: obstinacy frustrated him, self-righteousness infuriated him, simple faith thrilled him. Indeed He seemed more emotional and spontaneous than the average person, not less. More passionate, not less.” – Yancey. This quote is in pure self-defense of my emotional side!

Blogging is scary for me. And here’s why: This past year, for the first time in my life, I have not had a parent, teacher, coach, primary mentor, professor, boss, or supervisor guiding my actions. My husband lovingly leads our family and I have an immediate supervisor where I teach part-time. But other than that, if there’s something I want to do, I do it. If I see another, better use for my day, I do that instead.

And it terrifies me.

We need not delve into the psychological reasons why. But I can’t get over the fact that no one is asking me to write all this stuff and post it on the world wide web. No one. I’m just choosing to do it as a processing tool for myself. And I feel so vulnerable.

God doesn’t always work this way in my life, but recently at the library He seems to be guiding my book choices. I can’t explain how. Kinda like a rush when I pick up the book. And one of those times was a book on dating.

Interesting, you say. Didn’t you just mention a Hubby?

Duh. Not for me. This is for my single friend. I don’t need any of the advice in this book. Nooo, not at all!

It talked about how if you’re at a certain stage of adulthood, you no longer interact regularly and casually with members of the opposite gender the way you do when you’re in school or college. So if you’re stuck in dating you have to get yourself out there. You have to make it happen for yourself as an adult.

It so resonated with me. If I want to start writing again, then I make it happen for myself. No one is going to enforce, encourage or coddle me in my decisions these days.

And I’m so grateful. Scared out of my mind, but grateful.

You’ve probably heard about how people in the jungle trap monkeys. They drill a hole in a coconut that’s big enough for the monkey to reach through if he flattens his hand. Then they mount that coconut down somehow to a tree. Inside they put peanuts. And therein lies the problem. The monkey smells what’s inside and figures out how to get his hand in. By then he knows he has his hands on a “treasure” and he’s determined to keep hold of it. But he can’t get his hand out of the coconut until he lets go. Whether minutes or hours later, the hunters know just where to find these monkeys. Because they can’t leave. They can’t let go of their treasure, even though it leads to their death.

Oh man, am I like this. I hold onto peanuts all the time instead of freedom.

The other evening was gorgeous. Started cooling off, soft breeze. The sun was lowering and our backyard in spring is so sweet. There are big trees and the light was filtering through. Right then I looked up to see my boy leaning over our just-sprouting garden. It was like something from a photograph. I looked at my man, working on something in the garage, and was overwhelmed with the blessings of God. Less than a year ago we lived in someone’s basement. Within a span of 3 weeks, He helped pry open our hands to buying a house immediately and proceeded to unveil the hand-picked “cottage” rental house and hand-picked neighbors just across the way. Is this really my life? Because I love it.

My son spilled HOT coffee on himself this morning. And it was my fault.

I sat in the shower with him, running cool water on his arm, and never in my life did I want to take someone else’s pain onto myself more.

What is it about parenthood? I don’t have any great philosophical conclusions to our little incident this morning. Just that my baby hurt and therefore my heart broke.

For Grandma and Aunt Yill-yo: he’s fine. It blistered, but his shirt and shorts protected everything but the inside of his little arm. The Doc prescribed a good ointment and Tylenol with codeine, but said it’ll heal just fine.

Sadness. I promise this blog will have fun, jolly posts too. But I had to get this one out in the open today.

We had to pick up some coffee at Walgreen’s this afternoon. He was in between our car and the one parked next to us.

I wrestled a 1 year old, my purse and two cans of coffee (no, I don’t need a bag, thankyouverymuch) while he said “Okay, thanks…God bless” to the open window of the other car.

He turned to me then and said, “Ma’am I hate to ask this, I really do. But I recently got laid off at Cessna and my wife and I just ran out of gas. Do you have a dollar or two so we can fill up and get home? I’ve been looking for a job all week.”

I guess it was his need to make sure I knew he was actively pursuing work that made me soften.

I didn’t handle it perfectly. I explained we usually have cash, but with tomorrow being payday we were running on debit card fumes. He walked away, but after I got in I noticed the coin bag we’ve had on the floor of the car for like a week. (And once again, untidiness pays off.) I could tell there were enough non-pennies in there to add up to at least a couple dollars.

The way he stood there with his hand open while I counted a bunch of nickels affirmed to me his authenticity. He mumbled something about how this was new degredation for him and I looked him in the eye. I don’t know about a lot of things. But I do know what it’s like to feel vulnerable. Like the whole world is staring.

I told him I know it’s humbling. And that I hope things can turn around for him soon. He shook my hand.

I often wonder what goes through my little guy’s mind. What did he think was happening just then? We prayed for the man on the way to pick up Daddy. And the only thing that came to my mind to ask for him was hope. I wasn’t compelled to ask for a job for him. Just that tonight he and his wife would be given the gift of encouragement that things will be okay. We all need that from time to time. Sometimes more than a job.

My sister talked to me a couple months ago about blogging. I decided to do it. Am I the only one who, when not in at the beginning of some cool new phase, just talks herself out of joining it entirely? That’s some serious pride. “If I didn’t come up with it or be one of the first to join, I don’t want to play.” Then I read this article http://www.wired.com/entertainment/theweb/magazine/16-11/st_essay about how blogging is “so 2004” and thought now’s the perfect time! There’s no reasoning with me on this.

I am convinced this will morph as I go. But for now it’s for me and my sister!