My Favorite Memory

My church is doing a series called “Adopted.”  Adoption is such a cool picture of what God does for us. He sent Jesus to die for my sins and adopted me as his daughter. I am a daughter of the King! How often I forget to live in that truth. I hope one day that I will be able to adopt, but for now I have to be content in supporting adoptive and foster parents.

This has reminded me of a memory that is emblazoned in my mind and today I have decided it is my favorite memory (and I have a ton of great ones). I was going off to school at Baylor. We were running late to the airport and so my mom dropped my dad and I off at the curb to check in while she went to park the car. My mom decided that my dad should be the one to take me out to school so he could help carry all my stuff up to my 3^rd floor dorm room and then she would come out for Parent’s Weekend in a few weeks.  This was a pre-9/11 world, so once we got checked in my mom was going to meet us at the gate to say our goodbyes.  They were announcing last call to board our plane and my mom still hadn’t shown up yet. I was upset.  Then I see my mom hustling through the airport and I break into tears.  We said our goodbyes and I boarded the plane.

We were last to board and we walked past row and rows of people staring, my face stained with ugly crying. I was 18 for goodness sakes, too old to cry. We settle into our seats next to this white women and tiny Asian baby.  Of course we enquire.  She told us that she was a courier. That she had been to Korea to pick up this sweet baby girl for a family in Austin. I want to do that!

We landed and my dad suggested that we hold back so we could see the family meet their daughter for the first time. Everyone slowly filed off the plane until we were the last ones. We the helped this lady carry all the bags that a little baby requires and we walked off the plane. There waiting at the end of the jet bridge was a little family.  There was the dad ready with his video camera to record this monumental day.  The mom had tears flowing down her face as she waited to hold her princess for the first time. Then there was a proud, big brother, an adorable red-head 3-year-old with a bowtie and sweater vest in August with a bouquet flowers for his new baby sister. What a beautiful tableau that I got to witness! This is definitely my favorite memory. 

Here is a cool story they showed in church on Sunday.

 

James 1:27

 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world

Complete Defiance

So, I coach 7 classrooms in the pre-school program at my church. This means helping all the parents get their kids checked in, making sure all the classes have the appropriate supplies, and essentially just making things run as smoothly as possible. This past Sunday we had our highest number of pre-schoolers at our service ever.  Praise God that parents are getting a chance to hear the Word in big church, but man it created a rough Sunday for me.

The kids seemed to have eaten skittles for breakfast as they were bouncing off the walls and were  particularly defiant.  One 4-year-old was hitting another one and would not stop acting up, so his teacher had to take him into the hallway so that he would not distract the other kids. I tried to talk to him about loving his neighbor, but he stuck his fingers in his ears and mocked me the whole time. I was frusterated.

Afterwards, I was talking to a sweet friend about how frustrated I was with the complete defiance I saw and she was gracious enough to remind me that I am exactly the same. I am given the gospel over and over and yet most of the time I do not live in that truth. God does not cast me out as a lost cause but instead pursues me with divine patience. On those crazy days, it is easy to get wrapped up in the tasks and forget my purpose is to demonstrate Christ’s love to these kids.

Now, looking back, I am thankful for that interaction. How gracious God is to remind me of what he has done for me and I can't help myself but pray for that boy! And, for some reason, I can't wait to see him next week and welcome him back to class. I think God is going to do great things through him!

 

1 John 4:10-11, “In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” (ESV)

 

The Power Couple

So one of my best friends got married a couple of weeks ago and if I had not chickened out this is what I would have said.

“I have always known Jen and David together. I would guess that I spent more time with the two of them together than probably pretty much anyone else, but they never ever made me feel like a third wheel. As amazing as each of them are individually I truly feel that they are exponentially better together. This realization hit me the night that they invited me over for enchiladas a few weeks ago. We mainly sat around the dinner table and laughed until we cried. The way they play off each other, challenge each other and encourage one another creates, in my mind, this “power couple” that people just want to be around. I know that God knew that bringing these two together would bring Him the most glory. We have already seen it through the grace they have shown through the entire visa process and I know going forward together we are in front row seats to see God glorified through them in even more amazing ways. I am thankful for what each of them mean to me individually but I am sure that knowing them together we are in for an amazing ride.”

I hope someone can say the same of me someday.

Ugly Authenticity

Every once and a while I get a hankering to write. Usually there is something that is funny or exciting or painful, but not today.  My life is pretty dang good. I feel like God is growing me more each day. The more I mess up the more I appreciate God’s grace.  The more self-confident I get the more God puts me in my place.  I love having friends around me who love me enough to call me out on my junk. I love that I have people that will not let me complacent or stagnant. It’s amazing that after years of perfecting the mask of the “good Christian girl,” my friends can see right through it. They don’t let me “fake it until I make it.” They call me to be authentic and love me with crap and all.  Today I am feeling truly humbled and thankful.  It’s not at all earth shattering but definitely worth writing about.

Blog name change?

So, I seem to be on a bi-annual cadence in writing in this blog. I still owe you the story of the 2nd cousin I met last year but I will have to save that for another time.
I love reading blogs. Yesterday I wasted a good chunk of my day reading about other people’s lives and living vicariously through them. I feel like so many people in my life are so wise and/or funny. I covet their prowess with language and their ability to transport me into their world. They make the most mundane parenting task seem like something I couldn’t live without and the most complex theological concept so real and applicable. The power of the written word is amazing.
Speaking of words, I have been struggling with the title of my blog. Five years ago it was right on, but as I approach the twilight of my 20s I realize that I am probably past the quarter mark in my life (unless I pull a Methuselah). Unfortunately, I still feel like I am going through my quarter life crisis. I am little more secure than I was 5 years ago, but I am still at a loss for what the next steps in my life should be. The things I thought I needed to move past the quarter life crisis were husband (no luck there), babies (definitely not), or a house (still working on that). But what really do I have to complain about? I have a job that I enjoy and can support myself. I have amazing friends who love me and a family that I know will be there for me if I need them.

My Crummy (but not really) Day

Today was one of those days that I just didn’t want to be at work. So, I wrote this post...

Due to allergies I feel crummy and I have been criticized twice already. That’s probably a good day for some, but due to how awesome my life is normally, these two small things caused me to to throw myself a pity party. I was walking over to my friend’s desk to gossip about my terrible day and God stopped me in my tracks. How would that help the situation? It wouldn’t. All this was on the heels of God clearly answering my prayer the day before. How quickly I forget how much God loves me!
So, here is the back story. I have a new boss and he is funny and sarcastic but he drops more cuss words than a drunken sailor. I don’t consider myself a prude (although others may), but it started getting on my nerves. As someone who actively pursues holiness, I noticed that the language of those around me began to invade my vocabulary and this was not pleasing to the Lord. I was in a staff meeting with this new boss and I couldn’t pay attention because I was counting how many time he cursed. I started counting about 15 minutes in and I got up to 50 before I gave up. So anyway, I asked my missional community to pray that God would give me wisdom on how to approach this situation. I also asked the ladies in my praying life class to pray for me to handle this in a way that would not cause me to lose credibility with my boss so that I can still share the gospel with him.
Yesterday, I was sitting at my desk and there was a woman in the conference room next to me who chose to use some colorful language. My boss rolled over and asked me if I could hear that. I said yes, but I was surprised that it bothered him. He hung his head and went back to his desk. Five seconds later he came to me and said that he was going to try to stop swearing at work. I almost fell out of my chair. God is so good to me! I immediately texted all my friends that were praying for me to tell them about God’s faithfulness.
Not only was this encouraging to me and my friends, but I also shared the story with one of my co-workers. She is not a believer because she doesn’t want to give up doing whatever she wants, but she is definitely receptive when I talk about what God is doing in my life. I told her about God answering this prayer and she teared-up. Pray for her.
So, I thought that writing a blog post would be cathartic. I thought that my desire to share my woes would be replaced with joy in remembering God’s faithfulness, but I still really want to go gossip with my friend. So I guess that I need to pray that God would change the desires of my heart and that I would find my value in Him and not in other people. God is so faithful, but I fail over and over. That is the story of my life. Thank goodness my value does not rest on my achievements.
This is true of me:
“They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed.” Titus 1:16
What God thinks of me:
“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God; and such we are. For this reason the world does not know us, because it did not know Him.  Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” 1 John 3: 1-3