2010 Resolution # 1

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Those of you who have known me for years know that I am a big proponent of annual vision statements. I have made one since my 20’s and I continue to make them. They keep me focused and on path. I used to brag about how I would write down my goals for the year and by September or October my statement would be complete. I thought I was just that good. Until one day the Lord spoke to me quietly and said that the reason I had accomplished my vision statement early was that I wasn’t dreaming big enough.

So now, I am really seeking the Lord for what my vision statement should look like. I am asking for His will to be done in my life not just with lip service but also with heart as never before. So what about you? Are you thinking about your goals for 2010? Do you have some plans and ideas, and more than that, has the Lord given you a word? If he has not, can you honestly say that you’ve asked him earnestly and waited to hear an answer?

One thing I know about the God we serve is He is a planner. The plan in the bible was written before the foundation of the earth and it tells a story from beginning to end. We are in the final chapters of the book but since we don’t know exactly where in those chapters we are, we must look toward heaven for our next move. God is a planner and you were made in His image. Are you planning and seeking out His will?

I want to write about those things that have struck my heart and where I feel the Lord is leading me. Maybe there will be a cord or two, which will resound in your spirit and you’ll be able to move forward into 2010 with passion, with vision and with purpose in the will of the Father.

1. This year I plan to put people before my to-do. I like to work. I believe it’s a blessing and not a curse and I am a firm believer that every able bodied person should work. However, I work a lot. That is the American way isn’t it? In an effort to get the American Dream I’ve learned some lessons that perhaps don’t serve me all too well. I have to confess that there are times when I am in the middle of work at the office and a visitor comes in and I am annoyed at the interruption, or my kids call and I have to call them back because I am too busy. This year I must learn to put people before my to-do list. After all the legacy I leave will not be one of a clean house, because it gets messy as quick as it is cleaned, the legacy I want to leave is of a people well loved. This year, let’s get out of debt so that we can get to a place where people become more important than things. Where we can decide to work overtime because we want to not because we need to. Let’s be mentored by those who understand how to do this wisely and let’s get on it.

What Do I Need?

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During this season a question keeps getting asked of me. “What do you want for Christmas? What do you need?” Normally, I have a list of things people can buy. One Christmas I gave Casey the job of getting white Spa Towels, big and fluffy. I gave Anthony the job of getting a lip gloss from Bare Essentials, you get the picture. This year wasn’t an exception, I gave everyone their list but the question struck me this year in a different way.

Do any of us really know what we want? Do we understand what we need? I mean those of us who are followers of Christ say we need God, yet we come to him as our last resort. We try every other angle first and then come to God when nothing else is left to try. We raise our hands in service as an act of submission then go back to the chaos that leads our lives. Why is that? Do we believe in the chaos more than we believe in the Father?

This year I want and need for my home to serve the Lord. What I see is that many of us leave a legacy where God is unwelcome. What do we want? What do we need?

We enter relationships where we say we want one thing but then find that thing boring and move on to the more dangerous partner. The one who is unsettled, the one who is unprepared to receive us. Or is it that we are unprepared and unwilling to make a commitment to wait even if it means being alone?

Maybe the problem is we really have no idea what we want and we certainly have not conferred with anyone as to what we need. So we are tossed here and there by what sounds good to our ears at the moment. We go off chasing things we think we need so desperately only to find that it is unfulfilling. Only it didn’t meet the need we thought and we leave disappointed and ready to chase the next best thing.

Israel had a legacy of chasing whims until one day God said he’d had enough and stopped speaking. 400 years later we heard his voice in the sound a baby’s cry. We believe the story, we believe the salvation but we don’t know if we are ready to make that commitment. What if we aren’t happy with the results? What is happiness? What is the thing we are chasing? Do we even know anymore? Is a good enough life, good enough?

This year, I have to be honest. I need no material thing. I want no material thing. The Lord has spent this year talking to me about rest. I have changed a few things in my life to enjoy my life a little more but I have a long way to go. I know what I need and I know what I want and it’s nothing you can buy in a store. I want more Jesus this year. I want more time to spend time in relationships. You and I both know what will happen now. Things will come up left and right to make me take my eyes of the focus of what I need. We call those things the tyranny of the urgent. It will be up to me to stay focused. Just like an athlete I will have to train.

Enough about me, what is it that you need this year?

Broken

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A homeless man who is mentally ill and needs some warm clothes.

A welfare mom who was born to a welfare mom and doesn’t know any better.

A woman whose husband has left her, alone and afraid with small children and without income.

A person who knows how to work the system.

A drug addict who is looking for something to steal to sell for money for more drugs.

A pregnant woman who has no home.

A family who, due to the economy, has lost their home.

A person with excess who hasn’t learned to give.

A religious person who stands in judgment of it all.

A person who looks away because they are afraid.

A person who believes others owe them something.

A teen who feels entitled because all of her life she’s been told she is princess.

A cheater who thinks others don’t know.

A person who can never get enough because of their poverty mindset.

A smooth operator.

A person who points fingers at everyone but themselves.

I meet these people every day in my ministry. They all have one thing in common. They are broken. For whatever reason, for whatever circumstance, they are broken. Powerful in their original design by the Father but life has taken its toll.

Everyone to an extent is chipped and fragmented. Some hide it better than others, others insist that everything is fine. I can’t ignore it. I can’t fix it. I can only lead them to the One that has a remedy. Nights like tonight it seems overwhelming.

The Lost Sheep

Every year I take the boxes of Christmas decorations out of the garage and begin to take the decorations out of their packaging and arrange the house. I bought this shepherd, star and sheep at a craft fair several years ago in honor of my husband being a Pastor.

Every year at the beginning of the Christmas season I pull the star and the shepherd out of one box and then can’t find the sheep. Each year I vow to pack them together so that they don’t get lost and each year at the end of the season for some strange reason they don’t get put back together. I have a lot of ornaments and it takes time to find the sheep. One year, I found it on top of the guest room closet after going back out to the garage sure that I had missed a box. Go figure that one out. I’m still trying to figure out how that happened as well.

Everything stops as I go looking for this lost sheep. I don’t move forward with the decorating because it bugs me that I’ve lost it again this year. It reminded me of a story in the bible as I was looking all over this sheep.

Luke 15:3. Then Jesus told them this parable:
4. “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it?
5. And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders
6. and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.’
7. I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

I have 100’s of ornaments but I look for this one each year. I stop everything I am doing to find it. What is it about sheep that get lost? The feeling of finally finding it gives me great joy as I call out “Found it!”

This Christmas when I found the sheep I put it in its place next to the Shepherd and I thanked the Lord. The not-so-simple little feat of leaving the other sheep behind to go off and find me when I was lost is not wasted on me. The fact that the angels rejoice when one is found takes my breath away. Think about it, what is one in 6 billion people? Yet, everything stops as the God of the Universe sends his only begotten son to earth to search and to find that one that was lost? Then he carefully restored that sheep to stand next to the shepherd where he was called to be all along.

Thanks Living

 

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I want to wish every a Happy Thanksgiving! Today I am grateful for the these people:

Jesus- The God man made flesh who walked the earth setting the example. Go back and read about his compassion and his tireless work, it will really touch your heart. Jesus was a teacher who loved the synagogue and loved people. What an example for me to follow. He never saw appearance he only saw condition. I aspire to be that for my generation.

My Mom- If anyone ever believed in her children she does. My mom tends to be negative about most things and pretty opinionated, but one thing is for sure, she believes we are the greatest gift to this generation. Even when she’s disappointed in us, she will find something worth hanging onto. She thinks this blog is the smartest thing on the Internet, she thinks I am her best gift ever and she is my biggest cheerleader. Even when we are on total opposite sides of a issue she puts up with me. She is someone I can count on and I more often than not, take her SO for granted.

Anthony- My kids are my blessing from God. Anthony is pure love. He is such a good man. I see him now with his girlfriend and he speaks so well of her and how he looks after his sister and how he checks in with me, his mom! What a gift God gave me when he allowed me to be Ant’s mom.

Cassandra Allyse- Sassy, smart and outgoing she is so independent. I love who she is becoming. She is her mother’s daughter in a lot of ways. She works too much, she loves deep, she has her own opinions. We are at a place where there are things I can say and things that she doesn’t want to hear from me but nevertheless, we love each other, we frustrate each other, we misunderstand each other and then we need each other. She is a great daughter and she has been fun to raise.

Doug – When he smiles at me it’s all over. Doug is kind beyond anyone I’ve ever known. Doug sees everything that is right with people, an ability I will never have, ever no matter how long I live. Doug has the ability to forgive and forget and leave the past behind him on most things. He’s not perfect by any means but he’s pretty darn close.

Lauren- Technically Lauren  is my stepdaughter but I don’t see her that way. She’s my kid. We didn’t always see eye to eye and sometimes we still don’t but I have great hope for her. With a year and a half of high school to go, she is having to step things up. I know she will do great things with her life. Behind the tough sarcastic exterior that she pretends to show, she’s pretty caring. Just don’t tell anyone.

Charles Anthony- the cactus of the bunch, he is my stepson. He is the one whom the Lord uses to refine me. ‘Nuff said.

Lulu- the wonder dog. Lu has a story that touches my heart. She came to me at a time when I really needed someone to take care of and love. She sleeps right next to me as I type this. She is with me when I speak to God, so she knows all of my cares and secrets and she doesn’t judge me for it. She just sighs, puts her chin on my knee and looks into my eyes. She is my lovey honey precious girl.

Oasis- my church. Not the building the people in it. We are a family and I’m so glad!

My friends- Some are old, some are new and all are loved. I especially love the ones with whom I can trust to tell me the truth. Everyone needs those people in their life and I am grateful for them.

My Country-I’m really glad to be American. If you’ve ever traveled, even a bit, you will find that you were born hitting a home run to be born and raised in this country.

Most days I feel like God’s favorite kid. I love how he loves me and blesses me daily. I am grateful for health, for love, for family. Life is good and I am thankful. Let’s live Thanks Living lives! Happy Thanksgiving!

Speeding Ticket

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A few nights ago, driving home from having dinner with a friend, I hit an old familiar patch of highway. It’s a hill and I was traveling about 80. It was late and not a car in sight and I was just listening to the radio when I see lights start flashing at the bottom of the hill.

AW MAN! That’s a highway patrol and I know I just got a speeding ticket. I slowed down when I saw the lights and began to travel the 15 mph slower that the limit required. When I got to the bottom of the hill the patrol car pulled in behind me and I knew I was done.

Only he didn’t give me a ticket. He simply followed me to the next town. I knew he’d given me a big break. Whew!!

I was driving like I live my life, fast paced. There is so much to do with this small amount of earthly time that I feel an urgent rush to accomplish it all and live without regrets. That night as I reached the top of the hill I noticed the sky briefly before I began to pick up speed. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky and stars spanned for miles, yet I failed to take advantage of the view. It struck me that it’s the same thing I fail to take advantage in my life. I don’t stop to admire those precious moments. I notice them out of the corner of my eye but I fail to admire them.

I think I was spared a speeding ticket, but I was taught a very valuable lesson. What are you missing out on in your life? Are you enjoying the scene or are you so busy moving to the next thing that you failed to just stand and enjoy what you have in this moment?

Lulu Is WHOSE Dog?

Lulu November 2009

Lulu the wonder dog sleeps with us most nights. My husband thinks that if the dog is going to be in HIS bed then she needs to contribute to the household somehow. I tell him that she makes the queen happy and therefore she more than earns her keep! He complains about the “flea bag” on a regular basis and they kick each other at night as they sleep.

Lu on the other hand, comes to me every time she gets in trouble for spinning three times before she lays down or for making too many noises at night or for bringing her squeak toy to bed. She also wants be included in the man’s midnight snacking so she wakes me up to tell on him.

I knew this was all an act on both their parts. So I waited until just the right moment and then caught it on film!

VIOLA!

  • Notice Lulu doing her usual thing of watching TV on our bed.
  • Notice she is snuggled up next to a body that is curled in her direction.
  • Notice the hand on the body is stroking her back.
  • THEN notice that it’s not my hand because trust me, my hand is not that hairy or manly.

Haha! He loves her! He won’t admit it, but he loves her! AND! She is just as in love with him. She follows him everywhere and she sees him as the Alpha as this house. Ya gotta love it! Guess she’s earned her keep!

Oasis RMA in Progress

Let me take you on a tour of what we did at the store today. We decorated grids in each department. It’s not quite finished but it will be tomorrow.

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We separated out departments so that each part of the store has its own area. This is the men’s department.

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We began folding t-shirts and sweaters and putting them on shelves

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The children’s area got some decorations. Putting up all these little clothes really made me think of my own babies who are now 28 and 23 and how I SOOO would trade it all go back to when they fit into these clothes and I could squeeze them up and kiss their sweet cheeks!

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The furniture and appliance section got some arrangement to it

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Decorative pillows were added to accent the couches

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My favorite part! FASHION! A scarf donated by one, a sweater with the tags on it from my mom’s closet, a pair of pants donated by another and a pair of shoes donated by another and VIOLA! we have a cute outfit!

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It’s all coming along! Tomorrow we tackle the housewares! I’m exhausted and going to bed! I’ll post more pictures tomorrow!