this post weighs a ton!

I started coming down with something awful on Friday night while on a downtown date with Husband. Naturally, I assumed it was Cholera, Scarlett Fever, or the Bubonic Plague, but it turned out to be only a nasty throat infection which brought a high fever with it. Amazing how quickly antibiotics, rest and H2O can work together and heal the body.

Husband was the best caretaker. I am constantly edified the more and more days we spend together that I chose the right one (and daily stunned that he chose me!). In addition to refueling me on meds and water, he kept cold rags on my head, regulated my body temp, took all his phone calls outside of the house, and brought me a de-pollinated bouquet that he arranged himself from outside.

I just had to brag on him for a few paragraphs :)

From my morning reading, I felt compelled to share this. If you're wondering where all the "worry" stuff is coming from, it's because I've started reading Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World because I wanted an "easy" devotional read to take a break from my hefty EfM readings. Goes to show my snobby self, huh? This "easy" read has made a lot of sense and been very spiritually fulfilling.

The author, Joanna Weaver, says:

"It's been my experience that God usually won't take away our "friends, those things we look to for comfort-- even if those "friends" aren't good for us. We must be willing to release them ourselves. And until we do, the battle for the mind will rage on...

We must be willing to take an active role in the battle against anxiety.

[...] as I began to "take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5), anxiety began to lose its hold. Instead of being led astray, I took a second look at each thought as it came."

Weaver says she then asked two questions about each thought:

1. "Where did you come from?"

(i.e. What is this thought's source? Is it real or did I fabricate/imagine it?)

2. "Where is this thought going?"

(Is this thought productive? Can I do anything about it (and if so what-- (that action part))? Will this draw me closer to God/peace or will it draw me closer to anxiety?)

Pretty smart, concise questions, I thought.

If I were to add one, it would be:

3. How important is this in the grand scheme of things?

(i.e. Aren't there more important things I could actually do something about right now?)

There's so much in the Bible about our "imaginations" being wicked. Years ago, this intrigued me and I thought by "imaginations" Scripture meant creativity. By no means, as Paul would say. It means fabricating worst-case scenarios, allowing unproductive or even self-destructive (a.k.a. sinful) thoughts to rule our clarity of thought and peace of mind, to harbor bitterness and resentment rather than forgiving, to allow ourselves to think "I'm inadequate," to make our plans without seeking God's ultimate will, and to imagine that those things/habits/addictions/acts ("friends" as Weaver calls them) are comforting us or building us up when, in actuality, they are tearing us down. Imaginations are what stand in the way of our taking productive, positive action, not the brainstorming or constructive thinking which leads to productivity and/or Holy-Spirit driven genius and good work.

All of this negativity, in other words, is generated from our lack of faith in and seeking of GOD, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist (Romans 4:17)

My Most Constant, Unproductive Fears:

1. Not succeeding through grad school, even though I thoroughly feel it was God who opened those doors... how ironic that I would have anxiety over entering a door that I faithfully feel God both led me to and has opened for me.

Idiotic and definitely unproductive.

2. Losing long-cherished friendships due to moving around too much and living too far away.

Uproductive.

3. Oddly enough, car wrecks and air raids (yeah, I know. It's so bad I have stop to myself from physically cowering when I hear planes flying over head. My whole body freezes. You would have thought I'd fought in Iraq or Vietnam.)

Absolutely absurd to worry over and thoroughly unproductive.

4. That I will be inadequate in the things that I take on and in my relationships with others.

Unproductive.

5. That I will forget someone or do something that makes another feel abandoned or unloved. This fear I feel can be productive as long as it drives me to act upon not forgetting other people. It's unproductive past the point of marking calendars and setting reminders on phones.

thoughts on faith

The Following is an excerpt from my EfM reading this week:

"Faith" in the Biblical and Pauline sense, has very little to do with feelings and a great deal to do with being reliable and standing by commitments. In the Biblical sense, "to believe" or "to have faith" in God is to live and act on the basis of the supposition that God is trustworthy, whether we happen at any particular moment to feel that God is trustworthy or not.

In this sense, the church invites us in the creeds to confess that we "believe" in God. For sectarians, the opposite of faith is doubt. For scripture the opposite of faith is unfaithfulness in the plain sense in which we speak of unfaithfulness in a marriage or any other relationship .

The English theologian Austin Farrar wrote:

"If you want to have faith, decide what you would do if you did have faith, and do it.

That is faith."

From My own Life:

I heard someone say recently,

"I may not feel loving, but through grace I will myself to act loving and thereby experience love and bring love ANYWAY."

(paraphrased)

What are your thoughts on FAITH?

thank you, thank you, thank you

Our wonderful EfM Bible Study Group

(with some of the most brilliant, talented folks of all ages, shapes and walks of life)

Gave us the sweetest, most thoughtful


Going Away


Surprise Party.


And they presented us with a huge bag full of indigenous North Carolina foods.

And a notebook of recipes to go with the food along with an NC history of each company that produced it and instructions to add to the book for each state we live in.

It never ceases to amaze us how thoughtful people can be. We've known this group less than a year, yet they have made us feel so welcome and so loved.

Thoughtfulness is one thing that I think it's safe to say never goes completely unfelt, unnoticed, or unappreciated.

It certainly makes me want to strive to be more thoughtful

and immensely brighten other people's days.

words: meaning: life

I found this shell on the beach when we lived in Ponte Vedra, Florida in 2008.

The Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me a channel of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

salvaged

This was a Christmas gift from Husband's grandparents. It's made by a Louisiana artist who uses salvaged wood from buildings destroyed by Hurricane Katrina to create his work.

Every time I walk by it, I think about how little control we have over our lives. The only thing we can truly control is how we respond to the events and circumstances around us, and our collective response determines the state of the whole world.

I need that reminder daily.

And I suppose it's somewhat obvious to say, there's a lot of grace in this metaphor.

The words to a Christian song come to mind:

Now I can trade these ashes in for beauty...

The artist emailed me this photo in response to an inquiry I placed. I love the way this wall looks, filled with crosses of all shapes, sizes, and colors. I would gladly fill a whole wall in my house with them.

See more on the artist's website.

i put some peppermints in my coffee

image via here

Husband and I read a powerful little story this Christmas by Eugene Field, better known for the classic children's lullaby Wynken, Blynken, and Nod. You can find it here if you would like to read it or share it with your family. It's about a 5-minute read and, as I said, powerful.

Be joyful. Pray. Serve.

Merry Christmas, friends!

Huldah Who???

My husband and I take a Bible course called EfM, which stands for Education for Ministry. It's a four-year program through the University of Sewanee that involves a lot of reading....

But through all the piles and piles of words, we learn about people like Huldah. Do you remember Huldah from Sunday School?

I don't. Apparently she was a prophetess about whom there is only a brief excerpt-- and she didn't make the cut for the Sunday School curriculum.

She shows up in II Kings 22:14-22 and in II Chronicles 34:22-28, and it was SHE who made the first recorded assertion that the written words in the Bible are "the words of the Lord." It is an assertion that has become a commonly held belief among followers of Christianity and Judaism alike.

The EfM writers say,

"Up until this time, the power of the Lord was held to be in the moment of the speaking of an oracle. Now Huldah is saying that God still 'speaks' through the written word."

Rather interesting information to ponder when stopping to think about the history of the church and women.

(Speaking of the church and women, I decorated the cover of my EfM binder. It comes in a rather boring shade of burgundy.)