Thursday Night Refresh

September 21, 2015September 21, 20152 Comments

I am very excited to talk bout something we have going on at our church on my blog. I never really talk specifically about church events on my blog but this new ministry is very personal to me and I needed to tell you about it.

This year at North Cincinnati Community Church we will be launching a new division of Women’s Ministry called Thursday Night Refresh.

The first meeting is this Thursday, September 24, 2015 at 7:30pm at North Cincinnati Community Church. I will be sharing pieces of my story this week and speaking in front of a large group of women for the first time.

Thursday Night Refresh is important to me because the purpose behind launching this new ministry is to connect busy women.

Months ago, a friend came to me with this idea to have a meeting for women every six weeks and I was immediately on board. As women get busier and busier it is becoming more and more difficult for them to connect into a weekly Bible Study of Discipleship Group and because women are busy they aren’t able to connect to Women’s Ministry.

I was one of these women. When my husband and I were first married I was a new teacher and if I wasn’t working, I was sleeping. Teaching was so exhausting for me and I did not have the energy to ever give myself 100 percent to a weekly Bible Study.

When I transitioned to being at home with my kids, my busyness changed but I was still busy with four kids in a little less than five years. I tried to get connected to my church’s women’s ministry but is was difficult to get all my babies to Bible Study every week.

I see a great need in women’s ministry to connect busy women with a come-as-you-are, no-prep-needed meeting where in seventy-five minutes every six weeks women can come and connect to other women, hear a story of God’s faithfulness through the testimony of a woman who has hope in Christ and at the end have an opportunity to share prayer requests.

The name.

When the idea of this meeting was given to me, we did not have a name for it. I was even inviting people in the early stages and saying, “but I don’t know what this meeting is called yet.”

Overtime, I just kept coming back to the word, refresh.

I thought back to when I was busy and not connected to a community of women what I remembered was it was consistently difficult for me to ever feel completely refreshed.

Yes, I received refreshment from reading God’s Word and in prayer but there is something even more beautiful and more refreshing when you find your struggles and your stories tangled up in the struggles and stories of other women.

Refreshment comes from community.

I also thought about a webpage and the act of refreshing a page. You know how sometimes you refresh a webpage it takes forever for it to completely refresh? Maybe you have too many windows open or maybe your wireless connection is not as strong as it needs to be to receive a quick refresh.

Women. We have so many pages open. We wear so many hats. Some are mothers, some are wives, some are working, some are up to our eyeballs in volunteering. No matter where we find ourselves, we find ourselves with so many pages open that it is difficult to find refreshment.

I am hoping that once every six weeks you can come to a meeting at our church, shut all your other pages down and connect to community.

We start this week, September 24 at 7:30pm.

All are welcome to join us. You don’t have to be a member at our church, you don’t have to be a member of any church. Just come as you are and connect with us.

The speaker.

The speaker will be different each time but this first week I will be speaking and sharing about how God has changed my life and what I have learned as I have learned little by little to put my hope and trust in Him. I will also share about my current struggles as a woman, wife and mother. I always promise to be authentic and maybe even a little funny.

I hope you can come and find our stories tangled up together along the way.

Don’t forget to share this with your friends. I hope to see you there!

Find out more info at http://www.northcincy.org

The Terrible, Laughable and Humbling Places of Parenting

September 17, 2015September 17, 2015Leave a comment

There are times when you see your kids shine in the same way you shine and you beam with pride. There are other times when your kids demonstrate undesirable behaviors like eat ashes from the fire pit and you call them “you spouse’s child”.

“Look what our kid did” vs. “Look what your kid did” both have very different tones associated with one another around here.

But then there are moments like the one I experienced tonight when the ugly behavior displayed by my child could not possibly have come from my spouse. The humbling moments where the ugly behavior exhibited by my child is no-doubt-about-it coming from my branch of the family tree.

Tonight while I watched an evening television show with my children, one of my sons asked me for some apple juice. I responded lovingly to his request but apparently, I did not return with the fulfillment of his request in the proper amount of time so he began to cry.

He was disappointed with me because “I did not get his apple juice to him in time for him to drink it during a particular part of the show”.

Moments like this can make me frustrated. And tired. But moments like this also make me laugh and feel ridiculous- all of these emotions- at the same time.

Have you ever seen the cinematic masterpiece, Big Daddy? You know when Corin cries in the bathroom because they wasted the good surprise on Sonny?

I am completely Corin. I am a confessed and recovering control-freak-perfectionist lady.

Even as an adult, I often cry when the big surprise is wasted on someone or my drink doesn’t come in time for me to sip it during my favorite part of the show.

My personality was assessed for my husband’s work almost three years ago and the assessor (I remember exactly which assessor) winced when he saw how high of a perfectionist I naturally am.

“Normally people like you like to work alone in the corner,” is what he said. And that is very true of me.

In my regular-self, if I didn’t have the Word of God, The Holy Spirit or the accountability of other tenderhearted Christian women I would be crying in bathrooms all day long about good surprises being wasted and seating charts not working out just the right way.

I am (maybe) six percent recovered with ninety-four percent to go and I have been walking with Jesus for a decade. There is progress but there is so much more work for God to do in my heart as He peels back (oh so many, it’s wince-able how many) layers of control and perfectionist tendencies AND as I do my part of walking in faith and trust that He has begun good work in me and will bring it to completion at the day of Christ.

But it is terrible when I see the ugly parts my personality come alive in my sweet children. When I see the strong perfectionist crying over drinks not being delivered in the appropriate amount of time or how I have to redo the blankets for him because I didn’t smooth them out the proper way.

Terrible. because we don’t want to come face to face with our ugliness

Laughable. because we get it

And humbling. because we know God has been moving us through it

To see your perfectionist heart and persnickety ways being lived out by little lives on your lap is terrible, laughable and truly humbling.

Oh parenting, you are good to me and I am so blessed. But the learning curve is so, so big.

But also so, so good. To see where we have been, where we are now and where God will possibility take us in the future. Us. And those little crying kids who do not receive their drinks in the proper amount of time.

Terrible. Laughable. And truly humbling.

The Crumbs On The Countertop

September 14, 2015September 15, 2015Leave a comment

I am not proud, but there have been moments in my Christian life when I have cried over the dust on my baseboards, the spills on my carpet and the crumbs on the countertop.

Cleanliness is next to godliness and serving a God of order where my favorite things to say about keeping a tidy home.

But something has happened to me.

I thank God because He is before all things and in Him every single thing holds together. Even those tiny crumbs.

What happened to me is something I never would have imaged could happen to me. What happened to me was something that happens to a lot of people, I simply had my fourth child and now I do not have time to care about the crumbs on the countertop.

I saw the crumbs on the countertop just this week and then the dust on my nightstand and the piles of folded laundry sitting out in the laundry room left sitting out and not put away.

I noticed the meal planning board with it’s good intentions but meals which were never made.

I tried to figure out when my life started to unravel from my idol of order and it all comes back to having that fourth child.

I thought about my love of the order and cleanliness and then I thought about my kids. My three sons and that fourth child, my only daughter.

Yes. I am overwhelmed by the constant need for me to tend to something.

But I am thankful.

I am thankful for the gift which God has graciously given to me in having a fourth child.

The gift I needed, where I came to the end of myself and my abilities and ultimately all I had was dependance upon something much Greater than me.

That fourth child, in all her lovely wonder, pushed me to a place where I found the end of myself and the need for a God who is before all things, and in Whom all things hold together.

That fourth child has given me the greatest gift. The realization that I don’t need to have every crumb wiped up and every baseboard completely dusted. The realization that every single moment will not be picture perfect and my hands are more full than I could have ever dreamed.

I see the crumbs on the countertop and although they still make me a tiny bit crazy, thanks be to God for helping me see the other things around me which are more important. The lives He has given to me to love and care for and the ability to let go of the spills, the crumbs and the dust.

That fourth child has helped me see that loving, caring and tending is greater than cleaning or dusting or tidying.

Thank you God for that fourth child, for bringing me to the end of myself and for finding a place where it is not me running this ship, but You, You holding it all together and graciously showing me the way.

Thank you God for the gift of seeing crumbs on the countertop less and being involved in the lives of my children more.

I couldn’t have come to the end of myself without the graciousness of God. I am thankful for that fourth child. Abundantly. Even if I can’t keep the order around here like I wish I could.

Prayers For My First Grader

August 11, 2015June 22, 2016Leave a comment

It was supposed to be rest time in our home at 1:30 this afternoon. I put my baby down in her crib, closed the door and walked down the stairs to call the boys in for rest time just the way I normally do.

I sing to the tune of Mary Had A Little Lamb: ” It’s time to find your resting place, resting place, resting place, time to find your resting place, it is time to rest.”

But as I went to open the door and sing my song I saw three boys laughing and playing and I just could not make them stop.

So I watched them play from the bay window. The older two were on the swings and the younger was whacking them with a pool noodle. They were all laughing hysterically but I started to cry as I watched them.

Today was the last day that all three of them will run around in the backyard after lunch time most days of the week. Tomorrow our biggest boy goes off to first grade and seventy one percent of his lunches and after lunch play times will now be spent outside of our home. (Mathematicians don’t hate on me here… I did not configure school and summer vacations into that one.)

So as I watched them I prayed. As I have gotten in the habit of praying for my kids when I spy on their play times.

I prayed for my son’s first days in his new classroom.

Lord, you are faithful and good. Please give my son good relationships with his new teachers and help him make new and long lasting friendships with his classmates.

Lord, help him find others to run around on the playground with the same way he runs around our backyard at home.

Lord, give him friends to sit at the lunch table with and joke and laugh… but also in the appropriate ratio of socializing and food eating.

Lord, help me remember your faithfulness to us last year. Give me hope and trust for a school year which will grow us and stretch us in ways we weren’t expecting.

Lord, give my son confidence in his work. Help him know in his heart that he is always loved by The Most High God. Help my son remember that he is kind, smart and important, uniquely knit together, wonderfully made.

Lord, help my son stand up for himself and others. Help him be strong and courageous because You are with him wherever he goes.

And Lord, help me be strong and courageous too because You have written that You are with my son wherever he goes and You are faithful.

And as I watch these boys play, help the youngers left behind miss their brother well. Help them miss him enough to long to play around him but not enough to forget the fun they have when they are all together.

Lord, we need you in transition and the unknowns. Help us trust You more and love one another better in the days to come.

Amen.

And now the hardest thing to do is to leave my prayers and trust. To walk in the faith that calls us to believe in God’s faithfulness, even when we can’t see His faithfulness coming. To let the tears come with peace. The peace of God which transcends all understanding and guards our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

First grade, here we come.

You can pray for me too.

If You Think You May Have Married A Crazy Person

August 4, 2015August 4, 20153 Comments

I know it crossed my husband’s mind a time or (let’s be honest) a dozen times when we were first married. I know in our first months of matrimony he looked at me more than once like he did not even know me at all.

The first time was perhaps when we were fighting about something really good like how long an unused glass should sit on the countertop. My husband would say an empty glass could sit on the countertop and be refilled again for further hydration purposes throughout the day and I am more of a “as soon as it hits the countertop I am swooping it into the dishwasher” kind of gal.

One of these first fights had us both pretty heated as we were both just learning the dance of communication in marriage.

Literally while I was firmly speaking about all the times he had left his glass out with hands going in all directions my sweet husband sat down on the couch opened his Bible and motioned me to sit next to him. He started reading the scriptures to me and I think my head started spinning like the exorcist lady.

I gave my husband my evilest of teacher looks and I growled, “YOU GET THAT BIBLE AWAY FROM ME.”

Call me a horrible Christian or call me human but I did not want to hear the Word of God in that moment.

This may have been the first little appetizer of my insanity and the first time my husband may have thought he married, for better or for worse, a crazy person.

The soup and salad course of this dazzling crazy person meal would probably have been the time he brought a buddy home after seminary class while I was at work without telling me. When he brought me home that afternoon and mentioned the great time he had I FREAKED OUT because I had not cleaned the toilets that morning.

The entree was most likely when I had my new husband take me to the emergency room because I believed I was having a heart attack. I was twenty-two and generally in good health but on the way to the hospital I was panicking about quadruple-bypasses.

The dessert course was most likely the other argument we had about glasses on the counter and he asked me if we could pray about it and I said “Sure, you pray out here in the living room and I will pray in the bedroom.” And I fell asleep instead of praying.

And this was really me.

I was really married to my husband and I was struggling to believe truth, hear truth and walk in truth.

And I was really hurting.

BUT

My husband loved me though it.

He may be the only person that has truly seen me in the worst of times, the craziest of times, and loved me through the crazy.

And at times our marriage has felt like Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride but my husband has fastened his seatbelt and committed not to unbuckle and bail when the bumps and hiccups feel like something he didn’t sign up for.

“Human sin is stubborn,” says Cornelius Plantinga, “but not as stubborn as the grace of God and not half so persistent, not half so ready to suffer to win its way.”3 Stubborn, persistent, unrelenting grace that changes us. Now that’s good news indeed.”
― Dave Harvey, When Sinners Say “I Do”

The beautiful thing about a marriage founded in the gospel is Michael and I both are not committed to the person who we see sitting in front of us right now in this present moment. As husband and wife, we are committed to the wretched mess being sanctified only because of the power of God working in us. And we believe that God isn’t finished with us yet but working in us until we reach our full potential and beauty.

So if you are in a Christian marriage and you are contemplating whether or not you married a crazy person…

Cling to the truth that the icing on that cake is coming and one day, God will perfect us with all the endless truth and beauty freely offered on Christ.

“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial. To be known and not loved is our greatest fear. But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God. It is what we need more than anything. It liberates us from pretense, humbles us out of our self-righteousness, and fortifies us for any difficulty life can throw at us.”
― Timothy Keller, The Meaning of Marriage

He is able to redeem the crazy person and give the crazy person the gift of grace of being known and loved.