keep your coins, i want change

I used to change a lot when I was little.

First the princess dress went on, then the white kid-leather cowboy boots with heels. Next minute it was my Minnie t-shirt... I never stayed in the same outfit for long. Days were an endless transformation from one dream to the next. Is it any wonder I love fashion so much?

I don't remember when it was that I started to not like change. Perhaps it was the day I had to move away from my friend next door? Was it when I was too tall to fit in the Fisher-Price Flintstone Car?

I'm not sure. I've had a million and one changes since then... thank God. And I can say that honestly... thank God for all the changes He's brought me through. 

Humans are naturally inclined to be resistant to change. I was reading a marketing blurb the other day about a couple reasons people resist change:

• When the reason for the change is unclear, ambiguity can trigger negative reactions among users.
• When the proposed users have not been consulted about the change, and it is offered to them as an accomplished fact.  People like to know what's going on, and feel informed and in a perceived state of control.
• When the change threatens to modify established patterns of working relationships between people.
• When communication about the change has not been sufficient.
• When the benefits and rewards for making the change are not seen as adequate for the trouble involved.

It makes sense; change is not pleasant. It's an ending. It's a replacement of the known with the unknown.

I'm realizing though.. change is necessary. It is what facilitates growth.

I was on a walk with a friend last week in this beautiful fall weather and I noticed the most gorgeous fiery red and orange maple tree. The leaves were slowly fluttering to the ground around us as we walked. Jesus often told his followers to look to nature-- the lilies of the fields, the birds... Proverbs tells us to look to the ant... I can't help but feel God had a special message for me.

Sometimes letting go of something you thought was good is the only way that something better can happen.

As I watched each leaf fall to the ground, it was like the tree was uncurling a clenched finger one after another until only an open palm toward heaven was left.

God, thank you for bringing about change... and help me to embrace it gracefully like the tree.

Fun quiz

 

***How to tell if you or your friends are Arrogant!***
Fun, brand new quiz!

Since it has been the over-whelming trend in politics to say whatever idiotic thing is on your mind...
today I will offer the world a great service and only say part of what I'm thinking. ;-)

Something I don't understand and will never understand is why people love arrogant people so darn much!

Why would you love/respect/admire someone whose care and concern is only for their own pathetic self?! I just don't get it. Plus arrogant people are not exactly a barrel of fun to be around anyways.
Society feeds the lie that the Ego is great and to be worshiped... the "put yourself first" braggart mentality abounds... so common even among believers. I like what Einstein said better:

God, save our country. Save us from ourselves. Keep us from being wise fools.    

I can't help but echo the words of a man nearly forty years ago... convicts me every time I hear it... "And I know how I ought to be, alive to You and dead to me."

More of you, less of me.

O Lord, you have searched me and known me!
You know when I sit down and when I rise up;
    you discern my thoughts from afar.
You search out my path and my lying down
    and are acquainted with all my ways.
Even before a word is on my tongue,
    behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.
You hem me in, behind and before,
    and lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;
    it is high; I cannot attain it.

Where shall I go from your Spirit?
    Or where shall I flee from your presence?
If I ascend to heaven, you are there!
    If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there!
If I take the wings of the morning
    and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there your hand shall lead me,
    and your right hand shall hold me.
If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,
    and the light about me be night,”
even the darkness is not dark to you;
    the night is bright as the day,
    for darkness is as light with you.

For you formed my inward parts;
    you knitted me together in my mother's womb.
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works;
    my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
    the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
    I awake, and I am still with you.

Search me, O God, and know my heart!
    Try me and know my thoughts!
And see if there be any grievous way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting!

stubborn love

...and no, i don't mean the song by the same name. but... let's just put it in there, because i love it. ;)

i think it's interesting that the ancient greeks made all their gods imperfect and irrational. every single one of them. they got angry over little insults; they let their lusts carry them away (zeus; aphrodite and ares); they would steal from each other (hermes); they got into petty feuds with one another (zeus and hera). 

it's interesting to me how even in our much more modern development of powerful "superheroes"~ all still have their fatal flaws. it's like someone out there was saying "we can't make them tooo perfect, or no one will believe it." and there you have it, boom: #relatable was born. ;)

but, i mean i get it. i actually really appreciate some of the stories in the bible for instance, that really showed people in their humanness... and how God worked though that anyway.

i mean you have moses who couldn't speak,gideon who was totally afraid,peter who was an idiot hothead,david who was an adulturous murder,and lazarus who was dead, for heaven's sake.

don't tell me that God can't use flawed people, cause i know he can.

i couldn't agree more with the 18th century hymn writers... and echo their "prone to wander Lord I feel it". i may or may not have a reputation of being 'difficult' especially with the people that love me. spiritually, i often feel like who am i for God to use me. i've been timid, i've been hot-headed, i've been hateful, i've been all flaws combined at one time or another.  

i am so thankful i have a God that runs after me with that boundless measure of stubborn love when i am just being stupid.

what better allegory of our Father's love than the story of the prodigal son from luke 15:


20 “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’

God, thanks for not giving up on me. ❤ 

oh Lord,

be my firm foundation.

transience
noun
the state or fact of lasting only for a short time; transitory nature.
i.e. "the transience of life and happiness"

summer showers/seasons/feelings/breath and existence... all are subject to change, and have no guarantee as to their length.

the grass withereth, the flower fadeth, but God your Word shall stand for ever.

this song playing on my car stereo

driving home from work tonight, this song playing on the radio, and the snow was falling horizontally on my windshield. it was honestly beautiful. i had never seen snow fall like that. i wish i would have taken a video, but i doubt it would have captured it anyway.

the singers' twangy voice sang~

"runaway train, never goin' back
wrong way on a one-way track
seems like i should be getting somewhere somehow i'm neither here nor there" 

God, i hope i'm not on the wrong track. i hope you'd turn me around or stop me if i was headed to de-rail... i hope you use me, where ever it is i'm going. my life's an open book, write your name on every page.

this makes me cry

what the video doesn't share but this article does, is a bit about the boy battling tears in the red sweatshirt. he's one of the "cool" kids, he's the quarterback of the football team-- the guy everyone looks up to and emulates. kids are so mean, and i can guarantee no one would have stood up for the poor "waterboy" if a "celebrity" of sorts hadn't done something. yes, i know its a beautiful thing that he stood up against the bullying and influenced the entire team to stand up for the boy, but still it makes me sad. how many times is a child somewhere not stood up for? how many times is someone disabled, quiet and shy, or even "different" in any imaginable way "kicked under the bus" emotionally or physically? people are so mean. i'm a supposed adult~ and even today i can not grow a thick enough skin fast enough for how i get ripped up & bad-talked. it's hard, and i can't even imagine being a young child picked on and taking everything so deeply. i pray for every little heart out there, God protect them.

fall sweaters

God, after today all i can say is~ you have quite the sense of humor! ;) & i have the sneaking suspicion you  love these sweater looks as much as I do?

i keep hoping

that someday... i can do something. i hope that someday i change something, rather than just write about it.

i have gone in or to a lot of churches in my life. i know for sure over 30, very possibly a bit upwards of that. me, being, as i happily like to call it "art-inclined" i can remember way, way back staring at bulletins when i either "couldn't" or just wasn't understanding the sermon.

some people are good with names, or dates; i can remember images, how things looked.  churches were such places of beauty to my young eyes.  the gorgeous floral arrangements in the front, the women in their Sunday finery, all the men's ties, the heavenly choir robes, stain glass windows, little ones in ribbons and bows, the lush carpet, the smooth wooden pews; i drank it in with amazement. as i got older, new technologies allowed even more exuberance: glossy pictured bulletins, murals, such visually striking power-points, scrolling song backgrounds, lights, music videos, heart-wrenching Skype interviews... flyers that were made with such attention to type-set fonts they belonged in art museum. it was beautiful, just beautiful.

no, i'm not going to say this is wrong, or bad that this is the case in the modern church. i felt like it really enhanced my experience-- if i can say that, without it sounding weird. God is a God of beauty, majesty, splendor! He is the the Creator, the original Designer. is it wrong to be amazed and in a beautiful environment when worshiping Him? resoundingly no!

i get older, and the incredibly annoying thing, is i see and become aware of incredibly horrible things, ugly despicable things i wish i never knew. that tree of knowledge of good and evil? yuck! i wish they would have never taken that bite.

no longer can i be happily unaware even if i wanted to. i guess sometimes i feel guilty; i see this vast "continental divide" so to speak of wealth. i see people living like dogs slaves to sin on the street when we have the most gorgeous and perfect church service.

i guess i just want that change. i get antsy. i can't stand injustice.
and boy, does it sting when you look at in a gold-rimmed bathroom mirror.

i was watching a documentary recently called "Lost Angels: Skid Row is My Home",
( http://www.hulu.com/watch/460340 ) that i wish everyone could see. basically documents the life of people living on the streets and their incredibly wretched situation.

so i suppose what have i proved? that i can complain about a lot of stuff, that i am essentially not doing anything about.  i really am trying to not criticize "the church" for allowing these things, only perhaps a re-evaluation of needs and directives....

i guess....... i just hope that maybe someone will mistakenly read this and it will make a difference, or that God somehow..... lets me help in a way.

learning to walk

i'm such a baby sometimes~ a silly little ambitious baby with fists tightly clenched, a scowl of determination across my face, nevermind pudgy legs beneath me that are sure to not hold my weight. oh~ but i set off across the room all right~ i want my toy after all.

sometime i need to learn that learning to walk is not doing it by myself.

Father, how you must watch with crinkled eyes as i make my clumsy rounds-- skinning my knee every once in a while, banging my head on a counter-top. you don't hold my desire against me, you know how i want to walk. how perfectly patient you are, how incredibly loving you are as you lowly call my name.

i do not hear you. i am busy. no time to stop~ off to repeat the process of falling down and getting up.

eventually, i know i must get tired, i'm sure i do. somehow i always end up in a soft bed at night.
maybe in the morning, tomorrow, i will hold your hand as i walk.

{...}

make me as a bird chained to the sky~ bound to what i was created for...

take our

raised hands~God, from self-righteous fists

to arms outstretched in complete dependence.

from the champion... to the child~

we are nothing without you.

thank you

God, for my dad's job and these wonderful people that cared.