March 26, 2013

• {toss salad}

  
  
  
  
  i watched this documentary last week called, “Healthy for Change.”
  it’ll make you never want to eat mcdonald’s again.
  atleast for three or four days.

  afterwards i was feeling desperate for something healthy. anything.
  i could see my arteries clogging by the second!  
  so i headed to the fridge to find whatever i could that looked semi nutritious..
  when you’ve been gone for over a week and not to the grocery store in like two though, pickins are slim.

  but i basically emptied the crisper drawer..
  took the wilted lettuce and few shriveled veggies that could be salvaged chopped em up. threw them in a bowl. and there was my tossed salad!

  i think this post might feel like that. a bit chopped and tossed together~

  ****

  two weeks ago the kids had their march break and we headed south to my parents.
  it was one of those weeks where i had one set of expectations and everything the total opposite seemed to happen.
  not like just rain and snow. but hard stuff. relationship stuff.
  the kind of stuff none of us like dealing with, but have to. need to.

  on our last day the sun broke and we headed out for a local park with a few of my brothers.
  we ended up doing a little hike around a trail in the woods…
  even though i totally wasn’t wearing hiking type of shoes. 
  as i walked, and knew of the blisters i’d be feeling tomorrow -
  it struck me how often it’s in pain we see some of the greatest beauty.

  if i hadn’t went on that path i would have missed out..
  and my week had been just the same!
  though no fun at the time, it was those things unplanned and unprepared that carried the greatest treasure..
  hearts melded closer together. truth clung to. the resolve greater. the Lord nearer.

  when we were home and someone asked how the week was, after a few seconds of, “ummm…”
  i finally answered, “it was very full.”

  “well, that’s good,” they nodded.

  and i smiled because i knew they didn’t have a clue what kind of full i actually meant.
  that really, only God and i would ever know all my heart held from that week.
  a week i thought had gone all wrong, and yet here.. somehow, it was exactly what i needed.

  He works {all} things together.

  “It seems it was good for me to go through those troubles.
  Throughout them all you held tight to my lifeline.
  You never let me tumble over the edge into nothing.
   But my sins you let go of, threw them over your shoulder—GOOD RIDDANCE!
  The dead don’t thank you, and choirs don’t sing praises from the morgue.
  Those buried six feet under don’t witness to your faithful ways.
  It’s the living—live men, live women—who thank you, just as I’m doing right now.
  God saves and will save me. As fiddles and mandolins strike up the tunes,
  We’ll sing, oh we’ll sing, sing, for the rest of our lives in the Sanctuary of God.”
  [Isaiah 38:16-20 The Message]

  
  
  ****

  you know. the thing when you walk through hard stuff is it kinda knocks the wind out of your sails for awhile ~
  which isn’t always a bad thing. to be windless. still. to get quiet and tuck away for a time.
  i love writing for a processing of thoughts. but there are at times thoughts too deep to put into words..
  it’s like i have to just sit with them. letting God put them in order in my heart, me not trying to work them through or come to a conclusion.
  as shayne reminded me today, “we can’t explain everything. ”
  we want to. we want to understand and know the why and wrap it all up in a neat little box with a bow on top.
  but i’m convinced more and more God’s all about taking our neat little boxes..
  that we think we have all figured out and put together and blowing them wide open.
  proving again, we don’t get to decide who God is.
  in our human eyes we won’t always get it.
  but it’s not for us to”get it,” but learning what it means to to lay it down.
  resting in His Wise Love that knows exactly what He’s doing. blown apart pieces and all!  
  and if it’s about being transformed to His image -
  there’s no better way than wrapping myself to His side and holding on for dear life~

  “We please God most, not by frantically trying to make ourselves good, but by throwing ourselves into His arms with all our imperfections and believing that He understands everything – and loves us still.”

  ****

  we live in a culture where it seems more than ever to be fixated on perfectionism.
  it’s in every commercial, magazine cover, movie.
  every joke made about the melissa mccarthy’s of our world! 
  it’s in books and the racks of our department stores. in the latest fad diets.
  even in the pulpits of our churches. and sadly, the spirit in many of our christian circles.
  that unspoken list of “rules” that this is what you have to do to be accepted.
  this is the standard by which you measure your self worth. 

  social media has added to the list even more as we sit scrolling through the calculated glimpses people allow us to have into their lives, convincing us everyone is happy happy happy all the time as they instagram their sunny walks and status update us on how great their love life is and hashtag every adjective in the english language and tweet every mile they’ve run and pinterest all the creative anything that’s ever been thought of and blog from picture perfect homes with kids that never seem to have runny noses or stains on their shirts. but… i just want to stand up on a chair and say loud and clear – it’s okay to not always be okay!
  
  it’s more than okay. we need people like you! to remind the rest of us it’s okay too.

  nothing wrong with sunny walks and great love lives. of having fun and running miles.
  what would we do without pinterest and who really wants to look at runny noses anyway?
  but as we see ourselves and women around us burdened down with a burden they don’t have to bear –
  we need to take hold of truth and pass it on to those around us.
  superwoman is not real!!
  there’s no such thing as a perfect mom or wife or friend or homemaker.
  there’s no marriage that hasn’t known conflict and no family that has it all together. 
  we all live the same way – one grace paved step at a time!
  we don’t have to be more. do more. look more.

  with all our flaws and shortcomings and weakness’ God can and does still use us.
   
  let’s rally the sisterhood and take a moment to whisper over to those standing near us, “you are enough!”
  when our identity is found in Christ we’re more than enough because our significance isn’t coming from our toned bodies or awesome marriages or perfect looking homes – our significance is coming from Christ and He holds all we need.

  “the richness of the fullness of Christ.”

  but even though we know it we lose sight of it. we’re going to forget. and, if you’re like me, far too quickly.
  and so let’s offer each other the room to grow. the grace to be.
  sometimes what points someone back to God isn’t preaching at them a truth, but living it out!
  maybe just sitting down next to them and with a squeeze of the hand reassuring them, yeah.. it’s okay to not always be okay. 

  
  
  
  ****

  a friend said to me recently and it’s been hanging in my heart ever since –
  just because bad things happen doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong.
  it can also mean you’re doing something exactly RIGHT!

  satan is out to destroy us any way, face, form, shape he can.
  let’s not lose sight of who the real enemy is. certainly not one another!

  ****

  seems there was more i had to share about march break and last week and oh, the stomach flu that’s come back to haunt us..
  but that’s all the salad i can toss together for now. {no connection intended between flu and toss} )

  here’s some pics instead that will tell some of the stories of the last few weeks for me~

  

  
  
  
  
  

  
  

  
  
  
  

  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  ****

  here’s the song i’m loving right now.

   

  “You, O Lord have made a way..
  the great divide you healed.
  For when our hearts were far away –
  Your love went further still.

  Yes, your love goes further still.”

  • 10:02 am
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