In Which I Interview Myself About Everything You Never Wanted to Know {...a repost from the archives, slightly updated...}

I'm pulling a post from the archives this week - this was written back in about 2010, before I'd ever been interviewed by anyone.  Interestingly (to no one but me), I've actually been interviewed several times this year...and the process is always fun.  Welcome to my first "interview"...

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I'm having an egocentric day, perhaps.  I'm in the mood to tell you....things.  About me.  Some of which I seriously wonder if I've ever told anyone but Tim or my closest home-girls, and maybe not even them.  So if you are as interested in my story as I am in your stories (and I truly am - 99% of the time, when you are physically with me at lunch or dinner or whatever, the conversation will be about you, and I'd be asking you all sorts of stuff)

...then just keep on reading, because you are about to be amused.

Or deeply concerned.

Where to start?

1.  I was a bed-wetter until the age of 13.  It was pure, unmitigated awfulness.  I had all the traits of a  disturbed child.  I heard "voices" in my head, had thoughts of suicide (only thoughts!) anger issues, the whole bit.  And bedwetting.

What changed?  I lie not...it was the active grace of God in my life, and the charismatic renewal in the 70's.   My parents left a somber, dead denominational church (and I do realize denominations are not all dead...and even "not at all" dead) for a charismatic church, where I began to be bathed in the presence of God every Sunday. 

I did have several supernatural spiritual experiences as a child - for example, I remember receiving ministry one evening, being overwhelmed by a sense of pure love and power, and that was the end of the voices in my head.....forever.  Literally, the night before, I had heard them, and that night I slept in quiet peace, and not one time, ever again, have I been tormented like that.  No voices.

Unless I'm just messin' with ya.  I joke about hearing voices now.

2.  I taught the Bible for the first time when I was 17 - to about three hundred people in my church, and even gave an altar call.  The altar was full.

3.  I was married at only twenty years old, and gave birth to identical twin girls nine months (and twenty minutes) later.  Honeymoon twins.

4.  I was ugly in middle school.  I'm talking u-g-l-y.  I had no self confidence whatsoever.  I was homely and I knew it.  Then, something happened, and I entered a beauty pageant at age 17 (the Junior Miss Pageant) and almost won.  I came in third - each of us girls in the top three were within tenths of a point of one another, in the closest competition to date at the time.  So I really did almost win.

And - of all things - I scored the best...out of every single contestant....in (are you ready for this?)  not grade point average.  Not my interview, though it went well.  Not in physical fitness - my dance was a fiasco.  I took top score in...

poise and appearance.  Apparently God really does make all things beautiful in His time.

Don't hate on me.  In that season of my life, I needed that.  Honestly, I've never been all that proud of that little fact about myself, and I'm not stunningly attractive today - but I'm not above wanting to be.

5.  I was president of the Knoxville chapter of Teenage Women's Aglow in the 80's.  (Anyone remember "Women's Aglow"?  It was the age of Christian women in power suits, silk scarves, and big earrings.)

6.  At one point in my walk with God, I wore a headcovering.  Only for a couple of months - until my then-pastor took me to task, a little known fact for which I thank him to this day.  No disrespect to those women who do wear head coverings, but today the very thought makes me cringe.  I am forever grateful to God for an Enlightening Grace that pulled me out of the clutches of legalism.  It was and still is a process.

7.  My husband bites his nails, and that irks me.  Oh wait...that isn't about me, is it?  I think it sort of is, because that one thing is the Great Secret Irk of my life.  He's doing it right now.

8.  I love him in every other way.  He's adorable and selfless and definitely cute in a baseball hat.

9.  I'm loyal as a hound dog.  Friends are friends forever in my world - you have to treat me and my husband with a lot of disrespect before I'd even think about kicking you to the curb.  Even then, I wouldn't.

10.  I'm a lot of things - I swear sometimes, am known for too much sarcasm (its a gift) and I feel more deeply and pray more than most people will ever realize.  But for some reason, I've never been a jealous woman.  Your success is mine.  I want you to be as blessed as possible - no strings attached.

11.  I'm a freakish combination of a Sophia Loren wanna-be, and Mother Teresa.  I think deeply, love God radically, read real-books like some women sit in front of Facebook (all day, every day) but refuse to live without high heels, red lipstick, and the occasional glass of wine.

That's all for now.  Whatever.  I'm so glad we had this little talk.  I'm going to hit "publish" before my better judgement takes over...

Wear Your Praise Wednesday {...tender thoughts on beauty...and a peek into a fall launch design...}

To read my other "Wear Your Praise Wednesdays", click here here, and here

This post is for anyone who wonders why "wearing your praise" matters.  This post is for those who, like me, have searched for the line between healthy self care and vanity.

I find it increasingly hard to label myself, theologically.  (I promise, this has everything to do with fashion and beauty - at least in my life, theology informs just about everything.)  I'm not Presbyterian.  I'm not Charismatic, in the strictest sense.  I'm not Baptist.

I'm not a fundamentalist.  Though we did homeschool, I refused to wear long skirts and tennis shoes together.  I wore a little extra makeup and cute shorts (on purpose) to all the home schooling summer curriculum fairs, and thus scandalized 80% of the crowd.  Good times.

I'm not a hedonist.  I'm not a stoic, unless it comes to my negative emotions.  I have come to believe that the stark opposite to "wearing your feelings on your sleeve" is good, old fashioned Biblical meekness.  Meekness is any strong emotion - under control.  My feelings are invited to the party - but they are not allowed to plan it.

I wasn't always meek, and I'm still not, on days.  But now I really am chasing rabbits.

Suffice it to say that at one time, when I was a girl, I wanted nothing more than to feel pretty...to be pretty...and some told me that that was a sin.

Is it any wonder that I am working my way, 12 hour days at a time, into making a living from beauty?  I was meant to be an artist.  I have craved beauty and order since I was a child.

When I was a 20-year-old one-income, poverty-level newlywed with honeymoon twins, I remember spending the meager amount set aside for our tithe, to buy just one new outfit from JCPenny.  There I was, all grown up and married with children, and my hunger to feel pretty was still clashing with my theology.

My theology won, and I have no regrets - giving, even from your own lack today, is a key to prosperity in the future.

Throughout my kids' growing up years,  I resorted to mostly (amazing, miraculous) hand-me-downs from clothing shop owners and friends, supplemented with thrift store scores.  And I did all sorts of silly (and wise) things to stay as fit and healthy as I knew how.  I just wanted to like the woman I saw in the mirror...and looking back, I know that I was far too hard on myself.

Fast forward to the years when my children (now grown) were teenagers and young, single twenty-somethings.

Is it just me, or does anyone else understand the stage your nearly-grown kids go through, when they begin to question everything they were taught, the way they were taught it, and all your mis-deeds are remembered, either in vivid detail, or sometimes even embellished beyond recognition?

We were there.

And someone did something for me, that even she didn't know the profound affect it would have, especially in my relationship with my daughters.

At a church event one day, this young woman was chatting with my daughters as I was off somewhere else across the room.  She looked at me, and said to my girls, "Your momma has the cutest backside of anyone I ever saw in my life.  She is so beautiful for her age.  I want so badly to be like her as I grow older."

It sounds so silly and so vain, and I didn't find out about the remark until much later.

But do you know what that did?  It gave me fresh - and at the time, much needed - credibility with my daughters, at a very crucial stage in their development.  I realize that seems like a stretch.  And there were a lot of other factors involved.  However, trust me when I tell you that that really was a turning point for them...for me...for us.

And here is where I bring this home - sorry it has taken me so long, but the "back story" matters, in this case.  (No pun intended.)

Throughout history, a beautiful woman has been a sort of gate-keeper.  It perhaps shouldn't be so, but it is.  Beauty opens doors, it brings credibility even when credibility is unearned and undeserved.  Young women especially will listen to another woman who embodies the kind of pretty they seek to be.  They will take her word as near-gospel.  Many of us middle-agers still (almost) believe that beauty equals wisdom, hence our great love for "beauty secrets". Pretty certainly equals power, whether we like that or we don't.

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find a teenaged girl and casually mention to her how gorgeous you think her momma is....when her momma is nowhere around to hear it.  Be specific about it.  Apparently, my backside is special.  Not sure how I feel about that, but there it is.

Affirm the other woman's beauty - to her daughter.

You may never know it, but you just might change a life doing something as silly as that.

And that, gentle reader, is why I still care about how I look.  Because pretty equals power, I want all I can reasonably get short of idolatry or plastic surgery.  (...aren't those two things the same?  I digress...)

Why do I still pursue age-appropriate pretty?

So I can influence the next generation.  There are too many other women, far more beautiful than me, who are using their influence to degrade the very fabric of society.  Us Jesus loving girls have to take what beauty God has given us (and we all have some) and cherish it, respect it, and use it for His glory...not as "the end", but as a means to an end - a mere tool that we can use to take back a whole generation.

You and me?  We aren't just another pretty face.  There's theology - sound theology - lurking behind our mascara'd eyes.

And all these seemingly random pictures of my stumpy (so not pretty) hands are just peeks into a new-ish design.  I will be expanding my leather stack ring set to include gold-tone (yeay!) - since gold tone is all the rage for the foreseeable future.  (So glad I didn't change my wedding rings to white gold or platinum...everything old is new again, except for my laugh lines.)

I've made a new friend in recent months...and boy-howdy is she ever a gate keeper.  (read:  that means she's gorgeous).  She's also a grandmother...because really, why would you get your advice from anyone under 40?  And if she's over 40 and loves Jesus, and is pretty, and a grandmother?

Run, don't walk, run to her and sit at her feet and ask her stuff.

Her name is Honey Holden - fellow preacher's wife and taker-back of a generation and practitioner of pretty.  I think you'll love her.

You're Always "Just You" - Until You're Not {...how I became a jewelry designer to a rock star...}

"Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them..."  ~Romans 12

"Do you see a (wo)man skilled in (her) work?
(She) will stand before kings;
(She) will not stand before obscure men."  ~Proverbs 22

"Giving a gift can open doors; it gives access to important people!"  ~Proverbs 18

For months, now, this little shred of snatched, torn paper has been taped beside my bathroom mirror:

I taped it there, because it is just one way I challenge myself to use the gifts God has given me.  A gift is not a gift until it is given - and you always have to start right where you are in the giving.

God has gifted me to encourage, exhort, and "prophesy" destiny into the hearts of people - and just one vehicle I employ to use that gift, is through my art and jewelry designs.

Pour yourself a cup of whatever blows your dress up, because I have quite a story to tell you.

I really am a jewelry designer to a rock star...and not just any rock star...the biggest rock star alive today.

And that all began with two other women who chose to use their gifts.

The first woman is my friend (truly, my friend)  Jeanne Oliver.

She could have, at one time, decided her gifts weren't "enough".  She could have sat on her talents...because she started out like anyone else.  No one begins at the end...we all begin at the beginning.

But Jeanne began by making stuff.  At first (by her own account) she sometimes made stuff badly.  However, as time went by (and it always will) she discovered she had a gift.  And she believed it was given to her by God.

Today, she has created one of the most thriving, lovely online (and "in real life") creative communities you can find.

I discovered Jeanne and her gifts about 4 years ago, and I am so grateful to her for using them.  It was in the safety of her (then small) online creative community that I took my first online art lessons...then jewelry making classes...

...I painted my first paintings to raise money to send some teenagers on a mission trip.  I made my first jewelry designs for my own daughters.  Then, I made jewelry for my friends.

I am sure some people wondered why I even bothered.

After all...you are always "just you"....until you're not.

Any artist is "just ordinary"...until they're not.  (Hint:  support the artists that speak to your soul...they may be struggling today...and they will be struggling for recognition...until they're not.)

So, in using my gifts to bless those in my immediate sphere,  I exploded.  I exploded, artistically, and even spiritually.  Did I ever explode.  The explosion was God's doing.  I was an explosion waiting to happen - as most women in mid-life are!  But I will always be grateful to Jeanne for playing her part in what was my creative "Becoming".

The other friend I want to tell you about is a new friend.  Her name is Amy Crews

And she is, hands down, the best "natural realism" artist I have ever seen.  Do check out her oil paintings of flowers, bird's nests, eggs...and more.  The detail, and near photo-realism she gives to her subjects will leave you breathless, if you are at all a lover of great art.

Amy has, obviously, used her gifts for a very long time.  She has worked very hard for many years, and Amy didn't quit.  But she is just like anyone else in the sense that she began at the beginning.

Yet she kept going.  And she got really, really skilled at what she does.

And this is where it gets good, because she and I met through Jeanne Oliver's FREE online class entitled "Becoming || The Unfolding of You", where I was a featured presenter.

See the ripple effect?  See the pollination, and cross-pollination of dreams that can happen when women stop competing and comparing, and start celebrating one another?

A few months ago, Amy asked me to participate with her...to collaborate...first on one jewelry design (still available - but they are a limited edition, and more than half gone, so hurry!)

...and then she got the wild idea to take one of her iris paintings and create a necklace for Bono.

As in the Bono.  Of U2.

Only the biggest rock star alive today...for reals.

And I said, "Why not?"

Because I'm weird like that.  I am Charisbyterian, see, and I kind of live in this atmosphere of heaven...where anything is possible, and God really...like, really does speak to me, sometimes.  Is that weird?  It shouldn't be.  Hearing the voice of God is a believer's birthright.  It is the normal Christian life.

And when Amy asked me what I thought, God said to my heart, "Do it."

So we did.  We didn't have time to second-guess ourselves, or over-think it, or get all twisted up about it.  I had to bust out my best design in a matter of days, using Amy's beautiful painting of an iris.

Here is the result:

I realize the picture gets a little strange, right where you see my box with my business logo on it...but in case you wonder if it was doctored - which it definitely was not - here you go:

I took Amy's iris painting, and resized it, digitally, and designed an entire necklace around it.  I mailed it to Amy, just Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, and she took it and flew to NYC where she had tickets to see Bono and U2 in concert.

And God totally rocked both our socks off, and opened the door for her to personally deliver our collaboration to Bono himself.

And he removed his hat...and put on Amy's painting, and my jewelry design...

And that's what can happen when women dream big, work hard, use their gifts, and collaborate.

In terms of social currency, it could not have been any bigger or better had President Obama put on one of my designs, or hung an Amy Crews original in the Oval Office.  People care more about what Bono wears or what Bono likes!

And yes...this design will be available for anyone who needs to be reminded to use their gifts.  So stay tuned.

To hear Amy Crews tell the whole story from her perspective, click here.  You'll hear lots of details I purposefully have left out, because I'd love for you to hear them from her.

In case I haven't been clear, please allow me to end this story with the same Scripture I began it with:

"Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them..."

Start today.  Start in your immediate sphere.  Go use your unique gift to love someone.  You never know where it may lead!

(I'm pretty sure I'm still "just me"...but it is fun to imagine I'm not.)