Whoozahappygirl?

Are certain magical planets in perfect alignment this week?

Has the fairy Godmother sprinkled me with fairy dust while I was asleep last night?

Or is God just good to His girls?

I think it is the last one. You might think this is shallow, but girls, I actually found a pair of Michael Kors jeans for....(are you sitting down?)...$19.99. These are $150 jeans if you are crazy enough to pay full price retail, which I do not believe I have ever done in all my life.

But even I don't tend to find deals this good, unless I am thrift store shopping. You can't even get them on ebay for this great a deal. I checked.

These jeans fit perfectly (read: comfortably), and look exactly the way I want them to. I have a thing about "mom jeans". I don't wear them. I also have a thing about jeans with any sort of embroidery on the leg, any sort of sparkley anything. I don't wear them. One makes me look old, the other like I'm trying too hard.

This pair of jeans has the perfect fading, not too much, not too little, and when I sit down....well, you know. It's all good.

If that were not enough, I got a gorgeous pair of Sage western boots for my birthday. I either heard angels singing when I saw the box, or was about to pass out. These babies are cute, cute, cute. And comfortable. I've never been to Texas, but I can now look as long and sort of lean as any Texas girl, and besides, Kenny Chesney is from around these parts, so I feel entitled to wear these boots with pride.

For those who are more visual, here you go:

the exact jeans I found today...and that might be me, there. Well. It could be. Ten pounds from today.

My boots. Exactly my boots. Butter soft leather.

Michael Kors jeans - $19.99 + tax, which here in Tennessee is the highest in the world, I think.

Western boots - free

Feeling happy, "stylin' and profilin" - priceless

More Than Content...

I think it was Socrates who said, "He who cannot be content with what he has, will not be content with what he wants to have." This is as true about relationships and family and church, as it is about houses or cars.

It has also been said that true wealth consists not in having what you want, but wanting what you have. November has rolled around again, tomorrow is my birthday. This always brings out the philosopher in me.

I not only have what I want...I want what I have. I. Am. Content. I have been blessed with fabulous wealth, in the form of people. I have a cup that runs over with more than a few faithful, funny, talented, loving and lovable friends and family members, all who manifest the character of God into my life.

Yesterday, on my way to church, one of these beautiful friends pulled up beside me at a stoplight. We obviously were on our way to different churches, but we have known one another, both up close and from a distance, for two decades or more. She motioned for me to roll down my window. When I did, all she shouted to me was ~

I love you.

Then she said, for no real reason ~

We've hung in there together, haven't we?

I nodded, tears stinging the backs of my eyelids. Happy tears, by the way. I know this woman. She hasn't been reading my blog. She's not the technology type. She hasn't been reading my journals, I'm sure.

But she read me like a book. In an instant, and from a distance, across pavement and rolled down glass, she read my heart of hearts, and reflected back to me what I value most.

"We've hung in there together. We're traveling in the same direction. We hold the same things in high esteem. We've been through some incredibly rough spots, we have both wanted to walk away....but we didn't. "

God blew me a kiss yesterday morning, through that encounter. He communicated His approval of my choices in life. I love relationship. I value honest communication. I despise anything that sows discord amongst spiritual family and blood family. It is more than concept or words on a screen to me. My choices prove it.

Once again/again/again, I ate the fruit of vineyards that Tim and I had labored to plant years ago. I "inhabited" a relationship that my husband and I had labored to build, and then to preserve...when at one time, it would have been easier to leave it, and start over with someone else.

Did I say I am content? Oh...I am so content.

It ain't even officially my birthday yet, but please smile with me over all these tokens of love I'm already receiving!

On Friday, my elderly neighbor brought me the real hydrangea. An hour later, my good friend Mrs. Stimphill (that would be "Stinnet" and "Hemphill" combined) brought the gift bag. In flower language, I learned from a book here at home, the hydrangea means preservation - preservation of love that lasts for ever. Thanks, Lord!

Birthday gifts, so far...(yeah. I love presents.)

What could be in this box??

Black Russian!

cards...

books, that just arrived via post, moments before I published this blog...

The best card - from my little friend David, whose birthday is same day as me. (That would be tomorrow, for those who still wish to send presents to either of us.)

Circa 1650's

The following text originates from a fictional dialogue between a pastor, a legalist, an antinomian, and a young Christian, as written by Edward Fisher in his 1650 book The Marrow of Modern Divinity. This is one of the most beautiful explanations of the gospel of grace that I have read.


"I tell you from Christ,
and under the hand of the Spirit,
that your person is accepted,
your sins are done away,
and you shall be saved;
and if an angel from heaven should tell you otherwise,
let him be accursed.
Therefore, you may (without doubt) conclude
that you are a happy man;
for by means of this your matching with Christ,
you are become one with him,
and one in him,
you ‘dwell in him, and he in you’ (1 John 4:13).
He is ‘your well beloved, and you are his’ (S. of S. 2:16).
So that the marriage union betwixt Christ and you
is more than a bare notion or apprehension of your mind;
for it is a
special,
spiritual, and
real union:
it is an union betwixt the nature of Christ,
God and man,
and you;
it is a knitting and closing,
not only of your apprehension with a Saviour,
but also of your soul with a Saviour.
Whence it must needs follow that you cannot be condemned,
except Christ be condemned with you;
neither can Christ be saved,
except you be saved with him.
And as by means of corporeal marriage all things become common betwixt man and wife;
even so, by means of this spiritual marriage,
all things become common betwixt Christ and you;
for when Christ hath married his spouse unto himself,
he passeth over all his estate unto her;
so that whatsoever Christ is or hath,
you may boldly challenge as your own.
‘He is made unto you, of God,
wisdom,
righteousness,
sanctification,
and redemption’ (1 Cor. 1:30).
And surely,
by virtue of this near union it is,
that as Christ is called ‘the Lord our righteousness’ (Jer. 23:6),
even so is the church called, ‘the Lord our righteousness’ (33:16).
I tell you,
you may,
by virtue of this union,
boldly take upon yourself,
as your own,
Christ’s watching,
abstinence,
travails,
prayers,
persecutions,
and slanders;
yea,
his tears,
his sweat,
his blood,
and all that ever he did
and suffered
in the space of three and thirty years,
with his
passion,
death,
burial,
resurrection,
and ascension;
for they are all yours.
And as Christ passes over all his estate unto his spouse,
so does he require that she should pass over all unto him.
Wherefore,
you being now married unto Christ,
you must give all that you have of your own unto him;
and truly you have nothing of your own
but sin,
and, therefore, you must give him that.
I beseech you, then,
say unto Christ with bold confidence,
I give unto thee, my dear husband,
my unbelief,
my mistrust,
my pride,
my arrogancy,
my ambition,
my wrath,
and anger,
my envy,
my covetousness,
my evil thoughts,
affections,
and desires;
I make one bundle of these and all my other offences,
and give them unto thee.
And thus was Christ made ‘sin for us, that knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him’ (2 Cor. 5:21).
‘Now then,’
says Luther,
‘let us compare these things together,
and we shall find inestimable treasure.
Christ is full of
grace,
life,
and saving health;
and the soul is freight-full of all
sin,
death,
and damnation;
but let faith come betwixt these two,
and it shall come to pass,
that Christ shall be laden with
sin,
death,
and hell;
and unto the soul shall be imputed
grace,
life,
and salvation.
Who then is able to value the royalty of this marriage accordingly?
Who is able to comprehend the glorious riches of his grace,
where this rich and righteous husband,
Christ,
doth take unto wife this poor and wicked harlot,
redeeming her from all devils,
and garnishing her with all his own jewels?
So that you,
through the assuredness of your faith in Christ, your husband,
are delivered from all sins,
made safe from death,
guarded from hell,
and endowed with the
everlasting righteousness,
life,
and saving health
of this your husband Christ.’”
—Edward Fisher, The Marrow of Modern Divinity (Christian Focus, 2009), pp. 166–167.

I very much want this book. I am presently on a quest...

Sheila: (shē-lə), n. 1. Saint 2. Poet 3. Lover of home and church life. synonyms: simple, happy, free. antonymns: cynical, religious, legalist

(please do excuse the pearls with the jeans. I left my top half exactly as I had dressed it before church, and switched just the bottom half for the picnic, after church. Before the jeans and slip on shoes, I was wearing the cutest pair of woolen, menswear style, navy blue, cuffed-hem trousers, with a wide leg ~ accessorized with navy blue and burgundy leather spectator pumps. See how the sweater-and-pearls then comprised a classic outfit? I rocked it) ::perky sniff::

"The hearth is the heart of the home...(there are those who have) lost the sense of the sacredness of the home (and I would say also "the church"). They still believe in the respectability of the home (and church); but that is only another way of saying that they want to be respected by other people for reverencing what they do not really reverence...there is/was never any flame upon their altar...(thus) a generation in revolt flee from a cold hearth (and church)...

...but a family (or church) will really do without rules exactly in proportion as it is a successful family (church)...

...in order that life should be a story of romance to us, it is necessary that a great part of it should be settled for us without our permission. If we wish life to be a system, this may be a nuisance; but if we wish it to be a drama, it is an essential...

...A man has control over enough things in his life to be the hero of a novel. But if he had control over everything, there would be so much hero that there would be no novel. And the reason why the lives of the wealthy are at bottom so tame and uneventful is simply that they can choose the events. They are dull because they are omnipotent. They fail to feel the adventures because they can make the adventures. The thing which keeps life romantic and full of fiery possibilities is the existence of these great plain limitations which force all of us to meet the things we do not like or do not expect...

...To be in a romance is to be in uncongenial surroundings...

...our fathers believed in the links of kinship and also in the links of logic. Today, our logic consists mostly of missing links; and our family largely of absent members...

Today, there are fewer places to discover. The real adventure is to stay home (both to stay home-home, and to stay with your church home)."

~G.K. Chesterton (parenthetical associations are my own. Robert Frost said that an idea is a feat of association. I believe it! )

I Cannot Choose!

Today has been one of those days (they happen to me pretty often) where I have contemplated a thousand thoughts of beauty. Which one to choose? What to send out, to take its place in the trillions of words and billions of ideas sloshing around the internet this day?

My (so far) 18 month obsession with 3X5 index cards as an organizational tool? The thought of a Blackberry is tempting but unnecessary, PDA's DOA, and even my Outlook cannot outshine the simple, earthy, physical act of putting pen to paper - paper that happens to be the perfect size and intensely portable. Many more ideas have been captured, to be examined at my leisure, rather than sneaking away.

The autumn colors? I could write about them. I nearly run off the road every year, about this time. October 2009 is no exception.

The way I have discovered that I have to shield the eyes of my tiny parrotlet, when I walk with him, to keep him from getting too nervous and flighty? Oh, how the Lord would gather you under His wing, dear one! He would shield your furtive eyes from the unsafe terrain of human wisdom, but "you would not". We insist on our own understanding, we insist on walking in the light of our own eyes. Consequently, we become flighty and impulsive. We fly away when it would be safer to sit still until the feeling of confusion or unrest or boredom or anxiety passes. We move too fast, with too little wisdom. "Like a bird who wanders from his nest, is a man who wanders away from his place." (Proverbs 27:8)

We think we know where we belong, we think we know where to "go", when it is safest and sanest to sit still, and not try to see All Things.

What about this comment, left by someone I do not know, about grace? "Grace is a funny thing to talk about because it’s often thrown into conversations or sermons and I have no idea what it means. It seems very “airy” with no real content." I wish this man John could come to my church! His thoughts mirror what the majority of Christians perceive about grace, were they only honest enough to admit it.

Grace is a loaded concept. It is more than a concept. It is a Person, it is a Plan, it is beautiful and scandalous, it is a way of living, it is a way of seeing, it is utterly foundational. It RE-news your mind, over and over and over again, as you grow in it. Grace is the gospel, and the gospel is the grace of God. John's words, typed into the seeming-nothingness of his computer monitor, echo the condition of the whole church, and I find my heart tenderly breaking.

I know my life's mission. No heartbreak, no mission. Find where your heart breaks, and you'll know.

What about the joys of lobster bisque soup? Had some today. It could be an entire blog post. I could make it work.

Or the fact that, at the gentle, persistent urging of Ann Voskamp's blog "A Holy Experience", I have joined the many, many who are keeping a gratitude journal, and journaling our way to 1,000 gifts of God to be thankful for? You should see my list, begun only recently:

1. Coffee, with white chocolate macadamia cream and a touch of sugar
2. A quiet Saturday afternoon, watching football with my Tim.
3. A busy Sunday with saints who happen to be my best friends - all of them!
4. The warmth of a pocket parrot on the back of my neck.
5. The effect of Comet on stainless steel sinks.
6. The canary's song.
7. The flickering of a candle beside my bed.
8. Neckrubs from my youngest son.

That's just a few - there's more, and I only started this past week.

Or, I could blog on and on today, regarding the one phrase in Scripture: "This man Jesus...went about doing good..." It has inspired me, day after day, for about a week to ten days, now. I have fresh context for doing good - a context I didn't have before. I see in my spirit a brand new zeal to simply find someone, and do good. Good, for its own sake, is so....so good....so God-like.

Maybe I could share about my own personal version of Lauds and Vespers? Lovely thoughts, those.

Blast it, I can't choose.

We Don't Have It All Together...

...but together we have it all.

You are looking at a mother and her sons (Isaac, me, and Josiah)...three people who are full of faults, foibles, quirks, sins, thoughtless deeds, deep thoughts, and in some areas we each one possess more than a fair share of talent.

As parents, mine and Tim's relationship with our boys has been tested and tried this past year, and all while dealing with profound challenges and transition in our lives, while planning our daughter's wedding, while pouring out our hearts in the gospel, while swimming around the fishbowl of being a ministry family. It doesn't matter whether the fishbowl is small or large, a fishbowl is a fishbowl, and we live in one.

Tim and I have had to put up with criticism from one or two regarding our parenting, our personality, our words, and probably even our animals. (!!) I would not be a bit surprised if even our poodle's misbehavior was attributed to our emphasis on the gospel of grace. The scrutinization has been excruciatingly petty at times, and at other times it has been used by God to bring adjustment.

Bottom line? We just can't seem to be able to force anyone or any creature behave as it ought. How utterly inept, no?

Well, my answer to that, and the real point of this blog post, is that "those who preach the gospel should live of the gospel." Now I realize the original context of this verse quoted was to validate the idea that some men will make their living by serving the church. Still yet, the logic holds up - those who preach the sufficiency of Christ will be challenged to live it out in the secret place of relationship. Those who preach the finished work of Christ better be ready to deal with the "togetherness" of that finished work's reality.

Don't preach the gospel until you are willing to walk it out in in very real and sacrificial ways. Your opinion can be your version of the perfect world, and there are no real relationships in a perfect world. The gospel itself has no context outside relationships. God wanted relationship with us, and went to the ultimate length to make it possible. We, in turn, do the same in each and every significant relationship we have.

People can be so inappropriate. I could very well be the princess of inappropriate. No matter. The worst inappropriate-ness there is, is to imagine yourself to be superior.

At the most basic level, a Christian is to be an imitator of God, and thus we most certainly can give something akin to divine grace to others. We can be a conduit of a small amount of undeserved blessing, if you will. I call it "manifesting the faithful love of Christ to the ones we care about." Nothing in this world will mature you and perfect you like living the gospel out in relationship will do in you.

"The Kingdom offends our sense of propriety because it's filled with inappropriate people. But, that's its greatest Gospel glory." ~Thomas Chalmers~

Sunday Afternoon

A Harvest Church covered dish dinner, today - great food, sweet fellowship, and adorable babies.

It was a crowd. I could not believe the line at the food tables!

This is about half the line....and a bunch had already been through.


Our youth pastor and his son...

To know this girl is to love her!

In line for ham, pulled pork BBQ, casseroles, salads, desserts galore...

These sisters take their NFL football sort of seriously.

Harvest men take their yard-football totally seriously. Jeff Kear is in big trouble for ruining an entire outfit this afternoon. Does he care? Nah...

A mother's love. (Our Angel and her son Jordan...)

Our much-loved motorcycling couple (Phillip was the national champion vintage bike racer a few years back!)

The tall guy in the dark sweater and glasses is our very first "home grown" missionary. We will be sending him on his first long-term stint to Cambodia in January. (see http://www.lightincambodia.org/)

The farmhouse...

goat pen...

Pre-shus!

beautiful fall colors - one of the many pastoral views on the farm this afternoon.