A One-Woman Facebook Crusade...

That does it. I'm on a one-woman mission.

I have never been a huge fan of Facebook. (For those of you who love it...I'm happy for you. So don't take this personally.) I have short spurts and seasons where I enjoy it, and I clearly see the utility of it, when important, short bursts of information need to get out to a large number of people. I get it. And it is fun, sometimes. But Facebook is still not my favorite way to spend my downtime. Give me a book-book ANY day.

And like every tool that can be used for amazing good, Facebook can also be used wrongly, and we who have minds of our own are allowed to speak up and say what we think. Kapeesh?

Let me get right to the laser-point: I've never, ever used my maiden name on Facebook. It never occurred to me. Sure, old friends from high school might try to "find" me and not be able to, but I graduated and moved on in 1984, and I rather enjoy my life as a middle aged woman. If an old friend from high school never "finds" me....well...how can I say it...

I'm okay with that.

Yup. I'm totally okay with it. Memory lane holds no fascination for me. Life as it is, right now, is totally wonderful. And chances are, no old highschool friend is going to Facebook me wanting to hear about Jesus. When I weigh the hidden message that might be in broadcasting my maiden name...when I weigh its risks with the potential "benefits"....call me old school, but I love my man, and I love my life, and I've grown up and grown older like normal people do. I wish my old high school friends well, but if they never find me, they can still find Jesus. Their eternity does not depend on my Facebook page.

In addition, without my maiden name, old boyfriends cannot find me.

I'm really okay with that.

I'm okay with that, even though there were only two or three boyfriends, and only one of the two or three was a really serious boyfriend. I'm okay with that even though I weigh only about 12 pounds more than I did in 1984 - and I was a skinny teenager. I'm okay with that even though I could impress any old boyfriend if I really tried, and even though I am still "hot" for my age.

Okay....warm.

No, wait. HOT. Sometimes I am totally hot, and byheaven, I am not ashamed. Women of a certain age get hot now and again, and have no business Facebooking old boyfriends.

If you are married, and have your maiden name on your Facebook - I know you don't mean anything by it. Well, I trust that you don't. But for the sake of The Cause....please remove it.

Or, let me be the radical one. Quirky me! Leave me to do the unusual thing all by myself. I'm okay with that, too. But you should remove it.

You have the power.

You can do it.

How about just your first name, and your married-last name? It is such a lovely last name, after all. I realize I am opening the door to all manner of hate mail, but I don't care. I'm sayin' it. I'm on a crusade.

No More Maiden Names For Married Godly Women On Facebook.

If you are happily married, remove your maiden name today. Just go with your real, married last name. You'll be glad you did. If you are not happily married...

...well, go ahead and leave that maiden name. I hear a certain cable TV show just might hook you up with your long lost heart-throb!

Sweet Saturday

We got started on yet more projects this weekend. We gardened, painted another whole room, and primered yet another. We got an early start, and still yet it is 11 PM, and we are just now finishing up, and turning in. Many thanks to Hannah and Justin, Sarah and Jonathan for their help!


A small peek at the cottage doings today:


This sign points the way to our home...



This entire load of mulch got spread around the gardens today...and yes, "I think his trailer's sexy." Who needs a tractor when you can sport this hot little number, and boast that you made it yourself? (He did!)



variagated vinca, Scottish moss, dusty miller, and helichrysum in an old wooden toolbox...



We love our birds here - wild and tame.

Renesting...

The answer to the empty nest, is to REnest. I am earnestly and blissfully renesting...

...but no pictures till I am done. There will be a "big reveal", once I manage to finish this mammoth project of repainting my entire dining room and kitchen - cabinets and all! Hint: think totally different. A complete change.

Kind of goes with my new season of life, don't you think? So far, I am llllllloving it. But no pictures. Yet.

Before ~


Primering red walls is a chore! Loved this red, in its season. It served its purposes well, and made my heart happy. But like most creative souls, I am in a "new phase", color-wise. Important! Give yourself permission to move on to the next level. Your "eye" changes with the years, your taste refines itself, in short....you want to try new things. Do it!

Ya'll come on over when it is finished, and see the big change!

Another Harvest Wedding

The beautiful Lisa, Benjamin, and my man...




Dancing in "fields of grace"!

God created life to be lived in chapters and seasons. It is meant that we enter into the seasons of those with whom God has placed us in community. At its most common denominator, this is what life is about: serving one another in love, celebrating with those who celebrate, weeping with those who weep.

The Christian faith has no context outside relationships, because love is not a concept, it is a way of living every day with people.

The Miracle of Technology

It's a....LIMA BEAN!

Of course, we don't know if the grand baby is a boy or girl yet, but I went with Hannah to her first doctor's appointment, and I got to see the ultrasound, and hear the baby's heartbeat.

Oh. My.

What a moment. Good, strong heartbeat! They measured the little teeny baby, and estimated that Hannah is right at 6 weeks along, and the due date is (drumroll please)...

...December 18!

Hope your weekend is blessed, my friends. We've a Harvest Wedding tomorrow, and the excitement of this day has caught up with me. I'm headed to dreamland...

The Fruit of the Womb is His Reward...

This is what happens when you find out you are going to be a grandmommy: your friends send flowers and give you presents.



I know it is early...but story books are most important, you see.


I've been waiting to tell you. Bustin' to tell you.

Two of my best friends are pregnant...my daughter Hannah, which you already know....

....and Wendy Cantrell, over at Hope Springs!


Here's the jump-up-and-down, squeal till I'm breathless thing: My Wendy is...well, she's almost my age. She isn't forty...she is a late thirty-something, but she'll see forty way before I see fifty. Put it that way.
And her Doug is my Tim's age. Doug and Tim get to be new daddy and new grand-daddy together. Isn't that pre-shus??

Wendy babysat Hannah when she was a baby. Wendy and I lingered over the thought that she never dreamed...no, not in a million years, when she fed Hannah in her high chair...that she and that baby would one day be pregnant together.

Two of my best friends. My confidantes. Right arms, these girls are.

Wendy doesn't know this, but when I heard, I did the same thing she did. I laughed, and then I cried. Then I laughed. I did a whole lot more laughing. It was the sort of laughter that rolls up from a girl's innermost being.

God is saying something profound to my heart and to my church.


Relationships are worth the work it takes to preserve continuity. I cannot run after anyone determined to leave me, because there are far too many others still with me who do love and need me. The other gal would have to be the one to leave. I would not sacrifice continuity for any difference of opinion, no offense could make me leave, no personality clash is worth jeopardizing these life-long friendships. This....oh, this! is generational blessing.

If bliss could kill, I'd be dead.

Two babies - who will be born within days of each other. A grand baby, and another "adopted" niece or nephew. May they grow up dwelling in the land - pitching their permanent living quarters, cultivating the same faithful continuity of friendship with their God and their family and their friends that their parents and grand parents have cultivated.

I can testify: Verily, they shall be fed.

Renewed, Rebuilt, Restored, REDEEMED

Someone recently asked me what I meant when I said that once I admitted that the foundations of my Christian life needed rebuilt, God met me.

I am so glad you asked. Thank you!

I've had a relationship with God, through Jesus Christ, since I was six years old. This relationship has been very real, touching every part of my being, spirit, mind, and body. Early on, however, I slipped into performing my way into God's favor - and was unfortunately good at it. My own strength and effort carried me for too many years.

Occasional fasting, daily prayer, Bible reading, Bible teaching, raising children, home educating them, exercise, careful diet, hours of study across wide disciplines, being a loving, supportive wife, keeping a clean home, and clean living, plus discipling others and impacting their lives for Christ, it all came easily to me, so long as I worked very hard. (Can you hear the contradiction yet?)

I thought I understood the grace of God, after all, I've been a Christian leader for years.

Ah, "I was brought low, and He helped me..."

All it took was a little perceived failure, a dash of mid life hormones, plus the steady influence of a few grumpy Christians living under the law, and I began to unravel, sinking into a depression that I have only described in detail to a very few people. I "should" have seen a doctor. If I ever see that dark place again, I will.

My pastor-husband began revisiting the doctrines of grace, and I followed suit. The only explanation for what happened next is that the veil fell from my face. I, with unveiled face, began to behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, and began to encounter grace.

Encounter.

It is precisely at the point of encounter, where my legalist friends (and I) had it all wrong. We understood grace too quickly, early in our Christian experience, and thus failed to understand well at all. No one lingered. No one was raw and needy anymore, once they were converted. Oh, we had hard times - very, very hard times - and we sacrificed and worked our way out of them, giving God the glory all the way.

The only difference today between them and I, is that I admitted my ineptitude, and meant it. I came crestfallen to the cross, admitting that the very foundations of my spiritual life needed to be rebuilt on the true, full gospel of grace. I changed my mind - which is to say, I repented of relying on my own abilities.

A walk with God has actually not as much to do with behavior modification, self-conscious self discipline, or even morality. It has more to do with the beauty of grace. Grace cannot be known in concept, it must always be encountered in a person.

I began to encounter Christ in the Pauline gospel in a fresh way. To this day, I'm blessedly ruined. Forever undone. Gloriously insufficient in myself to please God - thankfully, He is eternally pleased with Christ Alone, and I am In Christ.

My friend, it is not by works of righteousness (which I have done...oh, have I ever done them!) but according to His mercy He saved me. It is by grace I am saved, and in the same way I received Christ, I am expected to walk in Him.

My days and years of confidence in the flesh are gone. The paradoxical thing is that I am doing more, setting higher goals, attaining to more than before. Because it would be perfectly okay if I did nothing at all.

The thing that is different today, is that this vessel, now that it has been broken at the feet of Jesus, is releasing the perfume that is in it...also Jesus. For from Him and to Him and through Him are all things. My heart is tender to the breaking point, and in my weakness, He is made so strong.

My righteousness is reckoned to me. It is a gift.

Bless His name!