Wherein I admit that I don't have a clue

The topic of the week has been serving. What we are called to do, in what ways we serve, etc. I realized pretty quickly that I do nothing. Certainly not much of anything that I'm really passionate about. And that led me to the realization that I don't really know WHAT I'm passionate about, if anything. I think I've hit this point in my life where I've allowed myself to become numb to everything and just simply try to exist. I have the desire to do something, I want to find whatever it is that I am called to do, I want to find something that I'm really successful in doing. But what on earth could that be?

There are things I want to do. I want to do more design work, but I lack the creativity, the tools, and perhaps even the skill. I want to dive into my photography, but I lack the knowledge and the equipment to take it to the next level. I want to work more on jewelry, but I only enjoy it when I design it, it stresses me out to try to make something for someone, and I have no outlet so my stash of stuff is turning into a lot of wasted money. I want that career I always imagined I have, but I lack direction and don't seem to be good enough at anything in particular to be productive or successful with it.

I think I waited too long to decide what I want to be when I grow up and now I'm just not anything.

If you haven't heard about the crack smoking lesbian, you haven't really been to church

Change.

It's a scary word. It immediately brings negative thoughts to mind. Change is uncertain. Change is uncomfortable. The thought of change can motivate us to stay in our ruts, to be happy with the status quo.

But change can be good. Change can be exciting, refreshing. Change can motivate us to strive for something better.

No matter which way we look at it, change is necessary. The question is which attitude we will face it with.

I grew up in a small town Baptist church. We had 60 people on a good day, 100 for a special day like Easter or Christmas. It was comfortable, friendly. It was a place that encouraged learning, healthy relationships, and love. It's where I was saved, where I was baptized, where I grew in my faith. But as time passed, change was needed. The enthusiasm was gone, the purpose was lost, and it became routine instead of inspiring, worship no longer had meaning it was just "what we do on Sunday mornings."

I can count on one hand the number of people who tried to bring about change. Any change, no matter how small, that would rekindle the fire in that church. But those people were accepted about as well as their ideas and not one of them are left in that congregation. The church is dying, perhaps already dead, left with no one but those members who have just always been there and always will be until they pass away. All stemming from of a fear of change.

I'm guilty of it too. I normally fear change. But I had reached a point in my spiritual life where I craved it. So I stepped out of the box and started attending church online at Lifechurch.tv. Obviously the traditionalists at my old church don't see it as church at all. To them I have become the bad mother who has deserted her family on Sunday mornings, the incompetent parent who is providing a bad example for my children. But for me it's about being fed. It's being able to finally, after several years, hear from God again, know that he's in control, and listen to what he wants me to hear on a regular basis. There is no bickering, no politics, no distractions to keep me preoccupied, to hurt me, to make me angry. For that, I am a better mother, I am a better wife, and, most importantly, a better Christian. It hurts to know what they think of me, but I have to remind myself that I am where I feel God has led me and that my family is healthier because I have chosen to listen.

This weekend I had the pleasure of watching a message from Steven Furtick, lead pastor of Elevation Church in Charlotte, NC. He's young, he looks like a rock star, and he'd make the old church members in Mudhole, OK roll their eyes because he's not wearing a suit and tie while he preaches. When he mentioned the Karate Kid and a crack smoking lesbian in this week's sermon, those deacons up the hill would have been scrambling for a way to run him out of the pulpit before noon. And while they sat and thought about those things they would be missing inspiration from one of the most impressive young pastors I have ever heard. A truly passionate man of God.

They wouldn't hear that because he represents change. The change they fear. The change that means there are rock songs replacing their old hymns, there are sermons being broadcast on a video screen, there are people in jeans and t-shirts in a house of God. But those changes are necessary. Those changes aren't compromising beliefs, they aren't polluting the message we're trying to get across. Those changes are what are reaching the generations who have felt uncomfortable and unwelcomed in the traditional church. Those changes are what are bringing people to Christ.

Change without compromise.
Stand firm in God's word, change the approach. It's what will save churches, it's what will save people.

That other turkey day

I want to wish my Canadian family and friends a happy thanksgiving today. Even though it's entirely the wrong month and still too warm for a hoodie...Canadians baffle me with their mixed up turkey day and their just-another-excuse-to-get-off-work monthly made up holidays. Gotta love 'em! Wish we had thought of that first.

I leave you with this! The best turkey picture on the internet.

Any turkey can tango, any turkey can dance, any turkey can tango, if they had a chance.

Words to live by I say.

Have a great Thanksgiving ya'll!

Mudhole Melodrama

I was talking to my sister on the phone yesterday, something I don't get to do often since she's halfway across the country, and someone kept beeping in on my cell phone. I hate call waiting. I really love the fact that I can tell when someone calls but I will not click over for you unless I think you have some mind-blowing emergency. I just won't. I hate it, I think it's rude, and I hate the beeping/cutting-out noise my Chuckberry makes when it happens.

So not the point of this post...
/tangent

So I look down at the screen to see that it's my friend beeping in. No problem, I'll call her back later. She beeps in again. I ignore it again. Then my home phone rings. (I would have ignored that one as well but Dexter has learned how to answer the phone and I haven't been able to get him to grasp the whole call screening thing. So he answers and asks who it is and throws me the phone, every.single.time it rings.)

WOW AJ stick to the point already!

So I say hello and my friend starts in on some story about a dog and her puppies that are loose across the street from the school. She's rambling about how there were three puppies that morning but when she came back at noon there were only two and they look like they're starving and they can't figure out who owns them and this lady from another town says she's going to take them to wamalart and find them a good home because obviously no one is taking care of them and oh my gosh this is inhumane and the owners aren't home at 12:30 in the afternoon so i better take the dogs because they're being neglected oh my goodness someone call animal control!!!!

*BREATHE*

I feel like this is a good time to remind everyone that there are at least 30 dogs wandering the streets of Mudhole at any given moment. If you've lived here long enough you've learned to ignore this and move on because we have no animal control. We have no law enforcement. We have a population of 300 (counting those dogs). But these two ladies aren't from around these parts. So stray puppies=sky falling.

What I say: It's no big deal, leave them alone, I'm sure they belong to so-and-so who lives in the blue single-wide.

What I am thinking: By the time I pick my kid up at 3pm the entire town will have heard about these dogs, and the old men at the coffee shop will have figured out who they belong to. You don't need to solve the mystery, Encylopedia Brown.

Back to my sister who has been waiting through this whole conversation. We talk for two minutes and the phone rings again.

Friend: Someone called the county sherriff and he's here going from door to door trying to find the owners. If he doesn't find them he's taking the puppies! Which house did you say you thought they belong to?? I'll go tell him!

What I say: Uhhh...please don't do that. Just leave it alone. It's none of our business.

What I am thinking: Umm yesterday someone went to that house looking for the parents of the kids who are outside playing 24/7 and found their crack pipe still sitting on the kitchen table from their last hit. Those kids just lost their father to cancer and if you send that sherriff to knock on their door they'll get ripped out of that house before the school bell rings today. Sure, that might be a good thing, but I am NOT going to be responsible for pushing that snowball down the hill.

Only in Mudhole could a puppy on the loose lead to DHS ripping some kids out of the newly discovered crack house. Film at eleven.

I'd like to thank the Academy...

...for recognizing my performance as the worst mother in the world.

Happy birthday Rogit! You're 6 today! And my gift to you is that one traumatic childhood experience that will stick with you for the rest of your life. I can hear it already, 30 years from now,

"Mom, remember that year I turned 6 and you didn't make me any cupcakes for school? That was the worst birthday ever."

Let the record show that I have offered for over a month to make the child cupcakes for school and he said he didn't want them. How was I supposed to know that 2 minutes before the bell rang he would panic because he didn't have anything to take and have a complete meltdown??

Let the record also show that I feel like a complete jerk anyway.


Edited to add: I totally just flew to Wamalart and bought the kid some cupcakes. They'll be waiting for him at snack time when he wakes up from nap.

System overload

I have a problem. There is a word missing from my vocabulary. That word is no.

This weekend was a brutal reminder of what happens to me when I promise too many things to too many people. I was supposed to have Rogit's 6th birthday party on Saturday. We were going to do a big cake, he wanted a party at the bowling alley with our usual group of friends. Then my friend informed me that this would be the only possible weekend she could have her son's party. Well that presents a problem because we have the same group of friends. My mom goes on a trip the weekend after Rogit's birthday every year, so the weekend before is our only party option. We will have this conflict with these friends forever I suppose. I decided I could pull off the bowling party at noon and have it done before her party at 5.

Then the wedding reception I offered to do a cake for back in February gets scheduled for Saturday as well. That means I'm trying to make a wedding cake, a birthday cake, plan a party, and attend another party all on the same day.

Roenick's cake and party get crossed off the list first. I don't want him disappointed when nobody shows up for his party, and I can't possibly get both cakes done in the same weekend. So my own child gets the shaft.

The bride changes her design Friday afternoon around 3pm. The cake is due in exactly 24hrs. I planned to pull an all-nighter but at 9:30 I could no longer function. The nausea and the pain in my gut have risen to a level that I cannot tolerate and I drag myself home and into bed. I'm up again at 5:30 to get the cake done.

I get a phone call from the friend having the birthday party, it has been moved to 4pm. The wedding reception is at 6:30. Guess where I'll be at 4pm?? Setting up a cake.

I feel like an alien is trying to eat it's way out of my stomach, but I get the cake finished and delivered. I come home, pop a Zantac, and plop down on the couch. There is no way I'm making that party. My name will be mud for the next year because I didn't show up and allow them all to pretend they like me.

I have come to realize that I am allowing other people to make me miserable, to make me physically ill, and to make me an emotional wreck. I spend all my time saying yes to people in the hopes that I'll fit in, that they will accept me, that they might want to be my friend. And in the mean time I am falling apart. I am finally admitting that I have been in depression for over 2 years now. In that time I have gone from a happy, thin, outgoing person to a mopey, fat, reclusive blob all because I crave the acceptance of people so much that I am willing to let them destroy me.

No more.

Today I let my spiritual health take the forefront. Today my family and myself become my only other priorities. Everything and everyone else can wait.

I will not compromise for you.
I will not over commit myself for you.
I will not let you limit my success.
I will not let you destroy me.

Yes I know...

...that you bought the computer I've been needing for years, even though you spent a decade telling me how crappy Macs are.

...that you had to buy a $5000 camera because I was getting a new one and you had to outdo me.

...that your new ipod touch trumps my 1st gen Nano.

...that your new house is going to be so much bigger than mine and that you need to run every detail of your planning stages by me.

...that your husband just got his 50000th raise this year and you have more money than you know what to do with.

...that you are better friends with her and that you have some undeniable need to call and tell me everytime you are having a "girl's day out" because it's sooo nice to get out without the kids from time to time. No, REALLY?

...that you've lost another 5lbs and you aren't really even trying.

...that you're getting together yet again...across the street from me...so the kids can play and you can have some much needed adult conversation.

...that you are smarter, more talented, and just generally better than me.


BUT, thanks so much for reminding me....again.