Back to Reality

I understand the importance of vacation, but never as much as when I am leaving one. It's amazing what days away from reality and normal life can do for your attitude, mental and physical health, and all over well being.

It's hard to convince Americans that vacations are critical to your health. The evidence is the serious lack of vacation time most working Americans get, including my husband. I think many European countries are much better at understanding the concept and putting it into practice.

This vacation has been wonderful. There are so many fun things to write about, but the experience that stands out the most to me as I reflect on it is relationships. It was full of deepening relationships, with my husbands family and also with my kids. See on vacation, I don't have to pay bills, clean the house, return phone calls, deal with assistance programs, work, cook, clean (yeah its on there twice), do taxes, deal with normal every day life stuff. I can enjoy my family. Focus on people. Play more than I do at home, take longer eating and enjoy the food, have a glass of wine with great conversation after the kids are in bed. I can spend my time deepening my relationships.

Yesterday I was sad because I realize I won't have all this time to play with my kids once we are home. In life, there are things that have to get done. That's reality. However, vacation also serves as a great reminder that even in everyday living, I need to prioritize my life and spend my time on the things that are most important, like my children. Cleaning shouldn't be on my list twice. Vacation possess the wonderful ability to reveal to you what's most important.

As much as I love vacation, the fun adventures, the extra eating out, all the hang out time, the help with the kids, I start to miss the rhythm of our life. I've opened my Bible once for reading. My kids and I were good at the start of vacation about our devotions, and then we got lazy. Our normal rules have slipped, because you know, we are on vacation. I've put a few pounds back on because you know, we are on vacation. Its been a fun break from our normal rhythms, but I'm starting to feel disconnected to myself. I haven't spent any time centering myself, grounding myself in faith, giving myself again every day to God. Not doing that on vacation has taught me how much I depend on God to get me through every day. I have missed that on vacation.

(sigh)...I am going to miss my Texas family. I selfishly wish life looked a little different. That we lived closer or vise versa. That all of our family wasn't so far away. That we could do more normal life together instead of just vacation. I am going to miss the sunshine, but my kids are excited again to play in the snow.

And for all that I am going to miss, I can not wait to see my husband. I haven't felt whole in two weeks. My kids and I are all sad to leave and excited to go home at the same time. Its hard to have mixed emotions, which means three tired kids who are emotionally confused should make us really fun to sit next too on the plane. Hope you're not going to MN today on AA at 1030am. That cranky lady who just yelled at her kids isn't me. I promise. I never yell at my kids. *wink*

A little boy who changed my life

I just spent the weekend at a Youth Conference in Dallas Texas. It currently is the highlight of my speaking events this year. There are many stories to share, too many to even begin, so I want to share just this one.

I met Matthew on Saturday. He's 12 and in the sixth grade. I could tell instantly that Matthew is a kid that hangs on his own. He doesn't run with a crowd. He likes doing his own thing and is completely confident in that. I have a lot of admiration for a kid his age to be comfortable in his own skin and not succumb to peer pressure of fitting in.

Matthew came to see me to tell me about the little girl he is sponsoring through Compassion Int. (Compassion had a table set up right next to mine this weekend.) He was so excited to find this little girl who is five years old, lives in a small village in Africa and has a birthday only five days from his. He told me he wanted to sponsor her because she loves going to her church and playing games and helping wherever she can. He thought it was amazing that a five year old wanted to spend so much time helping out at church and Matthew decided he wanted to encourage her in her faith. So at 12yrs old, Matthew on his own, is going to save his allowance, do extra chores to earn more money so that he can encourage this little five year old in her faith. He wants her to grow up and know how much Jesus loves her.

I fell in love with Matthew at that moment. I could see the kindness in his eyes and the bigness of his heart. I told him I have met a bunch of sponsored kids through Compassion and he was so interested in knowing what their school is like, what kind of food do they get, does their family get help? He had all sorts of adult questions about how much help this little girl was going to get with his money. He wanted to make sure that she was going to be able to read, because you see, Matthew LOVES to read! So we started to talk about books and what books he was reading right now and what he loves to read. Matthew loves to read anything, but right now he is reading "How to care for Toddlers." "You're reading what?" was my response.

The story gets better, and yes its real. Matthew doesn't know where his father is. He lives with his mother, his two sisters and six cousins all under the age of seven in a three bedroom house. Some of these cousins are second cousins from his mother's sisters, but his mom takes care of them for extra grocery money. Matthew wants to help his mother out so she isn't so stressed, so he is reading up on how to take care of toddlers.

Matthew became my right arm for the weekend. He helped me at my sales table, we watched the talent show together, we hung out at the dance while we talked about books and music and girls and friends.

Matthew is an incredible little boy who taught me so much about loving others. He showed me that excuses don't count when there are people who need us. That even when I feel like money is tight, there are others who need it more. That sacrifice is a love offering. He showed me what a servants heart looks like. I had the great honor of meeting a wonderful little boy who lives to help those around him and to make a difference in the world. A 12 year old boy taught me what God's love looks like in real life. I may speak about it, but Matthew is living it day after day after day.

Me as a speaker

I’m speaking this weekend at a youth conference. I have been speaking now in front of audiences for over 10 years. I started doing it professionally about six years ago. Seeing that number makes me feel like I should be doing a better job at it.

Doing this for so long, I don’t want to be the speaker that when you hear them, you know exactly what they are going to say because they do the same talk all the time. I don’t want experiences of mine that I share to become stale because I have communicated the story so many times. I say this because I am feeling unsettled about this weekend.

I have felt this way for the last couple years. I have found that audiences really connect to certain stories I share, and they fit the themes I am often asked to speak about. But because of that, I start to feel stale, completely rehearsed. All of a sudden these stories don’t feel like my stories anymore, they have become something bigger.

I have noticed that I present much like all the speakers I have seen before and worked with. I wonder, is this how I want to present, or is it just easy because it’s what I know. There are all sorts of things I would like to explore in my stories and presentations, but I just don’t have time. I want to incorporate different media, music, and other things, but in my current life style, finding the time to do that seems impossible. And having to admit that makes me feel like I’m not doing a great job at what I’ve been hired to do. So I continue to present as I do because it does work, but its not who I want to be.

So I’ve already presented this topic for the weekend, and yet I find myself re-evaluating and looking up scriptures and quotes to use. Praying through my writers block and trying to find other experiences in my life that relate to these students that they can connect with. That puts me in a tail spin of hoping I had taken the time, found the time, demanded for the time to improve my speaking style and quality of what I do.

I desire to be a person who can speak truth in a way that touches people’s lives. I want kids to enjoy scripture by showing them things that maybe they haven’t seen before or they have forgotten about. I want to inspire people into a deeper relationship with Christ. I want my audience to have life changing impact when it comes to recognizing the poor and how they can and want to help. I want to be true and honest to God’s desire for me as a speaker. This is where I feel I lack the most. I know there is understanding and grace in this, because I recognize what three children under 5 means. Right now in life, without neglecting my kids, I have to wait to really explore my style of speaking and what that means. I get that.

I know I can continue to grow in small ways, but when I am faced with a new event and the realization that I am not who I want to be, I grow nervous. I have much praying to do today. For myself and these students and that I let God be God, and I will just be me.

If you were where we were, I'm sorry.

This blog is to remind me, beyond financial reasons, why my family does not go and eat out. If you were at Sweet Basil with my family this evening in Hurst, TX, I apologize. I did everything I could.

Let me preface by saying we have been out all day. We went to the Ft. Worth Stockyards, rode rides, went to the candy store, visited our cousins, had a picnic lunch and played basketball. I don’t know who thought it would be a good idea, but we loaded the kids into the car at 645pm and went to a great little Thai restaurant.

Noah is currently being a little clingy. Touchy feely almost to a creepy point. (No, I mean to a creepy point.) Hanging on me, kissing me, holding my hand. I just feel like screaming, “PLEASE I NEED SOME PERSONAL SPACE.” This I know will crush him, so I just scream on the inside and smile on the outside. “Thank you Noah. I love you too.”

Caleb currently has Ace Ventura hair. It’s really fantastic. After his bath, we brushed his hair backwards and then he went to bed. Viola awesome bed hair! He also has the Waller’s voice. By that I mean, his normal talking voice is automatically three notches louder than any other human on the planet. We’re just loud people, what can I say? So his voice is loud and his hair is loud. At least his clothes matched, today.

Lu is just Lu. Super cute, super chatty, super crabby of anything on the table. Her end of the table is void of anything that moves.

Here are some of the reasons we won’t be asked back:

• Caleb, “Hi madam. (to the waitress) How are you? My dad is not with us. His name is Paul This is my mom, her name is Danielle. This is Lu, my sister. I am Caleb and this is Noah. That is my nana and papa. We are a family. We don’t live in this world though. We live in the world of Minneapolis.”
• Throughout the first 15 min of dinner, my daughter proceeded to embarrass me for the first time ever. My kids are loud in everything they do, even filling their pants. I swear I have never heard grunting this loud, a face turn this red, and eyes scrunch so much… ever. I couldn’t believe it. It almost was so loud it wasn’t real. She just kept grunting and pushing and I swear someone got up and left the restaurant. Jan and I laughed so hard, I know I cried.
• Caleb decided to eat his meal looking straight into the sky eating with his eyes closed. He would also give a slight moan when it tasted good. Yes there he is with Ace/Conan breeded hair, eyes squeezed shut moaning at how good his food is, while his sister is taking the biggest dump of her life.
• Noah is holding my hand, sharing my food, eating off my fork, and sucking down a lemon. Weirdness all around.
• Caleb is trying to stab his chicken with a fork, but it won’t work. In trying and trying again, the chicken gets away, the fork plows into the ketchup bowl and it gets sent across the table. He tries again, and yes, for the second time, the ketchup container goes flying. Yes, all the while Lu is still pooping her best.
• Lu has had enough and I decided to let her walk around. I get up to follow her to prevent her from being inappropriate with other customers. While I am following her, I realize that Caleb and Noah are following behind me, not wearing shoes. We are now parading our crazy throughout this place, asking to be kicked out.
• I was trying to sing to Lu to distract her, cause yes, my singing is distracting. I decided to sing quietly, “You are my Sunshine”. Caleb comes up from behind my chair to sing along. This is what he sang, “You never know dear, how much you love me.” Yup, that’s right Caleb, girls around the world will one day agree. They will never know how much THEY love YOU. I giggled. It was really funny to me.
• The waitress at one point came over to see how we were doing. Lu grabbed her hand and just stared at it. She had her hand palm side up, and Lu was holding her thumb and pinky. She was practicing her pointing and would keep pointing all over this nice lady’s hand. We joked she was reading her palm, because while she was pointing, she was just babbling up a storm. So many noises and words were coming out of her. When the waitress asked if she was going to be rich, Lu pointed, looked up, shook her head up and down and said, “ooooooooooo”. The timing was uncanny.
• Lu also discovered her gag reflex. So after she was done making a scene that is better left to the privacy of your own bathroom, she decided to continue to shove her hand down her throat, gag and try to cough up a lung. We tried this more than six times. Geeezzz, kid how many other noisy things do we need to do tonight?

I will say, one point in our favor is that we left the restaurant without any broken dishes. Most likely, all the food on the floor under our table takes that point away.

Again, to the owners of Sweet Basil, I am very sorry, and can send a check for carpet cleaning tomorrow. Thank you Jan and Duane for taking a chance on us. It’s OK if you never want to take us out in public again. I understand.

Jesus Calms the storm

When I was reading scripture the other day with the boys, I was struck by something I hadn't noticed before. (I first read in their children's Bible and then went to my own to see if it was the same.)

I had told you before that Caleb's favorite Bible story right now is when Jesus gets in the boat and falls asleep. A great storm comes, the disciples are afraid, and Jesus sleeps through it. Then in Matt. 8:25-26, "The disciples went and woke him, saying, 'Lord, save us! We're going to drown!' He replied , 'You of little faith, why are you so afraid?' Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm."

It was amazing to me that after reading this story every night for the last three weeks, and knowing it since I was a little girl, I never noticed that Jesus speaks truth into his disciples lives before he calms the storm. There it was right in front of me. The disciples are terrified. They think they are going to die. Fear has overcome them and they can't think straight, the depth of their faith is questioned. Which isn't that like all of us? When things are at their hardest, when life is overwhelming, relationships seem difficult, you don't know where the money will come from, the crying or sickness won't end, when we can't see a way out of our situation, that is when we cling to our faith or can't find it.

In my mind, Jesus always calmed the storm first, then he turned to his disciples and spoke truth to them. (My husband says I have selective hearing, I apparently have selective reading too.) Maybe for all of you, you've had the story straight from the beginning, but for me, speaking truth into your life during the storm instead of when its all over is of a huge significance. Can you imagine, the storm is raging around you, the waves are crashing up over the boat, in your mind you are convinced you are going to die. When you scream to be heard over the crashing thunder, the Messiah looks at you and speaks truth into your life.

Why are you so afraid?
Who do you think I am?
Why don't you trust me?
Do you believe in my power?
Don't you know I love you and have your best interest in mind?
Where is your faith?
Who is in charge here?
Why do you doubt me?
Why are you afraid?

Then he stands and takes away the crashing, he quiets the thunder, he breaks up the clouds, silences the waves and makes them calm. Can you imagine seeing that kind of power?

He speaks truth in the storm, then shows his power. Why don't you trust me? In the storm, why are you afraid?

See the disciples for weeks prior to this have witnessed the Messiah preaching and teaching with power, authority and wisdom. The sermon on the mount, which is most likely multiple times of teaching all put into one section for our sake. They have witnessed countless miracles. The healing of Peter's mother, casting out dozens of demons, healing the Centurion's servant without even seeing him. Touching the man with Leprosy, something no one else does. They have seen his great love for people and how he helps those who can't help themselves. They have seen his power and yet they forget.

It's like I just described myself. I continue to see God's hand in my life, but then I forget. So easy I forget, and then in the midst of when things are hard, I question the one who loves me most.

So if you've always known this truth, good for you. For me, understanding scripture the right way brings me more peace and comfort. It allows me to know God the way he truly is, not the way I make him out to be. He speaks to us in the storm, not just after.