Crossing Cultures

I find that I can get caught up in planning and doing. I'm very goal and achievement oriented. Which means I use to do lists, calendars, clocks, schedules, and compartments. I clean my house in zones. I write a shopping list every time I go to the store. I prioritize. I schedule my day according to priorities. I shuffle items to do according to their department and do them in groups.

I'm not schizo. I'm not OCD (okay, maybe slightly). But I do like order and completion. And yes, I get a little annoyed when things go haywire, but hey, that's life.

One of the things I'm learning in this season is to praise Him now. So often I spend my time planning to serve Him in the future. I plan for my worship and devotion time in the morning. I prepare to go to church on Sunday. I practice my guitar in preparation for being able to lead worship with it one day. I pray about God's calling over our lives and what He has in store for us. Then, while I'm doing all those things, my thoughts and prayers are on the future again. But while all my thoughts are on the future... He is living here with me in the present. His eyes are on me in the now.

He never asked me to serve Him in the future. He asked me to worship Him today. In the now. Right here. I want to live my life in the present tense, appreciating Him for Who He is today.

Mommy, will you hold me?
I really need you to.
I feel so alone and helpless.
And now I feel blue.

Mommy...seriously, pick me up.
I'm beginning to get sad.
It's awfully lonely by myself,
and I'm starting to get mad.

Mom. PICK. ME. UP.
I'm becoming a grouch.
I'm hot and bothered and
will spit up all over the couch.

MOTHER! That's it!!
I'm done with this place
and I need you to listen.
So, I'm giving you "The Face"!

It's official. I have actually lost brain cells. I may never recover.

Unfortunately, this postpartum brain fart may be permanent. I may as well explain how it happened, so that you won't be surprised when you begin to see the effects of it.

Last week I sent off the paperwork to get Moriah's birth certificate. I had to send in an application, a cashier's check, and a copy of my driver's license. I sent my license with Kenneth to work one day to get a copy of it. Then I mailed everything needed the following day.

Today I received the birth certificate back in the mail... with my ACTUAL DRIVER'S LICENSE taped inside it. The envelope was also double taped to make sure it would stay closed. Apparently, the office clerk knew they were dealing with an idiot who mails their license around, and taped it back inside just to make sure I got it back.

Wow. That's really all I can say. Wow.

I'm not one of those moms that goes goo-goo ga-ga over babies. I don't fall in love with every child I meet and I'm not prone to holding babies for hours on end just because they feel cuddly.

Loving your own child is different, but I still remember the first month or so with Selah, our first daughter. It was a challenge for me to like her. Just being honest. Oh sure, I loved her, went without sleep for her, cared for her, and would die for her... but I wasn't always happy doing it. Now, I think she's awesome.

I've been going through the same thing with Moriah. She's seven weeks now, and so I'm finally getting to the place where I can see her as a person, and not the impersonal, demanding, eating, pooping, crying machine that she seemed to be.

I've given myself grace to get through this season. I don't always enjoy it as I know I should. But it does draw me closer to God. It helps me realize how much more of His unconditional love and patience I want in my heart so that I can give more of it to my daughters.

My husband told me about this story when he came home from work a week or so ago. I'd had a rough day, but hearing about the assault on this young 15 year old girl in California broke me and I began to weep. I asked him to stop mid-story so I could gather myself... it was too much for me. But since then, I've researched what happened on my own. I've been up at night praying for her more times than I can count. She has been so heavy on my heart that I don't think a day goes by without me thinking about her. And so I pray.

I hope that you have someone to pray for today. Someone that God has given you an inexplicable love and compassion for... someone that you can intercede for. Because, while atrocities will continue to happen to us and to those around us, only a relationship with the one true God can heal the hurt, restore what was stolen, and bring joy from sadness.

Read the story here.

Although a "cool" front has supposedly come through, I'm already drenched in sweat in the 85 degree weather, as I stand there astonished at the situation I find myself in. (And while it took me 45 minutes to get ready to leave the house, we had only been gone 10 minutes by this point.)

Moriah, screaming as though her life was in jeopardy, is strapped to my cheat with a baby harness--while I stand in front of the half empty double stroller. She tends to cry if she's not being held... so when we take walks, she starts out in the stroller, until she cries, and then ends up on my chest in the baby harness where she eventually calms down.

Selah, completely oblivious of the annoyance of the situation, is lounging in her half of the double stroller, munching on apple slices and watching everything with casual interest.

And Bentley, who was --against my better judgement--graced with the unusual privilege of taking a walk with us, had just pooped a stinky one right in the center of the new neighbor's freshly mowed lawn. The grass was short and stiff, so the poop stayed perched right on top of the leaves, smelly and obvious for everyone to enjoy.

So, I stood there for a moment until I could calmly say, "It's moments like these that I want to avoid in the future."

God did not give us a spirit of fear...

No, we go in mass to purchase one for $9.50 at the box office.

I'm increasingly bothered by how fear has become such big business. And people all around me are flocking to succumb to it. It used to be that a couple scary movies would come out a year, generally right around Halloween. Now it's all year round.

On top of it, the newest horror movie is so scary that people are actually getting up and walking out of it. It's a disturbing, low budget film supposedly documenting paranormal events, called Paranormal Activity. Reputable people are actually saying that the movie affected their lives and left them afraid.

The fact is, I believe demonic activity exists. I have learned about it, and I've learned from good sources. I simply believe that God's power and authority is far more powerful. By watching these movies and TV shows, we give them more power in our lives than they really have. We buy into the helpless paralysis of fear.

What a shame that we spend money and time getting enslaved by something that Perfect Love died to give us freedom from.