Control Relinquished

In the past few weeks, I have had several encounters with deer...and no, I did not go hunting this year! The first encounter, I was driving on the highway with my daughter. Out of the blue she yelled that a deer was crossing the northbound highway. I didn't see it, but hit my brakes anyway. Suddenly, I spotted a buck-gone-wild jumping towards my window. By the grace of God, the deer crossed in back of my vehicle. Then a few days ago, I spotted this lady munching in my yard. I watched her for awhile and she watched me, somehow aware that hunting season is over! Different from my last encounter, this one was filled with peaceful serenity. Then, last evening I had yet another encounter, unfortunately similar to the first. I was driving through the winding, wooded area of Nolde Forest with my son and his friend following archery practice. The roads were empty, so it was easy to cruise above the speed limit. Suddenly, as I rounded a corner, I saw a flickering shadow in the wo

We all are familiar with the age-old cartoons of Winnie the Pooh and his friends. It's easy to laugh at the extreme polor-opposite personalities of Tigger and Eeyore. Tigger is joyful, energetic, and excited about life. Eeyore is monotonous, bored, and depressed about life. In the last few weeks, I have noticed an irritating pattern in my conversations with various people. I have realized that only a few sentences into a conversation, and the person is complaining or negative talking about the weather, their job, their spouse, their kids, school, or just life in general. In one situation, it only took one negative person and soon two others were drawn in and I was surrounded by three people talking badly about their spouses or their jobs.  What causes our society to bounce from the Tigger extreme (Life is fine and great!) to the Eeyore extreme (Life is horrible and everything is miserable). I know life IS hard and we need to be real and vulnerable to people know we know well a

I recently had experiences with two vastly different women and they each brought out a different side of me. The first scenario was at a local store. I approached the busy check-out lanes and noticed a lady standing off to the side. Assuming she wasn't claiming a spot in any of the lines, I proceeded to walk around her to a check-out that had just finished with a customer. Suddenly, this lady's booming voice pierced throughout the entire check-out area, "EXCUSE ME, MISS!!!!! I BELIEVE I WAS NEXT!!!"  Lots of eyes turned towards the recipient of these harshly spoken words---me! I apologized and told her I did not realize she was waiting in line and left her go in front of me. In an equally harsh tone she scoffed, "I have places to be, for goodness sake!" That last comment lit my defenses into an open flame and I'm ashamed to admit I spat back, "Well, I do too!" Even though that was the truth, as I had to pick up my kids from schoo

There has been a tree on the lot next door that has intrigued me for awhile. From the front, it looks like a typical evergreen and you would barely notice that it is struggling to survive. But a quick side view reveals that this tree has a major nutrient deficiency or health issue! As you can see, the tree is completely bare on one side and definitely not a picture of "thriving".  How often do we find ourselves like this tree?  A picture of health or perfection on the outside for others to see, but inside we are wasting away.   Sharing the highlight reel on social media, but hiding the raw and ugly side of life.   Our roots are shallow and lack of "Son-light" prevent us from being spiritually nourished . The first core value at my church is "Be Authentic", a growing challenge to be real and not fake. Are we willing to let people see the broken, exposed, and hurting sides of ourselves? Or will we choose to continually fool

I think it's safe to say we all struggle to "just be" in our always-connected culture. It seems to be a daily wrestling match in my mind--is this a memory I should capture by taking a picture or should I just soak it into my memory? My problem is that my memories are often triggered by photos and I want to "snap away" with my camera so my kids can remember! It's also a reality that phones are no longer "just phones". They are to-do lists, grocery lists, cameras, bank account ledgers, e-mails, Bibles, online stores, radio stations, podcasts, calculators, flashlights, weatherman...not to mention a source of entertainment! No wonder it's so hard to put our phones down and disconnect! I had an observation at the park this evening with my kids. There was a concert going on across the street and I was amused by some of the older people dancing the night away. But then, I turned around and saw this young boy absorbed in his phone rather th

I remember learning the age-old tactics of nutrition in school. The food pyramids and humorous graphics indicating "You are what you eat" to somehow encourage and motivate us to eat more fruits, veggies, and protein. Earlier this week, I did a science experiment with my kids. We took my white hydrangeas and put them in a vase of colored water of their choice.  The effects were quite mesmerizing! After a few days of ingesting the colored water, each of the flowers became a different tint of color. I included a fresh white flower in this picture, so the tint of the blue, green, and orange is more noticeable.  I was subtly reminded of the spiritual application that can be applied to our lives. What are we ingesting into our lives? Deadly toxins from this sinful world or pure, Living Water?   The Bible is clear that "out of the overflow of our heart, the mouth speaks". So, the TV shows, books, music, and websites that we expose ourselves to a

A summer tradition we started a few years ago with our kids was tye-dying t-shirts. It's a fun family project and it's always exciting to see how the shirts turn out. This time we had a few mishaps with the dye and, even after showers, the kids ended up with stained feet and I have a stained hand! My mind immediately went to how we are each stained with sin. The Bible states in Isaiah 1:18 that our sins are like scarlet. Deep-red-crimson that no amount of scrubbing can remove.  For some, it may be a more noticeable struggle, others it's a private and hidden sin. But, regardless of where or how much we are stained, the fact of the matter is we have "all sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Rom 3:23) But by God's amazing grace, our stains can be washed white-as-snow through the blood of Jesus. I was finally able to view the movie "I Can Only Imagine" this week and was deeply moved by the story behind one of my favorite songs. I was

Have you ever wanted something really badly? So badly that the thought of not having this wanted item made you grumpy and whiny? Unfortunately, this grumpy and whiny individual I'm referring to is myself and not one of my children this time! I love spring, but this time of year brings the new reality of mowing. My reality consists of 2 hours of push-mowing each week and I was grumpy about it and whining to my patient, hard-working husband.  So, imagine my delight when I realized our oldest child is now tall and strong enough to help with the push-mowing! Suddenly, this lawn-mowing responsibility felt slightly less overwhelming, knowing this may be a shared job this summer! Last weekend my husband's grandparents had an auction to sell all of their belongings, since they recently moved to a retirement home. As I sat watching the auction, I put myself in their shoes. Wondering what kind of emotions and thoughts were going through their

Last night at 3 in the morning, we were awoken to that all-too-familiar-annoying chirp of a low battery in our smoke detector. Seriously, why can't these things hit low battery during the daytime?! The occasional chirp was not enough sound to detect which exact one was causing the issue. My dear husband went from room to room taking the batteries out, only to have one in another room chirp back at him! It suddenly became an overwhelming, confusing, and frustrating situation. Finally, he realized it was actually the carbon monoxide detector chirping and we experienced peace at last. But, then our minds couldn't rest as we dealt with the reality of this at our bedside: all of our smoke detectors disabled! Scenes from recent "This Is Us" episodes began running through my head and I was thankful that my husband was willing to put one back together to get us through the remaining night! In my last post, I shared a bit about our recent journey with our daughter&#