Thursday, January 30, 2014

deep and rooted

i believe in the life-saving and life-giving power of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

and i believe in the immense wild unknown of prayer.

i believe my Father hears me speak and delights to listen.

i believe that Jesus is a mighty healer, that he performed countless miracles while He walked on earth, and that He continues to perform them.

i believe in asking people to be prayer warriors and stand in the gap for everything, because i really do believe everything in life is worth praying about.

but there are things that are weightier and should be treated as such.

so right now, i am asking you to pray for chuck.  pray that his kidneys would miraculously start functioning.  pray that his body would stabilize so the doctors can make their next decisions about what to do for his heart.  pray that they can get a new pacemaker in soon.  pray that he would be filled with hope, peace, and the will to fight.  pray for his story of wonder and redemption. 

ask.  keep asking.  pray without ceasing.

Thursday, January 23, 2014

i'll try being delightful

just as a nice change of pace, today i will discuss delightful things.  let's see.  where to start?

1) a delightful memory: in fifth grade, we had classroom auctions.  my favorite thing i ever bought at one of these auctions was a typewriter.  i still own this typewriter, although it is sitting in my parents' basement.  i think typewriters are super cool.  i love the noise they make.  however, when i am writing on my computer, i edit while i type.  so...that would be tedious and awful on a typewriter.  also, typewriters make me think of frank in you've got mail.

2) a delightful movie: you've got mail.  enough said.  but not really...enough good things could never be said about this movie.  i love it, and it tightly binds my heart with mj and jb's. 

3) a delightful near-future event: jb is turning 30 in a few weeks!  this is wonderful, because she has graced the world for three decades.  and because it means i get to go to wisconsin. 

4) a delightful near-past event: i helped pull out one of shorty mcgee's teeth last week.  she was a lot like heather in this whole process...as in, i could have blown on it to make the tooth fall out...that's how loose it was.  ha.

5) a delightful medical update: i used to have nosebleeds alllllllll the time when i was little.  but with the exception of being smashed in the face with a broomball stick and a frisbee, i can't think of any other recent nosebleeds.  heehee...i know you want to see this picture.  classic. 


(for those of you unfamiliar with the situation, i was playing broomball with junior high students and took a stick squarely to the face.  this picture was a few days after it occurred.  the result was a shattered nose, stitches, and two black eyes.  it.was.awesome.  (aside within an aside here: when i say it was awesome, i legitimately mean that.  i love injuries, and this was the first time i had ever gotten stitches.))

6) a delightful heart thing: our small group started last thursday, and i really love them.  i love them so much that i created a spreadsheet that has multiple tabs, and i contemplated how i could incorporate conditional formatting.  community and spreadsheets.  yesss.  which obviously leads me to...

7) a delightful work thing: spreadsheets are sooooo great!  i like that i have a job where i get to use them with regularity.

8) a delightful sports thing: i am delighted by the number of badgers in the super bowl this year.

9) a delightful food thing: aunt sue's tea house in marion certainly qualifies as delightful.  mmm.  tea.  scones.  i am drooling just thinking about it.  must.roadtrip.soon.

i bet you didn't know i had ten delightful things in me today, huh?  here it is:

10) a delightful truth: winter ends.  it always does. 

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

limbo

oh, the state of limbo.  i'm pretty sure it's one of those small states near new hampshire that everyone confuses. 

my state of limbo has been months long.  and it's annoying.

theoretically, it's about two weeks from being over.  but i doubt that's true.  (how did i wind up as a pessimist with positivity as one of my strengths?  cray to the cray.)

i am a small picture girl.  give me details and a solid framework.  don't ballpark it with me.  don't give me a big picture vision if you can't at least offer me some viable path to get there.  ugh.

...

rant over.  ish.

...

are you feeling like an area (or all) of your life is in limbo right now?  what are your processing strategies?

Thursday, January 9, 2014

ice cold

you may have noticed that i was done with people last week.  just.done.

a large part of that stems from the winter.  i don't handle it well, physically or emotionally.  i feel like i have talked about this ad nauseum; sorry, but i'm not sorry.  i am releasing in an effort to maintain some semblance of my sanity during this season.  and it's helped, but this winter just happens to be a beast.

well, the Lord has a sense of humor. 

this girl (the one done with people) got trapped in a house with three other people from saturday night through yesterday morning.

and it was really just what my heart needed. 

as per the usual, it was not what i would have chosen.  i was leaning toward that 'running away and hiding and waiting to slowly evaporate' thing.  but no.  there wasn't a place to run.  i didn't really have much alone time or quiet space.  we were all just kind of on top of each other for days.

the Lord can do some miraculous healing through community, you know that?  i started learning about it on summer project ten years ago, and the lessons just keep coming. 

my heart got a group hug that lasted for days.  and i walked out of there feeling so blessed and thankful that these are my people.  they love me and do life with me.  so that's pretty cool.

Friday, January 3, 2014

i think i'd be really good at

hibernating
any trivia game involving the office
setting a world record for the amount of time spent doing jigsaw puzzles
going extremely long periods of time without talking to anyone
ultimate fighting
being an astronaut
running a cafe that serves one small group of people at a time for about three hours a day
snuggling with babies to keep them warm
living on a deserted island