Volunteer of the Month

"For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying of hands. For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." 2 Timothy 1:6-7

Those of you in the Lowery Elementary community might have noticed my most recent accomplishment as Volunteer of the Month.  In case you don't know, it's a pretty big deal.  I get my own parking spot at the school and probably something named after me.  Like a lunch table.  The Kelly D. Long Memorial Lunch Table.  No green beans allowed.  And if you chew with your mouth open while you're sitting at it, it will buck you off.  Or a wing of the library, but the wing with all the good books that everyone wants to read and the cool chairs you can sit in.  Not the biography section or science or math or encyclopedias.  Do they even have encyclopedias in libraries anymore?? 

I believe my official quote on volunteering in the PTO newsletter reads, "“I love to volunteer at Lowery because it allows me to meet other people and I feel it helps to build a stronger community."  This is 100% true.  Most experiences in life work better when we aren't merely spectators.  You get out what you put in, so put in something good.  It doesn't take much.  If you're at work sign up to bring something to a luncheon or write a card to a coworker on their birthday.  Help with a Sunday school class or food drive at church.  Write a thank you note to the office staff at your child's school.  Smile at someone for crying out loud!!  The point is to engage those around you, build ties, create a community.  It's boldness in the truest sense of the word and Christ calls us to it everyday. 

Even when you feel like you have no time, no influence, no talent, God has laid a spirit of power within you.  It doesn't take much to fan it into flame and let His love change the world around you.  And who knows....maybe you'll end up with your own parking space as a bonus.  :)

XOXO....Kelly      

   

Perspective.

Perspective.  Hardest.  Concept.  Ever.  And in every facet of life.  For example, if you've ever found yourself in the middle of an argument over breastfeeding...ARG!  Where is the perspective...that each child is different and each family is different.  All of my kids were breast and/or bottle fed for different periods of time and in different capacities.  When Blake comes home from school with his folder signed because he spent the afternoon in kindergarten falling out of his chair on purpose (God bless Mrs. Hall), it has never once entered my mind that maybe I should have given him less formula and more breast milk.  And when Parker throws himself on the ground and scrunches up his face because I will not let him hold the open container of pudding and walk around with it, I also never think, this is because I should have weaned him sooner.  While feeding your infant seems so consuming at the time, especially to first time moms, the fact is it passes so quickly and then you're on to the next challenge.  Like keeping your children from walking naked in front of open windows.

I recently read through Ecclesiastes, which is an interesting chapter.  It starts with these words, "Meaningless, meaningless! Everything is meaningless!"  Reason #257 why context is important particularly when quoting scripture.  :)  The overall theme of Ecclesiastes is that the things of earth have no permanent value.  We can acquire all sorts of wisdom, riches and experience, but we can't take them with us.  Even its most popular passage..."There is a time for everything and a season for every activity under heaven" (no Pete Seeger didn't come up with that on his own)...speaks more about the cycle of toil in life than everything-in-its own-time message we like to attach to it. 

But there is hope for all of us in the cycle, when we line ourselves up with the right perspective.

"What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.  I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.  That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil--this is the gift of God.  I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it.  God does it so that men will revere him."  Ecc. 3:9-14

Life has the tendency to get a little mundane from time to time, so I guess we feel like we have to jazz it up a bit.  You know, making a bigger deal of where the coats should be hung up than probably needs to be made.  Or breastfeeding.  (Again, ARG.)  But when we keep the perspective of grace before us I think we are afforded the ability to see things in the beauty that God created them in.  Surely, we cannot take it all with us.  No earthly works--no toil, no wisdom, no riches--can give us what faith does.  There is nothing about my life that will endure without the grace of God.  And that, my friends, is perspective.

XOXO...Kelly      

   

Family

As you may know, my little sister recently had a baby, Miss Faye Elizabeth Thomas, born September 12.  Here is a picture of her.  She is simply PRECIOUS!!!

And here is a picture of two of Faye's biggest fans who also happen to be the best labor and delivery assistants ever.  EVER.

 

 

Truly we were remarkable, which is no small thing given that Terri was in labor for 26 hours and we all have very different personalities.  As I can recall, there were really only two times Terri gave us the death look....  Once when Christi tried to strike up a conversation about Jazzercise with one of the nurses who came in to help Terri push, and another time when I made up some funny labor-related lyrics to the hymn "Morning Has Broken".  In our defense both of these mishaps occurred around hour 25 and everyone was exhausted by then.

 

As I pray for Terri and Faye and the next phase in their lives, I think a lot about family, how these days the world makes and takes all kinds.  A friend of mine remarked a few weeks ago that my own immediate family was pretty conventional growing up.  My dad worked, my mom stayed home with us.  In December my parents will celebrate 39 years of marriage to each other.  But when I think about all the different family dynamics rolling around out there I'm not sure there is a "conventional" anymore.  Whether or not that's the way God intended it, it's like it says in Romans, all things work together for good.  Through God's grace the concept of family exists regardless of race, religion, gender or distance. 

 

My own family has been making a mass exodus from Houston for the last several years, not to mention several good friends along the way.  Each time someone moves I get a little more discontented with God.  I'm sure He's got lots ahead for our family in the next season of life, but I was quite comfortable in the old season, thank you very much.  What will I do if we end up with no family in the area?  Bother my neighbors I guess, though that's not such a bad thing.  Through the love and provision of Christ we create family with or without biology. 

 

To those friends and loved ones close by, you are a blessing.  You are a constant reminder of God's love for me, the greatest sort of gift.  To those far away, what God has put in our hearts is not simply undone, so that's where you stay, day in and day out, no matter the distance.  And if any time God should choose to move any of y'all back to the Houston area we will joyfully bother you, too!!  But bring your game face.  We play to win. 

 

   

 

 XOXO...Kelly

I am PERFECT. Really.

But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." 2 Cor 12:9

People often ask me how I do it with four small boys.  Well, Sunday I forgot to put on deodorant and today I realized at noon that I never brushed my teeth in the morning.  When Paul wrote his second letter to the church at Corinth he had a lot of defending himself to do.  People did not trust him and his persecution was great.  But God still called Paul to go into the world and continued to do amazing things through him.  In Chapter 12 Paul tells the church,

"To keep me from becoming conceited because of these surpassingly great revelations, there was given me a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me. Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it from me.  But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong."

 

Now there are some undeniable differences between Paul and I.  One, my discipleship is nowhere near what his was and as for persecution, well, our Chihuahua poops on the floor a lot.  Two, I do not delight in weakness, insults, hardships, persecution, or difficulties.  Who does?  But there is a great peace that comes along with remembering where our hope comes from.  One thing about weakness and hardship is that it reminds us how very human we are, and how very sovereign God is.

 

I used to pray for perfection frequently, as a wife, as a mother, as a friend, as an employee.  I always came up short.  It's not that I don't think God wants me to be good at things (or remember my deodorant).  He just didn't design us to have all of the answers.  Instead I pray for the grace to do all of things through Him.  We need the perfection of His power above our own.  He is God after all. 

 



XOXO...Kelly

It's fall y'all!

I have a subscription to Southern Living magazine, which I greatly enjoy.  Everything in it is so pretty and quaint and well done, which is a nice escape sometimes from the reality around here where everything is pretty, but covered in pee; quaint, but covered in pee; and well done, but covered in pee.  And dog hair.  More than once I've found myself feeling like a stranger looking in on the world of Southern Living.  For example, I don't iron my sheets.  I don't have time and also THAT'S CRAZY.  I don't really even iron my clothes.  (Shout out to my amazing husband, Kevin, who irons his own shirts!!!)  Also most of the recipes, though enticing, require more than 3 ingredients and almost never involve a can of cream of chicken soup or hot dogs.  But the folks at Southern Living and I could not be more on the same page this month!  We are on the same page about fall, specifically Halloween.

Here's my deal with Halloween.  It's ugly.  Our household Halloween decorations include the decoupaged word "Boo" on our front door, three plastic placemats and a hand towel with a spider on it.  Like the SL editor says, "All this month's glorification of death and dismemberment runs counter to the beauty of changing leaves, cooler temperatures and warm casseroles popping right out of the oven....There's enough angst in the world these days, and folks seem plenty on edge without editors like me having to come up with new ways to frighten their friends and neighbors."  Okay, so it's not cooler and there really is no changing leaf color in Houston, but his point is well taken.  Don't we have something better to celebrate?

Also, I'm a huge chicken.  I never could, and still can not, watch a scary movie.  I am 33 and the idea of zombies terrifies me.  Most people cross a line into adulthood and are able to laugh at the absurdly horrible, can celebrate Halloween as nothing more than a day to have some fun and mock death, even go so far as to celebrate that Christ overcame it.  I just can not.  It is too darn ugly.

All that being said, yes, I take my kids trick-or-treating.  In case they develop the ability to grow up like reasonable unafraid adults, I do not want to hinder that.  Also, boys generally don't think zombies are gross.  So I will continue to keep my issues as my own and consider the candy I steal from them as retribution for my silence.

But there are indeed better things to celebrate.  Fall reminds us that things change, and, with God's grace, do so beautifully (even in Houston).  We move into the season of Thanksgiving and are reminded how important counting our blessings really is.  We are given respite from the heat of summer and its long, crazy days.  Whether you have a huge, fake fuzzy spider in your yard with glowing eyes and skeletons hanging from your trees (arg....) or not, I hope you take some time today to welcome fall into your heart, and all that God has given us to celebrate in this season of life. 

XOXO....Kelly