Like building a castle on a swamp....

I'm going to be honest.  I want my kids to be good at everything they try.  Not because I think you have to be good at everything to be worth something, but because, selfishly, it would make my life a lot easier.  And if not naturally good at everything then at least instantly good when they are corrected.  I would take that.  Only having to say something one time.  

Michael, focus on your math homework.

Blake, pick up your shoes.

Zachary, rinse your dishes.

Parker, quit yelling.

And bam!  It would be so!  Instead, a lot of the life lessons we go over at home sound more like the swamp castle scene from Monty Python...

"When I first came here, this was all swamp. Everyone said I was daft to build a castle on a swamp, but I built in all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built a second one. And that one sank into the swamp. So I built a third. That burned down, fell over, and then sank into the swamp. But the fourth one stayed up. And that’s what you’re going to get, Son, the strongest castle in all of England!"

They have to do everything at least three times the wrong way before we can do it the right way.  It's like an unspoken rule of childhood.  And, to be fair, adulthood, too.

Don't eat the chocolate...you don't want the extra calories.

You do not need new throw pillows at Target...you're trying to stick to a budget.

Staying up late to watch this television show will make tomorrow morning very rough.

And yet here I sit on the couch, in front of the TV, with a carton of ice cream resting on a throw pillow on my lap.  I guess I'm not any better at being instantly good than my kids are.  

Why doesn't obedience come easier to most of us?  Is that the other side of being created with a spirit of power and not fear?  That we don't fear enough what is not good for us?  Even the most timid, the most reserved person manages in some way to rebel against His word.  

"How often they rebelled against Him in the wilderness and grieved Him in the desert!"  Psalm 78:40

I am like Israel in every way.  I turn my head from what is good over and over and over again.  I choose my way instead of His.  His path is straight and narrow.  Mine looks like the intestinal system of a cow.

But God is God, of course, in every way.  Full of power and might and mercy.  And He has not forsaken me.  

"I sought the Lord, and he answered me; he delivered from all my fears"  Psalm 34:4

 

Oh, to be answered!  He waits patiently, as I do with my own children, as we wade through bad decisions and the consequences thereof.  Until we are finally ready for obedience, finally ready to do it the right way.  

Yes, sometimes life is like building a castle on a swamp indeed.  Mucky, murky and unstable.  But we have a God who waits for us, supports us and turns our swamp into dry, solid land when we trust Him the way we should.  Amen to that, brother.  

XOXO...Kelly 

  

I still love you, Julia Sugarbaker.

When I was younger, I very badly wanted to be like Julia Sugarbaker of the TV show Designing Women.  She was stylish and intelligent and articulate and could tell ANYONE off.  What power, I imagined, could come of knowing exactly what smart and witty and righteousness thing to say at the exact right moment, to put someone in their place.  I was in junior high and high school at the time and it's not that I wanted to be mean.  I just didn't want to feel walked-on.  Does that make sense?

I remember casually sharing this desire with a pastor one day who instead encouraged me to embrace a softer tongue and work on tact instead of pride.  Her counsel was one of those turning points in your life that happens almost without you knowing it, and very much changed my perception of communication.  What I began to see was this....words have power enough of their own.  You don't need shoulder pads and glossy lipstick to wield that power.  You need grace.

"Likewise the tongue is a small part of the body, but it makes great boasts. Consider what a great forest is set on fire by a small spark.  The tongue is also a fire..."  James 3:5-6

James was very clear in his warnings...our words have power, the kind of power that once out of control is like a deadly poison that no man can tame (verse 8).  Just think about the impact of one negative word, how it spreads not only to its target but can change the whole mood of the person who said it in the first place.  

But what if that power was used for good?  What kind of fire might spread if the spark was rooted in goodness and God's glory?  What if we put God's grace first in everything we say?

Forgive me, I belong to a generation of adults that grew up alongside the rise of social media and email.  Not only did we know everything as newly graduated 20-somethings, we now had the means to express all of our well established wisdom!  Facebook, texting, emails, blogs.  We can say whatever we want and you get the privilege of basking in the radiance of our insight and opinion!

But so fixated on the freedom of our expression, we sometimes forget about grace.
Tenderness.
Intelligence.
Tact.

I still talk a lot, sometimes inappropriately when silence would be just fine but I feel like I have to ramble on with a story anyway to fill in a lull in the conversation.  Like the time I told the story of a man with a severe speech impediment at the vet's office.  He was there for his fewwet'sh yeawly check up and vakshinations.  I told this story to a room full of parents waiting on their children to get out of speech class. (I don't even know what happened.  I just started talking and couldn't stop.....)

But by and large I try to remember the weight of my words, the power behind them.  And when I am tempted to use them in a way that might be less than God-honoring, I remember how much further a soft tongue and a little tact can get you.

And don't worry.  I still love you, Julia Sugarbaker.  More than all the shoulder pads in Georgia.

XOXO....Kelly

The hate stops here.

You have a choice. 

One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them and answer, he asked him, "Of all the commandments, which is the most important?"  "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these.

Sometimes we forget that to love someone is a choice.  I'm not talking, of course, about marriage and dating and all that.  I'm talking about real, sometimes difficult, though always worth it, Christ-like love.  The verb, not the emotion.  We get very caught up in our opinions, our feelings.  I think this, and I believe that.  Social media has turned into a town hall for soapboxes.  So eager are we that everyone knows what our position is, that we forget entirely about our posture. 

As Pastor Thad Norvel writes, "Orthodox Christian belief insists the Gospel is necessary because of God’s position on our broken ways of living (sin). But the heart of the good news is God’s posture toward us as we continue to break things, including ourselves....Right position without the posture of God revealed in Jesus is not the Gospel." 

And what does the posture of God look like, of course?  It looks like this...

Jesus' words are called commandments for good reason.  They don't come easily to us all the time, they are not as innate as we would like them to be.  But if we don't start working on better posture, collectively, as a society, your position isn't going to matter.

Neighbors are everywhere.  They come in all shapes and sizes and colors.  For those as broken-hearted as I am about the murder of Deputy Darren Goforth this weekend--a murder that occurred in our neighborhood, that was cowardly and hateful and too close for comfort--you have a choice.

My choice is to love.

The hate stops here.

XOXO.....Kelly

My body isn't the point.

It all started when I found a picture of myself from our honeymoon in Cancun.  Well, no.  Let's be honest.  It all started several trips ago to Sonic/Menchies/Bahama Bucks/McDonald's after which I came to realize that the ol' waistline ain't what she used to be.  Finding the photo of me in a bikini was really just the stamp on the envelope. 

Beauty is fleeting.  And in case your mirror hasn't proved it yet, it also says so in the Bible.   "Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised" Proverbs 31:30.  I fear the Lord all right.  And the cosmetics section at Ulta....

On the radio the other morning the announcer talked about God's love, how it is unchanging. Where do we find God's love?  In our wallets?  No, our finances change.  In our appearance?  No, our bodies change.  The evidence of God's love for us is in the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ, who died on a cross for our salvation.

And there it was.  For the first time I made a connection between Christ's body and my own.  For the first time I saw the significance of God in human form.  Jesus' body failed him.  It bled and tore just like any other, his lungs no longer capable of air, his heart no longer able to beat.  But the power of God's love for us overcame that broken body.  His Son, made whole, rose again.  The message for us is this....

Our bodies are not the point. 

When God is working inside of you, what you look like doesn't matter.  I know that the world says it does.  The world is what put Jesus on the cross in the first place.  What makes you human is not what makes you Loved.  What makes God divine is. 

Maybe you need to hear this message, like I did, because it's the end of a long summer and the last time you went to an exercise class was June 10.  Or maybe because your kids are getting ready to start school and need a little reminder of their own self worth.  Whichever the case...

"....The Lord does not look at the things man looks at.  Man looks at outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart."  1 Samuel 16:7

Amen.

Mexico 2003

XOXO....Kelly

The Roof

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."  John 14:27

This is the story of our roof, a story of God's glory once again saving me from the wreck I so easily make myself into....

About two and a half years ago, Kevin became increasingly troubled by the condition of our roof.  Though we were not having any problems with it, no leaking, it did look pretty worn and several shingles were missing.  Wanting to stay ahead of any sort of catastrophe, Kevin asked that I get some estimates for replacing the roof.  Parker was a baby at the time, my grandmother has just moved away from us, my sister was pregnant....there was a lot going on.  But he was insistent (and I'm a very patient and obedient wife) so call for estimates I did.  All. Over. Town.  Do you have any idea how many roofing companies there are in Houston?  Of the 9 people I called, only 3 companies actually responded and/or showed up with an estimate.  Of the 3 estimates, all 3 companies used the same products and yet their costs were $2000 apart.

By this point I'd had it.  I was tired, overwhelmed, resenting the expense.  We were arguing.  I had no idea what to do.  So I did the best thing I know to do when I find myself in the middle of such a situation....I prayed the situation away.  I have faith that God cares about the big and small in my life, so I prayed that we would know (1) when to replace the roof, (2) that the money we needed would be there and (3) that I would know which company to use.  When Kevin got home from work the next day and asked how the roof stuff was going I said, "Oh, I prayed about it."

"That's your plan?" He asked.

"Yes," I replied.

He said, "Okay." 

I said, "Okay." 

We moved on.

This spring we finally replaced the roof.  I walked out the backdoor one morning and a gutter was hanging off the house and a little voice inside me said, "Now."  I called a roofer that a friend of ours used a few months prior.  He lives in the neighborhood, came over that afternoon with an estimate and the roof was replaced by the end of the week.  As roof replacements go, it was about as easy as they come.

What I've learned from our roof....there are things we must endure and search for peace in later.  The loss of a job, the passing of a loved one, a broken relationship.  And then there are the things we need to find peace with first, before we can move on.  When this whole thing started my attitude was in worse shape than our roof.  All I could think of was how much money it would cost and how much trouble home maintenance is.  My prayer was as much a prayer for peace as it was for a sign.  But God transformed my heart, changed my attitude and made me ready.  I felt thankful for our home and His providence instead of stressed over repairs and finances.   

As the hymn goes...."Oh, what peace we often forfeit; Oh, what needless pain we bear; All because we do not carry everything to God in prayer."

The Lord is not a genie, a magical wish granter.  But He does care about the big and the small in your life.  Each answer is different, but His desire the same....peace.  Not as you might expect it.  Not as the world says you should have it.  But as He knows you need it.

Pray boldly, friends.  Pray specifically.  And pray for peace.

XOXO....Kelly

 

Happy Summer!!

It's summer!  Our total lack of routine and my newly-adopted mentality to NOT plan ahead so much has put me a little behind in my blogging this season.  I've actually enjoyed the summer immensely so far, but am sure by mid-August I will be ready for the kind of comfort that only regular bedtimes and a laundry schedule can bring.  Until then....who wants cereal for lunch???

In the midst of all of our summer fun, Kevin and I managed to escape for a delicious kids-free dinner together.  The evening was magical.....we had a gift card and a free babysitter. (A huge thanks to my sister, Christi, who is currently in 1st place as our favorite sibling.  No offense to the rest of you, but you know, free babysitting.  Hard to beat.)  We don't get a lot of nights out alone together, so we try to make the most of those we have.  We had a delicious dinner at Pappas Steakhouse.  If you've never been to a really nice restaurant with Kevin Long, you should try to do so some time.  He asks the waiters questions like, "Is this bread free?", eavesdrops on the conversations of the people sitting around us, and insists that the valets "treat her right" when he hands over his car keys. 

Another highlight from our summer so far...Parker pooped on the potty.  It has only happened twice, but that's enough to restore my hope that he will indeed move out of my house one day and become a contributing member of society.  He still licks EVERYTHING and writes all over himself with marker, but frankly that doesn't put him too far off from a lot of adults I know.  So again, we're making progress.

We have swam, played Monopoly, watched movies, read books, built forts.  I feel like we have truly enjoyed each other in a way we sometimes forget to when schedules, homework and discipline get in the way.  I know we can not live in this world of cereal and sunshine forever...that schedules, homework and discipline are good for us...so I am especially grateful of this season of rest.  It does feel like that, too.  Rest.  Which is kind of funny because most people wouldn't consider the amount of time I've spent with four young boys the past month and a half as restful.  The Lord does work in mysterious ways.....

But, yes.  Rest.

Find rest, O my soul, in God alone; my hope comes from him.
He alone is my rock and my salvation; he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.
My salvation and my honor depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.
Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your hearts to him for God is our refuge.
Psalm 62:5-8

I don't know what rest might look like for you these days.  I know rest can come in all forms, from vacation to mourning, celebration to grief.  The purest form of rest depends not on our present circumstances, but on our ability to take refuge in God amidst everything that may (or may not) be going on.  I mean, ideally we'd all be sitting at the beach looking out over the beauty of an endless ocean.  Or waking up to take a deep breath of fresh mountain air.  But in case you happen to be in Houston and your deep breath includes some sand from Africa that's blown across the ocean and into your backyard....

Don't let even that hold you back from God's perfect rest.  Your thoughts, fears, wishes, concerns, joy and sadness....let them rest upon His shoulders not matter where you are and what you're doing.  His refuge is a gift to you, His hope our greatest treasure. 

Happy Summer!

XOXO....Kelly

Offer them Christ

"Offer them Christ."  Said to be John Wesley's last words to Thomas Coke before he sent Coke to America to spread the Methodist Church.  Our pastor shared the story with us during his sermon one Sunday and the painting by Kenneth Wyatt that depicts the scene. 

 

Offer them Christ. 

Something in these words has resonated with me ever since.  If I was to declare one philosophy on making a youth ministry successful after my own service as a youth director, it would very much echo this sentiment.  Anyone can race go-karts, go to a water park, play basketball or compete to drink an entire gallon of milk.  You don't need church for that.  If you want youth to come and keep coming you've got to offer them something they might not get anywhere else.  You've got to offer them Christ.

Isn't that what always makes the difference?

My dad was (and still is) an amazing father.  He invaded our Barbie get-togethers with his remote controlled tank.  He took us on vacation and coached us in softball.  He attended concerts and plays and art shows.  His list of fatherly credentials goes on and on and on.  But not a one of these things would have had the impact on me that it did had he not offered me Christ alongside it. 

"If I speak in the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal."  (1Cor 13:1) For where would I be if the Father's Love had not come to me through my own father's love?  All the fun and time and memories are just noise when there is no echo of God in them. 

For my sisters and I, there was no doubt growing up what God looked like.  He looked like my dad.  Thank you, Dad, for all you offered me growing up, for all that you were and still are as a father.  But most of all, thank you for offering me Christ.  Happy Father's Day.

XOXO....Kelly