Gemstone

Side note: My blog posts are usually more in the entertainment category. This one might be more considered in the informative category. If you would like to skip the informational part…skip to Section 2. BUT everything makes more sense if you read it in entirety. Enjoy.

SECTION 1.
Sitting in my long Graduate class at Belmont, my classmates and I took turns doing presentations on different disabilities. Mine was on Intellectual Disabilities, and I feel like I did a pretty great job if I do say so myself. After I went, next it was Tommy’s turn. Tommy did an entire presentation on Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Most of us have heard of or may even have kids with ADHD. Usually boys have it and they are easily diagnosed due to their acting out. I’ve always viewed ADHD symptoms as the “hyperactivity” part of ADHD. A little boy who cannot sit still or follow directions could possibly have ADHD. There is a huge amount of girls who have ADHD, but they are never diagnosed. They are usually not diagnosed because they do not cause much trouble to get noticed. They are usually better behaved. Here are some parts of ADHD that we typically leave out: it is hard to focus…you may daydream a lot…impatient…a child with ADHD may be easily distracted …they can detect every noise…they want to blurt out noises or words at inappropriate times…they cannot sit still…they want to stand…their mind goes back and forth from one subject to the next quickly (a different form of Hyperactivity).There are so many different symptoms and factors to ADHD. Personally, I realized that I had a ton of trouble focusing in school. I cannot work if the air conditioner is making a loud blowing noise. Any noise can make it hard for me to stay focused. I would be sitting in class as a child and the teacher would ask me a question. I would not know how to respond because I was daydreaming and not paying attention. In church it doesn’t matter how hard I try to focus, my mind is constantly flip flopping from different subjects. I constantly hold back yelling or blurting out things all the time. Those who know me well think, “You don’t hold back. You just blurt out whatever is on your mind.” That might seem true, but I am actually holding back a lot more that I could be blurting. Anyways, long story short…I realized after this presentation and a little more research that I have ADHD.

It made me feel better knowing that I have ADHD. It’s like I finally understand myself. Although I now know, I still cannot be fixed.

I tell you that story to tell you this story…

SECTION 2.
A Jewish proverb by F.A.T. City (shortened with my words)…

A great King found a magnificent gemstone. It was a gorgeous red gemstone that was as big as the head of the guards. He brought it back to his kingdom to show his people. His people were in awe of the beauty of the gemstone. A poor boy came up to the king, “Your majesty, may I please hold the gemstone?” All of the people of the land were yelling to the king not to let the boy hold it. “He’ll drop it and ruin it!” yelled the king’s people. But the king did not listen to them. He thought it would be great for this boy to experience holding something of such great value. So the king handed the gemstone to the little boy. The boy held it up and saw his reflection in the gemstone and was in joy of this gift. He began to handover the gemstone back to the king when all of his sudden, he dropped it. Silence fell among the crowd. The king quickly picked it up and examined it. The gemstone had a huge scratch all down one side of it. The king was kind to the boy, but quickly went to his thrown and cried. The beauty of the gemstone was no more.
He decided to take it to professionals around the village. Many tried sanding or rubbing the scratch away, but it never worked. He went from place to place and no one could get rid of the scratch. Just when the king was about to give up, someone told him of a place far away that could fix the gemstone. So with one ounce of hope left, the king traveled a far distance to fix the gemstone. He met a man at the door, and the king asked, “Can you please make my gemstone beautiful again?” The man at the door said, “Yes, I can, but do you trust me?” The king said, “Yes, I trust you. Do whatever you need.” The man at the door took the gemstone over to his work station. He got out some of his tools and sharp rocks. He began to scrape the gemstone. He scratched it up back and forth. The king’s guards were ready to retrieve the gemstone, but the king said, “Stop! I trust this man.” The man continued scratching the gemstone. Finally, the man handed it back to the king, and said, “Now, it is beautiful again.” The king looked at it and the scratch was now turned into a beautiful rose. The gemstone was even more beautiful than it was before. The king was grateful.

This proverb was read to us in my classes for Special Education. You cannot get rid of a person’s disability, but you can embrace it and make it beautiful. I have ADHD and I cannot be fixed…I have learned how to live with it, and make it beautiful…BUT it got me thinking even more.

We all have sin. It’s our disability or disorder in the world. Many times we cannot hide it. We cannot rub it away or “fix” it. We cannot run away from it or get rid of it. We feel ugly and disgusting with this mark of sin. So we go to our Lord and Savior, and we ask, “Lord, can you make me beautiful again?” Our sin does not disappear or rub away, but with the blood of Christ that covers us completely, we are once again… beautiful.

Has the blood of Christ made you beautiful?


Thanks to F.A.T. City, Webmd.com. and the presentation from "Tommy".

He Loves Us - A Father's Day Tribute

Everyone was screaming, "RUN!" I was doing everything I could to get my 10 year old roly-poly body to move as fast as it could. I was running from 3rd base to Home plate. The outfielder from the other team was throwing the ball home. I just had to beat the ball. I heard my Daddy yell, "GET DOWN! SLIDE!" Intensity filled me up inside, and I ran as fast as I could and slid (or more like crashed) into Home plate. Lying on my back with the catcher holding the ball the entire ballpark fell silent as the Umpire yelled, "SAFE." Woo Hoo!!! An uproar came from the stands, and I had a huge smile on my face. I made it Home safe. I scored for my team.

I have a really awesome Dad whom I call "Daddy". I don't call him "Pops", "Dad", "Pa", or "Father"...I am 27 years old, and I still call him "Daddy". There have been many times in my life that I had no clue what he was doing or why I had to do something, but he always had a purpose(well most of the time). My Daddy took my brother, my sister and I out in the front yard one Saturday. He laid down a blue tarp and got out the water hose. My Mama was smart enough to grab the video camera. The purpose of the day...He was going to teach us how to slide.
My siblings and I had to take turns running as fast as we could and then sliding into this blue tarp. There were many times that my sister and I would just keep running passing the tarp because we were too afraid to slide. Then there were times where we would run, stop at the blue tarp and just sit down really fast instead of sliding. I don't know why, but I have a fear of throwing myself down on the ground...others call it sliding. My brother was a natural and loved every minute of it, but I am pretty sure this is what my sister and I were thinking..."Why do we have to do this? I just want to go inside and play. This hurts. I'm getting dirty. UGH!" My Daddy took the time to teach us how to slide. He even gave us an example by sliding on the tarp himself. No matter how scared I was or ready to go in, my Daddy made me learn how to slide (the best I could) because he knew that one day I would need it. Why did he torture me? Because he loves me.

I go through periods of my life where I start treating God like a College Professor. I feel like I am in an auditorium of 500 students and there is a professor barking orders and giving out assignments. Sometimes the Professor is funny and cool, and other times he is really strict. When I get an "A" on an assignment, I am very thankful. When I miss an assignment or fail an assignment, I beg and plead for extra credit. Or sometimes I give every excuse I can hoping the Professor will change my grade. I have been feeling like this off and on for about 3 years now. I felt God calling me to be a Special Education Teacher, but nothing I did was working. I felt like God (The Professor) was closing every door that I tried to open. He kept failing me. I got mad at Him so many times. I kept saying, "Why are you putting me through this?" I tried everything and nothing was working.

Last night, I went to my Belmont Orientation. I sat through 2 hours of exciting information about the program I will begin soon. It hit me. I will be teaching Special Education in the fall, and earning my Masters. Out of all the programs I have applied for, this program is by far the best. I will be earning my Masters pretty much for FREE. After the orientation, I started the long walk to my car thanking God the whole time for this opportunity. "Professor, I am beginning to pass this assignment." I got in my car and when I started the engine, the radio was blaring, "Oh How He love us so, oh how He loves, How He loves us so." This is such a powerful song. My eyes began to tear up as soon as I heard the words.

God is NOT a College Professor. Sometimes I forget that God loves me. After 3 years of going through struggles of ups and downs, sometimes it would slip my mind that God loves me. When this song came on in the car I felt God saying, "Dana, I did not just give you extra credit. I am giving you this opportunity because I care about you and I love you. You are my child." It does take work to keep a relationship going, but I've been letting my relationship with God become work. So, whenever you're going through struggles, try not to forget the most important thing. God IS love, and He loves YOU. So remember this the next time you ask, "God, Why are you torturing me?" Because He loves you.

To hear this powerful song... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FxaUYjRtkc&feature=related

Just Claim It!

I farted in front of a boy...and that's not the worse part!

It was 7th grade English class, and we were watching the movie "The Outsiders." We had just finished the book as a class, and then we got the privilege of taking a couple of days off of work to watch the movie. I wouldn't say that I was popular in middle school, but everyone knew of me. I was the chubby redheaded cheerleader that the squad kept around to help lift the little girls and tell them whether we were on defense or offense in the moment of the game. The lights had been turned off for the movie, and I found myself in the center of boys. I have always had guys as friends (which is another story all in itself...always the best friend.)So here I am surrounded by all of these guys. Amongst these boys, was my 7th grade crush. Pause for the hallelujah chorus and the wind slightly blowing open his buttoned shirt. So dreamy.

Do you know those moments where you have held in gas so long that your stomach is beginning to hurt? I was beginning to have gas pains. My dreamy 7th grade crush was sitting right beside me, and it took every muscle I had to squeeze my buns together. Oh...oh...oh...My strength was giving out. I was trying to act normal. I would giggle at all the right moments, and comment at all the right spots, but inside I was about to explode. My buns finally lost all strength, and it happened. "pbtpbtpbtpbt!" Yep, that's right. It was the motor boat kind. The one that was so loud it made a clapping noise against the chair. Suddenly, the look of shock came on each guys' face, but they had no clue where it came from. I quickly slumped to a level that I had never slumped to before. I pointed straight in front of me to the boy who could not speak a lick of English. He quickly started shaking his head saying, "No. No me. No me." The guys did not care what the boy had to say. They started picking on him and laughing at him. I felt so horrible. The poor kid just moved here from some little country far away, he can't speak our language, and now these guys were picking on him all because of me.

This memory has haunted me my whole life. Although it might be funny, I so wish I would have claimed it. To know that I blamed something on someone else for a guy that ended up in drugs and with many Baby's Mamas, makes me so sad. This got me thinking...

There is nothing I can do about this now. I must move on from it, but sometimes that is the hardest thing to do. We do this with sin as well. Many times we continue to live in the past and live in our failure. This is also where Satan likes for us to dwell. Many times our past sins and lifestyle are holding us back from moving forward. From doing God's work. From living for Him. We are not suppose to forget, but maybe we should just claim it, learn from it and move on. Claiming something does not mean that there will not be any aftermath. If I had claimed my "toot", there would have been jokes made at me, fingers pointed, laughter and a fowl odor to live through. But soon enough, the people forget, the embarrassment goes away, and the odor is no more.

I started wondering what I needed to claim to God. What sins or parts of my past am I not claiming? What am I holding on to? What am I blaming on others?

Whatever it is, I must claim it to Him. I must let Him have it. Only then will I be able to serve Him wholeheartedly.

So I tell you, "Just Claim it!"

Blessed

This morning I was driving in my car, crying and listening to a beautiful story of a mother and a son on the radio. I wasn't sure if it was the Holy Spirit grabbing a hold of my heart or my fragile emotions awaiting the arrival of "Aunt Flo", but my heart was touched. It was as if my heart was filled with water. Someone grabbed it and squeezed as hard as they could, and the water had no choice, but to flow out through my eyes as tears. The mother spoke about the life of her son, and how he passed at a young age. It automatically made me think of a dear friend of mine who has recently lost her son. Sadness filled me up instantly. The mother kept saying how "blessed" she was to have had him in her life. The word "blessed" came flowing out of her mouth over and over again like a wave that keeps crashing onto the shore. Blessed. Blessed. Blessed. I dried my eyes, parked the car and headed in for work.

The past few weeks or more, I have been stressed to the max. I have been trying to control my life, and I have been telling God what my plans should be. I've been mapping my life out trying to make things perfect. You know God won't allow that. I have NOT been using the word "blessed". My words have been more like "why", "how", "what", and "it's not fair". I have been mad. I have been complaining. I have been a spoiled little brat. Wow. How ungrateful I have been!

I am always amazed when people who are going through rough times can say that they are blessed. I am reminded of a precious lady in Mexico. I used to call her "My Mexican Grandma". She was always at the church working so hard for the Lord. Sometimes I was not able to understand a word she spoke to me, but I could feel her love that she had for me. One Sunday she invited me to her house for lunch. I arrived to her door and saw chickens pecking around the yard and a goat tied to a tree. I walked into her house and saw four make-shift beds in the first room. The floor was made of dirt and patches of concrete. There were four more make-shift beds in the second room. Eight beds in two very small rooms with ten people living there. It seemed there was no privacy. She led me to the kitchen which was about as big as my bathroom. We sat down at a small plastic table. She made me sit down in the only chair in the house while she used a bucket to sit on. The roof was a hand-me-down tin roof with holes all over it. You can tell where it was used on another house because the holes were where nails used to be. Many buckets were sitting around in case it were to rain. She fed me a delicious lunch of gorditas. I remember that we had good conversation, but I learned a new word that day. I lied to her in politeness and said, "I like your place." She looked around and said, "Bendito." Bendito means blessed. I was forever changed that day. What happened to me? How could I forget this moment? How could I be so absorbed with "the world" and act like a spoiled brat?

Romans 10:12 "For there is no difference between Jew and Gentile -- Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him."

This has been me lately...
Lord, I'm calling on You!!! I call on You day and night!!! Can you hear me?!? Do I have the wrong number?!? You are not blessing me like I want You to!!!

Throughout the day, I pondered the story of the mother and son, My Mexican Grandma and the way I've been acting here lately. My family was getting together for dinner for my Mama's Birthday. Before we left, I decided to say a little prayer...
Lord, Please open my eyes to see You in my life. Help me to see You work in my life. Help me to see the blessings You have given me. Please change my attitude.

I looked up the definition for "Blessed" before we left because I am weird like that.
Blessed - highly favored, fortunate, or enjoying the bliss of heaven.

We arrived at Famous Dave's and started enjoying each others' company. Before I knew it, I felt the waves of blessings beating up against the shore. My heart was overjoyed. Each wave would come in faster, bigger and strong. My eyes were open, and I saw the waves...Food - Blessed. Laughter - Blessed. Family - Blessed. Love - Blessed. I looked around and thought, "I AM highly favored with God. I AM fortunate. I AM enjoying the bliss of heaven. I AM Blessed."

Please don't be like me and get caught up in "the world." Open your eyes...You too are Blessed.

Unveil Your Beauty

As I sit here listening to the rain fall, I am contemplating the beauty of this world. What is beauty? Am I beautiful right now with snot constantly coming out of my nose? Is there inner beauty and outward beauty? Or is beauty just beauty?

As I stare off into a painting, I start thinking about the group of teenage girls I teach every Sunday evening. I absolutely love these girls. We have just finished a Bible Study called "Captivating" by John and Stasi Eldredge. In this Bible Study, we have been talking about the core desires of a woman's heart. One of the core desires is to Unveil Beauty. Think about it. Every woman wants to be considered beautiful. It's something we long for and deeply desire. Unveiled beauty is something women all appreciate. We have inherited this from our Father. God enjoys beauty. Just look how He created Earth before we started messing it up. The oceans, the mountains, the sky, the sun, the trees, the animals, the flowers...well, I could go on and on about the beauty that God created. We get that core desire to be beautiful and add beauty from Him.

Have you ever been to a fancy party where everyone is dressed up in their best? Have you ever taken a moment to listen to the women speak to each other? It's nothing, but compliments. "Wow. I love your dress." "Your hair looks beautiful tonight." "Those are gorgeous earrings." We love beauty and we notice it. It's the part of God that He gave to women. You do not hear men talking like that do you? Imagine going to a fancy party and hearing the men say, "Your cuff links are stunning! I love how you did your hair tonight." Men usually do not speak like that to other men. Women want to unveil a beauty to the world. It is that simple.

Stay with me...I'm going somewhere with this.

One of my goals as I teach this to my class of girls is to help them realize that they are beautiful. Being a teenage girl is difficult. Believe me, I was one. You are going through awkward times with awkward things happening to you, and you just feel ugly. When you look in the mirror, Satan attacks you with whispers of lies..."You're too fat. Your nose is too big. Your ears are too floppy. You're too pale." We as women start believing these lies. If you hear a lie enough, you start believing it as truth. So I try to encourage these girls and help them realize that God doesn't make mistakes. He is perfect. So when He created you, He made you perfect... perfectly beautiful. Why is it you can say lies over and over and start believing them, but when you say something of truth over and over, you have the hardest time believing it?

I am 27 years old, and Satan has attacked me with lies all of my life. I look in the mirror and think, "Ugh!" I know it is not just me. I know it is all women who feel this way from 2 to 99 years old. I don't think I understood how beautiful God thinks I am until this morning.

I went last night with a couple of friends to a thing called "Sips n strokes". It is pretty much a fun, laid back paint class. They give step by step instruction on how to paint a certain piece of art. So here I am about to paint my first piece of art ever. I am not an artist, but they made it very fun and easy. Although everyone in the class got the same instructions, there was not any paintings that ended up exactly the same. They were all different. We all had our own unique twist in it where our personalities came through. When I left the paint class, I was so proud. I thought my painting was beautiful. There are some mistakes I made, and some places where I went a little crazy, but that is why I like it so much. It is so me.

My brother came over this morning, and I just had to show him my masterpiece. This was our conversation...
"Phillip, look at the painting I did last night!"
"Nice. What is it?" He was obviously thrilled to be viewing my painting.
"What is it?!? What does it look like?" I was a little annoyed that he didn't know what it was.
"Well, it looks like orange trees."
"Yeah, that's right."
"But they look like they are on the ocean."
"It's like a dream world, Phillip."
There was more to this conversation, but this is a good place to stop.

What really bothered me is that I believe my painting is beautiful. It is just like me. It has character. It is a masterpiece. I am so proud of it. How could Phillip not see that? If my brother had said anything horrible about my masterpiece, I would have fought him. (Lucky for him, he didn't because I would have won.) This is where God grabbed my heart. I realized that this is what God thinks about me...about all of His children.

When He made you, He said, "It's ready! She/He is absolutely beautiful. She is not like any other I have made before. She has character. She has pieces of me all throughout her. She is stunning. This is one of my masterpieces. I am so proud of my work." Oh my goodness! God is proud of the way I(You) look. Have you ever thought that before? He goes into battle everyday for you. He is ready to fight Satan for you and for your beauty. He is ready to whoop some tail for YOU. When Satan whispers those lies in your ears, God is saying, "How can you not see the beauty I have created? You are beautiful."

The amount of passion I have for my painting that I created made me realize that God has even more passion for His creations...you and me included. We have to decide which voice to listen to now. Are you going to listen to Satan's lies or are you going to believe the truth? God is waiting for you to unveil the beauty that He created you to be. Believe it! You have a beauty to unveil!

I am 27 years old, and I am just now really believing that...God made me beautiful.

The next step, I must unveil His beauty, but how? How do you unveil His beauty?

Debbie Downer

Do you ever have a down week? You know, where you swim around in your deep pool of self-pity for a while? Well, I did this week. I had one of those weeks where everything in life was just horrible. My motto for the week was "Ho hum. Where's the chocolate?" I'm usually a pretty happy and positive person, but from time to time, I become "Debbie Downer".

I believe Movies and TV entertainment are the reason that I wallow in my sorrows. They are so far from reality. They make everything seem so great, magical and perfect on the big screen. A man, who looks as good as Josh Duhamel, always saves the day and gets the girl. I started to think about it in my "Debbie Downer" mindset. I am not even a lead role in my own movie of life. I am the Supporting Actress. Do you ever feel that way? Do you ever feel like your family and friends have the great lives that make the movie, and you are just there to add a little flavor to their plot? I do. All the time. I have even been told by quite a few people that I remind them of the character Alan off of "The Hangover" and Meredith off of "The Office" which are both supporting roles. I did one of those silly quizzes on Facebook and I got that I was the character Bernice off of "Designing Women"...which she wasn't even in all of the episodes! Normal girls dream of being a rock star.My dream was that my sister would be a rock star, and I would be her back up singer. Am I destined to always play the supporting role in life? Am I just here for comic relief? Will I ever get to play the lead?

As I walked out my back door to smell the fresh crisp air that the snow had brought, my mind was triggered with a memory. You might realize that this happens to me a lot. I believe that at times like this when I am being absolutely ridiculous in my "Debbie Downer" thinking, God decides to distract my brain with a happy moment. With His great sense of humor, He triggers my mind with some laughter. This was the story He used to pull me out of the depths of my self-pity.

It was a warm day in the fall, and the sky looked like it was painted just for me. I was in a rush to get to my second job for the day. I was getting everything together. I frantically checked the iron to make sure it was off, locked up all the doors and went to my car. I got in the car, and could not find my keys anywhere. I dug through my purse in a panic. At that moment, I remembered that I had laid my keys on the table beside the door. My keys were locked inside the house. Urg! I was furious. Most of you have heard of this evil thing called "The Redheaded Temper". I have one. I just don't like for it to come out in public. But when I'm all alone and no one else is around, I can pitch the biggest hissy fit you have ever seen. It's even worse when I'm mad at myself. So at this point, my face was red. Words were being said. Sounds and grunts were being made, and I was frantically checking every door to see if I could have possibly left one door unlocked. No luck. Evidently, I did a very thorough job of locking the doors. "Way to go, Dana." I think God thinks it's funny when I lose my temper. I think it's funny too...after the fact.

There were people that had a key that I could call, but I knew all of them were preoccupied, and by the time they would have gotten there I would have been really late. So I thought outside the box. I quickly did a few laps around the house trying to think as if I were a thief. I looked and studied all the windows, doors and openings I could find. I tried to remember all the movies where someone broke into a house..."Come on Dana...think!" Suddenly it came to me...I could crawl through the doggie door!

Just imagine. At this moment, God was up there gathering all His angels around, giggling and saying, "Watch this. This is about to be hilarious."

There was a thick plastic sheet that went onto the inside of the doggie door so that the dogs could not come in during the day. So first I had to kick out the plastic. I laid down on the deck and my 2 big dogs kept coming up to me licking me and sniffing me. With anger, I lifted the flap of the door and pushed the plastic out with my foot. Now to go through the doggie door. I thought about it for a minute...How would be the best way to do this? Feet first? Head first? I made a quick decision to go arms first, and then my head. I stuffed my cell phone in my bra thinking that if the top half of my body gets stuck I could reach in and call 911. I had it all planned. I went for it. First my arms...then my head. Both went in smooth with no problem...Then came the shoulders. I have what they call football shoulders. My sister and I were both blessed with them...Thanks Dad. I straightened my arms to make my shoulders thinner and was able to squeeze through with just a few scrapes. Then came my chest. I am not as "blessed" as other women in that area, but in this instance I was more "blessed" than I wanted to be. I pushed...I squeezed...I sucked in...I pushed again. Crap! I was stuck! Panic filled the inside of me and my claustrophobia began to peek its ugly little head out. AHH! I kept pushing and pushing. I even tried pulling the opposite direction to get free. Not even a budge. I rested for a second. Just to make things worse, the whole time this was happening my dogs had been sniffing me and licking my legs on the outside of the house. At this point, I couldn't help but laugh. I imagined God was belly laughing on the floor in Heaven. I yelled, "You're getting a real good kick out of this one, aren't you Lord?" I pushed again and again. Finally, pop! It definitely hurt, but my chest made it through! I sucked in and squeezed my stomach through without any problems. Then, came my hips. It was a tight squeeze, but they made it through with only some scrapes on the sides. Finally, I had made it! I laid on the floor for a moment in pain, laughing and thanking God that I didn't have to call 911. Could you imagine Firemen coming to my back door seeing my rear end stuck in the doggie door? That would have been so embarrassing! I got up, went and got my keys and was on my way.

I continued to smell the air of the snow as I laughed about this moment in my life. As my dogs came jumping towards me, God reminded me of a few things.

I will always play the Supporting Role in life. God is suppose to always have the Lead part. It's His movie and I should just play my role in His movie. I know God doesn't need me. He can do anything. He is all powerful. His movie is great whether I'm in it or not, but it's nice to know that I can add to His movie. Maybe I can add some comic relief, and try to make the movie even better. I would like to think that my life is scenes out of His movie, and God enjoys those scenes. He's always watching them, and He cares what happens.

I know all my scenes are not perfect. I'm sure quite a bit of the time, He is disappointed in my acting. But I would like to think that every now and then, I can make God smile. Maybe He would turn to an angel or two and say, "Remember the part in My movie where Dana gets stuck in the doggie door? That was hilarious." I think it would be great if God could say, "I like the scene where Dana does that random act of kindness."

So I'm going to put out the effort not to be "Debbie Downer" so often. I don't want God to be disappointed in my acting all the time. I just want to make God smile. What do your scenes look like?

My Walk

This past Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous day. The high was 65 degrees, and the sun was out. I just love to be outside. I am one of those people who craves the sun. Which is very odd since I'm a redhead with fare skin and tend to burn. At times, I wish I had been born in the olden days where they were always outside, and they churned their own butter. You better believe that if I had lived back then, I would have made the best butter in the county. That's how everyone would know me..."The Butter Lady". Anyways, it was absolutely beautiful, so I decided to go to the park.

I started down the 2 mile loop. I looked at the time because although I had decided to walk leisurely, I am very competitive with myself and wanted to time my walk. No one was around at the moment, so I started off my walk with my eyes closed. I felt the warmth of the sun hit my face in between each skinny tree, and my feet were stirring up the leaves on the pavement at a steady pace. I smelled the air. It smelled just like softball season. All of a sudden, I had the urge to be out on the field playing catch or hitting some balls. The beauty of the day made me stop, and I whispered, "Thank you, Jesus." I opened my eyes as soon as I heard voices. I didn't want people to think I was crazy walking around with my eyes closed. Although, we all know that I am. I glanced at my time and decided to pick up my pace on this leisurely walk. A little ways down the path, I started to warm up. I decided to take my hoody off, and as soon as I did, I felt a breeze. A combination of my sweat and the breeze sent memories flowing through my head of my time in Mexico. That's when I began walking down memory lane.

Side note... About 5 years ago, I lived in Mexico as a missionary for about 8 months. I taught English and helped out the church down there.

Pictures of my time in Mexico were scrolling in my mind like a slide show. I looked at my feet on the pavement and was reminded of the dirt roads down there. It brought me straight to this memory...

I was walking to the Pastor's house after checking my internet at the "Internet Cafe" in the plaza. I was so excited. I couldn't wait to tell Conchita (the pastor's wife) that I had ran into Chris at the cafe. Chris was a missionary in a town about an hour and a half away. He was from Ohio and earned his living as a deep sea fisherman while sharing the gospel. I think I had a crush on him because he was the only English speaking American for miles and miles...and there is just something about a fisherman. So, I couldn't wait to tell Conchita. As I continued walking to her house, I practiced the Spanish I would need to tell her this exciting news. I got to her house and swung open the door. I was shocked at first because she was breast feeding and was not covered up. I should have been used to this by now, but I think I will always be shocked when I swing open a door and see a boob. Finally, I looked at her and said, "I saw Chris!" While still holding on to her little girl, she jumped out of the rocking chair and responded with a look of shock, "You saw Chris?"
"Yeah, I saw Chris."
"Really?"
"Yes!"
"What did he say?" She was way more excited than I was, and I wasn't sure why.
"Well, we just talked for a little bit, but he said that he was coming to our church on Sunday."
"What does he look like?"
At this point, I was confused. She was the one who introduced me to Chris. She knew what he looked like.
"Well, he was wearing his glasses, and he had his jeans and a t-shirt on." I didn't know what else to tell her.
"Chris?"
"Yeah. You know, the American."
She dropped to the rocking chair in laughter. I was so confused. All I could do was smile and laugh along with her, but I didn't know why we were laughing. At this point, her daughter had given up on her and Conchita had tears flowing out from laughing so hard. I couldn't figure out what was so funny. After she gathered her composure, she said, "Dana, it's Cristobal. Not Cristo." In Spanish they say the name Chris as "Cristobal". Well, I must have gotten a little mixed up with my Spanish, and I kept saying "Cristo" which means Christ. The whole time we had been talking she thought I had seen Christ. She thought Christ would be coming to church on Sunday and that he would be wearing his glasses. We just laughed and laughed and laughed some more.

As I continued on my walk, I noticed that I was giggling out loud about this memory. There were many times while living in Mexico that I would become frustrated not knowing the language, but this time, it was a good moment. I got to the bridge, and I knew at this point I only had 1/2 a mile left of the 2 mile loop. I walked out to the middle of the bridge and decided to take a minute and look out at the lake. I glanced at my phone to check my time. As I watched the ripples in the lake, I thought about how sometimes I feel God speaks a different language.

Sometimes when you've been praying for something for so long, you start wondering if He can hear you or if you're not asking Him correctly. So, just like you would to someone speaking a different language, you begin to talk slower and louder. You pray with detailed emphasis, and you pray harder. Sometimes you may even scream at Him thinking He can't hear you. Usually, the whole time He is speaking back to you. He might be saying, "Just wait for my perfect timing." Or maybe He is giving you an answer to a solution that you have been longing for, but you can't understand Him.

When I first moved to Mexico, I only knew a few phrases in Spanish. The longer I lived there, the more I understood and could speak. I started studying the language. Soon, I felt confident enough to have lots of conversations with the people in Mexico. I never became fluent, and when I returned home I didn't use my Spanish as much. Now, I am noticing that I have lost a lot of the Spanish I had learned.

I started thinking about the times that I have heard and understood what God was saying to me. Each time, I was close to Him in my walk. I was studying Him and His word. My life was surrounded by Him. Then I thought about the times I so desperately wanted to hear from Him. At those moments I was more caught up in the answer I wanted than actually hearing from Him. I had lost my language with Him.

As I got off the bridge and began to walk again, I decided to stop worrying so much about the answers I want or need. I decided to start learning the language of God. I know I'll never become fluent, but I can't imagine the joy I will receive by trying to be. As I came to the end of my walk, I thought to myself, "Am I the only one who has trouble understanding God?"

So I ask you this...Do you speak God?

He's Got My Heart

Do you have that special place you go? You know the place where you go to get away from all the people or distractions of life and just be by yourself? I would assume that everyone has a "place". Well, I do. I go to either Panera Bread or Starbucks (depending on my mood). I sit and write in my journal. I usually write letters to God. Sometimes I write poems or ideas, and sometimes I just sit there, doodle and think. This is my release... my therapy...sometimes the only way I keep sane!

So one snowy afternoon a couple of weeks ago, I went to Panera Bread to do the normal thing that I always do. I grabbed me a Caffeine Free Diet Pepsi (part of the reason I go there) and was lucky enough to get one of the big comfy chairs. I spent some time writing my prayer to God and then I broke out in song. Oh the embarrassment! You know those moments where you are so caught up in what you are doing that you forget that other people are around. Yep, this was one of those moments. Here I am singing to myself in the middle of Panera Bread. My face was definitely red. I got a few stares and quickly remembered where I was. After laughing really hard in my head, I wrote down the lyrics. I had never heard this song before. It just kind of came to me which actually happens to me a lot. The lyrics are, "I'll give you my heart/ I'll give you my heart/ I'll give you my heart, but please, oh please don't give it back". As I packed my stuff away and prepared to leave, I thought to myself, "What in the world does that mean?"

From that moment on, it was stuck in my head. I sang it over and over again for more than a week. It was getting on my nerves. Sometimes I make up tunes like this consisting of just a few lines, and I make up a story about it just for fun. Well this time, nothing was coming to me. I hate to sing something and not know what it means. So I prayed about it. I prayed hard. I said, "Lord, if this song is going to be stuck in my head, please tell me what it is about. Or would you just get this song out of my head?!? Amen." Well, like always "ask and it shall be given to you".

Do you realize how easy it is for us to give our heart away? We are constantly giving our heart away to people, objects, food, our careers and anything else that consumes us. Just think about it. You give your whole heart to your career or company. Then, you get laid off or asked to take a pay cut. They give you your heart back with a big bruise on the side. Or maybe you fall for Mr. Wrong. You know the bad boy who sales drugs and farts at the dinner table, but he's oh so gorgeous. You can't help, but to effortlessly hand over your heart to him. When in the end, he gives it back to you broken, ripped and torn apart. For you men out there, I have seen your heart given back to you on a silver platter shredded to pieces due to the "Red Ring of Death" from your XBox. Don't lie. You know you fall apart when that happens. I've seen it. Maybe it was someone so dear to you that left this world to go be with our Lord and Savior. I know when those times have happened to me, my heart took a beating. I received my heart back completely broken. We give our hearts away all the time so easily. Why is it so hard to give God all of our heart?

I believe my outburst in song was actually my prayer to God. "I'll give You my heart, but please, oh please don't give it back."

I think I was afraid that if I were to really give Him my heart, He would end up giving it back to me just like everyone else.

So I decided to go to my "place". This time it was Starbucks. A Grande White Chocolate Mocha was my poison. It was caffeinated. I was feeling determined. I decided to write a prayer to God giving Him my whole heart and telling Him exactly what I thought.

I began by visualizing myself handing my heart to God. My heart was in a bowl, for some odd reason, and it had stitches and repairs all over it. I even imagined tape and pieces of gum holding it together. So I held out this bowl, and God reached inside and grabbed my heart, and I wrote to Him as if I were warning Him...

"Dear Lord,
I'll give You my heart, but it's not perfect. It's got problems that I'm still working on. As you can tell, I've fixed a lot of the problems myself, and the repairs aren't holding up too well. I am afraid for You to grab a hold of my heart because I'm afraid You will find things that I have hidden so deep down that I don't want You asking me about. I've hidden those pieces of my heart for a reason. So, I'm letting You know now that I'll give You my heart, but You must promise to always hold it with Your strong hands and protect it because it is very fragile and weak. Lord, my heart has been returned to me many times in bad shape, and I don't think I could take it if You were the one to give it back to me. So, I'll give You my heart...all of my heart, but please, oh please Lord, don't give it back. Hold it and keep it forever. Please heal it. Thank You for taking my heart, although it is completely screwed up.
In Jesus' Name I Pray - Amen"

I'm here to tell you that He won't ever give you back your heart. It will always be safe with Him. He doesn't care if it comes completely destroyed in a wheel barrel or nicely decorated with ribbons and bows. He just wants all of you...all of your heart. Have you really given all of it to Him?

My next journey in life...God's going to look inside those hidden places and I'm going to have to deal with it. He's also going to stitch and repair correctly, and it's probably going to hurt a little. But with His magnificent grace and mercy, my heart will be so much better. No longer sealed with gum, but sealed with love, peace and comfort from God.