Letter to the world from a Christian.....

Dear World,

I realize that when I tell you I am a Christian several responses may be displayed.  Some of you may, roll your eyes and think that I am a blind, brainwashed and misguided.

Some of you may think, well that's nice for her but that just doesn't work for me.

Some of you may think, that I think I'm better than you.

Some of you may hate me.  Really hate me for my belief and faith.

Some of you may want to kill me for my belief and faith.

This letter is two fold.  I hope that the world looks at this and gives pause to a Christian's agenda for just a moment. I also hope that it renews a bit any Christians' agenda to have an urgency to talk about our faith and not to retreat in the current political climate. Do we have an agenda?  You better believe it!  My agenda, or my purpose is stated many times in the gospel's and throughout the New Testament but here I will reference Mark 16:15-16.

• "And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.  Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.'"

So yes, I have an urgent agenda!  I am on a mission and even though I often fail at it, I want you to be in the saved column.  No matter who you are and what you have done.  

The child molester.....I want you saved.  

The murderer.....I want you saved.

Coffee shop guy.....You too!  

My friend's on Facebook.....please!

You, reading this blog.....by all means!  

Will you allow me just a couple more minutes of your time?  No matter, in life how you view a believer in Christ, we as people all think about questions like the meaning of life, or what is my purpose in life?  The only difference is I look at it through glasses given to me by Jesus and you look through it with a different pair.  

I do not feel like I am better than you!  In fact, you probably are a better person than me!  But better people do not always make Christians.  You see, I am just a person who has and will continue to do bad things (although I am trying to be better) but the difference is in my belief and clinging to the fact that even though I have fallen, I am saved through my Savior.  I have hope of something better than this world.  Did you hear that little world?  Hope?  Can I ask a question?  A honest question.  Not meant to insult you or degrade you, but where is your hope?  What does it hold fast in?  

I'm begging you, can we just sit down and listen to one another?  You see, nothing between Christian and non-Christians will be resolved with media debates or screaming at each other through social media or pretending we have a conversation but we actually approach it with our preconceived notions and in just a minute we both turn our backs to each other because we have dug our heels in our respective traditions and have deemed each other not worthy of our time.  Nope, neither of us is going to be able to convince the other.  You may not care that you convince me but remember, I feel that eternal life is at stake.  I feel on my side the stakes are so much higher than a raising of my head in defiance and labeling you as "unteachable" and using one of the Christian's favorite quotes of "shaking the dust off our feet."  

With the stakes so high, if I could have my way.  We would part as friends.  Not enemies.  Why?  Because, I would like once again to revisit this conversation with you.  I want to buy you a cup of coffee and invite Jesus to sit down with us through his word and try again.  Why?  Because when it comes down to it and it is just one person (me) talking to one person (you), if I am wrong....then I've spent my life just trying to get people to be better versions of themselves and for myself to be better. However, if you are wrong and Christ really is our Savior, then you could be lost and that means for the infinity years of eternity, you and I will never be able to see one another again.  We will forever be separated.  Does it offend you that I call you "lost"?  But see I am not calling you that.  I do not feel that I am the judge of the universe.  The judge of the universe wrote a book though that tells me how he will guide his judgments and not trying to tell you about it is almost like me pushing you in front of speeding train.  I'm doing nothing to save you.  

If you had a secret that would save your neighbors life, would you not share it with him?  I find it amazing that you have an eternal soul.  It is priceless, therefore you are priceless and it is worth my effort to try and show you the one who can save it.  

Thank you for your minute.  I really have no other agenda than that.  I will make every effort to not get upset.  Although, if I fail, please forgive and remember that I believe with all my heart that a priceless masterpiece (you) is at stake.  

After that you may still feel like I am brainwashed, and dumb for believing a 2000 year old lie.  However, I'll do you one better.  I am so brainwashed that I believe that God had the plan of his son dying on a cross for my sins even before he made the world in Genesis one.  I believe that he made me anyway and loves me and when my life has it's ups and downs, I cling to that.  I cling to the fact that I am the daughter of a King.  I am saved through his son's precious blood.  If someday, that get's my body slaughtered on this earth, I pray my faith and hope are strong enough to endure and that I will keep my faith to the very end.  

You see, we are not so different, you and I.  We both, are just looking for the way to navigate this life, find meaning in it and leave a stamp on it.  I just think that I am doing it for a higher purpose.  World, what can I do for you?  I am not the enemy and if I may be so bold, I am just a mouthpiece for a hope that as  humans we all wish for.  You are beautiful, no matter your past sins and God sent his son to die for you.  Now go back and read Mark 16:16 again.  Follow it to the letter!  

Love, A fellow, severly flawed, sinful human 

Keep It Real

I want to be honest.

Honestly, I do!

I am so not together.  It's been an ongoing struggle and I often have bouts where I think I am on top of things or I get in a rhythm for a couple months and all of a sudden I am Flylady and I have wings......

Then I come crashing to earth.

Confession:  I had one goal today....clean my bathroom and bedroom (it hasn't been done in over a month).  When we moved in I had a nice dream that Thursday would be master bed and bath day.  I would clean these, make them sparkle, sprinkle fairy dust and shut the door letting it await to be a retreat for the weekend.  I think since we moved in I've cleaned it once.  hmmmm.....not good!  Where was I?  Oh yeah, confession.  I was up at 6:58 this morning greeted by the smacking hand and cooing of a little girl named Charlotte and it popped in my head that today, I am going to clean my room!  And as a bonus the bathroom.  Okay now to the confession part.....it is 3:06 and I just finally got done.  And when I say done, I mean it's okay.  Not the way I would really like to do it but it's acceptable and about a million times better than it was.

My mom is coming because Charlotte has a follow up hearing test tomorrow.  My mom and dad own their own cleaning company.  Let me just let you savor that for a moment.


Yep, my mom is a business owner of a cleaning company!!!  Now my mom is awesome and seriously they are so very good at their job.  I wish I could hire them!  But.....my mom knows how to clean!  And despite the fact that she tried desperately to teach me this art,  I did not inherit this gene.  I think it went to my sisters.  They are amazing when it comes to cleaning too.  So when my mom comes, I get excited!  So excited to have her that I have no desire for her to take one look around and want to clean my house!  So......I try to clean.

Now, on to the theme of keeping it real.

My 7 month old, oh yeah, I mentioned her.  She's the one that wakes up at 6:58 smacking me in the face.  She likes to be held.....a lot!  This posture makes cleaning difficult and is probably why I do not work for the family business.  I love this little 7 month old drool ball, but life has changed.  I've been forced to get more "real" with myself.  Clean enough has become the goal.  Picked up enough is the vision.  I know many of you mother and father more children than my three, but I've never parented three before so I am new at this.

My expectations for myself have had to change and I'll be honest when I say that the three, four....no three loads of laundry spilling over in my living room rocking chair is about to make me hyperventilate.  I'm supposed to be honest here so it's more like five loads.

Every night, I head to bed thinking I've failed.  I mean some days I stare in the mirror and flex my muscles and say, "everyone is alive, everyone is fed, good day."  But for the most part I go to bed with my to do list barely begun.

If you are a person who is stellar at cleaning and organizing, I applaud you!  Use that talent the Lord gave you and then come blow some pixie dust on me and maybe I'll catch it too.  If you are someone that has to look for two weeks for the toilet brush because it's been months since you saw that thing, I encourage you to keep looking!  It will turn up and you probably haven't been able to find it because you have been so busy in other projects for others that the simple act of cleaning that toilet is getting in the way of much greater needs.  I applaud you as well!  Thank you for serving us when we need it.
And if you are like me who is confessing that I am not perfect, I am really just holding my head above water with a baby and a move, I applaud you too.  Crisis cleaning and planning and feeding and shopping won't always be our norm.  Right?  Please tell me I won't always be in crisis mode!

My school room looks worse than the day we moved in.  At the rate I'm going we will get to start school when Christmas break ends.  It's easier to just shut the door and forget it for awhile.  So here I am with a shut schoolroom/den door, talking to my blog and wishing I felt like I had the time to fix a cup of tea and sit and finish my book, but I don't.....remember those three....ahem....four.....ahem, okay, okay, it's five loads of laundry on my rocking chair!  But hey, at least I have a clean bathroom!  I can soak in that big tub of mine and pray for sanity and energy to maybe work on that schoolroom and maybe school planning because I have to remind myself, I homeschool my children too.  They need to have a teacher.  Where are we going to put that?  Maybe on top of the five piles of laundry!

I, in no way want to discourage anyone with a blog entry but a blog does lead one to be somewhat transparent with their readers so here goes,  to finish I will confess a few shortcomings/flaws/facts and then I will add one thing that I think wraps it all up into the "it's going to be okay" category.  Because, that's what bloggers do.  We be honest and then wrap up everything into nice little packages so that hopefully you can take something from my ramblings and my mistakes.

Confessions:
1.  I just cleaned out the litter box for the first time in 2 weeks.  (After bathing myself in Clorox, I seriously deserve a cup of tea!)
2.  When I had Charlotte my mom spent a good portion of her time cleaning out and organizing my kitchen/pantry.  I was hormonal and loved my mom for it and then after I was up and about and actually able to enjoy the fruits of her labor and try not to mess it up, my husband informs me that we are moving.
3.  I am a hoarder.  But I am also a really good hider.  A talent to go with the curse.
4.  We have been here since the first of June.  I think everything in the house might have gotten cleaned once.  So everything in a two month period.  That means that I will get back to my bathroom/bedroom sometime in the end of September.
5.  I am really good at getting laundry done until it comes to folding it and putting it up.  It seriously may sit on my rocking chair for a week or, yeah, just a week!  Let's leave it at that!
6.  For a long while I thought my home was really supposed to look like an HGTV design makeover.  Which made me discontented and delusional.  I live here, all day.  I am here all day with three little people.  We are making messes all day long!  I could be cleaning up one mess while simultaneously three more are being made.  HGTV is not reality.  Although it has really deepened my love for a farmhouse sink and concrete countertops!
7.    I love to cook.  Love it!  I hate to clean the kitchen and if it does not get done within a few minutes of finishing dinner, I'll be staring at those suckers till I start dinner the next day.
8.  One thing that does get clean everyday is the children.  They all three get baths everyday.  I know many think I am crazy for this but they seriously play hard and eat food and sweat and stink up the joint so my children are scrubbed everyday.  Rain or shine!
9.  Dust comes back so why bother?  My mom has been waging a dust war for decades and she hasn't licked it yet.  So I've given up and raised the white flag.
10.  Those elves that come to help the shoe cobbler must have died with Santa, the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny.  I'd pay them though if they came!  Although, I don't want shoes, I want a clean house and organized school room.

I'm a mess.  I don't always get it all done but I am trying to be effective.  I have goals and priorities outside of the physical appearance of this house.  I have spiritual housecleaning to do!  I want to work on my character and pray that God is working on it as well.

"For this reason (refer to the previous verses for the reason), make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge and knowledge with self-control (uggghhh!  failed on that today too!) and self control with steadfastness (could definitely use that!) and steadfastness with godliness and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.  For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  For whoever lacks these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins.  Therefore brothers be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall."
2 Peter 1:5-10

He didn't have to, but he did.....

I am often feeding a baby these days and it forces me to sit.  It's good some days when I use it for fighting Satan in prayer, but other days, I confess,  Facebook, intriguing articles, blogs and Insta waste of my time (or Instagram who have a normal relationship with it call it) suck my attention.  

I'm a firm believer that the moral decline in my country is nothing new and even though it saddens me greatly that states are being stripped of their powers, Presidents seem out of touch with well everything and everybody, our military are being disrespected and most recently the shock (not really) that Planned Parenthood is selling baby tissue to the highest bidder (I mean, people, they advocate abortion like it's routine medical procedure, a tonsillectomy of sorts, just further south in a woman's anatomy and we are surprised that they want to make money on the body's of these little life's they take....in the words of a character I actually am not fond of ....wake up 'merica) despite all this and so much more I know The Lord has this.  He is working and I'm going to be okay.  It may not be pleasant in future days but I am going to be okay.  

How do I know?  One way is that there is a lot The Lord did not have to do but did anyway.  

Yesterday, I took a walk by myself for a couple minutes (it was heavenly).

The Lord made a sky that changes color like a vast sheet of chameleon skin!  Pink, baby blue, midnight blue, purple, orange, red, white, yellow, gray and black keep our eyes guessing at what colorful canvas we might see as backdrop for our lives next!  

He didn't have to make a sky full of all those colors, but he did.  

Do you know how many insects are in the world?  No?  Me either!  But I can get an estimate of just how many are in the U.S. from Encyclopedia Smithsonian: 

" In the United States, the number of described species is approximately 91,000. The undescribed species of insects in the United States, however, is estimated at some 73,000. The largest numbers of described species in the U.S. fall into four insect Orders: Coleoptera (beetles) at 23,700, Diptera (flies) at 19,600, Hymenoptera (ants, bees, wasps) at 17,500, and Lepidoptera (moths and butterflies) at 11,500."

Did you read that?  Just in the US alone there are 91,000 known species but possibly 73,000 estimated waiting to still be discovered.  So in the age of globalization, and instant communication, there may be a six headed dragonfly out there waiting to be discovered!  Too bad I'm not a real fan of buzzing bugs but can you believe that many insects are in this country?  

God could have put just one kind of butterfly in the United States but no He blesses us with a collection of 11,500 butterfly's and moths we know about and countless more we may not!  Can you just praise Him for that?  To me it's amazing!!  

God could have just made us all look the same.  He could have made the entire human race have the same skin color, eye shape and facial structure.  But He didn't!!  He made our features to be a beautiful tapestry of woven differences that make the human race interesting!! 

If a master artist doesn't like his completed work or feels it is flawed he has the right to destroy it.  He created it after all.  Guess what?

God could have destroyed the earth with no hope of salvation, but he didn't!  He had a plan!  He could have destroyed his creation or never made it in the first place knowing it was going to fall, but he didn't!  He sent his son!  

He gave me a multi colored sky, thousands of creepy crawlers, beautiful differences in humans to love and study, and a precious son Savior to take away my sin.  

That's how I know He's got this.  He is in charge.  All I have to do is let Him be glorified!  

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 

Who determined its measurements-surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? "

- Job 38:4-5

I will leave you with the words of one of my favorite hymns:

Verse 1:
O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Chorus:
Then sings my soul, my Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art! How great Thou art!

Verse 2:
When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

Chorus

Verse 3:
And when I think, that God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

Chorus

Verse 4:
When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim, "My God, how great Thou art!"

I'm headed home some day.  I'll be able to see the sweet innocent children that the world didn't care for but God did....

Thank you Lord, how great thou art!!