maryfromtheprairie on Revelife

Monday, 26 January 2009

MOVING TO A NEW SITE

I am moving my blog to a new site.
Please feel free to stop by

From now on my blog will be posted at

http://www.heyyoulady.blogspot.com

Sunday, 18 January 2009

What makes your life exciting?

A couple years ago I was part of a group of regular chatters on Crosswalk.com. Like many online friends we all wanted an opportunity to meet and hang out face-to-face. There was just one problem -- Distance. You see, some of us were in different parts of California; others in the group were from Texas, Colorado, North Carolina, New York, and places in between. Meeting over coffee just wasn't practical.

Our opportunity to meet came when the gal from New York accepted an invitation to sing in a festival near Nashville, TN, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We were all excited for her! Not only is she realizing a long-time dream, it was also the perfect chance for some of us to finally hang out in person! Oh, if every day could be as exciting as the trip to Nashville. But time and money is a limited resource, and we can't do exciting things like that every day.

So how can we keep excitement, this feeling of lively and cheerful joy, in our lives?

Do what give you joy! This might sound like an obvious answer. But how often do we actually participate in things that give us joy? If the sound of a child's laughter gives you joy, then do things that make kids giggle. If you love to do crafts, make time on a regular basis to do so. If you love pets but live in a small apartment, roll around with a friend's dogs until the dog hair is interwoven in your favorite shirt.

For me, one thing that gives me joy is spending time in a small group talking about what the Holy Spirit has revealed to us. I have recently connected with a group of wonderful women in a group called "Fuzzy Slippers" that shares that same joy.

The level of excitement in our lives does not have to be "extreme" because most of us don't live "extreme" lives. It's the little things that can give us the day-to-day excitement that we all long for.
What about you? What makes your life exciting?

Friday, 09 January 2009

An Audience of One

"Whoah ... there are a lot of people out there!"

"How many? Is my dad in the audience?"

"A lot! ... Hey! Mr. Logan and his wife are here! Do you think they see me peeking?"

"But is my DADDY out there?"

"Um ... Oh, I see him! He's in the third row, one, two, three ... six seats from the left."

"Rebecca! Hurry! Get in your place! Mrs. Weaver is about to pull the curtain!"

When I was in kindergarten my class sang at a PTA meeting. What makes this event stand out in my memory is that there was a VIP in the auditorium, sitting about two rows from the back. When I saw this person I raised my right hand to about my waist and gave a tiny wave. I don't think anyone else on the stage noticed that VIP, but to me my mother was the most important person at McKinley School that night. I don't remember what song the group of not-yet-six-year-olds sang, but I can tell you that I sang loud and proud for my "audience of one."

It has been a few years since I was six. Since that time I've had many different "audiences" that I've tried to please -- teachers, friends, neighbors, strangers, fellow drivers, creditors, bosses, the coworker who received the ChiaPet from me in the office gift exchange -- the list is endless. It would be impossible to try to please everyone all of the time. Unless it pleases everyone that I fail ... but I don't believe that is the case.

The apostle Paul tells us in Colossians 3:23, "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for men." If, as William Shakespeare wrote in As You Like It,

All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts

then let us wake up each morning, peek out from behind the stage curtain and acknowledge our VIP in the audience -- our Heavenly Father, our Audience of One -- and perform to please Him and Him alone. After all, it is His applause that should matter most to us.

Saturday, 27 December 2008

Compassion

The 2008 Christmas season is now behind us. Gifts have been purchased, given, received, and in some cases returned or exchanged. Many of us have remembered the less fortunate during the season. Somehow we can always count on a warm-fuzzy feeling when we give our support to campaigns such as Salvation Army, Rescue Missions, Domestic Abuse shelters, Toys for Tots, and the like. Giving is a way that some of us express our compassion.

Compassion can be defined as deep awareness of the suffering of another, coupled with the wish to relieve it. It runs deeper than donating an unwrapped toy or a can of yams to a struggling family. Compassion drives us to want to do something that will make a difference in someone's life, to somehow contribute to changing their circumstances for the better.

One way that the church I attend shows compassion is in adopting a local domestic violence shelter. Adopting a family at a shelter is not unusual, especially during the holidays, and doing so does make a difference. In fact, last year the mother of one of the adopted families commented that the gift that she received from the "adopting" family was the first Christmas gift that she received in seventeen years!

However, December is only one month out of the year. These individuals and families are escaping months and sometimes years of living in fear, and are in a transitional process to break the cycle of allowing abuse to continue. And the change can be stressful. So our church goes a step beyond gifts at Christmas time to relieve the suffering of these families. Once every three months we host a special event where the families can just hang out together. For these events our church does all the work -- set-up, cooking, clean-up -- and teh only expectation that we have of the families is that they have a good time. During the fall we had a pizza party where we played group games such as Pictionary and Mad-Libs. Last August we hosted a picnic at a local park, with all thetypical family picnic games -- three-legged race, balloon toss, face painting, and the like. At the picnic one boy, about four years old, was reluctant to eat -- he didn't believe that all of this was for him. Another girl, about nine years old, told me that this was the first time she had ever been on a picnic.

I suppose my point is this: Compassion doesn't originate in our bleeding hearts or moral sweat, but in God's mercy (Romans 9:14, Message). Just as God's love and compassion for us knows no season, our compassion for others ought not to be seasonal. Suffering and social injustice in all its forms is present throughout the year. Shouldn't we be moved to action on a regular basis, and not just when we are buying the fixin's for our holiday dinners?

Saturday, 20 December 2008

Love one another

I’ve heard it said that, for a "belief system" that teaches "Love one another," Christianity is the most narrow-minded religion there is. Many nonChristians see people who wear the Christian label as being exclusionary. Unless you enjoy their entertainment, agree with their politics, shop where they shop, read their books, have sex only with your spouse, you can’t in good conscious call yourself a Christian. After all, you don’t want to do anything that could be misconstrued as consorting with the enemy.

Enemy?

If someone listens to Madonna, is a registered Democrat, buys their kids’ school clothes at Wal-Mart, read “Harry Potter”, or “lived together in sin”, they’re “of the enemy” and should be shunned from our congregations. If you’re not “for” Jesus, you’re “against” him. There can’t be any grey area, right?

Thank God most Christians I know do not believe that way. If all Christians did, then yes, Christianity would be the narrow-minded religion that some repute it to be, and the love of Jesus would be only for those who obeyed his commandments.

“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.” That is the command that Jesus gave his disciples at the Last Supper (John 13:34).

Jesus was not choosy in whom he loved. Rich and poor. Healthy and sick. The good, the bad, and the ugly. Being human means we are not perfect people. Not everything we do is the right thing, and love does not mean we accept what is wrong. Not everyone was lovable, yet he loved them anyway. He comforted the challenged, and challenged the comfortable, hoping to leave those he encountered more blessed than they were before.

Perhaps we should do the same. This is how everyone will recognize that we are Jesus’ disciples—when they see the love we have for each other.