So we’ve been through LOTS of stuff in our 11years of marriage. It’s always helpful to have my best friend by 
my side through it all. One of the things that I find the most interesting is that the Devil continues to attack almost like clockwork when we are on the right course. Has he learned nothing over the years….we’re ready for it…not in our power – but in His. There’s nothing that we can do other then pray and rely on the Lord. But we don’t need to do anything else. Ephesians 3:20-21
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Do y’all struggle with Change?? If you had asked me 2 weeks ago (and oddly enough – I was asked 2 weeks ago in a meeting) if I struggle with change, my answer would have been “NO”. In fact I would say that I LOVE change – when it’s with purpose especially. My living rooms is rearranged at least 3 times a year just to “keep things fresh”. But 2 weeks ago Noah, my son, was rushed to the ER and spent almost a week in ICU and was diagnosed with juvenile type 1 diabetes. And let me say from that moment on our life has changed. At first we felt devastated – our life, his life would never be the same. But when faced with the reality of 5-6 shots a day for the rest of his life, my son said “well, at least it’s not cough syrup – cause cough syrup is gross!”. What a GREAT attitude. We got him a cool bag for his supplies, went shopping for snacks he loves that he could eat and tried to make it fun. Our approach to this life change helped us cope!
It has got me thinking that there are so many changes that happen in our lives as parents and in our kids lives that can be easy or hard and some will depend on how we handle them from the beginning. Changing your diet or exercising more are areas that we all wish we could improve, but find it hard to change for the better. Changing schools, moving up into a new grade can be scary, hard, and often great! James 1:17 is such a powerful reminder to me – that when things around me are changing I can hold tight to the one who never changes!
- What are some changes that you see happening in your family?
- How can you make them more fun in order to help it become easier?
- Can you take a cue from your kids (like I had to) and see the bright side?
The idea of helping people deal with positive change easier is what drove this project in Stockholm called “The Fun Theory.” Volkswagen got involved and came up with an idea to change a set of stairs next to an escalator to see if they could inspire people to take the stairs instead.
Here is what happened:
Piano Stairs
Well starting a new job! Yep, I am the new Director of Children’s Ministries at Crossroads Fellowship Church. We are a multi-site church with a campus in Raleigh, NC and Wake Forest/Rolesville, NC. It’s been a little over a month since I accepted the position and it’s going super! Working with some awesome people who really know what it means to lead and be led by the Lord.
Check out the church crossroads.org
You can also find out more about the kids ministry on our facebook page
Excited to be settling in and get back to some blogging. See you soon!
Do I treat my church better then my home?
When we have company coming over to visit our homes how many of us (I would guess all of us) vacuum, dust, make sure the whole house is clean. We make sure the bathrooms are tidy, towels are clean the trash is empty.
Do we all put that much effort into making our church space as nice each week? I know I can forget that each week we are welcoming people into the Lords house and many for the first time. Which means that I need to make sure things are clean. Do I help my teams to remember this too?
Check your shelves, table tops, checkin areas, and nursery/preschool toy bins. Get rid of trash, broken toys, and stacks of papers and clutter. Clean up your spaces – it’s the first impression your guests will have of your ministry.
So a very valuable leadership lesson was illustrated perfectly to me this week by a trip to Wendy’s. Let me start by saying this was the end of a very long day that went anything but smooth – or as planned. So it was about 8pm before I was forced to make the choice of frozen pizza or Wendy’s for dinner. Wendy’s it was!
We went through the drive-thru and everything seemed to be going fine. I am “that person” that orders my sandwich different then on the menu. But it should be easy. It’s a #6 (Spicy Chicken Sandwich), with Lettuce only. I am not asking them to add anything, or make some wierd combination, light on the this……just Lettuce Only!. So after what felt like forever to get to the window to pick up the food I was told “it would be another minute or two for our fries to be done, please pull ahead and we’ll bring it right out to you”. Well that was my first red flag. Pulling ahead never seems to go well. There’s always something missing. But like I said it was a long day, so I politely agreed and pulled ahead. Almost 10minutes later the manager (who was working the windoer) brought out the bag. I proceeded to check my sandwich was “lettuce only” – and sure enough it had everything on it. :o( And there’s no way we’d been waiting 15 minutes for these fries, cause I am sure they were cooked the day before. They were limp and nasty!
So out of my truck and in I went. I politely asked to speak to the manager again (who was still working the window). There were 6 (yes 6) other employees working. At 8pm at night, and there was no body else in the restaurant. The manager was dropping chicken into the fryer, bringing chicken from the fryer to the line, and still working the window and getting drinks. The 3 people just standing around were doing a fine job of just that! Once she came over I said that my sandwich was wrong, it’s supposed to be just lettuce and asked that they give me a new one. She says “no problem” and takes the incorrect one away. I also ask for her to give us some fresh fries, cause these were cold, limp and nasty. She proceeds to say “they are fresh we just have bad oil”. I nicely asked for fresh fries anyway – cause these seemed particularly bad. So she went and dropped new fries and brought my new sandwich back. I pulled it out of the bag to check it and it was the same lettuce and chicken (still with mayo all over it) – they had just removed the tomato and onion and out it on a new bun. SERIOUSLY! I said “it’s still got mayo all over it” – so the manager brings the sandwich back and asks the line person “Just make her a fresh one I guess”. Now remember – there’s still now 4 people doing nothing. The manager is doing EVERYTHING! And Nothing is getting done well. Finally everything is done right – the fresh fries were great (I knew the others were just old!!!) and the sandwich delicious.
I tell you this because it was so clear that the Manager – the LEADER was not leading this team. She was on the field trying to play all the positions (window, drinks, fry cook, help customers, etc) while she had a team with plenty of people to take the service to a whole nutha level! But she wouldn’t get out of their way and encourage, inspire and lead them. Instead she has a bunch of lazy employees, getting by doing a half-ass job because that’s what they see their leader doing. And the leader is doing that because she’s trying to do everything and can’t focus on training and excellence.
Get out of the way and let your team do what they are there to do. And you stay off the field – they NEED you to lead. None of us does our team a favor when we stop doing our job and try doing all their’s.
Apparently from this picture my son wants to be a pirate zoo keeper???
How many of us are doing the thing we grew up wanting to do? How many of us are actually getting to do work that we love? Are we doing work that we are uniquely designed to do?
When I was a little kid I wanted to be a fashion designer. And believe me, my sketches were not pretty. Every person had there arms stretched out to their side like Jesus on the Cross (I seriously don’t know why) – and don’t even start with me and their late 80′s hair!
But in high school is when I first discovered my love for telling kids about Jesus and being involved in Kids Ministry. I’ve been a kids pastor since shortly after graduating highschool and it’s been the best ride in my life.
There have been challenges, changes, growth, failures, hard lessons, and huge blessings. But one thing that has remained constant is the calling. This is what God designed me to do – I’ve got skills and could do lots of other things, but none would be fulfilling my part of the body of Christ. I am so thankful for the opportunity to surrender my life to him so early in life. Looking back on where I am now I could have never imagined the journey would take me this far. And it’s exciting, scary, and so awesome to know there’s so much journey ahead.
While I may never grow up completely – I know what I want to be…….Exactly who God made me!
One of my very best friends sent me this poem today by Joyce Rupp. I think that each of us has at times in life felt like this. It’s so comforting to know that even in dark or dry times God has never left us.
Tiredness grounds me
Into a quiet stupor
of the spirit.
I yearn to be inspired,
to be lifted up, set free
beyond the place of deadness.
the struggle goes on,
however,
and you and I, God,
we exist together
with seemingly
little communion.
yet in the deepest part of me,
I believe in you,
perhaps more strongly than ever.
I am learning you
as a God of silence,
of darkness, deep and strong.
I do not wrestle anymore,
only wait, only wait,
for you to bring my dry bones
into dancing once again.
This week Noah had a project for school in which he had to write a “tall tale”. We had him read about Paul Bunyan, Pecos Bill, etc to help him understand what a tall tale was. To be honest he struggled with it. ALOT! Everytime he tried to come up with an idea it was not even close to tall tale-ness. Craig & I took him out to dinner that night and all evening talked about tall tales, made up tall tales as a family and had lots of fun with it. The next morning Noah wrote a great tall tale all his own.
But it got me thinking……Do we encourage our son to dream enough? I’ve got a great imagination and can remember making up huge stories and worlds and realities growing up (and sometimes now – don’t judge!). Am I passing that along to my son? Are we teaching our kids to dream HUGE dreams??
I have no doubt Noah’s got a great imagination – I’ve seen it in action. But to help prepare him for a faith filled life, and one full of possibilities I need to spend more time encouraging him to dream. To dream about his future, to dream about what could be, and through that I’ll be able to help him pray and trust in God even more.
So at least this week – I am very thankful for his homework!!
***Warning……you may be encouraged by this blog!
“Mommy, who’s your favorite prophet?” Noah asks me as we are cleaning up from dinner last night. My mommy/kids pastor heart leaps with joy!!! But I try to hide or at least contain my excitement that 1) My 8yr old knows what a bible prophet is at least enough to say it and 2) He asks me while we are loading the dishwasher! It’s like the Kids Pastor doubleplay! We work so hard to do all those things we are supposed to do – partner with parents, send home information, using texting, facebook, blogs, websites, anything and everything to help families have conversations about the bible and God. And MY KID just starts up the conversation.
Now I share this not to brag on my parenting skills or pretend that I have this raising a child that loves Jesus more figured out than anybody else……..but instead to share my excitement and joy that I feel just like you when we realize our kids are loving Jesus. It surprises me just like it does you. I wonder all the time if I am doing this “mom” thing right? I’ll probably never stop questioning that – but I am thankful for these little blessing moments!
I love my kid and he surprises me with something new everyday!
t’s Spring and that means the NC pollen drop. It’d our 4th Spring here now so I wasn’t at all surprised to see sights like this all over town today
If you know me- You know that I have horrible allergies. They are epic allergies. Take the worst you’ve seen and multiply by 10x and it might be close.
This pollen reminded me of sin. Sin has a way of infecting all areas of our lives. We can try to keep it out, compartmentalize it even- but it finds a way in. Theres nothing that you or I can do to stop it, to wash it away or hide it. But we don’t have to. We have Jesus.
As rain moves in tonight and the thought of tomorrow fills my mind- with the pollen washed away I think of the Micah 7:19
19 Once again you will show loving concern for us.
You will completely wipe out
the evil things we’ve done.
You will throw all of our sins
into the bottom of the sea.
I am so thankful for Jesus and that he has washed all my sins away and they are gone- forever!