"Not Me!" Monday.

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama. You can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

There is no way that this week I got into, not one but, two towel fights at work. I did not waste the company's valuable time snapping 20 year old young men with the corner of a wet towel. I would never leave welts on another human being. That's abusive and cruel. I would never be so immature. Not me!

There is no way that I would snap an unarmed man while he was showing off the welts on his back. Nope, that would be cruel. And I would not give him a free shot at my rear end, then go into the bathroom and snap a picture of my leg where he left a nice bruise. And there's absolutely NO WAY that I send the picture to twitpic! Really, who does that? Not me!

It is impossible that I would feel a sense of pride that, when ganged up on by 2 guys, I left many more welts on them than the 3 I brought home. No way that it makes me feel young and powerful. Heavens, I'm 40 years old not 16. That was NOT ME!

TAWANDA!!! <--- I did NOT just say that!

What didn't you do this week?

Physically Blinded in the Spiritual Realm

My friend Jennifer just spent the last 30 minutes trying desperately to figure out why her car wouldn't start. She had her Twitter friends sending her all kinds of ideas on how to hold the steering wheel, put it in Park, reset the alarm, change the fuse and many other ideas. After 30 minutes she realized that she was not in her own car! Laugh yes, it's funny. But it reminds me of an instance in my life many years ago.

I was 19, working at a theater running lights. My friend invited me up to her college apartment for the weekend. I left after the last performance of the current play, late on a Friday night.

I got in my car and headed to the highway. Somehow I was blinded to the entrance. I had taken that entrance hundreds of times before, but I never saw it this time. I wasn't distracted, there were no cell phones. I just simply didn't see it, like, didn't see it, it wasn't there, kind of didn't see it.

I thought I'd just take another way. I wound my way around turn after turn, dead end after dead end, getting more frustrated and annoyed with myself every moment. I wasn't lost. I knew where I was. I was just thwarted.

After an hour of driving around, I finally got on the highway headed towards my friend's place. About halfway there the pit of my stomach dropped out as I drove over a huge streak of blood and glass. There were police everywhere. I didn't know what happened but I knew that someone must have died.

Once I got to my friend's place I called another friend to let her know I'd arrived. She was almost in hysterics with worry. She told me that a woman in a Toyota (like mine) had hit a horse on the highway and was instantly killed. The accident happened about an hour before I passed that spot.

Freaky? Yes! But I have never had a doubt in my mind that the angels that are assigned to watch over me, blinded me to the entrance of the highway in order to keep me from being killed down the road that night. I can't answer for the woman that was killed that night, but I know that I was not ready to meet the Creator of the Universe at that time.

I am equally sure that Jennifer was blinded today to the fact that she wasn't in her own car. Really, how can you sit in someone else's car for half an hour and not recognize that you are surrounded by things that don't belong to you? You could blame Jennifer's situation on the fact that she's pregnant, and laugh at her mistake. But I would bet my bottom dollar that she was not meant to see her surroundings. I'd bet she was blinded in the spiritual realm for a purpose. Maybe she will never know why. Then again, maybe she will.

Have you ever been in a situation where you felt like you were blinded for a purpose?

This is the Life...

My life right now is exhausting. I am working 5 nights per week at Krispy Kreme Donuts, from 10pm until 2 am. It takes me about an hour after getting home to wind down enough to go to bed.

Each week day morning I have 2 extra kids. One of them is 4th grade and goes to school at 8:10 with my Bigs and the other is in Kindergarten and I take him to school after feeding him lunch, at 12:30.

Since I am only getting 4 or so hours of sleep at night, I try to nap when the littles go down for their nap. It hasn't been happening on a regular basis because we are a family of 7 and we have many appointments. Lately, we have had dentist appointments, cleanings, fillings and more fillings. :( boooo. We've also had many check ups and I am seeing a new chiropractor, which means more appointments.

My mom recently had surgery on her foot and is in a non-weight-bearing cast. She is more mobile than she was 5 weeks ago, but she needs help showering. I happen to be her only daughter, AND her husband is not physically well enough to help, so it falls to me to go as often as I can to give her a shower. Don't take this as complaining, it's not. In light of my friend Heather who suddenly lost her mom, Margaret, the job of spending time helping my mom is something I have chosen to be joyful about.

There are also the ministry areas that I am involved in. Youth group. Choir. "And If Not" band, which I need to post about.

That's my life right now. I'm not complaining, it's a wonderful, blessed, full life. It's just if you check my blog waiting for 10 days to post something new and exciting, I wanted you to know why it might take me that long to post new stuff. There's just not much time for blogging right now. :( booooo.

Being Filled.

Our fast is almost over. We have emptied our bodies, deprived ourselves of all kinds of foods. In a few hours we’ll eat again, and there are lots of choices of what to put into our waiting stomachs. You can put in junk food. You can choose healthy alternatives. I recommend taking it easy. Choose foods that are gentle on the stomach and easy to digest.
It’s very much the same on a spiritual level. I looked up all the verses in the Bible that talk about being filled. You can be filled with anger, hate, malice, envy, evil, fear, worry, terror, self, pride, and deceit. You can also be filled with compassion, love, joy, mercy, righteousness, knowledge of the glory of the Lord, awe, glory, justice and power of the Spirit of the Lord. You can be filled with the Holy Spirit, God himself, in you.
If you’ve been on your face before God, I’m sure that He has helped you empty your spirit of the junk you found there. Maybe you found yourself truly hungry for righteousness, desiring to have God fill you. That is what God wants to do!
God had this crazy idea, because He is crazy in love with you, that he would send his son to the Earth to die for us, to give us the Holy Spirit, so that He can fill us up. He is crazy about you, and He wants you to be crazy about Him, so that you can live in fellowship with Him forever.
Paul writes, “For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.
 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Ephesians 3:14-21
In these last few hours, meditate on how wide, long, high and deep the love of Christ is and what it means to be “filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”.

Read Acts 2
What happened to the people gathered together?
What did people on the outside think of them?
How did those filled with the Spirit live afterwards?
In what way does this apply to you today?

Feed the Hungry

I’ve said it. My kids have said it. You’ve probably said it too. “I’m starving!” Really? If you’re like me you’ve probably skipped fewer meals in your life than you have fingers on your hands. Most of us have never known true hunger, much less starvation. We’re definitely feeling hungry now. And that’s good because we’re going to feel a lot more compassion for the people we meet today who may only get one meal a day, maybe less. What you’re feeling right now, for some, is a normal, day in, day out feeling.
I bet you’re thinking “There’s a whole hungry world out there. I can’t feed them all.” (I’m sure you were thinking that, not how hungry you are!) Have you ever heard the story…
There was an old man walking on the beach one day at low tide. Another man watched from a distance as the old man bent down picked something up and threw it into the sea. As he got closer he discovered that the old man was tossing stranded starfish back into the sea so they would not die in the sun. The man called out to the old man, “You’re crazy! There are millions of starfish dying on the beach, you can’t save all of them! No matter how many you throw into the sea, it won’t make any difference, millions more will die.” The old man looked at the other man for a moment. Then he bent down and picked up a starfish and as he threw it back into the sea he said, “It made a difference to that one.”
Jesus said that loving others is the most important thing next to loving God himself. And not just loving your friends and family, but loving those who don’t love you back and those who can’t repay your kindness. That goes totally against our nature, doesn’t it? It’s just not normal.
It’s not normal for us, but it’s very normal for God. God is Love. Love is not just what He does, it’s who He is. When we love others, people we don’t know, people who don’t love us back, even our enemies, we are showing them the very nature of God. Think about these words, “For God so loved the world that He gave…” He gave to a world that doesn’t love Him. He gave to a world that can’t pay Him back.
When we show love to others, it is a form of worship. It tells God that we know who He is and that we want to be like Him. Maybe we can’t reach everyone with God’s love, but we can show God’s love to our neighbors. We can make a difference to someone.

Read Matthew 25:31-46
Were these people surprised by the way they were sorted? Why?
Why was it so important to the King?
What does this passage mean?
How can you apply it to your life today?

Getting Bit by Procrastination.

Last night I was going to blog about the 4 scheduled posts I set up, but I ran out of time and didn't get back to it. I had decided I would post about it early this morning (Friday). As luck would have it (if I believed in luck which I don't), I woke up with a screaming migraine, complete with puking that took me out for the entire day. So, my scheduled posts started appearing, um, as scheduled, with no explanation whatsoever. And they seem a bit out of place without an explanation. So, mid-schedule, here it is....

Our youth group, of which I am a sponsor, is having a 30 hour famine. At noon today (Friday) the kids started fasting, and it will go until 6 pm on Saturday. I was asked to put together some devotions for the kids to read/do during the fast. It was a great project for me and I wanted to share the devotions with you.

So that is what is going on. Sometimes when you procrastinate it comes around to bite you in the backside. And thanks to my lovely migraine, my fast started 15 hours earlier than scheduled. I still haven't decided whether I will end my fast at the 30 hour mark or whether I will make it a 45 hour fast, to continue fasting with the youth group.

Being Hungry

Right about now you might be getting hungry. It’s time for everyone else to eat and you’re not that far into this 30 hour famine. Physically your blood sugar may be getting low, triggering your stomach to start producing acid in anticipation of food that should be arriving from above, but isn’t. You might be thinking about food and causing a salivary response. Soon every cell in your body will be waiting, wanting, desiring and craving nourishment.
Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” Matthew 5:6
Ok, we’re hungry, but what is righteousness, you ask. Good question! Righteousness is the quality of being pure, without guilt or sin.
Think about His words. He’s saying that it’s a good thing when every cell in your body is waiting, wanting, desiring and craving being without sin or guilt, and He is promising that those who crave righteousness like that will be filled. Simply, when you want with your whole self to be without sin, God will meet that need!
You are going to get more and more hungry. Really, it’s the truth. As you feel the physical effects of being hungry meditate on Jesus words, and what they mean. Are there areas in your life, your present or your past that cause you to feel guilt? Have you talked to God about those areas? Do you have a deep desire to be made clean?
1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” That’s it. If you want that hunger and thirst to be filled, all you have to do is confess it to God, and He will forgive, cleanse and purify us, not just from part of our sin, but ALL of it. Not just a snack, or a drink of Gatorade, but a feast!
Imagine, you've been snacking on the bus after school on candy and chips, and you walk into your house and your mom has prepared a gourmet feast just for you. Only, you’re not hungry. You’ve filled up on junk food and you just can’t fit in another bite.
God wants us to be hungry. He wants us to be empty of all the junk that can’t satisfy us. He wants us to experience how much we need Him. Because, when you get to that point, when you know just how empty you can get, He knows that He can fill you. He’s got a feast of righteousness just waiting until you are hungry enough to come to Him. And when you know just how hungry you are, you will be able to taste and see how good God is!

Read Psalm 34
What promises do you see?
How are the righteous treated differently than those who do evil?
How do these promises apply to you today?