thoughts.

I am feeling very inadequate to be teaching teenage girls.

Yet, I find myself teaching a 7th-8th grade Sunday School class

and starting tomorrow,

heading up a Retreat for 10-15 year olds.

What was I thinking?!!!!????!!!

Lord, hear me. Please. Give me words. Because I have none.

I am really enjoying Andrew Peterson's music.

Especially "Holy is the Lord"

Both things brought on by other blogs that I read today.

(Meg's post and Brianna's post)

Lord, what is worship to you? What would you have of me?

What is love?

Real love?

These questions have been plaguing me for weeks now.

For years I thought I knew...

I thought I understood what it meant to put others before myself.

To love them.

But I'm beginning to see that I had no idea.

Still, I read and read the Bible...

And I can't put what it says together with what I'm seeing.

For example:

I thought that to "love" meant to not lose my temper at people.

To take their harshness and not return with harshness of my own.

To absorb their anger

Along with my own.

After all, that is what God meant by "turn the other cheek", right?

But now I'm wondering...

Does that have more to do with enemies than fellow believers?

Would real love actually confront harshness?

I hate. hate. hate. the feeling of anger.

I would avoid it at all costs.

I would rather absorb than inflict.

But is that selfishness?

Is that the opposite of love?

Is that all about avoiding negative feelings,

and protecting myself?

I have no answers.

Lord, I just want to be like you.

I want to love like you.

If that means acknowledging anger when its there

And allowing others to see it and feel it

And dealing with the shame that comes from it

Then I'm willing.

Just help me understand.

Quilts

Quilts

I’ve discovered something about myself.

There are many things I love that I go through life without

because of fear.

One example: Quilts.

I adore quilts.

Not just any quilts-

I love ones that are filled with colors.

I’m not big on “quilted”.

I’m just big on “pieced”

And colorful.

Tied quilts are fine with me

As long as there are multitudes of colors.

(Did I mention that I love colors?)

However, when I was about fifteen I found out a terrible truth

I hate quilting.

Yep. Dislike it a lot.

I love the “idea” of quilting bees but in truth…

The ones that I’ve attended, I’ve been bored out of my mind.

The problem with that is…

Buying a quilt is way out of my price-range.

Looked at the cost of them lately?

Astronomical.

So… I went through life… without any.

Being terribly jealous of my sister-in-law

For her beautiful wedding quilt.

And then others that were given to her.

But my mother saved the day!

For Christmas one year she gave us all quilts…

Only I got the yellow one.

(My husband was ecstatic, he loves yellow)

But I love COLORS.

Then today it hit me.

I hate quilting because it is so detailed.

And details bore me.

But because I know how to quilt “right”

I wouldn’t ever think of doing it wrong.

(What would people think?

That I don’t know how to do it right?

I do.

I don’t actually need quilting lessons.)

And my fear of what other people think

(crazy, since no one ever goes into my spare bedroom

except kids under the age of 10.)

Was keeping me from enjoying the wild splashes of color that I love.

My spare bed

(my bed is lovingly covered with the yellow quilt, just as my husband wants)

Has been sporting an ugly blue comforter for three years now.

Today I changed that.

I was sitting in the spare room,

looked up and saw a pile of material cut into squares

(intended to be made into cloth napkins- don’t laugh, Meg!)

And thought,

“Why not just sew them all together?”

So I did.

I labeled my mismatched, scrap filled, uneven and wrinkly creation:

“The Perfectionists Nightmare”

And do you want to know the truth?

I. Love. It.

Seriously.

I adore it.

I showed my husband and he loved it as well.

Said he’d just as soon all quilts were like it.

(It can be used and if it gets ruined, well, it was only about 4 hours work!)

And as I sat there, estimating on the size of the squares (ha ha!)

And zipping them through the sewing machine…

I laughed at myself for my fear.

This is me.

I do crazy things like make quilts that are uneven,

And don’t iron my material because I don’t own an iron,

And go hunting through my scrap bag for something to fill in the edge that wasn’t long enough

And I love every minute of it.

The Damascus Way

The DamascusWay

I’ve been desperate lately for some good reading material. Unfortunately, the speed at which the local library acquires new fiction is much slower than my reading pace.

I’ve supplemented with quite a lot of nonfiction. The only problem is that I’m such a “studier” that I can’t just read through a good nonfiction. I want to take notes. So it is not very relaxing.

When I heard that Janette Oke and Davis Bunn were coming out with a new series based on the book of Acts, I was very excited. Unfortunately, I couldn’t seem to get into the first two books

Perhaps to someone who wasn’t as familiar with the book of Acts they would have been a bit more enthralling.

Still, when “The Damascus Way” appeared on the shelf, I checked it out and prepared to skim through it like I had the others.

But I did not.

I loved it.

The characters were interesting, but then again, that is something that Oke is known for- her real characters.

The story-line, in my mind, was fascinating.

What happens when a man’s wife, mistress and daughter all become believers?

The side-story of Abigail adds a bit of the quiet love-story that Oke is known for.

The glimpse into the early church is also something that excites me.

The miracles, the persecution, the rapid spreading of the gospel, the overwhelming sense that this is the church that Jesus died to create.

I’ll stop now.

But I will leave you with my favorite quote from the book.

“Part of coming to know Jesus is coming to know ourselves, Papa. Seeing all the things that we otherwise might wish to keep hidden. Even from our own minds.” (pg. 570)

Is that not the truth!