Better with Friends

World's Rarest Beer

WARNING! (I doubt anyone but foodies and micro-brewers will appreciate this post.)

Tonight I had the privilege of trying Westvleteren XII, aka: The World's Rarest Beer. After all the hype, I was prepared to be underwhelmed. Boy, was that a mistake! It is bitter to the tip of the tongue but goes down smooth and sweet with a hint of horehound and honied undertones. It. Was. Amazing.

I am so thankful to Brandon and his buddies who managed to get their hands on a single 6 pack but especially to Brandon who brought it New Year's Eve because, in his words, "Good things are always better when shared with friends."

oh nooooooes!

Little Frog

My youngest nephew, Little Frog, is a huge Looney Tunes fan and when he's being good he gets to watch it as a treat during his rest time. Today was one such day so we (my sister, mother, and I) were mystified when he left his rest time and his cartoons and came to the living room in tears. After much cajoling we finally figured out what had upset him so badly:


Apparently, the episode that came on was in black and white instead of in color. 


He was convinced that the television was broken and he could no longer watch Looney Tunes. We couldn't convince him otherwise and he cried himself to sleep. We couldn't stop laughing for a good ten minutes as he sobbed and someday this picture is getting shown to a girlfriend.

Access

I am a firm believer in legacy- I believe if we don’t take the time to allow others access to us and all that we are, then we are missing the point of this whole thing we call ‘life’. Thus, my goal in living ‘Open’ is to allow the ones God sends me to take the best of me and learn from the rest of me.  As a result of this belief I am always on the look out for that special ‘someone’ that God lays out for me to spend extra time with and invest in.

So it was that a few days ago, when I felt prompted to contact a new friend and tell her that she could feel free to call anytime, I didn't hesitate. Her reaction to my text was to call me immediately (which confirmed for me that I really had heard the Holy Spirit instead of last night’s pizza).

I didn’t do anything, mind you, except give her permission to contact me without worrying about being a ‘bother’ but it was something she needed to hear. She needed a reminder that God cared about her day to day life in a significant way. I dare say that my words brought hope.

I don’t think many people recognize the incredible impact made by the simplest of gestures or words when they are inspired by the Holy Spirit.  When I was a young mother there was a time when I was stuck in the hospital, having just come out of a 14 hour long brain surgery, plagued by seizures as my brain adjusted to the removal of a large tumor. The seizures were so intense that they would completely paralyze my entire right side for hours at a time. Just as I regained movement in my fingers, another seizure would strike. After two days of this, I looked to my mother who was at my side and the family friend who had come to pray with us and confessed, “I think I’m all out of faith.” My mom’s quick and firm reply was, “Don’t you worry about that. I have enough faith for the both of us.”  At this, I was able to shed my tears and again hope that God would come through. My mom understood that not all gifts are tangible. Sometimes, you can only give the gift of a peaceful presence.

Right before Jesus died, he told his disciples and friends, “I do not give to you as the world gives.” As we endeavor to pass our lives on to those God sends our way, it is easy to forget that in addition to practical skills, acts of service, and conventional wisdom, we have something that is worth more than gold: our time and our presence. Jesus taught prayer and ministry and theology, yes. But the truest gifts he gave those he mentored were His time and His peace. Don’t be shy about calling someone up and asking them out for coffee or ice cream. Exposure to us will teach more than mere words in an email- it will teach them to ‘not be afraid’ of life’s storms.

-Zonoma

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”

-John 14:27

Papa Prays

It is a very great gift to be given parents who pray for us.

just ask

Do you want to know how a follower of Jesus should live? Ask just about anyone except a Christian. Ask a Buddhist, a Wiccan, a Hindu, or a Muslim. Ask a pagan or an atheist. Don't know any? You might want to start there.*

-Zonoma

*If I am fortunate enough to have any spiritually minded non-Christians reading this blog, feel free to chime in. This is a question I love to ask from time to time myself.

First Snow Falls

I love the way fresh snow perches on little branches
like an unspoken invitation to the
little birds.

Year of Invitation

It’s Christmas time and the tree is trimmed, the stockings are hung and the smooth sounds of my favorite holiday jazz album are filtering through the house. The small nativity set that my mother gave me sits in a place of honor in the living area. I keep it where the boys can reach it and often catch my youngest son playing with baby Jesus or rearranging it into scenes that come alive in his mind. Recently, I noticed that he rearranged it so that no one could see the baby Jesus figurine because of the wise men crowding around him. I reached out to change it and then stopped and wondered, “Did the wise men get out of the way when they were worshipping so that others could see the baby Jesus, too?”

Do I?  Do you?

Mary did. Even in her exhausted and vulnerable state, Mary understood that the child she bore was not for her- He was for the world. So it was that when the world showed up on her doorstep before she could even find proper attire for the child-god, she did not hide him but rather invited the world inside her sanctuary to worship. Can we do any different? Let us be inviters in the year to come. When the world darkens the doorsteps of our homes searching for something small that they cannot name, let us show them Jesus. When the world finds themselves in our neighborhoods,  when they come smelling like unwashed shepherds and weary worn from their trials and long journeys of their own making then let us, like Mary, throw the barn doors open and let the light spill into the streets. Let us invite them in to our safe places to worship with us.  

“Sovereign Lord, as you have promised,


you may now dismiss your servant in peace.

For my eyes have seen your salvation,

which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:

a light for revelation to the Gentiles,


and the glory of your people Israel.”

-Simeon’s Song, Luke 2:29-32

Monsters Under the Bed, Part 2

I decided long ago to live open, stay kinetic, and be brave. Yesterday’s post was hard, though. It was too fresh, too new of a revelation, and too raw of a hurt. The funny thing was that I didn’t know that fear existed in me before yesterday! It took a bad case of Writer’s Block and some Divine Drain-O to figure it out. Then it was even harder posting it because blogging, for me, isn’t an anonymous endeavor. I am a volunteer pastor at a local church and many of them read this blog.  I also write the small group curriculum and often use concepts that initially hammered out here. So last night, at small group, I had the dubious privilege of sharing one of my deepest, darkest fears with 15 other people (and which ever of the 45 other small groups in our church used this week’s curriculum).  I wanted to go home and hide under my covers and never come out again. It was horrifying and awful but, at the risk of sounding cliché, I knew that God wanted me to do it.

Now, I don’t know if God used that story to help anyone else significantly. Topics like fighting fear with love usually take seed slowly and grow even slower (obviously!)- I suspect that I won’t know if my words had an impact on anyone for years. I hope they did, though, because I know God used them to help me. Articulating my fears forced me to admit that they existed, turn them around, examine them and understand them.

Then God pulled one of his “God Things” out and taught me a lesson or two.

Mere hours after I posted about Monsters Under the Bed, gifts started showing up. Gifts that took time and energy to make. Gifts that said, “I know who you are!” from people whom I’d never shared this fear with before.  Last night a boxed gift set and a gift card to a restaurant and a kindly worded note, a rare smile from a sad-eyed woman I’ve often prayed for, a chance to hold a long-anticipated baby boy, a card in the mailbox with another gift, and this morning a box of handcrafted soaps and lotions. I know when a so-called coincidence is not a coincidence. These weren’t just gifts that were purchased in haste because of a perceived pity party.

And you were there, and you were there, and..

God KNEW!  I’m so humbled and amazed by a God who has given me my heart’s desire and then took the time to help me see it: a community that has embraced me and my quirky family completely. I still struggle with that fear but it is diminished now. The day He asked me to confront it was the day he crushed its head with, of all things, humble pie as I realized that what I longed for was mine all along. And humble pie never tasted so good. It was very Wizard Of Oz.

It made me think of God in a whole new light. Well, perhaps not. Perhaps it is better to say it helped me understand Him in a whole new way because my head often “knows” what my heart cannot yet comprehend. Today as I looked at our Christmas tree with all of its shining ornaments, I envisioned God much like a parent at Christmas time. Grinning in anticipation as He wraps a gift while listening to an angelic chorus caroling in the background (but it has to be a live chorus because he’s God and probably doesn’t need an iPod). Maybe there’s even a glass of wine. Either way, the gifts He has prepared for me are for me alone. I just have to wait til he gives them. Or, in this case, until he shows me how to play with them.

Thank you, God, for community. Thank you for friends. Thank you for a place to belong. I see them now. And Merry Christmas to you, too.

Monsters Under the Bed

I am afraid of needles. In fact, I passed out when I got my ears pierced! I don’t think that makes me a coward, though, because I have killed poisonous snakes, climbed mountains, been in an airplane that was on fire, and stood face to face with a gun wielding gang member without panicking. I just don’t like needles.  Or motorcycles (to be fair, I think that’s more logic than fear). It’s easy to laugh at our idiosyncrasies and pretend they are the sum of our fears but we all know there are scarier things than spiders. Individual fears are the proverbial Monster Under the Bed. They lurk until we are alone, lying in the dark, recounting our day for God, weighing each thing carefully.  Fear is the Joy Stealer, Heart Crusher, and the Dream Destroyer. It bites our heels and hisses in our ears. It binds our hearts and breaks our lines. Fear is a thief.

What do you fear?

I fear not fitting in. I fear that everyone around me has such good friendships that have grown over a life time of living in one place that I, as a relative newcomer and ARMY brat, will never be able to understand on a level that allows me to truly ‘belong’.  My fear robs me of the comfort of life-long friends. Every time someone says something nice, my fear whispers to me about how truly kind they are to include the new person. It makes me want to be like them but it doesn’t allow me to accept that they might actually consider me a deep and true friend. A very few wise people have caught on to this fear of mine and are slowly helping me overcome it, with the power of love and insight provided by God, but it lingers. Fighting fear can be a long road. I only become a coward when I stop fighting.

What does your fear rob you of?

And what about when a nation is gripped by fear? What happens when an entire people group is afraid of the same thing? Economic decline, violence in the schools, the zombie apocalypse… take your pick. There’s plenty to choose from and a quick glance at a history book will tell us that nations in fear have the potential to do ugly things.  What does our nation’s fear rob us of? I am not wise enough to say but history will teach our grandchildren about our fears and what came of them, of that I am certain!

Whether it is a ridiculous aversion to needles or a world-wide epidemic, if we are to be the light of the world then we must stay on our guard against fear. We must not become reactionary, fear-driven people but rather a people that run to God with our needles, spiders, clowns,  fear-driven desperation and even rage. He is big enough to handle them. In fact, He is the only one big enough to navigate through the tsunami of emotions we feel and plot the true course. We only need to follow his lead despite the fear that claws at our hearts. Keep following, Brave Hearts. Keep fighting because though fear bites our heels for a little while, we will crush its head in the end.