O Holy Night

The night was holy because the baby was holy.

Holy

It’s one of those church words. Most of us have learned that it means “separate or set apart.” There are other definitions, “sinless purity, blameless, faultless, unblemished, perfect.”

While all these definitions are true, none of these words are enough. None of these words individually hold the awe and reverence and worship due to the Holy Savior that came as an infant and made the night holy.

Just for a second, let’s leave the holy night on Earth and take a gander at the holy dwelling place that the holy Savior left to come down to Earth.

There are a couple places in the Word that give us a dim glimpse of the holiness in the throne room of Heaven. (Why don’t you whip out your Bible and give Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4-5 a read. I’ll wait right here)

I say “dim glimpse” because Isaiah and John both see something so supernatural, so holy, so awe inspiring that they fall on their faces in full knowledge of their unholiness and later, after their experiences in Heaven, they try to use earthly words to describe a non-earthly, supernatural place.

In Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4-5, they use phrases that describe God as One who looked like jasper and carnelian stone. He was seated on the throne which looked like an emerald with a rainbow surrounding it and had a sea of glass similar to crystal in front of it.

They describe Jesus like a slaughtered lamb with seven horns and seven eyes who was standing between the throne and four living creatures and the elders.

Let’s chat about those four living creatures and the elders for a hot second. The living creatures sound like something straight out of a modern-day sci-fi movie. One looked like a lion, another like a calf, anther like a man and another like a flying eagle. They had six wings with which they covered their faces and their feet. Their bodies and their six wings were covered in eyes. There were 24 elders were constantly falling down and throwing their crowns in worship at the feet of the One on the throne and the Lamb. They worshipped (and still do) in reverence and holy fear and proclaimed….

“Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of Hosts; His glory fills the whole earth” Isaiah 6:3

“Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty who was, who is and who is coming” Rev 4:8

“Blessing and honor and glory and dominion to the One seated on the throne and to the Lamb, forever and ever! Amen! Rev 5:13

The Holy One in His Holy Dwelling place…..worshipped for all Eternity in awe and wonder

So it begs the question,

Why would Jesus leave this place where He is eternally worshipped in His awesome Holiness?

Well, the Christmas carol, “O Holy Night” helps us….

Holy Jesus left the Holy Heaven to come to the unholy Earth because we “long lay in sin and error pining”

He left His Holy dwelling place and came here because ever since Adam and Eve listened to the Enemy twisting and misquoting the words of God….ever since they made (and we continue to make) the choice to try and be like God, we have all been stuck in sin and error.

God made a way for us to become unstuck.

And when the Holy Savior came as an infant on a night made holy by Him, He brought “a thrill of hope to the weary world”

Are you weary?

I’m not talking about the “holiday season weary”. The “there is too much to do in life and mama needs a nap” weary.

I’m talking about the soul weariness that comes from trying to be everything to everyone

I’m talking about the soul weariness that comes from striving. Striving to be “perfect”. Striving to look right, act right, live right, be right.

I’m talking about the soul weariness from the addiction we can’t beat, the obsession we can’t stop worshiping.

I’m talking about the soul weariness from, out of our own pride and power, trying to understand and fix a fallen world that refuses to stop living in a sinful state.

I’m talking about the soul weariness that comes from the reality that we really are weak and fallen even when we spend countless hours, time and energy trying to fool ourselves into believing otherwise.

Our world is weary because so many of us, including those of us who call Jesus our Lord, have missed the holiness of the night, the holiness of the Savior and the hope that He brings us here and now on this Earth.

This Christmas carol reminds us-

“He knows our need, to our weakness is no stranger”

“Chains shall He break….and in His name, all oppression shall cease”

“He appears and the soul feels it’s worth”

Because Jesus came to Earth, we can experience “the thrill of hope to the weary world”

So what is our response to this Holy Savior who came and made this night holy?

Again, the carol helps us.

“Fall on your knees; O hear the Angel voices”

“Let all within us Praise His Holy name”

“Christ is the Lord! O praise His name forever”

The night was holy because the baby was holy

“His power and glory, may we evermore proclaim!”

Life lesson in the book of Judges

As parents, we want what is best for our kids. Most parents I know would do just about anything for their kids. It comes from love and protection. Fear the mama bear…..or in my world, after seeing a fabulous Instagram video of a moose chasing down a bear…..fear the mama moose. Many of us would do anything to protect our kids from pain, heartache, struggle. We want them to have better than what we had or didn’t have. We want them to live higher, stronger, better.

I know there are many different parenting styles out there and just because someone parents differently than I do doesn’t mean that their way is wrong…..novel idea these day…..just because we don’t like the way someone else does something doesn’t necessarily mean they are wrong…..often, it just means they do thing differently. And, you know what, if they do things differently or even if they are wrong……we can still be friends, and we can still support one another. Over the years I have seen massive, bloodied parenting battles rage over Huggies vs cloth diapers, stay at home mama vs working another job outside the home mama, co-sleeping vs crib, pre-made baby food vs organic homemade baby food, breast vs bottle, homeschool vs public school vs private school and now….vs online school, cell phones in elementary school vs cell phones in junior high vs cell phone in high school, allowing social media vs not allowing social media, sleepovers vs no sleepovers, dating before 16 years old vs no dating, “helicopter”/”bulldozer” parenting vs “permissive” parenting……the list goes on and on and on. Man, do we love to fight.

Parenting is hard work. And those adorable little rascals do not pop out with a user manual in the box. But……parenting is also a gift from God…..and He does give us a “user manual” for life ….and that life for many of us, includes parenting. No, the Bible is not going to tell us which way to diaper our kids or what kind of school to put them in or if they should have a cell phone by 6th grade or not….those are decisions that are culturally influenced. Life and culture in 2023 America look very different than 1100 B.C Israel. We are going to make different decisions on how to do daily life. But just like in 1100 B.C Israel, in 2023 America, we still learn one of two ways: mentorship or mistakes. The Bible is one way for us to know God and learn from Him: mentorship….or more accurately, discipleship. This morning during my time in the Word, one of those mentorship moments jumped out in the book of Judges.

In the of book of Judges, we get a many century span glimpse of generations of Israelites. We see one generation who follows the Lord and “after them another generation rose up who did not know the Lord or the works He had done for Israel” (Judges 2:10). And, it happens over and over and over all the way to the end when Judges 21:25 tells us that “in those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did whatever he wanted”. The Israelites would do what was “evil in the Lord’s sight” (Judges 2:11) and He would allow the consequences for their fool behavior (i.e sin) to affect them. But then, because of His love and compassion for His people, when they would turn away from their fool behavior (i.e. repent), He would help them and send a deliverer (Judges 2:16) (hello……Jesus……anyone……amen!)

Then Judges 2:22 says something that many people don’t like to hear, “I (God) did this to test Israel and see whether they would keep the Lord’s way by walking in it, as their fathers had”. God tests us? Yup. But wait….”we are Christians, God doesn’t test us now. That’s just Old Testament stuff”. Well….. James 1:2-3 “Consider if a great joy, my brothers whenever you experience various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. But endurance must do its complete work so that you may be mature and complete, lacking nothing.” To sum this up…..God tested us then. God tests us now. Like it or not, your choice. Agree with it or not, your choice. Doesn’t change the truth that it happens and doesn’t change the truth He is God and knows best and thank goodness, we are not god and do not know best….but that is a whole ‘nother blog.

Ok, back to Judges…..and this is what jumped of the page at me this morning…. “These are the nations the Lord left in order to test Israel, since the Israelites had fought none of this in any wars with Canaan. This was to teach future generations of the Israelites how to fight in battle, especially those who had not fought before.” (Judges 3:1-2, emphasis mine)

Ok, let’s back the snack wagon up for a hot second. Based on these scriptures we can see that

1. God loves us and cares for us despite our sin/fool choices

2. God requires us to turn from our sin and turn back to Him.

3. God allows consequences for our sin. Consequences happen both here and now and then and there. Consequences in this world and also consequences of Heaven/no Heaven. Consequences of sin in this world don’t change much even if we have accepted Jesus as this world is still “under the curse” (Romans 8:19-23, Romans 7:22-25). Although our lives should be radically affected by our relationship with Jesus, and we should be striving not to sin once we have accepted Jesus (Romans 6) yet Paul shows us that it’s a daily battle (Romans 7:22-25) so ain’t nobody gonna get it totally right til Heaven. Consequences of sin in the next world, i.e. Heaven are determined SOLELY by our acceptance of Jesus’ sacrifice of His perfect life in place of our lives marked by sin (John 3:16-21, Romans 8: 1-11) and NOT by how good we were, how nice we were, how serving we were, how accepting we were, how tolerating we were, or how much we went to church.

4. God allows His people to be tested through trials. Some of those trials and testing are allowed by God, some are of our own making and some just happen to us, because…yeah, since Genesis 3, we live in a sinful world, y’all. (I think many times we read the Bible as God’s original intent for this world and our relationship with Him and each other, rather than as His heart for His world and His people that live in a muddy pit of sin and shame ever since Genesis 3. If we want to know what God’s original intent for this world and our relationship with Him and each other was, we have to go back and study Genesis 1-2. Genesis 3 and onward is how to live in relationship with Him and each other in a sin filled world. But once again…..that’s a whole nother blog as well)

5. Sometimes God allows enemies/trials/evils in the world to remain in order to teach future generations how to fight in battle……..but a thought before we go off on a wackadoodle “Onward Christian soldiers (un)holy war” rampage and start tearing down and destroying other humans (that God made) and burning all the books we don’t like and sending “hate “fighting the enemy” email and social media posts……. whenever God called the Israelites to fight in battle it was more about them doing the thing EXACTLY how He told them to and their reliance on Him more than the battle itself (see….well….the whole Bible, especially the first 5 books of our Old Testament…the Torah). Biblically, learning how to fight in battle is learning how to follow God in every step and as Jesus taught us, learning to turn the other cheek in humility and loving others.

Honestly y’all, we could take all 5 of these points and discus and apply to all areas of our lives. But for this blog, we’re gonna go with parenting.

So, let’s go back to the premise of “mama moose” and doing everything possible to protect our kids from pain, heartache and struggle. Here’s the thing with “mama moose”…..it’s exhausting, it’s frustrating and it’s defeating. No matter how much we love those rascals, they are just that…..rascals. They are as sinful as each of us. They are going to make mistakes like each of us do and no matter how hard we try to force other people/communities/governments/etc to follow our particular set of morals, this world will remain under the curse of sin until Jesus sets foot back on Earth in the Second Coming. It’s hard to see it when your little bundle of joy is a bundle, snuggled up in your arms, but then they grow and their will comes out. Will? Yeah, will…..that stubborn “Do self”, “My way”, “NO, MAMA!!!” of the toddler, elementary and teen years. Ok, let’s be real again…..of the whole life years. Oh, the stories of asshattery (New Texas girl version of the Bible’s word for sin) in the Marsh Big Top are legendary! But then again, the stories of the asshattery in the Marsh Big Top’s parents (being me and my big, bald, good lookin’ man) lives are legendary as well. Apples don’t fall far from tree.

Sadly, many of us take on our kid’s sin, our kid’s bad choices, our kid’s behavior and try to explain it away, cover it up or even bulldoze the teacher, the officer, the boss into taking away our kid’s school consequences/bad grade/ticket/firing that they earned through their fool choices. We spend our lives putting fires out in the name of love (is it love, or is it fear and control? Just throwing the thought out there to ponder) without dealing with the behaviors that are causing the fires……and we are exhausted and frustrated and often bumfuddled by the seasonal hot messes in our kid’s lives.

Let’s back that snack wagon on up again and apply those 5 things we learned out of the book of Judges….

1.God loves us and cares for us despite our sin. We can love and care for our kids, despite their fool choices….their will….their asshattery…..their sin. Loving someone is NOT dependent on their life choices. God loves…..we love. And yet, love does not mean we love every aspect of their choices or actions, especially when those choices or actions are asshattery/fool choices/sin. I do recognize that it is often very hard to separate a person from their asshattery/fool choices/sin thus making it a hard and painful choice to love and love in humility. This is why we need a daily walking, talking relationship with Jesus. “Love the sinner, hate the sin” is a great soundbite that has sadly done more harm than good because only Jesus knows how to put that into action the right way. Left up to us, we often tell someone that we need them to know up front that we hate their sin, but bless their hearts, we really do love them. Really, what we mean is that we know they are sinning and they need to know we know that they are sinning they need to get rid of their sin to prove that they are worthy of that love, but aren’t we fabulous humans to love others who are so sin filled (forgetting that we are also so sin filled)…..and that, campers, ain’t God’s way.

2. God requires us to turn from our sin and back to Him. Here’s a hard one because we ain’t God….even to our kids, we ain’t God. We want to be and we act like we are, but we ain’t. We are parents and it’s our job to disciple (don’t read too fast…..I said DISCIPLE.) our kids and teach them over and over and over that God loves them and He wants them to turn from their sin and back to Him. Just like God did with the Israelites, and God does with us….He is God the Father, after all.

3. God allows consequences for our sin. This one is SO hard and something, in our culture, we often fail at as parents to allow consequences to take place. We feel guilty that those rascals we made and love will feel the hurt or even discomfort of consequences for their fool choices. There will be consequences, y’all. Why….. because fool choices/asshattery/sin mean consequences. But there is a vast horizon of difference between forgiveness and consequences. Fool choices don’t mean unforgiveness!!!!!! God forgives!!!! Through Jesus, God has forgiven me of every sin I have committed or will commit….how can I not forgive another? (see Matthew 18:21-35 for an “oh dang” parable from Jesus about this – you could use this parable to argue for no consequences, but I would disagree and say this parable is about forgiveness of an unpayable debt which is reflective of the sin in each of our lives and I think applying it only to consequences in this world is to take it out of context with the rest of the Bible). But God does allow consequences for our actions.

Let’s say you and a friend had a falling out because the friend plastered all over social media something personal that you shared in confidence. That friend has committed asshattery/foolishness/sin and proven themself unworthy of your confidence. The relationship is altered. Because you have received forgiveness from God through Jesus, you have no right to withhold forgiveness from that friend. So you must forgive. But, the consequence is, you would be wise to not share personal things with them until time and their action have restored the relationship.

Forgiveness does not have to do with long term change in the other party. It has to do with your choice to release the other person from the debt of pain that they caused you. Does forgiveness mean they could hurt you again….yep. Sure does. Does it mean that they don’t have ask for forgiveness because they are too blind to see that they need it….yep. Sure does. Does it mean that we should wait to give forgiveness until they ask it or at least see the need for it….nope….not how God tells us to operate. Does it mean, if we also took part in fool choices/asshattery in our response to this situation, that we should ask for forgiveness for our part even if they refuse to ask for forgiveness for their fool choices/asshattery? Yep….sure does. But using wisdom after forgiveness would allow consequences to occur to protect ourselves and hearts from immediately openly giving them space and trust in our hearts and our lives. These days we prefer to call these “boundaries”, but really, y’all…..boundaries are just modern, God help up “less offensive”, vernacular for consequences.

Restoration is based on people seeing the wrong/the pain they caused, turning from it (repentance) and changing their ways. Forgiveness has to do with your heart. Restoration has to do with both hearts. Forgiveness should be automatic. Restoration comes by way of repentance and growing and changing, often through consequences for sin. Honestly, we can live in relationship with people where we personally choose to live in forgiveness, but consequences must remain because there is no repentance from the other person and sadly, we may not always get to the point of restoration. It takes two to get there. Sometimes one party chooses to stay blind. (I would say not getting to the point of restoration is not how we are to parent….at least until our kids of an older age. But it does happen – what’s up, prodigal son Luke 15:11-32….and even there, the dad waited but the son repented and there was restoration. Praise God!) We are to forgive our kids, no questions asked. And then work on restoration. Then, we come along side of them to help them learn how grow and mature and be restored. That’s part of our job as parents….to help them learn to grow and mature.

4. God allows His people to be tested through trials. This means that our kids WILL be tested! This means they WILL go through trials. God allows it and based on James 1:2-3 that we looked at earlier, it is to produce endurance and maturity and completeness. So, hard question…..when we do everything possible to control our kid’s worlds and prevent trials….are we stunting their growth? I’m NOT saying, don’t protect our kids. That’s not right, ok or biblical. What I am saying is, if we mama moose them their whole lives, we cannot be shocked and shaken when they are dysfunctionally immature at ages when they should be more wise and mature adults. In place of mama moosing them, how about we come along side of them through the trials and disciple them and show them the heart of Jesus and show them how to choose to grow and mature.

5. Sometimes God allows enemies/trials/evils in the world to remain in order to teach future generations how to fight in battle. This one is what hit me first and brought about this ridiculously long blog. So many of us as parents get so frustrated at the state of our world. We desperately want things to be better, even perfect for our kids. What if some of the things going on in our world now are being allowed by God to teach our kids and then future generations how to fight in battle…..remembering that whenever God called the Israelites to fight in battle it was more about them doing the thing EXACTLY how He told them to and their reliance on Him more than the battle itself. Can you imagine the freedom that comes with the revelation that God is the only one in control and we don’t have to live in the delusion that we are. And can you imagine the change in our world if we would realize that, learning how to fight in battle is learning how to follow God in every step and as Jesus taught us, learning to turn the other cheek in humility and loving others.

Ok, so what are the take aways?

What if biblical parenting looks more like teaching our children the heart and love of God and freedom in Jesus and how to walk through life as a disciple of His rather than attempting to make their world a false bubble of perfection free of pain or trials that we have no control over to begin with. What if biblical parenting looks more like walking through the life trials with our kids, loving and forgiving them when they make fool choice while also allowing the natural consequences to happen instead of trying to shield our kids from them. Thus, allowing them to grow and mature.

What if biblical parenting looked like teaching our children to “Love the Lord your God with all you heart, soul, mind and strength” and “Love your neighbor as yourself” because if we do those two things, we are fulfilling God’s commands (Matthew 22:24-40). And teaching them that loving our neighbor is sacrificial (see the parable of the Good Samaritan Luke 10:25-37). And teaching them our lives were not meant to be lived as self-involved, self-worshipping, idolatrous wanks (that one’s in the Nex Texas girl version of the Bible :->)

Parenting is exhausting! Why make it harder by grabbing at the wind and trying to control things that we can neither control nor have any business even trying to control. How much more energy would we have to invest in our kids if we invested in our own personal relationship and discipleship under Jesus so we could teach our kids how to be a disciple of His too. We can’t make disciples unless we are disciples….and after all….isn’t that the Great Commission?

Then Jesus came near and said to them, “All authority have been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have comanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Matthew 28:18-20

Get your damn Mammogram!!!!

It’s October!!! It’s the time of year where our world explodes in both vibrant colors of fall and hot pink in honor of the tatas. Breast cancer awareness month has grown over the years and has helped saved so many lives…..mine included. My amazing cousin, The FatMan himself, (www.fatmanlittletrail.com) recently sent me a video on an awesome breast cancer awareness campaign by Adidas and Five Ten.

After watching the video, I felt inspired to share my breast cancer diagnosis story.

Back in my deaf ed days at TCU, I had a professor who would always say, “Every child paints a different rainbow”. Meaning…. every child with a hearing impairment that we taught had different needs, a different story, a different path. This holds true for breast cancer warriors as well. You can meet two different women who have had the exact same breast cancer diagnosis, but their war path and survival stories are totally different.

My breast cancer story starts around the time I was 40. There is a strong family history of cancer in my family. My first mama died at the age of 30 of colon cancer that metastasized to her liver. I was 4 and my baby sister was 3 months old. My second mama was diagnosed with stage 0 breast cancer when my daughter was about 1 year old. My dad lost one wife to cancer and had a second wife who battled cancer and won. So, my family is understandibly ALL about preventative medicine. I got my first colonoscopy at the age of 25….actually the first time I went in, I found out I was pregnant…but that’s another story for another time. When I turned 40 I, of course, went in for my first mammogram.

Now, let’s talk tatas….mine were nothing to write home about. They were so “sized challenged” that my sister and I used to fill out prayer request cards for each other at church….”Please pray for my sister, she sufferin’ from a rare form of itty bitty titti-itis.” 🙂 But…. I liked them, my husband liked them, they fed all 3 of our kids for a season and I was quite proud of my size 36 long and droopies.

When I went in for my first mammogram, I was informed that I had “cysty” and dense breasts. What do you say to that…….”um, thanks?”……”well, thank you, I grew them myself!”….oh the inappropriate response options. But seriously, what I learned was, when you have dense, cysty breasts, you usually win the prize of a mammogram and then a call back with an ultrasound. Oh boy.

August 2017 I went in for my annual mammogram during my kids first week of school. “Hey kids, you get to go learn and mommy gets to go get her boobies squished….what a deal”. It actually worked well, because I had a system to help me remember to go get the ladies checked. During that year’s mammogram, they found a sizeable cyst in my left breast. The doctors told me that I could just leave it alone or I could get it drained but they weren’t worried about it unless it started hurting. I decided that I would just keep my self-made boob enhancing cyst (it made my left breast perky :->) and have it checked again the next year. I mean, who wants to have a cyst drained….ew. Maybe I would grow a matching one on the right….it would be like my very own self-made boob job.

In the spring of 2018 I felt that sizeable cyst pop. Y’all……it was SO WEIRD. I felt it pop and drain and thought, “well there goes my one perky boob. We’re back to bilateral long and droopies.” A month or two later, I started having some random shooting pains in my left breast. But, I figured that it was just another cyst growing. I had experienced a few random shooting pains over the years but it always turned out to just be a new cyst. I was a busy mom of 3, it was the summer before my oldest’s senior year of high school. I figured all was fine and I would just go get my annual mammogram during the first week of the next school year. Yes, I felt a lump but it felt JUST LIKE every cyst I had ever had.

Then, near the end of the summer, my nipple inverted.

TMI……it looked like a unpopped turkey timer. And, right where the nipple met my skin, there was a sore. For those of y’all who, like me, love to exercise and hike, the sore looked like the sore you get in between your big toe and your foot when you hike in wet socks after accidentally stepping in some water. I even went to my gynecologist who said it looked like a skin infection so she gave me some antibacterial ointment and said she didn’t think it was anything else, but maybe I should go get a mammogram just to be on the safe side. That was July 2018. Perfect timing…I was due for my annual, first week of school mammogram.

When I called to schedule, the folks at the mammogram center told me that they wanted to see me right away. I was scheduled to come in 3 days shy of a full year since my last mammogram……..362 days. This time, instead of planning on calling me back after the mammogram, they would do a ultrasound at the same time.

I went in. We did the mammogram and the ultrasound. It wasn’t a cyst. It was time for a biopsy. But even then, even the radiologist didn’t think it would be cancer.

I honestly don’t remember how long it was between the mammogram and the biopsy, but it was quick.

Friday, August 17, 2018, around 12:30pm, I was sitting on the couch next to my daughter who was home from school for her lunch period and the phone rang. It was a nurse from the hospital where I got the biopsy and she said the words I will never forget.

“Well, hon, it isn’t good news.”

Time stopped.

Tears flowed.

My daughter ran to get my husband who was thankfully working from home that day. I don’t remember anything else from that conversation other than, I had cancer. My biggest fear in my life, the thing that killed my first mom, that tried to kill my second mom, was growing in me and trying to kill me.

My daughter did not go back to school that day. My two boys came home from their schools about 3 hours later, and we told them. We truly thought there was no way that the cancer would be advanced past maybe stage one……at the most. I mean, come on, it had only been 362 days since my last mammogram. So, most of that evening we sat around telling inappropriate boob jokes and telling our kids that they were allowed to say the word “ass” when they said “My mom is going to kick cancer’s ass with Jesus and laughter”.

The next week, I was officially diagnosed with HR+/HER2- Stage 2, grade 2A breast cancer. Simply said, that means the cancer was way bigger and more advanced that we thought. It was aggressive and it fed on hormones. Before I knew it, I had a breast surgeon and an oncologist. I was told that I had to have a full mastectomy on the left side as the tumor was too large and too oddly placed for a lumpectomy to be a good option.

My docs didn’t have to tell me twice. Cut it off…and take her sister too. The sucker was trying to kill me. That was it. No struggle with the decision. I was done. Both of them had to go. My breasts were no longer part of me. They were trying to kill me. I was done with them.

Because of my age (I was 2 months shy of turning 45), my family history and the aggressive nature of the cancer, I was told that I needed to go through 16 rounds of chemo and a mastectomy and then reconstruction. My oncologist wanted to see how the chemo affected the tumor to make sure it was working. That meant chemo needed to happen first and it needed to happen quickly. Radiation was a faint possibility at that time, but everyone doubted I would need it.

The road of cancer is never a straight path. It is full of unexpected twists and turns.

It turned out that I did need radiation. They removed 19 lymph nodes during my double mastectomy. 8 lymph nodes showed signed of cancer. I won myself 30 rounds of radiation with the bonus prize of having to hold my breath during treatment sessions so the radiation didn’t damage my heart.

I started chemo on August 31, 2018. I had 4 days at the “poison spa” spaced every other week where I received infusions of “the red devil”. I then did 12 weekly infusions of Taxol. I got a month break after chemo and my double mastectomy with expanders placement was Feb 2019. I started radiation March 2019. I finished my radiation the day before my sweet girl graduated from high school. I had a DIEP flap reconstruction surgery on January 2, 2020.

For those of y’all who don’t know , a DIEP flap is a 10-15 hour surgery where the surgeon rearranges the front of your body by taking the squishy fat from the tummy and sewing it up in your chest while also performing microsurgery to create blood flow and voila…….new warm blooded foobs (fake boobs).

Public service announcement……please, don’t ever, EVER tell a breast cancer warrior who has to have or had a DIEP flap that you wish you could get a “free” tummy tuck. Yes, it was one of my silver linings…..but that silver lining includes a hip-to-hip scar across my body that, along with the scars on my nipple-less foobs, make the front half of my body look like a winking smiley face.

SERIOUSLY……DON’T EVER, EVER, EVER say this!!!!!! Just….NO!

Along with the 2 massive surgeries, the 4 smaller procedures, the 2 revision surgeries and let us not forget the salpingo-oophorectomy (that’s just fun to say) to ensure that the early onset menopause caused by chemo stayed permanent, I currently take an aromatase inhibitor that strips my body of hormones every day and I will continue for a total of 7-10 years post chemo. I went septic and almost died in January 2021 from a rash in my left armpit that turned septic because my lymph system is so compromised from the 19 lymph nodes they removed during the double mastectomy. So, now I use a lymphatic pump every day. I am still in occupational therapy (thank God for amazing insurance) 2 years after the end of radiation because of the lymphedema and the radiation fibrosis.

And it all started with a mammogram. That beautiful, amazing, boobie squishing, lifesaving mammogram.

The moral of this tale……get your damn mammogram!!!!!

One more thought…..

The video my amazing cousin shared with me, by Adidas and Five Ten was about how being outdoors helps women who were and are fighting breast cancer. Before my first chemo, my oncologist told me that exercise is STRONGLY encouraged during treatment. It helps to flush the chemo through and out of the system. It helps to build endurance and strength and helps you heal faster. She was totally right….but, sadly she told me that it is a rare unicorn that will actually work out during chemo and the rest of treatment. I chose to be that unicorn.

Let me tell you…..going to the gym when totally sick and bald is kind of amazing. People aren’t sure what to do with you, because you don’t look like you belong there. I looked sick. I looked like I should have been home in bed. I looked like I should be anywhere but there. But I sure did belong there at the gym. I drug my bald, tore up, exhausted self up to the gym to exercise through out the entire journey. Some days I just walked slowly around the track. Some days I lifted light weights. Some days, all I could do was stretch. But I did it! A week after the DIEP flap, I was up there with my walker because, even though I could not stand up straight after surgery, I wanted my walking laps. And I did it!

I continue to work out, even though I can’t do things like I once could. I continue to hike with my amazing cousin. I continue to be active….I’m currently painting the exterior of my house. It’s taking me about 4 months to complete….but I am doing it!!!!!

So, I guess there are two morals of this story……

Move! Exercise! Get outside for a hike! Even if it’s hard! You can do it!

And……….

GET YOUR DAMN MAMMOGRAM!

Public Toilet Squatting and Jesus

Picture a chair. Any kind of sturdy chair that you want. All it needs it 4 legs and a seat.

Some people will picture a straight back wood chair. Solid. Long lasting

Some people will picture a comfy, squishy chair. The kind in which you can curl up and take a fabulous nap.

Some people will picture a throne. Golden, ornate, bedazzled

Do you believe in that chair?

What I mean is, do you believe that your chair can hold you? Do you believe that if you sit down in said chair, that it will not collapse under you? Of course you do. It’s a sturdy chair. There is no reason to question it’s ability to hold you as you sit.

That’s faith y’all……faith in the chair. Faith that you can sit down in your chair, and it will not break or fall.

But take it a step past faith.

You have faith that the chair can hold you but it’s not until you walk over and sit your posterior right down on that chair that you have to truly trust that chair’s ability to hold you. You put your faith in the chair into action by trusting in it’s ability to hold you up and sitting on right down. And the chair holds. Thank goodness…..that trust took your faith to a new level and the chair was proven worthy.

But…. what if you have faith that the chair can hold you, but when it comes down to the action of actually trusting it…..well you just can’t.

You realize as you prepare to sit that you just can’t do it. Yeah, you know on that higher level of faith that the chair will hold you. You’ve seen it hold other people before you…..but you just can’t bring yourself to put all your weight into the chair.

Maybe it’s because don’t know who made the chair. Is it a reputable company with 5 stars on Amazon? Maybe it’s a popular style but you’re just not feelin’ it. Maybe other chair sitters have told you how awesome and comfy the chair is and tell you that you should totally sit in it but something is just holding you back. Maybe you even find and read books about the chair, but you’ve never read the manual itself so you’re not totally comfortable with it.

There are just so many questions…….so, instead of trusting and sitting down, you do the girl public toilet squat.

Fellas, let me just stop here for a hot second and explain something. Y’all were given some amazing hardware that makes it possible for you to pee anywhere you darn well please and you don’t have to touch any part of a public toilet to do so. Us ladies, well, God didn’t see fit to give us this gift, so we have devised this amazing half squat hover over any and all public toilets to keep the public cooties off our sweet tooshies. It doesn’t matter if we haven’t done a workout squat since 1984….when it comes to urination in a public bathroom, we have quads of steel.

And now, back to the chair.

So, you have faith in the chair but can’t bring yourself to truly trust that it will do what it is supposed to do for you personally. But in this little scenario, you are surrounded by people who fully trust the chair and you don’t want to seem lame or look like an anti-chair-ist…..so you do the girl public toilet hover squat. You look like you have both faith and trust in the chair but in reality, you just don’t trust the chair one little bit.

Now, what happens if you squat for a long time? Anyone remember wall squats? Yeah, my high school basketball coach had an evil love for this torture. We had to lean again the wall and act as though we were sitting at a super comfy 90 degrees for minutes at a time. What happened after 30-45 seconds? Someone on the team would be in so much pain that they would lift up, and then we all had to start the drill all over again.

Unsupported squatting for a period of time HURTS! It’s exhausting!

So, you have a choice. You can either just go ahead and fully commit and trust the chair and sit on down……or you can stand up for a second, let the lactic acid dissipate and then commence to hover squat again……and get exhausted again….and again….and again. Over and over, never ending.

Now, picture Jesus.

Some people will picture Him as the Jewish carpenter. Solid. Strong.

Some people will picture comfy, squishy God. The God in which you can curl up in His lap and get the hugs and snuggles and take a fabulous nap. Our Good Daddy.

Some people will picture Jesus on the throne. The King. God of the Universe. The Alpha and Omega.

Do you believe in Jesus?

What I mean is, do you believe that Jesus died for the sins of all humankind? That means you, me….all. Do you believe that if you say “yes” to this sacrifice of Jesus, “yes” to the free gift of forgiveness that He offers to everyone, that He will cover your sins, i.e. your mistakes, and this free gift will make you sinless in front of the Father God? (If you can’t say yes to this but you are curious….let me know. I’m always up for a cup of coffee and a good Jesus chat)

That’s faith y’all……faith in Jesus. You know beyond a shadow of a doubt that Jesus has paid the cost for you, you live in forgiveness……and you are free.

But take it a step past faith. Think back to our chair. You have faith that the chair can hold you but it’s not until you walk over and sit your posterior right down on that chair that you have to truly trust that chair’s ability to hold you.

It’s the same with Jesus.

You put your faith in Jesus into action when you trust Him enough with your heart and your life here and now. It’s all about relationship. Your relationship with Jesus grows when trust begins. (Please note that I am not saying “be religious” or follow a certain church or denomination….this relationship should be all about Jesus).

You choose to trust Him with your heart and your life. You commit your life to Him. You invest daily in a relationship with Him. And, although life still ain’t so easy you have an inexplicable, supernatural peace, hope, joy and love because of Him. It makes no sense, but you have it. Thank goodness…..that trust in Jesus took your faith in Jesus to a new level in your life, and He was proven worthy.

But…. what if you have faith that Jesus can save you from eternal separation from God, but when it comes down to the action of actually trusting Him in the day-to-day moments of your life…….well you just can’t. You’re totally down with the eternal Heaven thing but you would really prefer that He keep clear of your life here and now.

You’ve heard lots of different things about Him from some of His “fans” and some of His “followers”. You hear that you have to live right, you have to give things up, you have to do this and do that and be a certain way and say certain things and vote a certain way and think a certain way…….. and based on this, trusting Him just with life now just doesn’t sound appealing.

And in this little scenario, just like with the chair, you are surrounded by these fans and followers and you don’t want to seem lame or not as “holy” or not as “into Jesus” as them……..so you look and sound like you are trusting Jesus every day but you are not actually choosing to trust Him every day…..you are doing the spiritual girl public toilet hover squat.

And just like with those darned wall squats and just like with the chair, unsupported squatting for a period of time HURTS! It’s exhausting! We can’t find the hope, the peace and the joy, the love that Jesus promises us.

Instead of trusting in Jesus and turning our daily lives over to Him, we are doing everything we can to prove to Jesus just how trustworthy we are. We are doing all the church events, we are doing all the “Christian” things, we are following all the American Christianity rules, we are voting a certain way because our church says that’s how good Christians vote, we buy all the books about the Bible but fail to read our actual Bible, we say our good night prayers with our kiddos, we have a cute little prayer over our food, we smile the right smile, we look the right way, we work and work and work at being good church folk…….and we are EXHAUSTED.

God, I am doing SO MUCH for you…..where are you? Why am I burnt out?

So, you have a choice. You can either just go ahead and choose to fully trust Jesus with your life here and now or you can stand up and take a short break from your spiritual hover squatting, try to get a vacation in to recoup but then jump right back into the squat and do all the “Christian” things……and get exhausted again….and again….and again. Over and over, never ending.

Why are so many of us public toilet hover squatting instead of surrendering and trusting Jesus?

It’s two little words…..pride and control.

We want to prove ourselves worthy. Look at me Jesus, I’m a super Christian!!!!!  I’m doing it all for you, Big Guy!

We want to control everything to make sure life is running exactly how we think it should. Look at me Jesus and look at me world, I’m living a comfortable, blessed and charmed “Christian” life.

All the while, we are completely wiped out. Our lives are crumbling. Our questions about why seem unanswered. We can barely see straight at the end of the day. We are exhausted. We have not hope, no peace, no joy, no love.

And instead of choosing to trust the One who gave us life, gives us true hope, gives us true peace, gives us true joy, show us how to truly love……we wake up each morning and hover squat.

How about today we give up the hover squat.

Today, may we choose to fall on Jesus’ lap and choose to trust Him.

And this not a one-time choice, y’all. We have to choose every day, every minute, every action, every thought……every time.

That trust will take your faith to a new level and will prove Jesus worthy.

He is worthy of our trust. Nothing else and no one else is.

No more spiritual girl public toilet hover squats.

He will hold you up. Trust Him.

God’s Secrets from the Garden: Planting choices and Heart Choices

Have you ever driven by a house or walked by an area in a park and seen just drop dead gorgeousness and think, “I could never make my yard look like that”?

The reality is, you absolutely can do that.

Planting a garden is a craft and a process. It’s both really easy and semi difficult at the same time. Truly, anyone can plant a garden but if they don’t go through a certain process and learn certain truths, and patiently wait for the plants to grow in their season, they aren’t going to get the results they want.

Over the past few years I have learned so much about gardening from my precious friend.

Y’all, Anna has the gift. She’s got the gardening skillz. Her yard is B.E.A-YOU-TI-FUL.

But it’s been a process. Her yard did not look this way when we moved in next door 12 years ago. It was a basic “burbs” kind of yard with the basic burbs grass and the basic burbs bushes that flower once and then just provide some either misshapen or very manicured green depending on the burbs homeowner’s dedication to pruning.

But years back Anna decided she wanted something more beautiful out of her yard. She decided she wanted a place where she and her family and her crazy neighbors could come and sit and drink and eat and hang and laugh. She took the time to invest and grow her knowledge in her amazing obsession with all things plants. She learned, she planned and then she planted and now it’s like living in the Denver Botanical Gardens but out in the burbs.

And during the process, I sat and watched and listened and asked and learned….and then I planned and planted in our front yard.

There are similarities and differences in our front yards.

Similarities…..

We live next door to each other which means we both face north. Ok, I know this ain’t a thing in the south but in Colorado, facing north means you will have snow and ice in your yard all winter long. I’m serious y’all……we will have a foot of snow in our front yards yet the neighbors directly across the street will have green grass growing in the spring sun in their yards. It’s crazy.

We also have the same dirt in our yard. We have the same clay kind of soil. Awesome (not really).

We live in the same zone. Denver is zone 5b in the plant world but because we face north, we have a microclimate of zone 4. (Basic zone knowledge, the warmer the zone, the higher the number. The cooler the zone, the lower the number. You can look your zone up on the Googles :-))

And then we have a couple differences, the biggest of which is that Anna’s yard gets tons of sun while we have a HUGE tree in our front yard which gives us glorious shade.

Before you dive in and start your own garden, you have to make a plan

Here’s the planning basics that I have learned from my precious friend.

• You have to shop for plants for your zone. If you live in Zone 5b but have a microclimate of Zone 4 because you face north, and you want plants to come back every single year (perennials), then you need to plant plants that like the Zone 4 climate. Otherwise they get mad at you and don’t come back the next year.
• You have to decide if you want annuals or perennials. Perennials come back year after year. Annuals are just that….they are for one year, and then you replant the next year. I’m cheap….I like to invest once and see beauty for years :-).
• You have to choose plants that like the environment that you are providing. Anna has lots of sun so she has lots of plants that need full sun to be happy. We on the other hand have a fabulously huge tree which provides a ton of shade so I have chosen and planted plants that like part sun and part shade or even full shade.
• You have to put plants together that enjoy similar soil and water. For example, a couple of my plants don’t like much water and need more sandy and rocky soil while many others like regular watering (don’t say “moist” hehehehe). If I put a water loving plant next to a dry loving plant, one of them is going to get mad at me and die depending on what I do….to water or not to water.
• You have to look at the tag. You have to read to see how big or small the plant will be. You have to take a second to learn a little about the plant to make sure it will grow well in your garden. You don’t want to put a plant that will grow 6 inches high behind a plant that will grow 24 inches high because you will not get to see that little 6 inch darlin’ in all her glory when she blooms because the tall one will be blocking her out. And you don’t want to stunt her growth because the tall one is blocking out the sun she needs.
• Some plants bloom in spring. Some bloom in summer and some bloom in fall. If you want a garden that has beautiful flowering color from spring to fall, you have to plant different plants for different seasons.

So you learn the basics, you plan out what you want things to look like when the garden is finished, and then you go to the nursery for some plant therapy and make plant choices out of horticultural wisdom and not willy-nilly excitement about how pretty they look at the nursery. Then you bring those little darlins home and you lovingly plant them in places that will hopefully make them the most happy and help them to reveal their God given beauty.

Life is a lot like a garden.

Have you ever met a person or had an encounter with a group of people and seen life transforming peace and hope and joy and think “I could never get that in my life”?

Planting a life filled with hope and peace and joy is both really easy and kinda difficult at the same time. Truly anyone can have these things in their life but if they don’t go through a process and learn certain truths and patiently wait for growth, they aren’t going to get the results they want.

First, we have to boldly accept the truth that true life changing, life altering hope and peace and joy is not possible without a walking, talking, growing relationship with Jesus. Peace, Love and Joy come from Him. He is joy, He is peace, He is hope and without Him, you can never truly experience the complete and total fullness of any of these things. You can experience these things in part. You can have seasons. You can have moments. But a life lived in the fullness of these three things can only be found through Him. I’ve tried. It doesn’t work without a daily, walking, talking, faith relationship with Him.

Sadly there are a lot of church folk out there who are hopeless and peace-less and joyless because they once had an experience and “accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior” but after that experience they never listened, or they were never taught, or they never learned or they never accepted that there is a process or they never invested in the process. Just like in gardening, there is a spiritual process that each and every person has to go through to grow and mature and get the results we want. To live a life consumed in the fullness of peace, love and joy of the Lord, you have to invest in the process God has set before us to get the results and the life you want.

Over the years I have learned so much about growing in the Lord from precious friends in each and every season in my life.

I’ve got friends who have got the Gift. They have chosen and invested and walked and learned and applied and they know how to live a life in the fullness of the peace, love, and joy of the Lord. Their souls and their lives are B.E.A-YOU-TI-FUL.

But it’s been a process. Their lives have not always looked like this. They have come from lives filled with good things and momentary hope and momentary peace and momentary joy but they have also lived lives filled with hopelessness, pain, fear, anger, strife, gossip, betrayal, abuse and hurt. They were at times able to create an illusion of a life that looked like “the American Dream” with success and smiles and friendships. They showed up at church perfectly dressed with big smiles on their faces but they were exhausted from the work, the unending hauling of a yolk that was too heavy for them….all to keep life looking this “perfect” way while they were still hopeless, peace-less, joyless on inside.

Then they decided they wanted something more beautiful out of their lives. They each wanted to live a life based in God’s truths so they could grow in true love and joy and peace and truly affect the lives of their families and neighbors and community and world the way the Lord intended. They decided they wanted the glory and beauty of the Lord to shine through them. So they took the time to invest and grow their knowledge and experience in their amazing obsession with all things God. They learned. They listened to the Lord. They planned and they planted God’s truths in their lives. And now, with time and patience and trust in God, their lives shine the growth and glory and beauty of the Lord no matter where He planted them in this world. No matter what the exterior circumstances of their lives currently try to dictate, they have love, joy and peace that comes only from Jesus.

And during these processes, I sat and watched and listened and asked and learned….and then I planned and planted in my life.

There are similarities and differences in our lives.

Some of us grew up in the burbs. Some grew up in inner cities. Some of us grew up in a privileged world. Some of us grew up fighting for everything, every victory, every success, every promotion. Some of us had parents who loved us. Some didn’t know their parents or if they did it was through hurt and pain. Some of us knew plenty and some of us knew want. Some of us were loved for our skin color or physical appearance, and some were hated because of theirs. Some of us knew hunger and some of us only knew full bellies. Some of us were given education. Some of us barely scraped out of high school. Some of us have kids. Some of us know infertility. Some of us are married. Some of us are single. Some of us are divorced. Some of us have amazing marriages and some of us only know hurt and pain in our marriage. Some of us have kids that are amazing. Some of us have kids that bring us hurt and pain. Some of us know and have experienced the horrors of abuse, rape, anger, emotional abuse. Some of us are blessed to have never experienced these things.

But no matter our similarities and differences, there are a few basics I have learned from the lives of these amazing women.

• You have to plant your life in the right zone. Just like there are climate zones in gardening, there are zones of life. Some zones are in God’s truth and will and many zones are out of God’s truth and will. It’s that whole narrow vs wide path that Jesus talks about with His disciples. (Matt 7:13-14) If you are looking for God’s blessings but you are living your live outside of God’s zone, outside of God’s truths, outside of God’s will…. your work, efforts and dedications will not bring you the growth and joy and peace you are wanting. You have to choose the habits, the fruits, and the plants that reflect the peace, hope and love of Jesus and firmly and purposefully plant your life in God’s zones. Even more specifically, you have to plant in a zone where God calls you to plant, not where He calls someone else to plant.
• You have to decide if God is an annual or perennial in your life. Are you an annual, “Easter and Christmas Christian” who only accepts and follows Jesus for a day or two a year? Or are you a perennial follower of Jesus? Are you living your life in a way that you have a walking, talking relationship with the Creator of the Universe and a life where God is always part of it day after day, year after year after year?
• You will end up getting growth in accordance to the environment that you are providing. Are you are providing an environment of love for all God’s kids and trust in the Lord that He can handle anything you can’t? Or are you providing an environment of legalism for those you love? Are you providing an environment of hate for the people who do not choose the Lord instead of providing an environment where you truly love for all God’s kids yet can hate the path they choose that takes them boldly out of God’s will? In a nutshell are you letting the love of Jesus flow through you to others and then you let go and allow God take care of the rest……. or are you a proud card carrying member of the Jerks for Jesus country club?
• Are you daily reading and studying and learning the tag/the manual/God’s Word? If you are not taking the time to invest in learning what God has to say through His Word that He gave us as a gift which is applicable to all generations and is the living and breathing Word of God, then you will never understand His heart. You will never understand when, where or how to plant for Him. You will never grow in maturity past having a pastor or bible study leader or Christian book writer teach you, only to have those words or thoughts fall out of your head before reaching the first stoplight outside of church or as soon as you get up from reading and walk into the messy and sticky kitchen. If you do not choose to daily invest in God’s Word, you will not grow in the full glory and beauty that God intended for your life.
• We bloom at different times. A spring blooming tulip does not yell at the fall blooming aster and say “Why aren’t you flowering yet?!?!?!”. That tulip does what God made her to do and lives in the beauty that God gave her and then moves aside for the aster to bloom and live in her God given beauty and glory. They do not compare their lives and their seasons with the other and neither should we. If we have invested our lives in becoming more like Jesus then our heart becomes to encourage others to invest and learn and grow so that we can all bloom and live in our God given glory and beauty. And then we are to step aside and let others shine in their God given season and their given zone without comparing their God given beauty to ours.

It’s a process y’all!

A garden does not happen in one day. I write these steps and am reminded of the places where I have grown and I can also still see the places that need some serious work. But just like a garden, I’m not finished. You are not finished. The beauty of a garden is that if you need to transplant, prune, remove or fertilize your horticultural babies…..you CAN! You plant and then you might move some plants and then you might need to plant something new because one of your plants died. The same thing is true in life. We strive towards Jesus. We live the process but then when we totally screw up….. I mean me…I am sure y’all never totally miss the mark and show everything but the love, joy and peace of Jesus. :-). But when we screw up, we turn our faces back towards the One who knows us better than anyone. We say we are sorry. We lean in to His loving arms and we start the process again.

A soft heart that lives completely for Jesus and reflects His love and hope and peace to a hurting world does not happen in one day. Nor should we expect it to. Nor should we expect it of others. It’s a whole grace and mercy thing, y’all.

You don’t change into a perfect human the very moment after you enter into a relationship with Jesus and accept His free gift of salvation. That’s the day your passport is stamped “Heaven” not “earthly perfection”. But your journey on Earth until God calls you home is full of planting and learning and listening and planning and process and growth.

So you learn the basics. You consider what you want things to look like as you walk the path that God has just for you. Maybe you draw out a plan, write out some life goals, and you go to the Lord for some heart therapy and make heart choices out of godly wisdom and not excitement about how pretty you might appear to others. Then you allow those little darlins, those little fruits of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control), to grow and then to come pouring out of you as you lovingly and wisely plant them in places that God directs you so they can reveal their God given beauty.

Just like a beautiful garden, a life lived with Jesus brings joy, hope, and peace.

Plant well.

• 

Broken shells

Today I was blessed to spend time at the beach. The beach is our vacation go to but Sparky and I love very different things about it. Sparky loves to go between laying in the sun and playing in the ocean. I love to lay in the shade on a comfy beach chair but I can only lay around for so long before I get ants in my pants and need to get moving. I love playing in the ocean but really only if the water is crystal clear. If it’s not, I freak a little…..my rule….no swimming if I can’t see my feet. (It’s because of a lake swim in Texas when I was in junior high and a snake wrapped itself around my arm…….childhood scarring is real y’all!) But the thing I love most at the beach is walking up and down collecting seashells.

Seashells fascinate me. There are big ones and teeny tiny ones and all sizes in between. There are smooth ones and rough ones and ones covered in barnacles. There are thick shells and dainty thin shells. There are dark ones and light ones and ones with patterns and ones that are iridescent. No one shell looks exactly like another but there are groups that look similar but still different from other groups.

Another thing I love doing is people watching……and boy howdy does the beach provide some amazing people watching! And, watching people who are picking up shells is kind of amazing. What amazed me most today is that I didn’t really see anyone shell searching until I started and then it became a thing for a while. It’s like the people with whom we were sharing the beach suddenly saw the shells they had been walking on all day and realized that there were treasures to be found and they started searching……but as I overheard conversations….. most people were only looking for ones that were big and whole and pretty. I’d hear “too tiny, throw it back”, “all the big good ones are gone”, “no, it’s broken, chuck it.”

As I grabbed handful after handful of all kinds of shells, I hear the Lord’s whisper above the loud chatter of the crowded beach…..”Look for the broken ones, darlin'”. And so I did. I pulled up handfuls of broken shells. I pulled up all sorts of broken ones. Some were just tiny pieces of their former glory. Some were whole but with a hole. Some were whole but had scars on them. Some had barnacles on them. And God reminded me that it’s these broken shells that, over time, get ground down to an almost a powdered sugar consistency and He uses them to make up the beautiful beach where we are vacationing.

And then I thought….these broken shells are just like us…..you and me. Some of us are broken. Tiny pieces of our former glory. Some of us are whole but life has left us with a hole in our hearts. Some of us are whole but have huge scars on us or in us. Some of us have barnacles on our butts. :-).

Just like the shells on the beach, we can get walked on by others in life. Some who do the walking are those who are on vacation, just livin’ the dream and forgetting to look around at those upon whom they are stepping. Some who do the walking are just concerned about getting to a place that’s more comfortable for them. Sometimes it’s the waves that do the beating…..just life that punches over and over until the seas calm.

Sometimes we are the ones walking on others. We are too concerned about where we are going and just can’t see past our own noses to see who we are stepping on, until someone cuts our foot.

But God…..yeah, y’all know I’m going there. BUT GOD! Aren’t those the two best words in the universe?

Just like God uses those broken shells to make a beautiful beach, He takes us in our brokenness and remolds use into something beautiful. He takes things that happen in life…..in this fallen world…..things that break us and scar us and leave us with barnacles, and slowly, over time He reshapes us and then……are you ready for this……He puts us with others who are broken and He makes something beautiful. It’s not a “He just uses one in their brokenness” kind of thing. You can’t make the beach without a bazillion shells…….you can’t make the world right without a bazillion broken people……in love and focused on the one broken for all of us….Jesus….and then the world sees …….. beautiful.

• 

It makes all the difference

Believers in Jesus,

Do you ever feel like you’re just always getting your hind quarters handed to you in life?

Do you ever feel like you are always playing defense and can’t seem to get ahead in the game to make an impact?

Do you ever feel like you might have this Christianity thing somewhat figured out only to have doubts come at you like fiery darts?

Do you ever feel like you’re in a war but always on the defense?

Are you jumpin’ up and down right now yelling “Amen, sister!” and thinking “She understands me.”?

Ok……now…….hard question……

Are you in your Bible every day?

And I see the shoulders drooping. And I hear the mental exasperation. “Seriously! I thought she understood me. I don’t have time for that! God understands me. He knows. I’m BUSY! Besides the Bible is confusing. I just want it explained to me.”

Hang on a hot second….please, please, please!

So I was going through a study in Ephesians this morning about the armor of God. Yes, the armor of God. Seriously don’t stop reading!!! Don’t roll your eyes and say “Ugh, I know about this! I’ve learned it since I was a toddler.” I get it! I do too!

We all know about it. We’ve sung songs about it and colored pictures about it since preschool Sunday school. My kids even had a cute little plastic version they used to wear. We’ve all heard teaching about it….lots of them. But thanks be to God, the Bible is a living, breathing thing and fresh inspiration comes through it every day.

Ok, stick with me…….. Sing along if you want………We’ve got the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the boots of peace, the shield of faith and the helmet of salvation.

These are all for defense.

The belt of truth protects your, ahem…… undercarriage. The bowls, the guts.

The breastplate of righteousness protects your heart and your breath.

The boots of peace protect your feet and make you able to move with agility and not stumble.

The shield of faith protects all of you as you hold it up to block those fiery darts as they come at you.

The helmet of salvation protects your brain, your mind, your thoughts.

“Wait,” you say, “you forgot the last one.”

Nope, didn’t forget. It’s just different.

The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

Here’s the difference…..a sword is offensive.

If you go on the field of battle with all the other gear on and don’t have your sword, you are going to be jumping all around trying to protect yourself but you ain’t going to be able to get any licks in. You can’t win a war with just defense (unless God wins it for you….think Moses, Joshua and Gideon – go read about them in your Bible. It’s ok. I’ll wait.)

So, if we get up every morning and put on the armor of God but we stop before we strap on the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God…..we ain’t got game.

Ok, here’s the deal….. (please don’t filet me)……..we also are really good about reading about the Bible rather than reading the actual Bible.

There are so many amazing books daily devotionals and blogs on so many different topics about life. And there is nothing wrong with these amazing books. Others have dug and studied the Bible and then written these fabulous and helpful books. They even often write the “address” of the verse in the book so we feel more like we are in the Word.

But we’re not actually in the Word.

We HAVE to dig in the Word for ourselves.

I know! It’s hard to know where to start!

Let’s start with this. As you read your daily devotions or those amazing books, EVERY TIME they put a verse address in there, you stop, open your Bible and read the verse……but not just the one verse but the context before and after. Our Bibles have these amazing sections in them. Instead of reading just the verse, read the section or the chapter.

So…the address of the verses I am writing about today is Ephesians 6:10-17.

Challenge……go crack open your Bible. Read Ephesians 6.

Get your pen out. Mark it up. Write questions, ponderings, revelations next to verses as God speaks to you through His Word. Ponder what a Roman soldier looked like in his armor. Ponder why God wants us to wear the armor. Did you know that “the armor of God” is the armor worn by God? You can find it in Isaiah 11:5, 52:7, 59:17. I didn’t know that until today. I learned that part from Margaret Feinberg in her study “Six Feet Back Satan!” who learned it from Snodgrass, Klyne, “Ephesians: The NIV Application Commentary: Zondervan 1996 pg. 339. And I went and looked it up in my Bible, and I read verses before and after and pondered and asked God questions. (See, learning things from others is AWESOME, but then we go and dig in even more for ourselves)

And I KNOW you are busy! Holy smokes do I get it. We live in a world of COVID and everyone is on top of each other at home and we have jobs and kids and life…..and the holidays are coming up….and, and, and, and…….but we have time to go on Facebook. We have time to watch t.v.. We have time to scroll mindlessly through things on our phones. And none of that helps us with the battle. None of it helps us go on the offensive.

But God’s Word does.

Tired of getting your hind quarters handed to you? Tired of just playing defense?

It’s time to go on offense y’all!

Crack open that Bible and dig in!

Closer to the trunk

Yesterday afternoon I was blessed with a glorious hour laying back in the double hammock with my husband, under one of the huge trees in our backyard watching it sometimes softly and sometime violently shake and wave as an afternoon storm rolled in.

When is the last time you laid back under a tree and just looked up and watched?  If it’s been a while or it’s never happened, I highly recommend it.  It’s kind of amazing.

And as I laid there, thoughts and concepts from my Bible danced in my brain.  If you read the Bible, you’ll see the story of creation in Genesis and Job.  You’ll read praises to God through and by His creation in Psalms. 

Let the heavens be glad, let the earth rejoice; let the sea resound, and all that is in it. Let the fields be jubilant, and everything in them.  Then all the trees of the forest shout for joy before the Lord, for He is coming. Psalms 96:11-13

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of His hands.  Day after day they pour out speech; night after night they communicate knowledge.   Psalm 19:1-2

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities – His eternal  power and divine nature – have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. Romans 1:20

The Bible says creation speaks….and yesterday I swear it was singing.

The tree:  There are a few bigger branches connected directly to the trunk and then many branches shooting off of those main branches. And then there are smaller branches shooting off of those smaller branches and in some places even smaller branches shooting off of those, and then the leaves are attaches to smallest branches.

And as I watched I noticed something.

Many branches swayed and rocked as the strong winds blew and the storm came in…..but not all of them.

And I felt a gentle whisper…..”I am the vine and you are the branches” John 15:5…..and it felt like God was downloading a picture of the church today into my soul.

Here’s what I noticed……

The further away from the trunk…..the more violent the shaking.

The branches connected directly to the trunk did not budge. The next layer of branches shook some…..and the next layer some more and so on and so on until you got to the most out layers which were violently being shaken and broken off.

Jesus is the trunk.  Those who are intentional about directly connecting themselves to Him, when the storm comes, will not be shaken.

Those who are relying on someone else to feed them shake more.

Those who are relying on someone who is being fed from someone else shake even more and on and on.

So the question is……Do you feel shaken?

The world is in the middle of a storm and many people feel shaken to their very core. 

But can we have peace in the storm?

YES!

How?

We have to know the one who rules over the storm.

Do you feel like you are being whipped around by cares and worries and things going on in our world?  My next question is….what does your spiritual life look like? Are you connecting to the trunk (Jesus) for yourself or are you relying on someone else to connect and tell you what it is like?

I don’t mean to sound harsh.  I really don’t!  I am talking to myself just as much as anyone else.  But here’s what I know, if I am relying on just my pastor or just my Bible study teacher or  just my favorite author or just my favorite worship leader to tell me what they learned about Jesus and don’t have time or make time alone with just me and Jesus….. DAILY…….. I am NOT strong, I am NOT a nice person, I am TOTALLY whipped around by the hot mess world in which we live.

YES, community is important!!!!  YES, meeting together is important!!!! YES talking it out with friends and family helps. BUT if you are relying solely on meeting with and talking with other people to calm your world, friend, you are going to keep getting whipped around.

We HAVE to individually dig in deep and intentionally strive after knowing Jesus more and more.  THAT is the only way to survive the storm.

What does that look like? 

Well, what does it look like when you want to know someone?  If you are married, what do you do to stay connected to your spouse?  If you have a BFF, what do you do to stay connected to your bestie?

You spend time with them.  You talk to them.  You do things with them.  You ask them questions about their day.  You tell them about your day.  You want to learn what they like and dislike.  You learn what makes them happy and what feeds their soul and they want to know the same about you.  You rejoice with them on good days and you sit with them and cry with them on the bad ones.

Ok, great.  But how do I do this with Jesus?

You talk to Him.  It’s called prayer.  If I can text my husband about something that has happened, good or bad, then I can tell God about it too, and even better yet….first.  If I seek out advice from a friend, then I can seek it out from God too, and even better yet….first.

You learn about  Him.  I.e. read your Bible. Study it.  Ask questions.  Dig in like you are mining for precious stones.  If you want to know about God, how about reading the book He wrote for you about Himself and how He feels about you.

You spend time with Him.  Go for a walk and listen to praise music.  Go out into nature and stand amazed at His creation.

Y’all, storms are gonna come.  And some are going to be big hitters.

I don’t want to be a twig or leaf or tiny branch way out on the fringe of the tree.  I want to be stable and the only way that is going to happen is if I choose to be directly connected to the trunk.

Be a branch connected directly to the trunk!

Blind lives

No one has ever lived a life exactly like my life. Not one human since the dawn of time. And no one ever again will live the exact same life as mine.

Yes, there are many of people who have had very similar singular experiences but no one has ever had the exact same combination of life experiences as I have.

And that is the same for everyone. Every single person alive has their own life with their own life experiences that they alone get to live. For better or for worse.

Examples: I was born to two parents who loved me and wanted me. I have been given opportunity my entire life. My mom died when I was 4 years old. When I was young, I lived in a neighborhood where people were real neighbors and community. I lost my home and pretty much near everything we owned in a hundred year flood. I grew up going to church. I went to a wonderful private school. I was bullied mercilessly as an elementary school kid. I am a very healthy, active person. I had cancer. I have three amazing kids. I had three miscarriages. I have a husband who loves and adores me. I also have a road warrior for work husband. And…..and….and…..and…..and…..and.

I have friends who don’t wholly understand because they have never had the same life experiences. But they still love me.

There are experiences that people I know and love have had that I never have…….I have never wondered where my next meal was coming from. I have never lived on food stamps. I have never been arrested because of what I look like or the color of my skin. I have never been raped. I was never molested as a child. I have never been physically abused.

I can’t wholly understand because I never had those life experiences. But I still love them.

When I was diagnosed with cancer I started a Facebook page called “Keepin’ it Real”. I started it because I needed a place to vent as I walked and continue to walk through that reality but also I realized how many people knew someone who had battled breast cancer but how few people truly knew what life was like while battling cancer. And the response has been amazing. I have had people who have thanked me for sharing…..because they just didn’t know.

How would they know? Without either experiencing something for yourself or truly listening and learning from someone who has experienced it….you will never know. You just can’t.

So let’s talk about today. Let’s talk about our world.

I am a woman. I am a white woman. Some of very my best, most precious friends in the whole wide world are black women. I would lay down my life for these women. I love them to my core. I know our experiences together but I anything I know about living life as a black woman and racism and persecution they have experienced……I know from my black female friends telling me their experiences.

I am not a man. I am not a white man or a black man or a Hispanic man or an Asian man. I am married to a white man. I have dated a black man. Some of my very closet male friends and family are black and Hispanic. I know our experiences together but the only thing I know about being a man….white, black, Hispanic, Asian or any other race, or any racism or persecution they have experienced….. I know from men telling me their experiences.

I am a Christian. I am not Jewish. I am not Muslim. I have social life experiences from being Christian….both good and bad. I have precious friends who are Jewish and are Muslim. I know our experiences together but the only thing I know about being Jewish or being Muslim and racism and persecution they have experienced, I have learned from my friends sharing their life experiences.

There are a lot of white people I know who are not racist. (hold up, don’t get mad yet) In their lives, they truly love everyone, regardless of skin color. They have close friends of every race. They live in an area where they don’t actively see racism happening like they see on t.v. or social media. So they don’t think systemic racism exists. They don’t have the experience. The problem is that if you, as a non-racist white person, would take the time to listen to experiences of your black friends you are going to hear their experiences that are going to shock and shred your heart. And then you listen to experiences of black people you don’t know who live in areas where racism is blatant and obvious and your heart is going to be shredded and you are going to be very uncomfortable and you are not going to know what to do. You then have a choice….to listen and see that systemic racism is real or you can shut your ears and ignore it. But it doesn’t change the fact that racism is real and is it evil.

Yes, there is other horrible evil in the world.

Yes those need to be dealt with as well.

But this is today. And today we are faced with this evil problem.

And today we white folk have a choice. How do we start to repair the damage and eradicate the evil of racism?

How about we start by not living blind.

How about we start by listening to the stories of life experiences that we can never have because we have white skin.

How about we choose to open our eyes and not deny reality just because it’s not a part of our little daily bubble.

And to my black people….PLEASE share your stories. Keepin’ It Real ain’t just for cancer! We NEED your stories!

You may not consider yourself racist. I do not consider myself racist. But racism exists. And by ignoring it we are condoning it….and that is a problem. That is evil.

It’s time to stop living blind

It’s a first step.

Choose to take the first step.

Opinions from Life Experience

Warning: Hot sports opinion coming up.

The last couple months have been new and challenging for the world. And, as time marches on, we face new challenges in trying to get life back on track. Two and a half to three months ago everybody started using phrases such as “social distancing”, “safer at home”, “flattening the curve” and “immunocompromised”. At the beginning of all this it was scary and we were in the “fog of war”. We didn’t know much other than we should be very afraid. The world shut down. But then an amazing thing happened… people came together. For many people, their neighbors became an essential part of their lives. We went from a world where we pulled our cars into our garages and quickly closed the garage door before we even got out of the vehicle to a world where people would get out of the house and go on walks and would smile and talk from the other side of the street. Kindness abounded. People looked out for each other. Communities grew. And then as time went on things have increasingly become political and emotionally volatile and angry and opinionated. It’s now “you don’t care about other humans if you don’t wear a mask” vs “It’s my freedom to not wear a mask”. It’s “we need to open everything back up” vs “we should still be terrified and stay at home”. It’s “protect the immunocompromised at all costs” vs.”people need freedom to live life”. It’s become an argument.

Like everyone else on the planet, I have opinions. And that’s a good thing. I like to listen to people with differing opinions because I might just learn something. One thing I have learned in life and feel that we would all do better to learn is that I/we don’t know it all and I/we can actually be wrong. Shocker. I know.

Opinion can be based on many different things. What we read. What other people say. What we see on the news. What we read online. How we were taught as we grew up. But, one of the most powerful ways to form an opinion is hard core life experience. If you don’t have life experience regarding an issue, it would be wise to talk to someone who does. For example, many people have strong opinions on raising kids. They feel they know exactly how to do it and are often quick to point out how others are doing it wrong….the problem is many of the strongest opinions on child rearing come from people who don’t have children. And then God with His fabulous sense of humor places those precious little rascals in their lives and they realize….we actually know nothing about raising kids, we are not as smart as we thought we were, maybe that lady who gives her kid candy is not a horrible mother…. and we experience it for ourselves and we learn.

I have a life experience that I would like people to consider during such a time as this. I am not currently immunocompromised but I was from August 2018-February 2020. During that time I was forced to become a warrior…. kicking breast cancer’s ass. I went through chemo and radiation and surgeries and I still have more surgeries to go. During that time my white blood count tanked hard-core. Life had to suddenly change. I didn’t have a phrase for what my family and I had to do, but basically we naturally started social distancing.

I gave air hugs before air hugs were cool, y’all.

I even hugged my precious little carrier monkey nephews with my legs so they could hug me but didn’t wrap them up in the big huge hugs I was desperately wanting to give them…because….you know…boogers and cooties. I even hugged my kids less especially if they were not feeling well (this shredded my heart). I wore masks sometimes. We washed our hands a lot. We used Lysol. I took/take supplements to boost my immune system. Yes the flu and colds came into our home. And we dealt with by distancing even more at home. We did all the things that other healthy humans have had to learn how to do over the past 2 months. I reduced my contact with the outside world to a few chosen places and people. My family and very close friends and I did what we needed to do to keep me safe.

But, I never asked the rest of the world to stop. I never even thought about it.

I never thought of asking my kid’s schools to shut down so my kids wouldn’t get sick from other kids. I did ask my kids not to drink out of the public water fountains and made sure they had water bottles. I did ask my kids to wash their hands immediately when they walked in the door from school.

I never thought of asking the airlines to shut down so my husband wouldn’t get sick from other passengers. I did ask my husband to wear a mask and/or move to another seat if he was sitting next to Snotty McSnotterson on his airplane ride home from a work trip. I never asked him to ask the person next to him to wear a mask.

I never thought of asking my church or my community or our parks or the stores or my little town or the city of Denver or the state of Colorado or the United States to shut down to keep me from catching the flu and colds and the stomach virus and all the other viruses that travel quickly from person to person.

Yes, watching the world move on around me was hard. It’s lonely even when you do have as many amazing friends who checked in on me and brought us food and came with me to chemo. It’s hard when your life suddenly changes and you can’t do all the things that you want to do and other people can do those things. It’s hard when you are used to being an incredibly healthy person and suddenly you are “the sick one”, “the bald one”, “the one with cancer”, “the immunocompromised one”.

And it was amazing to me how little I actually knew about how many people live immunocompromised lives and what those lives look like. I just had no idea. I had no clue what it really meant to have to be careful. But I didn’t have the experience for myself so why would I have known?

And now, here we are. In the world of COVI19. And for the first time, almost the entire planet has been given the gift of understanding and experience of what it is to have to live like a person who is immunocompromised.

But now we are arguing over it.

So here’s my two cents worth from my chemo brained experience.

We started social distancing and wearing masks and quarantine and and and and…..to flatten the curve. And we have done that. Yes, we might have a second wave but no one knows what the future holds. More and more studies and research are coming out every day. Last week it sounded like you could get COVID from a shopping cart that someone touched 3 weeks ago and this week now the CDC says it doesn’t spread that way. Hindsight it 20/20….usually because we get more info as time goes on. It doesn’t always mean there is some huge conspiracy. That might be true, but more often than not we just need time to learn more about what we are dealing with and how to fight it and win.

So here I go….I’m putting myself out there. Be kind. My opinion is based on my own experience. Yes, you can disagree with me but no you have no right to tell me that my experience is wrong and I don’t know what I am talking about. The majority of people I have known in my life have never ever been immunocompromised. I have. The world did not stop for me when I was immunocompromised. I never expected it to. My world changed. The people who were closest to me made changes because they love me. But never in my wildest dreams would I have ever asked everyone else in the world to stop because my life changed.

Would it have made a difference? What I mean is, would I have been less sick if everyone around me stopped living their lives to protect mine? No, I don’t think it would have. My family and close friends and I did what we could to keep me as healthy as I could be. However, I also chose not to live in fear because if I got sick and died….well, I know this fella named Jesus and I have His peace and His hope.

(Side note, if you are scared and don’t know Him, I would love to introduce you to Him. He’s amazing and not at all like many church folks trapped in Pharisee-like legalism make Him sound. He’s all about love and joy and peace and freedom. He’s not a cosmic kill-joy. I lived in fear for a long time. Not any more. Freedom from Heaven baby….it’s amazing).

You can die a lot of other ways before you actually die physically. I chose to live while immunocompromised and continue to choose to live the one life I have been gifted.

So…….No, I don’t think everyone should be forced to wear masks to protect the immunocompromised. But yes, I do think we need to be more aware of actually how many people in our world are immunocompromised. Yes we can be loving and helpful and caring and serving to these who need our help. Yes we can choose to not judge people who wear masks. They may not be scared at all but may love someone who is immunocompromised. Yes we can choose to not judge people who don’t wear masks. They may be claustrophobic or don’t want to wear one because no one they love is in the at risk group. Yes, we have to have empathy because now we have had a little couple month glimpse into their lives. It sucks. And now we all know it and can relate a little.

No, I don’t think everything should remain shutdown. There are too many other bad side effects from health to emotion to economical to many other things that will creep up on us if we stay locked away.

There are so many sides to this debate. Some people are scared. Some people are angry. My prayer however is that we can have our opinions but be able and willing to listen calmly to others. My prayer is that we can not jump down the throat of or give the stink eye to someone not wearing their mask at Home Depot. My prayer is that we make sure and research random videos and articles on both sides of the argument to make sure there is true validity to them before we post them and start a fire storm of idiotic social media fighting. My prayer is that we can stop being angry and crazy and hateful toward people who don’t share our same opinions. My prayer is that we can use our new experience of the last two months to love each other more.

It’s all about love y’all.

And for the love of all that is glittery and pure…..wash your damn hands! 🙂