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Friday, January 28, 2011

Action Steps

I am re-reading the gospels this year. Started this venture in January and so far, I am sticking with it. The genesis of this effort has to do with what I talked about at length in this post.

In a nut shell, I want to get to know my God and His love for me, and I want to sit still with it. Sounds simple enough, but it is a daunting concept for an activist at heart, who uses the phrase "action steps" multiple times a week (just ask anyone I serve at my church with).

I realized in one of those ah-ha moments, that every time I've ever read the gospels, I have immediately looked at how Jesus saw and treated the sick, weak, & marginalized, and filed that away as how I should see and treat the sick, weak & marginalized. There's nothing wrong with that...Jesus is my mentor after all and I do want to be like him. But I skipped the most important part...simply glazed over it and never looked back.

What I missed is this: I never sat in the truth that in those stories about Jesus, I am the sick, weak and marginalized. When I played casting director, it never occurred to me that Mindy was the blind one, the needy one, the crippled one...those were roles other people filled. It wasn't that I was above those roles or too good for them. In my quest to find my beloved action steps, I just looked past them, b/c let's face it, there aren't many action steps for the crippled and needy. The action steps were His alone...things only He can do.

...only when I realize how He sees and treats me. Only when I sit in the knowledge that His action steps are the ones that matter, that saved the world...can His enormous, unrelenting, gut-wrenching, life altering, identity changing LOVE really move in my life. Outside of this love, my actions steps mean nothing.

And this Love is moving. Slowly and surely sinking in, filling the cracks in the foundations of my faith. Bringing His face into focus and capturing my heart.


Friday, January 7, 2011

Emptying the Pocket

I love the first miracle of Jesus. He turned water into wine at a wedding. The hosts had run out of vino and God made man provided more. In comparison to His later miracles (i.e. "Lazarus, come out!") water to wine wasn't as spectacular. Let's face it, running out of drink at a wedding, while embarrassing and inconvenient, isn't a life or death-er. But the first miracle is spectacular in it's own right if you really consider it. Might Jesus care about the details of my life that matter to me? Those things that aren't life or death, but that simply matter to me?

This is a biggie for me. I have a tendency to only want to bring things to God that are spiritual or lofty or important or rank up there with life and death? I will stuff all my other concerns in my pocket with a mentality that screams, get over it, Mindy; get a real problem; stop worrying over stupid stuff; don't waste His time. Mind you, this has gotten to be one full pocket, b/c if you think about it, most of life is exactly the mundanes, the unremarkables, the not importants...the "running out of wine."

But maybe, just maybe, He cares about all those things? And maybe, just maybe, in emptying my very full pocket at His feet, I get to better know the Jesus who turned water to wine?

I'm thinking that's what it's all about anyway.




Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Lately

What I'm Thinking Lately...

I've been feeling awkward in my texting abilities. When do you end a text-versation? I never know when and I either make it awkward with one too many replies, or awkward because I didn't put in that one last reply.

I've understood, first hand, how hard it is to actually let your child do their own science fair project. "Mindy, step away from the show board."

I've decided I am so much better with a routine. As much as I love holidays, they throw me off and I'm usually ready for them to be over by the time they actually are.

I have marveled at how much trash our little family of 4 produces. It is mind boggling and gross and embarrassing.

I have laughed at how much I enjoy watching cooking shows, yet I HATE actually cooking.

I have pondered what it would have been like to have Facebook during the time I was a stay at home mom with my young kiddos. Would I have held the baby as I typed? Would his first word have been Facebook? Would I have paid a bit of attention to my kids, rather preferring to tend to my Farmville?

I think it's funny that when I get a J. Crew catalog I actually believe that THIS ONE TIME there might be something in it I can afford. Still waiting by the way...

and

I hate it when I am embarrassed for someone else (I call it being Secondhand Embarrassed). Yet several shows I watch on a regular basis set me up to be exactly that.





Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Song Crush #21

My latest song crush, "On and On," is by who I would safely call my latest group crush, Tenth Avenue North (who have apparently been reading my mail, if you know what I mean.)