Another New Year

Hello all I know it's a few days early but I wanted to get in wishes and prayers for a wonderful new year. It's amazing all the changes in my life this last year and as I look back and take stock I'm in awe.

There are the physical changes: location, career, etc. but then there are those other changes, the ones that can't be seen, the ones that occurred only within my heart.

I'm both excited and humbled to be in full-time ministry. It's scary to do what you're heart has always desired. This next year will be interesting to see how God chooses to use me (and I'm blown away that He does) and to grow me in this role and place.

The changes of my heart are not any less insignificant and some I'm just now realizing are occuring. It's a different feeling to see yourself change from the inside out, to struggle along knowing that who you are is being refined and reshaped. It can be both amazing and also heart-breaking. And yet these are the changes that mean the most to me, the ones that change not what I do or where I live but who I am.

So as I look back on this last year I am thankful for my family, friends, and all the blessings and hardships that have come my way, but mostly I'm thankful for a God that walks beside me day in and day out even when I don't want Him to, who knows me completly and still loves me more than I will ever love Him, and who through my pain, tears, and cries continues to change me to be the woman that He sees everytime He looks at me.

Happy New Year to you all, may it bring blessings and joy like you've never known and may those moments that are filled with pain be less empty because you are surrounded by the arms of an amazing Lord.

Megaphone*

* This post was actually written in late October early November but has languished in my archives as a draft because I never took the time to finish it. I'm not sure if this was my complete thoughts on this topic but it made me laugh to re-read it so I figured I would share it with you.


Have you ever experienced that moment when you say something that would otherwise be covered by the general roar of background noise but in that perfect moment an uncanny silence falls over the room so what was meant to be only heard by one set of ears is broadcast to the entire world . . . in high definition . . . and with subtitles . . . and you realize that you are talking so loud in the now deafening silence that you might as well have a megaphone attached to your face.

TWICE this week this has happened to me. Once I said something and the other time something was said about me. Fun how I get to experience both ends of this. Oh and both happened at Bible study, go figure that.

Megaphone #1: While discussing characteristics of a person in a position of leadership, the comment was made that you wanted someone who took care of themself, i.e. had a reasonable level of personal hygeine. A friend made the comment that "we don't want no stank" which I jokingly repeated to the person taking notes, but at the moment I said it the entire room that had once been abuzz in noise was eeriely quiet and my comment came off as if I was yelling it out to the entire group. Also without any context this statement is rather funny. Go ahead, start saying it in the middle of general conversation and see what kind of reaction you get.

Megaphone #2: Comment made to me from one of the guys in our bible study group "I almost brought you a bag of crack tonight since you like it so much." Now a few things struck me as funny when this statement was made - 1. all the other leaders had their heads almost twist off as they whipped to see exactly who the "you" was, 2. that the words "crack" and "you like so much" were included in a sentence about me, 3. that I'm probably viewed as the angelic rebel in my Bible Study because at first glance I'm a goody-two-shoes but really I'm a rebel at heart (go ahead and laugh those who know me personally but it's true, you just don't know the things going on in my head all the time), and lastly 4. that I had made the comment to this paticular guy the night before at our leader meeting that candy corn was like crack to me because I can't turn it down and I lose all self control when it is placed in front of me and so he took that one little comment and ran with it.

And that's how we do things down here

Christmas lunch was pretty traditional: turkey, stuffing, rolls, etc. but Christmas dinner, well let's just say that it wasn't gumbo but 6 lbs. of boiled shrimp is a pretty good substitute.

I hope that everyone had a wonderful Christmas with family and friends, I know I did.

Remembering

I wrote this post a year ago and as I re-read it today it just struck me. How quickly I forget things that I once knew, that I once grasped. So in a random act of irony my own words came back to remind me of what this season is really celebrating. I guess I needed a good kick in the pants from myself.

So read some words of a wiser Kpinion:

http://www.kpinion.net/2005/12/what-child-is-this.html


And so I wish all of you a wonderful Christmas season with your family, with friends, or simply with yourself as you ponder the wonder of the Word made flesh, come down to man, to reconcile us to Him, our Lord and Savior.

A You shaped me

Have you ever noticed how married people or close friends or even co-workers begin to look alike or talk alike? It seems we are often influenced by those around us and begin to slowly morph into them. Maybe it’s the young woman who realizes she is turning into her mother by the way she reacts to something, or the married couple who end up dressing similar day after day without pre-planning, or the group of teenage girls (or guys) who all use the same phrases and jargon in their daily text, phone, and IM conversations. It seems that when you are in the presence of another person for a good length of time you begin to take on their habits, mannerisms, likes and dislikes, or even their appearance.

Take a look back at your life and see how you were shaped by the influences around you. Oh I rocked the leggings, t-shirt dresses, mall bangs, and slap bracelets in elementary school because all my friends did the same thing. The many summers spent working at summer kamp brought to me a whole new vocabulary scoped by the people I spent day and night working with: “Spring Break 99”, “Fid-teen”, “Man Cave”; words that to any other person wouldn’t make sense but to myself and the others like me they spoke volumes. Then there’s the moment when I yelled after my roommate as she left for the evening “Be safe” as I heard my mother’s voice channeled through my mouth.

We are undoubtedly a product, if not of our surroundings, then of those who surround us.

About a month ago I wrote a post titled “A me shaped You”. If you haven’t read it I suggest you go back and spend a few minutes with it because I’m going to pick up on the thought line that lead me to that post. Go, I’ll still be here when you get back.

So if we are a product of who surrounds us, than through our faith should we not begin to look a bit like God? That’s a tricky question, because in my Christian life I haven’t seen a whole lot of physical changes develop to make me more god-like. But then again, we are already in His image, so maybe the changes aren’t all that physical. Also I’m not sure how to pick up on the vernacular of God, nor are we in general two-way spoken conversation so I can’t really begin to speak like him, so there goes the vocal image.

What does that leave us with? Our hearts? Our actions? Our minds?

If I take a good look at myself in the mirror it isn’t the physical or even the spoken that I see change (oh these might change on account of the other changes, but they are the root of becoming more like Him). Instead I see changes occurring deep inside, in the core of who I am. They aren’t dramatic changes either, and often times they go fully unnoticed by myself or others until they cause some outward action to change.

And since these changes occur oftentimes without notice, I’m pretty sure that I’m not even an active participant. Though not active, I would say I’m willing. That might be the key to becoming more like Him, to having a me shaped You. The willingness to let someone in, to make changes that you might not notice, that you might not appreciate, but to let the change occur, to let the One change you to be more like Him.

Another big part of changing is that it often comes in the midst of some type of pain. This isn’t to say that pain is the catalyst for all changes, but it sure is a popular one, at least in my own life. And I realize that the pain is often because I’m so defiant to those changes. I might think or say that I want to be a You shaped me, but when it comes down to it, I’m not willing to give up what I hold on to that is in the way of that change. And so a collision of sorts occurs, with my defiant selfishness set against the will of one who loves me so much He died for me. Guess who wins that fight? And that’s where the pain enters, at the point of my fighting to hold on to what I must relinquish to accept what He has to offer. But at the end of that fight, after the collision, there is change, there is always change, because I leave that place different from what I started. I lay down something that was of me to pick up something that is of Him.

But back to those areas that we begin to look more like Him: our hearts, our minds, our actions. Each area is tied to the other and yet each area give evidence of our shape changing, of us becoming less like ourselves and more like Him.

I want to chew on each of these areas, how they’ve changed in my own life, how my shape has changed to be more like Him. And so this is only the beginning of this post. I’m still thinking and reflecting. I would love to hear your thoughts on this, your ideas, or maybe your own experiences.

Cause I live in Texas:

1. About two weeks ago is SNOWED at the end of November and yet tomorrow it will reach a high of 79. So in the last three weeks we have gone from mid 70's to below freezing to the high 70's. This does not help me in regards to having a stable wardrobe rotation. One day sweaters next day t-shirts. GOSH pick a season already.

2. I was in the Sam's parking lot in a residential shopping center right next to a large high-way and saw two men dressed in all black (hats included) riding horses across an intersection. Mind you we are nowhere near the "country" but in the city. As we see them ride up to a tex-mex restaurant I notice that they have been surrounded by a mass of asian tourists (or they might not be tourists but they sure looked like tourists to me - as noted by the plethora of cameras and fanny packs). This mass of people were corralling the horse riding cowboys into a picture. I live in a place nicknamed "Cow Town" people.

3. Yesterday while driving by another Tex-Mex restaurant (it is Texas and we love our mexican food) I saw the SWEETEST more RAD and GNARLY mullet I have witnessed in a long time. It was almost so beautiful I felt the tears welling up in my eyes and I'm pretty sure I have a slipped vertebrae because of the whiplash I gave myself while trying to burn the image into my brain. It was nice and long in back and with a bit of a wave, and the the top was short but long enough for some good Rave or AquaNet- induced height and body. This man might have even used a pick to tease it up a bit for optimum height. Oh and he was wearing wranglers and cowboy boots.

Proof that clumsy has consequences

Hello all, I know, I know I'm hit or miss lately on posting. It's a combination of new job, busy holiday season, and a small drought of coherent thought in my head. I usually give you a random helping of the insane, the boring, and on rare occasions the insightful and thought-provoking, and yet lately I've just given you re-runs. Bad Kpinion.

I'm still adjusting to all the newness going on in these parts but no fear, my brain didn't get left behind in the move and since it NEVER turns off I've got some things floating up there that might just make a decent blog post, or at least take up some space.

But in the meantime I want to share with you that clumsy does in fact have consequences.

The other morning I happened out of bed and somehow kicked/stubbed/hurled with the velocity of a small projectile my middle toe into my bed frame. Instinctively I must have realized that I should immediately take any weight or pressure off that foot to prevent more damage and that caused me to somehow tumble upon my bed.

Oh the gymnastics don't stop there because it was on the corner of my bed and I somehow slipped off the edge and was careening toward the floor with my face (all the time wanting to say something spelled with number signs and dollar signs and an apersand or two). I expertly threw my body back toward my bed using my non-offending pinky toe as leverage and was able to try and grasp my comforter in a failed attempt at stopping gravity from winning this battle. Instead I landed on my bottom with a thud.

All while I was grasping my phone, because when you are falling and you need both hands to help stop said falling it is better to grasp tighter a cell phone that can offer no assistance in this situation. Unless of course, you do fall and cannot get up and do not own one of those nifty panic buttons they advertise on TV, then a cell phone comes in handy. Although you might die in the interim while you decide who loves you enough to not laugh at you when you explain how you ended up on the floor calling for help.

So there I sat on the floor realizing that I had inflicted a massive amount of pain on this one little toe. I gently lifted my body up and hobbled into the living room to inspect the damage. I've always heard that if you can bend it, it ain't broken but I don't think that applies to toes. When I bend one toe they all bend. It's some sort of muscle/tendon dominoe trick, my toes are all connected and act as one little unit of toes. There can be no individual toe manuevers for the others get jealous and just follow along. So I wiggled my toes and they all seemed to move just fine but the pain was increasing.

Hobbling, I headed to quiet the screaming of said middle toe with a little friend I like to call Alleve. 12 hours of pain relief here I come. Just in case you were wondering, it lied. I was still in pain and decided the only recourse was to prop up my entire foot and watch a movie and use my offending toe as an explanation for why I needed my sister to help me carry boxes to her car later. "My toes is broken" I cried out in such a pitiful voice that she only gave me half a dirty look.

Later that night I took a good look at the toe and it indeed was disfigured and deformed. It's a scary sight to see this long black and red appendage of yours surrounded by its nice pale brothers and sisters. Although I'm not really sure which of my toes are brothers and which ones are sisters, hmmmm. So my toe is black and red and purple, all except the tip. Yep, from the nail up it is as pale as the driven snow, much like the rest of my pasty white albino like skin, dang it people I'm european and have little to no coloring in my skin except for pink, lots and lots of pink and white, I'm pink and white.

I took a picture of my toe and intended to share it with you, but then I thought that might be a little weird, to have a picture of my black and purple toe up on the internet. Although I just got done explaining how weird I am I'm not sure I'm ready to go there with the picture of the toe. So you will just have to imagine what my toe might look like after my clumsy incident.

And that my friends is proof that clumsy has consequences.

Jes told me to do it

Jes of Chirky fame has a meme (oh by the way I still don't know why these are called that, let alone how to pronounce it - something like memememememe as if I was warming up my voice for an operaretic solo?) on her site about "6 weird things about you" and as I read through her list shaking my head in agreement I came upon her command to all who read her post to henceforth commence with completing the meme themselves.

And since I told Jes a while back that she had complete control of my life and should tell me what to do in all circumstances I guess i have to comply with this new command.

So 6 (or six - just for you jes and all your paticularity) weird things about me:

1. I have freakishly longs fingers and toes . . . also i can push my thumb across my palm in such a way that you can see the whole top knunckle sticking out the other side.

2. I HATE soggy bread and will avoid it at all costs . . . this has led to me eating a bowl of chicken and dumplings and leaving all the dumplings in a bowl, one big mound of soggy bread, this lead me to dry heave

3. I am a natural blonde . . . but I'm not dumb, ok that's really not all that weird but hey it's not all that normal either

4. I don't like the movie ET, not one bit, in fact ET kinda scares me with his brown poop looking body and all those wrinkles, and that scary voice, ok so I'm a bit freaked out by ET, fine, I admitted it

5. As a child I was what you would call "paticular" (ok fine I still am) but I would cry, yes CRY and throw a fit, if I was given a papertowel that wasn't torn off perfectly with no ratty or jagged edges, that my friends is what you call "special"

6. _____________________________________
This one I will leave blank and give you the opportunity to fill in yourself. What is something you find rather weird about me? Go ahead, blank slate, have at it, I think I might find this rather interesting to see what you have to say.

Tis the Season

Relax, turn up the volume, and enjoy the musical stylings of a master.


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***Or "NOT AT ALL POWERED BY CASTPOST"

Ugh, it worked yesterday, I promise, I'll see what I can do. Anyone know a program other than castpost or youtube that will download a song and let me post it? Anyone?

SNOW*

It snowed in Texas . . . SNOWED . . . in November . . . . SNOWED . . . . after being near 75 at the beginning of the week we finished it out with SNOW.

And while I was sitting at home trying to boot the nasty little dwarfs that were still wreaking havoc in my head (they had recently decided to relocate to their vacation home also known as my sinuses) I watched as the snow fell to the ground. It was pretty, and white, and SNOW.

Today as I got up to go to work (I think the dwarfs have left the building, much like Elvis) I relished in putting on a nice snuggly warm sweater (ohhhh so soft and snuggly) and gathering my gloves and even contemplating wearing a scarf (with pockets for your hands - eat your heart out jess).

SNOW . . . yea.

*note this was not the flakey snow that floats to the ground with such delicacy. Instead this was more like little bitty pellets of frozen rain/snow that did accumulate to make a white film on the grass, roofs, and cars. This is Texas people we have low standards when it comes to wintery weather.