Good to know:

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/12/29/The-7-Foods-Experts-Wont-Eat.aspx?sms_ss=facebook

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

I hope your Christmas is filled with joy, hope and peace that can only come from the Savior that came from above!!!!!

Oh by the way, you don't have cancer

One afternoon, several weeks ago, I found something weird about myself physically. I'll spare you the details, but let's just say I knew immediately that something wasn't right. I sat down on the stairs in my house, and did what you are never, ever supposed to do. I Googled. And the first word that popped up was "Cancer."

I sat there, absolutely frozen, and I literally saw a fork in the road.

A couple of years ago, the old me would have bolted to the phone, crying, and called everyone I knew, seeking advice and reassurance. I would have jumped on the computer, researching all the facts I could find on the "situation" and spiraled into the great land of "what if?" It looked so nice, that fork in the road. So comforting, fulfilling. Fleshly, and oh so tempting.

The other way was a way that is newer to me. It was a way of peace, acceptance and faith. Ugh. My favorite word. Faith. I sat there, pondering which way I wanted to go. It was a true decision. Sitting there, on my stairs, with my busy world swirling around me, I felt like Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix." Everything was going on around me, and I sat there, frozen.

It sounds so melodramatic. It was, in fact, monumental. I saw that God was saying, "Okay. You've been working really hard. Dedicating yourself to Me. Learning. Studying. Progressing. Now, is it real?" I felt the weight of the importance of this. It was real. I got up, and went on with my afternoon. My night. My weekend.

I made the right decision.

It's funny too. I went that night and sat with one of my best friends for literally 7 hours. You don't know HOW much I wanted to grab her hand just for one second and say, "Can we pray over this?"

But I didn't. For 3 days, I didn't say a word to another single soul. God and I hashed it out in my heart.

I knew that it could totally be nothing. I also knew that God wasn't wanting to see how I reacted to "nothing." He wanted to see how I'd react to "something."

I had watched a dear friend struggle for years and years with cancer, and I saw her leave her 13 year old daughter who didn't have a father. I felt the grief of one of my favorite people in the world being ripped away by cancer. (The Lord has done miracles in that 13 year old girl, by the way. She's grown, married and a mama now, loving Christ all the way. Thank you, Jesus.)

I came to grips with that years ago. Leaving my kids, I mean. I told God that if they were better off without me, then I was okay with leaving them. Really. He loves them more than I do, and He would find the perfect person to raise them. I was good there.

But, this was different. This was the great unknown of medical bills, pain, suffering, difficulties. I wandered there in my weak moments time to time, but really, I just soldiered on with Jesus. Me and Him.

I saw the worry in my doctor's eyes, even as we joked about my coming out in a hurricane to get checked out. He said we'd know for sure in a week what was up. 7 days. Okay, cool...

That's a long time to be strong about something like that.

Okay, enough of the drama. I am fine. And after it was all over, the Lord said, "You know, I'm proud of you. You handled that pretty well." I was humbled, because it's only that GOD didn't give up on me a long time ago that I have made any progress in my life.

It's only because He has pushed me so much farther than I thought I could EVER go. He has pulled me out of my complacency. He has dragged me from all the earthly pleasures I used to cling to. He has separated me from all my securities that didn't lie with Him. He removed all my comforts that used to sooth my soul. All except those that came from Him.

Goodness.

And he's not done yet. Thank you, Lord. You still have so much work to do on this old, yucky me.

Then, as I still pondered these things, Thanksgiving morning, one of my "friends" had a seizure, fell, hit his head and was taken to the hospital.

Now I say "friend" because I'm weird. If you influence my life, if God uses you in my life, if I am grown and challenged by you, even if I don't know you personally, you are my "friend." Even if you are famous. ;)

My "friend" is Matt Chandler. He pastors a church in Texas called the Village Church. http://fm.thevillagechurch.net/


If you want to get shaken up a bit, or challenged, give him a listen. I love that he is fighting that good fight. The real fight. Making it happen.

Long blog post shortened just a bit, Matt has a tumor in his brain. They operated, didn't get all of it, and determined that it's cancer.

My heart broke. I knew 1/100th of what he was going through. I had just been there, experiencing just a fraction, oh just a fraction, of what he is going through. My heart broke for him, his family and his church family.

His testimony during all of this has been amazing. So profound. His last Tweet was, "Why not me? Why not you?" Oh my soul.

I am praying most of all for comfort for his spirit. That God will be fabulously glorified through his journey. That people will come to know Jesus through all this.

This article is amazing:

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2009/decemberweb-only/151-11.0.html?start=2



This blog post rocked my world. And I'm sure this man is really a friend with Matt Chandler:


http://jrvassar.posterous.com/thinking-of-my-friend-matt-chandler-and-the-d


And this is Lauren Chandler's blog:


http://www.themchandlers.blogspot.com/




So pray with me for my "friend" Matt Chandler and all those around him.

And pray for the challenges that will come to you in your life. Pray in advance of them, so that when they come, you can glorify God, bringing others to Him. I am. So very, very much.

Because it is no doubt to me that more hard stuff is going to come. Stuff that will knock me off my feet. So I pray now, that God will be strong in me, so I can glorify Him, just in case I can't pray the right prayer when that time comes.

Christmas Destruction

"What is Christmas about, boys and girls? Annihilation. Obliteration. Demolition. Destruction."

It was the Christmas sermon opening that changed the way I thought about Christmas.

Thinking about a baby destroying the world immediately brought back age old memories of Chucky. I dated a guy who's four year old nephew was addicted to Chucky movies. I hope that kid turned out okay, but I think the odds were probably stacked against him. I need to pray over him today...

Anyway, you probably knew it was coming. My yearly post about all the things that I think are wrong with Christmas. The things that interfere with my thoughts and feelings about Christmas. The theories that I can't reconcile, the questions that don't have answers, the thoughts and feelings that conflict my spirit.

And you know what? I'm not alone! I found one, single solitary person who has the same problem. So there. I'm not that crazy. Well, let's not linger too long there.

  I'm don't like to linger long on the baby Savior. He was vulnerable. He was dependent on the humans he came to save. I wonder if this was the greatest challenge He faced, as He sat in Heaven, gazing down at the Earth, and asked the Father, "You trust them to take care of me?"

I imagine God nodded. And I imagine Jesus sighed and said, "Okay, if You do, then I guess I do."

Or something like that. Or maybe not.

But, again, I don't like to linger there. That has just never sat well with me, this whole celebration of the baby Jesus. Could it be that this is why He never asked us to celebrate His birth? Because it wasn't about His birth?

It was about the fall of Satan.

Now that gets me pumped up.

1 John 3:8b says this:

"The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil."

There. That's it. It all just clicked. It all made sense. That's what my spirit has been longing to hear, plain and simple, all this time. And I am absolutely, positively sure that it has been mentioned before, talked about, preached about and illustrated over and over again before now. I think I just missed it all this time.

I know that Jesus came to save us. I really do. I know that was the whole intention of His birth. But it's more than that. This tiny baby's birth must have sent shock waves through Satan, waves of fear and trembling. It meant that Satan's destruction was sealed. It was definite now. The ONE who was going to destroy Satan was here. He came, and now it was all set into motion. The movie, if you will, had started. And the credits won't roll until Satan meets his eternal demise.

Wow.

"Jesus appeared to destroy the Devil's work"

That's it. That's why He came. He saved us in the process. He rescued us from Satan's clutches. Paid the ransom, and swept us into His arms.

Hebrews 2:14-15

"Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery."

Oh yeah. That's it. My new Christmas verse.

So am I now okay with Christmas in December, the songs about Jesus being born this night, the Wise Men hanging around the manger, the presents, the craziness, and all and such?

No. I'm not. And I won't ever be. But you know what? God won't let me let go of these things. It's important to Him that I think these thoughts. And He is the ONLY one who knows why it's important. It drives me to tears.

But this year, this message has brought me comfort in the craziness. I can celebrate, in my heart, that baby in the manger who soon will wipe Satan from all of our lives. I'm focusing on thanking God for His gift of His Son every single day of the year. I leave those Wisemen-less nativities up all year. I want to tell the unreached nations that He did come. And He's here to save, and annihilate. And obliterate. And demolish. And destroy.

And He did all that because He is holy. He is perfect. And He is worthy to be praised.

Christmastime is here!

The Blog Era is Over?

A sweet friend of mine offically closed her blog a couple of weeks ago. She just said, "It's over." She left it up for some good information she had on there, but basically said it was time to let it go. That made me really, really sad.

I am NOT here to guilt anyone about anything, not that I could. I'm just here to pout.

I really loved blogs. I loved seeing what people were doing, what their kids were doing, what they were thinking, where they were going, what they were seeing. I'm a bit of a voyeur that way. I love to peeping Tom into peoples' lives. I love that most of all.

I loved the thinking part most of all. I like being challenged with what I think/believe, and blogs really let me do that. There's something safe in being able to type out all that you feel, not being interrupted while you're getting it all out, and it makes for very fertile ground in which to lay out your ideas. I loved it when those posts would pop out.

Again, I'm not complaining. Just lamenting something I miss. You know, like jelly shoes, Merlin, and riding my Big Wheel down my stairs of my old house.

I hate when things fade away. Maybe that's why I am so fastidious about this blog. It grounds me, in a way. It gives me a place to nail down a few things. I'm stubborn. I just can't let it go.

So I miss you, dear blogger, and your pictures, your antidotes, your slideshows, your recipes, your thoughts on this or that. And maybe that's why I wanted to write this. Just so that you'll know you're missed.

Let's go ride a bike...Oh wait. That's "fly a kite..."

I've been singing "Let's go ride a bike..." to the tune of "Let's go fly a kite..." by accident. It just hit me as I typed out the title to the post. Oh well. At least it's a clean song, unlike some of the other bicycle songs out there.


Anyway,

My sweet Laney has been trying to ride a bike literally for years. She just turned 8, and I was hoping it would happen soon, for her self confidence's sake. My precious friend Jackie posted a video of her son riding his bike in the back yard, and I showed it to the kids. Laney and Jude started jumping up and down, asking me to take off their training wheels on their bikes so they could try to ride in the back yard too. So I did.

As I expected, Jude jumped on his bike and took off. That kid has natural athletic ability. He struggles in some other areas, but he can do stuff like this amazingly well. Laney worked so hard, I think encouraged by Jude's going to it, and she actually got it! Oh, I was so happy and proud.

We headed off to the circle, and they were immediately addicted. I am so glad.

Here is Jude, mid fall. They have lots of bumps and bruises, but no major wrecks yet. Oh wait, Laney did literally run over Zane, but he was okay. I'd like to say I kept my cool, but I didn't. I'm learning, though. *breathe in, breathe out...* Okay.

Allen rides his bike with them, and when the weather clears up, I want to try too. I wonder if it's true that you never forget how to ride a bike. It's been 25+ years since I've been on one, so we'll see...

Oh and you have to watch this video to the very end. I have no idea who the loud mouth is who won't be quiet, but never mind that...

One of the reasons I got a kid-proof camera (and it's the most fabulous camera in the whole world) is so that my kids could use it. And they use it a lot. They just take it off and we have tons of pictures and videos of them just being silly. It makes for very interesting picture uploading.

So I went to upload pictures from the weekend, and all of a sudden all these hilarious pictures just started popping up on the screen. I called Laney in to tell me what the heck they were doing. And she told me that she was telling them emotions to have, and then she would take their pictures:

Happy

Super Happy

Sad

Super Sad

Surprised

Super surprised

Excited

Super excited

Mad

Super Mad
(notice even Jude's face is red...)

Bored

Super bored

This is looking up at the sky.
(I asked Laney why looking up at the sky, and she replied, "I don't know.")



So there you have it. That's what my kids do with the camera.

Oh, and they take videos of themselves too. (You have to watch Jude's face.) I'm going to be glad to have all this later. I know I am.

You are NOT going to believe the deal I found!!!

Okay, not really. But if I told you I wanted to talk about Secularism and the Myth of Neutrality, would you have opened this post?


 NOPE!!!!

And why would you?


 I mean really.

I was on the way home during my now famous and too much talked about trip to Atlanta when the radio station I was listening to suddenly announced an introduction to a man that I had never heard of. The words were so big and the introduction so convoluted that I actually thought it was some sort of strange Christian version of a Saturday Night Live skit. I kept listening, to see what the heck it was. So this nice man, Ravi Zacharias, started talking, and I was mesmerized.

Now he's a well known apologist, evangelist and theologian. It will come as no surprise to you that I am none of the three of those. I also had no idea who he was. About 80% of his message went right over my head, but I was most of the time worrying terribly about where exactly I-20 was and whether or not I was going to hit a deer during the horrible downpour I was driving through. Let's not excuse it too much, though. I'm not very well versed in apologetics, but I do love to learn about stuff.

So anyway, basically, if I can break it down to an embarrassingly simply level of understanding, for myself, of course, what this Mr. Zacharias was saying:

1. We are created to worship. By our Creator, of course. It was all designed to help us find Him. And what we fill ourselves with so much of the time is not Him. But we try, with any sort of religion. Mostly he was speaking of the unsaved-how we will worship any other sort of created deity. That's basically how the other religions started. All born out of this desire intrinsically to worship.

2. If we, as a country, society or a culture, allow Christianity to slip through our fingers, our world will not remain neutral. Meaning, if we remove our Christianity, something will replace it. Some other religion. Because we were created to worship. Something else WILL replace Christianity.

3. There are religions aware of this already. And they are waiting, in the wings, for the fall of Christianity in this country, so that they may step in.

It freaked my self out. I got that panicky feeling I get when I feel like there's too much I should be doing RIGHT NOW. That time is wasting. Like I have to get out there and make sure we don't lose this battle. BUT HOW?

Ugh.

So after this message, my head spun all the way home. I then asked one of my friends, who at this point has to remain nameless because said friend's ego is getting out of control, about this Ravi guy. I was really hoping that he was some quack and I could just ignore all that he had said. (Granted, the Holy Spirit was already letting me know it was legit, but I was hoping I was wrong.) My theologian friend assured me he was legit. *sigh*

So, you know, I don't know. Ever since I went to that stupid Secret Church, I have been reminded that what we are battling is bigger than we can even comprehend. And this little sermon by Ravi Zacharias further drove that home for me.

It's serious, and I am begging God to show me my place in it all. How it is possible to just go about our every day life, knowing that there is so much we need to do, as quickly as possible. Yet, how and how and how? Oh me.

One thing that I KNOW I can and need to do is pray desperately for those who are in the battle, fighting so bravely already. I can pray, and walk in obedience. And be aware. It's scary to be aware, but I think now, more than ever, it's a sin not to be aware. So let us all be.

Oh, and if you are at all interested, here is the link to the nice man I am speaking of: I am sure I am the only person in a 5 mile radius that hasn't heard of him, but I'm getting used to being the last one to the party, as my sweet friend Martha used to say.

http://www.rzim.org/USA/Resources/Listen/LetMyPeopleThink.aspx?archive=1

True Independence is a Motorcycle

I have that saying on a shirt, but it didn't seem so cheesy on there. Oh well. My sister and her boyfriend, Chris, came by the house one Sunday afternoon with Chris' motorcycle. The kids had a blast sitting on it, and then, after mustering up some courage, Laney and Jude took rides around the neighborhood. They absolutely loved it! Of course that made me happy, since I love few things more as climbing on the back of a motorcycle and taking off!