Butterfly Wrangler

This morning my job title extended again as I saw a butterfly dancing about in church during the opening song. He was enjoying touching the heads of the students before bounding into one of the stained glass windows and gadding about the back of church. I followed him over to the door leading to the exit and ducked my head while opening the door. Over my head he flew. Then he flitted patiently about the vesibule while I opened the door to the outside and out he went. He made my day! #butterflywranger #jobtitlesalwayschange #thatladyfromchurch

Risk More and Learn From the Fall

"Risk more than others think is safe. Care more than others think is wise. Dream more than others think is practical.  Expect more than others think is possible. " Cadet Maxim

…and be defiantly thankful!  Yes, thankful for the adversity in your life, when others put you down because you stick up for your moral values, be grateful for their taunting. When others ask you to join in something you know is not right, and you refuse, be grateful for the test.

For without adversity we learn nothing. Without testing, we fail. Without questions, faltering, or temptations we are falsely lead to thinking life is easy. We get spoiled. Then something comes along and knocks us flat on our behinds.

When I was in my twenties and thirties I thought if you just lived as you ought, everything should work out, be okay. If you are sick, you get well; if you get hurt it won’t be a lot. Now in my fifties, I finally see life is not about avoiding all those things. It’s about building your faith to the point that WHEN those things happen you will trust in God to see you through it.

Jesus was tempted by the devil to give up all his suffering and enjoy a kingdom here on earth. We too are tempted by the devil to the very same thing. Give up moral values, live temporarily in this life and get all everything you want, whether its greed, all the sex we want with whomever, all the drug taking, fast life choices, and never, ever paying any gratitude to the one Creator who put us here.

But Jesus didn’t take that bribe.  Jesus, while carrying a hundred pound cross, fell three times. He was God, why did He fall? Why didn’t angels just hold that up for him?  Could it be He was showing us how to get up every time we fall? He was showing us to always ask for God’s help when we fall?

While getting lashed with nasty bone crushing whips, Jesus hung on, he didn’t die on the spot, but waited for more horrors. He was physically nailed hands and feet to the cross to die, he didn’t give up until it was time, until he knew he had finished His mission on earth; to offer himself up as a sacrifice for our sin.

How can we hear the story of Jesus and not think of what he did for us? How can WE not do more for others, for ourselves, by living a moral, value filled life after what He did? We don’t want to be made fun of, yet He was. We don’t want to suffer, yet He did. And it was all for us, not one iota was for himself.

People made fun of him for risking more than what was safe, for caring more than others thought wise, for dreaming of His Father in heaven who knew and loved Him. And Jesus left behind eleven apostles whom He expected to carry on His Father’s church on earth and even charged  Peter, who had denied Him three times, with  the power to get people to heaven.

Moments In A Parent’s Life When You Get To Laugh

I love it.  Finally!  We have one child who is expecting her first child, which is also our first grandchild, another child who is in his first year of teaching and we will get to sit back and watch all those “moments in a parent’s life when you get to laugh.”  Otherwise known as “I told you so” or “wait till you have children of your own” moments!

Ever wonder if God has those moments all the time? I do.  Surely, the wonderful Creator who made us be able to laugh at ourselves, also enjoys that emotion?  Watching us go about our daily lives thinking we have things all together, He has to have a certain sense of humor don’t you think?  How else could He not just give up on us if He didn’t?

Just as parents must learn to finally ease up, stop nagging their children about things in life, God lets us come to him. We parents could learn a lot from His wise ways.

As parents, my husband and I were actually very lucky with our children. They didn’t have colic and give us sleepless nights looking for ways to calm them down and sleep.  Okay, we had one daughter who wouldn’t go to sleep unless one or both of us sat in the hallway until she drifted off.  Then there was the phone call from the principal at the school where our first grade son was attending who informed us that he would be serving a detention the following day for pulling the fire alarm.  Now that same son is a teacher at the same school and on his first day teaching sent us a picture of the that same fire alarm and said it was his first lesson to teach the kids not to touch it.  I can’t wait to see how that goes!

I am constantly trying hard not to take myself so seriously.  I don’t think I’m a horrible parent, yet each day I worry whether I taught my kids everything they needed to know. What I don’t realize is that they don’t have to know everything. They have to know who to trust or go to when they don’t know everything.  Isn’t that what our faith is about too? We may not know everything about faith matters but as long as we know we can go to God and give Him our worries, cares and “I don’t know anything about this matter” to Him, we’ll be okay.

So relax and let God guide you in His ways.  If you worry about every little alarm being pulled or dirt put in a baby’s mouth you’ll never laugh again.  And life is about laughing and joining God as He loves us all.