About three and a half years ago some Life Stuff reared its ugly head. You know how Life Stuff works…it pops up out of seemingly nowhere, rocks your world, and leaves you in its wake. By the way, there were three completely unrelated metaphors in that last sentence. Life Stuff apparently renders one incapable of coherent figurative language.

Here’s the thing. The Stuff has absolutely nothing to do with me other than it affects someone I care about, so I feel the ripples. And if you’re thinking, “Um, could you possibly be more vague,” I apologize. Vaguery is of the essence, I’m afraid, because I try not to be in the business of betraying people’s trust. So you’ll have to bear with me. Just know that as a result of The Stuff, I feel like I’ve been in the midst of two Big Battles: 1) fear and 2) pride.

The fear part seizes me at the strangest times. I can be bebopping through my little BooMama life, minding my own business, and BOOM – my stomach drops down to my knees. I like for things to make sense, for all the parts to add up, for everything to be out in the open, dealt with, put back in the box, and filed away (it’s Mix Your Metaphors Day, evidently). Nothing about this situation is like that. And so the unknown – the fear of what’s down the road – well, it gets to me sometimes. I want to know how The Stuff is going to play out; I want to know the end result so that I’m not so wary of all the what-ifs.

Obviously, this is one area of my life where I’ve struggled with trusting God. I lay it all at the foot of the Cross, stare at it awhile, and then I think, “You know, I’m just gonna pick this little teensy part up again…I think I can handle it.” And I tippy-toe over to where I left it, pick up a little bit, and before you know it I’ve put the whole load back on my shoulders, and I’m overwhelmed, and I’m scared.

On top of that, my tendency to speak my mind, my desire to say my piece, means struggles with pride can’t be far behind. Now I have no right to say anything, mind you – this is not my battle to fight – but I have an almost physical need to try to right all the wrongs in this situation. I want to fight for someone who has been hurt; I want to shout, preferably from the rooftops, “HEY, EVERYBODY! LET ME TELL YOU WHAT SO-AND-SO DID!” But I can’t. Over and over again I’ve had to die to that selfish need, and I wish I could tell you that that was it, that I was over it, that I surrendered my need to speak and let it go altogether.

But that wouldn’t be true. Inevitably what happens is that I’m not myself when I’m around this person. I’m not rude in the conventional sense – I’m just distant. But it’s impossible for me to fake it (side note: one time I said that to Sister about something else, and she said, “Oh, believe me – we know – you are many things, but you are not an actress”). :-) On top of that, I want the person to know that they’re wrong, and they messed up, and doggone it there will be consequences, which I will happily facilitate if need be.

Surprise! Welcome to my passive-aggressive party! It’s loads of fun.

As it turns out – and there’s no way I think this is a coincidence – David and I were talking about these very issues last week. I was telling him all my frustrations, pouring my heart out, feeling just a tiny bit sorry for myself, talking about how lonely I was because I hadn’t been able to share the details of this situation with my friends, and I was really expecting some sympathy, to tell you the truth. But about halfway through my self-prescribed journey to martyrdom, David looked at me and said, “You know what? I don’t buy it. I don’t think this is really about you needing to share your feelings. I think this is about you wanting to point a finger, you wanting someone to pay for what they did. And you know what? That may never happen, at least not in a way that you can see.”

So, um, yeah. That sorta cut to the quick with me.

On Monday I started the LBY study. At the end of Monday’s lesson, I had to answer a question about how God might want me to respond to what I learned. My answer: “I think I need [to work on] humility…my pride has been fired up lately….” And then Wednesday, when I opened my workbook to the lesson for Day 3, the following verse was staring at me: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). It hit me right between the eyes.

As I moved through the rest of the lesson, which dealt with 10 essential qualities of being crucifed with Christ, I started talking back in the margins, writing like a madwoman. By the time I got to quality #4 – “intense times of aloneness with God are required” – I knew that being in this study was, as our former pastor would say, “by divine appointment.” Out beside point #4, I wrote, “Maybe God has ‘pulled me aside’ over the last [few] years because He wants me to lean on Him [in this situation], not [other people].”

YA THINK?

And then quality #8 – “You must forego your rights” – pretty much wipes out any excuses I make for being fearful or prideful. Here’s what Beth Moore said, and I’m going to quote it because I hope it’ll resonate with some of y’all the way it did with me: “You may have the right to be angry, the right to be bitter [but]….Don’t make the mistake of trying to simply ignore your rights when they are so difficult to lay down. Surrender them to Christ and ask Him to replace them with a supernatural work of the Spirit: with healing, with power, with wisdom!”

That spoke to me.

By the time I got to quality #9 – “You must accept that death [to self] is painful.” – I felt like God had a 2×4 and was ever-so-gently slamming it against my skull (in a most loving way, of course). Beth says, “…to choose the will of God over our own is excruciating….Never misunderstand pain as permission to forego the will of God.” And I was so completely humbled by that point that all I could write in the margin was “yes ma’am” – because she’s exactly right. Just because I can speak my mind doesn’t mean that I should. Confrontation with the purpose of satisfying selfish motives will never, ever be of God. That’s a tough one, but it’s true.

Dying to self is, for me, the biggest battle of all. I want things my way on my time in the manner of my choosing – and it is so arrogant, this presumption I sometimes have that somehow I know better than God. At the end of Wednesday’s lesson, when it was time for me to write down how I felt God wanted me to respond to what I’d learned, I was crystal clear: “[God wants me to respond] by laying down my need for confrontation and closure with _____. It’s not my battle. It’s not my call. And my motives are selfish.”

So I got a little clarity, you might say.

I Corinthians 2:9 offers great assurance about why I can happily, gratefully die to my own will and desires. It says, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.”

I have to trust Him. He knows better. It’s just that simple. Because it’s way beyond me.

Addie	Heather*	Carol
M	Rach	Jeana
Jenn	Amanda	MamaB
GiBee	Boomama	Maria
Blair	Heather	Nancy
Janna	Flipflop	Robin
Sherry	Patricia	Tara
Lauren	HolyMama!	Faith
Christy	Eph2810	Karin
Leann	Rachel	Janice
This is a list of the women participating in the study and the links to their blogs. New postings on the study will be published for the next ten weeks, between Friday 8pm – Saturday 8am. Please feel free to visit each of us and comment. Everyone is welcome to participate in this discussion as we seek to live beyond ourselves. May God bless you richly from the hearing of His word.

About five years ago, David and I drove to Memphis to see Faith Hill and Tim McGraw in their first “Soul2Soul” Tour. While I typically have fairly decent perspective in regard to celebrities, I have no perspective at all when it comes to these two.

I love them. I Love Them. I LOVE THEM.

So we drove to Memphis and went to the concert with Stacy and Janie. And OH MY WORD WAS IT FUN. The show was awesome, we had great seats (thanks, Sister), and we determined that two such beautiful people should not be able to marry because the sight of Tim and Faith together is really more than the human eye can comprehend at one time. It’s an overload of beauty. Well, it’s actually an overload of hotness, but good Christian girls shouldn’t say that about strangers, so I’ll steal Sister’s expression: “They are all that. And then some.”

You can imagine my reaction when I got the following email from my husband yesterday (and I would like to point out that we were both in the house, except he was down in his office, and I was in the kitchen, so the fact that he emailed me this information struck me as very, very funny): “Tim and Faith have updated their listings. They will be in our area Friday, May 26. Might you be interested in going?”

I do not even have to answer such a silly question. I could say “yes” in every language, and it wouldn’t be enough.

But just for the record: Yes. Si. Oui. Uh-huh. (I don’t know any languages besides those.)

It’s important to note that our ninth anniversary is May 31, mere days after Faith and Tim come through town.

Do y’all think they’d want to go to dinner with us? Or maybe come over? Or maybe arrange a play date between Alex and their youngest daughter, Audrey? I’m sure they would be fast friends.

I have put David in charge of all arrangements because 1) I’m far too excited to actually plan anything and 2) this is an excellent opportunity for him to hit an anniversary homerun. Which we usually don’t even try to do – we’re actually really laid-back about that kind of stuff – but FAITH AND TIM? Only five days before our anniversary? Come on.

I believe it is God’s will that they become our COUPLE BFF, which in no way interferes with Wynonna’s designation as my GIRL BFF, because everybody knows you have your couple friends, and you have your girlfriends, and there’s no conflict of interest at all.

And no, I’m not crazy. Not at all. I’m just, um, enthusiastic. Nothing wrong with that.

Now since I have confessed my pretend celebrity BFF, who are y’all’s? Don’t even try to act like you haven’t thought about it. You KNOW you’ve watched a movie or a talk show and decided that you and so-and-so would hit it off.

I will be EAGERLY awaiting your comments.

DON’T BE SHY, NOW. :-)

Last night when I was watching the American Idol results show (bye bye, Lisa), I noticed that once again the judges pointed out the importance of song choice. Randy’s comment that the contestants need “to pick better songs” led to some deep introspection on my part that I feel on some level is entirely inappropriate for a 36 year old wife and mother. But I couldn’t help myself.

Here was (is) my dilemma:

If I were a contestant on American Idol next week, what would I sing? Keep in mind that the fact that I cannot sing is by no means a hindrance here in my personal la-la land.

And somehow this question has become all-too-real to me, like at some minute the AI producers are going to walk in my house and say, “Okay – time’s up. Tell us RIGHT NOW.” I feel an odd sense of urgency about my decision, because I’m, you know, INSANE.

Next week’s competition has a country theme, but my talent cannot be limited by genre. I just can’t work with that kind of process, people. Don’t try to put a fence around my level of singing talent. Because the dogs, when they hear me, they will have to run free.

So here are my top three options:
“Independence Day” – Martina McBride – my country selection
“Bring It All Together” – Natalie Grant and my BFF Wynonna – my contemporary Christian selection
“Hard To Handle” – the Black Crowes version – this is my “break out” song to show the judges how versatile I am

Yours? And don’t be shy. I know y’all. I have seen many of you sing into a hairbrush. So ‘fess up.

So. Let’s talk about BLOGS! I tell you what – I know how to reel in an audience, don’t I?

Seriously, I’ve been giving this whole blog thing some thought, so bear with me.

As most of y’all know, I haven’t been writing this blog for very long, though I have been reading blogs for several years. I really didn’t know what was out there besides the 10 or 15 “big” bloggers who no doubt get thousands upon thousands of hits each day on their sites. And good for them, you know? They have an audience, they speak their minds, and several of them are oh-my-word-I’m-going-to-wet-my-pants funny.

A couple of months ago, though, I took a mental step back and really started to think about the blogs I was reading. I realized that the content of some of them was bothering me. Now I am certainly not Miss Prissy Prude, but there’s some stuff out there that made me uncomfortable…what Mama would call “vulgar” language, some incredibly personal details, and, on a couple of blogs, a little Jesus-bashing to boot. Please don’t misunderstand me. Those people are completely entitled to their opinions. But it doesn’t enrich my life to read that stuff. It just makes me frustrated and sad.

So I had an epiphany. Well, several. 1) If I was feeling isolated out here on the vast interweb prairieland, then I needed to seek out some like-minded people. 2) There’s some stuff that I was reading that I just didn’t want to read anymore. And finally, 3) I wish that I were a mere tenth as funny as Finslippy. I’d even settle for a twentieth.

Long story long – right about the time I was “evaluating” my reading habits, Sister mentioned a blog called HolyMama!. Sister found it by – oh, I don’t know how she found it, as she spends much of her internet time unraveling complex unsolved mysteries and pursuing justice in the Jon Benet Ramsey case. And I don’t think HolyMama! is connected to any of those things, just for the record. But I do think that Sister was looking for Christian bloggers, and HM was a great place to land. I envy HM’s ability to write short posts that generate lots of comments…I, on the other hand, seem to ramble on and on to the point that there’s nothing left for anyone to say. I believe myself to be quite gifted in that area.

Anyway, I didn’t visit HolyMama! (very important to include the exclamation point) much at first, because it takes me a while to work a blog into my daily routine (y’all know I’m OCD – don’t look so surprised). But eventually I clicked over more and more because there seemed to be a community there. And it’s not that I’m looking for people to replace my lifelong “real life” friends because why would I? They’re the best. But it is nice to read other people’s stuff and be able to ask questions and see what little buttons people have on their sites and try to figure out how to put buttons on yours. You know, geekery. (And now I’m singing “Geekery In Jesus” to the tune of “Victory In Jesus” in my head, which is proof positive that God made me, um, crazy.)

HolyMama! (again, punctuation is critical) eventually led me to Lauren’s blog, which is where I found out about the Bible study I’ve just started with some other Christian bloggers (oh, the wacky Christian bloggers). And also thanks to Lauren, I have a new blogroll over in the sidebar that links to the sites of all the other people in the Bible study. Y’all know that I don’t believe in coincidences, and I’ve shaken my head a couple of times when I’ve thought about the fact that I’m doing a BIBLE STUDY – on the INTERWEB – with STRANGER-FRIENDS. God is creative, no doubt about it.

All of the girls listed (sorry – I know I’m 36 years old, but I cannot bear to say “ladies” – ladies, at least to me, are 80-ish and use canes) will be posting about our study every Saturday for the next ten weeks. I really encourage you to check out what they have to say. I for one can’t wait to read all their bloggity Bible study goodness.

It’s gonna be good.

Apparently the folks at biblepromise.com are having some technical difficulties, because for the last two days my verse in the sidebar hasn’t been showing up. I clicked over to a couple of sites who also have a sidebar verse, and theirs is gone, too. Sigh.

Hopefully the biblepromise.com server/mainframe/whatchamajigit will be up and running soon. In the meantime, get your Bible, close your eyes, open the Bible, and point.

Voila. Verse of the day. :-)

But this is pretty impressive.

And to give credit where credit is due, I first saw this video via Woulda Shoulda, but I couldn’t get the Google version to work on the blog, so I found it on You Tube.

I’m sure you were wondering.

And by the way, this performance is so the kind of thing that Emma Kate would go see, and she would talk about it for days, and probably cry a little when she talked about it, completely overwhelmed by the talent of Chris Bliss, Master Juggler.