Today Is A Holiday.....

Today is a National holiday in our household.  

It's....

Yes....it's April 12...and its National Grilled Cheese Day. (I capitalize Grilled Cheese cause....well, it's just THAT important.)

If you know ANYTHING at all about me, you know I am a Grilled-Cheese-A-Holic.  Always have been....suspect I always will be.

No chicken enchilada's for me at the local mexican food restaurant....nope...I'm ordering off the kiddy menu my Grilled Cheese Sandwich.  Every-Single-Time.

Pancakes and hashbrowns at Ihop?  Nope.  A buttery Grilled Cheese Sandwich between white bread with cheese oozing out the sides is what I get.
Every-Single-Time.

When I was in high school, I lived in a dorm my Jr. and Sr. year.  We weren't allowed to have any cooking apparatuses, but we were allowed to have an iron.  I cooked my Grilled Cheese Sandwich on the bottom of my iron.

So GO.....show a little support for that comfort food that has made everything right in your world by celebrating this important day today by eating that Grilled Cheese Sandwich you know you want.....and don't forget to sprinkle a little pickle juice over the top of the bread before eating.

 You'll thank me later.

No Eggs, No New Dress, No Bunnies....Just GRACE

 

Jesus said to his disciples - -
"Let's go off by ourselves to a quiet place and rest awhile"
Mark 6:31

I am writing this from a quiet place today.....a place in the center of Alabama called Verbena...you know, like the flower.....and its quiet.....except the running water of Blue Creek nearby...the very creek my Grandmother and Grandfather owned and panned for gold in when I was a kid.   I hear the leaves crunching from a nearby deer.....and I am alone here with the memories of my childhood....this place I hated desperately as a child.

Hated it because I was a city girl stuck in a place of outhouses, grasshoppers, dirt and QUIET.  I liked the noise of the city.  The noise kept me from thinking about my lack of self-confidence, insecurities and fears.

But standing here now....almost fifty years later, in that very same spot of quiet, somehow its all different...yet the same.  Now the quiet soothes me....I don't mind remembering those insecurities and fears as I can look back on the road I've traveled and see clearly why God chose that road for me to walk down.  How those very same insecurities became the tool that helped me grow and led me straight to Him.

And I see off in the distance my brother and my sister.....the ones who threw crickets on me and made me cry....who I now love with a love that only someone who has walked a long dirty road together can love.....and somehow this place that I hated becomes a wonderful memory.

I loved that one of the last things Jesus wanted to do with his disciples was to "Go off by ourselves to a quiet place..." cause isn't that what true friends do?

As we walk the woods, Uncle Kenny talks about how the tops of the trees are called the "crown" and reminds us that the pine trees die if they can't reach the sun......yes....THAT Son....they die.  They have to be thinned out....to allow ROOM for the Son to reach their entire soul....the core of their being.

They DIE without the SON. 

And its not until we "Go off by ourselves with God to a quiet place" that we feel the Son beaming down into our cores....and adding nourishment that can only come from the Son.  By uncluttering our lives of stuff.....by thinning out our lives of things that don't include or matter to God....we are leaving room for the Son to heal us....to grow us....to strengthen us.  

Ash Wednesday.....The Beginning of Lent.....Remembering....

 ASH WEDNESDAY.......

The trees are bare.....the sky is gray....and the coldness that hits me in the face when I open the door causes me to feel numb.  So often this time of year, this Lenten season, life can sometimes feel hopeless deep in our very souls...

.....reLENTless, actually.

But last Wednesday, as I celebrated my third Ash Wednesday ever....in my whole.....entire....life; as Mark placed those ashes on my forehead in the form of a cross that differed from the way I was brought up, I felt Peace.  I felt Right.  I felt Honest....

I FELT THE PRESENCE OF GOD.

At that moment, the trees were green, the sky was blue and I felt the warmth of the Son upon my face.  Yes....right there on my face....right dab on my forehead was a cross between two major skin cancer scars....just like the two criminals sandwiched on either side of Jesus.  And I smiled.....

Because isn't that where Jesus should be?  In the middle of the muck, the dirt, the scars, the filth of our lives? 

And as I watched the line growing longer and longer up the aisle to the alter.....to receive and become a part of the dust to dust of ashes....to receive the wine and the bread that was broken and spilled for me, how could I not see the Amazing Grace in all of this?  And I watched, person after person, pass the pew I sat and waited my turn in, with a black cross stamped proudly on their foreheads and secure smiles on their faces, and suddenly, we all looked the same. 

Yes....Yes....I understand now.  We are all part of the same family.  We all have the same DNA. 

We are all "blood related".

And we hum Amazing Grace as we leave this place......we hum it from the deepest, darkest, places inside each of us and the sound is sweet....cause we all know we once were lost....but now we...

...Have Been Found.

Love Letter To My Girlfriends

So I have a girlfriend named "Liz" (there's an epidemic of Liz's in my life) who I received the following email from this morning:

This morning on the way to school Jane said, "I'll be a unicorn someday."

I nodded.  It's a solid plan for a three year old.

"But I'm going to have a lady face" she added.

Again, solid plan.  Who doesn't like a unicorn with a pretty face?

"And then I'll lose my tooths," she stated, poking her front teeth with her finger.

This is the part of the conversation where things started to go off the rails a bit.

"No, you won't lose your teeth for a long time," I tried to explain, but she wasn't having it.

"I will!" she insisted vehemently.  "I will lose my tooths, and then steal other little girls' tooths."

"I thought you were going to be a lady face unicorn," I asked.  I couldn't help it.

She considered this, and agreed, "Yes, I will.  And I will steal other unicorns' tooths."

"It's teeth.  It's plural," I said, because frankly, I was at a loss for how to respond anymore and it seemed safest to stick to immovable facts.

"Yes.  Teeth.  And I will steal them, and hide them in my stove, and cook them later." she nodded, apparently satisfied that we'd reached a mutual grammar agreement and an understanding about the fate of any future teeth that fall into her hands.

"Hey, look at those birds up there," I pointed to a really timely and convenient flock flying over the freeway.

She smiled silently and watched them.

SCORE.  I'd managed to stop the lady-face-unicorn-teeth-cooking conversation in its tracks with a simple diversionary "hey look at that over there" tactic.

She kept smiling sweetly, gazing up at the birds, and then I heard her whisper, "Hey little birds, I can see your tooths."

This was beautiful.  Beautiful because Jane is adorable....she is hilarious....she is a bit frightening.....just like all the other women in my life.  And I wouldn't trade a single one of them for nothing!  Nope....not nothing.

I long to be like Jane, the 3-year old above.  I long to be like her because she aimed high....she went for the unicorn and nothing....tooths....birds....MOM....was getting in her way of achieving that lofty goal.

I love strong, aim-for-the-sky-nothings-getting-in-my-way fearless women....and I love FUN women.....who don't take themselves too seriously....who will lay on the train tracks for a photo-op....who give me the hiccups laughing during lunch at Mi Cocita's with napkin art....who can jump in the Jeep, hanging on for dear life as I manage to make roads where they weren't any....and laugh till tears run down their face.  I love that God hand-picked each of these women to walk this journey with me....even during the not-so-fun times.  I am desperate to learn how to "play-well-with-others" that are different from me......and to love them BIG.  Yes Yes....I want to LOVE them BIG!

I'm rambling, I know......but I just wanted to write my girlfriends a love note (and the women girlfriends in my family are at the extreme top of this list) and tell them how much they are TREASURED.....how undeserving I am of their love for me....and how crazy unicorn-aiming-heaven-sent they are.  I love you.

My Word For The Year........(HINT: It's FUN!)

January 10, 2015

 So over the past few years, every January 1 there has been a lot of chatter in certain women's groups about "Your Word For The Year"........and as I would roll my eyes and say out loud to no one, "Seriously, what does that mean anyway?"......and then promptly answer myself with, "Oh, its just a bunch of women making up some nice-sounding spiritual words to define themselves for the year.....or the month.....or the week until they soon forget about having a word." 

Yep, that's what I thought......UNTIL......

 I decided to have a "Word" this year.  Yep......I'm going to be one of "those women" who choose a word for 2015.  And it's not going to be the standard good Christian words that most of these women are picking like HOPE, FAITH, GIVE, THANKFUL, etc.  I'm actually "stealing" my word from Jenni Allen and my word is

"FUN". 

See, I used to be a lot of fun.....or at least, I thought I was.  I carried FUN in my pocket pretty much every where I went.....I threw caution to the wind and did bold and FUN things regularly.  I didn't take life too seriously and I laughed a spunky from-the-gut Ant Ellie laugh....most every day.  But somewhere along the journey of finding God and finding what I believed and finding my place with Him, I lost my fun.  Completely misplaced my friend, FUN.

Ant Ellie

Now I'm not blaming God for misplacing my FUN....nope....not His fault.  I feel quite sure He knows how to have fun and play practical jokes and do crazy cool things like turning water into wine and eating grain on the Sabbath with a little crooked smile on His face while everyone stood there in shock.  I think, for Him, that WAS fun.  


So over the past few years, I've been desperately missing this friend of mine called "FUN".  I've been baffled over why when I discovered a God I never knew before in my life, did FUN take a hike?  What I discovered is that I have been living a lot of my life FOR God instead of WITH God.  Let that soak in for a minute....or two....or ten.  

I want 2015 to be the year that God and I, TOGETHER, have fun roller skating down Eagle Cove or singing Proud Mary at the Pittsburg Pizza Inn Karaoke Night, laughing that bigger-than-life Ant Ellie laugh until we hiccup....never caring who hears us or the bruises we get, together, when we fall off our skates.  



2015 is going to be the year I find my FUN again.

So on this nasty, gray, wintry day in January,  I think I'm going to go bundle up Charlie.....hop on his lap and pop some wheelie's in his wheelchair down Eagle Cove.....blowing cold-air-smoke in the air with our laughs.....knowing all along.......Jesus is roller skating right behind us.

God Will Provide.....

"If you happen to find some money on the ground and looking for some place to share it.....remember us."  These words were spoken to me this past Monday as I delivered Meals on Wheels to the people of Winnsboro.  The week of Christmas, I find myself in a dirty, rundown apartment complex, where the sound of TVs blaring and the smell of cigarette smoke was the norm in this fishy section of town.  The lady, probably in her 50's but looked closer to 70, looked down on the ground as she slowly spoke these words to me. 

As our eyes finally met....I saw the most beautiful hazel colored eyes filled to the brim with sadness and fear......loneliness and hurt.  She explained the only food they had in the house was the Meals on Wheels meal I just brought them....they had no money....and their six grown children were spread out across the country with one sitting in prison....again.  My gut told me a series of bad choices was how they found themselves in this condition....and if I were to give them money, I might be enabling them....giving them money for vices instead of food.  I hugged her, told her I would pray for her, and left.

As I put the Jeep in reverse and started backing out, I paused.  I watched as she picked up tiny pieces of trash from the parking lot and put them in her hand....and a war was raging inside of me.  Do I help her or do I not?   Would I feed her belly or would I feed her habit?  All the way down Walnut St. to the next house on my list, I prayed.  I prayed if God wanted me to help this couple, He would drop the money in my hand. 

As I entered the next house....a simple, clean house of a dear friend that I have visited many times on my route, I handed her the Christmas gift Chuck and I had made for her.  It was a simple wood frame with a picture and the words, "I will provide for you.  Don't worry!"  Luke 12:22-34.....and she handed me a tiny envelope with my name on it.  As I opened the card, a $20 bill fell into my hands.  I just stared at the $20 while playing back the prayer in my head I had just prayed not 5 minutes earlier.  I looked into her eyes, told her the story and asked if I could give this money away.  She ran into the other room, handed me another $10, and said, "I want to be a part of this story too."

I was downright giddy as I headed back up Walnut St. towards the rundown apartment.  I found the man sitting in his recliner, and as I knelt down next to him, I asked if I could tell him a story. I shared how much God loved him....that this money came straight from Heaven....and was earmarked just for him.  With tears in his eyes, he whispered, "But why?"  And with tears in my eyes, I whispered back, "Because He loves you!!".

"I Will Provide For You.  Don't Worry."
Luke 12:22-34

GROWING SEEDS: "I LOVE YOU"

 

GROWING SEEDS: 11-30-14 "I Love You"

HE. LOVES. YOU

Sometimes I like to imagine myself sitting in a coffee shop across the table from God....chatting like two old friends vying for air space with our heads together catching up on all the latest news.  I imagine Him twirling His hot mocha latte with a spoon and smiling and nodding at all the appropriate times...genuinely enjoying every minute of my ability to talk about everything and nothing....at the same time.

And He has a knack for asking me uncomforable questions like, "Girl, I feel so awkward every time I have to watch you lose patience with that man I gave you to love.....What's the deal?"

And as I look down at the coffee-stained grain of the wood table, searching for an answer to His question, He continues, "Do you know....truly know, Liz, how very much I love you?”

And I know, as our very souls touch through the retinas of our eyes meeting at that very moment, that mine will be leaking because does anyone truly know how much He loves us?  Does anyone really know how much He gushes over us?  Do we "get" how patiently He waits for us to love Him back?  I feel a sense of uncomfortablness as I scour my own love-feelings and discover He loves me so much more than I do Him.

Did you hear what I said?

He. Loves. Me. So. Much. More. Than. I. Love. Him.

He then turns His hand over and I see it....I see that He has carved my name in blood into the palm of His hand.   "That's how much I love you, Liz", He says.

And I dare myself to do the same.....to write His name on my palm....to find the same kind of love for Him as He has for me.  I dare myself to daily jot down His love gifts to me on a coffeehouse napkin, record them on my smartphone, to tell Him "Thank You" in my prayers....

.......and to show Him how much He rocks my world.

Thanks-Giving.....Alone

It's the season of Thanks-Giving......a time when many struggle to find even one thing to Give Thanks for.....and try as they may, it simply doesn't come to them.  They sit quietly as the fog of life envelopes them....just waiting...no, BEGGING....for this time of year to be over with already.  And I just want to whisper to them.....'Hold your hand out....hold it out and let Him grab it...you're not alone."

But they can't.  

It was a day ago I learned that my good friend, Brian, had killed himself.  Drove his car straight into the house I first met he and his wife in, and shot himself.  Tragic.  No one knew the pain he was going through....but amongst the 7.125 billion people in this Whole Wide World and the 196 friends he had on Facebook and the 84 followers on Twitter and his ginormous family who loved him, he was alone. 

A-L-O-N-E.

Sometimes it feels like the earth is cracking.....and people are falling into the cracks.  And as we carefully step over the cracks, we say "What a shame about your friend Brian or Robin Williams or Cici Paris......." and we move on, shaking our heads as we turn our eyes away from those who are barely hanging on before falling into the darkness of this world.   And we convince ourselves if we didn't turn away, it would mess up our holidays.

May I suggest that maybe....just maybe....if we worried less about our holidays being messed up with a messed up person and more about inviting that messed up person to share a seat at our holiday table, that maybe....just maybe....it could turn our holiday into the PERFECT holiday.  That the greatest gift we could GIVE and RECEIVE would be to extend our hand and pull that person out of the darkness that is closing in around them....to open the door to hope.

Look around......grab a hand.....and Give Thanks.

I Need To Give Up.......Control

November 2014

She arrives tired.  Been a long day and a 3-hour drive to get here......and my girl is tired.  

Tired because she's just physically tired.....and tired emotionally.....and stress tired.  

And she came to me.....

to this place of solace and rest and peace and no TV blaring and no busyness happening here folks.....and as I looked into her tired eyes, 

I saw my own tired eyes in hers.

I was there in the delivery room when she was born, you know......that was 30-something years ago ...and yet her eyes still look like those in that Beeville Hospital bassinet that cold November day.  How did she get to be in her 30's so quickly, and when did she get so smart......so grown-up.....so opinionated....so...SO.....beautiful?

We rest.  We wake.

We grab our cameras and go in search of things our eyes haven't seen before......Together.

Somewhere along the way, a question is asked....a floodgate is opened.....words and emotions are flowing out quicker than either of us can absorb or grasp.  A memory of confusion and disappointment.....love and broken hearts....of understanding when its impossible to understand.

And I try to tuck them back into the hole they came crawling out of......but I can't.

It's too late.

I love this girl.....she listens when I rant, cry and shake my fists in the air because its November and I'm scared of Novembers.....She is that person who stands and nods her head when I finally get the breath to say, "I don't understand....I just don't understand."  And I try.  And I lose.  And I keep fumbling my way back to something I can't have.....and she still listens.

And yet I discover through the opening of the floodgates that there's a real way to slap God and people in the face  - wham, wham - at the very same time; when you find a way to say with your actions and your words, "It's just not enough.....I need more....I long for more."

And I'm ashamed.

I'm ashamed that I had 20 years to gain maturity on my girl, yet......I'm the one stomping my foot, banging my head on the floor with fists beating against the concrete screaming, "It's not fair!".

And like someone carefully and meticulously threading a needle, she reminds me God is always fair.....He always shows up....even when we don't see Him.....He shows up.....and He shows up differently in each of us.

"GO FASTER......WHAT BUMP?"

 I am reminded almost daily how crazy in love I am with this man.....

And how flying down the road in his lap

Me yelling "GO FASTER".....

And him hearing, "WHAT BUMP??"

Brings so much joy to my life!