Resolutions

I always get all tingly at the start of a new year. It's so fresh and clean, no mistakes in it, no ANYTHING in it, just blank newness waiting to be mucked about it.

I know that's rubbish.

And also I've been watching a lot of Doctor Who, which explains the British phraseology. Seriously, if I had a British accent, I'd shut up even less than I already do.

Anyway, like I said, I know the whole idea of the new year being fresh and shiny and new is utter rubbish, because really, there's nothing special about tomorrow. It's just another day. But somehow it's so full of opportunities and choices to be made or not made or unmade or remade. It's just so darn EXCITING.

I am a resolution maker, and this year I have three four resolutions for my brand new, shiny year:

1. Organize. This sounds dumb, but we live in 1200 sq feet, and until the economy turns around, we're going nowhere fast. It's time to take this hodge podge of a house and turn it into a well-mannered, organized home.

2. Get Healthy - I'm little, but I am nowhere near as healthy as I wish I was. Starting tomorrow, I'm exercising, feeding my family more whole foods and no more eating cereal that changes the color of my milk. I may even start to buy *gasp* 2% instead of whole. The end goal here is to run a 5K next December.

3. Read. In 2010, I read 100 books. 100. I didn't set myself a reading goal last year and I read precisely five books. Or so. So this year, I'm cutting the goal in quarters, because I have doula training and work and a BABY. So, in 2012, I'm reading 25 books. At least. And only seven of them can be Harry Potter.

It's funny because there are seven Harry Potter books.

4. Word. As in "The Word". My relationship with God fell to the wayside when I became a mother, but if I want to raise up this little girl in the way that she should go, I need to make sure I am on the way that I should go. I miss reading the Bible every night. I miss the closeness I had with God.

So there it is. Organze. Fit. Read. Word.

OFRW.

Or WORF, if you prefer.

Actually, I do.

WORF: New Years 2012

30 BEFORE 30: Domestic Mission Trip

This past week, I was in Naples,FL. It isn't Italy by any means, but it does, allegedly, have more millionaires per capita than anywhere else in the world. I have a hard time believing this fun fact, but, really, who am I to judge where millionaires decide to live?

Many people I told about the trip expressed confusion over my decision to go to a Floridian city to spread the gospel of Christ. After all, Florida is part of the Bible Belt, and, if you spend any amount of time in Jacksonville, you'll notice that there are as many choices of church here as there are condiments at Subway. The interesting (I suppose) thing about Florida, though, is that, somewhere around "South of Orlando", it ceases being a southern state and turns into an extension of the northeast corner of the United States, meaning that it is surprisingly unchurched.

So, off we went. I arrived four days late to the party, but managed to be in on most of the ministry that went on.

Thursday: No ministry, just a relaxing evening of turning the surprisingly large bathtub of our vacation-rental-master-suite into a Jacuzzi. Three of us managed to fit, and I'm pretty sure the bubbles were made out of hand soap and shampoo.

Friday: While Gem and I sang Jesus Loves Me on the radio (I still hold that we were completely set up), Trip Vince and his crew gave out snowcones to local kids. I'm still a bit dubious of the message this sends to children. We spend an awful lot of time drilling into them never to take candy from strangers only to then use sweets as a ministry tool. I was amazed that no helicopter parent swooped down to ask why a man dressed as a Creamcicle was giving their child sugar-topped ice.

We ended that day by taking lunch to some local firefighters and chit-chatting with them about the various aspects of firefighter-dom. Turns out they're pretty cool kids. And they are happy to pile all their gear onto tiny Asian girls. I'm not Asian, incidentally, but my friend Gem is, and really, how cute is she? If my house burns down, that's totally who I want coming to my rescue.

Saturday: Whistler's Cove! We set up shop near the pool of a local apartment complex and enticed the local children to join us with promises of games and candy. It was a fantastic success, full of face-painting, games, crafts, and balloon animals. We managed to share two Bible stories with the local kiddos, one about the Good Samaritan, and the other that was more a conglomeration of several stories. I think it was supposed to be the one where Jesus provides Peter with an enormous catch of fish, but, really, with as much time as Jesus spent on boats, it could have been anything.

Sunday: Church and the drive home. I'm almost positive that, at some point during the week, there was also trip to Cracker Barrel and a Game Night involving questionable hand motions representing Gene Simmons, but, to be honest, I was too exhausted to stock it away in memory. The week resulted in at least one family that is now bringing their children to church, several firefighters who know that the church appreciates their work even if it means they can't make it to church on Sundays, and a community that is beginning to realize that the church cares for more then their tithe.

Follow-up

My own lack of faith amazes me sometimes.

After the financial disaster from a few weeks ago, we were devastated. It was going to put all our family-making plans on hold, as well as cause me to have to find a new or second job to make ends meet.

Yet here we are, only two short weeks later, and each and every bill is being met, one of them following a letter from the IRS informing us that they shorted us about $500 on our 2008 return (funny, that's exactly how much we need for the only bill we hadn't found a way to pay yet)

How great is my God? And where do I find the audacity to question what he is doing? He has proven, yet again, for the hundredth time in my life, that he is faithful, that he will provide, and that I never need to worry.

Also, on the day "The Crisis", I heard this song, and it reduced me to tears. It's an account of a real woman, poor in the worlds eyes, but provided for by the king.

All I Need - Caedmon's Call

Did not catch her name
Did not catch her tears
It hit me like a train
When her story hit my ears
Mother of eight sons
Father off to war
Got no home address
Just bricks on a dirt floor
Jesus is all I need

Tiny plot of land
Corn stored up in piles
Years it doesn't rain
They just stay hungry for a while
No fatted calf to kill
She made a feast of cuy and corn
She said, "Who else knew my name
Before the day that I was born?
Jesus is all I need
Jesus is all I need."

She bragged about her boys
How they're growin' into men
How they learned to praise the Lord
Old Style Ecuadorian
To buy the new guitar
They had to sell the swine
Said, "My boys go to school on a foreign angel's dime.
This world calls me poor
I bore my babies on this floor
He always provides
Sure as the sun will rise.
So I'll sing Him songs of praise
'Cause I know He'll keep me in His gaze."

Rain poured from the sky
We raced back to the van
There were tears in the eyes
Of this poor, forgetful man
Mother of eight sons
She knows the peace of God
Lord, help me learn to lean
On thy staff and thy rod
Jesus is all I need
Jesus is all I need

Valley

The interesting thing about being a practicing Christian is that the phrase "Everything Happens for a Reason" takes on a whole new brand of meaning. Because we believe in an actual being who takes a definitive interest in our lives, patterns emerge that seem to have the holy thumbprint on them. Frustratingly, the reason for certain things happening doesn't often become clear until much later, which gives one cause to empathize with the children of Israel when God said "Yea, walk around the wall, then shout and blow your horns. The walls will fall down, I swear". For those that don't know the end of the story, the walls did fall down, and the day was won for the Israelites.

In a world without walls that need tumbling, we have other trials that seem to be just as daunting. Take Saturday, when Paul and I received three, count em', three bills we were not expecting, all of them 3 digits, and one of them edging in on four. We can't afford any of them.

I have no earthly idea why God is choosing right now to allow this to happen, or what he is trying to tell us. Perhaps we have gotten so proud of ourselves overcoming debt that we have forgotten who the praise really goes to, and He is now knocking us back, Gideon-style, to remind us that the battle, financial or otherwise, is his, not ours. In case you are unfamiliar with the story, when Gideon was readying himself to take the Hebrew army against the Mideonites, God told him to send all but 300 men home, so that it would be obvious that their victory was miraculous. Sometimes God send us into these situations with the knowledge that to overcome them would be a miracle.

Whatever the reason, we are being given, in this admittedly horrific situation, an opportunity. It hit me recently that God is not a passive entity. He is active in our lives, constantly molding and teaching and giving opportunity to grow. Maybe out of this will grow a testimony to his faithfulness, a newly remembered trust in his promises, or a humility in the knowledge that the battle is always the Lord's.

My prayer now is that we rejoice in the fire and in the valley, and that, though we are afraid(which we are) and discouraged (which we definitely are), we will remember that God has never failed us.