World Changers 2010 ~ unhindered~Saturday, 7/17/10

My World Changers experience was more than I ever imagined it would be. I have always wanted to go on a mission trip and until now had never gotten the opportunity. So, I was super excited when the other female chaperone had to get out of going so I could go. Here are my highlights for the week....
Saturday, July 17th - The church van picked me up around 7 am...Cricket did catch the back of Philip's jeans because she thought he was stealing my stuff when he carried it out of the house. We picked up the kids at their homes and went back to the church to drop off Bro Jim and hit the road. We were on the road by 9:30 am. Philip kept us entertained with his ipod - -Dennis, TJ, Clifford & Lexis didn't really like his choice of music, but I have pretty much gotten used to it and do actually like some of the songs...especially since he still has my fave Christmas song on and I got to hear it. There were even a couple of times when I would have him play it just to irritate them. We stopped somewhere in Georgia to fill up and ate lunch at Chick-fil-a. Philip and I were having such a good time talking to each other that we actually missed our exit on I-75 and had to take this huge detour thru the GA backroads. We arrived at the Hampton Inn in Griffin, GA around 3 or 4 pm and checked in just in time for it to start pouring rain. The guys brought our bags in and after the rain stopped Clifford, Lexis, Philip and I hit the pool for a while and then changed and we all went to CiCi's for dinner. We had a devotion in our hotel room and all went to bed for the night.

Diary of a Mad White Woman

I was told this evening in response to something I had posted on facebook to not be angry with bp gas stations over this oil spill. I have thought about that comment and a subsequent one about if I boycott bp stations it will only hurt us in the long run because where will they get the money for clean up and that the one i should be angry with is the governmet. Well, #1 I am irritated that they allow off shore drilling and that they want to do it all around the coast of Florida. While I don't always like life in Florida, I am proud of the fact that not only am I, were both of my parents as well as my Grandpa Stokes and my Granny Sizemore all native born Floridians, but that our family traces back to Florida pioneers. I love that on any given day I can go to the beach, go to the woods, go to a theme park or go to a swamp. What I don't like is the traffic and that as a native of my state I am a minority. So I am angry and have every right to be angry. I am angry at the fact that at this moment there are 11 families mourning the loss of their loved ones. I am angry that at this moment birds and sea life and other wildlife are fighting for their lives in this oil spill. I am angry that people are having to watch out for sludge and tar balls while trying to enjoy their days. I am angry that restaurants like Nichols Seafood in Milton are wondering how long they are going to have the very thing people come to them for. I am angry that men and women whose entire lives have been spent around fishing boats and whose income from those boats is now being irradicated or at the very least threatened. I am angry for the charter boat captains. I am angry that the pristine white beautiful Gulf coast beaches are being threatened. I am angry that at any moment a hurricane or tropical storm could come up and blow all that oil inland. I am angry that they say it may not be fixed until August and possibly by September the oil & it's damage will surround the coast of Florida and head into the Atlantic. I am a Gulf of Mexico girl. I love the gulf coast. Some of my earliest memories are in Bradenton going every weekend to Coquina Beach or Anna Maria Island. I saw my first sting ray on the pier at Anna Maria. We love the beach. Some of my greatest college memories are in Panama City Beach. My first outing with a youth group was to Panama City Beach. I have great memories of Pensacola Beach with Kim. The only time I've seen the Blue Angels show was on Pensacola Beach. I keep hearing everyone talk about how we need to pray about this situation and be prepared because it will send gas prices up and that angers me. I say we need to pray about this and we need to pray for the families that are going to be affected by this. The men and women who are going to find themselves unemployed or facing losing their homes because of this. So, don't tell me not to be angry...as a Floridian and an American I have every right to be angry at this entire situation do I have the right to act in anger NO! which brings me back to my comment about boycotting BP - -I don't even buy my gas at bp on a normal nothing happening day - 1) because they are usually nasty looking stations and 2) I am cheap and I can get a 3 cent per gallon discount at Winn Dixie.

God works at Shuttle launches

I got to sense God in an awesome way at the shuttle launch yesterday...Just the thought that He indwelled in someone the knowledge to a)build a shuttle and b)be able to carry human life to outer space is humbling. We were so blessed with a truly great day. First, Austin & Abby were with us - they had a "family emergency" and couldn't go to school. They were really great. Austin is so willing to serve others and to help out - anything we asked him to do he jumped to it. He is teetering on the brink of boyhood and manhood and is so funny. He forgot his sunglasses and was very appreciative of the ones I got him. Abby is still young enough to have seen it thru a little kid's eyes. We were blessed with being able to find a spot to watch it that was unobstructed. We left here at 6 am and got there at 9 - would've been earlier but we stopped at Subway for lunch, Mickey D's for breakfast, and then I got my shirt filthy somehow so I had to go to Wal-Mart for a new tank top, Austin some glasses, Mom a book and Abby a hat. We got to the park and the gate was closed, but I was able to do a uturn and found a spot next to the park fence on the side of the road. Then we got a great spot to set up the chairs and chillax for the next 5 hours. At first the park guy said "No Dogs Allowed" (all of you that watched Snoopy are now doing the voice in your head - I know you are because I am), but when he found out how far we had driven, that cricket is like a therapy dog for mom and that I had been on the city of titusville website to check if she could come and they didn't have anything on it about no pets and that I had poopy bags ~~ he let her stay and she was an angel....didn't bark at anyone, didn't bother anyone just laid under my chair or in mine or mom's arms all day!! There was noone around cussing, noone making out, we only saw a few people drinking but noone got obnoxious, there were no fights. It was just one big party celebrating the same thing. At the end, noone pushed or shoved or got rude trying to leave. We talked with several people around us and one guy even took Cricket's picture!!! One family was from Ohio and their daughter who looked to be 12 or 13 was their to do a science project. She had a Lego space shuttle and had to make it move without physically moving it - so she (& her mom) hung it up between 2 palm trees with fishing line and secured it to the ground with some sticks...when the shuttle went up she took pics of hers with the smoke from the real shuttle to make it look like it was moving...this is where I almost got to reinforce my lesson of the day with the kids about paying it forward - Earlier in the day a man came by offering a bag of ice to anyone who wanted it for free..we took it and I told the kids that now we had to pay if forward...when the girl with the project was setting up and waiting she noticed her batteries were dying and they didn't know if they brought extras..I offered to let her use my extra set if needed during the launch...but she didn't need them...

My Prayer

This was a harder than usual mother's day for me. I mean I am usually bummed a little because yet another year has gone by and still not a mommy, but today was really hard. So hard that I cried twice - yeah, twice- during the sermon. It is so hard sometimes because I know I would be a great mommy - the kind of mommy who makes holidays special and loves to sit in the floor and play legos or Barbies, the kind of mommy who takes 100's upon 100's of pics of my kids and floods fb with them, the kind of mommy who would bake cookies or make green mashed potatoes or goop or edible play dough, the kind of mommy who would love to do nothing more than sit and cuddle a sick child or curl up with books on the couch on a rainy afternoon. The kind of mommy who takes her babies to church from day one and sings Jesus Loves Me and Veggie Tale songs for hours on end and lets her babies know they are the most special people in her world and that Jesus loves them and that I love them and no matter what they will always have a home and love and care and a shoulder to cry on and a cheeleader and a biggest fan and a mom. So I don't understand why God has't answered my prayer to be a mom. I don't get why these people can have kids out there and neglect them and abandon them and just not care and throw away the one thing I have wanted my entire life. I don't want to be famous or have this huge successful career or have my name in lights or be a ceo or anything other than to be someone's wife and someone's mom. That truly is the greatest title you could ever have to be so and so's mom. So today I sat there during the sermon and wrote a little prayer and put it in my Bible in 1 Samuel that said "Lord, Please make me into a Mommy!" and then I read and meditated on Hannah's prayer in the temple - you know the one she was praying when Eli saw her lips moving and thought she was drunk...this prayer "LORD of Hosts, if You will take notice of Your servant's affliction, remember and not forget me, and give Your servant a son, I will give him to the LORD all the days of his life,..." And tears welled up in my eyes and streamed down my face and I realized that for the 1st time I truly felt Hannah's despair and desperate longing to have a child - for to want a child so badly and not have one year after year after year is a powerful ache or affliction. The 2nd time was when the pastor talked about what a noble calling it was to just want to be a wife and mom and that was just as noble as someone being in the military or on the mission field and again the tears came because that is my life's calling to be someone's wife and mom. Imagine if you were a doctor, you had always wanted to be a doctor from your earliest memories, had studied for it and prepared for it and knew you could be a great doctor - but it just never seemed to happen for you, noone would come to be treated, you were never called to perform procedures and you watched others do what you were called to do...that's me - -my greatest desire and calling is to be a wife and mom, yet I'm not and I don't know why. So my prayer is that just as he did with Hannah the Lord will look upon me His Servant and see the affliction of my heart and answer my prayer to be a wife and mom.

mother's day for non mothers

There are 2 holidays that are just plain sucky for me - Valentine's Day and Mother's Day. Single people just do not need several months of reminders that they are single and lonely and we already live every day watching all the couples out there and realizing that this is really a couple oriented world. Mother's Day is perhaps even worse....:( especially to someone whose entire life's dream has been to be a mommy. The funny thing is the one place where you should be able to go for solace doesn't even help on Mother's Day...Granted alot of the churches are now just giving something to all women and one Mother's Day at FBC Graceville they recognized the women who weren't moms but worked with the children in some form which was so super cool to me. I do feel like all the kids I've loved thru the years are my kiddos. All the kids from Sunday School or Preschool Choir or the ones I babysat on a regular basis are so special to me and I rejoice everytime I see them accomplish a goal. This month I am so happy for 3 of my "kids"..2 boys I grew to love in South Dakota are graduating from high school and on the same and then one of my girls from Alabama has grown into a beautiful young woman and will be a beautiful bride on the 15th. I think alot of times we focus on motherhood as being giving birth to a child or raising a child but we forget those little moments spent with a child is mothering them as well. To all my kids wherever you are, I am very proud of all of you and carry you in my heart every day.

Spiggots and Sponges

The other day I was flipping thru channels and stopped on one with a woman's Bible conference being televised. The speaker was talking about people who continuously arrive late at church and have the attitude well I made it for the sermon. Her next points got my attention and stuck with me. She made the point that our worship services should be in basically two parts - Worship and Word. The 1st 1/2 of the service or the "Worship" part is all about us pouring out our love and adoration and praise and worship to God. It is the part where we are the givers and God is the "taker". The time where we are the active participant, the performers, and He is the audience. Then the 2nd 1/2 of the sermon, the "Word" is the time when He pours out on us and we are the receiver of the message He would have us hear. I used to not get the churches that had 1 hour of music and 1 hour of sermon, but more and more I am getting it and more and more I am reevaluating the typical Sunday service in a typical Baptist church. How can we effectively worship or pour out our praise and adoration and thanksgiving to God in a corporate worship setting if we are so limited and broken on how we do it? The hymn, hymn, announcements, offetory hymn, offering, special setting just doesn't cut it. I love my church, but lately I have noticed that our worship time is severely lacking. Most Sundays we sing 2 hymns and a fellowship song. OK 1st why is a fellowship song necessary? Take this past Sunday for example...before the service, I was making observations from the piano bench...I had started out playing To God Be the Glory and some other joyful songs in the prelude until I noticed that the atmosphere in the congreation was getting rowdier and rowdier and rowdier and I thought why are we here? I need to stop here and say that I am not saying we should come into the sanctuary and sit like a bunch of zombies not looking around or laughing or visiting with others; what I am saying is it was like we were at a Youth Rally or like how the kids are all excited and loud and hyper before VBS each night. So, I changed to more reverent songs and then I kept observing things - -ok announcements are important, but does it take 10 to 20 minutes to do them? Do we have to announce everything coming up in the next 6 weeks every Sunday? Do we have to go over everything that happened in the past week? {Yes I am extremely frustrated!:)} So within the 30 minutes alloted for the musical part of the service we have 2 hymns, the stupid fellowship hymn [which for the record if you have been walking around visiting others before the service and you talk to people after the service why do we need to take time away from when we are supposed to be worshipping God to visit with others!?], 10-20 mins of announcements, the offering and the special music and it's just gonna have to be enough, but it's not. The people are begging for more music. The choir thinks it is stupid to come up for just a couple of songs and you know I am not gonna fight them on it, because I think it is too. I also think it is incredibly tacky to go to the mike and say all right choir come on up! The choir should be adult enough to know who they are and to know that there is a choir on Sunday mornings and to pull on their big boy/girl pants and come up without being asked or to at least have the brains to come to whoever is leading the music that day and ask are we having a choir?! I miss worship. I miss having the songs back to back to back to just lift our praise and adoration to God.
I guess what it all boils down to this is sometimes you should be the spiggot and sometimes you should be the sponge and in most of our church services we have all become swollen, overfilled sponges and clogged up spiggots. We sit and take so much in but we are never give the opportunity to let it flow back to God.

Good will come

I awake the other night with the thought in my head of the phrase "No good can come of this". Then God just spoke to me and I realized the falsity of that statement. In every situation, no matter how bleak or dreary there can be good. While we may not see it at the time, good can be seen in the end. When we are faced with losing a loved one or a parent having to sit and watch their child struggle with cancer or watching a person loose their dignity to alzheimers, we don't always see how there can be a good outcome. These are the times God molds us and grows us. It is in these times that people learn to reach out to God and trust Him. It is in these times that we learn to face our fears and fully trust in God and His faithfulness. I never thought I would have been 36 and divorced and single with no kids. Me the girl who played mommy from the time I could 1st pretend. My only dream in life has been to be a wife and mom and active in ministry as a helpmeet and supporter to my husband. I so desire to be & fell the calling to be a pastor's wife. So I have struggled with why I am still single. Today I remembered the scene in Facing the Giants where she declares that she will still praise God even if she's never a mom. I do feel that way, I know that I can praise and serve God to my fullest ability as a single woman. I know that God has opened so many opportunities for me as a single woman in His service. I know that I am continuously being molded for something special. I have never wanted to be a part of youth ministry - -I worked in the children's department. However, lately God has given me such a heart for youth ministry. I have the desire to reach out to teenage girls and to show them I love them and that I care about them and what happens to them. We have a group of 6 girls in our church that I have such a burden for these days. I find myself praying for them as I drive by their school and I just want to reach out to them and show them that they are special and God loves them and He wants them to be the sprecial young ladies he has created them to be. I have also learned lately that alot of time I pray something continuously but in my head I have a desired answer. I have been praying about someone I was interested in and while I have had some nagging doubts in the back of my head about some things, I chose to ignore them. So I prayed that God would either take away the feelings or bring someone else into either of our lives. Last week the prayer was answered when I realized that I no longer had feelings for him. So good has come from it!!!