That Brussel Sprout and My Burnt Tongue

As the door closed behind me, I was already heading for the kitchen. There, mom was busy making supper as usual when I arrive home and as usual, I was hungry. I peeked in all the pans that littered the stove top, and discovering the brussel sprouts I entertained the thought of testing them out. Remembering how annoying my snitching is to mom I held off till the phone rang and she wouldn't notice me. I quick, grabbed one and popped it into my mouth realizing too late that it was scorching hot. Now, I had to run from the kitchen searing my tongue all the way. There in the hallway as I spit the roasting brussel sprout into my palm, I thought about contentment. Those words I had read over and over again echoed through my head: {Discontentment can be wanting the wrong things, or wanting the right things at the wrong time, in the wrong amounts, or for the wrong reasons}. How right wanting that brussel sprout was. It was the supper my mom had prepared, and it was even healthy, but it simply wasn't the right time...

Here is a lesson I think I still haven't  fully learned....

Striations Throughout My Day

All around me bone names float

       Other students memorizing for tests.

I sit hunched coloring

       muscle tissues and tendons.

I color them striated

       like real.

My packet is big, all the muscles

       I keep coloring because I not even close to finishing.

So many muscles all specialized

       I wonder...

I remember that I'm coloring God's creation

       It takes me so long to color this thing that He has made.

And mine is just a paper copy

       His real, live.

I feel amazed at this thing of His.

All around me students flock

      I walk against the current.

But I listen

      I always listen because they talk as they walk.

They pour out hurt, hatred

      So I smile at them as they talk and walk.

One by one, they began to smile back 

      and as I look up thankful...

I notice the striations

      striations like the ones in muscle tissue.

They were God made striations

       streaks of clouds in the clear blue sky.

And again, I feel amazed at these things of His!

      

       

Who Am I?

She's been crying. Her eyes red, cheeks wet. I stand at the sink scrubbing my hands together, I smile. I wonder what I could do for her. Her friend is right there, empathizing. I move over to the hand dryer. I stare down at my new shoes. I wonder what Jesus would do for the girl. If he was here right now. I didn't think he would just smile and go on. But of course I need to be getting to class.... I make excuses. She has a friend, it's not like I left her alone. {But you did because you didn't give her the hope of knowing ME} She probably wouldn't have wanted to talk to me anyway. {She needed to know I love her} I have other things to be doing. {WHO ARE YOU TO HAVE A LIFE?} So there I had it. I thought about how Jesus really didn't have a life. How He said that whoever loses his life for my sake will find it but whoever saves his life will lose it. I wondered what it would be like if my purpose in coming to school was the same as Jesus' in walking on the earth. What if I had no life but seeking to Glorify God? Who am I that I should have a life??

Today is the Day

The world says today is the day. I find myself wondering what day? They say today I have gained maturity. They say today I have gained rights. They say today I am free. Somehow I feel in myself today I am as bound as ever. Today they say is a new mark, but I say yesterday was just as much a turning point in my life as today. I say that I am now bound when before I was free. I say that I will not, I will not stoop to the standards of the world because today I am a woman of God and not a woman of the world. They say  today I am responsible for my own actions, but I say yesterday I was too. I say because today the world says I an adult I am still a babe in Christ. I say my outlook is not that of the world because I am not of the world. I say today you must not be chained by the standards of the world. I say today that you must have the mind of Christ not the mind of the world. I say you must have the mind of Christ in the matters of clothing, in the matters of free time, in the matters of personal finance. You cannot have the mind of the world. Because today the world names me an adult does not take away the command to obey my parents, today also must not take away God's commands to you! Men and women of God can never be like men and women of the world. But I say today men and women of God can be made free from the standards of the world through obedience to the standards of God.

{Home}In Focus

Wind billowing over my cheeks, down my collar, hair strands fly. The ac is on too. Miles of road under my tires now behind me. Eyes droop, guess I'm tired. Of driving home, just want to be there. Only a few more corners but my speed slows. I forget about home only thinking about being tired. Reminds me how when I forget about where I am going in life my pace slows. I forget my purpose and live in apathy.  Landscape around me distracts. On the road,thoughts drift back to home. How brothers will be there. Supper ready. Pets in the driveway. Amazing how when I looked down I was speeding instead of coasting while looking out the window. Focus makes urgent the important things. I urge remember your purpose, keep the end in mind, don't focus on the state of tiredness.

Loving to be a Lady

Forget anything pink and purple, I want to go climb a tree or shoot targets. Frills just aren’t for me. And I hate how everyone thinks that all girls take forever to get ready…because I don’t! And why does it matter whether I sit like a lady? It’s not that I minded being a girl; I didn’t even dislike wearing dresses. It’s just I knew that I was as strong as any boy my age and I certainly wanted to prove it. I remember well that lunch table arm wrestling in my middle school years where I tried to beat any boy that would face me. Ice hockey in the winter usually went the same way. Never mind that I was the only girl out there, I just wanted to be better than all the boys. As I grew older, not much changed. I still shoved those pink clothes to the back of the closet and practiced hard at volleyball. It had never crossed my mind that this could be wrong. I am simply the independent type that likes to fend for myself. But God created me special. I’m a delicate girl that needs a protector. I am a weaker vessel. I need a strong listener to pour out my emotions to and a strong arm to open jars for me. It doesn’t mean I am weak, I chose to call it delicate! So thanks to that thoughtful young man who came running to help me with my suitcase (though at the time I was rather perturbed because, I thought I could get it on my own!!) And to that dear older sister who informed me how wrong I truly had been to not love my role as the weaker vessel that God created me to be. So, here I am writing to you the depths of me and sometimes I wonder why I do this….but I remember once again that I want you to learn from me, and I really think there are more independent women out there than just Lanta Kaye Riffey! Learn to love being a lady!  

In Simon’s Shoes

Heavy, that’s what it is, and I can actually feel it slumping down inside me. It seems bricks are piling up in my heart. One for selfishness, one for lack of devotion, another for lack of service….. Each one makes my heart weigh down even more. My pulse is quickening and it’s all from this guilt. I’m reading along in Mark just halfheartedly, barely thinking about the words. Until…..bam, there I am in the middle of the story. I found that Simon Peter’s shoes fit me pretty well, and in fact, they were just my style. Somehow my name seemed like it fit in his place. Just this afternoon I was saying vehemently, “I won’t deny you Lord! Even if everyone else does, you can count on ME! I’m a true follower.” Yet tonight picking up my Bible seemed to happen only after I couldn’t think of anything else to do, and as I read, my thoughts were on events from weeks ago. I neared verse 30 and I started thinking that this sounded quite a bit like me. But as I came to verse 37 it was just too much. The room was getting stuffy and my heart was sinking as the realization of how much like Simon I really was. Now Jesus had caught me sleeping. Here the One I had pledged my allegiance to was crying out in agony as he neared his betrayal and death, and I couldn’t manage to stay away long enough to breathe even a halfhearted prayer. The guilt of my own sinfulness has again brought me to my knees in repentance. Praise God for convicting hearts!

Forgiveness and Fish

My feet were getting tired and my cheek itched. And I was pretty sick of the smell too. Deboning Salmon wasn’t too bad at first but then the smell got to me. It was all over my hands, the counter, the floor… And there was that bucket full of bones that created quite the aroma. Trying to rid myself of the stench, I washed my hands for the third time, and threw my sweatshirt in the wash. But yuck, the smell still inhabited my every breath. It just wouldn’t go away. The bucket was finally removed and at last I could no longer smell that awful salmon. Until I went out to the garden that is. There on the compost, although far from my normal living area, the fish smell continued to wax worse and worse. As I pondered this awful stench, it reminded me of my sin and how so often I find myself trying to run away from it. What if we had to live with the continual odor of our sin? What if we had no intercessor? But God’s forgiveness doesn’t just remove the smell from our hands and wash down the counter, or even take our sin out to the compost. His forgiveness removes our sins as far as the east is from the west. ( rather unclassifiable terms I think). And He chooses to never revisit those bones in the compost! Praise God!

Loving Life

You know, I really don’t like it when people tell you to ‘dance in the rain’ or to ‘make the most of each moment.’  It’s too flowery.  I want to know what dancing in the rain looks like in real life.   Don’t be a poet, be real.  So, because I am not a poet, and because I am frank (that reminds me of hot dogs and that makes me smile) I want to show you what it looks like to ‘be a lover of life,’ not because I am the ultimate lover of life, and not because I think you need to be like me.  But because I want you to know that your life is as exciting as I think mine is, and I want you to love it.

I smile inside because our dog didn’t even recognize that it was me when I parked in a different spot in the drive way. I continue to pour the leftover contents of my water bottle on the drive to make cool splatter marks even when I think someone might be watching me.  Life feels thrilling when there are so many things hogging our driveway (thanks to my brothers) that I can’t even figure out where to pull in.  I laugh when my brother-in-law tells me that ‘his family’ (which consists of him and his wife) picked out the name for their little kitten.  I let my heart feel big inside because I can see all my family outside working.  I smile wistfully as I iron little shirts and hear a chorus of little voices wanting to tell mommy something.   My heart feels full when I realize that I filled 6 glasses instead of 5 when my sister has been married for a year.  I want to sing as I hop on the tailgate of my brother’s truck and swing my legs all the way up to the house. And then I laugh when I hear my voice screech because I have a cold in the middle of summer and I just can’t sing.  I want to tell everyone how funny I think it is that I my voice is so deep right now that I sound like someone else I know.   When I try to drive with my knees as I eat breakfast on my way to work, I chuckle when I realize they are painfully sun burnt.  I love the look my brother gives me when I tell him I brought a bunch of old windows home so he can make me a little greenhouse.  Because I am so excited by the thought of sleeping outside by the campfire, I run….instead of walking.  And when my friend makes up a meaning for my name on Wikipedia because there wasn’t one, my heart dances.

 I wonder how many times we groan and God shakes his head and says, “Well, I thought that would make her smile.”  So, don’t grunt at your dog when he sits on your foot for the third time during supper….laugh because life just pulled a funny. 

Look for these kinds of joys in your life.  After all, I am quite sure that God did intend for us to take pleasure in life.  How much more this praises Him!!

Life is good, eternal life is better…. 

What if one

I sit here at lunch, wondering what this school would be like if just one person was wholly devoted to Christ.  If just one person was completely selfless.  If just one had a heart for others.  And I realize, that I can only change one person in this whole lunch room...

The Antelope Lady

Sitting down to read a Bible story, she turned to the story they were ready for: The Antelope Lady. My thoughts were spinning. What story had I missed? She began to read about Tabitha, the woman who was always busy doing good for others.  Form making garments to helping the sick. And she was nicknamed Dorcas which means antelope. Strange, but the story went on to tell how these animals were always busy, just like Tabitha. So, be an antelope, always busy doing good for others!

Musings from Inside the Window

I watched out the window as he drove the little mower back the little path to the edge of the property.  I watched as he began to drive around in circles and random directions.  I wondered if he knew how funny he looked?  And I wondered what he thought he was doing, it looked so useless.  As he came closer to the office it became clear that he was spraying weeds.  But I still thought it seemed like a somewhat useless endeavor.  Why not just mow the weeds off when you mow the grass?  Why spend all that time and effort and look silly in the process?  Besides, the weeds didn’t really look that bad.  And I caught myself right there.  Those weeds were like sin in my life.  Sin that must be gotten rid of.  Sin that really doesn’t look to bad to us because we don’t have the heart of the Master.  And that sin shouldn’t just be cut off at the ground so it could look ok for a while but soon grow back.  THAT SIN MUST BE DESTROYED.  No matter how silly we think we appear to others as we rid ourselves of it.  We must take on the heart of the Master so that we can recognize how terrible our sin really is.

Until We Are All We Can Be...

...where we are, God will not put us anywhere else.  Thinking about blessing those who you are around.  Do you make the most of every situation?  Do you brighten the day for others on a normal basis?  Just wanted to send an encouragement to all you out there to reach out the the older folks around you.  The young mother who is overwhelmed, the 13 year old girl who needs guidiance. Use your talents.  You play guitar?  Spend some time playing for the older people!  You love to cook? Make food for those in need!  You love making boquets? Take them to people who need a smile! =)  Bless the Lord in all that you do!

More Thoughts On Love

It was Sunday evening and we were on our way home from Indiana.  As it was that time, we drove thru the drive thru.  Yum, hot fries!  I handed the box to the brother of mine and pulled out the other box for myself.  But they just weren't very warm, and I had given away the best fries.  I was lamenting this fact within myself when the thought struck me.  Why did I want the best fries?  If I truly loved the brother of mine wouldn't I want him to have the best fries?  Are you the person who takes the piece of cake right from the middle and lets the dryer outside pieces for everyone else?  I realize that these are silly little examples of love, but if we can't give up the best fries, how are we ever going to be able to give our life for our friend?  And these are the very words of Jesus: He that is faithful in least, is faithful also in much.  I encourage you to give up the best for others in love.

Perfect Love

Sitting at my desk at work, I peered out the window as the lightening began to crash and thunder rolled.  Trees were wildly blowing and then little movements on the ground caught my eye.  Two little squirrels were playing together, chasing eachother around.  And then the rain came.  As I continued to watch, the squirrels kept playing.  Didn't they know that the weather was getting crazy?  Didn't they know about the tornado warnings?  Of course they didn't. The squirrels were completely oblivious, because they were loved by each other.  That perfect love caused them to have no fear.  And it reminded me of how our love for Christ should be.  Are we so lost in love for Christ that we forget to notice that it's stormy out?  Does His perfect love cast out all our fear? 

If only we could realize that this world is not where we belong...

In Season and out of Season

I've been thinking about this thing that Paul writes to Timothy...about being instant in season and out of season. But how do we be that way? So, I thought I'd ask you to write on the subject. I also thought I'd see if anyone actually does read all the blogs out there......:)

The Choice

Today, I will choose not to waller in unthankfulness, but rather delve into sheer pleasure becauuse I am loved by God!

I don't know what to call this post...my thoughts are on the radical side. Giving up all. I'm sure you have thought of this before, yes to truly be like Jesus I would have to give up everything that ever mattered to me. I would have to count the cost. I would have to not want anyhthing for myself. I would have to want all glory to go to Him. After all Jesus did say, "Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father in Heaven is perfect." Now you say, well I could never be perfect and yes of course you are right, but are you truly giving every pleasure to follow Him as perfectly as you could? Are you giving up time hanging out with friends to visit your neighbors or the elderly in your church? Are you giving up so much money that you can buy only necessary things? Are you surrendering your life so much that all you DO have is the Lord Jesus Christ? At work or school or Wal-Mart do people think you are a complete weirdo because you are so excited about sharing God's love? I wish for you to think. THINK. What is your life worth after all?

From a Classmate

During read-alouds today in English, one girl shared her perspective on life froma completely unchristian stand point. I found it rather interesting: We were't born living to soon die, we were boring dying working towards living.

Singleness

I chuckle, for I feel I know what you are thinking as you begin to read:) I sit here in the corner of my warm room, in a warm fuzzy sweatshirt, wrapped in a warm fuzzy blanket and fuzzy socks. In my hands I hold a tall mug of hot tea. I write you this, not so  that you can know what sorts of things I do in my evenings, I write this so that you can understand my thoughts. I sat down to work on homework, a poem in fact. The poem:
{Singlenes
One goal in mind.
All other things seem to fade into the background.
Because I have just one goal.
This much I know and I will not turn back.
If people laugh.
Or stare.
Or hate.
I do not seek to please men, for then I cannot serve Christ.
This is singleness--of heart.}
So, you see I sit here in all my warm and fuzzy comforts realizing that in life we all too often seek for all the warm and fuzzy things. Even in our spiritual lives. About this time however, the delicious hot tea that I had been drinking seemed to be deliciously hot no longer. And as I took a drink my thoughts turned to Revelations. Since thou art neither hot nor cold I will spew thee out of my mouth. To me these to subjects fit together quite perfeclty because when we are neither hot nor cold, the heart issue is we are trying in vain to serve two masters. And when this happens, our hearts are not singally devoted. I pray that you will devote your life totally to Christ and that you will serve HIM with a single heart.

The Purpose of Life

Only one life 'twill soon be past--
Only what's done for Christ will last...

Selfishness

Well, what do you enjoy? the mother of mine inquired. You don't seem to like to cook, or clean, or sew.... Her words faded out as I pondered. Now I know that none of these things are true for I love to sew and although cooking has never been a favorite of mine I had never minded cleaning much. Why did she think that I didn't enjoy anything I do? The issue at hand was my very own selfishness. Here I had been complaining that life was boring and that nothing I did was ever of any interest. So I continued on in my state of pity wondering why life had to be so like it was. Until in my musings i realized that I was still being quite the self-centered young lady. If I would only turn my thoughts heavenward and focus my dear Friend rather than myself how much more I could enjoy my lot in life! So, may you learn from my selfishness and not experience it yourself:)

Brokenness

As I sang "take me Lord, my will I give to Thee, brake me Lord and set my spirit free...," the question just kept popping up in my mind: What does it mean to be broken? David writes in Psalm 51 "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." As I pondered the subject I asked the brother of mine what brokenness was all about. His reply: blessed are the poor in spirit. What do the poor in spirit have to do with anything says I? Poor in spirit means to have a small amount of your own spirit which is like having a broken spirit was his reply. In short we concluded that when you have a broken leg, your leg is still there, it just can't work on it's own. You must rely on crutches to get you around. Likewise when our spirits are broken, we cannot rely on our own spirit, we must rely on His! Blessing this week as you spirit is broken and you are conformed into His  image!

The Refiner

The Master Refiner with quiet intentness
Is watching the silver and tending the fire-
Not a twitch of His eyelids! With hand sure and steady,
He knows just the heat that the process requires.
He bends to examine the purified silver,
His holy face mirrored-and now, is it clean?
His light He holds closer, but no, in the shimmer
Still speckles of dross on the surface are seen.
Again and again He the cauldron holds over
 The flame-not of wrath, but a fire of love.
Molten the silver, the bubbling and boiling
Is jealously watched by the eye from above.
He bends yet again. Ah yes! Now His visage
Is perfectly mirrored, the dross burned at last,
Ready to mold to the form of His image,
To be stamped, to be used, to be poured in His cast.
Now if speech be of silver, and silence be golden,
Lord, stoke up the fire and purify me.
Help me to discern what is scantified silence
And with equal discernment, speak gladly for Thee.
And even as Job, when affliction receeded,
Put his hand on his mouth, learned at last to be still,
Help me to yeild to Thy fires of discipline
Till clean of all dross, I succumb to thy will.
O Master Refiner, I pray do not spare me!
Trusting Thy wisdom, I yield to Thy flame,
Till, pure of all dross, I reflect Thy bright image
And, molded for service, I'm stamped with Thy name.
-Peter Toews (translated from German)