One Man'sTrash is Another Man's Treasure!

I wanted to post some pictures of some of my treasures. This bureau was given to us as a left-over from a yard sale.
I sanded it down and painted it for about $12. Everything on top of the bureau came from a yard sale, except for the beautiful red tray from Bolivia! This bureau houses the kid's art supplies and puzzles. Since we live in a 100 year-old house without closets, this find is a God-send!

This table I found on the side of the road. It used to be a kitchen table, which I
cut down to fit in the girl's room in the corner. I had to re-brace the legs onto the table and then the table onto the wall. This table functions as the girls Barbie house, so that they don't have to put everything away every time they play with Barbies. So, this was free!




This treasure I bought at a yard sale this summer. It cost me $25. All it needed were some new knobs (which I got at Habitat Re-Store for $1 apiece!),and the bottom of the bottom drawer was missing, so I had to cut out a new bottom for it. Oh, and it was in desperate need of painting, so I sanded it down and painted it. It cost me about $35 in the end.


This desk was my biggest piece of work. I found it on the side of the road across from a park we frequent. I stuffed it in my car, broken drawers and all. I had to build a support for one of the legs, rip off the back and put new backing on, cut the warped drawers down and then brace them back together with glue and corner brackets. It's no Pier One desk, but I'm proud of it. Obviously I had to paint it (with paint I already had) and buy some knobs. So, for about $10 I now have a desk to set my computer and magazines on, as well as store all my card making supplies and more! So, yeah for recycling throw-aways and yard sales! If you see something with potential on the side of the road, see if it's in decent shape or can be fixed for cheap, then pick it up or call me!:) There so much out there, we don't have to spend lots and lots of money on new furniture. Sometimes it just takes patience and keeping your eyes peeled. All of these items, I feel, were a gift from the Lord. I even prayed for some of them. So have fun looking for treasures, if you need some help fixin' it up, just ask!

My Friend Vicky

The very first time I met Vicky was outside our house and she was yelling at Marshall. He wouldn't give her a ride, but she wouldn't let him explain why and that I might be able to. She just lost it. I remember thinking as she stormed off without even giving me a chance to help her, "Phew, what a case!" That was our first impression of one another.

I remember after that seeing her out there, getting in and out of cars, sitting on the corner or walking the block. Some time later she stopped at a yard sale I was having. She liked a pocket book of mine, which I let her have. She asked me for a drink and so I gave her one. That's when our relationship began. She had heard on the street that if she was hungry she could come to our house and we would feed her, so that's what she started doing.

About 3 years ago she was done with the streets. She came to our church and camped out all day, waiting for a rehab to open. I remember Marshall calling me to ask if she could spend the night with us, so that she wouldn't have to walk the streets that night. At first my heart was resistant, this was inconvenient. But of course I said, "Sure." As we hung out that night, my heart grew for Vicky. She shared some of her story, I cried. We drank hot chocolate and watched a movie together. A few days later she got into the rehab and was doing well for months.

Then she went back to her old ways, she almost couldn't handle all the love. That really hurt and depressed me. My heart was hard towards her for a while, but she didn't even come by because she was so ashamed. She was in and out of jail and then got off the streets again for several months and then went back to it. At this point, my heart couldn't take it because I was diving through my own pain with a counselor, trying to find my own healing.

She always came back to our house. She would stop by for a cup of coffee or a hot meal. We would chat and then I'd pray for her. Then we would go back to our own lives. One week I remember she came by almost every day and asked for something. I remember feeling used and I was tired of her stopping by. But one afternoon I heard the knock. I almost didn't answer, but I asked the Lord to give me the grace to love her. When I opened the door, she said, "You've been so generous and loving towards me, I just wanted to give you something in return to say thanks." and she handed me a bag of blueberries she had picked. She turned around to leave and I asked her if she needed anything and she said, "No, I just wanted to bless you like you've done for me so many times." I choked out a thank you through my tears, she left and I stood holding the blueberries, asking God to forgive me for my hardened heart.

Now Vicky is in an apartment under a special program to get the chronically homeless off the streets. Over the past six months our relationship has changed tremendously. The Lord has truly loved her through me both during frustrating times and easy times. The more time I spend with her, the more I grow to love her. She used to be my "project," I wanted to save her from the streets. Through much failure in that I've realized I can't save her, but I can love her with the perfect, unconditional love of Christ. I can do that best by spending time with her.

Now we are doing a Bible Study together once a week, which always ends in tears. She calls me when I'm sick or the kids are sick to check in on us. Now I call her to see how she's doing with her daily struggles. It's a relationship, a friendship, it's community. God created us to be in communion with one another and to love each other. We laugh and joke, we cry and pray together. Yes, it takes some sacrifice, but really, I end up feeling more blessed by calling her a friend.

And you know, through the years, I've realized I'm no different than she is. Her sin may have more physical consequences, but I realize that our spiritual consequences are the same. I fall back into my "old person" on a daily basis. I find that if I don't "nip" it right away, then I'm back to my old patterns of dealing with life. She numbs out her pain and anger with drugs, I numb out with any number of things: cleaning, busyness, TV, food, exercise, shopping, relationships. All of it brings death if we're not allowing God to take up residence in our pain.

So, there you have it, my life has been changed by this friend. No matter what she does, I still love her and will always. I came across this quote in a book Becoming the Answer to Our Prayers that sums up my relationship with Vicky: " The way of Jesus is not a proposal for how to take over the nation (or person) and make it Christian. It is, rather, a lesson in learning not to take over-to be a community where we find a new way of life by giving ourselves for others."

Sweet Psalter!

Psalter is four years old, the blessed middle child. She goes wherever the wind blows her, our free spirited child. If she's comfortable with you, she will talk your ear off, not making much sense sometimes. She loves to be with people. She has a fabulous sense of fashion, tights and skirts or dresses are her preference. Early on I struggled with letting her wear non-matching outfits, but I've realized how much of it is personality. So now we've been taking pictures of some of her outrageous outfits.

Most importantly, lately I've realized I have a short time with her before she goes to school and doesn't have time for me any more. I've been taking advantage of little brother's naptime to play endless games of Candy Land and Chutes & Ladders or doing puzzles. Just me and Psalter. Yesterday was a real sweet time of that. We were playing Candy Land, which I'm actually starting to enjoy, and she left the room. She came back with some of her Littlest Pets to play with us. So all of us took turns and of course Psalter won!
I read this quote off the side of my Real Simple magazine: "Life comes in clusters, clusters of solitude then a cluster when there is hardly time to breathe."-May Sarton. I feel like I'm living the breathless cluster with 3 young children, but I want to treasure up in my heart this special time. It will go so fast and then I will feel like I have too much solitude.

The Beauty of Inconvenience

We don't really know what inconvenience is nowadays. We can pay our bills and buy our groceries or presents by the click of a button. We can reach anyone at any time. We can carry all of our music and even movies on a little rectangle box and take it anywhere we go! There are drive-thru drugstores, Starbucks and fast food restaurants! We strive to live the life of convenience. Imagine how even our grandparents experienced things so differently from us.

I experienced some inconveniences for part of my growing up in Africa, like no electricity, phone or running water. The one thing that has always felt the most inconvenient no matter what age or where I am is poverty. It's never a comfortable matter because there's so much guilt, pity and selfishness that comes to the surface when I'm faced with it. Growing up around some of the poorest of the world felt like both a gift and a curse. A gift to my spiritual maturity and a curse to my worldly desires or materialism. My response for many years was to harden my heart or simply "numb out." It was too painful or overwhelming to care.

By God's providence I married a man who cares about poverty. As I've followed him in God's calling us to our current neighborhood, I've seen God's plan and heart unfolding in me. For years living here has been a constant struggle and inconvenience. The inconvenience of not feeling safe, having naps and mealtimes interrupted with visitors asking for help, kids coming over and staying for hours, watching drug deals and prostitution happen right outside my window caused me to want to shut it all out. I closed off my heart and my windows. I numbed myself to the pain.

Well, now God has opened the floodgates of emotion through healing my heart. But even after that, poverty is still a struggle, an inconvenience. But I see the beauty in the inconvenience now. Most of the time my flesh shows up immediately with excuses as to why I can't help or take time to notice a victim of poverty, an inconvenience. This is when I recognize my need for God and I have to cry out for help. It's about God living out in me, it's TOTAL dependence on Him to love and care for those He puts in my path. The more I understand God's love for me and His love for the poor, the more I can't ignore the inconvenient.

I really saw this happen on Christmas Eve. My family was participating in the evening service at our church. We all dressed up to go. Every Wednesday night our church hosts a dinner for the homeless, so on this particular Wed. bagged dinners were being handed out after the service, so that the sanctuary could remain set up for a service. Well, a lot of the folks that come to the dinner started to show up in between the two services, some to worship and some to get their dinner. I remember feeling like I just wanted to run out of there. I didn't want to talk to or even look at any of the folks who had come for the dinner. I just wanted to go back to the house with our decorated, lit up tree with all the presents underneath. I wanted to have a guiltless Christmas with our kids. I did not want to encounter poverty. I did not want to feel sad or guilty!

After I checked my selfishness, the Lord was able to speak in love to me. I know that He does not press guilt, only conviction. He wants to bless us and for us to bless our children. So I know that it wasn't wrong to want to have a fun Christmas with our children. It was a matter of my heart, not letting God enter into that celebration with me. He wants to bless others through us. I guess I was worried that God would ask me to invite all the homeless to my house for Christmas. Maybe someday He will ask that of me, but I know that He just longs for me to show the poor His love by loving them. I ignored it that night because it was both inconvenient and uncomfortable. But the next day God opened my heart to inviting someone over who was lonely and God really blessed that time and was able to love her through our family.

He longs to mold each of us through matters of inconvenience. Whether it's giving up something we hold onto tightly, living simply or caring for the poor or the lonely. Each of these things feel inconvenient, but are tools to mature us in Christ by calling out our yuckyness and giving us the option to choose His love for us and others.

Get in Shape, Girl!!!

Do you all remember that commercial for the ribbon exercise kit? Please tell me someone had that exercise video...take me back to the 80's!

So I was talking with some friends about exercising. We were basically bashing exercise because it takes so long to get into shape, like weeks. But then, unfortunately, it takes one or two times off to get out of shape. This is the main reason why I find myself loathing exercise. So I get on the bitter bus and talk about how hard it is and come up with excuses why I don't.

A light bulb came on today as I was thinking about this. I realized, huh, my relationship with God is a lot like my relationship with exercising. I need Him to keep healthy, but I don't just need Him in doses, I need to spend time with Him regularly. That's the only way I can "stay in shape" spiritually.

For so many years I've lived my spiritual life in a "if only..." syndrome. I thought, if only I could get to that certain point when I would be so spiritual I wouldn't really need God or life would just be easier. Just like my "if only I could get to that certain size, then I could stop exercising" syndrome. Well, friends, the deeper I get in my relationship with God the more I realize my need for Him. Just like, the older my body gets, the more attention I have to give to it!

I'm realizing that these two things require a lifestyle change. I don't want my motivation for exercising to be that I fit into those pre-third-baby pants. I want to take care of the vessel that God blessed me with, to honor Him. And I don't want my spiritual life to be a chore either. I long for a deeper sense of who I am as God's child, what does that mean? I want to desire spending time with Him. I think if I truly believed in how much He loves me, I would spend time with Him and wouldn't be able to get enough of Him. No one in this world loves me and understands me as much as He does, so why don't I give Him the time of day?

When I talk about "spiritual exercise" I simply mean spending time with Him. It means exercising the truths and promises of God in order to rid our minds of the lies we live under. This will leave room for relationship with Him. That is what we need and it is what He longs for, that's why He created us. We would be so much healthier if we truly grasped this concept and put it into action. Lord, please help me to change my lifestyle to include spending time taking care of my spirit, as well as my physical body. Thank you that you long to spend time with me. Help me to believe that!

Something About Mary...

I have been thinking about writing this post since last March. I was on a Women's Retreat with my church. The speaker talked about the Samaritan woman at the well who met Jesus. The speaker shared her own story which turned out to be a traumatic childhood shadowed with abuse, followed by an abusive marriage. Her testimony was incredible, as well as many others that were shared that weekend. It was so great to see the freedom and hope they've found in Christ through their broken and shaded past.

Even after hearing testimony of God's transforming these lives, I couldn't help but feel like my testimony was drab. I was born into this world with a conscience the size of Texas. I remember agonizing over things that I thought I had done wrong, when I was little. I would not have even gotten in trouble for them. I barely got any spankings. I was always the goody-goody. I was the teacher's pet and probably a dorm parents dream. I heard about God all day, every day for most of my life.

I was the same all the way through high school, even. I never partied, I've never been drunk, never used drugs, only smoked a cigarillo one time (I even felt guilty about that!). I went to a club one time--that was enough for me. I waited until I was 21 to have any alcohol and I remained a virgin until I was married. I'm not saying all of this to boast, except of course in Christ. He's the only reason that I was able to be this way because I did submit to Him early in life. I was fortunate to never have been abused or have any major traumatic experiences either.

I am in no way complaining about my good life. But I do remember early on wondering what was so special about my testimony. No one cries when I share it because it's not dramatic. I'm not dramatic...

So at this retreat I'm feeling self conscious, like I have nothing to bring to the discussion. But the Lord gently reminded me of sweet Mary, mother of Jesus. She seemed rather plain and boring. She was a virgin, as well. I imagine that she never really "rocked the boat," whatever that would mean for those times. But God chose her to carry and birth the Savior of the World, the One I believe in. She wasn't "plain old Mary" after that! God used her sweet life to show His love to this whole world. She was open to it and believed in God's purpose for her life.

When I think about her life I am so encouraged. Everyone should be. God worked through "good" Mary and He also worked through prostitutes and sleazy tax collectors. No matter what your testimony is, God has a purpose for you and can use your testimony to attest to His faithfulness and love in your life. He does not want us to be so ashamed of our past that we don't want to share our testimony, but He also doesn't want us to be embarrassed by our lack of story. We all have a story and His fingerprints are all over it. And...our testimony is on-going, it didn't end when we received Christ into our lives, it started there.

Am I the Biggest Loser?

Okay, so I just had to remind myself that I was just watching this show...on TV. I really don't even know these people, so I have no reason for being mad at Vicky for voting off Amy. I'm mainly mad at Vicky because she's a bully. She voted Amy off just for revenge. She's been mean to the other team and mean to Amy for voting her husband off a couple of weeks ago. I mean, I understand her being mad, but, it's a game, it was the smartest move Amy made. Amy should have voted Vicky off last week when she had the chance. What was she thinking? She was trying to patch things up, but she should of known she was never "safe" with Vicky.

Okay, get over it, Diane. It's just a T.V. show. I really hope Vicky doesn't make it to the finale, I may not be able to watch. Tonight I couldn't help but sob at Amy's homecoming. She's lost over 60 pounds and was able to shop in her favorite boutique in her hometown. Then she went to meet her family and friends. Her dad literally sobbed for joy when he was hugging her. Throughout the show he's sent video messages and each time he's been so supportive and in love with his wife and daughter who were both on the ranch together. Winner dad!! Every time he talks on the show, I sob. So, I love this show because it changes people's lives. Bye, bye Vicky...I hope.