Just Whatever.

August 22, 2016 RunAndBeStill Leave a comment

Hey mom, are my socks still in your purse?

Yes. Yes they are along with your “summer reading” book. Maybe you would like to read some of that?

No? Yeah, that’s pretty much what I thought.

Doesn’t every mom need an extra pair of their children’s athletic socks in their purse? I am also carrying 18 or so football discount cards that need sold/delivered, school supply lists, a bag of trail mix, coupons I never remember to use, and a fistful of receipts that you never know if you might need. But, not one writing utensil. My purse has become the equivalent of a new mother’s diaper bag except for teenagers. I have been a mom for almost 17 years. Where does time go? We just seem to morph from one stage to the next and they keep coming faster and faster and it’s hard to keep your feet underneath you.

Today is our 12th first day of school and this morning the only back to school tears belong to me. Maybe it is because the dog has explosive diarrhea (sorry if this is oversharing) or maybe it’s because of this.

2016 back to school

Hoods up because jeep hair doesn’t work for school.

This is the first year that I am not the one do the back to school driving. I am so over this. And before the day has even begun I received a text about a forgotten book from one kid and another with a question about the proper homeroom from the other. We are batting 1000 already.

Maybe it’s because I am masochistic (like my love for the movies Steel Magnolias and Beaches) but I have watched this video year after year (multiple times already this morning) and every time it makes my heart hurt a little more…I just need to feel all the feels today. And eat more double chocolate butter braid. Yes, definitely more butter braid.

I want more first days, a lot more. I know they are mine for just a moment, but they are yours for eternity. Keep them safe God, and if you would, just fill in the gaps with the things I forgot to say because I was too busy or too distracted. That would be great. That would be really, really, great.

Wishing you all a wonderful day no matter where this back to school season finds you.

This Is Life

Brushfires

August 17, 2016 RunAndBeStill 1 Comment

I am a firefighter. This was not what I said I wanted to be when I grew up. But for the last 3 weeks I have been busy putting out pop-up brushfires that just will not die. And I was not wrong in not choosing this profession.

Living on the fly and adjusting plans at the last moment to accommodate my new firefighting profession has left my pantry empty and my brain an addled mess.

Indulge me while I paint you a picture. Last Friday night we did an amazing thing. The Low Country Boil hosted by Love Runners, Do Good Studio, and Captain Montague’s Bed and Breakfast was a rousing success for the children of Casa Bernabe. (In fact, we had to put a waiting list together for people who want to be first in line to buy tickets to our Black Tie for Black Shoes Christmas event the first weekend of December. More on all of this later.)

BUT, the days leading up to this event began the outbreak of fires, Dehydration, Faulty Alarms, and Tomorrow’s Celebration. It didn’t stop there though. On the morning of our low country boil my daughter and I ended up in a ditch with only 3 of our 4 car wheels touching the ground. After getting the tents, tables, and decorations set up for dinner a thunderstorm blew through, taking everything (tents included) and throwing them around and drenching them. The day after the dinner we were back in the ER for more blood tests after another post-football health episode. Monday afternoon got lit up when we had to abort our school and grocery shopping because we learned of a moved volleyball practice 10 minutes before it was to start when we were over an hour away (and sitting in the stylists’ chair for a haircut.) The grocery trip that isn’t to be was again thwarted Tuesday by another doctors appointment. Today holds blood tests and tomorrow two more appointments (my funny skin kid, not to be outdone by her brother, has developed a funny skin thing prompting an additional specialist to add to the week’s list.) We’ve had two check engine lights, (one on a rental car!) a leaky tire, and a partridge in a pear tree. Even now I am forced to type this on my phone because it continues to fail to load on my computer.

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As I was making an effort to tidy the piles I have on the counters I picked up a book my two-year old niece wanted me to read to her when she visited two weeks ago, Fervent by Priscilla Shirer. (I probably need to dig out some of the kids old books.) As I absently flipped through it my highlighted passages began jumping out at me and I gained a much needed reminder of how I need to be battling these blazes.

This is war. The fight of your life. A very real enemy has been strategizing and scheming against you, assaulting you, coming after your emotions, your mind, your man, your child, your future. But I say his reign of terror stops here. Stops now. He might keep coming, but he won’t have victory anymore. Because it all starts failing when we start praying.

Success, to him, means stirring up discord in your home, your church, your workplace, your neighborhood, and doing it in such a way that no one’s even aware he’s been in the building. He knows our natural, physical response is to start coming after each other instead of him – attacking, counterattacking, pointing fingers, assigning blame-while he sits out in the driveway monitoring the clamor inside, fiendishly rubbing his hands together, admiring just how adept he is…and what easy targets we are.

If all we’re doing is whacking at the nearest, most visible symptoms every time they pop their head up, we’re doing two things: (1) wasting precious time and energy that ought to be reserved and refocused on the real enemy, and (2) trying to fight ferocious spiritual forces by using weapons that don’t faze them in the least – weapons that aren’t even designed to hurt them. So the hits just keep on coming.

He wants you to focus on the things that are physical and visible instead of where the action really is. The enemy who’s intent on disrupting the peace in your home doesn’t flinch when you try to force your own fixes upon it, but he does start worrying when a wife, a mother, a daughter, or a sister starts avoiding the noise at the periphery and starts making some noise of her own, right outside the door to the devil’s workshop.

Last Saturday when we came out of the emergency room there was a full double rainbow stretched over the parking lot. It was a little reminder to me that we weren’t alone in this. God hasn’t forgotten us or the periphery brushfires that keep alighting. It was also a reminder to me that while I am busy trying to put out the fires I need to remember Him and not get lost in it all.

faith, family

Tomorrow We Celebrate

August 6, 2016 RunAndBeStill 1 Comment

Ok. Seriously. Enough is enough. I am crying Uncle. I am done. Exhausted. Disjointed as it may be here goes…

My plans for this week: Prepare for the Do Good Marketplace event that was supposed to be today.

My reality: doctors appointments, multiple rounds/days of tests capped off by another trip to the hospital. The dehydration from last week had come back to bite us.

First thing this morning, after staying up deep into the night getting everything ready for The Studio sale which was not to be we got a call from Ty’s doctor. He asked that we take Ty to the ER ASAP as the test results from yesterday were marginally worse with declining kidney function and off the chart protein numbers indicating muscle breakdown. He needed to be seen and soon! The doctor prepared us for the reality that he would probably be admitted. Long story short, by the grace of God Ty is home this afternoon without any restrictions. I can’t even tell you the swing of emotion that has taken place in the span of 12 hours.

This has been a week of halting stops and starts, highs and lows. (In the midst of all of this today I got notification that Love Runners 501(c)(3) was approved. We are officially an operating non-profit!) I was attacked this week at one of my most vulnerable spots, my kids, and I am feeling the after effects of that strain this afternoon like a bad hangover.

Yet there is so much to celebrate and be thankful for this evening. The celebrations will have to wait until I am a little more energetic though. (As will the cleaning of the extreme mess I made of our family room last night. It looks like the Do Good goods exploded all over it-which they kind of did.)

I feel like every obstacle has taken a piece of me this week. And the trusting in waiting is so hard when you want answers and action. Watchman Lee nailed this for what it is.

“Satan has, in fact, a plan against the saints of the Most High, which is to wear them out. What is meant by this phrase, “wear out?” It has in it the idea of reducing a little this minute, then reducing a little further the next minute. Reduce a little today, reduce a little tomorrow. Thus the wearing out is almost imperceptible; nevertheless, it is a reducing. The wearing down is scarcely an activity of which one is conscious, yet the end result is that there is nothing left. He will take away your prayer life little by little and cause you to trust God less and less and yourself more and more, a little at a time. He will make you feel somewhat cleverer than before. Step by step, you are misled to rely more on your own gift, and step by step, your heart is enticed away from The Lord. Now, were Satan to strike the children of a God with great force at one time, they would know exactly how to resist the enemy since they would immediately recognize his work. He uses the method of gradualism to wear down the people of God.”
Today I am going to allow myself the day off (maybe even take a nap, gasp!) and allow God to begin fortifying the areas that Satan has been wearing thin.

Tomorrow we celebrate!

Encouragement, faith, family

When The Alarm Does (or Doesn’t) Go Off

August 4, 2016 RunAndBeStill 2 Comments

packyourbags A door downstairs flew open, jarring me from my peaceful sleep. “Oh NO! What time is it?!” Fumbling for my phone to check the time I see that we had already overslept an hour. I was tumbling out of bed, down the stairs, asking “What do you need?” while gathering socks, Gatorade, and miscellaneous lunch items. This poor grown child looked at me with terrified, sleep filled eyes and said “This has to be a nightmare!”

Football two-a-days. This is a taboo phrase in our house. Not to be spoken aloud, basically like a four-letter word times four (so you know it’s really, really bad!) If you have had any part in them ever, the memory will stay with you eternally. So, when the alarm didn’t go off at 4:55 for the first time or 5:05 for the second time, we slept until the 10th phone call woke my blissfully unaware son at 6:00. Thus inducing the Fear Of Coach panic that flooded each of us. He was out the door in record time and I collapsed into a chair after and remember these words from two years ago during the same season of life …

We had spent the day at the ballpark watching a double header and our friends’ son in his Major League pitching debut. However, with all of the poster-making, jumbo-tron dancing, hot dog eating excitement of the afternoon it wasn’t until we were on our way home (at 10:30 pm) that I realized I still had two pair of football pants that needed to be washed (spray the Shout, scrub the stains, wash, rinse, repeat if necessary) and more importantly dry by the wee hours of the morning. Fun has a price. So, while I waited on the washing machine to do it’s thing, I thought, “You should pack Ty’s lunch. You will thank yourself in the morning when all you have to do is roll out of bed, grab a coffee, and head out the door.” I also searched out socks (why does this always seem to be the one missing item?) and had his football bag otherwise packed and ready to go because I knew neither of us would be functional this morning. And I was right. And I did thank myself. On my drive back home from the football field as the coffee began to work and my brain began to wake up I had a thought. I remembered something I had heard a very long time ago and thought it was a great reminder for all of us. I was as true then as it is now!

You have to live ready.

Tomorrow may be a good day or tomorrow may be a nightmare. Will you be ready? Is your faith something you are building and strengthening everyday? Is your relationship with Jesus something you are nurturing? Or, are these just things that get dusted off, possibly on Sunday, and otherwise left alone only to be unpacked In Case Of Emergency. Are you waiting for “tomorrow” to explore this Jesus-thing a little bit deeper? If this is where you find yourself, please, wake up!

When the alarm goes off (hopefully when it is supposed to) at 5am after too few hours of sleep, is your bag packed? Do you have clean matching socks and a lunch or are you scrambling to pull it together? We have to live ready because we don’t know when the crisis alarm is going to go off. We don’t get a notification in the mail that says, next month you will be diagnosed with a life-altering disease, please plan accordingly. We don’t receive a call that says, please make sure you have appropriate clothing you will be attending a funeral next week. (Maybe yours? I am sorry. That is harsh but it is also reality.) Ready or not, here it comes, with no warning.

We have to live ready! We need to use and strengthen our “faith muscles” every day because if we wait until crisis strikes they will be sluggish and sleepy when we need them most. We will have to dust our faith off and hope that we remember how to work it. It is so very easy to let our faith and relationship with Jesus rest in hibernation, only to be awakened in crisis.

This is a slippery slope. I know. I have been there. I grew up in a solid Christian home, was involved in church. We were bringing our children up to love and fear the Lord. I thought I got it. Then God let me really have it! Oh, foolish proud heart. I have realized that I had nothing without Him. I am nothing without Him.

The problem with crisis is that we don’t know when the alarm is going to go off. When crisis strikes, your brain tends to go into default mode. So what is your default? You want live ready? Nurture your relationship with God. If you don’t have one, start one! If you don’t know how, ask me, I would love to help you figure this out. Dig into His Word for nourishment, spend time in prayer, communicating with our Father. Listen for His voice instead of just talking at Him. I don’t have all the answers. There is not an Easy 5 Step Plan For Readiness but we can stumble and bumble through this together. There are some things you will never be ready for but with faith you can survive them with hope for a better day ahead. The point is, don’t wait.

I can remember playing Parcheesi with my son and mom, 8 years ago at least. In the spirit of competition there was a little smack-talk going on and my son looked at my mom and told her, “Pack your bags your going home!” This my friends, is great advice, pack your bags. Live ready. You’ll thank yourself in the morning.