Paris or bust. When life changes directions.

I boarded a plane about a year ago with my long awaited ticket in hand to Paris.  I had wanted to go my entire life.  It had been something I had dreamt about, thought about, did projects about, wrote papers about for as long as I could remember.

After a long flight there our plane landed and in a delightful voice the airline attendant said 'hello and welcome to Australia'. 

What? Wait! I didn't buy a ticket to Australia.  My ticket said Paris, France.  There had been a serious mix up and I was upset...beyond upset...I was furious!  I planned a trip to Paris not Australia.  The Louvre and the Eiffel Tower were the first on my list of things to do. Australia had nothing to do with paintings or architecture!

Ever feel like that in life? Have you ever set out in life planning to get to one destination but instead got taken "off course" in another direction?  

As I got off the plane in anticipation of art I've only read about, cute cafes with real beignets and amazing architecture instead I saw the Outback filled with a lot of brown landscape....not exactly the colors Monet, Van Gogh or Rembrandt used...nope just lots of brown.

There I sat a bit puzzled and disillusioned by my "wrong turn" and crazy mix up. As I sat there figuring how to go back, I looked out the window as tears streamed down my cheeks at my change in plans and I saw something on the horizon.  I looked beyond the brown landscape and saw the most gorgeous sunrise I had ever seen in my life. Colors beyond anything I had ever seen on any canvas.  

Had I not taken my "wrong turn" I would have missed the most amazing piece of art I had ever laid eyes on.  I walked outside and began to see things I had never seen before or even knew I wanted to see...as I began to see them I realized this place was way more amazing than I had ever thought it could be.  I began to see things and meet people I would have never met had I went to my originally planned destination of Paris.

All of us in life have our own plans of the places we want to get to, the goals we want to accomplish, the people we want to meet or rub shoulders with but sometimes you think you bought a ticket to one location when God actually has a different landscape in mind for you and your life.

Are you at a point where you find yourself in a different destination than you were planning.  Are you fighting it? Are you upset about it? Are you trying to get back on the plane and go backwards to where you came from? Are you yelling at the airline attendant that there has been a huge mistake and your life wasn't suppose to look like this place you are in right now?

Acceptance is not giving in...it's letting go and letting God have his way with where your life is heading.  Sometimes that involves a change of scenery at a job, a school, a church, a neighborhood.  Stop fighting it and take in the scenery in this new place....God says He orders our steps so chances are you are not in the "wrong place" you are actually right where He wants you to be to use you.  It just might not look like the plan you had but it's the plan He has had this whole time....embrace it and keep following Him....who knows you might see your own beautiful sunrise full of colors you never thought existed until you ended up where you thought you didn't want to go but exactly where you needed to be.

¹¹ I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. ¹² I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. ¹³ I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

Philippians 4:11-13

 I never really went to Paris (yet) but used it as a story as to how we can plan our lives to go one way when God takes our lives and leads us in an entirely different direction and when you take a moment to look back you realize this was His plan all along.  God's pretty cool like that :)

Come As You Are?

Come as you are.  Such a trendy phrase in the church right now isn't it?  But the question I want to ask you is this, should we stay as we are once we get there?  This has been an honest question I have asked for some time now.

As I sit here and write this blog I think back throughout my life.  I've been a Christian since I was about 9 or 10, so about 30 plus years now (are you calculating the age? I'm 41 :) So quite a while and I've seen the 'trends', if you will, in the church.  I've been in services where we sang 'As the Deer Panteth Forth the Water' and 'Abiding In the Vine' and thought we were on the cutting edge of music. Or when I was traveling the country with a music ministry Ron Kenoly's Lift Him Up was the best worship cd ever (which the name alone always made me want dessert).  As a kid I've sat through all the televangelists, the trials tribulations and mistakes and confessions...I've heard those all.  I lived through the legalistic stages and the name it and claim it stages, the Toronto and Brownsville blessing stages.  I've been in services where people sat for hours in the presence of God in worship or at the altar.  I've seen all the extremes and have learned something from each of them.

So here is my question.  Are you new to the world of Christianity or are you as old as Keith Green's music? (I am and 'Asleep in the Light' is a pretty fitting title for this blog).  This come as you are 'trend' right now (and I'm calling it that for lack of anything better to call it) is the latest phase the church is in.  I mean, I get that anyone and everyone should come and I love all sorts of people (my family is made up of all types) so I see the amazing benefit and calling we have of loving people where they are at in order to show them the love of Christ but I am left wondering if, in this trend, are we forgetting something?

Shouldn't we, when people come through the doors of our churches, be offering them a hope that Jesus will change their life?  I mean, really, isn't that why people are coming to church to begin with...aren't they there searching for a better answer then the one they currently have?  Are we being called to make them more comfortable? In effort to make our churches more culturally relevant and comfortable to all "sinners' (which we all are) have we lost a bit in our translation of being all things to all people? Shouldn't there be a bit more on the act of repentance and not just acceptance...isn't acceptance the thing that has gotten us into trouble to begin with? (Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. 2 Corinthians 7:10).  

I had a very good friend of mine in my early 20's challenge me to quote entire chapters of Scripture back and forth to him to keep each other accountable and the chapter he and I would quote the most would be Romans 6 and my favorite part would be verses 1 & 2  

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? ² By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?
 
So this blog really doesn't have as many statements in it as much as it has a few questions that I have been asking lately of the American church.

Where are those days when we sat in God's presence for a few hours because we longed for Him to change our lives after we walked through the church doors.  We knew that coming as we were wasn't how we were going to walk out after spending time with Him and asking Him to change us from the inside out.  We didn't need to be impressed with all the programs, lights, eloquent speeches and skits....we didn't need to connect through facebook, twitter or Instagram....we knew we just needed to connect with God and He was going to work it out.  Simple. 

Don't get me wrong, I love all the bells and whistles the church has now (although the irony of the insurmountable amount of Christian/worship music being produced in comparison to the amount of time given to actually worship God in our church services is just that....ironic).  I just want to know if we can incorporate both the fancy things while also hearing a message about repenting and asking God to change us and our hearts.  Can we just realize that we can't 'go on sinning that grace may abound' and that God wants to change us and deliver us and renew us to use our lives for Him...isn't that what being a Christian is all about anyways? The transforming power of Jesus Christ?  To come in my own effort is just that....MY own effort not His.  That isn't going to get me where He wants to lead me.

God I love that you love us and accept us when we come to You as we are but I take greater joy in knowing You have a plan far greater than leaving me in my comfort zone of my own desires. I love how pushing me out of my comforts and desires for Your glory shows me Your ideas are much better than mine...Your ideas have been tried and true so I choose to trust You when You say it's time to change...

Good grief - A tale from the other side

As I sat last night watching the news, the pictures of the 3 people who lost their lives in the Boston Marathon Bombing were flashed up on the screen.  The reporter moved quickly through the story of each name, age and life that was lost.  They moved on to another part of the Boston Marathon bombing story.

I was left though with the pictures in my mind of that sweet 8 year old boy, a 29 year old young lady and a college student from China I think it was.  What hit me wasn't the tragedy (albeit the horror of a senseless crime of evil is beyond description and is indescribable violence) instead what stuck with me was the pain and long long long journey of grief each of these families will be left to walk through and each and every stage, I am all too familiar with, will be left for them to navigate through.  My heart breaks for those families left with the emptiness and brokenness and intense almost physical pain their hearts will carry for a very long time to come.

Every person does grief differently you are told right after a loved one dies.  Usually at the funeral of your loved one is where the advice starts.  Quite honestly you are in such a cloud that really nobody's words matter you are in complete shock with the horror of seeing your loved ones lifeless body in a box up front for all to walk past and talk in front of like it was a Sunday afternoon tea party.  

A friend of mine text me a blog yesterday night as I was watching these lives lost on the news.  I stopped watching and read the blog.  It was about life journey's that we all travel.  The writer of the blog wrote a series of horrible and difficult events she went through and described each immensely difficult stage and then with each stage she learned a new characteristic of who God was to her in her life.  Through cancer He was her peace, through a broken heart from a love He was something else to her and when she was called to a different state for ministry He was something else to her and in every one of those extremely difficult places she knew God was with her and He was going to bring life from the pain she went through...all of this was sad but then she got to the end and began to explain that the last 6 months of her life had been the darkest most difficult times in her entire life and there in her own words she said 6 months ago I lost my dad and this is the darkest place I have ever been in.  I put my ipad down and began to cry...the ugly cry...you know the kind where you can't breath because it hurts so bad to read someone elses pain that describes your own journey.  She described her dad as awesome and that the void in their family was beyond description.  I could relate....I can relate.

Each of us has a life story.  The ups and downs of pain and trials.  Each person in my life would try to relate to me right after my dad died, while I was watching a completely broken widow, with stories of their pain of loss in divorce, disease, the woes of foster parenting,  moves to other jobs & states, loss of their social network....on and on people would share with me the pain of their own stories of loss (perhaps to try and relate to me because I had emotionally checked out of most of my relationships & they were trying to find common ground to connect again). I always wanted to be cognisant of each of their feelings and personal loss.  I would feel their pain with each story but with each time my heart broke for them, my thoughts would softly whisper yes, but your person or pain or trial is still on this planet.  I would never breath that out loud for fear of hurting or offending somebody.  

You see, all loss in life is real and almost tangible....it rocks us to our core and breaks us into a million different pieces and God finds us in the midst of our brokenness and walks us through healing, I get that, I've experienced other losses.  But there written in text of this women's story with every step and every horrible broken part of her journey God met her, showed Himself to her and walked her through but when she came to the loss of her daddy her description of it was 'the very deepest valley and darkest time and trial of her entire life'.  Yes, I get that but could not articulate that to most.  She wrote that and by her doing that freed me up from feeling condemned for thinking this loss was the worst I had experienced in life. 

I have intensely struggled for the last 3 years since my dad went home to be with Jesus with trying to explain my feelings to those still on the happy side of the grief having never experienced the sting of a death...to no avail...their was not a description strong enough with words to say how bad my heart had been broken.  When 6 months, 1 year, 2 years 3 year markers came and went often those without experiencing loss would look at me as if I should be past this by now.  This woman unknowingly gave me permission to reflect on the big losses in my own life and allowed me to "rate" them, too, if you will.

My heart broke when I had a broken engagement to a studying pastor on the east coast when nothing made sense as to why I felt so strong to not marry this man that seemed perfect for my world (thank God I didn't. I needed Jim in my life and God knew that).  My heart broke when a man in my 20's did something without my permission.  My heart broke again when I had my 3rd baby and my c-section went wrong and there I sat paralyzed from the waste down with no medical definition.  In each of those situations I found Jesus to consistently be my source of help, strength, comfort, life and healing....but all of those events pale in comparison to the loss of my dad, my own personal support system....my cheerleader and my biggest fan.  The pain and brokenness was the single most darkest deepest event of my entire life!

But what I, too, have learned is that there is life at the end of pain....there is purpose through the most painful of journeys.  I had a friend that has known me forever ask me why would I start Inspire, did I even ask God if I was suppose to do this because this is taking up a lot of my time.  I sat there and thought, I didn't need to ask God if I was suppose to do this....I knew God was going to do this with my life.  She still hasn't personally experienced the pain from a death that catapults you into a different way of viewing life and God...I needed to start this.  I knew that I wanted to share with other women that God walks us through each life event of pain and brings purpose and hope to your life during and after the intensity of a dark season lifts and you are left with this peace and purpose like no other time in your life to bring Him glory and honor. 

Really, isn't that what we are all here to do anyways?  It just takes some of us a jarring life event to show us the reality of our purpose that comes through the "gift" of pain.....a perspective you can only have from this side of any kind of loss.

My heart and prayers go out to all the families affected by the Boston marathon bombing who are experiencing intense grief, loss, pain and heartbreak....may they too, after a very long road, experience that joy does come in the morning....you just will now forever view life from a different side. I pray that God would make His peace so real to these families in this journey that changes your life forever.

What a man wants

I've been married to probably the coolest guy I know for almost 15 years now and we've been together for 16 years and I've learned a few things about guys.

I will not pretend to understand them completely just as they could never dream of completely understanding us ladies…and that's why great girlfriends are a must have in our lives.  Other girls get our brains and emotions.  I think of 3 girlfriends in my life that I am most thankful for….just for the plain fact that in this last week of my life I've talked with each of them and they understand where I am, where I've been and where I'm headed to! I am so grateful for them when my husband looks at me with his head tilted and says huh?

But most of the time, he gets me, understands me and loves me despite my crazy personality!  Marriage and every relationship takes intentional decisions to stay connected so here it goes….what do guys really want from us girls?  Dinner on the table, clean underwear in their drawer (not in a laundry basket in the corner of the room not folded…don't judge, we've all left the clean basket unfolded longer than we were suppose to), a nicely kept home and perfect abs and great lingerie? Nope, not it, unless your guy is superficial and doesn't care about the deeper stuff! All that stuff is great, but let's be honest ladies….life throws us curve balls and so keeping up with all that stuff, plus kids and holding down a job or career and carting everyone everywhere keeps us treading water and sometimes plain ole makes you feel like we are drowning in an endless supply of chores and to do lists….

All that stuff is the superficial stuff…the mechanics and tedious details of life.  What a guy needs more than anything in this world is your unconditional love and support.  Different guys receive that differently than other guys but at the end of the day the concept is the same no matter how you deliver it.

A guys wants to know you are supporting him 100%.

He needs to know you believe in him and what he is called to do.

He needs you to build him up….not tear him down.  Nagging will only shut him down and you will not get anything from him!  Even if he does do what you are asking him to do, eventually he will resent being told what to do by you!

He wants a girl who is confident and not needy….guys want to know you are strong and you can do it…it is so unappealing to be the weak damsel in distress gal.  He may want that at the beginning but clingy and drama get old after a while and tears up a relationship.

He sometimes wants your undivided attention and time!  Put down what you are doing, tell the kids to run and play (they can entertain themselves) and pay attention to what he is saying to you! Support his dreams and his vision….share with him your dreams and vision….God will connect you both through sharing more than just your list of stuff to do that day…share your heart and listen to his.  Now he will never ever word it like that. "Honey, listen to my heart" probably won't come out of any straight guys mouth but read between the lines when he is sharing with you what he hopes to accomplish in life and then encourage him to do it!  Find something you guys have in common and then do that too!

I remember when my husband called me up to tell me he was quitting his very lucrative job of 13 years to start his own business 5 years ago….He called me up one morning and said today is the day I quit! I said alright let's do this!  It was not pretty because we were baaarrroooookeee for the first couple of years he started but the joy of watching my husband live out his life long dream was all I needed to see! SUPPORT is worth everything!

Be faithful to him….don't sleep with another guy is obviously a no brainer but I'm talking about your actions and body language with other guys, guard yourself and bring honor to your husband by not flirting with somebody else's guy….it's gross and no other girl wants you to be around their husband.  Save the cute and bouncy for your husband alone!

Be to him what you want him to be to you.  Choose to speak words of life into him.  Heck, choose to speak words of life into every person you meet and know! It is life changing when you speak words of life into your marriage and everyone around you.  It is a choice but so worth it and the return on that investment is priceless!

Laugh with him often and don't take life too seriously.

That's all my advice for today….love the mess out of your husband and watch your marriage grow and who knows….you might not even end up needing those close girl friends in your life to share all your thoughts with, well, don't get crazy…you'll need them too….us girls are a lot to handle and need a few people to walk it all out with!

Spend time with your husband today, pour into him words of life, don't tear him down but rather believe in him and watch how cool your marriage will turn out!

Your Love Never Fails

Inspire launched last Friday night and tonight is the first time in a week that I have time to sit and write about it.  

As the worship team got there and set up people started pouring in and I seemed to have an endless amount of last minute details to get together for everything to run smoothly.  After all the running around and preparation, my girlfriend Erin began the worship and I immediately could feel my shoulders drop and a peace came over me....worshiping God is always my favorite place to be. 

I stood up front after worship and was getting ready to speak (which, turns out, I really like speaking, who knew? Well, my husband may have had a clue that I like to speak but I never knew :) Anyways, as I looked over this big conference room filled with about 140 women, I was brought to tears at the thought that God spoke this to my heart a couple years ago and there I was standing at the front with a group of ladies worshiping God.  I was humbled that He was going to work through me in this next year in lives all around this Detroit area.  I was brought to tears because, as I shared that night, it was only a few years ago when I was overcome with doubt and complete brokenness and there I was....He carried me through that whole mess and set me in this place for this time despite my what if's.

I don't know if you were there or were not (I will be posting the message on youtube this week) but I thank God for this opportunity in my life and consider it such a privilege to do this! I look forward to all that God will do through this ministry this year and beyond.  My heart is so full and filled with joy I cannot even express.  

About 6 months ago my sister and I were talking about something silly and were just laughing...hard...really hard about it.  I cannot, for the life of me, remember what it was we were talking about because we talk constantly but I do remember thinking "this is the first time since my dad had died that my sister and I had really laughed this hard together" We had always laughed before he got sick...my whole family is unbelievably funny and laughter has always been a part of my life but I realized 6 months ago when Sara and I were laughing that God had brought me finally through the worst of it and I was healing and getting to the other side.  It was freeing...

There is a song by Jesus Culture called Your Love Never Fails and my favorite line in this song is 

"The chasm is far too wide
I never thought I'd reach the other side
But Your love never fails..."

I've been singing this song for a couple of years now believing this line.  As I've learned how to laugh again and as God has given me the privilege of starting Inspire, I have realized that His love never had failed and there I was standing in front of these ladies and I never thought I'd reach the other side...but I did...His love never failed and now I am so thankful for the opportunity to share this hope with the ladies of Inspire and all the ministries we will be serving this year and beyond.  

God's love never fails and He carries us, walks with us and He infuses us with hope, peace and joy until we can laugh...really laugh hard again or maybe for the first time in our lives.  He knows the chasm isn't too wide and that He will use all that we go through to comfort someone else who thinks they won't be able to make it.

You can make it.  God will walk you through it to the other side.  I know that now, and I am so excited to see how God pours out my life and all of yours to speak hope into those hurting around us and gives us all the opportunity to share that God's love never fails despite any and all of our chasms, what if's and brokenness.  

Can't wait to see how God Inspire's each one of our own hearts to be used for His glory!

What would happen if a group of woman came together with a dream to make a difference? What if there was a place to come and hear from God, heal our hearts and a place where we were given an opportunity to go out and help others? What if we could have a place where we pour out ourselves into other lives and make a real difference? What if we stopped asking "what if I can't" and started saying "What can I do" by pressing into God to see what He has for our lives? 

That's what the heart of Inspire is. We, are a group of ladies from ages 13 to 93, coming together for the first month to worship God, listen to the vision of this ministry and see where God takes us to serve in the Metro Detroit area all while making a few friends along the way to live life with.

Come out, bring some friends and invite a few more and see what we are doing, find out some details, ask some questions, meet with God and see how He can use your life story and purpose to help somebody else find theirs...

Our Inspire promo coming soon...

Feel free to post and pass this invite to as many woman as you know who want to come join us and see what we are up to. Also, email me with any questions. As we get closer to the date I will need to know the number of people coming so please RSVP. 

We are meeting at the Macomb Community University Center at the Center campus. Doors open at 6 and we begin at 6:30.

Come out and see what happens when a bunch of girls in God come together united for such a time as this…… http://www.facebook.com/events/436815853057025/

Happy New Year - A "do over"

Happy New Year! I love new beginnings, don't you? I love fresh starts, clean slates and empty canvases to start anew, start fresh or just start over.  I remember being a kid and playing tag or hide and seek with my neighbor friends and when somebody would do something wrong or something you didn't like we would just yell "do over" at the top of your lungs and everyone would stop and start over.  It was like you just yelled out reset and got to redo that part of your life.  Don't you wish sometimes life had a reset button?  I'm kinda a kid at heart still and probably a bit of a dreamer so I tend to love the idea of a new year as an equivalent to yelling out "do over" and having the ability to reset our lives and start fresh in a new year.  Kind of a fun way of looking at it!  

A few years now have gone by from my own personal tragedy to realize that life doesn't always work that way by yelling out "do over".  I wish it did because I would be screaming do over just to have another lunch across the table from my dad but alas there is no reset button for our lives.  But we do all have something else.  Something that can start on any day of any month or year not just on the 1st day of a new year.  What we have is a choice.  We have a choice on how we respond to the events thrown our way every day.  We can choose from which perspective we want to view our situations.  It really can be a life saver (really a soul saver).  I seriously cannot sit here and tell you how many crazy events have happened in my life over the past few years.  And each and every time another event would happen, I would say (often times out loud) 'this is not going to take me out!' As I feel like I am finally on the other side of intense brokenness, pain and disappointment, I look back and realize that each time I said that statement, I was actually asking God 'this isn't going to take me out, right God?' and it didn't.  I'm here and I've made it. But if there is one single thing I have learned from the pain of loss and from life's disappointments is that God is truly always there.  We have a choice to trust Him and look at them from His perspective.  I know it is a simple concept but really quite profound.  He is always for us.  We can trust Him.  He is the author of new beginnings.  He truly can bring life from death.  He can turn events around.  He can use our horrible situations and bring Glory to Himself through our life as we walk through them and trust Him.  It's like He yells out 'do over' and it really is that simple.  Now, unlike when we are kids and the whole game stops and you get to really do the whole thing over again, with life, sometimes our situations don't or won't ever change but our ability to reset our thinking, our perspective, our choices in the event can. We can have a reset button and we can choose to view our situations from His vantage point.  His Word.

On March 1st, 2013 I am launching an event to reach out to woman all over the metro Detroit area.  We have the opportunity to come together and make a difference.  We, as a group of ladies, can take our pain, our disappointments, our passions, our joy, our heart and come before God and ask Him to use us by allowing us to be His hands to help others in their pain and share our stories and more importantly share our God with woman and children all over Macomb county and greater Detroit area.  After I wrote my last blog sharing my heart to come together as a group of woman, worship God and then take our lives and pour them out into hurting and broken lives, the response was overwhelming with people who want to be involved and come together! I am so happy that God is going to use all of us to be the voice that is able to yell out or maybe just whisper that God has a do over, He has a plan for life and loves people where they are at.  To these woman and children in horrible situations all around us, we have an opportunity to go where God leads us and help.

More details will follow soon.  Pretty much the jist of it is this.  We come together (anybody, from any denomination) Friday night March 1st at 6:30, we worship (my girlfriend and her husband lead worship and they are awesome….I cannot even wait), I will share what this ministry's vision is going to look like and how we are going to do it.  I will ask all of you that night to share on a form if your want to, your heart and different local outreaches/ministries that serve woman and children that you would like to see us help one month, and then we close with prayer (I have people whose heart is to just pray for woman to be whole so that will absolutely be a part of our events).   God has brought together a group of awesome woman that are helping me with this event and are praying for God's leading and will for this whole thing!

My heart, as I've shared in the last blog, is to seek God more (hmmm that sounds like a song I've done…The More I Seek You…if you don't know it look it up, it's simple but pretty much the heart of this group), anyways we come seek God and worship….really worship Him (would you expect anything less from an event I would put together?;), hear what God has to say to us and then go out and help others with their 'do over' and share that all in life is not lost, that there is a God that came and died on the cross, rose again to offer a do over for their life and will offer an abundant life in the midst of their storms.

The invites for this event will be coming soon, anyone and everyone is invited so invite friends.  We are meeting at Macomb Community University Center (Center campus) and the place seats 250 people so invite friends!  It is Inspire 2013 where we hear (God), heal (our hearts) and help (others).  It's about God making a difference in our lives, it's about God making a difference in those lives around us…..it's about a new start, a do over.  Happy new year! See you soon! 

Follow this blog for updates on Inspire 2013.