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Wow. I knew I had neglected the blog but we are going nigh on 3 weeks with no communique’. I know you are devastated. The problem with getting this far behind is fighting the urge to return to all that’s been going on and realizing not one bit of it is interesting. At all.
It would be so awesome if I could tell you I’m ready to break the streak of boring but truth is we’ve been working at the Pee Wee football Jamboree all day and I’m ridiculously exhausted so I’ve laid myself up in bed to enjoy an evening of House Hunters. Yes, hubs and I are both HGTV junkies. Luke is the only straight man I know that can define ‘focal point’. On this episode of HH, a couple is looking for a green home and this real estate agent is trying to sell them on a particular house because it has high efficiency light bulbs. Yep. I’m certain they will pick it now. Oh, wait. Just found out this house also doesn’t have polyurethane finish on the floors that emit those pesky toxic fumes. That’s a plus. Now we’ve arrived at the climax of the show when we learn whether they buy the Non-Green home in order to remodel it using green features. Which begs the question, if you renovate and throw away all the non-green stuff, isn’t that in effect being non-green? Wouldn’t it be less wasteful to keep the old stuff? These are the things that I think about.
As for houses, ours is coming right along. We are painting and putting in flooring this week. The process has been relatively simple but it’s getting a little stressful now that the finishes are going in. I’m a horrible decision maker and I’m pretty confident our cabinet maker is ready to close up his entire shop and go out of business if he sees my face one more time. I went into his showroom dead set on painted cabinets with a dark island and when I walked out I had stained. We got into the parking lot and Luke said, “What in the world just happened in there? Why did you change everything?!” It was the pressure! Just too much pressure! I could discern from the cab guy that he wasn’t crazy about painted cabinets and so being the wimp I am when it comes to wanting to do what the experts consider the ‘right’ thing, I caved and picked what he liked instead of what I loved.
I came home so disappointed, checked my emails and saw I had a blog note from my darling friend Melissa at Inspired Room. I emailed her with my dilemma and she talked me down from my stained cabinet ledge. In short, she gave me the excellent advice of doing what I loved no matter what someone else considered the best thing. I knew I would not love those stained cabinets so I got brave and called the guy Monday morning and asked him to make the changes. So in essence, we just switched places on the ledge. As horrible as I felt for doing it to him, I’m pretty sure he’ll feel better when he gets the check.
I’m looking forward to showing some pictures when the thing is done. It really hasn’t looked much like a house until the last couple of weeks but now it’s finally beginning to look like something we may live in sometime soon. I can’t even begin to tell you how excited our family remains. It’s a 20 year dream that we never thought we’d be able to see happen. God is good and the fact He orchestrated the whole thing iin the exact timing that He has isn’t lost on us one bit.
The only thing to make it any better would be for Candace Olson to come decorate the entire thing. For free. As of right now, most of the rooms are beige because I have no decor. I was watching Sarah’s House the other day and was excited to find out that she was going to decorate 2 bedrooms on a budget. Her ‘budget’ was 10,000. For one kids’ bedroom. I don’t think I’ve spent that much on my entire home in the last 20 years of marriage. Let’s just say for now we are concentrating on getting in the thing and will hopefully have many happy years to work on furnishings.
So tell me, any of you girls do any fun budget decorating lately? I would love to see your projects!
But only if they cost less than 10 grand.
The Lord has been speaking strong words to me as of late about overcoming the tyranny of the urgent and of being a faithful steward of the work He has given me. With that said, it wasn’t at all lost on me I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning (and I do mean wide awake) with the overwhelming sense of ‘Okay, Lisa. You are asking Me for a re-ordering of things so let’s see if you are serious.’ If God has ever done that to you then perhaps you understand that those alarms are not to be snoozed. Rather than be ticked over any lack of sleep I received the wake up call as continued confirmation that He is up to something and that I’d better get my tail out of bed if I wanted to participate.
So I did just that. I grabbed my Bible and my devotion book where this verse was waiting. After praying through it, I feel compelled to share it with you:
“Oh how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for those who fear You, which You have prepared for those who trust in You, in the presence of the sons of men! You shall hide them in the secret place of Your presence from the plots of man; You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.” ~Psalm 31:19-20
Sisters, I wonder who among us feels they are under attack whether it be physically or spiritually or - as is the case most of the time – both? I wonder who among us is being consumed by urgency, strife, or whose every waking thought is captivated by this current calamity? Is it you, girlfriend?
I’m afraid the reality of planet Earth is that our relationships are wrought with drama, our churches torn by division, our schedules are filled to overflowing, our workplaces filled with iniquity, our families are struggling to hang on just one more day. To beat it all, the people in whom we are supposed to find comfort are sometimes contributors to our being moody, maligned, mistreated, misunderstood. Oftentimes, we are that contributor for someone else. (Low blow, I know. That thought punched me first if that makes you feel better.)
Hear me well on this, friends, because the Lord shouted it to me this morning: We can be wholly engaged without being wholly affected.
What does that mean precisely?
Pay attention to the concept of presence in the verses I just quoted you. There are two places of presence: one in the sight of men, the other in the secret place of God. In thinking about how I cope under great attack or strain, I am guilty of being fully available to irritability, triteness and pettiness while God sits by patiently waiting for me to ask His input on how I should be reacting. My other tendency is to shut down entirely, hide from the world, and talk to God but no one else.
The astounding reality is that we can be fully available to the needs of our relationships, fully engaged in dealing with the trials of day-to-day life, fully vulnerable to wide spread attack and yet fully shielded to the affects of the toll all of these things are capable of exacting. That doesn’t mean I check out and pretend these things don’t exhaust or hurt. It means I choose to travel to that Pavilion of Peace and there present my mind, my emotions, my will, my reactions to the One who can restore goodness to each part.
I need a safe place. I need to know I can find refuge in the shadow of the wings of the Almighty until calamity has overpast. (Psalm 57:1) But I also need to know that I can not hide and expect to glean from that season what the Lord intended to use to confirm, perfect, strengthen and establish me as a woman capable of withstanding all Satan would throw my way.
Yes girls, we can be wholly holy. Wholly engaged and yet not wholly affected. That, sisters, is our word for the day. Now I’m going to go practice it. I hope you will, too.
All of my kids are just stinkin’ adorable. It’s an undeniable fact. However, there are times when I run across photos of one or the other that are irresistable and make me want to kiss their face off. Such is one of those times. Behold, Boy Three, Age 5:
It’s totally okay if you affirm the cuteness.
