Dear Lisa…

I absolutely love the movie ’13 Going on 30′ with Jennifer Garner and think it should be made mandatory viewing for every girl who ever deluded herself into thinking her teenage ideas and dreams would in any way resemble reality.

Missy’s friend (Not a Bow in Sight) has a post here in which she asks us to write a letter to our 20-year-old self. I’ve purposefully blocked out my life at 20 but, thanks to my mom, here is a picture of me at 17 which is close enough and pretty well sums up all I really cared about during that period in my life: Hair and Clothes. {For the record, this wasn’t daily wear. I was getting ready for my Senior Banquet.}

Dear 17-year-old Me,

You are not fat even though you are currently devastated over the size of your thighs. Don’t worry, there will come a day when four babies will destroy any possibility of seeing your cut abs and collar bones again, but it is not this day. Enjoy the fact that your whole body fits in that size 2 dress because that thigh you think is so large now will pretty much double in size and half of you will not fit in the circumference of this frock.

Speaking of that dress, twenty years from now you will be mortified that you bought a barrette with matching ruffles as the skirt even though it can barely be seen because of all the back-combing going on. Matchy-matching is just not cute unless you are six. One bit of good news though…the black hose seem to be making a semi-comeback though I should tell you that if you’ve worn a look once you should never, ever repeat it in a later generation. Not that you won’t be tempted to buy that sweater dress and leggings but please, for both our sakes, resist. Your future husband and children will thank you.

The color mauve is butt-ugly and pirouette dolls belong in B-Horror films, not on your bedroom shelves. And that little white lock box on your table? There’s more money in that thing than you will ever carry in your wallet your whole adult life. You, my friend, are rich.

But you think you are going to be richer because even now you have plans to go to college and move away to the big city. You just wrote in your Senior memory book that you want to be the CEO of a major corporation. You want a brownstone apartment and you NEVER want a husband and kids. Oh poor honey, we’ll get to that in a minute.

You see, the truth is you have all these big dreams and none of them will happen quite like you think. The full college scholarship you just found out about? It will be recalled because of a mystery unsigned paper. You will be devastated because, just like a vapor, all your plans will disappear and the only thing that will console you one little bit is that cute guy standing there when the smoke clears.

That boy is Luke. The one who drove you crazy with the various girls who like to show up at his house. The first guy you ever decided was worth a fight. The one with the mullet you think is so incredibly beautiful. News flash: That hair will have a song written about it one day and it won’t be flattering. The good news is that when he decides to cut it all off he’ll still be as cute as ever. Your hair deserves a post of its own. {A post is something we’ll have to talk about when you find out about the Internet. Total space age stuff that we’ll reserve for another conversation.}

And I’ve saved this last part for last. You might want to sit down.

You aren’t moving to New York. You are going to marry Luke and have four children and twenty years from now, you’ll live in a town of 800 looking at a picture wishing you could regain that figure and that cash-stuffed lock box. You’ll love a show called Lost and wish you could go BAAACCCK and do a few things differently but will quickly realize that God is in control and you couldn’t change a thing if you tried.

Oh. Yes, I did mention God. I know, it’s a shocker but you should know you love Him and every day you are looking for ways to serve Him more. And that’s a good thing because honey..are you sitting down?

You are going to be a preacher’s wife.

Lisa? LISA?! Can someone help me here!??

Oh, what am I worried about? 20 years from now you are still here so everything turns out okay. Actually, things will turn out more than okay.

They’ll be just about perfect.

Love from 37-year-old,

January 31, 2009 | Filed Under Girls Just Wanna Have Fun | 30 Comments 

On Friends and Home

UPDATE: I just want to thank all of you on Luke’s behalf for your phone calls of concern since circumstances beyond our control made him unable to attend the conference. Such is life in the pastorate! More than anything, I think it is important we communicate that we don’t begrudge staying behind when God has made it evident there is critical ministry taking place at home.

Luke will die when he reads this but I don’t hesitate to equate his investment into the lives of people to that of Paul who said in 2 Cor. 11:28-29, “And besides those things that are without, there is the daily [inescapable pressure] of my care and anxiety for all the churches! Who is weak, and I do not feel [his] weakness? Who is made to stumble and fall and have his faith hurt, and I am not on fire [with sorrow or indignation]?” (Amplified)

If he weren’t equally invested in our own family, I might feel neglected but though it may be most times to his detriment, he refuses to allow me or his kids to feel second place. It’s important to me that anyone who knows us knows this about him. He’s the same man at home that you see in the church house and I’m so proud to call him mine. So again, thank you for your calls but please don’t consider him pitiful….consider him joyfully doing that to which he was called.

{However, while we are on the subject, he could use your prayers as could the multiple unspoken situations that God is fully aware of.}

****************************************************************

I’m waiting for the dryer to chime telling me Luke’s jeans are done so I can put the finishing touches on his suitcase. He and 40+ men from our church and community are going to Woodstock Baptist a little later this morning for the Temptation Island Conference. I get very sentimental this time of year because it is through this particular event and a long-time friendship that Luke was connected with the congregation we now serve.

Back in 2005, our great friend Maury called me to invite Luke to come along to the conference. Maury and his wife Kim were some of our best ‘couple’ BFF’s in our pre-Jesus days but since we had lived out of town for much of our born again years, we hadn’t seen each other in quite some time. I assured him that Luke had nothing to do that weekend and not to dare listen if he tried to turn him down. {Luke is quite the homebody and doesn’t go anywhere without being compelled no matter how much he knows he would enjoy the trip.}

Luke said yes. He didn’t have much choice since I had his bag packed before we could really talk about it. I knew he needed some refreshment and I was all too happy for him to visit Woodstock since he, like me, esteems Dr. Hunt highly. I took Luke to meet Maury and I’ll never forget the words out his mouth:

“Our church is looking for a pastor you know..”

And I knew. Right that instant. You PW’s out there may can testify to the ‘oughtness’ that comes over you sometimes when opportunity is presented. I immediately knew in my Spirit we would end up serving that body even though several months passed before this was confirmed. I don’t believe in coincidence and I know God used Luke’s relationship with Maury to direct us exactly where He meant for us to be.

In reality, not only has orchestrating our current pastorate been on God’s mind from eternity past, it has been brewing in Earth time for the past 20 years. I am freshly blown away by the premeditative mind of God each Sunday as Kim and I look onto the stage and see our husbands with songbooks and Bibles in their hands instead of a Budweiser (or Milwaukee’s Best depending on how cash-strapped we were. Actually that was most of the time?) There was a day I would have expected the roof to split wide open if we all walked into a church. Now there would be collective wonder if all our seats were empty. Wow.

And that’s what this time every year feels like all over again. It is a reminder of the oughtness of our call here. It’s a remembering of the click of the key in the lock. It’s hearing freshly the creak of the door when it opened. We belong in this place and this morning I am grateful all over again that God saw fit to send our friends to show us the way home.

With all that said, if you think of it, please pray for our guys and the 8000+ others who will be at the conference this weekend. {Are any of your hubbies going?} That they will not be as those in 2 Timothy 3 who are ‘ever learning but never coming to the full knowledge of truth.’ For our men and all those in attendance, may what goes into your heart come out through your hands. May lives be changed to the glory of God and the redemption of generations to come.

p.s. Maury, you just called. I was writing this beforehand so don’t think I just fabbed it up because of how sweet you are to Kim and me..:))

January 30, 2009 | Filed Under Gratitude, Spiritually Speaking | 20 Comments 

My Thunder? It Has Been Stolen by a Ten-Year-Old

If you’ve visited around this neck of the bloggy woods in the past day or so, then no doubt you’ve caught wind that a scant few of us decided to meet up at a concert down at a little church in Woodstock, GA.

By the way, that guy Travis? Boyfriend can sang. I take back everything I said here about the most powerful worship performance I’ve ever heard live. TC and Friends with the Woodstock Choir blew the gates off heaven. I was emotionally wrecked after it was all over not to mention my mascara was destroyed. I told Shelly {yay I got to hang with Shelly!} if a couple of hours of pure, unhindered adoration messed me up like that then Heaven was flat going to wear me out. Truly, Jesus is going to have to give me some kind of energized body and long-wearing cosmetics to keep me from feeling and looking like a limp rag for all eternity. {Okay, I know the theology breaks way down there but y’all know what I mean.}

There’s a ton of stuff I’d like to tell you about the day but in the interest of brevity and non-redundancy, I just have to share one little funny with you.

The Siestas camped out in the foyer and stampeded proceeded calmly towards the front row when the doors opened at 5 p.m. Our killer front row seats were on the side of the auditorium next to the platform where Siesta Mama hung out and worshipped beside us for part of the night.

Now, to set up the story just a bit, in the midst of all the snot-slingin’ praise going on, I didn’t even notice she was up there. However, at some point I caught some movement and happened to glance up to see Beth standing there seemingly looking right at me. Then, she did this little scrunched up smiley wave that you would reserve for a bff.

“Wow” thought I. Beth gave me the bff wave. So, I did what any best girlfriend would – I gave her one back.

Thing is, I learned later it was for the stinkin’ 10-year-old-doll-baby-daughter of my friend Brooke sitting right behind me. Thankfully, I’m not alone in my thinking because Deedra (who was sitting next to little girl) thought she was waving at her and she waved back, too. A bit enthusiastically from what I hear but I won’t steal Deedra’s thunder because it is just wrong to do that. Cute Little 10-Year-Old-Girl, it is just wrong.

Bottom line is that once again, I’m an idiot. I’m just glad this time my zeal didn’t erupt into the diarrhea of the mouth that I had with this guy at Winter Xtreme.

And I hear a rumor that I’m the least of Pastor Johnny’s worries. Word on the street (or FaceBook) is that he had a stalker caught on film at the concert. Now that girl is a fruit bat.

To my homies, Jenny, Deedra, and Brooke: I love you each so much and am so glad you we got to share this day together!

And to all my not-so-invisible friends, I adore each of you more every single time we get together. What a rowdy band we are and I’m so proud to be considered part of the gang. (Y’all do consider me part of the gang don’t you?)

I leave you with a couple of pics I love:


Til Next Time !

January 27, 2009 | Filed Under Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, Siesta Fiesta ATL | 30 Comments 

Next Page »

The Preacher's Wife is using WP-Gravatar