Some days you just need Bagelheads coffee

Some days you just need Bagelheads coffee. At least I do. I sat at my desk yesterday morning and nearly fell asleep. I’m not kidding. And it’s not because my job is boring or I didn’t have anything to do. I just needed something to kick start my day and get me going. For me that something is usually Bagelheads coffee. So I went and got some.  

I’m not sure if it’s the tantalizing aroma that fills your car as you drive off with a warm cup in hand or simply a chemical addiction to the caffeine that makes it so inviting, but that first cup of coffee is inexplicably good. Then the rush kicks in and you feel like you can accomplish everything on your to do list that day; and since you are moving at the pace of the Energizer bunny you do get about 60% of it done in the next 3 hours.  

Of course by the time it wears off and then you eat lunch you’re back to slow motion by mid afternoon. However, I still count the day a success because for a brief period of time you were operating at full capacity. Sometimes I wonder what I would do without the liquid consciousness that coffee provides.

I’d probably be un-employed.

This morning I came into work feeling pretty good about the day ahead of me. I was awake and alert ready to tackle my to do list with determination and a good attitude… and then I turned on my computer. It’s kind of amazing that my computer has lasted as long as it has. Based on its performance levels I’m fairly certain it was made in 1982. From 8:02 to 8:11 it turned on and woke up enough so that I could click on Microsoft Outlook to read my emails for the day. At 8:17 my emails were finally able to be viewed and read. At 8:29 when I was still waiting for it to open the property management system that allows me to do my job I decided to take a short break and head out to Bagelheads for more coffee.

It’s kind of amazing how coffee can be stimulating at times when you just need to wake up, and at other times it can have a very calming effect and keep you from beating your computer with a baseball bat.

I’m headed to bed fairly early and will get a full night’s rest but I can already tell tomorrow will be another coffee day. Not that I mind. They make really good coffee.

Word Of The Day

 Several years ago my dear friends Ashley and Sarah Miller bought Clay a “Word-of-the-Day” Calendar for Christmas. It was full of 365 astonishingly ridiculous words to improve his vocabulary such as: Ubiquitous, Sagacious, Flummox, Crapulous (yes it really is a word), and Vicissitude.

We still have that calendar. It’s on a bookshelf behind some things, and periodically we run across it and read a few words and giggle at how silly they sound. Thank you, Millers, for years of entertainment (literally).

I have what most would call an extensive vocabulary, and perhaps a weird obsession with words. If you’ve met my dad you understand why. I love words and the depth of communication they can convey when you understand their multi-faceted meaning.

One of my favorite words is Faithful. Many people take this word for granted. I did for a long time. If you ask someone for the definition you will most likely get “Faithful means they don’t cheat” (which is a sad commentary on our culture, but that is another soapbox for another blog and another day).  If you ask Webster you will find that Faithful means:

·         steadfast in affection or allegiance : loyal

·         firm in adherence to promises or in observance of duty : conscientious

·         given with strong assurance : binding  

·         true to the facts, to a standard, or to an original

I’ve come to love this word. I love that every day my husband says to me “I was faithful to you today, because I love you” assuring me that he is loyal to me in his words, thoughts and actions. I am encouraged to be faithful to my family, friends, and coworkers by being conscientious and observant to fulfill the promises and responsibilities I hold in my relationships with them because they count on me to do so. I am so thankful that my Heavenly Father is faithful in His promises and that I can trust they are true and binding, because He is the original, He sets the standard and he is Immutable (this is another big word meaning incapable of change) I can always trust His promises because He never wavers.

Lately I’ve had a few minutes, hours and days where I got caught up in worry; mostly about finances, because things are really tight right now. But I am reminded so often that God is Faithful. His faithfulness shows up in some obvious ways such as the check that arrives the same day as an unexpected expense; but He also shows His faithfulness in the simple fact that we are still here. We live a life that is so blessed, surrounded by love and grace that we don’t deserve. We deserve to be consumed with the guilt of our sin and the ugliness of the things we choose to love more than God but instead we get soooo much! We get to experience love, security, surprise, exhilaration and even cachinnation.

“Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” Lamentations 3:22-23

P.S. – You get 10 cool points if you stopped reading to look up any of the words in today’s blog. J

Found People Find People

What would you do if you could do anything in the world?

This is a very open ended question. I could mean this evening, or this weekend, or with your free time or with your career. Sadly, I’m afraid that my answer to this question would be unremarkable. My sister asked me today if I could have any job in the world what would it be. I would write. Not that my books would be life-altering classics. But I would enjoy that more than anything else.  But it made me wonder, what would I do if I could do anything in the world? And as I just said my first reactions were unremarkable.

I found that several of the things that first came to my mind were quite selfish. Some of the ones that even sounded selfless were not. And since they were severely limited by my own benefit they were decidedly un-ambitious. Because if I were honest with myself I would have to admit that there is a big difference between my answers to the questions “what would you like to get if you could get anything” and “what would you do if you could do anything”. Doing is much harder than getting.

So why don’t we work hard to accomplish or achieve the things we would like most to get? Laziness. Selfishness. Pride. Just to name a few. So what do we do about it? I’m trying to figure that out myself. I have a feeling it will require a change of heart. Actively working to care more about others than we do about ourselves. Caring less about what other people think and more about what they need.

And they need to be found. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about the following phrase this in the past week: Found people Find people. I want that to be my automatic answer to the question “what would you do if you could do anything in the world”? I want a change of heart that would cause my answer to be that I would invest my time, effort, heart, and soul into finding people. Because I was found. And found people find people.

My Husband Is A Warrior.

I love my husband. Seriously, I do. I’ve known Clay since we were 16 and I have had the privilege to watch him grow from a boy into a man. Not only physically; but mentally, emotionally and spiritually as well.  It didn’t happen overnight, but something has definitely changed in his life as he has learned to put God first and love Him more than self. Today I watched him make himself completely vulnerable and risk embarrassment and judgment because God’s glory is more important to him than his own.

My Mr  gets a great deal of joy from playing video games. He once told me with a completely straight face: “Babe, you don’t understand.  I have to kill a certain number of things a day, because I’m a warrior.” Yep. He was serious.

Not too long ago, as we talked about struggles he has faced and continues to win out over as he chooses on a daily basis to be a man of God who holds onto truth, and integrity even when it is hard, he said to me “I have to kill a certain number of things a day, because I’m a warrior. And some of those things are pride and selfishness”.

We have faced  A LOT of difficult times in our years together. Times that we’ve been scared or angry, times that we have been hurt by others and times that we have hurt each other. Let’s be honest, in marriage you are so closely and intimately united that you are completely vulnerable and you have the ability to devastate each other.  

I’ve faced some of his struggles head on with him, just like he’s faced mine. We’ve faced moments where we have had to preach the gospel to ourselves, reminding ourselves of how Christ has loved and forgiven us when we didn’t deserve it, in order to continue loving each other sacrificially and unselfishly. 

However, our God is a loving Father, and he never wastes a hurt. He is using all of this to shape us, to teach me that He is the only one who is truly Faithful in all things and that I cannot look to my husband to be my functional Savior, I must look to my Savior to supply my needs and then love and respect my husband regardless of what I feel he should do better. I am learning to look at myself through the eyes of my Heavenly Father rather than through the lens of what I fear I’m lacking as a wife, friend, woman, and helper in our relationship.

 I love seeing the way that these struggles have encouraged and challenged my husband to embrace transparency and fight sin and selfishness head on. I’ve seen it stir in him a passion to lead other men and challenge them to be men of God rather than boys who give in to selfish pursuits. And through it all I am challenged to be the kind of woman that helps my husband to be God’s kind of man.

I love being a sister

Having a sister is such a cool relationship. God didn’t have to think it up but He gave it to us because he loves us. I am lucky enough to have grown up with three of them and then get another one through marriage. I got to spend some time this weekend with my little sisters, and in about a month will get to hang out with my big sister.

I love hanging out with my girls. I love being comfortable enough with them to be an absolute idiot and have so much fun doing so. I love getting up really early and drinking coffee with them while we are still too sleepy to have conversations. I love laughing really hard with them. I love it that even when we get annoyed with each other I have no doubt that it will be quickly followed by love, patience and forgiveness.

Maybe you guys won’t understand what I mean, but any of you girls who have sisters do. It’s just cool to be a sister, especially a big sister.  There is something very special about looking at someone and seeing so much of yourself in that person: sometimes you see things that you love and sometimes you recognize things that you wish you could adequately warn them about but know they have to figure it out themselves. I can only imagine it’s a little glimpse of what it’s like to be a parent and watch your kids grow up.

I’ve got some pretty awesome sisters, and I will miss them until I see them again. But that is only 12 days away, so I thankfully I don’t have to wait too long.

Profound Vivacity

I recently read a quote that I liked a lot by E.M. Forrester:

“Away she hurried, not beautiful, not supremely brilliant, but filled with something that took the place of both qualities -- something best described as a profound vivacity, a continual and sincere response to all that she encountered in her path through life.”

Sometimes I feel like I need to be “supremely brilliant” or something like it. But really and truly I think I’d rather be filled with a profound vivacity. Here’s the thing, you can’t fake vivacity. I’ve tried, it comes across as something between annoying peppiness and high strung paranoia.

Vivacious isn’t a word that is part of most people’s daily vocabulary, and like most big words many of us have a general sense of its meaning but not a clear definition. According to the dictionary, the definition of vivacious is “lively”; which is just about as ambiguous as vivacious. So I looked up lively.  

Lively means to be: Full of life and energy, enthusiastic, animated, refreshing, (and my very favorite) responsive to steering. I read that and literally said “Huh?” out loud.

Responsive to steering. I spent awhile thinking about that one. How often do I try to support, direct and sustain myself in my efforts and endeavors? When I try to steer myself is usually when I make the most mistakes. It’s also the times I get the most stressed out and end up trying to project a sense of energy that comes off as high strung craziness with a forced smile.  This is the exact opposite of a continual and sincere response to the things I encounter.

Today I had a rough morning, and I was steering myself straight toward a nervous breakdown. Then I went to lunch with my husband and over the course of that hour allowed myself to respond to the way he steered me into a much more calm and pleasant state of mind. It may just be that my Mr. is super cute and charming (which he is) but I think it has something to do with the fact that he can recognize when I need someone to steer me away from craziness toward a more hopeful outlook.

So I faced the rest of the day with a profound vivacity. It wasn’t a fun day but it was sincere. Tomorrow I believe I will do it all over again.

She is clothed with Strength and Dignity

It really is amazing how we can talk ourselves into anything, or at least allow ourselves to be talked into anything. I recently started reading a new Beth Moore book, so needless to say, it’s entertaining and heartwarming and makes me feel like she and I are girlfriends sitting down for a chat. A chat about insecurity…. Yikes!

I like to pretend that I’m super confident in the talents and abilities that God has given me even though I have always struggled with confidence over other things like physical appearance. And then she said “Insecurity’s best cover is perfectionism. That’s where it becomes an art form”… and I saw myself defined in that statement.

I’ve talked myself into a standard of perfectionism that is impossible for anyone to meet. For example, just today I worked 10 ½ hours in the office and then came home with a stack of work to do. No one told me that I must take work home, and I don’t enjoy working at home, I just did it. I could say that I did so because I’m a natural overachiever, or I’m just that good at my job; but according to Beth’s definition it’s most likely rooted not in confidence but rather in insecurity. Then I came home and just before making dinner for myself I decided to step on the scale, and insecurity hit the roof.

Right before I lapsed into all out self-loathing I sat myself down for a good kick in the pants. I’ve convinced myself to accept a lie that says my worth is based on how I look/perform/etc. I’ve talked myself into it and I have let myself believe it too long.

Obviously I’m not writing a 10 easy steps to overcoming insecurity book just yet (this kick in the pants reminder for myself is happening as I’m writing this) but I’m recognizing in myself the same thing that I would fight kicking and screaming if I saw it attacking my sisters or girlfriends. Far too often I do see them struggle with it, and it makes me furious! If I feel that strongly defensive of their security, how can I think that my Heavenly Father feels less for mine?

So now the goal is not to do more, weigh less, and make everyone around me ask “how does she do it all?” as I save the world with a smile on my face. It is to remember and to really understand deep down that the statement “She is clothed with strength and dignity” found in Proverbs 31 is not a rave review of some really awesome chick thousands of years ago, but it’s a promise that my Dad has made for me because I’m His daughter and He loves me.

She is clothed with STRENGTH and DIGNITY.