Mar 20, 2012 | In the Name of Love
Did I tell you yet about the lady that visited our Bible Study a few weeks ago? She’d been married for FIFTY — count ’em — FIFTY years. She (Mrs. Janey) gave us her top ten tips on making your marriage a success (I, of course, loved that it was a top ten list.) And everyone wanted her to come back the next week so that we could ask her heaps more questions.
She did. It was great.
One of the things that stuck out to me the most about her talk (totally random, you’ll think, but read on…) was that she talked about how she got up every morning before her husband to get herself ready and put on her makeup. She didn’t want him to leave for work without saying goodbye to her, looking her best. She pointed out that there are too many women who don’t care whether he’s married.
The thought of getting up super-early for pretty much anything is a hard one for me. I already get up between six and 6:20 most days. And the Hubs has already left for the gym by then. I suppose I could get ready by the time he gets back but that’s when I spend time with the Lord. Om, sorry guys, I’m having a conversation with myself. I’ll continue it at another time.
So where were we?
Well, just the week before this special guest graced our group with her presence, I’d been considering how much makeup I could ditch from my routine, as a part of the Naked Face Project. But I don’t really like for my face to be nekkid. So I was very thankful for an excuse to keep my beauty regime in tact.
You’ll be glad to know there were other, mayhaps more important take-aways from the talk. And today at Signposts I shared some of my own thoughts about Fighting for your Marriage (instead of fighting in it.) And tomorrow, I’m sharing that Top Ten List from the guest speaker, which I think you’ll also enjoy.
On a more personal note, I think one of the most useful things the Hubs and I have incorporated that has been a great help to our marriage is setting aside a specific time each week where we go through a specific set of questions that we discussed and decided on. They include things like “How have I honored and loved you this week?” and “Is there anything we need to let go of?” and “How is your walk with the Lord” and “How are we doing with Asher and Blake?” Although we struggle to faithfully keep up that habit each week, when we do, I always sense that there’s so much life in it.
The questions have become an integral part of our lives, so that we can still ask each other those questions when we have a good car ride in front of us or some time on our hands — so it doesn’t have to just be on the sofa with sleeping boys in their room anymore.
So what works for you? Any marriage advice you’d like to share? You can click over to Signposts or comment right here. I hope you’ll enjoy both posts — especially the second one!
You might also like this recent post by Pastor Perry Noble — Seven Ways to Destroy Your Marriage
and this post from We Are THAT Family — 100 Ways to Make Your Marriage Rock
One thing I’m sure of — you can decide to fight in your marriage, or you can decide to fight for it. Pick your fights well, Rocky!
xCC
Mar 19, 2012 | An Expat, South Africa
It seems like it’s been a while since I’ve given you a bit of an update on the goings-on for the Collie clan of late. And this bright and shining Monday morning, while I need to sit still for a few minutes between a load of laundry (or seven), a preschool run and hopefully a big old batch of DIY Granola I thought I’d scratch out the latest from this neck of the woods.
Uppee high on the list (as the Bear would put it) is the exciting, exciting, (did I mention exciting?), fact that we’ve booked flights for the Hubs’ brother’s wedding in South Africa. In May. We were waiting and trusting and hadn’t bought flights yet when HH “just happened” to look at flights last week and found tickets at a ridonkulously low price. Something like $3,000 for getting our whole fam to SA is a big deal. We were allowed to ‘book’ them and then take 48 hours to decide before paying for them, and when we checked the prices again Saturday morning they’d already gone up by $500. We were very glad we’d made that booking, and we promptly paid for our booking before we lost it.
I am very excited to have my feet on South African soil again soon. We leave a month from today! And we’ll be gone for nearly a month. As long as internet cooperates, I’m planning on taking you with us, so tell me — what would you like to see from South Africa when you’re (virtually) along for the journey?
We’ll be spending some time in Bloemfontein (yay!) and then heading down to the Eastern Cape for the wedding (hooray!) which is going to be lovely (whoo-hoo!) and on a game reserve (yee-haw!) and the Hubs is going to take pictures (yippee!)! I am stoked.
{Hoping to get a picture like this with the Tank in Bloem this time!}
In other news, Agnes is getting married. You know, if-it-hadn’t-been-for-Agnes-Tiger-Tank-would’ve-been-born-in-Mr-Potato-Head-Agnes. She has asked me about being a bridesmaid and about the Bear being a Ring Bear. (Oh. my. heart.) I have been praying that the Lord would make it possible for us to go (Scotland, July) and hanging on to hope, hope, hope! And it made me pause for a moment to consider that I think there have been at least a dozen weddings I’ve missed in my six years away, being on the other side of the pond (or at least in a different country) and unable to make it to each of them. In six of those weddings, I was asked to be a bridesmaid, and saying I couldn’t make it probably made me cry on each and every occasion. I’m praying, with seven being a special number of completeness and all, that this time I’ll be able to say YES!
{If any of you dear readers happen to be independently wealthy and want to pay for our trip to Scotland, you just let me know, mmmkay?}
In other other news, Tiger Tank is developing a delightful personality, giving really good hugs, and learning to sign things like “more” and “make that fan go round and round!” I think he now has eight teeth to his credit. And he knows how to use them. For biting, better than eating, I’m afraid.
The Bear is completely convinced that every toy in this house belongs to him. He seems to be developing into such a clever little creature. Very observant, quick-witted, full of laughs and charm. The baby-ness is totally gone. I occasionally mourn it…
I haven’t caught my hair on fire lately, but speaking of my hair, I decided to try going no-poo (meaning no-shampoo) and went the first round of it in the shower this morning. I’m doing a baking soda, vinegar, and sometimes brown-sugar-mixed-with-conditioner-scrub routine. Not sure what I think so far, but I’ll keep you posted!
Another thought, don’t forget that if you entered the Quiver Tree Giveaway and didn’t win, you still get a third off the price of a photo session (meaning a one-hour photo session is only 50 bucks!) and 20% of all the prints and photo products you order if you book within the next three months. That train leaves the station May 31st so you better get on board!
Lastly, I am more and more convinced that my faith is small. I’ve been challenged through all this faith-thinking to stop putting God in a box, and to deliberately and consistently ask Him to move in big ways. As Beth Moore once pointed out, am I afraid of making Him look silly…or me? More on that soon, too, I’m sure.
How are you? Any big news? Ever tried going no-poo? Have some advice?
xCC
Mar 17, 2012 | Reviews, The Good Word
I finally broke down and did it. I watched the Help. I’d been trying to hold out until I’d had a chance to get my hands on a copy of the book, but that just hadn’t happened yet. The Library copy was always checked out, too. Sunday night we were going to curl up on the couch, eat our dinner just us {special moment — waiting till the kids are in bed to have a quiet meal and not have to simultaneously feed yourself and somebody else!} and watch a movie. Woop!
We trolled through the tons of movies on iTunes, youtube and Hulu, and after much discussion and deliberation, the Hubs finally said, “Why don’t we watch The Help? I mean it’s at least something you want to see — if we’re going to pay for it, let’s watch something we want to see.” I couldn’t argue with that logic, and I was rather pleased with the choice, so I agreed as fast as I could {before he changed his mind.}
I cried.
I for real cried.
I mean to tell you, I paused the movie to go find more tissues cried.
{image via google images}
Afterwards, I thought about all the interesting details, plot lines and unexpected moments, (I almost always ponder a film for at least a week after seeing it) and the next evening, for the first time in our close-to five years of marriage, I cooked fried chicken for dinner.
I think that might somehow be related.
But one interesting lesson the movie immediately brought to heart for me {how similar to the book was it, you friends who’ve read & watched? Did they butcher it?} was drawn from the beautiful relationship Aibileen has with the adorable little toddler she keeps, (and is basically raising) Mae Mobley.
From one of the earliest scenes in the film, you’re introduced to their relationship with Mae Mobley sitting on Aibileen’s lap, repeating these simple sentences:
I is kind.
I is smart.
I is important.
As the story developed and you began to see Mae Mobley’s (nearly non-existent) relationship with her mother, you began to ponder how much thought Aibileen might’ve put into the words she’d chosen to speak over Mae Mobley’s life from such a tender age.
{In case you aren’t familiar with the story, Mae Mobley’s mother, Elizabeth, seems unable to accept her daughter, and it seems that part of the reason is because she does not think she is pretty enough — she is pudgy and it seems her Mama finds her homely. Instead of praising Mae Mobley for her successful potty training, Elizabeth publicly disciplines her for climbing up onto a potty that has been placed on someone’s front yard as a result of a prank. ‘Keeping up appearances’ is consistently more important than relationship — and her child is not helping her ‘keep up appearances,’ so she has to reject her. Aibileen discusses the problematic relationship between Mae Mobley and her mother when she talks about her experiences as a black woman raising white children. (She concludes that Elizabeth should not have babies.)}
The interesting lesson this snippet of the bigger story drew me to think about was first, considering the importance of questioning who tells you who you are, and second, giving great thought to the words you choose to speak over your own children.
As a toddler, I would imagine Mae Mobley could only conclude that her mother’s neglect and disinterest in a relationship with her had to do with her own inadequacy. She wasn’t pretty enough, or smart enough, or basically important enough to warrant being picked up more than once a day or having her diaper changed before ‘the help’ arrived to take care of that chore.
You’d think your own mother would be a good source for information related to what you ought to believe about yourself — who you are and who you have the potential to become. But in this broken world, it’s sometimes the people who are closest to us who speak words to us that give us anything but life. Those words we carry around for decades that tell us we’re not good enough, we’re not smart enough, we’re not capable of succeeding — they often come from the mouths of the people we love the most. Sometimes they’re flippant and thoughtless comments, and sometimes they are intentionally hurtful statements. Either way, they tend to have a profound impact on us — and if we’re not careful, we can carry those words from cradle to grave, letting them tell us our can’s and our can’ts.
I heard the story of a girl who happened to be standing near her pastor at church one Sunday. After the congregation had sung a few worship songs, he turned to her, having never heard her sing before, and said, “You have an absolutely beautiful singing voice!”
She laughed and said, “No I don’t, I’m a terrible singer!”
He quickly asked, “Who told you that?”
“My mother. When I was a little girl, I walked into the kitchen singing one day, and I remember her turning to me and saying, ‘Stop singing! You have the worst singing voice in the world!'”
Perhaps this was just a flippant comment from a dead-on-her-feet mother with the pressures of life crowding her in. But the words planted a seed. The words left a scar. And the world was robbed of enjoying a beautiful voice for many years, because of the seed took root.
The fact that God just spoke the world into existence spurs me not to forget the power of words.
Could there be some words from your past that you need to let go of?
Or does anything you’ve said to someone else come to mind that you want to ask forgiveness for?
The irony is that the wisest words being spoken over little Mae Mobley’s life were the ones from a woman who didn’t have the privilege of an extended eduction. Don’t let the grammatical errors distract you from the beauty of the message. {Want to scroll back up and read it again?}
Who speaks words of life to you?
xCC
Mar 13, 2012 | Stories, The Good Word
Did I ever tell you about the time the deputy sheriff brought me home one night? It was a pretty dramatic affair. In case you don’t know it, I grew up in a pretty small town, and, let’s be honest, a lot of times the reason teenagers get into trouble is because they’re just. plain. bored.
Now I’m not sure where my girlfriends were on this particular evening, but for some reason I was hanging out with a bunch of guys from my neighborhood/school. And I suppose it was summer time and one of the guys had water balloons. We discussed the idea of having a water balloon fight, but I don’t think anyone really wanted to get smashed in the face with a water balloon and spend the rest of the evening soaking wet.
So somebody came up with another…bright idea.
{I interrupt myself to explain: One of the guys hanging in this group was one of the only guys I can think of from my senior-year-circle-of-friends who really seemed to take the idea of walking with Jesus seriously. I’m quite sure he’s still walking with the Lord today.}
That bright idea?
Let’s drive around town and throw water balloons at each other’s cars. And, at other cars, too.
{Glad we didn’t hit this car… Strand, South Africa, 2010}
I’m gonna be completely honest here and say I knew that was stupid. And could possibly get us in a heap of trouble. But when you’re in high school there must be some kind of chip loose in your brain — the one that begins to draw the worst-case-scenario logical conclusion of how bad this could end up. Was my chip loose or was I just too interested in having fun to pay attention? I can’t really remember.
But all of us — except the guy who took Jesus seriously — piled into a car to go for a water-balloon throwing drive. The car was one seat short, and the Jesus-guy graciously {hello, wisdom!} decided he would follow us in his own car.
Some wise little whisper told me I should’ve gotten in his car. But I of course ignored that voice. Girls just wanna have fun, right?
I was sitting in the middle of the back seat and did not hit any oncoming traffic with balloons, if I remember correctly. I’m a little hazy on that detail, but pretty sure I had terrible aim and wasn’t allowed to try because it would’ve been a waste of a perfectly good water balloon.. But what I do remember very clearly was that the second or third car we hit? Was a police car.
More specifically, we hit the deputy sheriff’s car. At fifty miles per hour. Going in the opposite direction.
We were coming along a curve on a dark country road, and the water-balloon thrower (who was also driving — were we honestly complete idiots?) only realized after launching the balloon what had happened. That moment went something like this:
Expletive!* That was a cop!
We sped down the road to a friend’s house, where there were lots of people hanging out. We all parked, abandoned the car, and did what any sensible teenager would do at this point.
We hid.
I think the wise friend who saw what had happened just kept right on driving. I don’t think he’d thrown a balloon at anybody (except maybe our car) that evening.
When the deputy sheriff arrived and began questioning things, the guys came forward and admitted what they had done. I also came forward and admitted to being in the car at the time, but that I hadn’t hit any cars with balloons.
I’ll have to email the guys to ask them what happened after that, because the only thing I can remember is the cop putting me in his car and Driving. Me. Home.
And what made that even worse?
My grandmother was at our house that evening. And I was more than just embarrassed. I was also grounded. For a couple of weeks at least.
Well done, I sarcastically say to that younger version of myself. Well done.
This morning I was reading in Proverbs 13, when verse 20 jumped out at me:
Walk with the wise and become wise; associate with fools and get in trouble.
Hey, Wisdom, there you are!
I definitely had a choice that evening — the same sort of choice we have on a regular basis — about who I would keep company with. If I’d stuck with ‘the wise guy’ I would quite literally not have gotten in trouble. I’m not saying the rest of the guys were absolutely foolish idiots, but I am saying we were being pretty foolish in our decision making process.
When I think about it now — we totally could have caused an accident, someone could’ve gotten hurt, or even killed. Did that thought occur to me at the time? Of course not. We’re young…nothing bad ever happens when you’re young, right?
Let me interject that we absolutely have a call to be salt and light in this world — and I am not negating that fact in the least. But it is also important for us to be thoughtful about which relationships we pursue. Are your friends helping you become a better person? Or maybe just a better consumer or partier or sports fan?
This even applies to what we take in with regard to media and social media. Do you have some friends that are always posting rubbish on Facebook that you need to “unsubscribe” to? Blogs you should stop reading? Are there TV shows or movies you’re watching that are probably not going to do much more than lower your IQ? Should you be picking up a good book {read: not a trashy novel} instead?
{Maybe you could be getting in the Good Word a little more? …Wisdom!!}
You probably get my drift.
An integral part of living out our faith is sharing it with those who don’t yet know the goodness of God in their lives, don’t yet have the wisdom of God at the steering wheel of their lives. But our lives should be marked by the grace of God — and by His wisdom, which He gives freely to those who ask. {James 1:5} (If you are a follower of Jesus, do you think the world can tell the difference?)
The truth is, riding in the car with the boys wasn’t the wisest decision I ever made. If you’re not looking for wisdom, foolishness will usually find you.
xCC
*Wording has been changed for sensitive readers.
Mar 12, 2012 | The Good Word, Top Ten Lists
After a good chat with a friend of mine who’s going through a hard time, I started thinking about some of the things I think the Lord might like to say to her, to speak to her heart in the place where she is right now. Oftentimes a word is in season for so many people at once, so I thought I’d share it here.
A Top Ten from the Heart of God…
10. You are so wonderful, so special, and so precious to Me. I knit you together in your mother’s womb, and there is no one else in the universe like you. (Psalm 139:13-14)
9. Before your life even began, I sent my one and only Son to die for you. I did this because I love you. (Ephesians 2:4&5)
8. I know sometimes it feels like I’m a million miles away. But I told you I would never leave you, and I meant it. Even when it feels like no one is with you, I Am. (Hebrews 13:5)
7. Even during this time when you’ve felt so far away, I’ve been with you. I’m always with you. (Matthew 28:20)
6. My darling, you are so beautiful, special and precious to Me. (Song of Solomon 1:15)
5. Even before you went away from Me, I forgave you. (Luke 23:34)
4. I don’t change, and My love for you will never change. (Hebrews 13:8)
3. You don’t have to do anything to earn My love. Please know that My grace is sufficient. In these moments when you are feeling so weak, My strength can be made perfect in you. (2 Cor. 12:9)
2. I miss you. I want to hear you speak again, and I want to see your face again — your voice is so sweet to Me, your face is so lovely to Me. (Song of Solomon 2:14)
1. No matter where you are, no matter how far away you feel, if you search for Me with your heart and soul, you’ll find Me. (Deut 4:29) I want to be found by you. If you look for Me, you’ll find Me. (Jeremiah 29:12-13)
Your love, O Lord, reaches to the heavens. Your faithfulness, stretches to the skies. Psalm 36:5
xCC
This post is a throwback from the archives…
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