Justice in the Burbs

If you’ve not read any of Lisa Samson’s books, then you’re missing out. Pick one up and you’ll be in for a treat. I just recently finished reading Quaker Summer and it was excellent, and very thought provoking. I just picked up Church Ladies and plan on reading it next week at the beach

I read her blog, Author Intrusion and enjoy it as well. Just yesterday she posted about her upcoming book Justice in the Burbs: Being the Hands of Jesus Wherever You Live. I thought I would share it with you. The book will be out in August, but you can get a sneak peek at it now … PW Review on Justice in the Burbs. Sweet!

Blessings!
~Heather

Pardon the Mess

Pardon the mess while I move and redecorate ….

~Heather

Excitement! Adoption from Guatemala?

I can’t tell you how excited I am! Brandon and I, last night after he preached, went out to dinner at a new (to us) mexican restaurant nearby. As we sat and talked the subject of adoption came up. Oh, how I have been praying about this! We decided to look into adopting from Guatemala! I am so excited I am beside myself!

And there is an excellent Christian adoption agency right here in Atlanta with a seminar next month that we will attend. It’s called Bethany Christian Services. I’ve also already joined 2 Yahoo! groups about adoption from Guatemala.

Did I say that I was excited?

(photo: from Guatemala Adoption Blog – isn’t she cute?)

Help GA Firefighters!!

If you live in GA (or near enough to participate) you can help the firefighters fighting the wildfires in South GA. From May 23rd to May 30th, 2007 Department of Driver Services locations will be collecting new and unopened items for donation. What an easy way to love on and support these precious men and women! And you can easily involve your children in your project.

I don’t know if you, in other parts of the state, have exprienced the smoke that we are getting even here in the Atlanta area, but I have to tell you that I wasn’t aware just how bad it must be until we started having smoke-filled mornings from the fires that are 400 miles south of us. It must be really awful. Funny how sometimes you have to actually experience a taste of something, rather than just knowing it’s “out there”, in order to feel compassion for some situation that you see on TV.

The firefighters on duty are unable to leave the fire zone or staging areas to purchase personally needed items. Many of them are from states as far away as California and Washington. Help keep them going. Visit this page for all the information!

A Great Day

Please check out my post Strawberries, Soil and Sun over on Heart Condition … we’ve had an awesome day today!

Too Much Time On My Hands

Yes, I have too much time on my hands (no, not really). So I created another blog . I’m what you might call a purist and I don’t like to have all sorts of random things jumbled up together – I like to have ” a place for everything and everything in it’s place” . So that’s why this blog (personal reflections) and Good S0il (homeschooling) and now this new one.

This one is all about homemaking and homekeeping and family. It’s called “Heart Condition” because I long to have my own farm one day and be a farm girl. And being a “farm girl is a condition of the heart” so I read once somewhere. I like that little saying and so I have begun to keep my own little homestead here in the ‘burbs. This blog will be about sewing and quilting and taking care of the family and gardening and laundry (yes, laundry!). And much more. Come over and check it out if you’d like …………………

Confession Time

Since the name of this blog is “free heart reflections” I feel the need to make a confession. I am not free. Nope. I’m still in bondage. A lot of it to be real honest. Yes, Jesus has set me free from sin and death, but in all honesty I do not walk in that freedom as I should.

One thing that I’m not free from yet is … how I look. I struggle and struggle with it. I thought that I had broken free from it a year ago (almost to the day, in fact, as I look back over my blog – you can read what I wrote here). But I realize now that I have not.

My entire life has always been about my appearance. I have always judged my worth based on what I looked like (not to mention how I performed, but that’s another post all together). No, no one ever made me feel like they were equal. But somehow in this world we live in I received the message early on that appearance = worth and I bought it. Hook, line and sinker … I bought it all.

It makes me sad. I’m sad that I have such a hard time believing that I am worth more than the physical me. I’ve never struggled with it as I do now because, well, let’s be honest … time (and child birth!) has a way of marching across our bodies. As the years have passed and laugh lines begin to slowly appear and having babies gives more of me to love, I see my youth slowly fading. Why have I put so much stock in that? Why do I care so much? Why can’t I accept that there’s more to me than just the way that I look?

Have you ever heard the son “Beautiful” by Bethany Dillon? Please allow me to share it with you…

Beautiful by Bethany Dillon

I was so unique
Now I feel skin deep
I count on the make-up to cover it all
Crying myself to sleep
cause I cannot keep their attention
I thought I could be strong
But it’s killing me

Does someone hear my cry?
I’m dying for new life

[Chorus]I want to be beautiful
Make you stand in awe
Look inside my heart, and be amazed
I want to hear you say
Who I am is quite enough
Just want to be worthy of love
And beautiful

Sometimes I wish I was someone other than me
Fighting to make the mirror happy
Trying to find whatever is missing
Won’t you help me back to glory

[Chorus]You make me beautiful
You make me stand in awe
You step inside my heart, and I am amazed

I love to hear You say
Who I am is quite enough
You make me worthy of love and beautiful

I could have written every word of this song. But oh, how I want to really believe those last 2 lines … why is it so hard?

Saying "No" to One Thing is Saying "Yes" to Another

On a homeschooling board that I frequent I came across a post title that intrigued me. The title was: Guilt About Church Work. First, the title alone is sad to me because I SO know that feeling … guilt about church work. The woman who wrote the post talked about how burned out she was, how much she has going on in her life outside of the 4 walls (she has a lot, but even if she didn’t it’s OKAY!) and the guilt that is being heaped upon her for taking a season of rest. In her honesty she said that she dreads going to church because they are always asking her to fill in or begging her to come and work again permanently. I feel her pain.

But as I read some of the responses I was glad to see all the encouragement for her. I then read the owner of the board’s comments and was so blessed by his words that I had to share them here …

Churches Have Endless Needs

They had needs before you began serving and they will have needs after you no longer serve. Needs are simply a part of church-life.

But remember this…

Saying “no” to one thing is ALWAYS saying “yes” to another!!

Don’t feel guilty. You’ve done more than most people and PERHAPS you may feel the desire to serve again in a year or two.

Just focus on what you’re saying “yes” to:

Yes to more time with your children…
Yes to more time with your husband…
Yes to more time for homeschooling creativity…
Yes to give your attention to the class you’re taking…
Yes to renewing your own inner strength and energy…
Yes to being fed in church instead of always doing the feeding…
Yes to a new season of spiritual growth…
Yes to giving someone else the privilege of serving in children’s ministry…
Yes to rediscovering the joy of worship on Sunday mornings, etc.

Remind yourself about all the things you’re saying “yes” to and don’t focus on the one thing you’re saying “no” to!!

Saying no is a fact of life. None of us can do all the things we’re asked to do. We must say no to something- to many things in fact!

If someone asks you, or emails you, tell them that you’ve decided to say “yes” to some of the many areas that have been neglected for the past two years. I’d also tell them that you’re not sure about the future. Don’t give them the ammunition to try to make you feel guilty and pressure you to return earlier.

Tell them you are sensing God’s pleasure in all the new areas you’re saying “yes” to right now and you’ll be waiting upon Him to tell you when- and if you are to return to serving in children’s ministry at some point in the future.

And then do it. Mean it. Don’t waffle! You’ve given excellent reasons for stepping aside and always remember:The person the Lord is most likely to speak to about how He wants you to invest your life isn’t the children’s ministry director, isn’t the pastor, isn’t the lead teacher for 2nd grade girls- it’s
YOU!

Oh how I wish that I had thought of such wise words when I began stepping down from all that I was doing. I knew those were the reasons, the things to which I was saying “yes”, but to have verbalized them so well would have helped.

When this season began and I said “No” to church work, I said “Yes” to:

…resting (oh, I so needed the physical and spiritual rest!)

…sitting at the feet of Jesus

…seeking the Lord and His will above all else

…spending more time with my family

…less stress

…building relationships with people outside the 4 walls

…being a better homeschooling mom

…being a better wife

…being a better friend

…learning & growing

…gaining better perspective

…getting my priorities in order

More on this later … gotta run!

It’s Just a Thing …

Our friend Alan, at The Assembling of the Church, has written an excellent post that I, myself, could have written (at least the thoughts … not sure if I could have written them so eloquently). It’s called It’s Just a Thing. He begins by talking about a conversation he had with his wife …

Then, my wife, Margaret, said something very powerful for me. She said (paraphrasing), “Sometimes, I get tired of talking about the church. Sometimes, I need to talk about God – who He is and what He’s done – so that I can understand Him. I need to know God more before I think about what He wants to do with the church.”

And that describes where I am right now, where Brandon and I both are. God has us in a place of focusing on Him, on getting to know Him more before we think any more about what He wants us to do or where He wants us to be.

As Alan writes about, Brandon and I have also been heavily involved in just about every aspect of the organizing and running of a local church. But we are now in a season where we, for the first time I think, are setting that all aside and asking God what He wants from us. Not that the two – being involved in a local church and seeking God’s will for my life – are mutually exclusive, that’s not what I am saying (nor is Alan in his post). But for far too long they have been tangled up together in our lives so much so that we have had a hard time distinguishing what God wants from us & for us and what other people want from us & for us. We need to pull it all a part a bit in order to seek God. That doesn’t mean that every person must do what we are doing. It’s just where we are and it’s just what we need to do. Because the things that Alan talks about in his post had become just that … things.

God over and visit Alan and check out his post and remember, It’s Just a Thing.

Somehow I Got This Backwards

This morning at breakfast I was thinking about myself. Yes, that sounds so selfish, doesn’t it? What I mean is that I was thinking about the state of myself, how things are going, things I am learning, how I am growing. Ooooo … that was poetry! Anyway, I think that somehow I have gotten this all backwards. By “this” I mean life, faith, behavior, etc.

The other day I wrote about being fickle and foolish. Ever since last week when I realized just how childish I have been acting, the Holy Spirit has been helping me and guiding me. “Be the adult” is what I keep hearing deep down in my soul. And so I have had much more self-control, I’ve been much more mature regarding my anger and intensity.

But the other day? Well, I just got plain angry with Little Buttercup because she had been playing in the mud … again. Brandon reminded me that she is just a child and how many times he got into trouble for getting muddy when he was young.

Then I was thinking about my faith, or I should say lack of faith. I over analyze everything. I sometimes have a hard time taking God at His Word. I believe in Him, but do I believe Him??

And so this morning I was pondering all these things and realized – I have somehow gotten this all backwards! I have been behaving like a child and having the faith of an “adult”. I am supposed to have the faith of a child and behave like an adult.

I pray that God will continue to grow me up in Him …