She laughs.

I can be a stresser.

Mostly because I like to have my ducks in a row, be ahead of the curve, give my whole heart to the task at hand, and please everyone. All of which is absolutely impossible and ridiculous with the pace of life we all keep, right? Everyone I talk to is in over their heads right now.

So I want to be like that renowned Proverbs 31 woman, who can laugh at my future (like tomorrow, when my workday starts at 6:45 a.m. and doesn't end till 9:30 p.m., and somehow I'm supposed to be student council advisor, teacher, counselor-administrator, play director, and chaperone, all in one day).

I wrote a poem last May with a message that so many of you friends model for me. I want to learn this!

She laughs.
And all while the papers keep piling,
There’s way too much filing;
Justin stuck gum on his desk.
Her car needs new tires,
A good set of pliers
Would help fix the tub’s leaky mess.
Her phone keeps on ringing;
Tomorrow morning she’s bringing
Juice and bagels for Period 1.
Her love life? You’re kidding.
She’s waiting (though not sitting)
Till God’s Mr. Right comes along.

She laughs.
At the future, the days yet to come.
And she won’t come undone
In the pushing and pulling.
For the secret to laughter,
Is found in the hereafter
And trying to please only One.


Let's laugh hard today!

Every November...

The siblings at our annual Homemade Pumpkin Pie Night last week, taking crazy pictures (with a camera suspended from the ceiling fan) while the three pies baked.

Learning to Love

I’ve had a day of sweet conversations with dear women (my mom this morning; two of my married friends, Emily and Cassandra, over coffee this afternoon; and two single friends, Tiff and Jayna, at my place late tonight). Our talks had very little to do with guys, but they sparked some thoughts which now become tonight’s blog.

How can we single girls love men sincerely and selflessly--in the midst of a sexually saturated and self-absorbed culture?

Now before you read on, please understand: I am no expert in this area of relationships! In fact, I have more questions than ever before. But I have such a desire to learn how to love my brothers in Christ, how to honor God in the midst of the messiness of relationships, and how to live by principle—and not just passion.

So here are a few things that have either helped me along the way or that I still desperately want to learn:

Pursue: sincere love. (“Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart.” 1 Peter 1:22)

Pray: for your brothers’ purity. (If my struggle as a woman is this intense, I can only imagine what guys are going through!) When you see him take that second glance, shoot up a prayer, “Lord, help him right this minute. Give him strength to fight lust and think on what is pure and lovely and right and true…”

Practice: patience. Wait on God, not on a man. We’ll need to do this for the rest of our lives, as wives and mothers too, and today just gives us another opportunity to set our hope on the Lord and wait for His timing and purposes in our lives. (“He acts for those who wait for Him.” Isaiah 64:4)

Promise: nothing—outside of a relationship. Don’t give all your precious time, energy, emotions, physical affections, and daydreams to a man who isn’t interested in you enough to pursue a relationship with you. If he’s not committing, you shouldn’t either. ("Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." Proverbs 4:23)

Privatize: your parts. Girl, your boobs, legs, and butt do not need to be hanging out for anyone but your man! And then, within your marriage, let it all hang out all the time! ("But among you there must not be even a hint of immorality, or of any kind of impurity." Ephesians 5:3)

Purpose: that Christ will be your first love—whether you are single, dating, engaged, or married. No man can or ever will be God. (Let man be man and God be God!)

Provide: a safe place. From your inward motivations to your outward body language, let yourself be a woman who is beautifully safe for a man to know and be around. Are you prodding him on sexually, or are you encouraging him in the Lord? ("But encourage one another...so that none of you may be hardened by sin's deceitfulness." Hebrews 3:13)

Preach: truth to yourself. Don’t listen to your emotions; command them! (“The heart is deceitful and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9 “…whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and He knows everything.” 1 John 3:20)

Praise: the Lord continually. He gives and He takes away. He is always good, and He knows what He’s doing. And He’s wise enough to not always give us what we think we’ll die without.


Like I said, I am no expert, but boy do I want to learn and live these principles! Wish I could have one more conversation today—with you. I'd love to hear your insights, thoughts, wisdom, feedback…

.

Wrapped around his little finger....

I mean, really--do they get any cuter than this?






(Okay, so my "niece" Claire--my best friend Christy's li'l girl--is a close runner-up.)




And Tuesday I'm off to the high desert to see two more of my beautiful "nephews" (Mike and Lisa Hamel's darlings). I love children so much, and I'm blessed to be an aunt many times over!




(And even if my future children come out looking like bug-eyed sticks [see picture of me below], I will love them with all my heart. I just wish you friends and family would stop setting such unreachably high standards.)

Always keep a sense of humor.

And don't take yourself too seriously.

The power of life and death

Tonight a few Proverbs are faithfully convicting and encouraging me to be careful little tongue, what you say. What I say reveals the condition of my heart, and how I talk about others shows so much of what I believe about God.

If I understand God's forgiveness even in the smallest way, how can I ever criticize or ridicule or talk down about another person?

How can I flatter someone to their face and then turn around to whisper my true feelings behind their back?

How can I share a "prayer request" or "concern" that puts someone else in a bad light?

May my heart be so filled with God's grace and love and truth that my tongue overflows with the same.

"The tongue has the power of life and death." Proverbs 18:21

"He who guards his mouth and his tongue keeps himself from calamity." Proverbs 21:23

"A lying tongue hates those it hurts, and a flattering mouth works ruin." Proverbs 26:28

"Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he hold his tongue." Proverbs 17:28

One of the sweetest gifts I could ever give to a friend is the promise that I will never talk about them in a way that would embarrass, humiliate, criticize, or shame them. If I have a concern, may I always tell them to their face--and not someone else behind their back.

O Lord, guard our mouths. Keep us from words that injure, flatter, and deceive. We are totally incapable of reigning in our tongues, but You love to do the impossible!

Imagine that.

I love acting.

I love opening that new script for the very first time, getting fitted for a costume, and blocking scenes for tedious hours on end. And then there's the adrenaline rush of opening night, the stage lights (which will always hold a certain charming appeal), the forgotten prop, the caked-on make-up, the five-second costume change, the hard-earned audience laughter, and the mic tape on my face.

But what I love most about acting is--the acting. I'm enthralled with becoming another person. It's a mysterious journey that begins with reading my character's lines off a page of the script and ends when I actually embody her--moving and responding and thinking and looking like this total stranger.

Okay, you're judging me now, aren't you? Was it when I said "embody her"? Yes, that's strange, I'll admit. But think about it: When you were little, you could drop to your knees and bark like a dog and chase an imaginary ball, and no one thought twice about it. You became a dog for those few minutes--and it was stinkin' fun!

But somewhere along the line, we all grew up and stopped... imagining. We learned the harder side of life and we learned the danger of being innocent and naive, and in the process we suffocated our imaginations. Being realistic and pragmatic defined our adulthood.

But then, how do we even begin to deal with eternal realities if we can no longer imagine? If experience and reason alone dictate reality, what are we to do with the miraculous, the supernatural, the infinite?

Which is why I love acting. I'm forced to exercise my atrophied imagination, to think outside my little world, to wonder and explore and create to my heart's content.

And in the process, I understand a bit more of what it means to take on another identity. God has given me a perfect script in His holy Scriptures, and He has cast me as His new creation. This righteous creation could not be more different than my old sinful self. For me, the toughest part of acting is to think like another person. It may be easy to act like them, but to think like them? In the same way, it's relatively easy to act like a Christian, but to think like one? To react and respond like one? To have impulses and desires like one? I must let the Author's script and Spirit shape my heart and mind until the new creation upstages the old.

When a director casts me as a penniless widow, well, then--a penniless widow I will be. When my God, Creator, Sustainer, and Lord tells me I am a new creation--well, then, a new creation I will be. I will study the Script, I will think new thoughts, and I will act in obedience for the applause of One great audience.

`

Like mental wallpaper

Thanks to my mom and her faithfulness to post Scriptures all around the house when we were growing up, Zephaniah 3:17 has long been one of my favorite verses. These few words are jam-packed with truths about God's character and who I am in relation to Him. I love it!

My friend David Arevalo and I put the verse to music a few years ago, so we could have it stuck in our heads and hearts. Truth wallpapered on the walls of our minds. Glory oozing out of our pores.

But a little disclaimer: I've had the darndest time trying to upload this thing to Blogger, so the cheesy video clips below are the result of a desperate attempt by a very technically challenged woman. Close your eyes and forgive me, won't you? =)

(And yes, it is silent for the first several seconds...)

30-Something in Singleville

I am far too exhausted to be blogging. I want to sleep for more than four hours tonight. But I'm in desperate need of a captive audience for a light-hearted monologue on a topic I usually try to avoid:

Singleness.

It's weird here in Singleville at 30-something. Sometimes it feels a lot like living in a Dr. Seuss book or having tea with the Mad Hatter. College guys still flirt around; older men talk marriage even before a first date.

Advice is predictable: "When you're content in Jesus, He will bring the man along" and "When you least expect it, you'll meet him!" (Well, some days contentment is an hourly struggle; other days, it comes easily. Isn't it that way for everyone in every season of life? Or have some people arrived prematurely?) Other favorites: "Maybe you should go to a church that has a singles group" and "Have you tried E-Harmony?" I've visited church singles groups and I've tried E-Harmony. Both are terrifying. Perhaps the most boggling one is: "Singleness is so much better than marriage. Be thankful you're single." (But then why did you get married? I don't understand. Am I slow?)

Set-ups are to be avoided at all costs. The few I've agreed to have been... awkward... at best.

Older men check me out now. I mean, older. That's weird.

The pool of eligible men my age is now full of divorcees with kids. That's weird, too. (Not out of the question, because we all have our baggage, but the potentials used to be young guys fresh out of college, ya know?)

It's funny here. But in the midst of the comedy (and oftentimes the tears), there's a lot of beauty in this place. I love that the Author of Life, with perfect pen in hand, writes a story worth the telling. His fingers never slip as He scripts the climaxes and conflicts, the cliffhangers, the antagonists and protagonists. He is all mystery and adventure and comedy and romance. Once upon a time I imagined a very different story, but I've come to enjoy this Author's style much more than my own.

I love what I've learned in these years of singleness. I treasure the time I've had to prepare for the Great Wedding, when all of this waiting and wondering will make complete sense. Something more than my own personal security and happiness is at stake here.

A sovereign God calls me to an adventure far greater than I could ever have planned. Adventure is made of pleasure and pain, uncertainty and risk, faith and hope. I'm still as excited as ever about marrying a godly man someday--if my God writes that chapter. If not, He is far more than all I could ask or imagine. Earthly marriage is created to be only a small glimpse of the infinitely perfect marriage that awaits us...

And so I wait on Him for both.

Three questions for a crazy week ahead...

1. What is the most important thing in life?

2. What kind of woman do I want to be one year from now? (And what choices can I make today to help me become that woman?)

3. How can I take today's stresses and turn them into thanks?

From one unapologetically proud aunt

Aaron David Langley: noun, adorable baby boy who brings joy and delight to all who meet him; a small, irresistible male child; one who has the ability to wrap everyone around his little finger.

"I can do it." (And other myths that mess me up.)

Let's take, for example, my job.

I love my job more than ever. Actually, I can't believe I get paid to go to work. This year, I'm splitting my time 50/50 between teaching English and administrative-counseling duties. I work like a dog, but at the end of each long day, it's an unbelievably happy, fulfilling exhaustion. If ever I felt like God fitted me for a task, this would be it.

BUT the insidious danger lies in that very statement. I'm made for this. God has given me strengths and giftings to serve Him in this way. And all of a sudden, "Look! I can do it!"

During the last week, I've gotten to sit with brokenhearted teen girls, kick off my heels at lunch to play soccer with middle school boys, teach Shakespeare and linking verbs, write encouraging notes to students, plan our middle school play, and sit in a dunk tank for a school fundraiser.

And creeping, creeping stealthily in is this constant temptation to rely on self, to find pleasure in my own strength, to glory in my giftings.

Which are nothing really.

Aside from God's grace, I'm a lawsuit waiting to happen. Or a stupid comment away from being fired. Or just plain ol' ineffective in reaching some really needy kids.

"Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit..."

And so the Lord graciously allows needs and weaknesses and brokennesses in my life that run so deep, I can't find the end of them. Sometimes He lets His children be "so utterly burdened beyond our strength ... to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead" (2 Corinthians 1:8,9).

He must love it when I begin my morning something like, "Today is way beyond me. I can't do anything apart from You. Help me be fruitful and effective. Strengthen me to do what brings You glory!"

And if that's found in the midst of humiliation or failure, so be it. I've plenty of those stories too... but that's another blog.

I'm in love.

Four weeks ago yesterday...


My Sis-in-law constantly amazes and blesses me... She is a beautiful, radiant mommy.


David is such a phenomenal daddy... and Aaron looks SO much like him!


Yesterday I was singing "The Ugly Bug Ball" to Aaron, and this was the look I got... Actually it was more like a stare. Just not sure if he was staring in fascination or terror.

What thrills me most

I arrived on the edge of a hurricane. It was only fitting: my girls' weekend in Washington, D.C., with Karen and Carlynne begged a dramatic beginning. It was to be the weekend of a lifetime.

I spent the majority of last Saturday safe inside Carlynne's sweet home, playing with her little Caleb, and watching sheets of hot rain masquerade as a tropical storm.



Saturday night cleared up just in time for our outing to Wolf Trap to see my favorite musical, Les Mis. Then Sunday came, and I found myself standing three feet away from our President, Karen Hughes, and Rascal Flats on the Front Lawn of the White House.





Monday night was a dream-come-true Celine Dion concert, and Tuesday morning was a breathtaking breakfast in the West Wing of the White House.



I don't think I'll ever again experience anything like those four days. (All compliments of dear Karen. Unbelievable.) My head was spinning by the time I strapped myself in on Delta Flight 847 to return home Tuesday afternoon.

But as I sat in my blue-vinyl aisle seat with a complimentary bag of peanuts and my knees up to my chin, I was struck to realize that these thrills paled in comparison to the thrill I experience when I spend time in my Lord's presence. And I'm not being hyper-spiritual here. I constantly struggle to study the Word, to pray, to seek the Lord with all my heart. Why it's a struggle will always boggle me, though, for when I do spend time with God, my heart is softened, my mind is sharpened, and the innermost places of my soul are filled with peace, wisdom, faith, joy, hope, healing, and purpose.

West Wing breakfasts, political power, and divas who can bring down the Verizon Center a cappella, can't hold a candle to the King of kings--who alone prepares a feast that will never leave us hungry (John 6:35), gives us the power of His Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8), and whose voice strips the forests bare (Psalm 29).

If I was invited to have Saturday brunch with Celine in her home, I wouldn't miss it for the world. (Are you kidding me?!) But I am daily invited to so much more: to share all of life with the Creator of the world and the Savior of my soul.

Tonight let's accept the invitation, enter into the presence of Almighty God, and know the thrill of knowing Him more. He puts all other thrills to shame.

(In less noteworthy news, today my middle school counseling responsibilities included cleaning up a food fight involving a birthday cake and a bunch of hormonally imbalanced 13-year-olds. Last weekend already feels like such a distant memory.)

I hate when I hurt people.

And I hate letting people down, disappointing them, or knowing someone is angry with me.

I guess I just hate being a sinner. Falling so far short of perfect. Wrestling with weakness...

Rachel Tulloch poignantly confirms that "this is why God’s love is terrible. Think of what it includes: us, with our best and our worst, with our failed attempts and outright cruelty, with our wrong motives for right actions and our right motives for wrong actions... us, with the mess we have made of the world, with our brokenness and despair, with our rebellions and inadequacies. We are the ones included in and redeemed by the deep and wide love of God. Paul is astonished by this reality when he emphasizes that Christ died for us while we were still sinners! (Romans 5:8)."

God's infinitely perfect love is not simply a sweet, storybook love; it's a disturbing love: He loves me even when I inadvertently or willfully hurt someone else He loves. And He loves them when they hurt me.

His love forgives and forgets my sin. It's not sin swept under the rug; it's sin that was heaped on the body of Jesus. He didn't just cancel the debt; He paid it. As Tulloch explains, "The master takes the loss." And I walk away rich.

That's truly terrible love. And love that makes me love right back with all of my heart.