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!

Always keep a sense of humor.

And don't take yourself too seriously.

This blog will bug you.

In the course of my 32 years, I’ve killed my fair share of gnats, ants, flies, mosquitoes, mosquito hawks, June bugs, beetles, rollie-pollies, spiders, and crickets. I’ve even bare-handed strange bugs in the middle of a class when a student—typically of the female gender—begins screaming over the realization that during lunch break her purse, book, or (heaven forbid!) her shirt became home to a new species of creepy-crawly.

Yes, I’ve grabbed that ugly beast, put on a formidable face, walked to the door while Bug writhed around in my sweaty palm (all feet and wings and buzzing), and thrown the demon out on his backside.

I’ve had other students—typically of the male gender—put my bug bravery to the test by thrusting lizards, frogs, or rubber bug imitations at my face. I haven’t screamed yet.

But there is one little pest I cannot tolerate. Just one. Let a bee sting me, a pincher bug pinch me, or a moth chew through my socks, but let a cockroach anywhere near me, and I come undone. I will scream (be it stifled or unbridled) every time.

As tradition would have it, our school hosts the annual California Cockroach Convention every summer. Cockroaches from all corners and crevices of California make the pilgrimage to our all-too-welcoming facility. From the women’s bathroom stalls to the teacher’s workroom to classrooms all over campus, large winged cockroaches are to be found drinking, lounging, chatting, and idling away the summer months.

This has presented too many traumatic scenarios for me to recount in this brief blog. But suffice it to say, I may finally surrender my flip-flop heels for closed-toe shoes and begin wearing hats when I go to the bathroom. (The toilet is an awfully vulnerable place to face your worst fear.)

I just realized I’ve been scratching myself as I write this. My skin is absolutely crawling.

Well, friends—whatever the cockroach may be in your life, I wish you peace, safety, courage, and a super-sized can of bug-killing spray.

I am such a girl.

(I was just plowing through old Microsoft Word files on my computer, and I stumbled upon this poem I wrote on March 11, 2006. If it weren't so funny, it'd be plain ol' embarassing...)

~^~^~^~^~^~

Hanging on a phone call

Well, I've done it again, Lord.

I'm hanging on a phone call,
Just hoping for a ring--
A little number all lit up on my cell phone screen.
To hear that voice that'll make my heart sing
Is a request that seems so small,
And for a moment I wonder: do You care at all?

Won't You move his heart tonight?
Granting him a dream
Of how happy his life would be if he were married to me;
A little piece of eternity
If he would just call me his wife.
O Lord--let him see the light!

Yes, the waiting's been long;
It shouldn't be this way.
(Profound commentary from a lump of clay.)
But You have never yet made one mistake,
So when the silence seems unending and wrong,
Move my heart (okay, and my phone) to ring out a song.

~^~^~^~^~^~

And over two years later, I can say with even more joy and conviction... He has never yet made one mistake. (And how thankful I am He has not given me who I thought I so desperately wanted and needed. He knows best!!)

And one more thing: Marriage to me will not be heaven. It may prepare a man for heaven, or make him long for heaven even more, but please know that the poem above was tongue-in-cheek. Humorous. For laughs. (I hate to think of the comments I'd get on this entry if you could leave 'em. =)

Gnats

I’m convinced that God has a sense of humor—where else would ours have come from?—and because He is God, it is an infinitely perfect sense of humor. If you’re ever in doubt, start looking for the comedic elements throughout Scripture. They will, at times, have you laughing out loud.

Take, for example, the poor Egyptian magicians who tried to compete with God in the Plague Showdown of 1446 B.C. I crack up every time I think of them trying to outdo Moses, and in the process, making their own water bloodier and land froggier. I mean, turning their staffs into snakes must have impressed the people (even if they were swallowed up by Moses’ serpent in the end). But were the Egyptians really applauding as they watched more of their drinking water bleed and picked twice the frogs off their bodies? Thanks a lot, guys.

However, when it came to gnats, these chumps were out of their league. Snakes, blood, and frogs were kid stuff. Gnats were obviously for the pros. Or should I say, the Pro.

Exodus 8:18 says that “the magicians tried by their secret arts to produce gnats, but they could not.” I wrote a note in the margin of that verse that reads, “Why did You decide to stop the magicians at gnats?” It’s hilarious!

But it’s also such an evidence of God’s amazing sovereignty and control. He determines the exact boundaries of His enemies’ power. They have no more influence than He allows them to have. Whether it be gnats in Moses’ case or life-and-death in Job’s case, God says, “This is where you stop,” and his enemies stop.

I love the story of Abraham and Sarah. Love it! But I’d never noticed the humor of Genesis 18:13-15 until Beth Moore pointed it out in one of her Bible studies. Sarah not only lies to God but also argues with Him. Listen in…

“The Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, “Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too hard for the Lord?’ But Sarah denied it, saying, ‘I did not laugh,’ for she was afraid. He said, ‘No, but you did laugh.’”

Again, hilarious! Can you imagine? (Oh, wait. I can because I’ve done it myself. Sounded just like that, too…)

“I did not.”

“Did too.”

“Did not…”

God has determined certain events, He has promised certain things, and there’s no way He is going to be frustrated by us humans—and our hilarious ridiculousness. Sarah’s faithless laughing wasn’t going to stop Him. Moses’ enemies weren’t going to show Him up. And He is not wringing His hands over the messy details of our lives today. “He determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live” (Acts 17:26).

I don’t know about you, but this quiets my heart and helps me enjoy the adventure the Lord has planned for me!

“The Lord is my chosen portion and my cup; You hold my lot. The lines have fallen for me in pleasant places.” Psalm 16:5-6

I'm hungry.

My dear friend James reminded me this morning that sometimes I think too much. It's true. Which is why God gave me a warped sense of humor, hilariously funny friends, and a family that can laugh at just about anything. Otherwise, my brain would have surely imploded a long time ago.

So tonight I'm taking a break from thinking and bringing you a blog that is devoid of any cerebral value whatsoever.

Yea, it's nigh unto stupid.

Click on the link below to laugh, cry, or torture yourself. (Compliments of David Arevalo, Jonathan, and myself, pictured together above, at one of my least favorite places in the world. But it was late and we were hungry.)

http://www.colleenlangley.com/Hungry.html

I deserved it.

I got my first ticket on Friday night. Excuse me: traffic citation. I was totally irritated about it, and I even laid awake a couple of nights after, stewing over the whole situation.

It's not that I didn't deserve a ticket. In fact, I'm about fourteen years overdue. I've broken the speed limit daily, run red lights, tailed cars, changed five lanes in two seconds, and rolled through too many stop signs to count (but what's that "California stop" named for anyway?). To beat all, when I was pulled over six months ago, the cop let me go despite three violations and my apparent disregard for protocol: to his utter amazement, I got out of the car and walked around to the passenger side to dig for my insurance card (which I never found). No joke, he was laughing by the time he walked away from my car. I think he was thinking: "Good Lord, thank you for my wife! I got off easy!"

So I knew my time was coming. It's just that I imagined that the ticket would be well justified… and not stupid. I mean, my record is clean and I’m pretty sweet, so a cop has to be justified to finally issue that very first ticket, right? Nope. Not in Lake Arrowhead. Little Snobville Cop was staked out for someone just like me on Friday night.

I was going to visit friends at their beautiful mountain cabin and couldn’t remember exactly which way to turn. Uncharacteristically, I made a full and complete stop at the stop sign, and then proceeded to turn right. That’s when Mr. Cocky Cop pulled behind me, turned on his lights, and then--once I'd parked--swaggered up to my driver’s window and stuck a blinding flashlight in my face. “There’s a sign that says, ‘No Right Turn,’ back there, ma’am, and you turned right,” he triumphantly told me. (It was as if he’d spent his whole day staked out at that corner, practicing that little speech. Despite his cool and cocky exterior, he was jumping for joy inside.)

Okay, so here’s the thing: I didn’t fight it. Didn’t make any excuses. Didn’t cry. And didn’t flirt. Yes, it was dusk, so I could have claimed the sign was illegible. Or I could have pointed to my clean record. Or explained that I was somewhat lost and needed directions. But I just signed that stupid yellow ticket and drove away wondering what that right-hand turn was going to cost me.

Call me dumb, but it was almost a relief to have the inevitable over with. Every day I drive, I deserve a ticket, so it was high time for me to pay.

And then, with a fresh perspective, I was reminded that I've been let off every ticket for every violation I've ever committed, from the day I was born to the day I will die. And I'm talking about my sin violations here. Every lie, selfish attitude, hideous thought, envious ambition, gossipping word, lustful impulse, and failure--every way I fall short of perfection and God's glory--is no longer written up against me... because of Jesus. Because of what He did for me.

He went into the warehouse packed wall-to-wall with my sin citations and paid for every one of them by giving up His life on the cross. I should have been on that cross paying, but He was my perfect substitute. I should spend eternity in hell, separated from the goodness of God, but I no longer have to pay--because Jesus did. On the road of life, I am now considered a perfect driver, because it's actually Jesus who's driving now. When Guilt Cop or Shame Police try to pull me over, Jesus leans out the driver's window and says, "She's with me."

And I'm free to go...

I don't lose glass slippers

It's past midnight, and I'm trying desperately to think my way through an overly fatigued haze in an effort to officially introduce my blog.

A blog ought to have a proper beginning, right? A "grand opening" or some such thing?

But you see, when midnight strikes, I don't lose glass slippers. I lose brain waves. All synapses stop synapsing and all activity comes to a screeching halt. (Much like a Southern California freeway.)

So I suppose I'll keep this simple and thank you for stopping by. I do hope this small corner of cyberspace proves to be an encouraging, thought-provoking, tear-jerking, laughter-inducing, faith-inspiring, and oft-visited one.

You, my friends, are the obvious inspiration for my blogging. Until we meet again (and before my coach turns back to a pumpkin)...

Good night.