Yellow Brick Road of Life

     Wizard of Oz holds a special place in my heart. When I was little, before my sister was born, this was the movie that I drove my parents crazy watching all the time. When I was 10 I played a munchkin in the high school play, and so did my sister. My mother and grandma were also the costume designers for the play. I can remember laying in bed and listening to them both sew the costumes at night. Also, just a year ago my other grandmother took me to see the play at Beef & Boards.

     When I came back home from my medical withdrawal of college I realized something... I am on a yellow brick road, and my yellow brick road has weeds.

     Everybody has a path to walk in life. Generally people believe that path should be easy. More often than not people outside of Christianity believe that we Christians have it so easy. That struggles or mistakes or even weeds are not part of our lives. We are all human- weeds happen.
     Let's think about this- how do weeds happen? Do we plant their seeds? I don't ever recall purposely planting weeds in my rose garden. I'll be darned though if they didn't pop out of the ground; every year, all summer long. I had to watch my roses everyday.
     That's the truth to Christianity. Just because I am following God does not mean that I will not run into some weeds. The only way to keep the weeds out of my garden are to constantly take care of it, and that's exactly what we are supposed to do in our relationship with Christ- take care of it.

     Think back on the Wizard of Oz movie... Before you accepted Christ was the world a little dull/full of sepia browns/no-color?  How did you feel afterwards? Was everything bright & new?
     Look at Dorothy's journey on the yellow brick road. When she first started following it she "circled" a couple of times before the road took off in a straight direction. Then, she came to a fork in the road. Two possible directions, how do you know which way to go? She found a friend who wanted to go the same way as her.
     Then they came across the apple trees. Something so seemingly innocent that she wanted. As the tree pointed out to Dorothy, though, he was a thing that she made an assumption of and took for granted. Moving further on to the poppy field... haven't we all been there on our faith walk? We get tired, and even though we can see our goal we can't look past the field we're in.

     The key is that no matter what the Wicked Witch threw at Dorothy she kept following her path. She wanted to get home. My ultimate goal is to get Home-Heaven. Weeds and troubles find us and can side track us, but we keep following our yellow brick road.

 

 

Time Flies!

Wow! Where have I been the past month? It feels like I've been far too busy!

     I went to preaching every week from the end of July to just last week! Crazy-amazing!
I felt really good after last Wednesday that I have a break now, but being me it didn't take but a day or two before I felt restless. One bit of wisdom for those dealing with someone born in June... it is easy to become bored and restless- if there are not two or more things going on then I get bored and depressed easily.

      On another awesome note I am getting ready to start a teenage-girl-archery-ministry, lol!
I am super excited about it!! I love my archery, and am super excited that I can teach some girls this wonderful sport. Working on a couple of PVC bows for the girls so they can "decorate" them to suit them. Trying to work on coming up with arrows in as costless as method as possible, lol. Archery got me through middle school, and I can only pray that it will be a blessing to these girls!

     I wish I could quit my day job, lol. I want to do ministry and work in the church so bad, but I have so little time to do it because of my full time job. I would love nothing more than to call my church my real job.
     I have this Saturday and next left of my class. One of my sermons this month was so good that my Pastor asked me to give it to the congregation one Sunday. That excites and scares me so bad. I feel restless and anxious and ready to get busy, but I have realized this week that God is trying to still me. It's so sad that we think we have to accomplish these big tasks for God, and a lot of times it's something so little that He wants us to do. I have had a lot to think about this week. Mostly, the mind-blowing things that I have to sit and contemplate. I am going to the woods tonight. I ask for prayers for God's will and peace in my heart right now. As mentioned above, sitting still is very hard for me, and I feel like a puppy that is trying to get away from being held because the person wants to cuddle.
   
     "Be still..."  Psalm 46:10

Catching up since the Field Trip!

Have been trying to catch up since last week, lol.

Last Wednesday was a blast. We had our Kid's Field Trip for the church!

I started doing these in 2013, and they have been so much fun; we do one each year in the summer.

 

This year we went to an Indy Fever Game (WNBA). They played the Seattle Storm, and won.

It was mostly a girls day, except my 4yr old son went too, lol. I can't leave Bubby out of the field trips! It was a giant kids day there, and we all got balloon animals, autographed poster, hot dog lunches, and even popcorn to watch the game!! 

We were even right on the floor- third row from the team!!

Now to brainstorm for next years field trip... already did the zoo and children's museum.

 

 

 

Last Saturday I started classes again, How to Teach the Bible.

I love classes. I thank God I get to go to school now.

That was one of my big regrets that I could not finish college (health and financial reasons).

We shared about the learning environments of our churches and what classes our church does...

I know that I am from probably the smallest church of all the people in my class and in no way can compare to the things they do, but it makes me pray for more things at our church that I can utilize. VBS was the first big break for me meaning I didn't have to work it to enjoy it. My son got to go like he's supposed to and there were enough other moms in the community who contributed to it's function. It makes me think though, what do Pastors do for learning and growth? Being looked at always as a teacher, do they never get an environment of discussion, stimulation, and learning? That's what I'm craving now. I want to learn and discuss not always be the teacher, but I do understand that we are not to just sit and get "spiritually fat" on knowledge- I do enjoy teaching. Sometimes I really feel the give-give-give of people though. That's what class is doing for me right now; the stimulation and discussion. It really has me watching our church right now to see "what are we doing?".

Last night I preached again! I love doing this, but it is also very heavy for me.
I have such a consciousness that I am presenting the Word of God...
It's not a weight in the essence of a burden, but a weight in the essence that I now have a purpose.
It reminds me of that moment after I had my son, and they gave him to me to hold for the very first time. It's that moment when you feel as if the whole world is holding it's breath. You stare at him and finally realize down to your core that this little person in your hands is what you are supposed to do in the world. I get to the church and stand up there and it's like the whole world is once again holding it's breath waiting for me to realize that what I do next matters to it. I spend all week working on this message that God asks me to tell these people, and I get up there and want to cry because after applying the message to my life all week I realize everybody there is just as hurt and in need of these words as I was. It's humbling and miraculous and overwhelming, lol.



Now here I am... Thursday morning-ish and trying to finish the start of our church's yearly craft fair. I have got such a late start it this year it is shameful. I have mailed out information to all our previous vendors and getting ready to rally the facebook page, lol. Looking for ways to advertise this year!
I have never actually seen any advertising for craft fairs before; even when I was little!
I am trying to figure it out though, and welcome any suggestions.