A Jesus Infomercial

I've been thinking about the video testimony I posted on this blog two years ago.  At the time I felt great conviction to share it, but recently I've been re-thinking it.  See, that video reads like a how-to manual, when my testimony of life in Christ should be more like an infomercial.

(except not) {via}

Not full of cheesy gimmicks and four easy payments of $19.95, but it should showcase the benefits I have received through following Jesus.

So, here goes my Jesus testimony infomercial...

1.  I have peace despite worry.  I'm a worrier.  But God is bigger than any trouble I have.  I don't remember this enough, but it's there just the same.

2.  I have a handle on my temper.  I could hide behind "it's the Irish in me," but honestly, I'm just bad at expressing frustration.  I can't pinpoint how this changed exactly, but I've noticed over several years of studying Jesus, I don't have the outbursts or sulking that I used to.

3.  I have instructions for dealing with people.  Arguing with your spouse?  Remember that the wife is to respect her husband and that the husband is to love his wife as Christ loves the church--humbleness and selflessness required by both parties (Ephesians 5:22-23).  Wronged by someone else?  Go to them privately, then with a few others if things cannot be worked out, then try to work it out before the church, and if that doesn't work...well, then you've done the best you can and are free from responsibility (Matthew 18:15-17).  And like it...

4.  I can forgive.  I'm a grudge-holder...or at least I used to be.  I am not perfect and have taken up the phrase "serial forgiver," because sometimes my mind will go back and get all riled up about something that's finished and forgiven.  Anger and resentment seep into their old haunts in my heart.  So, I forgive.  Again.  It's hard, sometimes really hard.  But far less work (and far more pleasant) than holding a grudge.

5.  I have hope.  On the bad days.  On the unbearable days.  On the days when the whole world groans at some new horror or tragedy, I have a hope that one day this too shall pass.  That whatever does not glorify will one day be chaff sifted away.  That I will stand before my Lord and that will be enough.

6.  I have purpose.  Love God, love your neighbor.  Tell people about Jesus.  It plays out differently for everyone, but this, in the end, is our purpose, and who doesn't like to know what they're doing?

A great Savior at a great price.  I'm sold!

On big-girl friendship

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When I was growing up, I bet I spent just as many nights sleeping over at friends' houses as I did in my own bed.  My closest friend and I would go back and forth between each other's houses, staying until that set of parents wanted a break...then we'd move onto the next place.

Back then friendship was as easy as laughing at infomercials at 3 in the morning and not even knowing why.

But then I grew up.

I met all sorts of people in college and really enjoyed them...but I never had money to go out.  So I missed out on a lot of the social scene.

Then we got married and moved, and I started working at an elementary school...but the women there were older, farther along, not too interested in socializing.

We joined a church full of wonderful, godly, inspiring women.  And I love them all to pieces...but they're busy.

And grown-up friendship just isn't the same.  I'm still not quite used to it.

I know that with little people who need my everything that there isn't really time to bum around laughing at infomercials, nor would anyone in my household appreciate my mood the next day if I stayed up until three in the morning.

Still, I find it hard to let go of the familiarity and ease of those sleepover days.  I mourn that connection takes so much work and that "work" in my current stage of life (read: babies) crowds out so much.

But I am beginning to glimpse what big-girl friendship looks like.

Big-girl friendship is a ride to Bible study when your spouse needs the car.

Big-girl friendship is holding somebody else's screaming baby.

Big-girl friendship is "I've been there" when you talk about crying over the dishes.

Big-girl friendship is a card in the mail just to say "hi" when it's impossible to find the time but you still can't get somebody off of your heart.

Big-girl friendship bakes mountains of cupcakes and fixes oodles of sandwiches for birthday/graduation/baptism/recital/occasion with a smile and "what else can I do?" 

Big-girl friendship gives ample grace even in small doses of time.

Big-girl friendship says, "You are enough because He is."

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And while big-girl friendship isn't as flashy or loud or (to be totally honest) rip-roaring fun as little-girl friendship, it's much more sustaining.

To all my little-girl friends scattered in this great big world, I miss you.

To all my big-girl friends (present and future), thank you.

How would you define grown-up friendship?

On why Dave Ramsey is ruining my life

Not familiar with Dave Ramsey?  He has a three-hour radio show about personal finance, urging listeners to follow his baby steps to financial freedom1, most notably by getting—and staying—out of debt.

I got hooked on his show while I worked long library shifts in college with nothing else to do, and I was itching to throw everything I had at my student loans so that the Professor and I could move onward and upward.

And then the Professor decided to go to graduate school.

In a different state.

Where we’d live on his livable-but-not-roomy stipend².

And then we made tiny people who like to eat and wear clothes and expensive things like that.

And all of my debt-reduction schemes were reduced to so many abandoned Excel spreadsheets.

We’ve been faithful to pay on my student loans and are determined to avoid going into further debt during grad school, but my debt-reduction fervor faded and with it my penchant for listening to Uncle Dave on the radio…until recently.

For the past month, I’ve spent all of naptime listening to Dave give out advice and rail against credit cards.  I’ve made new charts.  I’ve made new goals and promises to myself.  Professor even agreed to a budget meeting before the end of the month.

A budget meeting!  With spreadsheets!   And pie charts!

But then things sort of soured:

•  Because it seemed all too easy for people making $100K to wipe up $25K of mess.

• Or it would be so nice to climb out of a million dollar hole…by selling a McMansion.

• Or who wouldn’t be debt-free if they were left a six-figure inheritance from a long-lost relative?

I became bitter.  And bitter is ugly.  I coveted what others have and that’s not only sinful…it’s petty.  And small.

So, I write all of this to say…we’re nowhere near debt-free, and I’m nowhere near perfect—our life is nowhere near perfect³, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t wonderful.  And now, more for my benefit than yours, are a few things I know we’ve done right in this still-weighed-down-by-student-loans-and-academic-poverty life we lead…

{1} Even if progress is slow, we’re winning.  We’re making good choices: we don’t do credit cards and we do pay above and beyond our student loan payment every month.  I wish I could move the needle on our debt-o-meter a lot faster, but it’s moving in the right direction, and it’s never going the other way again⁴.

{2} Not having money means lots of time for reading.  I had so much time on my hands when Professor was working and I wasn’t (first before I had a job, then after I came home).  I spent hours reading online about frugality, the drug store game, how to save on everything.  The library has been my second home and led me to subjects beyond just straight up frugality, which leads me to…

{3} Living frugally has given me lifelong, life-changing habits and outlooks.  I started out doing crunchy-granola, hippie things—like cloth diapering and line-drying clothes—to save money.  But a lot of reading (see #2 above) has really changed my thinking on a lot of things in this world and the impact little changes can make.  I don’t think we’ll stop being “crunchy” even when if the money starts rolling in.

{4} The want machine has slowed waaaaaaaaay down.  We don’t have the money to buy everything we want on a whim, so you can bet we think long and hard about things before we plunk down cash for them.  And you know what?  Other than a bike for me⁵ and a backpack for Professor, this year our “fun” money has gone almost entirely to clothes and beyond-the-basics, just-for-fun food.  “And having food and raiment let us be therewith content”—so saith the King James and we’re finding it to be so very true.

And so very good.

So, yes, we don’t have a lot, and my student loan debt bothers me like an itchy sweater I can’t take off, but I wouldn’t trade the lessons we’ve learned about money, stuff, and values for anything.

P.S.  I still love Dave Ramsey to pieces…I just might need to take a break from his show again until I can get my heart in line.

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1 When I read that, it sounds super cultish, but I promise it’s not.  Dave Ramsey has never hawked any Kool-Aid and there are so many ways to glean his advice without spending a dime.  Still, people love or hate the guy, so feel free to find out where you fall by visiting daveramsey.com to see what he’s all about.

2 So technically, we didn’t always live on just that, but since we got married in 2009 when you were more likely to get bitten by a shark (in Minnesota) than get a job, we budgeted as if his stipend was our only income.

3 If I say that I used #iliveintheghetto the other day, does that explain it well enough?

4 A house being the only exception, and even then, we’re super picky: 15-year fixed rate, more than 20% down, no more than $100K worth of loan, and we need to be able to pay it off in ten years or less.  But we’d love to see if we could save up and pay cash…it will all depend on the feels-forever-away future.

5 I lurve that hubby of mine. :D

The Lady Who Ran from Bible Study

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My church does a ladies' Bible study in the park over the summer, complete with childcare for the littles.  One hope in meeting at the park is opportunity to be seen and even joined by others.

I arrived early one Tuesday and started chatting up the only other mom on the playground.  I mentioned our Bible study, she thought it was neat (especially the childcare!), and we went on to talking about our kids.  Ladies from my church started arriving and I decided to take Pookie for a bathroom run before everything started.

As we traipsed to the restrooms, I told the woman I'd been talking with that she was welcome to join us and introduced her to our childcare helpers on the trip back.  She got her older kids checked in for their swimming lessons and joined us.

I was feeling pretty proud of myself: inviting a stranger to join us was going out on a limb for me.  Boy, I'd done a good job.

The study went well, she referred to various Scriptures as she spoke, and seemed to be doing just fine.  Then one study question referenced Hell in a way that a friend of mine didn't understand, so we stopped to discuss it.  Several ladies offered wise, biblically-backed explanations of the verse.  Our newcomer mentioned she thought it was more allegorical.  Someone else brought up Scripture that refuted her idea.

The picnic table got awkwardly quiet.

Whoever was leading the study picked up the pieces and moved on, but our newcomer went quiet.  A few minutes later, she started looking past us and bolted from the table, scooped up her toddler, and made a beeline for the pool.

Now...this might have happened because swimming lessons ended and she needed to pick up her kids.  But the mad dash struck me.  After retrieving her kids, she loaded them in her car, then came over and gave us a quick "Thanks, bye!"

And I couldn't stop thinking about it all day.  And eventually the Lord tapped me on the shoulder of my heart: was I holding on to that moment because I felt for that woman...or because I worried what she thought of me?

After all, I had invited her to join us.  I had made the small talk, the invitation, the connection.  We must be cool, right?  But what does she think of me now?  Does she think I'm a crazy?  The worry went on and on.

I made the entire endeavor about me and how I looked, instead of praising God for the opportunity to talk to someone about Jesus.  I worried about how I looked instead of how the truth of the Gospel was presented.

I'll never know just what that woman thought of me, but I do know that I followed the Spirit's prompting in offering the invitation--and since only God can control the outcome, that is all that matters.

Guess I need to keep offering, inviting, speaking up...even if they forever run away.

#4. Diligence doesn't mean doing it all.

For Everything, a Season
Last time, in our definition of diligence, we saw that diligence applies to what is undertaken.

What have I undertaken in my life?  To follow Christ.  To marry my husband.  To raise my baby girl.  To write books.  Those are the things that fill this season of my life.

So why do I feel guilty when I look at a box of odds and ends that could become sewing projects...but they aren't?  Or see websites advertising that my toddler could be reading before she's able to pull up her own pants...but she's not?  Or that I could be serving gourmet, organic, grinding-my-own flour meals to my family...but I'm not?

Because I still cling to the myth that I can do it all, all the time.  But is that really what God had in mind?

A slack hand causes poverty, but the hand of the diligent makes rich.  He who gathers in summer is a prudent son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who brings shame (10:4-5).


The sluggard does not plow in the autumn; he will seek at harvest and have nothing (20:4).


Go to the ant, O sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise.  Without having any chief, officer or ruler, she prepares her bread in summer and gathers her food in harvest (6:6-7).


Season Mom, Not SuperMom
If I had a garden outside my door (oh, how I long for that day!) and went outside right now, in April, and started to plow under my flowers and just-about-to-bud strawberry plants...wouldn't I look pretty ridiculous?  Wouldn't that seem...unproductive?

To everything there is a season, says the writer of Ecclesiastes.  In our modern times, we feel the pressure to do everything at once because technology and the convenience of help make it possible.

I could be doing some heavy book marketing these days.  I could crank up my social media time, send out emails and letters to churches and bookstores like crazy, I could travel and speak and gain a following.  And most likely, nobody would give me funny looks like I was plowing under a flower bed.

But this season of my life is for the things I listed above: my God, my man, my little one, and way after all those important things, I write.  And when things are really quiet, I can pick up my knitting or bring out the sewing machine or make a dinner that's more involved than spaghetti or something in the crockpot.

Diligence is not for doing everything; it is for doing the best things, the here and now things.  Will you join me here, now, in whatever it is your season calls for?

The WORD is Alive

In my Tuesday morning Bible study at church, we are studying the book of Mark.  We begin by listening to the passage from Word of Promise.  Have you heard of it?  Actors from Hollywood lend their voices to the reading of Scripture, music shapes the transitions and mood, the sea or the crowd or the street noise can be heard in the background.

Listening to Word of Promise, the events of Jesus' life unfold in a rich, new way--because I think we're all guilty  of occasionally reading God's Word with glazed eyes, eager to check "Bible study" off our to-do list.

But what if we slowed down and heard the awe-struck gasp of the man whose withered hand became whole?  Or the grunts of the men lowering their paralyzed friend down from a hole in Peter's mother-in-law's house?

{Side note, I think the producers should have included Peter's MIL shouting, "My roof!!!" but that would have been extra-Biblical content and frowned upon I suppose...}

These things we read of in God's Word really happened.  To real people.  Real people with feelings and bodies and hopes and dreams and struggles like we do.

I think about these things when I am writing books because my characters brush elbows with the likes of Peter and Paul and Barnabas, but I need to be better about seeing the Gospel with flesh on when I read it.

Because if I really see Jesus feeding the hungry and caring for the sick...how can I do anything but follow in His footsteps?