God - THE Master CONDUCTOR

The last few days God has been showing me a painting in pieces. A painting of how big, how strong, how capable, loving, amazing, magnificent and wonderful He is! My recent days have been filled with "AHA" moments. The latest is God as a conductor, the greatest most AWESOME conductor of them all!

So ... there I am... talking about how amazing this years baptism will be and how cool it will be to volunteer at it THIS year since I was baptized LAST Easter morning on the beach... and this person who I've been doing life with for many months will look at me and say "are you kidding? I was ALSO baptized last Easter morning on the beach!" This exact situation has occurred more times than I can count recently. Now how wild is that? That I shared a very special moment with a lot of people last year, who I didn't even know, never even noticed them at the beach taking the SAME step I was taking at the SAME time I was taking it.. and in this year... God brought us together and drawn us close... and now... a year later God is showing us that it "wasn't an accident" (as Pastor Troy says) that we met... we were put there... in that moment... in that place... together... TOTALLY on purpose by God! MAN that is BIG!

God is AWESOME!!!!!! He isn't just working in our lives on occasion... casually. He is ALWAYS working... diligently so. Planting seeds, creating connections, sewing lives together.... That is sooooooo comforting to me. God is the Master CONDUCTOR!

No matter what difficulties or hard times you face in your life... YOU are not ALONE! God is ALWAYS there... ALWAYS working... ALWAYS reaching out to YOU!

God Doesn't Carbon Copy

I was in a new small group last night studying the book "Launching a Leadership Revolution." This book has created such a stir at Flamingo. There are so many groups studying it. I must say it is a very good book and I am learning a lot from it even though I am just now heading into chapter 2.

In chapter 1 there is a list of all these quotes on leadership from different people. I LOVE quotes so this part was wayyyyy exciting for me. Our small group leader asked us to get together in groups of 4 and collectively come up with a favorite. Out of the 10 I had 4 that I absolutely LOVED. They spoke to me. No one seemed to have a passive opinion... everyone was passionately moved by one of the quotes. But as I sat there listening to people passionately speak about which quote moved them I was in awe. At first I was scratching my head wondering... how did they get THAT out of that quote? How could they not have been set on FIRE by a quote that stirs my soul? Then I was hit with this thought... And I do mean "hit" it soared in from up above and settled... KAPOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW right in my brain and I was opened up to an AWESOME thought. We are all so incredibly... wonderfully different!

Okay... I'm sure you've noticed that we were all different before. But have you ever REALLY thought about that? Last night as I pondered this... I was totally AMAZED! God gave birth to our entire beings. I picture Him in an artist studio planning each beauty mark, each wonderful crevice in our brains. Think of the planning, the creativity, the artistry, the intense focus that must be necessary for Him to be able to create each and every one of the millions and millions of people that have lived, are living, and will live. It is totally unbelievable that He has been able to create us all without ever creating a duplication of something He did before. He has never ONCE used a carbon copy or some other duplication method. We are ALL different!

It is incomprehensible how He has been able to do this. To put in the amount of work, blood, sweat, tears, and passion necessary to do something on this enormous scale???? TOTALLY speaks to me of His LOVE for us! Man.... He doesn't HAVE to expend that kind of energy creating one of a kind originals... but He does... because to Him... we are EACH so special and so loved that He works to get us just right, just perfect as He has envisioned us in His amazing mind.

Realizing this, I feel renewed and filled with a wonderful responsibility. God selected each part of me, each part of YOU. He did it for a specific reason.... every quirk.... every tiny piece of you is put here by GOD, the sum of YOU is here to carry out a purpose, a mission, ONLY YOU can do. So each day I will remind myself of this... and I will work to stay connected to God... tune in to His guidance and He will take me to that purpose day in and day out! AWESOME!

500+ Salvations

This past weekend was AMAZING at FRC! Well, truly they are all AMAZING but this one was way over the top, extra special, life time memory bank filler upper AMAZING!

This weekend at Flamingo Road Church Campuses 500 people took the step and accepted Christ as their Savior. The thing that made this moment so special for me when I attended was being able to watch it unfold, watch people with the tears streaming down their face taking the step towards Christ and then being able to celebrate with them. Pastor Troy called for everyone there to stand and celebrate via applause.

It was AWESOME!

Giant or a Pea?

The other day I was catching up on one of my favorite TV shows, October Road. One of the characters said "When we are young we live like Giants... as we grow older we live smaller and smaller until one day we live as though we are as small as a pea." WOW... that is deep. That hit me like a ton of bricks! It's so true... think about it.

When we are young we LIVE, we really LIVE. We do what we feel, say what we feel, think what we want. We DREAM BIG dreams. We look at the world with fresh eyes, cynicism is not in our vocabularies. We LIVE like GIANTS!

But as we grow older we begin to change. We become a reflection of the let downs we have experienced. We don't accept things at face value, we begin to limit ourselves, our responses, our actions, our thoughts, our DREAMS, until one day we find ourselves very small... like a pea.

Ask a child you know what they want to do with their life, what they want to be, or make happen. I bet the answer will be so BIG, so GIANT like that you will almost want to tell them to adjust their dream just a little to make it more possible to achieve. That's the pea you at work!

We don't HAVE to be peas as adults. We REALLY can still live like a GIANT! I used to be a really small pea. Last year at this time I really had no friends, no goals, no dreams for myself. I was a shell of a person. Now, with each passing day, I become more and more the GIANT I was created to be. What's changed? I am doing life with GOD now. Last Easter, I was baptised. I have since dug in and rooted myself in an AWESOME place, Flamingo Road Church. Now, I have such good friends... quality friends, goals and dreams bigger than the ones I had as a child.

God created us to be GIANTS! Not peas!

Ephesians 2:10 NLT

"For we are God's masterpiece. He has created us anew, in Christ Jesus, so that we can do the good things He planned for us long ago."

In your life, are you living like a pea or a GIANT?

HOPE & a Last Lecture

I love the idea of HOPE... so much that it is my daughter's middle name. But there are times I struggle with finding HOPE. Next weekend's service at Flamingo Road Church is going to be about "HOPE" and people battling cancer. I have to tell you... when I heard that in church this weekend I thought but what about those people who have terminal cancer... what about those facing the end of their battle... how do they and the people around them feel hope?

Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, is dying of Pancreatic Cancer... he was given 3 to 6 months to live (he just passed his 6 month mark on 2/15/08). When he was told he only had a short time to live he decided to give his "Last Lecture." It is an incredibly uplifting and moving lecture given by a man who HOPES one day when he is no longer here on earth with us, that his children will watch it and be affected by it.

There is a woman I greatly admire battling cancer.... I haven't known her for long... and I wish I had time to know her more deeply... but she and her legacy.. her family... have touched my life to the core... They are walking through this battle with incredible strength and grace. Their faith in God is something you can't miss... it just pours out of them all and though they face a tough time in their lives... if you sit with them... you will see HOPE.

I visited with her recently as she lay in a bed at a hospice facility... the meds and the cancer she is fighting make it very hard for her to really be present. Her husband on one side Kev and I on the other... she fought to open her eyes and connect with us... Then her husband.... said something funny... and that graceful fighter of a woman.... mustered up all the strength she had and she SMILED! Staring terminal cancer directly in the face and fighting with everything she has she took the time and expended the energy to SMILE. Now that's a woman that hasn't lost hope! She knows she will "graduate" and that time very likely is near.... but to me her smile evidenced her hope that in the time she has left she still could touch lives.... and she DID!

If you knew you were dying could you find hope?
What would your Last Lecture be?

God's Invite to Dance

Just returned home from an AWESOME morning at FRC! Pastor Troy taught us that God invites us all to dance with Him.

How do you "dance" with God? To dance with God the Bible tells us we must trust Him with our EVERYTHING! The way to really trust God with your EVERYTHING is to trust Him with your finances. God lays it all out for us in the Bible... He says it is a guage to measure whether or not we are truly "dancing" with HIM!

Last year my husband and I struggled with whether or not to tithe... we live on one income... and in South Florida that is REALLY hard. Money is ALWAYS tight! We wanted to so badly... but we were so afraid. Then we heard Pastor Troy give a teaching... very similar to the one we heard today. He said EVERY week we get the opportunity to demonstrate to God that we TRULY do trust Him with our everything! That was all it took... sure we were scared out of our minds. But the next time that offering bucket came our way we were SOOOOOO excited to get to show God that we really were ready to trust Him with our everything! In the Bible it says that if you do this God will open up the heavens and pour blessings down upon you. After about a year of tithing faithfully... I can tell you from experience... this is absolutely POSITIVELY true! We haven't regretted our decision for a moment. And God has taken care of us so well this year.

God is standing there with His hand outstretched inviting YOU to dance with Him... Will you accept His invitation?

A Prayer for a Lost Hamster

This morning I DID NOT want to get out of bed. I caught my daughter's cold and feel pretty rotten. I was still snuggled in bed calling out the morning routine to my, so not a morning person, daughter... you know the drill... "eat breakfast, get dressed, brush your teeth..."

And then I heard it...
JOLT me out of bed, TOTALLY frantic, tear the house apart news.... "Mom, Misty is missing." Misty is my daughter's beloved hamster. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, not TODAY!
My husband was already at work, so it was up to me and Amanda to find Misty and return her to her hamster palace. Just the 2 of us... or so I thought! The plan was my daughter would look in her room and I would look in mine. She started off... I couldn't focus. I walked in circles, totally overwhelmed. We are still remodeling... hamster hiding spaces EVERYWHERE! I froze... my daughter was screaming and certain that our Labrador Hershey had eaten Misty.... I must admit I was thinking so to...

Then I remembered.... WAIT... PRAY.... Give this to God... ask for His help... HE KNOWS where Misty is! So I clasped my hands together and prayed. Now it wasn't my best... most beautiful prayer... it was scattered.... went something like this....

God, Please help us find Misty... Show us where she is... let her move and us hear a noise or see a shift in something.... let her come to our voices... help us find her. Amen

Not very eloquent I know...
But there I was... sitting reflecting on my prayer, waiting to see something or feel a nudge to head in a specific direction. No more than 5 seconds had passed, Amanda tearily called out "I found her!" I cried out "Thank YOU God!" and ran to my daughter's room... She was holding Misty and sobbing... said she was looking on one side of her closet and saw Misty trying to climb up a stack of boardgames to get to her. Misty was actually heading towards Amanda, towards the noise, towards items being shoved around! OH MY GOSH! I told her about my prayer and then together.... Misty in hand... we thanked God for His help.

Giving things to God and going to Him FIRST with problems is one of the most difficult battles I fight. Just a few weeks ago, I was in a difficult confusing place and I prayed... but I didn't do it with the heart KNOWING He would answer me... Even though I doubted God... He gave the people around me the words I needed to hear and still guided me to an answer. Through that difficult time He was at work changing me. I could feel it... feel Him opening me up... growing me. Even though I feel so much stronger now in my faith, this morning still took me by surprise... It was pretty surreal... as I prayed it was like I left my body... I was watching myself pray... and saying to myself... WOW... that's different... trouble strikes... within minutes I'm in prayer... pinch me.... cause I must be dreaming here! Praying this morning... I had so much faith that God would answer my prayer... I was SO SURE...

Now, while my body is weak and sick, my soul is SOARING! God not only answered my prayer to find a missing hamster, this morning he showed me he has answered prayers prayed for a long time... prayers for for clarity and stronger faith, to feel closer to Him, for tranquility and peace within myself.... GOD answered all of my prayers.... in HIS time.... and used my daughter's missing hamster to reveal it to me. How AWESOME is that?

The Ballerina & The Bulldog

I was at my mother’s recently and saw this picture hanging on her wall… a ballerina and a bulldog.

I say “aw that’s cute mom”

She says “I got that because it reminds me of you.”

I laugh and say “which one… the ballerina or the bulldog?”

She gives me a quirky look and says “the ballerina of course… because you did ballet when you were a little girl.”

I told her it was kinda funny that she selected that picture because of me… the ballerina me… because my husband sometimes calls me a “bulldog.”

Later that night, on the way home, that picture on my mother’s wall kept nudging at me…. I thought about how funny it was that unbeknownst to her… she had…. In selecting that one picture… nailed 2 distinct parts of who I am.

Tami the Ballerina - dances through life in her frilly girly way…. Loves all things pink and pretty (like tutus)…. Wants everything to be just so (like the perfectly coifed buns a ballerina twists her hair into)…. Has a need for balance (like when up on her tippy tippy toes dancing)….. Is kinda hard on herself always expecting perfection (like when honing a new dancing skill).

Tami the Bulldog - bites into something and won’t let go (this is why my hubby calls me a bulldog… I can be a little headstrong and refuse to let go until I‘ve gotten to the end.. Of whatever it is that has my attention at the moment)…. Aggressive (think snarling and drooly)…not always the first picked or most favored of all (like in the pet store when that cute lab puppy gets a home before the bulldog)…. Loyal (like that bulldog puppy fiercely protecting and defending it’s owners)… awkward (a little clumsy, stumbling through and often times falling all over themselves).

A friend of mine is always telling me when stuff like this happens she thinks it is God teaching her something… and so she searches for the lesson… I just couldn’t get the picture out of my head and I didn’t know why… why it felt significant…. why it felt as thought there was something I should have learned from seeing that picture. Like my friend, I began to search for the lesson… tried to let go mentally and fully tune into God and be open to what He was trying to show me… and then this thought popped into my head about how odd it is that I have these 2 drastically different pieces of myself… yet at the same time they each represent who I am deep down at the heart of it all.

I realized or LEARNED that it’s no accident… ballerina and bulldog… God made me this way for a reason…. in that moment… as I had those thoughts pop into my head so quickly… once I opened myself up to the possibility that God was actually trying to show me something…. It seemed so clear to me that there were things for me to do for God… Tami, the ballerina bulldog mix has work to do for GOD…. And that work can only be accomplished by God and ballerina bulldog mix me! My 2 distinct seemingly contradictory sides were perfectly matched for a purpose by God… I don’t know what that purpose is yet…. Maybe I have already fulfilled some of it…. But I know… God… if I keep listening… will lead me to that purpose.