I've missed you!

It has been crazy busy lately!  Here's the Reader's Digest version (I promise to fill in the details in coming posts!):
Work has been crazy, but fun!  We are programming an entire ERP system in house.  (not me personally, but actually some coworkers in Nicaragua)  The leader of the team has been up from Nicaragua trying to help us get our acts together to get him the information that he needs.  My personal opinion is that I would enjoy these meetings every day much more if they were actually in Nicaragua (probably one of my favorite places in the world!)
Exit started back up again for the fall and it's been great!  We're doing a series on discernment at church too and it's gone along with Exit.  I'm so encouraged and proud of a friend who's been starting to come to church with me as well.  I hope they're getting as much out of the messages as I have been!  God has really been opening my eyes to how much more I need to be listening for His voice.  I feel like I'm on an exciting journey of trying to listen and follow.  Can't wait to see where He leads!
I started doing Weight Watchers 2 weeks ago and it's going great!  I have some friends doing it as well, so it's been really encouraging to hold each other accountable.  My pants are feeling much looser, and the scale is looking better too :-)
2 weekends ago I went to the wedding of a girl I used to babysit!  She looked so beautiful and I'm so proud of her and happy for her.  At the same time I felt sooooo old!  Isn't she beautiful?

(Sorry, my phone didn't take the best pictures in this lighting.)  It was so great to see so many good friends from my mom's church and catch up with people I hadn't talked to in so long!!

MOVEMENT

You can't stand still... if you're not moving forward, then you're moving backwards.  Heard that one before?  Yeah, me too.  But until I started reading Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick, I had never really thought about that statement in the context of my prayer life.  God is really using this book to wreck my world a little bit and shake up my life, my goals, what I'm praying for, how I pray...you get the point.  Don't you love it when He really hits the point home through your friends and church too!  Every sermon seems to call out the same areas in my life that need to change, and my friends who will not hesitate to hold me accountable validate it too (in fact, a good deal of this post comes from a conversation with a friend yesterday.)  I'm sorta at the stage where I'm saying, yes God, I've definitely been in a holding pattern, but what's next?  I'm reading Furtick's book to help me figure out the road to that answer.  You'll have to read the book to get ALL the great nuggets of wisdom, but the general heart of it is - God has such an amazing purpose for each of us, greater than we can imagine and He wants to do the impossible through us...in fact, Joshua asked that the sun would stand still to give the Israelites more time to win a battle and his prayer of faith was answered.  The reason we (or I) are not realizing and living in the awesome potential God has for us is because we aren't trusting Him to do what He's promised...and additionally, we (again, or I) are not even asking Him what that is!  We are content with the humdrum of our daily lives...or are we?  I think I mistake contentment for complacency, because when I think about these things, I am certainly not content.  Do I really want to just "get by"?  Do you?  I know I've shared the verse in John 10 before where Jesus tells us He came to earth so that we may have life and have it in abundance.  I'm realizing I need to surrender my day to God each and every morning and remind myself of this truth, or else I honestly will be just asking to get through another day.

Our sermon on Sunday night was on distractions.  We focused on the story of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3.  It's pretty familiar probably, even to those who aren't Christians, but I encourage you to read it.  Our pastor Khori spoke about how just a tiny distraction can completely throw our life off course and in some instances do major damage.  We are like Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, where God gives us free reign of more than we could ever want - there's a banquet table of amazing things he has set out for us.  But, we chose the one tiny apple that He said we can't have, and forgo the real gifts and true purpose He has for us.  For me, it was easy to pinpoint distractions in my life right away - competition, my need for acceptance and love, caring too much about what people think of me, pride...the list goes on.  What was more difficult to determine was - what am I actually missing because of these distractions?  What does God have on my banquet table that I'm choosing to forgo?  I think it's so important to determine this, or the distractions will surely overwhelm us.  It's a lot easier to walk forward if we know what we are walking toward.

So that's where my prayers are focused now.  What is it that you have for me God?  I have some ideas.  Furtick says that in our prayers, we have to "walk in faith, not stand in hope."  We are told to pray in faith and approach God's throne with boldness, but is it really a prayer of faith, if we don't moveforward?  Furtick also says "Every aspiration you have in prayer needs an accompanying action.  Otherwise, you're not really praying.  You're just pontificating.  You do the natural.  Trust God for the super."
So what are you waiting for?  Put your shoes on with me and start walking!

Things I learned this weekend

I had no idea when I agreed to go to our bank's office to watch the Baltimore Grand Prix and even invited friends to go with me that I would enjoy it so much!!  Racing?  Me?  I do have a thorough appreciation for driving fast, but this was truly amazing.  Here's my view:

I also was completely surprised that watching tennis is actually interesting and exciting.  My friends were watching the US Open in my basement last night and after they explained the scoring to me, I was hooked...so much so, that I stayed up way past my bedtime watching!

Finally, I learned this weekend how much I miss this place:

After having this view for a week, it was really hard to come to work on this rainy morning!!  If only I could figure out a way to work from the beach every day!!  More on my vacation later.

Have a great week!

Some days are really good days...

Not sure why, but today just feels like a good one.  I woke up early and just felt rested and ready for the day.  I'm also extremely happy and thankful for my parents today.  It's their 38th (corrected!) anniversary and I am so grateful and blessed to have grown up with such amazing parents.
Yesterday Hurricane Irene was really stressing me out, but today, even the fact that she could completely mess up my beach vacation won't get me down!  I didn't mention it yesterday, but Irene is not my friend!!
I had dinner with my sweet little "niece" C (a different C than my "niece" you met last week on the blog :-)) last night (and her parents).

In case you can't tell, someone is a ham :-)  This was while she was telling me it was my turn to make a funny face, I think.

Here, she's showing me her "belbows."  She then went around the table and made us all show our "belbows" too.

I know I've said this before but my "nieces and nephews" are the smartest and most adorable kids in the world.  They truly brighten my day.

After dinner I had a great time chatting with C's parents.  Her mom was my roommate for 4 years and I'm so thankful we've stayed close!  She was one of my first friends when I moved to Baltimore 9 years ago and we've had a lot of adventures in those 9 years.  She and her husband are really grounded and it is such a sweet time to sit on their couch and share life and not realize where the time has gone!  I went home thinking just how blessed I am with all the amazing friends God has put in my life.

It's amazing to me how great life is when you shape your attitude and not let the circumstances around you shape it.  I love the passage in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 that says "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."  I think this is key to living an abundantly life.  If we look for things to be thankful for, we'll find them, and our attitudes will follow (grumpy pants will come off.)  For example, today my attitude is - I am sooo thankful I have vacation next week and can take a break and relax...there is nothing I can do about this hurricane, so I'm not going to worry about it; rather than my attitude yesterday, which was - Hurricane Irene, I hate you as much as I hate bugs...if you ruin my vacation I am going to throw a temper tantrum and be a complete grouch.

There's sooooo much to be thankful for.  I encourage you to be looking for them today.  I'm thankful for my family (Congrats again to my parents on their many years of marriage) (an aside - my whole family will be at the beach next week and I'm so excited for you to see my strikingly beautiful sister!)  And I'm thankful for this little girl...

What are you thankful for?

Mid-week confessions

There aren't many things that I hate - injustice, suffering, hurting and neglected children would be counted among the main ones and I'm guessing a lot of you would probably agree that you hate those things too!  Another would be bugs!  And I'm not using the term "hate" lightly...for the most part, I despise them with all of my being.  I know you're probably saying, Val, that's pretty harsh.  Seriously though, it's not just that they are creepy and annoying.
Have you even had an up close look at a spider cricket?  I had one join me in the shower one morning and it almost gave me a heart attack.  Look at this thing.

(Image is copied from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhaphidophoridae)
Tell me - does this little demon not look like it just crawled up from the depths of hell?  It's no wonder they live in caves and basements!!  They embody the creepiness of spiders and the jumpiness of crickets, two of the things I dislike the most about bugs.  They scare me so much that when I find one I stand on the opposite side of the room and throw objects at it for fear that if I get close enough to swat it that it will jump on me!

I don't have the fortitude to squish bugs, and neither does my roommate.  Last fall we had quite the array of bug specimens trapped in upside down cups waiting for friends to come over and remove them.  As long as they don't appear to jump or fly, I can typically muster up the courage to turn a cup over them quickly.

You may or may not have realized what a drama queen I am up to this point.  Well now you know.  While I tend to avoid drama, bugs bring it out in me.  Last night, my neighbors got a taste of this.

I hate yard work, because it typically involves bugs touching me.  And because I have a black thumb.  I so envy my mom who plants pretty flowers and they live.  I, on the other hand, buy plants, put them on my deck to plant and promptly forget about them.  I try to remember to water them, and sometimes they live, but generally, it's not pretty.  Even full grown trees can't survive my yard - well the pretty trees at least.  The big nasty pine trees that get needles and sap all over my deck and back yard will live forever I'm sure.  Meanwhile, the beautiful tree in the front yard gets struck by lightning and is a goner.  Back to the bugs though...The other vegetation that seems to thrive are or course weeds, and the 4 annoying bushes in the front of my house.  They grow sooooooo stinking fast and also house a plethora of different species of the creepy crawlies!  Last night I came home from my run and couldn't stand it anymore - I mean, the overgrowth was starting to impede the entrance to my house.  I got out the shears and started cutting away.  The real problem is that you really have to get into plant to get to the back.  The funny part is when a bug touches me or buzzes by my ear, I fall out of the bushes and run into the yard freaking out.  Yep - I am that crazy!!!  I mean, there are all kinds of weird webs in there - so creepy!
And the result was - yes the front of my house is now presentable again AND I have no less than 15 massive bug bites on my legs.  Not cool!
The funny thing is that I love camping and hiking and being outdoors - maybe having the support of others helps me with the bugs in those situations, who knows.  Yes, I'm crazy.  It's fine. :-)
That's all the confessions I have actually - I hate bugs.  Oh, and I know I owe you an post on God's calling and fear to follow.  Still working on that.  I'm going to the beach for the week on Saturday, so hopefully I'll have time to reflect some more there!

Reconciliation

I have a whole lot of thoughts I need to write down.  Hopefully there's time in the next few days for writing and posting.  I went to the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit on Thursday and Friday (there was a simulcast at my church and it was considered professional development for work :-)).  God was working on some things in my life before then and the Summit just continued to reinforce some of the things I've been thinking about praying about.  More about that later...

 

But first! I had a great visit with one of my best friends Wendy and her sweet daughter C.  C is a tiny little peanut, but is sooooo full of joy and light and personality, even when she's not feeling great.  I wish I would have snapped a picture of her in the car, she was quite the little entertainer!!  We went to Storyville and she loved watching and playing with the other kids there!

C loves rocking and talking on the phone.  I feel so so blessed to be a part of this family's lives!!  I have a couple of great friends with little ones and am really thankful I get to watch them grow up.








After the Summit, I am really contemplating and praying more than ever about how God wants to use me.  I want to see Him do things that only He can accomplish.  Watching Caitlin have complete faith in her parents reminds me of how my faith should be more like that of a child.  I know God has great things in store, but I'm so scared about what He might call me to do.  In fact, I have a post written about it, but I'm not ready to post it yet.  It just feels too real when you write it down for others to see.  Soon though, I promise!!

I was really fired up though, about something that happened at the Leadership Summit and wanted to process it with you all.  For those of you who aren't familiar, Willow Creek is a very large non-denominational church in the Chicago, IL area.  They held their first Summit in 1995 and now it is simulcast to over 185 sites in the US and to leaders in 200 cities across the World.  What's really amazing is that they don't ask only Christian leaders to speak.  They invite leaders from all over the business world to share their expertise.  This was my second year attending and I got soooo much out of it!  I have a lot to share about the speakers and what I learned, but today I wanted to share about one speaker in particular.  I was really looking forward to hearing from Howard Schultz, the CEO of Starbucks.  He seems to be an extremely bright, innovative and introspective leader and thought that a lot could be learned from him as he was going to speak on his new book Onward.  Unfortunately, Mr. Schultz backed out of his speaking engagement just days before the Summit began.   No one has said for certain his reasoning for backing out at the last minute, however, it's notable that a petition on change.org was started to encourage people to boycott Starbucks if he spoke, due to Willow Creek's supposed anti-gay practices.  The petition is now noted as a victory on the website.  Some 700 people signed petition, compared to over 150,000 people attending the event.  I want to say first, that I acknowledge that I can't fathom the discrimination and hate many in the gay community feel.  I don't claim to have experienced that or pretend that I know what it's like.  However, I was taught from a young age, and still believe, that two wrongs don't make a right.   I also thinks it's important to know all the facts before you make judgments, rather than act harshly based on assumptions.  I was saddened for so many reasons when Bill Hybels, the pastor at Willow, made this announcement.  The sadness was quickly replaced with great respect, however, at his response.  The first thing he clarified is that "Willow is not anti anybody." In fact, he explained that they had many regular attenders at their church who are gay.  He also explained that Willow let Mr. Schultz out of the contract with no penalty.  He went on to ask us to write an email to starbucks.com, but not to boycott, rather to share our disappointment and invite him back in the future with genuine Christian love. On top of that, the Pastor also encouraged us to go buy Starbucks to support them, rather than follow the trend of hate.  What most impressed me is that the leadership of the Summit is now trying to engage those who started to petition in a meeting with a spirit of reconciliation.  Friends, that is loving others.  Seeing actions based on hurt, and rather than attempting to hurt in retaliation, trying to understand the root with a heart of love and reconciliation.  Continuing to spread hate is not that answer and I hope that something great could actually come out of this unfortunate circumstance.  I've seen many other petitions like this and I know that we all aren't always going to agree, but I hope will all my heart that we will all work for reconciliation!

Finally Feeling Bloggy

Man, I have been in a funk.  And for no good reason!! Life is spectacular.  I am encouraged and hopeful about my church.  I had a great time speaking about Mexico at Exit.  Work has been busy and enjoyable.  My time with my friends has been fantastic!! (more on that later)  I switched gyms and am feeling much more motivated to work out, which in turn makes me feel great.  Yet, my mood has just been blah.  Although, as I recount these things to you all, my attitude is changing for the better.  Maybe it's just a matter of focusing my mind on the right things!!  Let's hope this is the beginning to the end of this funk!
Oh - in other good news, I remembered how to cut a mango!  Here's the proof!

Yum, right?!


I was thinking last night that I truly do have the most amazing friends ever.  Have I mentioned what good cooks so many of them/you are?! It may not seem like much, but just sharing a meal can be such an extravagant gift!
We also did a Sunday Dinner this week and I was overwhelmed with gratitude for the friends (old and new!) filling my house!  Cherish your relationships - they are irreplaceable!
On Sunday we also voted on a name for our Fantasy Football League and picked the draft order.  Apparently the big pong ball method is the proper way to do it, and my name was picked last - so that means I get the first draft pick.  I LOVE football, but I need to do some research!
Yeah - I realize this is all over the place.  It's one of those weeks!