Blog Soup

July 22, 2009

I have several things I need to say (before I forget), so this is a leftover-thought-soup-type-post. Prepare to chase some rabbits.

Recently I entered a contest at Jill's blog to win a really awesome beach bag/purse. It took me a while to actually enter the contest because I couldn't stop laughing at her humiliating beach story. You need to read it.

So, this is my new bag:

I am not at the prom, in case you were wondering. Luke took this picture Monday night at Vacation Bible School in front of the waterfall I made. Also, I'd like to point out that the double-chin is an illusion created when a 48 3/4 inch person takes your picture from below.

See? No double chin in this picture that my Mom took later. But then the flabby arm illusion is created. I can't win. You can also see my new outcropping of freckles that I acquired at the Guin Waterpark with the kids earlier in the day. (We won't mention that you can see my bra strap, too, because that would not be classy.)

We had a great time at the Waterpark. More pictures to come later...

Finally, as I mentioned, we are having VBS at our church this week. Monday night I taught a lesson about Jesus walking on the water. I asked the kids how that story shows us that Jesus was God's Son. This guy (Luke J. ) came up with a great answer:

"Because he looked like Jesus."

Exactly. There you go.

Are you a chameleon?

June 19, 2009
(This may be my women's ministry devotional for July. I haven't decided yet.)

I don't know why I even saw it. I was "working" (i.e., Facebooking, blogging, twittering, etc.) when it caught my eye. (Do you see it?)It probably thought it was undetectable.

It was. Almost.

Some slight movement it made grabbed my attention. As soon as I figured out what I was looking at, I grabbed the camera and took its picture through the window. I guess I made a little noise as I rattled the blinds to get a clear shot.

Next thing I knew, it was gone. There wasn't a trace of it having ever been there.

This is what I captured on film (same picture as before, just zoomed in...):Of course, you knew early on that I was talking about a chameleon. (The title alone gave that away.) What if I was talking about faith, though? Is your faith something that people readily see and identify, or does it blend in?

Sometimes the faith of others is as evident as their bowed heads in a crowded restaurant at mealtime. Sometimes it's murky, at best, when you see a person with a "Jesus fish" on the back of their car acting like Satan himself in traffic.

I want my faith to be obvious. I know it isn't always, but I don't want people to wonder if I'm a Christian or not. I really want to shout without the necessity of speaking that I love Jesus Christ and that He is the source of my joy. But, like the chameleon, my fear, my shyness, my whatever excuse occurs to me that day keeps me quiet. I certainly don't want people to have to really get close to figure out what they are looking at. I want everything about me to show that I am a Christian. I don't want to blend into this world we live in.

As Christians, we don't wear a specific style of dress or always have a certain symbol on our person that identifies us for who we are. It's our attitudes, our words, and our actions that speak on our behalf. In 1 John 3:18, John challenged Christians with this gentle edict, "Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue but in deed and truth." Jesus asked the same thing of us in Matthew 5: 16 by instructing us to "let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." Hiding our faith is completely counterproductive. God wants us to do good works in order to glorify Him. The only way to do that is to let our faith be as evident as the nose on our faces--just out there for all the world to see.