News from the Home Front

I might be an addict. I at least act like one.

I just spent the last 40 minutes on facebook looking at pictures and videos of family.

I text back and forth with my dad (who does that?) and I call my mom on the way to class and work (hey, a 10 minute walk, that's plenty of time for news from the home front!

Not a day has gone by for several weeks that I haven't mentioned to someone (more than not, my two roommates) that I'll be home in just [x-number] of days.

I love to hear that Dad did okay on his STATs test and the Mom spent hours at the print shop. I like that I'm talking with my friends about our July vacation in October and that I often say, "Me and my sisters listened to this on our road trip to Nashville" with enthusiasm. I'm glad that Kat and Josh have started a new Bible study, that Kara's gotten so many residency interviews, and that Emily has goofy friends filling her room with phonebook pages. Any photos of Dolly just light up my face.

You see, I'll be home in just a few days and the suspense is teasing me. I measure my tasks against, "Oh, I'll be home soon, so don't worry about it," or, "If I can just make it til Thursday..." Like an addict, these sort of rationalizations in the face of my addiction don't make much sense. But as of now, I can't help it. I love these people.

Soon enough I'll get my bi-monthly fix, I guess, and I may return to normal. We'll see.

It has been far too long since any of us has posted here. It is 2 a.m. and I just finished reading ALL the posts from the beginning. I was missing the gathered group. My heart is full of love for you all. My favorite "thing" of all time is family. Nothing beats the comfort and familiarity of being with people you don't have to impress, you love and you can laugh with.

Bustling together to prepare for a Thanksgiving meal, lining up in red with wings and chili to watch the Buckeyes or bunching up on couches to read the Christmas story and then open gifts are all quintessential pictures of the "fullness of life" in the here and now. I know that someday every tear will be dried and all sickness healed - but in the meantime - it doesn't get any better than family en masse.

Inherited?

I am not sure if this is true or if the bible says anything at all remotely close to the statement I am about to make, but I feel like one of my spiritual gifts I inherited from my mother. Don’t get me wrong, I know that I was given these gifts from Holy Spirit, but sometimes I wonder if Holy Spirit gives families similar gifts. I may be totally off base, but I feel like I received the gift and the heart of intercessor because of my mom.

Growing up I feel like there were hundreds of times I would come home from school, or wake up on a lazy Saturday morning/afternoon to find my mom sitting in her “devotional” spot. (Far left side of the couch, under a lamp, next to a side table, bible open, glasses on, coffee steaming). My mom not only LOVES the word of God, but she LOVES praying for her family. I know she carries a photo of all of us in her Bible and moves along the picture praying over each of our lives. I fully believe it is partly due to my mom’s dedication, consistency, and “ferocious” prayers that I made it to where I am today. Heck, it’s due to those prayers that I made it out of my teenage years alive…seriously.

I believe that the prayers of the saints move things that wouldn’t have moved had they not prayed. Marriages stay together, depression is broken, bodies are healed, minds are renewed, and hearts are restored. My mom did that/does that for all of us. She is gluing everything together with her prayers. She is sealing the metaphorical seal in the heavenly realms of our destinies and moving mountains through her warrior intercession.

Now that I am on the other side of my parents raising me and I am carving out my own path and walk with the Lord, I feel the spirit of an intercessor growing inside of me. Ministry time at church/small group has become one of my favorite parts of the week and some of my most intimate moments with the Lord are when I am in prayer for others. Be it someone standing right in front of me, our country, our president, my family, etc. the Lord continues to give me the words to pray and draw me deeper into his chamber and his arms. And even if she didn’t exactly give me the gift her self, she gave me the gift of her example and I am thankful.

I'm glad she's ferocious

You know that feeling?
The feeling when your soul starts to stretch toward the light of God in the way the leaves of the green plants literally move with sunlight?
The feeling that there's a breeze ever so gently encouraging the steps your tired feet take toward God, be they ever so small?
The feeling which leaves you sorrowful at your separation from real relationship with Jesus yet gives you slight hope for each effort made to mend it?
That's a feeling of a prayer prayed for you.

Thanks for being ferocious, Ma. I need you to be just that. So that I can live into and beyond that feeling.

Bring on the connection: in response to "Online Chatting"

This whole connection through the internet thing is interesting to me. I'm not exactly sure how I feel because I really do value that person-to-person contact, but, like you said, some contact seems to be better than none. I like knowing what my hallway and classroom buddies are doing, and that quick connection with the occaisional coffee-date friend is nice.

My real dilemma is this: were we made to keep contact with those people we wouldn't normally have kept in contact with? Is it necessary to keep up on the little things? Are we created to have such stretched relational capacities? Has God blessed us with this complete (?) connect-ability, or has the Adversary confused us?

I don't think there are easy answers to any of the above questions and I'm trying to figure out how to balance answering them and living within them.

What I know I do love, however, is the accessibility the internet gives me to those I definitely should be connected to--like my family. Thus, I uphold the facebooking, emailing, texting, and chatting with the ones I do long to see, touch, smell, know. So, when it comes to you all, my lovely family, bring on the connection!

Life's Work, Prayer and Conviction

My life’s work has been the raising of you girls. There may be something else coming, I’m not certain. But generally I have found it a satisfying and enjoyable lifework. As you have grown up it has become even more full of pleasure and joy because of the hours I have to myself. I was always one to enjoy my own company. And yet, I get lonely and look forward to the end of each day and Friday evenings when I’ll have my family around me. But for me to have hours and hours alone—in solitude, was a great balm to my soul. I spent much of that time in everyday activities: cleaning, laundry, cooking, etc. but many hours were spent with God in prayer and Bible study. Never did I take that time for granted.

The time I spend in prayer for each of you is significant in a real way to your lives. When I pray for you—it’s like I’m with you—making a difference in your life. There is a special understanding and affection cultivated in prayer that comes by no other means of expression. A blessing is extended that changes things and brings protection and wisdom and goodness into your life. The Spirit mysteriously honors such requests with power and action.

I have great regard for the grownup people you girls have become. I could not love you more. I have watched every moment of your lives when you were still at home and follow still as much as I can now with facebook, texting, emails and the occasional phone call. The courage and passion I held to through the years deciding to stay at home and raise my own children—really raise them—looks awkward and provincial to people now. I stand up tall and declare: It was not a mistake. And God has honored the choice and we have suffered very little materially for it. We have held things loosely and learned not to miss the vacations we didn’t get to take and the new cars we didn’t drive. I would do it all again. I am ferocious about this.

Online Chating

As nerdy as it may sound, I love chatting online. This love started back when I was 15 and first became introduced to the internet. I quickly became engrossed in Instant Messenger (IM). Before IM I would spend 2-3 hours on the phone with friends till my ears were to hot to stand holding the phone anymore. Once IM came out my little 15 year old life changed. I could be talking to a friend on the phone and simultaneously talking to 3 or 4 friends on IM. It was brilliant. I loved coming home from school and logging on to hear that little bleep noise that means you have a message.

Pretty quickly I realized that I could type to more friends online if I lost the phone...So I stopped talking and began typing. Who knows what about. Random stuff. Sending each other smiley faces and hearts probably...Actually I don't know when the face icon came around so maybe I wasn't doing that from the begining... :)

When I was a sophmore in Highschool I wanted to take a typing class because I knew it would be an easy "A." IM gave me my keyboarding education. I would be talking to 10-15 people all at once telling them all stories and trying to keep up. Today I can type like 65 wpm consistently. Impressive I know.

Somewhere along the line IM died. I am not 100% sure but I think it is once facebook (FB) came out. IM turned into away messages and idle usernames. It became a ghost town. I think I was a spohmore in College before it really faded away. I love stalking people FB, but I am not gunna lie...I missed chatting with friends.

Recently, I switched e-mail address to gmail and discovered g-chat. It's good, but you can only chat with other people who have e-mail address with gmail. THEN, FB came out with Facebook Chat. It's wonderful. I am not on it to often but, everynow and then I will get to catch up with someone who I haven't spoke to in a really long time. Even though it isn't as personal as a phone call it get's the "stay-in-contact" job done.

Maybe I am being to impersonal and distant, but honestly I probably wouldn't ever talk on the phone to some of my friends that I FB chat with so I say it's better to type than to never talk. I am part of "generation y" what do you want from me?

True or false...i googled what generation I am in. Generation y aka The Net Generation, Millennials, Echo Boomers, and iGeneration.