I have not felt up to writing or blogging for so long, and have stared at blank pages so often I quit showing up. Then, today I was responding to a post of a dear friend, thedianestory.wordpress.com, and realized about half way through that I was writing a blog. Too funny!  I have decided to post it as a blog, with a few minor changes.

- All references to He (capitalized) is God.

Sweetie, I find myself in a similar revelation (again, and at 54), that in my most broken place I am right where He wants me. I think this is because when we are in Him, and less of our “selves” (you know…our personal strengths and talents, are showing) this is where He wants us. I don’t think it is about our circumstances at all, but about our relationship, our loss of self-ability, our character. It is what goes to heaven to live with Him forever, so it matters most. Who we are. That is what matters. And, when we are so “in Him”, even out of desperation, we are right where He wants us.

Remember Carman? He intro’s a song by saying, “What are you doing under the circumstances? Get out of there!” And then he sings, “God don’t care what the circumstance, He just wants your faith and trust in Him.”

He does care about our circumstances, but wants us to care about Him and trust Him with the circumstances. About the time we think we have gone through enough and gotten this one, here comes another, deeper layer. And we are good for it. Because He says so.

I kept thinking I was surely hitting the bottom of the bottom of the bottom this year, over and over I lay there waiting to hit. Then one day I got it! The scripture that says, “and underneath are the Everlasting Arms”, and the song, “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”. The scripture that says, “between His shoulders”. I understood them. But now I KNOW them! I never hit bottom! Because underneath ME are the Everlasting arms, cradling me, bringing me up to His heart, holding me between His shoulders. I am not only leaning on the Everlasting Arms, but resting in them.

Activity is neccessary (in scripture as when Rebecca watered the camels) when it is time, but Mary rested at His feet and listened to Him, heard His heart-beat, learned of Him. And He said that was the better choice. Mary surely did stuff, too, but knew when to stop and rest, not needing to work for approval or to be defined by service.

Jesus’ mother, Mary pondered in her heart, quietly and privately, keeping things to herself and not making anything happen that was promised. She left it to God to make things happen, no matter what it translated into her life, without trying to fix anything or make it more comfortable or pleasing to her herself, her parents, the people in her community, or community of faith.

When we go through the seasons we find ourselves in, we come out KNOWING deeply, experiencing - and even deeper than experience - just knowing-that-we-know with greater faith, trust and rest.

Keep on, honey. You are not alone. So many are being fired together, though differently/personally, and will come out shining brightly and fired (see blog on Forged in the Fire and Hammered) in strength for what we were made to be. I love you always.

(Did I just write a blog? I haven’t felt up to it! hilarious!)

The other day I decided I had better check up on my blog site. It has been so long since I have written or even stopped in.  I had a note from my friend SarahBee, including a link to her new blog.

I clicked on her link and read her blog. It was fun reading. She is participating in a Trade. She calls it Bigger or Better and it is inspired by Kyle MacDonald. The idea is to post items you have for trade, and  you are to trade up each time. Hopefully you will, within a certain amount of trades, have something substantial you desire without waiting until you can earn the money. I guess people use Craig’s List for this.

As I read about her adventure in trade-land, I had a flashback of the happy kind. A memory from my high school years.

As I grew up, we attended a church as a family that started small. We met for worship above a music store. I believe the original “charter members” of this church were a total of 15, including us. As time went on, this church congregation grew under a wonderful and powerful pastor who preached a lot of hell fire and brimstone type messages. As a side note, he had a glass eye, which as a young, naive child I didn’t understand and I stood on the wrong side of this man every time I wanted his attention. (smile)

Our family moved regularly, but we always ended up back in our “home” city/town, coming and going but always at home in the original church family we had been a part of. I think originally the church bus had come around and given my sister a ride to church, then she brought us all. Thanks, Diana!

Eventually, before I was in high school this church merged with another church and the other pastor became our pastor. The church grew and expanded and built another building. The youth group was large enough to fill the old church sanctuary, and this became our meeting area.

By the time I was in youth group, we had youth pastors, a young couple with small children and lots of energy and creative ideas leading us. I have many fun memories of these years, and some very special and precious memories of lessons learned as well.

One night we had a youth event that had been prepared for us by our most fabulous youth leaders. It was called a Texas Trade.

We were divided into teams of 10 people, with a mix of male and female on each team. There were a couple of hundred of us, so we had a lot of teams. Each team was assigned a specific area of our city, and given a map of that area with the borders marked of the territory they were to “work”.

Each team was taken to the border of their territory and left as a group. Each team started this trade the same, with 2 raw eggs and some postcards identifying the youth group and the church. (I wish back then things were photographed as often as we do now. We should have been equipped with cameras and cam-corders. From the time we were dropped at our territory, each team was on foot the remainder of the time, all the way back to the church afterward.

The team traded speakers at each house, giving each of us an opportunity to be the “salesperson”. We knocked on a door, and when someone opened, we said, “Good evening. We are from * church youth group and we are competing in a Texas Trade. We have here these 2 fresh, raw eggs and would like to trade one of them for any item you have that you would like to get rid of.”  Then, we would accept the item they brought us, no matter what it was. And, of course we would leave them the church’s card and an invitation to the Sunday Service where the winning team would be announced and the total amount of proceeds revealed. We would explain that the next day, Saturday would be yard sale day of the items the teams came back with. They were invited to come and shop, too of course! One of the rules of the “game” was that any item we accepted had to be carried back to the church by the team! No cars or trucks allowed.

At the  next house, we would knock and say our speach and then say we have here one fresh, raw egg and (in our case) a cooked but fresh pork chop. At the next house, it was one fresh, cooked pork chop and one baby washcloth, and so on it went. We did have a time constraint to bring us in off the street early and keep us from knocking on doors past a reasonable hour.

The fun was in seeing all the “loot” that the teams managed to bring in. A working refrigerator, huge stuffed animals, a table and chairs, a recliner, great clothing and on it went. The yard sale was terrific and the proceeds went to the youth group for a mission trip to Mexico. It was great fun, and kept us out of trouble for the entire weekend!

We also had many neighbors show up to church to see what whacked-out place would send their youth out for such a crazy thing. Many of those neighbors became our friends as time went along.

I am glad Sarah posted her blog and jolted my warm memory to the front.

So, stop by Sarahbee’s website at http://beehalo.wordpress.com/ . She has a fine looking drink pitcher available for trade, and a BBQ as well. Go by and check it out!

              

A couple of days before this past holiday weekend (labor day), my nephews wife, Leah chimed in on me on facebook chat. I have been chatting with Dan, but not usually Leah so I was surprised and very glad.
She asked if they could come up for a visit this weekend. I said, sure and promptly offered my brother and sisters’ place as the gathering place. My how generous of me! (smile)
They do have the nicest place, the most space, one of my neices and her family next door and oh, so importantly…the BBQ!
              
Sunday after church we all met together in Myke and Teri’s back yard. Dan and Leah came. Lynda came over to visit a moment and her husband Josh came and brought Owyn. Sadly, the girls were having dad visits this weekend (sadly for us, not for them), but we very much enjoyed Owyn, and the new kitten Buckles.
                    
Buckles is an outdoor kitty, and is used to conquering the wild. But, he was no match for Owyn! Buckles jumped up on Owyn to visit, and Owyn grabbed him by the head and neck, pulled him to his mouth and ate his face!
It was too hilarious! He ended up having Buckles by the ears and after the first few photos, I realized I really needed to rescue Buckles! Owyn had half his face in his mouth and when I pulled the kitty back from him, his face and especially his eye was soaked in baby slobber. I made sure that Buckles would be alright, and then felt free to bust up laughing.
           
Needless to say, Buckles sat with his little back to us for quite some time as he bathed. He should have bathed Owyn, too. Owyn had all the dirt from the outdoor kitty blended in with baby drool on his face and tummy. But, oh how happy this baby was.
             
In tribute to Buckles, he never once scratched or bit the baby, and didn’t even try. Not even when half his face was in baby boy’s mouth and Aunt Shelley was snapping digital pictures.

It is obvious from the pictures that the two babies were the center of attention the entire visit, about 6 and a half to seven hours of backyard catching up time. But we did very much enjoy seeing Dan and Leah and the visit was wonderful! We are all looking forward toseeing them more often now. So glad to see you kids!
            
And, notably, Uncle Myke (Owyn’s grandpa) was up to BBQ-ing for us, and the burgers were yummy! Myke is still on dialysis 3 days a week, and was standing on a broken foot to cook for us. He has had this broken foot since May, and is to have a cast in 2 days from now. Don’t even ask me how I feel about all of this!
Owyn in PaPa’s bobber shaped floating ice chest!

     

 

But, tonight was prayer night at their house, with Gene and I coming over to pray with them. Their granddaughters came in, the oldest prayed over her PaPa’s foot and we all felt a change in it. It was the sweetest prayer I have ever heard. She asked God to heal him of all the need for special diets so she could take him to lunch!
Tears in Aunt Shelley and Grammy’s eyes. Such a sweet girl!

We love you, Kaitlyn Rose!

I so wish the girls were there for the family gathering and the BBQ. They are so fun to have around. I love each one of Lynda’s girls for who they are and what they bring to the family times. I missed them!

A Dear friend of mine emailed me to get my blog address so she could read this story again. I realized as I was looking through my blog that I didn’t have this story here, I had it posted in a note on facebook. This post, starting with the words The Good News is written by Larry Grammer, my good friend, and is shared with permission. It has had such an impact on so many who have read it, that I have decided to share it here with you.

I hope it touches your life as it has mine.  ShelleyJo

The Good News,

My friend Mitch told me this is a story the should be shared. So I share this hoping to lift the spirits of those who wonder ” Does God REALLY know ME or MY circumstances, or does he even CARE?” You decide… I have as of this date 30 years, 8 months and19 days of being Clean and Sober. I say that, to say this… About fifteen years ago I felt I should start a Twelve Step Program. With the program based on Biblical principals. Using Jesus as the Higher Power etc. I found a church that would let me use a room at no cost, and set up shop for every Tuesday evening at 7pm. As AA always starts at 8pm, I wouldn’t overlap with them. So, my first Tues.evening meeting, I set up the room, stand at the door and wait for all of the people that will surely come. Thinking “This is going to be GREAT, I wonder how many 20,30?” 8:15pm comes and I realize NO ONE is coming. OK well, I’ll just print more handouts etc. Next week they will come. I did this with the same results for two months. Had I really been wrong ? Had I not heard God correctly ? I felt like a fool. I cant for the life of me remember HOW I met “ZIGGY” ( His Street name) But I do know that I met him with all this new knowledge, from the past two months. Over the next few weeks, we built up some trust, I brought him home. which was a little scary by the way, with 5 children at home, Took him to church and became his Sponsor. I also took over his finances for him. Shortly thereafter we found him an apartment and kind of settled in. We made it just over 12 months before Ziggy “Fell of the wagon” So we picked him up, dusted him off and went for it again. This lasted about a week and it was ALL downhill after that. He went back on the street. I went to his rescue a few times. I even went to a house and took a gun from him one evening. I saw him a few times during the next few years, just to say hi in passing. Then he was gone..Now forward to 6 days ago. I pick up the morning paper and on the front page is a story about Ziggy falling ill at the City Plaza. A Policeman had preformed CPR and kept him alive until medics had arrived. He has been hospitalized at the local hospital. That evening after work I went to the hospital , Coronary care ICU…told the nurse our story and was allowed to go to him. There Ziggy was, tubes everywhere. On a ventilator. I stood there thinking of all we had been thru, Of how that could of been me very easily, had I not made some different choices. I thought I should say something, after all they say people in a coma” hear.” Then I felt the Lord say “Its ALL been said, say Nothing” So I turned around and left. I checked on him everyday thereafter, With no good news. Then this last Sunday, Ziggy passed away, never waking up. Needless to say It was hard, I had this heavyness about me. It was numbing, No feelings and lots of feelings. I had lost the battle for ziggy’s life. I had failed. As I sat here in my recliner last night, my wife Suzanne came in from a prayer class she had just attended and said she had some news for me. She said a lady at the class had come up to her and asked if her husband was grieving, or had just lost someone. She said yes and the ladies reply has ROCKED MY WORLD. Her reply was ” The Lord wants your husband to know that ZIGGY (NO ONE at that meeting knew his streetname) is with Me. I LOVE him and he is Happy. Tell your husband that the SEEDS he planted many years ago DID NOT fall on fallowed ground ” So there you go. The answere is YES he DOES CARE, and He knows ALL abut what you are going thru. Even to plan years in advance for us. So let it be said….GOD IS GREAT…Love you guys…..Larry

                                                                                 

I have had this idea for years, possibly 15-20 years now, but have never seen the opportunity to try it before.      

It really gelled about 15 years ago when a dear friend moved to another state. She had a computer that she watched DVD’s on, but I didn’t have a computer yet, and didn’t have a DVD player either. I had a VCR, though. 

I remember thinking, too bad we don’t have the same type of player so we can both watch the same movie at the same time! I didn’t think DVD and VCR would be in sync, so I never brought it up.  I really missed her. We didn’t actually watch movies together, or even go to the show, but when she was so far away I thought it would be a great way to share time together. Then there was the issue  of how to communicate when we were starting the movie and how to actually share it together.

After this, the thought came to me occasionally when I would think of one of my sister-in-laws who lives a couple of states away from me. We weren’t really getting as close as others because of distance, and neither household had enough money to visit.

Much time has passed since my original thoughts of all of this, and it dawned on me last week that things have changed for so many of us. We have computers with social networking, online chats, cell phones, text messaging, and we all have DVD players now! Hmmm.

So, late last week when this sister-in-love (we are sisters by love, not by law),  and I were chatting online, she mentioned that my baby brother was going out of town to go to a game with their pastor. They were going to spend some much needed “guy time”, so the women of the house were not invited this time. My sister said that she and my niece had thought they might watch a chick flick since he would be gone all evening the next day.                                                              

I asked her which chick flick they would watch. She said maybe the Princess Diaries, since that was one they had on hand and enjoyed so much. I told her about my idea and said, let me know when you are going to watch it! I will watch it with you from here. Then, I explained the plan.    

The next evening we were in a chat again, and I asked when they were going to watch it. She said my niece wasn’t in the mood at the time, and we can chat for hours. So I said, we don’t have to stay on chat. We can click out of here any time we want and watch the movie.       

So, plans were made. We both had Princess Diaries, we would both pop popcorn to eat while watching and set up something to drink, then plug the  movie in, watch the neccessary previews and stop it at the beginning of the actual movie intro. Then text the other and say we were ready.

I text her and said I was ready. A few moments later she said she was too, so we clicked play and texted our comments about it. Throughout the movie we would send a text about our reactions to what we were seeing, and we were in complete sync in each of our houses. 

We both love Joe!                           

 

We love Fat Louie, especially in his crown and on his pillow! 

I actually texted a couple of my favorite lines or quotes so that I would remember them later.

One was a conversation between Joe and Mia when her friend was rough on her for changing her appearance:   

Joe: No one can make you feel inferior without your permission.                                                        

Mia: Eleanor Roosevelt said that.      

Joe: Another fine lady such as yourself.                    

And:

 

We both loved the voice of Mia’s father, and the message he left for her in a letter. I love the diary he left her for her 16 birthday, and the heart locket that was the key for it. I would love to have such a lovely diary.

 The message he wrote her contained the following: “Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear. The brave may not live forever, but the cautious do not live at all. From now on, you’ll be traveling the road between who you think you are, and who you can be. The key is to allow yourself to make the journey.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              

We both text the lines we enjoyed. “Goodbye, Trolly People! “        was a fav of mine.              

I loved the lines by the Von Tukens: “Someday we will own Genovia again, and you will be queen. And your face will be on a postage stamp.”  

Another line I enjoyed was the toast to the Von Tukens: : “I want to propose a toast to the baron and baroness Von Tuken. May you always be barren!”

One conversation between Joe and Mia was cute.  He was getting ready to teach her to dance, and he was explaining that the dance was between a waltz and a tango. She said, “It’s a wango?”

Another favorite moment of ours was when Mia steps on the grass visiting grandma, and over the speakers they yell, “Get off the grass!” in several languages, some quite hysterically.

There is a moment where Mia is having training to waive as a Princess, and Joe leaves. As he is leaving, they both waive and say, “Thank you for being here today!”

I enjoy Mia’s artist mother, and love the scenes of them climbing the rock wall, with all of it’s colors. I want to lose enough weight to be able to climb a rock wall. It looks like so much fun, and I do love climbing.

We would text some “here it comes, watch for it!” type of comments, as we have seen it a few times before.  We laughed a lot and enjoyed the movie together, even though we were 2 states away from each other. So funny, but it really was like being together. It was great!  When it was over, we said goodnight and said how much fun we had.          

I suggested that we take inventory of the movies we already own, then put a star by the ones we favor the most currently, the ones we would like to see again sometime soon. Email the lists to each other and mark ”same movies”, pull them to the front of our collection so they are ready to view in a moment’s notice. We don’t always have enough warning that we can have girl-time, so it would be great to have those ready. Or, if she has one I haven’t seen yet, and I know enough ahead, I could rent it for an evening.     

With me having been laid off recently, and my brother losing hours, this was a wonderful solution for entertainment and company! (We both are with the same cell phone company, so no cost for calls, and we each have text plans that allow for this kind of evening once in a while.)  

I do have some friends this wouldn’t fly with. They want to be with you, or in a theater. Some family members are always so busy I am not sure it would work with them, either, but it may. Our trial showed it not only works, it works on the spur of the moment, and is also great fun!  

I highly recommend trying this to anyone who cares to read this post. It can be adapted by using laptops if you have them (I don’t yet) and private chat, or calling on the phone instead of texting, whatever works for you and your movie buddy.