The Curveballs

With baseball on the verge of playoffs and the World Series on the horizon I’ve been pondering the curveballs that life tends to throw us.

Just when we decide we’re going to stay in our Waynesboro apartment and revisit the “seminary dream” next fall, we get a letter of acceptance.  Just when we think we can do it on one income and stay in our apartment, we get a letter telling us how much we have to pay on our school loans.  Just when we don’t have any idea how we’re going to do it, a dear friend agrees to become our roommate.  I could go on and on about the varying degree of curveballs life has sent our way and I’m sure you could list your own as well.

As I’ve been praying and thinking this week I have found that I’m grateful for the curveballs.  These are the moments in life where I am stretched.  Yes, I often feel an array of unpleasant emotions during these times, like anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment, and fear.  However, looking back after I have dealt with an issue I have learned the most during those times than the happy, easy going moments.

I have a Beatles quote tattooed on my left foot.  It’s from Strawberry Fields and it reads; “Living is easy with eyes closed.” I chose this line for a variety of reasons, namely because when I went to college I was very naive.  I thought I had life figured out and knew where I was headed:  my eyes were closed.  After 2 years of college and MANY experiences later I realized that life can be difficult.  Life isn’t always what you think it’s going to be.  Life does throw curveballs.  In that moment my eyes were opened.  Living is not always easy.  However, I had also veered away from my relationship with God and my belief system.

This tattoo is a constant reminder of where I’ve come from.  As I look forward to a life in ministry I have reached just the tip of the ice berg, but I truly feel like living is also easy with eyes open, BUT only with God by my side.  Life is never going to stop throwing those curveballs.  It’s always going to be the bottom of the 9^th sometime and those balls are going to keep coming.  I suppose what I’m trying to say in a lot of words is God is my baseball bat and he can hit those curveballs right out of the park as long as I pick Him up in the dugout.

Have a great weekend and be a blessing!  LOVE! 

Live Worthy of Your Calling

When I was about 15 years old the minister at our church made a comment to me that I should seriously consider a life in ministry.  At the time I had so many plans for what I wanted for my life I brushed it off.  Throughout my adolescence and young adulthood I have come back to those words often.  Even once contemplating leaving Shenandoah and going to another school to study Religion.  It was not until I met Jeffrey that Pastor Jim’s words rang clearly throughout my mind and my heart.  Something stirred within me that I had locked up, something blossomed and filled me with a desire to serve the Lord.

Three years later and here I am: Director of Music Ministry, working in an infant room at a ministry/faith based Nursery School, and married to a Seminarian.

I’ve been trying to do devotionals every evening… now sometimes I find reasons not to do them such as I’m too tired, I have too much to do, or I REALLY want to catch up on last week’s episode of Glee.  But on the nights that I do… I sleep better, I wake up the next morning more refreshed, and I ALWAYS read something that directly applies to what I’ve been dealing with in life.  Tonight was no different.

I entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.  Ephesians 4:1-3

Despite feeling a calling, working in the area I feel called by God to work in, and believing in my call there are many times during a day, or a week, or a month that I do not feel worthy of such a call.  Being humble, patient, and gentle 24/7 has proved to be quite a tall order.  I am constantly finding myself wishing I had been more loving in a conversation with a member of a committee or scolding myself for not being diligent in being a contributing member of the team. 

Then it gets even bigger and scarier… when people find out I am married to a man going to seminary or the wife of a Pastor, how will they perceive my calling?  Will they feel I am walking with Jesus in a manner worthy of the calling as a partner of a Man of God?  If I am not always able to live worthy of my call how can I support, encourage and engage my husband in his walk with Christ?

How do we as Christians remind ourselves of these duties we are earnestly asked to do?  

I ask you, my dear friends, not as a rhetorical questions, but hoping for genuine thoughts… so please comment! 

Have a lovely week… and as I always say to Jeffrey as he heads off to work, “Be a blessing!”

PEACE!!

What do you think the title means?

"Faith is taking the first step even when you don't see the whole staircase." ~Martin Luther King Jr


I officially met Jeff in the fall of 2009, we had known of each other for four years prior as his mother was the pastor at our church. The first thing I found out about him was that he was called to a life in ministry.  He told me that God had called him to be a pastor and he was going to do anything to make it happen.  The next thing he told me is that he knew there was something special about me the first time he had heard me sing in 2006.  I knew then that I was in love.

Fast forward 3 years and now he is my husband...

                          ...and we are embarking on a wild, wonderful, terrifying, exciting adventure into seminary.

When the acceptance letter arrived mid July we were ECSTATIC!  Scream, hug, cry, laugh, jump up and down, repeat.  God had answered our prayers and we were going to seminary.  

As we came down from the high reality set in and we realized we had absolutely NO clue what we were getting into... In our moment of clarity Jeff looked at me with tears in his eyes and said, "I'm so afraid I'm going to let you down."  In a split second all of my fears and questions (how can we do it on one income?  where are we going to live?  how are we going to pay for it? and so on.) fell away and I knew in that moment I was called by God not only to be this man's wife, but eventually be this pastor's wife.  I looked straight into his eyes and said, "God called you to this choice, as long as you follow that call, you can't let either of us down."  6 months before he even set foot in a classroom, here I was pastor-ing the pastor...

We're standing at the top of the stairs, looking down through fog and cannot see the rest of the staircase... but with each other, our families, our friends, our churches, and most importantly our God, we're going to trust our faith foundations and come down off the landing onto the first step.  

Thank you for going on this journey with us!

Until next time!
In Christ's Peace