Starting Off Badly...Again

Our houses are such unwieldy property that we are often imprisoned rather than housed by them.
~Henry David Thoreau

Last week I had a roofer finally come out to inspect our roof, which was an ordeal in itself. We have no leaks but we had quite a bit of hail about a month ago and the man said we had hail damage. Wednesday the insurance adjuster was here and did not agree about the hail damage, but he did see enough wind damage to make a claim. Because the shingles are older and more brittle, it would be very difficult to replace the damaged ones without damaging more of them, and even though one side of our roof had no damage, three-fourths did have scattered damage so he totaled all the shingles on the roof. That would not include the layer of felt and extra venting that we should have and do not, but at least it will pay for nearly half of the estimate with those things included. I thought we had the roofer we wanted, but I ended up sending this email to the company:

Dear [Roof Company Owner],

About three years ago you personally came to my house and assessed it for roof damage, but my insurance company did not agree there was enough damage at that time. Still, I have recommended your company for the past three years to several people just because you personally impressed me to be a man who would do right for his customers. Because I promised you then that if I ever had any roof work to be done I would go with your company, about a month ago I called to have the roof inspected. A man answered and said that another man would be calling me to set up a date and time. Two weeks later, I called again and [the office woman] told me that a man would be calling that day plus she would call me back the next day to be sure. Again, no calls at all. Because I had some unrelated things come up, I let it go for another two weeks before I called again.

This time [your roof inspector] set up a time to inspect the roof. He said there was hail damage and gave me an estimate. We also talked about preparing an estimate for replacing the siding and a window on the south side. He took measurements and said he would get back with me. I set up a time with my insurance adjuster for Wednesday at 9:00 AM and called [the company's roof inspector] with the appointment info on Monday. He said he would be here, but he was not. Seeing he was past due, I called his cell phone leaving a message on voice mail and then called the office. [The office woman] told me she would try to do something for me, but I did not hear from anyone all day.

I now have an insurance check for replacing the shingles, because while the adjuster did not agree there was any hail damage, he could see enough wind damage to warrant the claim. I also have a house that needs its entire skin replaced and was happy to see that your company had expanded to do siding and windows. However, I need a company that is going to be reliable for the next few years as we work through the process of replacing all the siding and windows as we can afford to do it. What I do not have is any confidence that [the company name] can be trusted to do the work simply because of poor phone customer service, lack of communication, and a missed appointment.

I am sorry as I did promise you the job three years ago and I had more work to be done. I spent this time writing out my experience out of respect for you as the owner, because I think you would be concerned about how a customer was lost.

Sincerely,
[Me]

I wanted to handle this with truth in a loving way, because I have a history with bad home improvement companies, but that is a very long story I will not be getting into. I will just say that this is one of the reasons we need all our siding and windows replaced and so it has become more characteristic of me to voice my dissatisfaction far more strongly than this.

~ My Lord, guide us to a good company that will do excellent work on our roof and siding. We really need Your guidance in this area. ~

Too Long Gone

We owe something to extravagance, for thrift and adventure seldom go hand in hand. ~Jennie Churchill

My husband is finally coming home today. He has been away for nearly three weeks. I am used to him being gone during most or all weekdays—well, as used to it as one gets, I suppose—but when he is gone over the weekends as well, it wears on me. Although we talk every day, most of the time, and some days three or four times, I still feel disconnected with him when he comes home and it might be that he will be home only a few days.

I used to start a project of some sort when he was going to be gone for a longer than a week, but it is difficult with homeschooling to dive into an all-consuming project. This time my "project" was Craigslist as I found this wonderful free app for my Kindle for it. I wish I could say the main project was selling items on Craigslist, but it was more about buying items on Craigslist. Although yesterday I did sell and deliver the Loving Family dollhouse I had listed for $60 with and additional $5 for the delivery. I do have more items to place on Craigslist too, instead of waiting for the next consignment sale in the fall, but the highest priority was getting a desk for the Princess so she could reorganize her things and we could move the table she had been using into the art studio area (when it gets cleaning up) and then I could list the whiteboard/chalkboard/art easel, toy bins, and small chairs to sell, which I will be doing soon.

In the last three weeks, I bought and picked up: a shabby chic pink desk for the Princess for $45 that she adores and while it is a rough finish to cover damaged surfaces and edges, the drawers work like it is new; a rebounder (a small trampoline for working out) in like new condition for $15; a baker's rack that will be used for gardening items and plants on my front porch for $60, and a barely used Jack Lalanne Power Juicer Pro, which is the top of the line stainless steel one, for $45, but I soon realized that it missed a tool that I need to take it apart to clean it after use so I have not yet used it and I ordered it for $8 with shipping included (I know, another juicer but this one is an extractor with a larger opening so I do not have to chop up all the vegetables so much as I do with the one that does everything and wheat grass too).

I also bought some other things online: a brand new soap dispenser for $24 to match the new kitchen sink faucet my husband replaced a few months ago when the other one completely broke (our sink has four holes and the new faucet with one soap dispenser used three of them so hand soap will be in the second one, but the thing was rather expensive for being all plastic made to look like stainless steel); another rotating case for my Kindle at $9 that is lime color and lighter in weight as the other one is heavy and the elastic band is coming apart already, and that one was $35; a computer game called Rhem 4 for $6 that is supposed to be similar to the later Myst games that I loved so much, as if I will ever get time to play it, but sometimes the Princess and I play those games together for fun in the cool of the basement office during a hot afternoon and this one I will not know in advance. Since I got all these from Amazon, the shipping was free.

The Princess also bought a Zeepad and a light pink cover for it, all for $81 from Amazon, with her gift money saved from Christmases and birthdays, so now she has her own tablet and does not need to ask me for my Kindle to play games. It is pretty decent for the price. Yesterday while shopping in a Whole Foods store she was busy on her Zeepad. I thought she was playing a game and I was about to say something, but then I realized she was thumb typing or texting but on email (I am probably behind on the proper tech terms). She was typing an email to her father because she saw that Wi-Fi was available. I looked at it and told her that while it was available, she was not yet connected, so we did that.

This is an odd age and it comes with strange feelings. I like that she was emailing her father, just sharing her day with him, but I also did not like her being distracted when she should be spending the time with me as I shopped. Still, this was only one time and she is a pretty balanced child. When she first got her Zeepad I thought she would be glued to it for at least a day or two, but she went out that evening and the next day to play with a friend. We both have come to realize that she cannot play games or even read in the car much as it makes her car sick—I now feel terrible that I used to make her do some lessons in the car, about which she would fight with me and I thought she was just being stubborn. She is stubborn about admitting to it being motion sickness though, she still tries to say it is the smell in the van, but she is now conceding that it happens in every vehicle.

There is more to write about that happened when my husband was gone, but his plane has landed and I will be seeing him in about an hour. I feel bad that he is coming home to a woman ready to fall apart physically maybe, emotionally...even more probable. I was hoping I would be in a better condition so we could just enjoy each other when he returns. I have a few more minutes so there is still hope.

~ My Lord, so much has gone on and so little of it was for You. I want to be closer to You so I can be closer to the ones I love and the ones who need Your love. ~

Love at Hand

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
~1 Corinthians 13:2

The gift of prophecy is probably the most difficult of the spiritual gifts, at least I think so. It comes with a keen awareness of unrighteousness and the strong urge to speak out in truth against it. To those who do not understand it, there are times when it seems the prophet is being harshly judgmental, but actually the prophet is a message bearer. It is a very demanding gift and not a very forgiving place to be. On one side you have God urging you to give a message that you must be careful to repeat and on the other side you have the hearers who may not be receptive. The truth God wishes to be told at a given time can be encouraging or condemning, always to get people to focus their lives on the Lord as they should be doing. These messages can be a warning about the future or be a praise about something in the present. In the Bible, kings would listen to the prophet, ignore the prophet, or kill the prophet and sometimes all three. Needless to say, prophets were revered and feared.

I have a friend who is a prophetess. She probably does not want to be revered or feared, but she is now also the pastor of a start-up church so this would be a challenge for her. She has an even greater challenge and one I understand well because the Lord has lifted from me recently. This post is mostly for my friend, but it is not just for her, because I have other friends who struggle with similar challenges.

In my last post, I wrote about how those who were not conformed to my idea of how people should appear that I would be judgmental. I also had always seen myself as self-centered and fearful, but one woman, a pastor's wife, long ago told me something else she saw in me. She had an honors ceremony where she told each woman what she learned from them. She said that from me she had learned compassion. I was stunned. I did not see myself as a compassionate person at all. Yet, here I am with a compassionate gift: healing. God uses our weaknesses to show His strength.

My friend, you think you are not a loving person, but you are now in a loving ministry. God is going to change your perspective about people and how you feel about them. You are going to really love them, first as individuals and then as a group and then all people everywhere. The Church will be "corrupted" with people who do not conform to the appearance of Christianity, but really know and love God and love people, who need God—basically, everyone. In your heart that is what you want for every church, but you must also be what you wish your church to be.

Your daughter is coming home now for a purpose. You will both learn from each other.

Each person carries within himself a soul-sickness, like a home sickness for God. We are called to love because each person needs to feel His love, regardless of what he has done or is doing. As Christians, we have access to a unique perspective when we look at people. We are to see them through His kingdom, His church, His love...and we are to be those things as well. The Kingdom is at hand. We are at hand. We are to be the representation of Christ, His love at hand. We are to see all people (even other Christians acting badly) as we would hope He sees us, worthy of His love and redeemable.

Love is the greatest gift you have been given and you are to give it. Freely you have received, freely you give...without conditions, without expectations. You have this challenge before you and God is using it for His purpose. The one who needs God's love the most is the one you feel deserves it the least, the one you feel is the most repulsive, the last is the first. This is where you are to start...and you probably already know this, but are reluctant. It is very simple, but very hard.

~ My Lord, stay close with my friend as You guide her into Your ministry of love. Give to her the gift of love and loving. May she be Love to everyone she meets and her church be known for its love. ~

Exploring Plastic Christianity

The Church recruited people who had been starched and ironed before they were washed. ~John Wesley

It started like a sleepy morning rollover after hitting the snooze button that would soon bring me back to my slumber and be forgotten. Instead of being that fleeting, illogical, surrealist thought flaring up in my mind so easily and quickly snuffed out, it quietly whispered "that's it" thunderously within my spirit.

It was a typical Friday morning with me functioning on just four hours sleep. My daughter had fed the cats and eaten her breakfast. I had started devotions with her and had to remind her to stop playing with her new tablet that had arrived just yesterday. She still had to brush her teeth, clean the guest bathroom, and start her lessons for the day. While she began those things, I listened to music on a Christian radio station, began putting the ingredients in my VitaMix for my morning smoothie, and planning the day since my husband will not be home this weekend.

The music had stopped and there was some talking on radio to which I was only half listening. Isn't it amazing how God can suddenly give you wake-up moment? That is when I realized that the man speaking was comparing plastic fruit to Christianity, but I was just as quickly distracted by other things and did not really hear the short message. Still, the idea seed rooted and as I began to explore this concept in greater depth, more and more analogies sprouted.

I realized in just the first three minutes that this was not going to be a single post subject. In fact, the idea of a book flashed in my mind and then I felt it. You know the it I am talking about when some crazy idea comes into your head that is entertaining yet you would likely dismiss as ridiculous or impossible, but then you feel as if the Lord says a simple "yes." My eyes immediately teared and I felt so pressed to begin writing that at this very moment I am sitting at my dining room table typing on my computer while I have half of the ingredients for my morning smoothie are in the VitaMix on the kitchen counter and my stomach is growling.

I suddenly had this strong feeling that this is where my Lord has been leading me. It has been gentle guidance using all sorts of resources: a pastor friend from Australia who Skyped me at 1:00 AM when I was checking something on my computer that I really did not need to do until morning, a street healer who I have not met but have been touched by his powerful ministry from what I have seen online, my life experiences within various churches, sermons I have heard, books I have read, stories shared with me, and now an analogy I just heard on the radio about plastic food—Food? Excuse me, but I really need to my breakfast drink!

Plastic food can have the most appealing appearance but that is all for which it is: appearance. It has no substance other than pleasing the eyes. It is not just empty, but artificial. It is not real, but synthetic. It is not something that nourishes, but leaves the hungry person unsatisfied.

Many churches have become plastic churches, where Christians have learned how to appear like Christian Barbie and Ken dolls with cheek cramping smiles sitting in their assigned pews. I know this very well. I was part of it. I helped to build and maintain it even while at war within myself. I wanted the entire church to look Christian, but I had also worked with youth. Some teenagers actually believe and put into practice that everyone needs Christ, inviting friends with funky hair or tattoos or piercings or heavy make up. I accepted them—uh, perhaps tolerate would be a more honest term because in my heart I also wanted them to eventually look more Christian like the rest of us. Worse, may God forgive me, I judged these to be lower than I was because I at least bothered to look Christian.

Plastic churches provide rules of conformity...to help everyone appear more Christian, even more Christian in some way or another than the other plastic churches. Some churches shun beautiful contemporary praise and worship music, because only hymns are the holy enough...and maybe some Southern Gospel for the special music. Some tell us that the King James Version is the only real Bible and all other translations are corrupted, even though reading the KJV for most people is like learning another language because it is so archaic in terms. Just how did Christians go from believing the hymns were more holy than the psalms that are in the Bible or the KJV is more holy than reading the Holy Scriptures in their original languages or that men wearing pants and women dresses more holy that the robes that the people in the time of Jesus would have worn?

Have you noticed that a little judging and even a little gossip are allowed about those not looking like Christian Barbie and Ken dolls with cheek cramping smiles? I have been a builder and maintainer of plastic churches. I even look down on people who did not appear Christian enough. I am so free of it that writing this confession does not bring shame, but makes me rejoice in my spirit because I am honestly free of it now. Thank you, my Lord.

Plastic Christianity can have the most appealing appearance but that is all for which it is: appearance. It has no substance other than pleasing other plastic Christians. It is not just empty, but artificial. It is not real, but synthetic. It is not something that nourishes, but leaves the soul hungry person unsatisfied.

~ My Lord, may those who need to hear, hear. Teach us to surrender all so that we can have substance, be filled with Your Holy Spirit, be real, and be nourishing in Your eyes. ~

The Princess Piano Award

Play always as if in the presence of a master.
~Robert Schumann

After being judged for three years in row and getting five points each time, my Princess accumulated the needed fifteen points to earn her first piano trophy in the shortest possible time. She was so excited about this.

I finally wrangled for myself the pictures my husband took at the recital. He kept assuring me that most of them were on the camera and not his iPad even when I reported that I could only see the two videos and one picture from the recital on the card from the camera. (Either he is not as often right as he used to be or I am not so easily convinced he is right all the time.)

~ My Lord, may she shine in the radiance of Your glory and honor You with the gift You have given her. ~

Spring Recital 2013

Prayer is when you talk to God. Meditation is when you're listening. Playing the piano allows you to do both at the same time. ~Kelsey Grammer

Do you see this child smiling as she plays?

Two years ago at the spring recital she froze because she could not remember how to place her hands to begin one the pieces that she was doing without reading the music in front of her.

The last spring recital I watched her work herself up into being nervous with that memory and because everyone else was nervous so she was being like them.

This time I again saw that part of her that I had known since she was four years old...the child who loves to perform and is not at all nervous. I was so glad to see the girl be her talented self, that little child without stage fright in a half grown body, that one child that stands out and steals the show because she looks like she enjoys entertaining the audience. You may think I am just bragging, but every year she has performed, people would tell us how they were impressed with her performance and not just her piano playing, but that certain showmanship that so pleases the crowd. After her performance on Saturday so many people came up to us to tell us well she performed, how poised she was, how confident she looked, how she seemed to enjoy playing the piano, etc. A few said she looked like an angel.

Angel!?

I could have told them how she changed her dress last minute and left her room looking like a tornado hit it—maybe she is the Bedroom Tornado Angel? Then there was how she had a fight with me about curling the ends of her hair—just the ends!—and was in tears as I did it when we were running so late that I was not sure we would make it for the beginning, even though she would not be playing until the second half and how I struggled with a waterfall braid she asked me to do (but would not allow me to curl) that I finally got in the car on the way there. I was far more stressed out that she was, but we did reconcile on the hour drive and all was forgotten.

This piano recital program was one of the shortest because so many children just could not attend due to schedule conflicts mostly in sports activities. I did the recital programs again this year, but it was challenging in different ways. First, the parents of one student came up with this idea to create a database for piano and dance recital programs asking Trudy, our piano teacher, if she would be willing to be a test case for this venture. This meant I would not have to type in the data, but as I found out it also meant that there would be far more formatting issues for me as the process produced full page programs and we use folded paper for a half page print out.

Perhaps because I was fasting and just could not get motivated to do the programs which means I did not design the covers earlier when I should have. There was also the challenge of  this odd problem created when my husband hooked up one older printer on the wireless network so that even though I put in 60 copies it would only print one—yes, I ended up pressing the printer button over 300 times that night! I finished at 3:00 AM Friday morning. Since there was no piano lesson on Thursday, my errand day was moved to Friday and so I did the day with four hours sleep to make rehearsal at 3:00 PM and hand over the programs.

Was it all worth it? Absolutely!

I know I am biased, but I ask you does this girl so play the piano that even her little mess-ups just seem...cute?

~ My Lord, thank you for this child's talent in answer to my prayer before she was born. Guide her to use it to honor and glorify You. ~