Step One, Getting in Order

As I attacked our fantastically, large pantry, I looked through the door of the mess and knew it was time to get a hold of this Middle Age Mess.
This disorganized pantry resembled what I was allowing to over-come me, just throw and go.  A survival technique that needed to change as I re-entered the dance of life.

As I managed to remove all the items I was able to see the potential ahead. Starting with a new canvas is always promising.
The lesson I kept hearing, while digging through the mess, it is easier to maintain then to rebuild.  My body is reminding me of this daily.

Martha Stewart watch out!  I was starting to see progress and excited at the organized shelves.  I had to leave my microscope in the pantry, one of the last signs that I am still a home school mom.

The job was completed.  The dread of wrestling this pantry was larger then the effort it took to put it back in order.  I believe there is a lesson there also.  So, as I continue to press on into this new decade, with the hope of a new make-over, I pray I will learn from the lessons I learned from cleaning out my pantry.

Now I am ready to learn how to make home-made Artisan bread.

"For everything there is a season, a time for every activity under heaven,...A time to tear down and a time to build up,  A time to cry and a time to laugh, a time to grieve and a time to dance..." Ecc. 3:1 - 8

May I continue to move forward in this season.

What Make-Up Do I Buy, Ethel?

Middle Age Madness has brought many challenges and a big loss of confidence.  You have to watch what you eat.  You wake up at night with unexpected hot flashes, and you seem to forget things at the worse time, like my pin number while checking out at the grocery store.

I was chuckling to myself, and yes, those around me weren't sure if I was sane or not, when I strolled into Walgreens for a long, overdue make-up purchase.  I hate to admit it, but, due to other financial priorities, my make-up drawer had been neglected.  So there I stood, totally overwhelmed by all the selections and their promises to undue what life had left behind on my face.

First, I started with my foundation purchase.  Did I want to hide wrinkles? Well, yes, I am almost fifty.  Did I want to diminish my jaws, which I had inherited? Again, yes.  Did I want to smooth out my coloring? Well, didn't think about that one.  As I moved up and down the row, I wasn't sure what all I wanted corrected and how many products it would take.

Second, came the lips...then I started to laugh.  There is moisturizing lipstick. Then there is lipstick that you apply to pump up your lips, which to me makes you look like a botox treatment gone bad.  I stopped in my tracks and decided to ask the man I wanted to please if he liked big lips.  I texted my husband, who knew the most loving answer in the world, "No, I love your lips the way they are."  Yea!, now I didn't have to spend extra for the busted lip look, which the product had promised, and I would be able to talk.

The lip selection became easier, so I moved to the mascara.  Now I have to admit, my luscious eyelashes have started to disappear.  So the advertisement for long, extended, will-grow-more-lashes mascara was a big pull for me.

I moved from the mascara to facial cream and moisturizer, which I will save you from reading all that they promised to do to my aging face.

Not wanting to spend our complete salary for the week, I just put some reasonably priced products in my cart, since my loving husband had just told me he loves me the way I am, and headed out the door.

I was laughing by the time I got to the car and thought that if I had picked all the right products then I could go home and reappear with another face, a younger, non-wrinkled, pumped-lipped, long eyelashed, youthful-complexioned face, without the signs of a life lived by this 49 year old.  Then again, I love my well-earned laugh lines.

This was just from going to get make-up!

Couldn't you just see this being played out between Lucy and Ethel?

Now I will have to recover before I go and look for a new bra! Oh, the body issues that need to be corrected... what products will I buy?

"A cheerful heart is good like medicine" Proverbs 17:22

Editing My Life or Returning to the Potters Wheel

Edit, edit, edit, I am learning to edit.

Isn't that the way life is? You start over, you throw things away, you re-invent, re-design, re-create and hope that the new product is all you intended.

The year 2010 is the year for drastic change. There are so many parts, of this too-soon-to-be- half-century lady, that needs to have an overhaul.

I am getting back on the potter's wheel. I am letting him re-form me. I am praying he will mold me with a little less curves, and more of a reflection of Him. It is time to submit once more to the molding of the potter's gentle touch.

Beth Moore says that God allows things to rise to the top in order for them to be removed.

The last decade has been very challenging, as well as rewarding, but it is now over. Somewhere in the challenges, I jumped off the potters wheel or protested too much at the spinning, the heat of the kiln or the paint he was trying to apply.

Now I am on a year-long adventure of re-inventing myself, re-designing my home, re-organizing, re-upholstering worn furniture and investing in the man God gave me so many years ago. As I submit to the spinning of the wheel, I hope to also journal the truths that God is instilling in me through this process.

As I learn more on creating my blog, I plan to name this journey Middle Age Madness, because that is the season I seem to find myself.

My desire is for my children and grandchildren to be able to look back and see that God can re-mold us when we submit to the potter's wheel, showing that, even during middle age, God isn't finished with us until we reach heaven.

The Tea Cup Story

This story was shared on Joyce Meyers this morning and so spoke to my spirit that I wanted to have a record of the story to re-read and remember.

Story of the Tea Cup
There was a couple who took a trip to England to celebrate their 25th wedding anniversary. While there, they shopped in a beautiful antique store; they both liked antiques and pottery, and especially teacups. Spotting an exceptional cup, they asked, 'May we see that? We've never seen a cup quite so beautiful.'

As the lady handed it to them, suddenly the teacup spoke, 'You don't understand. I have not always been a t eacup. There was a time when I was just a lump of red clay. My Master took me and rolled me pounded and patted me over and over and I yelled out, 'Don't do that.' 'I don't like it! Let me alone.' But He only smiled, and gently said, 'Not yet!''

Then WHAM! I was placed on a spinning wheel and suddenly I was spun around and around and around. 'Stop it! I'm getting so dizzy! I'm going to be sick!' I screamed. But the Master only nodded and said, quietly, 'Not yet.' He spun me and poked and prodded and bent me out of shape to suit Himself and then He put me in the oven. I never felt such heat. I yelled and knocked and pounded at the door. 'Help! Get me out of here!' I could see Him through the opening and I could read His lips as he shook His head from side to side, saying, 'Not yet.''

When I thought I couldn't bear it another minute, the door opened. He carefully took me out and put me on the shelf, and I began to cool. Oh, that felt so good! 'Ah, this is much better,' I thought. But, after I cooled, He picked me up and brushed and painted me all over. The fumes were horrible. I thought I would gag. 'Oh, please, Stop it, Stop, I cried.' He only shook his head and said, 'Not yet!'

Then suddenly He put me back into the oven. Only it was not like the first one. This was twice as hot and I just knew that I would suffocate. I begged. I pleaded. I screamed. I cried. I was convinced I would never make it. I was ready to give up. Just then the door opened and He took me out and again placed me on the shelf, where I cooled and waited and waited, wondering 'What's He going to do to me next?''

An hour later He handed me a mirror and said, 'Look at yourself.' And I did. I said, 'That's not me; that couldn't be me. It's beautiful. I'm beautiful!!!'

Quietly He spoke: 'I want you to remember,' He said, 'I know it hurt to be rolled and pounded and patted, but had I just left you alone, you'd have dried up. I know it made you dizzy to spin around on the wheel, but if I had stopped, you would have crumbled. I know it hurt and it was hot and disagreeable in the oven, but if I hadn't put you there, you would have cracked. I know the fumes were bad when I brushed and painted you all over, but if I hadn't done that, you never would have hardened. You would not have had any color in your life. If I hadn't put you back in that second oven, you wouldn't have survived for long because the hardness would not have held. Now you are a finished product. Now you are what I had in mind when I first began with you.

'The moral of this story is this: God knows what He's doing for each of us. He is the Potter, and we are His clay. He will mold us and make us and expose us to just enough pressures of just the right kinds, that we may be made into a flawless piece of work to fulfill His good, pleasing and perfect Will.

So when life seems hard, and you are being pounded and patted and pushed almost beyond endurance; when your world seems to be spinning out of control; when you feel like you are in a fiery furnace of trials; when life seems to 'stink', try this.

Brew a cup of your favorite tea in your prettiest tea cup, sit down and think on this story and then, have a little talk with the Potter

My Celebration Table

My Celebration Table

Years ago, when my family consisted of my husband and me, I dreamed of having a large dining room table.

I could never have imagined just how large that dining room table would need to be. Our first home, without children, had a large dining room. We entertained with our extended family and friends at our first furniture purchased, an oak, lion-clawed dining room table. The table seem more than adequate for our family gatherings.

As the numbers in our family grew, the once adequate table grew smaller, as well as the room.

A move, during the teen years of my children brought a huge, but empty dining room. I decorated the room with wallpaper, painted the ceiling, and added a huge light. I was anticipating my dining table. The original table was swallowed up by the room and all who gathered around, but we still set down to enjoy and celebrate.

A huge sale on dining room tables, without chairs, allowed us to extend our seating capacity to 12! This doubled the size of the older table and our family was extending in numbers as well.

This large table had two extensions, and could be lengthen to over 10 feet, which expanded out into the entry way.

A child's table wasn't necessary with grandparents, parents and all five children gathered at the celebration meals. Each holiday held a new opportunity to dress the table, to set it with fine meals and conversation. Chairs were brought in from the kitchen, a bench from the piano and bar stools to set around the chair-less table.

Another move, another dining room, and once again, in a time where dining rooms had lost their style, our large table found a home. Our immediate family now extended to nine, and guest and extended family filled the other seats.

How could a young bride of 19 ever imagine all the riches God would have for her when she married 30 years earlier? How would she have ever imagined the many birthday, Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, Graduation, Valentine, Father's and Mother's Day meals that would be celebrated around the earlier imagined large dining room table?

She didn't know, but God did and so he placed in her heart a desire for a large dining room table years before the seats would be filled. He created in her a desire to gather different dishes, recipes, and decorations in preparation for the events to follow. Something that would not only satisfy her soul, but her spirit as well.

Today I remove the decorations from the large table, another birthday was celebrated and returned the table to its empty state. I put my photos on my computer and turn and see the hand of God on my life through the many celebrations that have been held around the family dining room table. My heart's desire has been filled, as I plan for the next gathering around the table.

Luke 22: 27 -30

"For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table, or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves. And you are those who have stood by Me in My trials; and just as My Father has granted Me a kingdom, I grant you that you may eat and drink at My table in My kingdom"

Dedicated to Godly Character

Last night we, along with hundreds of thousands of fans from all over the United States, viewed a young man show true Godly character. We all watched in horror as the All American Football Player of the Year was taken out of his own National Championship game. His whole college career had rewarded him with this one night. He has just finished an undefeated year and won his conference title, but tonight he would watch from the side lines.

We all just sunk into our chairs with the sighs revealing the surreal reality of the moment. This young man who had walked the walk was being denied the final stretch. It just didn't seem fair, but then again, life isn't fair.

They walked him off the playing field and his Dad met them in the tunnel, while the camera showed his mother's bow her head.

The billboards announced his walk with the Lord. He always gave his Lord the glory and flash backs of him on a stretcher years before, when he made sure to point to heaven on his journey off the field of play, testified to whom he served. He has been bold in his testimony. So, why now?

God never promised to keep us from adversity. In fact, he told us to it would come. I wonder how many scriptures passed through the mind of this young man and his parents. I wonder what their conversation with the Lord was at this time.

At some point in everyone's life, we get hit. We will bargain with God, plead, beg, ask for it to be removed, and then finally, if our relationship with Him has grown through the years, we will surrender. For some that surrender my takes moments, hours, days or years, and for others it never comes. This young man had to surrender to his numb, throwing arm and watch the game from the sidelines, as his fans set in numbness also.

As we continued to watch this sad event unfold, another young man's life was changed as they put him out on the field to walk in the shoes the senior had left behind. His walk with the Lord, we don't know, but he was now filling the shoes of an incrediblly athletic young man of character...very large shoes for a young freshman. He stumbled, made mistakes, then came out roaring toward a victory, but eventually the lack of experience for this job overtook him and the game was lost.

They went to interview the young man of faith at the end of the game, he stood rock solid. His foundation hadn't been shaken, even though his flesh man had taken one of the largest disappointments of his life. He congratulated the opponent, gave the glory to God, praised the young man who filled his shoes and left behind a testimony of a hero for all the nation to see.

What his future holds is yet to be determined, and yet, he has already impacted the nation. God's ways are higher then ours. Did God use his injury to tell the nation a larger story then the victory of a football game? It makes you wonder when the radio today is talking about Colt McCoy, instead of the winners of the National Championship. Had McCoy asked God to use him? Probably so, or at least his college career has shown evidence to that effect, but could he have imagined that this would be the means God would use to get his word out to the Nation?

I prayed for this young man last night and this morning, and for his parents. I also examined my walk and my testimony. Would I have reacted with such character? Could you have interviewed me just minutes after my largest life disappointment and me give God all the glory? Is His word so embedded in me that I would be used as a testimony?

I look forward to watching Colt McCoy and what God has in store for him. Even if he is never in the spotlight again, he has used his spotlight to God's glory.