Tag: God

I Met Another Headcoverer!

I was in Petsmart picking up some litter box bedding for Parsnip, when a girl stopped me and told me my veil was beautiful, and asked if I was Christian. She is too, and she wears veils to church! She’s Catholic, and in her parish headcovering is not uncommon. She said there’s even a couple of churches around here who do a Latin Mass and require women to cover. She said she’s thought about covering full time like I do, but she just isn’t sure yet. She always covers at church though.

It’s so refreshing to meet another woman who wears veils. She gave me a good recommendation for where to buy more infinity veils and mantillas, and I gave her a recommendation as well. I told her I was a Methodist and she was definitely surprised, which makes sense because headcovering is pretty uncommon among Methodists.

This may sound silly, but it warmed my heart to meet another woman who headcovers, even if she does not do it full time. I sometimes get looked at negatively for wearing veils. Some people really love my veils and I get compliments, but still many more are put off. It’s nice to see that other young women are wearing them too, and of course it is always nice to hear that someone likes my veil! My veils are beautiful to me, and it is lovely when someone else appreciates one of them.

She told me headcovering is coming back in the Catholic and Orthodox churches, and I think that is wonderful. I hope that someday more Protestants (besides just the Mennonites) will start to cover. I am in some headcovering groups online, and I know there are a few Lutherans, evangelicals, and nondemoninationals veiling now. Just not many. Headcovering is such a beautiful, reverent thing and can bring so much joy. Once upon a time everyone practiced headcovering, especially in church. Yet in so many churches, especially Protestant churches, headcovering is now eschewed. I pray this beautiful, scriptural practice is revived. But whether it is or it isn’t, I will continue to wear my veils  in obedience to the Scripture that has been laid on my heart by God. My conscience is convicted.

It just filled me with joy to meet another sister in Christ who believes in headcovering!

A Violet

Therese Lisieux was a Carmelite nun who lived in the latter half of the 19th century. Although she lived a very short life, dying at 24 from tuberculosis, the writings she left behind about flowers are compelling and influential in church thought. As Therese would meditate on flowers she would learn lessons about God. Her writings on flowers were compiled into a book called The Story of a Soul.

Sometimes she wrote about individuality and our place in God’s Kingdom. In one passage she wrote, “I realized that if every tiny flower wanted to be a rose, spring would lose its loveliness and there would be no wildflowers to make the meadows gay.”

What that really drives home to me is that whether you live your life in the Limelight among other people or not, you are important and God thinks you contribute to the beauty of creation. The violet is no less worthy than the rose. She goes on to say that the Saints are like lilies or roses and that we must be content to be the violets or daisies that God smiles at when He looks down. What I think this means is that while Saints’ souls have been perfected by fire, we are beautiful too. We can’t all be Saints, and we should not all be Saints. We may not stand out in a crowd of souls like they do, but if the world was filled with all the same kind of people everything would get very monotonous. Everyone’s variety and individuality is needed. It makes God smile, and anything that makes God smile is a necessary thing. God uses a macro lens when he sees us, examining our beauty in detail so that even the smallest of us flowers is gorgeous to Him.

Along those lines, Therese wrote that all of us can be perfect when we become that which God designed us to be. Popular culture seems to focus so much on perfection. And in Christianity we avoid the very concept because none of us are without sin, and to be truly perfect is to be sinless. But this is another, interesting idea of perfection that I like. God has designed each and everyone of us with a unique personality and temperament, with different skills and interests, and with different purposes. When we live out our purposes and function in the way He designed us, we are perfect. Obviously our souls are not perfect because we are sinners. Everyone needs Jesus. But our personhood can be perfect.

Then the question becomes, what are my gifts and what is my purpose? How can I fully live in accordance with my design, including my personality, temperament, and life circumstances? To what degree am I already doing this or to which I might have already fulfilled my purpose at least by and large?

I know that I was meant to be Craig’s wife. So day in and day out I fulfill that purpose. I was meant to be Angelica’s mother. God chose me to be her mother. So I try to fulfill that purpose to the best of my ability. God designed me to be very creative. So what is the purpose of that creativity? Although I enjoy making art I am by no means proficient at it. So what is the purpose? It could just be so that I can enjoy it. God wants us to be happy. He wants us to be holy first, but wherever possible we should be holy and happy. My life provides the opportunity to be happy and gives me chances to work on myself to be more holy. I should take advantage of both opportunities. What role is creating things or doing photography supposed to play in my life?

What about my writing? As a writer I sometimes feel so isolated. I always thought I would go to grad school, get an MFA and then a Ph.D, and start teaching at the college level. I thought that I would know other writers from my days in grad school and that I would be publishing books. But I was not destined to do that. God had other plans for me, better plans. But my passion for writing poetry remains, and I have very little opportunity to use that voice above a whisper, at a volume that other people can hear me. So what am I supposed to do with all my poetry? What is the ultimate purpose to me being a poet? I might get a book published but I might not. I may try to publish more chapbooks since I really enjoy chapbooks, but there is no telling if that will come through and I have not submitted in a very long time. Is God’s plan for me to have a book published? Or does He have other plans for me and my little poems? Do I need to start submitting again? Or am I supposed to take some other avenue?

Moving to Colorado with my husband has brought about tremendous change in my life. New place, new people, new schedule, new terrain, new opportunities. I am sure that this move was important. What am I supposed to be doing with it? I’m getting involved with my church and I feel like that’s the right direction to go in. I don’t know what will come of my involvement, but maybe my hands are needed. I want Angelica to really get something out of living in Colorado for 3 years, whether that is simply amazing and beautiful experiences, or a friend that she’s supposed to make, or maybe getting plugged into this church will make a big difference in her life.

Like everyone else, I have so many facets to my personality. I’m kind of a mixture of Victorian lady, 1950s housewife without the good organizational skills, and a dark, Gothic princess. God made me these things, and there must be a reason for each one of them. So how can I live out my life in such a way as to be authentically who God made me, fulfilling his design for me and reaching perfection in what He wanted me to be?

I may never be a rose, either in God’s eyes or the world’s. You never know, but probably not. But sometimes I don’t want roses when I go to the market. I want a nice bouquet of daisies, or maybe some violets. How does God want me to bloom?

Dieting With God

I am beginning to not only pray for success with my diet, but to try to actively incorporate God into my process. This morning I ate a delicious snack and then had some lunch that was not healthy but kept me within my calorie limit roughly. And since then I have honestly not been hungry, and I finished that food at 11:30 in the morning. But yet I still been finding myself tempted to eat some of my favorite chips or to get a little bit of Nutella for dessert or to have an ice cream sandwich or to have some wonderful parmesan peppercorn dip.

My diet does not preclude me from eating any of this. I’m going purely on a calorie-counting diet. Within my alloted calories for the day I can eat anything I want. That way I want I’m eating I’m getting food I really enjoy and killing at least some of my cravings. Believe me, I do not have the self-discipline to stick to any other kind of diet. And I believe that food should be enjoyed so when you are eating you should eat something that you like.

But for the past few weeks, basically since I have not been doing well, I have started to crave food even when I am not hungry. I just get cravings for salt and vinegar or for something sweet or for something cheesy. Just now I was in the kitchen and I went to grab some salt and vinegar chips. But then I remembered. I’m not hungry. I’m not hungry at all. I haven’t eaten in hours, but when I did eat I ate a pretty good amount and it was food I really liked and I don’t need anything else. So what is it I am really searching for? I mean some of it probably is the food. I really like food. Everybody says that but I really mean it. But part of it must be something else. What goes on in my mind or in my soul that makes me want something that you are supposed to partake of when you are feeling famished? Maybe I am famished, in some other way.

I want to start relying on God a little bit more for my diet. Partly of course for the selfish reason that there is no greater power in the universe than God so if God will help me who or what can stand against me? It seems silly to me now that I’ve been trying so hard to do this successfully, and I haven’t even asked the Lord for help except in passing. I haven’t sought Him out when I am failing. But tonight as I stood in the kitchen I said to myself, out loud, you do not need chips. You are not hungry. You need something else. You are not hungry. And then I asked the Lord to help me. Maybe the Lord can fill me. Maybe he will fill me with self-discipline, or help direct my mind to other things that I can think about and do that will leave me with no mental space for preoccupation with food. It is time to come to my God who loves me and wants to help me. If he doesn’t help me then I’ll know that my answer is no and either I’m in some sort of test where I need to do this without any help, although I feel like I’ve already been in that situation, or that maybe He’s telling me that this is the weight that I’m going to be and that I need to be less focused on getting slim again and more focused on something else. God never fails to answer a prayer. It’s just that sometimes the answer is no. But hopefully I won’t get a no. I need to lose weight not only because I want to be able to buy smaller clothes, but for my health.

I believe that God will help me when I need help and will bring me to whatever weight I should be at. If I practice self-discipline and count my calories, and if I lean on God to help me resist temptation, then my diet will continue to be successful. I need to pray more and talk to God when I feel tempted. I need to keep diving in the Word to keep close to Him and be filled with the Holy Spirit. Having lost about 40 lb, I have already come so far and I do not want to lose the hard won progress I have made. I feel like if I do I may never get back to this point again. I need to keep pushing ahead. I need to remember that like it says in 2nd Peter, men are slaves to which has mastered them. Food will not master me.

Lost Sleep, UMW

The night before last I could not get to sleep til past midnight because my house was spiritually active. It has been for the past couple of days. That night in particular I heard loud running and banging while I was laying in bed. It went on and on. At first I thought Angelica had gotten up and was running in the hall. She does that sometimes when she is hoping we will wake up and tell her she doesn’t have to sleep in her room. So I got up and checked. No Angelica. I went to her room and she was sound asleep. And as soon as I turned my back in my room and closed the door, it started again. It lasted til past midnight.

Then at around 2 or 3 Craig woke me up when he got up. He turned the fan off and the change in ambient noise woke me up immediately. Interestingly enough, he said he turned it off because he had left it running when he went to bed (hours earlier than I did because of his early shift), and when he got up to go to the bathroom or something it was turned off. He turned it back on for himself, but assumed I’d want it turned off again when he got up.

I never turned that fan off.

So yesterday I was too tired to even homeschool. I didn’t have the clarity of mind to teach, so Craig taught Angelica when he got home. I did dishes and ran some clothes in the dryer and that was about it. I broke my social media fast because I didn’t have enough power of thought to do anything else.

Last night I got more sleep, but still got woken up around 3 – this time because of the super loud creaking of the bathroom and bedroom doors as Craig moved around getting ready for another day shift. I can’t win! I finally started to get some sleep around 5:30 or 6, and then Angelica came in to cuddle and talk. So sleep was over!

I am just trying not to let this sleep loss affect my mood. Losing sleep is sometimes very bad for me.

My volunteering with United Methodist Women begins at the end of the month. I am going to be the editor of The Torch. I am attending the meeting and then people will give their articles and meeting minutes to me over the weekend and I will put The Torch together in Publisher. Then I’ll take it to the church copy office to run copies and fold them. I am looking forward to meeting everyone (and praying my anxiety doesn’t act up). Being the editor of the monthly newsletter means I have a spot on the executive board, so I am going to try to make some of those meeting this year. Unfortunately they are all on Friday, and my babysitter has her homeschooling enrichment program on Fridays. So I can only go when Craig has the day off or has certain shifts.

I think I will volunteer for the card making ministry as well. UMW makes cards by buying simple cards and attaching the front of one to the back of a card they have made themselves with their own message inside. I can do that. I am not a card maker, but I can cut and paste. If they need donations of card to use, I may do that too. I collect some really nice cards, Hallmark and Papyrus.

 

He Will Take Great Delight in You.

God delights in us. He loves us as His children. Just as we take delight in our children’s first steps, happy faces, school accomplishments, happiness, and talents, so does God with us. No matter how old you are, whether you are on spiritual milk or solid food, God loves you as His sons and daughters. We make  God happy. He likes to watch over us. Our happiness is His happiness, our triumphs His triumphs. Our pain is His pain, our hurt His hurt. He is deeply connected to us. He wants to watch us lead good lives, live out our holy purpose, follow Him, and follow our dreams.

Just my happy thought for the day!

Dreaming With God

This is an interesting biography/bible study written by a ballet dancer. It is about following your dreams while walking with God. There are some good questions at the end of each chapter. There’s only a little space to write, so if you want to journal through the book you should probably get out a separate notebook. But the book is a worthwhile read and the questions are good to ponder. It talks about a couple of things, well several really. But the two messages that stand out are 1. to be open to what God is trying to do in your life and go where He is trying to send you. 2. To realize God gives you your gifts and your dreams for a reason, and you should see where you can go with them. It is an inspiring little book and an elegant read.

Creativity is Frightening

I recently read Vinita Hampton Wright’s book, “The Soul Tells a Story.” In it she talks about how creativity is frightening and can make us uncomfortable. It can, too. Sometimes I am too afraid to write poetry. I want to write a poem, but I’m afraid to dive in. I’m frightened of that place in my soul and my mind. It’s so deep that I’m almost afraid I won’t be able to get back out again.

I ordered a bunch of books about the intersection of Christianity and creativity. A couple are old favorites, but some are new. There were a bunch more I wanted, but I’m going to have to wait to get those. I am fascinated by the intersection of Christianity and the creative life. There’s a seminary program I’m interested in that centers around that very subject. It’s worship arts. However, I can’t spend a year in Dallas, so it simply isn’t going to work out.

When we create, we are being like our Creator. There is immense power that flows through us onto the page or the canvas. People talk so much about mirroring God and they mention so many great things, like mercy, justice, and sacrifice. But they leave out a key component. If you want to be like your Creator you must create. My drive to create poetry comes from my Creator. Most of my individual poems come from Him too, even when they aren’t on religious subjects.

We are made in the image of God in so many ways, and this is definitely one primal, fundamental way we are made to be like God. Create a new recipe in the kitchen. Draw a portrait. Write a poem. Write a novel. Scrapbook. Make digital art. Dance. I believe we are stronger mentally and spiritually when we engage in some kind of creative outlet. God calls each of us to do things a different way.  Human beings are like snowflakes – no two are alike. Although it is a cliche that has embedded itself indelibly in our cultural psyche, it is true.

Lately I’ve been so creative that I think I’ve been overwhelming people. I’ve been writing poem after poem. I’ve made dozens of faith collages – collages where I take beautiful art and photography I find online, make collages out of them, edit them, and add Bible verses. I am bombarding my blog and my Instagram. I can’t hardly help myself. Sometimes I am more creative, sometimes less. But right now my cup overfloweth. I know at some point I’ll hit a wall and need to rest my head for awhile, but until I’m there I’m going to create as much as I possible can. I may start creating abstract alcohol ink paintings, which are my favorite. I actually bought a little alcohol ink painting on tile when we were on vacation and I love it. It is in my curio cabinet. I think I’ll do alcohol inks when I’m done with collages for awhile.

Right now I am so deep in creativity that I am wearing my mind out. I have allowed myself to dive all the way in, to fall into the glittering abyss of creative passion. I am expressing myself and dying to myself at the same time. My creativity runs me. It is as though I am a mere conduit for ideas that come from somewhere outside of me, and I think they are from above.

Sometimes you have to create for you or for a few friends. I know some people, even many people, don’t like my collages. Not every one likes loud colors, especially so many bright images together – and I edit images to be loud! But I love them, and I make them for me as an act of worship to God. They reflect my joy in Him, and my personality. I share them because a few other people seem to like them and if even one person enjoys the scripture or the images I will be grateful.

Create something for God. Create something for you. Create something to share with other people. The more art, literature, dancing, and theater there is in the world, the better the world will be.