Hippy Post and Good Thing About Stuttering #1

I don't know about you, but often times, I receive the most spiritual encouragement from nature. I don't mean to say that I don't find Scriptures encouraging, or hanging out with other believers. I absolutely do. But Jesus must know about my inner nature-loving artistic hippy self, and so he sends good things to me thru nature. Seriously, how can enjoying God's creation do anything else but point to how majestic, creative, detail-oriented and constant God is?

Anyway, today as I walked in the already sweltering humidity (I don't love EVERY aspect of creation lol), I was hearing the early birds calling out to each other. I'm sure to the homeowners who live in that area, those birds must be very obnoxious. But there were two of them and they were singing in tandem. It reminded me of Bible verses that suggest that all nature is praising God every hour of every day. It might be "silent" to us, but every so often I get a glimpse of it. Today it was like I could understand those little birds, and it was something like this:

First bird: "Good morning! What a beautiful day! The Creator made another day for us to enjoy and praise His Name!"
Second bird: "Yes, good morning! I'm always scared that the night will last forever, but He always brings a new morning for us. How wonderful he is!"

Yes, I'm being a little silly, but you get my meaning (I hope). All Creation was subjected to the curse (read Genesis) and it longs to praise God fully, just like we do. That's just really cool and amazing to me.

So there I revealed a very hippy, kum-ba-ya, fantastical Madeleine. Hopefully it didn't put you off and it can encourage you a little.

This post has another purpose as well.

Last week, I was fortunate enough to get to go to the Echo Conference, a Christian organization that ministers to church artists, storytellers, and "geeks" as they called them (sound, lights, tech people). It was really an encouraging time of great advice for the job and also great spiritual advice to creative people. One of the break out sessions was about the lies we believe about ourselves, "I'm not good enough", "God can't really use me in ministry", "[this] aspect of my life makes me useless". They suggested that to refute those inner voices (because NO one's inner voice is positive, is it?), you should write down scripture to refute it.


Well, I've been believing some lies lately, particularly about my stuttering. Mainly, that "I am useless because of my stutter. I am ineffective, slow and ridiculous". It's easy to feel that way when practically all your experiences all day long point in that direction. Stuttering has been ... um.... honestly?.... driving me (pardon my french, but hopefully this word will accent just how bad it's been) ... bat shit crazy. I don't know who first put those words together to form a phrase, but bat shit crazy seems accurate. I don't know if it means I'm standing in bat shit and it's drove me crazy, or some insane bat just when haywire and shit relentlessly on my head. Regardless, that's how it's been. Now, hopefully you will get a chuckle out of that. But because of all this, I've decided I should write one positive thing about stuttering each day for... oh... maybe five days. Hopefully I can come up with new material. But if nothing else, it will help me focus on the good things that can come from being showered in bat shit.

Good Thing about Stuttering #1

I'm in good company. Here are some poeple who stuttered that you might not know of: James Earl Jones, Marilyn Monroe, Carly Simon, Emily Blunt, Mel Tilis, Bruce Willis, James Stewart, King George (if you want to see more, click here: http://www.stutteringhelp.org/famous-people-who-stutter).
Anyway, my favorite person who stuttered is Moses.

The guy is about as useless and fearful as can be. He killed a guy, ran away to a whole other country, spent the majority of his life hiding out in the desert watching sheep, and begged God not to send him to free the people of Israel. People give Moses a lot of flack, saying how terrible it is that he asked God so many times to "send someone else". Let me just say, that besides the being a murderer thing, I totally get the level of fear Moses has. He says, "Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and of tongue."

Man, I get it. I believe the same lies. Just because I'm not eloquent, this must mean God can't use me. Just because I'm freakishly awkward means that God can't use me to speak about His grace. Just because I am "slow of speech and tongue", this means I am not an effective sharer of the Gospel.

So what does God do in response to Moses' pleas? After getting a little frustrated with the guy, he says this: "Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go; I will help you to speak and teach you what to say!"

Yup, that's right. God makes people deaf, mute, blind and stuttering. There's a purpose for it. And he promises to "help me to speak and teach me what to say".

Love it. Anyway, that's the good thing for today: that God promises to help me thru it. We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Love ya.

Catching up and 1st Year of Marriage Summary!

Oh, my gosh, it's July, which means it's been almost three months since I last wrote on this blog. I think it's safe to say I am a bad, bad blogger. Sorry for the absence. Here's a few things that have been going on since then:

May-June: Jesse and I were rehearsing for the local Spring Valley United Methodist Church's community performance of "The Music Man". This involved quite a bit of work, especially for Jesse who was Harold Hill (I was Ethel Toffelmier, a small but fun role). This also meant a lot of work for me, as I often helped him run lines late at night.

July: The month of all months! My amazing family came down to visit during the week of the show. It was wonderful to see them, though I felt bad that I couldn't spend more time with them! I was busy finishing painting the sets and with rehearsals and performances. Then, on June 8th, Jesse and I celebrated our ONE YEAR anniversary! We didn't have much time to celebrate then, because the following week was VBS at Woodcreek Church. It was my first time helping with VBS and I loved it! That Friday, Jesse and I were able to escape to Eureka Springs, AR, for a brief but relaxing anniversary get-away. And on Saturday, we celebrated my (gulp) 27th birthday!

So, hopefully all this is sufficient reason for not tending to the blog. To put it simply: I've been busy.

And now, onto the main subject, which is... 
"Hey, ya'll, I've been married for a year!"
Where I give you an honest summary of how this first year has been:

(Are you excited?)

 Going into your first year, you don’t know what to expect really. Half the people you talk to say that the first year of marriage was “blissful, fun and romantic”. The other half insists it was one of their hardest years as couple. (Looking back, I can see that it totally depends on the couple and their personalities). So, as we returned from our honeymoon, I hoped for the best but sort of planned for the worst.

I ended up being pleasantly surprised. We had a seriously great first year. Of course, occasionally we’ve had our little arguments. These usually happen because we are tired, hungry, or we are moving! The move to Richardson was stressful, and we ended up fighting more during that hellish week (about things like packing tape and where we should put his bureau). But, at least for this first year, for me 95% of the time it has felt like an eternal slumber party with your best friend, who just happens to be a man. The other 5% is comprised of the hard stuff. I will briefly touch on those:

• 2.5% of that 5% is the “ahh-ha, he’s a man and so he’s different” scenarios. These can range from unwanted or unwelcome manly hobbies such as flatulence or burping to more serious things like differences in thinking. I sort of thought Jesse would analyze, learn and understand things similarly to the way I do. False! We've gotten angry with each other a couple times when he insisted I give him “the big picture” while I was trying to do so by explaining lots of details lol. Turns out, women and men are just plain different. Fortunately, so far, we’ve been able to be patient with each other’s mental differences.

• 2% of that 5% is my own sin nature. I once heard that, “marriage is like a mirror that shows you all of your issues, all your sin and all your selfishness”. At the time, I thought something like, “well, isn’t that quaint”. Nope. It’s true. If you had any blissful misconceptions about how you were an angel prior to marriage, holy matrimony certainly brings that “gunk” to light. And what could be more holy than that? (I’m not being facetious here). Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another”. God designed marriage not just for happiness, pleasure or kids, but also as a tool to make us more like Jesus. So, anytime I’m being selfish and think “Jesse should do such-and-such and if he doesn’t, he’s not meeting my needs”, I get to examine if my expectations are right and holy… or if they are just plain selfish. Nine times out of ten, it’s me being selfish. Great. So, I get to sharpen Jesse and he gets to sharpen me. Pretty cool deal.

• 0.5% out of 5% is just because life is hard. It’s our first year, so we haven’t accumulated a whole lot of woes in that time. I’m sure within a few years the percentage will change and be higher. For now, life struggles were pretty okay. Things like my stuttering, jobs, occasionally family relationships, expenses, etc., can be difficult. I think it’s safe to say we’ve both enjoyed leaning on each other as well as God during those times. It’s nice to have your partner’s fresh perspective and their ability to be a sounding board when you need to vent or process.

Our young married's small group has been great for us as well. We've read several books on marriage, which have been full of valuable information. Also, it's been great to hang out with other couples in the same stage of life we find ourselves in. I like that no two stories are alike: some couples have/had a rough first year, some have a good one. This doesn't mean those with bad years are "doomed" or that those with good years will have great "easy" marriages (as if there is such a thing). I'm sure Jesse and I will have a bad year ... or tons... (ah!). We're just different enough, and I'm flawed enough that I know that I will probably end up punching him at some point (but, I'll be gentle, promise). I've heard the 3rd, 5th and 7th year are rough. All those prime numbers you know... proof that math is evil (ha). I think it just depends on the couple, plain and simple, and neither way is wrong or right.

So, I give this year an A. The only reason I don't give it an A+ is because I want to keep hope that other years will be just as good, if not better. I'm sure some years will be rough, but I wanna stay positive and go for that A+ at least one year. :) 

Love you, Jesse "Bear". Thanks for a great year! And here's to many more years- be they "good" or "bad". Sharing life with you is always good.