The IDD Blog

Saturday, May 17, 2008

Weekend Quote

"If we did all the things we were capable of doing, We would literally astound ourselves."

Friday, May 16, 2008

"Spring Cleaning"

Fall 2007

I've been thinking recently. Mom's been doing a lot of 'spring cleaning' at our house. Getting rid of extra clutter and things we don't need or use. I've been meaning to do the same. Get rid of extra stuff I have lying around. I don't really need to drag it all to our new house. Then when David and Kristi were here this weekend, Kristi mentioned that she had been doing the same thing. *DING!* O.k. I'm paying attention now! So, during church on Sunday there were so many thoughts coming to mind that I had to jot them down. This is what I came up with.

I sit here and think about the fact that I so often tell myself that
"I'm not ready and I don't know what to do about it. I'm too busy. "
Too busy doing what??? Concentrating on the things in the carnal, on the natural things that are before me? On the thing on this level that God has given me to do. But yet, my mind is not in the place it needs to be. I find myself asking what happened? What happened to the time when I could pray without ceasing. What happened to waking up each morning with a song on my lips and a prayer in my heart. What happened to me?

Of course I could easily dismiss it as just a step up in the battle. A spiritual war is raging and it gets hotter every day. Dismiss it and go back to doing what God requires of me naturally on a day to day basis. But what about the spiritual requirements? If the battle step up every day, why don't I step it up every day. I can't stay on one level while everything else goes up. Dad just reminded me of Narnia's Last Battle;
"Further up and further in!"
But I think to myself, I'm too tired to run. What do I do? Where do I turn?
I need to go and do some serious cleaning. Naturally and spiritually. What are my priorities? What I want, or what God desires of me, even if I don't like it. Even if I don't like it. *gulp* yep *swallows* Because if I do it, God's will becomes my will. His desires, my desires. and then when my dreams fade away and He is the dream, I won't be questioning anymore. I won't wonder, worry and stumble around in the dark stubbing my toe on the clutter in my life.

I have a destiny, a purpose, a place in the perfect will of God. Get your priorities straight, clean up and let go of the things in your life that are holding you back and then set your sights on God. Lock your eyes on Him and don't look back. Then your destiny will be fulfilled. And your dreams will not seem unfulfilled and fruitless. They will be God's plan for you and they will be fulfilled and fruitful unto Him.

Thursday, May 15, 2008

Being thankful even in the embarrassments

Being thankful in all things sounds wonderful and spiritual when you say it. But discovering just what all that entails is quite another matter.

There many times in my life that for His own perfect reasons, God chooses to give me a lesson in some form regarding humility.

I just wish He'd plan them further apart, instead of frequently together.

You could say the moral of the story (or one of the morals, anyway) is, when you know a guy (close to your age) is going to crack a joke, it is not wise to sip your lemonade. No my friends, it is dangerous.

Especially if you are sitting across from him at a pizza place.

Surrounded by friends and family.

Watching a member of the male gender wiping sticky, saliva-mixed lemonade off his arms, face, Sunday shirt, and possibly even his shoes, with a sweet, forgiving smile on his face, would make any blue-blooded girl either burst into tears or laugh hysterically from humiliation.

It's in those moments I must make a choice--thank the Lord for the "lesson in being lesser", or crawl under the table and die from embarrassment.

There's also the option of begging God to crack open the floor in the restaurant so you can fall neatly inside--It doesn't work, just for the record.

So I choose to thank God for the chance to humble myself, and for the young man who graciously extended forgiveness toward me, though I ruined his shirt.

Thanking God for His lessons isn't always easy--but knowing He still loves me, no matter how many guys I bathe in sugary fruit drink, is such a comfort.

-Miss Deb

Wednesday, May 14, 2008

I'm not waiting for Prince Charming

I'm not waiting for Prince Charming.

I know some of you may be confused by that statement. I am, after all, fairly vocal in my support of "dating with a purpose," or courtship, if you want to call it that. I'm even the administrator (along with a staff of several wonderful young ladies) of I Don't Date. Have I suddenly changed my convictions? No, not really.

But I repeat: I am not waiting for Prince Charming.

I am waiting for my husband.

I am not waiting for that mythical someday when a perfect man, a knight-in-shining-armor, rides in on his horse and scoops me off and carries me off to his castle where we live happily ever after. I am not waiting for that day because it will never come and believing that it will is only harmful to myself and to my future relationship with my future husband. (This is not to say that I don't love Pre-Raphaelite art as much as anyone else, just that I don't believe it will happen or ever did in the way we tend to think of it.)

You see, my husband, while I hope and pray that he is a wonderful and Godly man, is just that: a man. He is not now nor ever will be perfect and to imagine that he will is only setting both of us up for heartbreak.

Because what happens when he fails me?

He will fail me, just as I will fail him. And if I cherish the dream of a perfect man only to find that he is not so perfect after all (and I am talking larger failings than leaving his socks on the floor here), what will that do to my trust in him? How much harder would it be to find forgiveness for him and his failings in my heart? Yet would I not hope for that forgiveness myself? I would. And God calls us to forgive our fellow strugglers.

So no, I am not waiting for my Prince Charming. I am waiting for the man that I hope to laugh with, to cry with, to sing with, to read with, to live with, and to worship God with. I know that there will be hard times to come, just as there are hard times now. I know that my own sinful tendencies will rear up their ugly heads just as his will. And you know? I can only pray that God will bring us through them, whatever they be. But I can also refuse to fall into the trap of idealized thinking that is implicated in that phrase, "Prince Charming."

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Dr. Jak's Fashion Tonic

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AKA: The Hat

Monday, May 12, 2008

Chaos and French Fries

Chaos reigns, yes, sometimes, in the house of a large family. Sometimes? Who am I kidding?!

When the movie "Cheaper by the Dozen" starring Steve Martin came out, I was skeptical. And even after I saw it, I scoffed. "Large families aren't all that chaotic! Seriously, roller-skating in the house? Buckets stuck on people's heads? C'mon!"

Obviously families that chaotic have problems with discipline. Large families get a bad enough rap without being stuck with the “just like Steve Martin’s crazy movie family” label. Here’s a good reason not to have lots of kids: they’ll get buckets stuck on their heads and swing off the chandeliers!

Pardon my sarcasm.

I’d actually forgotten about my dislike of that movie until recently, last week to be exact. After that day, I think I’ve changed my mind.

It was a Tuesday.

I arrived home from a long day at work. A long boring day, I might add, but I wasn't in the mood for excitement. No, I had plans for a nice quiet evening at home. Write, maybe. Clean up my room. Do laundry. Quiet things.

Cue for ominous music! But little did I know…

I found myself babysitting four siblings, including a particularly fractious nine-month-old who had decided she hated everyone except her mommy (who wasn’t home). This derailment of events was followed by a surprise delivery of industrial size canned tomatoes, tomato juice and ketchup, a large box containing six enormous heads of romaine lettuce, a box of soy milk, three cartons of french fries (each carton held six industrial size bags), another carton of frozen vegetables, two 3 pound bags of cheddar cheese and a lot more I know I am forgetting (probably because we’ve eaten it already), that we had no room in the freezer for. All the food spawned a trip over to a friend’s house where I found myself wondering how one earth I had ended up on this friend’s neighbor’s porch offering complete strangers bags of frozen French fries. And what is more, gushing thanks for taking them off my hands. The evening ended nicely with my arrival home, only to hear from an open upstairs window, the wails of a younger sibling who had an accident and decided to announce to everyone in the house (as well as the neighborhood) that she needed help changing her clothes.

Our house, chaotic? Never!

I sometimes feel a slight pressure to talk about large families always in a positive light, never touching on the chaos or all that goes into living with eleven other people, all in one house. Sharing two bathrooms; now that is often deemed gasp-worthy in itself. Only two bathrooms? For thirteen people?! And another person faints.

There is a slight pressure to always be cheery about it. Large families are wonderful and I would never trade mine for a thing in the world. I don’t want anyone – from co-workers to the clerk at the grocery store to the random stranger eavesdropping in on a conversation – to think that large families suck the life and joy out of you. I don’t want to give big families a bad name by complaining.

Still, there is a balance. And there is reality. Reality means that I love dancing around the kitchen with my sisters, from nine months to eighteen years, but reality also means that I sometimes want to never hear a Veggie Tales song ever again. Reality means that even though I do love it when siblings run to greet me upon my arrival home from work, I don’t always appreciate interruptions when I’m doing Something Important. Reality is life, and life is messy and complicated. Life isn’t a Thomas Kinkade painting or a Vision Forum catalog.

Life…life is made of up long days with french fry problems and fussy babies just as much as silly songs with Larry and dancing for the simple pleasure of it. Life is muddy little boys who won’t always listen – and snuggling on the couch reading books about ‘but not the hippopotamus!’

So, I try not to hide it. We’re a crazy lot, this large family and I. We aren’t freaks and we aren’t perfect. We have our moments of fabulous chaos and moments of horrific chaos. Whatever kind of chaos, I’m trying to be honest.

Now, honestly. Anyone want some French fries? For free!

- Krista S.