Of Whine and Roses

June 23, 2009June 26, 2009 Deana2 Comments

“When you do tell your story, don’t sound like the victim. If you do, you’ll sound like you’re whining. Just be truthful in telling your story and aim to discover that slice of humanity that others can relate to.” David Pierce, author of “Don’t Let Me Go.”

Ever pick up a case of the whines without realizing it? I do that and I don’t mean to. I hate it when I catch myself doing it too. When sharing facts, I can forget the good pieces that came of whatever situation it was. Case in point. I went through an incredible season of sifting that has brought amazing fruit and yet these places in my heart are still tender, still mending, and giving voice to them, hurts a little and it comes out all wrong. I caught myself doing that a lot last week at the Cove and man did that ever frustrate me.

I learned so much in that season several years ago. I learned about letting go, about not having to be the Christ for everyone I meet, about boundaries, fear, idols, and about trusting God. Mostly, I learned how to play for an audience of One. Those are wonderful gifts to share. When I remember to share them that is. The problem is, I don’t always remember.

I know that I am not the first person in the world to feel forsaken or to feel like I’ve been handed over to Satan on a silver platter – as if to say, “Here, she won’t listen to me so you have a go at her.” I’m inspired by authors who are willing to tell the truth. Men like Philip Yancey who seem to bleed when they write. In a good way. Me? Sometimes I bleed, sometimes I vomit. Mostly, I stuff.

That paints a lovely picture, doesn’t it? Instead of the cute Irish Chia Pet, I’m that baby on the commercials buying stock and spitting up all at the same time. Ewww.

So how do I find that balance that David talks about? Talking with people I trust. Learning how to say I know there is something in here that can help someone else, please help me find the right words.

4852_90879174043_821739043_1848473_4212151_nb My husband caught a great quote of mine last week. The ice storm of 2007 destroyed all of our trees and instead of shade we now have sunshine and I planted flowers. Was it a lot of work? Oh yes. Clearing out dead trees and building beds IS hard work and yet- out of the storm came sunshine, and new life and a new creaton and that is a good thing.

Father’s Day Dinner

June 21, 2009June 22, 2009 DeanaLeave a comment

I’ll be honest. I have not cooked for a few months now. Life has been hectic and I’ve simply taken the cheaters route of filling the fridge up with wraps and various simple to create sundries and have told my family to “have at it.” And then we went to The Cove. Wow, was I ever inspired by Randy’s cooking. He stepped us through every process and the whole living foods he used to create his dishes were timeless. I loved every minute of it. So, having been inspired by some of the best food I’ve ever eaten at the Cove, I decided to cook my own Italian Dinner for Father’s Day. Granted, I don’t have a pasta turner thingie like he had, (yet) the results were still spectacular.

2009 405 We started off with a simple salad made of roasted pine nuts, chopped red and green peppers, red lettuce, celery, fresh basil, fresh mint, shredded carrots, and grape tomatoes.

2009 404 Our main course is my own creation – Manicotti stuffed with diced chicken, spinach, italian parsley, dried oregano and Feta cheese. I place the stuffed shells on a bed of diced tomatoes and cover it with alfredo sauce and parm cheese. Bake at 350 degrees for one hour and 15 minutes.

2009 408

And to compliment the meal, we enjoyed a La Crema Chardonney recommended by our friends at The Cove. For dessert I offered strawberry shortcake.

Ah yes – to be cooking again is a glorious thing.

Happy Father’s Day ya’ll.

Where Nobody knows your name.

June 20, 2009June 29, 2009 DeanaLeave a comment

Do you remember the opening song for that old TV show “Cheers?”

“Sometimes you want to go where everybody knows your name.” la da de da..

Well, we needed time to unplug and go where no one really knew our name. We needed time to meet new faces, and new people and see new sights. We needed an adventure without drama. Ever been there?

I plan on writing more about our adventures with Randy and Chris Elrod at later times – along with everything else I’ve promised. But I did want to just write some thoughts for today. I caught myself telling Jeff this weekend that I do not understand the past 12 months. I don’t understand the serendipity of God’s Grace. The doors that are opening. All of it. and I used the phrase, “I’m no body. Why is He (being God) doing this?”

Jeff’s great response was to tell me the first thing I need to do is stop thinking I’m nobody, and start believing that God sees me as somebody. I’m feeling guilty for the Grace. Odd, really.

Do I really struggle with that? Still? Apparently so.

The past seven years, while we worked on dreaming of a church, dreaming of ministry, dreaming of our second life – the life we have post corporate careers and post children has been full of adventure and mixed emotions. I’ve had a lot of healing to do.

It’s just occurred to me really, that I am ending a seven year cycle. One that began on cloud nine with a new church, a new job working in a church, a new “ministry” and a cycle that ended (for me) at the Cove. These seven years have brought me an entire roller coaster of emotions, events, and dreams. I’ve hit every peak I thought possible and more valleys than imaginable. And I find myself sitting again on the precipice of change; wiser and more discerning and still excited.

I find myself searching for words to describe what it’s like to be somewhere where nobody really knows my name with the only two people who did (that being Jeff and God) and feeling known in ways I can’t yet explain.

I mean this post as a dialog really. But I’m at a loss how to start it. So I’ll simply ask this have you ever thought you were nobody and found out that you were the world to at least somebody?

An Awesome Day

June 10, 2009June 10, 2009 DeanaLeave a comment

I gave birth – via C-Cection – to a wonderful 7 lb 1 oz baby boy on June 10, 1993. Dillon’s lungs were not fully developed and he was what they call a “blue baby” and he was rushed to the EOPC at St Francis Hospital, where he spent 14 days before they let me take him home.

My grandfather also died that day and Dillon’s middle name, “Raymond” is in his honor.

Dillon’s first night was a rough one and the doctors were not sure he would make it. It was that night that I surrendered my life back to Christ, and offered God a trade – my life for his. Some call that a selfish prayer, but I don’t. It was in that moment that I really understood why Christ offered his life as a ransom for many. It was in that moment that I knew what it was like to be willing to lay down my life for another.

Dillon turns 16 today – he and his brother are the absolute light of my life. The song with this photo montage’ was written by Dillon and his father in about 2004 and recorded at the Lutheran Church of Our Savior, Tulsa, in 2004.

This song was written while Dillon’s epilepsy was still active. He’d had a rough day of multiple seizures and was hospitalized for observation. After he got home, Jeff heard him singing this song around the house. Jeff put music to it, and they sang it at church for Easter.

Copywrite: Dillon O’Hara – song may not be reprinted or performed without express written permission of author.

Cliff Diving in Oklahoma, Lessons on Letting Go

June 6, 2009July 6, 2010 Deana1 Comment

CCA Conference-14 My son Charlie jumped off a cliff last month while in Belize, answering the age old question “If your friends all jumped off a cliff would you do it too?”

Apparently the correct answer is “YES Mom, I would. “

Cliff jumping was his moment of facing his fears (heights) and even though it goes against every motherhood protective instinct I have, I’m proud of him.

Charlie faces two more cliffs when he gets home; High School graduation and delivering his Valedictorian speach. My son faces his fears valiantly. I could not be more proud.

He will go on to jump off more cliffs in life – college, dating, working, marriage, etc.. and I know that God will be with him and it’s okay even if my heart doesn’t want to let him go.

As this season of “Charlie’s Mom” closes a little for me, I know that I have my own cliffs to face. Letting him go is just one of them. I also have a 16 year old at home who wants to be let go of as well. Dillon is learning how to drive and wants all of the freedoms that come with that.

With Dillon’s epilepsy, I’ve had a hard time letting him go. When it comes to him, I’m more of a helicopter Mom than anything else. As time presses forward, I know that I need to learn how to step back more and let him try his wings, lest I cripple him before I let him go. He and I are both standing on the edge of that cliff, looking at the river below – there will come a day, too quickly for me, where jumping will be necessary and not optional.

In letting go, I’m learning how to try my own wings. I jumped off my own cliff this week. I drove to Nashville, went to the Christian Comedy Association Conference and did a three minute stand up set during open mic in front of some of the biggest names in Christian Comedy today.

I wanted to throw up.

But I didn’t.

The trick to surviving cliff jumping – is to not do it alone. Charlie’s friends were all waiting for him in that River and in that graduation hall – they cheered him on. They bandaged eachother’s nicks and scrapes up afterwards as well.

My friends and I are facing empty nests together – we aren’t alone on that cliff. And as for comedy, I’ve been staring at that cliff for several years now. This year, I jumped and in doing that, I found new friends waiting in the river.

What cliffs are you facing today?

What a Month it was

May 29, 2009 DeanaLeave a comment

My Good Looking Family (Charlie, me, Dillon, and Jeff)

This has been the craziest couple of weeks I’ve had in forever. And it has been wonderful. Mom arrived on the 15, Charlie came back from Belize on the 17 and then graduation on the 22.

We’ve cleaned, visited, partied, cleaned again, and visited some more. It’s hard to believe that my son is now a high school graduate and that Mom went home today. I miss her already. I miss him already too and he hasn’t left for college yet.

This is going to be a busy busy summer for all of us. Charlie leaves for MO, and I’m leaving for Murphreesboro TN this weekend. He is going to be a camp counselor for special needs kids, and I’m going to comedy camp. 😉 It’ll be fun.

This is just the beginning of wonderful things for all of us and instead of being scared – like I usually am – I’m excited. That is a good thing.

Wordless Wednesday – sorta ;-)

May 20, 2009 DeanaLeave a comment

Charlie is home from the Billy White Mission in Belize!!! Yeah!!

beforeandafterbelize

This is graduation week and we are pretty swamped.. But I”ll have more information regarding life in Oklahoma and the trip to Belize next week.

Hugs

Deana

Keep Telling Your Stories

May 15, 2009May 15, 2009 DeanaLeave a comment

I wake up some days on top of the world. Other days I wake up feeling like I would rather be under my blankets. I am woman, and I can be moody. If you read my blog, you know that about me.

You also know that I have a tendancy to compare my insides with other people’s outsides and sometimes I think my “story” isn’t worth telling. Nobody really wants to hear about a kid that tried to join church after church, only to be turned down because I was too young. No one cares that my neighbors took me to church as a teenager or that the first “evangelist” I heard was a child star from the popular show from the 70’s and 80’s and that God spoke to me through her.

I get confused and think my story is trivial compared to the ones out there, and then I remember that my story, really is his. And when I’m filled with doubts, God uses someone else to speak to me again.

Today is the 15th, that means I log on to Beth Moore’s LMP blog and post my memory verse. While I was there leaving my verse, I read this:

Keep telling your stories, Sweet Siestas. Don’t decide it wasn’t that big a deal after all…or that maybe you made it up, or that maybe it was just a coincidence. It was GOD. Revelation 12:13 says we overcome the enemy by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimonies! Let’s open our mouths wide and tell it. – Beth Moore

That is a now kind of word for a now kind of need.

What is funny is my memory verse is straight out of Philippians 1:6 – “being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion unti lthe day of Christ Jesus.”

How appropriate is that? This little girl that no church wanted as a child, has confidence today because of Christ and HIS work that he carries out daily, hourly, moment by moment, to completion. He doesn’t get board with you or with me and leave us half finished. He COMPLETES his work in us. The enemy is overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by our testimony.

Be blessed. I am.

Hack “The Shack?” – I don’t think so

May 14, 2009May 14, 2009 DeanaLeave a comment

Pastors all over the world are divided. That is a given. I mean that with far more grace than black and white type on a blog can convey. Having said that, I’m pleased to see a non-biased review of William Paul Young’s book The Shack in a Lutheran Magazine.

Mainline Protestant churches can be a little biased, so for me to see us step out a little and acknowledge the good along side of the “what we disagree with” is a blessing.

The author of this review is LCMS pastor, Rev. Steven B. Borst from Riverside, California. He surprised me by not just hacking the book, like many are doing these days, but rather embracing both the good and the questionable pointing out a major plus in this book.

According to Pastor Borst, “The Shack deals with life under the cross and is not afraid to venture into the deep mysteries of faith.”

We live life under the cross. Life is messy. It is complex. And sometimes, life hurts. And like William Young, or even his main character Mack, we live in a fallen world where losing our innocence, hope, and faith is a part of this life. Hopefully, in time, we find ourselves facing that empty shack, that place where sorrow and hope meet and we find God waiting for us.

My only question in the review was the author’s suggestion that William Young have sought out clergy who could have helped him with his “doctrinal problems.” Sounds easy and is good advice to be sure. My only problem with that is pastors and Christians, as a whole, don’t always agree on doctrine even within their own denominations. Case in point: I spent three years working along side three very gifted pastors not too long ago, we even had a vicar my last year there. I can remember countless times when I would ask doctrinal questions, during devotions, and I would get four different answers from these men. If I had not been taught how to study the Bible Inductively, (By my former pastor and his wife) that would have seriously confused me. Instead, I walk away from those encounters both amused and deeply convicted that I need to study deeper to seek God’s answers and not just man’s interpretation. Ponder the pastoral wisdom and answers yes, and then match it against God’s true word. Every teacher makes mistakes – God’s Word, however, is inerrant. And no teacher is in place of the Holy Spirit and that includes me.

My question to Pastor Borst would be, “Who should William have asked?” Maybe he did ask and got conflicting answers like I do so many times, or maybe he simply wrote this as fiction and not as anything more.

My question to you dear readers – is who do you ask? And what do you do if you get conflicting answers?