tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28652798823514284842024-03-05T10:11:49.384-06:00Peace of LifePersonal reflections on life now and then.Grace Chelsea Women's Ministryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11387930554603952192noreply@blogger.comBlogger29125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-7535600293185304652010-03-15T13:25:00.003-05:002010-03-15T13:29:02.306-05:00"All Choices Have Consequences, No Matter the Decision" Written for the Amelia Center newsletter (Tears To Hope)<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">“All Choices Have Consequences, No Matter the Decision” Jennifer Baker<br /><br />In life most things really boil down to choices. Sometimes we have full control over a choice. Sometimes we believe we have no choices. In fact there are some consequences in life that are the result of someone else’s choice, that we had no control over, or any input into those choices. However, we do control the choices we make as a response to that choice. How would our choices change if we applied the phrase “All choices have consequences, no matter the decision” to every situation in our lives? We would begin to see our own influence over our circumstances very clearly. When you choose the consequences you are willing to accept, you are undoubtedly making a decision, and therefore take ownership of the choice. When you own the choice you own the consequences of that choice.<br /><br />So how does that apply to grief? You have no input into the loss in your life. You really can not affect death or the timing of it. Sometimes, after a death, it feels like there is no way to escape the pain. We wish we could undo the death or somehow make the pain stop. We can not control how much pain we feel. So, if can not choose to make the person return and you can not choose to make the pain stop, where are your choices? In the words of Victor Frankl, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”<br /><br />Everyday you wake up after someone you love has died you are faced with many choices. Participating in life is now a choice. Before the death, you probably never questioned whether you would get out of the bed in the morning. You probably took for granted that you would shower or get in your car and go to work. You just accepted those daily tasks as you went about the business of living. However, after a death, everything about life as you knew it prior to the loss is different. Suddenly you have choices, where before you just had daily life. “Should I lay in my bed today or get up and go to work?” “Should I shower or care for myself?” “Should I have this drink so I won’t have to think about the death for a few hours?” “Should I go to grief counseling?” “Should I live?”<br /><br />Granted some of these choices may seem extreme, but they are realistic choices for every grieving person. Life is hard work when you are grieving. You have fewer resources, physically and emotionally, than you had before the death, mainly because your energy is spent on the work of grief. However, if a grieving person can choose the consequences instead of looking at ambiguous and cloudy choices, they are able to see more clearly how the choices they make can affect them in a positive or negative way. “If I don’t get up and go to work, I will get fired and therefore will not be able to provide for my family.” “If I drink this bottle of alcohol I know eventually I will be right back at the beginning again, feeling the pain.” “If I choose to make an effort to participate in life, then I will choose not to let the pain take charge of my life.” Another quote from Victor Frankl states, “Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.” Choice then, leads to freedom. When we choose our consequences, we are not paralyzed by them. Therefore, choosing to participate in life in spite of the pain of death brings with it the consequence of healing. </span>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-56034636977052689472009-08-26T15:10:00.004-05:002009-08-26T15:19:09.182-05:00Just Keep Swimming<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">This is the inaugural article I wrote for our newsletter at the Amelia Center:<br /><br />Just Keep Swimming – Jennifer Baker 8-26-09<br />It has been six weeks since I dove into the world of grief counseling at the Amelia center. In this short time I have learned a great deal, and have been touched by so many people and their personal stories of hope and healing. I have seen people who have just been hit with the hardest news they have ever faced, the death of someone close to them, and I have seen people who are a little further down the path on the road of hope and healing. I think about their grief and their loss, and while they are unique in their stories and circumstance, their pain seems universal. There seems to be one underlying theme in the counseling room, they want to be better, to work their way out of the intense pain and to feel better. One mom stated it something like this, she didn’t want to forget her child, she said, “I just don’t want to cry every time I remember him.” So the key is that grieving people want to be able to hold on and yet, somehow let go of the pain of the loss.<br /><br />Hearing this mom, and many others parents speak of their grief, I have come to a conclusion about the process of grief. In many ways I see grief as very similar to the ocean. When people are at the beginning they feel like they are alone, floating in a deep dark, ocean, and there is no land around to cling to… nothing stable. They are using every bit of their energy to survive. They weather storms and waves of overwhelming grief. Sometimes it is so hard, they feel like they can not hold themselves up and occasionally they do sink, but they survive. It takes all of their energy, all of their will and focus, but they survive. Eventually, after much struggle, they become really strong swimmers and they find themselves moving closer to the shore. They can’t stand yet, but they have hope that soon they will able to put their feet on solid ground again, because off in the distance they can see the shore. This is where a grieving person has some hint of that new normality that comes in after time has passed and they begin to adjust to life without their loved one. After much time, they look down into the water and it becomes clearer. They can see through it. It isn’t dark anymore. They can see the bottom of the ocean. They are closer to feeling good than they have been before. Occasionally, a storm will come and knock them further out into the ocean again, but they survive and keep swimming toward the shore. The closer to shore you get the better you feel. This is the work of grief. It is a continual process of swimming toward the shore. One father who lost his son a few decades ago said it like this, “I know I am getting better when the tears turn into smiles. I know I’ll never be the same again, but I know I am better.”<br /><br />Eventually, they make it to the shore. They are able to step out of the water, and feel the stability of the sand beneath their feet. They can turn and look out into the ocean and maybe they even see the beauty of it. They are different than they were when they were dropped in the middle of the water into that ocean of grief. They are strong and have confidence that they will survive. They will not lose hope, and even though the ocean is still there with its deep and treacherous water, they are not consumed by it, they are not drowning… they know they can swim. And so they will continue to swim, and to survive My heart goes out to all of those families in our care who are working so very hard to swim.<br /><br />Feel free to watch this really well done video on our services here at the Amelia Center...<br /><a href="http://video.chsys.org/videos/miracle_stories/Amelia_Center_Impact_Video_2008.wmv">http://video.chsys.org/videos/miracle_stories/Amelia_Center_Impact_Video_2008.wmv</a><br /></span><a href="http://video.chsys.org/videos/miracle_stories/Amelia_Center_Impact_Video_2008.wmv"><a href="http://video.chsys.org/videos/miracle_stories/Amelia_Center_Impact_Video_2008.wmv"></a></a>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-58156235209750274542009-07-13T12:08:00.006-05:002009-07-13T18:25:25.011-05:00Restless Heart<p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic;" class="MsoNormal">I was cleaning out one of my many cluttered bags today and found a pretty painful poem I had written. It was tucked inside one of my church bulletins. There was a quote inside the bulletin that I thought was profoundly simple and an obvious answer to my hearts cry. God is so lovingly subtle and yet so obvious sometimes. All I was doing was cleaning out a bag.
<br /></p><p style="font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: rgb(51, 102, 102); font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >Restless Heart</span>
<br /></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">Oh heart, I hate you.</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">How you betray me.</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">Why do you abandon me?</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">How do you escape me?</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">I can not control you.</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">You can not be contained.</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">Even when I fight</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">To hold on to innocence,</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">You corrupt my attempts.</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">The sin that is buried underneath</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">Is a shadow that clouds my soul.</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">When will I be free,</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">Of this intense hypocrisy?</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">Oh heart you are restless…</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">When will I find rest</p> <p style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);" class="MsoNormal">If there is not rest in me?
<br /></p><span style="font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 102, 102);font-family:verdana;font-size:100%;" >“Our hearts are restless, until we find rest in Thee”... Augustine
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<br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/yK0wks-0DGc&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/yK0wks-0DGc&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-51721270851249390622009-07-12T00:40:00.005-05:002009-07-12T01:59:33.588-05:00The Crippled Man<span style=";font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:85%;" >Today I was feeling particularly low. I had to run by Tarjet' (Target) to pick up a wedding gift, baby gift, and birthday gift. I was so down. I have some issues in my life that are constantly on the edge of my heart. I was all inside myself, and then I saw him. There was this man who looked to be in his fifties... in a wheelchair. He was next to his car, all alone. He was attempting to open his back door but the door kept closing on him. He was trying to get his cane out of the backseat. After three tries, he had his cane. Then he had to roll backwards, unlock and open his trunk. I was just sitting there watching him, the traffic was jammed up in front of Best Buy. I kept thinking that one of the passers by that was headed to the parking lot was on their way to help him, but no one even seemed to acknowledge him, no one even saw him. He was not weak looking. He did not look out of control or helpless. I would have assumed he was helpless, but then he stood with his cane, and leaned on his car. With one hand propped himself up and then with the other hand he folded and threw his wheelchair into the back of the trunk. I was shocked. For so many reasons. No one helped him. That was the first thing that struck me as wrong. His whole situation would have been less difficult if someone had taken the time to stop and look at him, but, they truly did not notice. I was angry at those people. Then he was in his car, and looked just like every other person driving around in the parkinglot. He was crippled but now you couldn't even tell.<br /><br />I thought, now that is just ironic. That man is me. Here I am in my car...all alone and sad, and feeling crippled in so many ways. I am riding around and look just like everyone else. Like the crippled man, I looked strong and in control (or at least I tried to). No one noticed me. I looked the same. I was just another shopper presumed to be doing the same thing, and on the same mission. I wanted to blend in and not look sad or like I was different, I did not want anyone to know I was hurting. But I also was needing someone so badly to see me. I needed some compassion. I had just come from a gathering, and for the most part I looked the same there too. But under my skin and in my heart I was aching. Only one person noticed, but I didn't really want them to. I wanted to look like I did not need a wheelchair. I wanted to prop myself up and get my own self to the car and drive away and look just like everyone else. <br /><br />We need people to care for us and to minister to us, to be the hands and feet of Christ. to us... but we don't really want them to. .. there is a power struggle in that. If you care for me then you must be more stable, more healthy, more together, more on top of things.... more mature, more Christ-like. I don't like that. That is my pride. I truly don't feel like I am those things when I am helping others, but I am seriously suspicious of anyone who is ready to help me. I can do it on my own. I can prop myself up, I can put my own chair in the car, I can drive. I don't need your help. But, I know, getting in my car would go so much faster if someone would stop and help. Being helped, being loved or cared for, that requires humility. I have to let you in, and let my guard down. Humility is a word I use often. It is the opposite of pride. Those two things are at war within me. Self verses spirit, pride verses humility. It leaves me crippled and in need of help sometimes. But is anyone really ready... Does anyone even see me? If no one sees me, then do I have to ask, because that is humiliating. I would rather do it all myself than ask. <br /><br />So what does this all mean? I really don't know. I wonder how many people are driving around, looking so OK. But they are crippled, either emotionally, spritually, or in some other way. Are we seeing them? Are we even looking? I don't want to be either of those people. I don't want to hurt. I don't want to be crippled. But I don't want to be the person that doesn't see another is hurting. I wonder sometimes, when I am not feeling crippled, if I even really care enough to look around to see what is going on in the eyes in front of me... I wonder if I am oblivious. I also wonder if being crippled... if suffering is the only real way we ever are able to see the other hurting person. I wonder.<br /></span>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-64988418919392254532009-07-04T11:45:00.009-05:002009-07-04T12:44:05.367-05:00America the Busy...(Featuring "Everything")<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Here is something that a friend of mine who is a children's pastor wrote. It's called <a href="http://thedivinedance.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/everything/">"EVERYTHING"</a> and it is a very thought provoking piece on what we are teaching our children about excess and what challenges we face as parents to combat this new American lifestyle.<br /><br /><a href="http://thedivinedance.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/everything/">http://thedivinedance.wordpress.com/2009/07/04/everything/</a><br /><br />I had been feeling these things but was not able to articulate it in such a clever way. As a mom, in America, I have felt overwhelmed at the pressures that are set before me. I can not keep up already, and my children are only 3 and 5. I see my friends twirling about, driving (literally) themselves crazy. It seems like in my world the women don't have any time, they are stressed out, they are overloaded, and most of them are stay-at-home moms. But, their kids are in sports, their kids are in drama, their kids are everywhere all in the name of creating a good well rounded childhood for them. I know women who sit in carpool six times a day, for three different children. I know so many women who are at three different ballfields a day, every day but Wednesday, all in the name of recreation.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I am not judging these families. In many ways I think this kind of extreme activity snuck up on America over the last ten years. It seems to be getting more and more difficult to say no to this lifestyle. So much fear about leaving our kids alone, not supporting them, and being the only parent NOT at the game. It is overwhelming, but how do we stop it? My biggest complaint about this lifestyle, is no one I know really likes it. They are all so tired. I am tired just watching. So what is it for? Why all the busyness? Why? What are we teaching our kids, but little more than they are the center of the universe? How does that translate into what we are teaching them about Christ and faith? Faith is about humility, and the fact that we do not deserve what we have been given. Are we distorting what sacrificial love looks like? Are they forming an expectation that they SHOULD be sacrificed for? Do they understand the purpose of it, or does it become another expectation? </span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">In one generation I think there will be a world full of grown ups who were raised as children who were the center of their parent's universe. Will they even feel like they need a Saviour? Are we raising narcissists? Maybe that's going too far, maybe. I do think they will be frustrated, because they will be competing with others who were raised this same way. It will be difficult for them to function in a job, in a marriage, anywhere they are not the center of the universe. We are already a selfish nation. "We want what we want and we want it now." Is this way of life going to translate into complete destruction of community? There is nothing wrong with sports, or drama, or ballet, or anything really. I wonder though, what are we teaching our kids about their place in the world when we are allowing their interests and skills to become the focus of the entire family schedule. We need to consider the message we are sending them, because they are forming their identities based on what we tell them, and by what we do for them. I know this will make some people feel like I am judging and condemning them. I hope not. My hope is that you will consider why... Why we are doing all of this? Why are we killing ourselves?... Who is benefiting from it? What will our future as America look like if we keep this up.<br /><br />I considered not writing about this, but then, I am to a fault compelled to say what I think. If you hate it, I am sorry. </span><br /></span>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-86339073495548290482009-07-03T07:40:00.008-05:002009-07-03T12:19:50.177-05:00Deeply Random Thoughts....<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZghyphenhyphenBKVe-k36ew2l_sNjOfartriJVADCVkZaI9zyWCl7VyRAJ2xPbFDaO07-iO67iEf8KtR0enJC0LtPCwCWUSellWCpD0WF_2H-RbxI-4HYiG7mX-dRuDn3mnHh3Li8_yBWMa0Mlxc/s1600-h/Nana's+camera+146.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWZghyphenhyphenBKVe-k36ew2l_sNjOfartriJVADCVkZaI9zyWCl7VyRAJ2xPbFDaO07-iO67iEf8KtR0enJC0LtPCwCWUSellWCpD0WF_2H-RbxI-4HYiG7mX-dRuDn3mnHh3Li8_yBWMa0Mlxc/s320/Nana's+camera+146.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354270190003394594" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkVWjsyjF9e6bgMxWPpDz4R2rMOUs0aWKo4WtFmErGQrB-A12qntxOW_2KQLU5ySMDHiaC8zX54loChpVdUdOUHm6qn6HdisB4vt_EICKZTHbgYRj1IMAcCPe4R_aD7XKKhyzMCsdg_ek/s1600-h/Jennifer+August+2008+Part+2+159.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkVWjsyjF9e6bgMxWPpDz4R2rMOUs0aWKo4WtFmErGQrB-A12qntxOW_2KQLU5ySMDHiaC8zX54loChpVdUdOUHm6qn6HdisB4vt_EICKZTHbgYRj1IMAcCPe4R_aD7XKKhyzMCsdg_ek/s320/Jennifer+August+2008+Part+2+159.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354274136333993890" border="0" /></a></div><br />You know I love Jack Handey, creator of the deep thoughts segment that used to be featured on Saturday Night Live in the early ninety's... I confess I am also a deep thinker. It is really how I spend most of my time. Even when I am engaged in the real world it seems that every bit of information I take in is used as evidence in formulating an idea or thought about something. So, since Jack Handey has coined the "Deep Thoughts" phrase I think I will claim "Deeply Random Thoughts" for myself. So this is just a segment where I will elaborate on some of my less serious or lengthy observations about life.<br /><br />So here goes the first installment of "Deeply Random Thoughts" by Jennifer Baker<br /><br />1) "GOT MILK?"<br />This continues to frustrate me. Why is the milk in the back of the store? When I go to WalMart, I feel like I am carrying my milk around for hours. It should be in the front. I can see no good reason for it to be in the back. The only slightly devious thing I can come up with is that they are expecting that you might shop more if have to go to the back. We live in an excessive society, so I really just don't think it would effect their sales all that much if they put in the front. Isn't the freshness more important??? Probably a very good reason they leave it back there, is that somewhere along the way that was just the way it was done. Therefore, if it was always done that way, it so shall forevermore be done that way. This kind of reasoning makes me and my right-brain thinking very frustrated. I have never been satisfied with that answer to any question I have.... "that's just the way it is" or "that's the way we have always done it" drives me to a special part of crazy and leads to inner screaming. I just don't buy it.<br /><br />2) "AWW, POOR BABY!"<br />What kind of people take their babies and toddlers to the store after 10:00 for their casual family shopping? I just don't understand. And it's mostly couples I see do this, and the baby doesn't look sick, as if they were out picking up medicine or something... So this continues to bug me. Not to mention they are usually frustrated with their child, who obviously needs sleep. Why doesn't one of them stay home? They can call, they can text... It's called tag-teaming people. Sad. If anyone can give me hope for a better answer to this question then please do so.<br /><br />3) "AWW, POOR POOR BABY"<br />I will not spend too much time here. I saw a baby the other day with double hoop earrings in her ears. She was the daughter of the clerk at a gas station. She was five months old. She will have splits in her ears by the time she is old enough to wear earrings. I could observe no obvious cultural or religious reasonings from the child's mother. I wonder when she will get that baby her first tattoo. It'll probably say "Mama". Get some sense! Too bad you can't buy sense at Walmart.<br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2E8UJfmJV7Yeoqe45B8SG9cMjX3FG1X8HKlLgZ6aPxKu_mK9TcEuOlTIY2iWlVgeusEpeBg8CrByBb7vW_HbbSmtcY1s62WPhM9_rFTKjW9kUDLTXqATuvJY0shn5kXvo7iKQtMQm050/s1600-h/Nana's+camera+059.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2E8UJfmJV7Yeoqe45B8SG9cMjX3FG1X8HKlLgZ6aPxKu_mK9TcEuOlTIY2iWlVgeusEpeBg8CrByBb7vW_HbbSmtcY1s62WPhM9_rFTKjW9kUDLTXqATuvJY0shn5kXvo7iKQtMQm050/s320/Nana's+camera+059.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354270184541159778" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLXTibXP8ZuDjb6Qs059uUNJ3HTNIXpQU-OQlOPXj8r5lRYZ0-Gs0_W9y561ayYphbUM9M8Q8EET-BQMvALl1UgZT9AtWbJGFjK4SxPSUYMx8uoZkytSbOopFBdlHl7iwWiBzx6dput4E/s1600-h/Image440.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLXTibXP8ZuDjb6Qs059uUNJ3HTNIXpQU-OQlOPXj8r5lRYZ0-Gs0_W9y561ayYphbUM9M8Q8EET-BQMvALl1UgZT9AtWbJGFjK4SxPSUYMx8uoZkytSbOopFBdlHl7iwWiBzx6dput4E/s320/Image440.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354270171406853058" border="0" /></a><br /></div><br /><br />4) Now on to less negative yet still perfectly random thoughts.... I love the sunset. I am in love with light. I like to stare at the sky and see the beauty of God's artistic expression. Especially the sunset. It brings me great deal of happiness to see his work and the magnificence of what he has made. It reminds me that I am small, yet cared for. That He created something so beautiful, and that He created in me a preference for beauty, makes me feel very connected to him. It is like looking at peace. I feel the same way about the ocean. I could just sit and look at it for hours and never tire of the majesty and enormity of it, and yet, every grain of sand is accounted for, as well as every hair on my head. Seeing God like that does not make me feel lost, and overlooked, on the contrary, it makes me feel extra special, because I know He took the same care in creating me, and in planning my life.<br /><br /><br />5)I have been thinking a lot lately about the open road. I love the road. To drive, especially alone, is nearly therapeutic to me. When I am in my car alone, looking down into the horizon, seeing the stripes on the road zip by as if they were moving and not me, well, it is a little piece of heaven to me. Many a song is written about the open road. I have no affinity for convertibles though. It is not about the wind whipping through my hair, it is about a strange form of communion with God. It is downright peaceful. I used to have three and four hours to meet with some of my clients in my region. I loved the driving. I am an unusual mix because I am so desperate for people and connecting, but then, I must have time alone, really really alone. The road has always been a respite for me and my aching soul. I have come to some of the most powerful conclusions of my life while driving. I have met God face to face on the road, and it was in my car that my faith changed in a dramatic turn. I would give anything to go on a cross country trip on the open road, alone. Or with someone, It'd be fun either way. But, if I could go on a trip by myself to the beach, drive through the sunset, take photos of the locals, write, paint and draw, well that would be just right. I really should have been a hippie.<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9AmDOzVwrZbQ20GZ5u6oMYB-BSVK3uTtyE1WrZxDeToknfyYIU_Tp6xTLLYkllIiJADZq5uwzSO-nuFIKEHHWxDm1exQ29_kdsKsy208Z3XzkhvVp2IDZENd82_-_c5x2SmUdrZIAsBg/s1600-h/Jennifer+August+2008+Part+2+095.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9AmDOzVwrZbQ20GZ5u6oMYB-BSVK3uTtyE1WrZxDeToknfyYIU_Tp6xTLLYkllIiJADZq5uwzSO-nuFIKEHHWxDm1exQ29_kdsKsy208Z3XzkhvVp2IDZENd82_-_c5x2SmUdrZIAsBg/s320/Jennifer+August+2008+Part+2+095.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354270181003588994" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibnFebhuWUU83sTaEPCJz4TEFotW7Ep6SvJnEB7947CuPnsazrDOjcpgU43w3sWojbsTtO8KhTyJX5JUBsMqz29vBniGRnn0djHNZFCUfg_PaiLc_vMulHqYLaEOrQnr-v68YYJGN3O8o/s1600-h/Image201.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibnFebhuWUU83sTaEPCJz4TEFotW7Ep6SvJnEB7947CuPnsazrDOjcpgU43w3sWojbsTtO8KhTyJX5JUBsMqz29vBniGRnn0djHNZFCUfg_PaiLc_vMulHqYLaEOrQnr-v68YYJGN3O8o/s320/Image201.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5354270173568117474" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br />I hope you enjoy the first segment of "Deeply Random Thoughts" by Jennifer Baker. These are photos I have taken out and about and in and around. Thanks for reading.<br /></div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-52152274688782004442009-06-23T01:44:00.005-05:002009-06-23T13:22:35.679-05:00Mat Kearney Tribute<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >Here is a little poem I wrote about some of the music of Mat Kearney that has been playing non-stop in my head, my car, my phone, etc.... Sometimes an artist can just move you. I don't get this excited about everyone, but so many of his songs, dare I say, ministered to me. I feel connected to a lot of his writing, his lyrics can be universal and sometimes make me feel as if he was writing about my life. And yes, I am a fan.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> <span style="font-style: italic;">You may think I am silly if you wish, but if you read poetry or books, or watch movies because they inspire you, then you are silly too. Basically, all music is leading us to feel something, and the best of it can heal something. This is what I am currently " feeling". </span><br /></span></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><u><span style="border-bottom: 1px dashed rgb(0, 102, 204); background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1245738526_2">Mat Kearney</span> Tribute</u><br /><br />Every note that you wrote<br />Every line that I heard<br />It mixed and it stirred<br />Something inside me<br />Every last word<br />Moved me<br />Brought me back to feeling<br />Bought me a peace of healing </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I listened close to the words<br />Studied the meaning<br />Heard them when I was dreaming<br />Brought me back to life<br />Led me to the Light<br />Helped me to fight<br />The gray day<br />Grasp at the fray<br />“City of black and white”<br /><br />So you sit and you write<br />Late in the night<br />Maybe by morning light<br />You wonder if we hear<br />You wonder if we care<br />What your meaning<br />What your feeling<br />Buy what your dealing…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I’m in my home<br />Thinking alone<br />Trying to find the Way on my own<br />I listen at night<br />And in the morning light<br />Maybe you've been there<br />Well, I hear and I care<br />What your meaning<br />Can feel what your feeling<br />Can buy what your dealing</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Oh, Oh, here we go again<br />I’m listen to that song again<br />Helps me hold on to You<br />Helps me to make it through<br />Clinging tight to the Hope<br />Letting go of the rope<br />That binds me<br />By day, by night<br />Chains are getting tight<br />But still fighting the fight<br />Gonna play that song again<br /><br />So I’ll sing like I’m free<br />I really want to be<br />"Cause all roads lead back to You"<br />"On and on and on..."<br />We can make it through<br />Down the winding road<br />Nothing left to choose<br />Nothing left to lose<br />Singing Hallelujah in my veins<br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">Maybe it was you,<br />That opened my eyes<br />Pointing to the skies<br />Woke my morning up<br />Pulled me "Closer to Love"<br />Listening to that song again.<br />Gonna play that song again.<br />Singing Hallelujah in my veins...</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">....Thank you Mat Kearney. Saw you at <span style="background: transparent none repeat scroll 0% 50%; cursor: pointer; -moz-background-clip: -moz-initial; -moz-background-origin: -moz-initial; -moz-background-inline-policy: -moz-initial;" class="yshortcuts" id="lw_1245738526_3">City Stages in Birmingham</span>, and appreciate your music.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><object height="285" width="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/mvqpRYbziTU&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/mvqpRYbziTU&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="285" width="340"></embed></object><br /></span></p><strong><em><span style="font-family:times new roman;"><br /></span></em></strong>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-91525698109714628012009-06-21T02:09:00.010-05:002009-06-21T15:54:59.814-05:00Intimate Thoughts on Music<span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Sometimes music can do things for me that no other thing can. I am one of those people who loves music, I mean, it is beauty to me. Any emotion I have is there somewhere in a song. Music and words are the most beautiful form of artistic expression to me. If you could ever hear what is going on inside someones head, if you listened to mine you would hear music. Sometimes only music can match the depth of emotion that I have going on inside of me. It is the only satisfying</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> expression of the sum of all that is erupting inside my soul. Some people enjoy music, but for me, it is necessary... Without it, I would wither.<br /></span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">In The Shawshank Redemption, one of my favorite movies of all time, there is a scene when Andy</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> Dufresne, the</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> innocent banker who was wrongly imprisoned, locks the door to the warden's office and plays a recording of an Italian opera over the intercom system for the entire prison to hear. There is a beautiful quote about music that comes after this scene by Morgan Freeman, who plays Red, a guilty man who has lived most of his life in prison...</span></span><br /><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /></span><b style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"><a style="font-style: italic;" target="_popup9534" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000151/">Red</a></b><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >: [</span><i style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic;" class="fine">narrating</i><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >] "I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about.</span></span><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" > Truth is, I don't want to know. Some things are best left unsaid. I'd like to think they were singing about something so</span></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXJYaSID9U1XplOxCXLvd3lFEsBVFINzMYTf9OoRhgDaqitsKzd0Ff2uhIL1gIvpDDtNc3VeiDdQCPBtn3fd-gvYLthS_nVveyA34Wac5nTgCLSVMlYKPfrjBlM40M2u1EBGiCHRv2qCg/s1600-h/Shawshank+Red+and+Andy.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 119px; height: 119px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXJYaSID9U1XplOxCXLvd3lFEsBVFINzMYTf9OoRhgDaqitsKzd0Ff2uhIL1gIvpDDtNc3VeiDdQCPBtn3fd-gvYLthS_nVveyA34Wac5nTgCLSVMlYKPfrjBlM40M2u1EBGiCHRv2qCg/s320/Shawshank+Red+and+Andy.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5349886873480678482" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" > beautiful, it can't be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a gray place dares to dream. It was like some beautiful bird flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free." After Andy was released from "the hole" he and Red were talking about the stunt he pulled....<br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"</span><b style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic;"><a target="_popup4677" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000209/">Andy Dufresne</a></b><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >: That's the beauty of music. They can't get that from you... Haven't you ever felt that way about music?<br /></span><b style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic;"><a target="_popup4677" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000151/">Red</a></b><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >: I played a mean harmonica as a younger man. Lost interest in it though. Didn't make much sense in here. </span><br /><b style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic;"><a target="_popup4677" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000209/">Andy Dufresne</a></b><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >: Here's where it makes the most sense. You need it so you don't forget. </span><br /><b style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic;"><a target="_popup4677" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000151/">Red</a></b><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >: Forget? </span><br /><b style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic;"><a target="_popup4677" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000209/">Andy Dufresne</a></b><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >: Forget that... there are places in this world that aren't made out of stone. That there's something inside... that they can't get to, that they can't touch. That's yours. </span><br /><b style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic;"><a target="_popup4677" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000151/">Red</a></b><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >: What're you talking about? </span><br /><b style="font-family: trebuchet ms; font-style: italic;"><a target="_popup4677" href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000209/">Andy Dufresne</a></b><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-style: italic;">: Hope.</span><br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Music is the most beautiful thing on earth to me. Even the blind can see music. Even the deaf can feel it. Who can ever forget the performance by former Miss America, Heather Whitestone, the first hearing impaired pageant contestant, at the 1995 Miss America Pageant where she performed a magical ballet piece to "Via Dolorosa. Music is powerful. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So, I am not the first to think this about music. I know that. So many have written or said the same thing I am writing. We express our love in music, our sorrow, our pain, our desires... our passion. We worship God by praising Him in song. We worship God by enjoying the beauty of music and of his creation, for it is He who created every note and it is He who created in us this powerful connection to song and melody. He created us in His image, and gave us the gift of the creation of music as well. We are enjoying His creation when we enjoy music. All music is relevant to God. All music is a reflection of His creation. I am ready for someone to say that only "Christian" music is relevant to God. If so, please comment and wear your boxing gloves, cause were gonna fight. I wish more Christian artists would stop selling out and write music that people other than just those who burned all of their tapes in the 90's can listen to. I feel like Christian radio is good, but isolated and limited, well, to "Christian" radio. I did not always think this. There were probably three years where I never listened to anything other than Christian music. If I did dip my toes back in secular waters I felt guilt and shame. I also regretfully burned all of my Cure and Led Zeppelin tapes. Thank goodness we have all moved on to MP3's so I can get over it now. I digress. </span><br /><br /></span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;">I am very excited about some new artists I have recently be-fanded. Mat Kearney is at the top of my list. He is intelligent, artistic, and relevant. His music is appealing to me on many different levels. The words, they are thoughtful, culturally relevant, and down right cool. He has the same melodic sound as Coldplay, but not as depressing. It is pretty clear that he is a believer. It excites me that people who know nothing of Christ stand in the audience or sing along on the radio to "Indescribable" or "Won't Back Down". His lyrics sneak up on you in the same way that U2's frequently do. I highly recommend him. But that is just me.<br /><br />Enjoy this clip, and be free. </span><br /><object height="285" width="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/se8TM696HRY&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/se8TM696HRY&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="285" width="340"></embed></object><br /></span>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-20276068300892843822009-06-16T23:42:00.015-05:002009-06-18T10:26:19.008-05:00What My Dreams are Made Of...<span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">When I was in the sixth grade I started my counseling practice. It was on the teeter-totters. Kids would line up and wait on me to give them advice. One after the other they would line up and wait for their turn for me to tell them which direction to go. That was twenty-three years ago. Since then, I became a counselor. That is what I have felt like I was supposed to do with my life. I was born doing that. For me, counseling is like breathing. I have been helping people my whole life. That is not always good, well not as good as it sounds. If you neglect yourself and your family, it can't ever be fully good. But nonetheless, it has been good to be a part of peoples lives when they needed someone to be there for them.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">So, I have this quandary, I just don't know where to go. I don't know what to do. I confess, staying at home with my kids is probably the hardest thing I have ever done. So glad I didn't have to apply for that job, or I may not have gotten that one. Nonetheless, I have always worked, and loved it. Because my husband is a teacher, I have always had a side job. I have been able to work from home, or at my church, or at night since my girls were born. Right now, as I have stated before, I have no job. This is the first time in my life since I was 14 and got a real work permit that I have been completely unemployed. When I was in college and graduate school, I always had at least two jobs, and have had as many as four. You do what you need to just to make it when you are paying your own way. Still paying my way to college every month thanks to Sallie Mae. Working has been something that has always been necessary for me to do.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">My dilemma is I don't know which way to go. I have a dream... I am going to declare it right here on this blog. I have two things. I WANT TO BE A WRITER! I want to write professionally, for journals, for blogs, poetry, short stories, songs, poems, etc.... The second thing is to open a non-profit counseling center. It is my life calling. I have been daydreaming about this for at least nine years now. I know these two areas are different, but they are very compatible. .. So I am asking God for wisdom and for conclusions about the timing, the how, and the what. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">But. alas my real dream I fear will never come true. Since the seventh grade my affection for counseling has been in a heated race in competition with my serious need and desire to learn and master the drums. I desperately want to be a skilled drummer. I want to play fast metal beats like in "Fade to Black" by Metallica, or GNR's "Sweet Child O' Mine" and "Welcome to the Jungle", not to mention every single Led Zeppelin song ever, and "Pyromania"..... Well, let's just say I have a list. And no, I am not kidding. But, for now, I don't have a drum set, so I will continue to concentrate on reality.<br /><br />Which also reminds me, I need to call the ADD clinic back. Back to dreaming. :)<br /></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;"></span>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-47153617209571821942009-06-14T23:43:00.008-05:002009-06-15T08:57:42.412-05:00So long 34.<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I have been doing some serious thinking lately. I guess I always am, but lately it has been mostly about who I am, why I am here, what I really want to do with my life, how do I really fit here... You know, the stuff that vague prayers are made of. "Lord, please show me what you want, lead me, tell me what to do....which path" etc, etc. I hate to be in this position at the dawning of my thirty-fifth year of life. For some reason I thought I'd have it figured out by now. I mean I have already accomplished a lot in the 34 other years I have been here. But what now? All of my life feels like it is building into something, leading to something, but what it is I just don't know.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So I had a bad year last year. Really, really bad. For many reasons. I found out some things about myself that I really don't like. I am </span><span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">disappointed</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> that I keep making the same mistakes over and over. I have hurt people. I have hurt myself. I am disappointed in some of the choices I have made. I have so many things that are still undone that were undone last year at this time. I am ready to start life again in the work world, but what does that mean? I have questions, questions, questions... I don't want to see any posts that reference Phil 4:6-7 either. Those verse's have helped me survive before and I know God will show me all of this in time. But answers are sweeter after you have asked the questions, I guess. Even if I never know, eventually, the answers will show up in my past. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">You know how some years when you have a birthday, you don't even notice. Not much changes, not inside or out... This was not that year for me. It was rough; rough inside my heart, rough inside my home, rough spiritually. It has been hard not to sink, but the Lord has been gracious to me, as always. In reflecting on this past year, the year of thirty-four, I can honestly say a happy goodbye. The lessons I learned in your midst were hard and broke me. There is a lot of you I will take away, but I say a happy goodbye to you thirty-four, here is the open door. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So there are some dreams that I have. Some things I want to do. Some life I want to live. I guess I will share some since you are reading this. But I am going to save that for next time. Until then, Welcome 35! </span>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-33724631543184683082009-06-09T23:36:00.008-05:002009-06-10T01:19:02.987-05:00Live Vulnerable. Live Open. Live Free.<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Today I got a sweet gift. I woke happy and ready to greet the day, checked my email and BAM, bad news staring me in the face. I had applied for two jobs that I really wanted at a place I have been in love with for years. Both positions had been filled, and I did not get a call for an interview for either. Not to mention, one of my own dear friends and co-worker's got one of the jobs. A few months back, </span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I had the same thing happen. A job that I had been building expectations for years that I would get when it came open, was sure was meant for me, and nada... not even an interview. The rejection of not having even gotten interviews has been wreaking havoc on my already fragile self esteem. </span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />I felt like one of these three jobs would be perfect for me. However, I did ask God to completely close the door if they were not right for me at this time. So I guess not getting an interview saved me some time, and assured me that it is NOT in HIS plans. But, come on! Who really ever wants God to close the door. What we really want is for our wants to be the same as God's plans for us. We want to figure it out and take out all of the guess work. We don't really want to exercise Faith. We want to "claim" God's promises and "believe that" for ourselves. (Don't even get me started on porsperity theology!) Surprise Self, YOU were right! Hooray, you ARE totally in tune with God. You are wise Oh Great SELF! Not really, but, this is essentially the same-old same-old for me. I want life to be easy and it is hard. I want things to wrap up quickly and they drag on. I want to have it figured out, but in the end I am wrong. I want to be important and sought after, and I am lowered to begging people to notice me, professionally. I suppose I need God after all. I suppose I don't have it figured out at all. I am sick of it too, I'll be honest. It is discouraging me. </span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />Then, of course I update my Facebook status, and let everyone know I did not get an interview. I happen to mention in one of the posts that my dream has always been to open my own counseling center. This is one desire that I have had since birth I think. My friend noticed my post and sent me an email that probably encouraged me more than I have been encouraged in a long time. She said that this blog and my writing has been an encouragement to her. She said she believed in me, and in my dream to start my own practice. She said some wonderful, and genuinely humbling things, things that, I confess, I want to hear people say about me at my funeral. Like, "The Lord speaks through you, you minster to people, you point us to our Saviour... you are being used as His vessel even when you don't know it." Awesome! Those kinds of words cause my soul to leap.<br /><br />It is my greatest desire that this blog, and all the things I have been through are an encouragement, that they do point others to Christ and to His hope and peace. </span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I believe in what I am doing here on this blog, but sometimes I shy away from the hard stuff. There is a lot going on in my life that would overwhelm you if I posted every blaring detail about my struggles. But, I have received some of the most encouraging emails and responses to my most intimate blog posts. It seems to me that there are many people out there who desperately want to express themselves, and be vulnerable. They want to rip open their hearts and expose all the darkness inside of them to the light. They want to say a lot of what I say, but confess that they don't know how. Well, I don't know how either. I really don't. </span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />I wish that everyone could experience the freedom of vulnerability. The blessings I have received from others through-out this process have been so powerful in my life. In a sense, if I have gone through something difficult and you are encouraged by the story, then it was worth it for me to experience the pain. "Though there's pain in the offering, Blessed be His name." I am doubly blessed in a sense.<br /></span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga7RtTwVyc0EOg90sTJ-_BFOuXWy6ELX2GiAIOY-nwdZax2HJDD7TBvQB4V4xTNZ-ZWjdpY_ToSumQDiEVtB1QzitMS08S5cBsoUj-paMLS0vGdb0D9oh-lWAQOTN7yz6lgJFewgm4euo/s1600-h/Picture0057+Black+and+White+facebook+profile.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 163px; height: 173px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga7RtTwVyc0EOg90sTJ-_BFOuXWy6ELX2GiAIOY-nwdZax2HJDD7TBvQB4V4xTNZ-ZWjdpY_ToSumQDiEVtB1QzitMS08S5cBsoUj-paMLS0vGdb0D9oh-lWAQOTN7yz6lgJFewgm4euo/s320/Picture0057+Black+and+White+facebook+profile.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5345565829824619826" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I think I am going to make this my signature from now on...</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;font-size:180%;" >Live Vulnerable. Live open. Live free! </span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br />Peace of Jennifer</span>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-17908267182013214662009-05-19T13:23:00.007-05:002009-05-19T14:35:24.721-05:00Dear Anna and Katie...<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://normdunkin.smugmug.com/photos/522523519_Y4ReV-M.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 459px; height: 306px;" src="http://normdunkin.smugmug.com/photos/522523519_Y4ReV-M.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /></div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Sometimes I just have to stop whatever I am doing, and write down some of the things that my silly girls say. Just a moment ago I was in the kitchen making Noelle, yet another Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich. Jolie, who had previously declared that she absolutley did not </span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">want a PBJ sat down and asked for her sandwich. She said, "I want one, jus like Noweelll." Of course. So I prodded her. There is a sweet and scary life lesson here. Here is how the conversation went.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br />"Jolie, do you want everything that Noelle wants...?" </span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br />"Yes, Mom" said Jolie bear.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br />"Jolie do you want to be just like Noelle?"</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br />"Yes, Mom, I love her."</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> said sweet Jolie bear.</span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br />Noelle was sitting at the table with her. I knew she was listening, usually she is just talking in her head if she is chewing... but I could tell she was paying attention...</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br /></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"Noelle, was does it mean for Jolie to be just like you?"</span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Noelle quickly replied, </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"It means you want to be someone you are not" </span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> (Which, I think she means that you admire them)</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br />"So, who do you want to be like Noelle?"</span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br />Noelle did not skip a beat... </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"Anna Fires"</span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br />Anna, is a teenager at our church who has loved Noelle since the first day she met her. She has the same kind of sparkle in her personality that Noelle does. She is a giving, happy, outgoing, fun girl. She is also very generous and compassionate. I have always thought of how sweet our church is, and the group of teens and tween girls at our church are phenomenal. They all serve and give, especially to the younger kids. It is the true bud of Titus 2 ministry. T</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">hat is another blog.</span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br />So as soon as Noelle said this about Anna, Jolie immediately said, </span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"I love Katie, Mom. I want to be like Katie."</span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Now Katie is Anna's best friend and has been a faithful loving friend to my girls. She gets that from her mom. Katie is a quiet leader who has wisdom and patience in her eyes. She is one of those people who is always there, always helps, and seems happy to serve. I would love for my daughters to grow up and be like these girls. I am so glad that they have picked them as their examples. I think it is amazing that a five year old and a three year old could have role models, but they clearly do. We have been having conversations in our home about Katie and Anna (and Ali) for years. When Noelle was two she used to put her ponytail holders on her ankles to be like Katie, because Katie wore an ankle bracelet. Katie </span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">also wears small braids in her hair, and of course my girls do too. The list goes on and on. I have always thought it was sweet and such a blessing, but then it is a little scary. Here is the rest of the conversation.</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br />Noelle, "Mommy, your girls are in love." "<br />Really Noelle?, What does that mean, to be in love?"<br />Noelle, "It means you want to be just like them. It means you want to do what they do" </span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br />How frightening for me as a parent. My children have role models outside of me and Chad, </span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">and their family. My kids look up to these girls. How powerful a role these girls have in my daughters lives. My children are growing up faster than I can keep up with. Soon, peers will be just as important in shaping their views as we are. Soon we will be crowded out by the world. My girls love these two girls. They don't know it but they admire these girls because they are girls who love Jesus. They are girls whose parents have taught them truth and the gospel. I hope that as I teach my girls about the Lord, that they will be drawn to other people like these two girls. I know the truth, the world and its temptations are sometimes so loud Christ may seem like a faint whisper against the clanging of the cymbals of the world... I pray that my girls will hear the whisper of Christ and seek Him out. I</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">n light of this conversation I am writing a little note to these two role models. Here goes...</span> <span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" ><br /><br />Dear Anna and Katie,</span> <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Thank you for loving my girls and being such great examples to them. Thank you for accepting them so much that they feel connected to you so far as to want to be like you. I pray for you, and hope that when you have hard choices to make, you will remember that your choices go so much father than yourself and your family. They extend even to mine, and to the eyes and hearts of my daughters. I know this world is hard place and you are faced with great challenges. If you ever do fall or face temptation, please come home to Christ. That is the example that I hope you leave for my girls. You are loved by two little girls and their mom</span></span> <br /><div style="text-align: center;">.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvxvDf5iMvEQ7nIdFnibTCf4oH17z4kv4xRXkdLhQ5LkNFdNpAaD9lq-O3aBimtRe44NmKcag3Frf2hN9HCWmrJi4kn0IcbMZSlchLdj1cDFIo_jw2_923-wufB13Zhlor1c_B-bdKKE/s1600-h/Ref_P1000653.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 205px; height: 126px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhgvxvDf5iMvEQ7nIdFnibTCf4oH17z4kv4xRXkdLhQ5LkNFdNpAaD9lq-O3aBimtRe44NmKcag3Frf2hN9HCWmrJi4kn0IcbMZSlchLdj1cDFIo_jw2_923-wufB13Zhlor1c_B-bdKKE/s320/Ref_P1000653.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337607672202499602" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic_yWA4q-uoU-CwKoTssKxl_3z5ckgPx6aC5tWN6XOYwoOZs1zRDy9iTZPlxQP9f6xi1jTEhVzz2Rg0pVsYUd3i-xxO94nG1fOihzfPfPgHDIj1yxhdWdT7ViiYEf_ahDEdxsGyUjaqnY/s1600-h/Ref_P1000046.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 190px; height: 127px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic_yWA4q-uoU-CwKoTssKxl_3z5ckgPx6aC5tWN6XOYwoOZs1zRDy9iTZPlxQP9f6xi1jTEhVzz2Rg0pVsYUd3i-xxO94nG1fOihzfPfPgHDIj1yxhdWdT7ViiYEf_ahDEdxsGyUjaqnY/s320/Ref_P1000046.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5337607832642977826" border="0" /></a></div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-61826893927698318732009-05-12T20:06:00.008-05:002009-05-12T20:58:21.042-05:00The Story of Chester<div style="text-align: center;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsnWU9FbDF9-2vE4N0qmi6R4LejB2jW5I3P4Te3Lgj-Xjz5-rdEZ75UJDoZ1mtbQM2tSvElhdDMPtsXt4x4M1ob9NgeYNEb3kd7UjRlc4VnORhqIVbmgn6U_xpkwZVhx83s6JsFbQOXc4/s1600-h/Image327.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsnWU9FbDF9-2vE4N0qmi6R4LejB2jW5I3P4Te3Lgj-Xjz5-rdEZ75UJDoZ1mtbQM2tSvElhdDMPtsXt4x4M1ob9NgeYNEb3kd7UjRlc4VnORhqIVbmgn6U_xpkwZVhx83s6JsFbQOXc4/s400/Image327.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5335120076185212370" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" >"In my life I find that memories of the spirit linger and sweeten<br />long after memories of the brain have faded. " Will Morris, "My Dog Skip"</span><br /></div><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br />For the first time in eleven and a half years I am alone in my home. Our little dog, Chesterfield Baker died today. He was our nearly twelve year old Jack Russell Terrier. Chad took the girls to his Dad's for a while because they just absolutely demanded to go. I don't blame them, after all, it has been a really sad day here in our home and well, he has cookies. My children have been learning a lot about death in the past few weeks and months. I knew today was going to be the day, I knew he wasn't going to make it. He literally stood on all fours in his bed last night. He went out this morning, fell down the steps and I had to move him to the grass because he just couldn't move his legs. His breathing was heavy and raspy...the tumors just got the best of him.</span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />Chad got him when we had been married only for two years as a Christmas present for me. We were living at a private boarding school at the time. Sometimes the kids would leave the door open and he would just bolt like lightening. He maybe weighed six pounds, and he really just looked like a little ball of white light zooming around campus. I could never catch him. It would usually take an hour to get him, and it required about five people. He also used to love to play basketball in the gym. He was the original Air Bud. About a year after we got him, my little brother Patrick moved in for several years and Chester became his best buddy. Chester and Patrick have always missed each other. They were childhood friends. Like Willie Morris and Skip from "My Dog Skip". <br /><br />He has been through nearly every move, he was there when we went from place to place, and he was there with Chad when I was gone for extended periods of time for work. He was there when we were young and now we are older. He was always there. He was a constant.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">When Noelle was born five years ago, Chester was knocked off of his pedestal. He was no longer our baby. He also hated babies and repeatedly tried to attack them, so we kept him in a different room and he was mostly by himself. He was still happy, but not the center of attention. Recently the children have taken an interest in Chester. He aged quickly, and became very slow and less reactive. Noelle just started petting him in the last month. She decided that she loved him a while back, even though she was still afraid of him. More recently she began hugging him and giving him kisses. Jolie as well. Yesterday I found Chester in the den with an ace bandage wrapped around his head. Dr. Noelle was trying to make him feel better. They miss their friend. </span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /><br />So last week we visited my Dad's grave and decorated it. I had the opportunity to explain death to the girls. Jolie only hears what a nearly three old can hear, but Noelle has been listening very closely. My next blog will be about the lessons they are learning, but for now, I will just say... I am so very sad to see the end to a very big chapter of our lives. </span> <span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Goodbye Chester, my little friend. I love you.</span><br /><object height="265" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/CjX7QJwzp-U&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/CjX7QJwzp-U&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="265" width="320"></embed></object>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-82379450647511141392009-05-08T22:18:00.007-05:002009-05-08T22:57:26.990-05:00Adoption - "Parting Paths"<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjt3RYkFOJKhR5I2zI6CzP4h3CWdaXRwX3abO_s3tBlp5V3rbwaiFc1vIZHaJzuXwn6z67YLTPHPjgDV1d_uoIaj90jfAezwbCoNruSlYMa58YfpZXd2ton-LFTQH4pJMlBe_B83bHQPM/s1600-h/Clark+Family.jpg"><img style="cursor: pointer; width: 213px; height: 320px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjt3RYkFOJKhR5I2zI6CzP4h3CWdaXRwX3abO_s3tBlp5V3rbwaiFc1vIZHaJzuXwn6z67YLTPHPjgDV1d_uoIaj90jfAezwbCoNruSlYMa58YfpZXd2ton-LFTQH4pJMlBe_B83bHQPM/s320/Clark+Family.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5333666778443216898" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" > Here is a picture of my friends... and notice the empty spot in the stroller that is waiting to be filled...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">This is a post for my good friend "Mama Hen". She just finished up her adoptive parent family portfolio for the upcoming adoption of their future Baby Girl "Hen". The agency they are using is the one where I worked for 7 years. I worked with the birth moms who voluntarily placed their children for adoption, in hopes that the adoptive family could provide something for their child, that at the present moment, they would not be able to provide. Most of the time that meant a stable loving two-parent family. No matter how much they loved their child, they were not able to be two parents. Every young woman who placed their child, or planned to, had more courage in their pinky than most of us have in our entire being. They were willing to trust that someone else could and would provide a better life for their child, and for whatever reason or circumstance, they chose to separate and allow their child to have what they needed. Even if it meant giving up the precious title of parent. It takes a lot of maturity to even think this way, and a lot of courage to follow through. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">For the most part, only about 2% of all women actually voluntarily place. Most children who are adopted are removed from their homes after abuse or neglect and thrust into the system, and have to wait and wait, if they ever actually do get to be placed in a permanent family. It is sad. When a young woman pursues adoption because it in the best interest of her child, she is preparing for her child's needs and providing for that child, all that she believes he or she needs, even though she will not be a part of it. It is totally different than someone failing as a parent. Do not ever be deceived in thinking that a young woman doesn't love her child if she places him or her for adoption, because, if the gospel of Christ is true, adoption is a perfect reflection of His love for us here on earth, and it is a sacrificial love. A love that provides a way. A love that sacrifices. A love that gives. She gives up a relationship and a life with her child, so that her child can have "more than they could ask or imagine." </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">Do you want to know who my hero's are in this world? My hero's are women and men who are willing to sacrifice for their children. Who are even willing to sacrifice their own needs for their children's whole needs. My hero's are Christians who open their homes and lives to adoption. My hero's are people who understand that our call to true Christianity is to serve orphans and widows. What better literal picture of that here on earth is there than adoption?</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;">I am proud of you "Mama Hen" and "Poppa Rooster". I am thankful for your heart and your compassion. I am so excited for you and can't wait to see how "Baby Girl" changes your lives, and how you change hers. I will be praying for you guys and for her mother as she prepares to give her heart away. How beautiful. <br /><br />Here is a poem I wrote several years ago about the girls I worked with. Seeing their sacrifice changed my heart forever. This is only a nugget, but something to think on.</span><br /><br /> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:navy;" ><u><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Parting Paths</span></u></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:navy;" >By:</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:navy;" > </span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:85%;color:navy;" >Jennifer Baker (2002)</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:14;color:navy;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";font-size:14;color:navy;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >She could hardly read the paper-</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >As her eyes filled with tears,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >She couldn’t believe that one moment-</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Could lead to so many years.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >She was so sad, so sorry, so crushed-</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >For she had created a life,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >But the timing was rushed.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >She couldn’t give- What she thought he deserved.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Love was the only thing that she could have served.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >With the pen in her hand- she paused to consider,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >But the future just kept getting dimmer.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Could <i>she</i> give him all that he needed?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >With an ache in her chest, her heart pleaded.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >No money, no time, no father…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >No son or daughter- </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Should go without so much.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >But could <i>she </i>live without,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >His gentle sweet touch? </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >But she knew the truth, of the life they would lead.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >He would go without, to fill her need.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >So the pen hit the paper, and their paths parted.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >She loved him for a lifetime, before his life started.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >A family that ached for him, as much as she…</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >By giving him life, she filled both of their needs.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Now he’s got all she intended,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >And a new family’s sorrow has been mended.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >On paper stained with tears,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Trusting God with all her fears,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >She paved a new path for her son,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >And left no thing undone.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Some misunderstand her choice,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Thinking only of <i>their</i> own voice.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Not realizing she is the one, </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Who thinks every day of her son.</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" > </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Though parting was the best thing to do,</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Her job as a mother will never be through-</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Praying for him, and ceasing never</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >To carry him in her heart forever</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >Love is where her choice starts-</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >It is love that pushed their paths apart.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style=";font-family:";color:navy;" >- This poem is dedicated to every wonderful brave girl who I ever met on this path. - Jennifer Baker 2002<br /></span></p>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-64966314387218334522009-04-23T23:18:00.010-05:002009-05-02T22:48:12.909-05:00I Am Dying to Live...<object height="285" width="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/skxiHGj6lIU&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/skxiHGj6lIU&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="285" width="340"></embed></object><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:78%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" class="description" ><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;"><br />"When I survey the wondrous cross</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">On which the Prince of Glory died</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">My richest gain I count but loss</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">And pour contempt on all my pride"</span><br /><br /></span></span></span></span><span style="font-family: trebuchet ms;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:100%;" ><span class="description">Where have I been... Why haven't I posted? What am I doing? The crowds shouting to know what is going on, are deafening! Well, not really, just a handful of people have asked those questions. Well, if you must know... I couldn't really tell you. For the past few weeks I have been here, just thinking. In some ways I feel like a wind up toy, walking and walking.... but stuck facing the wall and going nowhere. I am at a place in my life, where I am examining every personal investment I have made so far, including my family (i.e. husband and kids), professional/jobs, leisure activities, the way I spend my time, etc. Really, I have begun to put everything under the microscope of my faith.<br /><br />This has been hard. I got to this point because my home, my life, my relationships, my schedule, my focus, my goals, they all seem out of order, out of control, or out of sync with what I really believe. I am reevaluating all parts of my life and the results are rolling in. So far, they are not good. In many ways, the current state of affairs in my life is a result of the long term consequences of ignoring my own sin.<br /><br />For about a year now, I have been in this state. Last year it got so bad I wanted to run away from home. Chad assured me, once again, that it was not a good idea to run away, as he has had to assure me of that more than once in our marriage. Fortunately, we were struggling financially, so I just got a job. In true form, I threw myself into it and as usual it helped to distract me from the things I was avoiding. You see, I am a true escape artist. That is my method of operation. I don't usually run away, although I have threatened to go to the beach for three months on numerous occasions. Instead I run to something else or to someone else. People, relationships, jobs, (you should SEE my resume), interests, ministry, they all help me to avoid things. One thing really. There is one constant theme in this story. The one thing I am usually trying to run away from is the one thing I can never escape. Me. Myself. My selfishness. My pride. My sin.<br /><br />For a long time, I have been choosing myself... putting myself first. Even if it does not appear that way to you, I have been impure in my thoughts, motives, actions, and deeds. Nothing I have touched has been untainted by this self consumption that I have perfected. The revelation of the level of my sin has triggered many of these blog entries. As I quoted John Piper a few entries back, I grow "uglier and uglier"... This deep cleansing of my soul has brought me back to a place where I have lived once before. Back to "The Crash of 1998". The difference is, I have not crashed. I know the truth of grace. I am not helpless. The truth has set me free. I am free. So, I am daily bringing this to the Cross. I am "pouring contempt on all my pride". I am submitting myself to the crusade for the murder of my selfish desires. I am in spiritual boot camp. I am being pushed further now than I have ever been. So much further than my comfort level. This hurts. It is painful. In many ways it feels like grief, causing a deep constant sense of sadness, but with hope. This is the fight. I am fighting for the "joy of my salvation" I have been paralyzed in my effectiveness as a Christian by my refusal to fight. So now...I am being purified, conditioned and trained. Wrestling with my self. Killing my "self". Giving up things I don't need, in training for the real race.<br /><br />I really did not want to write about this. I don't know if you are overwhelmed by my processing, I really hope not. I hope that at the very least, you can see that I love my Saviour, and I intend to love him more. Out of that deepening love for Him, will flow the correction of the internal and external order of my life. I will quote my pastor (Davy Stephenson) and I don't really know if he was quoting anyone when he said this, but, the root of all of my sin is pride... "Pride is the overwhelming preoccupation with self. Humility is, therefore, an overwhelming preoccupation with the Lord." That may not be exact, but you get it. So I can only say, that what I am going through is just a difficult, necessary process, to produce in me, the one thing that can keep me from ever coming back to this place... the one thing that can keep me from forgetting what I have learned, the ONE and ONLY thing that can distract me from my selfishness... humility.<br /><br />So bring it on. Shove my face in the mud. Step on my back. Push me. I want to give more. I want to live in the shadow of the Cross, not in the glare of my sin. I am dying to live. If I need to die to live then so be it.</span></span><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:lucida grande;font-size:78%;" ><span style="font-style: italic;font-family:times new roman;" class="description" ><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:85%;" ><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-size:85%;"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><br /></span></span></span></span></span></span>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-92093066191219642872009-04-09T00:31:00.014-05:002009-04-14T22:17:23.621-05:00"Fight " by Jennifer Baker<object height="285" width="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4t0JssVnZ94&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/4t0JssVnZ94&hl=en&fs=1&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="285" width="340"></embed></object><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;font-size:180%;" ><br />"Fight"</span><br />Jennifer Baker<br /></span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">April 7, 2009</span><br /></span><p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-size:100%;">Desire has gripped<br />The corners of my heart<br />Paralyzed by the thoughts<br />I keep in the dark</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">My soul is frozen<br />Every place, every part<br />Petrified by the thoughts<br />That could tear me apart</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Destruction and chaos<br />They are waiting to see<br />If I will let them<br />Take a full hold on me</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">So I put on my armor<br />I go to the fight<br />Every long moment<br />Of every long night</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">My contentment is stolen<br />Peace has been lost<br />I am moment by moment<br />Counting the cost</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Sin has found me<br />Again and again<br />I turn my face away<br />As I give in </span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I want to escape<br />But I am held somehow<br />By an immovable force<br />That wants control of me now</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">The two inside me<br />Struggle and hate<br />No tolerance for the other<br />Their war is my fate</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Confess your sin<br />He is faithful and just<br />Confess your sin<br />And then you adjust</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Walk in His way<br />And Follow Him<br />But I walk away<br />From the peace within</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">My flesh is strong<br />My heart is weak<br />The night is long<br />The day is bleak</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">But I will not give up<br />I will wrestle and fight<br />I will not give up<br />As dark as the night</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I long for the freedom<br />I have known before<br />I pray for release<br />Through the open door</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">Let me out of this pain<br />Let me out of this hole<br />Renew my mind<br />Restore my soul</span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p> <p style="font-style: italic;font-family:trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size:100%;">I’ll believe what you said<br />I will let go of this now<br />I’ll believe what you said<br />Though I don’t know how</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:100%;" >Give me your courage<br />Help me tonight<br />Give me your strength<br />So I won’t quit the fight<br /></span></p><p style="font-family: trebuchet ms;" class="MsoNormal" face="trebuchet ms">-AMEN<br /></p>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-21839648835697391202009-03-31T01:03:00.009-05:002009-05-05T11:06:10.350-05:00"Everything" by Lifehouse<object height="285" width="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9_M0H5nrY8E&hl=en&fs=1&border=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9_M0H5nrY8E&hl=en&fs=1&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="285" width="340"></embed></object><br /><br />I need you to watch the video that I have attached. A friend of mine sent it to me a while back, and I find it just incredible. From my perspective I see a girl, adored by her loving creator. He teaches her to dance with freedom, shows her the “abundant” life. She really loves it, she loves him. She dances around in awe and wonderment. She knows true joy.<br /><br />Then, sin approaches. It is the world knocking at her door. She didn’t really go looking for it. In spite of this beautiful Saviour she dances, what seems like the same dance, with evil. It seduces her first with love, attention, probably sex. She is still dancing, but confused. Then money and power are thrown at her feet. She frantically scampers around to catch the money that has fallen to the floor. She is desperate for it. Then she is introduced to vices, like alcohol… things that make her feel better... but it isn’t enough. Then enticed by beauty yet also condemned, she meets this beautiful woman who I think represents perfection. Alas, all of these other things lead her into darkness. She cuts herself, to numb the pain. Then it seems she is hopeless and bound. She reaches for a way to end it. No more chains.<br /><br />But, she remembers the dance. The freedom. She desires it above all other things. She turns back to the source of that peace she once felt. But so many things are in her way... so many temptations, sins, disappointments, failures, addictions. But, she is sure. She is desperate for it. So she fights! She suffers. She is beaten and pulled. She wants to turn her back on those things that magnetized her to the darkness. She can not do it herself. Like a hero, he ferociously, defends her. He then takes her place and fights for her. He saves her from their attack. He holds them off with his two hands and in one move he destroys them. He destroys the power they have over her life. She then trusts and relies on the source of that great power... for the power to be free. She is free because he makes her free.<br /><br />I love how physical this video is. Notice she did not pick up her pink polka dotted monogrammed Bible and walk off into the sunset unscathed in her pretty Sunday dress. She had to FIGHT! It was harsh. It was violent! She must have been bruised in the process. Surely she has some battle scars.<br /><br />Let me just be honest, because if I am not, I really shouldn’t be doing a blog like this… Lately I have been saddened over the state of my heart. And please don’t believe that is easier for me somehow, to be more vulnerable, than it is for you. This is hard to say. My heart breaks over my condition. I just have a deep struggle with sin that becomes more and more apparent to me the more I understand the truth of grace.<br /><br />In many ways I am her. Except the end of my video would show me fighting the same fight over and over again. I forget so easily. Everything I have learned, as powerful as it is… I forget. I get comfortable and I forget. I stop fighting and find myself eat up with sin, wandering off again... being beaten and I realize I am not fighting. No, it is Jesus that I love! "Wake up oh sleeper!" FIGHT!!!!!! The coolest thing is, He never stops fighting for me, even as I wander off.<br /><br />Here is a little bit of one of John Piper's Desiring God blog. It is a real source of encouragement for me as I find myself uglier and uglier...:<br /><h2 style="font-family: lucida grande;" class="entry-title"><a class="entry-title-link" target="_blank" href="http://feedproxy.google.com/%7Er/DGBlog/%7E3/lLV8Lh1dLE4/">Never Let the Gospel Get Smaller</a><span class="entry-source-title-parent"> from <a href="http://www.google.com/reader/view/feed/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.desiringgod.org%2Ffeeds%2FBlog%2F" class="entry-source-title" target="_blank">Desiring God Blog</a></span></h2><div style="font-family: lucida grande;" class="entry-author"> </div> <p style="font-family: lucida grande;">(Author: John Piper)<br />Here is a simple exhortation that I have been trying to implement in our family:<br /><em>Seek to see and feel the gospel as bigger as years go by rather than smaller.</em><br />Our temptation is to think that the gospel is for beginners and then we go on to greater things. But the real challenge is to see the gospel as the greatest thing—and getting greater all the time. </p> <p style="font-family: lucida grande;"> The Gospel gets bigger when, in your heart and grace gets bigger:</p> <ul style="font-family: lucida grande;"><li>Christ gets greater </li><li>his death gets more wonderful</li><li> his resurrection gets more astonishing</li><li> the work of the Spirit gets mightier</li><li> the power of the gospel gets more pervasive </li><li> its global extent gets wider</li><li> your own sin gets uglier</li><li> the devil gets more evil</li><li> the gospel's roots in eternity go deeper</li><li> its connections with everything in the Bible and in the world get stronger </li><li> and the magnitude of its celebration in eternity gets louder</li></ul>So keep this in mind: <em>Never let the gospel get smaller in your heart</em>.Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-19787367261923624412009-03-11T12:58:00.028-05:002009-04-09T01:14:27.373-05:00Give Me Your Eyes...<object height="364" width="445"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/hGr8as7pPBE&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/hGr8as7pPBE&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="364" width="445"></embed></object><br /><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">For a few days now, I have been replaying this song and video, over and over. It is embedded in my heart. I have this huge burden that is just brewing inside of me, but is really hard to express. I feel the words of this song so deeply, "Give me your eyes for just one second, give me your eyes so I can see, everything that I keep missing, give me Your love for humanity..." and it just resonates inside my spirit.<br /><br />I often find myself lost in my thoughts whenever I am in public. Places like Walmart, the mall, church, the movie theater, restaurants, they always evoke my antenna's, as I like to call them. I look around and quietly think about who I am seeing and what I am seeing. I take rapid mental notes about how they are postured, their facial expressions, their clothes, the color of their clothes. Who they are with, how close they are physically to any other person. Whether they are touching someone. How they are touching someone. The way they are moving, slow... fast, carefree...purposeful. How they are fitting into the overall dynamics of the place we are in. What kinds of emotions they are emitting. But above all, I watch their eyes, the windows to their soul. My intuition soaks in the details around me. My emotional antennas go up. I sense how they are feeling and it begins... I ache for them, rejoice with them, feel with them. All this is going on no matter what is is also happening around me. It is my secondary nature. Many times I have wanted to just leap outside of myself because of how noisy it gets inside my head. I am emotionally overstimulated.<br /></span><p></p><p align="center"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Y9Y7anauA7sq2d3QvWQSQnJO0FaTMS2ciAbE3K8C7s1pycfN48SEJ1ME0g3qNUSacEMn7Ex_UdQNPXAmrmaGZs63GZIvA395c94Hl981OTzVn1wMuIODGsY6qNd2igZeHPkAg6PxO6s/s1600-h/Picture0014blue+eyes.jpg"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5312702057948144210" style="width: 322px; height: 57px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6Y9Y7anauA7sq2d3QvWQSQnJO0FaTMS2ciAbE3K8C7s1pycfN48SEJ1ME0g3qNUSacEMn7Ex_UdQNPXAmrmaGZs63GZIvA395c94Hl981OTzVn1wMuIODGsY6qNd2igZeHPkAg6PxO6s/s200/Picture0014blue+eyes.jpg" border="0" /></span></a></p><p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So the words, "give me your eyes for just one second" I think, whoa!... I am already overwhelmed by the little bit of intuition and empathy that God has blessed me with. What if He did give me His eyes, for just one second...!?! What if I could for just a moment have the same love for humanity that God has? What if I didn't miss anything, saw everything, knew everything. What if I could see through people's souls, see the colors of their heart, for one sceond. If I could see what happened to them last night, yesterday, or when they were five. See their love, their sorrow, their sin. Know them so well, that I could perfectly anticipate their needs, even if they could not. Know what makes them happy, what their dreams are, what they would wish for if they could... How would I handle that?<br /><br />Even, if I could do that for just one person for one second, I don't think I would be able to survive it. I believe every emotion I have would collide in overwhelming confusion. But if I could survive, how would it change me? What would it do to me, if I could have His eyes. Would I feel hopeless, because I could not handle the depths of another's real burdens. Would I feel such great sadness over the sin in the world, that I would just give up? Would I ever leave my house again? Would I become a missionary? </span></p><p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">The next verse, "Give me your arms for the brokenhearted, for the ones that are far beyond my reach, give me a heart for the ones forgotten, give me your eyes so I can see." This is where I live. This is my heart. In many ways my life has been hard, good but hard. I have had a lot of struggles and pain in my own life. Not as much as some others, of course, but enough. It is the pain that I have experienced that gives me empathy or my "eyes". Rejection, grief, sorrow, trauma, subtle depression, I can see it all around me. I know I have just a tiny bit of empathy compared to God. I certainly don't have God's eyes. But what would happen if I just prayed that prayer everyday, "Give me your eyes, Lord, Give me your arms". What would it do if everyone in my church did the same thing. What if every Christian? What would it do for our homes? For our community, for our world???? Oh it would be amazing! </span></p><p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I love the quote from a book called "Love Walked Among Us". The author, Paul Miller states it this way, "We instinctively know that love leads to committment, so we look away when we see the beggar. We might have to pay if we look too closely and care too deeply."I fear that most of us do not want to pray this prayer. It requires too much from us. If we could see, what would it cost us? Could we see and not do? The burden is so great. But I am going to keep praying it. I want you to pray it too. I want you to have eyes, because I don't want to go alone. I will go alone, but this is a burden I want to share.<br /><br />Please watch both of the videos and then tell me what you see...<br /><br /></span><object height="364" width="445"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/W2cYxOkR2-g&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/W2cYxOkR2-g&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="364" width="445"></embed></object></p>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-37380028501225008922009-03-09T00:49:00.015-05:002009-04-09T01:15:00.771-05:00Time After Time...<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Recently, I have had the chance to reconnect with a few friends from deep in my past. It has really been incredible to see how life has played out for all of us. At the moment, I am thirty-four and a half years old. I have moved thirty-three different times in my life. Not all of them were big dramatic moves, but there is one move that changed the entire path of my life. One that cut off an entire history I had built up, and when it was time to move, all of it was left behind. The people, the friends, the shared memories... all gone. I was 15 and that may sound just too young for it to even matter, but it has still been something I look back on with sadness. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Up until the sixth grade, I had moved nearly every year of my life. I went to a different school every single year, lived in a different house, apartment, trailer, etc., ... I came in out of of the lives of other kids like the next season of a TV show. I never had any consistent place, life or friends to call my own. When other people ask me where I am from, or where I grew up, I always stagger and hesitate. I was like a gypsy child, roaming the small towns of Alabama, and then the general outskirts of Dallas, TX. The only person that connected the dots was my sister, who also was being dragged along. I eventually got used to moving and learned how to read the ads in the paper just so I could have some input. Why? Everyone always asks why... I used to think it was just the way it was. Apparently, my dad was a rent-skipper. I didn't know it at the time, but we were so poor, that once we couldn't pay the rent we would either get evicted, or jump off the train just before we were thrown off... There were lots of reasons why we were poor; young parents, low income, bad habits, addictions, etc... We were the kind of family that churches brought Christmas presents to. I just found that out this year. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">So, we moved into one, "spot" when I was in the sixth grade. I say spot, because we still moved around, even though we stayed in the same school zone. I had the privilege of starting junior high with actual friends I had made the year before at O'Henry Elementary School. This school was home of the sweet Ms. Johannes, my teacher, who was the first woman I ever knew with fake nails. Also the home of the loveable, Mr. Fagg, the fresh new Science teacher who was brave enough to choose the elementary teaching field in spite of such a terrible namesake. OHES was where I had my first counseling practice every day at recess. I think I have written before about it, but during recess kids would line up at the see-saws and ask me for advice about various things. It was cute. I had some great friends, Sara L. and Dina H. became my very best-est friends in the whole world. I have been in contact with them over Facebook, which is unbelievably cool to me. I also recently have been in touch with my old Liberty Jr. High friend Doug, who was an unfortunate witness to me being sloshed the one and only time I have been in my life, at the only drunken warehouse party I ever went to. He was also waiting for me the only night I ever snuck out of my house. He was either my guardian angel or a very bad influence... What can I say, I was thirteen. I was easily influenced and "Appetite For Destruction" by GNR had just been released. I was feeling rebellious. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Well, I was in the middle of my ninth grade year, which in TX was still junior high. We were moving back to Alabama and changing schools in the middle of the year. I was being plucked from this place I had invested nearly four years of my life in. This was four times longer than any other place I had ever been, four times longer than I had invested in any friendships. It was so traumatic. I was deeply angry. It set me on a path of seething anger that took me years to work through. So we left, we moved. My path completely changed. An old life, I had to leave behind. A few letters came, but then it was over. Life was forever changed. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">There are so many other important experiences and people that crossed my path in those early days. I have learned a lot from all of it. It has made me a well rounded person. An extrovert by nature, all of those "opportunities" to meet new people helped me hone in on my people skills and I really am comfortable in new situations. Because of this I have a deep need for real connection with people. When I get to know them, I want to invest, to anchor myself into their lives... to really know them. My heart was trained early in life that things you care about can disappear quickly, so don't waste time, don't waste words. Just use what time you have and let your lives be open. </span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Facebook has been a tremendous leveler in my life. It is like I had 33 unique worlds and all of them collided. My life does not seem so random anymore. All of these different people are the dots that I have not been able to connect. The dots are on Facebook! Wow, it really is amazing. It shows me again, that even though I did not see Him, that God was there. He was the constant in my life before I even knew Him. He knew where I was at all times, to Him I was never anonymous. That time after time, place after place, person after person, He was there. The God of my life is the God over all of the history in my life, and the God of all history. He has used the hurts of my past, the challenges to really communicate to me that I am His, that I always was. That all of my life has had a great purpose, a specific plan. He is where I am headed, and He is where I have been. It makes sense of what used to seem so senseless. He is working "all things together for the good". Nothing in my life has been secret from Him, nothing has been unknown or forgotten. All of it matters, all of it is meaningful... all of it is useful. What a sense of clarity... what assurance of the things to come.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><object height="285" width="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/UuxCOjoFp7Y&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><br /><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/UuxCOjoFp7Y&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="285" width="340"></embed></object>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-56100122963285578222009-03-03T01:03:00.012-06:002009-04-09T01:15:35.717-05:00The Art of Me...<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">I am sitting on my couch and it's 1:00 in the morning again. I am listening to Shawn MacDonald's, song "Beautiful"; it is number five on my play list. I feel so moved by this song and I have been thinking about the words. You may not know that I live in a less populated area than most. I have the privilege looking up into the night sky without a lot of distraction from street lights. I also regularly work late, after 10 or so. When I come out of the building, I am greeted by an enormous open sky. On cold nights the air snaps me to attention, and when there are no clouds, the sky is crystal clear. I mean it is amazing, the stars really just dance up there. I always, always, always look up at it and thank God for the gift of seeing His stars, His moon, His creation. I just immediately feel connected to Him, and grateful. Then I hear this song... "What am I, that I might be called your child? What am I that you might know me, my King" Then he goes on to sing about the creation, the sun, the colors and how they are painted all over the sky. It's true, "the same hands that created all of this, created you and I"... I think, wow!, He created me, He knows me...He loves me. I think about how amazing it would be to be there at that moment in time when he decided to create all of this and at the moment when he decided to create me. Then to watch as he carefully decided on exactly what genes I would have, exactly what my face would look like, what my voice would sound like, that I would never reach five foot three, that I would cry at every Hallmark card commercial. To see when He formed my soul, my inmost parts, when he carefully and wonderfully made me...would result in deep and humble appreciation for His work. It is incredible to think of the God who created the Heavens and the earth, took time to carefully plan every part of my being. My life, he planned. My breath he breathed into me.<br /><br />I don't think I fully appreciated how well God created us, until I became pregnant with my</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsIr1q9ePE1msjZaNFpSI2aFBV8bBOxdYxFbtlp38KsrKaU9Ln9AeeWuNoD5EKqEm9Dy9oHGNOZCC_FxyygigWE_cCCD3qiYHNX1EgivauwqWaJj4VTrJFZ435NFwvjeBPMn4fHP4wwnQ/s1600-h/Field+trip+006.JPG"><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5308872293153681602" style="margin: 0px 0px 10px 10px; float: right; width: 112px; height: 200px;" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjsIr1q9ePE1msjZaNFpSI2aFBV8bBOxdYxFbtlp38KsrKaU9Ln9AeeWuNoD5EKqEm9Dy9oHGNOZCC_FxyygigWE_cCCD3qiYHNX1EgivauwqWaJj4VTrJFZ435NFwvjeBPMn4fHP4wwnQ/s200/Field+trip+006.JPG" border="0" /></span></a><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> oldest. Everyday, I wondered, what she would look like, what she would be like... You want to know something sad and wonderful? This is sort of a side bar... When I was young, something happened to my family, and through a series of events all my baby pictures were destroyed. I don't know what I looked like as a child until I was about three years old. That always made me sad. When I was pregnant I selfishly prayed that God would give me a baby that looked like me so that I would know what I looked like as a baby. I had Noelle, (mini-me) and it has been like staring in the mirror since she was born. She also acts and thinks just like me, and happens to also want to be a counselor and work at a bed and breakfast.... Anyway, God knew that always made me sad, because it is just that, He KNOWS me. He knows us. We are known to Him, By Him. We don't have to introduce ourselves when we pray. He knows what we looked like as kids. He made us look that way.<br /><br />I guess I concentrate a bit too much on the flaws that I have. If I got up everyday and said "thank you God for creating me, my soul, my spirit, my heart, my personality, my goals, my desires", even down to my love for Him, how different would my attitude be about life? If for just a moment I could see myself as an amazing creation like the stars and the sky, would I live differently out of nothing more than an appreciation for the art that He made of me? This is not a self-absorbed, love-thyself entry. Some people feel anonymous in this world. They feel alone and unknown. We are not alone or unknown, the proof is in the mirror. Just think of the impact it would have on us if we truly got excited about how God made us. If we stopped condemning ourselves for our flaws, would we even think of those traits as flaws then? I don't want anyone to respond to this entry negatively. I have a brother who is Autistic, and there are some things I don't understand of course, nor am I meant to... I just know that each of us is truly beautiful to God. He thinks we are beautiful. He finds pleasure in His creation, just as we find pleasure in looking at His fine artwork, He also delights in looking at us. We are His "pieces" and all of creation is the gallery. I am going to try to be more grateful for the thing he has made me, for the art of my soul and spirit. I am going to thank God for the incredible details of my life, for knowing me, and making a way for me to know Him.<br /><br />And No, I will not post any Stuart Smalley videos, even though I want to....</span> SO BAD!<br /><object height="405" width="500"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3TaLD6nwKGg&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3TaLD6nwKGg&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x3a3a3a&color2=0x999999&border=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="405" width="500"></embed></object>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-79904944387711904502009-02-28T22:49:00.008-06:002009-03-01T01:29:22.164-06:00"Deep Thoughts" by Jennifer Baker<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">Well, I'll tell you the truth... I was a little nervous about the last few posts. It was nerve-racking putting myself out there like that on the internet. When I am in a small group setting or counseling someone I share some of these stories when it is appropriate. Not knowing who is reading it, what they believe, and how these stories affect them, I can tell you, it has caused me some anxiety... I appreciate everyone who has responded and certainly everyone who has sent a note of encouragement my way. I am loving writing. I have journals that go back to my fifth grade year. I need to write to get through things, and I know when I am not writing, I am stuck somewhere. I know most blogs are a little less serious, and those entries are coming. If you know me at all, you are probably a little surprised by my intensity in these blogs. But inside my head I am constantly processing and contemplating serious and meaningful things. They are overwhelming at times...which is why I write them down. They are my own personal deep thoughts, but if you want to read them, I will be happy to share them with you. Just call me Jack. :)</span><br /><br /><em>"I bet if you're a young mobster, and you are out on your first date... I bet it's pretty embarrassing if someone tries to kill you..." - Jack Handey</em><br /><br /><br /><object height="265" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/V4EdJ0tb4Gw&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/V4EdJ0tb4Gw&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object><em></em>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-13172939334167457922009-02-24T23:39:00.007-06:002009-03-01T01:59:27.048-06:00The Rebirth of My Faith<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">For most of my life I felt different. I didn’t have much, my parents were young, we were dysfunctional… I felt like everyone else had it together and knew we didn’t. When I became a Christian, all these things were still true. The only difference was that I was a Christian<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKJlsMXLvCzbLUriFV1OFmMoZ4gUR9IC346fo9PYBdjv6dC1JKvUp91hFPrbIx3s_Fzpb-kj0OBa6ZiGVfslMS5RcUE8F6buBp9uJGuVVNhj1dYwjvHuw1XXmlu28xdHOkwPGN9dvRd9k/s1600-h/Picture0039.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5306606642694250242" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 124px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKJlsMXLvCzbLUriFV1OFmMoZ4gUR9IC346fo9PYBdjv6dC1JKvUp91hFPrbIx3s_Fzpb-kj0OBa6ZiGVfslMS5RcUE8F6buBp9uJGuVVNhj1dYwjvHuw1XXmlu28xdHOkwPGN9dvRd9k/s200/Picture0039.jpg" border="0" /></a>, and God was the only thing I had in common with these other people. For the most part I felt like others either looked down on me, or pitied me. However, some people along the way genuinely loved me and wanted to help me. I was given much and was told to remember it, because one day, I would be expected to give it back. That rang loud and true in my life. So working at the adoption agency was going to be the beginning of giving back… I thought my life would be an encouragement to them, that I could help them change their lives. That through my life they would see there was hope for their future, for their lives, through Christ. Little did I know, it was one of them, one of their lives, that would change my life forever.<br /><br />I will go ahead and tell you this is very difficult for me to write. It is hard. It is a rough story, so if you are faint at heart, it will at the very least make you sad. So, here we go. I need to explain to you the nature of my old job. I was a crisis pregnancy counselor to young girls who were preparing to place their unborn child for adoption. I counseled them before hand, went through the paperwork they would sign, I worked with the attorney to prepare them, the doctors, the adoptive parents, any one involved… and the birthfather. I was involved in just about every aspect of the adoption, from beginning to end. It was incredible. God was ever present. Every detail of my day was laid out by Him. I saw and participated in some of the most incredible experiences you could imagine. Adoption is a beautiful physical picture of what God did for us as his heirs. That is a whole other blog. Really if you want to talk to me for hours, let’s talk about adoption.<br /><br />On January 1, 1999 I walked in the door at my new job to about thirty active client cases. The first two I was involved with were the most difficult two in my entire career there. Because of the confidentiality of the profession I can not go into the details on this blog. There are so many sad sick facts that I learned. I will just say that I immediately learned to hate a stranger. It was a text book case of incest. The birthmother was a sweet preteen girl who was due in Feb. No one intervened until she became pregnant. Oh, I was just devastated hearing it. She delivered a healthy baby, and placed the child in the care of the agency. In the meantime, because I was the worker on the case I had to visit her father in prison get him to sign his paperwork relinquishing his rights as the parent to the baby/ grandbaby. It is so sad to type that… I drove the three hours to the prison. I pulled over once and had some sort of nausea-type anxiety attack… I was terrified. The notary was provided by the prison, so I was all alone preparing to meet this man, this child molester.<br /><br />As many relatives as I had in one, I had never actually gone to visit a state penitentiary… I want to describe the scenery for those of you who have never had the pleasure of visiting one of our fine Alabama correctional institutions. So much of this was visual for me… It was your typical cinder-block grey lifeless building with guards posted at the front gate, which had barbed wire topping it. You had to practically get finger printed just to enter. So a guard escorted me and my very scared self to a locked “conference” room. It was NYPD Blue style, wired windows, cage in the corner. The furniture looked like stuff that old downtown offices would donate to the thrift store after they sold all their decent “going out of business” stuff at an auction. So I sat there alone for fifteen minutes. But it wasn’t quiet. Every time, a door opened somewhere an old school bell went off. It was not helping me settle down. Then the door started to open. In the front was a HUGE African American guard, who had “my prisoner” as he referred to him, by the arm. He was an average looking man with graying clean cut hair. He was wearing an orange prisoner’s jumper, nothing at all memorable. By his appearance he was not creepy, not noticeable, nothing that out in the real world would ever seem to indicate he was a child molester. He was shuffling back and forth towards the grey seat the had ready for him. He was chained at the feet, and couldn’t walk without noticeable constriction. His hands were chained together in front of him. The other guard went about the business of chaining him to the chair in front of me. The large guard reminded me of the big guy in the movie the Green Mile. The whole place reminds me of that movie. It felt like that movie. He said, “He is ready Mam, we will be right here if you need us”. It never occurred to me that they would stay. I felt like I was on stage. I was so nervous, disgusted, I really didn’t know what to say. I had to go over the contracts and the paperwork. He agreed to sign them, but stopped me first. He noticed the part that stated that the birth father was due counseling as well as the birthmother before placement. He said, he wanted to take advantage of his services. Stunned, I let him just talk.<br /><br />Here is what he said… He talked about how alone he felt and isolated. He expressed that he was a God –fearing man, a believer. How he knew it was wrong and wished that he could have stopped. He minimized how much it hurt his daughter. Said it would all be over when the baby was gone. He marginalized his choice and said it was just as much his wife’s fault because she never stopped him. He was mad at his family for cutting him off. He said he was just a sinner and they should forgive him. He had a sickness and he needed help, not to be punished. He was totally rationalizing his sin. This most horrible sin. He was a victim. He really believed if he just “got right” he would be healed and he could minister to others and get his family back. Did you feel disgusted by that? I was horrified. He filled out his paperwork, and I got out of there.<br /><br />But… Were you paying attention to my last blog? If you read it this all seemed familiar to you. Last time I wrote, “I let go of my faith and took back everything I had given to God. I justified my sin, minimized and marginalized it. I kept my secrets close. No one seemed to notice. I ached for God, for forgiveness, but I continued to bathe myself in sin.” Everything that came out of his mouth had been nearly verbatim what I would say to myself about my own sin. I had given myself over to sin and denied God, just as he.<br /><br />I was in the parking lot outside of this prison when it hit me. I was him. I was no different than him. No! No! you say, you didn’t DO that. Well, I didn’t, but my heart was in the same condition as his. I was a victim of nothing more than my own flesh. I was beginning to be humbled. I realized that I wasn’t the least of all Christian’s, I was the Chief of all sinners. I was just the same as a child molester. Now, there is much theology behind that statement. I am not an articulate theologian and I shrivel in comparison to some of my good friends and their ability to recite the Shorter Catechisms, join FB groups dedicated to Spurgeon, or translate Greek and Hebrew. But you don’t have to understand anything more than this to understand what I have said. Sin is the common denominator among man, not good. We have all “sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God”. When I realized the depths of my sin, the comparable place I had in line next to the child molestor, I began to realize, that not only was I a hopeless sinner, I did not deserve the gift of my salvation… or to be rescued, or to be a child of the King. I was covered in filth. I was disgusted with this man, and sickened by his perversion, and then I realized that I was just like him. I was walking around in the world hiding my sin, hiding how bad I was, and in the darkness I let sin take over me. No one could tell. I looked just fine. “Oh what a wretched man I am!” I started the car, and the ‘journey’ on my three hours to home. As I drove, I was being transformed. My life was making sense. All of this hard stuff, it wasn’t less, it was more. I had been give MORE than I “could ever ask or imagine”. I had been blessed to a degree through these challenges that suddenly made my soul feel like it was bursting into a million pieces of gratitude. I was starting to really love the Lord, really understand my place as his child. He took me! He died for ME! I didn’t deserve it! He took my gross, dirty filthy rags to the cross with him. He was changing me, I did love him before, but I didn’t understand this. I did not understand grace. Grace is being given what you don’t deserve, and mercy is not being given what you do deserve. I did not understand how undeserving I was. I had been mad that life was not better or easier after I became a Christian.<br /><br />I was not good enough for God. I was not good enough, and I didn’t have to be. Freedom in Christ, it was something I didn’t get. It made sense now. My love for God, my gratitude for his grace towards me began anew that day. I began to see others as God saw them. I developed a deeper compassion toward all people, especially my clients, than I could have ever mustered on a “good day”. I began to see through the holes of my condemning spirit. I was in no place to hold someone over the fire anymore, I was only able to now hold their hand and lead them to the forgiving, sacrificing God who truly loves them. Out of me poured His love. Gratitude became my motivator for service. Love for Him, truly became the foundation for peace in my life. This transformation was the beginning of a grace-centered faith.<br /><br />I still wrestle with sin. I am still drawn to the darkness, but I don’t ever feel like I am hopeless or that life is hopeless. I know that next to me in the car that day the Holy Spirit talked me through every corner of my heart and reshaped my viewpoint on just about everything. It was miraculous</span>.<br /><br /><object width="320" height="265"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/ghZfnQxUhzQ&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/ghZfnQxUhzQ&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&color1=0x006699&color2=0x54abd6" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="320" height="265"></embed></object>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-38565912743478035152009-02-22T22:40:00.007-06:002009-02-24T23:53:11.945-06:00The Crash of 1998<span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;">It was December, just after school let out for the holidays. I was packing up the free 2000 sq foot house we had at the boarding school to move to a two bedroom apartment. I was leaving a job that provided for our every need. I hadn't told my boss yet. I was running away. I couldn't believe I was giving all of that up for something, anything else. I thought it was the job that was the problem, the people. I thought it was my circumstance that was causing this deep depression I had been in for nearly a year. I thought I needed a change. I had not been outside of the house much for nearly a month. We had not eaten on campus in two months <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">in spite</span> of the fact that we had free meals in the dining hall. I hid from the students that I was working with. I certainly avoided the other staff. I was so unhappy, and I could not stay there one more minute.<br /><br /><br />Why was I so unhappy? Well for nearly two years I had been keeping a grueling schedule. I got this job the semester before I graduated with my masters. I had to work at my internship at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Montevallo</span></span> during the day, and then all night at the school. I was the Residential Counselor, which meant I lived on campus and worked out of my house. Traditionally, the kids had access to the whole house and to the counselor any time. I came to change things, and to impart all of my new found graduate school wisdom, into this traditionally <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">un</span>-programmed</span> job. I never had a job description, so I just did what I felt was best at the time, however, the expectations that were placed on me were overwhelming. I partnered with someone who had no respect for me, who worked against me. I felt alone and unsupported. I really didn't understand <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">territorialism</span></span>. It did not fit into my paradigm. I was twenty three years young and still pretty immature about the ways of the world. I was also a proud "right wing conservative" and extremely <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">naive</span>' about the world. Let me tell you, not many conservatives <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">survied</span> in this liberal quicksand. At the time, I didn't know much about the ACLU, but I did know I was one of the few staff members that did not "carry their card"... My dream job turned out to be less dreamy than I had hoped for.<br /><br />So, What did I do? <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">For</span> a while I threw myself into the job, the kids. I was up till three and up again at 7:00 with them. It was so imbalanced. I have not mentioned this before, but at this time we began to take on the task of raising my little brother who was just starting <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">high</span> school. He moved in with us at the height of my depression. My marriage was young, and I was totally distracted. Neither Chad nor I realized the deep impact this was going to have on us both before it was over. Chad told me later that we didn't share our "marriage bed" for somewhere around four to six months. He lost count... I <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">wasn</span>'</span>t counting. I was so distracted and depressed it didn't even occur to me, and I was genuinely shocked when he told me later. I had turned inside myself and wasn't coming out. Not for ANYONE. Sorry, I hope this is not too much reality for you...<br /><br />So, I mentioned in my earlier post that I loved sin. I didn't mention which sins exactly. There are so many different ways in which I sin. I am no ordinary sinner. Forgive me for thinking I am original in my depravity, but I just don't want to get into it. In many ways I reverted back to my "old nature". I was a Christian, but this was my view of sin. Good <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Christians</span> do good. Bad Christians do bad. Doing good = good Christian. Sin = failure. I was so drawn to the darkness... the depression consumed me. I let go of my faith and took back everything I had given to God. I justified my sin, minimized and marginalized it. I kept my secrets close. <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">No one</span> seemed to notice. I ached for God, for forgiveness, but I continued to bathe myself in sin. There was an intense wrestling match going on inside of me between my flesh and the Spirit. I was so clueless. I didn't know why I was doing these things... making these choices. I was defeated. I wanted to feel "good" again. I wanted out of this situation. I could never go back to being a good Christian while I was in this place, thus the immediacy of my resignation. I was convinced that if I ran away from the the "bad" and ran toward the Lord, I would find my way back to being good.<br /><br />So, I made it happen. In two weeks I had a new job at a Christian adoption agency, as a counselor to young girls who were in a crisis pregnancy and considering adoption for their child. This was something I could seriously wrap my heart around. Life was going to get better. I was going to get better.... Little did I know the depravity of my soul was about to stare back at me, look into my eyes and speak to me... God was getting ready to call me out. He was about to do something totally dramatic in my life. To this day, I get chills when I think about that exact moment when I got it. It was real and powerful, and freeing. My thoughts about myself were about to be challenged in <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">every way</span>. My identity. My position in Christ. My view of people. My view of sin. Redemption. Everything I had been taught thus far, was about to be reshaped, purged, and purified. I can see the hands of the Potter on my soul with my heart on his wheel, turning me and shaping me, molding me into a humbled, perfectly broken vessel of His.<br /><br />Next time I will tell you about that time I referred to when I wrote this preview in an older post:<br />Get READY. I am about to tell you the about the most meaningful experience I have ever had. How I became the person that I am at this moment in time, and the event that has shaped my faith in a way that no other event has before or since. My defining moment so to speak. The day that I went from a works centered performance based Christian, to a deeply humbled follower of Christ changed forever by His grace and mercy.<br /><br />So next time I will tell you the hardest part of the <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">story</span>. It will conclude this series of seriousness. And oh, please give me some feedback. I feel kind of vulnerable here...</span>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-28651282840529743772009-01-08T00:20:00.016-06:002009-01-09T12:31:06.216-06:00In the Beginning...I have certainly procrastinated in following up on my committment to write this entry. The truth is, it is really difficult to get this story across so that you will feel the full impact this experience had on my life. So I have been mulling, pausing, thinking about how to go about writing this. It's so different than talking. You can not see my expressions or hear the emotion in my voice that always bursts out of me when I tell this story. So much of this experience is rooted in my early years as a Christian. So I decided that I would start at the beginning of my faith, tell you about my "crash", as I refer to it, then tell you what happened the day that changed my life, and the difference it all made. So here is me, so they say....<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOroZ1jrFJ4RX0zXcDXr5gUF8n1AGXN8o2tebN_784svt432-dDCVhmG9MDMBb5A5W2ONvk6rhQW9vPCxu81EgG1kthkFQCT1WvJmqVz7b4E6wO1F2J1Nt_SxO6BpJy_WLlQ7mHOK4RFk/s1600-h/Picture0212.jpg"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5289175240973155954" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 135px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 153px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOroZ1jrFJ4RX0zXcDXr5gUF8n1AGXN8o2tebN_784svt432-dDCVhmG9MDMBb5A5W2ONvk6rhQW9vPCxu81EgG1kthkFQCT1WvJmqVz7b4E6wO1F2J1Nt_SxO6BpJy_WLlQ7mHOK4RFk/s200/Picture0212.jpg" border="0" /></a><br />First of all I was not raised in a "Christian home". My Dad hated the church and was raised as an angry Catholic. He equated religion with harsh, cruel and angry interactions with people who professed to follow the will of God. He and his six brothers and sisters had to fend for themselves and at one point were abandoned by both parents and some were shipped off to a Catholic orphanage. They eventually all came home. They were just your average poor white family rooted in industrial labor. My dad was 18 and my mom 14 when they had my older sister and married. Then I came along 18 months later in 1974. A second mistake.... Well, that is how I viewed the situation for most of my childhood. (I will have to give my mom a great deal of credit, though, Roe-v-Wade was put into law in 73' and she could have easily chosen to abort me.) Now, my mom did not hate the church, she just never demonstrated any feeling either way. (That is except for the time when she literally pushed me out the door at the invitation of a recruiting member of the bus ministry of a church that I later called..."A Home For My Heart".) My mom was into everything, astrology, plam reading, etc. etc... So I was a child of 2 confused teenagers, who were both products of dyfunctional, addicted, abusive, and neglectful homes. I am glad they married, although it was rough. It would have been more rough had they not.<br /><br />So, I grew up angry. I was (am) a strong willed child. I don't mean just stubborn... I mean the "I'll die before I (fill in the blank).... so you're better off just giving in" kind of child. What can I say?... I was charming. I was mad at God and I didn't know why. By the time I was 12 I was writing poems about how much I hated my life. So I began looking for things to fill up that gaping hole inside of me that exists in everyone. I tried to fill it up with spiritual things. Then I became an atheist (an uneducated one) by the time I was 14. I thought Christians were all full of "it" and I became very committed to astrology and spiritualism. I could literally meet someone and within five minutes tell them their sign, without having been given their birth date. Hey, it's in the Bible. So, I didn't really need God, and in my opinion, He certainly hadn't done me any favors. Then I got into the Oujia board and started to pursue things that were associated with cults. Thank goodness I was so young. I am sure I would be a certified spiritualist by now if I hadn't been hindered by my young circumstance. I was very intuitive, and it made me feel really mature. Things at home were crumbling, and my anger was constant. We had ,what I would call, an explosive home and I was usually the bomb. So, I will leave much of that out. My mom, like I said, made me go to church. I honestly think she didn't know what else to do. She had papers in her room ready to send me to a behavioral center and threatened that if I did not go to church, I would go to "the center". So, at age 15, I chose to go to children's church under the notion that I would supervise my little brother. It was good. I didn't even know who "Father Abraham" was and certainly not about his many sons. After a few months I merged into the youth group, fell in love with Jesus, and became a Christian.... and that is the short story.<br /><br />I threw out all of my "stuff" and quickly became a "good Christian". No drinking, no dancing, no rated R movies, no SECULAR MUSIC and certainly no astrology or oujia boards. I had my quiet time, and feverishly read the Bible. I was sincerely excited about my new found faith, and the changes the Holy Spirit had begun to make in me. I couldn't believe anyone who had faith in the God who had so sweetly rescued me, would ever betray him or even become lukewarm. I was told what was right to do, and I did it. I became a very bold "Jesus freak". I was a Bible thumping, stuff it down your throat in a sincere way, kind of girl. Really, I became a legalist. I used to my list to judge other people. If they weren't "living right" I made sure they knew it. I was immature, and really believed I was correct. I had pride in myself because I was good. I had pride, because I loved Jesus more. I had pride.<br /><br />Then I met an older Christian guy and we began to date. He had a nice family, and I basically became a permanent fixture at his house. We dated for 2 and a half years. Before that I really hadn't kissed a guy all that much. Then we began to "backslide". I love using all these terms. So, as a brand new, on fire for God, motivated, evangelical (and I mean EVANGELICAL) witnessing, back yard Bible club, mission tripping, choir singing, CWT sharing, tract giving, prayer warrior, Carmen fan... I began to struggle with sin. I made sure I asked for forgiveness.... over and over and over... Ughhh! It was so frustrating! How could someone who truly loved Jesus, who was so grateful to Him, betray Him on a regular basis! I continued to check off my list and I kept the rest of it to myself. My behaviour and enthusiam for God was rewarded in the church, but my heart was confused and tired. I began to hate myself.<br /><br />So I graduated, and went to college. There is SO much I have left out. If you really want to know the details behind the details, we can talk. I had a great college experience. I made some wonderful friends and met my future husband. I was still a very "good Christian", and I was still making the same mistakes. I didn't get it. I was so sick of this pattern in my life. It is much like a marriage. How many times does a spouse forgive an affair? How many betrayals are enough to walk away? In my heart, in my actions, I felt I had betrayed God. My favorite line from one of my favorite hymns expresses it well, "Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love..." That's me in a nutshell. I am a wanderer. Spiritually ADD. I like sin. That's the truth. I really like it. Don't you? I am the prodigal son. I am David. I am Peter. "You know I love you Lord".<br /><br />I married my college sweetheart. I went to graduate school. I got my dream job as a counselor at a ritzy boarding school. We had a free house, free food, a fat paycheck, and no bills. Life was good. Too bad I was still me! Same show, different channel. And that is where I will end this amazingly long entry. I will tell you about "the crash" next time. I hope you'll stay tuned.Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2865279882351428484.post-53114009318629100242009-01-02T01:57:00.008-06:002009-01-02T03:27:22.051-06:00The Most Personal Thing...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5iXiNK3cbtg3CWuldA2dFSwy13JIUnWB6XOkLAsXMEdkffH_NvcPbeEXVgiugGCiO7TZ9nJ6qPnK9fmENfiaIJ9zXPe71Djcu9t8xO5PRIdaFZru-mIvdQTBTecUkNyCMHsFAcOQB8Ug/s1600-h/259.JPG"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5286609498860240786" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; WIDTH: 150px; CURSOR: hand; HEIGHT: 200px" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5iXiNK3cbtg3CWuldA2dFSwy13JIUnWB6XOkLAsXMEdkffH_NvcPbeEXVgiugGCiO7TZ9nJ6qPnK9fmENfiaIJ9zXPe71Djcu9t8xO5PRIdaFZru-mIvdQTBTecUkNyCMHsFAcOQB8Ug/s200/259.JPG" border="0" /></a><br /><div>This blogging thing has been really hard for me. I will have a great idea, a tug at my heart to go and write out my thoughts, and then daily life swallows me up, and I inevitably have to make someone a Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich or chase someone with a tissue. So I think, yes! I am definitely going to write about that! And whatever it was is gone like Patrick Swayze's, one hit wonder "She's like wind...". </div><div> </div><div>I don't know why I toil so over the content of this blog. I just feel like, maybe, if someone actually takes the time to read it, then it must be at the very least interesting. Hopefully any visitor of mine would at least not regret the time it took to read it. OK, I am still toiling. Picture me twiddling my thumbs and writing. I have a friend who writes in her blog everyday about her kids, and another who writes astounding theological revelations on a regular basis. Then I think, I am writing about myself... What a vain, self centered thing to do! Really, I said before, this is therapeutic. Maybe you will get something out of my personal journey. Maybe not. So all that to say. Get READY. I am about to tell you the about the most meaningful experience I have ever had. How I became the person that I am at this moment in time, and the event that has shaped my faith in a way that no other event has before or since. My defining moment so to speak. The day that I went from a works centered performance based Christian, to a deeply humbled follower of Christ changed forever by His grace and mercy. I am making this declarative statement so that I will follow through with sharing this story. I don't tell everyone, because not everyone can handle it. Especially among my Christian acquaintances and friends. It is a hard story to hear. Not totally my own story, but it totally changed me. Completely. So then. next time, I promise to tell you. </div>Jenniferhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03908552042261191509noreply@blogger.com3