Category: Uncategorized (Page 26 of 81)

Soul Food When all the News Seems Bad

September 11, 2015 /

Most mornings John says I’m annoyingly Tigger-like, bounding out of bed excited to seize the day. Many days recently though, I really just want to be more possum than Tigger and burrow into the soft comfiness of down pillows and warm blankets, keeping my eyes closed to the news of bad guys, hard hearts, pictures of desperate refugees fleeing Syria and the lifeless body of a precious little boy on a beach in Turkey.

Instead, today, I want to join people around the world who are choosing life. I want to say, “We see you. You are not alone and we’re going to do our best to help.”

First, what others are doing – where we can see God’s fingerprints – and then what we can do.

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World Vision is doing more than any other humanitarian organization on the ground to help Syrian refugees. Take a look at some good news and then donate here as a way of choosing life today.

And lastly, we serve a God who always makes room at the table. You can help by signing this petition to make room for those in need.

This was part of my reading yesterday. Sometimes God is about as subtle as a mack truck, eh? 🙂

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5 Things to Consider When Telling Someone About Their Blind Spots

September 9, 2015 /

Monday I posted about blind spots, feedback, and the cones in our tree we may be missing.

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It’s really hard to be a good receiver of feedback, but I think we also need to be good givers of feedback.

  • When we give feedback we’re essentially saying that someone else is worth investing in.  They have potential. I care enough about you to tell you about this cone in your tree.
  • When we give feedback we envision a better future for the person.  We give them the tools to grow. Here’s how you might get rid of that cone.
  • When we give feedback we give people perspective. We help them zoom out to see this was just one game, or one talk, or one project that’s part of the bigger picture of who they are becoming. That cone doesn’t have to hold you back forever.

How do we do that well, though? I’m no expert, but I was thinking of this in the context of some young women I mentor. It’s more an art than a science, but it seems there are several things to be aware of. Continue reading

Is There a Safety Cone in Your Tree?

September 7, 2015 /

The other day a friend and I were walking around Lake Harriet and all of a sudden I stopped. Something weird caught my eye. Something was not quite right.

I looked up, and this is what I saw.FullSizeRender-32

So many questions!

Who? Why? How come?

And did anyone else notice, or just walk by, oblivious?

It made me think of a talk at the Global Leadership Summit and wonder how many cones are in my tree that I’m unaware of. Continue reading

Soul Food For When Loss Threatens to Overwhelm & You Want to Hold onto Summer

September 4, 2015 /

I don’t know about you, but it’s been a tough week here. A bunch of loss and a boatload of things coming to an end as the season changes. I keep thinking of that commercial with the fair rides slowly grinding to a halt and the lights going out. I see the leaves starting to turn and I want to say “NOOOOOOOO!! Stop the madness!”

I’ve needed to remind myself this week…

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Anyway, this Friday I thought I’d start by sharing some literal food first, and then we’ll move to the spiritual and emotional.

  1. My friend Heather is a health coach. She brought this delicious appetizer spread to a cookout recently. Because it’s from her, I’m sure it must include magical anti-aging properties and a cure for cancer. I don’t know the name of it, but let’s call it Heather’s Hodgepodge.

All you do is go to Trader Joe’s and buy:

1 container of lentils from the refrigerator section

1 container of bruschetta

1 container of feta cheese

IMG_1413Mix them all together and serve with crackers (Gluten free of whatever!). I don’t even like lentils and I’m not crazy about feta, but I wanted to wrap my arms around this nectar of the gods and eat. the. whole. thing. Amazing!

2. Under the category of Stone Soup type recipes I thought I’d share this salad I created last week out of necessity because I didn’t have all the ingredients for any one recipe and my small group was coming over. It was delicious if I do say so myself 🙂  – fresh and healthy. Never mind that it was kind of an “accident”. I think I’m going to call it Laura’s Salad of Awesomeness 🙂 Because it was an “accident” you can play with amounts.

  • 1/2 cup cooked quinoa (cuz that’s all I had – you could use a cup if you want)
  • about 3 ears fresh corn off the cob
  • 1/2 red onion finely diced
  • about a cup of those sweet cherry tomatoes halved (I had Nature Sweet Cherubs)
  • 1 15 oz. can black beans rinsed
  • 1/4 cup fresh cilantro
  • frozen cooked jumbo shrimp cut into half inch pieces (I had bags of shrimp I had gotten on sale in the freezer, but you can omit this if you just want to use this as a side dish and not a dinner salad)

Dressing: 1/4 cup olive oil, juice of one lemon (1/4 c.), 1/2 t. salt, 1/2 t. black pepper, 1/2 t. garlic powder, 1/2 t. cumin, 1 t. honey. Again, I give you full permission to play with these amounts. I did. You’re welcome.

I added a little garlic salt to the salad just because who doesn’t love more garlic, right?  Also, I like dressing it early to let it soak up the flavor.

The moral of this story? Lack may lead to innovation may lead to deliciousness!

3. Next… A little spiritual soul food.

So many people around me are in pits of disappointment, despair, or darkness. This message by Max Lucado from last year, guest preaching at NCC, is called You’re Gonna Get Through This (I think it’s hysterical that I can identify my friend, Heather’s laugh throughout this recording 🙂 ). This is so encouraging!  If you really can’t listen the whole thing, watch from 24 minutes on.

One of my favorite lines is “Don’t equate the presence of God with a good mood.”

4. Lastly, a little mojo picker-upper.  A book to make you laugh and say, “Oh, you too?”  I just finished reading For the Love by Jen Hatmaker.  You may remember my small group got started around Jen’s book, 7, so she has a good track record in these parts.

In her new book she is funny, and feisty, sarcastic and self-deprecating as we’ve come to expect. The book isn’t so much overtly about grace as it is a series of essays on all things of interest to Jen in which the aroma of grace permeates like popcorn at the movies. It ranges from the fun and frivolous (like Fashion Concerns) to the pointed and important (Dear Church and Dear Christians). And it has a few recipes I can’t wait to try, so there’s that!

A couple of favorite quotes:

  • “If you can make a pot of chili and use a cell phone, then you can create community.”
  •  “Anytime the rich and poor combine, we should listen to whoever has the least power.”

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What about you? What soul food are you feasting on this week?

Is the Story You’re Telling Yourself True?

September 2, 2015 /

Confession: I haven’t been a raving Brené Brown fan. I like Brené Brown’s material on vulnerability, but I don’t love it. It hasn’t been revolutionary for me, probably because I’m too open as it is. I don’t need any encouragement in that area.

However, last month at the Global Leadership Summit, she spoke and I wished so much that John had been sitting next to me so I could elbow him about every other word she said. (Never mind that he would have been elbowing me too.) The material, from her new book Rising Strong, was painfully relevant.

According to her, “Our brain is wired to make up a story to explain every difficult human interaction—whether it’s true or not. That story helps us interpret the discomfort by protecting our ego and self-image.” Continue reading

When You Pray and it Doesn’t “Work”

August 31, 2015 /

For 6 months I got used to waking in the middle of the night, prompted to pray for my brother, who was fighting cancer. I prayed with many others for healing. I prayed specifically, passionately and with complete faith in God’s power.

He died July 18th.

You’ve had a similar experience? Yeah, I thought so.

These days I can get downright snippy with God. Now I wake in the night, or my mind turns to Him through the day and I sometimes think, “Why bother? Why talk to God about the lesser things when He did not seem to care enough to fix this great big thing?”IMG_1403

Of course I know some of the “right” theological answers to this question.

Yes, David was ultimately healed and is alive and whole and free of pain with Jesus.

Yes, we live in a broken world and illness and death are a consequence of the fall…God is sovereign…Our minds are too small to grasp His grander plans…He will cause ALL things to work together for good to those who love Him…He is more concerned about our character than our comfort… Blah blah blah…

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Sometimes when you FEEL in the “depths of despair” as Anne of Green Gables would say, you don’t care about the words.

But I keep praying. I keep talking to God and I’ll tell you why.

I keep praying for the same reason a child keeps talking to her parents after she hasn’t gotten her way.

There’s something deep inside me that still knows that God loves me and I am drawn to Him.

There is something in me that knows there is something bigger going on.

Prayer doesn’t “work” in the way we’d like it to. It doesn’t “work” as in we pray to get what we want. We pray to get what God wants.

I think we make the mistake of seeing prayer as transactional, when it’s primarily relational.

I still don’t know what to do with those verses that exhort us to ask and receive, be the widow badgering the judge, have faith to move mountains, but I can get on-board with this thought from Tim Keller.

We can be sure our prayers are answered precisely in the way we would want them to be answered if we knew everything God knows. Tim Keller

Prayer makes more sense to me when I envision myself in a boat tethered to the shore (God) and prayer is the process by which I pull myself to it/Him – pull my will in line with His.

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Still, I often feel tossed around by the huge waves of confusion. I squint to even see the shore, desperately trying to hold on to the rope that tethers me to to Truth. I have been reading Philip Yancey’s book on prayer and find I’m in good company.

“The only final solution to unanswered prayer is Paul’s explanation to the Corinthians: ‘For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.’ No human being, no matter how wise or how spiritual, can interpret the ways of God, explaining why one miracle and not another, why an apparent intervention here and not there. Along with the apostle Paul, we can only wait, and trust.” Philip Yancey

What has your experience been with understanding prayer?

Linking up today at…

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Soul Food for Those Who are Grieving

August 28, 2015 /

I wrote last week that one of my deepest desires for this space is that it would delight and refresh your soul. I want there to be laughter and fun and creativity mixed in with some of the more intense stuff of life. My hope is that “Soul Food” posts will provide some ideas and resources that you’ll look forward to like a kid looks forward to a day at the State Fair.

Recently I read a great business article  that brought to mind all the creative ways that people ministered to us around my brother’s death.

I’ve written about relational and practical stuff, and we have treasured every note that was written to us, but this is different.

Today I want to share some of the creative ways people used their spiritual gifts, talents, and resources to minister to us in the hopes it may inspire us as we minister to others.

  • In the midst of the emotional roller coaster ride with David towards eternal life, we had friends who one day said, “Are you free for dinner? Come out on our boat with us and let us care for you and you just breathe.”

They gave us hugs and listening ears and dinner and beauty. We cruised on Lake Minnetonka and ate and talked and relaxed, and it was a gift.

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  • One day I received an email from a friend who lives in Australia. She is a talented photographer and gardener. Her note said “Come, let’s take a virtual walk in my garden together and soak up God’s goodness.” She attached a power point with photos and thoughts as if we were walking through her garden together! You can take a look at part of it here: Winter pruned 1
  • Two friends made CD’s – mixes of songs they felt would be comforting during this hard season. For Susan and David there were many trips to and from the hospital in Chicago when these provided a strengthening sound track. This song, Nearness, on one of the CD’s was sung at David’s memorial service. If you’re having a hard day, this is for you.

There were also really meaningful gifts after David died in addition to people who blew us away by contributing in his honor. We were surprised by how moving these gifts were.

  • Like I said, there have been many kind gifts, but I want to mention one – a family sent us a delightful memorial wind chime with a quote on it. It is a beautiful, meaningful reminder whenever the wind blows.
  • While I was still in Chicago with family, a friend dropped off 5 dinners to our home in Minneapolis that she had made and frozen for us. Yes, of course I have time to make dinner (I don’t have kids at home and it wasn’t my husband that died), but what I’ve discovered is how exhausted you are after a crisis, or in a season of grief and how nice it is NOT TO HAVE TO THINK about dinner.
  • My small group, who had been part of an indefatigable prayer team for David, created one of the most meaningful gifts. They wrote verses that we had clung to during David’s cancer and notes of encouragement on a hurricane with a candle. We’ve talked often about how God’s light shines through the broken places in our lives and the gold lines represent those places of healing.

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  • I was moved to tears when I opened a card the other day and a friend in MN had laminated the newspaper obituary of my brother (which I helped write, but had not seen). She said she thought I might want to keep it in my Bible.

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All of these gifts were creative, thoughtful and personal. They communicated care and a desire to remember with us someone we loved.

Are there some additional ways people have ministered to you when you have been grieving?

 

Moving Through a Crowded Life, part 2

August 26, 2015 /

One of the scariest moments I’ve ever experienced was standing in the middle of Paris on Bastille Day.  I was packed, shoulder to shoulder with one million people like…well like one million people smushed together.

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One spooked tourist moving quickly and many would be trampled to death.

Reporting on that day, CNN didn’t see individuals. It saw a crowd.

But Jesus doesn’t see crowds.

Jesus saw me in the middle of Paris, His beloved child who has blue eyes, and is a little goofy, and is afraid of being left out and gets impatient easily.

I wonder if the woman in Mark 5 felt the same way. Was she afraid of being trampled? Or just afraid of being overlooked by Jesus and a crowd with more important priorities? Was it hot and dusty? Was she perspiring with hope?

Monday Jesus let Jairus, a synagogue ruler interrupt Him, but he was a man, and an important man. What about someone like you or me, who’s just…ordinary? Jesus is heading to Jairus’ house when He gets interrupted again.

A large crowd followed and pressed around him. 25 And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. 26 She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.27 When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28 because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” 29 Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

30 At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

31 “You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”

32 But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. 33 Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. 34 He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

The woman was a distraction to Jesus, but He moved slowly enough through the crowd to notice and respond to her as an individual too.

I love it that Jesus saw the woman who touched Him, and Zaccheus in the tree, and blind Bartimaeus waiting by the roadside…The unimportant folks like you and me.

He sees you, and you are oh so precious to Him. Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing. 

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In the middle of a crowd or all alone in your room.

A discipline I sometimes try is to stand at the edge of a crowd, or on a balcony and just look. Look for anyone who is standing alone or looking uncomfortable and then go to them.

When we truly see and value others, maybe it’s a small reminder that Jesus does too.

 

Moving Through a Crowded Life, Part 1

August 24, 2015 /

A few Sunday mornings ago I was rushing a young staff member through our crowded church Great Room between worship services, trying to get to John’s office to shoot a video resource with her and get home.

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“Didn’t you once tell me the more successful you get the more slowly you need to walk through a crowd” she asked pointedly.

“Yeah, yeah, but this is an exception!” I tossed over my shoulder as I simultaneously “Excuse’d” my way around bodies, wishing for a parting of the Red Sea.

People (including my young friend with her annoying memory) can be so…inconvenient, right?

I had quoted a mentor of ours whose line had really impacted John and me even though I resist the word “successful” because I’m definitely not. But being in ministry I seem to know a lot of people, so I’m trying to learn this discipline of walking more slowly through crowds.

When I rush through a crowd

  • I’m saying I’m a big deal because I’m busy.
  • I’m saying tasks are more important than people.
  • I’m saying my time is valuable and you’re not a priority.

Ouch, ouch OUCH!

My words sometimes often almost always come back to bite me.

This morning I was looking at the passage in Mark 5:21-43 that is about Jesus and crowds and individuals. I may or may not have heard the Holy Spirit say, “Ahem…”

And IF the Holy Spirit had eyebrows He/She might have been raising them looking meaningfully at me.Unknown

Can you put yourself in this setting with Jesus?

21 When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake. 22 Then one of the synagogue leaders,named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. 23 He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.” 24 So Jesus went with him.

We all live crowded lives. But Jesus did too.

Even in a crowd, Jesus is present to individuals.IMG_1332

Jairus was a distraction to Jesus, but Jesus moved slowly enough through the crowd to notice and respond to him as an individual.

You’re single or married, a coach, an employer, a mom, a leader, a pay-check earner, and you have a crowded life. You want to be like Jesus – want to respond to the “holy interruptions” that come your way, but it requires discernment.

Maybe the best we can do today is to start moving more slowly through the crowds, look people in the eye, and pray,

“Lord help me to be present to You and others. Show me what love requires of me today.”

 

 

Soul Food

August 20, 2015 /

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I know, I know…I’ve been really off and unpredictable with posting lately. Sorry about that, but well, August. We all need a break, right? But I’m pulling it together and will do better. I’m excited to dive back in, so you’ll hear from me, but  I’d love to hear from you too!

One of my deepest desires for this space is that it would delight and refresh your soul. I want there to be laughter and fun and creativity mixed in with some of the more intense stuff of life. I’ve been trying to think of a name for posts where I share resources, and so far I’ve landed on “Soul food”.  If you have other ideas, let me know!

How about starting with a great song to remind you of your identity? Continue reading

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