Category Archives: Life

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No, I Haven’t

No, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth.
No, I haven’t gotten bored with blogging, or moved on to something "new".
No, I haven’t run out of things to say (as if that were possible!!).
No, I haven’t forgotten that there are people who stop by here every day to see what crazy thing I will say—uh, write—next.

I’ve just been ultra-busy on a project at work, and mega-tired after work (for more on using too many adjectives to describe something, see this article). So, while all the thoughts and ideas run rampant in the chaos commonly known as my mind, this space has had to remain blank for a bit.

But the weekend is on its way, and, hopefully, I’ll have a little time and enough energy to thrown down here, for your reading pleasure (or whatever), a few of the thoughts that have currently taken up residence in my brain.

Until then, check out this recent post and Dan’s comments from Dan Kimball, and Carlos’ take on a similar subject. Okay, talk amongst ya’selves…!

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Deployed

I received an email from my brother tonight, letting me know my nephew-in-law (my niece, Billie’s, husband) has officially left for Iraq.

Ed left for Iraq this morning. It’s supposed to be a 7 month deployment but we all know how that’s been working out.
He will be based in the north, repairing equipment that is being used to secure the border. That means he will occasionally be required to go get equipment in the field that has broken down…. which is dangerous. The terrorists are, for good reason, fighting this build up along the border.

Please remember my nephew, Ed, my niece Billie and their two young sons during this time.

I know his heart, and he walks with Jesus. I know his desire is that all who see him will see Jesus more than they see an American soldier. Please pray that this will happen. Pray that his presence in Iraq will have eternal consequences, even as he serve the Iraqi people to make their home a better, safer and free land.

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I Did It Again

I have struggled for several days with this particular post. It seems I have apparently offended and hurt some people by some things in a recent post. That was never my intention or my desire. But obviously it happened anyway.

Have you ever had people say things to you that are offensive, even mean? Didn’t you want to retaliate, say something equally mean? You know, like back in jr. high, when someone in a conflict would eventually say, "oh, yeah?! Well… you’re ugly!" "HA! You’re stupid!" "You suck!" "Yeah?! Well, you suck more!"

It was usually a way to say "you hurt/offended me but I I don’t want to be vulnerable and just tell you so, so I’ll just hurt/offend you back…"

Well, it appears my recent post generated such a controversy that I found myself in the middle of a similar situation.

It never occurred to me that there are people out there that, once offended, continually revisit the blog that so offends, and eventually even post comments laced with insults, or mean and offensive words of their own. I know, I should not have been surprised by this. We are all human, after all. Even the best, most mature followers of Christ lose it and go mental every once in a while — including me. 🙁 And I would wager that some of those people offended would say I had it coming, that I deserved every mean word I got.

I just didn’t think that there were people out there who took blogs so seriously. Last week I learned the hard way that there are.

Ultimately I ended up with 3 or 4 very mean comments and two gracious,well-thought out ones. Unfortunately, the mean ones got the best of me.

Everything in me screamed to strike back at these people for their mean words. And, for a moment I gave in to that temptation and wrote a comment that was pretty harsh. But Jesus had His own comment to make and He made sure I heard it loud and clear.

"Here’s another old saying that deserves a second look: "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.’ Is that going to get us anywhere? Here’s what I propose: "Don’t hit back at all.’ If someone strikes you, stand there and take it. If someone drags you into court and sues for the shirt off your back, giftwrap your best coat and make a present of it. And if someone takes unfair advantage of you, use the occasion to practice the servant life. No more tit-for-tat stuff. Live generously.

"You’re familiar with the old written law, ‘Love your friend,’ and its unwritten companion, ‘Hate your enemy.’ I’m challenging that. I’m telling you to love your enemies. Let them bring out the best in you, not the worst. When someone gives you a hard time, respond with the energies of prayer, for then you are working out of your true selves, your God-created selves. This is what God does. He gives his best–the sun to warm and the rain to nourish–to everyone, regardless: the good and bad, the nice and nasty."

With my comment I was falling into the same game, "tit-for-tat". You offend me, so I’ll offend you. You say something that hurt my feelings so I’ll say something to hurt your feelings. Where does that get us in the end? Especially in the family of God? Someone has to break the chain. Someone has to have the courage to step up and say, "whoa, this is getting us no where."

I realized I needed to be that person. I needed to delete my comment. It was midnight and I felt sure no one would have seen it yet, so I went to delete it.

Too late. Someone else had seen it and posted their hurtful words right after.

At that point the only way I could think to stop the madness was to delete the post that people found so controversial and disable the comments section for a while. Was that the best idea? Dunno. But it was the best I could think of at the time.

For me, my blog is a place for me to write; one way for me to use the gift of writing that God gave me, on my own little space on the internet. It’s a place to express my opinions, my passions, my thoughts and the things God teaches me. Sometimes I will do it better than at other times. And most times I can pretty much guarantee that it will offend someone. Partly because I’m human. And partly because I am my Father’s daughter. God has a tendency to say things that offend as well. And Jesus was an expert at offending the religious community of the day.

I guess my biggest issue with all this is how seriously people took my post — and I base that conclusion on how seriously they were offended. It baffles me that little, powerless, no-name, dorky me has had such power over nearly a whole community (if one commenter is to be believed).

How did I get such power? How did my blog come to mean so much in the eyes of these people? I just don’t get it.

I love reading other blogs. Especially ones that present new and different ideas, or, even in their anger and frustration, point out issues from a perspective I don’t have. I have occasionally run across blogs that I found offensive, even from people within my same community. But I just ignore them and don’t read them again. My life is too full and meaningful to waste on frustration and anger over someone else’s opinion.

I just figured the rest of the blogging world saw things the same way. Apparently I was wrong. And I got a harsh lesson from it last week.

To all those I offended – and probably even offended with this post – please hear me. I deeply apologize and ask for your forgiveness. I hope someday you will be able to see my blog for what it is, just my 2 cents. I’m not a holier-than-thou expert. I’m not the great and powerful Oz. I’m just Lu, with opinions as fiery as my hair is red.

No, really. My hair is red. Pay no attention to the roots that are growing in darker — or perhaps just grayer…

I’m setting a new rule for my blog. If you disagree with me, I invite you to tell me (once I get brave enough to enable comments once again) in a kind and gracious way, why you disagree. Please try to be as specific and on-topic as possible. However, if your comment is mostly full of insults about me, telling me I’m rude and selfish, for example, I will delete it. I like a good dialog with people who disagree with me. I learn a lot from it. But I don’t like it when people call me names and are purposefully mean just to get me back for a post they found offensive.

I heard a song on the radio today that best sums up my feelings about all of this in the chorus,
I’m not trying to be a nuisance,
I just think we can do better than this,
That was simply my 2 cents.
You can take it or leave it.

Okay, I think this one is finally ready for prime-time…

Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you. — Eph 4:32

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Ouch

Mega-migraine. Began building after my lunch-time visit to the gym. Made me sick as a dog by the time I got home. Not a happy camper. Sorry for the no-post day….

Too much work to do, not enough time to do it. I’m exhausted.

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.
–Isaiah 40:20-29

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How Odd Is It…?

…that I’m extremely bummed out that I only scored 700 (out of 830) on my credit rating? I mean, I still was given a "Good" rating by all three major credit report agencies. But I’m really, seriously bummed out that it’s not "Excellent".

Does this qualify me for the Hermione-Granger-I’m-a-Failure-if-I’m-Not-Always-Excellent Award?

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Currently Watching

No matter how many times I watch it, I’m still enthralled by it. I love the characters — espcially Mrs. Bennett as played by Alison Steadman. What a wonderful drama queen! She reminds me very much of a person I once was friends with. Yikes!

I love the layers of the characters involved, and how Mr. Darcy’s character in particular is revealed piece-by-piece. Isn’t that so true of real life? So often our first impressions lead us astray. Why is that?

Is it, perhaps, because so many of us have learned how to conceal our true natures, as Mr. Darcy did, behind facades and masks? We deceive people as to who we really are, what we really think, and the depth (or lack of) and nature of our character, out of fear of rejection, or fear of conflict. Then we live in fear of being discovered for the frauds we are.

Others of us prejudge those wearing the masks, as if we are better than those living a lie, because we are not as they, whatever they may be living as.

Perhaps the biggest crime of all is that both of us fail to realize that we suffer the same malady of the heart: Pride and Prejudice.

…oh, here comes the good part! Talk with ya later….

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Days Go By

Can you believe it’s already August???? It’s hard to believe over half the year is already gone. It seems so strange to me to think that, in two more days, I’ll have been in Nashville for a year. Wild.

I came with such high hopes and big dreams. I guess that’s the story with just about everyone who comes here. But my dreams weren’t about the music industry. They were about Mosaic Nashville.

I remember dreaming about getting a big old house somewhere near Belmont or Vandy (I
didn’t even know those were "trendy" places at the time) where our team could have meetings and Mosaic LA’s overseas workers (aka missionaries) could stay while visiting our community and sharing what God is doing in their country and with their people. I already had some workers lined up in my mind that I wanted to come — my friends Brian and Lena, Joyce, Brian and Linda, the Clements, the Fudennas, the Harlans, the Burtches…. Oh, I was dreaming big. I had ideas for mission trips and cultural experiences. I was already investigating Nashville’s international flavors and thinking about ways to reach out to the international students.

I had so many hopes for our team! I dreamed of building team unity, of us coming together as co-laborers and growing into close family. No, I never expected us all to be great friends. I dreamed of us being tightly bound brothers and sisters in Jesus. I dreamed of us sweating and toiling and getting gritty and real with one another, and of forever changing the face of Nashville by redefining what it means to be a follower of Jesus (a "Christian") and what it looks like to build community ("church"). I ached for Nashville to know community like I knew (and still know, even though I’m so far away) at Mosaic LA. I still ache for that.

Big dreams. High hopes.

They turned into long days, even longer nights. Realities of team dynamics, of a team who wasn’t indigenous to either Nashville or Mosaic LA (save two of us), lack of team unity, a leader who didn’t know how to build team unity, chaos and lack of planning doomed our efforts from the start. Not to mention the logical chaos of seven people moving to a new city, looking for housing and jobs while also trying to get to know each other.

Then our leader left to take care of urgent personal crises. I was ready to bail. But Jamie, sweet Jamie, came in fighting and convinced me to stay. For a few months I thought perhaps my dreams could become reality. I even dared to dream again; new dreams, altered by the new reality of our little, but growing, Mosaic plant.
But some things end up being too good to be true. And soon enough, change came again, and chaos returned.

Perhaps I’m the only one in chaos now. Perhaps this dream I had wasn’t meant for Mosaic Nashville. Perhaps God has other things for me. I don’t know. I don’t have the answers. I don’t have ANY answers.

But I DO know one thing: God brought me out here. This is where I belong. Maybe not for forever, but definitely for now. I felt it the moment I arrived, and every day since. Even with all the uncertainty in my life — all the where will I live? where will I work? How will I make ends meet? Who will be my friend? — I am still convinced beyond all reason that I belong here. I belong in Nashville. Every fiber of my being shouts it out every day, with every tree, every thunderstorm, every firefly, every sunset, every warm, muggy evening I experience. Its as if I were made for this place. Perhaps it’s just the Crockett blood in me rejoicing that I’ve finally come home…. but I really think its something God put in me long ago that’s finally getting its chance to fly.

I must confess, finding myself feeling once again community-less and once again without a roommate and in need of a place to live by mid-October, feels frustratingly like I have made no progress at all. Yet I know I have. I know so much better whom I can trust (and whom I can’t), what I want, what I need, what’s important, even invaluable, to me, and who I am.

I know these things because God has walked with me every single day of the last year. He’s made His presence powerfully known, whispered His love to me every day, loved on me, talked to me, opened my eyes to new insight and reminded me of lessons past, fought with me, wrestled me to the ground and broken my hip so I’d remember our bout (oh, how I treasure our fights!! The fact that He loves me enough to fight with me rather than just withdraw His love and affection until I "behave" or "get it together" or "live perfectly"!! What a gift it is to be able to get angry and yell and fight back without fear He will stop loving me, or withdraw His hand from me!!). He’s always provided what I need, usually at the last possible second; sometimes I thought He was late, but I was wrong. He has an odd sense of timing that is uniquely His own, but it always proves itself Good. He has taught me so many wonderful things! Given me such incredible gifts! Every thunderstorm, every firefly, every snowflake precious God-kisses on my cheek! By knowing God, and wrestling with Him over the questions in my heart, I know myself better. And I see a little clearer who it is He made me to be, and what He dreams for me.

I know that God gave me passion. And the passions I have, and the dreams borne from those passions, must find a place to nest. As they do, I will become more of the woman God dreamed up so very long ago.

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In Memory of A Friend

I found out this morning that my friend, Helen Harris, died yesterday morning of breast cancer. She’d been fighting a battle with it for over 5 years. She was a wonderful woman, with a bubbly warm personality and a loving heart. She was so young, still — and had so many years of life and love ahead of her!

She never knew it, but she was an inspiration to me. Her battle with cancer and refusal to give up hope, often believing in healing against impossible odds, inspired and challenged me to keep going. If she could do it, with all she had to face, I can most certainly do it.

Please pray for Helen’s family, my friends Wendy, Conna, Debbie, and so many others who were touched by Helen’s life and miss her dearly.

For a couple of pictures, see Wendy’s blog.

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Apology

As I’ve thought over my posts on the Mosaic Nashville forum and over the posts here in my blog, I have come to the strong conviction that I really messed up here.

I have offended many and hurt others — and even done both to many people. That was never my intention or my desire. My blog has always just been an extension of my own mind; a place I could free put in print the things I am currently chewing on or have to say — to whom ever may stop by. It was never intended as a weapon with which to hurt people with my words.

I have heard from someone I care deeply about who shared with me that many of the AM Mosaic people are talking about my posts and wondering what’s going on with me. Because they don’t know me, or know my heart, my words have confused, offended and baffled them. It had been heavy on my heart even yesterday that I had, with all good intentions to the contrary, completely screwed up by speaking up on the forum and leaving links leading here where my words could hurt or offend people I don’t even know yet.

I am deeply grieved by even the possibility that my words have caused hurt and offense when my heart and intentions in writing those words were just the opposite. I’m so sorry!

Will you forgive me?