Spiritwick

My house and head are infested with tiny, disgusting, blood-sucking creatures. I have head lice. I discovered this on Friday after I called my youngest daughter over to do her hair. As I began to comb, I noticed movement in her hair. I leaned in for a closer look and found several scampering buggies. Although I'd never seen lice before in my life, I knew what was on her head. I was beyond creeped out. For the next hour or 2, I suppressed tears, panic, and desires to shave all our heads and burn down the house. I'm not saying I suppressed them very effectively, but the full force of the internal freak out was slightly contained. I called my sister within a few minutes of my discovery, and she was soon letting herself into my house with an arsenal of weaponry against lice. I didn't even understand what I was looking at yet, and I was still beyond shaken. She immediately set herself to work on the scalp of my youngest, shampooing, sectioning, and combing. In between tasks, s...

It's true sometimes. I don't want to kiss my husband. I don't want to hug him. I don't want to hold his hand. Sometimes, I don't even want to be in the same room with him. Any of these anti-desires can come over me when I'm mad at him, but honestly they can come over me when I'm just busy too.  I'm reading a thread on Facebook. Can't he see that I'm reading something?  I'm getting ready to go to church. Seriously, we're going to be late if I stop for a kiss. I need to get into that store to buy something for tomorrow before it closes. This is not time for a leisurely stroll with you. If this were every once in a while, then it would probably be no big deal, but I'm sorry to say that this is a pretty regular occurrence for me, for us, for my family. I'm a task-oriented girl, and when I have my mind set on something, I rarely want to switch gears. I've got to do the thing. The person is a distraction at best, an impediment at ...

There are many days that I don't manage to squeeze in a morning Bible study and prayer time. Yesterday was one of those mornings. I woke up and remembered that we had a pool party to get to and that I hadn't set an alarm to allow for both a quiet time AND getting everyone to the party on time. We got to the pool party on time. My four year old almost died in one of the pools. We had spent hours at the party with everyone having a good time. I'd decided we needed to leave soon, but I was letting my girls enjoy it a little bit longer. My older 2 were playing in and near a pool in front of me, and my youngest was playing in a kiddie pool behind me. I don't remember exactly what the distraction was from that moment to the next. Maybe I was helping another kid with something. Maybe I was daydreaming. Maybe I was trying to determine how much longer I was going to let them stay. Maybe I was trying to figure out if we had everything ready to go. Whatever it was, when I looked...

I have spent most of my life in a southern state of the U.S.A. where women are not always valued beyond their ability to look pretty, keep house, bear children, and cook a good meal.  This is true even, and to my deep sadness, sometimes especially in the church. When women are praised here, it is usually for one or more of these acts, and although I like to hear women praised for their hard work in general, hearing over and over again how important women are because they support and raise up men, tears at me.  Here's why: This is my family.  This is a four generational image of which I am a part.  I am one of 2 daughters to my mother who had no sons, and my sister and I both have had 3 daughters each and no sons.  I love my girls, my nieces, my sister, my family to bits, but the thought that my existence could only have meaning to the extent that I influence a man behind the scenes left me begging God for an answer to the meaning of my life. Is my life reall...

“You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot." (Matthew 5:13) We've spent a lot of time on the beginning of this verse over the last several posts.  We've looked at how we, as salt, can be used to bring out the good flavors in others and in life, can be part of God's preservative plan through disciple-making, and were designed to be used in God's good deeds which makes us valuable commodities on this earth. It's time now, to look at the last two sentences in this verse though. "But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot." That's the end of Matthew 5:13. Jesus said that. That's never felt good to me. I've never liked that part of the verse. I've barely even understood that part of the verse. I...

When I was in elementary school, my dad made me a necklace.  He crafted it with an amber heart as the centerpiece and then surrounded that with amber and hematite beads.  I adored it.  Everytime I saw it or thought about it, I knew that my daddy loved me, that he treasured me, and that he thought I was worth his effort. It became my most treasured possession.  There was nothing that I owned that had more value to me. This necklace that you see in the picture was by far my most valued possession growing up. When I first began thinking about the 3 characteristics of saltiness, I was excited about the "valuable" quality.  I figured I was going to get to find all sorts of verses about how God delights in us, how much He loves us, how He sees us to have tremendous value.  It was going to be like one giant self-esteem boost.  How fun!  However, as I began to really contemplate the concept of being valuable like salt, other considerations came into vi...

I'm not sure what you think of when you think of the word "preservative."  Maybe you immediately think, "Oh no! I'm supposed to avoid preservatives!"  Maybe you think, "that reminds me of a life preserver."  I tend to think more in the life preserver direction as I think about the concept of preservation personally, but as I really sought to understand the ins and outs of how believers are like salt, I decided to learn more about how salt actually acts as a preservative.  What I learned surprised me because of the words I was keeping in my head as I began my search.  When I think of "preservation," I think of life, but the words I kept reading involved death.  Salt acts as a preservative by killing off the microbes that would cause decay and disease.  Salt preserves through death! Upon this discovery, I was ready to abandon such a literal comparison of ourselves to salt.  After all, I was not prepared to sing the praises of preservation ...

Yesterday's post introduced this concept of how Christians are called "the salt of the earth" by Jesus.  If I'm honest though I have regularly regarded salt as a dull and commonplace mineral or seasoning, and I think there is often a similarly mistaken notion that Christians are party-poopers or big sticks-in-the-mud or just plain boring.  This is exactly the opposite of who and what we are called to be as the salt of the earth! If you are one huge stick-in-the-mud, then you’re doing this wrong.  Yesterday, I introduced the concept that as the "salt of the earth," we are actually supposed to be flavor-enhancing.  Like salt, we are supposed to enhance the good flavors in life and in others.  So, let's try to erase that dull, stick-in-the-mud sort of image. Instead, think about someone in your life that just seems to make your life better somehow, that brightens up your days, that brings out the best in you, the person that you'd call when you're ...

I really enjoy watching cooking competition shows like Iron Chef, Chopped and Cutthroat Kitchen. Despite the fact that I've been watching these types of shows for over a decade, I have sadly acquired no equivalent enjoyment of actually cooking. I have next to no kitchen skills myself, so I am fascinated as I watch all the skills and culinary knowledge displayed on these shows. However, even more than watching the actual cooking on these shows, I enjoy watching the judging process. They usually bring in some truly expert culinary judges and occasionally a gourmet celebrity as well. These judges are on such a high plateau that the comments I expect to emerge from their mouths are things like "What this dish is really lacking is a touch of acidity to brighten up the overall flavor palate" or "Unfortunately, this dish is missing any hint of umami that I usually look for in an entree." Obviously, these sorts of high-brow critiques do occasionally emerge, otherwise I ...