a fruit inspection.....what do we got here?

--> When you buy fruit at the store, do you look at it first?  Do you just throw it in the plastic bag and take a gamble on what you get?  If I’m spending money on it (investing it in) I always like to know what I’m getting.  I’m just bummed when I get a tomato home and it has mold on it because I didn’t take the time to look at it thoroughly.  I once bought some produce that was wrapped up and you couldn’t SEE the mold growing inside.  YUCK!  I took it back to the store and exchanged it.  I didn’t buy it to throw it away; I bought it to use it. 

The year is wrapping up here in a few days.  This time of year I find myself doing a personal fruit inspection.  If I don’t look thoroughly there may be mold growing in an area of my life and it will affect EVERYTHING.  Mold always spreads.

My life: the talents, gifts, parenting, assignments, projects, time, money…..fill in the blank.  How have I been using them?  Is anything starting to smell?  Produce mold. 

Inspection.

It is a costly process.  The time it takes to be thorough always pays off, always. LACK of inspection is an even more costly result.  You end up not being able to use the area that was neglected.  OUCH.  Don’t bury your talent, gift, time and money….USE THEM for His purpose He has asked you to do.  If you don’t know the answer to that question, take the time to ask.  LISTEN, WAIT for the answers.  Embrace them.  Cultivate them.  Be found worthy of being entrusted with them.  How pleasing it would be to hear when it is all over,  “Well done, you upright (honorable, admirable) and faithful servant!”

I have multiple things the Lord has asked me to do.  I know you do too.  To be faithful with those things honor Him.  I fail but I try my best.  As TobyMac sings, “It’s never too late to get back up again.”  Anne of Green Gables says, “Today is a new day with no mistakes in it.”  Or one of my favorite quotes is, “Don’t look back, you aren’t going in that direction.” 

It’s a new year soon.  Ask Him what is my purpose?

For me, personally……I’m fighting the good fight.  I’m not giving up. I feel like I’m just beginning.  He’s got good plans for me.  I’m rising up to the challenge. I feel like Rocky Balboa in training and getting ready for the biggest fight of my life.

Move on…..GO for it.  Inspect.  Start something new.  BEGIN. 

i give selfishly.  yup, you read that right.

Why do you give? 

I love giving gifts.  I love giving to meet a need.  I love giving in general.  It’s one of my “gifts” you might say.  Hopefully this can be an inspiration or thought provoking for you to think about why you give. 

Many people I have known that are givers find it hard to receive.  I am not sure exactly why this is but it can be difficult.  My great aunt, who was one of the most humble and giving people I have ever met, taught me an invaluable lesson.  She was trying to bless someone and they wouldn’t receive it and she told them “Don’t rob me of the blessing of giving this to you.”  That stuck deep within me.  Giving is more of the blessing than receiving.  So true!  I have had so much joy and fun blessing people. 

So I really give selfishly, I guess.  WAIT!!  Let me tell you about my favorite way to give.  The most fun and joy I’ve had in giving is when I do it in secret.  Yes, the recipient has no idea where it came from.  I love getting creative to be so sneaky.  A favorite Little House on the Prairie episode of mine is a Christmas one.  Everyone has to hide what he or she is making or buying someone for Christmas that year.  There were so many little white lies or secrets being kept just to bless someone else.  Between the barn and the little house they had to be creative with such a large family.  I love that episode. 

I have gone out of my way to be sneaky.  I’ve anonymously mailed a money order to someone so they didn’t know where the cash came from.  I even sent someone something from another town so they wouldn’t know it was I.  I’ve had someone else write a note out and given a gift so I couldn’t be identified.  It is so much fun.  It is also fun in the store or restaurant blessing someone and they don’t know who the heck you are.  I have had someone else deliver a gift for me so they could just be blessed and not know where it came from.  I have walked through a store before with the only purpose to seek out someone whom God leads me to and bless him or her.  The best part about it is being able to just say, God loves you and be blessed.  They don’t know me from Adam. My Bible says every good and perfect gift comes from above.  God can have all the glory.

Definition of the word give:

to present voluntarily and without expecting compensation; bestow:

Another thought.

Have you ever met someone who seems to keep track of their giving?  If they help you out, then you owe them help back.  If you received something from them, you owe them back.  According to the definition, that isn’t giving.  Think about why you do, what you do.  What is your motivation?  Does someone owe you because you have done so much for them?  In all brutal honesty, I have quit letting certain people help me because I don’t want the “pressure” of having to owe them anything in return. What a relief.

My Heavenly Father is the greatest example.  As I celebrate this season as the birth of Jesus, I reflect more on the fact that He didn’t stay a baby.  His whole purpose on earth was to be born to die.  A sacrifice was made so you and I would have the GIFT of eternal salvation.  Nothing can be done to earn it.   That is what a TRUE GIFT is.

If you have any sneaky giving ideas, please share.  I’d love to hear some creativity…..I’m running out.

why should I follow you...in these shoes?

I’m not sure why what I’m about to describe bugs me.  I’m weird.  I’ll be the first to admit it.  I like being weird.  Why?  People remember weird, different or abnormal.  Look at those Old Navy commercials for crying out loud.  Everyone remembers those. 

In high school I would wait to go school clothes shopping until after school started.  That’s weird……you might say.  Why?  You see one year I fell in love with a certain pair of shoes I bought.  DUH!  (Anyone who knows me knows this is one of my strong points!)  Well, I got to school and another girl had the exact same pair as me.  (And I shopped in Grand Rapids and went to a really small Christian school)  I WAS DEVISTATED.  I literally think my heart sank.  I tried really hard to wear them and love them but I so wanted to be unique.  FYI – future husband/boyfriend if you read this someday I’ll take a pair of shoes over flowers that fade ANYDAY.  Size 9.  Glad I got that out. 

Purses.  I love purses.  I currently refuse to count how many I own.  Last count was 3 + 10 x 3 - 5 + 7.  Yeah, that doesn’t sound so bad when I don’t bluntly put the truth out there. Anyway, I don’t care what brand the purse is.  If I like it and “need” it or it’s on sale I will probably buy it.  This includes anything from Goodwill to Payless, Burlington, Meijer, handmade or whatever.  I REFUSE to pay outrageous for a brand just because it is THAT brand.  This is true for actually anything I own.  Status is sometimes what that is all about.  If I don’t care about my status with “you” I don’t HAVE to play the part, look the part etc.  Believe it or not, there is a super popular, adorable purse out there that tons of women have.  It’s that certain magnetic purse with changeable covers, straps etc.  I finally decided the reason I don’t want to own it.  Why, because everybody has it.  I guess that old high-school girl is still in me somewhere. 

Back to what bugs me.  Everywhere on the Internet lately seems to be to “follow something.”  Follow someone on Twitter.  Follow someone on Pinterest.  Follow someone on a blog.  Yada, yada, yada.  It’s not that any of these things are wrong.  I know following someone on a blog is showing support & you keep track of post you want to read.  On Twitter you keep up with what is being shared.  On Pinterest you see what others like.  What bugs me is the propaganda.  Luring you into ideas, attitudes, self-promoting.  It’s constant.  It’s everywhere.  FOLLOW, FOLLOW, FOLLOW. 

More important than shoes, purses or designer jeans is your identity.  Don’t be sucked into keeping up with what everyone else is doing and losing yourself in the meantime.  This is just a challenge, a reminder, and a thought provoking idea to just be you. Evaluate yourself.

I read a great book a few years ago while I was on a long boat ride on the Amazon River on a mission trip called Normal is Just a Setting on Your Dryer by Patsy Clairmont.  Why do I remember where I read it?  Well, while on the boat I started hysterically laughing out loud from a section I read and everyone starred at me like, what is going on?  They probably thought I was weird. :)  Anyway, it makes some great points about what “normal” is.  Who gets to define it anyway?  I’m normal for me and you’re normal for you.  PERIOD.  A girlfriend of mine has a saying, “Do you!” I’m great at being me and will never strive to be anybody different. 

I think that is honoring Jesus, my creator.  He created me.  He built me.  He knit me together in my mother’s womb.  Being me comes natural.  Being someone else is just too much work that I REFUSE to do.  Pleasing my heavenly Father and trying to be a reflection of Him is all I have time for and all that matters.  And THAT last forever.  I was God’s idea; you were God’s idea!

a hope injection

This is a phrase I’ve learned from a wonderful friend.  She has a beautiful gift of turning a horrible circumstance, nasty day, down-n-out moment into something positive. This friend’s life is a continual hope injection to me.  I’m so thankful for her.

A little over a year ago I called her up sobbing like a baby.  Gut wrenching, puffy eyed, snot dripping all out fit!  (I warned you I’d be transparent, I don’t pretend well)  Now to give me some credit, I’m tenderhearted and that’s a good thing.  However, I don’t have frequent tantrums and fits.  Really, I don’t.  Drama doesn’t suit me well and I don’t put up with it very well either. 

On that day I had gotten some news that I would have chosen otherwise.  After crying and sobbing out to God, I called my earthly lifeline.  I needed a hope injection.  When you are single, there is no one to ask you how your day went on a daily basis.  There is no one to pray with you regularly.  I’m not asking for sympathy, just trying to express single life.  The other horrible reality is, I’ve been in a marriage where this exact thing was true.  Days and weeks gone by where you didn’t get asked how your day was or pray with you on a regular basis.  OUCH!  Being single there is no daily expectation of this.  Being married, you would tend to have these expectations.  I must add that I wasn’t perfect by any means in my previous marriage.  I had faults, selfish motives and failed way too often as well.  My point is our expectations of others and how quick we overlook our own responsibilities. 

This same wonderful, awesome friend once said that she began a habit of asking her husband at the end of the day, “How could I have served you better today?” WOWSERS, I just love that!  Isn’t that what marriage is all about?  Serving the other one above your self.  I read in a study guide for singles by FMU (Future Marriage University) that a marriage proposal really is (or should be), “Do you accept what I have to offer?” 

Instead of the ever so common phrase, “Always kiss me goodnight,” a different phrase I will choose to have on the “wall” of my heart someday when I’m married is “How could I have served you better today?”  Kissing someone goodnight can still hide a lot.  Having someone always kiss you goodnight, is receiving something.  Asking someone how you could have served them better changes things up a bit.  At least for me it would.  I recently read a great book by Gary Thomas called, Sacred Marriage: What if God Designed Marriage to Make us Holy More Than to Make us Happy?  It changed my life.  It changed the reason why I long to be married again someday.  

During this time of singleness I’m busy studying for the biggest test of my life, marriage.  I don’t want to wait around for the test and not know the material so to speak.  What you invest in something is what you get out of it.  When this life is all over, we answer for ourselves, no one else.  That is huge.  It is reassuring on some level.  On another level, it’s overwhelming.  How many times have I been guilty of my own agenda?  The answer is embarrassing.  

Single or married, I would like to challenge you & myself to ask God, “How could I have served you better today?”  I would like to challenge you to be a hope injection to someone else today.

if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy……really?

I have never been a fan of using that phrase.  I tend to cringe inside when I hear someone say that phrase too. More so, I hope I never hear that’s how I’m acting.  I’m not saying I’m not guilty, AT ALL.  I have been known to have mood swings, be grumpy, crabby etc. I’m human.  Glad we got my secrets out of the closet.  I don’t want to intentionally make someone miserable because I don’t get my way.  I just don’t see how we moms would want to teach our kids that if we aren’t happy, we are going to make their life miserable (or treat a husband that way either).  Isn’t that what that phrase is saying?  I think that is called manipulation. 

One of my favorites apps on my iPod is the dictionary.  I use it all the time.

Definition of manipulation:  to negotiate, control, or influence (something or someone) cleverly, skillfully, or deviously.  OUCH!

How many stories have you heard of controlling mothers, have been the recipient of one or have acted that way ourselves.  I can say that my mom has never made me feel guilty for not celebrating a holiday tradition her way.  She’s doesn’t have an unspoken “this is how it is and don’t you dare choose otherwise attitude” really about anything.  I have felt pressure from others in life though to do “something” because that’s how they want it and you suffer regardless.  I’m sure you all have.  I really don’t want to ever make someone feel that way. EVER.  It’s kind of like an adult two-year-old temper tantrum, on a whole other embarrassing level. 

Or another thought to those of you who are wives and have been asked the question by your husband “Honey what’s wrong?” and you answered “NOTHING!” (guilty from previous experience)  Most of the time we’re mad that he has to ask that question in the first place or mad at him for something he did and are punishing him.  This could be called “the cold shoulder.” Since we might be hurting we want him to hurt. Insert here: “If wifey ain’t happy, ain’t hubby happy either”

I loved the Amplified Bible because it’s so descriptive. Proverbs 31:12, 27 & 28 say “She comforts, encourages, and does him only good as long as there is life within her.” “She looks well to how things go in her household, and the bread of idleness (gossip, discontent, and self-pity) she will not eat. Her children rise up and call her blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) and her husband boasts of and praises her”  

Philippians 2: 4 & 5 [AMP] Let each of you esteem and look upon and be concerned for not [merely] his own interests, but also each for the interests of others. Let this same attitude and purpose and [humble] mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus: [Let Him be your example in humility:]

Moms/wives, we can be the heart and soul of a family.  Our family reflects us in so many ways.  What does your family look like? Learn from you? Say about you? 

……just a thought to chew on.

treating the symptoms or eliminating the problem. which do you prefer?

Okay, so normally I’m not a big fan of going to the doctor.  I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve had to go.  I say ‘had to go’ lightly too.  Some of the times were to do the required check-up so I could receive a certain prescription (by choice). Another time was to receive pills I needed to go out of the country on a mission trip.  Going to the doctor and doing what they required of me to get what I wanted was the only way.

I’ve been a very healthy individual my whole life.  As a child, I never went to the doctor.  The first time I had my blood drawn was when I was pregnant.  My only stay in a hospital was when I gave birth to my son.  As an adult the first time I went to the doctor I needed an antibiotic and it was the first kind I ever took.  I was allergic to it and threw up 6 times in less than 2 hours.  That was miserable.  The wrong medicine can be painful.

Many stories I’ve heard and personal experience I’ve had just seem to repeat a common and major problem to me.  Now this isn’t always the case, just hear me out.  Doctors sometimes tend to treat the symptoms, not the problem.  If I have a cold, yes, medicine helps with the symptoms.  It doesn’t ever make the problem go away.  That has to ride itself out.  My pediatrician for Bryce told me when he was younger that the cold medicine actual prolongs the cold from dying out and him getting better faster.  I like him!  That’s the truth, isn’t it?  Dealing with the symptoms and focusing on those prolongs the problem being resolved.

We can have many problems in life.  Horrible circumstances.  Always struggling.  Nothing goes our way.  We all could think of something to complain about.  What good does that do?  I’m learning to deal with the “heart” of the issue and quit focusing on the symptoms. 

Have you ever lived with a teenager?  Been a teenager?  They have a reputation to go through a selfish phase.  I did, just ask my parents & brother.  I’m training my amazing son that the heart of that issue is pride.  Loving your neighbor above yourself is selfless, period. It’s easier to fix the results of repeated selfishness by settling in our hearts a spirit of pride.  Simple really.  The wrong medicine can be painful.  The right medicine might taste really nasty going down (a.k.a. the truth) BUT in the long run, if applied right and you feel better you're thankful. 

I’ve been dealing with contentment.  I was convicted.  I’ve had numerous days where I rehearsed for a situation.  Prayed for hours.  Meditating on repeatedly.  I was frustrated until I repented and changed my attitude.  Wow, how enjoyable life has been in this area since I’ve admitted the problem, dealt with it and the symptoms have gone away.  That’s my kind of prescription!

Go to THE Doctor and He has the best solutions for you.  He should know, He created You.  You were His idea.

who am I......why is this blog even here?

Hi there.  I'm Corrine.  I am being stretched & obedient.  Well, that sums up who I am and why this is here on a simple scale.  On a larger scale, let me explain.

I am entering a whole new season in my life.  A new season where God is asking me to step out in faith in a way I really didn't want to.  Just being honest.  I’m opening up myself, my thoughts, my desires and putting it all on "paper" in black-n-white.  Sharing things I've learned, am learning, struggling with and need help on.  I'm a work in progress.  I think that's where I should be, continually being open and flexible.

A friend, who has known me probably for 25 years now, challenged me to share who I am, what I’ve learned and what God has taught me.  She said I have a story to tell and it should be shared with others.  She challenged me to blog.  After a lot of prayer and confirmation, here I am.  

There are so many good things going on in my life that I could write a book.  It would take a lifetime to tell you how God has loved me.  Someday, I just might do that.  I’m starting up a monthly women’s Bible study.  A year from now, I’m going to be a speaker at a women’s conference along with nine others.  So excited to share all of that with you in the future.  God has big plans.  I’m part of those plans.  So many awesome women are being willing to obey God. 

What you won’t find on here.  I don’t have all the answers.  I won’t spell everything correctly.  My grammar won’t always be right.  If the “value” of those things mattered to me, well I wouldn’t be doing any of this.  Like Moses had excuses, I’ve had excuses for a long time for NOT doing some things and withholding maybe some great life experiences I could have had.  I propose no longer to NOT do something because of what other people think. 

What you will find here.  One of the greatest compliments in my life I have ever received was that I was transparent.  What you see is what you get.  I’m great at being me.  I don’t pretend.  What is popular, I might not care to do.  What I’m convicted about by GOD and GOD alone, is what really matters.  He is my desire.  I am learning to be an expression of Him.  That is my highest goal in life.  Enjoy the journey with me.