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!