being still

I have to confess, we are in a hard season. I've been in God's word and marveling at how He speaks through it, and I've been encouraged to press on in the face of every kind of trouble, but our circumstances have been pretty dismal. True, I can't even count all of my blessings - a happy marriage, a healthy child, a home, food to eat, water to drink, a church to worship in - way too many to count. And I remind myself of this often, whenever I'm feeling discouraged about all of the things that are standing between where I am and where I want to be. But the enemy is hard at work and he gets in my head sometimes, and I have those days... days where I just want to crawl under my super-cushy down comforter (another blessing) and sleep the day (week? year?) away. Some days I need a more tangible reminder that God is present and at work. A few days ago, He obliged. I was driving with my sister-in-law Heather, who was visiting from Texas. Leaving my favorite coffee shop (shout-out to Peet's!), I pulled up to a stoplight to turn left onto a very busy road. The light to turn left was green, but "for some reason" I stopped. I noticed the green light and said, "Oh hello, the light is green," and just as I put my foot on the gas to go, a car came flying through the intersection, going way over the speed limit, and running the red light. If I hadn't stopped at a green light, that car would have absolutely plowed into us. Now I know some of my friends might say that it was my occasional air-headedness that caused me stop when I didn't need to, but I disagree. I believe it was a little glimpse of God, a reminder that He is faithfully ordering my steps even when I feel like they're faltering.

I found an old CD today and was so excited to rediscover a favorite old song (shout-out to Lee U. - I can't help it, I love me some shout-outs). The lyrics are taken from Psalm 119:133: "Establish my footsteps in your word." I was spending a few minutes relaxing in my big chair (blessing!), when I heard a line that immediately brought me to tears: "While you are working, help me be still." Wow, how I need to hear that. I feel like I've finally learned how to root myself deeply in God's word and I actually want to bear much fruit and still... I am so impatient and so anxious to see my life bear the fruit I want to bear when I want to bear it. I still wake up in the middle of the night in a panic, with a sick, knotted feeling in my stomach, wondering how in the world we are ever going to get to that mythical place of "Everything's OK." In the midst of trying to work through all of the problems in my life, how desperately I need to be reminded to just... be... still. God is working. I am waiting. All is well.

the importance of sounding it out

So I have this thing about words. I hate when common words are mispronounced. I know this doesn't carry the weight of, say, global warming, but seriously, these aren't tough words. They aren't foreign words that Americans have acquired to sound fancy pants but can't say correctly ("Would anyone care for some horse-doovers before dinner?"). These are everyday words. Phonetically easy words. We can handle them. So, I'm officially calling for an end to:

• relator (as in, "Did you find a good relator to sell your house?")
• nucular (as in, "There was an explosion at the nucular plant today! I feel funny.")
  
• jewlery (as in, "Does this piece of giant fake gold jewlery make me look like a ho?")
• expecially or eggspecially (as in, "Do you carry the expecially eggspecial on your breakfast menu?")
  
• expresso (as in, "I would definitely take an expresso machine with me on Survivor.")
• muse-em (as in, "This one might get me in trouble with my darling sister-in-law, who pronounces it muse-em even though she is a very intelligent person.")

Don't worry if you're reading this right now and thinking, "Heeeyyyy... I say that!" Many good, intelligent, God-fearing people pronounce words wrongly. Maybe this is my ministry.

So remember, you need a good re-al-tor if you don't want your new house to be by a nu-cle-ar reactor, but you want to live close to the art mu-seee-um and a good eSSSpresso shop. Also, you prefer not to live in the ghetto, eSSSpecially if you have a lot of expensive jew-el-ry in your house.

Sound it out, friends. Sound it out.