by Alaina | Nov 13, 2022 | Sunday Scripture
Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
Ecclesiastes 4:12 NIV
It is very hard for me to believe that we are getting to the end of yet another year! 2022 has flown by and soon we will be seeing all the end of year lists floating across social media. We’ll be seeing the highlight reels of people’s best moments of 2022; people will be recounting the best books they have read; the trips they’ve been on, etc., etc. We live in a culture where we know more than ever before. We know more not just about the world, science, and technology, but we know more about each other in real time than in the decades before us … at least on the surface.
I can see from my home in Pennsylvania what my cousins and their kids in Florida are doing that day. I can see what my cousin overseas had for dinner at a new restaurant he tried. I can see how my friend’s vacation went when she posts pictures on the way home before I even talk to her. From the surface, it looks like we are the most connected and happy culture in all of history. But research shows we aren’t. We are the most lonely, isolated, depressed generation that we have yet seen.
This isn’t a new topic—I’m sure you’ve heard all of it before. We talk about how “Kids these days spend too much time on their phones.” But they aren’t the only ones who are always on their phones. Perhaps this might be a problem for you too? Have you ever thought you should call a friend to see how they are doing, really doing, as you start to scroll then you see a picture of your friend clearly enjoying life, and you’re struggling so you decide to just keep scrolling? You don’t call—you’re really not up for hearing about how great someone else’s life is right now.
We see these snapshots of people’s lives and we forget that everyone has their struggles. We forget about the hard time they were going through while we were having a fabulous year. We allow self-comparison to shut us down. What is worse, we don’t just let it shut us down but we also allow it to make us a martyr. We congratulate ourselves for not calling the friend to rain on their parade and we think what a good friend we are for not calling. How messed up is this? When did we start living so superficially?
Of course, we don’t want to put all the messy details of our lives out on the internet for all to see, but we should crack open the door to our messy lives and hearts with the handful of our closest friends. Did you ever think when you are deciding not to call that friend that perhaps God put them in that position, at that time, to lift you up? Have we lost sight of the fact that we can’t all be going through the same rough patch at the same time because who would be left to be strong and lift us up? We have lost sight of that because we have bought the lie that perfect is better than authentic at all costs.
We need to have people in our lives who we can show the best and the worst of ourselves. “A cord of three strands is not as easily broken,” the Bible says in Ecclesiastes 4:12. Who is your second or third strand?
If you have inadvertently, or even intentionally, drifted away from some of your closest friends, I’d like to encourage you to reach out to them, be a tad vulnerable, and crack the door open. Tell them what is going on with you, and ask what is going on with them. Let them know that what you need is a friend and most likely they will be happy to share some of their happiness with you!
Disclosure
Please remember that this post contains affiliate links; that means if you click on the link, I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you. It’s a way to support my blog! I will only ever share an affiliate link if I love the product and think that you just might love it too!
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by Alaina | Nov 6, 2022 | Sunday Scripture
For whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.
Hebrews 12:6
I had wanted a kitten for forever. I remember when I was really little asking my mom if we could get a cat and she said no, namely because we had a cockatiel named Tweeter and cats and birds don’t mix well. I remember the day Tweeter died trying to look sad as I inquired if now that she had died, could we get a cat? The answer was still no.
Imagine then my delight when, at age 11, I discovered that the neighbor’s cat had kittens! There was just one problem—the cat had her kittens in the woods across the street and it was anyone’s guess where exactly these kittens were located. A few days after the kittens were born (momma cat had gotten considerably skinnier) we were on a family bike ride when we noticed momma heading into the woods. We stopped and watched as she disappeared behind a fallen tree. We hiked up the hillside and what did my wandering eyes behold, but five tiny baby kittens!
I think my mom knew as we carried the kittens down to the neighbor’s house that there was going to be no possible way to put off getting a cat for much longer. I basically lived at the neighbor’s house that summer, holding and playing with the kittens for hours a day. The neighbor had made a bed on her front porch for them and there was a slight slope between the porch and a covered pavilion that the kittens like to race back and forth between. One day my dad and I watched from the bottom of the slope as the only little black kitten raced up the hill and rolled on his back, batting and trying to get his mother to play with him as she was walking down the hill. They batted back and forth for a little bit before momma sat down and started licking her front paw—signaling that she was done. The kitten again rolled on his back and started swatting her front paw. She gave him a harder little swat as if to say, “No, I’m done. Go play with your brother.” Well, that little black kitten stood up, hissed, and did the curvy arched back thing that cats do when they are showing they have attitude.
Whack! Momma swatted him so hard that he rolled down the hill before he scampered off to the pavilion where his siblings were playing. That black cat would become our first cat and we named him Dickenz because boy, did he have an attitude and he sure could be a little dickens! To this day he was the sweetest cat I’ve ever had; he did have his moments of being bad! But he always came back to love us.
This reminds me of the story of David—I promise this is a compliment that I am comparing David to my cat! In the Bible, we hear a lot about David—like a lot! He was labeled by God as a man after God’s own heart. Such praise! But David was just a man, an imperfect one at that. David sinned, he committed adultery, and murder, but when confronted David was quick to repent and turn back to God.
Still, there were consequences for his sin. The first child David conceived with Bathsheba would die. God would ultimately bless them with another son, but David would have to pay for his sins. He would have to be disciplined by God for his sin in order to know true communion with God.
Being disciplined is never fun. I hated hearing that word growing up. But just as it was necessary for the momma cat to discipline her kittens, so it is necessary for God to discipline us—so that we can have the relationship with Him that He craves for us to have.
Disclosure
Please remember that this post contains affiliate links; that means if you click on the link, I will make a small commission at no extra cost to you. It’s a way to support my blog! I will only ever share an affiliate link if I love the product and think that you just might love it too!
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by Alaina | Oct 30, 2022 | Sunday Scripture
So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31 NIV
I had a month left of my pregnancy and I was over being pregnant. I started off with minimal symptoms—I hadn’t gotten bad morning sickness or anything—but going into the third trimester I started getting carpal tunnel syndrome in my right hand and arm. My right hand was almost totally numb by the last month and at night I would get a horrible pain in my arm, a pain so severe it would awaken me and keep me up for hours.
It was after one such Saturday night that I found myself stumbling around trying to get ready for church. After finally pulling together an outfit, I couldn’t find any shoes that fit because my feet were so swollen. I found myself in a meltdown in front of my husband (remember the post where I said he is longsuffering!). To top it all off, it was time to leave—past time actually, but we wouldn’t be too late if I could find shoes that I could get on my swollen feet. As I stood there, having hardly slept, blubbering about how nothing fit, how uncomfortable I was and how tired I was, my husband, who was ready and waiting to walk out the door, mentioned that perhaps I should do church from home that day. I resisted this idea—we should go to church! But since I still had no shoes that fit, I was easily swayed into watching the sermon with my feet up at home rather than from a hard pew.
My husband left for church and I moped around for a few minutes. I was mad. I was so uncomfortable—I was mad my feet were swollen, and mad at myself for not pulling it together and going to church. I looked around, I didn’t want to waste my day being in a bad mood—I needed a distraction! The floor needed mopping and I had just enough time to do it before the church service started. So I started mopping.
There is something about using your hands and putting your whole body into something that is totally absorbing and grounding. There is something about the mundane that anchors us in a way that cannot be done through technology. There is something about experiencing the tactile world through this kind of work that can bring us closer to God. This kind of work can be done as a type of worship.
Of course I am not suggesting that we stop attending church and start cleaning during this time instead! Church and the Sabbath are important. But this particular Sunday I committed my mopping to the Lord and did it as an act of worship. I put my whole self into it and prayed while I mopped. And do you know what? I believe God honored it. I finished the mopping in time to start the service but I felt like I had already been to church and had worshiped.
There are many things we have to do in this life that we would probably rather not do; the boring, the mundane, the difficult, and the dirty things in life. It’s easy to write it all off as meaningless, pointless, worthless. It’s easy to get sloppy with it and think that it doesn’t matter. It does matter though. In Colossians 3:17 we are told, “And whatever you do or say, do as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father.” We also hear this again in I Corinthians, “So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” (NIV) We hear echoes of this throughout scripture.
So whatever you are called to do, be it boring and mundane, or exciting and interesting, do it as unto the Lord, do it as worship, and commit your works to Him.
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by Alaina | Oct 16, 2022 | Sunday Scripture
For God has not given us a spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.
2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
It was summer and to be honest it had been a long summer and not necessarily a good one. Stressor on top of stressor had led to me feeling run down and a bit burnt out. It wasn’t just the stressors but also the fact that I had been planning to take it easier that summer. I had planned to lighten my workload and spend more time enjoying the summer weather but, as so often happens, life’s circumstances had gotten in the way and there I was working long hard hours wishing I could just be on a beach somewhere—just for a little bit.
Amidst feeling sorry for myself, a thought came to me—what if we just took off and went to a beach somewhere. Both my husband and I set our own schedule so it really wasn’t impossible… If we could find a cheap Airbnb, we could take a few days off, drive to the beach and just relax. No, I thought to myself, that takes planning. We’d have to make arrangements for the dog, I’d have to let clients know I’d be off, making adjustments to my calendar, my husband adjusting his—certainly we couldn’t just leave. I wanted to go so badly—I finally decided to float the idea passed my husband. What if we left two days later, at the beginning of the weekend?
My husband said no, he had a big meeting on Tuesday that he didn’t want and really couldn’t reschedule. If we left on Saturday he wouldn’t be able to keep that commitment so we couldn’t leave that weekend but we could leave Tuesday night after the meeting! When we came home from work that night, we poured through Airbnb listings trying to find one with a beach-front view, one that was cheap—very cheap—and we found one!
Five days after the crazy idea had entered my head, we were sitting on a beach-—me with a good book in my hand. Our dog was at my parents’ house, my clients had understood, our schedules had been adjusted and I rested and relaxed that week like I hadn’t done for a very long time.
So often we tell ourselves that we can’t, that it just wouldn’t work, that we shouldn’t do it. But we just did it and you know what? Nothing bad happened. None of our clients dropped us, our dog didn’t die, our house didn’t burn down, and we had one of the best little vacations we’ve ever had.
God didn’t create us to live in fear and bondage. Yes, we need to be responsible; we don’t always want to take off work with short notice, but once in a while it really is okay. God has blessed us (I mean this collectively as a first world country) and these blessings are not meant to be burdens. We are meant to use the resources and blessings He has given us to bless others and, yes, to enjoy them.
The next time you are feeling bogged down with the commitments of life, I hope you are able to pause and decipher what things in life are shoulds and what are have-tos, what things are non-negotiables, and what things you can actually flex for your benefit. I want to stop viewing everything as a have-to and a can’t, but as a get-to! I want to stop living with a spirit of fear—how about you?
by Alaina | Oct 9, 2022 | Sunday Scripture
You have said, “Seek my face. “My heart says to you, “Your face, Lord, do I seek.”
Psalm 27:8 ESV
I mentioned in my post The Interest of Others of the day my son was born. That little baby has grown over these past few months to be an alert, slightly nosy, little baby! He is interested in everything! I will sit him in his bouncer seat (which he loves!) then walk around, completing various tasks that I can’t do with a baby in my arms. One of my favorite things is that amidst his bouncing and waving of his arms and legs, he keeps an eye on me. I’ll walk around behind him and I’ll see him looking, a bit like an owl trying to swivel his head, to see where I have gone. I’ll stick my head over the top of the bouncer and he cranes his head back looking at me, then breaks into one of those gorgeous baby smiles as he spots me!
This is quite a switch for me—I believe I have mentioned that I have cats? Well, the thing about cats is they kind of don’t care about you… I know that sounds harsh and I definitely don’t mean to be disparaging to the cat population but (at least my cats) fully believe that we humans were put on this earth to please them. When they want to be petted—we better be available. When they desire to curl up next to us, we must remain seated until they decide it’s okay for us to move. When we walk around, our cats cannot be bothered to wonder where we are going or what we are doing, unless they hear the treat bag or food-can rattle!
This reminds me of the story of Adam and Eve in the Bible. There they were in a perfect paradise, truly not knowing how great they had it when they blew it—they ate the forbidden fruit, their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked. Suddenly they knew right and wrong. And they knew that they had sinned. So what did they do? They tried to hide from God. They made clothes out of leaves and then tried to stay away from God. But God came looking anyway. He asked where they were. God sought them out. The creator of the universe cared about these little creatures He had made and who existed to love and serve Him.
As a whole, we act a lot more like my cats than my son when it comes to how we treat God. We act largely unconcerned about His whereabouts until we need something, then we come slinking up to Him, asking for whatever we find ourselves needing at that time.
How much better if we were to act as little children as Jesus commands us to in Matthew 18:3 where He says, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.”(NKJV) Just as my son keeps an eye on me at all times, smiling when I talk to him face to face, how rich and fulfilled our lives would be if we kept our eyes always trained on Him, craning our necks when He seems just out of reach, and taking time to invest in our relationship with Him.
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by Alaina | Oct 2, 2022 | Sunday Scripture
“While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
Genesis 8:22 ESV
We have reached the time of year where, especially around here, the leaves are starting to blaze bright with different colors along the hillside. The leaves, which seem like they just burst forth, are now withering and starting to fade away; the grass, which had been lush and green, is starting to turn brown. Things are coming to a close. That is the thing about fall; it’s not quite the end. Winter is the end… but fall… Fall is the beginning of the end. The leaves are starting to turn but still hanging on. The nice days are getting fewer and farther between but still coming. The days getting shorter but not too short yet. It’s a season of almost rest, but not quite time to rest.
Every year I feel the desire to rest hard this time of year. To take long slow walks admiring the landscape as the colors vary week to week. It is also a time of clearing out clutter and paring down. In summer I spend every spare minute outside and when I am forced to be indoor more than I am out of doors, I find myself wanting to pare down, clean up, and clear out—I am in a state of preparation, trying to make my dwelling as homey as possible for the months that we will soon be spending inside our house.
Fall is a season for me of everything coming full circle. Everything that was starting a few months ago, is now ending—yet ending only for a few months, then the cycle will restart. Back in Jesus day, they viewed years as more of a circle than something linear linking one after each other as we view our years, and I like that. I like the thought of interlocking circles like a chain that causally link one after the other, rather than a bunch of rulers, each with a harsh end point lined up, one after each other, measuring out the time of our lives insisting that we not waste one minute because the end is already insight. I like the chain better, with its gentle twists and turns that life takes us on.
When we are in a fall season of our lives it can be hard to think that life will ever be green and full of life again. I think of Job—he had a wonderful life. Job had grown wealthy and prosperous. He had a large family, and his children were grown—he seemed to be in the latter years of his life. Then disaster strikes. Satan asks God to challenge Job’s faith and God agrees and then ensues the roughest patch of life Job has yet seen. All of children—dead. His wealth? Destroyed. His good health? That too was taken away. Yet, Job keeps his faith. He asks God some tough questions and gets a little indignant, and God calls Job out for these things… but again Job keeps his faith. And God rewards him, giving him back his wealth and riches, and blessing him with more children!
Things don’t always work out like that, but so often there is new life buried underneath all the hard stuff we have to persevere through to get there. There is fall and there is winter in our lives, but there is always a spring too! Life always comes full circle sooner or later, and for believers there is always new, and eternal life awaiting us in Heaven.
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