Why is My House Filled with Girls?!?!?!

These are my lovely daughters.  They mean the world to me, but I have to tell you honestly that I never wanted girls.  You see, I was the only girl in my family.  I have all brothers.  I understand boys.  I am familiar with boys.  I get how they work, but girls are a mystery to me.  I know what you are thinking.  You are thinking that statement makes no sense because I am a female.  Yes, I am a female, but I have never considered myself a GIRL.  At least I have never felt that I was very similar to all the GIRLS around me.

I was raised by a single father from the time that I was young, so my house was literally filled with all boys.  I played boys games.  I watched boys shows.  I can remember many evenings in our house watching WWF wrestling and acting out the matches with my brothers afterwards.  Amazingly, I never really turned into a tom boy.  I still had baby dolls and Barbie dolls and stuffed animals, but I could transition from them right into transformers with out any problem.  I was never a girlie girl though.  I never matched (thanks to my color blind dad).  I didn't even own a brush until 6th grade.  My dad was bald and my brothers had crew cuts.  My dad owned one little black comb, the kind that men carry in their pocket that I would use once in a while.  I can remember changing from a Christian school to a public school in 6th grade and realizing that I didn't look anything like those girls.  They looked cute and stylish.  Their hair looked smooth and neat.  Mine looked like a rat's nest.  Luckily, I have always been one who could adapt easily, so I asked for a hairbrush and hair products for Christmas.  I learned how to match clothes and didn't get made fun of for too long. 

All of my life I feel that I have been playing catch up with the other girls.  I just recently subscribed to some YouTube videos demonstrating how to wear eye makeup.  I know, 35 is a little old to be learning things like that, but I working on it.  I feel like I am almost caught up with all of the other girls in appearance and femininity, but there is still one area that I am lacking and desperately working on.  That area is how to relate to women.

This is something that I have always struggled with.  I literally feel like running in the opposite direction when I see a group of women talking.  I get butterflies in my stomach and I feel very uncomfortable.  I am terrible at small talk.  My dad is a direct person.  There was not a lot of chit chat in our home.  I am just not used to it.  I take after my father in many ways.  I got his calm even temper.  There are not a lot of things that get us worked up.  We are pretty even keeled.  I have always been that way, so when I get around women that are emotional and high strung and talk a lot, I just don't know what to do.  I don't understand them.  I don't relate to them.  This is a problem!

This is a problem because it is my job to help them.  I am a Pastor's wife.  I am in charge of the ladies' ministry of our church.  God has called me to this job.  I have often wondered if He really knew what He was doing when he decided to place me in this position. (Joking) And I really wondered if He knew what he was doing when I delivered each of my 3 girls. (My husband calls them strike 1,2, and 3.)  Really Lord?  Three girls?  And these are not 3 low, key unemotional girls.  He gave me 3 emotional, prissy girlie girls.  But the Lord didn't stop with that practical joke.  One of my best friends passed away from cancer a few years ago and left behind three daughters.  The girls' father works in Pittsburgh, so they come to my house almost every day after school.  They stay with us and eat with us and play with my girls.  That gives me 6 girls!  My poor husband!  Even the dog is a girl.

Is this a cruel joke on me from God?  On some days it seems like it, but when I stop to see the bigger picture I realize that it is really a help.  I didn't interact with a lot of women growing up.  I didn't have many girl friends.  It was not my fault and there was nothing that I could do about it.  But God has a plan for me.  He has a ministry that he wants me to thrive in and it is a ministry to women.  I realize that through all of the girls in this house he is allowing me to once again play catch up.  He gave me girls to soften me and tenderize my heart.  He gave me emotional girls to help me see that there are all kinds of women with all kinds of personalities that are worth my time and my efforts.  He gave me hurting girls so that I could learn compassion.  You see God gave me all of these girls - to help me.  Because he loves me.  Because he wants to be able to use me.

And once again I come to the realization that God has always had a plan for me. 
Romans 8:28   And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

 

Blessed beyond measure,

Rachel

Average..Mediocre..Middle of the Road..Ordinary

Average..Mediocre..Middle of the Road..Ordinary

I hate those words.  Those words have been the bane of my existence for many years.  Why?  Because I have always been the typical, average, middle of the road, ordinary sort of girl.  I know that to most people that may not sound like a bad thing, but it has driven me crazy all of my life.

I am of average weght and average height.  I am of average appearancs, brown hair and brown eyes.  My talent level is...well, average.  I am not the greatest at things, but not the worst either.  I can sing but not carry a harmony part.  I can play volleyball, but my skill level is average.  I can cook, but nothing close to gourmet.  Average has been the story of my life for as long as I can remember.

I can remember going to my brothers when I was a teen and asking them if they thought that I was pretty. (Not a wise thing to do by the way!)  I can remember them telling me that I wasn't really ugly or beautiful.  They just thought that I was....you guessed it...AVERAGE!  And I pretty much agreed with them.  I clearly wasn't hideous.  I had a few dates and a few boyfriends back in the day.  Some of them were even really cute, but boys weren't chasing me by any means either.  Average was a fair assessment, but I hated it. 

I longed in my life to stand out.  When you are average it is easy to blend in and be forgotten.  That is how I had felt most of my life. If I was sick and missed the game,  they could get along without me.  If I didn't go to the party, no one would really miss me.  If I was sick for choir, no one would notice.  And the worst part was, that there was nothing that I could do about it.  I looked the way I looked.  My personality was what it was.  Other than extreme plastic surgery or acting like a complete phony, I was who I was.  Average.  I had to learn to be okay with that.  There was nothing that I could do about it.  Until one day I came across these verses:

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

Revelations 3:15-16

Wait a minute!  Hold the phone!  Check it out!  God hates average too!  Average..Mediocre..Middle of the Road..Ordinary. Those words disgust God.  He is not talking about appearances or talent level though.  He is not talking about personality or cooking skills.  He is talking about our Christian walk.  He is talking about our love for the Lord.  He is talking about something that I have the ability to do something about!

I may not be able to add height to my stature or thickness to my thin hair or musical ability to my average voice, but I sure can do something about my relationship with Jesus.  I sure can serve him with my whole heart.  There can finally be someone that can look at me and say: "She is not average!"  And it can be the person who's opinion counts the most.  Jesus Christ.

When I finally understood that there was a way for me to do something more than average for Jesus, I was thrilled.  I chose the following verse to be my life and ministry verse:

Mark 12:30 And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

 

I determined that there would be nothing average about my devotion for my Savior.  I would let him work in my life in whatever way that He thought was best.  I would serve him with my whole heart.

 

I would give this ordinary life to my extraordinary Savior  and believe me, since that moment life has been anything but average!

 

 

Blessed extraordinarily,

 

Rachel

 

Last Week I found Out That I am Dying...

Last week I found out that I am Dying...

I found a lump.  Every woman on the planet has had that fear.  This month is breast cancer awareness month.  There are pink ribbons everywhere.  There are reminders everywhere to do self exams, but that is not what prompted me to do one.  I had pain, tenderness if you will, and I couldn't figure out why.  So I checked and I found a lump.  I did what I do with most problems and ignored it, hoping it would go away, but it didn't.  I finally told my husband and we got the ball rolling on some tests.  My doctor confirmed the lump and sent me that seem day to get a mammogram.  I kept telling myself it was nothing.  I kept assuring myself that everything was normal, but when they brought me back to do a second mammogram, I started to worry a little bit.  After the second mammogram they had to do an ultrasound.  A little more fear crept in.  The technician who was doing the ultrasound took a long time.  She kept coming back to the same area and taking pictures.  I could tell it wasn't good.  Then she told me that she was going to bring a doctor in to talk to me.  As I was lying on the table, I tried to pretend that the doctor was just coming in to give an all clear sign, but I knew in my heart that was not what was about to happen.  After the doctor did her own ultrasound, she told me that I would need to come in the following day for a biopsy.  The situation was not looking good.  Then the worst part of the day happened.  The technician and the doctor no longer treated me like a patient.  They started being very kind and caring.  The tone of their voice changed.  They both became softer and more gentle with me.  Never in my life had I wished for a doctor to be impersonal with me until that moment.  I knew something was very wrong. 

I came back the next day for the biopsy and then the dreaded 72 hour wait started.  Do you know how many awful scenarios that your brain can come up with in 72 hours.  Do you know how many scared tears can be shed in 72 hours.  Do you know just how unimportant all the day to day things seem in 72 hours.  I stopped going to the gym in the mornings to work out.  What did I care what my figured looked like if I was going to die.  I normally shop and sell on EBay every week but in that 72 hours, I couldn't have cared less if I made money.  I wanted to just lie in bed for 72 hours, but I didn't want to alert my children before I knew if something was definitely wrong.  So I carried on with my day to day activities.  I went grocery shopping, I went to a hockey game, I coached volleyball...  and I realized in those 72 hours just what things in life really matter and what things are just a waste of time.  I saw people be rude and mean to other people and I thought in my head, "What if they just received terrible news like I did and people are treating them that way?"  I realized in those 72 hours that you just never really know what a person is going through, so be nice to everyone.

 God in his mercy let the doctors expedite my tests and the results came a day sooner than we expected.  Right before I was about to coach a volleyball game I answered a call on my cell from my doctor.  The tumor wasn't malignant.  I did not have cancer.  I don't ever think I have experienced that kind of relief before.  Life seemed to flood back into my body.  Hope was restored. 

That evening, in the quietness of my living room the Lord spoke to my heart and it was then that I realized that I was still dying.  We all are.  It might not be from cancer, but our life on this Earth is short.  A vapor if you will.  Here today and gone tomorrow.  We should live each day like I had to during that 72 hours.  We should be evaluating just what things are really important and what is a waste of time.  Trust me, clothes and money and entertainment slide way down on the list of important things when you are in that 72 hours.  The thing that I thought about most during that time was my family that didn't know Christ and the ones that I loved that have moved away from God.  I wanted my life or my death to touch them and move them to God.  I thought of my girls and wondered if I had taught them the things that they would need to take them into womanhood and still love the Lord.  I wondered if I had shown my husband enough love.  I wished I had told my extended family more often that I loved them.

I truly believe that God gave me a vision during those 72 hours of how he wants His children to live here on Earth.  Live like it is temporary.  Don't wait to do His will.  Focus on the important.  Yes. I learned this week that I am dying...someday.  You are too!  Make your life count!

I'm So Glad That God is Color Blind

I am so glad that God is color blind.

 

I was out to eat with a few girlfriends last night.  It was a mommy escape date.  A few of us get together at about 9 p.m. and meet up for coffee and dessert every couple of months.  We get our kids settled in bed, get our husbands settled with sports center, and sneak out for some girl time.  It works out great.  There is no guilt of leaving your kids because they are asleep and there is no need to pay a sitter. Most of the time the dear hubby doesn't even realize that you are gone because they are so engrossed in whatever game is being over analyzed.  Anyways, somehow we started discussing the subject of being color blind.  Strange topic, I know.  I informed them that I am an expert on the topic.  I grew up with a color blind father.

 

I was raised in a single parent home for most of my life.  I was the only girl and color and fashion were not my father's forte.  For years he would lay out my clothes every morning for school and not knowing any better, I would dress in whatever he would pick out.  I remember being around 10 years old when I noticed that I didn't dress like all of the other girls at school.  It seemed that my dad would just pull any shirt and put it with any skirt without the thought of matching the colors.  I am the type of person who never wants to hurt anyone's feelings and I was very nervous about asking my dad if I could start picking out my own clothes.  When I finally mustered up the courage, my dad actually seemed relieved.  You see he was color blind and he had no clue what color any of my clothes were.  Once I realized that he was color blind things started to make sense.  We had orange paint on the walls, country blue carpet, and kelly green furniture, but all of the colors looked the same to my dad.  I can remember spending hours upon hours matching all of his socks.  He couldn't tell the brown from the blue from the black.  I asked him why he didn't just buy all of the same color socks and he told me that he thought he had. 

As I went home from my girl's escape night, I continued pondering the idea of not being able to differentiate one color from another one.  It would be a strange life.  My dad can't tell the color's on a traffic light.  Red and green look the same to him.  He has to count the order of the lights to know if he should stop or go.  If you ask him if they both look red or if they both look green he would tell you he doesn't know.  He doesn't know what either of those colors look like.

 

I began to think that must be similar to what God experiences every time that we go to him with a black sinful heart.  We can see the wickedness in our heart as plain as day.  We see each sin and each wrong doing.  We see our lives and our hearts blackened by our sin and our failure to do the good things that God has prompted us to do through the Holy Spirit.  We come before His almighty throne in humbleness to repent.  As we hold our black heart out to Him asking once again for Him to clean us up and make us white again, the perfect, almighty God becomes color blind.  He sees you holding out an offering of a spotless white heart.  It looks the same color as His son's heart.  Just like Jesus' heart, yours is a brilliant white to Him.  In fact every person who has been washed by the blood of the Lamb possesses that same brilliant white heart.  You see Jesus already forgave you of any wrong that you have ever done or ever will do.  When you got saved His heart became what God sees instead of your own.

 

I still find it hard to grasp how a person can not see the vivid shades of the rainbow and tell the difference between them.  Sometimes, I have felt sorry for my dad.  Sometimes, I have just laughed at the crazy outfits that he puts together. (My elementary school pictures prove that!)  But maybe, just maybe, his color blindness is just a glimpse into the wonderful, forgiving God that we serve.

 

Blessed beyond measure,

 

Rachel

P.S.  If you can't read the words in the box at the top, you might want to get your eyes checked :)

My first blog

Welcome to my first blog.  I have been wanting to start blogging for a long time now, but have kept putting it off.  I love to write, and I am so much better at sharing my thoughts and feelings on paper than in person.  When I mentioned to my husband that I wanted to blog he asked, "What will you write about?"  I replied, "A little bit of everything."  Hence the title All Things... 

 It is an added bonus that:

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

Romans 8:28

is one of my favorite Bible verses.

I hope you will enjoy the posts and that you will receive encouragement and motivation by the Lord through them.

 

Blessed beyond measure,

 

Rachel