I Believe

Recently, I was given a "challenge" to list 10 things that are my beliefs. Seemingly an easy project for someone like me i.e. opinionated and passionate. But it has actually got me thinking.

There are a ton of things I believe. But what is it I really believe? And is it really all that important? What is it that I am absolutely sure of? What is it that affects how I see the world? What is it that I get comfort from? What is it that I believe so strongly that I want to hold on to and improve? So here they go...if I had to limit it to 10....and in no special order.

• I believe that a pro-life view goes beyond the womb. It extends to how whether or not I acknowledge the lady in the store behind me or the employee at the cash register. It affects how what decisions I will make about the care of my parents and should be considered when making decisions/forming opinions about immigration, food stamps, the death penalty, and homosexual rights. Does this mean that we ("pro-lifers") will all have the same opinions about these issues? No, not at all. But it does mean that answers are no longer black and white. The immigration issue becomes a bit more difficult when it is no longer simply an "issue" but faces and families. Our answer - stay or go - has to respond to their humanity and our solution has to include a value of life. I believe that when we act in a way that is devaluing to life in the process even if our outcome is "right" we have done wrong.

• I believe that patriotism/nationalism have become too linked and too common a bedfellow with Christianity. Having lived in a foreign country for more than a short term mission trip or having lived not at a tourist location, I am forever grateful to have been born in this country. I am thankful for all that others have done to make this country what it is from the military to the mine workers to famous people who have lead the way with vision and the ordinary people who have followed risking much in their daily life. But I cringe when the flag is raised to the same or almost same level as the cross. I fear we have forgotten the sin the Israelites committed in the wilderness creating a golden calf. I worry we have also forgotten the God of Moses who destroyed that sacred cow. God did not send His son to die on a cross so that we might be called to a nation. This is especially frustrating when the Bible is full of those who stood against culture, nation, and tribe because their God called them to a Kingdom that was not made of earthly stuff, that was bigger than them and their tribe, their ethnicity, or their nation. And God's Kingdom knows no nationalities or boundaries.

• I believe in the following spiritual law when it comes to an understanding of God, Christ, Spirit, and the Word of God: the more you know, the more you understand, the less you know, the less you understand. I am both okay and not okay with this spiritual paradox. On any given day I can fill astonishment, wonder, awe, excitement, amazement, increase in faith, frustration, sorrow, anger, doubt and despair about this spiritual reality.

• I believe that marriage is God's way of making us holy, both in helping us to be more like Christ and in making us something completely different than anything we could do/know on our own (another definition of holy). Marriage is God's way of displaying His full and complete image in human form, the Trinity in flesh. Oneness. Completeness. I believe this was His intention at creation. (which means I do not believe that God's original intention was for woman to live as we do now in submission to man - not just in marriage but in the way inequality is seen in the workplace to pornography).

• I believe that it the family's job to raise a child to know God, to engage in a relationship with Christ and to live out his/her life in harmony with the Holy Spirit. The church has usurped this responsibility, many times with the best of intentions. A better method is for the church to help parents understand their responsibility, help them know how to do this, disciple them so they are equipped to live as godly parents, encourage them, support them, and to reach out to those children without families to do this. And to engage families of all kinds even if they don't match the "traditional" model.

• I believe that the very decision to follow Christ is an admittance of inadequacy. It is the raising of a white flag and notifying the world that "I am a SINNER and in need of Grace". I believe that followers of Christ should be honest this - about doubt, sins, ups and downs and everything in between. We do not have to have it all figured out; we only have to trust.

• I do NOT believe that if one believes enough, hopes enough, and has enough faith that all will be well and wonderful. I believe this view point is contrary to the whole Story of the Word of God. God is bigger than my wallet size or even my health. Do I like this? No! Do I understand it? Absolutely not! Do I even think it's fair? No! But I am not God (a fact I sometimes forget).

• I believe that each person bears the image of God, Muslim, Jew, Atheist, straight, gay, married, single, divorced, celebrating 50 years of wedded bliss, Osama Bin Laden and Mother Theresa. This gives each person intrinsic value and means I should treat them always aware of the image of God branded on them (something I confess that my critical nature and quick tongue struggle to do).

• I believe that I have married an amazing man. I respect him in a way I have no other man. He makes me a better person. And he loves me immensely.

• I believe that I have been blessed more than I realized and I too often live in an attitude of ingratitude, waiting for the "other shoe" to drop instead of living in joy in response to all that I have.

That's what I believe. Everything else is up for grabs.

Her Stories Memoir Challenge

As if I have no other books to read (have 3 to read for my FLAME classes in March, one I'm reading with Scott, one book of the Bible I'm studying with Scott and another book I'm reading with Aimee) I've decided to join in on the HerStories Memoir Challenge.

4 months. 4 memoirs. From the website there is a description of just what this challenge is:

Telling Her Stories is all about encouraging women to tell their life stories. And not only to tell their stories, but to embrace and share them. Some women choose to publish their memoir, others write for themselves. Whatever your ultimate publication goals are, writers learn best by reading other writers. What better way to explore the wonderful world of women's memoir than to host a book challenge?

You choose 4 women's memoirs to read over a 4 month period. I'm starting a month behind. Thankfully though, I recently bought one of the books they recommend - Called out of Darkness: A Spiritual Confession by Anne Rice.

I'll be writing a review to on each book and would love to hear from you all if you have read any great memoirs by women and/or if you decide to join the challenge too.

hey little girl

hey little girl
lie down and die
heylittle girl
whatever you do
please don't cry

hey little girl
just stay down
hey little girl
don't let 'em see
you wear a frown

hey little girl
please be still
hey little girl
nobody cares
to hear your shrill

please little girl
please learn fast
please little girl
just forget the past

it's been a long time

so i haven't blogged since october of last year. before that it was july. i used to blog more often. wax poetic. go into the "deep end of the pool" as my sister would say (not always sure that was meant as a good either). and then i got busy.

dating. engaged. you'd think i'd have so much to say. just traversing the dating terrain again would hold countless stories. leeting someone in again. hoping again. laughing more and louder and bigger again. returning to the person i really am or at least making that person more visible to more than just a few select people. letting the guard down.

and then there was an engagement. not even a mention of it until october. one month before the wedding day? i even blogged about an upcoming trip to brazil. but not a word about the engagement.

there's TONS of fuel here for the fire of writing. but i had nothing. maybe i hit something too personal for even me to write about or at least let a few wondering eyes see.

then again perhaps it was just life. so much happened in such a short time. life and how and what God dealt with me on since april has been vast. i've gone from a full time "pastor", single woman having/needing to make it on her own b/c barring God that's all she had. and it's no offense to family. i have an amazing family. but the reality is that no mother, father, sister, brother, niece, nephew or any number of other family members can fill that void. they can't change the fact that tomorrow when you wake up no one is "really" counting on you the way a spouse or child is. and it's just not the same and unless you've been there....yeah you can't understand. it take brutal blunt force to actually pull your sorry butt out of bed and put two feet on the floor and hope you have enough energy to actually walk downstairs to make yourself breakfast.

9 months ago i found so much of who i was and fulfillment in a job, a task. who i was could be summed up in messy jessy leading worship on the weekend and playing with lucy and melaney, maleah and madison. that job was all i had. or so i thought.

and now? now i am HAPPILY married. relaxed and secured in ways i have never been. truth is i've always been lacking that "thing" even when married the first time which is like salt in a wound. i've caught a glimpse of the Mystery that marriage is intended to reveal to us that i grasped at like a child chasing a lost balloon in the wind the first time i said "i do". and i'm excited about uncovering or rather, being given more details about the Mystery over the next 40 plus years.

i no longer work full time. i work part time. i'm no longer the "pastor". just the preschool coordinator. and i find it a relief and a burden to be "just that". a relief that "it" is not all my problem anymore or my responsibility. a relief for others to deal with "it" and to see that it is bigger than the person or even the ministry even if all are not aware or agree with me that part of the problem and solution to "it" involves some changes to the system - the current way of doing things. relief that my identity can be more than a job. a task. more than something that is capable of failing, of not quite reaching expectations - mine or others. such living is constantly in threat.

it's a burden. b/c the title may not be there anymore (and for some it was a title they gave with the responsibilities but not of the respect) but the heart of a pastor is still there. my actions and relationships with the kids and their families will not change. if anything this new role allows me to focus in on "pastoring" these kids and their families more and better. and so a burden to know that i am pastor to these kids but never bearing the credit for that.

and then relief b/c at least now there is not bite or sting or falsehood to credit not given me when i act in the role of "pastor" b/c i no longer wear the title. the credit is not mine to have. and then the burden gets heavy b/c the credit is never mine to begin with or at least it should not be. it's God and one has to ask why i do what i do. is it really for God or for me? and really what is a title? God calls as He sees and places where He wants, title or not. and He asks that we obey, title or not. and then confusion comes in b/c it is prideful to want credit? doesn't the bible even say that the "laborer is worthy of his reward"? is it wrong to want praise?

and so it goes. i find myself figuring out what this new role means. and what about the new role as wife? again. and how does that look like in this marriage. with this person. and i feel lost. not sure who i am suppossed to be. what i am suppossed to do.

and i'm still not sure what to really say...even with all that. do i write about the loss i feel when my sister and i fight? the loss that is best described as the sunken feeling i felt when i realized daddy was never coming back. the fear i live in that one day one of us will say or do something so irreversible that we'll lose the closest or almost closest connection we have to our father. and the thing that scares me most is the other probably won't know it or know exactly what it was that this time severed the relationship. and yet i can't keep my mouth shut!

of do i write about family. family that as far as i'm concerned abandoned. family that severed the only life line i had to my father. the hurt, loss, anger, and plain apathy that i feel on any given day. and the realization that it's not worth being upset about anymore. people did what they did. truth is most people do the best they can with what they've got and sometimes you just don't have it. lord knows, i've been there.

and yet why then am i the one ignored so often when contact is made? they are so unaware that when my sister is contacted and i am not - when they reach out to her and not me - that i am sitting on the couch, feet curled up under me, hoping and praying and pleading and wishing that they'd say they love me, they want me. that i'm one of them. i'm a 6 year old little girl all over again.

and anger that had died or so i thought rises. forgiveness that i thought i'd given i find i start taking back. i imagine they hurt that i added another man's name to daddy's. i imagine they hurt that another man adopted me. yet don't they realize that each and every time they have rejected me, told me to be silent about daddy, or left me out they have taught me that i am not a Lott. it's like handing a thirsty man only wine when you have water and then being upset b/c he turns into a drunk.

and i'm avoided b/c i'm the one that'll tell you how it is. i call your bs ... bs. i'm hot tempered. i might hang up on ya. i might demand an answer. which makes the situation all that more ironic. i'm avoided for the very characteristics that make me a Lott. for the very things that i was told as a little girl by family made me so much like my daddy.

i want to write these things because somewhere under there are stories of redemption. stories that teach me about a Love that knows no end and about Grace that gives from a place of wounding and about family that longs to be what they were created to be, and keeps trying which says something,

something i can't quite define just yet,

but want to write about until i can

and maybe that's what led the writers of the Bible to write so many years ago

to write until they understood

till they could define what it was they had witnessed and experienced and seen

maybe that's why God moved their pens

they wanted to understand the Mystery

worked out in their people,

in their time,

in their place.

3 months and two weeks

Mariah!! Mariah!!! Look I'm here. I'm posting. 3 months and two weeks later I'm posting.

I'm back from Brazil. I have pics and if drugs don't fail me (sinus infection) I will put up today. Plus I never blogged about getting ENGAGED.


So I'll be back!!

Brazil Here I Come

wednesday we (high school missions team) begin our trip to Brazil. we leave at 11:05 am from moline with a stop in atlanta on our way to miami. we then take off from miami to Brazil, which is about a 5 hour flight. we will arrive at 12:20 AM on thursday morning.

our days are packed with things to do. i will be helping the teens run a VBS three times while we are down there. we just got done making some of the crafts - my monkey is...well interesting looking that's for sure. but i think the kids will enjoy being able to make the animals and act out the story they just heard - the goat who wanted to be a lion. we also have fun necklaces for the kids to make that tell the salvation story.

it's been a long time since i stepped outside the usa. i'm excited but recently have been overcome with some anxiousness. so much to bring and to do and to remember to take (espcially those malaria meds - can't forget those).

and of course i'm bringing a journal (bought by my special friend miss aimee) and am looking forward to recording lots of things.

ways you can pray:

• safe travels to and from Brazil
• luggage getting to where it needs to be when it needs to be (there are 20 of us traveling together)
• Holy Spirit going before us each day as we do construction, give testimonies, do VBS, do youth ministry, hold evangelistic meetings, street evangelism, sport ministry (definitely not my calling) :)
• that each of us would learn something that God wants to teach us, that we would be open

i thought of asking for a smooth trip but one thing i've realized is that sometimes when we ask for all blessings we miss out on things God wants us to learn that we wouldn't know if everything went smoothly so i'm just praying that i have my clothes, my underwear, some clean water...but then i guess even those items are throw away if need be.

see ya soon!

The Princess Tea

I am so proud of what we did this day.

Check it out at Princess Tea.

craziness "lane/thomas" style

so today robert and i went with grandma and grandpa to my sister's Kindergarten class for a little party to celebrate the end of the year. while the reporter from a local news show read to the kids robert and i created our own fun with his mother's camera.....