One Is Just A Number

For 46 years for me and 95 years for her, February 22 was just my Grandma's birthday. Yes, she shared it with George Washington, but the significance ended there. It was just Grandma's birthday. Then 11 years ago today, it became the day that X told me he wanted a divorce. It went from Grandma's birthday to one of the worst days of my life, forever marked as a terrible day to be mourned every year. But what if I turned it into just another day. I will always remember it as my Grandma's birthday, turning to fond memories of her and wishing I could still have celebrated with her these past 22 years since she's been gone, but what if it was again, just that - Grandma's birthday. Is it healthy to mark it has one of my worst days? What if it was just the thing I needed? I'm not saying that the heartbreak was a good thing but there are plenty of sayings that indicate that it is in the breaking that we are healed. What if it was the day that I was...

Every Sunday I go to church so that God's light can shine on me and prepare me for the week ahead. Sometimes that light wraps me in God's love and sometimes it shows me what I need to be working on. First thing this morning someone came up to me and started quizzing me about the plans for the fall carnival I am organizing for next week. As he offered his ideas on what I should be doing and how I should be doing them, I found myself getting more and more irritated. God's light was showing me that I usually take ideas as criticism and that I do not take criticism well. So instead of continuing to be irritated, I counted to ten, listened to the ideas, and realized that this person was just trying to help. God also shined His light on how far I have come in handling my mistakes. I was liturgist today and instead of reading Hebrews 11:8-12 and I started reading Hebrews 1:8-12. The pastor tried to tell me I had chosen the wrong chapter but I thought he meant that I should...

Today I gave this stewardship testimony at my church. We are going through a difficult time financially so it is crucial that the congregation remain steadfast in their commitment to the church, both financially and with our time. I cannot begin to repay what this church has given to me. I will remain here forever. For some background, my pastor used lyrics from Tom Petty "Stand My Ground" in his letter to the members about the stewardship campaign. He also placed those lyrics on the church's marque, just like he put Prince lyrics on the sign after his passing . As I was working on this talk Friday, a Tom Petty song randomly played on my iTunes. That is out of 6583 songs, only 24 of which are Tom Petty songs.  If that isn’t a sign from God, I don’t know what is. It’s as close to a burning bush as I’m probably ever going to get. I love that our church puts Tom Petty and Prince lyrics on our marquee. When I passed out Frisbees to TU students in August, it wa...

It is ironic that the prompt for today is remember when I almost forgot to do a post. Luckily, I have 8 minutes left in the day. I've been trying to remember why I wanted to do a blog. I know that one of the main reasons was after my divorce, I only found one blog that talked about divorce from a Christian perspective. Also, most Christian blogs were written by happily married women who used endearing terms like "the hubs" and "the littles." I wanted spiritual nourishment from someone I could relate to instead of someone who had everything I dreamed of having. I thought, if I felt like that, there had to be other women out there like me who need to know that God still loved them and had a good plan for their life despite their heartbreak. As I type this I remembered that another thought I had for this blog was to help others like me who wanted to cook good meals for one without getting tired of leftovers or wasting ingredients when trying to cut recipe...

Since January 1, I have tried to sit on the edge of my bed every morning to say a prayer for the day. I ask God to watch over my parents, to let my sister have a good day at school, and I pray for family and friends going through a difficult time. I say these prayers in a hurry, practically as I head at the door. But I never stop to listen. I hear God in His actions. In the narrow misses of being hit by someone running a red light. In the overtime money that comes just as I need to put new tires on my car. In the Sunday afternoons spent with my parents, with my Daddy telling us stories of his youth. When I first thought about writing this post, I thought of this photo, taken in a church in Rome. But as I looked at it, it seemed as the person praying was stopped mid-sentence, perhaps taking a breath before he started petitioning God for the next thing on his list. He could be praying for his family and friends but he appeared to be doing all the talking. I want to be more...

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at  http://fiveminutefriday.com/ . This week's word is Future. The future - that place in time seems a little murky like the water in the photo above and a little scary because I can't see it, like you can't see where the water is flowing. But what I have to keep reminding myself is - there is beauty along the way. If you look at this photo in a different way, you see the plants along the water and if you could pan out, you would see that it is in this setting. That's the thing about the future, we have to look at the big picture. For us humans, that's not always easy to do. But for God, that's how He sees it. We look at the murky water we are treading in or the lack of an end point on the horizon and we get stuck there, thinking that is our destiny. What we should be doing is trusting that there is a reason for the muck and the...

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at  http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/ . This week's word is Expect.   I'm going to admit something. When I pray, I expect God to do what I ask. I'd like to think that is a sign of faith but in some ways, it is a sign of arrogance, like I know what is best for me. I picture him up in heaven like the above photo, signalling to the angels and saying like a benevolent Captain Picard, "Make it so." I never stop to think about what's right or worse, what's God's will, I just ask away and expect to be granted my wish. I guess that means I see God as more of a fairy godmother than my heavenly father. It doesn't matter if it is little things like, "Please make the bathtub faucet quit leaking" or "Please make my aunt well." I expect my prayer to be answered. And for things like "Please send...

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at  http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/ . This week's word is Grow. Last summer, my pastor preached a sermon series on the windows in the church sanctuary that represent the 12 disciples. He spoke about how the symbols in those windows conveyed what each disciple was known for and represented in the Christian faith. He then challenged the congregation to create their own symbol, as if one day a stained glass window would be created to represent our faith journey. He placed tins full of pony beads in each pew and we used the beads to create our symbol. The beads were then baked until they resembled stained glass. The photo above is my finished product and here is what I wrote about my window:   My symbol is a sprout, my discipleship is growing, reaching through the sky to the light of God. A year later, I hope I am still growing. I'm not...

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/ . This week's word is Present. This photo of me was taken on a gondola in Venice. My sister and I didn't even know that the tour group had arranged for gondola rides and we almost didn't go. We thought about the money, the fact that as you can see by all of the straps hanging off of me, we had almost everything valuable with us and what would happens were filling our brains but we decided to go for it. And I am so glad that we did, that we lived in the present and had this once in a lifetime moment. Coincidently, just weeks from getting back from that trip, the Five Minute Friday word was also present. I'd like to say that I've resolved everything I wrote about in that post , but unfortunately, I still struggle with the present. I can go through my day just fine, living in the moment ...

Several years ago, my mother, sister, and I took a trip to Corpus Christi, Texas. There they have a seawall that lines the shore of the Gulf of Mexico, protecting the city from the waves. Along this wall are gazebos that cantilever over the water. I think my mother could have stayed there for hours, listen to the sea rush to the shore. It was such a peaceful place to be. I have a white noise machine that I turn on at night. One of my favorite settings is Ocean. There is something so comforting about falling asleep to the sounds of waves. It is like I'm transported to another place other than my land-locked state right in the middle of the US. The sound of the sea takes away my cares and helps me doze off. One of my favorite stories from the Bible is the tale of Jesus and the disciples in the middle of rough seas. I love that Jesus is peacefully sleeping while the disciples are scared to death. When I think about this story, I picture Jesus standing up upon being awa...

I walked into the amazing 850-year-old building, taking it all in. There were people sitting in the pews, crying. I wondered if they were realizing a lifelong dream to be there or were living out a loved one's dream and remembering them as they sat there. Even though it was full of tourists, everyone spoke in whispers, showing the respect that this beautiful house of worship deserved. I whispered prayers as I stood there. I thanked God for letting me come to Paris and to see this wonderful Notre Dame. I asked Him for answers, thinking, surely, in one of the most beautiful monuments built to Him, He would whisper back to me, revealing what I wanted to know. Nothing, just the whispers of those around me. I often wonder if I miss the whispers. Maybe I don't take time to be quiet enough to hear them. Maybe the whispers aren't in the silence but they are in the noise, in the situations that I am in or the people who cross my path. I don't know that I'm bright eno...

This photo was taken from a bus window as we made our way up Cadillac Mountain in Acadia National Park. It was a gloomy, wet day and the rain storm had brought with it fog. It was pretty scary being on a twisty mountain road in such dense fog. The tour guide assured us that our driver had been through worse fog and delivered all passengers safely to their destination. I often forget that when I go through storms in my own life that I have the best driver at the wheel - God. I get scared and wonder how I will make it through it but all I have to do is trust that He will bring me through the storm. I can relax knowing that He won't leave me in that storm, that He will deliver me safely to the right destination. Why do we fight that knowledge? Why do we insist on trying to grab the wheel and navigate these storms ourselves? I marvel at how I try to dog paddle through the storm, thrashing at the water like crazy, when all I have to do is lean back and float to the shore. I love t...

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has writers spending five minutes writing on the same topic and then sharing them at http://katemotaung.com/five-minute-friday/ . This week's word is Trust. Trust is the perfect word for this Friday. Today would have been my 22nd wedding anniversary. So many days it has taken everything I have to trust that my marriage ending would not be the end of me. So many days I have looked at Jeremiah 29:11 and strived to believe that God has a good plan for me. Trust is so hard. You would think it would be the opposite. Why isn't trust easy? We fight so hard to figure it all out, to find the answers, when trusting would be so much easier. Trust is so much easier when it comes to everything in our lives. Why don't we trust that God is carrying us? Why do our brains insist on figuring it out? I sat in a Starbucks today writing in a Moleskin journal (is it just me or do things seem more profound when written in a Moleskin?) and the ...

I had a hard time deciding how to observe Lent this year. I'm still fairly new to Lent so I'm still trying to grasp the meaning of it. The past two times I observed it, I gave up something. But I wanted to do something different this year, to go deeper spiritually. I wanted to take these 40 days to reshape my life and to strengthen my relationship with God. Right before I went to my church's Ash Wednesday service, I read a post by  A Sacred Journey and these words struck a chord with me: So often Lent is associated with death and with fasting, but that’s not the whole story. It’s about the stripping of the false self in order to call forth the true self—the imago dei . It’s about surrendering the things that don’t give life in order to allow the things that do to flourish. It’s about clearing away the brush of winter and making space in our lives so we can tend to the new growth that comes with spring. But as a sat in my pew, I still didn't know what my ...

We read this prayer in church today and it both convicted and inspired me. I may make it my daily mantra, saying it every morning before my feet hit my bedroom floor. I think it would be the perfect way to start my day. We are incredibly stubborn, O Lord. We have entered the season in which Your Light has been given to the world, your blessings have been poured out on the word,  and yet all we can think about is our own problems, our own needs, our own desires. Help us to desire you, Lord. Held us to yearn for your presence. Pour your baptismal waters over us again, cleansing us from our self-pity and arrogance. Nourish and heal us so that we may joyfully serve you. Wash away our jealousy, greed and all negative thoughts and behaviours that stand in the way of our truly being the people you have called us to be. Again let us receive the blessings offered in creation, in the birth and baptism of Jesus, and in the ministry of the saints ...

Five Minute Friday is a writing event that has hundreds of writers spending five minutes all writing on the same topic and then sharing them at http://lisajobaker.com/ . This week's word is See. I wish I was better at seeing with my eyes of faith than the eyes in the middle of my head. My heart tells me the things I know are true, that God has a good plan for me, that I am a child of the most high God. But where I fall short is living that. My brain wants to see proof. My brain wants to see those plans, rolled out on a table like a blueprint for a new house. My brain wants other people to see me the way God sees me, to treasure me and believe I am filled with the gifts He has given me. I often wonder why I don't trust more. Why do I take the hard path of needing to see things, instead of trusting everything I've read in His word. Why do I spend time worrying about things that I have no control over? Why can't I see that turning everything over to God woul...

I did something that terrified me on Sunday - I spoke in front of my church. It wasn't a huge number of people, approximately 100, but that is more than I've talked to at once. Ever. I gave a testimony of sorts about how I feel about my church. Several weeks ago, I wrote this post from Lisa-Jo's prompt worship . Once I was done with it, I sent it to my pastor to let him know what the church meant to me. He asked me if I'd be willing to speak these words at the beginning of the service, as part of events gearing up to Pledge Sunday. This was huge for me for several reasons. Like I said, it was something that terrified me, which I am not prone to do. I shrink away from things that scare me but this time, I answered in the affirmative and hit reply to my pastor's email before I could chicken out. Second, it got me out of the shadows and moving towards being a more active member of my church. In the eight months I've been a member there, I've most...

Since lunch with X a couple of weeks ago, I've been struggling with my sense of self-worth. Hearing his explanations of why our marriage didn't work left me doubting myself and questioning the qualities in myself that I thought gave me value to others. Rolled into the lack of self-worth is an over-abundance of self-hatred over the fact that the value God sees in me, that He placed in me before I was even born, isn't enough for me. I believe with all my heart that I am wonderfully made and a child of the most high God but as a sit alone in my house, I struggle with that being enough. As I try to put the pieces of my broken heart back together, I doubt that anyone but Him will love me in the way I yearn to be loved - for me, just the way I am, quirks and all. Why isn't my faith strong enough for God's love to be enough for me? Why do I need other people's validation that I matter? I don't have any answers but in case you are struggling with the same things...

I am a little disappointed in myself for the lack of posts on my blog. Lately I’ve only managed my Five Minute Friday posts. The main reason for this is lately I haven’t believed that “one is just a number.” I don’t feel qualified to tell other people how to move forward with their life because I’ve been spending so much time in the past. Last Tuesday I had lunch with X. What I thought was going to be a get together centered around hearing about his new job and his recent trip to New Orleans turned into a post mortem on our marriage and details about his current life that I really didn’t want to hear. I needed to hear them but I didn’t want to. And the funny thing is, I thanked him at the end of the lunch, knowing that what he had told me was what I needed to hear to move forward. But as I’m wont to do, I focused on the downside and wallowed in the fact that I heard things that I didn’t want to hear and it evolved into a pity party that lasted for days on ...

I often joke that in order to hear God, I need something obvious like a burning bush. I pray and pray but I'm no good at listening. But today, God stopped me in my tracks with a song, one that came up randomly as I listened to iTunes at work. I've been feeling very low since a friend made some seemingly innocent remarks about something she'd seen on Facebook regarding X. In a few sentences, she set back my recovery to the point that I've struggled to get out of bed the past two days. With her words, she took me back to feeling worthless, unloved, hopeless, and alone. Out of 3300 songs loaded on my computer, this one played exactly when I needed to hear it. I stopped where I was in my office, my breath catching in my throat. As tears streamed down my face, I heard these words: To the one whose dreams have fallen all apart And all you're left with is a tired and broken heart I can tell by your eyes you think you're on your own But you're not al...