People are precious

People are precious. A truly necessary part of life. Whether your personality type has you needing a whole bunch or just a couple, you need someone.

Slow down a minute and think about how precious somebody or lots of somebodies are in your life - big moments or little moments - consider the moments that wouldn't have been the same or possible or accomplished without the somebodies in your life.

I'm reminded of how precious people are, how created for community we are...

...when I get to spend a week of quality time with friends who invested the time and resources and time off to come visit this side of the world;

...when we don't get home until 6pm from lunch after church because new friends take the time to sit around laughing and sharing and teaching us french;

...when texting with my brother-in-law as he grieves his dear papa moving from this life into eternity;

...when I don't realize that facetiming with my family for father's day will include seeing friends I haven't hugged in a year and a half, and the unexpectedness and wonderfulness of seeing them causes me to weep (I mean, really, ugly crying happened) for wishing I was there in person;

...when my four year-old nephew ruins the surprise of a package because he doesn't understand that mail takes time so he immediately asks me if I've "eaten the treats that aren't allowed in France" yet :) (don't worry - "not allowed" is apparently how's he's understood his mom when she said they can't be found in France);

...when a friend in my still-feels-new life knows me well enough to recognize when my "I'm fine" is a little off;

...when praying constantly in the waiting as dear friends are at the hospital laboring for their baby girl;

...when Jesus keeps after the slow process of making me more aware of the people around who just want someone to talk to, just need some interaction with another person - because they need to remember they're precious...

People are so very precious - don't take them for granted. Every day there are more stories of lives lost - whether accidents, sickness, the brokenness of people tearing at the lives of other people - why waste a minute of not remembering how much you treasure the everyday people in your life?

Take the 15 seconds to send the text just saying hi.
Make the tiny effort to make eye contact, smile, and say hello to the person you find in front of you: the cashier, the other person waiting for the elevator or the bus, the dog owner with the same walking route, the neighbor at the mailbox, wherever!
Call the friend who keeps crossing your mind and you just keep forgetting to actually reach out - the Spirit puts people on our hearts for a reason, maybe they need to hear your voice :)

Everyone needs to know they're seen, they're recognized, they're precious. Why not take the moment to remind them?

The worst thing that can happen is they don't respond - that's okay, maybe they're busy, or didn't hear you, or don't know how to respond. No harm, no foul - just keep on doing you.

The best thing that can happen is you make a day. You probably won't even know you did. But they will know - they will remember that they are precious.

Go make somebody's day :)

Writing, Everyday faithfulness, & Pentecost

Some people have encouraged me to write again, so I have an intention* to write more frequently here now. *the disclaimer is that "intention" does not equal "goal" - if it was a goal, it would have a place on our 2017 Goals spreadsheet where I would be able to track it having thought through the SMART goal process and where I would see my percentage of progress versus the percentage of the year gone, etc etc (seriously, we have that and it's awesome). But it's just an intention so I give myself the wiggle room to be a bit flaky with it. Perhaps next year it will make the Goals spreadsheet. For now my intention is to write a bit more and, if nothing else, it will make my mom happy. Hi, Mom :)

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I had the opportunity to go to the Colour Conference in London at the beginning of May with some other women from my church, where we met up with about 12,000 other women from around the world -- I believe they said there were 42? 49? countries represented -- pretty awesome.

I was really looking forward to having concentrated time in smaller groups with women from church with the hopes that I'd be able to create new and strengthen preexisting friendships now that my french is so much stronger. I'm grateful to say that that happened. For the conference in general, each speaker was strong in different ways and I need to finish going back over my notes and relistening to the voice recordings I made of the talks (I meant to do that the week after the conference, but was not disciplined. I'm getting better at discipline slowly but surely.)

But where God really met me was the idea of being found in the field as the "everyday" woman that I am.

We've been in France for about sixteen months and it's really been a time of growth and change. Recently, though, I've struggled again with "but what is my goal, my purpose here?" (I always know I'm looking to people again for my worth when I start struggling with that question, but it's still hard to shake sometimes. Fixing my eyes solely on Jesus is a learned choice and I have to relearn it with my wandering heart often.)

The Lord reminded me during the conference, with the speakers, with a conversation with a dear and true friend, and then with my Bible study when I got home, that there is such worth in being faithful in my everyday life. In 2 Timothy 2:20-21, Paul talks about the stuff in a house and how there are things that are made for a special purpose and there are other things that are made for everyday/common purposes. But with the sanctification of God, the things prepared only to be common can be used for extraordinary purposes.

And that is my life. I am an everyday woman and there is SUCH WORTH in my choice to do the things in my life -- the things that seem sometimes just too little to have importance -- the interactions with the people who are found just in front of me at each moment -- even if no one else even sees it, there is such worth in my choice to do these things with faithfulness. And that gives glory to God.

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Today is Pentecost - the birthday of the first church - the day that the Spirit descended on the apostles and first followers, coming on them in power in a way that changed their lives (and all of ours) forever.

God is in the process of teaching me about prayer recently -- I'm reading A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller and I highly recommend it -- and when I was thinking about Pentecost this weekend the Lord organised some thoughts for me to share at church this morning (just at a briefing of the teams during setup, not before the congregation):

Prayer is a mystery - we cannot understand really the process, how it works, etc. But in Daniel 10:12, we see a clear example that prayer in fact causes things to move -- it says: "Then he said to me, 'Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.'" This was probably not the response that Daniel had been expecting to the situation, but his words caused things to move, something was put into motion by his praying: "I have come because of your words"!

In the Old Testament, we learn stories of the rare people who were as faithful as possible without Jesus, and how God chose to use them -- and he spoke with and listened to these people.

But that is the thing that Pentecost changed!

When Jesus died and resurrected, the giant, heavy curtain that separated the Holy of Holies from the people was destroyed and the obstacle between all of us and the Lord was removed.

When Jesus ascended and sent the Spirit to anoint the first believers, that gave us the new method of communication! The obstacle was no more, we are ALL the ones that God chooses to speak with and listen to because the Spirit is our power to pray. I especially love the reminder in Romans that, it is not only by the power of the Spirit that we pray, but the Spirit also prays for us when we don't know what to pray -- interceding for us when we have nothing but groans. (Anyone else been clinging to that when our hearts groan brokenly at the news of more lives lost too frequently?)

Our words are heard by the living God and these words cause things to happen. It may not look like we expect, we don't know how it works, but prayer puts things - in me and in the world - in motion.

Wow. What a reminder I need to actually do it.

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French update:

Fun fact - both the section about everyday faithfulness and the section about Pentecost I had to translate into English because both of those are things I shared in front of groups of people, writing and delivering them in french!

And related to that fun fact - my english brain is becoming mushier as my french mush becomes slightly more solid. So forgive my weird sentence structure at times, and I tried to catch it if I ever used french words mixed in but might have missed some.

And I went to a baby shower for about 4 hours today and existed close to entirely in french, managing to follow most things, express myself almost every time I wanted to, and did not leave with a headache or feeling totally overwhelmed/spent!

Y'all. Such progress.