IMPORTANT NOTE: Those of you Weight Loss Wednesday gals who want to either participate in the girlfriends conference call tomorrow night or go back later and listen to it online, I need to have you email me at karen@proverbs31.org BEFORE 9:00 pm tonight EST. I will email you back with the call-in instructions. There is no cost for this other than the phone call itself (and many of you have free nights on your cell phone, so have it all charged up and ready to go!) PLEASE put WLW Phone Call in the subject line or I might miss your message. Oh, I can’t wait to chat with you all!

ALSO NOTE: The winner of the couples basket-in a box from my Mismatched Candlesticks marriage post is: Margaret; Timestamp: February 4, 2010 at 6:06 pm Congrats! Email me your home address at karen@proverbs31.org so I can mail you your prize.

Now for our regular post……

Love is in the air…….and roses…..and chocolate….and fancy dinners out. It is Valentines Week!

I have always adored Valentines Day; elementary school class parties with endless homemade, paper Valentines; high school dances (and a special singing Valentine delivered to me during fifth hour once by a barbershop quartet) and most of all many February 14th’s with my college sweetheart-turned-hubby whom I am  celebrating with for the 27th year in a row.

My posts this week will be short and sweet (pun intended). I simply want to introduce you to four wonderful books on marriage written by some friends of mine. One book, along with some other goodies, will be given away each day (except for Weight Loss Wednesday when I’ll offer a different, fun giveaway) The featured books will be by  her, and her and him.

At the end of each post, I’ll ask you all a simple question. Click on the comment form and leave a short answer to the question and you’ll be entered in the random drawing. This will be fun! Here we go:

We’ll start (and end) the week with my friend, Proverbs 31 speaking team sister, and Kenz’s current “other mother” Melanie Chitwood. Kenz began her year living in Charlotte with my P31 sister Wendy Blight, but due to Wendy’s daughter having major surgery and a great deal going on in their home, requiring their bonus room back, (Kenz’s home-away-from-home) she was taken in by Melanie, her hubby Scott and their two boys–who are the exact same ages as Kenz’s biological brothers!

Today, Melanie is giving away a signed copy of her book, What A Husband Needs from His Wife. I’ll throw in a $5.00 Starbucks card so the winner can steal away for a mug of something hot and delicious to sip on while she reads.

What do men really need from their wives? And what is the best way for wives to meet those needs? This engaging and thoroughly biblical guide demonstrates that a woman meets her husband’s needs most effectively by maintaining her own vibrant personal relationship with Christ. Filled with useful tools that will help women understand their husbands better, this enlightening resource includes…

Readers will also find useful tools for understanding their husbands better, including
- Ideas for dealing with addictions, infidelity, and financial challenges
- Explanations of personality types and love languages
- Resources that offer help for the helper

Each chapter ends with a list of focus points that summarize the chapter’s most important thoughts in an easy to remember format, as well as a concluding prayer that provides readers an opportunity to interact with God about what they have learned. A study guide at the end of the book makes this a perfect tool for individual or small group use.

Trust me ladies…..this is a wonderful, honest, and helpful book. Just like the gal who wrote it!

Now, to be entered in today’s giveaway, leave a comment answering this simple Valentines Day question:

What is your favorite candy (current or retro)? Peanut Butter Cups? Sweet-tarts? Mary Janes? Pixie Stix? Zagnut bars? Sprees? Plain milk chocolate? Hard, sour candies like Jolly Ranchers?

Mine is anything with coconut and dark chocolate combined; from a simple grocery store Mounds Bar to a fancy handmade, dark-chocolate dipped macaroon. Or, a retro favorite (one I remember riding to the Quik Pik corner store to get—-on my purple Schwinn bike with the banana seat and white, flowered basket of course) is Charms Sweet and Sour swirl pops.

How about you?

Candy-coated blessings,

ANNOUNCEMENT: Each day next week will be a different Valentine giveaway—–marriage books, Bath and Body Works products, Valentines goodies and more. Mark your calendar and ‘click’ in!

Have you joined us today by way of the Encouragement for Today devotion I have up over at Crosswalk.com and on our site at Proverbs 31.org? If so, welcome!

PLEASE NOTE: If you haven’t read the devotion yet, you’ll be lost when reading this post so click here to read it. Don’t forget to come back and enter the giveaway!

______________________________________________________________

My husband Todd and I are mismatched.

He is laid back.

I am high-strung.

He is energized by lots of alone time.

I am energized by being with people.

He loves smooth jazz stations.

I prefer talk radio.

He is “get to the point” already!

I am “tell all the details so it makes a great story”.

He is a simple ham sandwich with a pickle spear and side of chips.

I am a colorful grilled chicken salad with yellow mild pepper rings and snow white feta cheese and crimson dried cranberries with a splash of raspberry vinaigrette dressing and a sunny lemon-poppy seed muffin.

We are just not at all alike.

And it makes for a FABULOUS marriage.

No. Really.

Just like the candlesticks I described in the above devotion, we make a perfect pair.

Even though I am sure a compatibility test would NEVER couple Todd and I together, we are committed to making our mismatched marriage work.

Sometimes I wonder how we ever got married, being that we are so different. However, the old saying is true. Opposites do attract.

And then, they attack!

Living 24/7 with someone who does things so differently than you, who reacts in ways you wouldn’t or who thinks issues are so vital that you think are relative non-issues, well…it is just a set up for disaster!

Nearly 24 years of marriage has taught us that we are NEVER going to agree on every major parenting dilemma; or the proper way to stack the dishes; or which brand of toilet paper to buy. That is BEFORE we argue about which way it should go on the roll. (And people….can I just say, arguing about which way the toilet paper goes on the roll is just plain silly. After all, anyone with any sense knows that the paper should hang off of the FRONT of the roll! )

Let’s face it, living with another person, even one you are crazy in love with, is sometimes rocky and rough.

So let me tell you the one aspect of  my mismatched marriage that I love.

It keeps me on my knees.

You see, if I had a perfect husband who could meet my every need, I would have no need for God.

And if he had a flawless wife who never yelled or nagged (not that I ever do those things!), he would have no need for a savior.

So that, dear cyber sister, is why I am thankful I have a husband who drives me nuts (and he, a wife who drives him even nutty-er!)

Because….it drives us both straight to Jesus.

For those of you who too are in a mismatched marriage, I have a little giveaway that may help you.  It is pictured here (along with our mismatched candlesticks!)

It is a couples “basket-in-a-box” centered around my friends’ Bill and Pam Farrel’s book Men Are Like Waffles,Women Are Like Spaghetti; Understanding and Delighting in Your Differences.

In the Farrel’s words:

Why is communication with the opposite gender so difficult?  Because Men are like Waffles, and Women are Like Spaghetti!

Men process life in boxes. If you look down at a waffle, you see a collection of boxes separated by walls. That is typically how a man processes life. Our thinking is divided up into boxes that have room for one issue and one issue only. The first issue of life goes in the first box, the second goes in the second box and so on. The typical man then spends time in one box at a time and one box only. When a man is at work, he is at work. When he is in the garage tinkering around, he is in the garage tinkering. When he is watching TV, he is WATCHING TV! Social scientists call this “compartmentalizing”.

In contrast to men’s waffle like approach, women process life more like a plate of spaghetti. If you look at a plate of spaghetti, you notice that there are individual noodles that all touch one another. If you attempted to follow one noodle around the plate, you would intersect a lot of other noodles and you might even switch to another noodle seamlessly. That is how women face life. This is why women are typically better at multi-tasking than men. She can talk on the phone, prepare a meal, make a shopping list, work on the planning for tomorrow’s business meeting, give instructions to her children as they are going out to play and close the door with her foot without skipping a beat!

This is just a sampling of some of the helpful marital info you’ll find in this fabulous book!

To round out this marriage giveaway, here is what else is included:

• For her, some Irresistible Apple Bath and Body Works Lotion. (Eve tempted Adam to evil with an apple. Maybe you can tempt your husband in a good way with this apple lotion. Are you trackin’ with me ladies?)
• For him, some C.O. Bigelow’s Bay Rum After Shave Lotion (Most after shave makes me sneeze. This one makes me want to ask Todd if he’s in the mood for a little “horizontal fellowship” )
• Does he drive you nuts? Enjoy some Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Almonds!
• He thinks you are a complete and total fruit? Feed each other some Dark Chocolate-Covered Pomegranate Pieces! (So much better than grapes!)
• Are the two of you as different as salty, snappy pretzels and smooth, sweet peanut butter? Well, those two tastes, just like you two, blend beautifully in a bag of H.K. Anderson Peanut Butter Filled Nuggets.

Okay, hop on and comment. I want you to tell one aspect of your husband’s personality that you appreciate. One gal who comments will win the couples giveaway centered around the Farrel’s helpful book! I’ll leave this post up through the weekend and the winner will be announced Monday.

I’ll go first.

I adore my husband’s calm, cool, collected, “I refuse to panic” personality.

I can freak out in a split second. He just doesn’t worry, fret or stress. His faith in God is cemented firm. In fact, when Kenz was stranded all alone in a winter storm in NC last Friday (post here), I was busy planning her funeral as I frantically talked out-loud to him, just after we’d crawled in bed after talking to a very distressed Kenz. Within a few minutes of my jaws flappin’, he was soundly snoring in the bed next to me. No joke!!!

Now, what do you appreciate about your husband?

Mismatched Blessings,

Thin places.

The term, “thin places” has its roots deep in Celtic Christianity. The thought is that there are two layers or dimensions of reality to our existence while here on earth: the tangible, visible world of our ordinary experience and the hidden, unseen world of the Spirit. However, there are brief moments in ones life when the thin curtain separating the two worlds is drawn back and we“see” or experience that unseen world.

In scripture, when Moses met God in a burning bush or Peter, James and John had their own “can’t we stay here forever?” mountain-top experience, they met God in a thin place.

At times in retrospect, we glance back at our own lives and see that God often met us in such a thin place in the midst of pain or tragedy. Those times when sometimes we seemed most abandoned by humans and perhaps by God are often the times when He actually drew more near.

Author and friend Mary DeMuth releases this week her new book entitled Thin Places; A Memoir. I first met Mary thorough our connection at Hearts at Home. My father-in-law passed away and I had to cancel an appearance at a west coast conference. Mary graciously took my place. I watched her launch her writing career, beginning with non-fiction books for moms designed to help them build the Christian family they never had. From there she tried her hand (very successfully, I might add) at fiction, penning a trilogy of books set in the east Texas town of Defiance. Now, she writes a memoir.

Below is a brief description of that memoir Thin Places, followed by a short interview with this amazing writer. And today, Mary is generously offering to give away a signed copy to one of you who leaves a comment, so don’t forget to chime in at the close of this post.

In this moving spiritual memoir ”Thin Places” Mary DeMuth traces the winding path of thin places in her life, places where she experienced longing and healing more intensely than before. From surviving abuse as a latchkey kid to discovering a heavenly Father who never leaves, Mary’s story invites you to a deeper understanding of your own story. She calls you to discover new ways to look for God in the past so that you might experience him more profoundly in the present.

What if you could retrace your life and discover its thin places—”places where the division between this world and the eternal fades? Thin places are snatches of holy ground, tucked into the corners of our world, where we might just catch a glimpse of eternity. They are aha moments, beautiful realizations, when the Son of God bursts through the hazy fog of our monotony and shines on us afresh. He has come near to your life. This book will will show you how.

Now, let’s hear from Mary….

Mary, when and how did God nudge you, prompting you to write Thin Places?

A few years ago, everything just came to me. I’d been through so much healing, and God said it was time to write about the past in a more detailed way. Thin Places, as a metaphor, came in a similar way. I pitched the book to my agent who loved it, then sent it to Zondervan. They loved it too, thankfully. I wrote the book, giving myself the freedom to say everything and anything, with no filter. My editor, bless him, then helped me rein in my meandering thoughts. But giving myself permission to say it all really helped the book. So many times, we censor ourselves before we even come to the page.

How was writing this memoir different from writing your non-fiction parenting books and your fiction trilogy?

In some ways, since I’m a storyteller, not much was different, only this time I wasn’t writing a novel or a parenting narrative. I was the heroine/needy girl in of the story. The story arc was my own. In a strange sense, I was a character in the story God wrote for me long before the foundation of the world. The difficulty was getting it all down in a cohesive way.

What do you desire for women to learn from walking alongside you in your past on the pages of Thin Places?

I know most of your blog readers are women, but alas, even men are getting blessed by the book, which was one of my hopes. The CEO of Children’s Hope Chest, Tom Davis, (a novelist himself) wrote, “I am not the same after reading this book.” So for anyone reading this book, I pray they’ll see some of their own story in mine, discern the way Jesus breaks through the dark places, and be brave enough to want healing. Healing is a difficult journey, and many of us shy away because of the darkness. We forget that Jesus is the great light in the darkness.

What is one nugget of encouragement you can give others who too have experienced a painful or shameful past?

See your loss as a positive thing. In 2 Corinthians 12:9-10, Paul asserts that God is only strong in our weakness. Think about that a moment. We’re running around like crazy people trying to put on this facade of strength, denying our pasts, trying to decorate over our pain, when in actuality it’s our pain and weakness that gives God permission to be strong. I’m glad I’m weak. I’m thankful. Because of that, Jesus comes through all the brighter. Embrace your weakness!

Thank you Mary for sharing a bit with us and for offering a signed book to one of our cyber-sisters today.

You are very welcome!

Okay everyone, I cannot tell you how much this book impacted me. I picked it up a little over a week ago to peruse before drifting off to sleep around 10:oo pm. I needed to decide just where it should go in my ever-growing stack of “books written by both friends and strangers that I really need to read”.

I read the first three pages….and then the reaming 212 all at once!!!!”

Finally cried myself to sleep (in a very good way) at 1:23 am.

Could. Not. Put. This. Book. Down!!!

I encourage you to experience God’s ever-near presence throughout the pages of this painful and beautiful story.

So please leave a comment today. It can be a simple “I’m in!” comment or  perchance one about a thin place of your own where now, looking back, you can see God was there.

The winner will be announced tomorrow.

Thin Placed Blessings,

A FEW NOTES: Please come back tomorrow when I’ll I feature a short interview with Mary DeMuth on her new book Thin Places; A Memoir. Then Thursday, I’ll offer a couples ‘basket-in-a-box’ giveaway in conjunction with a marriage devotion I’ll have running on our Proverbs 31 site. Please join us!

What a weekend! I thought I was facing a calm and ordinary three days–Friday night boys basketball games, a lazy Saturday to work around the house, get a little writing done, catch up on reading the comments left on Friday’s post about multi-tasking (with so many of you commenting, we’ll definitely talk more about that subject this year!) and finally a Sunday supper at my mom’s to celebrate four of the grand-kids birthdays. Instead, these last few days turned into a weekend I won’t soon forget.

Our daughter Kenzie was headed Friday from her home in Charlotte, NC with my P31 sister’s Melanie Chitwood’s family, to meet her dear friends, Cameron and his beautiful bride-to-be Chelsea, who both live in the Nashville area. They were planning to meet in the middle near Pigeon Forge, TN and was she ever excited.

With national TV and features like the weather channel, I’m sure many of you know where this is headed. (I couldn’t believe the vast number of you who left comments over the weekend saying you were snowed or iced in and loving it since it gave you a much needed break from your activity-overloaded lifestyle!)

I won’t tell you the entire story, as Mackenzie shares her thoughts below in a guest post, but I will give God the glory and give a shout out to my other P31 sister Whitney Capps for her quick thinking and decisive action. I’ll fill you in as to why after you read Kenz’s words.

Here is our 18-year-old daughter Mackenzie’s thoughts about her venture and adventure in the mountains of North Carolina this past weekend written Friday night near midnight :

Things don’t ever go according to plans, do they?

When we want our chicken to be grilled, it comes out fried.

We plan to go to the mall, and we get called to work instead.

You plan a lunch date, and your friend forgets.

You plan a long weekend with two of your best friends, and 8 inches of snow decides to fall and accidents surround you.

Let me explain.

About 3 weeks ago I received a text from my good friend Cameron. He told me that the last weekend in January was his weekend off and he and his fiancé, Chelsea, who I am also close with, wanted to meet me half-way between Charlotte and Nashville for a fun weekend get-away. What a perfect idea!

So, I checked with my school and my boss and began to work things out. We found a town, a hotel, fun things to do, and some movies to watch. Everything seemed to be going perfectly. Before we knew it, the weekend was here!

With bags packed and excitement in the air, I started my day. First, school. Second, work. Third, Cameron and Chelsea….here I come!

School went well and work was great. I packed my “girls” (aka. Lysa TerKeurst’s daughters, whom I was helping out with on Friday afternoon) for a weekend at the Great Wolfe Lodge with their dad. Then I hopped in my car, a half hour earlier than planned.

Things were looking good for me, and despite the fact that the weather man was calling for a “blizzard”, I ventured out. Me being a small-town, northern girl, I knew I could brave ANY storm. And I’d seen what southerners call a snow storm. I call it a ‘dusting’.

Well the snow began to spit. Nothing much, just a few flurries. As I made my way to the mountains, nothing was going to stop me.

The further I drove the worse it got. The treetops began to be feathered with white fluff, and the road became damp. I assumed that it would get better.

However, it didn’t.

About 30 minutes later, the trees were white, the ground was slick, and the southerners around me began to slip and slide and honestly, I began to laugh a little.

As traffic came to a crawl, things began to get worse. Soon we were stopped.

After sitting still for about 15 minutes, I got out of my car to see what was going on. About four cars in front of me, there was a jeep stuck in the snow. As these now-cold southerners sat in their warm new BMW’s, Mustangs, and Jaguars, I saw this one poor man who was struggling to get his SUV out of the ditch with the help of his passenger.

Being the northern girl that I am and observing their spinning wheels, I knew they were only making it worse by digging themselves into this ditch. I threw on my leather jacket, grabbed my fleece, and headed out to help. I rigged a little “Yankee traction” under the tires, taught them how to “rock” the vehicle and helped them out. I chuckled under my breath as I got back into my 1998 Buick.

We actually began to move again. However, it did not last long.

Suddenly things were dead. With 8 inches of snow around us and no sign of movement, people were getting impatient and finally emerging from their cars. There were so many accidents that the interstate and all exits were now completely closed until morning. Many were abandoning their cars to try to get to safety.

With my gas gauge almost to empty, I decided the best thing to do would be to abandon my car too and walk.

Walk with ALL of my belongings for the weekend to the nearest hotel. Mr. Scott (Chitwood–my southern dad) called and made reservations at a hotel at the next exit for me. (Thank God!)

So, I began my hike.

I met a girl on the way and we got to talking. But then as our fingers began to go numb on our nearly 3-mile walk and our chattering voices fell silent.

However, my thoughts piped up.

You see, in my head I was going over all of my many complaints: my feet were cold, I couldn’t feel my hands, my nose was running, my shoulder really hurt, I might not get to meet my friends, I was hungry. The usual self-centered ’I’ and ‘me’ statements.

But suddenly, I began to think about all of the things I was carrying.

My coach purse my parents got me for my 18th birthday; my MacBookPro laptop I bought with my graduation open house money; my Nikon camera; my clothes; my cell phone; my movies. And as I did, a picture popped into my whining and complaining mind.

I thought about all the people in Haiti.

They were in the same boat as me, only worse.

You see they don’t even have any of those nice things to carry.

They can’t walk a few miles to a waiting, warm bed.

They don’t have clean water.

They can’t even pay $10 for an over priced salad at the hotel restaurant.

I began to realize that I was blessed.

We are all blessed.

Even when things don’t go as we planned.

Even when we have to walk.

In the cold.

In a half-foot of snow.

For three miles.

Still, we are blessed.

To put an end to my story– a nice family who hardly spoke English gave both the girl I was walking with and me a ride the rest of the way to the hotel. I got checked in and am now waiting out the storm. They say it won’t be until Sunday that I can get my car and leave.

Right now, I am taking this time to be still; to pray; to think about how blessed I am and the way God works things out.

Things may not always go according to our plans, but they are always in line with God’s plans.

___________________________________________________________________________

Okay…..Karen here again. Now let me tell you, Paul Harvey style, the rest of the story.

It was nearly midnight Friday.  I had just sent an email out to my personal prayer team and all of my P31 sisters asking for prayer for my baby girl who was stranded somewhere alone a few hours west of Charlotte.

So, I asked Kenz to please look at the hotel literature and tell me what town she was in.

“Fletcher, NC” she said.

“Okay honey. Good-night. I love you.” I hung up the phone and switched on the weather channel.

JUST THEN the weather man, when giving news on the now-strengthening storm, declared, “The eye of the storm is centered over the small town of Fletcher, North Carolina.

For the first time, I began to cry.

And panic.

And let my mind wander.

And plan a funeral for my “stranded-all-alone-in-a-winter-storm-in-a-strange-hotel-and-kidnapped-by-a-bad-man-never-to-be-heard-from-again” daughter.

(Have you ever noticed how we moms can plan an entire funeral when our driving-aged kids are 15 minutes late?)

All of a sudden, the ringing phone startled me out of my mental fog.

It was fellow P31 speaker Whitney. She lives in Atlanta. When I saw her name on caller ID, I assumed she was calling to pray with me and I welcomed it.

But it was even better.

She was calling to say that she was speaking next week at a church event in the Asheville, NC area (where she thought it sounded like Kenz may be). She had texted Kenz to see exactly where she was. Then, she had bravely called the event coordinator, a deacon at the church, getting him and his wife out of bed. She told them of Kenz’s plight and asked just where in the Asheville area they lived. Perhaps they were within driving distance.

Oh sweet Jesus……they live in Fletcher!!!

Whitney gave each of them the other’s contact info and this sweet young couple and their darling two-year-old son rescued Mackenzie early Saturday morning.

They fed her; gave her a place to stay; helped her track down her car the next day which had been towed and which the state police had no idea to where. They loved on her, made her a part of their family and made her homemade pancakes to boot!!! Sunday they got her back to her car and back on the road headed home.

I may never meet this angelic family this side of heaven but you can bet your bottom dollar I’ll be hugging on their necks the minute we all three are inside the pearly gates! For they perfectly lived out this truth. The scene is heaven:

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ ”The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’” Matthew 25:37-40

I marveled once again at our God. He is always in control. Kenz’s right….everything may not be according to our plans.

But according to His plans.

Oh…and He is quite comical sometimes too. As I sat in my home church Sunday morning with Kenz’s end to her saga nearly in view, the special music ensemble sang these words loud and clear…

“Keep me safe until the storm passes by…”

What about you? Have any storms you are currently smack-dab in the eye of? The same God who rescued my Yankee girl, using a few of his sweet southern saints to help, can do the same for you if you will follow her lead.

Cry out.

Accept help from others.

Stop the “I” and “me” statements already and instead, learn the lesson He’s trying to teach you in the midst of it.

I plan to follow my daughter’s example this very week in the midst of my own personal storm. How about you?

____________________________________________________________________________

Congrats to the winner of Friday’s organizational giveaway. She is:

Marcie Kay

Timestamp: January 29, 2010 at 2:53 pm

Send your mailing address to me at karen@proverbs31.org so I can get your prize to you!

Storm-surviving Blessings,

I want to give a shout out to those of you joining us today by way of the Encouragement for Today devotion I have up over at Crosswalk.com and on our site at Proverbs 31.org. If you haven’t read it yet and watch to catch up with the rest of us, click here to do so. Don’t forget to come back and enter the giveaway!

Speaking of giveaway….let me tell you about it first. It is an organizational ‘basket-in-a-box’ centered around my book The Complete Guide to Getting and Staying Organized. In addition to the book, it includes:

* A 13 pocket, expandable accordion file

*Some funky, swirly, colorful, large paper clips

*A magnetic ‘to-do’ list pad

*A set of fun file folders to organize your papers

* A way cool plastic “tall grass” holder for your desk top designed to hold pens, pencils, scissors, etc

*And two packets of premium flavored hot cocoa–one chocolate hazelnut and one cinnamon chocolate– to sip and savor while you read and organize

Just click on the form below to leave a comment on this post and you’ll be entered in the drawing. The winner will be announced Monday. Now……

To multi-task or not to multi-task?

That is the question.

The answer?

Yes.

And no.

We women are experts at multi-tasking. We can be talking on the phone, French braiding hair, cooking supper, helping a child with homework and nursing a baby….all at once.

Men?

They can change a light bulb.

But don’t you dare ask them a question while they are in the middle of changing that light bulb because they’ll have to stop their twisting motion in order to answer you!

(Okay….maybe I exaggerate just a little…)

A woman’s ability to multi-task can be both a blessing and a curse.

It can be beneficial during on those days we need to get more done in less time. And it can be detrimental when it detracts from something important that requires our focused attention.

For example….being on hold with the insurance company while sorting laundry?

Good.

Trying to paint your nails while a crying teen pours her heart out to you about a friend who hurt her?

Not so good.

Cleaning the bathroom while you supervise your toddler as he plays and splashes in the tub?

Good.

Typing away on the computer and checking email while your friend on the other end of the phone tells you her husband is divorcing her?

Not so good.

Yep, multi-tasking can be great! (And let’s see if any of you can beat one of my friend’s best records. One day I called her and discovered she was talking on the phone to me, bleaching her teeth, giving her son a spelling test and bouncing on the mini-tramp for exercise all at once!)

But multi-tasking is not wise when there are actual living, breathing people who need our attention. People with needs. And feelings.

At those times, perhaps we should fight that innate urge to multi-task.

And, on a grander scale, we must fight the urge to multi-task by taking on too many responsibilities outside of our four walls; by saying ‘yes’ to numerous commitments we really don’t feel called to but are afraid to say no to; by wearing too many hats at church, school or in the community in an attempt to be the 2010 version of Super Woman.

Nearly did me in a few years ago.

Then I heard a few statements that helped me to sort through my over-committed schedule and scrape off my too-full plate. They are:

1. Beware of the barrenness of a busy life.
2. Don’t take on more than you can pray for.
3. If Satan can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.

The first comment I read in a book over 20 years ago, although I don’t remember which book! I actually have that phrase printed above the signature line of our checks as a constant reminder. The busy life isn’t full and rewarding. It is barren. Empty.

The second comment was spoken by my friend Becky Glenn at a Hearts at Home conference many years ago. So wise! If you can’t commit to praying for the all of the responsibilities, situations and people that will go with the new task at hand, then say no.

And the third I’ve heard many places and it really is a clever trick of the enemy. Bad? We good Bible study gals know more than to be bad? But busy? Yep! We fall for that one every time. The truth is, both bad and busy render us ineffective for service to Christ.

Well, cyber sister, how about you? Where do you rank on the multi-tasking scale?

Are you tempered and balanced, with enough white space on your calendar and in your day to keep you sane and connected with God and with those you love?

Or are you on activity overload, constantly playing catch-up as you run George Jetson-style on the busyness treadmill of life?

Or are you somewhere smack dab in between?

Does one of the three statements above jump out at you? Why?

Hop on and join the discussion today. By doing so, you will be entered in the drawing for the giveaway. However, if you are too busy to write out a comment, then simply say “I’m in!”. You’ll still be entered.

If that is all the time you have today…no problem! You are either too busy and you need to do some plate scraping yourself (don’t worry…I too am fixin’ to do a little plate scraping real soon)….or someone needs your attention right now, so you are being careful not to multi-task when you shouldn’t. Bravo!

Comments?

Plate-scraping Blessings,

I had really high hopes for what I was going to accomplish this past weekend.

My youngest and the hubster were headed to one of our all-time favorite places to be–Camp Barakel. Their weekend would consist of all things father and son’ish’ like ice fishing, snow tubing, playing broom hockey and human bowling on ice (don’t ask!) And they’d eat well and learn lots about Jesus.

My other son had a far away, early Saturday morning JV basketball game and my sweet friend Cindy and her family took him for me. We play at this location again tonight when I will be sweet and take her son with our family. (I love taking turns with friends who love to take turns back!) Then Mitch spent the day and night with a friend who is a single dad and his boys. Mitch loves it there. They watch ball games and work out and eat ‘man food’ all weekend. And he helps fold laundry while watching the games and pitches in with the weekend cleaning. Being a single parent is hard and I’m glad he can help out.

This set up left me with an entire day and a half alone! I was so excited about it I could hardly contain myself. On Thursday I rattled off a list to my friend Jill of all the things I would get done. I have a new marriage talk to work on for the upcoming Hearts at Home national conference. I have three manuscripts to read for women who’ve asked me to endorse their upcoming books. I have several friends whom I’m going to be interviewing here on my blog and I haven’t got around to crafting their questions. (They’ve probably thought I’ve forgotten them!) And have three ever-growing piles of papers that need my attention; one of ‘to do soon’; one called by the dreaded “T” word–taxes and one of ‘to do when I get around to it– no hurry”

Man, I planned to bust up those piles.

And work on that talk.

And craft those questions.

And read those manuscripts.

And be alone.

With God.

I really only got that last, most important one accomplished.

And it is okay.

You see, I really struggle with doing. Not that I don’t get things done. I don’t mean that. I can get lots done. I love doing. Makes me feel useful. And important. And wanted.

I struggle with doing too much.

I’d much rather be doing than being. I am a good doer, but a poor be-er.

But God nudged me by recalling for me comments made by this friend and this one. They both said virtually the same thing; one in a talk and one in the written word. They talked about the struggle between being a ‘doer’ and a ‘be-er”. And one made the statement that we are called humans ‘beings’ for a reason.

We are not however, called human ‘doings’.

Ouch.

So, this weekend I felt God calling me to stop doing and start being; to rest, rather than work; to put away those emails and housekeeping tasks and tax papers; to not measure my weekend by how much I’d crossed off my ‘to do’ lists.

He had a ‘to be’ list for me instead.

So I slept in one day. I puttered around and tidied up the house a bit. I read my Bible. I prayed. I watched a little TV, something I hardly ever do. I used to have only 2 shows I liked to watch. 24 and American Idol.

Hello!! I guess both of those show have already begun their seasons this year and besides an Internet version of the now famous “Pants on the Ground” anti-rapper song by that hilarious gentleman General Larry Platt, I haven’t seen either of these shows yet!

Too busy doing.

This weekend, however, was full of being for me.

I did end up doing some reading. No, not of the three manuscripts waiting for my endorsement (don’t worry Thais, Shari and Marybeth . I’ll get them read by deadline. Pinky Promise!)

No, I read an advanced copy of another friend’s book that has already released. Her publisher sent me a copy to read and perhaps chat about on my blog. I picked it up around 9:45 on Saturday night to peruse for a few minutes before drifting off to sleep.

No drifting happened until 1:23 am!!!

Could. Not. Put. This. Book. Down!!!!!

Suffice it to say, I will be blogging about Mary DeMuth’s Memoir Thin Places.

Soon.

One of the BEST, gut-wrenching and honest looks at how the God Who Sees (El Roi) is always with us and always has been.

I have about 7 people I want to buy this book for and I can’t wait for you to hear what God taught me through my nearly 4 hour, tear-stained, reading marathon late Saturday night. (Good thing I’d slept in that morn!)

My weekend finished with picking up Mitch and heading to a friend’s church before he and I went out to lunch at Cracker Barrel in Lansing and did some serious basketball warm-up pants shopping, both of which speak love to a 15-year-old, big-breakfast loving jock.

Oh, and by the way, the fabulous sermon at that church was on….

Rest.

Okay God. I think I get your point loud and clear!!!!

Resting and Being Blessings,

My casserole dish made the rounds last week.

One day, it held a batch of Boston Grahams, my son’s favorite dessert, as he celebrated his birthday with 7 of his best buds.

One evening, it held a pasta dish for our family as we ate dinner, laughed and caught each other up on our days.

One afternoon, it housed a jello salad, complete with mandarin oranges. My boys beg for jello salad and I hardy ever make it. But that day I obliged. So I cheerfully whipped up the treat, somehow hoping that perhaps the real fruit included might cancel out the sugar, dye and chemicals in the powdered jello mix. They enjoyed it for lunch for a few days in a row.

And finally, one early morning last week, I made another batch of that jello desert. I had received a phone call asking me to make it by Friday morning.

This time to take to a funeral; a funeral of a family at church that had to bury their their young adult daughter.

Oh how I wish casserole dishes were only made for sporting food at happy occasions.

But they are not.

They sometimes are an important part of carrying out the command in Romans 12:15 to “Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.”

What will your dishes hold this week?

Blessings,