One Year Anniversary

Real quick because we are expecting company any minute. Today was the first anniversary of The Journey Community Church in Conifer. I don't know if I am on the verge of tears because I am utterly exhausted or because I live in a beautiful state that I am really beginning to love (even though it is not Texas), and the pastor's wife of a church full of wonderful people who have become my nearest and dearest friends. I feel both honored and undeserving.

We had just short of two hundred people in our congregation this morning. In one year, to go from twenty plus people in a large high school cafetorium to almost two hundred is truly a blessing from God. So much has happened over the year that I regrettably did not journal, but our media guys put together a phenomenal slide show that I will soon post if the file is not to big to download? Does that sound right. I am not computer savvy.

Well, I am off to drink a Seagram's and share a few laughs with some friends. We have a long stretch ahead of us, and we are so excited about what God is doing through a messy group of people. Today we have cause to celebrate. Happy Anniversay, Conifer Congregation! I love you.

R.I.P.

I don't know how many readers I have left. I don't care. I don't mean to hurt your feelings. It's not personal. But I also realize that I have not consistently written, and I know that if I kept coming back to same blog to see the same post of weeks past, I would move on. Knowing that is the possible scenario I have created, I decided to start over and use this as my own personal diary where I am daring to lay it all out. I have gone through many spirals, expensive moleskines, and diaries with pretty pictures on the front and have never once filled one up. I was only going through the motions, writing for the sake of perfecting my handwriting and never penning my joys, frustrations, successes and utter failures to be learned from by my children or any one for that matter.

I don't have a baby, so I don't have cute pictures or stories of "firsts". I don't own a home, so I can't keep you abreast of a renovation or an exploding water heater. What I do have at this very moment is a life being smashed, challenged, refined, and rebuilt, and it isn't the stuff the other blogs are made of. And I am okay with that. So I wrote all of that to say, read if you'd like. Or not. I can be funny. I will have good stories, but I will also be laying myself bare.

I just felt like I had to explain.

Wednesday, September 2, 2009
I was in my element today . . . or so I thought. Michael's dinner was in the crock pot, brownies were baking in the oven for the kid's after school snack. I offered the Comcast guy a water and made a friend in the process. His name is also Mike. Except I don't call my husband Mike. I can't. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard to me. Michael. His name is Michael.

I make a great wife and mother. I make a horrible pastor's wife. I recently heard through the grapevine that most pastor's wives are despised by close friends of the pastors. And to be quite honest, I haven't met one I really like either. She was trying to be nice to me, but honestly, anytime she did address me, I felt belittled. She spoke slow like I didn't understand what she was saying. And everything I hated in her, . . . I absolutely despise in me. Insecurity. Foul smelling, repulsive and unattractive insecurity.

I am married to a great man. I am. Everyone adores him (Well, almost everyone-except older ministers and ultra conservative Christians) and loves the vision God put in his heart. He is passionate, and desperately wants to see lives changed even if it means saying the unpopular thing. He tells it like it is. He tells me like it is.

Tonight he told me things that made me angry. Truth. I have been very angry lately. I don't remember being an angry person, but at some point, this cheery and lovable Aimes turned downright mean. I didn't mean it to happen, but it did. I don't speak venom, but I can show you my disapproval by the turn of a head, the "humph" in my tone and the indifference I show to those that are supposed to be my closet friends.

I am very personable on Sundays. I can turn it on! I smile and laugh and listen and hug and I am sincere all the way, . . . .and then I come home. And at home, I am agitated with those who work for my husband. I am agitated at my friends- friends who have no problem confronting me when I am being less than the wife, mother, friend or Christ-Follower that God made me to be. You should know that all my very close friends are much younger than me. In their early twenties, they are driven and loud and argumentative and loving, but I only like the loving part because somewhere I learned that the younger are to respect the older. Just because. But they didn't get the memo. You want respect. You've got to earn it. And sadly, I haven't.

So therein lies my problem. I have not been leading with my husband. I have been playing "dress up" in pastor's wife clothing-wanting the position, but not being a pastor to the kids God entrusted us with. Trying to impress the congregation without encouraging the ones closest to me who have laid down their lives to follow us on this journey God is leading.

Nobody respects position anymore. I doubt anyone ever did. Oh, maybe for a while, but if the person in the respected position isn't loving or encouraging to the ones they come in contact with, then they aren't worth following. And that is the lesson I am learning. Not fast enough, but I am learning none-the-less.

I thank God for a husband who doesn't coddle me, but challenges me to be Christ-like. I don't always like it, but dying isn't always painless and I don't think there's a Vicodin strong enough to numb the death of self.

Dancing On The Edge Of Insanity With A Drumstick In Hand

It's 11:18 PM, and I have no business being awake considering the crazy life I lead as a coffee shop owner, pastor's wife and mother of three. For the last couple of months I have spent almost every waking hour at Detours. So much so that we no longer have food in the cupboards at home because . . .what's the point?! We are never here anymore. And both our living rooms have but fold up, canvas camping chairs as we have taken our furniture to the coffee shop. We lounge there more than we do here because have I mentioned that we are never here?

I am not complaining though. While I am prone to lose my mind when there is void of anything productive to do, I am too busy to go crazy. I can't seem to pencil it in my Planner. Today I learned that I now have even more responsibilities. I work with my husband, and he let me know that I will be posting two blogs per week, writing a book, and answering all of his emails. No problem. I actually look forward to this challenge. I look forward to writing again. It's sad that I have to have Michael breathing down my neck to motivate me, but at least it's a start.

Anyway, I write that to say that should I end up in a tower overlooking a grassy knoll with a paint ball rifle and a bucket of Popeye's chicken, you can refer back to this posting. It should hold up in court.

Just Plain Cool!

I am a teenager up to no good. Here I sit in my dark room with only the glow up the laptop screen to light the way for my fingertips. I am hiding from my husband. He is not controlling and untrusting; he is caring-overly caring. He knows the effects sleep deprivation has on me. Ha! He also knows the effect my lack of sleep has on him. This Pollyanna turns Pitt Bull when she is tired. My eyes roll back in my head, my head spins, and I spew vomit on holy men. Does that scene sound vaguely familiar. Yeah, it's from the 1973 movie, The Exorcist. Ironically, that was the year I was born. I'm convinced the teenager in the movie wasn't demon-possessed. I would like to offer another suggestion. She was stressed out, sleep deprived, dehydrated and secretly married with children. It's just a thought.

That was me last week. I am better now. What has changed? Well, I carry with me a liter of water everywhere I go. The key is to actually drink the water. I'm working on that one, but hey, I have the look of someone who is health conscience. I run three miles a day. Let me clarify that by saying that I run when the conditions are favorable-very late at night when it is very cool outside and with earphones blaring music. For those three miles my music selection is questionable. I listen to music parents have banned from their children. Eminem, J-Z and Linkin Park, Nickleback and whatever driving beat moves me forward one more step. If my brain can't hear me breath hard then it doesn't know to tell my body that she has absolutely no business running. "Take up bowling, sister, and save this sport for the cute and tiny yuppie people, and FOR THE LOVE OF GOD!-who told you you could wear that?! I didn't even know they made running gear in that size!" So I crank up the tunes (as my seven year old puts it) and drown out all voices. La la la la. I can't hear you.

Tomorrow is a big day. We opened a coffee shop. Well, we actually opened it a couple months ago, but by the time we painted it, put furniture in it and caught it up to code by the State of Colorado standards, we had enough money to just sell coffee. Seriously. Coffee-that's it. Nothing more. It must be pretty good coffee because we consistantly had customers. This past Thursday, we hosted a Spelling Bee and had quite the turn out. Families from the neighborhood showed up, we served them coffee, popped some popcorn in our commercial popcorn machine and tried to stump them with words that I didn't even know existed. I was surprised-it was fun and actually brought people in. When I mentioned to the women there that I considered having Bunco Night, they were visably excited. It could've been the prospecct of winning cash at a buy in of five bucks. They were even more excited when we told them we would be serving food soon.

We would be serving food soon. We were speaking in faith of course because we barely had two pennies to rub together. The next day (Friday), we went to climb a mountain. Technically, it was a really big hill, but those of us from Texas would say otherwise. What we thought would take us thirty minutes to climb up and back ended up taking us two and a half hours to conquer. On the way down, I asked Michael if the porta potty was relatively clean as he had paid it a visit before the climb. He informed me that it wasn't and we continued on our trek. Little did I know that Michael had a little conversation with God that would change the rest of our weekend and quite possibly the course of our business. "God, it would be cool if when we got down this mountain, the bathroom would be clean so that my wife could use it." It wasn't ten minutes later, as the end of the trail and the parking lot came into view that we saw a truck pull away from the porta potty. It had just been cleaned! I kid you not! Michael laughed to himself and then filled me in on what had just taken place.

We all loaded into the van and Michael informed the rest of our crew of his weird answered prayer. "Man, I should've prayed for a thousand bucks! We only need a thousand bucks to buy the food to sell at the coffee shop." His cell phone rang before we even got out of the parking lot. Someone from Kansas City wanted to donate one thousand dollars to us for whatever church need or personal need we had. And God said to Michael, "There. There's your thousand bucks."

It's 11:08 p.m. Tomorrow I must get up minutes before five so that I can go to the coffee shop early to prep the food. I am excited. I am tire, but excited. So anyway, that is what is going on. I will be back with more later. Have a great week, and here's hoping you have a few answered prayers of your own before the week's end.

Giving Into Tempation

It's 8:34 on a Saturday evening, and I am restless. I should be preparing for tomorrow's Sunday school lesson, but my tired brain refuses to slow down. Boy, I wish it would have cooperated with my legs earlier today when I was running. It's amazing how the brain is the strongest muscle in the body-one unchecked negative thought and this spongy mass is standing in center ring holding high a gaudy gold belt and talking trash. While running three miles has not been an issue for me before, I couldn't run without stopping several times to stretch, adjust earphones or to just talk myself into running to the next sign, park bench and water fountain. Oh well, it defeated me today, but it won't happen again.

So now I sit here at my computer, pushing away cravings for Dairy Queen's soft serve ice cream. . . . arghhh! It won again!

I'm Singing In The Rain

This is the fourth day that it has been overcast and rainy. It is starting to affect my mood. I'm feeling a little "blah". Blah-only a word a woman would use to describe her feelings. Michael doesn't understand; he either feels great, good or like shit. So I guess if I had to translate my blah into man's lingo, I would say it is somewhere in between good and shit. So there you have it. I am hopeful though because tomorrow's forecast reads "Mostly sunny with a high of 70 and a 20% chance of precipitation".

I am amazed that God has given us the ability to use our Jedi Mind Control to change our circumstances . . . .well, at least our feelings about our circumstances. Even now as I write, one of my favorite movies is playing in the background-Sweet Home Alabama. My spirit slightly lifts. My two dogs sleep quietly in my room. While I prefer small dogs over the big ones, Samone, who takes up half my bed, has taken an equal portion of my heart. Quattro, the small ugly Chihuahua, has done the same. Hmmm . . .what was that? Yup. It seems my spirit is a little lighter. Nice! Ahhhh, but the piece de resistance is the four slices of french baguettes toasted in olive oil and topped with fresh Brushcetta that I inhaled in just under three minutes that seals the deal. I am feeling fine.

I am learning with age that I create my own happiness, and in almost everything, there is a life lesson. While I am training for the Denver Marathon, I am learning how powerful the mind really is. If I am hurting and even so much as think I can't take another step, I find myself walking home. But if, in my mind, I see me crossing the finish line of the Marathon, I feel stronger and there is a bounce in my stride. Where your mind goes, your body follows. I don't know who coined the phrase, but they were/are wise.

So while it is rainy, we have very little money and in two days my kids will be home all day for the summer, I am hopeful. I have the greatest friends. I absolutely love my kids. I am healthy. I am still married to my best friend, and I live in beautiful Colorado. Yes, I guess life really is great.

Mulligan

You know the old adage-Beggars Can't Be Choosers. Like a silver platter passed down from a grandmother, while it has no practical daily use, there are those rare occasions you are glad to have it. You pull it out, spit shine it, slap a doily on it and call it a party. My parents have pulled it out on me. I, in turn, have used it on my kids, and now I find myself using it on . . . myself??? What's the occasion you ask?

My pretty little roll top desk is now being taken over by a gigantic computer. While I should be elated because I have been without my very own personal laptop for the last few months, I have now officially lost the excuse to not write. My husband would say I never even had an excuse to begin with (you should know there are four other computers in our house). Being a self-proclaimed partial OCD person, the issues I am having with this computer set up is that 1) None of the pieces match. The screen is an off white Sony flat screen with a couple of cracks in the frame. The speakers are Dell and black. They're actually very nice. The dusty keyboard is compliments of Compaq while the tower is also a Compaq with parts of it visibly missing. And 2) Like I mentioned before, I have lost my excuse to be lazy and undisciplined.

I see it in others-ungratefulness. I saw it just yesterday. While a friend and I were doing walk-throughs and picking up trash outside the apartments that we manage, I was overwhelmed by the sheer amount of garbage that I handled. Nasty, nasty stuff! Cigarette butts, used Q-tips and even a panty liner. I wondered to myself how someone could live in such squalor. Much less, walk by the discarded and not even pick it up. The panty liner pushed me over the edge. I became angry. These apartment dwellers would never move on to bigger better apartments or homes because they were too lazy to take care of the place they did live.

Lazy and ungrateful. Too lazy to utilize a gift God has given me. It's easier seeing those things in others and make excuses for why I am the way I am and do the things I do. I grew up hearing that God cannot bless you with more until you can care for what He has already given you. And while I have seen it work so many times in my life before (the blessing upgrade), I had momentary lapse in . . . well, I just plain forgot.

So here I sit in front of my "newish" computer, and write. And hopefully I will continue to write until one day I am typing another novel on my Mac laptop. So there you have it. It isn't Rowling or even Meyers, but it's a start. . . or restart.
Whatever.