The Blur That Has Been July

WOA! Where has July gone? It’s been a busy few weeks.

Michigan Weekend: Over July 4th, I joined my sister and her family for a long weekend in Michigan. We had a blast, even though Michigan was experiencing unseasonably HIGH temperatures. YIKES! It rarely gets above 100 degrees F, but it did while we were there. HA! We caught fireworks along Lake Huron, shopped at the Croswell Stockyards, played games, had our own fireworks show in the side yard, and just had a great weekend together with my parents and my Grandma. I also got to catch up with my friend Melissa over lunch at Junction Buoy. We hadn’t seen each other in years (too many to count really). It was great to reconnect and enjoy laughing together again.

Newport Aquarium: My friend Becky and I drove to Newport, Kentucky to take in the amazing aquarium there. Tickets are a bit pricey ($22 for adult tickets), but it is worth it for an occasional visit, in my book. If I visited more frequently, a membership would be the way to go. They have lots of shark and tropical fish. Of course, I especially liked their turtles, but that's just me. I'm a turtle girl! I’m also crazy about the jellyfish exhibit. I think jellyfish are beautiful creatures...deadly but beautiful!

Weekend with Jacob: My 7-year-old nephew Jacob came to visit me last weekend on his own. We bowled together on Saturday morning, where Aunt Mel won both games but not by much. Yes, I confess, we both used the bumper rails. I'm rather fond of the bumper rails myself. HA! Saturday afternoon, we toured the IMA's contemporary collection. He liked the Untitled exhibit by Tara Donovan, which was one of the reasons I wanted him to visit the IMA. But in truth, he loved the Jeppe Hein's Distance more. It's an amazing "indoor rollercoaster track for a series of white, plastic balls." You can follow the balls as they make their way along the track, and it is fascinating to say the least. [By the way, both of those exhibits close soon, and so check them out.] We did walk through part 100 Acres as well, but the heat soon sent us heading back to the car for some needed AC. On Sunday, we saw Toy Story 3 in 3D, which is one of the best films of the year, I believe. It was a great end to our incredible weekend of bonding. OK, so I spoiled him a little bit. He got to eat the foods he wanted and watch lots of Scooby Doo movies on Netflix, too. But, hey, I think it is an aunt's right to spoil nieces and nephews! I think of it as my job really...

Part 3: Stretching Out

Three years ago, after months of praying and struggling, I left my church and went out searching for something more. I wallowed a wee bit (I confess), visited other churches, and 12+ months later, came back to my former church determined to make a fresh start.

I immediately tried to get busy serving and doing. I’m a doer, one of those people that can’t just sit still. I’m a Martha. I had struggled to get involved in the church ministries in the past and thought that the church membership class might help me get more involved. I enrolled and took a spiritual gift surveys. I guess I should NOT have been surprised at the results, but I was disheartened to discover my gifts nonetheless. My top 2 gifts were leadership and administration. Not missions or evangelism. Not teaching or serving. No. GOD didn’t make me that way. Fact is that GOD made me to lead, organize and direct. Those are my gifts, and I’ve struggled to embrace them as a woman, especially in church.

Armed with the spiritual gift knowledge, I tried to get involved in the church ministries again, but alas with the same results as before. So I decided to look elsewhere and get actively serving outside the church. I joined up with LDM (Lutheran Disability Ministries) for 5 weekend SonRise Retreats from November through April and loved it. My spirit soared as I rediscovered what “church” should look like – a community, a family of believers coming together out of the bonds of sin and into the arms of Christ to serve together and spread the light of the Gospel in both word and deed. I experienced more community in those weekends working mostly with high schoolers and college age adults than I had encountered in years of attending church.

Then a friend suggested I join her and some of her fellow choir members for monthly hymn sing-a-longs at an area senior living center, and I decided to try it out once and loved it and kept going back for more. Again, here was community in action - a community of senior citizen saints that included me! I was blown away by what GOD was revealing to me and teaching me outside my own concept of church.

I was glad to be actively serving again, but I was struggling with my own church again, and I found myself right back where I started 2 years ago. If I couldn’t find ways to serve at my church and couldn’t find avenues of fellowship there, was worship truly reason enough to keep going? What's that saying about trying the same thing over and over, hoping to get new results? AHEM!

I debated for months and wrestled with GOD about it, but HE just wouldn’t let it go. My friends thoughtfully listened to me and encouraged me. My parents lovingly counseled and prayed with me. And finally, I faced facts. For whatever reason, I have not been able to settle down in my current church assembly, and it is time to move on. I believe that GOD wants to use me elsewhere.

My friend encouraged me to join her church choir and sing with them on a regular basis. This is the same friend that got me singing at the senior center. It sounded great, but I wasn’t sure I could make the switch. I was raised Baptist and was going to a conservative non-denominational church that was once aligned with Baptists, and so attending a Methodist church seemed like a pretty big stretch.

One day my sister shared her own family’s struggles with finding a church and said: “Attending church isn’t like a marriage, Mel. You aren’t committed for life.” I thought long and hard about what my sister said and about all the ways GOD had been leading me over the past few years in such unconventional styles. HE has stretched me, broadened my horizons and broken down my reserves. It’s been quite an adventure, and now I feel HE is leading me into another one.

I don’t know what the future holds, but this is just one step along the path. I'm just following the LEADER, and we'll see where HE takes me. Here I go…

Part 2: Admitting Flaws

OK, I admit that I’m not perfect. I’m completely and heartily flawed, and some of the loneliness I have experienced in church is my own doing. I got burned a couple of times and simply stopped trying. I gave up. Plus, I had my own baggage, and that was probably the root of my problem.

I was jealous of what those paired off people had. I wanted to belong to another person myself. Most singles do. Most of us aren’t single by choice. Fact is that I have yet to turn down a marriage proposal. HA!

I didn’t like the fact that a whole month of services was dedicated to marriage and the family. I didn’t have a family or the marriage, and so I sat through the sermons for a year or two, but then I bailed out each year afterwards. It didn’t apply to me. After all, where were the sermons on singleness or sexual purity? Fact is I didn’t want to spend a whole month studying something I wanted and didn’t have. It sounded like torture!

I was distracted and ticked off when I would sit behind a couple that were massaging each other in the service. I was irritated with their inappropriate behavior, and I struggled to concentrate on the message. Fact is that I wanted someone rubbing my back, too.

I got tired of answering the same questions all over again: why aren’t you married, have you ever been married, aren’t you dating? So I started getting creative with my responses. Sarcasm became my ally, and I let bitterness take over at times. Fact is that I was annoyed with my single status, annoyed that no one had my back, annoyed that GOD didn’t write me a personal letter explaining my single status so that I could hand out copies when asked.

I secretly envied the newly engaged couples and the wives with their sparkly anniversary rings. I struggled to relate to the housewives and soccer moms. I didn’t understand spouses complaining over dirty laundry on the floor, home improvement projects, or lack of alone time. Fact is that my desire for marriage and my idolatry of the same tainted my views of their situations, and I wasn’t always good friend material.

I can readily admit that part of my church issues and struggles have been my own self. AND I CAN DO BETTER. I know I can. I still can. I wasn't content with the status quo then and I'm not now either, something’s gotta give...

Part 1: Churching Singles

My friend Stephanie once shared a quote with me, and those words have stuck with me over the years: “Church is the loneliest place for a single woman.” I don’t know who originated those words, but I believe them to be true with all my heart.

I’ve battled the loneliness myself. It takes a lot out of a person to attend week after week alone. I pump myself up on the drive to church with worship tunes and arrive in the sanctuary with my spirits high. I search out a familiar face, in hopes of sitting with a friend and often do, but I also long to meet other people and expand my circle of friends. I seek out more accountability not less. I want to build on my connections and mingle with other singles and married couples alike.

I’m a pretty friendly person, and I love meeting new people. Normally, I don’t mind starting conversations with complete strangers, but over the years, I’ve become intimidated to do so in my own church. I’ve had people shut down the conversation and look for someone else (anyone else) to talk to when they found out I was single. Literally, I’ve seen the light go out of their eyes and watched them scan the horizon for someone else to talk to. It is as if upon learning that my marital status was at empty, meant that the conversation or burgeoning friendship could go no further. FULL STOP! She’s single, hence we have nothing in common – walk away quickly. HA!

I attended a singles Sunday school class, but it was not for me. It felt more like a college age class, and I felt too old and grown up there. Yet somehow, I didn’t feel gutsy enough to try the other class for singles or newly singles where the median age was about 15-20 years older than I was either.

I volunteered in the nursery and child care ministries for a while, but unfortunately, I’d usually end up missing all of 3 services because of a lack of workers, or I’d make it to the last service after the worship had ended. It was discouraging.

I joined a small group Bible study for a few months. Here I thought I could really get to know the people in my church, but it didn’t work out that way. I was too different. I tried to get to know the couples in our group through conversations, but no one would really talk to me. In fact, I’d often feel like everyone was talking around me. I was the odd ball out. I didn’t come as part of a matching pair, and apparently this party was for complete sets only.

I tried some of the ladies only events at church. We are all women after all, and so it should be easy to make conversation, right? Oddly enough, it was much more difficult than I thought it would be. The singles and married women didn’t mingle all that much at those functions, and when I tried to start a conversation, that “shut down” mode thing happened again when I explained that I wasn’t married, didn’t have kids, didn’t drive a mini van, etc. Suddenly, they saw their dear friend so-and-so across the room and needed to go catch up with her. It was frustrating because deep down I knew that we might have much more in common if both of us could just stop getting hung up on my empty ring finger.

As for the single men, well, it’s hard to meet them at church when most of the Christian men of my acquaintance that are my age or older have dropped out of church altogether. Sadly, I know so many great single guys that are absent from the church. Perhaps they found it a lonely place to be, too, and opted for other outlets to meet their social and spiritual needs.

Personally, I have found it hard to acknowledge how lonely it can be out there in the church without sounding like I am complaining or whining, but I’ve encountered other singles that have felt the same, and so I know I’m not alone. There are more of us puzzle pieces longing to fill in the blanks, but we find that we don’t fit into the bigger picture. In a way, we’re aliens living in a sea of matching units. We’re not wired the same way. We’re not part of a matching set or even a clique. Yep, we’re broken and incomplete, but in fact, aren’t we all?

Now I know that there is no church here that will ever be a perfect fit. I’m just not gonna find it this side of Heaven, but I firmly believe…WAIT! Let me rephrase that: I KNOW WE (as the CHURCH) CAN DO BETTER!

The End Will Justify the Pain...

We’ve all heard that old saying about “the end will justify the means,” right? Well, this morning, I was struggling to wake up, and so I popped in my ear buds and started jamming to tunes as I started my work day. Music always seems to help, and the lyrics to Relient K’s song Let It All Out offered a stunning twist to that archaic saying. I guess I just caught the meaning of the words for the first time:

If the burden seems too much to bear,
remember the end will justify the pain it took to get us there...

I love it. Check it out.

Pursuing Art

Last week, I participated in an amazing open-dialogue session all around the subject of “art.” It was an incredibly refreshing experience, and I’m so glad I was invited to join in this invigorating conversation with such talented and creative women.

Now I haven’t read Makoto Fujimura’s Refractions: A Journey of Faith, Art and Culture yet, but I’m adding this book to my list of must-reads for the near future. Our host, Charity, had read Fujimura’s book, and I think it fueled the arrangement of our discussion.

Can’t wait to see what GOD will do...

I Am a Girl

But there are some who doubt that I am a REAL girl...

1. I don’t collect shoes. Sure, I like cute styles, and I try to meld cute and comfy together, but my aim is to avoid pain. 3-inch heels might be adorable, strappy sandals might be irresistible on the shelf, but neither are for me, even though I could use the added height or flare. No, I seek out comfort in Skechers or Dr. Scholls. If the shoe fits well, I’m a fan.

2. I don’t like flip-flops. Never have. First of all, they are clearly a safety hazard to those of us who are prone to klutzy behavior, and secondly, I don’t like how they separate a person’s big toe from the rest of the team. Why can’t our toes just learn to get along?

3. I don’t care about name brands. If I like it, and it fits on both my body and my budget, I’m sold. It doesn’t matter if I’m shopping at a consignment store, Target, Wal-mart, JCPenneys or Goodwill. I look at tags to decipher the size not popularity.

4. I don’t wear lots of make-up. In fact, most people think I don’t wear any. Fact is that I do put it on, but a few hours later, it is gone. Apparently, I have pores the size of potholes and super-absorbent skin. As we speak, scientists are trying to recreate my skin in a lab for further testing...

5. I’m not crazy about purses. Yes, I usually have one on my person most of the time, but it’s usually black, purchased at Target, and kept in use until the handles break off or the fabric rips. A purse is a necessary evil, a must-have for every woman, but I don’t have a stash of them in my closet to rotate based on the season, my mood or my current outfit. I’m just not that girl..not usually.

So the idea of me purposefully buying a blue Coach purse doesn’t jive with what people know about me at all -- even I am stunned by these recent turn of events! All I know is that one moment I was innocently meandering along looking at flea market wares such as hand tools, rusty farm equipment, tableware, old books and antiques. When all of a sudden, something happened, my heart was beating faster, and I was captivated. It was like a spotlight from heaven was shining down on that purse, and I was drawn to it. It had my full attention. I handled it fondly, caressed the handle and checked the label to establish what I already knew. Yes, it was a brand new Coach purse for $35.

I quietly put it down. I told myself I didn’t need it. I’m a practical girl, first and foremost. What am I going to do with a blue Coach purse? I already had a perfectly good black purse waiting for me back home. I walked away and continued scanning other vendors’ products, but that purse was not done with me. I told myself I would check back on it later. If the purse was still available, I might reconsider a purchase of it. The whole “if you love it, set it free” ideal was swimming around my head. If it is meant to be, it would be waiting for me when I returned.

And so it was that on the 5th of July in the year 2010, that I, Melanie -- the girl who doesn’t like name brands or frivolous purses -- became the proud owner of her very own blue Coach purse for $35 and verified once and for all that I am a REAL girl.

As Paul Harvey would have put it, “And now you know the rest of the story.”

Letter From a Concerned Citizen

Dear Makers/Packagers of Orbit Gum,

Thank you for your delicious and amazing product! Orbit is my preferred gum of choice and regularly travels with me. Actually, I rarely leave home without a pack. In fact, if there was ever a game show where a random “contestant” could win a million dollars if they had a pack of Orbit gum on their person, I would be a winning candidate.

So yes, I confess, I’ve been an avid user of Orbit for several years now:

• I quickly bonded with Peppermint, and it is still a clear winner as the gotta-have-it variety kept on hand. Fabulous breath freshener, too.

• Raspberry Lemon Dew is my current chew of choice. I love it! The raspberry flavor is awesome in tandem with that crisp, refreshing lemon zing. YUM!

• Citrusmint and Strawberry mint are both tasty and mouthwatering to my lips.

• Bubblemint is pretty great, too.

• Pina Colada appears to have been a mistake, but maybe I just got a bad “batch”? The flavor was decent, but the texture was rubbery and did not afford me any chewing pleasure.

• As for Wintermint and Spearmint, I’m afraid that I would have voted them off the island long ago. OK, fact is, it’s probably not so much them as it is me. I don’t like anything spearminty at all, and so this shouldn’t come as a surprise at all really.

While I am certainly a devoted fan and an investor in this chomp-happy product, I have recently noticed an alarming trend in regards to the packaging of this mouth-watering merchandise, and I feel the need to bring it to your attention. Lately, each piece of Orbit gum seems to have been welded or super-glued into the foil and cardboard packaging. Seriously, have you tried to get into a pack of your product lately? It’s exhausting and tiresome. A great deal of mangling and pulling is required. Brute force or ample creativity is needed to get the gum wrapper removed from the package, and I'm concerned that someone is going to dislocate a shoulder while trying to get to their gum.

Now, I don’t know if there has been a recent onslaught in gum theft or gum terrorism. Honestly, I don’t follow gum-breaking news, and so it could be that I have just missed the recent headlines about an acceleration in gum crime. I’m usually the last to know these things, but I would appreciate some further investigation on your part. Could you please look into this matter for me? Or possibly just have your people ease up a bit on the stick-em in the packaging? Come on. You want Orbit gum-chewers to be happy, right?

Thanks for listening!

Sincerely,
A Concerned Citizen of the Gum-Chewing League

Happy Fourth of July!

"Yesterday the greatest question was decided...and a greater question perhaps never was nor will be decided among men. A resolution was passed without one dissenting colony, that these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent states."
~John Adams, Letter to his wife Abigail Adams on July 3, 1776~

We're a hodgepodge of people thrown together as one nation.

We each have our own story, our personal background of how we ended up here on these shores.

We don't agree on religion, politics or creed.

We argue over immigration, socio-economics and health care reform.

We all seem so very different from one another.

And yet, we are connected, drawn into an amazing unity or red, white and blue. Not just today but every day. Celebrate!

Addicted to the Supernatural

I love books, movies and TV shows with vampires, werewolves, immortals, wizardry, magic, etc. Always have. What is the appeal to the unexplained and the fantastical? What draws me into the mystical realm?

Now some may be concerned at my interest in what they term as "darkness." I disagree. I think it is only natural that the supernatural, the mysterious and the unfathomable calls out to me. After all, I belong to the Great I AM, and HE is full of mystery and intrigue. HE is the author of it, and my life, my very existence is intertwined with the unexplained.

GOD created the universe in 6 days. No matter what you classify as the “6 days of creation,” it makes no difference to me. I’m not here to debate you. What I know for sure is that HE formed our world and everything in it. HE created the atom and the inner workings of the human body, he formed the sky and the oceans, he placed the stars and planets and molded the sun. Scientists keep trying to find the end of our universe, but there is always more to be found. And HE did it all in 6 days. Who is more supernatural than HE is?

GOD is full of imagination and power, more than I can fathom. HE is a master storyteller, and Hollywood writers have nothing on HIM. The Bible is full of stories describing HIS supremacy and creative energy. HE brought a flood on the whole earth, HE parted the Red Sea, and HE created the seraphim with their several pairs of wings and lots of eyes. Who is more magical than HE?

GOD loves us. HE sent HIS SON to earth to take on the form of a man so that HE could one day lay HIS life down to save us. No mere mortal could come up with such an awesome, complex plot. What is more baffling, more mind-twisting than the love of GOD? And HIS love for us causes HIM to seek us out. Yes, the GOD of the universe wants a relationship with us, and HE pursues us. What could be more mystical that that?

Sin severed the communion between GOD and mankind. We were torn from the mystical presence of THE MOST HIGH, and our souls yearn for the ultimate reunion with HIM. Is it any wonder then that the supernatural, the magical and the fantastical appeals to me? It's no great mystery really. It's all in my genetics.