Lord, I am Here

"You're lost."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are. You're definitely lost."

"I know exactly where I am. I just don't know exactly how I got here or how to get where I'm going."

A familiar conversation to some of us. I'm not sure why it's hard for some to admit that they're lost. This is an equal opportunity blog, so I'm not mentioning any specific genders that might have more of a difficult time than other genders admitting when they're lost...I'm just commenting that sometimes it's hard to admit.

For others of us, we might not have a problem denying when we're lost, but we certainly don't want others to know the true condition we find ourselves in. I'd freely admit I can't find my way home, before I'd admit that my life was anything but okay. I often plaster on a smile and answer, "Fine...actually, great!" When asked the question, "How are you?" even though I know good and well that I'm having a record breaking crummy day.

In my post You Are Here, I mentioned that it's pretty hard to determine where you're going if you don't know where you're starting out from. I've been thinking about that a little more over the past few weeks and realize there's another element to that truth that I missed mentioning.

Once I locate my "Red Dot" on the map, I must be willing to acknowledge where it is that I find myself. Even more important than admitting my location to myself is being willing to admit it to God. Lord, I am here. I'm distracted, I'm sad, lonely, upset, furious, depressed... whatever the case may be. I might not like it, but I am here.

In the Psalms, David says that God desires truth in our innermost parts. I have to be willing to find where I'm at and then come to Him just as I am. Once you locate your red dot on the map, be willing to admit it to yourself, your family and friends, and most importantly...to God. He already knows anyway, because, after all, he's the one who put you there.

Blessings!

Mouseaphobia

There’s a mouse in my house. I consider myself to be a strong, independent woman, but something happens to me when I catch a glimpse of a mouse running across my floor out of the corner of my eye. I turn to jello. I panic. I freeze. I don’t scream, but as is often depicted in scenarios with women and mice, I usually jump on top of the closest piece of furniture. It’s utterly ridiculous and I recognize that, but I can’t stop.

Yesterday, I saw the mouse go running by. I swear he was the size of a regulation football. I immediately rounded up all the mouse traps I could find in the house and set them out all over the kitchen floor, warning my son to keep out of there. Poor kid, my mouseaphobia translates into no snacks for him. I knew I wouldn’t catch the mouse during the day, but I still hoped it was possible. Throughout the day I could hear him rustling around, but of course, I didn’t catch him.

The Pastor was (and is) getting pretty sick and tired of hearing me whine about the mouse. Last night he told me to “grow up”, which was probably appropriate advice based on the fact that I was completely freaking out at the time. But in my defense, this mouse has become so bold that I named him Reepicheep.

I’ve been reading Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by CS Lewis and Reepicheep is the brazen little mouse that encourages others not to fear and boldly marches forward into danger with great courage. My Reepicheep has taken to fearlessly running around my kitchen and tormenting me with no thought that he will be caught.

Last night, however, things took a turn in my favor. The Pastor, sensitive to my freaking out spell, reset all the mousetraps with a delicious feast and Reepicheep couldn’t resist. Mwahaha!

This morning it seemed that the sun was shining brighter, the birds were chirping louder, all the world seemed at peace. The Pastor went to an early breakfast meeting and I sipped a latte in my mouse-free living room. In addition to my mouse mania, I’ve also been fighting a super sore throat, which seems to have finally taken a turn for the better this morning. I couldn’t resist texting a quick message to The Pastor telling him how good I felt about both situations being better.

As is often the case in life, my victory was short lived. While I pushed send on my Blackberry, I saw a little brown streak run across my living room out of the corner of my eye.

Here we go again...

How Old Do You Think I Am?

I’m not very good at guessing people’s ages. At the question, “How old do you think I am?” I run for cover. Faking hearing loss, I do my best to ignore it and change the subject immediately. I’ve insulted many a nice person by trying to guess their age and I’ve come to a point in my life where I’ve decided it’s just not worth it.

However, I’ve recently had a breakthrough on this issue. I noticed while at Starbucks, I’m able to accurately predict ages (within a year or two) by the drink the person orders. Here are my findings…

Organic Packaged Chocolate Milk – 2-5 years old. These customers are adept at drinking out of a straw but, even with a lid will spill anything that is in a real cup. They are too short to see over the counter, so they can only choose from the refrigerated case they must stand in front of while their parent orders coffee. They might not even like the chocolate milk, but they throw such a fit to get it, that they always do.

Hot Chocolate, extra whipped cream – 8-10 years old. Only a person in this age range could stand a hot chocolate with that much chocolate and no coffee. Parents order this for their children hoping it will keep them quiet and occupied while they sit and drink their coffee. It works for the moment, but has terrible side effects once the full dose of sugar hits the bloodstream (usually right at bedtime).

Venti (extra large) Mint Mocha Chip Frappuccino with chocolate whipped cream – 13-15 years old. The drinkers of most Frappuccinos realize that they are more like a milkshake than a coffee drink, and it’s a good thing because these customers don’t even like coffee. In fact, if they accidentally got a drink that had more coffee in it than sugar, they couldn’t even drink it, no matter how un-cool they appeared to their friends.

Tall (small) 4-shot (quad) Breve (made with cream) – 22-25 years old. It can be assumed that anyone who orders a quad shot Breve is either a college student or a new parent. Nobody in any other stage of life can handle that much caffeine. It can also be noted that this age group is still young enough to eat and drink whatever they want without affecting their young figure.

Non-fat, Sugar-free, Decaf, Vanilla Latte – 35-39 years old. By this stage in life, these people have realized that the metabolism of approaching 40 and all the Quad Breves they’ve been drinking in past years has caught up with them. They’ve finally come to actually love coffee, but can’t drink any caffeine past two in the afternoon or they’re up all night.

Brewed Coffee – 60+ years old. “Frappa-what?? Just give me some coffee!”

Rookies Of The Year

Love at the five and "diamond"






Getting down to business





Nice form!





This looks like trouble...





"We take baseball very seriously!"




Ready For Action!

Delivery Day

Quest Aircraft Company was blessed by a visit from Franklin Graham as he took delivery of the first Kodiak airplane for his mission organization, Samaritan’s Purse. In a down-to-earth style, Mr. Graham greeted Quest employees and presented the gospel in a straight forward way that I’ve only witnessed by one other man in my life…his father Billy Graham.


Samaritan's Purse Airplane


Other mission organizations have come to pick up their aircraft in suits and ties, with powerful and fancy DVD presentations of their work. Then one of the chief pilots of the organization usually flies the plane away. I'm always blessed each time I watch these presentations and I'm reminded of why we do the work we do every day at Quest.


The Pastor, our son, & Franklin Graham

But this was a little different. Dressed in his Carhartt jeans, complete with buck knife sticking out of his pocket, Franklin stood armed with his bible and a microphone and did nothing more than share the gospel. He explained the good news of Christ to every employee in that airplane hangar. He told them they were sinners, reassured them that God loved them, and led everyone in a salvation prayer. …Then he climbed into the left seat (pilot in command) of his plane and flew away.

Proved My Point

OK, I can't stand looking at it any longer....the misspelled header is coming down. Thanks to all who left comments on the last post. Next time, let me know when my zipper is down!

My Zipper is Down!

"Wounds from a friend can be trusted."

Proverbs 27:6

I know I can always count on my friends to tell me the truth, even if it hurts. I expect that, even if it might be a little embarrassing, they will alert me to those things in life which would be more embarrassing if they didn't point them out. "Hey, Cari, you have a big, green schmutz in your front teeth." "Hey, Cari, you have a booger in your nose." "Hey, Cari, your hair is sticking straight up in the back." These are all things I would trust my friends to tell me, rather than letting me walk around not knowing.

I have to say, I'm a little disappointed. I've been walking around with my proverbial zipper down for quite some time now and either you haven't noticed or you've been too polite to tell me. I hope it's the first one, but I fear it's the second. I know that many of you receive Married To The Pastor via email, so you don't post that many comments on the blog, but I really need to hear from you on this one. I need an honest show of hands (comments) to know how many of you knew the word "Coffee" was spelled wrong in the header of my Blog! Of all the words for me to misspell....yeesh.

I've recently been at a writers conference and submitting various articles, etc.. where I've been telling editors, publishers, and other writers to check out my blog, only to have my nephew casually mention the other day. "Ha, ha...you spelled coffee wrong!"

Really people! Come on...help me out here! Thankfully, my writer-friend, Dawn, came straight out and told me I misspelled "Therapeutic". Come to think of it, you better let me know if you saw that one, too.

I'm leaving the misspellings in the heading for a couple more days as proof just in case, like me, you look at it every time you log into this blog and never noticed it. If that's the case, you should pay closer attention...at least one of us should.