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I Didn’t Go To Church For 3 Months. This Is What I Learned.

09 Thursday Jul 2015

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in For the Love of People, Love, Personal Growth, Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

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church, churchianity, Faith, love, Mathew 5:44, Mathew 6, mission work, prayer, skipping church, Starbucks Stories, Sunday mornings

Its Sunday morning.  I am sitting in the place where Americans gather to laugh and love and converse about life, the place where lives are encouraged and transformed for the better, the place that has come to be one of my favorite symbols of comfort and rejuvenation.  Yes, it is a beautiful bustling day at my local Starbucks.  You walk in, you pick your version of hope in a cup, you walk out feeling a little bit wiser and just a little bit more prepared to handle the troubles of the day.  Isn’t that what Sunday mornings are for- grabbing a little hope in a cup to take with you for the rest of the week?

I didn’t go to church for nearly 3 months.  That might not be shocking to some, but for me that is a huge statement.  I have spent most of my post-college, adult life highly involved in everything church related.  However, this past winter due to some uncontrollable circumstances combined with transitional timing and life in general, church was not a place in which I could be found.  After a few weeks I became aware of my absence and I began to take note of some changes that were going on in my spiritual life.  I started questioning why, as Christians, we go to church.  I started questioning why I go to church.  What is church anyways?  I know the answers I have been given from a life time of sermons, catechism classes, and Sunday School teachings but I needed to discover the answers for myself.  So I decided to talk to God about it as I trekked through an unusual winter sans church.  These were my findings.

  1. Church can exist outside of the a building.

Now I know that wherever 2 or more are gathered in His name then Jesus is present but during my dry spell from  church I actually experienced a completely different idea of what church could be.  It was so simple and reminded of how Jesus would often meet with people throughout the bible.  It was all about the food.   Friends, family members, and people we had just met would gather around our dining room table during the winter of no church and we would commence in some pretty spectacular discussions on faith, the bible, and pretty much everything you could think of that we experience on a daily basis.  You know…. Life.

I remember one particular evening sitting at the table after a big enchilada and Spanish rice dinner with some guests and thinking to myself that the dinner conversation was one of the most spiritually stimulating discussions that I had participated in for a long time. The conversation was honest.  I wished that I could have this all the time.  Wouldn’t it be great if this was how church happened always?  But of course, that is exactly how church began.  Jesus didn’t always sit in a building and wait for people to come to him.  He went to people’s houses and shared meals with them.  Even after Jesus had left this earth, His disciples would gather together in their homes and just talk.  They would share about what Jesus had done in their lives and how they experienced Jesus in their personal lives.

2.  You can still have a fruitful growth/ healthy walk with Christ without going to the physical building of a church.

No church did not equal no relationship with God.  In fact, I was clinging to my faith even more during those quiet months.  It was uncomfortable.  It felt wrong to not be going to church as if I was going to have my Christian card revoked.  I was constantly thinking about it.  So, I was constantly praying about it and journaling and reading.  I spent a lot of time alone, with nothing more than my bible, my journal, a cup of coffee and my conversations with God through prayer.  I wish I had the time to share with you right now all of the things I discovered about Jesus,  myself, my faith, and the world around me during those months of alone time with God.  We’ll just save those stories for another time.  I had such a fear that I would withdraw from my faith if I did not go to church consistently.  It was a refreshing relief to realize that church is not at the center of my relationship with God.  Nope, GOD is actually at the center of my relationship with God.  I think in a lot of ways attending church and serving in church ministries and participating in church activities had become a point system for me.  I had always been warned about that but never thought it could happen to me.  Those months with no church were a reset button on my spiritual life.  It was a time for God to clear away some of the gunk that was crowding our relationship and get my eyes focused on what was actually more important.  Him.  Which leads me to my next observation:

3.  Without the distractions of church your eyes are opened to be able to see the world around you and the people that God loves who aren’t going to church.

What am I going to wear?  What am I going to make for the church potluck?  What is going to be my lesson for  Sunday school class?  These were just a few of the questions that would fill my brain in previous seasons of churchgoing.  Notice that God is not actually a part of any of those questions.  But I was serving.  Right?  Serving has always been one of my arguments as to the necessity of church.  We need to be serving others and church always needs volunteers.  This is true.  But you know who else needs volunteers?  THE WORLD.

The winter church- solitude brought with it acquaintances with non-church goers.  Real people with very little to non-existent faith in a God who can bring peace to your life.  People with real problems, addictions, and pain.  People that churches had turned away in one way or another.  People who did not feel comfortable going to church because the church goers would ask you to take off your hat or to cover up your tattoos or to pretty much change your entire self before you come to the altar.  People who Jesus said to love and to win over with said love.  I guess, you could count all those months without a steeple  as research as to why people do not go to church.  Plain and simple: the church can be a very judgmental and daunting place sometimes especially to someone who is not accustomed to the culture of church.

When I wasn’t busy with churchy activities I really began to observe how there is this group-think mentality that is plaguing our churches.  It is this nebulous bubble that, if you are not careful, you can find yourself trapped in.  I really never noticed it before and I really didn’t even know that I was a part of it, but during those 3 months I could really see it clearly because I was on the outside with the outsiders and looking in did not look so good.  This is what it looked like.  As followers of Christ, we adopt all of these other beliefs that really have nothing to do with Jesus dying on the cross for our salvation.  These beliefs might have more to do with politics or cultural preferences.  After a while, each church begins to appear homogenous  in that its congregants tend to agree on  ideas not in the bible.  The average outsider cannot tell that there is a line between biblical truths and personal preferences because everyone seems to agree on just about everything from dress code to radio stations to political party to social graces.  The outsider sees this and thinks that being a Christian means knowing better than to wear a hat in church or knowing which way to vote.  To the outsider it is overwhelming and it is clear when you don’t fit in.   We wear these beliefs as badges and present them on social media.  These “belief badges”  have nothing to do with the love of Christ but we excuse it as love or pride even though it looks and feels unwelcoming and exclusive.  We relish in the us versus them mentality and when we go to church we join the congregation in cheering each other on and shaming the behaviors of the very souls that we claim to be praying for all the while failing to see our own shortcomings and forgetting to first take all of our concerns to God through prayer.

Yeah, I’m guilty of joining in on the group-think.  The idea is that we can all band together and encourage each other’s soapboxes that distract us from the sermon on the mount which says, “but I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,”  Mathew 5:44.  We claim that we pray for our enemies and we are happy to post on our social media of choice that we are praying for our enemies.  But what about Mathew 6:1 “Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.” and Mathew 6:5-6 “When you pray, you are not to be like the hypocrites; for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on the street corners so that they may be seen by men.  Truly I say to you, they have their reward in full.  But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.”

There is a real world out there that needs to know what love truly is.  In my research, the world thinks we look angry.  Maybe I now sound angry and judgmental too.  Like I said,  I am guilty of all of this as well.  I have been convicted that this cycle is not helping the world it is actually driving people further and further away from Jesus.  I’m ready to try something new.  You too?

4.  You fall in love with Jesus all over again.

Ok,  I might have gotten really passionate about that last one and I hope I didn’t lose you because this one right here is my favorite.  When I didn’t go to church for 3 months the best thing happened to me: I fell in love with Jesus all over again.  I don’t know, maybe the time away from the rows of pews was like a vacation for me and  my savior to relax and enjoy each other’s company.  Since I was often alone with nothing more than my prayers it became easier to pray throughout the day.  And while I was praying/ meditating throughout the day I began to see more and more how I need Jesus in every second of my life.  Left to my own devices, I am nothing but selfishness and mischief.  I already knew that I need Jesus every single day of my life but because I was in a state of heightened awareness my self-reflection was highlighted.  In evaluating myself all I could think was thank God I have my Jesus.  Thank God I have a savior who saves me from myself!

5.  I miss church as a community.

I’m still not exactly sure what is at the root of #5.  Maybe it’s the Catholic school girl in me that just adores systems and organization and the routine of going to church on Sundays.  Maybe it is because the new testament speaks of gathering together to pray for one another and to worship together.  Maybe it is because I really missed hearing about God from someone else’s perspective.  Whatever it is, I really missed going to church as a family.  Please understand that this list is not an encouragement to not go to church.  I did not purposely skip out on church.  I think it was a gift; a short season of my life for me to reflect on why I do what I do and a season to listen to what church needs to become for me.  It was a time of preparation.  I’m pretty sure I already knew some of this but I needed to be reminded and my thoughts refreshed.  It’s one thing to be told these things, it is another to experience it firsthand.

All across the country churches are changing, adapting to the next generation.  I have been to churches  held inside of coffee shops.  I have been to coffee shops housed inside of churches.  Sometimes I wish that church could be as simple as the experience of going to the coffee shop.  You walk in at your own pace wearing whatever you just so happen to be wearing because you are going to a place where you know you will feel comfortable.  Someone pours something wonderful into your cup or places something delicious on your plate.  You sit down with a small group of people and listen and speak and pray and savor.  Perhaps you take a moment to enjoy the music that plays in the background.  You pour out your heart as Jesus is poured into you.  Pass the sugar and cream please- I could get used to that!

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Overcoming Discontentment

10 Wednesday Jun 2015

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in Uncategorized

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Found On alwaysrooney.com via Pinterest.  This is not my image.

Found On alwaysrooney.com via Pinterest. This is not my image.

I wish I could just fix everything in this house. Right now. Today. Sometimes I get this feeling like I just want to jump out of my skin, out of my body. I’d be like a ghost flying around a million miles an hour and I would do every single little nit-picky home improvement idea that plagues the “to do” list in my head. I would do it all perfectly, and in one fell swoop and it would only take me 15 minutes. And then everything would be perfect as it should be and I would finally be free to live my life. Then, and only then, would I feel ready to focus on my marriage and our family business. Once ghost Elizabeth saves the day by saving this house then I could have my brain back to sign my kids up for karate and ballet and piano lessons. Just imagine, with my house in order I could finally have time for all of those other crazy ideas I have floating around in my head, each one like its own little ghost waiting to be released. I might even have time to sew or maybe even play with my kids or go on a date with my husband.

I love a little sarcasm every now and then- I hope you enjoyed it too. Of course my marriage and my kids are a much bigger priority than home renovations; and I do play with my kids and go on dates with my husband. I also know that turning into a magical being that can renovate houses in the blink of an eye is not going to happen. I am not a fairy or a wizard and this is not Narnia or Hogwarts. Get back in your cages little idea ghosts floating around in my head. You all are just going to have to wait until I can release you one at a time. One long summer, home improvement work weekend at a time.

I wish it were that easy to tell these little ghost ideas to go away. They are driving me crazy. It is so frustrating. We were absolutely, 100% sure that we were doing the right thing when we bought this big white fixer- upper house two years ago. We had our reasons. This was our big leap of faith especially since we are not big do-it- yourselfers. We still love this house, in a lot of ways it is just perfect for us. But. Every. Single. Room. Needs. Work. Now for a little first world venting that will sound like I am a spoiled little princess. Stay with me – I’m not actually that shallow. Sometimes, I doubt that we made the right decision because I am just so tired of do- it – yourself stuff. We are talking about 5 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 1 living room, 1 dining room, 1 office/study, 1 kitchen, and a huge attic the length and width of the entire house that just needs to be a third floor of some kind. Even the 2 stairwells need work. I know, I sound like a terrible person. I should only be so grateful for all of the space and I am grateful. It’s just that it is a lot of work for one person to take on and a lot of money. We would need thousands of dollars for each room not to mention time and labor.

When I start to think of it like that I get overwhelmed and depressed. I am embarrassed to admit that because it is silly to be depressed about the big, beautiful house you live in, right? But I have always said that I need to live in this house because she speaks to me, she teaches me. I know where God is going with this one. The lesson to be learned here is so obvious to me: be content with what you have. But I am stubborn and a slow learner and I am an American so that is hard for me to get a hold of sometimes. I love my country but the good ole’ US of A is a consumer driven society. The world around me tells me to get more, buy more, want more and all because I deserve it. So contrary to what God says.

So I have my little mantras and bible scriptures that I repeat in my head to repel those ghastly ghosts of discontent that disguise themselves as “ideas.” “Keep my eyes on you Jesus.” “Be patient and wait.” “But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be given to you.” The latest one that has really helped me when I start to feel envious of people with homes that are “perfect” is, “the only person that I need to compare myself to is Jesus.” He is the only standard that I have chosen to live by and, therefore it is useless to compare myself to anyone else.

Even still, it’s hard not to find myself anxious with home improvement ideas. I feel like I just can’t rest until everything is as it should be. Is there anything in your life like that? Is there anything that keeps you up at night? Is there a nagging voice at the back of your head that is keeping you from living the life that you have right in front of you?

I have realized that I really live in two different houses. One is the house that I actually live in- the one with all of the problems. The other is the house that I live in my head- it is the version of the house in which all of ideas have come to fruition. All the walls are painted and the floors are finished and the garage is connected to the main house via a new family room and kitchen addition. But that is not the house that the kids will remember. They will remember the Saturdays spent scraping off wallpaper with their mommy. They will remember sprinting from the main house to the garage on rainy days. They will remember mommy and daddy removing splinters from their little feet from the unfinished wood floors. This is their life right now. This is my life right now.

Recently, a friend and I were talking about contentment and our lack thereof. I pointed out that when my husband was in law school all I did was complain about this, that, and the other. He was always so busy studying and I hardly got to see him. I didn’t really care for our house that much. I had to go back to work after I had our two babies even though I really wanted to be a stay at home mom. But now when I look back I have this romantic memory of law school as being the best years of our life together. I think of all the law school friends and friends from my job who kept me sane through those years. Truly, they are some of the best friends I have ever come across. Now, when I think of our law school house I only have memories of hanging out with my sister in the living room- watching hilarious YouTube clips and the fireflies that illuminated our neighborhood in the summer. I reminisce about how I had my dream job. Yes, I had to pump breast milk during lunch but I had my dream job and I loved it and I miss it now that I am a work from home mom. I really only remember the good things about that chapter of our lives.

I don’t know how long this season of living in an unfinished house will last. Five years? Ten? Twenty?! Who knows. But I think that when this house is indeed living up to my standards and is “finished” and a new chapter of life has begun I will miss these days. Maybe in the future when our weekends are filled with karate and ballet and piano lessons, I will miss the Saturdays spent working on the house while the kids played in the backyard. Maybe when the teenage years are upon us and I suddenly seem to serve no purpose to my children except for spending cash, I will miss the days when they would plop onto my lap with the tweezers and ask for me to remove a splinter from their little foot. Oh, I am getting teary eyed just thinking about it.

For several reasons we have had to push the brakes down on some of the projects that I would like to do right now. Perhaps it is a good time to just enjoy this season in all of its unfinished glory. It’s a good time to stop and realize that these are the days that will one day be the best years of our lives. I don’t believe in ghosts so maybe it’s time to stop being haunted by the ghost ideas in my brain. Twenty years from now when the kids look at pictures from this time they will notice the awful wallpaper in the background and they will smile and say, “Oh yeah, I remember that wallpaper. Remember how mom would make us help her scrape it off? We even had our own scrapers with our names on them so we couldn’t fight over them.” And I will look at that very same wall in its 20- years- from- now state and all I will remember will be those little tiny fingers scraping off wallpaper at my side. And I will think to myself that these were the best years of our lives.

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An Average Saturday Afternoon in My House: Wallpaper Removal

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My Son, Elijah, Spraying the Wallpaper In Preparation

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Eva and Elijah Scraping Away: Teach ‘Em Young!

Wallpaper Scrapers With Eva and Emmanuel Jr.'s Name On Them

Wallpaper Scrapers With Eva and Emmanuel Jr.’s Name On Them

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A Minority in a Land of Majorities

17 Wednesday Dec 2014

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in A Leap of Faith, For the Love of People, History, Living Unbound, Maid's Room, Personal Growth, Uncategorized

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1896, being in the minority, historic district, maid's room, Mexican American, Queen Anne Victorian house, renovation of an old home, suffragette, Texas, The Great Hanging of Gainesville

A Treasured Family Tradition:  Great-Grandma was a "Soldada" During the Mexican Revolution

A Treasured Family Tradition: Great-Grandma was a “Soldada” During the Mexican Revolution

Ferguson.  Immigration reform.  Racial unrest.  The country has been restless and angry and hurt.  And so have I.

I am restless because there is not really a name for the confusion that I feel when it comes to these things.  There is no way to pinpoint the awkwardness that comes from being a minority in a land of majorities.  I wrestle and grieve like everyone else, no matter what side you take.  I look at my house and sometimes feel worse.

Built circa 1896 in north Texas, I can take my guesses as to the muscle that labored this house into fruition.  Perhaps my suspicions are wrong.  For some reason I do believe that the original owners of this home were good, honest, and kind people.  Lets call it my gut instinct. Despite my hopeful gut, I have to be realistic when it comes to the circumstances that surrounded this corner of Texas all those decades ago.

Race was an issue then.  Race is an issue now.

We live not even two blocks from a historical monument that marks the place were 41 men were hanged (allegedly the largest hanging in US history) for treason during the Civil War.  They were accused of being unionists and were denied a fair trial. I pass that monument nearly every day.  It turns my stomach into knots. Not because I am angry at the people who hanged them; no- we must forgive them. The monument puts me in an uneasy state because it reminds me of the cost and the struggle of millions who came before me all so that I could be a college educated, Mexican-American woman who owns property.  The responsibility to live a life that is honorable to their sacrifice is heavy.

The Great Hanging; photo cred: Wikipedia

The Great Hanging; photo cred: Wikipedia

Many days, I walk through the halls of this house studying the intricacies of the crown moldings and the stairwell banisters and the artistry of the stained glass windows and I wonder who the original owners were.  What would they think of a Mexican-American couple buying their house over a hundred years later?  Like I said, for some reason I think they were humble and open-minded people.  Something in the way these walls were built whisper of a family who were content to be considerate of their fellow man.  Even still, would they be surprised to see my darkish skin?

Surprised is exactly the word that describes the faces of people when they find out who owns this big, white house.  Its like they are expecting some older white couple to live here because, lets be honest, that is usually the population of people who own houses like ours.  We stand out.

Yes, we stand out and it often feels like we stand alone.  But, that is not necessarily a bad thing.  I like to think that we are pioneers in a corner of the world that is still growing and grappling with these issues.

I grew up in a city in which everyone looked like me.  I never gave much thought to being a “minority.”  It wasn’t until I moved to Minnesota in my early adulthood that I really began to feel the gravity of the race issue that veils our country.  I guess, you don’t really know what it is like to be a minority until you actually are one.  I know that sounds obvious but, surprisingly, most people who are in the majority are not familiar with this concept or maybe they are but they have never experienced what that feels like.  I know I used to be one of those people.

Had we bought a house in a cute little subdivision, I don’t think I would be thinking about these kinds of issues so frequently.  This house forces me to weigh in on the heavy issues of race and class because I have become part of the history of this house.  This house has seen the suffrage movement, World Wars I and II, the end to segregation, the feminist movement, MTV, the first African American president, etc.

Bottom Line – the chances of a Mexican-American couple owning a house like mine in 1896 were pretty slim, if not impossible.  America has come a long, long way and I am proud of her for that.  I am thankful that I do not have to live my life under a constant barrage of threats due to the color of my skin.   I am thankful that I don’t really have a lot of stories revolving around hate.  My experience has been blessed by people of all different “colors” who are content to being kind and decent human beings.  For the most part, the people I have met throughout my lifetime know that it is wrong to judge a book by its cover.

There is a room in this house that I assume must have belonged to “the help” back when the originals moved into this house.  The crown moldings are distinctively plain with no ornate detailing whatsoever.  The floor in that room seems to be in the worst shape and it is the room that is adjacent to what would have been the washroom/kitchen area back then.  From my very basic knowledge of history and how families operated circa 1896 I can deduce that the originals must have had hired help (aka live in nanny or cook or maid or farm hand or all of the above).  Now it is our family room in which my kids run around barefoot and hang hand made ornaments on our Christmas tree and where they are always expected to clean up after themselves because we are not living in 1896.

Sears Arlington House Plan from the Sear's Catalog 1919 is almost exactly like our floor plan.  I spy the "maid's room"  Photo cred: http://www.searshomes.org/

Sears Arlington House Plan from the Sear’s Catalog 1919 is almost exactly like our floor plan. I spy the “maid’s room” Photo cred: http://www.searshomes.org/

I tend to feel anxious when I think about the “maid’s” room in my house, and the monument of The Great Hanging, and that this house might have been built by men who were in seriously unfortunate circumstances.  They are the ghosts of Christmases past that remind me and inform me of how much things have changed for a woman like me. They make it real.

Perhaps this house was actually built by very well paid men who never felt discriminated against.  That may very well have been the case.  But I’m willing to bet that somewhere else in America in 1896, a house was being built by men who were degraded and downtrodden.  That is the reality of those painful times and my heart aches for them.  Because I am reminded of that every day, I feel a great responsibility to live a life unbound and purposeful.  I don’t really know what that will look like for me but I remain the ever hopeful optimist on the hunt for my way of honoring the blood, sweat, and tears of all the pioneers who have proceeded before me.

I googled "Mexican Suffragettes" and this was one of many images that came up- Soldadas from the Mexican Revolution.

I googled “Mexican Suffragettes” and this was one of many images that came up- Soldadas from the Mexican Revolution. Brave pioneers in my people’s history.

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The Life and Death of a Wallflower

12 Wednesday Nov 2014

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in For the Love of People, Personal Growth, Uncategorized, Wallpaper

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home improvement, mission work, renovation of an old home, taking a leap of faith, the unknown, wallflowers, wallpaper removal

Cotton candy flora

Cotton candy flora

Are you brave enough? Because I am not.

I like to hang back in the background and comfortably blend in like the big, fluffy, pastel flowers that adorn the walls of my house. Fitting in is just too important to me. It always has been.

But I just can’t sit still anymore. I’m restless. There is a big bad world out there with so much heartache and pain. People are hurting day in and day out. People have lost hope. And here I sit pretty in pink all nice and cozy on my wall. Don’t make a sound. Don’t move or someone might notice. Blend in. Wear the right clothes and hairstyle. Take your kids to the right functions. Say the right things on social media. Be on time.

But I am always late. And the right clothes and hairstyle never look right on me like they do on her. And my kids are usually the ones who make a scene at all of those functions. My place on the wall is getting old and dusty.

I have been living amongst the floral wallpaper for so long that it is starting to grow on me. Sometimes I actually think it looks pretty. Gasp! Then I come to my senses and realize that while it may look feminine and pleasant, the wallpaper really is outdated and just has no business in this 21st century world.

Denial. Been living in it for some time now concerning my wallflower status and people pleasing tendencies.

It’s hard to go against the grain; take a stance; stand out; be brave; journey into the unknown; step out of your comfort zone; try something new; chase that wild dream.

I fear that everyone will laugh at me. Perhaps everyone is already laughing at me just for dreaming about the dream and sharing it with the world.

But I am learning.

You have to get to that point in which you don’t care if anyone is laughing at you. You just have to get over that hump and expect that you will be ridiculed and make peace with it and move on.

At the end of the day I want to teach my children to be brave and to not be held back by the fear of fitting into society. How can I do that when I am so often crippled by fear? I have to get them a wallpaper scraper too and teach by example. They need to see mommy and daddy scraping off the old and trying something different to change our little corner of the world. If I want my kids to be brave enough to fight the good fight then I have to be brave enough to fight the good fight.

I’m tired of being the wallflower that watches as others claim and conquer their dreams. I want to have a fabulous story too. I don’t want to be held back by my shoe collection and social media profile. I need to get off this wall and into the light.

There is this dream, this passion that is burning bright red. It’s not my dream. It doesn’t belong to me. I don’t own it. It is bigger than that. This dream cannot be contained by four flower speckled walls and a roof. Well, at least that is how it feels when it is thumping and pounding in my chest and squeezing my heart.
Impossible. Echoes in my head. And it is true. It will be impossible to ever even coming close to the dream realized if I continue to be content with the status quo.

Daily, I waiver between painting over the walls of wallpaper in our house and just scraping it all off and starting over from scratch. I don’t know the answer to that question yet but I do know that I am tired of looking at the cotton candy flora. We have already scraped a significant amount of wallflowers off the wall but we are nowhere near being done. Those pearly rose and teal colored peonies are a constant reminder to get out of the past and into the present. I hear those flowers crying out to me, warning me that if I don’t act soon my fate will end up like theirs. I will be doomed to live a life of pretty stillness: complacent and stagnant like the images of women from decades past. Not me, nuh uh!

For too many years I have listened to countless stories of brave people doing amazing things and all the while I am thinking, “oh that is nice, thank God for people like that who are willing to take risks for humanity. People like that are so inspiring but not everyone is made for that kind of greatness.”

People. Like. That. Where does that idea come from anyway? Those “people like that” are really just normal, every-day people who made a choice to step out of their comfort zone and think creatively and live bravely towards a life uncommon. They got off their wall, took a deep breath, and while holding their dream in their hands plunged into the great unknown.

They were brave.

We don’t have to wait for “people like that ” to change the world. We can all have a part of a greater story if we are willing to let go of some of the lesser things in life. What are we waiting for?

Seriously though, what are you waiting for? What is holding you back from that dream bubbling inside of you?
What are your thoughts? Comment below, we are not meant to do life alone.

Living on the edge because it just has to go.  No place for complacency.

Living on the edge because it just has to go. No place for complacency.

Nowhere to go but up

Nowhere to go but up

Enter into our house of flowers

Enter into our house of flowers

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Tilling the Earth

29 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in Backyard, Personal Growth, Uncategorized

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backyard, cultivate, getting dirty, home improvement, nostalgia, personal crisis, relics, tilling soil

Cultivate-  to till and prepare (land or soil) for the growth of crops: 2. to plant, tend, harvest, or improve (plants) by labour and skill;  to prepare or prepare and use for the raising of crops; also : to loosen or break up the soil about

Cultivate- to till and prepare (land or soil) for the growth of crops: 2. to plant, tend, harvest, or improve (plants) by labour and skill; to prepare or prepare and use for the raising of crops; also : to loosen or break up the soil about

The sound of the razor blades tore through the air running shivers down my spine. The buzzing held my disturbed thoughts suspended in air enveloped by clouds of dust. A great dissonance had moved into my soul. There was something cruel about watching all of that lush green grass being ripped out of its comfortable earth.

Our backyard was a mess- uneven and hazardous for our two small children to play in. My husband, Emmanuel, got a hold of a tiller and our friend, Richard, volunteered to help with the labor. For two days we could hear that tiller ripping up the grass and smoothing out the plateaus that were often the cause of so many scraped knees .

Just a few days after we finished the tilling project we made a trip to my hometown. We have made the pilgrimage across the great state of Texas to visit my folks many times but this time was different. This time there was the looming reality that this just might be my last trek across the desert. My mom and grandma were both preparing to move out of their homes and my siblings were scattering across the world living out their lives. It seemed that no longer would we have our home base. Everywhere I turned my loved ones were moving on into a new chapter of their lives. To me, all of this moving and shifting was getting out of hand. It felt like the tectonic plates were rumbling in anticipation. An earthquake seemed inevitable.

Because my mom and grandma were moving out of their houses, there was a lot of purging going on. Boxes and boxes of mementos, keepsakes, and junk lined the hallways of both houses. Pretty much everything had to go. My mom had piles of stuff already ready for me to take back home with me but there were other things that, unless I rescued them, would become garage sale fodder. Our library of children’s books and the bookshelf that they sat in were amongst the items ready for the chopping block. Well, I wasn’t going to let that happen.

I walked into my mom’s garage and amidst clouds of dust I began packing up the books. It made me think of my husband and Richard tilling our backyard. As the blades of the tiller loosened up the soil little puffs of dust littered the sky and their clothes. At the end of the day, they each looked like Charles Schultz’s character “Pig Pen.” And now here I sat as “Pig Pen” with a dusting clothe wiping off Snoopy, Cinderella, Spot, The Cat in the Hat, Angelina Ballerina, and all the rest of my childhood friends. Each book unearthed a swirling of memories. I saw myself reading certain books at my grandma’s house. I saw my mom reading my favorite books at bedtime. I saw my dad assembling and painting the bookshelf. I saw myself buying books for my sisters as souvenirs. I read inscriptions to me, to my sisters, to random people I had never even heard of. I found my sisters’ names in the Dr. Seuss books. My name was in a few books as well as the names of my mom, my aunts, and my step-brother. My childhood unfolded before my very eyes as I flipped through the pages. It made me laugh inside to think that at one time these books were such a precious part of the fabric of my daily life until I grew up and moved out and on with my life.

How long had these books sat here in the land of forgotten items, otherwise known as our garage? About four layers of dust- that’s how long. I really had forgotten all about these books and really didn’t even care about them and now here I was reclaiming them, saving them for my sweet children. They would once again become a precious part of the fabric of my daily life as my children would rediscover them.

As I sat in my mom’s garage, my head was a dusty fog of melancholy nostalgia. It was an end of an era. Things would never be the same. Even the garage was evidence of this fact. I could always count on the garage to be this never-ending pile of random junk and now it was nearly cleared out except for books and the ghosts of Christmases past.

The truth was that the earthquake had already hit my family. We were going through a painful and personal family crisis. Perhaps I was holding onto those books so tightly because I was really trying to cling onto my siblings, my parents, and my childhood. Perhaps we were all just trying to hold onto each other.

While digging through the dusty books I was really digging into my past. The Great Tiller of My Life was ripping through my memories like the tiller had ripped through the grass. What was once buried was brought to the surface. Oh there were so very many happy memories of a girl who had an idyllic, blessed, and even blissfully sheltered childhood. The good times were so plentiful that they far outnumbered the difficult times. But I could not ignore the painful memories of early adulthood that were uprooted as well. Through the great purging of our family’s junk I could see evidence of the conduits of magma that eventually erupted into the volcano of pain and suffering that my family was now experiencing. So much emotion was buried in our garage and now out of necessity we were all forced to reconcile with certain truths that had gone unnoticed for so long. It brought my family closer together as we braced ourselves for the aftershocks.

“Why was God allowing us to go through this?” I wondered angrily. Why would God reveal all this ugliness and beauty simultaneously? Why would he force us to deal with such horrible and painful truths that we had all buried deep inside of us? Through prayer, I was instantly drawn back to the image of our backyard that lay waiting for fresh pallets of grass. That pretty yet uneven grass that had been hashed through and ripped up was now a soft pillow of rich soil just waiting in hopeful anticipation to grow new life.

God was cultivating us.

He was preparing us for something new and fresh. All this digging would not be in vain. All of these things were unearthed to bring truth to light and healing in preparation for the next chapter in our lives. I could acknowledge the hurtful parts of my past, learn from them, heal, and move on. You can’t stay buried in the past- it’s much too dirty there.

A couple days after we returned back home, Emmanuel and Richard were at it again. This time they were ambitiously laying pallets of grass in the few hours that exist between dinner and nightfall. When the job was completed, I sat on our new, leveled grass watching the kids run through the sprinkler. I thought about how so much of the backyard had to be pulled out, rearranged, and redesigned just to make this yard a safe space for my children to play. That is the thing about gardening that has always turned me off to it- work. It takes some labor and skill to grow something.

The kids were thoroughly enjoying their “summer chore” of watering the grass meanwhile the volcano that was our family crisis was still fresh. It was time to take a closer look at those conduits buried deep within. Flipping through those books stirred something up in me; it reminded me that perception is reality. Mixed emotions about the past puffed up when thumbing through old books. But why was this all important? Because it was necessary. Just like it is necessary to pull out the weeds in your yard on a regular basis, its necessary to reflect on the good ‘ole days and those not so great times as well. It’s just something that you have to do.

When you allow The Great Tiller to rake through your soul, you will inevitably pull up some weeds. But fear not, you come from good soil too. Those dusty old books helped me to come to grips with some bad habits that I learned back in the days when Dr. Seuss and Angelina Ballerina were a part of my everyday life. But they also reminded me of a million little details of how God had planted me in rich soil. Sometimes when your life has been abundantly blessed it is easy to ignore the bad habits and character flaws that date back to childhood.

If I didn’t evaluate the habits picked up in my youth, both good and bad, then I could not be the rich, healthy soil in which to plant a new life with my husband and children. Tilling the soil is the best way to insure proper cultivation. I must heal and allow God to prepare my soul for a lush crop of new life and focus my energies on creating new memories in this house. My part in the cultivating process would be to release the bad memories and bad habits learned to make room for new ones. Not necessarily to forget them, but release them like puffs of dirt that evaporate into the sky. Eventually, the dust settles and the earth is like new.

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Rolling Around in Manure

01 Wednesday Oct 2014

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in Bitterness, Love, Uncategorized

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bitterness, love, plumbing, toilet

sewer mud heart

Toilet water was dripping down my face. That was the moment right there. Freeze frame and label it as “my life mostly revolves around cleaning up pee and poo.” Not just the literal excrement of a defiant 3 1/2 year old, an eager-to-potty-train 2 year old, and the dog; no at this point in my life I felt like I was also helping to clean up emotional doo doo from those around me. In my head I was a custodian for the brokenhearted. Don’t get me wrong here, I don’t mind cleaning up- it’s a job that someone has to do. But when you have a plumber outside trying to unclog the sewer of a 117 year old house and you have toilet water on your face from your daughter’s potty training endeavors and you are simultaneously comforting a friend via text message, you start to see a connection.
And it was all connected.

The house was going through some potty training troubles of sorts. Whatever went flushed down a toilet, bathtub, sink, and/or washing machine was now flooding our backyard. A team of plumbers were trudging through the steamy, sewage mud in search of the culprit.

Inside the house, my daughter had asked for privacy to use the restroom only so she could clog up the commode with wads of toilet paper; meanwhile, I was dutifully waiting outside the restroom and seized the opportunity to catch up on my social media. Enter dagger to the heart as I came across some words from a dear loved one that cut a gash through my pride. Those words- they were a slap in the face… or better yet it was like toilet water splattered across my face. How could someone just flush the toilet on your best efforts? Here came the flood of anger, resentment, and frustration.

This is when I walked into the bathroom to discover that my precious daughter had clogged the toilet. Perfect timing. We were instructed by the plumber not to flush any toilets or pour anything down the drain. I was going to have to pull that toilet paper out of the toilet. After I scolded Eva and turned this into a teachable moment, I grabbed the toilet brush and a trash can and went to work. I was about to get the last bit of soggy toilet paper out when the brush got stuck on the side of the toilet bowl and splashed toilet water onto my face. Hot. Red hot boiling water bubbled its way to the top of my head. The surge of anger, resentment, and frustration that had begun with the social media status was now updated by the nastiness dripping down my face. The surge was now pulsing through my body ready to explode just like our sewer waste had exploded into our backyard.

I took a moment. I cried. I showered. The horror washed over me in steamy drops of humility until I came down to the real source of the pot of red hot boiling water.

It wasn’t the clogged sewer or the potty training kids that were bothering me. No, the problem was much deeper. The problem was planted in the depths of my soul and rooted in my heart. Bitterness. Nothing like cold water to the face to wake you up to reality. I just wish that it wasn’t toilet water.

I knew I had been harboring some deep bitterness for months now; gosh, it might have been years. But it took our clogged sewer line to bring me face to face with the ugly truth. I probably had more disgusting gunk in my soul than what was overflowing into our backyard. Bitterness. What was I bitter about? Lots of things. Everything. The hurtful words on the social media site and the kids’ potty training only triggered what I had been holding onto for quite some time. For months I had been feeling this tug at my heart to repent of my bitterness. Let these people go who have wronged you. Stop living in the past. Forgive. Move on. But dang, I am stubborn! I just love to revel in all that hurt and pain and relive it and allow myself to be angry with the ones who have hurt me. Someday I’ll see justice! Someday they will all be sorry for what they have done! Someday they will apologize! I was turning into a pig that loves to roll around in manure. Well, this little piggy needed to go to bitterness rehab! I knew my life would not progress until this nastiness was completely flushed out.

After two 2 different plumbers, a visit from the city sewage company, over 100 feet of hose, and a few days of no flushing the problem had been solved but it turned out that the clog was only part of the problem. Due to the fact that the plumber had an exceptionally difficult time flushing out the clog, he suspected that there was a break in the sewer pipe that was probably caused by a tree root dissecting the pipe. Great.

While the problem of our clogged sewer pipes had technically been taken care of, it was only a temporary solution to what will inevitably happen. At some point we will need to get in there and find out just what is going on with these old sewer pipes. The idea of bitterness rooted deep in my soul took on a whole new meaning at this point. Our beautiful house could quite possibly have a tree root messing up the flow of her pipes. She just might need all new pipes. Oh, the parallel with my life is just too much; somehow I feel responsible for all this! It occurred to me that the effects of this tree root could be catastrophic for our home; likewise, the consequences of me holding onto my bitterness could be devastating to my livelihood and that of my family. This bitterness wasn’t just holding me back from reaching my full potential of being the best me, it was going to mess up my family too. Perhaps it already had. How many things have I said or done that have been a direct result of my “bitterroot?” How many people have I hurt? This isn’t just about me anymore.

Every bone in my body wanted to kick and punch and scream to fight against the conviction to repent. But it was time to flush it all out. The giant wad of bitterness was clogging up my life. It was holding me back and hurting others. It just had to go. I knew my life could not progress until this bitterness was completely flushed out. But it might not be enough. The damage might already be so severe that I might just need all new pipes. What would that look like? I’m pretty sure that my memories of hurt and my hurtful actions/ words are connected by bitter thoughts. Every time I think about those memories I spiral down a tunnel of disillusioned resentment until I get the opportunity to say or do something that I end up regretting . I think that it will feel good but it doesn’t. I need a new tunnel. I need a new pipe to connect memories to actions. Somehow, I need to find the silver lining in each of those potentially bitter memories. I need a holy filter to remind me that God was present even in those awful times. I am in desperate need of clean pipes that will allow joyful thoughts to flow purely like fresh, clean water.

My husband’s way of informing me that the sewage issue had been fixed was to draw a heart in the sewage mud that was our backyard. Ah love. It was finished. He had answered my question of what would it look like to have all new pipes. Love. What would be a way for me to overcome my bitterness? Love.

Flash back to the freeze frame and the self-proclamation that my life is ruled by cleaning up excrement of all kinds. As much as I complain about it there is something healing in pouring love into someone else’s life. It kind of melts away the bitterness. Or maybe it’s because you are so busy helping to clean that you don’t have time to be bitter. In all of my whining about the toilet water and the sewer issues and the kids I forgot about the texting conversation with my friend. There was magic in that conversation. Me and my friend- we were cleaning together. We were emptying ourselves of the mess that is our pasts. There was the silver lining. There was God present in one of the most humiliating and humbling moments of my life. There was love in all of its auto-correct glory.

Custodian of the broken hearted? That sounds so melodramatic and self-righteous. But broken hearts do need mending and bitterness does need uprooting. So we continue to pick up the dustpan and the toilet brush and plunger and shovel and continue to dig and clean.   I’m learning that with love and forgiveness the dirty work will get done.

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Her Name is Eva and She Built This House

24 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in Quirky Stories, Uncategorized

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antique milk bottle, antiques, Eva's Best Drink, post World War II, Queen Anne Victorian house, relics, renovation of an old home, San Benito, Texas

Eva's Best Drink

I looked her in the eye and told her that we would live in this house. This house would be ours. I was expecting the owner to scoff at me especially considering that she had just literally laughed at our meager little offer on the house that was 1/3 of the original asking price. But instead she looked at me for a minute then smiled and told me to follow her. She took me upstairs to the guest bedroom that was lined with brown faux wood paneling left over from the 70’s. There on the fireplace mantle sat a small glass bottle which she handed to me.

At first I thought that it was a pretty cool looking relic but then she told me the significance of the bottle. When Evelyn first bought the house back in the 80’s she realized that someone was going to have to crawl under the house to take a look at what was the state of the plumbing and electrical wiring. Scrappy woman that she is, Evelyn decided that she would be the one to do it.  Under the house  it is pitch black with all manner of wildlife probably sustaining their own ecosystem within the crawl space of the house. Still, Evelyn proceeded with her quest. While she was sliding around on her belly examining the house’s foundation she found a glass milk bottle that dates back to post World War II daily life . Who knows how long it had been there or how it got there. We can only assume that it rolled under the house from the front porch.  The possibilities of it’s whereabouts were endless and intriguing to me.

But what really caught my attention and took my breath away was that the name brand of the milk was “Eva’s Best Drink.” It still gives me chills. I looked at Evelyn and told her that my daughter’s name is Eva and she is named after my grandma Eva. It turns out that Evelyn’s grandmother was also named Eva and that she had named her company after HER grandmother Eva. Evelyn’s own name was a derision of her grandmother’s name as well. Evelyn credits her “Eva company” as the main financial provider for her many, many restoration projects for the house because when she bought the house it was in shambles. In a sense, it was the legacy of her grandmother Eva that rebuilt this house.  When Evelyn found the milk bottle she took it as a sign that this house would be blessed.  Well, that was it. Sold. Ms. Evelyn did not accept our offer that day but we both knew that this house would one day be ours.

It’s been almost 2 years since that conversation about the milk bottle but this last weekend I could not get this story out of my head. It was my Grandma Eva’s funeral and all around me was evidence that she had built this home just as much as Evelyn’s grandmother had built the house. There were so many, many pictures of the chic and classy woman that was Grandma Eva. There were so many stories and eulogies shared; all of them detailing how she had put her faith and her family first. Always. There were memories galore and tears of joy that come with honoring and celebrating the life of a remarkable loved one.

Many times I scanned the room and breathed in the sweet fruits of my grandparents’ labor. It was a soothing, nourishing, and warm scent. Like fresh milk. Grandma Eva was the mother of all these people. Good people. People who are doing things with their lives to make this world a better place. She built this house. My grandparents, they laid the foundation for all of these people who I am privileged and blessed to call family.

I looked at my daughter Eva who is one of the heirs to this kingdom and prayed that I could build her a home as lovely as the one that was built for me. We don’t have to rebuild the house like Evelyn had to, but we are building ourselves a family and several ministries within the walls of this home. Evelyn’s grandma Eva lived on in the legacy of her business that allowed for her to restore this house; my grandma Eva’s legacy would live on through the scaffolding of our family as we made this house our own. I looked at my daughter Eva and realized that she really inherited both legacies. What a grand idea for such a tiny little person! My Eva would reap the harvest of at least five generations of women who came before her. All of them necessary in the building of the generation that followed and all of them essential to the restoration of the physical house that she would build her childhood memories in.

The “Eva’s Best Drink” story would stand as a reminder of how generations past have nourished us in their selfless sacrifices to build us up into the people that we become.  I realized that this story kept coming to the forefront of my mind during Grandma Eva’s funeral because it put things in perspective for me.  As I begin this journey of restoring an old home, I am thirsting for time to complete the ever growing list of home improvement projects so much so that I often lose sight of the bigger picture- the little people who are right beside me.    However, the best drink that will come from this house will not be from the completed projects but from the building of a family within these walls.  Eva gave her best and I am still drinking it all in.  Cheers!

two Evas

My little Eva celebrating her great-grandmother’s 80th birthday!

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The Renovation of My Heart

17 Wednesday Sep 2014

Posted by Remodeling House and Heart in Uncategorized

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Tags

historic district, home improvement, Queen Anne Victorian house, renovation of an old home

house and heart avil'art

We bought a house that was built in 1896. Let me make one thing clear, I am not one of those people who watches HGTV or “Flip this House” or some other kind of home improvement show like that. I am not into renovating houses and neither is my husband. I’m the kind of girl who wants to move into a brand new, custom home and do absolutely no work on it except for hanging pictures. We are not even really big on the do it yourself thing. However, even though it goes against everything that you ever hoped for, when God gifts you with a classic beauty how can you say no? Continue reading →

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