Margaret McSweeney's Blog, page 14

Love Your Man Enough to Zip It | Debora Coty

I truly love my man, Chuck. I do. But even after 35 years, the way he thinks completely befuddles me.

One day he got a hankering to do yard work. That in itself was phenomenal. So out he went to mow, trim, weed-whack, and leaf-blow. When he came in, filthy from head to toe, he informed me with a gleam of pride in his eye that he’d tidied up the backyard flowerbed for me and fixed the sprinkler problem.

Sprinkler problem? There was no sprinkler problem. Uh-oh.

Now you first have to understand that although the lawn is his job, the flowerbeds are my domain. I plan, plant, and carefully nurture each and every flower, shrub, and ornamental. I often talk to them and sometimes even sing to them. Don’t laugh. They’re my little green babies.

So imagine my absolute horror when I walked out the back door to find my gorgeous six-foot philodendron stretched out like a dead body beside the garbage can. It had been hacked off at the base.

I was so devastated I could barely breathe as I stared at the huge gaping hole in the row of seven enormous, wondrously healthy philodendrons I had planted and lovingly coaxed to adulthood during the past three years. The one in the middle was missing. The one by the sprinkler head.

Chuck, with his logical see-a-problem-so-fix-it male brain, had decided that the plant had grown so big, it was blocking the sprinkler. What he failed to consider was that the whole point of the sprinkler was to grow the plant big.

I cried. I actually wept. And then I fumed.

The rage fuse lit somewhere in my innards and erupted into an inferno. I was ready to storm inside and scorch the remaining hair off Chuck’s head. But something stopped me. It was Papa God reminding me of Proverbs 18:2 (NIV): “A fool finds no pleasure in understanding but delights in airing his own opinions.”

To tell you the truth, I was so livid, I didn’t much care whether I was a fool or not at that moment. But I knew Papa did. So I just stood there praying for a new herspective (my term for a woman’s point of view), sobbing quietly so the neighbors wouldn’t call the men in white jackets to haul me away.

Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Chuck covertly watching me from the porch. My mind flew back to the funeral I had recently attended of a woman I’d known since childhood. During the heart-melting eulogy, her husband of 58 years praised the way she’d held their marriage together through difficult times and said in a grief-choked voice, “She never looked down on me in all those years – she always looked up at me in respect …even when I didn’t deserve it. ”

Then their 40-something daughter admitted that that during her entire lifetime she’d never heard her mother say one bad word about her father.

Gulp. Those words hit me hard. I was so convicted about criticizing my husband – much of it in my own mind – that I vowed to show him more respect. Even when it seemed undeserved.

So standing there in my backyard, I prayed. “Lord, help me understand him, not criticize him. I know he meant well and was only trying to please me. Glue my mouth shut, Papa; help me forgive him and really appreciate all he does for me.”

Later that afternoon, I got up enough courage to go back out to the flowerbed to attempt some damage control. To my surprise, there in the gap next to the stark green stump, stood my listing, drooping philodendron. Chuck had dug a hole and tried to replant the poor rootless thing. He’d even watered it.

I burst into tears again, but this time they were warm tears of gratitude mingled with salty tears of joy. Oh, I knew there was no hope for the philodendron, but the point was that by me not blowing up and instead following Papa God’s loving lead, what could have been a marital Hiroshima . . . wasn’t.

And Chuck, without feeling criticized or belittled, got that he’d unwittingly broken my heart and was doing his best to redeem the situation. How can you not love a guy like that?

Dr. Gary Campbell says, “Love is a choice you make every day. And in choosing love, you’re following Christ’s example. Nothing is more Christlike than loving your spouse.”

So girlfriend, the next time you find your Godiva stash missing because your guy is helping you stick to your diet, choose love. And remember the verse I just might have tattooed across my forehead, “Keep your mouth shut, and you will stay out of trouble” (Proverbs 21:23, NLT).

*Adapted from the newest book in Debora’s Take On Life series, Too Loved to Be Lost, releasing October, 2014

Bio: Debora M Coty is a humorist, speaker, and award-winning author of 14 books including Fear, Faith, and a Fistful of Chocolate, and Too Blessed to be Stressed. Mother of two and Mimi of one adorable grandbuddy, Deb lives, loves and laughs in central Florida with her horticulturally-challenged husband Chuck and desperately wicked pooch, Fenway. Stop by and swap howdys at www.DeboraCoty.com.

When your sweets go missing bc your guy is helping you stick to your diet, choose love @deboracoty...
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I’m Not In Love With My Husband

I’m in love with cookie dough.

And cherry chapstick.

Letterpress stationary.

A roaring fire.

Even a good book.

How can I be in love with them and not with him?

When we first began dating at age 15, I thought I was in love. Indeed I was—head over heels in love with the idea of having a boyfriend. We had the time of our lives on our first few double dates. When we got our driver’s licenses and could go out alone, we thought we were in heaven. Before I knew it, I had myself a steady boyfriend. We didn’t want to spend a minute apart. Then we surprised everyone and decided to go to college in separate states. I confess it’s true—absence does make the heart grow fonder. We wrote to each other every single day. And we stuck it out—tying the knot three weeks after graduation, more in love than ever and ready to begin our new life together.

Our pastor assured us that the day would come when we wouldn’t feel about each other the way we did at that moment.

I didn’t believe him, but he was right.

I’m not in love with my husband.

Instead, I love him. Yes, there is a difference between love and being in love. I love him with a love so fierce, so strong, so significant that it has ceased to be a feeling I can manage with the emotions available to me in this life.

In sickness and in health, and in good times and bad are easy to understand within the context of simply being in love.

But to love—the verb—is so much bigger. It’s sobbing in the middle of the night over broken dreams. It’s a desperate hug over disappointment and loss because your loss is his loss and his loss is your loss. It’s celebrating the joy of new life, of creating something together, and sharing the secret of an intimacy so pure, the snow would be jealous.

I hate to admit it, but the pastor was right. Just as he predicted, my feelings come and go. I am annoyed. I am frustrated. I am ecstatic. I am confused. The circumstances of my day control me. That’s what it’s like to be in love—to be at the mercy of the “feel-good” life. And life, as it happens to us, doesn’t always feel good.

But when I love, and I mean really love, I am changed. I’ve never read any passage in the Bible that describes Jesus as being in love. He is love, but he’s not in love. He didn’t really operate that way. He lived with arms open wide, inviting people wholly unlike him to share his life. That’s how I want to be–this person who walks around and loves–with that honest, healing, open-handed kind of love. Like Jesus. Yes, I want to love my husband like Jesus loved people. He loved people who didn’t deserve it. And he loved the ones who mocked him. He loved the guys who just didn’t get it. And he especially loved the ones who messed everything up–over and over again. He just loved them. And a lot of people loved him back because of it. What I love most about Jesus is that he didn’t just talk about love; he showed me how to do it, too.

The lesson didn’t come easy. But once I learned the difference between being in love and actual love, my marriage got better. The romance didn’t go away as I had feared. Instead, it deepened. Adventure gave way to a quiet companionship I found I actually enjoyed. I don’t dread hard conversations the way I used to. And I rest easy at night, secure, because I no longer operate under the assumption that I have to be in love to give love.

Until death do us part, I love him. Even when I’m not in love with him.

 

Being in love isn't the same thing as loving. @chanlynnadams @Grit_Grace
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Phases of Grocery Life| Denise Hunter

When I first married, I found the grocery store crowd to be a world of its own. First of all, there were all these young, frazzled moms with toddlers pointing, begging, trantrumming. (Not a word, but it should be, right?)

Then there were the soccer moms with their lists and calculators, breaking up arguments between their coupon flipping.

You could tell the moms who left the kiddos home with hubby. They shopped S-L-O-W. And why not? This was their me-time. So what if it happened over cleaning products in aisle 11? You take what you can get. I understand this now.

The strangest to me, though, were the other ones. The older women who talked to themselves. When I encountered my first one, I thought she was talking to me. But when I answered, she looked at me with wide eyes. Oh, I thought. I guess she’s just putting that question out to the universe.

I was in the salad dressing aisle, searching for the pre-cooked bacon (because spaghetti carbonara is time-consuming enough without frying the bacon) when it happened to me. “Where is it, oh, please don’t be out of it.” The full sentence is out before I realize. I suck in my breath. I have become one of them. It can’t be. I haven’t even finished the soccer mom phase. “See? Here are my coupons!”

A young woman walks by. We make eye contact, and before she looks away, I see that look. The one that says, “Make a wide right. Crazy woman ahead.”

“No,” I want to say to her. “I’m not crazy! You’ll be like me too, one day. You’ll see.”

I find the bacon pieces and toss the package in my cart. It’s official. I have hit all the phases of the grocery life and landed, prematurely but inevitably, in the delusional, talking-to-self phase. The only thing to look forward to now is the motorized cart.

Denise Hunter does her writing (and her grocery shopping) in northeastern Indiana where she lives with her husband, three sons, and their golden retriever Daisy.

What phase of grocery shopping are you in? @DeniseAHunter @Grit_Grace
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Marriage: Pamper it!

We might want a week away, but need to settle for three hours. We might want a trip to Europe, but need to be content with an overnight stay in an adjacent city. We need to find ways that will work practically and financially.

When a caregiver is on call 24/7 every day, getting away without interruption seldom occurs, so when an opportunity arises, we say, “take it!” Every married couple needs time alone, time to focus on each other, time to rejuvenate. When a person with special needs is involved, that opportunity is harder to find. You can’t just pick up and take off—ever, without involving and including others to help make it happen.

Everyone has different options and choices. We were blessed in the early years of caring for a child with special needs with time away to be alone. The grandparents were willing and able to care for Joey, so we tried to use that time for “us” whenever we could. Not all couples will have this particular option, so before you stop reading and say, “This doesn’t work for us,” realize that some of us might need to be more creative than others in getting what we need. If we don’t try to figure out ways to make things work for us, it is doubtful that some stranger will approach us and say, “Perhaps I can help.” Creativity and flexibility must stay high on our list as we work through taking care of our marriage, and all of life.

For us, pampering our marriage ranged from staying home and going to bed together early when the grandparents took the children overnight, to a weekend away forty-five minutes from home, to a nice twelve-day vacation out of the country. We liked the out-of-the-country pampering the best because short of an emergency, no one would call us. Selfish, you say? Perhaps for some, but for oth­ers it’s self-preservation.

When we had just the two children, we had a chance to take a cruise, not even a business or ministry related trip, just pure fun! If memory serves us correctly, it was the first or maybe second trip we’d taken alone since having children. Someone had said to us, “That must be nice. I wish we could do that.” Perhaps our response should have been, “Oh, thank you so much for sharing in our joy” and might have been, had the comment not been made in a condescending tone that we heard as, “It must be nice to leave your kids and go off on a trip alone.” We smiled and said something about looking forward to it.

If your enjoyment comes from playing golf, diligently search for someone who can handle the responsibilities of spe­cial needs long enough to get to the golf course to play nine holes! (Be happy with nine, even though eighteen sounds better!) Of course, some of us need to learn how to relax once we’re on the course! If not golf, then perhaps running, swim­ming, or taking a dance or foreign lan­guage class will give a couple the sense of enjoyment and rejuvenation that will allow the pair to go back home to life as usual. We can’t do life as usual for very long without some kind of relief from the pressures of caring for another’s full-time needs. Whatever you do, pamper that marriage!

Take time to pamper your marriage! @CindiFerrini @McSweeney
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Bye

You just never know with teens. This school year has been a bit of a learning curve in my present library. Not because I’m new to the school [or to libraries, for that matter], but because when I came last year, it was in an unfamiliar position—a true learning curve—as a fourth-grade teacher. An initiation into life here, then, was a rather harrowing one. And it left me overly stressed for much of the beginning of this year: I suspect simply because I got used to a high level of work stress and was afraid to sink into a more natural one for me . . . a “too good to be true” mindset, perhaps. All that to say, I’ve been figuring out this librarian thing all over again this year ☺

One thing I did without thinking too much about was bending the old rules a bit by allowing the high schoolers to bring their lunch in. After watching them stand in the hallway with their plates for months, so eager to get into the library that they were unwilling to “waste” the time in the cafeteria, I just beckoned to them one day. “Come on in,” I said with a sigh. They looked at me oddly. “Just bring your lunches and come in,” I told them as long as they sat at the table in the uncarpeted area while eating. They nodded eagerly in agreement and the select few have ritually dined in the library ever since. I need to be in the library for both lunch periods, available for checkout, so I am accustomed to saving in-library projects for that time frame, when I can busy about without being fully engaged as I am when teaching library classes. So I have grown accustomed to just doing my work and half-listening as they talk. Recently I realized, however, that I have also grown to look forward to this period of the day. With my normal elementary workload, I’ve found it refreshing to experience the high school world. And I’ve started to suspect that a few of them kind of like me as well [a suspicion that brings out the best—er, worst?— in my dorky desire to be one of the popular kids ;-)].

One of the girls who comes in bears an aura of devil-may-care about her. She is in her own world, and doesn’t really care what others think of her . . . or so it seems. I’ve started to notice, however, little indications of sensitivity tucked underneath that sarcastic exterior. And it has given me the desire to let her know that I enjoy having her around. With this sort of phase, I know better than to try to pry, or be overly affectionate. Instead, then, I just casually drop hints as best I can: hints that I think she is pretty cool.

This afternoon I packed up my things as usual to head out once I was done. If students are wanting to study in the library after hours, though, I try to allow it. I will just leave them there and return later to lock up. Doing so today, then, this particular student was reading as I left. I told her I was heading out and said that if she was gone when I returned, I hoped she had a good evening. She waved goodbye to me, and I went out for my walk with a coworker. Later on I came back to lock up and almost missed a note on my desk. When I did see it, however, I grinned heartily. It was no big deal, really. But this small note spoke volumes to me. It spoke of the value behind each small moment of a day. It spoke of a brimming heart hidden beneath a gruff exterior.

“Bye!”

A simple, hand-written note can make a huge impact @Grit_Grace @GraceAnnaJ
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Why We Long for God to See Us | Tammy Maltby

 

Not long ago, I accompanied a friend to the hospital for surgery. After she was wheeled away, I began talking with one of the nurses. Somehow the conversation came around to the nurse’s brother, who had been killed in an accident three years earlier. Like most untimely losses, the brother’s death had dramatically disrupted this woman’s family. Her mother still struggled with bitterness. Her parents’ marriage had faltered. Her baby son, born two weeks after her brother’s death, would never know his uncle.

Soon my new friend was pouring out her heart to me. And at some point, I shared with her something I had been thinking about a lot.

“Do you understand that God sees you in all this?” I said. “He really sees—”

I hadn’t even finished the sentence before she started to weep. She cried so hard that another nurse walked over to see if she was okay. She was completely undone at the thought that God saw her pain, her fear, her broken heart. She kept saying through deep sobs, “He sees me? He really sees me?”

That was just one simple encounter, one more reminder that the message of the God who sees you is one that needs to be shared again and again—with those who don’t know the Lord and with those who do. There’s a reason we hunger to be recognized, acknowledged, appreciated, and cared for. There’s a reason our hide-and-seek life—yearning to be found by God, yet fearing it at the same time—leaves us feeling so bruised and unsatisfied. It’s because God has intentionally and wonderfully created us to see and be seen, to live in intimate and joyful relationship with Him and with others.

More important, He put that need in us because He wants to meet it. He’s put the longing there to draw us closer to His heart.

We hunger to be seen—because He really does see us.

The challenge is to really believe it . . . to live in the confidence that we are recognized and accepted and included and, most of all, loved.

Can you do that? Can I?

I’ll admit I’ve had my struggles, but I can honestly say I believe it with all my heart. Here’s why:

First, the Bible tells me so, and the Bible has proven a reliable guide in my life. The whole sweep of the Bible can be understood as the story of a God who saw His people, even when they couldn’t see Him. A God who came to earth and paid special attention to the unnoticed—the meek and the mourning, the children everyone turned away, the powerless rather than the ones on top. A God who cared so much about what He saw that He came to earth in human form, turning hide-and-seek into the ultimate show-and-tell.

But I also believe because God has shown me, again and again, in the circumstances of my life. He has shown me through the whisper of His Holy Spirit, through the timing of my experiences, through the love and example of other people and the mysterious provision of what I have needed most.

I’ve seen too much evidence not to believe God sees me. I’ve been loved too much not to make it the story of my life.

I want it to be the story of your life as well. I want it to change everything, including the way you look at God and yourself and other people. I want you to live in confidence that when God looks at you, He sees beauty. He sees value. He sees hope. And even when you’re hiding, even when you’re so beaten down you can’t see anything clearly, He’s still hard at work, crafting a beautiful future of relationship with Him and with others. . . .

That’s . . . my personal witness as someone who at times has felt forgotten, uncared for, unloved, invisible. I truly believe I have a word from God for those lonely, aching times in your life.

The message is this: Regardless of how you may feel, God does see you.

He knows your name, and He loves you—passionately and tenderly.

He sees your needs, and He yearns to fill them.

At any given moment, even when you feel most alone, He is working out a plan for your future. . . .

One way or another, one day soon, you . . . will be able to say, thankfully, “I have seen the God who sees me.”

Regardless of how you may feel, God does see you @tammymaltby @grit_grace
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Adapted from The God Who See You by Tammy Maltby (with Anne Christian Buchanan). Copyright 2012 David C. Cook. Used with permission. Permission required to reproduce. All rights reserved.

More about Tammy Maltby:

Tammy is a speaker, author, and media personality with a heart for helping women to live rich, authentic lives. Her multifaceted life can be summed up in one word “encouragement”. Tammy’s graceful and transparent style of communication inspires women to live a more honest and real lifestyle. Her passion for beautiful living and relationship-centered hospitality shines in her recent book, The Christmas Kitchen: A Gathering Place for Making Memories. Tammy is also the author of Confessions of a Good Christian Girl, Lifegiving: Discovering the Secrets to a Beautiful Life, and A Discovery Journal to a Beautiful Life, is coauthor (with Tom Davis) of Confessions of a Good Christian Guy, and has just finished her newest book The God Who Sees You released in April of 2012.

A ten-year cohost of the two time Emmy-winning NRB TV talk show of the year Aspiring Women, Tammy is spearheading a movement encouraging women to “Start Simply but Simply Start!” Tammy is inspiring women to use food and faith as a tool to create community and connection. It’s not just about how to cook, more importantly it’s about why we cook!

Tammy is the married, mother of four grown children, two of whom are adopted internationally. She is a doting grandmother to four grandsons and makes her home in Colorado.

Learn more about Tammy and The God Who Sees You at tammymaltby.com.

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Great is His Faithfulness in the NEW

The job description is changing. I’ve been a SAHM (stay-at-home-mom) for years, actively volunteering in the lives of my children…church, school, sports, community.

It’s been a great run!

My eldest son was off to college last fall. The day he moved in was a wonderful day. He had made a good choice and was excited about his classes and living in the dorm. He gave me inquisitive, sidelong glances throughout the day, looking for tears. None came. Really it was a fabulous day.

Two weeks later it hit me. As I sat on the John Deere lawn tractor, mowing because one of my “yard specialists” had started college and the other was busy with school and marching band, I lost it. The tears streamed from under my sunglasses and dripped off my chin. Thank goodness the noise was muffled by the mower! My husband came home just in time to witness it all. (If the neighbors noticed, they were kind enough to not mention it!)

It’s hard to have everything seemingly change. Three of us around the dinner table, three of us at breakfast Bible study, three of us discussing our weekend plans. Fewer kids through the house everyday, cupboards not so bare, gas gauges not quite on the E as quickly. The realization that the empty bedroom will be that, empty more often than not hit me like a ton of bricks.

But new can be good. More time to spend with my younger son and husband, more time to spend on 1 Corinthians 13. Parenting, more time to mentor moms. Life may seem new, but it’s a good new.

And in the mix, the Lord is present. Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22-23). He’s the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He’s guiding my son in college and my younger son in high school,. He’s walking alongside my husband throughout his workday, and by my side everyday as well. Great is His faithfulness.

I’m thrilled when my “big guy “comes home for a quick weekend. I’m happy for him when he returns to school, learning and growing, listening for his call from the Lord to be the young man he was created to be. As parents, we raise our children for the Lord and set them free to do the work they are called to do. The NEW is a blessing. Yes, I still shed a tear occasionally but I know the new is good, for my son and for me.

We raise our children for the Lord & set them free to do His work @BeckyDanielson1 @Grit_Grace
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Pearl Girls Giveaway | Win Three Great Books!

We’ve had some great guest posts this month on Pearl Girls. We’d love to give you a chance to win a copy of their books!

Leave a comment below for your chance to win a copy of The Painted Table by Suzanne Field, The Calling by Suzanne Woods Fisher, and A Promise Kept by Robin Lee Hatcher! Winner will be announced next Friday!

When You Feel Like You Are Nothing

I just made a double batch of my fudge brownie recipe, to send with friends to use at their children’s camp. I did lick the spoon –always willing to risk salmonella for the sake of chocolate.

I wish you could smell my house right now.

I refuse to buy a box mix because my homemade recipe is so good.

If you’re standing over two 9 x 13 pans at a church dinner, and you know one cake is homemade and the other is from a box mix, which one will you choose? Isn’t there more glory for the woman who starts with a little bit of nothing and makes something delicious?

God makes things from scratch, too.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty…” (Genesis 1:1-2 NIV)

That’s really starting from nothing and whipping up something amazing.

That means we are scratch.

Sometimes we feel like the earth in its beginning–formless and empty. We wonder, What can possibly become of my life?

“God chose the weak things of the world…” (1 Corinthians 1:27 NIV)

I’m just a nerdy, book-reading, unathletic girl from Wyoming, but look how God is using my words to speak into your life today? He has chosen to make me something, even though most days I feel like he does not have much to work with. If he can make me someone useful, he can do the same with you.

You’re the simple ingredient God chooses, and he plans to whip up your life into something incredible, for his glory.

Of course, cooking from scratch isn’t as quick and easy as a box mix. It takes more time and some creativity.

Have faith.

God is at work in your life.

Fudge Brownies

COMBINE:

1 and 1/3 cups flour

2 cups sugar

3/4 cup baking cocoa

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

ADD:

2/3 cup oil

4 eggs (slightly beaten)

2 tsp. vanilla

(Don’t overmix!)

Pour into a 13 x 9 pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. (Use toothpick test.)

God can use you! And @Christy_Fitz shares her yummy brownie recipe! @Grit_Grace
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Do You Pick A Church like You Pick a Restaurant?

Think about the last time you went out to eat. Maybe you had a craving for a cheeseburger, steak, or filet mignon. Perhaps you just wanted to pick up a pizza on the way home. Or possibly you stopped at the local ice cream shop for a triple chocolate sundae. We typically base our food preferences on what we’re craving at the moment or what we’re used to. Isn’t this how we also pick our churches?

We go to the church where we like the electric guitar solos during worship. We attend the church where the pastor has a message that moves us to tears every week. While these can be good things, have you ever thought that God might be calling you to a church at which you’re not comfortable? Church is not a restaurant; we shouldn’t choose our churches like we would choose a restaurant. Perhaps you’ve made a New Year’s resolution to go to church regularly or to find a different church. Keep in mind that God sometimes calls us to places we don’t like or feel comfortable at, but have faith that He will give you strength no matter the circumstance.

Do You Pick A Church like You Pick a Restaurant? @Grit_Grace @ReMixHer
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