The Saturday Six

One.

While I do not currently have a "formal" mentor in my life, I have many women whose lives and walks with the Lord provide mentorship to me, and I appreciate that. I have also had seasons when I met with different women to allow them to mentor me, and I've served as one before, to a younger friend. It's such an important role, and I fear too many think they are not qualified because they are not perfect. And that's why this article by Carol Kent speaks such life and truth over that myth!


Two.

Last week on the Six, I shared with you a post by my friend Sarah Forgrave that gives healthy(ish) options to choose when eating fast food. (Because we all know fast food happens!) This week, she continued her series on healthy options, but she offers the same advice for sandwich and deli-style restaurants. Thought I would pass it along to you!

Three.

 This article was fascinating to me. The guy is a photographer who builds sets out of miniatures and random props he makes by hand, but the finished photos look like absolute, full-size, real life.

Four.

This article CRACKED me up. 25 random (and may I add - WEIRD) things church members have said to pastors.  

Five.

Still looking for a last-minute Easter dish? Looking for one that has some healthy qualities to it? 30 options here from Dashing Dish. (We've had three Dashing Dish recipes this week, and ALL have been keepers in my opinion. 2/3 keepers in Ryan's opinion.)

Six.

In a weird blog twist, I'm telling you about four books today. WHAT?!?!! I know! I was so busy reading advanced copies of books to help some authors that I didn't have time to read a whole extra book, but it's high time I reviewed these four on the blogaroo, so here you go! I've actually mentioned all of these before in suggested reading lists, but I've never officially told you all about them.

If you heard Tuesday's podcast, you heard about our trip to hear our friend Brent Vernon in concert. Brent is a multi-talented guy. He can sing and play the piano, he's a ventriloquist, but he's also an author and illustrator of children's books! I had owned two of his four books already, but you know me and incomplete collections: shiver! So at that concert, I rounded out my stash and purchased the last two books. And now I shall tell you about them!

The first three books are all part of a series called the Audrey Amaka stories. Audrey Amaka is a neckless giraffe who wears blue sparkly high heeled shoes to help in the height department. Also featured in these books are her two friends, Nelson and Doodle. (Nelson is terribly accident-prone, and I so identify with the poor guy!)

Each book features an important virtue from the Bible, told through creative story. In Neckless, the first book of the series, Audrey learns that she is fearfully and wonderfully made, even if she looks different from everyone else. And she learns that sometimes the very things that make you different can actually make you valuable and special. In book two, Curiosity Crescent Audrey and her friends take a special trip with Mr. Amaka, but they learn the importance of obedience and the consequences that result from disobedience. And in book three, The Okapicat Audrey meets her cousin Ornela, who turns out to be more of a copycat than an Okapi. During Ornela's week-long visit to Audrey's house, both girls learn important lessons about being content with who they are and how attitudes and actions make a big difference!

The stories are all 32 pages long, fun to read, the lessons are well-taught, and the illustrations are amazing. I could just sit and look at the pictures all day! :)

The fourth and newest book Brent wrote is called The Gingerbrood, and it's a Christmas book written in rhyme. I'm always in awe of those who can write poetry, since I have zero skills in that department. :) This book tells the story of a batch of gingerbread cookies that escape from Mrs. Claus's oven, believing if they don't, they'll end up as Santa's snack. The book follows them on their adventures through the North Pole, and is fun to read out loud! (Also amazing illustrations in this one. And if you want a page count - it's 23 pages.)

If you have kiddos in your life, these books would make fun gifts for them. If you don't have kiddos, these books make a great resource to have on hand when some show up at your house and expect you to have books for them to read! (Our niece and nephew loved them when I read them during a stay at our house.)

You can find all four books (plus Brent's music!) in this online store. Totally recommend all of it! 

Good Friday

Guess who forgot Easter was this weekend? This girl. Gulp. It's true. I was the one confused as to why school was not in session today. I was also the one subsequently flying to the store for Easter basket fillers for Ryan.

I think I forgot, in part, because I'm working ahead on so many writing and speaking projects that I lost sight of what's right in front of my face. But I also forgot, in part, because Easter never felt the same again once the Easter Pageant was no more.

I've talked about it on here before, but the Easter Pageant was an annual community passion play that my family participated in long before I showed up on this earth. And for the first twenty-some years of my life, I was in it every single year. It made Easter...Easter.

Several years ago, they stopped producing it, and then they brought it back in modified formats. The most recent rendition I saw was, in some ways, better than the original, I thought, but it was still different. And my memories are tied to the original pageant. The one where we got up at 3 in the morning on Easter and got in the car by 3:20 to drive a half hour, park a few blocks from the building, and run in the early morning cold into an equally cold and musty-smelling gym. We'd gather in our dressing rooms and apply thick costume makeup. Kids guzzled milk and adults guzzled coffee, and neither one helped anybody wake up. Only the cold splash of makeup jolted us into reality.

By six in the morning, we'd be in full makeup and costume, and the lines of people who had waited in the dark and cold outside were thawing in the bleachers, awaiting the first strains of music.

I loved that pageant. I loved seeing the scenes of Holy Week reenacted. I loved a better-than-front-row seat reminder of Jesus standing quietly before His accusers. I loved hearing the Hallelujah chorus sounding loudly as my parents and I escaped the building at the very end. (Our part was over before the Pageant ended, and if we didn't get back to our car before the crowd filed out of the building, we would never make it home in time to undo all the theater makeup and get ready for church.)

I miss all that. I have a DVD of it and if I didn't hide it somewhere in the move, I'll be watching it this Sunday.

But until then, I remember through these pictures, collected here and there throughout the years.

Throwback of the Heart

About a month ago, Ryan and I started reading Beth Moore's David: 90 Days With A Heart Like His for our morning devotions. I had started this book once before, but never finished it. There are places in the book to journal, and on my first run-through, I journaled the daylights out of the pages I read. (Is anyone surprised?)

I'm guessing based on context clues, that this took place about ten years ago, and it has been very eye-opening to read about the state of my heart and faith a decade ago.

In short, I was a mess. (Is anyone surprised?)

Single, losing hope, struggling to believe for a beautiful future, feeling utterly useless at work, and lost in a sea of friendships where everyone seemed to fit in except me.

Beth had written a prayer in the devotion Ryan and I read yesterday. In part, it said, "I will trust in You at all times. I will pour out my heart before you, for You will hear me and answer in your perfect time." (p. 126)

And after that, I had written,

Ahhh...the perfect time. The part that is so hard to wait on. And yet You have offered me these very verses before as a shred of hope about my love life. Even just tonight, I cried out in loneliness. Doing laundry for just me...baking cookies alone...eating at a TV tray...exercising with no one to appreciate the results...it was hard. And yet I believe You heard and You will answer. I'm trusting You because I know in Whom I have believed.

I read that little section aloud to Ryan and shook my head at the direct, specific answers in which I now live.

I'm not even kidding when I say that every single time I do our laundry, I'm thankful the load is twice as big. I'm thankful for every pair of socks and scrubs I match, fold, and put away. I'm thankful for every extra towel on the bar. I know every single girl has her own specific trigger for loneliness, and for me, laundry was a big one. I wanted double the laundry because of the person it would represent, and now, as I live in the answer, doing double the work brings double the joy.

I still bake cookies alone, but I don't eat them alone. (Although I confess there are still days when I could put away the whole batch by myself.) And the principle true of laundry is true of cookies as well. Whether it's actually a batch of cookies or some other dish, cooking for someone brings every bit the amount of joy that I long ago imagined it would. I love planning our meals, making our grocery list, and cooking for the two of us...

...Which leads to the TV tray comment. We've nixed the trays, but we do eat in front of the TV almost as often as we eat at the table. Old habits die hard. But eating in the company of one another is a blessing we don't take for granted. On the rare days when we do have to eat a meal alone, it just feels weird. Incomplete.

As for exercising with no one to appreciate the results, I told Ryan that back then, there weren't any results to appreciate, so I'm not sure what I was saying there. But although I don't exercise solely for Ryan's appreciation, I am always encouraged when he acknowledges the hard work I put into working out and eating well. It helps motivate me on the days when I just want donuts and naps.

I'm grateful that on some random day, a decade or so ago, I committed my specific dreams and heartaches to paper. I'm thankful I clung to a delicate thread of hope. And today I offer words of praise for the answers God eventually brought to me.

Some of you are still waiting for your Mr. Missing. Some of you are still waiting for something else that is dear to you. The words of Beth's prayer are true for you, too. May you chronicle your longings so you can one day see His answers. (I don't know what the answers will be, but I believe an answer of His choosing will come and He can open your eyes to see it!) 

Ryan and the Bridal Store

If you missed yesterday's podcast, then you missed the stories of Ryan's inaugural visit to the bridal salon. (Yes, you read that correctly.)

Here's how it happened: Ryan's sister got engaged a few days ago and invited me to go with her on dress shopping day. When I told Ryan about it, he sort of figured he was included in the invitation, because in general, that's how Shafferland invitations go. We are a package deal. You invite one of us, you've invited both of us. We don't like to be apart. I told him I wasn't sure he was invited, because typically this is sort of a girl thing. He was okay with that, but in a long, convoluted story that you don't have time for, his mom and sister found out he was interested and he ended up going.

His mom was glad he went because she doesn't really enjoy driving, and he could be our chauffeur! I was glad he went because Sunday is our family day, and we had been apart all day Saturday. I didn't want to be apart for a second day in a row!

SO! That's how it came to be that this carload of friends and family joined the caravan to travel south to Indianapolis on Sunday afternoon for wedding dress shopping!

We went to David's Bridal, and Ryan jumped right in to assist with the dress hunt.

There were about 14 of us in this entourage, and the nice lady ushered us to the back to our "area" to wait, and that was when our niece asked if she could borrow my camera. Normally I don't let her take my good camera on her own, but I hadn't brought my old camera (the one she usually plays with) and frankly, I was tired and not up to arguing with a six-year-old. So I gave it to her, on the condition that she would wear the strap around her neck, and without further ado, I would like to present to you "dress shopping through the eyes of a child." Much more entertaining than any photojournalism I could have done on my own. I'll pop in now and then with commentary, but for the most part, the pictures speak for themselves.

(This was the lesson of learning how the camera works. Fun when there are so many mirrors, you can be in a bunch of the pictures you take! And also. Why does Ryan look so confused?)

At this point, the waiting was getting to Ryan, so he set off to explore the far reaches of the bridal salon. His camera-woman followed.

The photographer capturing the photographer.

It was right about here that Ryan's mom (pictured above as the main photographer) said to me, "I hope you're getting some pictures, too." I said, (as captured below), "Actually, no I'm not because my camera has been camera-napped."

And Ryan is either reading the Colts blog or taking a picture of my backside. It really could go either way.

So that was how I got my camera back, and sadly, I can't show you most of the pictures, because they involve THE DRESS, which she said yes to in very short order! But here are a couple.

 (That's my sister-in-law, Megan. We don't have very many pictures of just the two of us. The last one was taken at Christmas and was not our best representation. It is funny, though. Look!)

And the grand finale photos. We wanted a group picture, so Ryan took it for us. This first one was before any of us were ready. Clearly. But it cracks me up. The outtakes of group pictures are almost always better than the intended-outcome photos.

I especially love the diggin-for-gold in the front row.

Take 36!

Ahhhh memories! This was my entourage in October, 2012!