3:42am

Let's admit it: we all face writer's block.  I've heard arguments that it deoes not exist, but reality is that sometimes the words just don't come.  Some days it's because you can't find the time and other days the blank piece of paper (or blank "Document 1") is just too overwhelming to produce anything, much less anything worth while.

A few weeks ago Nikki and I were emailing about the hectic schedules we face this summer and the lack of free writing time.  I suggested she take five minutes and just write.  Pen to paper... three, two, one GO!

But what to write?
1. Peanut Butter Bagel
"I had peanut butter on my bagel today instead of cream cheese, and I feel the need to write about it."

2. A funny or sad or embarassing or random story
It could be from fifteen years ago of fifteen seconds ago, no one really cares.  You don't have to justify why you thought about it right now.  Just write it.  Embellish if you feel like it.

3. "I don't know what to write but Katie told me to write so I am doing it."
MercyMe actually has an entire song about this (ok, without me). It's entitled "3:42am" and it's my prayer for life.

"3:42 am (Writer's Block)" by MercyMe

3:41am make that 3:42

time just keeps rolling on while I'm here stuck like glue

so many things cross my mind but nothing stays awhile... so frustrating

I just want to say something worthwhile... speak through me.

Say, say what You wanna say... and say it loudly

Say, say what You wannna say.

6:45am, man, that just can't be right

3 hours have gone by and this is all I've got

My common sense tells me I should get out of the way.... so You can speak

O, Lord, show up or I'll be here all day... speak through me.

Say, say what You wanna say... and say it loudly.

Say, say what You wanna say... speak through me.

If the idea's mine it's nothing but a waste of time.

So won't You say, say what You wanna say.

Say, say what You wanna say.

Say, say what You wanna say.

Say, say what You wanna say (say it loudly)

Say, say what You wanna say.

Say, say what You wanna say.

and say it louldy

Say, say what You wanna say... speak through me

If the idea's mine it's nothing but a waste of time

So won't You say, say what you wanna say.

Don't wait until you have time to write or you'll never write.  Make time.  And let Him use you.  Let the Writer write; you be the pen.

<>< Katie

"It's All in the Serve"

Do me a favor and hold your imaginary tennis ball in your left hand, racket in your right.  Bounce the ball on the ground a few times because in a second you're going to toss it straight into the air.  Now, cross your wrists.  You know this.  "Down together; up together; swing when you're ready."

How's your serve?

Off the court, how's your serve?  Invisible?  Are you putting the towel on like Jesus and washing dirty, smelly feet?  Are you getting dirty?  Are you being used?  Are you serving your own intentions or feeding the needs of others?

Honestly?

No one's judging you (except God, of course, but He loves you anyway).

The serve
An Ace: A job well done.  Applaud but not because of what you did.  Applaud that God used you, and no one saw.  Don't you dare tell anyone what happened.  Now, go do it again.

The Let: The job was completed, but you got caught in the act.  Bounce the ball a few times, brush it off, and step up to the baseline.  Take two.  Don't get caught.  Let God work.

It's Out: You pushed your own intentions, and the ball went long.  You didn't do what needed to be done, and the ball went wide.  That's ok.  Try again.  Whatever you do, don't let the ball fall short.  Good intentions do nothing.  Follow through.

<>< Katie

Note One: some of the ideas in this post come from Peder Eide.  If you have never explored his Taste Worship ministry, I highly recommend you do so.  Especially if you have a family.  Which you do.

Note Two: The title of this post comes from a Michael W. Smith song from The Second Chance movie.

Who am I?

Sometimes I fluctuate like a pendulum between "God is awesome and everyone needs to know!" and "who am I to expect people to listen when I proclaim His name?"  Sometimes I hit both in a matter of minutes.  What's great is that He can use both ends of the spectrum.

I was having a "Who am I" moment the other day.  Who am I to share the Gospel?  Why should people listen to me?  What story has God given me?  The only times I've gone to bed hungry where the days when I didn't like what was served for dinner. I've never lost my job.  I've never been ripped from the jaws of death.  I've never overcome a serious addiction.  I've never...

Then like He always does, God smacked me in the face as He began to remind me of all of the things He has done in my life.  I've had a seven year old Guatemalan boy fall in love with me.  I've been in a car-totalling accident and walked away without a scratch.  I've been able to make a difference in the lives of teens at home and at school.  I've personally handed a bag of food to someone who will live off of it for the next month.  I've (been told I) energized someone who didn't know if he could muster up the energy to do the job correctly himself.

You think I did any of that on my own?

Maybe I don't remember a specific day when I accepted Jesus Christ as my Savior.  Maybe I didn't overcome a life-changing obstacle to obtain the faith I now proclaim.  That doesn't mean I don't have a testimony.  Testimony is God's people speaking out about what He has done.  He has given me a story to tell.  Who am I not to tell it?

Being used and telling my story,
<>< Katie

Wacky Wednesday

Let's face it: we all say funny stuff.  Sometimes it made sense in our heads and didn't come out correctly, sometimes it didn't make sense inside and still came out, and sometimes it's only funny when plucked from context. 
<>< Katie

Chris: If you're going to call 9-1-1, you should take a picture first.
Katie: I'm not going to use that as a rule of thumb, but if it involves Big Foot, then I definitely agree.

Mom: Your parents are in a tornado warning, by the way.
Dad: My parents?  Do they know that?

Elizabeth: I wonder if I can do that (she ran her hand along the hairdo on a magazine model)
Katie: You should try it.
Elizabeth: I might need to borrow your head.

Laura: My elbow hurts.  No it doesn't.  I just felt like saying that.

Jay: Abs of steel!  Grunt!  Oh, don't do it.

Gwen: Where was I?  Why was I here eating cake?

I was sitting in my room reading a book, as I had been for the last several hours. Laura burst in (without knocking) to tell me about a conversation she thinks she overheard.
Christina: Katie smells like sesame chicken.
Mom: Katie is sesame chicken.
Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Mom: Get your toe-jams out of my armpit!

[Dad has Katie in a headlock]
Dad: You're getting too old for this.
Katie: No, you're getting too old for this.

Christina: Mom, when's my ortho appointment?
Mom: Ortho?  You mean dentist appointment.
Christina: Whichever one is to get rid of my big jumble of guts.
Mom: Most people call them wisdom teeth.

Dad: Brett, look at the back of your dad's head, Ryan's dad's head, and my head.  How do you think that happened?
Brett [age 13]: Too many noogies.
Dad: Who is the noogie loser?

I had just done a Margarita with a Twist (a flip) into our pool, and it messed up my contacts.
Katie: Woah, y'all are blurry.
Christina: Do you want my noodle?  Here!
Katie: Funny thing, I don't need to be able to see to tread water, but thanks.

Bryce [age 15, practically my cousin]: Katie, come to the park with us!  We'll find cute boys.
(a few hours later)
Bryce:  I got this for you.  It's a friendship for life bracelet.  (He put a glow stick around my wrist)
Katie: Thanks!  I didn't need to go to the park to find cute boys.

Mom: Fireflies are good bugs.
Grandma: They're even better rings!
(She killed a lightning bug and stuck it's butt on her ring finger... she then said it was even prettier than the diamond Grandpa bought for her).

See the blue; be the blue

My summer days have been pretty much the same: check blogger for updates, facebook, read blogs, check blogger for updates, write a new blog, read a chapter, work on novel (50,000 words!), check blogger for updates, read a chapter, work on novel, check blogger for updates...

When I finally tear myself away from the computer, I head to the basement to work on my scrapbook.  Directly above my workstation is a window that leads to a hole in our backyard.  When we first punched holes in the walls to add the windows, we put flowers in the terraced dug-out because they were pretty.  Well, the years have gone by and so have the flowers.

The other day I was banished to the basement (tornado warning?).  After cranking out a few pages, I looked up and saw this:

That's the best photo I could get without climbing on the counter and sitting in the window well in a "super safe way," sorry.  There is one small clump of blue flowers in a huge sea of green.  I looked at those blue flowers and smiled.

That's how we're supposed to be: one blue flower in a sea of green.  We're supposed to stand out in the crowd.  Stand strong for Christ, even when we're alone.  Daily show His grace, mercy, joy, and compassion even when it isn't easy.  We're supposed to be the blue.

A couple of hours later, I was still thinking about this God moment when I remembered the title of disc two in my car: See the Blue by Peder Eide.

The back of the CD case says,

If you look around yourself right now - even as you read this- and look for the color blue, you will most likely find many things that are blue.  The color stands out when you look for it.  It has always been there, but it's when you look for it that you find it!  The same goes for God's presence, God's fingerprint, God's grace, and God's still small voice.  It's always there, but often we don't notice it, hear it, or see it until we look for it."

Do you see the blue?  Can you be the blue?

<>< Katie

Happy Birthday, Homeland

For the last ten years or so, my church has done a patriotic musical every Fourth of July, and I have made it part of my Independence Day celebration.  One of the songs we do is entitled "Salute to the Armed Forces" where we sing the song of every branch of our military.  When their song is sung, the veterans are told to stand.  The congregation and choir alike applaud them for their sacrifice as we sing together. 

It's a powerful moment.  Or string of moments.  It's amazing to be in the congregation as amen and women all around you stand and are honored for their willingness to give.  One year, I sang in the choir and sitting in the second row was a solider in his dress blues.  I don't know if there was a dry eye in the building.

This year, something a little bit different happened. After we applauded, without the prompting of the choir or the director, the entire congregation moved to keep the beat with our hands.  I wasn't quite sure how to handle this in my no clapping, barely sing along Lutheran congregation.  We were all clapping together and singing at the top of our lungs.

In ten years, that has never happened before.  It happened at both performances this year.  Wow.

Those men and women who stood and could not stand deserve more than a round of applause.  So many more gave the ultimate sacrifice in laying down their lives so that I can sit here and type this sentence.  So many of them suffered horrific injuries, physical and emotional.  They've experienced more than I can ever imagine and they did it all for us. 
Army.
Navy.
Coast Guard.
Air Force.
Marines.
Thank you!

Happy birthday, America.  I am so glad to call you my homeland.

<>< Katie

July 2, 2000

It's the time of the year again.  The time when we are pelted relentlessly with storm after storm.

We built the house we currently occupy and while under construction it almost constantly had several inches of water in the basement.  Ultimately, we opted to lower the ceiling (literally by raising the basement floor) to avoid most water problems.  We're the low point of the subdivision and the closest we can legally be to a river.  We've also got an industrial-size sump pump and the mother of all dehumidifiers, both of which run for hours daily.  On top of a battery back up for the sump pump, a generator, and a check value, we're pretty much good to go.

We learned the hard way.  Today marks the ten-year anniversary of when our basement flooded.... with almost a foot of raw sewage.  Once we realized the gushing of sewage wasn't going to stop, my mom called her parents who live 30 minutes away.  We were lucky because my aunt and uncle were in town staying there, too.  The six adults ran up and down the stairs with flashlights in their teeth and were able to save 80 percent of our stuff.  (My sisters watched in terror... I was in my room getting a good night's sleep).  Two doors down, they weren't so lucky.  Rob was out of town on business, so eight-months pregnant Karen trudged through literally eight inches of sewage trying to save those irreplaceable.  Three houses in our neighborhood got sewage and another few got water.  It was not a good night.

That was back when we first moved into our new house and lost power with every storm.  We slept with flashlights in each bedroom.  Now, we get so many tornado watches that they're ignored, other than turning on local television.  "Tornado Warning" runs more smoothly than "Dinner's ready."  Turn off and unplug all of the computers, close windows and doors, close the garage door, grab the cats, someone get a flashlight, where's my cell phone?, and into the basement we go. We don't mess around, but we don't panic either.  During one of the more recent storms, I paused for a second. No adrenaline rush, no tremors, and no pounding heart.  In all honesty, I was moderately disappointed, but I was also relieved.

I remember the first tornado warning without my parents. I was just barely old enough to stay home with my sisters, and it was literally the first time they let us stay home alone. They went to a baseball game in the skybox with a bunch of friends.

The sky was dark and even at 7, 9, and 11 my sisters and I weren't stupid. We had all of the flashlights we owned, our first aid-kit, and sweatshirts and blankets all piled neatly on my bed. "Just in case," I said, and we went back to playing.

In the stadium, focus shifted from the game to the tv revealing the weather. Instantly, those with cell phones pulled them out and began to call home. The tornado was headed directly towards our neighborhood. My parents began to panic.

Three little girls home alone + tornado = bad news bears

To top it off, every one of our neighbors, every one of our "call these people if you ever have a problem" friends was at the baseball game with my parents watching helplessly as the weatherman told our area to take cover. Of course, all of the neighbors' kids were home with young babysitters, too. There weren't any better options than "suck it up, go downstairs, and pray hard."

Our prayers were answered very quickly.  On the other end of the phone, Dad stopped talking. The voice was replaced by Rob's unmistakable Pennsylvania accent, "My mom's in town. She's at home with our girls; she'll go and get yours, too."

Grammi's number of scared little girls doubled that minute as she became our hero. My sister said something about being scared and Grammi told her if the storm ripped off the roof, Grammi would lay on top of us girls and there was no way the storm would move her.  :-)   The seven of us huddled in the corner of their basement playing a game and waiting for the storm to pass.  There was no major damages that night but there were a lot of sighs of relief.

Just a good neighbor answering the call of duty or an everyday hero?  Take your pick.

<>< Katie