Using our different talents and gifts to work together in the body of Christ

        

Yesterday it was raining. And when I say raining, I don’t mean just a light sprinkle but it was really coming down.  Now why would I think that you would care what the weather is like in my area? Normally I wouldn’t but yesterday was the opening day of deer season.  There are men and women who were outside in this messy weather, giddy with excitement as they anticipated shooting a buck, you know, the big one; the biggest one; the one that will get them the county record.  Well, probably not, but they were excited non-the-less. And then there is me.

         Also yesterday, school just happened to be cancelled, not because of opening day, not because of a snow storm but because the heat went out in one of the school buildings.  So I sat under my cozy, fuzzy green blanket doing what I love. Writing.  I had no desire to dress up in several layers of clothing and go sit outside for who knows how long to wait for a buck crossing my path that I would probably miss if I shot at it anyway. But I did have a desire to sit in my pj’s, drink my coffee, write, and look out at the pouring rain and hear the sounds of it on my metal roof.  To me that is the epitome of relaxation and joy.

         Isn’t it amazing how we are all different? Some can’t wait to get up at 4 a.m. to gather all of their hunting gear and get out there. Other’s like me only get up at 4 a.m. to go to the bathroom and then I head straight back to bed!  Life would be boring if we were all the same and so our diversity makes life exciting.  I love going to school and hearing the adventures that the kids had hunting before they even got to school.  Funny thing is that on a normal day they can’t make it to school on time to save their lives but get them a deer license and they are bright eyed and bushy tailed at 4 or 5 a.m. 

Things I’ve learned from my dog

Sometimes I feel like my dog.  I mean I’m not hairy all over, well, maybe just a little on my legs in the winter—it’s Northern Michigan, it keeps me warm, don’t’ judge me. I don’t have a tail and I don’t, thankfully, have to run outside to use the bathroom. But some of the things that she does makes me think of some of the things I do (or want to do in my own life). 

1. She’s needy.  That sweet dog will sit with the cutest look on her face and the most darling puppy dog eyes that you ever did see just to get some attention. Her goal, I believe, is just to get us to look at her and fluff her ears or grab a toy and play for a moment.  There are times, like this morning, that she just sits in the middle of the floor and whines.  The only reason she does it is because she wants someone to recognize her existence and to pet her.  She doesn’t want to be pet just once and then to move on, but wants us to spend the remainder of our morning petting and massaging her neck.  Gee, wouldn’t we all like that type of attention?  I’m pretty confident I do the same things to get attention—well, almost the same things.  I don’t sit in the middle of the floor and whine (probably because I couldn’t get up easily if I did it). But I when I do need some extra attention I may mope around the house until someone recognizes that yes, Laurie has a need and asks me to which I begin spilling out whatever my need is.  Thankfully my dog can’t actually talk or else I’m sure we would hear an earful.  There are times that I too would like to just nuzzle up to someone and have my neck massaged, or to have all of the focus on me.  It seems often, unlike my dog, that I skirt around sharing my need and just continue on with life never sharing what it is that I actually need from a particular person.  Wouldn’t it be much easier if I, or I’m assuming many of you, would just sit in the middle of the floor and say, “I need a hug, I need to talk, I need just to feel loved and appreciated, etc….?”  I’m not encouraging you to sit in the middle of your living room floor and just whine like my dog because, quite honestly, it is annoying.  What I am suggesting is that you share your needs and your burdens with those that care about you and love you.  You may just get a neck massage out of it or at least a giant hug, which can melt away much of the yucky stuff that needs to be let out.

2.  She goes off on her own away from us.  When my dog has been playing hard with her toys, chewing on her bone or just hanging around us, she will oftentimes just get up, without warning and leave the room.  Of course we have to check to make sure she isn’t up to something, because, after all, aren’t ALL dogs always up to something?  But more times than not, she has left us to go to her crate where sits her big fluffy pillow.  She will go in and hunker down, not a care in the world and just leave us behind for a while.  Can you imagine if we all took the time to do that? What if we took ourselves away from the group, or family, or work for a while and went somewhere quiet and hunkered down for a while to just rest and get our thoughts in order?  I feel like that makes us a much better person in doing so.  I’m an advocate for naps.  I LOVE a good nap.  Much of my naptime is not sleeping but reading, thinking, praying, etc…. It’s a time that I do a regrouping of my thoughts and rest my oftentimes-weary bones.  Jesus did it a lot.  It says in Luke 5:16 that Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.  Solitude and silence is good for the soul.

3. When we arrive home there is nothing but pure and unending joy that we are back.  When I get home from work and am walking up the sidewalk I can hear my husband tell the dog, “Laurie’s home.”  As soon as I open the door the dog has raced across the living room and is at my side.  She is shaking so much (she’s one of those little dogs that I think it’s in their DNA to shake like a goofball) that until I bend down and pet her she can barely contain herself.  She is so very happy to see me.  It’s like she hasn’t seen me in days and really it’s only been a few hours.  Talk about a great homecoming.  What if every time a family member came home we reacted with that type of excitement?  I’m not encouraging you to stand at the door and shake—your family member might call 911 thinking you are having a seizure.  Some dogs get so excited that they piddle on the floor when their person arrives home.  I’m certainly not encouraging you to do that! What I am suggesting is that we try having a bit more excitement as they walk in the door than just staying seated behind our computer or phone and saying just the minimal, “Hey.”  Get up out of the chair, go to the door, open it for them and greet them with a hug or a kiss.  At first you might hear comments like, “Okay, what did you do?” or “What do you want?” After a while when they know it’s sincere and you want nothing but to greet them with the same joy that your dog greets you, they will begin to look forward to that welcome home greeting as much as I do the greeting I receive from my dog. 

Silly how the simple things of a dog can teach us so much; Let people know your needs, take time to be alone, and greet a family member with a new sense of excitement.  

 

And this crazy dog is so popular that she has her own Instagram jessie.the.pupper so please like her if you want silly photos of her.  But I beg you please like my Instagram first laurielyost because if my dog gets more followers than me, I will never hear the end of it.  

The Elbow Paper Cut Club

        

As many of you know I am a Spanish teacher at the local high school in town.  I know what you were thinking. “Really, they hired her? Isn’t she the one that wrote that book about all of those Spanish speaking blunders?”  The answer is, yes. Yes I am.  However, they still hired me and I love what I do, even if I am a bit silly and quirky in the eyes of my students.  I always play upbeat Latin pop music as the kids come into class and you will find me dancing along with it as I greet them.  Can I dance?  Nope, not a lick.  But in my mind I think I can and that’s all that I need to get me going…that and a little Latin beat.

         Dancing for me is a scary thing, especially since my book is entitled Stumbling Along. You’d think I’d be wise enough to shut any type of movement other than walking right down just for the risk of potentially hurting myself.   But I say, live life to it’s fullest.  Dance like nobody’s watching or, in my case, dance like your whole class of 9^th grade students is watching.  And so I continue to do so. 

         Dancing doesn’t seem to be my problem at school just yet, but simply walking down the carpeted hallways does.  Just today as I was walking on the carpet during classes (when no one is supposed to be in the halls), I tripped a bit.  There was not a thing to trip on, not even a lump under the carpet.  It was all me. I knew it. In my mind I owned it. Then I heard a voice say from a bit behind me, “Yep, I saw it.”  It was a student, who was out of class and who probably had no good reason to be.  We had a nice little laugh at my expense and I continued on my journey knowing full well that it wouldn’t be the last time that I did that. 

         As the final bell of the day rang I had my teacher bag all packed up and ready to go for a meeting with some colleagues.  I slung the bag over my shoulder and felt pain in my elbow. I looked and there was a cut followed a few seconds later by blood.  Really?  Really?  I had a large envelope sticking out of my bag and gave myself a paper cut.  On. The. Elbow!! Who does that?  Have you ever gotten a paper cut on your elbow?  I’m going to guess not.  I headed towards the part of the hallway where all of the teachers hang out and showed them my war wound.  Some of them were in unbelief and then remembered whom it was that did it. Others felt bad that I drew blood.  The men were indifferent.  One teacher, my birthday twin, said that because it was a large envelope that it wasn’t just a cut but a laceration and that she had kind of done the same before throwing her bag over her shoulder.  Then another teacher recalled that she too had done it.  Now, they didn’t draw blood from their experiences but when I thought I was alone in the weirdness of getting a paper cut….sorry, laceration, on my elbow these gals had almost experienced the same thing.  Almost.  I felt like I was now a part of this elite club of teacher’s who have slung their bags over their shoulders with too much force and hurt their elbows. 

         With a new spring in my step and blood about to come down my elbow I headed to the office to get a Band-Aid.  I figured I wouldn’t talk with them about tripping in the hallway because there might now be a teacher’s club for that.  And mercy, I didn’t want to look silly in front of my colleagues!

Half Changed

As I drove to school yesterday I was struck by the amount of trees that are already changing color.  Living in northern Michigan I expect this to happen in the fall, but have been a bit shocked at how early they have started their change.  One of my favorite times of the year in this beautiful place where I live is when the trees have fully changed colors and are at their prime peak of beauty.  It’s stunning and amazing and a picture from a camera just can’t capture it.  There’s something to be said about that full change; the transition from the old to the new brilliance of color. It reminds me of the scripture verse from 2 Corinthians 5:17, If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has gone and the new has come. 

As I looked at that tree that I pass everyday on my way to school I noticed a few different things about it.  Of course being the speaker and writer that I am, I am always looking for ways to connect the things I see with our relationship with Christ.  Here are a few things that I found that might be an encouragement to you today—to spur you on in your walk with Jesus.

1.    The tree was only halfway changed:  Because I know the way the trees do their transformations every fall, I know the “rest of the story.” The goal of the tree is that all of the leaves will change and in a few weeks it will be a fully, brilliantly colored tree with hardly any green showing.  The old will be gone and the new will come.  But what if that tree just stayed halfway changed?  It looks nice and it’s accomplished part of its goal but hasn’t really transformed fully like it was meant to do.  Have you met Jesus as your Savior but found that you are only halfway transformed, committed or living with a little bit of color but the rest of you, though in need of change, just hasn’t done so?  God’s desire is for us to be totally transformed so that His brilliance and light can shine through you.  Maybe you have stopped part way through that full transformation that God wants to do in your life because it’s too hard, or you think that just going to church on Sundays will keep you with just enough color (change) in your life to keep you going (and just barely for so many people) or maybe it’s as simple as you’ve just kind of slacked off.  So what do you do if you have found that you have only changed part way and you want your life to be fully brilliant for Christ?  Jeremiah 29:13 says, that you will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all of your heart.  What a great place to start.  Seek Him and you WILL find him. 

2.    The tree had a hole in the middle that wasn’t filled with anything.  I’ll be honest; I like to see a tree that’s completely full of colorful leaves in the fall.  When I see a hole in the tree, I think something wrong or better yet I think, quick fill that hole because it shouldn’t be like that.  Oftentimes we are living a life for Christ and yes, we have been changed a bit, but we still have that hole in the middle of our lives.  Some of us leave it there hoping it will fill in but we don’t work at doing so or even ask Christ to fill it for us.  We wander around looking for different things to stuff in the hole to make us feel complete. Some might look for a relationship that they think will make them whole.  I remember from a goofy movie in the 90’s one of the lines that had one person say to the other, “You complete me.”  That’s a great line if we would say that to Jesus instead of a person.  Some of us like to try to fill that hole with alcohol, drugs, pornography, and other things that we know that we shouldn’t dabble in…..but we just can’t stop ourselves.  How can we fill that hole so that we are complete?  We need to let Christ be our everything. Oh believe me, I know that is easier said than done.  I’ve worked on it for years and am still working on it.  But once we truly understand that he is enough, then our hole will start to be filled with the good things of Christ.  A great way to start is by memorizing and living this verse: Philippians 4:8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

3.    The picture of my halfway transformed, hole in the middle tree would have been great had the power line not gone through the top of it.  Uggg. It messed up my picture.  That one thick, cable line going across could not be moved.  Isn’t that about right in our lives as well?  The lines of the things that have happened in the past just stick with us and won’t ever go away.  If I had have taken the time and actually knew what I was doing in photo shop I could have gotten rid of that line and you would have never known it was there. That is not my specialty.  However, it is God’s specialty.  When we ask God for forgiveness for those past things that cause the dark lines in our lives, He can take them like the expert photo shop boss and erase them from our picture so all that he sees is the beautiful transformation that we are becoming.  We may still feel the remnants of those lines but on his end they are erased completely.  What a thing to be thankful for.  Is there a possibility that today you need to ask him to erase a line that is causing your full beauty not to shine through?  1 John 1:9 says it well, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Won’t you let him do that for you today?

Be encouraged my friends as God works in your life to make it that fully, beautiful, colorful light for Him that he desires. Sometimes we have to realize that he can only fill the hole in our lives and that the lines can be erased if we just ask.  As the worship song by Chris Tomlin says so well,

You're a Good, Good Father
It's who you are, it's who you are, it's who you are
And I'm loved by you
It's who I am, it's who I am, it's who I am

Don’t ever give up on letting him love you and transform you.  It’s what he desires to do.  He’s a good Father.