Devotions of a High Heeled Warrior

 I couldn't make this story up.  True story.   My daughter got her first 8-Point buck this year with our car!  It was Wednesday night, and we had just finished the Wednesday night service at church. I usually get to church before everyone else in order to prepare to-go meals we feed to local kids in our town.  My husband followed in order to prepare for his service, and my daughter picked up some local teens for our teen service at church.  My daughter left church first to take all of the teens home, and I cleaned up and shut down the church.  Have you ever seen an ambulance or emergency vehicle and thought, "I hope that is not for my child."?  As I watched an ambulance go by, the thought entered my mind.  Shortly after having that thought, I got a call from my daughter telling me she had hit a deer and was parked at the post office.  I immediately pulled into a parking lot and motioned for my husband to pull in after me.  He pulle...

  In case you are wondering, no, I am not building a stone wall.  My husband is.  He won't let me near this project of his because I have a habit of getting in a hurry and just throwing things up haphazardly.  I've been known to paint flies onto a wall if they get in my way.  My husband is much more patient when laying stone.  He says it's like life-sized Tetris.  Until he started this project of putting up stone on our back porch, I never realized the strategy involved in putting up stone.  One stone lays on top of the other, but in order to look as it should, each stone has to be placed strategically in position.  The gaps cannot line up in the same place, or it looks wrong.  The stones need to be different sizes and colors in order to look natural.  The stone needs  a strong, well-set foundation of stone on the bottom so that it doesn't slide and fall away from the wall.  Doesn't this reflect the church?  ...

Have you ever had a song just get stuck in your head?  If I said, "8675309" everyone would suddenly be singing a familiar melody.  That's what happened with the new song released by Zach Williams and Dolly Parton.  The song is called " There Was Jesus ."  It seemed like every time I  got into my car, that song was playing on the radio.  At home, I would hear it playing from my daughter's Spotify.  After a while, as I did daily activities, I found myself singing the song.  As I mowed the lawn, there was Jesus.  As I washed the dishes, there was Jesus.  As I drove to work, there was Jesus.  Then it occurred to me that in every area of our lives, there should be Jesus. Brother Lawrence was a monk who wrote a book called, The Practice of the Presence of God .  He found the greatest way to allow God to become your everything was to let God into your everything.     “That the most excellent method he had found of going...

 This weekend was a work day at my church.  As a pastor's wife, whatever my husband asks me to do, I do.  One of the projects allotted to me was staining the picnic tables.  I'm usually pretty meticulous, but as the temperature rose and my arms ached, I morphed into sloppy.  If you've never painted or stained, the Karate Kid work-out really does work!  My sloppiness reflected on my clothes and my body.  One dear lady at church worried that I had cut myself and was bleeding badly.  No, I was covered in stain.  My daughters were so supportive as they pointed out that I looked like Augustus Gloop from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory .  That was so helpful.  But this got me thinking.  You can't work with stain and remain spotless.  Eventually, it's going to transfer onto you.  What about spiritually?  Whatever you surround yourself with will eventually transfer on you.   Have you ever spent time with a neg...

In the year of murder hornets and cannibal ants, our world holds its breath waiting for the next pestilence to be unleashed.  What will it be?  Bomber beetles that explode when in contact with the sun?  Or maybe, multiplying mosquitoes that double in population daily?  Whatever is thrown at us, my husband and I have a simple household rule.  He kills the spiders and roaches, and I kill all flying, stinging bugs.  When I come into contact with a roach, I become a squealing, prissy girl.  Especially when they fly into my hair.  It has happened.  It wasn't pretty.  I think it's the unpredictability that scares me.  It's the same with spiders.  I never know when I will encounter one that can jump at me randomly.  But mostly it's because I can remember being bitten by a brown recluse spider in Jr. High.  The bite should have rotted, but after having my church pray for me, it healed.  This still hasn't stopped me fr...

As a teacher, I've heard this quote a million times.  Just in case you've never heard it, it goes something like this: If you give a man a fish, he'll have fish for a day.  If you teach a man to fish, he'll have fish for a lifetime.   First of all, if my food source depended on me fishing, I would starve.   My family doesn't even ask me to go fishing with them anymore because they know I'll ruin the experience.  My husband took me fishing one time on a river boat.  I was excited in the beginning, but my excitement waned when I was told that I needed to be quiet.  The fish are under the water, and I'm on top of the water.  It shouldn't have mattered.  After twenty minutes of quiet, I was bored so I wanted to bond. My husband wanted to fish.  That day, we did neither.  When it came time to bait the hook, I was out.  An experience that involves an animal excreting its bowels while it is skewered is not an experience for me.  ...

Have you ever gotten into someone else's car by accident?  If you're honest with yourself, we've all done it.  I once walked out of Walgreens and opened the door to climb into my silver car.  Once the door was open, I noticed that something didn't look right.  Where was my stuff?  Also, where was my daughter waiting in the car.  That's when I noticed her watching me from my silver car parked right next to the one I opened due to lack of awareness.  I remember sitting outside of McDonalds when a total stranger opened my passenger door and started to climb into my car.   I had several thoughts that started to fly through my head.  I immediately go to worst case scenario that I'm about to be carjacked, so I think I should yell out "help!"  Or I could open the door and run for it.  Or I could challenge the man and say, "Excuse me!  Can your please get out of my car."  I didn't need to do any of those things.  He looked...