This Time Tomorrow...

How can you tell about what you can't tell about?  Sometimes the ownership of your troubles belongs squarely with someone else and telling would be a trust violation.  Sometimes the answers belong, for the moment, to someone else and there's nothing but to wait and see.

But this time tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that, I want to be found unchanged...

Having the same sense of His love for me.
The same assurance of His provision and grace.
The same certainty that He is with me through all of life's highs and lows.

And the never-ending peace that comes from knowing that, "we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us.  We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed."  2 Corinthians 4:7-9

Be Yo'Self

In 1985, Seventeen magazine ran a Noxema skincare ad which featured a girl with a shoestring tied in her hair.*  I've tried very hard to find a copy of that ad - just as I've tried through the years to gather all those "In List" items topping the charts back then - back when I was 15, a freshman in highschool.

I've always been a little bit different from my peers but I haven't really embraced that - appreciated that about myself - until these last few years.  In '85, doing not only my first year in highschool, but also my first school year in a new town, I wanted very much to fit in.  And I assumed my quickest and surest path to acceptance was by means of my attire.

I could not, for various reasons, obtain a Levi's jacket, parachute pants, or Converse high-top sneakers, but lo!  I could get myself a shoestring.

To say that my attempt at the latest fashion trend was not well-received would be, well...to call that a vast understatement would be a vast understatement.  My shoestring was not only the source of my great ridicule on the day that I wore it - it became a call for slander for pretty much the remainder of the school year.



It's happened to me recently, on one of those days that I was playing dress-up at the Bargain Box, that a couple of girls gave me sideways glances and giggled to themselves.  For just a second, I felt like I had a string tied into my hair.**  But then I remembered just exactly who I am - and that I like myself.

This is about all of us, but especially the little bit different ones, because, as it turns out, there are a lot of us.  Let's rally 'round, encourage one another.  Let's do our best to appreciate what makes each of us different.  Let's build one another up, rather than burn one another down. 

Because God loves you*** and so should you.






*I may not have the details precisely right but this is my story, after all.
**There's just as good a chance that I did have a string in my hair.
***This has nothing to do with what we wear.

He Is My Everything

i hear, see, sense God in everything.

even in those things where i might say,
"oh, that is not from or about God," or
"that does not honor God,"
God is still the gauge.

and even in those times that i've sat in darkness,
it was the absense of His light that i perceived.

everything.
He is everything to me.

Free People

The Free People catalog is one of my favorites, fashionably speaking.  I flip through that thing and finish feeling free to show you my true colors, fashionably speaking.  (And then I usually remember my age.)

Seriously, though, those folks are at least providing some great fashion direction.  Take this Native American-inspired poncho, for instance.  I could get it from their book for $168 ... or I could simply follow their direction at my favorite thrift shop instead.  I got mine for one dollar. 
That's almost free, people.



And that's really what this whole thing is about, see.  I have gratefully been freed from the tyranny of high-dollar desire, that overwhelming urge to purchase instantly and at their highest offer. 



And that's the reason that I share all of this ... because, well, you know ...
free people free people.

I've Got Dreams To Remember

I walked into a crowded boutique, sat down on a bed, and removed my boots and four pairs of socks. Some young women standing next to me started pulling sandals from a backpack and together we admired the shoe craftsmanship. At last I said, "I can do better than these shoes."

Rather suddenly, everyone left the building, apparently headed to some kind of church event. Only the boutique owner and I were left. She came to me and asked if she could help me with something. I said, "I can still spend my money but I have to do it responsibly. I used to walk all around, looking at everything but now I know that I want one special thing and would like to find it here. So please show me your shoes and your earrings."

She went to and came back from various corners of the shop, carrying hand-picked boxes, showing me very unique things, but none of them were quite "it." Finally, in an effort to surmise my particular style, she asked, "If you were the parking lot sloan, who would bring you the mask?" "Like snoopy," I asked.  She nodded.

"Oh," I answered, "Glinda the good witch."

And then I woke up.

This Is The Look That Love Built

For day two of our recent love-fest*,

• Hat and vintage leather jacket from my favorite thrift shop, which just happens to be a ministry of my church - and where I have the joy to serve
• Scarf that I bought while with a favorite friend on one of our wandering together days
• Affordable jeans, for real
• Boots that were, again, a gift - this time from someone whose name I knew, a friend - but still, I'm blown away by the kindness and generosity that does exist in the world.  It's out there.  Keep the hope!

*Day one is here.

I've Got Yo' Poncho



That's it.  That's all I've got.