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A Gift That Keeps on Giving -- Creativity in the Face of Financial Struggle

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Every December, the pressure creeps in — the ads, the expectations, the endless lists of things we feel like we should buy. Bigger. Better. More. But if you’re anything like me, when you pause long enough to think about it, you start to realize… the gifts that truly last rarely come wrapped in shiny paper. Do you remember what you got for Christmas last year? How about five years ago… or twenty? A few years back, I read a post on a county-wide social media page from a mom who was desperately looking for “cheap gifts” so her kids would have enough to open on Christmas morning. The classic struggle of quantity over quality. And if I’m honest, I’ve fallen into that same trap more times than I’d like to admit. Her post transported me back to a Christmas forty-seven years ago, when my parents didn’t have much money to spare. As a child, I didn’t understand layoffs or budgets, but I knew my dad had been out of work at General Motors for a long stretch. That year, my parents gave me a gift...
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From Chaos to Joy: A Christmas Hack for Weary Moms

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Christmas with seven children is a level of chaos that I find it hard to explain… even all these years later.  The limited budget versus the mile-long wish lists. The limited days in a week versus the never-ending schedule of holiday programs, band concerts and classroom parties.  The limited energy I felt versus the growing list of things that needed to be done. The limited chances to focus on the true meaning of Christmas versus the overwhelming pressure to make Christmas into something it was never meant to be. I was exhausted by early October just thinking about it – before the pumpkins were even carved for Halloween. It seemed like our kids were never satisfied, always wanting something they didn’t get… and the guilt over never feeling like I had done enough was disheartening. We all had expectations that weren’t being met. Christmas didn’t feel “warm and fuzzy” like I thought it would. Honestly, it felt more like a chore. But somewhere along the way, I found a way to rev...
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You Look Like My Friend

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My husband and I recently participated in a cycling fundraiser to benefit a local trail project. The sign-up cost included a swag bag, a safety-yellow t-shirt, coupons, the obligatory lip balm and a wrist band for admittance to the food tent after the ride.  The morning of the event it was an absolute sea of safety yellow. Over 450 riders, mostly dressed the same. Only a hand full opted not to wear the t-shirt we had been given. I was one of them. It’s not my best color. And there were no pockets on the back to store my energy snacks, so I wore one of my favorite jerseys from another event I had attended earlier this year. After the ride, as we walked around, I searched the crowd for fellow club members who had mentioned attending but quickly realized that I wouldn’t recognize most of them if they walked up and punched me in the nose. Once we park our bicycles, remove our helmet and sunglasses, we are all strangely unfamiliar to each other. To make matters worse, most everyone was ...
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Do You Know Where You're Going?

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Do You Know Where You’re Going? When I was a kid—maybe eight or nine years old—my mom thought it would be a good idea to put me in piano lessons. I loved it! Until I didn’t. During my short-lived pianist days, I picked up a few simple melodies that have stuck with me over the years— Camptown Races and London Bridge, for example. I also learned some “modern” hits like Ben and Theme from Mahogany (Do You Know Where You’re Going To?). Oddly enough, that last one still tumbles around in my head more than it probably should. I can hear Diana Ross crooning: Do you know where you’re going to? Do you like the things that life is showing you? Where are you going to? Do you know? No, Diana. In fact, I don’t know. But let’s pretend, for the sake of this post, that I do. Setting the Destination —where do you want to go? What’s your goal? In life, we all have things we want to achieve. Dreams. Goals. Successes we hope to realize. And those things take planning. A road map, if you will. Imagine p...
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The Body Can't Lie

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I was born and raised in the church. I've been a Christian since I was nine years old. My earliest memories are of Sunday school in the basement of a small, country church with the flannel boards and Bible characters, an out-of-tune piano playing Jesus Loves Me, and countless Sunday potluck dinners. But somewhere along the way I had drifted. Life happened. Mistakes and heartaches happened. Pride and shame happened. And for more than a decade I hid from church.  Then last November, I walked back into a sanctuary for the first time in about 12 years. I slipped into a seat as the worship music started and thought, "This feels familiar...but different."  And suddenly my Garmin watch vibrated. I glanced down and the screen said "Your stress level is unusually high..." That's weird. I felt fine. Maybe it was the coffee. But the following Sunday it happened again - at almost exactly the same time - as the worship music started.  It was as if my heart couldn't c...
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Meno-WHAT?

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Remember 5th grade health class...when we got the 'talk'.  It was the highlight of the year.   I have no idea what they told the boys in 5th grade, but for the girls it was all about our body and the changes that were occurring...aka puberty.   Menstruation.  "Yippee skippee!"  Seems like we talked a lot about it.  Read books about it.  (My favorite:  Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret,  by Judy Blume.)  Most of our mother's talked to us.  Or older sisters.  Or our friends with older sisters.  We all plenty of information (albeit, most of it was likely inaccurate.) We survived puberty and became grown women.  Many of us became mothers, ourselves.  And we talked to our daughters about puberty.... Then we turn 50... and something awful starts to happen. Chin whiskers appear out of nowhere.  Gray hairs stick up from our scalp like alien antennae. We sweat at night.  Profusely. We want to do bod...
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Jesus > Self

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Someone posted a lovely meme this morning, complete with a beautiful Christian song playing in the background. Nice, right? I see posts like this every single day from people I know, respect, and love. But today, I was especially in tune with the Holy Spirit. As I read the words, He clearly showed me something: this is the problem today. Satan rarely tries to get a believer to outright worship him—that would be absurd, and we would never do it. What he does do, very effectively, is shift our eyes off Jesus and put them on ourselves. If we try to heal ourselves without God, we’re only treating symptoms. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” (Psalm 147:3) If we try to find ourselves apart from God’s plan, we remain lost. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” (Jeremiah 29:11) If we try to know ourselves without knowing our Creator, we know nothing. “Bef...
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