Romans. And Me Being Me.

I have to let you in on a little secret. I'm currently sitting in my favorite coffee shop writing. This is literally something I've envisioned doing for the past...ohhh 5 years. I know that many of you bloggers do this every single day, but I've never been able to do it..for one reason. My laptop. Take out the fact that it's from 1987 and has to always be plugged in, but it also weighs more than my first born child. It was just never convenient! My husband got sick of hearing me complain about this, and bought me a cute little Samsung Chromebook. It's PERFECT for everything I need to do! I'm ERB-SESSED with it! (Thank you husband!)

So, here I am at the coffee shop (eeeeee!), computer open, coffee in hand (well, not exactly but you get it), and my Bible open. We spent some time in Romans last Sunday and the message is something I CANNOT get outta my mind. It's funny because as I opened up to Romans, I found page after page after page after page of old church bulletins, many of them with passages from Romans. So then I think "Self, you need to dive into Romans. What is there that you're not doing? What are you overlooking?" Wowza! There's a lot. Romans Chapter 12 is quite literally one of my favorite lessons in the Bible. (especially 12: 6-8) More on that later...

I can't help but reflect back to a quote in an email that hit me like a ton of bricks last week. It said "your beliefs don't make you a better person, your behavior does." It's interesting because when I read that I instantly felt like this person wrote it directed towards me. Ouch. It got me thinking...if this offends me so badly, it must be because I'm doing something wrong. When Charlie and I first started dating, we would have hour long conversations about our faith and what we wanted for each other and for our family. I remember driving to Ohio one afternoon on one of our impromptu diner road trips and telling him my vision for my blog. (I've written about this a hundred times on here and have done very little about it) He was encouraging, of course. Look, my life isn't easy. My life isn't hard. My life just IS. It's a lot like yours, I'm sure. I've tried a lot to be someone else- someone whose blog I read, someone who I work with, someone who I go to church with, someone who is a Pinterest queen, the perfect wife, the perfect mom, the perfect daughter, the perfect Christian...I'm none of those people. I'm just Me. I read a Rick Warren Daily Hope this weekend about being yourself. At the end it said "There's something liberating about just being yourself. The quickest way to an ulcer is to try to be somebody you're not. If you want to live an effective life, just relax and be yourself."

Back to Romans, (whew...stay with me folks!) Paul encourages us to use our spiritual gift. We each have a specific gift and we are to use that gift to the best of our ability. My gift is different than everyone else's. My spiritual gift was created just for me, and when I find myself trying to use my voice the way that someone else does, I feel deflated when I fall short. I'm not an eloquent speaker. I'm not a graceful writer. I'm not overly fabulous at anything (just ask my mom about the time my piano teacher told my mom to stop wasting money on my piano lessons!). My fear is that I'll go through life trying to mimic someone else's spiritual gift and I'll never truly find the way to use mine. Eeeek. That's scary. I think it just reminds me that I need to do what I do, and what I do, I need to do it intentionally.

I can't speak enough of what it means to go through life doing things intentionally. Imagine my excitement when I heard our pastor saying "use your gift intentionally. BE intentional." YES! Instantly I thought of my marriage and our promise to each other. It excites me to be married to someone who wants the same things for our marriage and who promises to love me intentionally. Just the same, I want to live intentionally so that if/when I "find" my spiritual gift, I'll be doing it to the best of my ability. I never want to get to Heaven and stand before God and say "I'm sorry that I failed you. I'm sorry that I didn't try harder to live my life for You. I'm sorry that I never gave it my ALL. I'm sorry that I tried so hard to be someone else that I never really got to be who You intended me to be. I'm sorry that I didn't do everything with YOU as my guide. I'm sorry that I didn't intentionally live my life for You." Ugh. Scary stuff ya'll.

Catch Up, Ya'll.

I've been  intending to write for a few weeks, but we've been busy with back-to-school routines, tennis lessons, work, and other fun LIFE things.

• Anderson spent three days last week at home with tonsillitis and a fever. Charlie was a blessing and stayed home with him two of the days. Andy is officially on the mend and doing much better.
• Charlie and I had a date night a couple weeks ago. Neither of us were available to do anything on the weekend, but I knew it was still super important to plan out some "us" time. Before I came home from work one afternoon, I stopped at Target to get a plain white table cloth (why I hadn't had one up to this point, I have no idea), black napkins, a cute candle, and a new vase! I asked Charlie to stop for steaks and any pink flowers he could find (to match the candle, duh). The kids helped me set up the romantic setting(which I moved into our living room, next to the (unlit) fireplace) while Charlie went for a bike ride. I think Lilly was just as excited as I was to see Charlie's reaction to the scene! I think it turned out pretty lovely and it was SO nice to have dinner with my husband after the kids went to bed. Sometimes we get so caught up in hearing about who the kids played with at lunch recess and who got in trouble on the bus, that we fail to really talk to each other about OUR days. It was a sweet change. I've had a few friends ask me about our #beintentional motto, and this is exactly what I'm talking about. The table cloth (which I'll be able to reuse a thousand times), napkins, candle, and vase all cost me less than $35. The homemade dinner and flowers cost less than $35. This is a once-a-month thing...we can spare the occasional $70....if it helps our marriage and brings us closer together...I'll spend that $70 every single month.
• The kids have been doing well in school so far. I think Lilly is struggling this year with making new friends (her two best friends transferred schools this year). I worry about her. Anderson has been adjusting nicely to being in school all day long. He has been playing a lot of basketball during lunch recess (see?) with some boys that he already knew from church. Both of the kids started taking tennis lessons this year. Lilly would be GREAT if she only paid attention better. She is soooo busy looking around and watching other people (where does she get this?) that she sometimes fails to hear the directions from the coaches. Anderson has taken lessons a few other times so he's doing really well too (even on the 7 & 8 year old team). I would LOVE to be able to take them twice a week, but our work schedules just don't allow for that right now.
• Last month Charlie and I went to a "marriage seminar" of sorts. Kirk Cameron and Warren Barfield came to Kokomo. It just so happened to be a weekend that Charlie was at the Base working anyway, so he got tickets. Although I'm not a HUGE fan of Kirk Cameron's ministry (some of it seems a little off track at times..read: the whole FB/YouTube debacle), I do like his take on marriage. At a time when Charlie and I were still very much struggling with trying to figure out how to be married and live together and raise kids together, etc...this was exactly what we needed. I know that our marriage will always be a work in progress, it was nice to sort of hit the "refresh" button on our marriage (yes, two months into it).
• My grandpa and my mom are coming to town this morning. They're going to go to church with us and then to lunch to celebrate Grandparents day. A lot of things have been happening in my extended family lately that make me soooooooooo ridiculously grateful to have the relationship that I do with my grandpa. Although it does make me sad to spend time with him, knowing that there's something missing, I still think it's extremely important to make memories with him while we still can. I know that in the past four years I have avoided going to his house because it reminds me of my grandma being so sickly and bedridden in that house, but I know that I need to do a better job of going to see HIM instead of him just coming to see us. My grandpa is an absolute gem, and I can't help but think that he is who he is partially because of who my grandma was too.