Tuesday Tea Time!

Lately I've been saving up in my e-mail the wonderful entries from the Tea Box blog Still Steeping. Almost all entries seem of some dreamy far off land that I can only hope to visit some day.

I save these entries with hope that I take time to read them some day & lucky for me I found the energy to read just the right one for today's Tuesday Tea Time!

The entry God in the Tea Gardens caught my attention recently. And I'm currently waiting to return to read Tea with Ninjas. God in the Tea Gardens makes me smile. The God talked about in this entry is a presence. The Tea Gardens are a place so high & lofty that the writer couldn't help but acknowledge the closeness to God.

Where was the last place you were that you couldn't help but acknowledge God's presence?

While I look for God in the every day, I was immediately taken to my one & only trip - thus far - to a tea garden high in the hills of Malaysia. The scent, the scenery, the company, & the tea were all wonderful. Another moment that in remembering I can't help but smile.

May your Tuesday Tea Time be filled with a piece of being close to God & smile on your heart.

Tuesday Tea Time!

This Tuesday Tea Time I don't have any recent funnies to share unfortunately. Last week was truly a unique week with one funny & crazy happening for the first three or four days. How often in life does that happen?!

The last couple of days have been chillier so still no sun-tea has been made. Not only has the chilly weather prevented making sun-tea, but the space in our fridge, or lack thereof has as well.

One thing Z & I do, when the rest of life seems totally chaotic, is eat well. This Mothering Day my family treated me with dark chocolate brownies with walnuts in them (my favorite simple dessert) & homemade pizza - using one friend's family dough recipe, another friend's marinara sauce recipe, & our own toppings of cheese, artichoke hearts, kale, & sun-dried tomatoes. SO tasty!

It was a great day with good reflection on what mother's day means. One friend - who has a baby that'll be 1.5 next month already - shared her idea of mother's day is not about her, but rather "My job is to recognize anyone who has shown mothering love reminiscent of the selfless sacrificial love of God."

What a beautiful spin on a "holiday" we have made so normalized & commercialized!

Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & awesome!

GOOD: Good is sharing a piece of sunshine - literally or figuratively - with one another. This past week this sunshine was shared with me - & hopefully therefore with others - through the many encounters with others. I heard or read more than once in the past week that seeing another person & living with them is seeing & living with God. This makes perfect sense to me as I have been continually returning to Genesis 1:27 recently. Come, Holy Spirit, come. All in all this past week was a good mix of my many commitments to ministry leadership. There is much excitement in the air for things yet to come!

BAD: The drive of consumerism for more, more, more. With recent cell phone hiccups & a spouse who still owns an old flip phone (gasp!) the workers at the store jump on us like hawks on prey. Seriously people, a phone that makes calls & texts is the basic desire we have. We don't need all your special plans to be able to recycle these phones that much faster when you're companies are already charging an arm & a leg. With as many people that are only using cell phones now & doing away with land lines, I truly think it would only be right if cell phone companies made phones to last more than two years. We don't buy land line phones thinking they'll only last two years so why would we want a cell phone that does that? Good grief!

AWESOME: Julia Child was once quoted for saying, "People who love to eat are always the best people." I'm SO glad to report that according to Julia I am ONE of the best people. Now let's be real, there are hundreds of us who are the best people. This past week though, I hit a wall with appetite & creativity to make new meals. That creativity is stirring making new ideas & new inspiration though already. All I needed was a trip to the produce section at Meijer! Grapefruit Goodness!

WORD: I'm given the opportunity to preach in a couple of weeks, but we have some fun adventures in between so I'm starting to sit with the passages for the week of February 8th. Aside from that, look up at the "GOOD" of today to see a little more!

coming up: Hopefully a continued nice mix of a little work with this call & a little work with that call. It's all about balance! Head up, Heart out, Move to the beat!

Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & awesome

Credit to SoulPancake

GOOD: This past week has been one of finding rhythm. Rhythm for getting tasks done as simple as going to bed, getting out of bed, & all the self proclaimed projects I've decided to find around the house. As today's picture choice says, it's not what the world holds for me, it's what I bring to it. Not only is it up to me to bring goodness to the world, but for every other single creature on earth to do the same, so that in essence we are helping each other thrive to make each day better than the day before. Thankfully the world around me has been bringing lots of life & helping to motivate me to bring what I am able as well. The end of the week, amidst the continued projecting of cleaning out closets was wonderful with the birth announcement of my life-long best friends' baby, a fire in our new fire-pit, a trip to the local farmer's market, & catching up with family across the country & world.

BAD: The sadness brought by the death of Robin Williams. Seriously, not one single person deserves the ability to have so much self-doubt to think one & those around them will be better without that one. We are all truly better together, even through the hard times. Also then the fear being created by "urgent prayer requests" through social media regarding politics locally & globally.

AWESOME: Receiving blown kisses from our niece half way around the world, getting to know neighbors better, & the iconic song & dance that comes from the Muppet movies is awesome. Plain & Simple. Also, celebrating, even if from afar, the love that my parents still share as they celebrate 35 years of marriage is awesome.

WORD: Reading random chosen scripture from Isaiah with Z & discussing the whiplash of everybody being doomed as sinners & then glorify the Lord for all that has been & will be given to people. Say What?! Great is God's mystery.

coming up: Continuing to play around with the rhythm of my days.

Sunday Snippits: good, bad, & awesome

GOOD: While Z's & my travels to new things has come to an end, my travels for the summer have only begun. For a couple of months now I was planning to work alongside the staff at Michi-Lu-Ca for part of the summer & by part of the summer it really was planned to be most of the summer. Due to some changes in others' summer plans, I am now at camp all summer long! It is a challenge in my career as I have gone back & forth with my love for outdoor ministries, but it is one that I am choosing to not be afraid of & simply jump in running. As long as I continue to center my heart & my head in that still small voice of God, then I know that I am in the right place & bound to make a few of the right choices.

BAD: This means that posting here may be a challenge. At most I will be able to post using my phone & therefore things will be short & formatted funny. So look for random sparkles throughout the summer when I happen to have WiFi. I wish I could've been more put together to pre-write my posts, but that is not the life I live.

AWESOME: Meeting new people. Hearing people's stories & being asked to share mine. Camp is a great place for this.

WORD: I finally finished 'The Color of Tea.' It took some very unexpected, yet well done turns. I encourage it for a good read. I'm fully submersed in a variety of scripture for this summer's worships, so today I shared the image I shared from K-Love's site on Facebook in my picture.

coming up: FULL FORCE SUMMER MINISTRY!