Message to YOU, Wall: You're Not the Boss of Me!

By Gail P. Smith

"Sign, sign, everywhere a sign ~ Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind~Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?"

“The show must go on.”

 

For a while now I’ve been feeling bombarded with messages from strangers and, stranger still, from inanimate objects.  These are not imaginary messages just running through my poor over-loaded brain.  Nope, these are actually commands, suggestions, exhortations and requests imploring me to DO things.

“March forward!” 

I suspect it all began innocently enough back in the sixties with this little guy:  Remember him (the shirt, not the model)?

Sometime during late sixties, early seventies he & his chirpy little entreaty appeared on t-shirts. “Hmmmm,” thought some manager somewhere, “Surely that phrase must be magical and will sell more pet rocks or cheese-whiz or tires,” and just like that it became more popular than “Here’s your change,” as a farewell from store clerks everywhere. Thus we all became accustomed to having strangers telling us what kind of day to have just because we'd purchased some toilet paper.

As I’m sure you know, the phrase caught on, and has now become more acceptable than “Bye-bye.”  If you don’t say it when someone is exiting from a brunch or a wedding or a car wash, you’re considered a Philistine unskilled in the finer points modern etiquette.

Of course the next step was T-shirts telling us what do to and some of them were NOT suggesting a nice day.  I’ll have to take on T-shirt wisdom in a different post. 

“Inspire Yourself”

What I’m wondering today is when did this “slippery slope” slide us down into deciding that we need the walls of our homes to “message” us.  And our friends and family as well as to any visitors who may wander over?  Surely I’m not the only one who has noticed this trend.

Behold:

 

 

AAAAHHHH!  Sure, it’s a nice suggestion with pretty fonts, but who wants to come home to this gigantic entreaty-way every day?  It's not that I don’t want all these fine things in my LIFE,  I just don’t want them on my walls, yelling at me every time I’m watching rubbish and eating junk food on the couch. Too much pressure. If the words really wanted to help couldn't they have said, "Think carefully before buying an uncomfortable looking chair in hot pink?"

(By the way, I do believe if you try to” laugh as much as you breathe,” it might cause some serious health issues, not to mention what your family will think. I’m just sayin'.)

 “Take charge and mean it”

In one room especially I do not care to be lectured.  That would be the bathroom.

 

 

Let’s leave this kind of nagging where it belongs, with the professionals—Moms.  Real moms don’t trust their walls do the work for them, especially in the “Flush” department.

Having said that I will confess to putting up my own code of conduct in the bathroom one summer when my children were young and trips to the pool were a daily occurrence as were wet towels on the floor:

“Hang up wet things,

That’s the pool rule

If you don’t

They’ll get mildewed” 

(And now you know why I never attempt poetry.  Bad poetry and all, it was effective.)

“Put a little strut in it.”

I had been trying to ignore all these subtle, subliminal, angst-inducing messages creeping into my subconscious, attempting to take a “live and let live” attitude, until last week when that final straw dropped into my lap in the form of a cough drop wrapper.

 

 Et tu, Halls?

Yes, indeed, even my cough drop was giving me orders and making such personal comments as:

“Tough is your middle name.”  (I thought it was Lynn)“It’s yours for the taking.” (shoplifting?) “Elicit some ‘Wows’ today.” (just scary to think what I'd have to do for "Wows")

What could be the reason for all these admonitions and advice? There it was right in the middle of the wrapper:

“A PEP TALK IN EVERY DROP.”

 

Oddly, this does, in some strange way, seem to make more sense to me than the other preaching I’ve mentioned.  After all, if one was ill and taking the cough drop for soothing cooling of the throat, wouldn’t some soothing comments for the day be appropriate?  Nevertheless, I really don’t want a cough drop that tells me what to do, do you?  It’s unseemly, given our brief acquaintance, the fact that we hardly know each other, and that I’m going to be consuming the product and pitching the comments.  After I take a picture of them, of course.

 

Please tell me I’m not alone in my pursuit to stop this madness where the entire world, including and especially inanimate objects, is now presuming to step in where our friends and family leave off, to advise, suggest and cajole one and all on how to live our life and conduct our business. 

Please join me in just saying “No.” You don’t have to put it on the wall. In fact, I'd rather you didn't. 

Oh, and don't forget to have a nice day.

“Turn ‘can do’ into ‘can did!’ “

 

 

 

All the little quotes in the middle courtesy of Hall's cough drops' Pep Talks.

Birthmarks & Book Covers: Judging a Book By Its Cover

By Gail P. Smith

In the airport the other day I picked up a copy of a book by an author I really enjoy, Lisa Scottoline.  I read her non-fiction My Nest Isn’t Empty It Just Has More Closet Space last year and really loved it.  I was anxious to try out what she’s more well-known for, her fiction. 

One thing I must remember is that when a book says on the cover “You won’t be able to put this one down,” sometimes, it’s true.  This book grabs you right from the first chapter and doesn’t let go until the end.  I really enjoyed it and if you like a fast-paced, well written action/mystery, you will too.

 But that’s not what I want to talk about today. 

From the first page:

“Melly sat alone at the end of the table, sorting her fruit treats into a disjointed rainbow.  She kept her head down, and her wavy dark blond hair fell into her face, covering the port-wine birthmark on her cheek, a large round blotch like blusher gone haywire.  It’s medical term was nervus flammeus, an angry tangle of blood vessels under the skin, but it was Melly’s own personal bulls’-eye.” 

 I flipped back to the cover and took a closer look at the child in the cover photo.  Hmmm, no birthmark there that I could see.  Certainly not a large one, which is described in another spot in the book as “like a plum.”  This did not set well with me.

I have a tiny bit of experience with birthmarks.  Our first grandchild was born with a very large strawberry mark, hemangioma.  It was not like the character’s birthmark in the story.  Vallarie’s mark was mostly invisible by the time she was five years old.  But for the first few years of her life it was very visible.   I don’t know that she was ever teased but we frequently heard, “What happened to her face?”

That’s when I began to notice that you never see children with birthmarks portrayed in our country's media unless it’s a story about getting rid of the birthmark.

I kept reading Save Me; as I mentioned, it was hard to put down. But as I read, one thought kept nagging at me, “Why didn’t they use a photo of a child with a birthmark on the cover?”

Melly’s birthmark and the reaction of other kids to it is one of the main plot points that set the story in motion. Her family has already left one school to escape bullies. Now she is teased about her face at a new school and it is a pivotal motivation for what happens, plus introducing bullying into the story.  It is not an insignificant part of this intriguing mystery.

Why then, did the publisher choose to use a photo of a child with a perfect face on the cover?  After Lisa Scottoline worked so hard to convey in an entertaining and compassionate way a message against bullying and the value of accepting and appreciating people who may not look exactly like us, wouldn't the cover of such a book be an ideal place to make that point by using a kid who actually had a birthmark, like "Melly"?

Vallarie about 6 months

Maybe the “Mellys” of this world feel self-conscious because even when they are portrayed in a positive light in a book, they still aren’t good enough to grace the cover of that book.  Maybe the kids that bully them have never had a chance to see an imperfect image in a magazine or TV show in our culture that tells kids everywhere that all their value is in how they look.

 Miss Scottoline’s character, Melly, is a gifted, sweet, funny, and compassionate little girl that you can’t help but root for.  It’s as easy to forget she has a mark on her face as it was to forget the mark on our own granddaughter.  I feel it’s a little insulting to Melly and all the thousands of children like her to choose a perfect face for the cover over a realistic one.  After all, how many times have you heard, “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

I would never want to judge a book by its cover, but in this case, I think the publisher, St. Martin's Griffin, missed a great opportunity to encourage and affirm all those imperfect "Mellys" out there by letting them know they are worthy of a book cover, too. 

Leapin' Leap Year!

By Gail P. Smith

“Time is the currency of the new millennium,” or so I read back in 1999.  (Wow, that seems so long ago, now.)  If that is true, then I have a gift beyond measure for you this week, something not even Warren Buffet can buy.  It’s the gift of time.

This Wednesday only, ladies and gents,   I’ve been authorized by Pope Gregory XIII to offer you the extremely rare and incredibly precious gift of 24 extra hours to your week! I’ve heard all you moaners and groaners out there carrying on about how you NEVER have enough time, and so this week I’m presenting you with entire day, free of charge, to get those procrastinated tasks done.  But . . . maybe that’s not what you’d do with an extra day.

So I want to know—what will YOU do with this “extra” day that’s been added to your life?

Now I know that most of us have obligations that don’t recognize that of all days, Leap Year Day should be a holiday and we should be left to our own devices.  I’m afraid that in order for  most of us to enjoy this day to the fullest we will have to take a trip to another nation—the imagine-nation.  It’s a great place where we can just take that day and use it any way we want.  How will you use your extra day in imagination land?  Go skiing, fly to Paris or the moon, or visit Disneyland or Hogwarts?  The only limit to your journey is your own creativity.

Maybe you’re lucky enough to actually be able to choose what you want to do this February 29.  What’s your plan?  I sincerely hope you don’t intend to let this valuable and one time (every four years) gift go unwrapped.  Grab this Wednesday, tear the paper off that puppy and DO something out of the ordinary.  A day like this doesn’t come around every week, month or year, you know.   Create your own memory by doing something, (anything) special or silly or sweet or even daring, (like swimsuit shopping, --no, that’s TOO daring!)

I am posting this on Monday to give you plenty of time to plan what you’ll be doing with your “plus one” day.  Read a book, bake a pie, call a friend, take a nap (that's for the mommies reading this,) go skinny-dipping or sky-diving. Or just take a walk in the park.  Leap day is your gift.  It’s up to you what you’ll do with it. 

And while you’re at it, don’t forget to take a moment to thank the Creator of Time for this precious present not only of today, but of every day of your life.  When you think about it, isn’t every day a gift of love to each of us to use as we choose? 

 Thank you, Lord for the gift of an “extra” day this week.  May we use it in a way that makes you smile.  Amen

 

Thanks to refininglife.blogspot.com for the perfect picture!

True Confessions of a Pastor's Wife

By Gail P. Smith

I have a confession to make.  It's kind of embarrassing to admit because I've been a Christian since I was 9, have been in church all my life, SS teacher, choir, the whole nine yards.  But here it is:  It's tough for me to set aside time to read the Bible and pray.  It’s hard enough to make that commitment once a week or even once a month, never mind trying to do it every day. And man, can we come up with excuses.

I should know.  For years I figured since I was so busy doing things for God, teaching Sunday School, working in the nursery, singing in the choir being a pastor’s wife, for Pete’s sake, that I assumed didn’t really need to spend a lot of time with God actually asking His opinion about what I was up to.  After all, it was good stuff done for my church, family  & friends.  Just a quick "God bless....today," should do it, right?

It’s not that I never read the Bible or studied it.  I was in BSF for over 15 years and I wrote my own curriculum for my middle school SS students.  But to take time each day, just me and Him,  hearing God’s voice by reading His word and talking to Him in prayer.  Well, obviously I didn’t have time to do that. If I did, how would I ever get all my good works for Him done.

I’m not proud of that attitude.  I’d been taught better, but it took a crisis in our lives for me to realize that though I thought I was helping God out, my works for Him, were really nothing.  Just busy work. Only by God’s grace and mercy did He choose to overlook my self-centered failings and use it to His glory anyway. (That's how much He loves His children.)

I have a sneaking suspicion I’m not the only one who's had problems putting the busyness of doing ahead of the quietness of seeking. 

So now here we stand on the eve of the New Year, when life feels like it’s giving us a chance to begin again, I want to share things changed when I began to figure out how to daily/faithfully seek His presence.  I love to help you begin a conversation with God that will never end.

My home church preacher once said, “Never fall asleep without having read God’s word that day.”  I heard this back in the 1970s.  Then one day, I heard it with my heart heard it.  "Okay, let's give it a try," I thought.  I sat my Bible by my bed and at bed time, if I hadn’t read it before then, I grabbed it and at least read something right then.  A tiny baby step, but guess what—God allows baby steps and even holds your hand as you take them!

Another bigger, step occurred much later.  This time I was studying an Old Testament story of King David.  Seems he needed some land on which to make sacrifices to God and made a offer to the land’s owner, Ornan (story & scripture after post.)  Ornan wanted to give the land to David.  David’s answer is what God used to really pierce my heart:

“I will not offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing.” (1 Chronicles 21:22-24)

Did you ever feel you could almost hear God saying "Ahem?"
I realized that for all those years of struggling to seek God in a personal quiet time, I thought it should cost me nothing.  I somehow thought the time I spent with God would be “spare time” leftover from when I had done everything I wanted/needed to do.  I was offering to God only “that which cost me nothing.”  No sleep loss, no newspaper not read, no TV show missed—I had to ask myself was I really unwilling to give up ANYTHING to better know and love the One who died for me?   Suddenly I “got it,” and I saw the need to make a change.

The next time I woke up early and didn’t want to leave my nice, warm bed (I live in Iowa and that can be a BIG deal,) I said to myself, “I will not offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing,” got up, put on a robe and opened my Bible.  And guess what—God was there waiting for me and He wasn’t even mad about all the times I’d missed.  In fact, He was just dying to bless me, to know me, to love me and be my friend.  When I gave up trying to keep all my time, my life for me, and give Him nothing, I found in His presence more than enough to make up for any “loss.”

So I write you today, at this incredible time of year, with a new beginning just around the corner, to share the offer God makes to us all.  "If you look for me wholeheartedly, you will find me."(Jer. 29:13)  And believe me, there is no better way to start than by treating yourself to time with your best Friend, your Savior and Lord, Jesus. Let this be the year you stop doing so many things for God and start becoming who God designed you to be  It will be the beginning of the best years of your life. 
God promises to meet you where you are today.  He's waiting for you.

Because there are lots of other things that have helped me in my quest to spend time with God each day that I’d like to share and this post is too long already, I invite you to visit my personal blog.  In the coming days I will be sharing more things I do to make connecting with God each day exciting, fun and a true meeting with my dearest Friend.  The link is:
http://grammygail.blogspot.com/

 One Bible story that changed me:

1 Chronicles 21:22-24

 22 Then David said to Ornan, “Grant me the place of this threshing floor, that I may build an altar on it to the LORD. You shall grant it to me at the full price, that the plague may be withdrawn from the people.”

 23 But Ornan said to David, “Take it to yourself, and let my lord the king do what is good in his eyes. Look, I also give you the oxen for burnt offerings, the threshing implements for wood, and the wheat for the grain offering; I give it all.”

 24 Then King David said to Ornan, “No, but I will surely buy it for the full price, for I will not take what is yours for the LORD, nor offer burnt offerings with that which costs me nothing.”

Happy Birthday to YOU, TGBA*

By Gail P. Smith

One year ago on today, November 9, we officially launched the QCCWC** blog.  We named it

*“The Great Blog Adventure.”

We began with 16 writers (14 women and 2 men), a few seasoned professionals, some novice bloggers/writers and lots of us somewhere inbetween.  Along the way we’ve lost and gained bloggers and we miss those currently "on hiatus."  As of today we are 14 writers strong, each contributing once or twice every two months. We publish twice a week on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  At least that’s the goal, and most of the time we make it.

Among our writers we have a resident baseball expert, several photographers, a writer’s group leader, homemakers, a reporter and a Sister with a capital “S.”  To read more about each of our talented bloggers click on “The Great Blog Adventures/Contributing Writers” tab above.

Over the past twelve months we’ve blogged about our families, jobs, pets and other less welcome critters who've invaded our homes.   We’ve written about wise men, Thanksgiving, Psalms and Proverbs, tombstones, writers block, tests, beauty, swimsuits and spam.  We’ve confessed mistakes and shared blessings, talked about growth, writing and even reality TV. 

At least one of us had a book published this year and I think it may be more.  (In fact, if any of our bloggers were published anywhere else besides TGBA this year, please comment so we can celebrate with you.) 

Best of all, we shared our relationships with the Lord, how we seek Him, how we struggle and what He’s taught us.  What a blessing it's been to read how God worked in each individual life.

As as far as "stats" go,  our page has had 38 views today (11-8-11), 25 yesterday, 592 last month, and 5,185 views for the past year.  We have 18 followers (are YOU following us yet?) and our readers represent ten countries and 4 continents.  (So if you know anyone in South America, Africa or Antarctica, please invite them to take a look!)

We’ve had 228 comments on 103 posts, and we are so grateful for each person who has taken the time to read and comment on our writing.  You have encouraged us by letting us know that someone took the time to read what we had to say. 

As we celebrate this milestone for TGAB, we are most grateful for YOU, the person sitting at your computer, reading this post, right now, today.  Without you readers bloggers would be nothing and so we want to say thank to each person who has visited this blog in the past year. 

We hope this year that you have been entertained, informed, uplifted, amused, touched, encouraged or inspired by something you have read here.  Please come back soon and invite a friend. 

At the top of our blog are these words “Read~Write~Learn~Share~Trust.” That is what we've attempted to do for the past 365 days.  Thanks for joining us.

So Happy Birthday to YOU,

Great Blog Adventurers,

and many happy returns.

** Quad-Cities' Christian Writers Conference

Google, God and Me

By Gail P Smith

“Oh Lord,

There are so many wonderful things to know in this world.  But Your knowledge is better than any other-- timeless, true, and never changing.

Help me to FOCUS-on You and Your Truth. 

Help me to prioritize the incredible flood of information that comes at me

as relentless as waves of the ocean,

as demanding as a screaming child,

and as uncontrollable as a run-away train.”

I prayed this prayer last week as I sat on my porch one morning trying to corral my own run-away thoughts for my time alone with God.

I opened my Bible to Proverbs 23, verse 1 and what I read is in italics. (What I heard, in my heart, is in parenthesis.)

When dining with a rich man (when online on your computer)

Be on guard and don’t stuff yourself, though it all tastes so good: (Watch out, you don’t have to read everything that looks interesting, funny or so good)

For he is trying to bribe you (Cyber space would steal your time and your attention from, the crucial, the eternal to the trivial and meaningless.)

And no good is going to come from his invitation. (It will not help you become the person you want to be.)

I joyfully wrote in my journal:

"Wow, Lord, even as I pray today in October of 2011, You had already answered my prayer thousands of years ago, speaking to my heart through the wisdom you gave to a king so long ago.  You are an awesome, amazing and incredible God.  There is none like You!"

Dear Father,

Let neither my head nor my heart be bribed away from You, for reverence for You, Lord is the beginning and the ending of all wisdom.

Amen

I will answer their prayers before they finish praying (in my case about 3,000+ years before) 

Isaiah 64:24

It's our choice, isn't it?

Five "Showers of Blessing" From a Late Summer Rain

This morning sitting on my "porch of praise" I was blessed by a big, loud, blowing thunderstorm.

1.  Rain, pouring down, sweeping in sheets across the avenue, darkening the sky, but brightening my day. 

I love thunderstorms.

2.  Thunder-- rolling, rumbling, crashing, electrifying the sky.

It is beautiful and powerful and awesome~

Just like the Lord God Almighty!

3.  Curb-side creeks flowing down, washing clean the streets and sidewalks.

4. Rain pitter-patter pounding, soaking flowers, fruits and veggies, bring life to dry ground.

5. The fragrance of  rain-washed freshness, fills my heart and lifts the spirit to the all powerful

Creator God

Who rains down all good gifts

Onto all His children

Simply 

Because 

He loves us

And just when you think it's all over

Ka-BOOM!

One last shout-out from God, the Rain-giver's exclamation point.

Thank you, Lord, for these showers of blessing! All creation is telling Your glory.

By Gail P. Smith