Lunch With Pauline

Have you ever asked God to lead you into the pathway of someone who needs to know Him and His love?  In other words, have you ever asked Him to use you in sharing the gospel?  You know....evangelical type of work?  Well, I rarely do. In fact, I've usually always preferred that He pick someone else - someone more qualified.  I've always said I admire evangelists and the work they do, but "it's just not for me," I've added. The times I've dabbled in evangelism, I've felt completely inadequate and utterly incompetent.  Well, in response to a devotional that was emailed to me Saturday morning, I decided to go ahead and tell God He could use me if He really wanted to, though I secretly hoped He wouldn't.  Funny thing - I know that He knew what I was secretly hoping, so it's no surprise that He arranged things the way He did... In my pathway yesterday afternoon, He put a woman who didn't have a clue what I was talking about.  She didn't even know what she was talking about....

Girl, Interrupted

I read an article one day last week about the importace of welcoming interruptions.  The main question asked was "are you interruptable?" to which I was quickly able to answer "no, I'm not - and please don't ask again."  Well, that article has stayed in the back of my mind since that day.  Almost immediately, I became aware of just how "un-interruptable" I really am - well, for the people living under the same roof as me anyway....

Who Reads the Surveys?

Have you ever taken your car into the dealership for service and then several weeks later received a satisfaction survey? What about when you eat a a restaurant and there's that little paper survey you can fill out rating your server and overall dining experience?  It seems like anymore there's a survey for everything, and I suspect this is a useful tool in measuring the quality of customer service.  It might even be resourceful in actually improving the quality of customer care.  However, I have to say that in the past, and more often than not, I found them tedious and annoying.  Wait - unless customer service was real shabby and then I went hunting like a rabid dog for anything remotely close to a piece of paper with numbered questions and boxes.  "Where's that survey they always hand out?  I need to leave feedback about how terrible this guy's service was," might have bellowed from my mouth a time or two in the past.  Never wanting to take the time to fill them out when service is good, but scrmabling to find one when service is poor - sound like anyone you know?  Oh, and by the way -who reads those surveys anyways?

The Spy Who Flattered Me

So, overall it has been a pretty uneventful day.  Nothing too extraordinary happened, and I honestly thought today was going to be the day I had nothing to say.  I offer my most sincere apologies, but as it turns out  today is not that day.  I was a little shocked that 8:00 rolled around and I still had yet to post any new entries to my precious blog, but decided it must not be meant to be.  I usually wait on God to give me a heads up on what to say, but as of thirty minutes ago I had received nothing.  "Well, God - I guess You don't have anything in particular You want me to mention today," I sleepily thought as I headed towards my bed.  A little disappointed, but also a little relieved, I pulled my glamour mask over my head and shut out the light.  Less than five minutes after my head met favorite pillow number one, I remembered the spy who flattered me....

Living My Life

At a time when the noise of others' opinions rang loudly in my ears not so long ago, I came across the following words from Aaron Chavez:

"Your time is limited, don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinion drown your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition, they somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary."

Well, my initial reaction to all of this was a combination of fear and insecurity.  "Why is my time limited, God? Where am I going?  It isn't my time yet! What do You MEAN by saying my time is limited?!" I frantically thought as an old, yet familiar, feeling of panic rised within.  However, because God has graciously delivered me from the suffering caused by the mental anguish of panic and anxiety, I was quickly able to put a lid on those dreadful thoughts and re-direct my focus to the true meaning of the words as a whole...

My Mask of Glamour

Well, for those of you who are tuning in to find out how day number one with no coffee has gone just know that I have a headahce.  I'll tell you more in a later post, but first I want to say to each and every reader - you are a beautiful person! Don't stop reading just because it got super cheesy - read me out.  Whether you feel like it or not, you really are an amazing, beautiful, and glamorous person- not just when you put on your best suit or gown, but right here and now as you sit in front a computer. This is a time of year when a lot of people are struggling to lose weight and do an almost total makeover.  Well, in this entry I want to share a simple way of feeling glamorous, even if it's when no one else sees...

Good-bye Coffee

Well, this will likely be my shortest blog entry ever, but who knows.  This comes at a time of day I usually don't enter any at all, but I was struck so strongly with a decision today that I felt it worthy of documentation. Plus, I've been wanting to compose a good short blog post lately...the decision is this -I'm saying good-bye to coffee (not necessarily forever, just for now).  For reasons I wont get into at a time when my brain is desperately trying to shut down, I just implore you all to stay tuned to upcoming blogs.  I'll be curious myself to see what, if any, turn they take without my morning cup of jo. Will I walk around in the morning with my hair sticking straight up and bump into walls?  It's really not too far off of an idea - I've bumped in to many walls in the past....and that was with coffee....

Want to know the irony of it all?  The firm decision came early in the day, but not until after I had already made a trip to the store to get myself some creamer and new flavor of coffee. In the words of Alanis Morissette, "isn't it ironic?"

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Dazed and Confused

Do you ever wake up and just feel "off?"  Well, I woke up feeling that way this morning and six hours later, still hadn't managed to feel "on" about anything.  I've been walking around in what felt like a dazed state of lethargy and haven't been able to shake the mental confusion that wont stop following me.  I first wondered whether or not I got enough sleep, but when I did the math I quickly realized that it was more sleep than what I'm used to.  My relationship to coffee has been in an odd place, so maybe it was that?  Though I've not dismissed that possibility, I then remembered the NyQuil I took before bedtime.  I'm still stuffy and congested, so maybe it's just the effects of having a cold and taking cold medicine. Perhaps it was the strange dream I had?  Well, the possibilities continued to swim through my watery mind, and it finally hit me.  It's just one of those days..

Lingering Thoughts...

A few weeks ago I discovered that Joyce Meyer would be leading a church service at a church not too far from us.  The day and time?  January 23.  In my excitement, I dashed to the calendar and penciled in the event. This is the same calendar that I used daily for recording my exercise output. I never missed a day of marking something in this calendar.  Anyway, for those of you who don't know who she is, Joyce Meyer is an internationally recognized Christian speaker and author.  I watch her show on TV as regularly as possible, but to see her preach in person? Wow! As pumped up and encouraged as she gets me from my TV screen, I couldn't wait to see what happened via a live presentation! Well, that was three weeks or so ago and since then I broke my toe and exercise wasn't an option.  While swimming in my pool of self-pity, I found no reason to go thumbing through a calendar that couldn't record anything anyways.  Bottom line? Over the last two weeks I completely forgot about her upcoming service in L.A - until yesterday...

My Story

It occurs to me that in my zeal over starting a blog site, I neglected to really share with readers who I am or how I came to be administrator of Angels Among Us, blossoming blog site. I've reviewed my traffic stats and it seems I have some regular visitors (though I don't know who you are, I thank you for visiting my blog), so I suppose I should offer a little glimpse into how this all came to be.  Though some of you may very well already know my story, here it is again for the visitors who haven't heard...

The Death of a Paycheck

As I sipped my coffee this morning, I waited in an uncharacteristically patient manner on God to tell me what to write for today's blog post. Out of the cluttered closet that is my mind came the memory of a recent job opportunity that I passed up. I don't know what made me think of it...God, I suppose. Well, the neat thing about this incident in my life is that its one of the few times I know I did the right thing - even though at the time it seemed all wrong.

My New Bike

So, as many of you might know by now, a recent injury has put a screeching halt to my normal daily routine of exercise.  Prior to this minor mishap, I enjoyed early morning walks in nature.  This time of the day allowed me to renew my wonder at God's creation.  The smells of nature, the wind across my face, and the breathtaking views simply leave me in awe all over again with each new day.  Well, in the last week, I've done nothing of the sort.  My daily injection of exercise has been coming through an empty syringe.  I've missed it. Not only have I missed it, but I've been feeling the effects of immobility.  An arthritic flare up and an abnormal fatigue recently reminded me that I needed to find a way to do something....so I went in search of a bike...

The Mormons Are Coming -Quick, Hide!

Well, I was reminded this morning of a promise I made not so long ago.  See, for the past few months we've been spending a lot of time with a couple of missionaries from a local Mormon Church.  For a while I wondered why God brought them into our lives, but now I know (not all of the reasons, but at least one).  At first I thought I was meant to convert to Mormonism, but that quickly changed to simple uncertainty.  "Well, God - what is this all about?" I asked in puzzlement.  I asked God this question countless times, and I now know that they were brought into my life, at least in part, to teach me a lesson in wisdom.  That lesson is this - keeping my mouth shut and remaining quiet proves me to be far wiser than I'll ever be when it's open and talking, but read on....

A Lesson in Humility

So, I've been reading a lot on humility - or rather, I've coincidentally been coming across references to the necessity of such.  Well, it occurred to me that I needed to start praying for humility.  To come across the concept so frequently can only mean that God is attempting to communicate a point to me.  Also coincidentally, it's something I usually always have written down in my prayer notebook, but have I really and truly been praying for it lately?  I gave this some thought and realized that more often than not, the words were just casually splashed on a page as a "proper" prayer request to God. I decided to get more serious and genuine about my pleas for humility.  It occurred to me shortly afterwards that a rocky and potentially painful road lay ahead.  Or, have I already walked this road? Or, better yet - could I be walking it still? 

Better Today Than Yesterday

So, if you've read my post from yesterday, titled The Great Coffee Debacle then you know that A.M. coffee is important to me and I woke up very much without coffee yesterday.  No worries, it was a test and I went to bed knowing I recovered quicker than times of past.  "Tomorrow will be a guuurreeeat day," I thought as my head hit the pillow last night.  Well, a great day indeed - I woke up to coffee grinds all over the counter and yes, you guessed it - NO COFFEE.  Are you kidding me???

The Great Coffee Debacle

So, I woke up this morning with the distasteful knowledge that today was going to be different.  What I mean by different is this - Sam is no longer on vacation.  In other words, he's going back to work today and my broken toe and I will be left to fend for ourselves.  Just having this knowledge in the back of my mind seemed to set my mood differently - negatively, actually.  Good grief, haven't the last four days of pampering been enough?  Apparently not...

A Delightfully Perfect Day

Okay, so I'm finally entering the world of blogging.  After a couple of "blog" type notes posted onto my Facebook profile, I thought to myself - hey, start a blog.  Not only is it therapeutic for me, but miraculously enough there are actually people out there who show interest in what I have to say.  Who would've thought? 

This being my first official blog, I feel it's only right to inform you of what lies at the foundation of most of my thoughts: God.  A touchy subject for some, He will probably in some form or fashion be mentioned in most, if not all, of my posts. For that, I make no apologies, but it's not that I'm trying to make anyone uncomfortable.  I welcome people from all schools of belief to read and comment on my blogs. It's what keeps things interesting, right?  That being said, let me tell you a little bit about how this delightfully perfect day came to be.