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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