Move Over Disney World, This is the Happiest Place on Earth

Well, we made it to North Carolina! (Except the kiddos-- they've been staying with Grandma and Grandpa for a couple weeks until we could get unpacked, register Isaac for school, get to know the area, etc.-- They arrive tomorrow.) And can I just say, this place is beautiful? Every street, highway, byway, and freeway is lined with tall pines, flowering trees, and lush ferns. I'm in the middle of a city, but I feel like I'm driving through a forest...a forest that has 20 Starbucks within a 10 minute drive.

We moved from a house to a 3 bedroom apartment for the time being. The only draw back is that the storage space is significantly less than we have been used to: our previous house had a crawl space under the first floor, which was like a giant, neverending black hole of storage possibility. However, with a little creative organizing, everything has found a place! And as a bonus, the kids's rooms are twice the size of their last ones, at least.

Since being down here, things have been going very well. It truly has been the rest I was needing, even in the midst of unloading the entire contents of our home and lugging it up 2 flights of stairs (we have a 3rd floor balcony overlooking the woods....the view is worth it). Things seem to be falling into place- we had been trying to sell our home for 2 1/2 months with no bites, and the day after we left MN we got an offer. We may have even found our new church home after a run-in at Target (another reason to love Target....). We may have a few theological/doctrinal differences-- but the people there seem very genuine, welcoming, and devoted group of believers. We've only been to a prayer meeting so far... we'll need to visit a Sunday service a few times too, I imagine.

Plankity Plank Plank!

My husband, two kids, and I are moving to North Carolina in three weeks. Wahoo!

I have lived entirely in Minnesota for the first 30 years of my life, and boy am I excited for a change in locale. More importantly, a warmer locale. My husband actually hails from Indiana, but came to Minnesota to go to college. We actually met the first day of freshmen orientation (at St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN. And no, St. Olaf is not just a place they made up for 'Golden Girls'). He never minded the cold, but I often dreamed of buying one-way tickets to Fiji whenever November rolled around and the months of torture were neigh upon us. In fact, I often said that if we weren't called to the ministry we were apart of, we would not be living in Minnesota. So...read between the lines...we are moving to North Carolina!

In preparation for our move, I have been looking online to find a possible new home church. Other than the doctrinal statements or vision/mission/purpose statements for the more 'relevant' churches, I particularly like to look at the staff and leadership bios. Frequently, I find myself zeroing in on the worship leader, if his/her bio is available. You see, I was on the worship team at our ex-ministry, and it truly is a passion of mine. Worship that is, not the ex-ministry (*smirk*). I would love to have the opportunity to use my gifts in that manner again. Anyway, a lot of the 'relevant' churches have the casual approach to bios, and include things like: "What's your favorite movie?" and "What's music is on your ipod/CD player right now?" and "How much wood could woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood?"

When it came to the ipod/CD question, I found myself zeroing in on the worship leader's answers. U2? John Mayer? Usher? What...no worship music? Just a bunch of secular music?

And then, I hear it, the little voice in my head: "Oh really? What's in your CD player right now?" Um, well, One Republic, Sara Bareilles, La Roux...oh, and Chris Tomlin! Hey, I got one!

Well, crap. Excuse me while I go remove this plank from my eye.

Slap a little lipstick on it!

Up until May 1 of this year, I was the personal assistant to a five-fold minister and worked in the office of his eponymous ministry. It didn't really end well, which I'll explore in further detail in various blog posts. Today, I'd like to share one of my favorite stories about working for the man, and by favorite, I mean unbelievably ridiculous.

This minister was very concerned about how things looked, as he felt he was a minister to leaders (read: millionaires & billionaires, governmental leaders, and some church leaders), and so the image needed to appeal to his choice demographic. I'm not sure that Jesus changed His image to appeal to the "leaders" of the day...but I digress. To go along with appearances, I happily dressed in very professional and business appropriate work attire, had my hair regularly dyed and cut (although occasionally in styles that were a little too edgy for the man's taste... he once told my hairdresser at the time that he needed to change my hairstyle the next time I came in!), and wore tasteful and appropriate makeup. 

Or apparently not.

On a couple of occasions, the man brought me into his office to tell me that I needed to wear lipstick and be mindful about reapplying it. Yep. He was the lipstick police. It isn't like I didn't wear makeup. I had on the usual: foundation, eye shadow, eye liner, blush, mascara, powder and usually lip gloss. Being a serial coffee drinker, lipstick would just end up on my cup, not on my lips. Seemed a waste of time, really. He should have tried wearing lipstick all day. Pain in the backside, I tell you. Looks great for 5 minutes after you apply it, then it dries out, flakes off, or ends up on your coffee cup. Yummy!

On a particularly bad day, the man brought me in for the lipstick talk and actually said "if I have to tell you one more time to keep your lipstick on, that's it"...implying he'd fire me. Let me just interject that, at this point, I had been working without pay for at least a year. I worked for him for free, and he was threatening to fire me over lipstick. That was his only complaint, and apparently it was worthy of kicking me to the curb.

I almost quit that day. I think that the only reason I didn't was because I didn't want it to go down in history that I quit over wearing lipstick. Getting fired over it would have been much funnier.

I did come up with a couple other options for a silent protest. One: I could wear lipstick but absolutely no other kind of makeup whatsoever. Even on days I looked like the waking dead. (I added in the "absolutely no other kind of makeup", even though I first thought that was implied, because the first time I shared this idea with someone I said I could "wear bright red lipstick and absolutely nothing else". Scandalous!) Two: I could find the palest shade of lipstick possible or one in the exact shade of my lips. Three: I could not wear any lipstick and either force him to fire me or call his bluff.

It was an idle threat-- I went without lipstick on multiple occasions after that without any notice or word from the man. It was just on his bad days that I had to make sure it was on, because that's when he'd shoot at anything that moved.

Turns out this obsession with lipstick didn't just hold to me: when trying to fix-up the new TV studios in at our ministry headquarters, he told the team that we were just going to "slap a little lipstick on the place" so that it just looked good, even if there was a lot that needed to be fixed. It makes me wonder if that is how he truly felt about me? Did he think there was a lot to fix about me, but he didn't want to take the time to deal with it, so instead "slapped a little lipstick on it"?

I'm not very interested in a "slap a little lipstick on it" kind of Christianity. I want a real and open relationship to Christ and to fellow believers, because only then can we truly fix the issues on the inside. Now, I realize people can go too far with the "I'm just being real for Jesus" thing as well. Being real isn't an excuse to sin or purposely offend people without cause. Being real is being honest about who Christ is, who we aren't, and what it means when we let Him be who He is in us. I know I don't get this right all the time, as I repeatedly fall back into doing things out of over-concern of what other think about me. Or perhaps more accurately, what I think others are thinking about me.

My prayer is that in this new season I am embarking upon, I can be free to be all that I am and all that God created me to be.

Hello, World!

Due to a myriad of circumstances (which I will post about on this blog in depth), I currently find myself in a whirlwind of change- mostly for good, I'd say. I started this blog to chronicle these new adventures, as well as the good, the bad and the ugly that led up to these changes....hopefully with humor and honesty.