Christmas Is Over, But It's Still A Wonderful Life

Every October, my husband and I kick off some old black and white film love with a few Alfred Hitchcock classics and other Cary Grant and Jimmy Stewart favorites with good ole chili and pumpkin pie making. We also have our traditions like watching "Rear Window" on Halloween after a night out of trick or treating with the kids or watching "It's a Wonderful Life" every Christmas night. I'm ever more thankful that I found a husband who has a love for old classic movies as much as I do. This year we found a new holiday treasure, "Meet Me in St. Louis."

This year, there was something different about my Frank Capra favorite and it wasn't that I finally got to watch it in color. It's hard not to watch the ending of  'It's a Wonderful Life' without getting a little teary eyed, but this year, I found myself blubbering more and overwhelmed with emotions. Suddenly, it was as though I was George Bailey himself.  I felt overwhelmed with the love from all the people in my life who have loved me unconditionally. All their loving kindness set out before me like the heap of money before George Bailey. The love just didn't stop. Their love just kept overflowing in abundance. There were so many times I didn't know how to love back or even accept love, but it didn't matter, the dear ones in my life always seemed to outpour more of it. George, himself, was left with more in return than what he originally lacked.

Also in that same moment, I could feel all the lies of the enemy in my Motherhood. The ones that tell me I'm not enough, I'm too much, too impatient, lost my cool too many times, the many weights of Mom guilt that keep me awake at night. I watched as George Bailey always tried to do right by his family, but even in a moment of frustration and weakness, came home yelling to stop playing the piano and kicking over his office in frustration, but his family still saw him as good and whole. Those moments didn't define who he was as a husband or father, just as in the moments I lose myself, they don't define who I am. There are things I do that may be good or bad, but that doesn't make me good or bad. His family stood with him with pride and love because they knew who he was.

Over the course of the last decade, God has been sending so many people into my life to flood me with love. The intervals in which God has been sending people have come closer together to where it has met me square on and the scales/walls are finally being pulled from my heart.

Just this week, I had a friend drop by with a king cake (Mardi Gras). She's originally from New Orleans and she was excited to wish us a "Happy Feast of the Epiphany." Not only did I feel overwhelmed by the kindness of her gesture, but I knew God was loving on me in extension in that moment. She was so thoughtful to think of us while she was out shopping at the store, but also knowing it was God's way of saying He was thinking of me as the idea was whispered on her heart.  

God is in the moments of kindness. He is in those moments of love when we don't know how to understand them. I'm thankful He hasn't relented. 

There's a reason God tells us in His word that people will know us by our love or the greatest commandment is to love your neighbor. Love is what pursues the hearts of His people. Love has the power to change and convict.  Love can break through walls, chains, and bring us back into the Father heart of God. 

Loving others also teaches those who have never been exposed to the true attachment of love or what love is or looks like, it's weight. 

This Summer I went to an inner child healing/trauma workshop. On the first day they asked what are the three specific goals I would like to achieve from the workshop. My second answer was that I would understand and feel the depth of love. 

I learned through the workshop that I had a broken attachment growing up and it has been a source of disconnect for me. Through God's gracious healing and the overwhelming love of people around me, for the first time ever, I've been able to say I can feel love in genuine depths....sometimes I still don't understand it and I'm wanting earnestly to learn to give it back to others because it's been the uttermost beauty in my life. I would not be where I am in life today without the people who have surrounded us to make our life so wonderful. 

God is love and He uses each of us and our kindnesses to pursue the people around us. 

Love is our greatest giving power. Use it generously. 

George Bailey For A Day

Have you ever had one of those George Bailey moments from the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life," where you know you have forever impacted the lives of others? I was thinking tonight I don't know how to answer that question for myself. But on the other hand, without a George Bailey in my life, I could have easily become a combination of a "Violet" or "Mary" in George's scenario of never being born. I would have maybe always been searching for myself and what I wanted and longed for like Violet and ending up all alone like Mary.

I still remember the day. I went in to get my haircut. My hair was long and boring with what she called it, "the butt cut," where the hair is parted straight down the middle. Ha! I was her last client of the day. We had conversation as she transformed my hair but nothing like the, 'whoa, we click.' moment. To this day, I will never know what it was, but as we walked out to our cars together, she said, 'We should hang out sometime!' I was stunned by the words. This 'too cool for skool' chick was asking the most dull person in her salon that day to hang out with her. It was also something I hadn't heard in a very long time.

I was a wilted flower. I had just ended a very long unhealthy relationship and was emotionally burnt out. I lacked any kind of confidence in myself or inner beauty. I was already searching, but not knowing where or how to start my new journey with Christ I had just begun.

After hanging out a few times, she soon started to take me under her wing. No agenda. It wasn't long before she was discipling me simply by teaching life on life. She was an extended hand of the Father to help guide me where He was leading.

She set my feet firm at the start line and pushed me forward to follow the Lord. I went running! I learned how to truly desire the Lord. I gained confidence in my identity in Him. She instilled Biblical womanhood values in me and how to be a good wife before ever meeting my future husband. We became close friends.

Christ alone can only receive all the credit for my life, but He does want us to be an extension of Him. He wants us to be his hands and feet. Serving others in brotherly love.

My life changed simply by going to get my haircut with a hairdresser who knew His heart.

So what does this mean for me?
It means I need to be open. I need to be in connection and in fellowship with the Father.

When I'm out at the grocery store, the line in Starbucks, or at the park with my kids, I don't need to be so self focused that I forget to interact with the people around me. Encouraging those I come in contact with or being something they need just that moment. What does that look like?

Sure, I may not be gaining a Timothy (Paul discipled Timothy before sending him out to do the same) with each encounter, but I can leave behind seeds of love. I can be a George Bailey in someone's day. Or even maybe a lifetime and generations to follow.

God transformed my life and hair with just one cut! 

The Moon? Throw a Lasso Around It!

If you were one that attended our wedding, you heard my sister give a very memorable but sentimental toast at the reception. Her toast described how I have always loved Disney. When I was a child, it started with all the fairy tales: Sleeping Beauty, Aladdin, Cinderella, etc., but then as I grew up, so did Disney. I moved on to guilty pleasures like the High School Musicals, Wizards of Waverly Place, Hannah Montana, etc . The point was I always had a dream of a fairy tale romance. It almost seemed like an impossible dream or that my expectations were to the sky. In short, her toast was describing that I had finally found my fairy tale romance that I had always dreamed of. Kyle romances me to the moon and back and I love it! It makes our relationship exciting and spicy.

This dream of a fairy tale romance was not given completely by those Disney tales, although they do fill a girls head with all the right ideas! Ha! But it was inspired by God who created me with the dream and desire to be swept off my feet not only in a dating relationship but in my marriage too. He knew the plans He had made for my life and only drove me to crave it until I found it- Kyle. It wasn't easy believing that dream could come true and there was a time I forfeited it altogether, but God restored me to that privileged dream.

This week God began awakening me to start dreaming big dreams with Him. I don't know yet what these dreams may be or what they may even look like, but they have me eagerly seeking out the Father's heart. They are dreams that seem bigger than I am. Ones that leave me feeling intimidated, apprehensive, but yet intrigued and anticipated all in the same breath. I feel like they will push me out of my comfort zones, but only to find even bigger joy and double portions when I get there. It is hard to reach down inside yourself to find what you or I are really capable of doing/being....to push myself straight into God's big plans!  

I feel like Genesis 15:5 when ^"the Lord took Abram outside and said to him, “Look up into the sky and count the stars if you can. That’s how many descendants you will have!” 

I'm not speaking of descendants here. Haha! God is figuratively speaking like George Bailey from "It's a Wonderful Life." "What is it you want, Mary Ashley? What do you want? You want the moon? Just say the word and I'll throw a lasso around it and pull it down. Hey. That's a pretty good idea. I'll give you the moon, Mary Ashley."

God's taking me under the clouds of the day, under the starry night sky, and wanting me to dream dreams with Him. That is just indescribably exciting!!! I am aligning myself with Him, His Will, and His big Dreams. I get to be part of God's plan! And then see them fulfilled!

It is only when we align our dreams with God that those dreams can really come true! Not by our own works, striving, strengths, or selfish aspirations. It's when we submit entirely to God and His prosperous plans for our lives. Dreaming Big Dreams with His Heart!

In order for those dreams to be fulfilled, He is calling me to have faith, childlike faith, to believe in Him so that we can take hold of those dreams that are in store. To have faith that only He, the Almighty, can do. The anything, everything, and the impossible.

Now that might seem easy, but I look at Abraham who was 100 years old, and think....I would have to dig deep to find that faith in believing God would give me a son at that age. But Genesis 15:6 says, "And Abram believed the Lord, and the Lord counted him as righteous because of his faith."

Are you inspired to dream dreams with the Most High? He wants to dream enormous dreams with you! The easy ones... that husband you're waiting for, that job you're anticipating, a captivating romance, a restored marriage, missions, or the impossible ones that our hearts have yet to dream with Him or ones in the process of being fulfilled by Him. 

I look at where I am now compared to just years ago. I have undeserving favor and living dreams I never knew could really be obtained, better ones than I could have ever imagined, and God's calling for more... more dreams, more joy, more of His heart and less of mine! There's always more dreams to be dreamed. We don't just have so settle with current aspired dreams. I don't want to become complacent in the dreams God has already and is fulfilling in my life. There's so much more to God and His heart to be shared with us!!