I can guess what you're thinking...

It was delightfully (and surprisingly) cool a week or so ago, and though my time was generally consumed with events surrounding my daughter's college graduation, I basked in as much of the turn-off-the-air-conditioning, open-the-windows, and linger-on-my-backyard-swing moments I could capture. 

And I can already guess what you're thinking.

After weeks, if not months, of finding little more than a photo here and there on the pages of Pollywog Creek, you'd think I'd have something more interesting than the weather to write about.

It's not that I'm not writing.

Late last year I resigned from the magazine writing I'd been working on for several years. My lifestyle no longer reflected the target audiences my articles were reaching, and I'd exhausted all I knew to say. When I received an offer to write for an upstart magazine that would both tap into my knowledge base and challenge my comfort zones by pushing me out of those areas of experience, I knew it was time to make a change, and I love it.

I treasure the online communities I'm part of and the relationships that have developed as a result, but my new assignments have taken me away from the computer and face-to-face with remarkable women whose stories I get to uncover in conversations over coffee or brunch. I get to be amazed as their stories unfold -- stories I'm trusted to retell in just so many words that never seem like enough. 

I'm also working (albeit slowly) on a series of children's books based on my archived and no longer available "Letters from Mimi's Backyard."

And I'm writing in places unfit for public consumption. I can't remember a time when I didn't process life in writing, and I have baskets of journals as evidence. The thought sometimes occurs to me -- usually at night when I'm trying to go to sleep -- that I probably should cull my journals and destroy those I'd rather no one ever discovers, because I can't reconcile scripture and the doctrine of Imago Dei with the popular sentiment that it's alright to tell your stories even if it hurts those who "behave badly."*

Since the beginning of her last semester in college, my daughter and I have been slowly making our way through Beth Moore's study on James, Mercy Triumphs. In her teaching on James 4.9-11, Beth addresses the proliferation of cynicism in our religious pop-culture that is expressed in how believers are so willing to publicly ridicule other believers -- especially in what we say and write online -- and it should turn our joy to gloom (vs 9).

There's a way to tell our stories without shaming others or being cynical, I believe -- a way that leaves wide spaces for grace and mercy to work in those who have hurt us and whose misbehavior has left scars on our souls. I can only imagine how I would feel if places I have failed to "behave better" (of which there are many) were written about on the pages of public journals, blogs, and social media platforms. 

So sometimes when weeks pass without anything more than a "Still Saturday" or "I Love Sunday" post, it's because I'm processing life more privately. 

*I edited this paragraph from when it was first posted after I realized I'd ventured too close to doing exactly what I was trying to avoid. Oh, the irony of it all. What does Proverbs say? When words are many, transgression is not lacking.

Technology @ Work...

I can't believe I just did that. I groaned and covered my face in disbelief.

When my husband’s desktop computer, where most of my hi-res images were stored, began freezing up days before we were to leave for Louisiana over Christmas, I immediately began transferring photos onto disks while simultaneously working on my laptop to meet a magazine deadline.      

An hour into that multi-tasking between the desktop and laptop, I stood to answer the phone and stepped on the laptop I'd foolishly left closed on the floor. I opened it up to find dark purple lines spreading across the now broken screen.   

For months we'd been frustrated by poor cell phone service in our house. In an attempt to improve it, our carrier provided us with a signal booster that worked through wifi, but our rural internet service was unreliable. To add to the frustration, we had discontinued our land line years ago to justify purchasing cell service – a decision we now regretted. To make a phone call without our conversation breaking up or the call dropped, we had to leave the house.

Technology designed to improve communication was not working well for us, and we were locked into a family contract that would be costly to cancel early.  

In Louisiana, with family who shared that contract, we switched to a more reliable and expensive carrier, bought new phones, and negotiated with our former carrier to drop the early contract cancellation fees.

But our computer woes only worsened. When we returned home, the desktop computer had died completely while we were gone.  

My laptop was useable, but barely. Writing and editing photos with a distorted screen was a challenge I reserved for meeting important magazine deadlines, while other writing goals were put on hold until our finances following Christmas and the purchase of new cell phones would allow for new computers and the technical help I need to retrieve photos off the desktop. 

A month later, we’re making progress.  We replaced the laptop and desktop last week – this blog post is proof – but the process of recreating lost files, moving data off the damaged laptop and retrieving photos from the desktop will take time.

Our family’s recent technology woes have challenged our assumption that technology is a gift, but when it works and we make wise decisions to back-up data and avoid carelessness – technology assists our work in the world, in our home, in our relationships and in ministry.  

Some of the many benefits technology has provided our family without our ever leaving home include the opportunities to work, pay bills, manage our finances, earn college credit, conduct research before making major purchases, be better informed healthcare consumers, order prescriptions, communicate with healthcare providers, remain connected to family and friends, and shop from a variety of sources that often offer free shipping.

That challenge – as with all good things in life – is to use the benefits of technology wisely and with moderation. Online shopping can lead to impulse buying and overspending. Abusing access to friends and family can damage our relationships with false expectations and over-protection. Without disciplined work habits, including the time we make ourselves available to work and minimizing distractions, we can adopt unhealthy practices leading to either laziness to the detriment of our work or over-working that sacrifices our relationships. All of these can stunt our spiritual maturity, damage our witness, and lead us away from the abundant life in Christ for which we were created.

Of all the gifts of technology, our greatest joys can come from using it in the work of furthering the Gospel.

As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace….in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. 1 Peter 4:10-11

How have you experienced technology at work in your life?

 This post is part of The HighCalling’s Technology @ Work Community Link-Up Technology @ Work Photo by Tim Miller. Design by Jennifer Dukes Lee.

The assurance of this when the days are numbered...

Life is full these days. Not overly so, but enough for me to feel the weight.

With little wiggle-room for leisure, my mornings outside on the backyard swing in the shade of the sweetgum trees are temporarily on hold, and I am content. I want to savor the sweetness this fullness brings, for I know these days are numbered.

It's imperative that I also balance this savoring with a focus on the deadlines and commitments that push leisure to the edges, but the soft morning light on the rain-soaked tickseed blooming thick along the roadside fence proves too irresistible for me to ignore.

Emily and Anna still sleep as I wander through the tall wet grass dotted with wild yellows spiked with roserush and flowering weeds until my pant legs are soaked to the knees.

These sweet full days may be numbered, but I rest in the assurance of this:

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.

Still Saturday::for the utterance of good words...

"There is beauty within this shattered creation. There are true and good things, and our struggle, every day, is not the truth of them, but the truth of ourselves. The words aren’t made worthy by us, but maybe, by God’s grace, we can be made more worthy of the words, and even by them, because good words are a blessing, which is why the priest or preacher or rabbi sends us out into the world with them humming in our inner hearts.

Logos is a name for Christ because creation was spoken into being. Some of that power conveys to us as well, because with our every word we build up or tear down, we soothe our brother or we flay him, we call into this earth either a heavenly aroma or pungent brimstone. God knows, we need more good words.

Which means they warrant utterance, it seems, even when they come from bad men. This world needs words freighted with gravity and grace, and I suppose it would be a sin not to speak them, even if we’ve never once in our lives measured up to their fullness."

Tony Woodlief, Benediction from a Bad Man

Coming to an end...

We're less than two weeks away from the end of Google Reader, and if you've been reading Pollywog Creek through a Google Reader subscription, I grieve at the thought of losing contact with you. If you haven't already moved your blog subscriptions to a new reader, I hope you'll do so soon, and that you will continue your subscription to Pollywog Creek.

An even better way to stay connected is through a free email subscription, and you can do so by signing up right here-----> Subscribe to Pollywog Creek by Email.  An email subscription makes it easy for you to interact with me by simply responding to the email you will receive with posts from Pollywog Creek either the day or the day after I publish them. I don't always remember or have time to respond to comments on the blog, but emails always get my attention.

I'm energized and refreshed from my short stay at the beach last week and I'm contemplating ways I can make it happen more often. The fresh summer air and cool breezes off the gulf seemed to clear out the cobwebs, and dozens of blog-worthy thoughts are now swirling about - but I'm pressed to finish working on our photos for the book today, so I'll have to hold onto those thoughts for another day and pray they don't fly away in the meantime. 

What do you do when you need to clean out the "attic" to make room for new and creative thoughts and ideas?

What in the world am I to do?

I tell Louis that God might not remember that I’m a mature woman now – and I wonder, “What in this world am I to do with these perfectly delightful gifts in a celebrity culture that gives weight to and values the talents and gifts of the young and relevant and beautiful – not a woman of a certain age like me?”

I'm over at Dan King's Bible Dude today - sharing a few thoughts and photos in Sandra's "being and seeing" column.

Won't you come on over and say hi?

To leave a space for ponderings...

I can't get over God's sovereignty in all my affairs - how he arranges and weaves and ordains my comings and goings, and the immeasurable grace he saturates - over, around and through - this undeserving and broken vessel of mercy called me. 

My new Starbucks friend tells me she studies new words - and rightfully so, she's delighted with the meaning of grace. The undeserved favor of God, she tells me, but when she reads the tagline on my business card: Cultivating an eye for life's mercies..., she's puzzled and asks, What exactly is mercy?

I give her the answer that's been given to me. It's like this, I tell her. Grace is the gift of God's favor through Christ - favor we don't deserve, because there's nothing we can do to earn it. But mercy is the measure of God's compassion for us in that along with giving us what we don't deserve, he doesn't give us what we do.

She focuses on the wall over my shoulder and I see how she silently flips the words over and over in her thoughts - grace and mercy, grace and mercy. The same but different. Two sides of the same coin - the redemption for a wretch like me.   

I feel God's favor in this conversation across the top of our laptop screens - two women once strangers, venti cups of lattes on the table next to our iPhones and lifestyle worlds apart. I later wonder about the young man sitting to my right who's trying to work, his laptop open, but held captive by two women whose animated conversation has invaded his space as though he didn't exist.

An agent tells me - a year ago - she doesn't like my tagline. It's not clear, she says, this cultivating an eye for life's mercies, and I wrestle with changing it; but sometimes there needs to be space for questions, for curiosity and holy ponderings.

And when you know that you know that something fits, that it's right for you, you hold on and own it - trusting there's a reason. Maybe it's this table in Starbucks. Maybe there's more. I go where God leads me or I dare not go at all. 

That we have received anything good – any forgiveness, any acceptance with God, any glimpse of his glory, any hope of everlasting joy – this is all mercy. John Piper

Agent or not - it's all mercy. It's all grace. And it's all good.

In the stillness and wonder...

“The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me;
his word is on my tongue.

 
The God of Israel has spoken;
the Rock of Israel has said to me:



When one rules justly over men,
ruling in the fear of God,



he dawns on them like the morning light,
like the sun shining forth on a cloudless morning,
like rain that makes grass to sprout from the earth."
2 Samuel 23:2-4


May my teaching drop as the rain,
my speech distill as the dew,
like gentle rain upon the tender grass,
and like showers upon the herb.
Deuteronomy 32:2



I {LOVE} Sunday...

It's what I love...

I'm hard-pressed to call much of anything I do "work" - not since my nursing career days, when I could deposit a nice paycheck in the bank every other week.

Don't misunderstand me - women {and men, for that matter} who don't work outside the home work hard. Very hard - often without the satisfaction that comes from a job well-done, because the work never ends, and seldom receive much honor or respect from those who think that a paycheck is what validates our work. 

It's just that I love what I do. 

I loved staying home with my children. I loved the pace and challenge of homeschooling and the opportunity to learn what I failed to learn when I was a student. Those years at home with my children full-time are a memory I treasure and hold close. 

I loved caring for my bedridden mother - washing the feet of the saint who I loved more than any other woman and who did so much more for me than I could ever do for her. I loved washing her face, giving her a bath, rubbing lotion into her back and feet, brushing her hair, getting her dressed, changing her diapers, holding her hand - it was hard work, but I loved my mother and counted the opportunity to care for her in our home a gift.  

I have loved being available to help {play with} my children by caring for my grandchildren, as well as the years I was healthy enough to help an elderly friend with bathing and minor chores once a week.  

I love writing, whether I'm paid for it or not. So much so, that I keep forgetting to submit an invoice for my monthly ghost-writing gig. And no. We are not wealthy - far from it - more like lower middle-class. I've never had a housekeeper, a massage {though I was once given a certificate for one - thank you Nick and Kristin}, or had my nails done, but I love our small and modest home - a hodge-podge of hand-me-downs and thrifty finds - and because my beloved husband has been a faithful and wise manager of our income, it's a home we own outright.

I love photography and the challenge to improve my skills, and I love being able to share my photographs freely with others. As Ann Voskamp says, a gift is always a gift and never stops giving. 

I love having the time to read good books and to dig deep into the study of God's Word. It's one of the greatest benefits of being a stay-at-home-mom {and mimi}. Even during the years that little ones were at our feet, my friend Barbara and I would meet weekly to pray and study while our children played around us. We'd stop momentarily to change a diaper or settle a squabble, and we even stopped once to take Nick to the ER for stitches, when he fell on a shard of glass in the empty lot next door where the older boys were playing. But we never stopped meeting - to encourage and spur each other on to the love and good deeds to which we have been called.

I love being available now to live out the call to be a Titus 2 woman in even small ways. With a few other women my age, I'm available to lead a group of young mothers in study while their children play around us - sometimes interrupting us with their needs. What a gift these women and their children are to me.

I love the Body of Christ everywhere and leading lifegroups with my husband in our church - as we crack open our own broken redeemed lives that we might comfort others with the comfort with which we have been comforted, and guide them in opening up the Word in fellowship and communion - that we might all grow more to love and live like Jesus.   

I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my pleas for mercy.
Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
Psalm 116.1-2, 5

Bet you didn't know...

Bet you didn't know I'm a 40-something mid-western mom.

In my ghostwriting gig, that is.

For over two years I've been writing from inside the mythical head of a woman with a date on her birth certificate, if she had one, that's about twenty years after the date on mine. She also lives where there are four distinct seasons, as opposed to the two we have here in deep south Florida.

Most of the time I can wing it. That's what it means to be creative, right?  But one month last year I was asked to write about family fun in the snow, and that's when I had nothing - nadda - to draw from. I suggested {begged for} a revised assignment.

Wing it or not, I never trust only in my own experiences. Extensive research is part of every assignment, and sometimes {often} that research points out the mistakes I made when I was a 40-something southern living mom with children still at home to nurture. Such is the case for the article I'm working on now.

I was recently asked by a different project manager to write an article for younger moms on what I would do differently. If I contemplate all my regrets and mistakes too long, I'm not sure I can keep the word count below what would fill the pages of a book.

That's one of the problems I have with this information age. There's too much information and an over-abundance of inspiration. It can be paralyzing. Unless I'm searching for something specific, I stopped looking at Pinterest months ago. I want to do everything - every craft, recipe, home decorating idea and fashion tip. I wish I'd done everything years ago, and I can easily feel lower than a snake's belly that I didn't.

But for grace.

Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you. Only let us hold true to what we have attained.

Philippians 3:12-16 ESV

Did you catch that? Those of us who are mature think this way.

I did say it was time I act my age.

Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.

Oscar Wilde

{PHOTOS - more spring, with those painted buntings, this week on Pollywog Creek}