Elizabeth Witham

Dear Friends

Today, a precious woman has passed. Elizabeth Witham was a beautiful woman, a loving mother and grandmother, known for her love and provision for everyone around her. She lived a long life of 92 years, and lived through more in her one life than most generations would see. I Love You Grama with my absolute whole heart, and I'm glad you are no longer in pain. I cannot wait until the day that I see you in Heaven, standing with Jesus. Where every tear will be wiped away, and we will be together in never ceasing to praise God for all that He has done for us. I'm sure you will find your favorite Easter Lillies in Heaven. fields and fields of them.

Sarah

I honestly never thought that I would see the day when my grandmother passed. She celebrated her 92nd birthday in january... I knew it had to happen, but I can tell you that I was starting to give in to the idea that she might outlive me. She was such a tough old lady, sweet and also hilarious...most were surprised at her wit, even in her age.

I feel filled with so many regrets.

Why didn't I make sure that she came to Easter? Why did I allow life to get in the way? to get sucked in to the drama between my dad and I to get in the way of my relationship with her? I don't think I've seen her since Christmas Eve. I feel terrible.

Not only because of that. But because all I can think of is how everyone treated her in that same way. I reflect more and more on the brokenness of my family. How she seemed to be the only thing that held them all together, and eventually, (about 6 or 7 years ago) not even she could do that. I remember family parties filled with party platters, tons of chips, ALWAYS coca cola in the fridge, and if the fridge ran out, then there were three cases in the back bedroom waiting to be put in the refrigerator. :)

I remember christmas trees at her house with always too much tinsel. Her house that had outlasted every other on the block, and was the strangest shade of green and yellow mixed together. I remember being afraid of the downstairs, being pushed down the stairs, and several seperate family members living in her basement. It was almost never empty. But that's how Grandma was- she was always trying to help anyone in the family. I remember when my dad used to live there, and the weekends that we would spend over at grandmas house. In the summer, using a coat hanger to try and open my grandpa's old car that always sat in the carport. She would never sell it, I think because she still wanted a piece of him with her. I remember her love for cats. Typically, a love for cats would not create the nostalgia that I'm experiencing in this moment- But with her it was different. She adored all things, even cats. She loved babies. I remember watching my little cousin grow up with her, and how much grandma adored little Ellie. From the time she was just a little baby, until now. Grandma loved ellie, and it seemed like every time I was over there, they were unable to part from the hip. I remember being six or seven, eating burnt english muffins in the morning from her toaster oven that had been broken for years and years. Pictures everywhere of all of her kids and grandkids. I Love you Grandma.

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Inspiration

a corner of my passion for God was totally re-awoken today with these songs. I Love how God works. :)

Girl America

Faith like a child from your first birth

You left it in the dirt on your worst hurt

And I see each tear and every scar

The hands that have held you where you are

And I can see we've strayed so far

A king born under that morning star

As a crown of thorns was placed to earase

Each tear that's touched your face

And his palms and sides were pierced with spears

He hung in love just to draw you near

My girl, out of this whole world

Can't you see this is where we started?

Madly in Love with You

I know you wish you could see me

That’s the way it has to be

Someday you’ll understand,

don’t you lose your faith in me

Love Me

I will love you for you

Not for what you have done or what you will become

I will love you for you

I will give you the love

The love that you never knew

Your Hands

When my world is shaking

Heaven stands

When my heart is breaking

I never leave Your hands

Lent

it's interesting to hear all the voices, buzzing around tonight, waiting for another ...reason. I hear the funny different ideas for what to give up: myself included.

I thought I might give up junk food, but more as a starting point, ideally to continue in the positive behavior track type of thing.. But I think a better way to think about it is more like : Realizing that Jesus will provide for me is really where I'm at.

Recently, I've been in a weird foodie type of mood: Not really motivated to exercise at all, and wanting to eat CONSTANTLY. Seriously, I'm eating something, and then thinking about what I can eat next. I just want to eat...all the time. and I think it might be close to something I really can't control. I need help.

Jesus, help me, use silly lent to change my heart and rely on YOU when I want to eat continuously, not on food.

Charity: Water

Feeling pretty excited to try and raise some money for the program Charity: Water.

The program itself is dedicated to bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing nations. They're non-profit and use 100% of public donations to directly fund sustainable water solutions in areas of greatest need. It's crazy, but just $20 can give one person clean water for 20 years.

I've always taken water for granted... in the last 30 minutes,

I've used the sink probably.....4 or 5 different times, threw some dishes into the dishwasher, and after I post this blog, I'll be taking a shower. This is one of the MANY, MANY things that I take for granted... but that's another post all together. All of a sudden today, watching a video on how my old church (Eastlake Community Church) is hosting a benefit to help this charity out, I actually felt as if I might be able to help as well. I was looking on the website, saw that you could buy a bracelet, and thus it began. ...

The coolest thing about this is, going through the third Love language, (Acts of Service) just yesterday and as we were discussing, we came through a whole topic that really hit my own heart. We talked about your natural ability to serve, and if that's a characteristic that you posses. My own answer was that I think I do, but not out of a completely right heart. I LOVE to serve. But sometimes I know for sure that I serve out of obligation rather than wanting to show people that I love them, or even serving them just to show them a little bit more of who Jesus is. I think my hesitation in serving isn't to those who I don't know very well- it's to my closest of friends. EX: If someone from work asks me to cover their 4.45 hr shift, after I've already worked an 8 hour day, I'm totally cool with that (despite the money). Or even when I'm over at another person's house, I have no problem helping them clean up- I actually enjoy it!

But it's cleaning my own house, or doing things for my mom, sometimes even when Dustin needs me to drive him somewhere, I get that weird, "I don't really want to do this but I will because I should" kind of heart. And I think there's a few levels to that.

1) Fear. I think that on some level, my subconscious fear is that if I continually serve and serve, people will take advantage of me.

2) Selfishness/wanting my own glory.

As ridiculous as it is, that's my own heart. I pray that God would change my heart when it comes to serving those closest to me. I know there is a lie that I'm believing when I get scared that I'll be taken advantage of. I need to remember Eph. 6:7 and Col. 3:23 where it says that I work as if working for the Lord, and not for men. ...Ammmen. haha. :)

All this aside, back to the Praise-story I was developing here: Despite my own selfish heart, God still choses to bless me and use me. And this whole action of Facebook messaging almost every

person I know and asking them to trade out 5.24 for a sweet 3.00 bracelet, is God working in me. Because yesterday, I asked him to help me to get better at organizing events in a serving sort of way. Because I definitely have the desire to be a planner. I have little pieces of organization hiding within me, but I think my own laziness has kept me from pursuing that.

So here I am to praise God, because he says to me ⁷ "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.⁸For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. " (Matthew 7:7-8, ESV)

I never have really lived out of that belief, until recently, and only because God has had to shove it in my face twice over before I get it. I thank God for his patience with me. :) Continually.

I pray that God would be using me, reguardless of how much I suck at representing him. I am far from perfect, but I love that God doesn't expect me to be. God wants an open heart from me, and an open hand, so that I can image him fully.

It's like the John Piper sermon where he talks about our views on how we image God by talking about the difference between a telescope and a microscope.

Both of these things magnify. Yeah?

Think about the Microscope. What does a microscope do? It takes something very small and makes it bigger. Early in being a Christian, I thought it was my job to be the microscope. But this is totally wrong, in every way, because it says that the Almighty God, who can control creation with one word and can create the most beautiful places and things, needs someone like ME to make him bigger. If you know me very well, then you would instantly laugh at the thought.

The doctrine of Sarah-making-God bigger is not an accurate one.

in contrast to the microscope...let's think about the telescope now. You use a telescope to look into the sky, right? So the idea of a telescope is that when you look into that unfathomably HUGE sky, you're able to use the telescope to bring that sky a little closer to you than before. You can magnify one small part of the vastly detailed sky in all of it's glory.

I want to be a telescope. God, teach me how to abandon my own selfish wants to think I'm the one that's needed for you to be big. Teach me how to be a telescope. :)

I want to bring clean water to people who don't have it. God is a provider.

DG- Love Languages

We started this series 2 weeks ago, but it's been a lot of background information (very important background...Ex: Where you're learning your love languages from, what love really looks like, our own descriptions of what love is, etc..)

Through the different love languages, we're learning to recognize how people show their love towards others, and how we primarily show our love to others.

In recognizing someone else's love languages, You're letting them show their love for you in their own way.

The cool thing is: love languages are learnable. (I just added that word to my dictionary..)

- I appreciate this, because (especially in this week's love language) I am terrible at showing my love to other people! There is total hope in this statement, that we can actually get better at the different ways of showing our love.

Proverbs 18:21

The first love language the book enters into is...

WORDS OF AFFIRMATION:

Death and life are in the power of the tongue,
and those who love it will eat its fruits.
~Proverbs 18:21

And of course, my first thought is "Oh, crap..." considering my struggle is totally with my words. My problem is.... I use them. Waaay too much. And those words sometimes may be good, oftentimes can hurt... I like to think of the "talkers" like me as people who shoot hundreds of arrows in an attempt to hit a small target. We just have somuchtosayinsuchlittletimeandprobablyhaveaprideproblembecausewethinkeveryoneshouldknowallaboutourstory

..my point proven. :)

• The family that we grew up with, the house we lived in.... they have HUGE impact on how we give and receive words of affirmation. Or whether or not we do either, .. ever.
• Growing up in a positive home will impact the way that you are with expressing your words of affirmation. You're in a way, pre-trained into affirming others.
• Very inversely, if you grew up in a very negative home, you'll have a harder time learning to affirm others with your words.
  
  I want to work on this ******
  
  
• If we want to Love, we need to take action.
  -Luke 6:38
  -1 John 4:19
  

A few points of homework for us..

1. Start where you are. Figure out your environment where you grew up in.
-Question: Did I ever feel love? Did I hear the words, "I Love you"?

2. Be active and not passive.
-For those of us who grew up in a negative household, we need to learn to not be the victim. Make the choice to love people.

I really love that idea of making the choice to love. That it's not always super easy to love people. But you make that choice right then and there, even if someone is treating you badly, you make that choice to love them.

3. Choose a strategy: How you can love those other people.

• With words of affirmation, never fake it. People can tell when you're not being sincere.
• Do it with a pure heart. Not for the return affirmation, not for your own recognition.

Different Dialects of Words of Affirmation:

1. Appreciation
2. Encouragement
3. Praise
   -Helpful for conflict-type conversations: before you're about to criticize someone, recognize and praise the thing that they've been accomplishing.
4. Kind words
   -Pleasant words are a honeycomb,
   sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.
   (Proverbs 16:24..NIV because it has a little more of a fluid sentence structure)

Wisdom from Dustin's Moleskine:

"According to Paul from Prolango.com, 55% of communication is body language, 38% is tonality, and 7% are the actual words used."

Another aspect of how we express ourselves verbally is the tone in which we address others.

-For some people, you're going to have to learn what kind of tones they respond to the best, as well as the tones that they don't like. Everyone has their own sensitivity level.

Learning how to have the deeper, harder level conversations w/ people & choosing to be loving within those heated conversations:

-A great tip for this is Receive their heated emotion as information about where they are emotionally.
(I never thought about things this way before. I feel like it's so easy to get caught up in the middle of the emotionally heated conversation, that we miss what this person is actually SAYING-- They're trying to communicate something more than what words happen to be falling out of their mouth at the time.)

Forgiveness:

When we've wronged others...
don't be afraid to say you're sorry.

(...)For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
-Matthew 12:34

• Own up to your own heart and feelings.
• Try your best to make things up to that person.

When you've been wronged by others... you have two options:

1. "You deserve this" action plan: putting yourself as the ultimate judge
   
   
2. Forgiving them: releasing them to God and submitting to Christ as the ultimate judge.
   -a sign of humility, in knowing that we can't judge others as we are all sinners.

When someone repeatedly sins against you and doesn't apologize:

-CHOOSE to release them to God.

Saying to yourself "I won't let this ruin me or control me"

A Few Small Quotes and Ideas:

"Many people mess up every new day with what happened yesterday"
"The best thing to do with our past hurts: Make them history."

"What I say and how I say it will affect the climate of my relationships."

To Encourage someone is to inspire courage within them. We lack courage, and that hinders us from doing things: By encouraging people, we're enabling them to have the courage to do that new thing or take that new step.

With this, I've Set up a few "To Do" List items....but Dustin has encouraged me to label the list "Priorities", so that I won't feel bad if I don't accomplish every single item today. I kind of like that idea.. :)

Priorities:

• How can I improve my own Words of Affirmation towards others?
• Proverbs 18:21