I was reading a chapter from “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” to the kids a few days ago when it occurred to me that my kids are quite lucky to have a seriously dramatic lady for a Mom.  They have never heard a story read to them without an over the top, probably oscar worthy (just sayin’) performance to go along with the reading.

I continued reading the chapter to them, keenly aware that my Faun voice and accent was not anything at all like my Edmund voice.  Not being smug or anything, but I pretty much rock at creating distinct voices and postures for each character.  Seriously, though, no smug.  I’ve gotten great feedback from my Mom.

By the end of the chapter, I was happy with the character work I had done with the White Witch and certain that the kids were going to plead desperately with me to continue with another chapter.  I closed the book and my eyelids, inhaled deeply and waited for the wailing to begin.

“Mom?”

“Yes?” deep sigh so they see their court actor is fatigued from the exhausting work of such grand display.

“Can I have an apple?”

“An apple?” my eyes pop open and my face is one big question mark.

“I wanted one while you were reading, but I didn’t want to interrupt your talking, so I waited and waited, and I almost forgot that I wanted an apple, but then I remembered, and then I forgot, but then, right when you finished reading, I thought, ‘What was it that I wanted?  Oh, yeah.  An apple.’  So, can I have an apple?”

“Did you maybe want me to read another chapter while you eat your apple?”

“Uh, no.  It’s okay.  I mean, I like it, but I think I just want to go ahead and get started on math.  With an apple.”

I bet Doris Day never had to overcome this kind of dismissal.

I would like to start by thanking the makers of flannel graphs.  Due, in part, to these fine artists, and the Sunday school teachers who love them, I grew up with a pretty solid working understanding of who Jesus is and who God the Father is.   You can grow up reading the Bible and hearing the stories, but nothing was as solid to me as applying flannel graph to both.  I could see Jesus in his white robe, blue sash (sometimes it was a red sash), brown hair, and sandals.  God was always a burning bush, a cloud of smoke, a pillar of fire, or a ray of sunshine.  It is easy for my brain to hold on to something it can picture and flannel graphs gave me a most vibrant picture.

As I matured in my own Bible study, those flannel graph images began to come off the flannel board and fill out to a more three dimensional view in my mind.  This was true for the persons of God the Father and Christ the Son, but the Holy Spirit never left the board for me because His person remained a mystery.  I remember learning about how the apostles received the Holy Spirit after Jesus ascended into Heaven and I recall that it was illustrated in flannel graph with a single flame of fire above the head of each man.   We learned that the Holy Spirit allowed them to speak in all kinds of different languages so that they could be understood by all.   Not because my teachers failed, but because I never sought answers, I grew up believing that the Holy Spirit was the silent partner of the the Triune God, Who only occasionally pops in to assist in tongue speaking and (very rarely) miraculous acts.

The sole piece of information that stuck with me about the Holy Spirit was that blaspheming Him is the only unforgivable sin.  Terrified that I might blaspheme on accident, I decided to just avoid the subject altogether to err on the side of caution.  He remained a mystery and I remained cautious, but oh so desperately curious.

One of my best friends in middle school came from a family that attended a charismatic church.  She invited me to come along for a special service where “the Holy Spirit will be very active,” this according to her Dad on the way there.  He cautioned me that this meant there would be “speaking in tongues” and “miracles of all kinds,” things I likely never saw in my family’s “kind of church.”  My own church experience had been quite tame and rather sedate up until then (won’t you come, while we stand, and while we sing?) and I was a little nervous and a lot excited to see for myself.  I wanted to know about the Holy Spirit and these people spoke of almost nothing else.

The guest speaker for the event was a man who had just returned from a mission trip to Africa.  There was an African man who had returned with the missionary and he came to tell us all about how he had been miraculously healed from some sickness.   I don’t recall what the man had been healed from, but I remember well what he looked like.  He was tall, but not crazy tall, just tall and broad enough to take command of the stage.  His skin was as dark as coffee and his face was beautiful in a “must stare” kind of way.  He wore a brightly colored dashiki and matching cap.

He spoke in his native language and used an interpreter.   This interpreter was a short, round, white man and he wore wire frame glasses which he had to endlessly push up his nose as his pouring sweat forced them to slide down.  His demeanor was that of a man who had an English to Nigerian handbook tossed his way ten minutes before showtime with the instructions to “see what you can get out of that.”  He stammered a good deal as he tried to string his words together and seemed flustered when the man spoke faster and more animated.  There came a point when I felt certain that the “interpreter” was really just gathering information from the man’s body language and making up the words as he went along.

If the interpreter was correct in his version, then this African fellow came all the way to Austin, TX to tell us the good news that sickness is a symptom of no faith in the Holy Spirit and that those who have faith in the Holy Spirit are never sick.  There came a point in his talk when I tuned out the interpreter and just watched the African man speak.  He wept with streams of tears and spoke like one pleading to be heard.  I couldn’t help but wonder if he was pointing to something more beautiful and significant than the healing of the flesh and finances.

He was followed by the main speaker, the missionary.  This man looked unlike any missionary I had ever seen.  He wore a beautiful suit,  had a great tan, a white smile and Rick Perry hair.  It is true that I have met some good looking missionaries in my day, but this man was something else.  He spoke of how important giving was and, well, that was about it.  When you give, he told us, God unleashes the Holy Spirit’s power on you.

Stop right there.  This is how we get the Holy Spirit?  I’m intrigued, says 14 year old I.  Tell me more about this Holy Spirit.

When you have the power of the Holy Spirit (through the giving of financial gifts, he stressed), you can expect to never be sick and to never experience a financial woe.  He had a line of people come on stage and he laid hands on them to pray for healing.  These people shook and screamed and fell backwards into the arms of men who seemed to have seen such a thing on the regular.  I had only ever seen anything like that on television and I had always wondered if such things actually went on.   I was, quite literally, on the edge of my seat through this portion of the evening.  This was the part my friend’s Dad warned me about and I was bursting with nervous excitement to see what this Holy Spirit, the One rarely to be mentioned in flannel graph, could do.

The first church member to testify was a woman who said she was healed from a bad sinus infection.  She held the microphone up to her nose so we could hear her breathe freely through her nostrils.  I guess her nostrils sounded clear.  I had no reason to not believe that she did indeed feel better.  I just hoped to witness more dramatic healings in the next several testimonies.  (Like: “I came here tonight with only ONE eyeball in my head and I just now grew a whole NEW eyeball!” or something similar.)   Another testimony came from a man who said he was healed from chronic insomnia (he was awake when he said this.)  He said that he was certain that his 20 second on stage power nap had set him up for the first of many good nights’ sleep.  He was very positive that he was over his insomnia and I wouldn’t argue that he wasn’t – I just really wished I could know if he did sleep like a baby that night.  The only other one I recall was a young boy, maybe ten, who said that his arm (which was in a cast) was broken but that the pain is gone and he is sure it had been healed.  We all cheered for each one, though I grew more and more jaded as each invisible illness was “cured” before my very eyes.  Where’s the blind man who can see and the walking paralytic?

Finally, as the handsome missionary was wrapping up his time of healing people and accepting donations (which were being poured out on the stage from wicker baskets that were constantly circulating the crowd), I saw this older woman hobbling down the center aisle, making her way to the back from the front row.  She was a rather large woman and she used two very tired looking forearm crutches which were covered in medical tape around the hand grips and had the rubber stoppers on the bottoms worn to the metal.  On her feet were the orthopedic shoes and braces that I remember my grandmother wearing.  She breathed very heavily from the effort of her few steps and I felt more than a bit concerned that she might fall down when the preacher yelled out to her, “Stop!”

She stopped right beside my row of seats and made a quarter turn to look over her shoulder at him.  He asked her why she would leave when she clearly had not been healed yet.  She yelled back to the stage in a thick voice that she was unable to get on the stage because of the crowds and the stairs.  She breathed even heavier after the exertion of speaking.  For me, they could have been the only two people in the room – the shiny missionary and the woman with infirmaries I could see.

She turned to leave after a moment’s stare and he thrust his hand in her direction as though he had thrown a fast pitch softball and said again with all the authority of God, “I command you to stop and be healed!”  She froze at the first words he spoke and then slowly turned to face him.  He told her to drop the crutches and walk up and down the aisle to show us that she had been healed.  She drops the crutches and starts to hobble unsteadily towards the stage.  The audience goes wild with cheers as she reaches the stage and then comes back my way with the same unsteady gait.  She occasionally reaches for the backs of chairs along the way to steady herself.  My mouth falls open at this point, not because she is healed, but because this woman is clearly whatever the opposite of healed might be and walking far worse without the crutches.  What I was looking at, as far as I could tell, was a poor disabled woman in need of assistance who was getting no assistance, but instead was getting wildly unhelpful applause.

At this point, I am certain that the preacher wants her to disappear quietly so the ruse doesn’t become anymore strikingly obvious than it is already, but he continues on and commands this woman to RUN up and down the aisle.  She remains hobbling as before, this time even more unsteadily, if that was possible, at the same slow speed and makes a trip up and down the aisle.  He says, “See!  The Holy Spirit has healed this woman!  Can you see the ease with which she runs up and down the aisle?”  And the crowd goes wild with chanting and yelling and tambourines.   She comes back to the spot near me where she shed her crutches and starts to bend down to pick them up.  I can hear her struggle for breath and grunt as her body shifts from walking to stopping and then bending over.  The preacher again thrusts his hand in her direction and tells her that she does not need them and that she is to go home and leave those crutches in the church dumpster because she is healed.

I could feel her hesitation.  I think it is possible that she and I were the only two people in that room who knew that she no more ran that aisle than a newly learned to walk toddler could.  She allowed one of the men who had previously been catching fainters to carry off her crutches and she continued on her way out of the back doors, with two of the other men assisting her with their arms on each side of her.  The preacher dispensed with any doubting witnesses by saying that her illness came on by years of neglect of the Holy Spirit and that her complete healing would come over time as she fully repents and receives more of the Holy Spirit’s power.

“And, don’t we all want more of the Holy Spirit’s power!?” he yells to a hot room packed full of people jumping and yelling in sounds I didn’t understand or recognize as any language I’d ever heard.

My friend yelled over the noise to me, “A lot of these people are speaking in tongues.”  I yelled back, as the volume of the speaking in tongues grew louder, “Do you?”  She shrugged and joined the chorus with her own noises.  Seeing my perplexed face, she leaned in and says, “I just like to make the noises.  I’m not sure if any of this is real.”

And thus began my introduction to the Holy Spirit as an active part of Elohim, worthy of our recognition and actively working through me to produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit.   I have titled this little essay “The Trouble with the Holy Spirit,” not because the Holy Spirit is any trouble, but because of all the trouble I have had finding Him.

It is a journey that I am still on and I have written this not to offer answers I have found along the way so much as to encourage any one who may have, like me, ignored the pivotal role of the Holy Spirit because He seems unknowable, confusing, and all too easily mishandled.

That flashy preacher almost convinced me to part with my hard earned baby sitting money for the chance to have more of the Holy Spirit in my life.  If I have learned anything along the way that I can share with certainty, it is that the Holy Spirit is a free gift given in all fullness to all who approach God the Father through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.   The Holy Spirit changes you to make you look more like Christ and there is nothing you must do but submit to His work.  What that means and what it will look like in your life is, I believe, a highly personalized answer.

It was reading the book of Acts (of the Holy Spirit) this past summer that renewed this curiosity in me to know more about the Holy Spirit.  Reading Acts forced me to fully examine the full scope of teachings I have heard and how many of them had quieted my desire to want to know more.  If you want a good recommendation for getting to know the not-so-quiet-as-I-thought member of Elohim, I would strongly suggest you read Acts.

Acts 1

To the Ends of the World

… As they met and ate meals together, He told them that they were on no account to leave Jerusalem but “must wait for what the Father promised: the promise you heard from Me. John baptized in water; you will be baptized in the Holy Spirit. And soon.”

Click here to continue.

Last spring we became members of the backyard chicken owning community. It was all Eric’s idea, but the whole family quickly took ownership and grew to love on all the chickens. Much to Eric’s dismay, we named them and you can’t eat a pet you have named, duh.

They were all babies when we got them and we learned after a few months that we had two roosters and seven hens.  The smaller of the two roosters found a new home because, well, they don’t say “too many cocks in the henhouse” for nothing.  You really can have too many.  (When you own chickens, you quickly learn the truth to the countless sayings we have that were borne in a chicken run.  They really do have a “pecking order” and you’ve never seen anything “as mad as a wet hen.”)

Our hens began giving us eggs towards the end of summer.  We can count on at least two dozen eggs a week and have found it to be a surprisingly great pleasure.  A few days before Christmas, I came out to the run and found my mom patiently waiting outside the coop.  She needed another egg for her baking and was waiting while the hen inside finished laying it.  You can’t get eggs fresher than that, I tell you what.

We have different breeds of chickens and most were purchased because they would be good egg layers (or good eating.  Sorry again, Eric.)  Eric did buy two hens based solely on the fact that they were cuddly and cute and he thought my Mom would immediately adore them.  The breed is called “silkie” and they lay tiny and almost worthless eggs, but they are just so precious that we happily took them home.

The kids named the smaller of the two”Snowflake”, but the larger of the two never had a name that would stick so we just called it “the bigger silkie.”

As all the other hens laid their eggs and immediately walked away from them with no regard, the silkies did not produce for some time.  Finally, Snowflake did lay an egg and did not seem concerned with what became of it.  As novice chicken farmers, we just assumed that chickens were too dumb to know what to do with an egg unless we went through the fifty steps recommended on chicken farming websites if we hoped to have any of our hens try and hatch an egg.

The bigger silkie finally laid an egg one week before Christmas and then disappeared into the coop with it.  Certain that she would lose interest in short order, we waited for her to emerge.  After one week, we began to worry about her.  She did not come out to eat or drink, but stayed firmly and militantly roosted on top of that egg.

Everything we read told us that this was a futile attempt.  The weather was intermittently freezing and she eventually had stayed in there longer than the 21 days we learned were needed.  I started to feel sorry for her poor little Mama heart.  Whenever anyone tried to move her, she pecked fiercely until that hand was removed.  I began to wonder if maybe we would have to force her off her dud egg.

But then, this morning happened.  While we were eating breakfast Ian says, “I hear chirping!”  We all ran outside to the coop and, sure enough, there was a baby chick sitting in there with the unnamed silkie.  When that Mama silkie saw us looking at her, she quickly tucked her little baby right back under her warm body.

We are stunned.  I am not sure how many times we all thanked God with a hearty laugh for His faithfulness to His creatures, even as all the odds were against her.  After very little deliberation, it was decided that “the bigger silkie” deserved a name and that name should be Hannah.

I have always loved the story of Hannah from 1 Samuel.  She was barron, but faithful and never doubted that God could grant her a child.  When God did show mercy and give her child, even as all evidence said she never would, she raised him until he was three and then she returned the child into God’s service.  Samuel was his name and he was a diligent and wise servant of Elohim.

On the day that Hannah returned him, she prayed the beautiful prayer I am going to close this up with. Before I do, I have to remark again on the wonders of this world God created and the marvel of our little hen’s innate resolve to see this little chick through to today.  We all believed she was on a futile mission, but she knew better than we that God knows His creatures.

Then Hannah prayed and said:

“My heart rejoices in the LORD;
in the LORD my horn is lifted high.
My mouth boasts over my enemies,
for I delight in your deliverance.

“There is no one holy like the LORD;
there is no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God.

“Do not keep talking so proudly
or let your mouth speak such arrogance,
for the LORD is a God who knows,
and by him deeds are weighed.

“The bows of the warriors are broken,
but those who stumbled are armed with strength.
Those who were full hire themselves out for food,
but those who were hungry are hungry no more.
She who was barren has borne seven children,
but she who has had many sons pines away.

“The LORD brings death and makes alive;
he brings down to the grave and raises up.
The LORD sends poverty and wealth;
he humbles and he exalts.
He raises the poor from the dust
and lifts the needy from the ash heap;
he seats them with princes
and has them inherit a throne of honor.

“For the foundations of the earth are the LORD’s;
on them he has set the world.
He will guard the feet of his faithful servants,
but the wicked will be silenced in the place of darkness.

“It is not by strength that one prevails;
those who oppose the LORD will be broken.
The Most High will thunder from heaven;
the LORD will judge the ends of the earth.

“He will give strength to his king
and exalt the horn of his anointed.”

I was reading an article this morning about the proposed federally imposed state laws on phone use while driving.  This is something I don’t do, but it is a choice made because I know my cognitive limits, it is not because I am a virtuous person in the phone regard.    The article intended to make me pick a side, but my brain first started to think about what to make for lunch, followed right away by thoughts about “Where did I put my phone?”  Seriously.  Somebody call me.  I can’t find it.

So, I go to make lunch.  Found my phone and immediately checked it for missed calls and text messages.  I did not miss anything.  Even though I had just seconds before been sitting at a laptop, I go ahead and check my e-mail on my cell phone.  What if somebody e-mailed me in the thirty seconds since I shut the laptop?

The question about lunch settled, I start to feel rather proud of my super healthful choice and decide that it must be announced on Facebook.  Witty anecdote regarding my unusually healthful choice decided upon, I post the update using my phone.   Feeling certain that this update will strike a chord, I keep my phone in my hand to wait for the notifications to roll in.

I call the kids in for lunch.  Where have they been?  What have they been doing this whole Saturday morning? are the questions I should be asking them, but I am on the phone with a friendly acquaintance.  She’s not a dear friend who means more to me than my own children, but evidently she’s more interesting.

Lunch is over and I shoo the kids outside to return to whatever activity they were engaged in before.  What was that?  I wash the dishes and return to my laptop where the news article about phone use while driving is still up.

It occurs to me that I do not have a problem with using the phone while driving.  I am a much worse case.  I have a problem with using the phone while LIVING.

Hello, 2012.  I think we hit on a resolution.

Can we talk about sin for a minute?  Easy.  Wipe that spewed coffee off your screen.  I don’t want to haul your sin out in the spotlight.  I want to haul mine out, not all of them – just the one big one.  Don’t we all have one or two “big ones?”

Let’s pretend like my sin is a boulder sized something covered in a tarp and sitting in the center of a boxing ring with a spotlight that illuminates nothing in the room but my boulder sized sin.  Can you see it?  I hope you’ve made it huge, cause it is.  Now, I have others, but they are nicely stored away in my “over that” history file.  But this one… this one I have to revisit from time to time.  Not to re-commit it, mind you, but to remember the grief and celebrate the mercy extended to me by God through Christ.

If I were to make a detailed public confession and rip off that tarp, I suspect I would receive one of three responses: 1) That’s not so bad.  2) That’s the worst thing ever! 3) Me too.    It is easy to suspect I would get such responses because I have gotten these three responses over the years whenever I let someone have a peek.

I do not carry this single episode of sin with me as a heavy burden, because I do fully believe that God has forgiven me.  However, there is no unringing a bell and the damage caused by sin has to be managed on some level.

The reason I want to keep it covered in this public arena, and for this conversation, is because I want to be able to speak to each of those three opinions of my big, awful, wicked and deliberate sin without making it about the act of sin itself.  My hope is that, by addressing these three responses, we can have an honest discussion of how we respond to our own sin and that of others.

1) That’s not so bad.   The fact is that ALL sin is that bad.  One big lesson I have learned by having to bear the heart scar of a single episode of boulder sized sin, is that my condemnation is not based on the fact that I have a boulder.  My condemnation is based on the fact that I was born with a quarry for a nature.  All sin is a departure from God.  There is no middle road.  We are born with an immediate need to have the punishment of  sin removed.

2) That’s the worst thing ever!  This is my own personal response.  This is not a notion far removed from #1, because it is still assuming that sin has degrees.  I cannot pretend that I am a good person with just the one big boulder, because then that would make light of the condition that caused me to collect the boulder in the first place.  I was not rescued from the boulder.  I was rescued from the condition.  So, go ahead and imagine the worst possible thing that could be under that tarp  and nothing you can picture is so big as to cast a shadow on the enormity of the sin condition I was in before Christ.  Making big of single episodes of sin makes light of the sin condition.

3)  Me too.  I want you to go ahead and think of your own personal boulder.  Whatever it is, whatever its size, however ugly it may be, I want you to know that “me too.”  Whatever you did, I did too.  I can say this because there is no sin greater or lesser than another.  Nothing you can ever do will make your burden of sin greater than mine.

I suppose if there was one big thought I would like to see evolve from this exercise, I would like for it to be that we should stop making a big deal about single episodes of sin and start making a big deal about the sin condition that leads to those episodes.   It is not really the single episodes of sin that we want to protect our kids from, it is the heart condition that leads to those episodes that we want to guard against.

If you have an undealt with boulder, go tell someone and put a light on it, but remember that it is not the boulder that condemns you and it never was.

(I was reading 1 John 1 this morning and that is what led me to this line of thinking.  Follow the link and read it yourself.  Good news!)

I am not certain if many people come around this place very often, but, on the off chance that you have stopped by and are wondering what I am up to these days:
http://amygoesninja.wordpress.com
Please follow along. This should be fun to watch.

I have terrible posture.  I make some of your grandmas look like super models when they sit next to me with my question mark of a spine.  I’m a perfect storm of bad habits and MS muscle atrophy.

This being “The Year I Get Better Instead of Worser” (no, you did not miss an announcement.  that was the announcement.), Eric encouraged me to see about getting a professional to take a look at where my muscles are and how we are doing after 17 years of MS.  He took me to see a fantastic physical therapist near our home and was kind enough to sit with me in the exam room while we waited to meet with him.

I sat there, all hunched over like some sort of bell ringer and Eric asks me if maybe I might feel compelled to sit straight when the doctor walked in.  I didn’t think long before answering, “Nope.  I’m putting it all out there.  How can he fix what I don’t tell him about?”

It was one of those statements where the brain immediately segues into how that very sentiment could be applied to faith walking with God.  Do I have faith that He intends good for me?  Do I have faith that He can heal all my brokenness?  Do I have faith that complete exposure won’t leave me destroyed?

How can He fix what I don’t acknowledge?

This is just me.  Checking in and shooting the bull over the journey.  Anybody else putting it all out there for the Great Physician?

When I started to do a list of 100 for this year, I decided to complicate it by giving it a narrowed topic.  This made the list become a real monster to write.  I cannot believe how much effort it was.  It was also a lot of fun.  I highly encourage anyone to attempt such a task.

If you see me with a smile on my face at any given time, it could be caused by any number of things. To help you in your sleuthing, here are 100 things that make me smile.

1. I always try to smile when I am leaving messages on people’s voicemail because I want the person I am calling to hear it in my voice and you can’t fake the sound of a smiling face.  You just can’t.
2. There are a lot of reasons why we got rid of the television.  One reason is Tyra Banks.  The day I sat through an entire episode of her show is the day I realized that I had a problem and needed to get off the junk.  The episode that I watched was about how to properly apply make-up.  Two lessons that stayed with me forever:  powder is a must AND smile when applying blush to just the apples of your cheeks.  I’ve tried to do it without smiling and it doesn’t work.  There’s no guessing where that apple is.  Sometimes, when I am putting on my make-up, I think with shame about how I came across this information and it is hard to smile, but I soldier on.  Tyra Banks makes me smile (to properly apply blush.)
3. Having all my nails the same length brings a smile.  My sister-in-law, Tonya, showed me this marvelous past time and I am happy every time I look at my hands and see that order has been restored in one small corner of my tiny kingdom.
4. Having sister-in-laws that I talk about nail care, among other things, with is smile inducing.  It is a real treat to know that I do not have a single in-law I would change.  Love, love, LOVE them all.
5. Walking into the laundry room right as the load in the washer or dryer finishes brings a grin.  This makes me feel like a homemaker ninja.
6. Picturing myself as a ninja righting the minor wrongs that occur in my loved ones lives is a fond daydream.  You’re just wrapping up a story with me about how your neighbor parks on your lawn and I’m lost in a fantasy about me as a ninja stealing his garden gnome.  I’m pretty sure that I’d be an awe inspiring ninja.
7. Floating in the pool always makes me happy.  I could just lay there all day.  Getting onto the float is graceless and mortifying, so once I’m locked in to that bad boy I am pretty committed.
8. A precisely made bed is heaven.  When I see a bed that is not just made, but made with pristine lines and a certain crispness, I feel immediately relaxed and smiley.
9. Vacuum lines on carpet invokes ordered peace.  Nothing says, “Top notch cleaning happened here” more than lines in the carpet from the vacuum.
10. While I’m on this train, I also LOVE a clean and dry kitchen sink.  Dry says that someone is on top of their game.  Don’t mess with that person.
11. Spell check make me happy.  I would have gone my whole life spelling it vaccum instead of vacuum if it wasn’t for spell check and its angry red squiggle lines.
12. Back scratchers are fantastic tools that you never appreciate until you get one as a gag gift and then it turns into a prized possession.  My back scratcher makes me unitchy and this makes me smile.
13. My husband smokes a pipe.  This makes me neither happy nor unhappy.  However, when he makes an especially brilliant point and then smugly clamps that pipe between his teeth for emphasis?  This makes me giggly.
14. Paying less than three dollars for an awesome wardrobe piece makes me over the moon happy.  I LOVE to shop and I especially love to shop at thrift stores on sales days.  There’s nothing like a huge bag of retail therapy for under twenty bucks.
15. Dental floss picks.  They made flossing a reality for me and I can’t make a list of 100 things that make me smile without giving them a shout out.
16. Knowing that Oprah Winfrey’s network, aptly named “OWN” is floundering.  She doesn’t know this, but she is my chosen nemesis and I’m just enough of a jerk to grin when I read about her low viewership.
17. I met some real life ladies one time who were on Oprah’s Favorite Things one year.  They both got cars and Ipads.  I asked both of them if their lives were more awesome today than before and they both said, “not really.”  Having my long held suspicions proven makes me smile.
18. My wedding ring tan line makes me happy.  Even my skin cells are committed to this marriage.
19. I like buying those cute little stickers for my finger and toe nails.  When I look down and see that little white flower on my big toe, I first get confused and wonder what on earth it is on my toe, but then I look closer and remember the white flower sticker that I glued on there the night before.  Remembering my fiscal cleverness makes me smile.
20. When Facebook first introduced the “like” option, I thought it was lame.  But now I smile every time I see that I got another “like”.   I don’t “like” as often as I should.  Serious Facebookers might appreciate it if I did.
21. I am not a serious Facebooker.  But, I totally am.  I’m not.  Well, maybe a little serious.  Socializing on Facebook makes me smile.  Seriously.
22. Gum that whitens teeth AND freshens breath.  I feel like I am multi-tasking when I chew gum like this.
23. I know that my Dad hates my brussels sprouts so much that I am only allowed to make them if he is in Alaska and I am not in Alaska.  His complete honesty, even at the risk of offending me, makes me smile.
24. I also do not like my brussels sprouts.  Being a grown up and eating them anyway makes me smile.  In a gaggy kind of way.
25. When something ridiculous is said in a large gathering of people and I can get a girlfriend’s eyeballs from across the room and we can say, “Did you see that!?” “Yeah.  I am so offended and also amused!” with only our eyes, that makes my heart grin.
26. I like it that my husband sends me regular texts that say, “I love you”, but when he gets all romantical and writes something from the heart I get all giggly and smiley like a teenager.
27. I really enjoy using words that aren’t words and not explaining myself, but rather assuming that my reader or listener appreciates my creative use of the language.  Fake adjectives are way awesomer than real ones.
28. Anytime I am in a car or a plane and I get a glimpse of some awesome view that belongs on a calendar or a puzzle, I feel like God has given me that view as a special present just for me and that always make me smile.
29. One time Mackenzie and I were going for a walk and we came up over a little hill that exposed a beautiful view of the city just as the lights were coming on.  Mackenzie gasps and stops in her tracks to take it in.  ”Just look at it, Mom,” she says.  Sharing something I love with someone I love makes the something I love and the someone I love even more cool and that makes me smile.  You know?
30. After militantly sweating out every Texas summer in my adult life in jeans (because I am a cutter of a different breed, evidently), I announced that this summer would be the summer of the skirt.  Aside from looking a little like a devoted Mormon, I have stayed cool and comfortable all summer.  Skirts that don’t make me look like a devoted Mormon make me smile.
31. I do not enjoy watching any of the “Star Wars” movies.  My kids have a fantastic working vocabulary of every one of them because they have a Dad devoted to their well rounded cultural education.  Parenting with someone different than me makes me happy.
32. My kids diligently avoid saying the b-u-t-t word around me and likely suspect that I’d never say it.  Their adorable belief in my virtue makes my heart smile every time I hear them stammer and say, “uh, bottom”.
33. When the weather starts to get a little bit cold, but the sun is still shining, I smile and feel all sorts of cozy to climb into a hot car.
34. Big, feminine hats make me very happy.  There are no words than can describe how awesome I feel about myself when I get to strut into a room wearing a fabulous hat.
35. I like to wear big, chunky heels, but they have to be very light weight for me to manage them.  When I find such a pair priced under twenty dollars I happily take them to the register with a glow about me.
36. Any time I wake up in the morning already knowing what I am going to make for dinner I float through the day in a haze of happy.
37. I am always happy to offer unsolicited advice to strangers I meet along the way.  I walk away feeling like I have made the world a brighter place.  They may not feel the same way, but I wouldn’t know because they are an unknown stranger and ignorance is bliss.
38.  I don’t know who it is, but there is a member of my household whom I can always count on to replace the toilet paper when it runs out.  Having a family that produces such diligence can only be a good thing.
39. Due to poor packing for a recent trip, I now have two toothbrushes in play.  When I go to brush my teeth and have my pick of the brushes, I feel quite luxurious and that makes me happy.
40. My family just received season passes to my high school’s sporting events and the encouragement that, “Any time a Dodd walks on this campus, it’s a good thing.”  Being one of the Dodd kids has always made me smile.
41. I ran across my high school drama teacher a few months back.  When I told Mackenzie who she was, Mackenzie says, “You were taught to be dramatic?”  Mackenzie is my biggest believer and my biggest fan.  She makes me smile.
42. When I was a senior in high school my friends and I would pass notes back and forth about our senior government teacher and joke that we were all dating him secretly.  We tore those notes up after each class and threw them away.  He NCISed us, read the notes, and began making sideways comments about them during class to make us squirm.  I can smile about that without blushing bright red now.
43. I have a pet goose named Gertrude and my neighbor has a pet goat named Snickers.  Gertrude and Snickers get into honking/bleating back and forths that can go on for more than ten minutes.  Animals communicating about living conditions and escape plans is funny to me.
44. Eric bought me Gertrude as a Mother’s Day gift because I thought she was the cutest thing ever and I guess my smile made him think that I HAD to have a pet goose.  Having a husband who diligently reads my face to see how he can please me makes my heart smile SO very big.
45. We have a chicken that we thought was a girl until “she” began cockle doodle doing.  His face is so earnest and his need to belt it out so desperate that it makes me smile.  When it stops making me smile, well, people eat roosters for less.
46. Our hens make the exact same clucking sound as the Cadberry Bunny every time they lay eggs.  You cannot not smile when you hear that.
47. My three year old niece, Avery, often says, “Yeah!” in the affirmative like Wayne Campbell on “Wayne’s World”.  Sometimes I ask her questions with an obvious answer just so she will say it and I can smile.
48. I live a literal stone’s throw from my parents and also from my younger brother and his family.  Sitting outside in the common area and having random family and kids come by to sit for a visit is a highlight of every day and it makes me and everyone who gets to come and visit this place smile.
49. Living as we do has given us the freedom to run to the grocery or out for a quick lunch date with no worries about the kids not having a grown-up nearby.  It can’t last forever, but it sure makes me smile while we’ve got it.
50. Here in a minute, I am going to say to my kids that it is time for bed.  They will brush their teeth, put on pajamas and go to bed with no parental intervention until it is time for prayers.  Getting kids to this age would make anyone smile.
51. I have made life long friends on the internet.  Finally coming to terms with the fact that I am one of “those people” makes me smile.
52. Whenever I get asked a question about something I am an expert in (like parenting, for example) I always get a smug smile across my face before I answer.
53. My smug smile is almost always followed by an, “I’m sorry.  I had no idea it was combustible.  I’m sure your Grandma will understand” smile.  It’s a weak smile, but a smile nonetheless.
54. When Mackenzie says, “Mommy?” I cringe because I know she is about to ask me to do something that will require me to get up.  When Mackenzie says, “Mama?” I smile because I know I am about to hear something very interesting.  She doesn’t know that I know the code.
55. When I’m feeling blue and in the dumps, I have girlfriends who will dare to look me in the eye and say, “Seriously!?  Get up!  Let’s do this!”  Friends like that make me smile.  A few days later.  After I kicked them out of my house.
56. I like bright and colorful knee high socks, but they can’t look like something Kenzie should wear.  This makes finding such socks a very difficult chore.  When I find them, I smile big.
57. Holy cow, America!!  Are we only on 57!?  This is going to take me FOREVER.  That reminds me:  My kids recently saw “The Sandlot” and have since only said “forever” like the kids in the movie.  ”For-eh-vur” makes me smile.
58. My brother-in-law (I only have one) is a hipster and this means that he brings all things cutting edge into my life.  I’m too much of a doofus to be a hipster, but because of David I have the inside scoop on their music and coffee.  Drinking my super good, hipster approved coffee makes me smile.  Smugly.
59. David is the one who showed my kids “The Sandlot” and I am pretty sure he caught that segue.  Smart, hipster brother-in-laws make me smile.
60. My current Facebook profile picture really bugs Eric; but it makes me smile, so it stays.
61. Eric is rarely very active on Facebook or my blog, but when he does come on to give me a little praise, I get all kinds of smiley.
62. The start of a new school year means that it won’t be long before the college underclassmen start posting their Facebook pictures of their super awesome tattoos and/or piercings.  I smile when I see those pictures because I got one too and I remember what it was like to be unique and clever.  Just like everyone else.
63. I presented Isaiah 51-52 to a ladies group recently.  A baby believer told me that she was going home to read Isaiah like never before.  That is why I do what I do.  That baby believer made me smile and still makes me smile.
64. Any time I go to present memorized Scripture dramatically, there is always one person in the room who whips their Bible out to read along.  Those people used to make me break out in a cold sweat and cry a little inside because I know that they know when I mess up.  Now, I smile while I break out in a cold sweat and cry inside – and that’s progress.
65. I smile when little toddlers do the long stumble and fall down.  And then I immediately wipe the smile off my face and say, “Aww.  Poor Baby.”, even though I am still smiling in my head.
66. Angry teenagers loaded with piercings, cigarettes, and black nail polish make me smile.  Mostly because I want to hug them and smiling just seems like the safer alternative.
67. Tiny little dogs are just about the cutest thing ever and they make me break down into a puddle of smiling.
68. I just spent a whole hour of my life that I will never get back trying to put a funny picture of Oprah on number 17.  I failed at getting it centered and finally gave up.  Being honest with my ability level make me smile.
69. Sometimes, while I am working on this list, I think about certain people reading it and I smile because I know they are going to be smiling.  Working on this list is making my face hurt.
70. Read Isaiah 61:10 out-loud and with a thick Southern drawl.  Do this without smiling.  I can’t.
71. I have Febrezed my dog.  Confessing to tiny crimes makes me smile.
72. Confessing to the really deep dark ugly sins (like lust, envy, gossip and greed for example) doesn’t usually make me smile right away.  The confession itself is very uncomfortable.  Repentance follows confession and I smile a whole lot about that.  I prefer to stay there.
73. One day I was feeling especially blue and I went to the Salvation Army for a retail therapy session.  I found a t-shirt that said, “Happy Camper” and bought it right away because I was not a happy camper and the irony of it made me smile.  I am now a happy camper and I have the t-shirt to prove it.
74. Another time, when I was looking for some retail therapy, I found a fabulous blazer from Nine West for only four dollars.  Listen y’all, I think I could do a whole list of 100 deals I’ve gotten.  Being fancy and looking cute makes me smile.  Doing it for pennies on the dollar makes me smile even bigger.
75. This past summer I decided to go ahead and own the fact that I am Miss Fancy Pants.  I like to wear blingy jewelry and cute pants.  I am a daughter of the King (real talk, y’all) and it is okay if I sometimes dress like it.  Owning the truth of who I am makes me smile even to type about it.
76. I had a George Clooney crush back in the days of ER.  I happened to marry a fellow whose eyes crinkle JUST like George Clooney’s when he smiles.  When his eyes smile, I smile.
77. I remember well how smugly I smiled when I got the pre-marital advice that, “Marriage is a lot of work” from well meaning old people who had no idea how much I loved Eric and that Eric and I were going to be different.
78. Can I use one of these to repeat that smug smiles lead to chagrined ”my bad” kind of smiles?  This is always true.  No smug.
79. Being married is not a whole lot of work – being married happily is.  I freely give that advice to all beaming young girls with fresh faces and clean engagement rings that haven’t seen real duty yet.  I forgive their smug smiles because I know.  I know.  Knowing makes me smile.
80. Anytime a camera gets pointed at me, I always smile in this super fake, very uncomfortable, awkward way.  I don’t know why.  It’s a sad condition that I have never been able to shake.  This concerns me when I think about my plans to be the next Oprah (What!? Yeah.  I said it.)  Imagine the unflattering covers on National Enquirer.
81. Two weeks ago my son made the leap from reading because I said so to reading because it is an activity he enjoys.  It was a long road with him and I smile every time I walk in the room and see him cross legged and lost in a book.
82. Ian asked me a few days ago if he could please have a job because he needed some money “real bad.”  Why was he jonesin’ for cash?  ”So I can put it in the bank.”  Being the next Donald Trump’s Mom makes me smile.
83. I recently developed a case of trigeminal neuralgia, related to the multiple sclerosis.  This causes me to have an occasional and excruciating face tic.  Smiling can bring on a tic.  Also?  A breeze, a love pat, the brush of my hand to move my hair, the pulling on of a sweater, a big yawn, and also, smirking.  I continue to smile, though a bit like Popeye.
84. I am certain that multiple sclerosis is not going to be the undoing of me.  I am so very certain of this, that sometimes I imagine myself running to the tune of “The Eye of the Tiger” and I smile real big because I feel pretty confident that could happen.  ”It’s the eye of the tiger, it’s the thrill of the fight…”
85. Right now though, I don’t run.  I don’t even walk very pretty.  This might make some people frown, but I get the joy of wrapping my hands around a cane handmade for me by a dear soul because she wanted me to know that she is rooting for me.  I’ve got stands full of people rooting for me.  My whole life is one big high five and “atta girl!”  There’s no reason not to smile.
86. Let’s use number 86 to revisit “The Eye of the Tiger”.  See if singing it in your head doesn’t make you smile.
87. I recently got to make a phone call to a hospital in Israel.  Because of the time difference, and having to get my phone plan changed to allow international calling, it took me 24 hours before I was able to get through and do my two minutes or less of chatting.  I was SUPER pumped.  Here I am, some poor little Gentile kid, calling ISRAEL.  It really wasn’t that a big of a deal, but having to wait gave it a sense of huge something.  I’m pretty sure I sounded like a grinning doofus when I said, “My name is Amy Peterson and I’m calling from Texas, USA.”
88. This summer, my Eric planned a two week road trip for our family that was lovely and smooth from driveway to driveway.  It was a dream of a journey and he was the best captain ever.  I smile every time I think about sitting there beside him while we drove through the midwest.
89. On our Christmas trip to WI some years back, Eric and I started a silly car game where we competed to see who could say “Iowa” with the least amount of mouth movement.  We crack each other up every time we pass through that lovely state saying it over and over.  ”Eye-Yuh”
90. Eric has a collection of hats that he wears according to weather and mood.  I love walking around with a fellow in a smart geezer cap.
91. A recent visit to a physical therapist has me doing some crazy weird daily stretches and eating (gag) bananas.  I dislike exercise AND bananas.  Knowing that I can do my body a solid favor by giving it good food even though I dislike good food makes me smile.
92. Why on earth would I consult a physical therapist? Deciding to get off my rear end and do something about this multiple sclerosis makes me smile.  Like Popeye.  Take that, MS!
93. When I’m not busy eating bananas, I enjoy the occasional Dove’s dark chocolate.  I’m always embarrassed if the cheesy little Dove’s message of celebrated mediocrity makes me smile.  ”Flawed is fabulous!”  Yay!!  Boo!!?  I’m so confused.  Maybe flawed is simple bearable, Dove’s.  Did ya think of that?
94. One day I would like to see a more engaging Dove’s wrapper.  ”Congratulations on not getting eaten by zombies.”  That’s how you grab the public’s eye, Dove’s.  That’s how you make the people smile.
95. Sorry about the above rant, but boxing against giant, faceless, corporations makes me smile.  Occupy Dove’s!!
96. Being as sedentary as I’ve become over the past few years has meant that my son has an easier time pinning me down for an hour long play by play of something funny he saw or read.  Right now, I smile and nod even though I can only understand every third word through his rushed, high pitched retelling.  I smile and nod because my son is spending his time telling me about something that matters and my crushed body is just the thing I need to force me to sit and cherish it.  Thank you, crushed body.  I mean it.
97. Eric just sat down beside me with a delicious sandwich made with Thanksgiving turkey.  He makes the best sandwiches hands down among anyone I know.  He is making me a sandwich now and I’m totes smiley face.
98. Seeing old men who are old school gentlemen to their little old ladies makes me smile.  I just love seeing that.
99. My three year old niece walked into the room recently and said this sentence, “Guys, I’m not wearing any pants and I’m sorry about that, but my Mommy is going to get me some new pants and when she does I will be wearing pants, but right now I am not wearing pants and I am just really, really, so very sorry about that.”  When I am ninety, I am pulling that bit in a Burger King.  Thinking about that plan cracks me up and gives me something to live for.
100. My 83 year old friend told me some time ago that, “You don’t have an inner child.  You have an inner old lady and I suspect she smokes.”  I think she’s on to something and that makes my inner old lady smile.  And wheeze for a breath.

*Tap, tap, tap* Is this thing on?

Welcome to my once every other month post. I’m glad you both could join me for what is sure to be a riveting discussion.

Hey! Where are you going? Where did that guy go?

Welp. I guess it’s just you and me.  That’s okay.  I like intimate, one-on-one kind of chats anyway.

So, I just got back from that retreat I mentioned in my previous post (you won’t have to scroll far) and I have to say that it was pretty enlightening.  We spent the weekend surrounded by women’s stories of how they met Christ and how their lives were impacted by walking with Christ.

I wrote in another previous post (again, you won’t strain your eyeball to find it) that I was in the middle of a great heartache.  Much to my surprise, I learned that I am not the only person on the whole wide earth to go through my exact heartache.  I was approached by women older and wiser than I who had been there, done that, survived and stood victorious.  Their testimonies gave me incredible strength and resolve.

A whole new need for testimonies was exposed to me.  I already knew that a testimony can open the door to sharing the Gospel, but that weekend I learned that a solid testimony can embolden a tired soldier who needs the reprieve.  Tell your story.  Tell people that you survived.  Tell them that God met you, He carried you, and He let you stand in victory.

Thank you for reading my stories.  I hope they encourage you as so many others have me.

So, in a fantastic twist of God sized proportions, I am tasked with co- “teaching” at a ladies retreat for High Point Fellowship (September 23-25, slots still available.).  I appropriately put quotation marks on teaching because I really think we are less “teaching” and more “facilitating action with lots of words to start the action”.  It’s going to be pretty awesome.

Our topic for the weekend is Testimony: finding yours and telling it.  I know what you’re thinking, because that is exactly what I was thinking, “This sounds complicated, Amy.  Testimony is a big fancy churchy word and one short weekend isn’t enough time for me to tell you about that one time when I was eight and how meeting that penguin led to me Christ.”

Hold on, a penguin led you to Christ?  That sounds fascinating!  Could you find a way to make that story less than two minutes long and ready to go at the drop of a hat should you encounter someone who needs to hear it on, say, a train or an elevator?  Because that’s what this retreat is all about: getting to the heart of your story and the Truth that set you free.

This idea came to us months ago and it really didn’t make a whole lot of sense, frankly.  Doesn’t everybody know their own testimony(ies)?  As we mucked our way through it, Kathy Tope (my co-”teacher”) and I prayed for real life opportunities to share our testimonies so that we could actually teach with a touch of authority on the subject.

Here is what we learned, and the whole reason for this post (There’s a reason for this post!? I’m just as shocked as you are.): If you ask God to send people to you, they will come.

I was shocked at the opportunities I had and saddened that I hadn’t asked for any such opportunities before.  How it all went down is a whole other post that I will probably never write, but you should know that there are people all around you who are walking around with no Bible, no God, no hope and a huge smile to keep you from suspecting any of that.  Pray that God shows them to you and then tell them all about that one time when you met that penguin.  It just might (probably will) change their whole life.