For the past few weeks, I have been so blessed by Jennifer of Conversion Diary. For those who haven't met Jennifer yet, I so encourage you to spend some time with her. She is a former atheist who is recording her journey of, well, her conversion on her blog. Really, really amazing stuff.
Each Friday she hosts 7 Quick Takes Friday, and I'm thinking this is a great way to air out some of the thoughts that have accumulated all week.
1. I don't think I've mentioned to anyone (even my sister who is daily tortured with most minute details of my life) that we spent last weekend at my in-laws where two notable things happened: 1) My mother-in-law cut AJ's bangs without asking me, and 2) my father-in-law side-swiped my car in their driveway. Some might perceive these as being - at the very least - upsetting. If nothing else, it should have been some great blog fodder, right? But honestly, AJ's bangs look so much better and I am so thankful for her intiative, and as far as my car goes . . . well, it's a '96 Avalon with 215,000 miles, a non-functioning CD player, only one operational power window (which, unfortunately, is not the driver's window), torn leather seats, and a thin film of goldfish cracker dusting everything within. A little white paint scar on the outside is the least of my worries. Besides, people are more important than things.
2. I just wanted to share that this morning, my fingers look like this:
because I am something of a genius when it comes to changing printer ink cartridges.
3. This week, I ended my three month self-imposed Facebook ban. We've been told that creating a Facebook group would be a great way to promote our book idea and discussion, so Laura got that up and running for us. (Thank you again, friend.) You can find the As He Leads Us group here.
4. Starting this Sunday, Kyle and I are both official Sunday School teachers, something we have both felt God leading us towards for months. In fact way back in December 2002, I wrote in my prayer journal that I had a desire to teach the Word of God, and I wanted to make myself available to Him in any way He saw fit. I don't think I imagined at the time that it would take over six years for an opportunity to open, but I know the timing is right. Kyle will be teaching the Adult 2 men and I'll take the Adult 2 women (and for those non Southern Baptists in the crowd, Adult 2 translates to Folks In Their Twenties). And as evidence of how wicked relevant I am, I am totally using Jon's recent post on "Facebook Friend Suggesting Jesus" as part of my lesson. Oh yes I am.
(And please note how I refer to Jon by first name like I actually know him. The thing about Jon is that he is super nice, extremely genuine, and totally accessible. It's easy to forget that I don't actually know him.)
5. I just have to tell y'all how convicted I am by Dacey's recent inspiring display of generosity. One of her very favorite things to do right now is help in the kitchen. She particularly loves the baking of cookies, and I am happy to indulge. On Monday, we baked up some particularly delicious choco chip wonders and as I pulled out that pan of fresh from the oven goodness, her first words were not "Okay, fix me up a glass o' cold milk please, Mom" as mine would have been. No, instead out of an abundance of generosity, she said, "Okay, I need to take these to the children." The children? "The children in my Sunday School class." Oh, how she loves Sunday School. It is, after all, where she learns fascinating and meaningful stories. Stories like about the time a shark at the baby Jesus. (That is a story for another day, I think.) Anyway, the immediate desire to share freshly baked chocolate chip cookies with others is not something she learned from her father or me. I think probably it made Jesus smile. I know I did.
6. I want y'all to know that Laura and I are absolutely laid low with humility and wonder at the response we have received so far on the book. The comments left on Monday's post have just blown us away. You guys have not only encouraged us in our message, but also challenged us with angles and perspectives we would never have thought of on our own. I've said before that we have no idea what we are doing and that we're just trying to take things one step at a time. So we're thinking that turning the discussions related to parenting might work best in the context of a weekly series. For the coming weeks (months?), we'll structure our conversations in a series called "Mothering on Mondays: As He Leads Us." We have so much we look forward to sharing with you and are completely honored that anyone would take the time to talk through all of this with us.
7. As a way to promote these discussions, we now have a blog button to share. Karen of simply amusing designs graciously worked us in to her very, very busy schedule. Didn't it turn out lovely? (feed readers, you'll have to click through to see it) If you are prone to blog button-ing up your sidebar and would be so kind as to share ours on your blog, we would be grateful. We have two sizes of buttons you could choose from, but we are only going to put the code for the smaller one in the sidebar. If you would like the longer button, email me and I'll get you the code. (I'm having some weird problems with Typepad this morning, so if you don't see the button and code in the sidebar yet, just check back later. sorry!)
Looking back over this post, you can see I'm playing a little fast-and-loose with the concept of quick. If this is your first time here, just be assured prolific wordiness is absolutely par for the course.
You can find other 7 Quick Takes here.
Have a gorgeous weekend and we'll see you back here on Monday!
