What's the Plott?

W e are walking through the book of Joshua right now.  And Joshua is one of my favorites. There is so much in that book about courage, obedience, leadership, remembering what God has done, and moving forward into what He has promised. But one of the biggest things I keep coming back to is this: Joshua did not win the Promised Land because he was some brilliant military strategist. He won because he learned to seek God for the battle plan. Then obey the battle plan. Then remember God in the victory. Then seek Him again before the next battle. And sometimes, before God ever gave him a battle plan, He dealt with something deeper. He dealt with His people. Before Israel marched around Jericho, before the walls fell, before Joshua led them into that first major battle in the Promised Land, God stopped everything and renewed the covenant through circumcision. They had crossed the Jordan. The battle was waiting. And God essentially said: First, we deal with who you are and whose you are. ...

I have been cleaning out the She Shed. Which means I have been learning things about myself that apparently required several years of archaeological layering to uncover. 😂 I am not a hoarder in the television-show sense of diagnoses. There are no mountains of trash or mystery creatures living unnoticed among the clutter. In fact, the roach that appeared during the cleanout nearly sent me into orbit because he was very clearly out of place and needed immediate eviction. But I do have a lifelong tendency to keep things. Useful things. Pretty things. Things I might need later. Things I could do something creative with. Things that were on sale. Things that still have value. Things I used once and might use again. And because I like organization, a lot of it has been neatly tucked away leading to an obsession with containers. That is how archaeological layering happens. You put one useful thing in a box. Then another thing gets stacked in front of it. Then another layer goes on top. Event...

I finally found some time to get around the 'She Shed Project'... Make it functional and a place of peace and production!  In the time spent in my shed, I found a ridiculous number of seed packets while cleaning out boxes, bags, and bins. Not a ridiculous amount in the way a real gardener might define ridiculous. A ridiculous amount for someone who does not currently have a garden.   There were flowers, v egetables, h erbs.... Things I bought because they were 89 cents. Things I bought because I liked the picture on the front. Things I apparently bought because somewhere deep inside me lives a woman who wakes up early, weeds cheerfully, knows exactly when to plant tomatoes, and probably owns a greenhouse. I like her. I am just not entirely sure she exists. As I sat there sorting seed packets during the She Shed Project, I realized something. I do not think I buy seeds because I am deeply committed to gardening. I think I buy them because I like what the envelope re...

Monday was supposed to be an at-home catch-up day.  We had come off an incredibly busy week, and Monday had a list of things that specifically needed to happen on Monday. I had plans. I had computer work. I had errands in town. I had things ready to move forward. And then we woke up to water dripping from the bathroom ceiling. Well, t hat will wake you up faster than coffee.  Because “water coming through the ceiling” does not initially sound like a minor adjustment to the schedule. It sounds like catastrophe.  Roof leak?  Major plumbing issue?  Ceiling about to cave in?  How expensive is this going to be? You know. All the calm and rational thoughts that immediately run through your brain while staring at water somewhere water absolutely should not be. 😂 Enter Peter. I definitely married a handyman. Honestly, handyman might be an understatement.  He starts investigating, gets into the attic, follows the water, and discovers that praise the Lord, thi...

I have been in my new position at the  church for nine months. Actually, we are rolling into month ten now. In those nine months, I have attended staff meetings, leadership calls, meetings with my pastor, First Sundays, every Wednesday night, office-mode Wednesday days, special events, planning meetings, youth meetings, parent meetings, and probably meetings about meetings. And somehow, through all of that, I have never noticed that some of these meetings apparently have an actual pattern. My pastor mentioned recently that one meeting falls on a certain Wednesday of the month and another falls on another Wednesday. And I just looked at him like… Since when? 😂 Apparently, since always. I have just never picked up on it. For nine months, those meetings have lived somewhere on my radar.  I knew they existed.  I knew they would eventually happen.  I knew someone would text, call, email, or say, “Hey, don’t forget…”  And then I would show up. But I had never actuall...