Pack Yer Bags, We're Movin'

I've decided to move my blog to another hosting site. It has some cool utilities that I'd been wanting to utilize. Over the next week or so, I'll work on migrating all my journal entries over to the new blog site.

Until then, here's the new blog site if you'd like to update your bookmark:

http://solideogloria.typepad.com/all-my-life-in-all-i-do/#tp

Calamity Behind the Facade

I attend a rather large church, that in Christian circles would be called a "mega-church".

My church is located in an area where the median income is upper middle class.

Often, I hear comments about how 'megachurches' are shallow, or others will say 'a megachurch is not for me, I get lost, and no one really cares about me.' Or someone will decline my invitation to attend because they feel that they will not 'fit in' socio-economically'.

Over the past few months I've become involved in a home-team,  a group of around 20-30 people that meet every other week at someone's home where we fellowship and discuss God's word.  The home-team concept is modeled after the early church in the book of Acts.  I've built some awesome realtionships with some increcible individuals in the group.

I've also joined a co-ed sports team in the flag football league sponsored by my church.  Where, once again, I've had the precious honor of meeting people from asundry backgrounds.

The one thing that has remained a constant in all of the folks God's allowed to cross my path when serving as a volunteer at church to my home-team, to running around pulling flags on the football field, is the pain and brokenness that I find when I invest time in cultivating these relationships.

Outside our faith the common strand seems to be, people that 'present' as 'put-together', but should you take the time to tear away the facade and dig deeper, they're hurting, broken, devastated, longing, reaching out for and finding God's love not only on weekends when they attend service, but also throughout the week as they immere themselves in the life of the church.

I get angry when someone writes my church off as a 'mega-church' that's just about glitz and showiness.  I wish those people, so hasty to judge the book by its cover, could see the hearts of the folks I've met through my involvement.  I long for them to see that the perceived 'glitz' is not what we're about, not what defines us. 

While a fun and creative church service may bring people in, should those same people stay, get involved and get to know the people that make up the church body, I know unquestionably they would see that behind the glitzy facade, we're just a broken group of people daily turning to and trusting God for restoration, leaning on each other for encouragement*. 

There is untold, immeasurable calamity behind the facade.  Such hopelessness that is only righted by the continual cleansing renewing blood of our Saviour.

*Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.
-Ecclesiates 4:12

Radio Silence

I love y'all for emailing to make sure all is well.

As you know the wonderful people of Akron, Ohio sent me home Sunday morning with a horrid cold that turned out to be a sinus infection.  Well three days, a doctor's visit, some drugs and a few good night's sleep later, I'm feeling much better.  I even tied on the running shoes and hit the road for a slow and steady run today.

All that to say, now that I'm not a comatose zombie who's dead to the world, I'll return back to my daily discipline of keeping you updated on what God's doing in my life and the wonderful messages the Holy Spirit is speaking into my world.

Thanks for the emails and your concern and prayers. See you back here tomorrow.

-N

Akron Recap

After an exhausting weekend, I am finally home!

I spent most of the day today sleeping trying to shake a cold that was a gift to me from the lovely people of Akron, Ohio.  Seems damp weather and high 50's/low 60's kinda weather doesn't sit well with this Texan.

Thank you all for your prayers! 

I relayed the marathon (26.2 miles) with four other wonderful runners.  My leg of the relay was the second leg and it was 5.7 miles.  I came out of the hand-off much faster than I'd planned and had to pull way back to get myself back on the pace I was shooting for.

I met some wonderful kickrunners from all over the U.S. and Canada.  And I learned some good stuff about my run pacing that will help my coach adjust my training plan as she works to prepare me for my next major race, the Rock 'n Roll 1/2 Marathon (13.1 miles) in November.

It's good to be back home, and I so look forward to the next kickrunners gathering!  What awesomely wonderful, crazy, insane, loving, kind, compassionate, neurotic, encouraging, funny, long-suffering, demented, giving folks runners are!

Akron

I'm headed north to relay the Akron Marathon with a group of friends.

Your prayers are requested and coveted.  Specifically that I would have the courage to make wise decisions that please God.

The Adultery Debate (Airs Tonight, September 24th at 11:35 PM EST/10:35 PM CST)

From ABC News Nightline's website:

Born to Cheat? Nightline took a look at the debate over adultery in the modern day. Part of the debate will air on September 24th at 11:35pm EST as the first part of Nightline's Ten Commandments series.

Cynthia McFadden moderated the conversation with participants Pastor Ed Young of the Fellowship Church in Dallas, Jonathan Daugherty of Be Broken Ministries, Jenny Block, author of "Open: Love, Sex, and Life in an Open Marriage," and Noel Biderman, CEO f ashleymadison.com, a Web site for people who want to cheat on their partners.

*photos courtesy of ABCNEWS.com

A lil' help from a friend

As pathetic as this may sound, when it comes to coordinating clothes, I am a functional illiterate. It is for this reason that I stick to what I know (since Garanimals does not have an ‘adult’ line), I wear all solids. And of those solids, I prefer the colors, red, orange, yellow, brown and white. To give you a better understanding of the depths of my patheticness, I stepped inside my closet and took a pic for a visual illustration.

I’m afraid to buy patterns for fear that I’ll pick something that looks hideous on me and I’m petrified that one of my well meaning friends will submit my name to the television show, “What Not to Wear.” So I stick with what’s safe. Red, Orange, Yellow, brown and white.

I happened to share my shortcomings with a close long-suffering friend of mine who promptly took me under her wing as her own personal ‘project,’ plying me with fashion magazines and suggestions on what to wear. She also reached into her own closet to supplement my monochromatic wardrobe, pulling out pieces that if I were to see them on the rack, I’d never give them a second glance.

One of my prayers when I relocated to North Dallas earlier this year was that I would form deep and meaningful relationships with a handful of women, and that these women would be women I could trust, that would hold me accountable, and that they would be women who followed as hard after God (and even harder) as I did. I had one close female friend, but wanted to relieve her of the daily “Novia” burden and find a few more. A couple of weeks ago that prayer was answered through my home team, a place I’d faithfully (and uncomfortably attended) over the past couple of months.

A couple months ago, I joined a new home team where I slowly began to meet and make new friends. Although it’s a bit hard to believe, I was petrified to go by myself to someone’s house and sit with a bunch of people I’d never met. That’s just not my style. I avoid those situations like I avoid my bathroom scale on “I feel fat” days. But I continued to attend every meeting faithfully.

In that small group I met three amazing women. God placed in my path, a recent college graduate who although she is incredibly beautiful and presents herself as a confident woman, struggles daily with some pretty wicked issues. He added to the college graduate a school teacher who graduated from a state college that I’d rather not mention on my blog for fear that uttering the name would sully the upstanding reputation this blog carries. When I first met her, her gentle and quiet demeanor made me immediately mark her off my list as a potential ‘running mate,’ because I knew I’d never be able to relate to her on any level. And then to show he really has a great sense of humor, he adds to my rag tag group of confidants, a Cajun who when I heard her testimony of what God has done in her life just in the last year, I shake my head in amazement that she’s still standing upright and breathing.

Each one of these women, I’d never have thought I’d be close friends with, but only God could orchestrate such a coming together of four people with such different backgrounds, yet such similar stories. Had I had my druthers, I probably wouldn’t have shared my story with any of them, but it just so happened that one asked another and that other asked another, and we all ended up together around a table one evening. Four misfits that the more we got to know each other, we found out fit perfectly together when joined by God.

Today, I wore a PURPLE PATTERNED top that one of my precious confidants farmed from her own closet and surprisingly enough, it looked GREAT on me! I guess when it comes to clothes, I’ll have to rely on my friends. And when it comes to divine guidance in all things, I’ll continue to rely on God.