Florence’s God

I’ve been thinking about a woman I knew named Ruth. I’ve mentioned Ruth in a past blog but she’s worth mentioning again. I was at a luncheon at a friend’s house and Ruth was there sitting at the kitchen island. I didn’t know Ruth really well. I had only spoken to her a couple of times before but she was one of those people who you feel like you’ve known all your life even if it’s only been all of three weeks. Ruth had a deep faith life. She knew and loved God and it showed. I walked over to her and said “hi” and the next sentence that came out of her mouth has found a permanent place in my heart and echoes in my ears time and time again. She leaned in to me, and with a big smile on her face she said “So, tell me about the God YOU know.” Needless to say, no one had ever asked me that before or since. And that is too bad because that inquiry led to an amazing conversation on an average day at noon in the middle of a kitchen full of unsuspecting women chatting over chicken salad and croissants. It was such a freeing experience for me. I think that is why it has stuck with me. I was given the opportunity to talk to someone about the God of my understanding as limited as that understanding was. Someone who didn’t judge me, correct me, or try to influence me. Someone who just smiled, listened, and encouraged me with her acceptance. This coming season of Firstfruits we are going to invite you, as Ruth invited me, to tell us about the God you know, or don’t know, or wish you knew. We want to provide a place for you to be honest and open about your relationship with God and feel the same freedom that comes from acceptance. I’m writing this blog on my birthday. My mom always made sure us kids felt special on our birthdays. That included describing in detail the day of our arrival into this world. That was one of the things that made me the saddest when my mom passed away. I didn’t hear that story from the author anymore. As part of my story she would always recount how when she was in labor with me she prayed to God and said “You better give me a good one.”...

When the Cloud Moves

When the Cloud Moves Last summer was a busy one for me. Our youngest daughter got married at the same time we were remodeling the space for Firstfruits in Elm Grove. (By the way, if you still are enjoying Firstfruits remotely online and haven’t stopped in to our new space yet, please do. It’s an amazing witness to God’s faithfulness and just a nice, cozy place to hang out.) So as this summer was approaching I was looking forward to practicing what I preach. That is, taking a Sabbath rest. You’ve been reading all about it in the guest blogs the last few months. Spending more quiet time in prayer. Taking the time to be more aware of God’s presence in the midst of our daily tasks. Being in the moment. I was doing well...

A Different Kind of Rest

So I’m resting with God this summer. How about you? How’s it going? I’m realizing His idea of resting and mine are very different. My idea of rest is feet up, eyes closed, and mind chatter on pause. (If I’m lucky.) When I rest with Him, I’m finding that doesn’t mean I stop completely. Sometimes it means quiet contemplative moments, but more often than not, resting with Him can happen when my feet are on the ground, my eyes open and aware and my mind focused. But it seems to be more focused on very simple things. Life goes on, but in a simpler way when I rest with Him. And I like that. It feels peaceful and serene. Feels like true rest. Imagine that, feeling restful and active at the same time. My rest took me to a family gathering in Chicago last weekend where my heart and my soul were rejuvenated by the happiness I witnessed on my niece’s face. She’s been through a hard time and to see her happy again was rest for me. Sometimes resting with Him brings relief and joy. My rest this week found me playing Motor Boat with my grandkids in the swimming pool. Lots of squeals, smiles and an unsolicited “I love you Num Num.” (That’s Grandma in our family.) Sometimes resting with Him brings laughter and love. Yesterday my rest brought me to a luncheon sponsored by Pius XI Catholic High School. While I indulged in a dish of creme brûlée, I listened to a panel of successful alumni women leaders talk about the importance of not letting fear of failure stifle creativity, and the necessity of not going it alone. Just what my weary Executive Director soul needed to hear. Sometimes resting with Him brings restoration. God revives and restores us through our everyday experiences if we rest with Him. He takes us to places of rest and people who feed our souls. Fills our days with joy, laughter, love and motor boats! Resting with Him, Joan ...

Summer Sabbath Rest

Do you think God ever takes a break from us? Come summer he decides he needs a few months off from the busyness and pressure of maintaining his relationship with us? But promises to start it up again in fall. Isn’t that what we do every year around now? I’m guilty of it. We put a lot of time and effort into opportunities to grow in our faith from September to early May. Really ramping it up during Lent and peaking at Easter. Then there is this slow, steady priority shift. Regular attendance at our weekly bible study or prayer group slips a bit. Daily quiet morning meditation time isn’t quite daily anymore. There’s a lot on our minds. A lot of events to plan and attend. Mothers Day, First Communion and Graduations, to name a few. A lot of end of the school year festivities. And a lot of shopping. Teachers need gifts. Patio furniture needs new cushions. My bathing suit shrunk! Before we know it, all that discipline we worked so hard to learn and master, to grow in our faith and connection to God, is overwhelmed. We can tend to fall back into our old ways so easily. Before we know it, motherhood is a grind, not a blessing. Anxiety is our constant companion. The glass is half empty. Fear and worry have pitched a tent in the backyard. Firstfruits wants to help you keep that connection to God that you worked on all year. Sometimes that connection involves resting with God. We thought that would be a great focus for the summer months ahead. Through my blogs and some guest blogs we are going to delve into just what Sabbath rest means, and how to help each other find that rest with God, not from God, this summer. We will also continue our Tuesday evening prayer group from 6:45-7:45pm and Weekly Word scripture series on Thursday mornings from 9:30-10:30 over the summer. Come join us when you can. Aren’t you glad God doesn’t take the summer off? Let’s make this summer a holy one, together, so by September you’ll be wanting S’more! I’ll bring the sunscreen. Joan...

A Woman’s Heart

The royal wedding had us all captivated last week. A real-life fairy tale, complete with princes and princesses, Queens, carriages, and horsemen. Funny, I don’t recall any pumpkins or fat mice in robes though. The women I have talked to who watched the ceremony all describe moments of holding back tears and lumps in their throats. The men don’t seem to have the same reaction. They can’t seem to wrap their male brains around how watching an event involving people you don’t know in a faraway place can be so touching, so moving as to elicit such deep emotions. (Need we remind them of the shouting on Packer Sundays?) We have to trust that God knew what he was doing when he created man and woman. We are both created in God’s image and likeness so there is a beauty and a holiness inherent in both sexes. It’s just so frustratingly different! John and Stasi Eldridge wrote a book entitled Captivating-Unveiling the Mystery of a Woman’s Soul. In it they talk about the basic differences between men and women in terms of our deepest question. For men that question is, “Do I have what it takes?” For women that question is, “Am I captivating?” The following is an excerpt from the book. "Every woman was once a little girl. And every little girl holds in her heart her most precious dreams. She longs to be swept up into a romance, to play an irreplaceable role in a great adventure, to be the beauty of the story. Those desires are far more than child’s play. And yet, how many women do you know who ever find that life?  She finds no romance except in novels, no adventure except on television, and she doubts very much that she will ever be the beauty in any tale. Many women think they have to settle for a life of efficiency and duty, chores, and errands, striving to be the woman they ought to be but often feeling they have failed. But her heart is still there.  Sometimes when she watches a movie (or a royal wedding), sometimes in the wee hours of the night, her heart begins to speak again. A thirst rises within her to find the life she was meant to live, the life she dreamed of as a little girl. Your heart matters more than anything else in creation. The desires you had as a little girl and the longings...

This Little Light of Mine

Well here we are at Pentecost Weekend. Fifty days after Easter commemorating the coming of the Holy Spirit on the apostles as promised by Jesus. We’ve been talking about what happens when we stir up the Holy Spirit in the last few blogs. Or I should say I have been talking about it, I have no idea what you have been thinking or doing with my passionate ramblings about all things Holy Spirit! I hope you have a new-found acceptance and appreciation for the third person of the Trinity. I’ve always thought the Holy Spirit got a bad rap being described as a dove, a tongue of fire, and a ghost? How can we relate? Who wants to snuggle up to that? As a young child, the Holy Ghost was just plain scary. Everything surrounding the coming of the Holy Spirit in story, was anxiety provoking. The idea of the apostles minding their own business, sitting around when all of a sudden, the wind kicks up and tongues of fire appear above their heads was too much for me. I’m a control freak and things were out of control in that Upper Room! Before they know it, they are speaking in foreign languages and healing people. They found themselves doing things they never dreamed they could do. They found themselves doing things they only saw Jesus do. Their lives took on new meaning and purpose. Their words became powerful. Their actions brought healing. Their passion created the early church. Their positive influence couldn’t be curbed. Wait, that doesn’t sound so scary, that sounds amazing! Sounds like a wonderful life. Sounds like the life Jesus meant for us when he promised, before he left, to send the Advocate, the Counselor, to be with us always. In past blogs I’ve described the indwelling Holy Spirit we’ve been promised as a glob of chocolate syrup that has sunk to the bottom of a glass of milk. It needs to be stirred up. I talked about what it looks like when we stir up the Holy Spirit in our lives. Well I have one more analogy I’d like to leave you to ponder. I once heard the Trinity described in this very technical, yet memorable way. God the Father is the electrical outlet, the Power. Jesus is the plug and cord. We are the lamp. We are connected to the Father through the Son. The Holy Spirit is the...

Surprise, Surprise!

Have you ever bought some gifts, put them in a hiding place and then forgot where you put them? Come on, be honest. I did that last Christmas. I even went so far as to return to Target with the receipt and question if they put all my bags in my cart. Don’t ever try that. They have video at every register and could prove all my bags went into my cart. (Kind of creepy, don’t you think?) My next thought was that that one bag with the items I couldn’t find didn’t make it into my trunk. It was left in the cart so I went to lost and found. No luck. At this point the manager gently and diplomatically suggested I might have put it somewhere at home and forgot. She said that happens often at this busy time of year?. Fast forward to July. I went into a closet in one of the spare bedrooms (A closet that wasn’t full of golf shirts. See previous blog.) to get something and there was a Target bag full of stocking stuffers. The melted chocolate Santas oozing out of the wrappers. I gasped. I had found the hidden gifts. There are gifts of the Holy Spirit that often go unfound. I discovered them 10 years ago and my life has never been the same. It was like finding the hidden bag of Christmas presents I forgot where I put, only it’s July. I was so excited at the discovery and at the same time frustrated that I had been unaware of the gifts for so long. Do you remember when you made your Confirmation and you had to memorize the seven Sanctifying Gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. And maybe later in your faith formation you were introduced to the nine Fruits of the Holy Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These gifts are for us and reflected by us as we live a holy life. The third set of gifts, the lesser known, are our charisms. Charisms are gifts given to us at baptism to enable us to carry out our baptismal call to bring Christ to the world. They are gifts given to us to give away. To give to others. Did you know you have been called and gifted to a unique work for God? I bet, if...

Soda Scandal

I need you to weigh in on a long-standing debate my husband and I have had. When you go to a fast food restaurant and you are really thirsty, is it ok to order a small soda and fill it up multiple times with the free refills or should you just order a large? Is it stealing? Time in purgatory? Or just a wise consumer? To preserve the reputations of the parties involved I won’t divulge who orders the large and who orders the small. Every day is full of small and large choices. We are constantly challenged morally and ethically. If we’re honest we need to admit we haven’t always made the right choices. It’s called being human. Often, we rationalize away our poor judgement. We are blinded to our wrongs. One of the first things I noticed when I began to stir up the Holy Spirit in my life was a gentle nagging when I made some of the poor choices I had become accustomed to making. It just didn’t feel good. Like when I gossiped about someone, was late for an appointment and said it was heavy traffic when really it was lazy me, gave my husband the cold shoulder for days, or didn’t answer when I saw it was my mother-in-law on caller ID. (I only did that a couple times.) Little everyday choices to withhold the love and care that God was calling me to share. The Holy Spirit convicts us of those habits in an effort to prune us, to make us better. When faced with our weaknesses we can get discouraged and that discouragement leads us to turn away from God. We might say, “I can never measure up, so what’s the point?” The point is not to make us feel bad about ourselves; the point is to show us that with the conviction comes the knowledge of God’s infinite mercy. When we admit to our sinfulness. Call a spade a spade. Show genuine sadness for our actions or thoughts and ask for forgiveness we find something amazing waiting for us. The tender heart of God waiting to shower us with compassion, forgiveness, kindness, sympathy and grace. In short, Divine Mercy. We’ve seen in the last few week’s blogs how stirring up the Holy Spirit brings us a new awareness of God as personal and near. Opens us to the deep love and care he has for us....

Better Than Botox

The mirror is no longer my friend. I feel like there is a fault line running vertically from the top of my head to the tips of my toes and every day something has shifted. Things aren’t where they used to be. And there are things appearing that didn’t used to be. Like the two deep lines running vertically between my eyebrows. My furrowed brow? I’d say it’s more like a trench. If I put on my anxious, worry face those lines become so deep I could store spare dimes in them. It would come in handy if there were still pay phones. Last week I talked about the peace I found in my powder room when I stirred up the Holy Spirit and cried out to God in prayer. Well, that peace is the cure for a furrowed brow, the ultimate Botox! If we lived in a constant state of that peace, imagine how relaxed, how calm, how serene our lives would be. The peace I experienced after my heartfelt prayer was like nothing I felt before and I wanted more of it. I knew it was from God but didn’t know much else. The Holy Spirit prompted me to seek out people and places that would help me know God. I joined a bible study that “coincidently” was starting up at my church. In that group I found the women who, to this day, are my GFFs, God Friends Forever! We helped each other come to know God. As the Holy Spirit began to reveal things to me, I felt that I began to know God in a different and more personal way. I began to think about God more than I used to. I even began talking to him on a regular basis. That’s where my GFFs came in handy. They assured me I wasn’t going crazy because they found themselves doing the same thing. I started communicating with God like he was a friend, real simple and natural.  I would thank him as I strolled the fairways with my golf buddies on a beautiful, sunny Wednesday morning. I would bargain with him as I lay in bed at midnight and the new driver in the family wasn’t home yet. I would scream at him in the car as I pulled away from my mom’s assisted living facility. I would imagine embracing him, speechless, when I saw the faces of my...

Powder Room Prayers

Last week I said that for the next few weeks leading up to Pentecost I was going to share with you my experience of “stirring up” the Holy Spirit in my own life. Well, the story starts in my powder room in our house in Wauwatosa twenty-seven years ago. I quit working to stay home with our three children. I was a full time at-home mom and didn’t know what that meant exactly. With no job description and no clear purpose anymore (job=purpose in my mind back then) I became very anxious. I won’t go into the details, but one day when I was at the end of my rope I was in the bathroom getting ready to go somewhere and I prayed. “Big deal,” you say? It was a huge deal. I had been ignoring God for a very long time. The faith of my childhood including my Catholic schooling through high school was on the back burner. And the burner was off. Something prompted me to pray at that ordinary moment, on a week day, in my bathroom, blow drying my hair. I cried out to God, that is IF he was really there, and asked for help. Immediately I felt a warmth and a peace and it wasn’t the blow dryer! I met our extraordinary God in a very ordinary place and my life has never been the same.   Unbeknownst to me, I stirred up the Holy Spirit in that moment of despair by the simple act of praying. I know now that really the Holy Spirit stirred me up by prompting me to pray in the first place. As a result, my eyes were opened to a new life changing revelation. God isn’t just in church. And if he’s in my bathroom, he can be anywhere. I began to look for him everywhere and you know what? I found him everywhere.  The Holy Spirit opened my eyes that day. Remember the excitement of a newborn baby? I remember it like it was yesterday. In particular was the excitement of those first couple of hours when the baby would open its eyes. That simple act caused family members to drop everything and come running. I can’t help but think that God feels the same way about us, his children, when we open our eyes to his presence in every moment of every day. What joy that brings him as the scales begin...