Friends. Visits. Happy times.

Above are some pictures from the recent visit of two of my friends from Seattle: Kristen Falkenberg and Brian Burdon. I feel really special that they came to visit me. More than that, I feel pretty special that they have visited me twice. In fact, they have been the most frequent visitors I've had (though I have had a few other one-timers - and I haven't forgotten those of you who were the one-timers). Anyway, Kristen and Brian are silly and deep and funny and fun and loving and spiritual and I love them both. Enjoy.

Love, Tiffani

BABYSITTING my friend Elijah!

Well, here's how it went down: He started in the exersaucer and we played (see pics). Then he played on my lap. Then he played on the mat (see pics) - he's getting really good at rolling from his back over to his belly. Then he went back into the exersaucer and played again. Then he came to my lap and we talked and then he fell asleep (see pic).

Elijah is almost 6 months old and full of personality!

How cute is this little man? Definitely filled my baby quotient during the day. I was remembering the days when Andi was 6 mo old and I first met the Fergason's. She used to stare at Wayne because he had these heavy glasses. Hysterical. I remember sitting at the table after dinner and giving her her bottle. I remember when Jared was 6 mo old and he would play all the time if he could - laughing and cooing (just like Elijah).

blank pages?

Just a test to see if my page is working. If you can see this.... it is.

Love, Tiffani

Been thinking about.... Death

This is an excerpt from the post of a professor here at the college:

But, in the end, each person had to face death alone and prepare to meet his or her Maker.... The ancients developed a process called the ars moriendi, the art of facing death, and spent a lifetime preparing for the inevitable. Because death was so prevalent in their society, they
learned to be prepared at any moment. We, on the other hand, go through life glibly denying its reality and so find ourselves always surprised by its inevitable knock at our door.

(see full posting at: http://religionprofessor.blogspot.com/)

(OK, now it won't let me "un-indent"... so sorry if this is confusing)

I read his posting today. As I was thinking, I wondered how deeply do I really contemplate death. Frankly, I think about death a lot. I think about different ways I may die (in my sleep, t-boned at one of our infamous Greenville intersections, riding my bike to work, in a plane crash, etc); I think about what it would be like for other people if I died (how would they get all my stuff out of the house, who would shock the pool) and I think about being in heaven with Jesus.

Death doesn't scare me. I look forward to heaven and I'm glad that I can have confidence in my ultimate destination. But dying isn't an attractive principle. My fear about riding my bike to work is that I'll get hit or fall off and land in the ditch, slowly dying because no one can see me. And I do have moments where I often think I will actually be t-boned at the intersection (people don't always stop here).

But anyway, I thought I would throw out these thoughts to the cosmic void we call the internet and see what all y'all think (if anyone is reading this).

Blessings, TR

The Cost of Being Qualified

I started looking at graduate school information again today.

I'm not going to lie that when I start looking at this stuff its like I hear a buzz in my head and I can't process anything clearly. I'm not sure why that is.... is it because I don't know what I want to do for my life? Is it because of the exhorbitant cost of graduate school? Is it because I'm out of debt and would prefer to stay that way..... which would mean that I take approximately one class per year for the next 14 years (an unattractive option)?

I ask myself the following questions:
1) is it worth going to grad school full-time in order to finish in a shorter amount of time, thereby starting a new career path sooner?
2) is it worth taking on-line courses in order that I can work full-time and reduce the burden of debt I may accrue, though taking longer?
3) could I simply "start" a program and that would be enough for me to get a job that I love in ministry and I could "chip-away" as I had time/money/desire.
4) is it better to be "unqualified" in the world's eyes?

Now some of you know that my answer to #4 has historically been "yes". I say the less we can do to make our work look more like "us" the better. But there is an element of being responsible to be educated and prepared for the work you are going to do.

This weekend I spoke at a women's retreat. I think the Lord enabled me to be prepared and educated. And the things I said (i think...) were sound and not heretical, they were personal and yet biblical. Is experience (i.e. speaking engagements) enough to beget experience? Will this experience qualify me to speak at the next retreat? Will THAT experience qualify me for the next? Is this how it works? What IS my calling? What DO I want to do?

Well, thats the deal for the day. I am babysitting my pal Elijah this afternoon (hopefully some pics to come later this week of this experience!), and will print some grad school stuff and look through it at that point.

Step one: see if any catch my fancy.
Step two: apply (because "what the heck")
Step three: find out about $$
Step four: cry in my pillow (just kidding) - who knows at this point.

Wish me luck, pray that I would have wisdom.

Love, TR

Katrina Relief

Well, its official (and has been I guess for a week or so, but I'm just now mentally getting there).

I'm going with the college to work in Mississippi for a few days. Our group of almost 60 people (appx 1/4 adults, 3/4 students) will go to Picayune, Mississippi on November 2nd to aid in a variety of ways. We return early on the 7th in order for students to attend class and for the rest of us to go to work... or at least "be" at work...

Here is the link to the webpage: http://relief.ist.greenville.edu/drupal/

You can see my picture by going to leader pictures. (though today it wasn't working) If you look at student pictures, you'll see two of my small group women: Amber and Ashley. I'm glad to be taking this trip with them and to have the extra fellowship and learning time with them. There are a number of other INCREDIBLE men and women going as well.

I'm praying for the Lord's glory to be shown through us to the people there who are hurting.

We are helping out in the following ways (I may miss some, so this list is limited):
1) Debris clean up - picking up trees, etc from yards and homes, landscaping as needed (cutting down 1/2 dead trees, etc)
2) Roofing - replacing roofs on houses as needed
3) Construction - various odd jobs
4) Warehouse - the church we are working with is using a shopping mall for a warehouse (I think) and has a TON of stuff there (water, clothes, supplies) to be organized and distributed.
5) Counseling - the primary group we will be working with here are teachers. They were asked to move in before anything was cleaned/repaired and even before the power was turned on. We will be listening to them and encouraging them, as well as praying with them. (this is the ministry that I will be involved with at this point)
6) Delivery - delivery of yard debris to a drop off location and delivery of goods from the warehouse
7) Food - preparation and service of food to our group (two of the leaders also work with Sodexho, our on-campus food service and have volunteered to head up this ministry so that the church we are supporting doesn't have to try to feed us)

Thankfully we have a large group and so we'll try to break up into about 8-person teams with one or two adults on each team in order to facilitate the effective working on those projects. But in reality we are all going to be prepared to do whatever they need.

This weekend (columbus day holiday/fall break) the Free Methodist Church youth group took about 20 adults/students to Kiln, Ms to work on restoration there. They were planning to "mud-out" a school there (literally shovel residual mud left from the storm surges and flooding), however it hadn't been cleared by the EPA yet, so they have been working on mudding-out people's houses. In some cases the water line is only 3-4 feet deep, but they have to demo the walls down to the studs, as the standing flood-water has caused mold and other problems in the structure of the houses. Kiln is on the shore, about 5 miles away from the Northeast side of Bay St. Louis. At one point they were working on cleaning up a house 10 houses from the shore. You can imagine what they are seeing/experiencing. Hannah Groves (our youth pastor's daughter) told her mom that there is clothing stuck in all the trees - there are just shirts hanging everywhere.

Thanks for your prayers for that team, and for ours as we prepare to go.

Love, Tiff

Selfishness

I've been thinking a lot about selfishness. I know that I can be selfish in a lot of things - with my time, friends, home, stuff, money, etc. I know ways that I have been specifically selfish lately. So, as this blog continues, please don't think that I think only other people are selfish and I'm the self-less one; I don't think that.

But I have been thinking a lot about selfishness. I have a friend whom I love, but who has always been a little self-involved. Not enough to correct, but sometimes just cluelessly about "her" or in action doing things that hurt other people that she thinks is "cute". Don't get me wrong, she is a great friend, and we have spent some seriously deep time together walking through life. She has cared about me and spent time with me, and I have cared about her and spent time with her. However, some recent circumstances have magnified the "self-involvement" to a large degree - or seemingly.

And then there are blogs. I just realized (maybe I should have a long time ago) is that they are often selfish. Mine is all about me and my life experience. Granted, for my friends, who I don't speak with often I think they like that they can get an update. But I don't just use it for updates anymore. I often use it for thoughts/reflections/experiences. Which means its all about me. And I wonder how much of the rest of my life is all about me.

In my struggle with my friend whose selfishness is so evident and painful to me and others, I find that I become more selfish when I'm with her (and in my thought life regarding her). My chief complaint is, "she doesn't even ask how I am, or when she does and I start to answer she interrupts with her own stuff and doesn't listen to me." yikes- how pouty and selfish sounding. Its to the point (my depravity) where I'm tired of listening to her. When we're together all I hear about is her life and the various hard spots she finds herself in (mostly due to her own choices) and hard decisions (which are generally not life-threatening) - and here's where selfishness takes its prisoner......... I'm tired of lstening to her talk about herself because she isn't listening to me talk about myself.

D'oh.

Selfishness breeds selfishness.

Now granted, I've tried to just listen to her, I really have tried. But she goes in circles of self-pity and self-involvement and even when she's hurt someone (and I bring it up back-door) she laughs it off as something "she just does". Thats my excuse for not wanting to listen anymore.

But in my head the real reason is that relationship is built on reciprocity. And right now with my friend I don't have that. I have her speaking about her in my face.... and me speaking about me in my head.

In relationship: I care so much about YOU that I don't need to share about what's going on in my life - I just want to hear about YOU; and YOU care so much about ME that you don't need to share. And in the end BOTH people share equally. I care so much that I ask you about specific things you've mentioned. And YOU care so much that you ask me about specifics. And when one of use brings up something uncomfortable or says, "I think that you are making a mountain out of a molehill" or "both decisions are fine, just pick one" the reciever of those words doesn't think you are arguing or being mean, they see that that person cares about them and their life, but is also putting some perspective on the issue, or is simply saying in the least offensive way, "get OVER yourself - life is bigger than what you are talking about."

And then I consider blogs and that its all about me. And I think of my friend's blogs and they are all about them (but I like it because I love hearing about their life experiences, especially on "my own time" - since some of them live 2000 miles and 2 hours difference away).

And so I see my own selfishness, selfprotectiveness, selfinvolvement. And I'm grieved that I am supposed to represent the Lord and yet I operate in these ways which are so opposite of how Jesus walked.

Our model is Jesus', and Paul says that we should aim for peace and mutual edification.

So Lord, give me strength today to be a reconciler, and the grace to consider others better and more interesting than myself.

Love, Tiff

READ THIS BLOG

Go to the right side of my page, and read Jenn's blog. Here is a woman who is COURAGEOUS and HONEST and I'm grateful she's in my life. WOW. If you have time, its a great picture of a woman who is on a search to be transformed by Jesus.

Keep it up, Little Stride - you'll get there.

Love, Tiffani

Back to Access and followed by Worship

So I meant to talk about how we have ACCESS to God. As the Tuesday morning group is studying Romans (we are through Ch.5 now) I am confronted with the truth of our access to God through Jesus Christ.
In Romans 5 in particular Paul speaks about the benefits of our justification (which our group would tell you is a legal term meaning, "declared innocent" - regardless of your actual innocence/guilt). One of the benefits Paul mentions is that, "through Jesus Christ we have gained access by faith into this grace {reconciliation/peace with God} in which we now stand."* and as I was thinking in "legal terms" I thought about how in court you have to say, "May I approach the bench" but that Jesus has said it for us and now we can go forward to the Judge with confidence to ask for his help and mercy. In fact, the author of Hebrews says, "we can approach the throne of grace with confidence to find help in our time of need."*
Wow - what an incredible thought. Through Jesus we have access to the very presence of God. We recieve God's glory, which one commentary I recently read said is "God himself". Oh, the precious mercy and love of the Lord who does not withhold one thing from his children.

And then I am convicted about how much I withhold from those I love. That in my humanness I hold back because of fear or hurt of pride or intimidation.... but if I were to really act in my "god-ness" (through the power of the Gospel, poured out through the Holy Spirit) I would withhold nothing. In fact, I would give to the point of death for those others. Ouch, and a good lesson for me today. I don't know how that works in practical application, but how I wish to know. May the Lord give me wisdom.

Next topic... WORSHIP. Here is a quote from our service bulletin on Sunday morning. We have been reading the "Purpose Driven Life" these last two weeks and week two was on worship being a relationship (more than music, more than emotion, etc).
By Marva Dawn in her book, "How Shall We Worship", p.168
"Worship dare not be glib or superficial, ought not to dispense false assurances or manipulate emotions. Instead, genuine worship always offers the true hope of the Gospel - neither entertainment nor escapism, neither diversion nor another sort of consumerism, but the terrible truth about sin and evil and the even greater truth (in all its glory) that on the cross and through the empty tomb Christ has been victorious over iniquity, injury and death. Worship will then enfold all of us who search for hope in God's present cosmic reign and challenge us to engage in God's sovereign purposes of ministry to the world.
"Finally, worship's celebration of God's governanace will equip us with patience and endurance to endure the hardships of this life as we await the culmination of God's kingdom. This is all, indeed, good news for us each and together to tell our neighbors. Our goal is to bring the world to worship our God with us."

I love this part: "genuine worship always offers the true hope of the Gospel... terrible truth about sin and the even greater truth that....Christ has been victorious over iniquity, injury and death" - that genuine worship confronts us with our guilt and relieves us with our freedom.

Rest in that dear friends.
Love, Tiffani