Tuesday’s Trench Truth

Welcome to our Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power and our Tuesday’s Trench Truth with Trench Classes United. Come on in for a moment of truth…revealed in the answers to a couple of questions.

When we see a fire, we do one of two things: we run like crazy or we stop and stare. When something happens to scare you, or someone does something to hurt you, what do you do? Do you Face Everything and Rise…or do you Flee Everything and Run?

Adversity is not meant to be ran from; rather, walked through

So why do we run? Join us to learn your answers to these profound questions at our Night of Purpose, an introduction to Living Fearlessly!

I can’t wait to see you

Evinda

Megan’s Monday Mantra

DOG spelled backwards is GOD!

For those of you who have never had the privilege of tracking a dog, it is difficult to describe the wonder of the experience...

Welcome to Coffee Hour at Chicklit Power and Megan’s Monday Mantra, with Trench Classes United.

Curl up with your favorite fur-kids and find out how my dog and a tracking test gave me an invaluable peek into how God works!

The tracking test is specifically designed to demonstrate a dog’s natural ability to follow a scent.

Picture a stranger walking around a large field. He makes a few left turns and a few right turns, going 50 to 120 yards between each turn. By the time he has finished, he has covered almost 500 yards of the field. An hour later, you and your dog arrive at the field and are expected to re-trace the exact footsteps taken by the stranger - site unseen!

On an early November morning, in the agricultural fields south of San Diego, I stood at the start line of a track with my Boxer, Huckleberry.  To calm my nerves, I decided to equate following Huckleberry over paths unknown to what it might feel like to follow God’s will. After all, when you track a dog, the dog is completely in charge – only he knows how to use his nose to follow the track. Only he knows where he is leading you!

The Lord has a sense of humor. Since I was willing to experience how it felt to follow His will, He graciously included some of the stages one goes through as they attempt to discern His will…

Once Huckleberry picked up the scent of the track, my confidence surged. As he gained momentum, I found it more difficult to keep up, even though I had a firm hold of his 30-foot tracking line. As one turn led to another, I worried Huck might track us over the Mexican border. J J  When it took more time than I expected, I questioned the Lord as to how much longer would it be. Eventually the track did end … another 110 yards away! We passed the test and Huckleberry got his Tracking Dog Title.

Blindly following my dog over paths unknown and having to fully trust in the direction he was taking me was a powerful experience in learning what it truly felt like to follow and trust God’s will.

Trust in the Lord with all your heart,

And lean not on your own understanding;

In all your ways acknowledge Him,

and He shall direct your paths.  (Proverbs 3:5-6 NKJV)

Faithfully trust in God’s will - and He will certainly direct your paths!

Your comments are always most welcome.

Lovingly in Christ,

Megan

Foster’s Faith Filled Friday

Foster’s Faith Filled Friday

Welcome to Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power and Foster’s Faith-Filled Friday, a series written by a young single mom in the journey of life!

Learning to be a “good enough” mom…

Does that phrase “good enough” sound terrible to you? Please let me explain.

Being a “good enough” mother does not mean loving my children one bit less. Instead, it allows them to grow, mature, and become independent, characteristics necessary for them to live a successful life. Understanding this concept really took the pressure off me.

It is one week before my sons 4^th birthday and I find myself almost ready to pull my hair out wanting to make his party the best construction-themed birthday party he’s ever had! You know, one of those Pinterest parties which you imagine it turning out like…until you realize the amount of work it is! L

Working Monday-Friday 8-5pm, then picking my son up to run to the store to get supplies, decorations and gifts, getting home every night at 8pm has taken a toll on the both of us. We’re tired. I needed to find rest…

So, I began to change the way I thought about motherhood. Believe me; this was not easy. 

Luckily, before my week unraveled any further, I had a life-changing realization:

Feeling inadequate is not easy. And again, I realize how insignificant the details of this party are to my almost 4 year old. He doesn’t care about the dessert cards or the over-the-top decorations. You know what he cares about? His family and friends being there to celebrate with him, feeling loved and acknowledged.

After that realization, I felt like I could breathe again, I simply can’t raise my son, work full time and also execute Martha-Stewart worthy birthday parties. But you know what? That’s okay! Really! I’ve decided to permanently take off my Super Woman cape. I’m going to cease the super human expectations, take a breath and focus on the one thing I can do. Sometimes that one thing is sitting down playing trains with my sweet boy and sometimes that one thing means putting a movie on and just chilling on the couch.

No, I don’t always float around on a cloud of peaceful acceptance, not at all. I’m tired. I grieve. I get sad. I pray and reach out to friends. I’ve simply learned and accepted that I can’t do it all!

If things were to change, I was the one who had to change, from the inside out.

What was the first step in reclaiming my balance? I had to kick the whole idea of Supermom to the curb.

Proverbs 31:25-30

Strength and dignity are her clothing, and she laughs at the time to come. She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the teaching of kindness is on her tongue. She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: “Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.”

Learning…

Breanna

Tam’s Trench Truth

Welcome to Coffee Hour with Chicklit Power and Tam’s Trench Truth with Trench Classes United. Today, John brings us face to face with a reality that truly needs to be looked upon! Come on in.

This last week I had an incident on social media that roped me in. I can see so much hate being thrown around these days like it's become a socially accepted attitude. This hatred expressed the other day incited a desire to defend the people that were being attacked online. I was outnumbered, of course, and although I kept it respectful and didn't get mad. I was called a Nazi, a bigot, to name a couple of the hateful things.

Hatred has become so evident on so many mediums that it has all but seemed to kill the idea of compromise and talking in an effort to understand one another.

I have really been trying to live a more calm and peaceful lifestyle this last year for a couple reasons: physically, my body just can’t endure the stress, and emotionally, it’s just better…not always easier but definitely better. I consistently pray for God to calm my nerves and help me with the things I am going through not only physically but emotionally.

Last year, I determined in my soul that I would try and avoid getting roped into types of conversations that are vulgar, full of hatred and accusations. These conversations, arguments/fights never seem to go anywhere than to leave me feeling high levels of stress. I have done better for the most part; however, not so this last time. It really got to me as one of the people on the other side was a friend I had grown up with.

To see how politics take people and divide them against each other... well, I just couldn’t be quiet about that.

I can't support hate groups, or violence; I can't support people who run over other people because they hate them and want to cause them physical harm or punitive harm. But I also know I can't support this part of social media that seems to increase all this hatred and evil. So once again I move to keep myself from being roped in.

It's so hard because I care so much about the world we live in. I want people to find compromise and help one another. We will always have people different than us but that makes the world just more interesting. Can you imagine if we all were the same? If we looked, acted, loved all the same? 

I know one thing about the world and what it's missing more and more every day: It's missing compromise. It is missing ears that listen to hear instead of ears that listen to defend and react.

If love really is the answer it's because it carries one thing we all constantly need more of: Compromise. I started not only asking God for strength to get through these things that really affect me, but to also grant me the wisdom and mindset to try and understand and feel what others feel that are different than me.

Please join me in prayer this evening and pray for the world; pray for those different than us; pray for amazing compromise. Please pray for those who do hate and want to cause other people physical harm. Pray that we take more notice in the beauty out there instead of the drama unfolding on social media and the news at ever corner and intersection of our lives. Find something beautiful, like this sunflower, and get completely lost in it. :)

May God inspire us to let the Holy Spirit fill people with good things, the most of which I'd like to think is love for unconditional love is a form of compromise.

~John

Wednesday’s Word

Priorities: Opportunities or Necessities

Thanks so much for joining us for Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power and Wednesday’s Word with Trench Classes United. I truly love our Coffee Hours, a time to share these downloads I get in real time; in other words, I’m learning as I go and sharing as I learn. J Come on in for the latest download that I pray you will be able to upload and use in your own life.

When this year started, I determined in my heart to live like I’m living…in other words, play hard, not just work hard, and not live like I’m dying.  Balancing that determination with my husband/home, my court-reporting job and the ministry He has entrusted me with has been another story.

I felt like Cyndi Lauper singing “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”!

What’s crazy is as long as I am doing things with Him, not just for Him, I can do all things! But when my priorities are out of order, well, I can only imagine how I must look to our Heavenly Father as He looks down at me chasing my tail, really, which is sort of symbolic to chasing acceptance in a group, in my job, church, or focusing on what others think of me, or pursuing fun that doesn’t reflect my faith. How does one have it all?

Well I guess it depends on whose approval we are striving for, whose opinion matters the most to us. 

Did you know that before God gave Moses the 10 Commandments that there were 613 others the Jews had to try and live by in order to be deemed righteous?  I don’t know about you, but I think if I had to memorize, let alone follow, 613 commandments in order to be considered a follower of God, well, I’d probably fail before I started!

What does all this have to do with priorities? I’m so glad you asked. You see, God made it real simple for us to keep our priorities in order through His Son Jesus; He’s not really as complicated as we make Him out to be.J How did He make it simple?

Well, before Jesus paid the ultimate price for us and abolished the need to follow 613 plus 10 commandments, He spoke to all of us and narrowed that 623 commandment gap down to TWO!  And He completely avoided a trap that the religious leaders were setting for Him in the process.  In Mark 12:30-32, Jesus was asked which is the first – meaning the most important – commandment and Jesus replied “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.” And then He went on to add the second commandment that He considered “like the first”: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Now I don’t know about you, but that first commandment looks a bit daunting, overwhelming, but the closer we get to our God, the more we’ll want to be with Him, so it actually becomes easier to love Him with all of our being, all of our actions, all of our mind. 

Very simply put: Do our priorities cause us to neglect God and neglect others? Is it a priority because it’s an opportunity to love God and others, or is it more self-serving? When I dare to ask myself these questions, and honestly answer it, oftentimes I need to re-evaluate and negotiate back to my First Love.

Coffee Hour Friend, I have learned over and over again that when we are pursuing our First Love, there will not be a last love. When His opinion is the first and last that matters, nothing else will really matter. It is then that our lives will come alive and we will no longer live like we’re dying from all the striving.

So when the world tosses us choices of all types, may we consciously choose to stand firm, get off the see-saw and out of the tug of war that has us bouncing up and down, side to side and keep our feet planted in Him who has already accepted us and approved us. His relentless and lavish love will have us living life alive!

Love,

Evinda

Tuesday’s Trench Truth and Invitation, Too!

Welcome to Coffee Hour @ Chicklit Power and Tuesday’s Trench Truth with Trench Classes United. Grab your coffee and come on in for a moment of truth.

Have you ever felt as though you just weren’t good enough…to be invited to things with certain people, to be included in this group or that group, or by this person or that person, or be hired by this company or that company for this job or that job?

It’s a horrible feeling, one that can leave us empty of the will to even participate in the journey of life. What’s incredibly challenging about this “feeling” is no matter how much “self-improvement” we’ve done, this feeling can slither on up into our souls without us even realizing it and settle on in. And thereafter, its presence directs us to choices we make out of a need to fit in, to belong, to feel as though we are part of something, someone exciting and alive.

The truth is that all of these “feelings” are fear based which is driven by our need to belong…somewhere with someone!

Join us for our upcoming Night of Purpose, an introduction to Living Fearlessly and discover what fears drive our choices, good and not so good!

Overcoming insecurities…

Evinda

Megan’s Mantra

“I think you’d get a laugh, if you saw a tall giraffe, swinging by his tail from a tree,

I think an octopus would look quite ridiculous knitting sweaters at the bottom of the sea …”

Did I get your attention? Great! Mission accomplished.

Welcome to Coffee Hour at Chicklit Power and Megan’s Monday Mantra, with Trench Classes United.

The above ditty is from Danny Kaye’s “Tubby the Tuba at the Circus.” It was on the very first album I had as a child. I memorized every word of it.  I caught this catchy little tune playing around in my head a few days ago and I realized its message is just as important today as it was then.

The song, being sung by a sympathetic elephant to a disenchanted Tubby, continues …

“Be yourself - you can’t be anybody else.

Be yourself, is my advice to you

or else you’ll always be a nobody

so, be yourself, or else!”

How many times in my past did I observe someone and wish I possessed a quality they had? How many times did I wish my life was more like someone else’s life or wish I was more like someone else?

When I was 17, I was the fastest hot-dog maker at the Sea World in Ohio. I could steam, bag, and load the hot dogs into their bins in record time, which kept me in the hot and humid main snack bar for the duration of the summer. I seriously doubted this talent would ever serve me well. I longed to be gifted like the animal trainers, or accomplished like the managers. Yet, this seemingly insignificant skill-set, in all of its various forms, has weaved its way through my life, blessing me and making all the difference.

1 Corinthians 12:4-6 (ESV) “Now there are a variety of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but the same God who empowers them all in everyone.”

I have often wondered why it is so easy to recognize other people’s gifts and talents but not our own.

Tubby the Tuba wanted to sing like a piccolo and fly like an acrobat, never dreaming his “Um-Pah” could make the elephants dance as they have never danced before!

Are you aware your own gift or talent could make the elephants dance as they have never danced before?

“BE YOURSELF …

I think that you’d be happiest

by being no one else but you.”

Your comments are always most welcome.

Lovingly in Christ,

Megan