It’s been a while since I’ve participated in a 5 Minute Friday, but I am excited to dive in again. If you aren’t familiar, 5 Minute Fridays are where women from all over the world all write for five unedited minutes about the word for that week. I know this labels me as a word nerd, but  I always loved those timed free writes we did in my college writing classes. Some of the best work came out of a time to write with no pressure. You can come on over and join in on 5 Minute Fridays HERE.

Today’s word is ALIVE.

I find it really interesting that the word today is Alive because today is Good Friday, the day we slow down and remember Jesus’ death. It’s also a bit ironic for me personally because it seems my little world has been colored with death a lot lately. It started when my brother took his life last summer, but it didn’t end there.

A woman our family has known for a long time died in September.

A young man in a local high school killed himself, and he was found by his dad and brother on the soccer field of the school.

A woman (the daughter of the woman who died in September) lost her oldest son suddenly in January.

A young man was shot and killed just a few weeks ago which means his life was taken and his shooter, another teenager, his life is also over.

A young girl at a different local high school tried to kill herself in the band room of her school. A few students found her but she passed away just a few days ago.

Two young girls, only 7 and 10, died in a house fire this week.

Today, I remember that Jesus died a gruesome death on my behalf, and yet, because of that horrible death, I can have hope. Despite the numerous tragedies that have surrounded my world lately, I can still be alive because Jesus died.

But He didn’t just die. He defeated death. See, the cross, while it is so important to our salvation stories, isn’t the end. If it was the end, Christianity would be no different than any other religion in the history of the world. No – Jesus defeated death and he arose from that grave and He is alive.

And because He lives, I can too – no matter what the circumstances.

Blessings, Rosanne

The irony is not lost on me that when I went to publish my first post on Breaking the Bondage of Busyness, I realized I had been in such a rush the night before that I Didn’t Save My Final Draft! And of course, I didn’t have time this morning to finish before going to do story hour at our local library, so here I am, behind schedule as usual feeling slightly frazzled because I should really be editing religious briefs for the newspaper right now – at least that is what I have written in my calendar for this time slot.

But instead of letting that frazzled feeling grow into a true tizzy of panic (and maybe banging my head on my desk), I’ve decided to take a deep breath. After all, part of the reason I’m writing this series is to break my own bondage to busyness.

One of the things I’ve noticed, at least in my own life, that one of the first things busyness kills is true fellowship.

I recently did a Kelly Minter study on I, II and III John. To be honest, while I have read those books of the Bible, I have never studied them. Can I just say, I absolutely LOVED them! If you have a chance, pick up Minter’s study, What Love Is.

One of the key words in the book of I John is the word fellowship. The verse in I John 1:3 caught my attention.

“What we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ.” (emphasis mine)

Wouldn’t it seem to you that John would tell these believers all that he had seen and heard and touched (after all, the man walked with Jesus here on this earth), so they could, I don’t know, live a better life or do more for God or even know God better?

But nope – the reason is so these believers could have fellowship with other believers. Obviously, the idea of fellowship was deeply important to John.

Maybe this was because he was a part of the fellowship of the twelve disciples. I’m sure they were a tight knit group – even with all their inner squabbling about who would be more important.

Or maybe it was because John was part of the very first church where fellowship was a key part of their worship and spiritual growth.

Or maybe it was because of the words of Paul in Galatians and I Corinthians where he likens Christians to a body. A body certainly has fellowship with itself. It’s not like our liver goes out on its own or your foot takes a walk by itself.

The thing is, God created us for fellowship. Even in the Garden of Eden when Adam was in a perfect paradise, God said it wasn’t good for him to be alone. Granted, in this case, God gave Adam a wife, but God could have made it so Adam hung out by himself, too. After all, the man was living in paradise where everything was perfect. But God didn’t do that. Instead he created humans to need other humans.

That is still true today, but the thing with our crazy, modern lives is that while we are constantly connected, we very rarely experience true fellowship.

I love Facebook as much as the next person, but it isn’t really made for anything other than rather shallow dives into the lives of others. It’s hard to tweet what’s on your heart in 140 characters or less, and even if a picture is worth a thousand words, that picture may not even be a reflection of what is really going on in someone’s life.

How many people do you really know and when you compare their social media account to their real lives there is a monumental gap between the perception and the reality? Or even your own life. I know I don’t put all the nitty gritty stuff on Facebook (and I’m a pretty real, let-it-all-hang-out type of girl) because honestly, social media isn’t really made to be a place of deep knowing.

While I have developed real relationships with other women online, those relationships took time and energy to forge. I’ve belonged to a mom’s group since my youngest was 2 years old. He’s now 14. Our lives have changed and morphed, but we pray for each other and support each other through births, through rocky marriages, and even death. It’s a beautiful thing. Even on that board, there are some women I know more deeply because we have talked through email or on the phone. We have consciously made our connections deeper.

But online friends don’t take the place of friends who are bone and flesh, either. How is it that despite the whirlwind of activity among crowds of people that make up most of our lives, a common theme among women is feeling they are doing life all alone?

This is true even in our churches because activities aren’t fellowship either. While I enjoy a women’s event as much as the next person, these are not places that generally forge deep fellowship. They can open the door to fellowship, but true fellowship takes time and energy and investment – something many of us can’t imagine doing because we are already running on fumes.

But we yearn for it, and that’s not a mistake because God made us for fellowship – particularly with other believers. The Greek word used in the verse above is koinonia and it means community, communion, joint participation or intimacy. It’s also a term that is sometimes used for sex in the Bible. When you see that euphemism that so and so “knew” his wife – that is what they are talking about.

Over and over again in the New Testament, there are instructions and exhortations on how to live in fellowship with other believers. Paul says that unbelievers will know we belong to Christ by the way we love each other.

That gives me pause because I wonder what people see when they look at my life? How about yours?

The truth is real fellowship is not just connecting. It is soul to soul communication and that doesn’t happen without the investment of time. Something we all seem to be in short supply of these days.

God tells us He saved us so we could have abundant life. I believe part of that abundance is our fellowship with other believers. When we let busyness chain us to the master of urgency, our lives don’t feel so abundant. In fact, they seem a bit depleted.

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired (figuratively AND literally) of doing life in a way that doesn’t tap into all that God has for me here on this earth, including true fellowship. Are you ready to do life differently too? I hope you’ll join me this month as we look at ways to break those bonds of busyness so we can truly live.

Blessings, Rosanne

It’s been a year since I got the phone call. A year since Carla Dysert got in her car, intending to go to work, but instead went to meet Jesus.

I still miss Carla. I miss her way of looking at things. I miss her upbeat outlook on life, that no matter what happened, God was ultimately in control. I miss how she challenged me to step up and step out.

The day Carla died, it just didn’t make sense to me. Here was a woman who went out of her way (sometimes WAY out of her way) to do whatever God was asking of her. Here was a woman who made a real difference in Jesus’ name.

So, I sent out a challenge – the Carla Dysert Challenge. You can read about here, but the challenge, in a nutshell was this – “whatever it is you feel God telling you to do, just do it. Put it at the very top of your to do list. Don’t let busyness or fear or doubt or just feeling silly keep you from it. Whatever opportunity God places in your path, take the time to act on it.”

That post was read more than anything else I have ever posted. It had almost 21,000 readers. All over Facebook and on Twitter, people vowed to take the Carla Dysert Challenge.

It totally warmed my heart to think of Carla’s legacy continuing. I thought she would have gotten a big kick out of it, too.

But you know how life is. We get busy. The pain of loss dulls to an ache. The emotions that run so high after a sudden loss die down, and we get back to our everyday lives.

And the challenge we took up with such passion and fervor on that day last November, gets pushed to the back, like all the the other good intentions that grow dusty, pushed to the back of our lives by the urgent.

The thing is, though, some of you actually followed through on the Carla Dysert Challenge.

For myself, this year, I made Carla my word for the year. It wasn’t to idolize her or put her on some kind of a pedestal. Not only is it a recipe for disillusionment to put any human (no matter how special) way up on a pedestal, I know that wouldn’t have been something Carla even wanted.

Nope, I made her name my word for the year to remind me to be intentional about looking for the opportunities God puts in my path, to be willing to listen to God’s still, small voice and to have a heart that is willing to do what that still, small voice asks, even when it doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense. Even when I feel foolish.

I wanted to be challenged by Carla’s legacy, even though she was no longer here to do the pushing. I wish I could tell you a story of some huge, great thing I did in the name of that challenge, but I can’t. What I can tell you is that I said a lot more yeses this year, and those small yeses have made a difference in my life, and hopefully, in the lives around me.

And I guess that is okay because at the foundation of Carla’s legacy was a daily faithfulness, a faithfulness to say yes to the everyday ordinary things. It was the accumulation of all those yeses that made Carla’s legacy something we still remember a year after she is gone.

I wonder – did you take the Carla Dysert Challenge? Since I have no real way to follow up except through this blog, I am hoping you will take a moment and share how the Carla Dysert Challenge changed you this year. If I get enough people maybe we can do a series of interviews. What better way to honor Carla than by sharing how we obeyed her God this past year!

Blessings, Rosanne

Today, I’m linking up at Chatting at the Sky where at the end of every month, we share what we’ve learned that month.

I’m going to be completely real here and say this has been one of the hardest months of my life. I wish I could list some fun things, but this is probably going to be a fairly heavy post. Sorry about that!

But I do hope that in sharing, maybe you’ll feel a little less alone if your July was kind of tough.

1. Knowing you need to let your kids go is easy to say, but not as easy to do. My oldest son turned 17 the last week of July – July 29th to be exact – and he will be a senior this coming year. He also went away to camp for the first time (he had never really wanted to before), and he didn’t just go away. He went 20 HOURS away to Daytona Beach for a Christian conference with his youth group. I’m normally pretty laid back as far as worrying, but I have to be honest, that drive made me VERY nervous. I was never so glad to see someone as when my oldest came through my front door! I’m not sure what I’m going to do when he goes after college. For now, I’m in denial about all that! 😉

2. On the same note, kids bloom on their own time table. My oldest is kind of quiet and reserved. I was always worried that he didn’t have enough of a social life. This summer, all that has changed. I’m not sure if it is because he can drive now or if it is because he has suddenly discovered girls or what, but now, he’s flitting around with friends all the time. I’m glad – it’s great to have a group of friends – but I’m also sad because, well, we’ve entered a new chapter. Oddly, my younger son went through this much earlier. He has been a social butterfly all through junior high and I don’t really see that changing.

3. My parents and my in-laws are getting older. I know – duh right? But seriously, in my mind, my parents are somewhere in their 50s. But recent events have driven home the reality that my parents and my in-laws are now officially elderly. My dad has cancer and went through a rough patch this spring. He is doing MUCH better now, but his pace is a little slower. This month, my mother-in-law had a stroke. She’s is also (thank you, Lord!) doing well and it could have been much worse. But it just really drove home to me that as my husband’s and my parents age, we need to remember to take time NOW because we are not guaranteed tomorrow.

4. A phone call can change your life. On July 30, almost the last day of this month, I got a phone call that completely changed my life. My mother called to say they had news of my brother. See, my brother had gone missing in mid-June sometime. When my husband and I got to my parent’s house, they shared the devastating news that my brother’s body had been found, and he had taken his own life. It’s what I had feared, but you know, you just don’t think that stuff will happen to YOUR family. Tomorrow is my brother’s memorial service.

5. This brings me to the fifth thing I learned this month – don’t put off making that phone call or visiting that person because you don’t know if there actually will be that opportunity later. I know I wish I had called or visited my brother more. I wish I had seen one last time. Now that opportunity is gone. I won’t ever get another chance to pick up the phone or drive across town to see my brother.

6. Even if you don’t know what to say or do, reach out anyway. One thing I have learned in the past few days is that it is beyond comforting to have people reach out to you when you are in pain. I tend to be a private processor. When I fall apart, I like to do it alone; so when other people have gone through a painful time, I’ve sent cards and emails, but generally give them space, thinking they need that privacy. My brother’s death has shown me that I may not have gotten that right. The phone calls I got from tentative friends who weren’t sure what to say in the face of the unimaginable were a great source of comfort to me. I will remember in the future when my friends go through their own grief.

7. Grief is a strange and weird thing. It has been five days since I got that phone call that rocked my world, and sometimes I think I am doing okay. Other times, I can barely stand under the heavy waves of grief that wash over me. I find myself crying over the weirdest things in the strangest places – like in the grocery store while buying a gift card. I suppose the rest of journey of grief will be equally odd.

I know my list of what I learned isn’t exactly upbeat, but this hasn’t been the easiest month. I guess I should add a #8 to my list. Through the hardest thing I’ve ever been through, God has shown Himself in big and small ways to be faithful. He has protected us. He has sent unexpected people to comfort us in our sadness. He has given us multitudes of small graces that make bearable what should be unbearable.

What did you learn in July? I’d love to hear about it!

Blessings, Rosanne

It’s June all ready. School is over and the first week of summer vacation has commenced. It also means that it is time to link up with Emily Freeman over at Chatting with the Sky to share what we’ve all learned this month.  You can check out the conversation here.

This month was actually a pretty big month for me, as far as learning stuff. In fact, I could say it was pretty profound. Over the course of my life, there have been moments that God has used to redefine life as I know it. This month, saw several of those moments. So, here it goes – what I learned in May.

1. You can build it, but they ain’t coming. At the beginning of May, I started listening to Jen Hatmaker’s book Interrupted. While I don’t agree with all of Hatmaker’s theology, I couldn’t get away from the fact that she said so many things that resounded with me. The idea – when you come down to it – that we can build a church building and then spend all our time, energy and resources bustling around in it and the lost will just magically find us, does seem rather unrealistic. But that’s what we do. We no longer live in a culture where going to church equals being a good person (in fact, the opposite is true and if you claim to be a church goer, you are often met with suspicion or even hostility). In order to win the community, we have to be out IN the community. We need to actually DO what Christ asked us to do – which is to help the poor, the hurting and the oppressed. Having another church activity with our church friends, while not bad in and of itself, doesn’t accomplish that. Which led me to my next epiphany.

2. When I cry, it gives me a headache. While still listening to Hatmaker’s book, I also read David Platt’s Come Follow Me. To say this book had an impact on me is a major understatement.  Halfway through, I ended up spending an entire day with my Bible, in prayer with frequent bouts of crying. I’m not much of a crier and I learned that crying gives me a major headache, but Tylenol aside, I spent part of that time deeply examining what it means to be saved. That day, God opened my eyes to the years – literally YEARS – I had wasted by not getting this crucial truth.

3. We are ALL supposed to be living as missionaries. If Hatmaker’s book showed the importance of getting out into the community to know and serve people, Platt’s book brought it home about WHY we need to do this. It’s as simple as one of Jesus’ last statements to His disciples and to us. “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 28:19). Missionary work is not just for those people who visit once a year and live in far off places. If we are believers, it is for each of us. We are ALL supposed to be multiplying.

4. Knowing Truth brings peace. For years, I’ve felt restless. I’ve felt like there HAS to be more than just going to church on Sunday mornings. In my late 20s, I learned to study the Bible for myself. I learned to know God – not just know about Him (major difference). It changed my life. Since then, it’s not as if I have done nothing for God. I’ve been involved in women’s ministry. I teach a women’s Sunday school class. I volunteer and teach at a home that houses young women who are struggling with getting on their feet – either through a pregnancy or tough circumstances. But the restlessness was still there – like we were all somehow missing the point. Now, though, I don’t feel restless or vaguely guilty – I know what I’m supposed to be doing which brings me to the other thing I learned.

5. Knowing Truth brings purpose. All my life I’ve been a story teller. When I was a kid, they used to send us out on recess no matter how cold it was. I soon devised a way to stay warm – I’d tell stories. As long as I kept everyone entertained, I’d have a small swarm of girls sitting around me, blocking the wind and chill. I always kind of wondered what purpose story telling could have. I mean, if you’re a doctor, you save people. Telling stories, while entertaining, didn’t seem to have a purpose really. God pointed something out to me just the other night. I was at Guiding Light (where I volunteer) and a woman asked if I could come to an event and “tell one of your stories.” When I teach, I often use the power of story to share a vital truth. It allows people to connect to that truth in a different way than just facts or information do. I also love animals, and Kipper, my collie, has been an ambassador of sorts in my neighborhood. I’ve met people I never would have if I had been walking on my own. Everything I do is now filtered through the lens of making disciples. It gives me passion and purpose and a strange sense of peace.

I know I am supposed to just share what I learned this month, but can I just end with what I HOPE to learn next month? I want to learn what it means to be a missionary right where I am using the gifts, talents, and passions with which God has created me.

My blog’s name is Divine Ordinary because I truly believe God often uses the ordinary to do the extraordinary. This month, I learned how much deeper that truth really goes. We do not have to go to Africa or some other far off place to be a missionary. We can do that right where we are at.

Blessings, Rosanne

The pictures were horrific –  debris littering the streets; flames licking the black sky; screams and chaos renting the air; police officers in riot gear facing an angry crowd.

For the second time, in less than a year, violence and anger boiled over and bled into the streets. Racial tensions snapped into retaliation by a life carelessly, callously thrown away.

This year has felt like a parade of violence. Every time I turn on the television or peruse my news feeds, someone is being shot or choked or beheaded or burned or some other unspeakable, awful, incomprehensible thing.

While Baltimore was rocked by racial riots, Nepal was shaken and reduced to rubble by Mother Nature. Thousands were displaced, missing, dead.

It seems like too much. Too much death and suffering. Too much to take in or absorb or process.

I look at it all and feel helpless and hopeless. The gulf seems so wide. The problems seem too big, too difficult, insurmountable. The blows seem to come in waves that continuously lap at the shore of my soul and relentlessly wear it away.

And there doesn’t seem like there is anything I can do. What is one person, one voice in the face of that endless tide of pain and heartache and sadness?

Yet, small slivers of hope shine through. A young boy hands water to a police officer. Grace in the face of pain and hurt.

A wall of men stand up. Thousands of men and women quietly, peacefully protest – stand tall, their silence shouting the need for justice, for accountability, for acknowledgment.

A father, bent by grief and pain, asks for peace, asks for what he wasn’t given.

Across the world, a baby, tiny face caked with dirt, is found alive. A shining miracle among the mayhem.

A young man, hope mingled with despair, willing others to hear him. Afraid he was lying in his own grave, is found. Another miracle of life in a landscape of death.

But, the hope, the joy moments seem small – their light weak in the face of the vast darkness of these past weeks.

And yet, if we are believers, we have peace. We have hope. We have joy.

 Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Romans 15:13

At least, we can if we dare to have faith. It starts with a question – do you believe?

Do you believe that God is bigger than any crisis?

Do you believe that God is good despite circumstances?

Do you believe God is working amidst the hurt and pain and anger?

Do you believe that your God is the same God who parted the Red Sea, brought down the walls of Jericho, stopped the sun in its orbit, saved and redeemed all of mankind?

This is the type of God we serve:

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us. Ephesians 3:20

Now – not yesterday or sometime in the future, but right now.

He who is able – God is able. He is bigger than any problem. He put the planets into orbit, placed the mountains and formed the oceans. Our problems are infinitesimal in the face of His power.

To do far more abundantly beyond – Paul was so overwhelmed by God’s ability that he can’t quite find the words to express it. He is saying God is so able, he can’t even really express God’s able-ness. He has to keep tacking on adjective after adjective.

All that we ask or think – Our requests are puny compared to what God can and will do in and through us. It’s beyond our capacity to even think up what to ask because our perspective is so small and so narrow compared to God’s.He sees the events of the past week and they don’t surprise Him.

According to the power that works within us – If we belong to God, His Spirit resides in us. John writes in I John 4:4 that greater is He that in us than he that is in the world. In another verse, it says we are MORE than conquerors through Christ. The same power that works in and through us, is the power that raised Christ from the dead.

Despite the grim news and discouraging reports, we can have hope and peace and joy. It all comes down to whether we are willing to believe more in God’s goodness than in the world’s evil.

Blessings, Rosanne