taylor the latte boy responds...

here are a few highlights from dessert theater. and by "highlights" i mean "wonderful things maxx did." 

and in case you don't really understand the "taylor the latte boy responds" song, watch the video below it first. that is the "taylor the latte boy" song. which in our production was sung by an adorable high school girl named emma. instead of kristen chenowith. who is also adorable. but not a high school girl. nor a member of FBC tallahassee's youth group.

rosalea did wonderful things too. she was running the backstage. putting on scenery. microphones. handing out props. but it is difficult to video or take photos of backstage help.

dessert theater is a yearly occurrence at our church. and it is a HUGE pain during rehearsals and you think you will never survive the schedule. but you do survive. mostly. and in the end it is amazing. and the kids are fantastic. and the money raised goes to the youth mission/choir tour. and it is something all the kids that graduate talk about how much they miss being in it every year. and the parents that are finished with the marathons of dessert theater talk about how much they miss their kids being in it now. and i know i am coming to the last of my performers (though rosie may keep working her backstage magic.) and i know i will miss seeing him on stage also. mostly because he loves to be on stage so much (he got that from his mama.) but i have one more year...

i am a genius..

and kind of like the ole “i am a poet and didn’t know it” saying, i had NO idea how smart i was until i read donald miller’s blog today.

 the donald was short and sweet with this lesson... 

ELEMENT OF SUCCESS: MAKE OLD FRIENDS OLD FRIENDS...

Here’s a secret I learned long ago. It’s a big one and it’ll propel you into a future of greatness….

STOP TAKING SOCIAL CUES FROM YOUR PEERS.

Instead of taking social cues from people your age, take cues from people ten and twenty years older than you. Are you looking for a church that has a lot of people who are your age so you can hang out? That’s fine, but try looking for one where most of the people have families and perhaps a little grey hair. Why? Because the sooner you can relate to their priorities, the sooner you’ll be ready for the next stage of life. I’m in my late thirties but I’m more interested in hanging out with people who are retired. What’s it teaching me? It’s teaching me what matters later in life is friendships, family and love. In matters of faith, what matters to them is not theological debate, but closeness with Jesus and unity with believers.

that is why i LOVE my Bible study group of women who are all 10-20-30 years older than i am. and perhaps that is why the greene girls spend so much time at my house because i am 10ish years older than they are. hey, that makes them GENIUSES too!

is the plural of genius geniuses or genui?

hmmm, a real genius would have known.

sigh.

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vbs week...

because obviously my sanctification process requires more than just a week with teenagers... i need a week with elementary school children too. i really think a week on vacation in hawaii might lead me to a closer walk with Jesus. right???????? who is with me on this???????

though the best part of the week was watching 83 year old mrs. gerry teach the same flannel graph (not board, but GRAPH she calls it) lesson that she most likely taught to me a scant 3 decades ago. that is a long walk of obedience in the same direction. a lot of flannel graphing for the glory of God. 

and then watching my 16 year old daughter teach music to those kids. even though she was tired and her throat hurt and she wanted to still be sleeping. she smiled. and hugged. and sang. and taught. 

it was a good week. for my sanctification process. but not as good as that elusive week in hawaii might be...

psalm 119:90 
Your faithfulness continues 
through all generations; 
You established the earth, 
and it endures.

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may 20th...

i LOVE LOVE LOVE my Bible study group. i forgot my camera yesterday and had to take these photos with my phone. so they aren’t the best. but these gals are the BEST.

yesterday was our last meeting until fall. and so after our study time, we had a salad luncheon together. we had been doing beth moore’s “when Godly people do ungodly things” (which i think beth might rename “the life and times of lea marshall”). and in the last video yesterday beth explained so well why i LOVE LOVE LOVE my Bible study group...

they don’t throw stones. (to be explained a bit more in a minute, just hold the thought)...

to look at them you might not realize it but most of them are quite a bit older than i am... some of them were my mother’s closest friends and sunday school cohorts. some of them taught me in sunday school back in the day (like the day when i still wore diapers... so up until the 1980’s). the leader is patsy and she is a former high school english teacher. so she makes us do our homework. and she uses words that i have to look up in the dictionary later... like recalcitrant. yes, she used that in a sentence. 

we met this spring at mrs. gardner’s beautiful home. and the lunch yesterday was so gracious and lovely. just like her. mrs. gardner was my mother’s best friend. and her daughter and i taught school together. and went to the ABC store together (ABC school supply, NOT the liquor store). and mrs. gardner and mr. gardner were the only ones waiting outside the hospital room at midnight when the doctor told my dad and i that my mom’s stroke was a really bad one and that she would most likely never recover. i walked out of that hospital room into the arms of mr. and mrs. gardner and began to sob into their laps. there is NO one else that could have been there that would have been a more welcome, comforting, and familiar sight. i will never forget the absolute relief in seeing them and knowing that i could cry into their arms and be held.

anyway, that is who those women are to me. and now onto the “they don’t throw stones” part. beth moore was going over the story of the woman caught in adultery. and she pointed out that as Jesus wrote whatever He wrote into the sand that the crowd, who had previously been ready to stone this woman, began to thin. the older ones leaving  first... 

john 8: 6-9
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, 
let him be the first to throw a stone at her." 
Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard 
began to go away one at a time, 
the older ones first, 
until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there.

and she pointed out that the older we get, the less likely we are to throne stones. the longer we live, the more we realize that we don’t have a stone to throw. that our house is glass. that if anyone should have been stones... it should have been us. each one of us. and that God could have held the rock. but instead He rolled it away. 

and that is why i LOVE LOVE LOVE my Bible study gals. they don’t throw stones. they accept me. they love me to pieces. and they have lived enough of life to know that they aren’t perfect. that i am not perfect. and that there is only One who is the Righteous Judge. nary a stone thrower in the group. and they make some really good salads. not to mention mrs. gardner’s sour cream lemon tarts for dessert. whoops, sorry to mention it.

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