I drank the Kool-Aid

and moved my blog to WordPress. I feel so grown up! Sort of like when I gave up MySpace and switched to Facebook entirely. That is where all the MATURE people blog. Right? Maybe not.

You can now visit me at www.dawnlovitt.wordpress.com

I had another dream

I had a dream and it was...scary.

In my dream I was H.O.T. - as I am in all my dreams, but I digress. That was not the scary part. In my dream it was just another Manic Monday (whooa ohhh... Monday is group night at GCC you know) and I was sitting at my desk at the church and my Director extraordinaire came in and told/asked me to prepare a curriculum for a new class that I would be teaching THAT NIGHT. Yes, that was the scary part boys and girls. I WOULD BE TEACHING!

The subject: Death.

"Finding hope in death" to be exact.

Like a good soldier, I did not blink an eye at the thought of researching and coming up with material for a class that would begin in less than 8 hours. My dream self felt VERY confident about being able to provide material for this class. What my dream self was NOT prepared for was.....drumroll please.... PRESENTING THE MATERIAL TO A ROOM FULL OF MIDDLESCHOOLERS! Yeah, you read that right.

The funny thing is...ever since I woke up, I have still been working on my "curriculum" as if it were an actual assignment.

Surrender....Not just a Cheap Trick song.

So, this is a big share for me. I have alluded a few times about a difficult relationship and my failed attempts at reconcilliation. Today I had a big DING! go off in my head. (again?) I had a few little dings pinging around here and there about it but today the big DING! hit me.

Dang! I AM a human being!



You see, my first mistake has been the fact that I believed that the descriptive word "difficult" or "strained" or "bad" that I put in front of the word "relationship" was a SHARED belief between me and the other party.



My second mistake...maybe there is no heirarchy or order of mistakes...my OTHER mistake was my timing in my efforts to "repair" or "reconcile" this relationship. Just because I thought the timing seemed appropriate does not mean that it WAS APPROPRIATE for that other person. Looking back at all this, that person has every reason to think, say, believe that I am a stark raving LUNATIC. That person did not know that I had been having "nudges" I believed were urging me to move toward "fixing" the relationship. For all I know, that person was able to put the past in the past and I am digging up corpses. To that person I look like an insane mechanic that is changing the oil on a car that just had it's oil changed and in the process replaces oil with transmission fluid and therefore creates a NEW (and/or worse) problem.



My big DING! though...this is what hit me...maybe all this time, these "nudges" I was feeling were more about NOT taking action. These nudges were more about me realizing that this is beyond MY control and that I should turn it over to GOD and pray...."Search me O God"...SURRENDER. This is bigger than me. I do not have the power to change anything or anyone other than ME.

Dang it.

(Trite cliche: Hindsight is 20/20.) Sometimes in my efforts to "be (or do) better" I need to slow down and examine the possible outcomes. (Glib response: Haste makes waste)

"Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." ~ Psalm 139:23-24 (NIV)

"Investigate my life, O God,

find out everything about me;

Cross-examine and test me,

get a clear picture of what I'm about;

See for yourself whether I've done anything wrong-

then guide me on the road to eternal life."

~ Psalm 139:23-24 (MSG)

Three small words. One huge statement.

"I'll go sleep in the woods with this dog before I give it away to a shelter."

(this comment delivered deadpan)

...from a gentleman going from A-Z under the heading of "churches" in the phone book. He quit drugs 2 years ago and is now suffering from cardiac sudden death syndrome and is awaiting his disability hearing. He and his wife of 17 years are facing eviction next week and his vehicle (a $150 beater that someone gave him) was totalled this past week. They have no income. He has nothing of value except the "$3000 dog" that someone gave him.

We (our church) is not in a place to solve his problem and part of my job - with the hope of finding help and the ability to resource them - is sometimes asking hard questions. After hitting many brick walls, it occasionally (more often these days) comes to the point where I have to ask the hardest ones:

"Do you have a place to go if you lose your home? Family, friends?"

I try to explain the tough reality that he may need to find a shelter.

Many people divert attention to the care of their pets. They love them and can't imagine sending them to the humane society where they could be euthanized or to a refuge organization where they will never get them back.

I have pets. I love them. If it came to it, would I give them up and take my family to a shelter?

At this point, he is trying to hold on to something, another living creature, for comfort when everything else is about to be lost.

I have never been in that place. I don't know the turmoil in the heart and mind of a person in this situation that causes this to be a tough decision.

It's hard being the voice of reality sometimes. It rips at my heart to have to tell someone that I can't help them. The only thing I can do is pray. This situation is beyond me.

I am seeing an increase in calls for assistance and this one made my heart hurt. I know, it could have been someone trying to "scam" the church. But I choose not to be jaded and err on the side of mercy.

So often people wait until the situation is past the point of repair before seeking help. Three small words, so hard to speak.

"I need help."

I had a dream

I had a dream....and it was silly.

In my dream, I was at my perfect weight and looking H.O.T. As I do in all of my dreams. They are MY dreams right? In this one, I was dating James VanderBeek (yeah, that guy from Dawson's Creek or more recently Mercy. In my dream, it was the Mercy version of him). It must have been Christmastime because he gave me a gift. It was a necklace with the initial D in diamonds. So, we spent my dream time visiting various people in his family and just random things weird things happened but what stuck out is one set of twin boys around the age of 3 or 4 followed us around for a little bit and as we were parting ways from them they made a point of each telling me "I'm 3rd" and the other said "I'm 4th" and James explained it meaning that in the heirarchy of favoritism within their family, that is the place that they hold. James proceded to tell me that he is first. Go figure. So, we are heading to the next family member and mind you, we are all about PDAs in this dream. (Holding hands, public smooching kind of stuff.) So, my dream self was a bit confused when James kind of wanted to be rid of me while visiting his father. His bedridden father. He actually told me, "why don't you go get your haircut while I am visiting with Dad" and when I asked him why, he told me "your hair is pretty robust" he apparently found it very important that I get my hair cut because he offered to cut it himself if I did not want to go have it done by someone. Oh, and he was NOT going to pay for the cutting of my robust hair. In my dream, I was alright with these things. I decided to go get my haircut. Pay for it myself - even though I was perfectly happy with my robust hair. Not to mention, my dream self was pretty confused as to why he wanted to get rid of me after what seemed to be a great day...

...and then I woke up. Pi$$ED! Dude, at no time in my life would I EVER date someone as self-absorbed as he was in my dream. Not to mention, manipulative and controlling. PLEASE!

So anyway....just had share.

Finding peace in 21 words

"...No eye has seen,

no ear has heard,

no mind has conceived

what God has prepared

for those who love Him"

~1 Corinthians 2:9

Joy is...

An empty email "in" box

YAY ME!

Just sharing.go ahead...be jealous.

...To Return to Facebook...or not.

It has been over 40 days. I "signed off" the Monday before Lent began and it is now the Wednesday after Easter.

I don't miss it.

I have had such a nice time not being there.

I have reordered my life without the distraction. I know, I am a grown up and I should be able to do both/and - to that I say "WHATEVER"

Obviously, I am not that responsible.

Let me tell you what I realized. Before my Facebook vacation, the first thing I did in the morning was get up with the alarm and then get Paige up for school and while she was showering and getting ready...I was on Facebook seeing what everyone was up to and when she was done about a half hour later I would hit the shower and get ready.

I replaced that time - with reading my Bible. I fell in love with that pretty fast. Even so that now on the weekends it is the first thing I do in the morning. I have read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts and the first 4 chapters of Romans. Quite often, I take a full hour of it because really, I do not have to look pretty to go out to the bus stop with Paige.

I also feel like I am spending more time with Dave and the girls. Well, actually, physically it is the same amount of time, just more present.

I have also had more time to read other things. It has been awesome.

So, what am I to do?

#1 I am deleting my Twitter account. Don't need it.

#2 I am going to go on Facebook and post this message.

"I don't hang out here very often anymore. I won't be updating my status. If you want to see what is going on in my life go to my blog. If you really are my friend, you have my number, give me a call to chat or maybe we can do lunch."

Historical Human Behavior, Hot Guys at the Gym, and Honoring God and Husband…

I have always found a nicely defined upper body an attractive trait on a man. Physically, it was always the first thing I noticed when spying a prospect from afar. . I am a girl who appreciates a nicely defined arm…not Mr. Universe over inflated…nicely muscled, proportion is important. That is the historical data.

So, with that history, there I was yesterday at the gym, pumping iron…or whatever the mineral that is a level below iron in weight would be more accurate…and when I was done I moseyed my way over to the bikes to do a brief 15 minute cardio cool down. My wonderful husband joined me minutes later on a bike next to me. I am rocking out to 18 Wheeler by P!nk getting into a groove and I notice a tall, nicely defined torso at the front counter, not too much of a moral struggle as the face was nothing special…reminded me of a Russian athlete. So I turn to my husband and, nodding my head in Nice Torso’s direction say “So, do you think the bottom half is teeny tiny or REALLY BIG?” (Seems like many guys at the gym focus a lot of their energy on their biceps and pecs and ignore their lower half and it just looks weird to me…or the upper half is okay and then the legs are freakishly over developed…but I digress.)

You see, my husband KNOWS what I am attracted to. As it turns out, when Nice Torso walked away from the front counter…we could not tell if the rest of him was proportionate because he was wearing track pants. The point of this is that I am trying to do something along the lines of honoring my husband by not eyeballing another man and pointing out that I noticed this guy to my husband helped me redirect my thoughts. So, Nice Torso moves out of my line of sight and I am good to go.

Seconds later…Nice Torso Revisited steps up to the counter (WHAT THE? The gym I go to has not before had a plethora of eye candy!) I am distracted yet again and then my eyes travel North of said torso and the face is cute and has a great smile! COME ON! At this point, I turn to my husband and I know - that he saw - me seeing - Mr. Revisited and so, I closed my eyes and focused on whatever P!nk was singing and finished my workout blind.

I kept thinking about the reason I was at the gym. Is it because I want to be healthy and get into shape? Yes, but also, there will always be that young girl that lives inside my head who can remember the looks on the faces of and hoots of excitement from all the boys when one of the boys in 6^th grade brought in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition – 1981 with Christie Brinkley on the cover…yeah, that one, and thinking that I need to look like that someday and struggling ever since then and never EVER reaching that ideal.

I do not need my husband comparing himself to these guys and wondering if he measures up. He far exceeds them! How often have we said “married not buried” or “look but don’t touch” It is the attitude that one small thought cannot POSSIBLY lead to one small step, or lead to another step, or a leap and then the next thing you know…you are not happy with what you have.

Am I saying that comparison shopping leads to unhappiness in your marriage or even infidelity? No, yes, maybe. It all depends on the situation I guess. For me, I don’t think that it is God honoring for me to be looking at these other men, not to mention whether or not it is honoring my husband, even though I believe myself to have the best marriage EVER. This is not about that. I don’t want my husband to doubt that I am happy with him. That I love him and am attracted to him as he is; that he does not have to be any version of “ideal” other than his current self.

Just Venting.....

but Jesus holds us to a higher standard: Matthew 5:27-30

The NIV versions states it this way:

"You have heard that it was said, 'Do not commit adultery.'^a]">[a] ²⁸But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. ²⁹If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. ³⁰And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

I like the way The Message translates the same verse:

^27-28"You know the next commandment pretty well, too: 'Don't go to bed with another's spouse.' But don't think you've preserved your virtue simply by staying out of bed. Your heart can be corrupted by lust even quicker than your body. Those leering looks you think nobody notices—they also corrupt.

^29-30"Let's not pretend this is easier than it really is. If you want to live a morally pure life, here's what you have to do: You have to blind your right eye the moment you catch it in a lustful leer. You have to choose to live one-eyed or else be dumped on a moral trash pile. And you have to chop off your right hand the moment you notice it raised threateningly. Better a bloody stump than your entire being discarded for good in the dump.

the jerk

I am starting to wonder how much the devil listens to the "little details" of our lives.

During the planning of a large event here at the church, I felt like the lives of we women playing significant roles in pulling off this event were either under attack or being over taxed. I won't get into those details here...don't want the jerk (that is what I call, Satan, Lucifer, the devil...whatever...I call him the jerk - no capital letters.) reveling in any glory.

However, I will share this, since I am the only one this is affecting. The other day my husband was talking about an issue I have with one of my elbows and I told him that it has not been bothering me in the way that it had in the past. It used to hurt really bad after I had been sleeping and then just ache, all the time and if I used it for anything it went from ache to PAIN. Well, for a few months, I had not felt that pain after waking or the ache unless I really overused it, and I had learned how to use it to a certain point and then let it rest.

Well, let me tell you, no sooner had I said those words...the next evening I awoke from a little early evening nap with my elbow in excruciatingly familiar pain and since then...the old ache is back and it makes me wonder...

the jerk

Just venting.

1 Peter 5: 8-11 (Message) Keep a cool head. Stay alert. The Devil is poised to pounce, and would like nothing better than to catch you napping. Keep your guard up. You're not the only ones plunged into these hard times. It's the same with Christians all over the world. So keep a firm grip on the faith. The suffering won't last forever. It won't be long before this generous God who has great plans for us in Christ—eternal and glorious plans they are!—will have you put together and on your feet for good. He gets the last word; yes, he does.

I gave up Facebook and Twitter for Lent and all I got was: Perspective

I realized that all of the "friends" I have on Facebook are not people who I mingle with daily and know very little about. We have never shared a meal, a cup of coffee, or even phone numbers and yet, I was peering into their lives in an almost voyeuristic fashion. However, the flip side of this could be Narcissism. On both sides of the coin actually.

I also wonder if people even pay attention to the "status" on my "wall" because according to my email alerts...which I neglected to cancel...a couple of people have posted something on my wall...to those people - sorry, I wont respond until Easter.

Oh, and PHOOEY ON YOU if you posted on my wall thinking I might have forgotten to cancel my email alerts and are trying to tempt me into checking. Well, let me tell you this people. I QUIT SMOKING six years ago...not checking Facebook is a CAKEWALK.

So, with this particular perspective, if I do continue my facebook membership, I may be culling the list of "friends" - I realize the crazy making of facebook was due to the fact that my home page was littered with the CONSTANT status updates of close to 200 people...some of whom update every 30 minutes...and I felt obligated to READ ALL OF THEM.

In the words of Susan Powter: "Stop the insanity!"

Open to suggestion

I miss blogging.

I need a topic.

Any suggestions?

This was said about me on Facebook:

"Cant stand "church going ", hypocritical people who judge those before they know them!! Remember god does not judge so neither should you!!!"

Why does this bother me?
I think it is because, I feel like I make Christ followers look bad to this person...and in turn to all this person's friends on Facebook.
Which in turn, is a poor reflection on Christ. (and He obviously had nothing to do with THIS!)

I know this person is lashing out at me, but it made me evaluate my action or statement that caused this person's reaction. First, it had nothing to do with the person who made the comment, this person's outrage is on behalf of someone else and is part of a long line of miscommunication that I went to the source that same day and sorted out. Second, no, we as human beings are not to judge someones heart or character. That is the job of God alone. However, as human beings we are allowed to judge behaviors and to have opinions. Without that, there would be pedophiles, rapist, murders, and thieves running about willy nilly as well as generation upon generation of unruly and undisciplined children.

On top of that, "the best predictor of future behavior, is past behavior"

And so in the wake of a very trying couple of weeks I find this just exhausting.

People are having a hard time accepting that I am a Christ follower.
Maybe they CAN accept that but seem to think that now that I follow Christ that I am no longer supposed to act like a human being.

I am not perfect.
I still cuss (GASP!)
I still have fears
I still drink (FOR SHAME!)
...I did quit smoking...but that was for purely selfish reasons...like wanting to live longer.

I am sure there are a plethora of things that I still do that are not Christ-like...

...but I am not Christ.

I am human...and as such, throughout my day I find myself turning to God in a constantly ongoing conversation where I ask his opinion and ...don't hear an answer right away...or ask forgiveness (and receive it) for a comment or even a thought that was just inappropriate, or an action that I should not have done, or for hesitating when He presents me an opportunity to further His kingdom and it turns into an opportunity lost. However, this relationship I have with Him, also fuels me to get over myself and do what I can when I feel it is what He wants me to do. Learning to tell the difference between what He wants and what I think He wants...that can be a challenge but it takes an investment of time to learn the intricate and quiet language that he uses to reach each of us in our own unique ways. I am investing in that. For the record, I feel that even after 5 or 6 years now, I am still in freshman classes....first semester.

My love for Him, and His for me has opened up this line of constant communication that I cannot imagine my life without. It has brought about me a sense of peace that is almost always present but there is still a part of me that gets riled up when I begin to feel persecuted...such as the comment made above. It usually happens when my past collides with my present. There is a lot more history behind that comment than the comment alone. I have to remember that.

The God sighting in all of this was a comment made back to that person on Facebook:

"God does judge, but he and he alone has that responsibility.I love the Lord, and so I love people too.God said " love thy neighbor as you love yourself". I hope this helps you.... I don't know what you are dealing with , but know that you don't have to worry about what people think about you, but what God knows about you."