If you’re a regular reader, hop on over to Preston’s blog to see my post about the beautiful church.  Here is an excerpt in the meantime~

Children wander the streets and congregate in the church
parking lot.  When I pull my car up four
times a week, the kids flock with an excitement that seems be God saying, “Caroline, here are my children; now, bring
them to Me.”  Sometimes I feel like “the mission” is just as much for me
relearning—daily—the Gospel of Christ.

I am surrounded by more non-Christians while at church than
I am anytime throughout the week.  These
non-Christians in church humble me to the core, but they remind me of what I
have—and the only thing I have—The
Gospel.  They remind me that what I
have received changes everything, and they
remind me how desperately I need to spill the Hope of Christ with every
opportunity.

Yes, we need to share the Gospel with those who haven’t
heard it, but perhaps the Gospel also should be repeated, shared, and quoted to
us who know Christ just as often.  When the Gospel rolls off our lips and
conveyed through our love, it transforms us.

It has transformed me.
I love and treasure the Gospel
more now because of the inexplicable beauty of seeing it hit the ears of those
within my church.  

Gift #7:  The Word.

The opportunity to meet with the Creator of the universe each morning is an honor, privilege, certainly a reason to rejoice.  Amen?

As I had my Bible sprawled across my lap in one of the cliche Christian moments [complete with a cup of coffee!], I was reminded of a project my friend Jill is doing.

Not everyone has a Bible to read…. or 5 like I do.  Not everyone can  daily commune with the Lord through His Word.  Not everyone can get to Mardel and pick up a new one when the binding gives out.

and Jill is doing something to help.  By doodling fancy pictures like the one above, she’s working to translate a book of the Bible for the Ehty people in South Asia who don’t have the Bible in their own language.  She’s inspiring because she’s actually doing something, and she’s empowering because she’s letting us partake.

I’m jumping on board, and I encourage/dare you to too.  It’s a way to take one of our gifts and give a gift to someone else.

Check out her site for some cool drawings and see what she’s doing to… change the world for an entire group of people.  Here’s the link!

]]> http://www.carolinegear.com/blog/2012/02/03/1000-gifts-a-gift-to-give/feed/ 0 http://www.carolinegear.com/blog/2012/01/16/the-start-of-1000-gifts/ http://www.carolinegear.com/blog/2012/01/16/the-start-of-1000-gifts/#comments Mon, 16 Jan 2012 19:00:59 +0000 admin http://www.carolinegear.com/blog/?p=4039 One of my goals for 2012 is to slow life down– even just mentally– to take in, embrace, and enjoy the gifts around me.  My calmer self might be a gift to those around me too!

When I rush, I hurry to the next thing without fully finishing the now.
When I stress, I lose the moment and allow panic to override joy.
When I worry, I sacrifice the woes of tomorrow for the contentment of today.

I miss out.

With the prompting of Ann Voskamp’s book One Thousand Gifts, I’m going to chronicle the gifts of 2012.  My desire is to train my mind and heart to take the gifts of today and immediately thank the Lord for His sweet mercy in allowing me, a feeble, sinning, selfish human being to see a glimpse into His ways as He pours out His love.

Alas, here are the gifts for this week!

1.  Clayton drove 3 hours (actually 4 hours after he got lost!) after working 70 hours just to spend less than 24 hours with me.  And it’s such a gift that so little time can be so refreshing to the soul.

2. Little children to teach that remind me how simple, powerful, and revolutionary the Gospel is and little children to grow my patience and remind me that my mother poured so much love in to me.  Praise God for mothers.

3.  Makeup (and coffee) for when I’m tired.  Admit it, it’s a gift.

4. My job is to learn about faith—how God’s hand weaves together our limited understanding so that we can know His Heavenly self.

5. A friend that is just as guilty of loving blogs and writing as much as I do and therefore willing to wake up early and go to a writer’s workshop.  Check out Nincy’s blog here, and it’ll be a gift for you. 

I suffered but pushed onward.  I knew if I could make it to sunrise, I-35N wouldn’t seem near as daunting.

7 a.m. came, but darkness was still holding its hand.  There was a looming darkness that covered the road, and I longed for the sun.

Then something happened I’ve never experienced.  In the blink of an eye, darkness retreated.  What was a depressing, lingering darkness was replaced with a shining hopeful light.

I looked behind me and saw the culprit of darkness—a heavy, dense fog that hovered low to the ground.  The fog was so overpowering I had missed that the sun had risen while I was waiting.

For the remainder of the morning I drove in and out of the fog.  Yet since I knew the sun shone, it was easier to endure the momentary darkness.

My perspective on God is much like driving in fog. 

Sometimes when I don’t see God, I become weary.  I assume darkness because all light is clouded by fog.
Other times I discern I’m in a season of fog.  While I wait for the fog to lift I know that the sun is shining and I will see it soon.

When we don’t acknowledge the fog, we can feel hopeless.
When we do acknowledge the fog, we know that there is light amidst the apparent darkness.

The sun always rises.
always.  while fog may cover our perspective, know with confidence that the light is shining.

we can rest well tonight knowing the sun will rise.
While behind the fog, remember there’s no darkness that God’s light does not reach.

Even the darkness is not dark to You,
And the night is as bright as the day.
Darkness and light are alike to You.
Psalm 139:12

I’ve lived in Waco for 4 years and I’m still finding new things to do and my to-see/do/experience list is growing.  People who say Waco is boring need to get out of their little bubble.  It’s all about perspective I’m learning.

I hope you had a wonderful weekend wherever you were.

I track the hours I work on a dorky spreadsheet and find an embarrassingly odd joy in tallying the totals.

I am confident my little pathfinder is eating my gas as a joke so I track every mile I drive.

I find a weird joy seeing if our electric bill is cheaper than the month before.

Every night I count how many hours of sleep I get, and if I get “enough” (whatever that means) I either coach myself through the day and kick myself for acting tired or promise myself a nap.

I calculate how far I run, how fast I get ready in the mornings, how long it takes to get to my Monday morning orthodontist appointment in traffic, which only makes me more frustrated…

Everything I calculate gives me a somewhat arbitrary number, and then the total gives me purpose or a mode of measurement. I can determine if a day is good by these pointless calculations.

It’s silly.

And I’m so glad God doesn’t tally my sins—my white lies, my bad attitudes, my judgmental thoughts. Instead he says his blood covers all sin and our calculations are a poor reflection of his unconditional love. I’m so thankful that God does his calculations in the God-Caroline relationship. His equation is love, grace, and forgiveness– things we certainly don’t give to ourselves.

I’ve trained myself to put the stray key in my wallet right after using it.

but like most good intentions, it doesn’t always make it there.  Even if 90% of the time it lands in the right place, 10% is a lot of frantic lost key moments.

every time someone sees it I spit back,

“it’s a disaster waiting to happen!” with a chuckle.

and then do NOTHING.

There’s a simple solution; get the darn key replaced.  Cough up the money for that dumb security chip embedded in the key and have some peace of mind.

The problem is that I subsciously place the key in the wallet (90% of the time) and therefore have begun to think it’s normal.  I’m used to the pattern and ignore the hassle… and the danger of losing the darn key.

We do this all of the time.  When we first begin to sin, we are timid and it’s a big deal.  Slowly, we justify and eventually become comfortable.  It’s a scary reality.  We should never become comfortable in something so stupid.  Why am I running the risk of losing my only key? Stupidity, laziness, and denial of my scattered-brainness.

May a lifestyle lacking purpose, motivation, and drive for the things of God never ever become normal.

May we intentionally be moving toward Christ at all times.
(and stay on me to get my key replaced)

I treasure these past four years like never before.

it’s been sending me down memory lane constantly this week,

so now you can come walk with me.

Baylor and I go way back, you see…

Cousin Taylor and I came together, and if you notice, Taylor still doesn’t smile in pictures with me..

Within the first few weeks I met some of my closest friends in all college in my small group.

I have so many memories with each of these girls, and they played such a pivotal role in transitioning to my new home . We quickly learned to be honest- gut honest- and cry and pray with one another within weeks of meeting each other.

See, we just did life together.

and mothered each other…

and faced our fears…

Now that we’ve transitioned into college together, we’re transitioning out together.

and freshman year i became a pi phi angeland endured the rush process…and became a Texan, complete with the word “yall”

My “Texan” was officially earned when I went sledding on an inch of snowin 50 degree weather.

I got to live with my best friends

and date my very best friend the entire way

and I studied a little too to get that Religion and Professional Writing degree

I did things that only make sense in the Baylor world.

and things that don’t make sense anywhere.

and had lots of first…

but never made it through a first full football game

but be assured I did support my bears (in my heart)

I acted like a child

and sometimes like an infant

all the while celebrating every birthday

and every Christmas with my college family

and always took Sunday afternoon pics outside of Cafe Capp.

goodbyes are so sad, so let’s not make them.

instead, may I dwell on how blessed, loved, and protected I’ve been. Surely the Lord was gracious when he placed me amidst dear dear dear dear friends.

I have a final 3 hours.  It feels forever away.

-

It’s one of those literature tests where you cannot fully prepare for or really prepare at all.  One of the books I’ll be writing over is Slaughter House Five, and if you’ve read it you realize that it’s a trippy, sci-fi novel and being sober minded makes the book rather… odd is a kind word.

-

Thus, I’m here blogging because I cannot bring myself to do anything else.  You know when you have a looming dread and you literally cannot do anything else but think about it?

-

It’s just a literature test (in my FINAL LIT CLASS EVER!) and it’s only three hours, but we do this all of the time.  We say I’ll get to after… and in the meantime we watch the time crawl by.

I’ll serve later.

I’ll pray later.

I’ll get serious about my faith…

After…

after I graduate college, after I get married, after I have kids, or… after my test in my case.

-

enough moping.  I’m going to do something productive.

Update: I ended up watching decorating shows for an hour and a half. fail.

However, this is what I found:

This Kroger is slightly confused.  It doesn’t know quite what it wants to be.

Does Kroger want to be a Bed Bath & Beyond?

A Sams?

A Lowes?

A Dillards?

or a Furniture Store?

This might be peer pressure at its finest leaving Kroger with an identity crisis.

[You were warned:  this post is adequately tagged completely pointless.]