Answered Prayers

If you've been following my Facebook status updates, you know that this weekend was a pretty rough one. On Saturday Peanut had to go to the ER vet with excessive vomiting, and on Sunday she had to go in for surgery. I prayed a lot of prayers for her safety and God brought her through the surgery, and now she seems to be on the mend.

But there have been other answered prayers that might not be as obvious unless I blog about them. First the surgery expense. I prayed that she wouldn't need surgery, but that if she did, God would help us find a way to afford it. Well, it was expensive. But not as expensive as it could have been, since the vet found ways to cut costs without compromising Peanut's care. That shaved off about $1000 off the bill. They also gave us a $500 discount just to be nice. Didn't even mention it, it just showed up on the bill.

But that still left us with a pretty whopping bill. The vet told us there was a credit company they worked with that would do a 12 month interest free loan. I was all for that. I definitely didn't want to pay interest and make this any more expensive! So we got the loan. And THEN I realized that there are 3 pay days in April instead of the normal 2, which means I'll get some extra money that's not budgeted. So that will carry us through a few months of payment, along with some birthday money people are sending. Plus in June I'll get some writing pay which should carry us through most of the rest of it. In the end, we're not having to take much out of Dan's college fund, which was my main concern. I'm so thankful that God is providing for us to take care of my little baby.

Then a couple days ago I blogged about feeling like I needed God to turn back the sun and give me an extra day. Just one day to catch up on things. Well, he didn't do that. (You would've noticed if he had.) But he has given me the energy and efficiency to get more done this week than I ever would've thought I could - even with a recovering dog and a house-training puppy. I actually don't feel buried!

I could be really stressed right now. But I'm not. God has given me peace and shown me that his hand is over my life, even in the hard times. Praise the Lord!

One Day

"The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day." - Joshua 10:13

That is what I want. I keep feeling like if I had just one extra day to catch up, I might not feel like I'm drowning. I brought some work home this weekend in hopes that if I got it all done, I'd feel like I'd caught up, and I'd be able to get things done on Monday.

Well, then Peanut had to go to the hospital and have surgery, and I was much to worried to do any work. Plus we got a puppy who is very mellow and well-behaved, but nonetheless has a 4 month old bladder that needs to empty in the middle of the night, making me tired.

Today, although I spent most of the day at the hospital with Peanut, I was able to work remotely and get a lot done. But without that edge the weekend work would have given me, I still feel behind. And it just keeps on coming!

And on top of work, I'm now having to get three different dog meals ready, more frequently due to Peanut's surgery, and figure out how to get her the medication she needs when she needs it. Luckily Dan is home in the afternoon so he can administer that dose. I'm so thankful that she survived the surgery and that I'm blessed with such a sweet dog, so I'm actually really OK with serving her and taking care of her. It's the balancing it with mountains of work (and housework) that gets a little tricky. (But she does help with the laundry, and it really piled up while she wasn't around to help me!)

But, I'm guessing God's not going to make the sun stand still for me. So I guess I'm just going to have to take one day at a time and hope someday I get to the point where I can breathe again!

House-Breaking Your Dog

I've read a lot of different things about how to house-train your dog. The newspaper thing makes no sense at all to me. It takes a long time to do and teaches your dog there are places in the house it's OK to go.

What I've done with my dogs so far, and what we're doing with Biscuit now, is kind of an adaptation of crate training. It's pretty intensive in the first week, but it's quick and very effective.
We let the dog out about 15 minutes after he's eaten or had water, immediately when he wakes up from a nap, and every couple hours during the day if he's playing or out in the open.

We watch him actively. If he's circling, we take him out right away. If he starts to go inside (which hasn't happened yet with Biscuit), we grab him abruptly (for girls, they stop peeing...we'll see what happens with a boy) and get him outside right away. We don't yell at him, as that teaches him to be ashamed to go in front of you, and he'll be more likely to try to find a place to sneak and go, and less likely to go when you're outside with him.

If we can't watch him, he's in his crate. (Which is just his size - dogs aren't likely to go to the bathroom in their sleeping area, but if you get a big crate they can have a sleeping and a bathroom area.) But if they are in a crate that's their size they should be able to hold it about 1 hour for each month old they are, plus 1 extra hour, from what I've read.

Every time we let him out, we ring a bell. We have one upstairs and one on the back door, so if we're upstairs we ring both. This will teach him quickly how to ask when he needs to go out. When he's outside, he can't come back in until he's done something. At first this can take a while, but within a day or two I've found that dogs quickly learn what they're supposed to do outside, and that helps them associate the action with the right place. When he's going, we praise him. We use the key word "potty," so we say, "Good potty!" One he learns what the word means, we'll use "Go potty" as encouragement to get him to go. But for now, to help him learn it, we only say it while he's going.

We've found this to be a very effective method of house breaking. With Peanut it was under a week before she was 95% house broken, just a few accidents here and there after that. You have to be willing to be vigilant about it, but you should find that your dog quickly learns the right place to go potty.

Small Group

I've blogged about how I want to be part of an in-depth small group with women. But here's what I don't want: 20 pages of homework a week. I've found in the past that while formal studies can be enriching, they also take up so much time that you don't have the time to do your personal Bible reading. You know, the stuff you really want to spend time with God on. Plus, if not everyone does the homework, it's kind of tough to lead the study.

So here's my ideal plan for a small group. I'm posting it because maybe you'll take it and adapt it and use it yourself. Or maybe you live in Colorado and want to join me.

Each week, women hold each other accountable for reading the Bible and spending time in prayer. They don't all have to be reading the same thing, they just hold each other accountable to do it. There's no paperwork to fill out, no structure to it. You decide what you want to read, how much, when, and your group holds you accountable to that.

Then you get together once a week to discuss these questions:

- How have you seen God at work this week?

- What has he been teaching you through situations in life?

- What has he taught you in his Word this week?

- In what areas is God encouraging you to grow?

- What answers to prayer have you seen this week?

- What prayer requests do you have? (And along with that: What plans do you have for this week?)

Then they pray together, about anything shared but especially about the prayer requests and for God's hand in your plan next week.

And that's it. No books, no study guides, just 6 questions that help people get to really know what's going on in each other's lives. Deeply, personally relating to each other and helping each other grow closer to God.

Bachelor Wrap-Up

A week later, I'm still thinking about Brad and Emily. Here's why I think they can make it.

Every single Bachelor/ette season I've watched includes the couple talking about "fairy tales" and "butterflies" and "that feeling." That's why they pick the person they do. And I think, that's why there's such a low success rate for the show. Because, as I've blogged before in response to The Bachelor, marriage and true love is not about always feeling lovey dovey or getting butterflies in your stomach. And if that's what you think love is, of course you'll break up when the butterflies stop flapping their wings.

But in the finale, Brad said to his family of Emily, "She's a truly sweet person. She makes me want to be a better man." I nearly applauded him. Yes! That's it! This was sandwiched in a whole spiel about who Emily is as a person. Not how she makes him feel, not how she looks, not their chemistry, but her character. And how that inspires him to have a better character. (And I heard nothing about butterflies or fairy tales from either party all season.)

I know Emily has her doubts having seen Brad kissing other women. (Which, I'm sorry, but it's not like she didn't know that was part of the process...) But I really hope these two make it, because I think they have the right idea about what love is. Two people who truly love each other's character, journeying through life and inspiring one another to do right.

Mothering

Last week sometime I wrote a blog that started out like this: "As a child I didn't play with dolls really at all. I played with stuffed animals a lot, but not dolls. Maybe that's why I don't feel called to be a mother of humans, why I'm satisfied being a mother to two dogs."

My sister was excited to read that blog, thinking I would expound on how my childhood impacted my lack of desire to be a mother. I didn't do that. So I thought I'd make my sister happy by expounding on it.

Like I said above, as a young child I didn't like dolls, just stuffed animals. I ADORED stuffed animals and carried one with me everywhere through 3rd or 4th grade. But I remember a few times when people gave me dolls as gifts, and I'd play with them briefly out of obligation and so that I could say in my thank you note, "I played with it today." But they were quickly discarded.

Does all that mean there's always been this innate desire within me not to be a mom? I don't know. I do know that I spent a lot more time thinking about and preparing for careers than I did thinking about or preparing for motherhood. But I do believe that as I got into my teen years, there was a part of me that wanted to be a mom for most of it. Not this aching desire to be a mom, but just kind of the assumption I would be. Maybe it's because it was the thing girls grow up to do.

I do know there was a period where I didn't want to go to college because I just wanted to be a housewife, and I didn't need a degree for that, so why spend all that money if it wasn't needed? And then somewhere in that period I realized I didn't want to have kids, and then I thought, "well what am I going to do all day if I don't have a job or kids?" And though that wasn't the deciding factor in me reconsidering my college path, it probably had an influence.

When Dan and I were dating and engaged, we of course talked about whether or not we wanted kids. He wanted 4. There was no way I wanted that many, but coming from a family of 3 kids I threw out that number. He wanted an even number, so that left 2. And that's where we were. We'd even picked out names.

But things happened, like being in charge of a nursery (seriously - if you want to teach your teens not to have sex throw them in a wing with 60 screaming infants and toddlers and the never-ending odor of diapers), and seeing people my age as moms (it's more work than it looked like from the kid-side of things), and I changed my mind. I guess looking back, it didn't take much for me to change my mind because although there've been times when I thought I'd be a mom some day, I can't recall ever feeling this aching desire to be a mom the way I hear so many women my age talk about it. Some of my friends talk about how they always knew they wanted to be a stay-at-home mom. Good for them, more power to them! But that's never been something I hungered for.

But an aching desire to have a dog? Had that any time I was without one. And (cue Peanut) sometimes when I already had one. And (cue, "Dan, let's get another puppy to play with Peanut!") sometimes when I already had two.

People tell me all the time, "Oh, you're young, you've got time to change your mind." Well, biological clock or not, the fact is that it's not just that I don't want kids at the moment. The fact is it's never in my life been a great desire. And the more societal pressure is put on me to change my mind, the more it feels like, "the thing women are supposed to do" and less something I - in my heart of hearts - really want. The more women talk about what a blessing it is, and how much joy I'll find in it, the more I think they feel that way because they wanted kids. Maybe not in the timing they got them, but eventually.

America

One thing that I've never understood is when people get all upset about the American government doing things that don't mesh with Christian faith.

We were talking about this briefly at my small group on Sunday night, and one person made a great point: "When does the Bible ever promise that we'll have government backing for Christianity? Look at the government Jesus lived under. The early church." It's true - the American government is far closer to Christian morals than the governments that killed babies in effort to abolish the coming King, crucified a man who rightly claimed to be God, or persecuted Christians for their faith.

And yet, we as American Christians feel this sense of entitlement that the government should back us up. And when they fail, we moan and whine. We say we're getting away from the moral values of the founding fathers.

And can I just say something about the founding fathers? Their morals gave us mass killings of native Americans and the theft of their land. Slavery. No rights for women. Putting people in stocks if they didn't attend a 6 hour church service (while touting "freedom of religion").

Clinton wasn't the first President to cheat on his wife, you know. Remember Prez #3, Jefferson? With all the illegitimate slave children? How about all the woman Ben Franklin slept with, the many illegitimate children he may have fathered? No...our founding fathers were not ideal. We just didn't have the media power to shed the kind of light on it that we do now. There was no SNL to mock the shortcomings of our leaders.

All this to say: America doesn't really have a Christian past. It may have called itself Christian at one point, but it wasn't ever full of Christian morals. And I'm OK if it doesn't have a Christian future. Because that's not a promise we're given, and ultimately, it's the church's job to shine the light of Christ and do his work. Let's not abandon our responsibility by shoving it to DC.

Profile Pic

I recently changed my profile picture. It's one I took with my MacBook camera, and I loved how it turned out. And then when I played with the coloring, I liked it even more.

To me, it's symbolic of who I am. I'm contemplating something, which is pretty typical. I philosophize a lot, as you've probably surmised if you read my blog regularly.

And I'm looking up. Looking up to my God. Because ultimately, that's where I want my vision to be.

Also, my hair looks really good, I think.

For or Against?

I was thinking today about how Christians often get the reputation of being against a lot of things. Rather than being know for being FOR positive things, we're known for being AGAINST negative things. We may call it pro-life, but people see it as anti-abortion.

Which got me thinking about how the way we approach things really sets the tone for that. For instance, picketing outside an abortion clinic sends the message that we're AGAINST abortion. Providing free services to help counsel women in other options and seek different choices sends the message that we're FOR the life of a fetus.

Furthermore, sending the message that we're AGAINST things really doesn't give people a good view of us. If we picket outside that clinic, we're sending the message: "we don't care about you or your rights, we just care about the fetus inside of you." Offering help and counsel sends the message: "we care about the fetus inside of you, but we also value your life and your choices, and we want to help you make one that works for you and your baby." And that second one is ultimately a much better message to send.

And all this got me thinking about how I phrase things, how I think about things. I'm challenging myself to be more pro-positive and less anti-negative.

Overflow

We often get the message that the Christian life is about serving God, evangelizing, missions work. I don't think that's a good message.

It's not that those things aren't important. They are. But here's what I think: If we're truly seeking to grow closer to Jesus, love him more, and nurture our own faith, those things will be a natural overflow of Christ in us.

And if they're not an overflow of our relationship with Jesus, they're just actions. They don't amount to anything more than the Pharisees' piety did.

So that's what I want to do: nurture Christ in me. Fill myself so full of him that "witnessing" isn't something on my to do list that makes me tremble in fear...it's something that just happens because I'm bubbling over with the joy of the Lord.

Sentence

In a meeting yesterday, I heard a theory that all great leaders can have their lives summed up in one sentence. For instance, Lincoln: He preserved the union and freed the slaves. The theory is that if your focus is too broad, you're not being as effective at what you're doing.

I've decided I want my sentence to be: She wrote to help others fall in love with Jesus.

What do you want your sentence to be?

Fleeing

I'm realizing something about myself: I have a tendency to flee when things get hard.

It was true when I was a kid. Gym class was embarrassing, so I "got sick" a lot during that time each week. I tried my hand at the piano and the clarinet, and quit each not too long after mastering "Mary Had a Little Lamb." I enjoyed playing, but the daily practice was too hard.

In college when I got frustrated, I didn't drop out - but I did figure out a way to graduate a year early and get on out of there. When things got tough at my old job, I was ready to go. (Though on some of those decisions I think God was genuinely leading me, maybe even using my bad habit of fleeing.)

Even when I can't leave a situation permanently, I like to go for drives just to get away for a bit.

I think there are times when you have to leave a bad situation for your own health. But sometimes we have to go through the tough times and figure out how to wring out whatever positive we can find so we can deal with it. And that's the part I have to learn.

140 (Interestingly, my 139th Blogger post)

I'm new to the Twitterverse, but I've been on Facebook since before it was mainly status updates. Someone said recently (on Facebook), "Wouldn't it be weird if our minds were re-trained to think in 420 characters or less?" (That's the FB standard.) And I responded, "Or worse, 140 characters..." (the Twitter standard).

I was reading a book tonight and was getting kind of bogged down in the author's wordiness, and I flipped to the back to see if there were any kind of cliff notes. Not only were there chapter-by-chapter summaries, there actually was a tweet! 140 characters to summarize this entire book! Part of me was relieved - now I could spend 20 seconds reading the tweet and know the premise of a whole book! (Though I did still read the book. But perhaps the fact I was bored by his wordiness is caused by my familiarity with status updates and tweets.)

I was also talking recently with a guy who teaches some college classes (Psych, maybe?) at a community college, and he was talking about how awful the grammar was in these papers he gets, how he'll get "ur" written in a formal paper, and it really bugged him that these college students don't know how to write.

And I'm wondering how technology is changing the English language. I'm no historian so I don't know anything about the transition from the old English you read in Shakespeare and explorer's journals to the English we know today. But something happened to change the English language dramatically, whether it was a gradual or sudden shift.

I'm wondering if "ur" will become the new standard for your and you're. If all those txt acronyms will become the norm. As a writer it wrenches my gut to think of it...but if that's really the way our language will shift in my life time, I need to be able to adapt. If I can't write the way people understand, I'll as confusing as reading Shakespeare. (Only less classic.)

Blogging

Today I read a blog by Michael Hyatt (one of the most read bloggers) about advice for beginning bloggers. I'm not a beginning blogger...been doing it for five years...but I haven't done a lot to self promote so in that sense I could still fit into the "beginning blogger" category.

He talked about having a theme. He talked about getting a good following and eventually being able to monetize your blog with ads, so it brings in a profit or at least covers the expenses of using a blogging site that costs money and having someone professionally design it. Which is a fine goal if that's what you want to do with your blog.

Me? I don't blog to make money. I don't blog to be known. Sure, there's a certain amount of joy when I see a lot of page views on my blog...but ultimately I can't really track it since I post my blog on Facebook and Blogger, and Facebook doesn't offer stats. And that's fine. I don't have the goal of making a super popular blog.

No, I blog because it's a good outlet for me. It's journaling, but with motivation. This may seem to contradict what I just said - but I am motivated by some kind of audience. I have about 15 journals and they're each about a quarter full...because I have all the best of intentions but I've never been able to be a consistent journaler. But blogging? That I can do. Knowing someone will read what I write, that's motivation.

But I don't need 100 views, 1,000 views, 10,000 views to get that motivation. Just knowing Dan reads it daily is enough. Just seeing the occasional comment that it touched one person, that's enough for me. There are a lot of things I do for selfish motivations, but blogging? I don't do it for the money, I don't do it for the glory, I do it to process. I do it to see life through the lens of, "What did I learn today?" I've grown a lot by blogging, and that's why I do it.

Calling

As a child I didn't play with dolls really at all. I played with stuffed animals a lot, but not dolls. Maybe that's why I don't feel called to be a mother of humans, why I'm satisfied being a mother to two dogs.

But the main way I spent my time as a child was inventing things, creating business, and playing "office." I'd take old manila folders from my mom and organize and reorganize and office for myself. I'd create word puzzles (not just fill them in, but make my own up) and newsletters. I created a database of my books and make it into a library. I had, among others: a detective business, a bracelet business, a yard care business, even a business where I made fun crafty things out of the edges of printer paper (back in the day when they had those holey edges). I loved the idea of being a professional business woman.

Nothing has really changed, except the kind of paper we put in our printers. Oh sure, my dreams have gotten more refined, but the little girl inside of me still has that hunger to organize and reorganize, to be successful, to be professional.

Every now and then I need to pause to consider my motive. Do I dream the things I dream because I want to glorify God, to change the world for him? Or do I dream those things because I want to be successful and known?

Tonight I read Isaiah 6, where he's called by God. When he encounters God, he says he's not worthy because his lips are unclean. An angel then flies over and puts a hot coal on his mouth and says, "There. Now you've got clean lips." (My paraphrase.) I was really impressed by his humility. And I was struck by the fact that preparing to do great things for God wasn't cushy, even from the beginning. No, he had to be burned on the lips with a hot coal.

Then I get to 2 Corinthians 11, Paul's resume. It starts off OK...he's a Hebrew, a descendant of Abraham, etc. But then it gets into all the ways he's struggled, how many times he's come close to death and been imprisoned, how many times he's been beaten.

These two passages were definitely a check in my motivation. Serving God in my life may be very painful. It may not always - or ever - come in the package I dreamed of as a child. But if my motivation is really about glorifying God, it will always be fruitful in the end.

Open

I've always considered myself an open book. In fact, when I first started college I actually went to counseling because I feared I was too open. I was thinking I wasn't very good at establishing boundaries in that "getting to know you" phase. There was one particular friend I was thinking of, embarrassed at how, when he'd stopped by my room during the first open floor and we met for the first time, I told him my life story of troubles with boys.

He later told me that conversation was the reason we became friends. He said that every other room he stopped in that night was the same conversation, the standard college freshman small talk: what's your name, where are you from, what's your major. He liked that I just opened up and we were able to make a deeper connection. So I decided maybe it was OK that I was an open book...maybe that was actually a GOOD quality.

So imagine my surprise when, a couple months ago, I was told by some people very close to me that they wished I'd be more open with them...that I didn't share very much. Me? Not open? But as I thought about it, it was true. Which led me to wondering, how did that open book Ali disappear, even after the reassurance that it was a great quality and had landed me a great friend? That question has loomed for the past couple of months.

This week I accidentally stumbled on some old emails, sent in 2003 from my old account. One in particular caught my eye, when I'd emailed my roommate about something hurtful that had happened (not involving her). Basically, I'd tried to be open with someone and was shut down. I'd forgotten about it until I read the email, and that I was transported back in time. And as I read that email, I could almost see the light bulb forming over my head. I just sighed out a long, "ooooooh" of realization.

I don't want to get into the details because what I don't want to do is play the Kelly Clarkson "Because of You" blame game. I am responsible for how I respond to the ways I've been hurt. But what I need to figure out is where to go from here. How do I erase the closed-off-ness etched in me in the past 8 years?

Prayer

Today we had a big scare when we thought Dan had lost his wallet at the movie theater. With his social security card inside. It was nowhere to be found in his car or our house.

We canceled his credit cards and were trying to figure out what to do about his SS card, and I was getting really stressed out about the whole ordeal. And all of a sudden I had this random thought - a picture of Peanut running toward Dan with the wallet in her mouth. Like she'd found it hidden away and thought it was a toy he'd throw for her to fetch.

It was a strange thought but I thought, hey, I'll pray about that. So I prayed that God would help Peanut find Dan's wallet and bring it to him.

It didn't happen like that. Dan found it tangled up between the sheets and covers of our bed. But when he found it Peanut was acting mighty guilty, and I have a feeling there's only one creature in our house who would have put the wallet there - and it's not Dan.

So, God answered my prayer, not in the exact way I prayed but in the way that mattered. And maybe that random image was just mean to be a faith-builder to me that yes, Dan's wallet was somewhere in our house - and Peanut knew where.