Grace Replaced Shame

I have always blogged in my own way -- even before computers...I've just never been compelled to share them.  Since I've been encouraged to "go public" by a few peeps, I have felt cathartic and a peace about me in being able to put myself out there.  I am me, love me or hate me but at least you know who I am.

I have also been amazed at the number of blogs I'm led to by clicking on other people's.  I could never be so eloquent as the blog I read below from a young mother who had an affair 9 years ago and confessed and saved her marriage.  She truly puts herself out there!  It compelled me to share her latest post....

Grace Replaced Shame

A close friend asked me if if I still ever feel shame for the things in my past. And if I did, how do I get out of that.

Sigh.
Yes. Shame comes in like a tsumani. Quiet and distant and then all of a sudden overwhelming, powerful and enough to drown a thousand souls.
I could be sitting in Starbucks, walking on a beach or talking with a group of people at church. It doesn’t matter.
Shame comes barreling in without warning, without asking me if it was okay if it takes up residence in my heart, without offering to clean up after itself.
And most of the time it crumples me. Shame leaves me limp and hurt and gasping for air. My heart feels like it’s been filled with sand and suddenly I’m embarrassed of everything I’ve ever said or done.
But grace replaced shame.
It did two thousand years ago when Love died and then lived. Grace replaced shame six years ago when I confessed to killing all of the trust in my marriage.
And grace continues to replace shame when I feel the tsunami and the heart-full-of-sand feeling in the church lobby.
Grace is polite and warm and offers a place to sleep. Grace lets you cry without embarrassment and holds your hand without awkwardness. Grace strengthens and fortifies and supports, Grace protects and doesn’t steal like shame does.
Grace replaces shame.

How often do you experience shame? How do you replace it with grace?

The Bucket List

Forever I have been enamored by reading articles and hearing cool stories of people who "walked the walk" and "talked the talk", took a leap of faith, jumped outside the box and truly took a pen and slashed a line through a number of things on their Bucket List.  I am so incredibly frustrated with myself that I think constantly of doing cool things, cool lists and NEVER put them to practice.


I am constantly hearing friends say, "Oh, that's on my bucket list" but my question is do they, do I, really know what our bucket list consists of and do we really ever put pen to paper, finger to keyboard and make things happen?!?!?!?


I'm thinking that everyone I know needs to do their own bucket list.  I was recently talking to a friend about her daughter and her friends who were working on a bucket list of everything they wanted to complete before they graduate from college.  I'm so jealous I can't push the rewind button on that one!


My definition of a Bucket List is to keep me dreaming and motivated.  The cool thing is....a bucket list can be anything you want it to be from taking adult tap lessons to climbing Mount Everest.  


Let's face it -- Death bites!  Now get to doing the alternative -- LIVING!


NAO BUCKET LIST
Walk across the Brooklyn Bridge

Read the entire Bible consistently instead of jumping from old to new and new to old

Travel to all 50 states

Live by the sea

Learn to Tango

Send my parents on a luxury vacation

Take a cooking class

Achieve my ideal weight

Make someone’s dream come true

Kissing on the kiss cam at a basketball game

See Greece

Alaskan cruise

Ride a gondola in Venice

Explore Italy and Rome with the one I love

Learn how to build a website

Do something completely crazy and out of character

Visit the leaning tower of Pisa

DIVE!

Tour Napa – Cakebread winery

Travel around San Francisco in a cable car

Go Caribbean Island Hopping

Learn how to play Chess

Attend the Kentucky Derby in a fabulous hat

Make a positive difference in at least one person’s life - COMPLETED OCT 2010 (Thanks Kathi Tatum!)

Become an early riser

Learn not to take what others do or say personally
Eliminate diet cokes from my life!
Completely train my dog in the correct manner

Completed 

Backpacked in Europe - 7 countries

Bought my own house with my own money

Financial and Personal Independence after my divorce

Hiked in the Swiss Alps

Stood in the Coliseum in Rome

Hung out at the Eiffel Tower

Took in Vatican City with awe

Flew in a helicopter/Over the Grand Canyon (2 for 1)

Won over a grand in Vegas

Redid an entire room in my house COMPLETELY!  

Dads for Daughters

So maybe it's not normal that Anderson Cooper with a dash of Sanjay Gupta are on my "Top Ten" list of male celebs I love.  I'm aware I am the exception to the rule but hey!  substance should count amongst dimples, six packs and Matthew M accents.  From the Gulf Oil Spill, Mosques at Ground Zero and Jesse cheating on Sandra -- I have found a rather refreshing, impactful story from my buddy Sanjay.  I hope you will take the time to read and listen about Dads for Daughters and the Council of Dads.  Wow!  

In summary, imagine being a father and finding out you were going to die. Who would be
there for your kids? Hear from one man who thought only of his daughters when he was faced with the news.

A father who learned he had cancer worried that his twin daughters would grow up without strong male influence. So he enlisted six friends to guide them through life's ups and downs. His thoughts immediately turned to his girls. And what would happen if he died and they were left fatherless. In the middle of the night he came up with an idea – contacting six of his closest friends and asking them to be there for his girls if he died. He asked them by reading each a letter he wrote - “ Dear Friend, As you know, I recently learned that I have a seven-inch cancerous tumor in my left leg. That afternoon, Tybee and Eden, who had just turned three, came running to greet me, laughing, giggling, and falling to the ground. I crumbled. I kept imagining all the walks I might not take with them, the ballet recitals I might not see. Would they wonder who I was? Would they yearn for my voice? I believe Eden and Tybee will have plenty of love, plenty of opportunities in their lives. But they may not have their dad. Will you help be their dad?”

All six men said yes -and Bruce created for Eden and Tybee what he would call “The Council of Dads.” A group of men who would be with him, his girls and his wife as he fought this rare and aggressive cancer.

MY SUMMARY:
LIVE for today but PLAN for tomorrow (a.k.a. Draw up a will and talk about the uncomfortable "what if's")


http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2010/06/14/gupta.dads.for.daughters.cnn?iref=allsearch

For Suni, my "misunderstood friend"

"They may see the good you do as self-serving, continue to do good. They may see your generosity as grandstanding, continue to be generous. They may see your warm and caring nature as a weakness, continue to be warm and caring.  For you see, in the end, it is between you and God. It never was between you and them anyway." - Author Unknown

Hug One Another

One is rude.
The other is mean.
The older one used her words to wound, her tone of voice to scar and get her way.
The other used his five-year-old powers of provocation by taking what is not his and barring the way out of the room.
My niece and nephew at one time spent an entire Saturday morning of energy getting under one another’s skins until it erupted into a full fledged screaming/whining/crying argument. Why can’t they just get along, I think.
Loud THUMPS on the bedroom floor signal me to intervene.
Huffs and Puffs float down the hallway. They deposit themselves on the floor of the kitchen where I am.
“You MAY not treat each other this way. You cannot.”
I turn them both to face me and try to explain to them empathy and love and compassion and how Jesus wants us to act. How He wants us to show each other kindness. I talk to them about forgiveness and living in peace
Hug each other, I tell them. Their embrace is loose without any emotion. They’ve hugged because I’ve asked them to. No more than that.
“Do you forgive her? And do you forgive him?” I look back and forth, see their faces ready to spill.
Yes, and now there are real tears.They are tired of hearing me lecture them about compassion and all they want is real human, connecting touch.
And what do you think they do? They hug ME. For consolation. For forgiveness. For saving.
And by hugging me, they’ve reconciled with each other. For the moment, I’ve been their bridge.
When we grow up, we hurt each other far worse than a few rolled eyes and a GIVE-THAT-BACK! We steal husbands and friendships and parking spaces. We tell lies and tell people off. We passively and aggressively put people on our black lists and we shun and snub. It seems like we hurt each other all the time.
But there is a Bridge. And He’d rather us hug one another, but when we can’t just bring ourselves to throw our arms around the neck of someone who has wounded us in our soul, He is there. We can fall into Him and be reconciled to one another BECAUSE of Him. He saves. He consoles. And He is Grace when we can’t offer any ourselves.
Hug one another and get on that bridge!