Did You End Up in Italy or Holland?

In church last week, my friend Christina—a mom of an autistic son—shared the following story to describe what being a mom in her situation means. As the mom of an older adopted child, and knowing the difficulties our daughter Joy had with her adopted children, I can say it applies to more than families dealing with disabilities. In fact, I would be willing to venture that in a fallen world it applies to life as almost all of us experience it at some point.

Welcome to Holland!

 by Emily Pearl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability—to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel.

 It's like this . . . When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip—to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum, the Michalangelo David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting. After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes and says, "Welcome to Holland." "Holland?" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy." But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

 The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place. So you go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met. It's just a different place. It's slower paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around, and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills, Holland has tulips, Holland even has Rembrandts. But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy, and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned." The pain of that will never go away, because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss. But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you will never be free to enjoy the very special, very lovely things about Holland.

Where are you today, Italy or Holland? And how are you learning to enjoy it?

If you know people living in Holland, be sensitive about bragging about Italy and instead encourage them by asking them to introduce you to the beauty of Holland. Open your eyes and notice.

The Me Project (and a Contest)

Once again God has been sending me the same message over and over. He knows sometimes I am too dense (or preoccupied) to hear him the first time. Often I start with "Hmmm, that's interesting," but by the time I've heard the message the third or fourth time from diverse channels, I'm listening and saying, "God might want me to actually act on this."

 Chazown, the subject of the last blog post, was about living out the vision God has for you. So I knew I was receiving a message from God when I received a free copy of The Me Project by Kathi Lipp after agreeing to participate in a blog tour. Kathi's subtitle—21 Days to Living the Life You've Always Wanted—sums up the book nicely. Kathi gives 21 projects that will help you move forward in fulfilling one of God's dreams  for you. It makes a great followup to Chazown, which helped you identify the dreams and some first steps.

Kathi has a fun, encouraging writing style that makes you feel like you actually can do this. You can make progress on the dreams God has given you. I was most challenged by her call to find accountability partners, mentors, and even a "board of directors." I know this is an area lacking in my life, but I don't really know how to find those people for my ministry. So I am praying for God to bring them to me.

Kathi has provided an article with three first steps for you to get started on your dreams. You can enjoy it here: 
Kick Start Living Your Dream

Here's a little bit more about Kathi:

Kathi Lipp is a busy conference and retreat speaker, currently speaking each year to thousands of women throughout the United States. She is the author of The Husband Project and The Marriage Project, serves as food writer for Nickelodeon, and has had articles published in several magazines, including Today’s Christian Woman and Discipleship Journal. Kathi and her husband, Roger, live in California and are the parents of four teenagers and young adults. For more information visit her website: www.kathilipp.com


And if you put a comment below telling me one step you are going to take toward one of your dreams, you could win a deluxe Starbucks gift basket. I will be sending in the name of one commenter (chosen at  random), and one commenter from the blog tour will win! So go for it. Pursue your dream, even if you don't win the basket, you'll still be a winner.

Chazown! No, It's Not a Batman Word

Zap! Zowwy! Bam! Whap! Pow! In our house, we call them Batman words. Nonsense onomatopoeia words like those that used to show up on the screen as Batman fought the bad guys.

But chazown isn't a Batman word, as odd as it sounds. It's the English transliteration of a Hebrew word that means "vision." And it's the title of a new book by Craig Groeschel; one I was fortunate enough to receive a free review copy of from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group.

Chazown is an easy-to-use book that helps you recognize the vision God has personally designed for you. Like the books on finding your purpose that have come before—The Purpose Driven Life, comes to mind—Chazown wants you to analyze your life and your heart to discover how you are wired. Chazown has you journal about three circles—your core values, your spiritual gifts, and your past experiences. It leads you through a simple evaluation process to discover where your circles overlap to find your sweet spot, your chazown.

What makes Chazown extremely valuable are the spokes-on-the-wheel concerns that allow you to have success in fulfilling your chazown. Groeschel wants you to recognize where you need to work on your relationships with God and other people, your finances, your health and fitness, and your work and how these areas affect your ability to fulfill your vision.

With its ultra-short chapters, the book is perfect even for people who aren't crazy about reading. And the "You're the Author" sections provide the questions and challenges you need to make this not just a book but a kick in the pants on the way to a life of focused passion. I highly recommend it, whether you've never thought of your purpose or you simply want to refine it.

And no harm done if you get so excited pursuing your purpose that you simply must shout, "Chazown." Batman would be proud.

A Matrix Movie I Actually Want to See

When the Matrix movies came out, Les went to see them without me. I had no interest. And that was infinitely interesting to other people. "What, you haven't seen The Matrix?" they would shriek. People I loved and respected kept telling me I had to see it, that I would love it, that there was so much in it.

Eventually they wore me down. One night I sat down and watched the DVD with Les. I hated it. My eyes glazed over (kind of the way Les's do when I make him watch an  Academy award–winning movie). I had a numb spot in my brain. And I felt I had wasted a couple of hours of my life that I would never get back.

I told this to those who had insisted I would love it. Their response? "Well, you really have to watch it a couple of times to fully understand it and love it." As if.

But now, I have discovered that a Matrix movie is coming that I really want to see. No, not another one in the mind-numbing series. This one is called Mastering the Matrix and it's a documentary (Les just ran screaming from the room). The movie features interviews people who have made positive changes in their lives that have made positive changes throughout the world as well, including Sir Richard Branson and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The movie, which releases in September 2011, but can be preordered on the website. The filmmakers want it to be more than a collection of feel-good stories. They hope it will start a movement of positive change. I hope they're right. And let it begin with me.

A Billion Reasons Why . . . We Need to Remember NOLA

"You are coming with us," said our friends Merrilee and Todd several years ago. "You love food like we do, and we know all the best places to eat in New Orleans." To make sure we actually went on the trip we had discussed for years, Merrilee made all the arrangements—flights, hotel, the planning of 21 delicious meals at classic NOLA restaurants. We graciously submitted (and handed over our cash to pay for our share.)

It was a wacky, weight-gaining trip. We didn't see as many tourist sites as we had planned on—the meals and raw oyster happy hours didn't allow a lot of time for museums. We did wander the French Quarter and the French Market every day in search of Merrilee's elusive Mardi Gras t-shirt. The aquarium wowed us, as did the zoo. And there was the unforgettable limo ride to a swamp tour, complete with the Vietnamese French bakery items spread out on the trunk of the limo for our feasting pleasure.

When Katrina hit, part of me wanted desperately to get back to New Orleans. Another part wanted to simply remember those beautiful fall days without the new reality to sully the picture. I was pleasantly surprised then to be immersed back in NOLA thanks to Kristin Billerbeck's new book, A Billion Reasons Why, which I received free from Thomas Nelson via booksneeze.com.  

When offered Billerbeck's book, I grabbed it because I've always loved her writing. She was the original Christian chick lit writer, complete with the snarky heroine. A Billion Reasons Why displays Billerbeck's wit, but I think it falls more into the pure romance category than into chick lit. I can't help rooting for Katie, who rediscovers her NOLA roots and the man who sent her fleeing from the place to start with. It's a perfect curl-up-in-a-snowstorm book, with quirky characters and the all's-right-with-the-world ending.

The book's NOLA references, including beignets, crawfish, Cafe du Monde, the Garden District, and the streetcar, brought back wonderful memories of our own trip. But it also reminded me that Hurricane Katrina had occurred, and the poorer parts of NOLA have yet to recover.

If you want some fun, light reading from an author who makes her characters come alive, pick up A Billion Reasons Why. If you want to make New Orleans a better place for real people to live, check out CDC58:12 or New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity to lend a hand as a volunteer. Or help sponsor a Mennonite Central Committee worker who is advocating for justice for the poor in NOLA. There's a billion reasons why we should still care about New Orleans, and almost that many ways to help. Dig in!

To E-Read or Not to E-Read, That Is the Question

My friend Mandy and I debate the whole e-reader conundrum. We both love books, but we love the feel of paper, the smell of ink, the pleasure of turning a page, the joy of the bookstore. Could we possibly cozy up to an e-reader and feel as good about it as we do the bundle of possibility that is a traditional book?

I can see some of the e-reader's merits, chief of which for me would be not having to allocate at least a fifth of my luggage weight on any trip to books. And it probably would decrease the number of times my suitcase gets searched at the airport because the word-bricks inside look odd to the scanners. It might mean I wouldn't be paying to mail books home that I discovered in some far-flung used bookstore and couldn't pass up. But then does that deny me the pleasure of browsing said stores for treasures or browsing the books themselves for a kindred spirit, be it character or author?

I can't bring myself to buy an e-reader. It just feels disloyal somehow.

But now I may have found a reason to buy one for someone else. Worldreader.org has established as its mission to distribute e-readers to students in the emerging world. They want to distribute digital books and readers to schoolchildren and community members to allow them access to textbooks and reading material at a reduced cost. They desire to work as well with local publishers to help expand access to culturally appropriate material, encouraging the transmission and expansion of community knowledge.

The program is new, with the pilot study taking place at six schools in Ghana and an expansion throughout Ghana and into Kenya in the works. Studies are being conducted to gauge if the e-readers provide an increase in books read by the children. Watch the video to see how teachers feel about the new technology.

You can donate a book for $5 (sorry, you can't choose the book, like, for instance, the one you wrote) or an e-reader for $200. If your Valentine loves books, you can honor him or her through a gift donation. It might be the perfect way to celebrate your love, showing you recognize what is important to your sweetheart. It's a great opportunity to express your love for your own kids without rotting their teeth with candy hearts.

An e-reader for me isn't on my list any time soon (at the very least I will wait for the industry to shake out the losers from the winners), but the idea of underprivileged kids having a library at their fingertips has great appeal. And I can still curl up on the couch with my old-fashioned paper book. What about you?

What's the Coffee; What's the Cup?

My friend Mandy shared the following video with me, and I thought it was a great reminder of how life is meant to be savored. Watch it!




My favorite part is where it says:
Live simply.
Speak kindly.
Care deeply.
Love generously.
Sometimes when we do that, like with hot coffee, we will get burnt. Our family has experienced that this week. I pray that we will continue to savor life and to care deeply and love generously.

What's your favorite line in the movie?