As you can see, I have a lot of reading to do. Not much on this list is fiction. I also have a habit of starting something and then moving on to something else without finishing. I like to skip around and read what I feel like at the time.
What does your reading list look like for 2011?

I shared this today in the Restore Your Soul class and I wanted to share it with everyone.
Blessings!

In 1997, my brother, who is younger than me by 2 1/2 years, was babysitting his girlfriend’s baby. Something happened medically  to cause her to have a stroke. My brother called 911. During the events that unfolded that day and night, he was arrested for child abuse. I cannot describe the days following this because my family and I were in total shock and exhausted. The child was in the ICU for several days and recovered and went to re-hab. The girlfriend was investigated by CPS and had a trial and lost custody of her child. My family, and our church family, did what we could to protect and support my brother. We trusted the judicial system to see the truth, that my brother was innocent, and his criminal trial would be behind us. Several years past between the incident and the trial. His trial was in 1999, at the height of the “shaken-baby” scare. He was found guilty and sentenced to 35 years in prison. The child recovered and is a healthy teenager today. He has been in prison for 11 years. He was 22 when he went in.

My world shattered. When all of this happened, I was working at a law firm, going about my everyday, sheltered life. I believed in the judicial system. I watched “Law and Order” thinking the police and courtroom worked just like that and got the bad guys every time.  I was angry at God. I went to church my whole life! My family was a good Christian family who loved everyone and did good. How could He let something happen like this? How could He allow my life to be ruined? How could he allow so much pain for my parents and me? Now, I know God was sad with us. He did not want us to hurt. We were blessed with a church family who was by our side every step of the way. God did that.  His love was so strong in them they did not abandon us. They raised money for my brother’s defense. They made food. They prayed. They cried with us. They held us. They got us through. In all my pain, all I could do was turn to God. I had no other way to get through. I felt His presence more and more. I cried all the time, I still do. I ache for my brother in my life. I miss him.

But good has risen from the ashes. Since all of this, my family and I have become stronger Christians and have gotten involved in the system. My mother has started a new ministry called Storybook, where they go into prisons and help parents read books to their children on tapes that are sent, with the book, to the child. My dad was on the board of Texas Inmates Families Association. He has met and talked with many prison and state officials about prison reform and humane treatment of incarcerated people. They both still run a support group for family members of incarcerated people. We all continue to support my brother.

Through all of this, my brother has shown his true strength and love of God. He has remained faithful and trusted that the truth will set him free. He attended Kairos at his unit. He has led several “check-in” type groups. He attends school and work everyday. He has held his head up and has set an example for others. Amazingly, he continues to have dreams and goals for his life. He has not given up on himself or God. His life is a true testament to me and my family of God’s grace in hard times.

I heard and obeyed God’s call to ministry through all this. I have been in prisons, to visit and minister. God has shown me the pain and disappointment families go through with a loved one in prison. I have lived through it and come out the other side glorifying God’s name. It was not all easy. It still isn’t. But I know I survived the worst in my life with God by my side. I would never want to go it alone.

Blessings.

In the past months leading up to the move, we took several hundred pounds of stuff to the Wesley Mission Center, had a garage sale and moved items into a storage unit.

Now, the new house. It is a larger house, but we will be living with my parents. They have lived in their current residence 35 years. They have every nook and cranny and closet stuffed with stuff. My mother has weeded out over the years since my brother and I left home, but she has since had 5 grandchildren they have bought stuff for. Both my parents have home offices. They have tons of stuff too.

We are now in the new house. Since the move, I have taken several more loads to the Wesley Mission Center and Kid to Kid resale. There are 3 storage units packed full and there are many boxes and bags in the garage to be unpacked. It is a slow process, but I am trying to get rid of more than I bring in.

It is amazing the amount of “stuff” we accumulate. We tell ourselves we need it, or we might need it. We save it, we store it, we buy bigger houses or rent storage units for it. We can’t let go. This clutter is material, but it is also mental, emotional and spiritual.

Clutter is almost a life style. Why is that?

There are many reasons why we accumulate clutter in our houses, in our cars, in our offices, in our minds. One is the very real fact of not enough. Not enough time to put things away; not enough places for the things to go. Not enough quiet to listen; not enough energy to do. Some of us are busy; some of us are very busy; some of us are too busy. We don’t have enough time and we don’t have enough space, literally and figuratively, and so our lives become very cluttered. Clutter is our life style. We may not like it but it feels as though it is here to stay.

In addition to the outside forces bringing clutter into our lives, it also serves some very real needs and some very real purposes. Many of us have a need for security, or a need for comfort, or a need for abundance. In order to fill that need we surround ourselves with things because they seem to make us feel safe and rich. How much comfort, or security, or power, or freedom do you take from your clutter?

Sometimes we can use clutter as a distraction from what we want to avoid. When I was discussing this topic with a friend, she said “ How else would we keep from getting necessary work done? Where else could you lose yourself, your time and important items like keys?” If we’re constantly losing things and spending time looking for them for instance, it becomes a lot easier not to have time for that difficult conversation or that difficult task. Sometimes we can use clutter as a barrier, or protection from other people and even from life itself.

Sometimes clutter prevents us from moving on with our lives. Our self-identity is bound up with our clutter. All those items we have a sentimental attachment to. All those items from people no longer with us, from our past.

Clutter serves many purposes and fills many needs. And you thought you just didn’t know what to do with your stuff!

Some of us treat our propensity for cluttering as though it was a moral failing, or at least a personality flaw, or something to be confessed with an embarrassed smile. We look upon the organized with envy and longing. In our “informal” culture we have assigned a certain morality to clutter. We can buy into attitudes like a messy desk is a sign of a messy mind, or a cluttered house is a dirty house. (Of course then one asks, what does an empty desk say about the mind?) But clutter is even more complex than all of this. On the personal, even cultural level, it is more than simply negative traits or habits. Indeed, the negative connotations get in the way of really looking at clutter and understanding the roles it plays in our lives.

What happens if we stop beating ourselves up because we have clutter and instead uncover what that clutter means? What do we learn about ourselves? Might we find a way to manage it, live with it, get rid of it? There’s something to be said for keeping the clutter under control – physically as well as spiritually and emotionally.

My life is very full. It bulges with many people, many tasks, many demands. That’s okay–I like it that way. However, because it is such, I want the places I live and work in to be non-cluttered. I need not to have every surface covered because I need to look around and see empty space. I am able to be more creative in an uncluttered environment. I need to have things in relative order because I appreciate the calmness of that. That has a spiritual importance to me. My outward surroundings both influence and mirror my inner landscape. I’m happy.

Clutter is like a river stirred up by a hurricane. For some time after the water looks brown, as the mud from the bottom has been disturbed and swirls closer to the surface. Un-cluttering is the calming; the settling of the mud to the depths again, restoring clearness to the surface of the water. It’s a meditation.

And it’s not only spiritual. Mentally, when I’m not overwhelmed by clutter I feel a certain order, a sense of being on top of things. I feel a creative efficiency. Creative and efficient. My thoughts flow and I am engaged.

Emotionally, clutter can be a hindrance to relationships, while de-cluttering can help to maintain them. Often one person really minds it when the other leaves his/her stuff all over the common areas. It can feel disrespectful of shared areas and a disregard of what is important. I mean “stuff” both literally and figuratively here. It’s hard to be present for others if you’re crammed completely full of your own self. Physical, mental, emotional clutter can eat away at relationships.

Is our self-identity bound up with our things? Do we use them to hold onto the past, or a past self? Does our clutter distract us from something we want to avoid? Does it protect us from others getting too close? Does it give us a sense of abundance, of security? Is it comforting? Does it offer a sense of power and freedom?

What does your clutter say about you? What do you want it to say?

Giving it up gives us room to fill our lives with more important things and relationships. I cannot tell you how free I feel now that I have the things I love and can find and use them. I have time to spend with my family and with God, because I don’t have to keep up with my clutter. I can create and be the person God created me to be because I am not  a slave to cleaning up and organizing the clutter. My mind is cleared and is open for more time in prayer and solitude. My self-worth is not tied up in material things.

I have given that up.

And I am free.

Thanks be to God!!

At the Stop Hunger Now Bagging Event, I had several God moments that were like a breath of fresh air.  I say breath of fresh air because I was caught up in the role of frantically trying to make sure all the last minute details were taken care of.  “Did we have enough name badges for everyone to sign-in with, were there enough workers at the weighing tables, etc?”

God gently stopped me for a split second, that’s all it took-a split second, and opened my eyes to HIS works.  Not the little administrative things that needed to be done and completed, but the ‘truly moving events’ that were taking place right before my eyes.

One such moment came in the form of a precious and energetic child by the name of Carter Hall.  At first I noticed his feet.  He was barefoot.  Instinctively my safety nature kicks in, was that safe?  Was that sanitary?  Then, I get a gentle thought that washes through my hyper-active brain and it says ‘Look’.  Bare feet doing God’s work…  Bare feet running back and forth to answer the call of ‘Runner’ and eagerly meet the need…  Bare feet that weren’t afraid of getting dirty, stepping on rice, or being inappropriate…  They were there to meet the need that God had set before him, and how that child met that need.  He didn’t stop for one second to rest he was so consumed with joy helping all the hands that needed his efforts.  He tirelessly ran back and forth from the Filling Table to the Weighing Table and back again.  Never once did his actions say “when is it my turn to sit down?”  Or, “when can I have a break and let someone else do the running?” And, when it was time to go, what do you think that this child did?  He was in tears.  He didn’t want to leave because he was having so much fun being a part of this great big event.  Feeling needed and knowing that what he was doing was important.

Pure simple joy…  That is what we are called to have.  That childlike servant attitude that Jesus calls us to live by in Matthew 18:3-4.  How easy it is to lose that disposition when I get caught up in all the mundane details of life.  But, I want to thank Carter Hall.  God showed me in vivid detail a life example of what he talks about in Matthew and how it should look.  Thank You!

The second thing God showed me on Saturday was his moving power in his people.  Our first shift was the biggest and at that shift, we completed about 35% of the meals, the second shift came in around 25% and the third shift had the smallest amount of people at the start.  I had thoughts flying through my head of us finishing up at 8:00pm to complete all the meals (I have a very vivid imagination; one of my best & worst traits) One of the amazing things that God brought about was that people stayed on to help, seeing the need of filling in stations, and that people continued to trickle in as the shift progressed.  So, what started out as a very slow start to the shift, ended up with us as a speeding freight train and finishing about 45 minutes before our 2:00 pm deadline.

Since I am always comfortable in the worker bee mode, this perspective was enlightening and awesome.  To watch this many people pull together and work in-synch to produce meals that would provide a healthy food to people in need, how cool is that? Through efforts and hard work of ALL First United Methodist Mansfield and the guidance of Joe Boatman, this event was truly inspirational and left a lasting impression on me!

Sincerely,

Ann-Marie McLain

This week is the beginning of the season of Pentecost. We usually celebrate the church calendar in our Traditional services, but I thought I would share some interesting info on the event told to us in Acts 1-2.

As Christians, we sometimes say Pentecost is the birthday of the church. Pentecost was actually a Jewish holy day that was the festival of first fruits fifty days after Passover. Now, Christians celebrate Pentecost 50 days after Easter to remember the explosive power of the Spirit that launched the Christian community into mission. Jesus taught that the Holy Spirit would come to all the believers, not just to the Disciples. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” (Acts 1:8)

So they waited in the Upper Room. The 11 Disciples, certain women, including Jesus’ mother, as well as his brothers. They devoted themselves to prayer. “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place” (Acts 2:1). There was “a rush of violent wind” (Luke) and “divided tongues, as of fire” (Acts 2:2-3). They then began to speak in different languages, seemingly in the languages of the nations of the world.

The experience was not just about speaking in unknown tongues, it was a dynamic push for the believers to go into the world and spread the word about Jesus. They went out into the steets and started preaching and converting people. Three thousand people were baptized.

This is where it gets exciting for me as the Director of Adult Discipleship! They were immediately gathered into house groups. Wow! Small groups have been around since the beginning of the church! Since they had no churches, they met in one another’s homes almost daily. Look carefully at what they did. “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers” (Acts 2:42). They studied Scripture, shared their lives with each other, ate dinner and had Communion, and prayed together.

That simple! They shared what they had with each other and gave to the needy. They went to the Temple, kept the sabbath, and daily went in and out of one another’s homes praising God. “And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved”(Acts 2:47).

We can do this!! We can open our homes and invite our neighbors to hear the Good News! We can pray and share and eat together. We can read Scripture and give to others.

During Pentecost, I invite you to pray about the call of the Holy Spirit on you as a Christian to take the next step in starting or joining a small group. God gave us this model to grow His kingdom on earth. It’s 4 easy steps. Share, Pray, Eat, Study. Easy and life changing!!

My hope is that I can share some of my faith and some of my life and show people that life is never easy and people are people. But, God is always God and loves us no matter what.

Enjoy the ride!