Lauren Sparks

The Sparks Notes

Sad, Sassy and Surprised in September

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This month was a roller coaster.  And I’m not just talking about Baylor Football!  A wide range of emotions and experiences have both buoyed my spirits and challenged my joy. The good, the bad and the ugly – you might say.  I’ll just call it September. 

 

Sad in September

 

I’ll just go ahead and start with my aforementioned Baylor Bears.  My husband and I bought season tickets this year since our Baby Bear is a Freshman.  And the start to the season has been a train wreck.  I hate to say that since I bleed green and gold but we lost our first game when we were a 3-4 touchdown favorite.  We lost the 2nd game, but at least they were a ranked team.  We won the third, beating the Long Island University Sharks (who?), but not as handily as we should have.  And last week we gave away our last Big 12 match up with the University of Texas.  I’ll never give up my fan card, but it’s a little tough to proudly display at the moment.

 

The job market broke my heart again.  For the second time I was passed over for a job I really wanted.  A job in ministry, too.  I spent a few days grieving this one.  And now I’m back at it.  Giving my all at the job I have and continuing to look for what God has next.  I also attended a funeral for a young father killed in a terrible accident.  To cap it off, I turned 50 (boo) and everything hurts.

 

 

Sassy in September

 

Visiting my daughter and her college friends has been a fun side benefit to the season football tickets.  And we loved the extended visit of our overnight stay (even if it was in a Super 8) for Family Weekend.  Bringing our girl treats and taking her and her posse to lunch brought me so much joy.  And being on campus is just fun.

 

My best friend flew in from Alabama to go to one of the games with me and there is no one I’d rather spend time with.  Laughing, talking, eating, shopping and feeling disappointed in football.  (We watched the Dallas game against Arizona too.)  And Chuck and I – with two other couples who live in the neighborhood – have now firmly established our once a week supper club.  It’s a delight.  In my book, friend time = great time.  And teaching them Spicy Uno left me in stitches.

 

The hubs and I started watching a new (but old) TV show.  Suits.  It’s not without some language and innuendo, but a good legal drama puts me in mind of LA Law.  And I LOVED that show growing up!  We only saw one movie in a theater.  My Big Fat Greek Wedding 3.  I know, I know.  I should have learned my lesson with the 2nd one, but I loved the first so much that I had to try.  And it was still sweet, if not laugh-out-loud funny.

 

I read Woke Up Like This by Amy Lea and The Struggle for Love:  The Story of Leah by Marilyn T. Parker.  I enjoyed the first – a funny and very easy to read coming of age story.  The author of the second fictionalized the story of Leah from the bible with some interesting spins.  A great read.

 

Surprised in September

 

My husband treated me to the best thing to happen this month.  Upon returning from the Baylor/ Texas football game weekend with my best friend, I walked into a house full of family and friends who gathered to surprise me for the birthday that shall not be mentioned again after this.  I may not have liked the number, but celebrating it was so fun.  Chuck worked hard on all the details, including catering, Nothing Bundt Cakes, balloons and so many dear people.  He made everything beautiful and I haven’t stopped talking about it since.

 

That’s the gist of it.  I pray you have seen God’s hand in the good times and bad.  And I would love to hear what you’ve been up to.  As always, I love you, I thank you and I pray October treats you well.

 

Now for this week’s featured post from the link up!

 

Joanne Viola’s short but impactful piece on the term Opinion gave me a lot to think about.  Thanks, Joanne.

The Link Up

1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.

2. Comment on 1 or 2 other links. Grace & Truth linkup encourages community.

3. Every host features one entry from the previous week. To be featured, include this button or link back here on your post (mandatory to be featured, but not to participate).

Grace and Truth_Meet Hosts

We encourage you to follow our hosts on their blogs or social media.

MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

TAMMY KENNINGTON – Restoring hope. Pursuing peace.
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

 Now Let’s Link Up!

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If you liked this post, do me the huge honor of using the buttons below to share it to your favorite social media accounts. And if you want to get these essays emailed to you once a week, subscribe!  Lastly, my posts may contain affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy anything from one of these links, I will receive a few pennies to help offset the cost of this website at no additional charge to you. Thank you in advance for your help.

Joy as an Active Pursuit: My Word of the Year

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Word of the YearI’m raw today, so I might as well be real.  After some hard times, I chose “joy” as my word of the year for 2023.  I was tired of feeling sad and mad and hurt, and needed to return to the joy of my salvation.  God is teaching me so much, but in this moment, I’m not feeling it.  I’m disappointed and grieving.  And if I’m honest, discontent.

 

Discontentment and joy go together like tuna fish and peanut butter.  Not at all.  But as I round the corner to my 50th birthday there is so much in my life I want to change.  Some of it is out of my control and on some things I’m trying as hard as I can.  But here I sit with broken dreams, heartache, and difficulty.  Maybe I’m having a midlife crisis.  Or maybe you can relate.

 

Knowing discontentment is not from the Lord, I decided to look for some scripture on the subject.  In 2 Corinthians 12:10, Paul tells us, “Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.”  Is Paul a showoff?  Could he relate to me at all?  That’s a dumb question.  I’m the one who can’t relate to him.  The things he went through for the sake of the gospel dwarf my modern day issues.  Being beaten, whipped, shipwrecked, imprisoned, etc.  I know God’s Word doesn’t exist to make me feel better, but I still wish this did.

 

More Scripture on My Word of the Year

 

Habakkuk wrote in 3:17-18, “Though the fig tree should not blossom and there be no fruit on the vines, though the yield of the olive should fail and the fields produce no food,though the flock should be cut off from the fold and there be no cattle in the stalls, yet I will exult in the Lord, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation.”  This sounds more like something I can relate to and learn from.  Nothing is going right.  And yet the author rejoices in God.  

 

Habakkuk was a prophet.  Did he know something about the future I don’t know?  Is that why he had joy on a no good horrible, rotten, very bad day?  No.  I have the New Testament that tells me the end of the story.  Not only is God with me no matter what is going on now, but He wins in the end.  He is God now and He will be God for all eternity.  An eternity that I will get to spend with Him in paradise.  No more tears, no more illness, no more disease.  Broken dreams, heartache or difficulty?  Nope.  No more discontent.  There is truly nothing else I need.

 

How I Feel Now About My Word of the Year

 

Do I still feel discontent right now?  Yep.  And I gave myself a couple of days to cry about it this week.  Grief is a very human emotion.  And God cares about our emotions.  So I’m not going to beat myself up about it.  I’m just going to try to turn my attention to who He is and what He promises instead of what I want.  And when I do that, my heart feels a little lighter.  And God is glorified.  That makes me joyful.  So I will be okay feeling my feelings.  But also look for ways to glorify God and rest in His promises at the same time.  That’s how I’ll actively pursue my word of the year.  It’s hard to stay down when my thoughts point up.

 

And now for this week’s featured post from the link up!

 

Everyone congratulate and participate with Debbie W. Wilson on the launch of her book!

The Link Up

1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.

2. Comment on 1 or 2 other links. Grace & Truth linkup encourages community.

3. Every host features one entry from the previous week. To be featured, include this button or link back here on your post (mandatory to be featured, but not to participate).

Grace and Truth_Meet Hosts

We encourage you to follow our hosts on their blogs or social media.

MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

TAMMY KENNINGTON – Restoring hope. Pursuing peace.
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

 Now Let’s Link Up!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

If you liked this post, do me the huge honor of using the buttons below to share it to your favorite social media accounts. And if you want to get these essays emailed to you once a week, subscribe!  Lastly, my posts may contain affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy anything from one of these links, I will receive a few pennies to help offset the cost of this website at no additional charge to you. Thank you in advance for your help.

 

 

Speaking the Truth in Love

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“Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ.”  Ephesians 4:15 NIV

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If you have been a believer for any length of time, you are probably either familiar with this verse or have heard the command to “speak the truth in love”.  Our culture would have us to believe that the truth part of this command takes a backseat to the love part.  That speaking anything that disagrees with what another thinks or does is hate speech.  Not to mention judgmental or bigoted.

 

In actuality, it seems believers have as much trouble with this command as non-believers.  If you tend to be a people pleaser – like me – it can be much easier to keep truths that could be controversial or upsetting to someone else to myself.  Only speaking of flowers and butterflies.  And if you have a social media account on any platform, you surely have come across users who wield truth (or their version of it) like a baseball bat to the head.  With love a distant consideration, if considered at all.

 

However, in the Bible, the flowers and butterflies (things like goodness, love and grace) are often conjoined with truth.  For example:

“Do not let kindness and truth leave you; bind them around your neck, write them on the tablet of your heart.” Proverbs 3:3 NASB

 

Kindness and truth should be intertwined like a chain around our necks.  And we should not consider one without the other.  It’s important to note that this truth is not about personal preferences or practices.  Real truth (true truth, if you will) is about principles from the Bible.  Therefore, there is no such thing as “my truth” or “your truth”.  There is only THE truth in God’s Word.

 

Yes, we can all have different experiences and even perceive things in various ways, but truth to build a life on can only be found in the 66 God-breathed books of the Bible.  In The Ways of the Alongsider:  Growing Disciples Life to Life, Bill Mowry wrote, “Truth-telling is a hard but essential ministry…It can mean identifying sin, admonishing a change in behavior or attitude or a blessing that gives affirmation.  When we love people, we are willing to be truthful with them, and them with us.”

 

These words inspire me to look for ways to speak truth and love into others – even if it’s hard.  After all, the passage from Ephesians at the top of this post tells us that this is how to grow and mature in Christ.  Make it so, Lord Jesus.

 

And now for this week’s featured post from the link up!

 

Waiting is hard.  And there are some big things I’m waiting on God for.  This article on delays from the Grace-Filled Moments blog was a huge encouragement to me.

 

The Link Up

1. Share 1 or 2 of your most recent CHRISTIAN LIVING posts. (No DIY, crafts, recipes, or inappropriate articles.) All links are randomly sorted.

2. Comment on 1 or 2 other links. Grace & Truth linkup encourages community.

3. Every host features one entry from the previous week. To be featured, include this button or link back here on your post (mandatory to be featured, but not to participate).

Grace and Truth_Meet Hosts

We encourage you to follow our hosts on their blogs or social media.

MAREE DEE – Embracing the Unexpected
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LAUREN SPARKS
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

LISA BURGESS – Lisa notes
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

TAMMY KENNINGTON – Restoring hope. Pursuing peace.
Blog | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Pinterest

 Now Let’s Link Up!

 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

If you liked this post, do me the huge honor of using the buttons below to share it to your favorite social media accounts. And if you want to get these essays emailed to you once a week, subscribe!  Lastly, my posts may contain affiliate links and I earn from qualifying purchases. If you buy anything from one of these links, I will receive a few pennies to help offset the cost of this website at no additional charge to you. Thank you in advance for your help.

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