In Which Tigger Gets [Her] Bounce Back

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

The mug was a Christmas gift from one of my kids...The Princess, I believe...years ago.

'Tigger' was my nickname back in high school.  Won't go into how that came about, but it was appropriate.  Tigger is a Sanguine, bouncing enthusiastically through life and occasionally bumping into others without intention or malice.  Tigger didn't care a fig for anyone's opinion...in fact, it didn't even seem to occur to him that others would assign different motives to his actions than he meant.  He is genuinely astonished when the other inhabitants of the Hundred Acre Wood (namely Rabbit, the Choleric, of course) insist that he has to give up his bouncing.  He walks away, shoulders slumped, tail dragging, all joy gone...but not bouncing, as that is No Longer Allowed.  It Offended the others.
Of course, all is well in the end; Roo can't stand to see Tigger so despondent and intercedes for him with the others, so that finally even Rabbit relents and agrees that Tigger can bounce.  Rabbit even figures out what his big feet are for and begins to bounce a bit himself.

I have, in my past, an extended season of inadvertently bouncing into others.  Dumbfounded, at times, that what I said/did would be interpreted as it was. I was judged and found wanting. People were hurt.  It was my fault.

Slowly...or not so slowly...I began to be cautious of what I said.  Worry about how my words or actions might be interpreted.  It was self-imposed, but the bounce, over time, went away.  I quit offering so much of myself, because, well, nobody wanted it and it didn't go over well and...why bother?  Save myself and others the pain and just walk from place to place. Quietly.

And, you know, after a while that began to feel normal.  Oh, every now and then something in me would rise up and want to go leaping off somewhere, but I'd give myself a stern talking-to about how I can't do that, people wouldn't understand, I'd get into or cause trouble...and, believe me, if I didn't get myself talked to in time, there are plenty of folks around me who don't miss a chance to point out that I have overstepped my boundaries; some of whom I care for very much, so their critique goes deep. Anyway, I'd have a good cry someplace when no one was looking and shake it off and settle back down.

But if you asked me, really asked, I might tell you that I didn't feel quite myself.  I felt...confined.  Restrained...and strained.  I observed folks who had no trouble bouncing in their giftings; I tried to figure out what the fundamental flaw in my character or personality was that meant I was not one of those people.

I finally decided I just wasn't good enough.  Or perceptive enough.  Or compassionate enough.   Or something.  Or maybe I was too loud.  Too pushy.  Too impulsive.  Or something.

The flaw was in me.  Whatever it was, it was in me.

The world agreed.

And even though I knew it was a lie, I didn't want to be an offense to those around me. I might hurt them.  Or mess something up.  Better to just keep the status quo.

But, you know, God uses all kinds of things to bring truth into a life;  even a truth that could be twisted around to mean something altogether different.

A couple of weeks ago, My Sweet Babboo and I finally saw 'The Greatest Showman'.

And when I came home, I looked around and found this video:



In the context of the movie, the song is powerful, but somehow the workshop version spoke to me on a whole 'nuther level.

Won't let them break me down to dust; I know that there's a place for us
For we are glorious!

I am brave, I am bruised I am who I'm meant to be....this is me.

I'm not afraid to be seen, I make no apologies...this is me.

I have watched that video over and over...Keala overcomes HER fear to sing it.  And she is glorious.

Why have I let 'the world' , 'the others'  even 'some whom I care about very much'  convince me that I am flawed beyond use?  That I must limit my creativity and expression to suit somebody else's expectations?  That I have no real place? Or that my place is filling gaps and doing things that need doing but no one else wants to do?

Where did the creativity and expression that I have COME FROM, for goodness' sake?

I am back to John 5:44 - How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?

How can I believe if I let the fear of criticism or misunderstanding of others keep me from doing that which God has put in me to do?

This has been a long time coming, and I have some long-standing self-editing habits that are going to have to be rooted out and overturned and I really don't even know how to do it anymore...but it's time to start bouncing again.

Whoo-hoo-hoo-hoo!

On the Other Side...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

My crazy husband snapped this photo from the choir on Sunday during first service in the high school that we have been renovating for over a year. He reasoned that everyone was looking at our pastors and no one would pay attention to the guy in the back row of the choir.

We made it.  We had enough clean bathrooms; enough classrooms were painted and ready and the stage in the kids' sanctuary was good enough for a temp mobile set.  The theater was pretty much packed out all three services, with folks in overflow rooms during first and second.

It didn't go off without a hitch, but the hitches were, by and large, minor.  We're home. This is what church will look like for the next 3 -4 months, while work continues on converting the gym into a sanctuary that will hold around 1500 and we can finally drop back to just two services.

The staff was given two days off this week...Monday and today...to recuperate.

Me, I'm doing laundry.  So. Much. Laundry.

Gonna be a while before we really settle into something we could call normal; I'm still not sure that I'm going to stay in my current office or if I'm going to get moved elsewhere.  Go with the flow...lol...

But the problem with going an extended period without being able to get to the 'new post' page is that I have so many ideas for blog posts at odd moments...and then get frustrated that I don't remember them when I finally do get to sit down.  Hoping that we'll get something closer to a predictable routine going forward...and I can get those random thoughts transcribed. ;-)

#Celebrate2300

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi


I looked and looked through online albums and actual books of pictures, trying to decide what the FIRST photo I took at our current (for another 9 days) church location.

As near as I can tell, the first photos I took were for the sewing blog in 2004, documenting the costuming for our inaugural production of  'The Gospel According to Scrooge':

We actually began attending church at The Rock Family Worship Center in spring of 2001.  The building they were meeting in then was a former Sheraton Inn...a very nice hotel in the early 80's, but it had been sold and split up and re-sold and...the previous occupant was Joe's House of Entertainment.  But the church was just renting the space, and in spring of 2003 the owner sold the building.

Through a series of amazing events, we ended up purchasing a building at 2300 Memorial Parkway that had housed a genetics company...but prior to that, it had been as shopping center that featured a Service Merchandise.

We actually have stuff in our house that was purchased from that Service Merchandise back in the 80's.

We moved into the 2300 Memorial Parkway in July of 2003, literally right before we had to be out of the previous location, squeezing ourselves into a small auditorium they had, with a stage that was probably no more than 8 feet deep.

Why did a genetics company have an auditorium?  Who knows?  We had three services a weekend there to get everyone in while they gutted a series of labs/clean rooms and converted them into the current sanctuary.

We got the Certificate of Occupation from the Fire Marshall for the sanctuary the day before our annual Women's conference.  The fumes from the carpet glue, which had been laid that week, were so strong that one of our speakers had a serious respiratory reaction and almost ended up in the hospital.   She did end up spending one of the sessions doing breathing treatments in her hotel room.
There's an amazing testimony from that...we stopped the service and had special prayer for her, and literally at that time something shifted and she found herself able to breathe.

The sanctuary seemed huge.  It seated about 1000 folks, had three cameras running and amazing lighting.  I remember walking in and having to remind myself that this was my church...not a special conference event somewhere.

And the church grew. 

We outgrew that huge space at least 3 times.  We converted large spaces into smaller offices, moved the main doors, added windows, refurbished and updated, cramming classrooms and offices wherever and however we could.

We launched satellite campuses to hold overflow.  We added services back...once more, we're doing three services a weekend to accommodate everyone.

So many memories.  So many adventures.  So many encounters. We did The Gospel According to Scrooge twice, we did several Bible-based costumed Easter productions.

We're being encouraged to post photos and memories, with the hashtag Celebrate 2300 to link them all together.

I commented that I could go through the photos in my Facebook Albums and hashtag Celebrate 2300 to about 2/3 of the pictures.  But I don't have pictures that really document the history of our sojourn there.

We've been in that building nearly 15 years.  I can't begin to list the significant moments, the wonderful people, the blessings.  I've been on staff since 2009; I can tell you that it ain't a perfect church.  But it is a church that loves God and loves people and is making a difference in our city.

We have one more Sunday set of services there...and we'll be boxing up stuff the rest of that Sunday.  The last moving trucks will pull up on 1/29 and 1/30 to haul the remaining goods to the 'new' building...a retired high school.  2300 has already been sold to another church...who has already started some renovations in the areas that we moved out of in December.

We'll stilll be holding three services a weekend in the theater to accommodate the folks while the gymnasium is converted into a sanctuary that will seat somewhere around 1,600.  It should be done late in the spring.

I need to take more pictures.  Someday we may want to review what it looked like back in 2018 when we moved in to the work in progress...

What's My Motive?

 Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

(The back cover of the journal I customized at DIVE in 2014...that I use to record original song lyrics and other poetic stuff...)

One of my Blogging Buddies (and former BSF Teaching Leader), Suzanne Matthews, recently posted a question:

What Bible verse or quote impacted your life in 2017?

When I first read that, I paused, but came up with a blank.  I couldn't really think of one that stood out.

But, as these things go, one verse that caught my attention last year has resurfaced again and again in the time since I first read that question.

How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God?  - Jn 5:44

I've just started reading David Binon's book The Invisible Worshiper, and, even though he hasn't mentioned that verse (at least not in the first two chapters, lol), I keep hearing that question over and over again.

Am I making an effort to obtain the praise that comes only from God...or am I looking for approval/praise from other people?

See, at the turning of the year I have become keenly aware that my creative self has all but shut down.  Oh, I'm puttering away here and there, but there's nothing consistent.  The urgency that had me writing even just three years ago has pretty much evaporated.  I sit down to write and...nothing.

I'll be honest; a lot of the reason I found myself floundering to write/create is...it went nowhere.  I began to feel like I was spending a lot of energy...not just creating, but anticipating and hoping that the work was worth doing, could make a difference...and, by and large, it was met with a 'Oh, that's nice.'...and then, nothing.

Case in point...not meant to be a complaint or a whine, just a statement of fact...I went back and counted the comments I've gotten on the blog in the past year.  Not counting my own...seven.

I shouldn't have counted.    Am I trying to gain the praise that comes from God...or praise from people?

I pulled out my songwriting notebook and read through some of the lyrics.  And I honestly think at least some of them are good.  But my attempts to turn them into something have just hit brick wall after brick wall.  So I'm pretty sure turning them into something isn't my calling.

That's trying to get praise from people, right?

Then... the Passion and Purpose post challenged me...I realized that another reason my creative unction had failed was that I failed to spend time in the presence of the Creator.  He is the SOURCE.

A wee bit squeezed in here and there ain't gonna cut it.  Not if I want to move forward.

I had given up on writing because it was going nowhere.  And I'd stopped spending quality time with God because the creativity that came from those meetings drove me to write...but the writing was going nowhere.

Looking for praise from people ultimately shuts down not only the output of creative but closes off the source of creative.

Ya'll, I am having my clock cleaned good at the start of the year.

So here's a paradigm shift...a challenge for 2018...become a person who seeks to please God...

Step One...no commitments...yet...

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi.

If you're contemplating a once-in-a-lifetime adventure,  start with the simple steps.

Go to the post office and get your passport renewed.

It doesn't obligate you...yet...

And you know time's running out; you might not make the deadline once all the discussions are completed and the finances laid out and all lights turn green.

But you might.

So you do the simple step.

And then know you've got to commit within a week if you're going to do it.

Because you really, really want to do it.

But it scares you a little.

Ok, a lot.

It's just that there's all those stupid niggling health issues...what if one of them (or more) decides to blow up at the worst possible moment on the other side of the globe?

And you know you don't fly well.

But you also know if you don't at least try you'll be disappointed in yourself.

So find the just-expired passport. Fill out the paperwork. Get the photo.  Pay the fee.  Send it in.

And trust that if God means for you to do it, there will still be a space available once all agree on 'go'.  And He's got all that health stuff covered.  And if it's a bad idea...well, the deadline will pass and that will be that.

And...truth...that's better than my drivers' license photo...

The Epiphany Challenge

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews?  We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him."

When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.  (Matt. 2:1-3; all scripture today from NIV 84)


While we have many traditional ideas of the Christmas story that don't really line up with scripture; the Magi's part is probably the most distorted.  My little china nativity set underscores the errors...first, that there were exactly 3 (they have even been given names somewhere along the way...Melchior, Balthazar and Gaspar.  According to this CNN Story,  Bede the Venerable listed their names and descriptions in the 8th century, but no one knows the exact origin of the tradition); secondly, that they came to the manger with the shepherds.  Nowhere in scripture is the number of Magi stated; given the stir they caused when they arrived in Jerusalem, disturbing the whole city with their quest, I rather think it was somewhat more than three.  And as to them coming to the manger, that's pretty much disproven later in the second chapter of Matthew.  It was somewhere in the neighborhood of two years later when they came to the house in Bethlehem where Joseph and Mary and Jesus were living.

But, be that as it may, it still is an astonishing bit in the story that wealthy learned men (again, not kings...nowhere in the narrative are they referred to as kings) understood the signs in the heavens and undertook the journey to worship the one they called the King of the Jews.  They had to also have understood the significance of that King...that His coming was for the nations, not just for the Jews.  Why else would they undertake such a journey? 

All Jerusalem was disturbed.

Herod called in the chief priests and the teachers of the law and asked them where the Messiah was to be born.

"In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "For this is what the prophet has written:  But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means the least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will be the shepherd of my people Israel."  (Matt. 2:5-6)

Now, if you were a Jew, living in Jerusalem,  hearing the news that a troupe of foreigners, well-dressed and well-mounted, had arrived looking for the long-prophesied king...who was to have be born only about 5 miles away...what would you have done?

The Jews of that day did...nothing. Not one of them is recorded as going to see for himself if the story the Magi told was true.

Of course, perhaps they reasoned that it had been two years and there was certainly no guarantee that the family hadn't left the area, but still.  They had been looking for the coming of the Messiah for CENTURIES.  Would you not have been a little curious?  Would you not have taken a day to check the story out?

But Herod instructed the Magi to go and find the child and then come back and tell him...and everyone else, I suppose...where to find him.

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was.  When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.  On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him.  Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and myrrh.  And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.

I have heard critics of the gospel state that the sum given to Mary and Joseph should have set them up to be wealthy; I think it just financed the urgent flight they undertook probably less than 24 hours later.  Joseph had a dream warning him to go to Egypt; he got up and took his family and left in the middle of the night.   Herod, in his fury that the Magi did not return and tell him where to find anyone, sent his soldiers to kill all boys two and under in the entire area around Bethlehem.

The Jews had missed their opportunity to see their Messiah.  Of course, He would appear to all of them later, but that blessing for that time was gone.

So, here's the challenge to me from the story of Epiphany...Jesus is near to us today.  We can encounter Him just by taking the time to seek Him.   Every day is a new opportunity...but when that opportunity is gone, it's gone.  How many days do I let go by without spending some time with Him?  Why do I let the busy of life stop me from the very little effort it takes to hear a word or two for that day?  How can I shake my head over the Jews who wouldn't interrupt their routine for a 5 mile journey if I won't interrupt my activity for 30 minutes?

Purpose and Passion

Posted by Lisa Laree to Beer Lahai Roi

 (the sunset photo really doesn't have anything to do with the post; but sunsets in general are good for a reflective mood and it gives Facebook a nice photo to post instead of the CWO button...lol)

I actually made it to the beginning of staff prayer today; many days I come in right at the end of the 'quiet personal prayer time'  and catch the corporate prayer and the exhortation from one of the pastors.

But today, I got there early enough that I could do my Jericho march around the sanctuary.  I like to walk and pray...number one, it keeps me alert and, number two, it keeps me warm, lol.

As I was walking and praying, there was one particular face that came to mind and I found myself praying that God would put a passion and purpose into that life...someone who's in need of a bit of direction and motivation to get out of a rut.

When enough folks had arrived that the aisles were beginning to be congested (many other staffers like to walk and pray as well), I sat down, and the following thoughts just ran out of my pen onto my notepad (slightly edited for clarity and coherence, I'll admit...)....

Passion and purpose are essential for a satisfying human existence.

Folks who have neither move aimlessly through life, ineffective and invisible.

Folks who have purpose but no passion lose their sense of value, living under the drudgery of duty.

Folks who have passion but no purpose burn out on frivolity.

A God-given passion for a purpose will change the world...for someone.

But each of us have to CHOOSE to pursue the passion and purpose of God; it is tailored to fit each individual life and will go unclaimed if the person for whom it was fashioned...or, perhaps, who was fashioned for it...doesn't rise up and possess it.

Because the enemy will provide a counterfeit; passion can be twisted and purpose can be misdirected.  It needs an intentional choice to live in the passion and purpose of God.

And choice is never just a decision; choice is an action.

What am I doing today to choose to pursue the passion and purpose of God in and for my life? 

A good ponder for the start of a new year...