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One of the girls got in an accident last Sunday and wrecked their beloved new (well new to them) beetle. It was heartbreaking. Until you saw how they handled it in the midst of the much deeper, darker crises that others in the world are facing.

What have they been focused on? How to help the victims of Katrina. They are trying to figure out how much of their very first paychecks ever will they have left after paying their part of their monthly car insurance premium to me to send to help. So obviously I won't be getting that money this month - how could I...when their hearts and actions are so right and so in tune to the heartbeat of Christ.

They have also asked if we can go help out as a family. Karen is helping us figure this out. She has already generously offered to let us stay with her or find us other shelter and to connect us with the right place to for us to help. She is awesome, that in the midst of all she is doing in Houston right now that she can take the time for that...amazing.

So now its time for us to pray as a family and I ask you to join us. If you could please be praying:

• that God makes it clear to us if we are to go, and when we are to go.
• the girls school who has a 5 absence and out policy makes an exception because of what they are going to be absent for
• that God provides the funds for us to go. I am assuming we need about $1500-2000 to go as a family.

I went to New York after 9/11 to volunteer with the Salvation Army. It was a life-changing experience and one I will never forget. Not because of the devestation but because it was such an opportunity to see the true human spirit. I am certain that this experience will be the same and will impact the girls in profound ways and propel them even closer to who God created them to be. (and me too of course).

Any thoughts, prayers and words that you would like to share would be greatly appreciated.

And, while I hate to ask, any donations you would like to make to our trip would be greatly appreciated.

If this trip does not happen, rest assured that all donations will be returned immediately.

Since Nathan is once again (albeit more gently and generically) to remove me from his blog roll - I figured I'd better post something and quick before that happened.

I am working a bazillion hours right now, and life is always just busier in the fall. The girls are back at school and life just happens at a faster pace.

This is a weird year of lasts for me since the girls are seniors. The last first day of school. The last sets of report cards. The last school pictures. The last school dance to get them ready. It goes on an on. Its both sad and breathtaking as I watch my daughters grow into their futures.

Its also a year of firsts. The first time I didn't have to get up and pull myself together to take the girls to school and the first time I didn't have to arrange meetings/work stuff around when they got out of school. The first time the girls had "real" jobs. The first of many panic attacks regarding their driving. Their first car.

I know the next couple of years will be a lot of that...Lots of lasts and lots of firsts as we move into this new phase in our family.

Well there's my post so that I don't get kicked off Nathan's blog roll...

and by the way Nathan, there is another reason work 60 hours a week - someone's gotta feed the kids and pay the rent around here. And so, there will probably be another month between posts as I figure out how to put 2 kids through college next year.

Well, as usually its crazy busy around here. I can't even remember the last time I posted or even had time to think about posting.

The big news around here is that Monday the girls take their driving tests to get their licenses. Please pray the pass, that they BOTH pass.

Which is what has brought me here to post this rant you are about to hear.

I am all for safe driving. I am all for putting controls in place. However, if you are going to do this you need to think through every possible scenario before you do so. So this rant is entitled "How I know the California legislature is made up of affluent people who probably don't have twins"

There is a fairly new law in California that says new drivers under the age of 18 cannot have passenger under the age of 20 without someone over the age of 25 in the car. This law is to prevent distractions to the driver. I get it. There is a provision to the law that says on occassion with a note and no other means of available transportation available that the driver can drive a YOUNGER sibling to and from school.

So, does 2 minutes younger count. And what about the twin that is the one who is the younger - does that mean she never gets to drive the car.

Which brings me to the car. Singular not plural. Through God's generous provision, and the girls being diligent enough to save 1/2 we were able to get them a cute little car to SHARE! But they can't be in the car together without an adult.

When I called the DMV they basically told me too bad so sad and told me to call my local law enforcement. My local law enforcement told me... are you ready for this... "I don't know what to tell you, buy another car..." CAN YOU BELIEVE IT. Now I know that we live in this place, where most 16 year olds gets brand new Escalades, Mercedes, BMW's etc. but please...

So I asked this person "you think it is safer to have 2 new drivers in 2 cars going to the same place than it is two have two teenage sisters in 1 car?" She didn't really have an answer for that one.

So, now you know why I believe the California legislature is made of up of people without twins...because if any of them had twins there would be a provision in the law...but then again maybe not... I am sure THEY can afford to buy two cars for the said twins.

GRRRRRRRR!

In a conversation I was having online this morning, the following came out and I was encouraged to blog it. So here it is.

"We are moving from a time where our pastor/teacher/leaders are supposed to show the sunny side, the value-added, look how great things are gonna be once you just believe and do all the right things - to a "look I screw up, I blow it all the time, but I love God and I know him and I trust him and there is a lot of good and a lot of bad but lets figure it out together" way of being.

The phrase that came to mind was "from rules to tools" meaning that all the things the institution says are set in stone "have-tos" going to church, reading your bible for an hour a day, etc. are really tools that God has given us to be better followers, better children - but that each person has been given their own way of using these tools. Like I use the computer to create art, someone else uses the computer to write, another person uses to computer to play games, another person uses the computer to build an airplane, but we are all using the computer to do what we are supposed to do. "

I believe its the same for believers today. This morning I felt like God was telling me to pour a cup of coffee and read my Bible. Now the truth is that I haven't looked at my Bible in months. I will go online to find a verse that God is putting on my mind, usually as part of a response to a conversation I am having with part of my community - which is typically thousands of miles away (as opposed to what we are told which is we are supposed to be in community with a local church to have fellowship).

Now what I wanted to do was stay in bed, and I even acted a bit like a teenager in my "come on Dad just 5 more minutes" prayer. But I got up and read. It was a couple of psalms and the intro to Hebrews and a couple of chapters. From that came some great revelation about me needing to stop feeling like the 19 year old who is a total mess and start embracing that I am a 36-year old woman who has a lot of accomplishments and mistakes under her belt. That I am an instrument that God has used to make my daughters who they are - and that while Yes it is Him, it is my obedience to him that made it work, because I could have chosen not to be obedient. And that obedience comes in all shapes and sizes. I am not obedient to a set of rules that I'm told is what I need to be a good Christian. I am not obedient to a set of rules that I'm told is what I need to be a good parent. Sometimes I am off the mark when I'm not obedient and sometimes (a lot of times) I am really being obedient to what God has called me to, which is different from what God has called others to.

Now, I know a lot of people are saying, see that great revelation that you had from reading your Bible, just think what would be revealed to you and how great your life would be if you just did that every day. But see, I did have a time when I did that every day. And quite honestly I felt held hostage, and bored, and uninspired, and unheard, and not spoken to most of the time. I don't think it was the act of reading my Bible that brought this around, it was the act of obedience. Knowing that God uses the Bible as a tool to bring about His will, His revelation.

There are a lot of tools in His toolbox. And alot of them that have been made into a rote list of "have-to's and how-to's" that are carved in stone as to the how's when's where's and why's, the Bible, prayer, fellowship, teaching, stewardship, service. But if each person were encouraged to explore how God uses each of these things in their own lives imagine what FREEDOM would be experienced. Imagine the joy that people would feel in their sacrifices of time, treasure and talents and the joy that people on the receiving end would feel knowing that what they received was not given half-heartedly out of an "obligation" but whole-heartedly out of "obedience."

Living this way doesn't by any means take out the "sacrifice" that is often talked about when we are told that we have to read our Bibles even if we don't want to, or that we are to give sacrificially, etc. It only takes out the frustration, confusion, bitterness, etc. that we feel when we aren't using the tools the way that God created us, as individuals, to use them.

Just like the illustration with the computer in my IM chat, we are all collectively given the tool of the computer but how each of us uses it is different. I would hope that no one would ever tell me or me them that the way I use my computer is an abomination, that computers are to be used one way and one way only. Or if I bought into the you must use a MAC to be a real designer/computer user line of thinking that floats around. I'd be out of a job and miss out on God's provision and use of my God given talents if I bought into that. Its the same thing. And, how can we teach all of the people who are without computers or don't understand computers, if we are so limited in our own understanding of the varied and beneficial uses.

Its the same with our fallen world, we're all created to know God, created from a loving God. A God who clearly says that He loves all of his creation. But instead, we act like MAC users who see only one way to accomplish any type of computing...their way, with their tools. What if each of us, understood, accepted and were free in their own way to use the tools God gave us to bring about his call to all of us collectively -- to love him and love the world. And what if this deeper understanding and freedom allowed us each to reach others built like us, to develop real connection and relationship with them. I don't talk about my PC use to people who use MACs, I let them talk about their MACs till the cows come home and then go about creating what God has called me to create on the tool he has given me - a PC. I do talk about my PC, its benefits and problems, to other PC users - we help each other, encourage each other, understand each other. What if those who were called to be prayer warriors acted like PC users instead of MAC users, what if those who were called to be Bible scholars did the same. What if the church, were able to do what the computer world can't and accepted the different tools and their uses, and used these things for God's glory instead of to create division, and guilt, and fear, and axiety about not being right, and good, and acceptable, and cool, etc.

Wouldn't we be more real. Wouldn't the world be less afraid of us. Wouldn't we walk in more obedience and freedom to God's individual calls on our lives. Wouldn't we be more effective. Wouldn't we be more approachable. Wouldn't we be more of who God created us to be. Wouldn't we be in the relationship with the Creator that we were created for. Wouldn't it be nice.

Its been a long time since I posted. Things have been crazy busy but mostly I think I have been in self-editing mode. Not sure who reads this thing both on the personal front and on the former church front and things that I need to write about just could end up causing problems.

Two things for sure that I know and have no worries about saying, are that God is good and faithful, an excellent parent and provider, and my daughters are amazing. I am grateful for the knowledge of both of these things.

The other thing I know is I have the travel bug...I just want to go...somewhere.