It's time for my Friday link up with A Little Bit of Everything and Momfessionals.
On Fridays I share things that made me happy from the week - a photo, a song, a quote, a beauty product, a recipe, a pair of cute shoes, etc. If it's a product, sometimes it's something I actually own and sometimes something I just saw online that gave me a smile. Sometimes it's serious and sometimes it's silly. I suppose I believe that God is in the simple details of life and yes, I can even find Him
in a tube of lipstick.
Hi, Friends. It seems like it's cold and grey all over the country this weekend. And if it's warm and sunny where you are, keep it to yourself, Sis. ;-) Also, MY KID IS STILL NOT IN SCHOOL. Fix it, Jesus. I've been a little in my head and introvert-y and think-y and praying a lot this week. Just buckle your seatbelt for #5 today. ;-) Your girl's fingers were flying. I hope you have a great weekend and take some time to get out of your own head and do something fun, laugh at a silly meme, eat something with no nutritional value, take a walk even though it's too darn cold, and remember that even in the cold and grey and gloomy, God is the same faithful God He has always been. Here are some favorites from the week.
1. My All-American
As a University of Texas alum and a person who spends arguably way too much time thinking about Texas Longhorn football, I was ashamed that I didn't fully know the story of Freddie Steinmark. I remember when this movie came out five years ago, but I never got a chance to see it. The Skinner fam loves a sports movie, so when you add all the footage of my University and football team, I am in. From what I have researched, My All-American stays very true to the real life story and we loved it. (A PS: I don't want to ruin the movie, but there are some of my friends who might want to check out the synopsis ahead of watching.)
2. When the Internet is the Actual Best
The internet and social media is, of course, depending on your state of mind, a sure-fire way to spin a girl out. Even when you're a grown-up who knows better. This is why I am so grateful when a social media hero shows up. Sometimes that hero is a little button called "snooze" and/or "block" and/or "slide to power off". And sometimes - most times for me - it's the wickedly funny people who will save us from ourselves. Here are a few that were my faves this week.
3. Tater Tot Skewers
I saw these Tater Tot Skewers on the Instagram account of The Sister Studio and couldn't really think of anything that could make my kid happier than a combo of potato, cheese, and bacon on a stick for a Super Bowl snack. These were a big hit with the boy and friends. Cook frozen tater tots in the oven or air fryer. Place on skewers and then on a baking sheet. Cover with grated cheddar cheese, crumbled bacon (and chives if you don't have a teenager). Place in the oven at about 350 degrees until the cheese melts. Be the Tom Brady of snack foods.
4. Women's Colorblock Hoodie
We are crossing our fingers and toes in hopes that high school sports in Virginia will allow spectators soon. Your girl even wrote an email to the School Board this week which I have never done in the history of my life. Baseball season will start later this year and I'm just going to plan on being in the stands cheering for my kid and his teammates with all I'm worth. Having said that, I need some baseball game attire. I am personally anti-Spirit Wear, not because I don't like it, but because I noticed that our teams more often lose when I wear it. Case in point: I wore no Freedom Basketball Tshirts during the 2019 playoff run and we won and won and won and won. Then I apparently lost my fool mind and decided to wear one of Kyle's Freedom Basketball Warm Up Tshirts to the State Championship and we lost. Do I still blame myself two years later? Yes, I do. It's just plain science.
Anyway, that's why I'd like to wear our school colors which are black and gold, but I have to stay away from any sort of logo. This is the cutest hoodie and would be a perfect choice that wouldn't jinx the team. I also like the white and black one.
5. Frederick Beuchner on Unbinding the Hands of Jesus
Attention: I'm gonna get very Jesus-y here in number 5. I mentioned the devotional book, Listening to Your Life, at the beginning of the year as it is the devotional I plan to read each day of 2021. I have underlined so many passages in this book that I'm about to run out of ink.
This week I was wrestling a lot with praying big, bold prayers. I'm not sure what it says about me that I hesitate to pray those prayers - not to say that I don't ask for exactly, specifically what I want or even for things that seem impossible - but more to say that often, I quickly follow my request with an almost apologetic footnote.
Of course, Lord. I have so much. I've been so blessed. I know this person has been through so much more than I. I know that person needs you, too. The world is big and suffering is rampant. Who am I to ask You to move in this miraculous way when the whole of my life has been so full of Your undeserved grace?
And even a scarier footnote:
If I ask You for something this big and it doesn't happen, will I find myself disappointed with You? Will I find myself in doubt of You? Will everything I believed and wrote and said about You come crashing down in the flood of my unanswered prayer?
I've wrestled with God and myself in my prayer life in this way for years. And you want to know what? It's utter BS.
This week in my Bible Study group, a woman asked this very vital question: "How big is your God?"
I have always written and talked about how our God is not too big for our smallest pleas and certainly not too small for our most mighty requests. It's just that sometimes I need a reminder.
This brings me back to Beuchner. In Listening to Your Life in the passage for February 11th, he writes of an Episcopal laywoman, Agnes Sanford, who he went to see speak. He wrote about what he learned from her and my red pen was flying across the page.
The most vivid image she presented was of Jesus standing in church services all over Christendom with his hands tied behind his back and unable to do any might works there because the ministers who led the services either didn't expect him to do them or didn't dare ask him to do them for fear that their own faith and the faith of their congregations would be threatened as the result. . .
I prayed a good deal, but for the most part it was a very blurred, very haphazard kind of business . . . never expecting much back in the way of an answer, never believing very strongly that anyone was listening to me or even, at times that there was anyone to listen at all.
That was the whole point, Agnes Sanford said. You had to expect. You had to believe. You had to keep at it. It took work. It took practice. . . More than anything else it took faith. It was faith that unbound the hands of Jesus so that through your prayers his power could flow and miracles could happen, healing could happen, because where faith was, healing always was, too, she said, and there was no power on earth that could prevent it. Inside of all of us, she said, there was a voice of doubt and disbelief which sought to drown out our prayers even as we were praying them, but we were to pray down that voice for all we were worth . . .We were to believe in spite of not believing. Fairy-tale prayers, she called them. Why not? Jesus prayers. The language didn't matter . . . only the faith mattered. (selected passages, pages 40-42)
I hope that if you have some Fairy Tale prayers, as I do, that you will pray for them with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your heart and know that no matter what happens everything we believed to be true about Him will hold up. I will do the same. May our faith be so audacious, so extravagant, so outlandishly excessive that His hands are unbound and the miracles fall down like rain.
Have a blessed weekend.
Oh and PS - update on some of the previous favorites: These snow boots are the best! So warm and so cute. This book was . . .fine, but a lot of people really loved it, so what do I know? My Old Navy and Wal-Mart had a great selection of men's Valentine's pj pants - much better than online. Not sure if you can get lucky there now, but worth a shot. Later skaters!
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