"Today…"

Merry Christmas and lots of love from South Dallas!

May this Advent and Christmas Season be a time where you enjoy all things that point back to the return of our King, Christ Jesus!

“During those early years in Tuskegee, God caught my attention with the beauty and power of the tabernacle as a model for my devotional life. I was alone and losing courage for the very work that inspired my move to the Deep South. I remember returning home one hot Albama night, discouraged and lonely. As I walked up to the trailer under the glistening moonlight, it hit me: I was not alone. This was more than a feeling. [This season] was becoming my tabernacle. [This season] was where I lived out and worked out my relationship with God. It was where I cried out to God for mercy and understanding; it was where I awoke after midnight in anguish of heart, mulling over the news from home – one more of my childhood friends [achieved something I wanted]. And although I had obeyed God, I felt left behind, in a maze of uncertainty. It was there I realized that the key for my life lay in the realities to which the tabernacle pointed me. I had to step into the way of the tabernacle and follow its path into the very presence of God to find what he had for me.“

-Excerpt from “Beauty in the Desert- Discover Deeper Intimacy with God Through the Model of the Tabernacle” by Eddie Broussard

Sometimes you just need new reminders of old truths.  I often find myself rummaging through the preschool fifth grade section of my church website to remind myself of the foundation of who God is. It amazes me that these truths often feel like new ideas rushing over me for the first time. Oh how we all need to be reminded of who God is. There are lies that impede the framework I think I know so well. If you read the list below I promise you will find something you don’t truly believe. I think I believe them all but my thoughts and actions prove otherwise. I am thankful He gives a wide place for my steps under me and my feet do not slip (Ps. 18:36). 

So, as you go about your day, remember in the midst of your drinking and your eating, your playing and your work, your fear and confusion, your joy and your delight, that…..

• God made everything
• God is in charge of everything
• God is good
• Jesus came to save sinners
• God wants to talk to us
• God is wise and knows what is best
• God is generous and gives what is best
• God is loving and does what is best
• God is good and IS what is best

It was a Friday night and I had lived in Dallas a year and a half.  I was going to the DMA with a few girls I had just met through a church home group. We took in the art, enjoyed some wine and watched a traditional African dance.  The night ended with us sitting in the car sharing  funny dreams we recently had. From that night on I gained some of my closest friends. One of those being Jennifer (Stetter) Jacket.

Jen and I would meet up several mornings to walk and pray. We would enjoy our self-proclaimed wine and theology nights and we would religiously watch an old man break out some amazing dance moves at our favorite Plano establishment, Obzeet.  We eventually moved in together after feeling God’s calling to move closer to The Village Dallas campus and we co-lead a home group together. I was able to watch first hand the joy of God bringing Jen and her husband, David, into a relationship and then stand next to them as the Maid of Honor in their wedding.

Our relationship has had highs and lows that have firmly planted our friendship in Christ. I am so thankful to have walked so closely with Jen for such a brief time and now continue to stay in contact as best as we can considering God has led our lives down separate trajectories for the time being.  It’s always a joy to connect and share the fun things going on around us as well as the deep things God is doing in our lives.

All of that to say, she is a gem. You would benefit from her writing….check out her blog and drink from the well that she so eloquently leads you to in her writing!

When you find a good thing you can’t hide it!

Have you ever found yourself at a work meeting and looked down at your nails and immediately feel like you are looking at the nails of a junior high girl? You know what I am talking about…some nails have a few chips- some no color left at all. You are lucky if there is full coverage on any of the nails actually.

Have you found yourself in the same situation but on a work trip, heading out for a date, sitting down at a wedding?

Me Neither – I Have!

And while I don’t judge people if I ever notice (in which I don’t!),  I immediately feel a little embarrassed if when I am in this situation. I feel like an unkept juvenile. Will people take me seriously? Surely not:) This usually leads to some fidgeting and trying to pick off the rest of the polish which in turn leaves a mess of little chips of paint. I become a hot mess!

I mean, it just continues to go downhill from here.

WHAT TO DO?!?!? Well, this weekend I found something that is a step in the right direction! Especially for a busy traveler like me. It’s annoying to pack a bottle of remover + cotton balls every time I leave. It’s also rare for me to remember to pack nail polish. And let’s face it…it is honestly worse to put a layer over chipped polish.  Can I get an amen? I also usually have carry-on luggage and 3 oz isn’t going to get you anywhere!

Can you see I have thought long and hard about this? 🙂

Check these out!

I just got home from a conference and realized half way through my nails were horrid! Luckily I bought polish but they quickly started chipping away. The hotel I stayed at offered nail polish remover so I quickly called the front desk and the speedily brought me a stack of these wipes!  They. Are. A. MA. ZING!  In fact, one of the first things I did when I got home was see if I could purchase them to store in my backs and purses.

I am so excited!  Watch out world…I have my act together:)

“Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling of that something which you were born desiring?

You have never had it.

All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it — tantalising glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear.

But if it should really become manifest — if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself — you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say “Here at last is the thing I was made for.”

-CS Lewis

This week’s menu includes…..

Sweet Potato Hummus

http://www.wholeliving.com/133217/sweet-potato-hummus

Tomato Basil Parmesan Soup

http://utah.todaysmama.com/2012/03/20/tomato-basil-parmesan-soup-in-the-slow-cooker-or-on-the-stove-top/

Spinach Salad w/Peaches, Almonds and Gorgonzola

http://aggieskitchen.com/2012/09/17/spinach-salad-with-fresh-late-summer-peaches-gorgonzola-and-almonds/

Asparagus, Mushroom, Crustless Quiche

http://www.teatattler.com/2013/05/asparagus-mushroom-crustless-quiche/

What an amazing way to transform brokenness through business.  

A friend sent me this article a while ago and I thought it went well with the two recent articles I posted! It was originally from the Dallas Morning News.

Poverty surging in Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs more than inner cities, study finds

By MICHAEL E. YOUNG
MICHAEL E. YOUNG The Dallas Morning News
Staff Writer
Published: 20 May 2013 12:28 AM
Updated: 20 May 2013 12:31 AM

Over the last decade, people living below the poverty level — $22,000 for a family of four — have surged into suburban neighborhoods in most major metropolitan areas, including Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, at a rate more than twice that of urban centers.
According to “Confronting Suburban Poverty in America,” a report released Monday by the Brookings Institution Metropolitan Policy Program, the poor population in the nation’s suburbs increased by 64 percent over the last decade, with 3 million more poor residents in the suburbs than in the big cities.
In Dallas-Fort Worth, the number of poor people living in the suburbs more than doubled between 2000 and 2011. The number went from 224,443 to 474,023, an increase of 111.2 percent and the 12{+t}{+h}-highest rate of the 95 metropolitan areas in the survey. The growth rate in the region’s cities was far lower — 67.9 percent — though poverty rates remain higher in the cities — 23.3 percent — compared with 11.5 percent in the North Texas suburbs.
The numbers signal a geographic shift for people living in poverty or slightly above, one that isn’t likely to change, the authors of the report say.
“When people think of poverty in America, they tend to think of inner-city neighborhoods or isolated rural communities,” said Elizabeth Kneebone, who co-authored the report with Alan Berube. “But today, suburbs are home to the largest and fastest-growing poor population in the country.”
The lure is the same that draws other suburbanites — with the perception of better schools and safer neighborhoods high on the list, said Berube, a senior fellow at Brookings. “But the long-term things you need to succeed — like proximity to work — you tend to lose.”
The move to the suburbs is largely the result of decades of change and growth, the authors say. The suburbs became the fastest-growing and largest centers for impoverished residents even before the latest recession.
But that certainly added to the impact, mostly by providing a huge pool of available housing for those eager to accept government vouchers to help pay their mortgages.
“There were a lot of suburbs that were at the forefront of the recession, places that built too much housing. And when prices fell and people couldn’t buy because of the mortgage crisis, employment and the economy in those places dried up quickly,” Berube said.
“These were the 2000 version of the 1970 suburbs, before those places grew an economy of their own. You had a lot of property investors who bought these places to hold while prices went up and up, and they were looking for a steady source of income: housing vouchers.”
But in the shift to the suburbs, much was left behind, like easy access to public transit and the social agencies that could “help point you in the right direction, if not to get ahead, at least get by in emergency circumstances,” Berube said.
Meeting the needs of the suburban poor requires a different approach than that of the past.
The War on Poverty programs from the 1960s provided resources to neighborhood-level organizations that they could use to counter the one or two things those residents thought would most help in alleviating poverty, Berube said.
“But it’s clear we can’t replicate that for suburbia,” he said. “Those can’t be the models because this isn’t an inner-city issue or a suburban issue. It’s really a regional issue.”
In the Dallas area, the number of poor people quadrupled between 1970 and 2011, from 268,585 to more than 1 million, the study states.
“And when you look at the wider economy, I’m guessing you have about a third of the total population with income less than twice the poverty level,” or about 2.2 million people in the metropolitan area, Berube said. “If you think you can leave it to the local jurisdictions to create a future of opportunity for a third of the population, that’s kind of ridiculous.”
For a possible approach, he points to Houston, where a program called Neighborhood Centers provides resources and education to more than 236,000 people at 60 locations in Houston and adjacent Gulf Coast areas.
“It does more than one thing at a time and in more than one place at a time,” he said.
“One of the successes of social policy over the last three or four decades is helping the poor in ways that give them a choice by giving them a voucher,” Berube said. “That’s great.
“It’s a shame, though, that with a little more money and a little more time, we could have helped those families find the place that will give the best chance for the success for their kids, success in the job market,” he said. “We kind of leave that out.”
With the nation’s economy showing signs of improvement, Berube said, he hopes unemployment rates fall and people find work and rising incomes.
“But that isn’t going to change the shape of where poverty is taking place,” he said. “That’s a structural phenomenon, and that isn’t going to change.”