~~FEMININE MATTERS~~

FAVORITE THINGS AND MORE

Karen, a friend of mine, wrote a post on Tried and True about her favorite things.  Ya oughta go take a look and list a few of your favorites for her.  Here are some of mine:

~~Lying in my hammock and listening to Bebo Norman cds.
~~Lying in my hammock and listening to Bebo Norman cds with my granddaughters all snuggled up with me. And us all singing along for the neighborhood.
~~~teaparties with my granddaughters.
~~~having lunch at school with my granddaughters.
~~~lunching with a friend and sharing a dessert afterwards with two forks.
~~~The first shoots of flowers peeping through the earth in Spring.
~~~butterflies, butterflies, butterflies.
~~~the first bite into the first warm ripe tomato off the vine
~~~picking beans
~~~sipping hot mulled applecider on a cold blustery night.
~~~the smell of homemade chicken soup on the stove.
~~~the pop of corn on the cob between my teeth
~~~Finding out my clock was fast when I'm late for an appointment.
~~~merciful policemen when I'm going too fast.
~~~the comfort I find in God's Word when my heart is broken.
~~~the friend He brings to share my broken heart. SelahV

WHO PAINTS YOUR TOENAILS?

<<<===HEEEERE'S BT, my granddaughter, cleaning the nailpolish off my toenails.  She didn't like the job she'd done in painting them, so she took the remover and wiped it all away.  She's a perfectionist of sorts.

I was thinking as I placed this photo in my banner above, how sweet a gesture.  How like a lady--so feminine an act.  Think about it!  How many men would trim the nails of another man's feet? (they wouldn't begin to paint them with polish, so I had to have another analogy).

Jesus showed his disciples how to be a leader by washing their feet.  And we, feminine creatures, seem to do more of that part of ministry than most men, don't you think?  We are the up-close and personal who don't mind painting toenails and removing polish we've missed the mark in applying.  And we don't even give it a thought when we do.  It's our nature.

We scrub toilets, sort dirty underwear, and clean up after sick children.  God prepares us for the nitty-gritty of ministry.  And while many of us have positions with "higher" calling such as teachers, administrators, and leaders in our churches, we still don't bat an eyelash when asked (or not asked) to do the foot-washing jobs.  (Check out the nursery on any given Sunday and count the heads of women versus men changing diapers.)

So I'm writing this today to commend we ladies in ministry.  Mary used perfume and her hair and Jesus said she'd be known forever for that act of love.  While some may not appreciate our offerings in life, we can know we please our Savior. 

If you have a minute, think about someone who has "painted your toenails" lately.  Can you share it with us?  selahV

[copyrighted, SelahV Today, 2007] 

FRIENDS BEND BUT THEY DO NOT BREAK

Thirty-four years ago, a young gal came to me and asked me, "Will you be my friend?"  At the time, I had great misgivings about this girl.  She was not the kind of person I would have chosen to befriend.  (Mind you, I was not a Christian.)  I didn't think she had the "staying-power" to be a friend.  I figured she would bend at the first sign of wind, then break in the midst of a storm.  This is what I told her:

"I don't know.  You see, I place a very very high value on friendship.  I do not enter into a relationship with a person expecting them to be anything other than a friend.  Being a friend takes work; and the highest quality of a friend is trust."

To that she said, she could be trusted.

"I hope you know what you are saying.  Because friends don't just trust friends with their private thoughts and expect they will not be repeated.  Friends trust their very heart and life to others."

I do not know where I came to understand that idea of trust or friendship, it may have been because so many people in my life had proved to be untrustworthy and I had found at the early age of 25 that trust is a high-priced commodity in one's heart.  The price one pays is as high as the other side of betrayal.  Should we venture into any relationship, we are apt to have our loyalty tested, our reasoning questioned and our hearts broken.  So we must realize that from the beginning of a friendship.  Then we must ask ourselves if we are willing to do what it takes, go the extra mile--and beyond--to reach the other side of true friendship.

I explained this to the gal who sought my friendship and told her to go home and think about it all.  If she thought that was something she wanted from a friend, then I'd be willing to be her friend.  I knew it would be an unconditional thing, on my part.  You love because you love, not because the other loves.   I told her that there would be times when I was not all she needed of me.  There would be times I would not meet her expectations.  There would be times I would fail to be the friend she wanted because I would be weak and without any strength to be the friend I should be.

I told her that there would be times of silence between us and though there was silence in the conversation of things, that the lull in the conversation did not mean we were no longer friends.  I told her that there would be times that we would be challenged to confront each other with the unaltered, naked truth of our emotions and we must be brave enough to face each other and be all we needed to be in that moment.  I told her we would hurt each other because of our ignorance of each other, but would not want to hurt each other in the knowledge of each other.

And we became friends. 

GOTTA NEW DOO...

Decided I needed a new doo for the digs here.  Wha'cha think?

I about laughed my head off making this banner.  When I put the photo of my feet with my granddaughter's feet and the hammock into the mix, I had no clue how dirty my little granddaughter's feet were until it popped up in widescreen magnification.  It was so appropriate for the Come-As-You-Are phrase from my old banner, agree?

Actually, all our feet are pretty dirty, if I'm gonna be honest.  We were playing croquet in the yard after dipping our feet in the swimming pool to stay cool.  And during the game we found ourselves getting our feet into some of the flowerbeds that bordered the area in which we were knocking our balls.

Being me is rather complex today.  I'll share later.  Much to do, but I shall return soon.  And tell you more about why I chose some of the photos for my banner above.  Until then, selahV

I FEEL LEAST FEMININE WHEN...

Well, thankyou, Karen!  You just catapulted my brain into the realm of feminity again.  Somehow I think I'd lost this part of myself in recent months.  And I just decided why.

I've been sitting around the house in my happy-pants (over-sized comfortable flannel pajama bottoms).  I've only put on makeup to go to church.  I sit behind this computer between times I'm cooking, cleaning, and caring for my hubby and don't much care about the feminine side of me.  I know.  What in the world does that mean?  What is the feminine side of me?

It's that part of me that cannot be like the masculine side of me.  And yes.  I think there are definitely estrogenic and testosteronic sides to we females.  (Doubt a male would confess such.)

I think the femine side is the nurturing, pamper-me, relax-and-smell-the-roses romantic portion of my personality.  It's the part that plays with my hair, trying different styles to see which will most help me look like thirty instead of nearly sixty.  It's that part of me that takes time to manicure my nails, even though they are chewed off from watching too many quadruple over-time football games.  (Had to love Tennessee Volunteers and Kentucky Wildcats, yesterday!)

But when a female spends too much time in the man's-world, they lose some of that feminity, if not all.  Look at Hillary.  Pant-suits and brashness.  (My opinion folks.  Yours is just as valid and you are entitled to be wrong in America.)  Living in a male-dominated environment tends to bring out the dormant testosterone in a lady.  And when she hangs there too long, she all but loses the feminine side of herself trying to overcompensate for it to maintain leverage in the environment of her choosing.

Before all the ladies in America who are well-balanced women and feel I've been dipping into some historic waterhole, get irrate, let me add.  Not all women who live in a male dominated environment lose their feminity or have it diminished in any way.  But they are anomalies.   Many women must take on the mindset of compartmentalized thinking in order to survive the jungle of lions, tigers and bears.  And even when they don their spikes, adorn themselves in wardrobes that bespeak their gender, their words betray their hearts and minds.  They can't seem to shake off the motor-oil and gym-smells.

So where does that leave me?  I don't know.  Just thinking outloud about being female.  And the neat part about that?  I don't have to make sense if I don't want to.  What a divine gender I enjoy.  selahV