What I've learned from The Pioneer Woman, Part Uno

This is the Pioneer Woman,
it's unfortunately not me...

So, I have an unbelievable sister-in-law. There are so many things I could say about her but I haven't the room... Well I do but she wouldn't want me to go on and on about her. I have wanted to be her since the day I met her in July of 1983. She was a week away from marrying MJF's brother and I was about 6 weeks away from marrying MJF. They were having something like 5,000 people at their wedding (I could be exaggerating but is sure seemed that way) and we were having 100. She was (and still is) itty bitty, cute, and bubbly. Me... well, let's just say none of those words describe me. She had everything going for her, I had, well, I just didn't know. What I did know was that I wished I was her.

Twenty-seven years later and many days I still wish I was her. For many of the same reasons I wish I was her but some days, for very different reasons.

Today, because of something she did, something really unbelievably special and totally surprising to me, I have decided that, at almost 50 years old, I was going to have to come to terms with who I am and I was going to have to learn to embrace it. Yes, I said embrace it. Not just be happy with it, not just be satisfied, but I needed to learn to EMBRACE all of me, in just the place God has put me.

What did she do? She sent me the Pioneer Woman Cookbook. Now I know what she was thinking by sending it to me. It was a splurge and she knew I wanted it. She knew I didn't need it but that it would be so much fun. And that's how I felt about it today when I opened it. Little did I know that reading about Ree, The Pioneer Woman, who she was before she hit the ranch, how she has become a ranch-lover, and how she has EMBRACED her life... it was like a brick hit me between the eyes. I really think it was the story of how she met the Marlboro Man and how to this day she still calls him the Marlboro Man and adores him, that really got to me.

This is my Gman. 

I don't have a Marlboro Man. What I do have is a Gman. A Gman is tons better than a Marlboro Man. I have not been enjoying my Gman the way I should. I have not been bragging about my Gman the way I should and reading her talk about her Marlboro Man really convicted me that I have been taking him for granted, a lot. Look at him... he's pretty darn awesome.

There are more things that I want to say about how reading The Pioneer Woman's cookbook impacted me. It will take several blog posts to do it. That's a good thing though because I promised to do a better job feeding my blog. Pioneer Woman reminded me of that as well.

This is me. Obviously I am not the Pioneer Woman.
It is not the best picture of me.
It's actually sort of silly..
I decided to EMBRACE silly.

Put it in your pipe and smoke it.

So, my blog is like my baby. Abandon it and it starves to death. I apparently am starving my blog. Forgive me for starving my blog. I will do a better job, really I will.

Pap-pap's pipes... that's me with him when I was 2.

I have a confession. I am letting my two oldest sons smoke... Yepper, actually, they have gotten into smoking cigars. It started as a desire my oldest had for his 20th birthday, he wanted to smoke a cigar with his dad and a few friends, out back, around the fire pit. It turned out that my 16 yr old, (at the time) just had to participate too. But I'd have none of it. So this year, when he became 17, I let up. And for a couple of weeks he smoked a cigar once a week. I wanted to say something; tell him that he should stop. The more I thought about it though, the more I figured it would end on it's own. And sure enough, it has. Whims, fads, all those things find themselves whisked away eventually.

But one evening, #2 son came to me and asked if they could smoke Pap-pap's pipes.  I think he thought I'd gasp and cry "No, don't touch those icons that I hold so dear!" Instead, I smiled and said "Only if there's Captain Black smoked in them." He was visibly shocked. "What are you so shocked about?" I asked "Pap-pap would be in shear delight knowing you all were smoking his pipes." And if I close my eyes and imagine I can almost see his tobacco-tainted smile at the thought of it all.

They honored my request and that week bought a pouch of Captain Black.  They all sat out back and packed their pipes - each pipe smoked lovingly by my grandfather years before my oldest was even born. I could see the pride they took as they packed those feeling like they had arrived. THEY were smoking THE pipes. And one by one the Zippo lighters flicked on and reddened the tobacco as they each drew deep to light their smokes.

AND ONE BY ONE THEY COLLAPSED IN FITS OF SYMPHONIC COUGHING.

And every now and again, as I walk by the display I lovingly created in honor of my grandfather, William Edward Harris, I can smell the Captain Black and it's all I can do to hold back my laughter.

Just let me have one more week...

I so want to enjoy one more week... 
     Usually I take down my decorations by now...
          Usually I am ready to move beyond the holiday...
               Usually I am tired of looking at, feeling, smelling 
                                         Christmas

This year I just want One More Week to bask in the glow of my Savior's birth...

Then I will pick myself back up and shake out the cobwebs and push forward into 2011. 


But, until then, one more week will taste as 
                                     sweet as honey.

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas...

Our biggest challenge this season is to put the focus on Christ, where it should be. And even more difficult is to put the focus on Easter within this Christmas celebration. After all, He was born to die and in dying gave us life.

I think this year I am going to ask my kids to share what they would do if they were kings and queens. I am sure that none of them would say

                       "become poor, live a life of great hardship, be restrained from being all that they have the power and authority to be, and then die in the most offensive manner for all to see for people who, even though they say they love you push you aside for the majority of their lives only to call on you when things don't go their way"...

 Perspective; something we clearly lack most of our days.

I pray that you and I change our perspective in 2011 and put our King on his throne.

Merry Christmas to you and a prayer for an exciting and Christ honoring New Year.

Karen

Who Inspires You?

So, Facebook changed my wall page again. I am pretty frustrated. Just when I was getting used to the old new one now there is a new new one. One addition to the Info page was "Who inspires you?" Mysteriously,  they don't allow you to just add any names you want, you have to add names it's database recognizes. So, unless it's someone like Tom Cruise or the Pope or John F. Kennedy, then you can't add a name.

Well, that just doesn't work for me. I'm not inspired by the people that we often see in front of our faces on the Theater Screen, TV screen, or in Magazines and Newspapers. I admire the people that live lives just like mine and yet manage to do or be or accomplish things that I think know are amazing because I live their lives and I fail miserably at what they are successful at. And all those successes are honorable, lovely, pure, and good.

(For example... my friend Karen: http://waistingaway.wordpress.com/author/pinkcamojeep/ )

When we lived in Charleston, SC we went, one year, to the Air Show at the Air Base there. I watched as the Blue Angels flew those planes at speeds that I can't comprehend and although I know they were yards apart, to me they seemed inches from colliding. At that time Michael Jordan was "all that" and I remember thinking to myself, "Why do people make such a fuss about Michael Jordan when these are the guys who should be paid the big bucks and held in high esteem."  After all, those guys not only entertain us but they would drop everything to protect our country; with their lives if necessary.

I am inspired by a little girl who, days before her 4th birthday, laid stone still in the dentist's chair while the profusely perspiring dentist had to pull one of her front teeth because it had been damaged by a fall. All the while the hygienists and I, her mom, held back tears as we watched her tears stream down the outside of her eyes and down the sides of her face. Then, only 6 months later, this same precious little gift from God held back perfectly acceptable screams of pain and terror as she was sedated in order to remove her left pinky toe because she got too close to the weight machines her brothers and father were working out on. To this day (5 years later) I am amazed at the bravery such a little girl had within her and I still see this bravery solidly a part of her. And I wonder, in the depths of my being, why God felt the need to create such a strength in her. And I prepare myself for what I can only imagine will be the molding and shaping of my only living daughter.

I am inspired by two sisters-in-law. They have nothing in common except... CANCER. One ovarian and one breast. One had to undergo a year's worth of Chemo, twice in 5 years, and in spite of losing her hair and being sick as a dog, she didn't let the lack of complete healing deter her. She picked herself up and chose to find another avenue. Today she is a Master Chef with one of the premier Raw Food and Natural Healing organizations in the world. She is starting her own business and teaching others how to prepare their foods more naturally and what to look for in foods that might be dangerous to our bodies.

The other was blessed to have her cancer discovered before it was necessary for advanced treatments. She still had to have radical surgery and her recovery wasn't easy. Just a few years have gone by and she has recently finished her first half-marathon... at 50.

I am inspired by a friend who struggled for a couple years not knowing how to convince her husband that she was trustworthy. Month after month he pulled away and no matter how much she tried to love him he saw just the opposite. And day after day she prayed. On her knees, on her face, crying to God for answers, for guidance...not to change him but to change her. And week after week I sat amazed as she would tell me of her pursuits of holiness, of patience, of striving for the marriage she knew was there but seemed unreachable. And then, one day, out of the blue, he got it. A year later we still can't understand what happened, what led him to realize he had bliss sharing the same home with him but he did and so we say... It's just a God thing.

These are just a few of the people that inspire me. They have names like Kate and Pam and Na and Sandy and Karen and if I gave you their last names most of them would be unrecognizable to you. Facebook wouldn't let me enter them because their names are meaningless to those who programmed it's database. But, honestly, that's OK because they wouldn't be appreciated for who they are.

 But to me: They make me hang on, dive in, and look up.  

... and Toto, too.

if I ever

go looking

 for my heart's desire again, 

I won't look any further than my own backyard.

Because if it isn't there, 

I never really lost it to begin with. (Dorothy, Wizard of Oz)

Please don't hold it against me.

I have to be honest, I am a Calvinist. And before you stop gasping, there's more... I'm a 5 pointer. I'm not writing this to invite anyone to explain why I shouldn't be or how mistaken I am or what scripture I'm ignoring to bring me to this conclusion. It took 15 years to come to this realization and there's nothing that is going to change my perspective.

 I am writing this because I realized something about myself while reading in my quiet time this morning...that there is no way I would have come to Christ on my own. I would have thought He was a bit over the top for me. While reading Luke 10:21-24, I realized I'd have been one of those who would have shied away from him, assuming there was at least one or two who hung with him for awhile until he got to be "too spiritual" for them. Actually the more I read, the more I learn, the more I hear from others the more I realize that my coming to Christ would have been impossible for me, in my sinful state, to do. I am way too all about myself to succumb to and submit to all that Christ demands of me as his disciple.

It was almost scary reading that scripture, I'd not seen before what I saw this morning. I imagined Jesus having a serious but subdued conversation with his special ones, telling them what authority they had when they needed it and then, suddenly he breaks loose in this over the top praise and worship time toward heaven. Nope, there is no way I would have hung around for that. It would have embarrassed me. I would have quietly escaped unnoticed - hopefully. It was at the moment I read that that the heat was put to the wax and sealed for me what I have known for years. I, Karen Farhart, in my sinful, selfish, me-focused state, could never have chosen on my own to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. E.V.E.R.

I am glad for that shock. Going to a Southern Baptist Church these days, the "old guard" don't like people like me. Some think I am part of a big problem because many of the younger SBC Seminary grads are coming out of school Calvinists. I can't quite figure out why it's such a scary thought though. Do they really think that the average Calvinist would end missions? I mean really... Calvinism doesn't supersede Scripture and God's Word is very clear on where we go and what we do. I know some on the extreme would consider it but generally the extreme don't end up in the SBC sanctuary.

I think a Calvinist has a phenomenal understanding and thorough grasp of God's Sovereignty. If we don't believe we can accomplish anything apart from Him, especially our salvation, then it's easy to rest in His arms regardless of how questionable our circumstances.

I needed that reminder, the image of a naked, undeserving me, having nothing to offer and yet the God of the Universe reached down His invisible hand of Salvation and grabbed me with a vice grip and brought me into His Everlasting Kingdom. For that I am eternally grateful and will never be able to serve, honor, glorify Him enough.

And that leads me into another gut-wrenching topic for another day... can I, as a "blessed" American, really serve, honor, glorify Him at all? And if I can, what does that look like? That is an issue that is eating away at me like a vulture picks away at the dead prey left for him to endlessly nibble on.

So yes, I'm a Calvinist, I am out of the closet and although I am way beyond wearing it as a badge of honor, (although, to be honest, I am dying to buy one of those nifty TULIP T-shirts) I will confidently admit to it if I am "caught" in conversation. Please don't hold it against me, love me in spite of it.