Church Shopping

I hope this will be the LAST time we ever have to church shop.  For us, moving to a new area isn't just about finding a new home, but also a new home church.  For me, it's a MAJOR decision.  Church, for me, is about forming a new family, lifelong friends, serving, ministry, leadership, covering, life.  It's life.  My heart is to serve and devote my life to being a follower of Jesus Christ.  That means that I will serve along others to grow the church.  That means seeing the good, bad, and ugly side of our human nature.  Can you imagine being able to pick out your own blood family members?  Quite a daunting task.  FOR. EV. ER. Okay, I'm being dramatic, but you get the point.  This is serious business.  We have been here for two months.  We have visited two churches so far and I will visit one by myself this weekend.  This journey, so far, has caused me to really check my motives and my willingness to sacrifice what I want to be where God wants me to be.  Am I willing to drive an extra long time, to jump into a mega church (Which feels like jumping into an ocean by myself.), to commit to a church that no one recommended to us?  It's also caused me to question how I become involved in a church.  Do I commit to something that is easy, familiar, fill in an easy hole or do I commit to anything God will call me too no matter the discomfort?  

This process has caused me to dig deep, to really consider where we get planted, not just to commit to what "feels" good.  We are still on this journey.  Truthfully, I hope it ends soon, because, it's tough to visit churches to see where you could be used and changed and not know if it's going to be "home".  Truth is, as tough as it is, I am fully relying on God to direct our paths, to grant us peace, and to call us to the perfect place in His timing, not mine.

Spit Shine

I think of a TON of blog posts to type up.  Most are too short and if I have more than one idea in the same thought, I seem to be unable to connect the two. So, I've decided to keep it short. Here goes it.

Normally, I clean my wedding and engagement ring every Sunday morning before church.  No particular reason, other than it's easy for me to remember to clean it if it's on a schedule.  Today, I didn't because I was rushing around, which doesn't happen often.  On my way out the door, I decided I would give it a spit shine.  Well, I looked at the ring afterwards and it wasn't as shiny as it usually is after dipping it completely in cleaner and scrubbing it down.  That's when it hit me.  That's how we want all of our life to work.  Little work and great results.  My ring will not sparkle and shine unless I soak it and scrub all of the cracks and underneath the setting.  Our lives will not shine unless we allow God to get all up in our in lives and remove all the dirt and grime that just loves to settle in all the small places of our being.  It's not easy giving it all over to Him, it's not easy to truly trust, to truly allow God to REPLACE all the yuck with who is wants us to be, a mirror image of Him.  My prayer is that I wouldn't just pretty up the surface of who I am, but that I would also clean out the places that I cannot see that prevent God from shining all throughout my life.

Saying Goodbye: The Process

"One and a half hours away isn't so far away."   "I'll be close enough to visit often."  "You can come by whenever you want."  "When I'm in town, we can catch up."  The reality is, I probably won't see a lot of the "new" people I have grown to love in the last six years and those who have been a part of my life for a long time.  I know there will be those that will come to visit and those who I will see when I come to town, but, we are grown folk now, we know the deal.  For that reason, I feel very stretched, in an emotional way.  I see myself stretching as far and as hard as I can to Baton Rouge with one hand and I see myself holding on for dear life, for as long as I can, to New Orleans in the other.

I'm not scared or worried about starting in a new area again. This isn't my first rodeo.  There are familiar faces in the BR area, I'm thankful to God for orchestrating my life so that it worked out that way.  A new church is in our future and thanks to West Point Church in Gretna, LA, I'm more mature, seasoned, whole, and am ready to get to work at our future church home. (Shout out to Mrs. Becky Smith, I can't even begin!  You are SO good to your girls and I'm proud to be called one.)

I'm excited that Reagan will be able to be on a softball team (or whatever she falls into) and begin to make lifelong friendships.  I'm excited that Riley will start to find her own little buddies to grow up with.  I'm excited that Mr. Hagge has a job that he absolutely loves. I'm excited that I have security, security of a great provider in my husband (and many other things), security in my sweet baby girls, security in God because even if we move again, He is guiding us and has our backs.

Finally, this about sums up where I am at right now...

Do Not Worry

25 “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life[a]?

28 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29 Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30 If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? 31 So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32 For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33 But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Matthew 6:25-34  NIV

Worrying is a choice.  I'm resting in His grace, which is enough for me.   He is enough for me.

Moving: Cat's Outta The Bag

It's officially official.  Mr. Hagge, the little ladies, and I are moving to Baton Rouge, LA at the end of January.  We've been living in New Orleans for the last, almost, 6 years.  Through a layoff, new job in a different city, and a deployment, we've been living in separate cities for almost 2 years.  It has been long and tough, but I have found God's grace to be thoroughly sufficient.  I've known since we've wed that our journey would be so very different than any other person I knew.  I've been okay with that and it has been so very different.  Now, it may look a little bit similar, although, I kinda hope not.  ;)

Our newest chapter in our journey will be home ownership.  For the first time, in our very nearly, 11 years of marriage, we are finally purchasing our first home.  After poor financial decisions (I'm okay with admitting mistakes, just gotta learn from them.) and a financial reboot, we're able to move forward with purchasing our own home with a peace of mind and not being house poor.  (Dave Ramsey was a help in getting us there.)  I truly cannot wait to share with y'all some of the projects I've been working on in preparation of moving.  I'm also excited to see what church God would have us settle down in and the new friendships that are going to begin.

Here's to a New Year and a very big new chapter in our lives.

Super Hero Capes!

So, after much debate and finagling, Oregano choose to be a superhero for harvest carnival at our church.  Now, I'm not going to lie, she REEEEEAAALLLY wanted to be, wait for it, wait for it, Elsa! Not shocking.  While, I had no problem at all with her dressing like Elsa, I wanted to change it up a bit.  It really all started with a little girl coming to church on her birthday wearing a cape her mom made for her.  Yep, our church is cool like that, all superheroes are welcome.  Oregano immediately said she wanted a cape as well.  I thought that I'd make if for her birthday as well, but not enough time.  Then, I thought, Christmas, definitely a Christmas present.  But, how could I completely skip over Halloween?  It was perfect!  It didn't take much convincing, but she did insist that Bugsy be a superhero as well, NO PROBLEM!  Here is what we ended up with, with the help of my friend sharing the links to the free tutorials.  I'm all about FREE! 

These are the links:

http://thepleatedpoppy.com/2008/01/cape-tutorial/

http://www.vanillajoy.com/free-super-hero-cape-logo-patterns.html

I added a little embellishment to the bottom of each cape to make it a bit more girly.

There is one thing you will quickly learn about me, I'll not hide imperfections.  These aren't perfect, but they are exactly what my little girls wanted.  I've made some boots to match, masks are up next. SO EXCITED!

Your Husband Is NOT Your child!

Ohhhhhhhhh, this post!  This post! This post! I'm an old fashioned kind of lady. You may not agree with this post, but this is my story and this is my song and it's not pretty, but I'm a work in progress.

Your husband is not your child, your extra baggage, a burden, an animal.  He is not to be made fun of, mocked, judged, criticized or ridiculed behind his back or in front of his face.  He choose you.  He picked you out of all of the other women in the world. He picked you for a reason, you lit up his world, you supported his dreams, you respected him.  Do you still?

I've been married for almost 11 years.  Up until about 10 years into the marriage I thought that I was hot stuff.  I was the Christian wife men dream to have. Mr. Hagge has no complaints or concerns.  How dare he ask me to change, criticize me, judge me!  Sure, I'd admit to fault.  Sure, I had some changing to do, but other than that, GET OFF MY BACK MAN!

Well, low and behold, my dear husband was away on a deployment and don't you know that that's the time God picks to give me my report card on my wifely duties.  I mean, here I am, worshiping in church, minding my own business, praying for my husband, and WHAM!  God broke me.  I'm in shock, sobbing.  He revealed to me my contributions to problems we had long ago and some we had at the moment.  It wasn't pretty, I was shattered, in the best way.  Thinking back, I knew that I wasn't humble enough to have had that revelation before that moment.  I would have shirked it off, "Nope, not me!'.   Then,  I owned up to all of it, all that God had revealed and apologized.  It was the most real moment for me in our entire marriage and one of the toughest.  That moment has brought about major change in me over time and I've never been more thankful to God for breaking me.  Then, months later, I realized how my behaviors translated into utter disrespect through reading Love and Respect by Dr. Emerson Eggerichs, I learned that he needs respect like I need love, unconditional. The Bible actually commands us to unconditionally respect our husbands as they are to unconditionally love us.  Ephesians 5:33 "Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, AND the wife must see to it that she respects her husband." Yes, that Bible verse will slap you all the way to Timbuktu and notice that it's not really a suggestion.  It took me a couple of weeks for that to absorb and eventually lead to another round of apologies.

Here are 4 things that I immediately changed.


1.  You are to hold your husbands in high esteem, speak highly of him everywhere you go.  I'm sure you could think of at least one nice thing to say and then keep your mouth shut!  I'll take it even one step further.  If you are around a gaggle of women who are slamming their husbands, WALK AWAY!  I've had to do that.  I was grieved at the way these women were talking about their husbands.  Don't do it ladies!  Don't get caught up feeling like you have to say something to fit in, you can walk away.  If you feel like you need to speak lowly of your spouse, maybe it's time for counseling.  Side note: Thank you dear friend for encouraging me in this area. You know who you are.  I'm sure I slammed my husband a time or two, but my go to phrases were, "Yes! Mr. Hagge does that too!" or "All men are like that." I said those things just to have something to say, it's not necessary.

2.  Your husband is your priority.  How would you feel if he put everyone else above you, we women can get SO busy that we put everyone else before our spouses.  It's unintentional mostly, which means we need to get intentional about changing it.

3. Ask for his input and value what he says!  So many times as a mommy we have so many decisions to make and we just make them.  We don't consider our husbands because, well, we are so busy.  Stop for a second, ask for his input.  Pull him into your world and let him know his opinion matters to you.

4.  Just be with him.  You don't have to sit and chatter like a madwoman expressing every emotion  you posses every time you are with him.  Just sit.  I read in Love and Respect that men like to share experiences, shoulder to shoulder, whereas a woman tells her experiences through words.  So, just be there, watch him work for a few minutes, read a book next to him, but be silent. He'll appreciate that.

You two are team, you are not in command, he is not your child to boss around.  He is a man (shocking) not a woman, he thinks differently, processes differently, makes choices differently, doesn't want to talk about his feelings all day.   He is not your robot.  Let him be who he is, let him fold those socks his way, correct the children his way, be himself around your friends, spend his money the way he wants, etc..without criticism. You are a team.  He loves you.  Stop questioning it, move on, and embrace the man God created him to be.

Ebola, and Wars, and Disasters, Oh, My!

HEY FOLKS!  It's been a little while.  I have lots of ideas up my sleeve, but just can't find the time lately! Anywho, with all that is going on in the world the Lord laid it upon my heart to highlight this passage in Psalms to perpetuate peace instead of chaos.  I hope this speaks to your heart and helps you find peace.

Free Psalm 91 Printable