Yesterday I decided to go all Niecy Nash, and do my very own “clean house” episode.  Even though there were very few fans (i.e. Millie-baby and Hunny Bunny), and there are definitely no profits from my commercial breaks, it was still the beginning of a little mini victory in the Hudson home.  Getting clean!

After I was Oh, 75% to my finish line, I cleared the rest of the projects into the “D.I.L.” closet (do it later), and I decided with all this clean space, it was time to get  a little messy.  I had this strike of passion for a little bit of Mr. Miyagi’s “up, down, up, down” therapy. {you remember, from our epic Karate Kid?}

So I pulled out the sweetest Christmas present my husband ever gave me, a box of oils and brushes.  No, not like Mary’s alabaster, or even of the aromatherapy kind.   They are a lovely selection of colors from the Winton and Newton family of paints.  This box of afternoon delight has been stashed away in storage or a closet somewhere since our move back to Alabama for over two years now – and it was high time they saw some daylight.

A few of the brushes were goners. From the heat of course, certainly not from my lack of precious care in cleaning them properly.   But there were a few bristles from the bunch soft enough to use after soaking in a mason jar of mineral spirits.

I have about 10 canvasses that I’ve painted in years past.  Mostly an abstract of nothingness, a mix and melding of a current state of mind or emotion.  Each one unique and beautiful to me.

‘Shame on me,’ I thought, as I opened up my little wooden box of joy.

I dug around deep in the back of the closet, sorting through all the previously completed art.  Finally I discovered one that was not quite finished.

This “unfinished work” was a project that began over two years ago. I don’t know why it had to sit in that closet, with all the potential piling up on its little back day and night, waiting to be complete and useful, never fully understanding the masterpiece that I had in mind for it.  But it waited there, patiently, in the dark all these years.  And today it was time to finish the work.

It was so thrilling to find that I had one more that still needed me, that could still use my touch.  I was so glad that it had not decided to wander away, but stayed faithful.  Each stroke of the brush, I felt a renewed passing rising in my heart.  Could it be that after all these years, of waiting unknowingly in the distance, that now on this ordinary day, cleaning my house, that God was searching through his creations looking to finish a work in me?

Is there an unfinished work you are waiting on God to complete in you? Do you ever feel like you are hiding out, waiting somedays in the dark, blindly trusting what in the world is to become of you?

“He that hath begun a good work, is faithful to complete it.”  – There is a work inside of each of us that our Master Creator started many years ago.  For some reason our canvas needed to stay untouched and not yet complete in certain areas, so that he could take time, the perfect moment  to complete that work in us.

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Oh yeah – My Niecy Nash impersonation spilled over into my blog this week. What do u think?

Pricilia Shrier challenged followers on her blog today to pipe in their thoughts on the new Julia Roberts movie, “Eat, Pray, Love.” Christianity Today Blog, Her.meneutics, also recently posted on the controversial topic of this recent phenomenon.  I’ve been curious to know what the Chrisian circles thought about it, and when or if a discussion might arise…seems like things have been mildly quiet.

~~ So I purchased the book about a month ago after all the buzz and the enticing trailers of my favorite actress riding a bike in blissful abandonment through a foreign city.  I thought “Oh, yes, this is definitely going to be my next book to movie experience!”  I sent out a few social messages asking for people to join my little reading adventure, with no avail.  I asked a few ladies at church if they had read it and received a few raised eyebrows.  But no one really warned me regarding what I was about to experience.

Because of my deep love for all things travel, I shrugged off the slight mention, and paid my $15 at Barnes and Noble, in hopes of rekindling the flames of my own world ventures. It only took reading this daunting paragraph on page 14 to have more than my eyebrows raised by by Elizabeth Gilbert’s tale:

“Culturally, though not theologically, I’m a Christian. I was born a Protestant of the white Angle-Saxon persuasion.  And while I do love that great teacher of peace who was called Jesus, and while I do reserve the right to ask myself in certain trying situations what indeed He would do, I can’t swallow the one fixed rule of Christianity insisting that Christ is the ‘only’ path to God.  Strictly speaking, then, I cannot call myself a Christian.  Most of the Christians I know accept my feelings on this with grace and open mindedness.  Then again, most of the Christians i know don’ speak very strictly.  To those who do speak (and think) strictly,  all I can do here is offer my regrets for any hurt feelings and now excuse myself from their business.”

Yes, you read that right.  Those words are enough for an entire library of discussion for me.   I continued reading, all the way to page 21 with paragraphs that are steeped in her humanistic search for peace.  I don’t know how this tale will end or even if I will find out.  But I know what I feel in my heart.  Its not as she assumes here “hurt feelings” but rather a chilling sadness – over a world that is drowning without the Truth.  They are lost with out the knowledge of Jesus, the real Way, Truth, and Life.  Searching in all the wrong places, misguided and failed by an empty religion.

The fact that she says she has Christian friends who are not “strict” enough to share the truth with her, just motivates me to the core to promote the real Jesus, “not just the form of Him” into my lost world.

I’ve also read in several news articles recently that Julia Roberts converted to Hinduism while filming this movie.  An article that is not really shaking us up at all, because its message is not new to us any longer with so many stars turning to cults and universalistic teaching.  Again, my heart is sad.

Words are Powerful indeed!! The written word, even more entangling.  If we as real Christian women are filling our minds with false teaching, how will we ever be able to keep our minds, and ultimately our hearts clear with the Truth.

I believe this book, “Eat Pray Love” is more than a book, it’s more than a movie, or a simple feel good experience.  It’s sneaky trickery masked in romantic notions, to diverge our eyes from the REAL GOSPEL of Salvation in John 14:6 that  “No one comes to the Father but by me (Jesus Christ!)” John 14:6.

Thanks Pricilla for opening this much needed discussion~

~~Do you think its ok to immerse ourselves into books like this that promote “other world” cultures?  (i.e. Harry Potter and Twilight…)

~~Do you think Julia Roberts new chosen “path” will promote a rise in Hindu thinking? Or is it simply pop culture news, here one day gone the next?

So my mom’s friend says to me the other day ever so slightly under her breath that, “somthin’ is rotten in Denmark” – talking about how some things just don’t seem right.

Southern women are full of phrases like this.

“It’s so durn hot out here, you could fry an egg on the pavement!”

“You’re just up poop creek without a pattle!”

“Well, wait, just one cotton-pickin’ minute”

“She’s about got as much ‘o personality as a sack ‘o potatoes.”

I recently joined my cousin in an age old, postcard club. On Monday, when I opened my mailbox, in the midst of all the junk lies this brilliant little jewel!   A cardstock treasure smiling back at me, delivering a spot of joy to the ever so hot August afternoon.  Refreshing me with sand dunes and a beach scene, it arrived  all the way from the Virginia Shores!

And so after relishing in the childlike moment, I read the lines a few more times and held it in my hand ever so reminiscently and gently pasted it of course, to my refrigerator door!

My mind wandered back in time just before email, instant messaging, myspace, facebook and twitter…along to about 1994, my ninth grade year, listening to Joshua Kadison serenade my heart about Rachel’s trip to California to be a star, and sending “picture postcards from LA, signed with love forever more, to hang on my refrigerator door.”  So I had to bust out in a Kadison song during my “picture postcard moment.”  Because you know there is a song for every moment in life!

I know I’m not the only one with this lyrics-for-life obsession.  If someone says “hit me” – well, instantly you can’t help but hear Pat Benatar screaming out “Hit Me With your Best Shot — Fire Away” and then have this nagging desire to tight roll your jeans (no? really?).

It’s said, you never know what you have until its gone.  I wonder if any one else ever misses the long lost postcard club?  Or some of these long lost songs?  Do you have song lyrics spilling over into your life moments too?

a little memory lane…

My Sunday School teacher (i.e. husband) asked our class this past weekend, ‘If money were no object, what would you do?’

Me: Buy some good luggage…the Louis Vuitton luggage…

I mean you did say that money was no object, right?  Because, when I stroll through the stores I often find myself in the luggage department.  Whether I’m at Ross or Sak’s Fifth, I love to test out and pretend I’m actually “leaving on a jet plane” and I’m shopping for the perfect bag for my perfect trip!

Barnes and Noble, walking through the travel section I mentally photograph every book I plan to someday purchase for our trips overseas.

Airports make me happy.  They make little birds fly out of my heart and sing a song.  The smell of the exhaust fums billowing out of the back of a big beautiful Prevost, intoxicate my entire day like a Venti Java Chip Frap does on a hot summer afternoon.  YES!!  I love all things travel.

Now, while I was dreaming rather superficially on my designer selection, my reasons for this choice are entirely different.  All of these tangible items I mentioned Sunday lend to my hearts desire to travel to the nations, to minister in song and spirit.

Pastor Chris Hodges @ Church of the Highlands said in his message on Sunday, called “Baggage” that he was absolutely not a fan of travel, He was all about the destination.  I know, it’s not something for everyone.  So, he asked the audience if they were Journey people who liked traveling or Destination people who like arriving!  I have to say I’m a completely exhilarated Journey girl!! (btw: my brother and his kids made a cameo appearance in the opening of the Baggage message – the guy on the laptop with the kids around…yup, that’s Dave and my adorable niece and nephew!)

Our Sunday School class is talking and opening up our hearts more and more to this Dream Giver God of ours.  Dreaming beyond our limits.  Imagining beyond the bonds of our financial barriers.  Truly looking deep down into our soul to those core gifts that were planted there before we were born and asking the question at this middle of the road in our life, “Who were we created to be?”

This week, I’m stretching my heart’s eye to no longer look at the obstacles preventing me from moving into “REAL JOY” – but actually beginning to take the journey, and traveling where it leads.

So, what would you do if money were no object?

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….”all my bags are packed, I’m ready to go”