LINC Network

Where have I been all week you are asking? I have been blessed to be helping supervise volunteers as we build a new home for a deserving Houston family. Extreme Makeover Home Edition has been here all week in Third Ward replacing a 720 sq ft home for two adults and 5 girls, with a 4500 sq ft home. The week has seen many challenges. Rain was the largest one. With rain coming down the first three days, we slowly got 38 hours behing on our deadline. Because of the rain, some volunteers no showed, leaving us clammering for volunteers over the airwaves. Sun finally broke and the progress stepped up. I have been on site volunteer coordinator for the past two days. I have worked near 10 to 12 hours a day, some all nighters. And I have loved every single second of it. It is a face paced build. With trained skilled volunteers and general volunteers working together 24 hours a day to get this house built. I have to say that God has been very good and blessed this build. He has allowed so many talented and smiling people to descend upon the site. It's so funny to watch all of the people clammer to the shows stars as they come out to be taped. Houston really loves them. The mayor has been out, most of our local large businesses are sponsors in some way, and the neighbors are all out watching as the day turns to night and progress continues. To say I have been humbled by this would be an understatement. This family was chosen because of their giving spirit. The 5 girls are home schooled. The parents run a marriage intervention non profit. And they were very happy and very productive in their itty bitty house. So this new house will be a gift that blesses them for years to come. HHN Homes are the builders for this and they are amazing. They are skilled, hard working, happy and talented. They are so happy to be out there doing this. And I have seen many many of our non profit partners out there. I cannot give away any secrets of the house or stars who have come to the site. What I can say is that you will be wowed when it airs. Houston is a city to be proud of. Please pray for the folks out there working to finish the home up. Please pray for the family as they fly back from Paris , France tomorrow.

Every Sunday night i turn on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. If you are not familiar with this show, they pick a family living in dire situations, who cannot afford to rebuild their home and often times someone in the family is sick. It is a tear jerker. You cannot help but get involved with each family they help. And the mass of volunteers that come out to help, is WOW!
So a friend of mine, and one of LINC's newest Board Members, emailed us last week telling us that the show had picked the next family to be in Houston, that it would begin filming this Sunday, and they wanted LINC to be apart of this. My jaw dropped! How on earth we were even a thought in this, is so much a God thing.
We do not know who the family is yet, They have kept that hush. So as  I eagerly await tomorrow morning when we find out, I am thinking how totally cool this is going to be. A week with the crew from this show, helping someone in need, change their life completely around. God really does put you in the right place at the right time.

Lately, and by lately I mean over the past 6 months, I have issue after issue come up where a major bad thing has occured. In some of these instances, I chose the right thing. but in some, the need to be right, became the most important thing. After all, why be nice to someone who has wronged you? This is the hardest human condition if you ask me. It is very hard to know what to do much of the time. And when to stop talking. When we are in a heated discussion with someone, it is very hard to not have the last word. I have to admit, this is something I am working on. Lately, what is going on is this. I worked for my church and the non profit for a while. A member of my family did not like that I worked all the time. But loved the money. Also, I think there was some jealousy over the fact that i actually loved what I do, this person does not. So creating issues with me and those i work with starting happenening. Now I am not sure, but I think the devil was using this person to take me away from the plan God has for me. If is hard to know when to walk away from a discussion that has become heated, and to stay and duke it out. but how do we know.
Mathew 6:1; Beware of practing your rightousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your father in Heaven.
So I think arguing and sticking to your perceived view of what is right is just wrong.
Remember, we are the clay, God is the potter. We can never see what He will make it work.
I want to be a person who turns around and walks away from evil and hate. I want to believe that I have figured out something in my life that is trying to hurt what i do. and I have to pray how to handle it. Writing, as you can see, is a way for me to think.

1. Rom 12:2: Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
2. Phil 4:6: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

So today will be a day that we can use to be a person of God, helping those who need it, giving a positive word of encouragment, and above all we need to trust that God has great plans for us this week.

Recently i had my mid year review. This caused me to evaluate myself. i often keep myself so busy that, well, we'll just say I don't have time to look at me. But I have been doing that alot lately. I work for a Christian organization and am a child of God. So how should this affect me? How can I count the ways? First of all, I need to think before I speak at all times. Now I know all of us go through trials where we want to lash out, get angry, are hurt and just plain old mad as a hornet. How do we handle that as a christian, and even more than that, as someone who does Public Relations, and is in the view of many people all the time, how do I handle those times, because they do come. Well that is something I have been working on and will continue to work on. As an Irish woman, my emotions run high most of the time. I get excited, and angry at the drop of the hat. So for one I need to always carry myself in the highest possible way in public. As a Christian, God is always there, watching and listening. So my goal is to work on dealing with life in an ellegant way with high morals.
Another thing is we often like to look at the faults of others so we don't have to look at ourselves. This is only hurting us. We should want to be the best we can be.
And reading, praying, caring how we present ourselves, these are important things.
So from now on I will be working alot more on me.

Act on our dreams
Be what you want to be
Change your future
Do things differently
Enrich others' lives
Face your fears
Get out of neutral
Have fun
Inititate friendships
Jumpstart possiblities
Knock the "t" off can't
Live enthusiastically
Make a difference
be Nonjudgemental
Orchestrate your legacy
Plan for tomorrow
Question your priorities
Reinvent yourself
Stop keeping score
Take a leap of faith
Uncork your mind
Value who you are
Wake up your luck
eXplore your spirituality
yearn for fulfillment
zoom in on love

by Meiji Stewart, Taken from  Chicken Soup for the Soul

I think God is saddened when we do not find joy in our lives. I also think that we  are under the assumption, or rather some people are, that life is only good when it is all easy going. That will never be the case. Because see if you are living life to the fullest, you are involved in many things, and those things cannot all be going perfect all the time. God wants us to experience it all, good and bad, easy and hard. Do you really think we should have it easier than the Son of God did? how arrogant to think that. Struggle is part of life. it is the part that builds character adn strength. it is easy to worship God, do meditations, and be HOLY when all is well, but when the going gets tuff, we need to keep our relationship with God strong and solid. See I think we never achieve it all. we never get to a point where we lived enough, loved enough, experienced enough. We still have each day to do more. We can love, laugh and share more. and I think we need to take moments each day to recap, to thank God for the life we lived that day, no matter what way it went. We owe a debt we will never be able to repay. So I challenge all who read my blog to live out loud. do it better, bigger and fuller than ever. Show God you appreciate His gift of life. Hugs to all of you, Julie

Today I was able to attend the National LCMS Covention's first day here in Houston, Texas. I am the Director of Grants and Public Relations for LINC Houston so I helped run the booth. For almost two years the majority of my contact with Lutherans around the country has been by email or phone. Today i was able to meet some of these lovely people. I had a great time. Lutherans truly are like one large family. I have to say that I feel like meeting all of them came just in time for me. You know how sometimes you start to question if you really do make a difference? Do people listen to what you have to share? Are you getting a message out that matters and with compassion and caring? Well, I have been feeling like that. What amazed me was how many people knew me. I knew them of course because I had been contacting them in the hopes of making connections. But I am only one of many thousand who contacts each of these folks. What a truly amazing day. Thank you God for putting me among this diverse group of christians who love with all their hearts and have hearts full of joy!

I remember not so long ago thinking I was at the top of the marketing game. At that point, which was at the end of my 20's so about 10 years ago, I was unteachable. I see that now, but did not see it at the time. I had convinced myself I knew all there was to know about marketing. What this attitude did was close doors, and limit my job in numerous ways. I belive whole heartedly there is not one person on earth, who is at the top of knowing all there is to know about their chosen profession. I think we all must continue learning. I mean some of the areas, like technology are very evident that we will have to change and grow. New means to communicate and compute are created all the time. Growth is good! Think of how boring it would be to know it all. I now know that life goes better when I slow down and learn new ways to do parts of my job, and to remain teachable. I now view life as an ongoing class. Every day there is something new to learn. I have learned to relate to people differently, to respond in a way that is not biting or discouraging. I have learned that others in my profession have things to teach me. I have learned that I will never ever know it all. I can be good at my job and at my life. I can be good at parenting. I can be good as a task doer. But there is not one area of my life that I can claim is 100% perfect, and that  I don't make mistakes in.  There are many many verses in the Bible that tell us to live with excitement and to remain teachable. These are some.

“The Lord directs the steps of the godly.  He delights in every detail of their lives.  Though they may stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand.”  Psalm 37:23-24

“The Lord says, ‘I will guide you along the best pathway for your life.  I will advise you and watch over you’.” Psalm 32:8

I have to say this. I see so many people walk around angry or with a pruned up looking face while they are at work. Your job, even if it is not the one you wanted, is  a job. And that is a gift. You have to find the good in what you do and make the most of it. I had many many years of jobs I did not love. And there are parts of my job that deal with people that are very quirky, or maybe that I don't enjoy as much as others, but God wants me to have to deal with this. See, character, this is how we decide to deal with life. Our character shows in all we do. And how you act at your job, affects the people you come into contact with, and that will affect their job, and the people they come in to contact with. So it goes on and on and on... We need to all decide it is our mission to decide to be happy when we wake up, no matter how hard the day will be. Now don't get me wrong. I have plenty of hard days. I have days when I feel like I am not going to make it through. But that is okay, That day does end eventually, and a new one will come, with better things. So although I know I will have plenty of bad days ahead of me, I move forward looking to the good ones. Another thing is that if I am having a bad day, I have been known to cry. This is a part of who I am that I got from my mother, and hey, thanks mom! any wrong look, any bad thing, can bring me to tears. And I let myself cry. I feel that God does not expect us all to be happy, perfect and proper all the time. We are humans who are emotional. And it is totally normal to go through all the emotions. What pushed me to write this is the amount of people I saw today, at the hotel, and downtown Dallas, who looked sad, mad or just down right ucky. And I wanted to just say, it is okay. Those days will come. But overall, we have to not have them all the time, we have to find the blessings, the good in all we have and do. Happiness is a choice. I hope that I can choose happiness all the time!

I am currently sitting in the hotel room of the Fairmont in Dallas Texas for the Texas VOAD convention. I will be teaching the grant writing class on Thursday. I have seen many of our Houston Partners here already. What is so funny is the teaching part. When I started doing the grant writing it was just by chance. I had wanted to do PR for LINC. However, they could not afford to hire a person for that alone, that person would have to do grant writing as well. And that is how I got the job. God knew exactly where He wanted me 18 years ago when  I started marketing and doing public relations. And the fact that I am teaching the class for grant writing here just blows my mind. So many times I hear the saying that if you insist on getting what you want, you may sell yourself short is sooooo true. God has much bigger things in mind for each of us than we can ever imagine. And sometimes it may not be possible to understand why things are a certain way, then you look back and you have clarity that there was a master plan in play. God wants the best for us. He wants us to love our lives. Each breath, each heart beat, is a gift. Next month I will have the honor of sharing booth space with the other LINCs around the country. To me that is so exciting. See I have my wings spread really wide. There is no limit to the amount of people I can affect and who can affect me. We have to dream big and tall. Especially here in Texas. No dream, no hope is too big. None. We can do all things through Christ! How exciting is that. ALL THINGS. There is no end to what we can do if we just trust God. I think time marches on and we have to choose to go with it or freeze where we are. I like marching forward, Even over the hills and thorny paths. All the negative is worth the end results. Thank God I have a job I love.