I have a super talented brother, he’s a singer/dancer/actor who was on Broadway for years and has been in the cast of shows like Rent, Mamma Mia, and Miss Saigon among other things. Currently he travels the world as a choreographer, teaching master classes in dance and theater, and judging and emceeing national dance competitions across the country. A couple weeks ago my brother was hired to teach a master class in theater arts at a theater on the east coast. During one of the breaks he had to return phone calls so he left the theater for a short bit and was walking around in the nearby park/neighborhood. He was in a t-shirt and khaki shorts and was not carrying anything except his cell phone which he was on. I say all of this because within that half an hour he was approached by the local police. Apparently someone had seen him and called them about ‘a mysterious brown skinned man walking around the neighborhood.’ For. Real. He said that the minute the policeman came up to him the officer put his hands in his face and said,’oh damn, I’m so embarrassed.’ Yes, even the cop couldn’t believe it. To follow up on the complaint the police had to go to the theater to verify his story about being there to teach and of course it was the truth.
Does he look scary?
This is now the world in which we live. It’s sad and it’s unfortunate and at a time when America is probably the most diverse, we feel the most segregated. We are scared of each other, scared of who the next president will be, scared of our neighbor, scared to cross the city line. We talk big but talk from our comfortable little squares about how things should change. How will they change? Martin Luther King said, ‘Love is the only force capable of turning an enemy into a friend.’ Easier said than done. Are we losing our capacity to love others? The bible talks about faith, hope, and love with the greatest being love. I recently read in another blog that many think that there can be no faith or hope without love but the author believed that there can be no faith and love without hope. I think that is where we stand today. With all the tragedies, terrorism, senseless shootings, etc, we are starting to lose hope in our futures which then creates cynicism and less faith then eventually less ‘love thy neighbor.’ This attitude then moves down to our kids who really haven’t yet experienced the world but now have the same attitudes and opinions we do regarding politics and maybe even race. It’s a vicious cycle. How do we stop it? I don’t know but how about starting with kindness and respect of others and their opinions. We all have our little circles of influence-start there, we don’t all have to win an argument, sometimes it has to end with agree to disagree. ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control’ Gal 5:22-23.
Today I wear Laura Mercier Lip Glace’ in Blush which is a rose brown. I love how these glosses feel and the color is decent for a gloss. I have been using this for years and my absolute favorite color is Brownberry which has been a little hard to find but this comes pretty close. It’s always a great time to just throw on some gloss! Cheers!
Are there only 2 sides? Is there really only fear and love? One or the other? Does perfect love cast out all fear?
does the same for my kids. He tries to be at most of the games and he drives them around too. Yes, a man of few words, but his actions speak volumes of his love and support.
are the struggles with our kids, the days when no amount of hair products or make up can camouflage a bad night’s sleep, the arguments with a boss or spouse, you know, real life. So on this Mother’s Day, I choose to let go of the constant struggle to keep up with the perfection I see on social media because the daily struggles of life, a job, and keeping up with teens is hard enough. The flowers, the candy, breakfast…all beautiful but for me the kids are a special gift from God and what I want most of all this mother’s day and really every day is for them to know without a doubt that they are loved from the depths of my heart and that I will always love them through~through pain, through struggles, through the good stuff and the bad. How can we expect to have perfect kids when we ourselves are imperfect?
she had amazing goals but there was currently no room for space or curve. I told her it was great to have a vision of what her life was supposed to look like in the future but she should absolutely leave room for the unplanned things. The things that make life move and bend, that force you to make decisions, to make hard turns and to maybe change the course you had originally planned but make you who you are truly created to be.
asthma I would lie awake in his room on the floor listening to him struggle to breathe and set my alarm every 4 hours for his breathing treatment. He will probably never know that when he would get hit as a quarterback in 7th and 8th grade I would physically feel sick to my stomach, or the time he cried because he couldn’t understand math and wanted to give up that I cried too. He won’t know that when he didn’t make the varsity basketball team and he sat in his room and cried that I was sitting in my room crying harder because when your child’s dream dies a part of you dies with it. He may never know that when my cancer diagnosis was bad I would lie awake in my hospital bed crying thinking about him and his siblings and willing myself to fight just for them.
have today’ attitude. Life, I mean real life, happens in the ‘in between’. In between jobs, kid stuff, activities, vacations, etc. we spend a whole lot of time in anticipation of the next game, the next season, the next vacation, and we work and focus on those things but what about all the routine we chalk up to ‘a normal day’? That’s the real grit of life. All of the mundane, the annoying things, the actions and reactions, the relationships…all of the stuff that transpires in the monotonous in between spaces of daily living, that is life. If you rush through to just get to the ‘next’, you’ll miss it. Don’t miss living.
Anna's Lipstick Journey 