revamp announced

please direct your attention here:

rachelbethproductions.tumblr.com

suggestions for a title are welcome
you may email them to considerjesuschrist@yahoo.com or facebook

I missed it.

Snuggled up with just the right weight of mug filled with piping hot coffee, wrapped in my favorite sweater, I read, "Give to the one who begs from you..." Suddenly, dramatically the camera pans out to a birds-eye view, the bottom drops out of my soul, and eternity weighs down.

I missed it.

I had art to pick up, coffee to buy, friends to collect from the airport...I didn't have time. I clenched my purse straps closer to my shoulder, mustered my most compassionate look, and said, "No, I'm sorry."

I can still see her face when I close my eyes.

I see her with face weathered by time and most likely substance abuse, as she hovers near the edge of the sidewalk on Prince St. on the line before the art district starts. One foot in her world, one in ours. Lines define the edges of her eyes, dark, flat and empty. She extends a palm and asks soflty through cracked lips and missing teeth, "Pardon me miss, could you spare a dollar so I could get a hamburger at MacDonalds?"

I scanned her dirty jeans, holey flannel shirt and ragged gesture. I didn't have time. I had a dollar. I would have taken her to get the sandwich, but I didn't have time, I told myself.

I missed it.

I missed sitting with another soul and giving her my time.

I missed feeding her.

I missed extending my own palm with a Savior's touch.

I missed giving her the chance for a different eternity.

I missed the kingdom of God come to earth.

photo source

revamp coming soon...

In the mean time ~ I had the awesome privilege of planning the wedding for and with two of my favorite people...I'll let the pictures tell the story. Enjoy.

I could look at them all over and over. Ok, I have looked at them over and over. But this is one of my favorites.

I’ve Got You
Words and music by Shaun Groves
Copyright 2010 Simplicity Street Music/ASCAP

Got nothing in my hands to part these waves
Got nothing in my bank account that saves
Got no more might left to muscle through
But Oh, I’ve got you
I’ve got you

Got demons gather ’round oh laugh it up
Spreading doubts a plenty I can’t drink this cup
Got no one left who thinks I’ll make it through
But Oh, I’ve got you
I’ve got you

Got faded memories of better days
Got a prayer that they’ll come back around my way
You’ve got me and oh that gets me through
Oh, I’ve got you
I’ve got you
Oh, I’ve got you
I’ve got you

anticipating nostalgia

After hearing my sister describe a darling incident with her kids the other day, I asked her,
"Don't you wish you could just put that moment in a box and keep it?"
She agreed.
The fact that I've already forgotten the antecdote makes me wish all the more that such keepsakes were possible.

Tomorrow we celebrate the high school graduation of my oldest neice.

I'm pretty sure it was just yesterday that we celebrated this moment:

age 11?

Some days it seems like my own high school graduation is just past. Preparing for hers certainly reminds me of mine.
Like me, she will graduate from homeschool.
Like me, she will have a party with family and friends from all over, a casual affair at a family's home.
Like me, a certain relative will show up unannounced to surprise everyone.

I picked up the cupcakes from the bakery this afternoon and prepared for the surprise relative to arrive. Weather delays and airplane maintenance induce a night watch. I linger at the door, peering down the street into the night and remember the last 18 years.

Tomorrow [erm. this afternoon] we will eat, and laugh and reminisce and sway with oohs and ahs as we guess which graduate is represented in already faded baby picture. We will worship and together praise God for His grace over their lives thus far, laying hands on heads and shoulders, imparting love and favor and anointing for the years to come.

I'd better tuck some tissues in my sleeve.

It was yesterday, I tell you.

2006 - the baby sister she prayed for

Eh, she was homeschooled. She'll do just fine.

breathing room for my soul

photo credit Le Ballon Rouge

God the one and only -
I'll wait as long as He says.
Everything I need comes from Him,
so why not?
He's the solid rock under my feet,
breathing room for my soul,
An impregnable castle;
I'm set for life.
Psalm 62

snapshot

On behalf of work, I attended a festival hosted by a local church as a community outreach. Most of the pictures from the day are amateur snapshots - I wasn't particularly trying for anything else. However, this grabbed my attention. A lovely, older couple was churning homemade ice cream by using a green John Deere tractor. I have to confess the ice cream was almost as good as Grandma Johnson's, but not quite. First, hers was peach. Second, it was hers. This view still reminded me of Grandpas long gone, teasing Uncles at family holidays, and far away places. It inspires visions of a home that used to be and of one of my own that is yet to come.

all the ladies

No.
No. This has nothing to do with the Beyonce song. Well, except that it challenges the worldview it portrays.

Every time this girl writes, I think, "Dang girl!"
She's that good.
This is especially good. I've read it a couple times already and will need to so again to really get it.

See the sneak peek below. Then read the whole article. Twice.

We hide. We hide because it is easier to hide than to be known. We’ve eaten off the tree of knowledge and now we think we know.

Yet still He seeks us. Pursues us. Finds us, shivering and scratching under the weight of man-made garments and expectations. I’m there. Are you too?

All because we added to what God said. He gave good boundaries and we made them smaller and tighter, thinking that more rules will keep us safer. God has said don’t eat of the fruit, but we think that it’s safer to just not touch it at all?

This is our great sin. This is our great fall.

We add to what God has said and the boundaries become cages. We imagine He is a harsher God than He is.

We eat the fruit thinking it will make us like God and really all it does is make us into our own god. And we are powerless gods, always trying to find things to bulk us, beautify us, fix us.

time to reinvent normal

doing fundraising for a non-profit and being an auntie to 6, normal is...well...always getting a facelift. this last week though, i fell through an emotional trap door (with hormonal hinges - no wonder it gave way) and have realized quite clearly that life is about to look very different.

my cowgirl blood often stirs up a restless desire for change, for a new challenge, for more variety. and it's usually satisfied by a visit to a new town, rearranging some furniture, or crafting a new project. this time, i didn't see it coming and none of those solutions will work.

i've spent the last five years pouring all my time and life into a non-profit that houses young single moms and their little ones. i've lived with them, cooked for them, cried and prayed with them and for them, driven them places, planned the structure of their days at the program, and most recently told others about them and sought to raise money to keep the home for them going. as is the nature of most non-profits, the staff are there for the love and passion of its mission, not the paycheck. it's been the perfect job for the 20-something girl when housing was included, but i am no longer 20-something and housing is no longer included. i've been telling myself there's no way this should be working financially, and now that side jobs and savings have been expended, it is no longer working. my schedule needs reinventing.

my car has decided that now is the perfect time to also stop working. a 4 year track record was enough, apparantly. i'm still waiting to hear from the 3rd mechanic in as many weeks what needs reinvented this time.

my sister and i have been [correction - my sister has been] running an etsy shop. and that is no longer working. my part is not working. i want to draw out a long list of rational reasons why not, but it's just not. i've not made it work, nor have i been consistent with it. our partnership and the business itself need reinventing. that conversation released the latch on the trapdoor late monday night and the rest followed throughout the week.

i've simply sat with all of this for long moments this past week, thinking. evaluating. asking questions. wallowing. being overwhelmed. thinking in circles. working to decide what needs quitting because it is a dead end and what needs to be pressed into in order to get through the slump to the next level.

in it all, i keep thinking that without it all, i'd never remember my need for God's grace, presence and provision. he and i have been on a journey this past year-and-a-half to align my hopes and expectations. we've worked through my abilities and perceived identity at my job, some friend relationships and now we are working on my finances. he is taking things beyond my control and reminding me:

[do not] to set [your] hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly provides us with everything to enjoy... do good, be rich in good works, be generous and ready to share, thus storing up treasure for [yourself] as a good foundation for the future, so that [you] may take hold of that which is truly life. [1 Tim 6:17-19]

truth is, i need more work. truth is, God will provide. he always has.

today, i:

worked from home on the next fundraiser
did some job hunting online - people advertise for weird stuff
asked my neighbor to take me to drop off my car
staked my tomatoes and peppers in the garden
mulched the flower beds
caught up with a friend i haven't talked to in months
hemmed the dining room drapes after 5 months of awkward puddling on the floor
made the hemming easier by raising the curtain rod several inches. it makes the wall look bigger
finished a book about when to quit and when not to
worked on some sewing projects that i thought up during church a couple weeks ago - what can i say a friend's shirt inspired me
and now here i sit

tomorrow a lovely friend is letting me borrow her car and i will return to the office and also do some in person job hunting. at this point i'm thinking non-profit part time and something else part time. i'm considering quite the range of ideas

painting and restoring houses - their insides
sewing costumes
cooking
waitressing
pizza delivery
factory assembly line
grocery store
catering
pretzel maker
egg packer

who knows what it'll be
i think i'm beyond the - 'ohcrapineedtodosoemthingdifferent'
and am recharged and ready to consider any direction
for tomorrow
that's all i can handle

playing school

"this is the pet house where they go to the [sic] doctow's"






"no.
big.
boys.
allowed!"

teacher princess lola


the childrens




"they will sit here, like this, and each one will have a toy friend."


"I need more childrens," she says as she dives her whole self into the basket to retrieve them.




"in the story if our family, this is the part where you, me and IZ go to the [sic] pawk"