UBP Like It's 2012

 

It’s that time of year again, time for Ultimate Blog Party 2012. If this is your first visit, welcome. Let me show you around. (And if you’re an old friend, you’re welcome to stay, too. Just don’t eat all the snacks)

My name’s Nancy Franson, and I’m Out of My Alleged Mind. As I told my future son-in-law the first time we met, you never can be quite sure about me; whether I’m trying to be funny or I’m just plain crazy. And that’s my edge. This post: About the Blog Title explains, well, pretty much what you’d expect it to explain.

I wanted to have the place all cleaned up in time for the party, but I’m in the process of moving. I’ve been threatening since the fall to transfer my blog over to Word Press. But, as I often say about all things technical, “Things did not go as planned.”

Then again if I were to invite you over to my house, I may or may not have all the laundry neatly folded and put away. I’ve reached a point in my life where I’ve quit trying to hide all the mess, and this is a place where I invite folks to enter into it. I’m convinced that one of the chief purposes of my life is to tell my stories as a cautionary tale for others.

And through my stories, I hope to bear witness to God’s faithfulness in meeting me in my mess.

I’ve written this post about what I believe.  On my blog I sometimes make jokes about being a Presbyterian, because that’s what I am. Sometimes I wonder if there aren’t folks in my church who secretly wish I’d just run off and join the Methodists. But they’re stuck with me. It’s probably predestined.

I’m a freelance writer; and because that’s what it says on my business card, it must be true. I homeschooled my kids for many years and, as they began leaving home, I started looking for writing projects to give me something to do. One of my first was a series of interviews with an elderly friend who was losing her memory to dementia. We gave bound copies of her story to her friends and family members the Christmas before she died.

Another early project was interviewing some folks who are part of the Coalition for Christian Outreach, (CCO). The CCO is a Pittsburgh-based college ministry which, in my completely unbiased opinion, is about the most happening one on the planet.

I love telling stories, my own and those of others who cross my path. My brother, who reads my blog, said he imagines most people think I make up the stories I tell here. He can confirm, however, that they are (mostly) true.

Although I homeschooled for many years, I don’t often write about my experience. I think I need some distance to gain some perspective on those years. I didn’t always love it, and writing about it now might just come across as mean. I hope that when I do tell those stories; the good, the bad, and the ugly, I can tell them with honesty and grace.

Both of my children are adopted, and I gladly tell the stories of God’s goodness in bringing to me the exact ones he knew I needed. I sponsor, through the good work of Compassion International,  a child from the Philippines out of gratitude for my son who was born there.

I love the beach, I love Christmas, and I love my friend Ethel. I’m a huge fan of hijinks, shenanigans, feather boas, and guacamole. I prefer pie to cake. I’m originally from the Pittsburgh area and, yes, I do bleed black and gold for my Steelers. And the mere existence of the Baltimore Ravens makes me sad.

Me with Michelle DeRusha, Deidra Riggs, and Mary Bonner

I often refer to the people I’ve met in blog world as my imaginary friends. It’s been my privilege to meet several of them in real life, and they have demonstrated themselves to be as genuine as folks can be. Some of the communities where I like to hang out on the internet include:  The Wellspring, Graceful, Finding Heaven, Imperfect Prose, Jumping Tandem, and Faith Barista.

Me with Jodi from Curious Acorn

I’m also honored to have been featured at The High Calling, a community of some of the most thoughtful people on the internet discussing the connection between faith and work.

Yes, I am available to guest post. Please ask.

I strongly believe that one of the privileges of being a follower of Christ is getting to speak words of blessing over one another, so may God’s grace and peace be upon you. Thanks for stopping by.

If you’ve enjoyed your visit here, won’t you consider subscribing by email, liking my Facebook page, or following me on Twitter (@nancyfranson) or Pinterest?

UBP2011 Post

Talking Trash

Wednesdays were trash days, and I began to dread them. Sacking up and taking out the trash seemed like a simple job, one I could easily knock off in the space of twenty minutes while, at the same time, juggling two or three other household tasks. I didn’t understand how a routine household chore had turned into a major battlefront between my child and me.

I began waking up on Wednesday mornings, dreading the confrontation I was almost certain to face.

“It’s not that hard,” I’d say. “Why don’t you just take care of it and get it over with?”

“I will,” he’d say. “You don’t have to remind me.”

Yet I could hardly keep myself from offering reminders throughout the day.

“Temperature is supposed to drop tonight. Might want to get the trash out before the driveway freezes. Wouldn’t want you to slip and fall.”

Sometimes I’d start emptying garbage cans, banging them together for emphasis, hoping he’d take the hint and get moving. The more I said and did, however, the more quickly the conflict between us seemed to escalate. All I wanted was the trash taken out, a cheerful and compliant child, and a welcome absence of angry words and slamming doors.

One Wednesday night just as I was getting ready for bed, I heard him downstairs in the garage gathering up the trash and recycling. “Good,” I thought. “I should be able to get to sleep, knowing he’s taken care of it.”

A few minutes later I heard, “Mom, can you come outside?”

“Great,” I thought. “Now what?”

I was certain he’d slipped on the driveway and dropped the recycling bin. I began to imagine myself outside in my bathrobe in the wintry night air, cleaning shattered glass from the pavement.

He didn’t say a word. He simply pointed to the night sky full of stars, shining in glorious abundance.

And I believe that night sky was every bit as brilliant as the one God showed Abraham when he promised his faithfulness and blessing both to him and his descendants.

Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
    praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
    praise him, all his hosts!

Praise him, sun and moon,
    praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
    and you waters above the heavens!

Let them praise the name of the Lord!
    For he commanded and they were created.
And he established them forever and ever;
    he gave a decree, and it shall not pass away.

Psalm 148:1-6, ESV

Linking with Jennifer @ Getting Down With Jesus:

And with KD and the Painted Prose Community:

(I meant to post this first thing this morning, but I missed a step and fell while carrying a box of trash down to the garage. Because today's trash day.)

It's a Providential Life

My family speaks movie.  When my siblings and I get together, we can have entire conversations comprised of little more than movie references strung together by a handful of original thoughts.  And, we’ve found, there are few conversations in life that can’t somehow be enhanced by an It’s a Wonderful Life movie reference.

True story—when the elder of my two-headed brothers got married, our younger two-headed brother toasted him with these words:

To my big brother Chaz, the richest man in town.

 They’re both a little bit off their nut.

A few years ago, my church threw a party for our pastor to celebrate his twenty-five years of service to our congregation. For the event, I wrote a skit entitled, It's a Providential Life. My brother (the elder two-headed one) made this sign which was carried back and forth across the stage as someone played, Buffalo Gals Won’t You Come Out Tonight? on the ukulele.

In the skit our pastor, portrayed by his son, found himself trapped at an elder’s meeting during which fine points of church order were being argued and debated in mind-numbingly excruciating detail.  At one point, the pastor’s character banged his head on the table and cried, “Sometimes I wish I’d never become a pastor!”

Of course, Clarence the angel appeared and showed him all the babies never baptized, the sermons never preached, the marriages not performed. We even caught a glimpse of his wife, pastor’s wife extraordinaire, living instead as an old maid. “Why, I’m not even Presbyterian!” she cried.

During the course of my daughter’s wedding, my dear pastor made reference to that skit and to that sign which continues to hang in his office. Speaking from the book of Ruth, he reminded my daughter and her new husband that God’s providence was, and remains, everywhere present in bringing them together and as they begin their new life together.

Ruth as he reminded us, found herself widowed and in poverty and gleaning in the fields of a man named Boaz. Boaz, as it turned out, was her near relative who became her husband and redeemer.  Later in scripture, we read that our true Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ descended from this man who just so happened to have a field where this impoverished widow gleaned.

My pastor emphasized these words:  as it turned out, and it just so happened. To the believer, he reminded us, there are no coincidences; all is Providence. According to the Westminster Shorter Catechism, God’s works of providence are defined as his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures, and all their actions, all of which is a fancy-schmancy way of saying, God's got this.

Since my daughter’s wedding, I have been thinking quite a bit about the holy, wise and powerful acts God used to bring us to that day. When my husband and I made the decision to adopt, it just so happened that I had a former roommate whose husband worked for Bethany Christian Services. After we were approved for adoption, our daughter’s birth mom read our file.

As it turned out, she chose our family because she wanted her baby to grow up in a family with other adopted children. It just so happened that my in-laws had adopted about twenty years earlier. We saw evidence that God’s plan in bringing our daughter to us had begun taking shape years before my husband and I even met.

When our daughter was young, we happened to hire a lovely young woman as a babysitter for her on a regular basis. That babysitter happened to grow up, go away to a small Christian college, and find a husband. They returned to live near us and, during the course of a seemingly random conversation, my husband offered a job to our babysitter’s young husband. Some years later, as it turned out, he became president of the alumni association at the small Christian college from which he had graduated. When our daughter was looking at colleges, he took her there for a visit and she fell in love with the place.

Shortly after arriving at college, our daughter met a young man who just so happened to live in an area in western Pennsylvania where my husband lived during high school. As it turned out, his family attended the very same church in which my husband had grown up. It just so happened that all our people knew his people.

(This happy providence, by the way, proved most useful when my daughter and her boyfriend began to date. I was able to warn him that my daughter’s grandparents continued to live on in legend in his family’s church and, should he ever even begin to formulate an inappropriate thought toward my daughter, the good people of that congregation would gladly pummel him--possibly even bludgeon him. He never really knew if I was just really, really funny or just plain crazy which, providentially, worked to my advantage.)

As it turned out, my husband and I realized we had already met the parents of this young man, having been introduced to them earlier that year at a fund-raising auction for a college ministry we support.  We learned that the boyfriend’s parents had met and married while attending the same small Christian college our daughter attended. As it turned out, his mother’s college roommate became a teacher in a small Christian school in New England. Last year, that former college roommate was my nephew’s teacher.

Just a few days before the wedding, my daughter received a message from her brother-in-law to be, asking if she had an Uncle Andy. As it turns out, the two were sitting only a few feet away from each other at a conference, having just learned they worked for the same company.

Uncle Andy, by the way, is the younger two-headed brother.

You see people; it really is a providential life.

This is a slightly edited post from the archives. Linking in community today with Jennifer and KD: