I will cheer for the USA as long as we are in the fight, and if we aren’t, I’ll pick some other country to cheer for. And my reasons for choosing are as logical as wanting to see the home country win or as random as having issues with the color of someone’s uniform. I love it. I stay up late to watch even though I know I could Google it to find out who won. But where’s the fun in that?! I know some people who just don’t care about the Olympics, but I am not one of those people.
4. Always travel with $1 bills. Let me explain. I rarely have cash. When I do, it’s because I just hit an ATM. So I have $20s. $20s work just fine until you need some smaller bills. Say to tip the bellman at the fancy hotel you just showed up in. But you only have $20s. And he’s nice and friendly and he got your key card to work for you but $20? I’m generally a big tipper, but I can’t go $20. So instead you turn as red as your laptop cover and mumble how you don’t have anything to tip him with but could you please get his name and hunt him down later? And you can tell he totally doesn’t believe you will, and then you spend the next 3 days trying to locate him in the lobby of the hotel. Lesson learned. Keep some $1s and $5s handy. ![]() |
| Me with Lynette Eason after the Carol Awards! |
5. Listen to your mentors. Someday I’m going to talk more about this, but for now, here’s what I’ve learned. If God has been gracious to you and put mentors in your life, when they tell you you “must” do something? You should probably do it. I’m not going to say always, because humans are fallible and it’s possible they could be wrong. But if you have two mentors who gang up on you and INSIST you take a certain course of action? Yeah. Probably better just say, “Yes, ma’am” and do it.
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| The screen shot that left me stunned. |
In my case, two of my mentors (Lynette Eason and Edie Melson) ganged up on me last March and insisted I enter a couple of contests. Contests I had NO PLANS to enter. None. I said things like, “It’s a waste of time and money for me to enter.” They refused to listen. And now they walk around with big heads saying, “I told you so.” 🙂
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| Me with Edie at the ACFW Gala. |
6. Sometimes obedience is fun. Edie shared that little nugget with me a few weeks ago when I was being all angsty about winning awards. Recognition and awards are awesome. Really and truly awesome. But I struggle with it. I don’t want to be prideful—and I know how fast my sinful heart can go there. But I also don’t want to be ungrateful. As another dear friend (and frequent deliverer of spiritual Gibbs’ slaps), Lori Roeleveld reminded me, these awards are gifts from God. Gifts from my very good Father. And as a parent, how would I feel if I gave my children a gift and they said, “It’s nice, but I didn’t really want it?” So I’m trying to stay close to Jesus and enjoy the gifts He’s giving. And trying to remember that while sometimes God does ask us to do hard things, sometimes, obedience is fun.








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