Hey friends, You may have not even noticed (that was the plan), but I have switched over from a wordpress.com site to wordpress.org. If you are subscribed to my site and are not receiving updates, you can go to Google Feed Reader here: http://feeds.feedburner.com/MichelleWegner to receive updates in a feed.
Let me know if you have any trouble. I will be happy to help. Thanks!
Instagr.am is a free iPhone app. I’m totally addicted to adding these filters to my photos! If you’ve got an iPhone, go grab the app and have fun. Which of mine do you like the best?
My brother Kevin and sister-in-law Lynn got married a few years back. For the second half of their honeymoon, they just showed up at a hotel without reservations. This is what they got. Lynn said, “When we got to the hotel the lady asked if we were afraid of horses. This was the only room left. It lit up with black lights.”
Oh my. I laughed so hard at this I had tears in my eyes.
Moral of the story: Always plan ahead. If you are boring and just want a boring old hotel room.
If I were to tell you about last Friday, you might not believe me. Oh, ok…I’ll go ahead, but you still might not believe me.
We woke up exhausted because of Whitney’s play the night before that went far past our normal bed time. She was still green from being the “Wicked Witch”, even though she showered and scrubbed the night before. It didn’t matter much because she was going right to school to perform her play for the whole school. Rob drove her to school, then I had to pick her up at 9:30 for a doctor’s appointment at 10:30. She was bright green, so we rushed home to scrub off as much as we could without being late. We got there just in time, and the nurse had a funny smile on her face when we arrived, “Things are going to be a bit different today”. She explained that our doctor was being written about for a national magazine, and the magazine wanted a photo of him treating a patient. They chose Whitney. She was still slightly green around the edges. The nurse laughed about it, brought us a wash cloth, and we scrubbed heartily for the next few minutes.
After the photo shoot, Whit was taken into the operating room because she was having a yucky looking mole removed from her head. I was totally prepared, not even thinking I was going to be grossed out, then things went south for a minute. The mole was removed, a vein was hit…blood everywhere…I turned green and everything went black. I tried to stop myself by sitting down. The nurse had to turn away from Whit to help me…so embarrassing! Whitney did great. She didn’t move, wiggle or complain. I was so proud of her.
We came home, rested all afternoon, then got Whit ready for round #3 of her play. I rushed around and helped dancers get their make-up done, buttoned costumes, tried to keep Shrek calm because his make up was getting green and smudgy from sweat. All in all, the play was great, wonderful, terrific. We clapped, cheered, it was (finally) done. Rob took one vehicle and I took the other since I had to bring Whit early. On the way home, Rob had hit a deer, the deer shattered our front headlight and seriously damaged the front end of our van. When Rob came home with Maddie and Belle, they were totally shaken up. Belle was literally shaking for an hour or so, seriously freaked out.
It was the craziest day ever, to say the least. No one was hurt when they hit the deer. Whitney did fine in her play and at her outpatient surgery. I recovered from my embarrassing fainting spell…we all made it through in one piece.
Saturday, we rested. Our friend owns an amazing piece of land on a small lake, and he graciously lets us come up there and enjoy it. It is one of our favorite places to get away. Whitney and Maddie each brought a friend. The found tadpoles, snails, fossils, and bugs. Rob took Belle out on the kayak, then I got to kayak for the first time ever. I discovered I was really good at it, and I think it’s something I will be doing again.
At the end of those few hours, my soul was relaxed and revived again. It was nice to breathe fresh air and let the sun shine on our faces. God is so good, and he knows exactly what we need, when we need it.
The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul: he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Psalm 23:1-3
Since I tackled the “Big” question on Monday having to do with the controversy surrounding Rob Bell’s new book “Love Wins”, I thought I’d finish up answering some of your brilliant questions today. Here goes:
You are a wife, mother, writer and more. How do you balance all those roles? Have there ever been periods of time when those roles have conflicted with one another?
Every day! Really. Now that my girls are all in school, I am able to designate certain hours of my day for certain tasks, which has made my life enormously easier. When all three girls were home with me all day long, I’d have to find balance in different ways. It was much harder, but I did it. I’d find time to write during nap times, schedule date-nights with Rob so we could get some alone time, and even hire a baby sitter if I needed to go to the store by myself for some blissful ”alone” time shopping.
When I find “me” getting lost in the every day tasks around me, I know it is time to take a few steps back and plan and structure ways to get found again. This has been harder than it sounds, but essential as a wife, mommy, writer, friend.
Since you and I share The Hiding Place as our favorite book of all time, question #1 is what is your #2 book?
It’s hard for me to number books in a certain order, because through time, books take on a differnet meaning to me than they might have 10 or so years ago. You are right, The Hiding Place has been a favorite since I was 10 or 11 years old. Another favorite has been “Till We Have Faces” by C.S. Lewis. I read it when I was about 17, and it really changed how I saw God, and how I saw myself through His eyes.
Question 2 is would you consider sharing your house sitter, Jessica? I have read about her in your blog.
Jessica is awesome! She has been a family friend to us for a few years now. She is very much like an auntie to our girls. Our dogs like her too! She’s a great house sitter, and I am sure she would love to house sit for others too. Just check with us first to make sure she’s not “booked” here…haha..
I decided to break your questions up a bit over the next few days. Here is the biggie:
What are your thoughts on hell? my fiance’ and I have been examining the bible and now with this new “Rob Bell controversy”, I was just wondering your take on it.
My thoughts on hell are very traditional. I believe heaven and hell are real places. I believe that God’s plan is perfect. When we accept God’s gift of salvation through Jesus, we are eternally made clean in God’s eyes. If we don’t accept God’s gift of salvation, we have to face the consequences of that in an eternal way, which means eternal separation from God–hell. What heaven and hell will look like, feel like, etc. have been the topics of widespread debates for thousands of years. I don’t know what they will look like. I read my Bible, and have a pretty good idea, but I think we will all know best when we meet Jesus face to face…or don’t. Rob (mine) did a message in the “Some Questions Can’t Be Answered on Google” series on hell. You can download it here: http://www.wiredchurches.com/weekend-series-audio/questions-week-3-why-would-god-send-people-hell
My brief thoughts of Rob Bell and his new book Love Wins are:
I think Rob Bell is a good guy who enjoys stirring up trouble in the Evangelical community because he wants people to think for themselves. I don’t love him or hate him. I am hoping that regardless of what people think of him personally, they will dig deep into their own Bibles and decide what they believe based on what it says.
More thoughts on all of this from Tim Stevens. He’s way smarter than me.
That’s pretty much all I’ll ever say about the Rob Bell stuff ever again. 
The only reason I am discussing it is because you asked, and you are important to me!
Thanks peeps. Tomorrow it’s all roses and fun again.
Whitney is just a few weeks shy of 11 years old, and feels perfectly alive on any stage, anywhere. She got to play the Wicked Witch in the 4th/5th grade play Shrek. She had her first performance last night, one this morning, and one tonight. All of the kids in the cast have worked so hard, and did a phenomenal job. We are so proud of our Whitney, the cutest Wicked Witch ever.
I bind unto myself today
The strong Name of the Trinity,
By invocation of the same,
The Three in One and One in Three.I bind this day to me for ever.
By power of faith, Christ’s incarnation;
His baptism in the Jordan river;
His death on Cross for my salvation;
His bursting from the spicèd tomb;
His riding up the heavenly way;
His coming at the day of doom;*
I bind unto myself today.I bind unto myself the power
Of the great love of the cherubim;
The sweet ‘well done’ in judgment hour,
The service of the seraphim,
Confessors’ faith, Apostles’ word,
The Patriarchs’ prayers, the Prophets’ scrolls,
All good deeds done unto the Lord,
And purity of virgin souls.I bind unto myself today
The virtues of the starlit heaven,
The glorious sun’s life-giving ray,
The whiteness of the moon at even,
The flashing of the lightning free,
The whirling wind’s tempestuous shocks,
The stable earth, the deep salt sea,
Around the old eternal rocks.I bind unto myself today
The power of God to hold and lead,
His eye to watch, His might to stay,
His ear to hearken to my need.
The wisdom of my God to teach,
His hand to guide, His shield to ward,
The word of God to give me speech,
His heavenly host to be my guard.Against the demon snares of sin,
The vice that gives temptation force,
The natural lusts that war within,
The hostile men that mar my course;
Or few or many, far or nigh,
In every place and in all hours,
Against their fierce hostility,
I bind to me these holy powers.Against all Satan’s spells and wiles,
Against false words of heresy,
Against the knowledge that defiles,
Against the heart’s idolatry,
Against the wizard’s evil craft,
Against the death wound and the burning,
The choking wave and the poisoned shaft,
Protect me, Christ, till Thy returning.Christ be with me, Christ within me,
Christ behind me, Christ before me,
Christ beside me, Christ to win me,
Christ to comfort and restore me.
Christ beneath me, Christ above me,
Christ in quiet, Christ in danger,
Christ in hearts of all that love me,
Christ in mouth of friend and stranger.I bind unto myself the Name,
The strong Name of the Trinity;
By invocation of the same.
The Three in One, and One in Three,
Of Whom all nature hath creation,
Eternal Father, Spirit, Word:
Praise to the Lord of my salvation,
Salvation is of Christ the Lord.
I just finished up the book “Heaven is for Real.’ Normally I don’t enjoy books like this that sensationalize someone’s experience of the “afterlife” and coming back, but this one pulled me in #1, because it was a child, and #2 because it has been on the New York Times best sellers list for awhile, and I wanted to read what all the fuss was about.
The synopsis of the story is this: A little boy suffers for a week or more with acute appendicitis that is untreated because of a doctor’s misdiagnosis. By the time the parents get him out of that hospital, the boy is near death. He is immediately operated on within minutes of arriving at a new hospital that actually did a CAT scan and diagnosed the burst appendix. During the surgery, the boy has a near death experience and visits Heaven. I won’t give any more details of the actual book away in case you want to read it, but I will tell you what I thought about it.
My job isn’t to convince anyone that this book was real or a total fraud, but the thing that convinced me personally and made my neck hairs stand on end was this:
The father of this little boy was given the name of a little girl who had also seen visions of heaven. Akiane Kramarik began to have visions of Heaven and Jesus when she was four years old, never knowing about Jesus because her mother was an atheist. When I did a Google search for Akiane, and clicked on the first video that popped up, that’s when the neck hairs stood up. About 15 years ago, I had a dream where Jesus was sitting with me in my childhood home. He said five simple words to me that I will never forget and have clung to ever since, “I am serving your family”. His eyes shone and sparkled and held the whole universe. His look was unlike any I had seen in paintings previously. He was burly, masculine, had short curly hair and a very bushy beard. The picture that Akiane painted was the picture of Jesus from my dream, only very slight differences. When Colton, the boy who had visited Heaven saw the picture, he said there was nothing “off” about it. It was Jesus to him.
Needless to say, this book made me love Jesus more. I believe Jesus loves the little children. I believe He speaks to children in ways that they will understand. I believe He reaches the children no one else can, in ways no one else can. He reached out to me in this special way, and I am amazed by His love every single day.
I’d be curious to hear the stories of how Jesus reached out to you. He’s real. He’s alive, and at work in our world every day. Where have you seen Him?
My blogging brain is officially on hold. I’ve been working on numerous projects (that made me sound really important, but really, it’s more like laundry, cooking, mopping, writing for some other places, taking care of a very sick kid, more cooking, cleaning and mopping).
So, it’s your turn! What do you want to know? I love doing these “You Asked” posts because I love the questions you have!
The Rules:
Ask anything you want. Really! Anything. Life, family, marriage, ministry, travel, books….whatever! I want to hear what you have to say. I’ll do my best to answer honestly. Transparency has always been a very valuable thing to me, and I never want to have “secrets”. An open life is a life one can learn and grow from, and I’m wide open! Ask away. I’ll be waiting.
