FlowerDust.net | Anne Jackson

the trap of freedom, part 1 of 2

this past weekend, chris and i went to his hometown of kansas city for a quick trip to visit his family before we move to nashville. on the itinerary was a trip to westside family church…the church where i received my call to vocational ministry six years ago, the place i fell in love with the body of christ, where i loved and dreamed and had my heart broken, only to love and dream again.

dan deeble, who is the senior pastor at heartland community church, was the guest speaker. dan began sharing about what we, as the church, could do if we served together. he told a story of a time he was in washington dc with a friend. he had stayed in a fancy hotel, had eaten an amazing steak dinner, and on a walk back to his hotel, had a homeless man in a wheelchair approach him.

long story short, after going through his internal conflict of “oh crap, if i would have only made it twenty more feet, i wouldn’t have to deal with this” and knowing what he needed to do, he offers to take the man to a local burger king. on the way, the homeless man stops in a print shop and gets fliers for the ministry he is starting for the homeless. dang. a brother in christ. he is totally humbled. dan and the homeless man continue on to eat and head back to the hotel.

the homeless man stops about twenty feet from the hotel — the same place he had stopped dan earlier. he knew that there was an invisible barrier…of wealth and of class…preventing him from going further.

dan turns around to bid him farewell, and the homeless man pulls dan down to where he sat, reaching around him and giving him a kiss on the cheek.

dan continues by saying he doesn’t remember what the suite in the hotel looked like. the taste of the steak he had was long gone thirty minutes after he ate it. but he will never, ever forget the touch of the homeless man’s kiss on his cheek.

galatians 5:10 was the verse dan centered his message on.

You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love.

i’ve written a lot about the freedom we have in christ, but during dan’s talk had one of those moments when head knowledge becomes heart knowledge.

we have been given freedom in christ. and instead of making ourselves gluttons of our culture, we are given this freedom as a gift to serve each other.

galatians 5:19-21 describes the things we aren’t supposed to indulge in…

The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like.

i struggle the most with this still in the area of how i spend money. it’s not necessarily how much i spend, but why i spend it.

to be quite raw, it’s mostly because of envy, selfish ambition and jealousy. why can’t i have the perfect house/wardrobe/car/gadgets or eat at the most posh of restaurants/bistros when others can? i want to be perceived as trendy and well-off, like they are. and so my bank account suffers.

is there anything wrong with any of those things? i truly believe not. again, it’s the why.

am i serving myself or am i serving others with my freedom? if i serve myself, does my freedom actually trap me?

the importance of the present

i found out today that one of my friends back in kansas died.

his name is bart. i met him when i was overseeing communication and media at westside family church. he wanted to serve on the creative team. he had a great portfolio, and a great spirit.

bart and i fell out of touch when i moved to texas. however, over the summer, he emailed me and shared what had been going on in his life.

we emailed a couple of more times, and life just got busy.

that’s always my excuse, anyway.

a few minutes ago, crystal emailed me and let me know he had passed away. i couldn’t believe it. i had never responded to his last email.

life just got busy…

today, i was hit in the face with a harsh reality. one we all know, one we all hear, all the time.

life is short.

i now realize, with a terrible feeling in my gut, that i let life get busy.

too busy for so many things that matter. really matter.

i have wasted so much time.

i must stop.

please pray for bart’s family. leesa is his wife. they have a son, grant.

toto, we’re still in kansas

so, bad weather has finally come to a head here in kansas. wes was supposed to fly us home today but it has been storming since sometime early this morning. we’ve had about two inches of rain where we are staying, and on our way to meet a friend for coffee early this morning, it was raining so hard you couldn’t see in front of you. i honestly don’t think i have ever seen it rain so hard!

since wes didn’t think he’d be able to get up here until possibly wednesday, we booked two tickets on southwest for monday evening. it wasn’t the best fare in the world, but honestly for a last minute flight, i can’t complain. and they can fly high above all these silly storms!

our time here has been a mix of many different emotions for many different reasons. from grieving with our friends who have lost some things very dear to them to having a blast with our old friends…you can see some more pictures of our trip & our friends here.

departures and arrivals

we are in kansas city…we left around 7:30 am from the rockwall airport, i popped a klonopin and dozed off most of the flight. it got a little bumpy and we had to change which airport we landed at, but we are safe and sound. here are some photos from our trip so far!

GO MAVS!!!!

Kansas City

Chris & I are driving to Kansas City today so we can see some of the most amazing kids graduate! Please pray for safety.. We drive back Sunday!

What a crazy day!

I was warm, cuddled up underneath my fluffy comforter at 8:30 this morning, dreaming and completely oblivious to my surroundings when a shrill siren interrupted my REM.

Confused and wondering why the tornado sirens were going off so early in the morning (especially since it was 40 degrees out) I opened the blinds to an overcast and non-threatening sky. Stumbling into the living room, I turned on the TV and sure enough, we were under a tornado warning.

A few miles west of us in Lawrence, KS (home of the KU Jayhawks) a tornado had ripped through the KU campus and was heading our way. I woke Chris up and called my friend Crystal who lives a couple miles away to see if we could hide out in her basement (we’re on the top floor of an apartment building on a hill, full of windows). She says sure, we hop in the car (still in my pajamas and black hoodie) and drive about three blocks before we realize we’re not going to make it. The sky in front of us turned an ominous shade of black and the winds began picking up. Semis began pulling off the freeway in front of us. So…we look around and decide to head into a small church (pajamas and all) on the corner next to us.

I’m happy to report that the people at the church were completely friendly as we all hung out in the foyer watching the storm go by. If we weren’t moving in a couple of weeks, I’d like to say we’d go back and visit them in more favorable circumstances. To the people at Shawnee Park Christian Church, we say thanks.

We go back home and a few calm hours pass. Chris goes to band rehearsal and about half an hour later, the sirens are going off again. I call Chris, and we decide to go to his parents’ house in Missouri, so I load up the cats (and my laptop, of course) and begin driving to the church to pick him up. With two miles to go, the same black clouds, wind and hail start pounding my car. Ignoring the 55mph signs and even a red light, I fly down Shawnee Mission Parkway at 85mph (passing a cop I must proudly add - I DARED him to pull me over) and get to the cafe/bank building where Chris and I met and there is a basement. My friend Jess Chapman was working at the cafe, and she let us in to take cover as her dad called and updated us on what the storms were doing. After the sirens going off several times over the next half hour and the baseball sized hail passes over, we decide to try to make it to his parents’ house again. We swing by the grocery store when Crystal calls and asks where we’re at, as another funnel cloud has dropped over K7 (about 1/2 mile from where we were at the time.) We decide to keep going, since his parents live the opposite direction and make it to their house in one piece about 20 minutes later.

We hang out with them, enjoy Taco Salad and watching the storm coverage from a safe place. Eventually the storms made it to where they live but not nearly as bad as they were earlier. It hailed up to golf-ball size and we ran out in their yard to grab a few. We watched I-Robot and let the remaining storms pass and here I am, back in Shawnee, watching the lightning flash from miles and miles away.

Here are some pictures of the storm I took from a local TV station’s website. Crystal will have some photos of the baseball sized hail that hit Shawnee (where we live) tomorrow, and I’ll link them here.

GOOD NIGHT!

Snow vs. The Haircut

It’s cold, windy and all around not fun in the Kansas City metro today. Flurries blowing around in the gusty, frigid wind.

But not even Jack Frost himself could keep me away from my hair cut.

And I must say, it was completely worth it.

I love you, Jerry Jackson. Thanks again for another fabulous hair cut.

(Go visit his website linked above - He’s not only an incredible hair dresser, but amazing photographer and overall creative genius!)

[[edit://Per Kristi Fair's request - a photo of the new do. Pardon the camera phone quality, lack of makeup and overall gooberness of this shot - It's Friday. The cut's kind of a shaggy euro bob with pixie bangs. A mosaic of style and creativity I owe all to Jerry.]]