Now here’s the deal, I have been so incredibly blessed with smart, courageous, brilliant  older women who have taken time out of their busy schedules to give advice on my career.  From those experiences, I realized how much camaderie happened over a simple lunch.  How blessed I was by their experiences and advice.     I wrote a blog post about these special women back in the Spring.   Shortly after that blog post,  I happened to mention to someone at my mega church, “wouldn’t it be great if we had this network of women at church who just met and did lunch.  Having a relationship with an older woman a little further down the path… a path with career, family, and trying to follow Christ.  You know- Those connections that make this big ol place seem a little smaller – like my hometown church”    Well, that person said,  ”Indeed it would,  I’m setting up a meeting with you and one of senior pastors next week.  He is launching a new ministry called Sageworks  - a ministry for adults in the golden half of life  -  and this would be a perfect project”

Soon after that,  I met with Bill Parkinson and discussed what a possible mentoring program for women IN the church would look like.   He gave me a slight smile.  He asked me a few questions.  He said, “JoBeth – go for it!”     So, after two days of complete weeping (in a good way) – I started a fervent prayer that went something like this:   “God I have no idea what I’m doing or who I need, but you do.  So please,  just put them in my path”    And from that moment on –  everyday, I stand amazed at God’s hand.   A week after a meeting with Bill,   his wife Ann literally crossed my path as I was walking out of church on Sunday morning.  She grabbed my arm – told me Bill told her about me and she said , “I want to be part of this!     She is now my mentor, my precious friend, and my sidekick in organizing this project.

Last night, we had the privilege of sharing this vision of ministry with all of Sageworks – about 500-700 folks.     So now,  I’m sharing with you ….

MOXIE is now defined at Fellowship Bible Church as “mentoring others by influence and encouragement”

The purpose of moxie is to promote generational unity – connecting women of FBC Sageworks to share God given life experinces to encourage and counsel the younger generations of Christ Followers.    The MOXIE vision is to give women of FBC a stronger sense of belonging to the Church, to strengthen their walk with Christ,and to grow female leaders and mentors across all generations.

The way we hope to accomplish these lofty goals is my utilizing the committed women of Sageworks to connect to the women in the general FBC congretation and weekend attendees through mentoring at four different levels:

Casual Connection ( Life on Life)

Equip/ Skill Mentoring     —

Discipleship

Life Experiences

In January 2011,  we will host our first MOXIE Mixer – a time where women who want to mentor and women who want to be mentored will meet and greet.  From now until then there will be behind the scenes organizing of our MOXIE PROJECT ( my cutesy name of the committee) and a lot PRAYER.     So if you are the praying kind,  please keep this new project / ministry in mind.     If you are a woman in Fellowship Bible Church who has lived life – well we need you.   And if you are a younger woman who feels like you’ve lost your energy, courage, verve, skill … I know a place where you can find your moxie.

“ Even though we had some standing as Christ’s apostles, we never threw our weight around or tried to come across as important, with you or anyone else. We weren’t aloof with you. We took you just as you were. We were never patronizing, never condescending, but we cared for you the way a mother cares for her children. We loved you dearly. Not content to just pass on the Message, we wanted to give you our hearts. And we did.

“You remember us in those days, friends, working our fingers to the bone, up half the night, moonlighting so you wouldn’t have the burden of supporting us while we proclaimed God’s Message to you. You saw with your own eyes how discreet and courteous we were among you, with keen sensitivity to you as fellow believers. And God knows we weren’t freeloaders! You experienced it all firsthand. With each of you we were like a father with his child, holding your hand, whispering encouragement, showing you step-by-step how to live well before God, who called us into his own kingdom, into this delightful life.”     1 Thessalonians 2: 7-12   The Message

For more information on how to be part of MOXIE or if you have great resources or talents you want to share , please contact me at my email  bootsmcblog@gmail.com.   And fair warning – I’ll keep you updated on here from time to time on our progress.

Cheers and Grace Y’all!

The tension gave way to laughter.   Everyone recognized my nod to another savvy go-get-’em blonde- Elle Wood.

In the past few years –  I’d forgotten just how fun and inspirational Elle can be until I stumbled across this trailer on the SheSeeks Site.    Just watching this makes me smile.

Not only does it make me smile…it makes me remember a time  when I thought I could do anything.   ANd then I think to myself.  What’s changed?   You know what?   Let’s see – I have a few more experiences on my resume.  I have learned a few more life lessons.   And if I’m really honest with myself – I  still feel like I can do anything.     What about you?    Are you in a rut this morning?    Is it a case of the Mondays?    Maybe you are letting your Monday’s become your everydays?

Whether you are blonde, brunette, a fiery red head or have a head full of gray,  we all  on some level identify with Elle.    Now is the time to remember that wide eyed girl you used to be.   Pull out  that pink sheet of paper.   At the top, write your dream.    Underneath your dream, make that  mundane to-do list for the day.  However, add one more thing – list one activity that will get you closer to your dream.   It’s YOUR dream.  No one else can do it.  The world has been waiting on it.  So hop to it, sister.  Sign up for the class.   Request the information.  Set up the appointment.  Buy the book.   Make the call.    Then promise yourself by the end of of the day – you’ll have that one thing done.

Tomorrow – make that same mundane to-do list all over again and add one new thing that gets you closer to your dream.

Oh,  this is too easy, you say?    Is that devil sitting on your shoulder whispering “you can’t do that”?  Well, my sweet friends,  it’s time to channel your best Elle Woods and say …. “Watch me!”

Charlotte   – even just the say it  makes a lump in my throat – holds a bittersweet place in my heart.     When I was 15 years old, I was a small town girl.   As the John Mellencamp song says,   “I was raised in a small town.  Taught to feel Jesus in a small town.  Just a small town romantic – that’s me”     And that was me.   I was a Northeast Arkansas girl born and bred –  But even then I had a peripatetic spirit that wanted more.    I’ll never forget the night my mom broke the news to me that my small town life was about to change.  My  family was being transferred to the BIG city.   I honestly took the news really well.   I was moving to a southern city….with a mall.    That’s about all my 15 year old self cared about.    And from all my past life experiences in a small town,  if you were the “new kid” and wore cute clothes,  took Honors classes, – that was all  one needed to be accepted  into the  ”in” crowd.   It never donned on me that life would be any other way.

The moving trucks loaded our stuff.  We moved in July.  The next few weeks before school started,  my mother and I explored the  Queen city.  Learning the ways of North Carolina.  I tried Cheerwine.   We shopped at Harris Teeter.   And every day as I put on my clinique make up and poofed my bangs, I listened to my Amy Grant tape   (yes, tape. It was the 90′s.  Don’t judge) and prayed for my new life…just like my Brookhill Camp counselors had told me to do.

The first day of tenth grade arrived.  I wore a denim skort ( yes, a skort.  It was the 90′s. Don’t judge)  and white  long sleeve shirt with hemstitch detailing on the collar and cuffs.   I had carefully selected  the outfit at THE LIMITED…at the mall.   My schedule was full of honors classes.   I was set.

Not a single person said hello to me my first day of High School.  Not one.

That day I decided my parents had set out to completely ruin my entire life with their move to the BIG city.

Day two onward through tenth grade,  a few folks spoke to me.   I found a lunch table.   They were nice enough to give me a place to sit, but I never fit.   I had the clothes.  the classes.   but no real friends.   Yes, it was obvious – My parents were  ruining my life….and  by this time I was convinced God had pushed mute on my summer prayers.

my iPhone view of Charlotte

In eleventh grade,  my parents – outside of their  personal comfort zones – decided to attend a mega-church.   The youth group had come highly recommended to them – a group of  500 youth.    It was in that youth group, that I learned God wasn’t out to get me. In fact, to the contrary –  a thirty something youth pastor and his staff of college interns began to encourage a hurting, lonely, poofy haired small town girl in cute clothes.  Through them God showed me that I belonged…to Him.     Over the next two years,  my faith and walk with Christ flourished.  A foundation in faith was laid.     At school, I was the “good girl” and I was okay with that distinction.   I continued not to have  close friends.  I didn’t get asked to parties or prom.   I didn’t have a boyfriend.    I spent Saturday nights in my church sanctuary  praying for my family and my future.    It sounds pitiful, I know.   I seriously could have been the kid that wore the t-shirt “Jesus is my boyfriend”.    But that wouldn’t have looked good with my denim skort.

I graduated High School and went half way across the county to college.  I would never return to Charlotte.   My parents moved back to small town Arkansas my freshmen year of college.     And  I grew up.

My faith grew up, too.    The bumps and twists of life have tried and tested it.  I’ve tucked it away at times.  Well,  if I’m honest I’ve tucked it away most of the time –  the way we grown ups do.      I admit – there is a part of me embarrassed to admit how I spent my saturday nights in high school.   Odd because I wasn’t embarrassed back then.    In ways, my 16 year old self was far more mature than my 36 year old self is today.

Eighteen years later,  my plane laded on Charlotte soil.   I hoped in my rental car and took a spin around the city that changed my life.  This is the city where I learned to drive – (which I remembered as I drove past the site of my first wreck)  I went to the mall which now houses a Neimans, Tiffany’s, and Anthropologie. (on my!)      I bought a couple of diet Cheerwines at Harris Teeter.   I drove by our old house and noticed just how tall all the trees had become.   I remembered my bedroom where I wrote in my journal every single day.  (before blogs)    Then, on Saturday night,  I drove to my old church.  I sat in the parking lot for a quite awhile staring up at the steeple.    I thought about that first day of high school.  My times in youth group.   My college years.  My family.  My marriage.   My friends.   My career.    My church.  My hurts.   My joys.  My accomplishments.  My failures.  My wanderings.  My homecomings.  My past.  My future.

My life over the last 18 years hasn’t turned out exactly like I planned.  I’ve had my share of disappointments.  And  I  have been blessed with joys far beyond my wildest dreams.    I didn’t need to sit in my old church parking lot to know this, but it was a good reminder:

God didn’t push mute on my summer prayers years ago.  He heard every. single. one.

And he still  hears my prayers today.

He hears yours, too.

“I’ll show up and take care of you as I promised and bring you back home. I know what I’m doing.

I have it all planned out—plans to take care of you, not abandon you, plans to give you the future you hope for.”

- Jeremiah 29: 11  ( the Message)

Believe in yourself

Make every moment count

Do what you love

Embrace change

Go where you have never gone

Have an adventure

Be the first to say hello

Be the last to say goodbye

Take nothing for granted

Be positive

Find your passion

Redefine the impossible

Dance

Settle for Excellence

Be a friend

Take chances

Find the beauty

Volunteer

Make someone’s day

BREATHE

See for yourself

Make a difference

Grow towards the Light

Savor the song

Be brave

Create memories

Think BIG

Say thank you…and mean it

Expect success

Laugh out LOUD

Take good notes

Live gracefully

Love fearlessly

Have faith

Be NEW and improved

Give a cheer

Blaze the trail

Pray without ceasing

Count your blessings

Leave a Legacy

SHINE

“Do you remember the best summer of your life?”

There are days I swear I’m living in the wrong generation.  I feel like an old soul.   I’m mesmerized by the fashions of the 1940′s and 50′s.   The  club music of those days makes me swoon.  The tales of men going off to war and the women who waited for  their soldiers’ letters of affection tug at my heart strings.     This was a time when the most immediate form of communication consisted of a telegram or Morris code or heaven forbid, a long distance phone call.  All were prohibitvely expensive.   It was a time before facebook, twitter, email, and cell phones.   Movie Stars were stars.   And small town, wide eyed girls dreamed of the big city.

In her memoirs,  Summer at Tiffany,  Marjorie Hart captures the essence of the era as she tells of the best summer of her life.    In 1945,  she and her best friend Marty left the Kappa House at their Univesity to find summer positions as shopgirls in New York City.   In a twist of fate,  they find jobs as the first female pages of Tiffany & Co.    It was a magical time of discovery for a small town girl who suddenly was amidst the social elite, Hollywood Stars, and handsome midshipmen.

The book is an engaging page turner.  I picked  it up at mid afternoon and by bedtime, I had closed the cover on a fairy tale come true.   Mrs. Hart’s storytelling is conversational and peppered with her actual letters home.  I felt as if I was sharing a cup of tea with a dear old friend.      If, like me,  you prefer your poolside reading to be less taxing on your brain and heart (no tearjerkers please!) ,  this is a perfect little read and it’s a perfect little gift for a friend.

Cheers and Happy Reading, Y’all!

The summer of ’84,  while American athletes like Mary Lou Retton and Greg Louganis were racking up gold medals in the Olympics, I was honing my “Star Spangled Banner”  pipes.    It was my shower song (or should I say anthem?).  The bathroom acoustics made me sure I was going to sing it for a packed house someday.  This was also the summer that Memorex cassette tapes had an ad campaign which said,  ”Is it live or is it memorex?”.  In the commercial, they would play a tape of a woman singing, the sound pouring out of a speaker next to a wine glass.  The glass would shatter from the intensity  of her voice.    One day,  after quite the patriotic shower performance in my parents’ master bath,  I heard a crack against their french doors.  I pulled back the curtain to see the entire glass had shattered.  WOW!   Who knew achieving the pinnacle note of our national anthem held such power.  I was scared to death to tell my parents my amazing voice had destroyed their bathroom windows.   I kept it to myself.  I wasn’t ready for the world tour.  I wasn’t even a teenager, yet.  I wanted to stay a kid, you know.   Years later,  I found out it was the scorching heat or my brother’s football – not my amazing voice – that cracked that glass.  (Not to mention, reality set in that my singing voice isn’t that amazing, at all.) At the age of eleven,  I picked up a baton for the first time.  Which means,  John Phillips Sousa was often the sound coming from my little jambox in the backyard.  I spent years twirling that baton to the sound of 2/2 time.   Stars and Stripes Forever.  The Marine Corp March.  The Liberty Bell March.  The Battle Hymn Republic.   To this day,  I stand a little taller when I hear a Sousa march.    And I can still do my twirling competition routine.

Time passes and years later the songs above remain dear to me.  I am in awe  of the poetic lyrics of “America the Beautiful”.  My heart SWELLS with pride as I sing the final words “MY home –  sweet home” of God Bless America.    Today,  we celebrate the freedom this country affords us.   The freedom to attend the church of our  choice.  The freedom  to write or read a blog.   The freedom to be friends with whom we choose and the freedom to spend time with our families.    There will be fireworks, hot dogs, apple pie and many patriotic tunes.    May we all take time to stop and remember the sacrifices which inpsired the composition of these lyrics and melodies which will make up our playlists today.  May our playlists not only be  tagged “songs for The Fourth of July”, but may we remember they are songs for us every. single. day.    The beautiful songs of freedom.

God Bless Y’all

and

God Bless America!

our family tartan

Favorite things that remind me of my Dad -

Riding shotgun in his pick up truck.

Singing “high hopes” at the top of our lungs.

Mixing salted peanuts into glass bottled coca colas.

And this poem~

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,

When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,

When the funds are low and the debts are high,

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,

When care is pressing you down a bit,

Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,

As everyone us sometimes learns,

And many a failure turns about,

When he might have won had he stuck it out;

Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–

You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than,

It seems to a faint and faltering man,

Often the struggler has given up,

When he might have captured the victor’s cup,

And he learned too late when the night slipped down,

How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out–

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt

And you never can tell how close you are,

It may be near when it seems so far,

So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–

It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

- Author unknown

if i had my life to live over, i would start barefoot earlier in the spring, and stay that way later in the fall.

i would go to more dances.

i would ride more merry-go-rounds.

i would pick more daises.

~ nadine stair

Cheers Y’all!