NOTE: This is a super old post (December 2005), but my sweet friend, Kazia, wanted to read it. So I obliged a re-post. Laugh away. :)


As Christmas rapidly approaches, I'm quite excited that I've done so well this year.. almost all my cards are mailed.. all my shopping is done... plans are made for the weekend with family. I'm super excited about seeing old friends that have been away and to go volunteer at the Children's hospital on Tuesday afternoon. (I'll have to tell yall about it later this week after we've gone). Sunday I'm going to Wayside again in the morning.. yippie!!

Since it's the week before Christmas and I'm practically going to be living in the Heck that is Retail (I really don't like you people that wait til the VERY last minute and then get all exasperated and mean because everyone else did the same thing and everywhere is crazy busy....grrr) And I digress... With that in mind.. and Kohl's monopolizing most of my week, I thought I'd write a Kohl's antics Year-in-Review...

The Top 10 Most Insane Moments at Kohl's (involving me):

10. Day after Christmas returns and using EVERY shopping cart (30+) in the store to do returns recovery.

9. Saturday two toilets in the women's restroom simulataneously decided to overflow... pouring out of the restroom into Customer Service (ewwwww... CS is my dept, by the way) 3 male employees.. 2 mops... 20 minutes of cleaning.. priceless. teehee!

8. Walking into a fitting room and finding a poopy diaper stuck to the wall.

7. Kohl's being open this last winter (Jan or Feb) during an ice storm.. the only people in the store were 5 employees.. and we were able to ice skate in our tennis shoes in the parking lot.

6. Following a guy around the store because he'd stolen and then returned his stolen coat in customer service. I was very very sneaky and it was fun.

5.. Climbing up a ladder to get a suitcase for a Sr. Citizen man. He decides he wants a different color.. I go to move the ladder and he decides to help move it for me... while I was STILL ON THE LADDER.... yeah, little old dude got lucky he didn't get crushed when the ladder fell and I went flying off into the housewares department.. sprained my ankle pretty good on that one.

4. This creepy guy called one day. He asked me, "If I came in and bought you a pair of shoes, would you wear them?" I was like, gee.. if this crazy guy wants to give me a new pair of shoes.. "Sure!".. Then he says, "Ok.. so, you'd wear them around for awhile and then let me come in and smell them?" Do, huh?! How about, no. EWWWW!!!

3. As I'm on hold with another store, an elderly lady VERY Loudly asked me where I bought my.. um... undergarments.. and everyone in line turned to look at me...

2. A lady tried to return a shirt..without a receipt.. with a JCPenney tag... when I told her she couldn't, she became very angry and tried to come over the counter after me. At this point, the older woman with her pulls her back and apologizes, saying, "I'm sorry, she really hasn't had her medication today. I knew she shouldn't have gone out."

And number one... drum roll please..

1. While working at the Men's register, a middle age man comes running out of the dressing room in nothing but his tighty-whities and socks needing help because he'd grabbed the wrong size pants and needed a bigger size.

Yea for working in retail!

BONUS: I was working one day and was having a serious wardrobe malfunction.. my shirt only covered an inch or two below my belt and my pants were a bit big. So all day long I was CONSTANTLY pulling my pants up and my shirt down to keep from showing any of my stomach. I was getting so incredibly frustrated because we were so busy and everytime I would reach down to get a bag for a customer I would have to repeat this process of shirt down, pants up. One lady had a HUGE order and I had to bend down 4 or 5 times to get bags and fix the malfunction.. finally I decided to apologize.. and said, "I'm so sorry, but I can't seem to keep my pants down and my shirt up." Totally had no clue what I had said until she burst out laughing... Yea.. I'm so cool.

Take My Moments

Take my moments and my days; let them flow in ceaseless praise.

Surrender never comes naturally. The world, specifically this American culture shouts and demands us to focus on ourselves, to put our wants, desires, ideals above anything else. So we "accept" salvation, we confess our fallen nature and yearn for freedom from this bondage. Freedom from what; salvation for whom? We're free from sin, we're free from legalism and the Law. But why? Do we seek salvation; do we "convert" for God or for ourselves? Have Christians made the gospel so "I" focused that we have left out our Lord?

So we accept a salvation for ourselves and commit to a life of freedom for ourselves (again) and live a faith that fits into what we want, truth we feel is right and convenient (once again, for ourselves). We have Americanized and consumerized the Gospel and ignored the Lordship of it all. It is no longer about surrender, but satisfaction.

As we continue to grow in our faith and learn from the Bible, we realize that there has to be some element of surrender, so we begin to turn over the "big" things to God- life choices, our job status, the health of a family member, the life or death of a friend. We seek God's will for those things, if we ever truly seek it at all.

Instead it should be "take my Moments and my Days"- all. the. time. surrender. I surrender my time. All "free time" is His. I surrender lazy days, meaningless conversations... I give up my "right" to procrastinating, to piddling around, to wasting time. I lay down selfishness and turning down others' needs in favor of my wants.

I live for DAILY worship, DAILY prayer, DAILY devotion. I look for opportunities to serve. I will seek intentional conversations and friendships, entertainment that is edifying and beneficial to my body, mind, and spirit. I will spend my time engaged in activities that will promote God's kingdom, seek His will, and glorify His name. I will rejoice in schedule disruptions, unplanned demands, and frustrating situations; seeing them as opportunities to minister and share Christ's love. I will be alert and never pass up Holy urgings to be loving, gracious, compassionate, patient, or kind.

I know that I'm gonna mess up, I know I'm not gonna get that all right (far from it.. lol), and I know that's ok. And I'll give it my best. :)

Take My Life

Take my life, and let it be consecrated, Lord, to thee...

Surrender. To give up. To cease from fighting, rebelling, acting against. To relinquish one's rights, freedoms, liberties to another. To lay down arms. Everything. Holding nothing back.

With salvation comes surrender. Christ is not a commitment. He surrendered Heaven, surrendered freedom from pain, struggle, suffering. He surrendered perfection and put on humanity's sin on the cross; he surrendered His life for mine.

To follow the example of Christ is to follow a life of complete and total surrender to the will of the Father. It means all of me, every day, every hour, every moment, for the rest of my days.

Chaos

Following the Word is MUCH more difficult than talking about it.

BIG surprise...

I don't know how many times I've advocated for church discipline as described in Matthew 18-
1. Go one-on-one to the person who's in the wrong, if they don't care/care to resolve the person, then...
2. Bring in a third party to mediate/work through the issue, if that doesn't work..
3. Go before the church...

that's the gist of it.

did I mention that's much more difficult to do than to say it's what you should do?

Wow... these last few days have been agony, but resolution was found and it's been a beautiful mess of redemption and reconciliation.

But, wow... was it tough!