There's gotta be a point!

What is the point of all of this if you aren't going to let it change you? Francis Chan

Today's quote and commentary is dedicated to one of my besties. Sara "Sunshine" Pfaff-Ochieng. If you are my FB friend then perhaps you've seen her and I together on FB. Here we are a little over a month ago.

We are at the airport and I'm hugging her off to go marry her beloved, Paul. He's a Kenyan and they married in Kenya since the U.S. was being stinky about letting him come for a visit here so they could marry in the States. What's CRAZY about my Sara's story is this: a short year ago, on this date, she had no plans to marry anyone and move her whole life. Amazing what can happen in a few short months.

Sara went to Kenya last summer (2011) for a 7 week missions trip. She met Paul in about the last hour she was in Nairobi and now they are married. Paul, who is AMAZING, currently teaches and lives in Oman. So Sara tried to get a job in Oman. No takers. But she did get a job in Abu Dhabi (UAE) teaching so today she leaves for Abu Dhabi and Paul is working on getting his Visa for UAE so he can join her there. Sounds nuts right? It would be IF she hadn't let her experiences over the past 5 years change her. It would be IF she chose to ignore what her eyes and heart have seen and heard. It would be IF she didn't believe that there is One who holds her life in his hands and he has been molding her and transforming her and prepping her for such a time as this. Sara made a choice to let herself be changed by the One who created her. Beautiful things have already come from it and there's more to come.

What's the point of what you...believe, do, live...if you don't let it change you?

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A dime a dozen

"It's said that in the year 1796, the first U.S. dimes were produced for circulation. Hence, it would make sense for this phrase to originate sometime after." Read more here . Today the phrase carries the meaning that something is cheap or without value if it can be lumped in with other similar or exactly-like things. It's more of an insult than anything.

Butter someone up

There are two probable origins for this idiom and I think both are equally plausible. The first one is that when you spread butter on bread you are buttering it up like one would do when trying to flatter someone. The second is in ancient India there was a practice of throwing balls of butter at statues to ask for favor, i.e. buttering them up. ( source ) When we use the phrase today we generally mean that extreme flattery is used to gain information or favor. It's not always necessarily a compliment.

Life according to van Gogh...sort of

There are two ways of thinking about painting, how not to do it and how to do it; how to do it -- with much drawing and little color; how not to do it -- with much color and little drawing. Vincent van Gogh in a l etter to Theo van Gogh, April 1882 Life is a little bit like today's quote from van Gogh. Some of us live life focusing on the drawing - the details - and have very little color. Others of us go for the color and forsake, to a degree, the drawing - the details. Unlike painting, according to van Gogh, one is not wrong over the other but somewhere in between the two would be the best I would think. If you look at some of van Gogh's paintings I feel like you can see where he might have struggled between the "how to do it" and the " how not to do it" (as he admittedly loved color so much but knew he had to focus more on the drawing) and that seems to be reflected in his life as well. In the end he wasn't able to find the ...

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