A Project for a Procrastinator

I have a huge announcement that is going to make you all very proud of me. Are you ready? I, Pam Pecoraro, admit that I am a procrastinator and I am currently undergoing treatment for this unfortunate disability. My first round of therapy for my procrastination began yesterday by starting a project that I have been planning for the last 9 years. What project, you might ask, could take 9 years to plan and finally fulfill? Are you ready??? Painting our family room!!! Over the years, I have probably gone to Lowes, Home Depot or Walmart and picked up those little paint color cards more times than anyone should admit to. I would conservatively guess that I have probably picked up enough of those cute little cards to wallpaper an entire room, but of course, I don't want to wallpaper, I want to paint.  For the many years that we have lived in our current house, I have never liked the dull, plain paint that covers most of our walls. I have always wanted to spice up our rooms with some creativity and add a little color, but most of my ideas stay in my head. I put them off and they never actually make it to the "spicing up" stage.  Several years ago, I had my first treatment to counteract my procrastination and fulfill some of my creativity issues.  I painted a huge Superman "S" on the wall in the boy's room and that, along with all the stuff I paint at church, has managed to tide me over in the creativity department to some degree. My family even intervened on my behalf before Emily's wedding and surprised me by painting the downstairs den, (I had purchased the paint-just hadn't ever painted).  Now, I'm happy to say, it's time for another session of treatment and it, once again, involves paint.  I couldn't wait to pick out the paint and there was always only one color that I for sure didn't want to use and that was the color "green." Somehow, I considered green the wrong color for me. Maybe my fear of green is because of the avocado green of the 70's. You know, the days when the color of your appliances was chosen in order to camouflage the guacamole you splattered on the wall. Well, guess what color we chose for the family room? Green!!! And not only, green, but two different shades of green. Now that I've admitted my procrastination issues and my issues with the color green, I feel so much better. Now all I have to do is finish...Hopefully in less than 9 years.

families and funerals

Yesterday, my family went to a funeral. Two of my children had the privilege and honor of singing at it. Over the years, my family has been to many funerals. Sometimes, they have been the funerals of people we knew well and, almost always, they have been the funerals of people we wish we had known better. Today, I was reminded of the fact that even when we think we know a person, we often only know the small, little section of their life that they have shown us. If we have only known a person for a short amount of their life, all we know of them is the person that they were during those years. Today, as I watched a slideshow on a screen of my friend's life, I saw glimpses into the years before I knew him. It made me think to myself, I wish I had taken the time to look at all of his pictures before he passed away and listen to stories of his younger years. I never even thought of what he was like as a young man, but I should have. I should have been a better listener. I realize now that people look at me the same way. They only know the small portion of my life that I have shown them. If I met you when I was a child, I was full of adventure and you may have called me Pammy. If I met you as a teenager, you would have thought of me as bubbly and fun loving-always singing, always looking for ways to be in the center of what God was doing. If you met me in college, you would again know me as a singer, but also as a listener and an advisor. As a young wife and mother, I was simply in love with my husband and my children and joy flowed forth from me. As I got older, life became much more difficult and that bubbly personality moved out of the way in order to allow a grown up in. I still can't really remember when it happened, but I definitely did grow up. My parents and sisters are the only ones that watched that whole transformation cause they are the only ones who have known me all my life.  Even John, my husband, has only know me for the last 29 years of my life.  Mostly, people have only seen the stage of my life that was in view when I knew them best. It has always seemed strange to me that the people that know me now, in our present home, only know me as a 50-ish older woman with a big, loud, busy family. They never knew me when I was cute and young and singing all over the world. They never knew me when I  had eighties hair and no wrinkles and fit into cute, trendy clothes. They never knew me when I first got married and lived in Spring, or a few years later as a young mom with four children under the age of 6 in Sweeny. They never knew me as I was having all of my children. Some of them first met me after all seven children were here.  They only see who I am right now and, of course, I only see who they are right now. I wish we could all take better, longer, more detailed looks into each other's lives while we are still alive. After a funeral, it's a little late to wish we had spent more time with someone in order to know them better. Yesterday was a blessing as we celebrated someone's life...Lord, I pray that I will begin to take the time to celebrate and enjoy the lives of the people who cross my path each and every day.

Set Us Free

Well, It has been a little while since I lasted posted anything. I came down off the wonderful high of D-NOW to concentrating on writing the new youth musical. After many late nights, I think I have finally finished it. The working title is "Set Us Free" (and is subject to change).  I've enjoyed the process of writing, although the subject was sometimes difficult. The play is about spiritual warfare. We are going to take a very intense look at some of the spiritual attacks that continually bombard our lives and the lives of others. I'd appreciate your prayers as we put it all together in order to present it on May 15th. I come to you to ask for prayer because of the spiritual attacks that often go hand in hand with God working in our lives. A couple of years ago, the play that I wrote was about "fearing God or fearing man. " I've always struggled with the "fear of man," but I must tell you that I've been spiritually attacked by that very dilemma in a much larger way ever since I wrote the play. I would be so grateful if you prayed for me, my family and the youth and children of our church as we work on this next play together.  I could see God doing some wonderful things in our lives as we honor Him through our work on "Set Us Free." Thanks for listening and God Bless.

About Life4Him-skits, scripts and stories: Masquerade written by Halton Pecoraro

About Life4Him-skits, scripts and stories: Masquerade written by Halton Pecoraro: "These are two of my children, Halton and Loressa, leading worship with their band 'More Than A Memory.' I love to hear them singing an..."

Masquerade written by Halton Pecoraro

These are two of my children, Halton and Loressa, leading worship with their band "More Than A Memory."  I love to hear them singing and praising God together. The Lord has been using the band here at our church for some time, but I'm hoping and praying that they will begin to get more and more opportunities to lead worship other places. They are all such a blessing to me.

Right before D-NOW I mentioned to Halton that it would be awesome if he and Loressa wrote a song for it. About an hour later he texted me from upstairs and asked me to come and listen. This is the song he had written and it blew me away at how perfect it was for all that we were going to be talking about during the weekend. One of the big events for D-NOW was a Masquerade Ball and I loved how Halton took that and wrote a song about hiding behind a mask. I'm so thankful for the way God is using my children.

Today is Monday... the Monday after D-NOW. It was more wonderful than I had even hoped for and the youth and college participants all seemed to get a lot out of it. Our theme was about being a secret agent for God. Hunter built an obstacle course for everyone to go through on their way to the youth room complete with black lights, strobe lights, lasers, turnstiles, air ducts to crawl through, and dropping doors.  He had made it really complicated and it was a lot of fun for everyone to go through. In the bigger room, where all of the training sessions took place, we had made huge outlines of all of the different continents to cover the walls and we had targets on places that we knew of people who were serving as missionaries. We also had the outlines of secret agent men heading from country to country with targets on their hearts. They were all painted in neon paint so that the whole room glowed from the backlights that we had hung in the ceiling. As always, I was worried about whether I would be able to finish it all in time, but I had some incredible angels that swept in towards the end and finished it all for me. They were awesome. I think all of the decorations set a really good mood for the rest of the weekend. On Saturday, after the second training session, the students were regrouped in order to head out and confuse the enemy (Satan) by doing random acts of kindness all over The Colony and on the Dart trains and down in central Dallas. Everyone had a really good time serving others. A lot of the groups went to some of the older women in the church and planted flowers and cleaned up their yards. Some picked up trash all over town and some went to a nursing home to give out flowers and hugs and sing. Some groups went on prayer walks in downtown Dallas and passed out water bottles and Gatorade. Some went to the Jubilee Center and some went to Dallas Life shelter to clean and work in the clothes closet. It was a wonderful day! I wish you could have all been with us. We finished up Saturday night with a Masquerade Ball at The Tribute. It was magical. The students went all out in getting dressed up for the occasion. The girls traded dresses and went shopping together. Even the boys put a lot of effort into it. They all bought or made masks in all shapes and sizes. I can't believe how much they got into it all. It was so much fun watching them have fun. Prior to the event, we had given the students an opportunity to learn how to waltz and it was so much fun to watch them all dancing like that. I think the most wonderful part of the weekend came on Saturday night. After we got finished with the Masquerade Ball, we went back to the church for our last session and a very short small group time. The final event of the night was very special. In the front by the stage, we set up 130 silver masks. The students were encouraged to come to the front and write what God was showing them on the masks. Many of them wrote things that they were struggling with...things or situations that they needed to give over to God. We wrote them on the masks because so often we hide behind masks of our own making. They actually wrote on the masks in invisible black light ink. You could only see what they wrote when we were in the black light. Once the real lights were on, the words were gone. God can clean up our lives like that if we will let Him...The weekend was wonderful. Thanks for letting me tell you about it.                                                                                                                    

Disciple Now 2011

 DNOW! D NOW!  D-NOW! Disciple Now! No matter how you write it...It's HERE!!! This is a very exciting week in the Pecoraro family. I have been living and breathing Disciple Now for several weeks and therefore, so has my family. D NOW is one of my favorite events with the youth at our church. Every year, we get to come up with a fun and exciting theme and then we (my family, myself, and my good friend Rashel) get to brainstorm idea after idea in order to plan just the right activities to make the weekend come alive. I ABSOLUTELY LOVE IT!  This year is extra special to me because some of the events of this weekend are things that I have wanted to do for several years, but they just haven't materialized until this year....It makes me happy:)
Some people wonder why I would put so much effort into an event like DNOW. My reasons are simple. I want the Lord to speak to us and I want us to hear and understand what He is saying. I also want to help attach a memory to DNOW through the decorations or activities that will stay with the youth forever. I realized many years ago that, even though God speaks to me all the time, there are certain markers in my mind of the times when God has shown me something big. It may have been through a camp or a Bible study or just about anything. Usually, if I remember it well, it's because it has a special or unusual memory attached to it and when I think of that memory, I think of what God taught me.  God may call one of the youth into the mission field this weekend...when they look back and remember what God showed them, just maybe it will be a more vivid memory because of the unusual way that the youth room looked or the exciting game we played or the people we ministered to. I'm not trying to say that God needs my gimmicks or ideas, but since He gave me this overactive imagination, I might as well be using it for His glory. Anyway, it makes sense to me...
I used to always have a rule that my children who are involved in a certain event aren't allowed to help me with that event. That way, all of the plans and decorations are a surprise to them along with everyone else.  This year though, my son Hunter, and my daughter Mackenna, have been working alongside of me and helping me to get everything done instead of waiting for the surprise. What a huge blessing they are to me! If it weren't for them, so much of the decorating would not get done. In the beginning, I wanted them to experience the surprise along with everyone else, but then I realized; I have shown my children year after year how much I love decorating and now they enjoy it with me. I get to share something I love with them and they get the joy of knowing they have created something very special for others to enjoy. How exciting is that? I love my children, I love my husband, and I love our youth group at the church. I sure hope they will all love DNOW as much as I do, but more importantly, I pray that God will show them something and speak to them in a way that they will always remember.