Allow me to introduce Chloe

Chloe has been a part of our family for a couple of years now. She is loved equally by all three of us. She loves all three of us back just the same. She doesn't have a favorite.

Tuesday night I was reading in my room when I heard her make a strange bark near the back gate. I asked the guys if the back gate had been locked after the mowers had finished. They said it had. I ignored her and continued to read.

30 minutes went by and my son decided to figure out why she hadn't come back in. Yep, the gate was open. She was gone. We spread out through the neighborhood and looked for her for an hour or so.

As I was walking, calling her name and praying that the Lord would bring her back to us. God gave me a deep sense of peace about the whole thing. I was frustrated and I was concerned she might get hit by a car. She's not very street smart but yet peaceful. We left the gate open in the back. We prayed together as a family and went to sleep.

In the middle of a dream I heard a strange sound, "Am I dreaming about hearing Chloe or did I hear Chloe"? I jumped out of bed but she beat me to the door already scratching at it before I made it. She had returned home at 1:42 am, smelling like perfume and absent her collar and dog tags. We wish she could tell us that story.

My sense of thankfulness was so deep. I was thankful she was safe. I was thankful we had her back. I was thankful God had granted both a sense of peace and a quick answer to prayer. Quick does not seem to be on His agenda for me lately. :)

I am thankful God has created creatures that we get to enjoy as much as we enjoy our little dog. I am thankful I have further proof God cares about everything in our lives.

What has God used to show you how much He cares about everything in your life?

God is a Fear Taker and a Mind Changer

Last week someone asked me, "What is God using to transform your heart?" "What is it that changes your mind and your heart and leads you to trust God's perspective more than the perspective of your flesh or the world around you?"

God has taken something that I have resisted since Jr. High and turned me from repulsion to real appreciation for it.

It started something like this. God I don't know what to do today during my time out with you. What should I do? I went through my typical list of choices. Everything seemed flat. Then I had a moment when I sensed the Lord wanted me to start to learn by heart a passage of scripture. What scripture? I was teaching out of Galatians at the time so it was where I began.

Wow! A couple of weeks into it I started to wonder why do I like this so much when I have hated it , and rebelled against it for so long. What was different?

This is what I believe happened. In the beginning of my walk with the Lord I had been told to memorize for a competition or to have to say out loud in a group setting of some kind. Both of those terrify me. So as I continued my journey with the Lord, every time the invitation came from a person to "memorize" a verse or passage all those past emotions came to the surface. So I avoided it or said I just don't seem to be able to "memorize."

Now that's just plain crazy. I knew it when I would use it as an excuse. It's crazy because as a professional I had to take one of those three day tests. That test requires you to memorize for six months to a year prior to the test. I was able to do that. My entire educational training, like it is for all of us, had been to memorize. We've all been trained to memorize. Certainly for some of us it is easier than for others but we are all capable of it.

The difference this time was that there was no agenda for how much I would learn or how long it would take. There was going to be no test at the end. As I started to learn the Word by heart, amazing things happened. One day a particular word would stick out over another. I would pray about questions I had or praise God for insights He gave me related to that word. It was absolutely not a chore it was an act of worship.

How did I memorize? I wrote the verses out. I walked around and memorized them. I said them out loud. I wrote the first letter of every word as I got to know the verses better. I did everything I could think of and best of all I asked God to help me. I believe with all my heart, God helped me.

Guess when I stopped being able to learn the Word by heart? When I started showing my husband how much I had memorized. I became proud. A proud heart is not a teachable heart. It took me some time to realize what had happened. I felt very bad about it when I did figure it out. I said I was sorry. God forgave me.

So why am I writing about this today, because I want you to know that the next time the Lord invites you to learn something by heart from His Word that it can be the most amazing and wonderful experience. God really does use it in your life to bless you in so many unexpected ways and in unanticipated circumstances.

Dear Lord,

Thank you for giving us Your Word. Help us to understand what you given us. Help us to be hungry for Your Word. Thank you that Your Word brings us into your presence in a way that nothing else does. Thank you for dealing with our fears so they can be taken away from us. Thank you for pursuing in us a change of mind and heart.

Amen

Andrew Murray

I have a new friend. His name is Andrew Murray. This friendship is different from other friendships. It is very one sided. I receive from this friend over and over again but I can't give back to him. He is at home with the Lord.

Andrew lived from 1828-1917. He served as a pastor and as an author in South Africa. He was raised in South Africa by parents who were missionaries to that country from Scotland. Some of his education took place in Scotland. South Africa was his homeland.

Andrew through his writings, which are many, has taught me so many things. Andrew is passionate about learning to abide in Christ, learning to pray and seeing revival come to his homeland.

It is uncanny to me how accurate his descriptions of his day and the believers of his day are of our own day. God has used Andrew's testimony of love for the whole church and love for the world to inspire me to want to pray for the "big picture" more than I have ever been inspired before.

Andrew got to watch revival come to his land. It is well documented that in 1860 revival swept through South Africa. Talk about a blessing!! I can't even imagine what it must be like to live through an answer to prayer that is that big.

Andrew's books have been considered classics for a long time. They are available online for free. However much of what is available online is old enough English that it can be hard to really hear what Andrew is saying. I highly recommend a translation that has been done into modern English by the publisher Whitaker House. It is titled: Andrew Murray on Prayer by Andrew Murray.

If in your own journey you are craving to understand more about what it means to abide in Christ or you want to understand more about what it is to have a life-receiving and life-giving prayer life, please ask the Lord if He would like for Andrew Murray to be one of your friends too.

On my list of things I dream about for heaven I have added two things. I would love the opportunity to say thank you to Andrew Murray for how his obedience to the Lord made a difference for me. I would like the joy of sitting and listening to Andrew recount his hallelujah moments on earth.

Greater Trust, Straighter Paths

Trust in the Lord with ALL your heart.
and lean not on your OWN understanding.
In ALL your ways acknowledge Him,
and He will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

It seems I show up at these verses after I have tried to use all my own understanding and it hasn't worked out to well.

My paths are pretty curvy. And the funny thing is that, until just recently, I would have characterized myself as being someone who was pretty willing to acknowledge Him. It turns out that was a lie I was telling myself to often.

Lip service to God is not acknowledgement. Worship that brings you sincerely bowed down low is acknowledgement. Obedience from a heart of love is acknowledgement. Walking by faith and not by sight is acknowledgement.

I don't want to live in the lie of trusting myself and claiming that I am trusting God. God has so much work to do inside me on that one. But I've tasted that these words in Proverbs are true and so I look forward to the Lord continuing to work in my heart. To create in me a heart of faith, worship and obedience.

Dear Lord,

Thank you for being so patient with us. Thank you for convicting us not just when we're lying to to other people but also when we're lying to ourselves. Lord teach us what the words, "Trust in the Lord will all your heart" really mean. What would the world look like if a bunch of us really trusted you that way?

Forgive us for thinking we know so much. Its funny that we pick on teenagers for having that attitude and often can't see it in ourselves. We are so grateful for your correcting and life giving mercy in our lives. Give us hearts that truly love you and want to walk in obedience to you. May we live lives with straighter paths so we can have the opportunity to tell people about the Straight Path Giver.

Amen

Teresa of Avila - The Interior Castle

Something I was reading lately reminded me of a classic by a women named Teresa of Avila. Teresa lived in the 1500's. She wrote several books. One of her books is called The Interior Castle. In it she attempts to describe her understanding of the soul and its interaction with God.

As I began rereading it this week. I was struck by something she said in Chapter 2. She is recounting lessons that a friend of hers received from a vision. The second lesson was this, "Humility, for she saw that nothing good in us springs from ourselves but comes from the waters of grace near which the soul remains like a tree planted beside a river, and from that Sun which gives life to our works." She then goes onto make the observation that, "Generally she forgot all about herself and only thought of God when she did any meritorious action."

This turned out to be something I needed to read today. At the beginning of my day I was sensing that there was something I needed to confess but I just didn't know what exactly was wrong. I asked the Lord to show me what it was. When I read these words my heart started to pound. I was able to see a circumstance where I had acted obediently and united with Christ but as I replayed the moments in my mind I started to miss that I was only the tree and that God was the water and the Sun. There I was again experiencing being puffed up with pride rather then embracing humility and being thrilled to be a vessel.

Two things thrill me about what happened. I knew I had done something wrong. I needed the Lord to show me what it was and minutes later in a random reading its right there in black and white. And, God is increasing my sensitivity to when something is just not right. I do not feel in any way condemned in it but rather really really loved. Because I feel loved I am more willing to be corrected. God is so good!

Lord,

May we learn to truly have no confidence in the flesh. May we thrill to be used by you for your purposes. May we stop taking credit for it apart from you when those moments only happen united with you.

Amen

Marvelous

I marvel at the body of Christ. I marvel at the life giving blessings that God has for us when we committ to being in relationship with one another.

One of our pastors recently did a message on how we need to have a mentor, a sister at a similar place and someone we are being called to mentor in our lives. I was blessed today to relflect on the mentors I have in my life right now and the mentors of younger days. I am blessed by amazing sisters in the Lord and a few great brothers too. I am blessed to be a mentor.

I am in awe of how the Lord has orchestrated bringing each of those relationships into my life. What an awesome God we serve!

Its something I don't ever want to take for granted.

I also love that in these different relationships that I move back and forth between being taught and being the teacher. There is nothing more precious to me in human relationships then the communion with another person over a shared awareness of the presence of God.

Dear Lord,

Thank you giving us what we need to grow in the grace and knowledge of you. Thank you for insisting that one of the things we need is realationship with each other. May we be willing to be used by you as you see fit. May we feel connected with other believers as we face a broken and hurting world who needs to find You. May our relationships with each other be a testimony to those who are lost and not yet found.

Amen

A Severe Mercy

I read a book this weekend that was absolutely time well spent. It is called A Severe Mercy.

It was written by an American who became friends with C.S. Lewis while he lived in Oxford, England. The author's name is Sheldon Vanauken.

It's a love story. A love story between a man and a women. Then between a man and a women and their Creator who they learn to recognize as their Lord and Savior. Then it becomes an ongoing love story between a woman, a man and their God.

One of the reviews on the back of the book says, "...that delievers an extraordinary impact on the reader." I think that may be an understatement.

On a different note...

God has foreordanied the works
which He has called you.
He has been ahead of you
preparing the place
to which you are coming and
maniupulating all
the resources
of the universe
in order that
the work
you may do may be
a part of HIS whole
great and gracious
work.

Poem by G. Campbell Morgan

I received this from a friend after I confessed to having a moment when I was once again getting impatient with God's sense of timing. As I was sitting there asking for God's help because I clearly needed patience and endurance from Him I suddenly began to chuckle as I had an image of God half seriously and half jokingly say to me, "You know I have a lot going on up here right now. What I want to do for you requires some cooperation on the part of a few others. Since I chosen not to override their will. I would appreicate if you would stop blaming me." :)

I have no idea if this was divine imaginiation or a coping mechanism but it did make me laugh. Maybe it put a smile on the Lord's face too. That's a fun thought.

So hears to great books, beautiful and hopeful poems and sense of humor! Cheers!

The Giver of all good gifts

Do you know that your Father in heaven wants to give you gifts? What kind of gifts you say? The kind of gift that only He could come up with. The kind of gift where it so deeply touches your heart it could only come from someone who knows you inside and out. The kind of gift that humbles you in its deep expression of love for you. The kind of gift that says WOW! He really does love me!

I just want to encourage you today. Hang onto those unspoken or quietly prayed for desires of your heart. And watch and wait with a humble heart. If what your heart wants is in His will, God might just throw you a surprise party!

I hope you have a great day!

Grief before change.

There are common themes when you read the words of the prophets. An author who has spent a great deal of time thinking about many themes found in the books of the prophets has opened my eyes to some things. I have found some of those themes to be overwhelming in many ways. I've been asking the Lord help with all that I am encountering.

But one theme in particular has stuck with me. It is the theme that grief must always come before change. We can not change what we do not grieve. I have lived this one. I have lived this one in many areas of my life.

Synonyms for grief are anguish, heartache, woe, misery; sadness, and melancholy. What strikes me this morning is that disappointment is not enough to motivate change. It may be a stepping stone on the path towards grief but it is not the same as grief. Are you frustrated about something in your life and you've wanted change for a long time now but it just doesn't seem possible? I would invite you to ask God to bring you to a place where you are able to greive over what ever it is that is bringing something other then God's goodness into your life. Is it a possession? Is it an obsession? Is it a way of life? Is it an attitude?

So other then change why would I invite grief into my life? Because the opposite of grief is JOY!

Shine

What does it mean to let our little light shine?

A book I've been reading defines the the "glory of the Lord" for men and women to be "in His likeness".

What are the actions, attitudes, truths and encounters with the Lord that need to take place in order for us to discover what it is to shine? Can we be aware of the light? When others identify the light how do we respond? What response is appropriate? Does the response change with the circumstances or environment? Relationships don't fit very well into formulas.

These are questions I have been asking. God has been answering. I love how God has been answering. As seems to be at least one of His patterns in my life, He brings Himself, scriptures, people through books, people through music and people through life to answer my questions or at least teach me what questions to be asking.

Newsboys in their song "Shine" identifies what has been the hardest question to ask and to hear the answer to which is "What's my motivation?"

Asking yourself honestly what your motivation is for letting your little light shine can be very informative. If the answer doesn't match what you know God wants your motivation to be then you've discovered a list of new questions.

Dear Lord,

Thank you allowing us, your children, to play a part in allowing your light to shine. Give us courage to explore our questions and most of all to recieve the answers. Thank you for loving on us so richly and so well. Help us to receive your love so that we will also be able to respond in obedience and love to what ever you decide to show us. Lord increase our faith.

Amen

Daniel's Dream

I've been studying the book of Daniel with some ladies at church. In chapter six we learned that Daniel had a habit of praying three times a day facing Jerusalem. This habit in combination with a few people with evil motivations landed him in the Lion's Den. God saved Daniel from the mouth of the lion when he was in his 80's. Amazing!

Yesterday we were listening to a teacher share with us details about the dream that Daniel witnesses/becomes a part of in Daniel 7. This dream/vision takes place in Daniel's 60's. The dream is of God, The Ancient of Days on his Throne and victorious over evil and the history of mankind.

When I took in and tried to imagine all the Daniel had seen in his vision it made so much sense to me why Daniel would be inspired to be on his knees three times a day worshipping, thanking and praying to the God of the universe. Holy, Holy, Holy. Worthy, Worthy, Worthy is the Lord God Almighty, Who was, Who is and Who is to come.

Freedom in Christ

Scripture says its available to us. I don't believe that perfect freedom is available to us while were here on this earth. Many people teach that it is. We just haven't worked hard enough or had enough faith to experience it. That's what some people say.

As I said I don't agree with those people. But I also don't find myself believing the group that says freedom is really for eternity. The flesh is just to powerful here for us to experience real, deep and abiding freedom. There are certainly times when I've been tempted to believe this crowd.

So why don't I believe what they have to say. There are a few reasons that I'm consciously aware of. First of all I wrestle with bondage. I have given my life over into rebellion enough in certain areas of my life that my response is automatic and even uncontrollable. I feel powerless to do anything differently then I do. But I also know that the testimonies of those who say they lived in bondage and now walk in freedom have gotten my ear. Their testimonies in combination with Scripture has caused me to explore whether or not their testimonies are true.

I picture bondage now as being 100 different jail cells. 100 may be extreme but my point is that my life is not experienced as only one unit. Some places were in bondage. Now there not. Why? Because I have believed something is true and lived in the truth. Where my soul is united with Christ on something I am free. This where freedom also comes and goes. If I have taken in information or experiences that cause me to doubt what is true I can end up locked up again. But it is also easier to remember where the key is.

So the places that are full of, I do what I don't want to do and I do them sometimes without even feeling like I have control over them and have regrets later are places where I do not choose faith in God over me, myself and I. Or I choose faith in others or things apart from God. The list of reasons why I choose myself over God are seemingly endless.

It shocking to me how blind I even am to the fact that is what is going on. I am completely dependent on God to open my eyes to my lack of faith and trust in Him.

Boy the worst parts are the ones that I value the way I think or believe and it feels like a part of me is literally dying to give up what I value and to choose God over my very comfortable, pleasure driven lies.

I've tasted enough of God changing me to believe that the pessimist on this topic should be listened to just enough for you to understand that complete freedom on every subject in every part of my being, my mind, my sould, my body, and my will wont be experienced this side of heaven. But if I allow that truth to give me permission to be complacent about being united and transformed by the grace, love and wisdom of the Trinity someone other then GOd will have won untold numbers of battles. I don't just want to be a part of winning the war. I want more than that! I want more because I have tasted of the Lord and He is GOOD.

To God alone be the glory for the great things He has done for His children.

Amen.

A tree

I'm in this class right now that wants me to journal three to five times per week. I journal quite a bit. But I don't journal three to five times per week. There have been times in my life when I have forced myself to journal reguarily. But over many years now I have left journaling for times when I feel inspired about something that I just had to put down on paper. Or I am deeply troubled about something and it seems like I wont get past until I write something down. But when you choose to write on a regular basis and there is no specific inspirational moment or crisis looming I find it very difficult to focus my thoughts.

So I'm going to share random thoughts and see if they form some kind of connection.

God is amazing. God has brought me through some rough waters and my feet feel like they are on solid rock for the first time in a long time.

God is relentless in His pursuit.

God is so indescribable.

It is possible to connect with another person's experience without either one of you being able to adequately put it into words.

God's grace is sufficient.

I am hopeful in a way I haven't been for a very long time.

I regret my resistence to God and yet I'm grateful for how real the lessons learned are when resistence is a part of the relationship.

I feel like a tree who was barely healthy. I feel like a tree who didn't stand out from any other tree in the forest. And yet the caretaker noticed that this barely healthy tree needed some help. Much to the dismay of the little tree, the caretaker decided the best way to help this tree was to spread some stinky and unpleasent manure around the tree. Then in order to get the food absorbed some watering was going to be necessary. The tree didn't like being cold and wet. The tree knew it wasn't doing so well and had longed to be healthier and was afraid of what it might take to get healthy. So while the fertilzer was laid down and the water was poured on the little tree it seemed to forget that it cared about being stronger and more healthy. All it wanted was for the smell to stop and for the water to go away. When the caretaker saw that it had given the tree all that it needed to become healthy again he took a break. The tree began to notice something. There was energy inside its limbs that hadn't been there before. That spring for the first time in a couple of years its branches were full of blossoms. The things that the tree hated about the fertilizer and the water were even now providing protection of some sort. Then the tree began to bear fruit, healthier fruit then it had even given birth to before. When the wind blew the tree noticed that it was less afraid for there was strength there that hadn't been there before. The tree made a promise to itself that day that the next time the caretaker came around to provide what it needed in ways it didn't like that it would try to remember how good it felt to be a strong, vibrant, protected and fruit bearing tree.

What random thoughts are you having today?

The Deeper Journey

I was assigned a book for a class I am taking this quarter called The Deeper Journey by M. Robert Mulholland Jr. The timing of books in my life never ceases to amaze me. I've been wondering lately why people are saying that there is so much junk out there in the publishing world and yet I keep finding books that are very profound to me. I was starting to wonder about how gullible I might still be. I found some comfort in the realization that most of what I'm reading has been assigned to me by learned men and women who have sifted through a great many books and asked me to read the ones they have found most helpful.

After spending a month working through a few details in my life it was very beneficial to be thinking through a book that looks at the big picture. How do I summerize this book? Basically it attempts to describe the mystery of what it means to be united with and hidden in Christ. It invites us to participate in disciplines that help us deny self and invite God to live His life through us. It does an excellent job of explaining some of the reasons why that is so difficult and some of the choices we can make to experience it increasingly.

If your at a place where you know God loves you and your growing desire is to live a life that responds to Jesus with love and sacrificial devotion and you need someone to help you with how that might be possible I would highly reccommend this book.

Dear Lord,

Thank you for bringing into my life a book that invites me to explore the scriptures that call us to the impossible apart from you. Thank you Jesus for living your life in sacrificial love and devotion to us. Thank you for working so diligently to open our eyes to these truths in a world that is so opposite from who you are. Thank you for gifting some to put finger to keyboard so that we may learn from their journey. Thank you for enough experiences in my life, prior to reading this book, that have revealed that giving myself over to you for your purposes is the meaning to life that I was able to hear at least some of what this book had to say. Thank you for providing hope that staying on this path with you will mean that change however slow will occur for your glory and my good. Thank you for your protection along the way.

Amen

Change is coming....

My life right now ebbs and flows dramatically. I finished my fall quarter on December 9th. Prior to December 9th I was knee deep in responsibilities to family, to my church to school. Then church and school took a break for a few weeks. After working through the restlessness that such a dramatice change of pace creates in me comes an appreciation for time.

It is very likely my family will be returning to a community we left four years ago this coming summer. I have spent a month working through the emotions of all that. There are many more postives than negatives but the thing about me and negatives is that they have to be worked out. There is something about me that doesn't want to move on with life if I'm aware that there is an issue that is begging me to come and sort it out. I need to be at a place of acceptance or understanding about whatever the question or concern may be. The great thing about having time on your hands is that it more easily affords you the opportunity to think and listen.

So while God keeps shaking me up and unsettling my world. He also keeps begging me to trust him. During the service today our Pastor referred to the famous passage in Proverbs that calls us to, "Trust in the Lord with all our hearts and lean not on out own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." And then I noticed the next sentence, "Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil." While it may seem strange, it is this last sentence which confirmed the thoughts that I've been entering into the last month or so.

I believe God is asking me to submit myself to Him above all "my ideas". I think He is asking me to wait on Him for guidance. I think because of how well I know myself this kind of obedience will be radical. It will require courage because people in my life will want me to have a plan. Because that's what "we" do, "we" have plans. For instance, often an effective Christian life is described as being a moving ship. The example goes that God can steer a moving ship more easily then a docked ship. See the problem with that ananolgy for me is that I am inclined to not just be the ship but the captain of the ship. I'm weary of charting the path and asking God to oversee the weather in hopes that he'll prove his love for me by providing only smooth waters. I'm not only tired of it, but it has become a completly senseless desire.

I've spent the last month or so wondering if God would rather I see myself as a docked ship. A ship with a captain who has no idea, nor respects her own ideas about where she should be going or what she should be doing. Instead trusts in the Owner of the ship to send tugboats and a map when He is ready to reveal her next destination or journey.

I have discovered that God has created me to be a leader, a servant. But He is having to break me of my inclination to lead/serve with out following Him. Unfortuately for me, is seems to be taking alot of effort on God's part to prove to me I should not see myself as "wise in my own eyes".

On a lighter note with these observations in place and my view of a very lovely harbor with a docked sailing ship in place, I feel strangely equipped, with a huge dose of God's grace, to experience the next six months of my life.


Happy New Year and new begginnings to you!

Happy 19th Anniversary!

On the eve of my 19th Anniversary of marriage to Dave, I am so very very grateful for our relationship. Dave really does love me. He demonstrates it all the time. School has been very demanding for me lately. He has not complained about it once. Instead he has picked up some of the responbilities that used to be mine without being asked.

Dave listens to my heart and my thoughts. When he can't take it anymore he gently tells me so. But I'm certain he gives me way more words then many women get. :)

My husband cares deeply about our friendship. He loves for me to be happy!

We both struggle, when we're being selfish, to get to a place where we can put the other one first. Neither one of us feels good for very long about putting ourselves above the other.

One of the things that makes me feel the most secure is his intentional following after our Savior.
There are a few things that drive me crazy! But the truth is that I do many more things that drive him crazy! He is always much more patient with my craziness then I am with his.

I more honored today then I was 19 years ago that Dave took me as his wife. I am exceedingly grateful for the pathway God has given us to walk together! I look forward to taking one step at a time into our future!

I love you, Dave

Cheri

Rose

I had an amazing experience yesterday. I was able to hear the testimony of a woman named Rose who is from Kenya. Rose brought us her story of first hand experience with all the heartache of people suffering from starvation, no clean water and the Aides crisis in Africa.

The area of Kenya she comes from is dealing with all of these problems. Rose has an amazing story. She grew up in a small village. A missionary came to her village. One thing led to another and small group of people began to have church under a tree. She believed the stories of Jesus. As the church grew they had to move to a bigger tree. Over the years as her knowledge and relationship with the Lord grew she was invited to go to another village to learn even more about Jesus so she could come back and teach what she learned. She told us that in her travels from village to village she encountered people with hunger. Many times she had nothing to give them to eat. But she did have a story to tell them. The story of Jesus. Then when she could she would come back to them with food and more stories of Jesus. I wish I could remember all the details of her story so I could share them with you here. But somehow typing the words would never do justice to what her life represents. In addition to the difficulties facing her country she has also faced persecution from some in her community for her faith in Jesus and her rejection of some aspects of her culture. But she continues to faithfully go where God leads and she TRUSTS what God is doing in her life.

Rose exudes a strength I just don't have. When you live every day dependent on God for protection, survival and wisdom it has a way of producing strength and deep faith. It was a blessing to be in her prescence.

I can't remember a time in my life when missions wasn't important to my family. Both the family I was born to and the family I married into. It brought such joy to see what God had done for Rose and is doing for her people through the giving of money to missions and the calling on a missionaries life to go to Kenya. It was like all those mission brochures and pictures of mission trips came to life for me. It felt like such a gift to be able to be with her. It was so exciting to see how God is equipping Rose to go back and be able to serve her people even more effectively. I'm so grateful God brought Rose to the United States so we could hear her story in person. Her story is so important. I was reminded again how amazing and good God is.

Clash of my world and Inner-city Phoneix

As I was listening to a speaker talk about how difficult it is for us to cross over cultural barriers between the world of affluence and the world of poverty these words came to me.

My life is white.
My world is bright.

My days are long.
I no longer have a place to belong.

My culutre is blind.
We wine and we dine.

Really we're dying,
but so far denying.

How will God speak?
Will He let us go on being so weak?

I don't think so.
Now I want to know so.

These thoughts are primitive at best in their demonstration of any skill. But they do reveal the reality I'm facing. I no longer completely identify with the place I come from and still remain in. And yet I do not belong in the world of poverty that I have been introduced to.

My innate sense of drive wants to be impatient with people and start a revolution. And then I feel deep frustration over knowing that in part that response comes from my culture and has nothing but disaster written all over it.

God has had to work very dilligently on my soul to get me to a place where I can even embrace these experiences and thoughts. What will it take to bring me to a place of responding with the mind of Christ rather then the mind of my culture? I really can't allow myself to think about that question for very long. One day at a time is all the Lord is asking of me.

The very best part is that I am also experiencing an inviting sense of hope. I believe and have experienced that the impossible is possible with God.

Dear Lord,

For those of us who have to much, don't want to rely on it but do, please reveal the real condition of our hearts. Help me to trust you for healing. Help me to trust that you are at work. Help me to hold your hand and walk side by side with you. Help me to pray according to your will and not my own. Teach me to be submitted to you above all else. Please don't give up on me. May there be days when the pruning produces a harvest of righteousness for your Name which is above all names.

Amen

My friend Susan

My friend Susan has been dealing with cancer for a year and a half or so. God has the ability to heal her still today. But if he does not her hours here on earth are short. Susan has been a mentor to me. She's one of those rare people who wants to dive right into exploring where you are in your walk with the Lord. She wants to really know how you are.

I have felt sad for a while now about Susan's illness and all that it will mean for those she loves. If God does not heal her and allow her to remain here with us her hours on earth are very short. Today, I am not just sad. I am grieving. While I'm grateful to report I am not experiencing despair because I know where she is going and that God will be faithful to those she leaves behind, I am feeling the pain of loss. I've already lost the ability to call her or visit her. It's no longer reasonable to look forward to a dinner that's just the four of us. I've lost the access to all the lessons she's learned about God's goodness.

Susan was called by God to be a prayer warrior on my behalf. I doubt based on what I've been told she has the ablitity to be involved in that calling any longer. I don't know what to believe about whether she will have the ability to petition God on my behalf once He takes her home. If she cannot, I hope he provides someone else just as faithful as Susan. Most of all I hope I have learned from her example to be faithful in prayer for others.

One of my best titles: Matt's Mom

Today I have a fourteen year old son. Wow!

I'm in a class this quarter that is wrestling with texts about women in leadership and one of the hardest texts for this room to understand is 1 Timothy 2:15 - Yet she (women) will be saved through childbearing...

Most people in this room are male or women who haven't yet given birth to a child. There are a many many verses in Scripture that even after long periods of study I would be clueless about but this one I think I get at least one perspective on. Nothing puts a woman on her knees faster then endless nights of too little sleep or lonliness from lack of adult interaction. In particular there was the series of two week periods, when Matt was three, that he was certain that I wasn't sure about the meaning of "n" ,"o", no!

I prayed and asked God how to teach Matt and ideas would come and they would work. I prayed and asked God for wisdom about school and we saw God's hand every year. Having a child has been the motivation for wanting a prayer life that actually stuck.

We're proud of our son Matt. He has a tender heart like his Mom. He has a sharp mind like his Dad. He has boundless Matt energy that could only come from God. He is quick with a smile and desires relationship with the body of Christ and our Heavenly Father. What a blessing!

Dear Lord,

Thank you God for transforming parts of my heart to be more like your heart through my relationship with Matt. He has indeed been a part of the working out of my salvation.

Thank you for giving us Matt. May you bless him and keep him. May you make your face to shine upon him and grant him your peace. Now and forevermore. Amen