Blessing

I can't even begin to tell you what a blessing the conference last weekend was to me. It's overwhelming to see God's hand move in my life, every time he does. I don't know why it always surprises me.

I've mentioned before that God has a tendency to really work in my life in the areas that he calls me to speak. This last weekend I spoke on how to put feet to your faith when you can't find your feet or your faith. I've been struggling to find both in the last few months. With Randy essentially out of work it has been a really hard time financially. Through family, friends and circumstances God has provided, but it has been really hard. We always wondered whether we could hold out until the house sold. About thirty minutes before I walked in to teach the first session I got a call indicating we had an offer coming in on the house. I don't believe in coincidence. What better way could God use to help me teach that session? It was amazing and overwhelming. This rough season of our life isn't automatically over just because we sold the house, I know that. But for a girl struggling to find faith, His intervention at exactly the right moment really reminded me that everything happens for a reason.

Because I made myself vulnerable and shared exactly what has been going on in my life and how God has used it. I met many women who are hurting, who's lives aren't going the way they imagined it was supposed to. But each of them are being used by God in the lives of others. God uses all things in the lives of His children to bring glory to Himself. That's the way it should be. I hope my life does that.

Football Season and Ethan

Ethan was looking over my shoulder today and was highly insulted that I had not posted anything about him:) He makes me smile. So I am putting a posting up about my wonderful almost 12 year old. He is the one in the green:)

I missed his first football game today because I was at a conference in Salina. It happens every year when I go to this conference. They won today 14 to 0 (I hope that means he lets me come to the next game.) I love this time of year and going to the games. I spend most of my time following the boys up and down the sideline taking pictures. That is what this one is. Of course it's from last year. But he picked it out, for obvious reasons.

Putting Feet to my Faith

It's kind of crazy that this weekend I am supposed to be speaking on putting feet to my faith in rough times at a conference in Salina. Crazy might be a bad word to use, more like inevitable. That's the way God seems to work in my life. When He asks me to talk about something He certainly gives me the material with which to work in my own life. It happens every time I'm asked to speak, I'm guessing there is a pattern here I should get used to.
This is certainly a subject that is close to my heart, I'm praying that God can use my experience the last few months as usable and glorifying material. Please pray that He does.

"May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight O LORD my Rock and my Redeemer."
Psalm 19:14

Emma

It's a red letter day for Miss Em. I am sitting at the orthodontists office right now waiting as she gets her braces off. I'll post this after I get a chance to get home and take a couple of pictures. We will have to do something to celebrate tonight, though I bet her mouth is going to be too sore for much besides ice cream.She's been giddy all day kind of bouncing off the walls. I really hadn't made the connection completely until we left for the doctors office. I thought she was just reacting to her first week of home school. Maybe it was some of that too. She only has Caleb and I to hang around with during the day, and we aren't as fun as a bunch of 14 year old girls! She was pretty excited to finish yesterday at 12:50pm. I hope she keeps loving it!

Ostrich Days

Have I mentioned that I tend to be an ostrich? (Picture the head in the sand one not the funny looking thing ambling up the road in front of the car in South Africa:) I find it amusing that I actually own a picture of an ostrich that I TOOK IN AFRICA!) Anyway I digress.

I am an Ostrich, I think I've mentioned it once or twice before:) When things get bad my tendency is to pretend that if I ignore them they will go away. I guess that has been my reasoning for not posting lately. Things at home are not fabulous, so my desire to talk about anything has been at a very low ebb. I have found more excuses that I thought possible not to post, but I've run out.

Randy is still out of work, (I'm honestly tired of saying that.) The house has not sold and we are about at our wit's end. I know God is doing something. I just have no idea what it is! There have been days when I have simply not felt His presence. I've cried and raged, submitted and been humbled. I go as far as I can then I lose it and stick my head back in the sand for a day or so desperately trying not to think about anything, let alone have to put it out there for everyone to see. So sorry for being so ostrich like and avoiding. I promise to try to get back on track.

I know that this time in my family's life is all about being sifted. I just pray that we are found faithful in the end. I know God wouldn't allow all this to happen without a reason. I know we will come out of this stronger for having gone through it, but its a hard path to walk right now. Please pray that we are found faithful.

My Big Mouth

I have to give you some more back story on me before I can really get into what God is doing right now in my life, just so it all makes sense. I like things in order.....

Anyway, Randy and I met in college at the Baptist Student Union group and fell in love. He was a Christian, and when we met all I could think was that there were Christian guys out there and this one was cute!!!! We dated a long time and married as soon as we graduated. We were pretty blessed then too. Kids started to come along in the prescribed three years or so. We continued to go to church where my dad was pastor by choice. It was a great gift to be involved with many of the same "extended family members" that I had always known, and to raise my kids in the same church their Grandparents attended. We were living what I thought was a Christ centered life. I was doing all the things I knew I was supposed to be doing. Going to church, being a mom, teaching Sunday school, working vacation Bible school etc.I remember being grateful for my "ordinary" life.

I was struck one day by what I think was a Sunday School lesson that talked about the Pharisees of the Old Testament and their inability to see themselves as sinful. I think the lesson talked about the number of Pharisees in the church today. (People that are Holier than Thou in their attitude and actions. People that see themselves as better than the poor sinner without recognizing that they still have sin in their own lives.) Anyway the reason I mention that is because it was a real gotcha moment in my life, or at least the start of one. I remember considering that question as I was driving east on 87th street parkway. I was just crossing Pflumn road (I think its significant that the woman who would forget her head if it wasn't attached remembers all this) and I distinctly remember thinking that I wasn't doing too badly in the sin department. But that if there was sin in my life would God please reveal it to me? Seriously as I read that now I realize what an idiot I was(am) God is good to answer prayer, especially that one and I was laid pretty flat in the next few years recognizing my own sinful nature. I got a well deserved whoopin' from God on that. The log in my eye was very big. I was a Pharisee! It is so easy to judge others, as long as we don't have to look at the same condition in ourselves. I really think that day was the start of my growing and grown up relationship with Jesus.

Isn't it crazy that one conversation with God can impact you forever? It is kind of like praying the sinners prayer (I know I am a sinner and that without Jesus and His sacrificial death for me I have no hope)and really meaning it. When you honestly commit your life to Jesus there is no going back. You are whole-heartedly there with Jesus. When you ask God to reveal your sin to you , there is no going back. It's there laid bare and you are unable to shove it back under the bed from which it was drug kicking and screaming.

About me

I realize that I haven't really shared my story on this Blog. I've thought about it a few times because I know a few people who read it don't know the Jesus I know. I want to share that now. Not because I want to brag on the fabulous childhood I had or about how lucky I am, but because I want you to know who I really am. From the beginning to me now. Not because it's ever about me, but because it's always been about Jesus.

We are all products of our past. Sometimes those are good things and sometimes they aren't. Why one child experiences the pain of abuse and another has loving parents I can't explain. I know its not a condition of what each child is worth or how much they are loved by God, it's a condition of the sinful society in which we live. I know if we were all judged on what we deserved we could never live up to the perfection that is God. That why He sent Jesus. So we would realize it's not about what we do or who we are, but about what HE did.

My father was a pastor in a small Baptist church . My mom was a nurse who worked nights to help make ends meet. I grew up with little in the area of material things. My parents never had much before they got married, and supporting a family on the salary of a pastor isn't exactly living high on the hog. But I had amazing parents who raised me to really know Jesus. He was evident in every part of their lives.They weren't just good people either, they reflected the love of Jesus like he was a very part of who they were. My childhood in church was good too. I don't have horror stories about my life as a pastor's daughter. That certainly doesn't mean it was all easy. We experienced everything that a normal family experiences, but with less money:) And the fishbowl was never too overwhelming for me. I can't speak for my brothers on the issue, but for me church was just an extension of my life. I never felt like I wasn't living normally.

The church was my second home. I had free reign of the building and considered every member there to be part of my extended family. I heard almost every sermon my Dad preached, and some of that information actually stuck in the space between my ears while I was drawing on my church bulletin! I made a conscious decision to follow Jesus when I was about 6. It had everything to do with the example my parents set for me. They didn't make me think it would give me an automatic easy life pass, but their example showed me what Jesus' love really looked like. When they invited strangers in to eat, or because they didn't have a place to stay, or when they talked about people who had really done wrong to them with love. It really makes me aware of my role as a mom to my kids. Do I reflect love like that? (Probably not!)I think I experienced many blessings because of my parents faithfulness.

As I've grown I've seen good people who helped build the church and bad people who tried to tear it down. I been part of church growth and the pain of anger dividing. I don't fool myself into thinking I've seen it all , I know I haven't. But taking the good with the bad, my life has been blessed from the very beginning. I didn't say lucky you notice. Not everything has always gone my way. I have experienced the very essence of who Jesus is by the outpouring of His Spirit on my heart, and that essence has flavored my life in such a way that every day is sweeter because He is in it.