View from our balcony window yesterday morning with the clouds rolling in...

Love

Took this picture on the way up to beautiful Colorado - Almost put it on Charissa's page, but it seemed to confuse things to put my fun landscape photo on my page about her... Life does get intermingled, though, doesn't it?

Anyway, that's not at all what this is about. Was reading Philippians this morning - one of my favority books. Paul had a special relationship with the Philippians, one of joy and partnership, so when he says, "this is my prayer for you", my ears perked up. "This is my prayer: That your LOVE may abound more and more in KNOWLEDGE and DEPTH OF INSIGHT..." (1:9)

It seems that the church today gets so caught up in the first or second half of the verse - it's almost like an either/or. Our priority of LOVE or TRUTH (Knowledge & depth of insight), but God's call is to make it a marriage of both. What a fine tuned balance we must walk! But check out the next verse: "SO THAT you may be able to DISCERN what is best and be PURE and BLAMELESS... filled with the fruit of righteousness"

How many of us clamor after God - to know His will/plan for our lives - for our ministry - for our family - for ... (fill in the blank). We say we want to be righteous, to live in PURITY... but do we do what it requires? Rather than chasing after the fruit, God tells us to obey... to pursue love (not the fluffy love at all costs regardless of truth) but true LOVE in knowledge and depth of insight and the fruit in our lives will be discernment, purity and righteousness.

"Put first things first and second things will follow. Put second things first and you will lose both first and second things" -C.S. Lewis Just another take on "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well." (Matthew 6:33)

Covered by grace...

There's a lot of emotions involved in dreams coming true... in prayers being answered... in the long wait giving birth to reality.

Brad and I were at the land today - he was driving by and said, "you have to see this!". He turned and drove by the section of land that is being cleared for the trailers, only about a quarter of the entire plot. I thought to myself, "what's the big deal, I've seen the land before...", but as he came over the hill, and I saw clear, smooth ground, being prepared for bringing forth this great answer to years of prayers, something burst forth in my heart, and suddenly I had tears in my eyes and my heart was beating fast. It caught me by surprise, and Brad just smiled at me knowingly - for he had experienced the same thing when he saw it for the first time.

Yet in this whole process, it is so easy to become self-engrossed. So aware of my part in all of this. So humbled by how little I feel in the midst of something this big. So painfully self-consciously aware of my shortcomings as I gaze in wonder at a miracle springing forth. Even in humility, the sinfulness of self creeps in...

I must not draw lines in my life between the "secular" and "sacred", the "sinful" and "holy"... for isn't everything I touch coated in sin? This is from Charles Spurgeon's Morning & Evening devotional for August 29:
"We have need that the LORD should have mercy upon our good works, our prayers, our preachings, our alms-givings, and our holiest things. How sweet the remembrance that inexhaustible mercy is waiting to be gracious to us, to restore our backslidings, and make our broken bones rejoice! The blood was not only sprinkled upon the doorposts of Israel's dwelling houses, but upon the sanctuary, the mercy-seat, and the altar, because as sin intrudes into our holiest things, the blood of JESUS is needed to purify them from defilement."

I stand in constant need of the the blood of Christ to be sprinkled on every part of my life - my thoughts, my acts of service and worship, my prayers -- my very obedience must be covered by the grace of GOD!

A Quiet Heart

SO ... over the last few years, I realized I have a problem. I hate unfinished jobs - I don't like getting interrupted when I've started a job, and I hate it when the day is over and there are things left hanging that I meant to finish that day.

Anyone who's ever had a toddler knows how unrealistic that expectation in life is. Actually, anyone who'e ever lived knows that this is a road that will only lead to frustration and great irritability.

Well, knowing that didn't really help me stop. I've resolved over and over to be more patient, to be more relaxed, to not be so goal-driven, and I would fail over and over, only to find myself more frustrated and irritated.

The LORD has slowly been opening my eyes to His sovereignty ... if I'm going to choose to trust Him in the big things in life, why wouldn't I trust Him with my schedule? When the interruptions come, can I trust that maybe this is what GOD really intends for my day, not what I had planned to accomplish? And slowly my spirit has learned to submit...

Until today. Over the last few months, I have been growing generally more peaceful and patient with life's interruptions... I was greatly helped by reading Elisabeth Eliott, and a quote that she had in one of her books, which I have taped to the front of my planner - a constant reminder.
This morning, during my time with the LORD, I glanced at it, and smugly thought, I'm doing pretty good with this - no need to read it again or think about it too much.

Then the day hit, and how quickly I got sidetracked, frazzled, irritated, and just kinda mad at the world. Charissa was much needier than normal (she got her shots yesterday - it might have been because of that), every time I would try to start a project, I got interrupted, so by 5:00, I had numerous half-finished projects and very little to show for a day that I had such high hopes for.

So at the end of this day, I repent of my morning smugness and realize that I am a constant work in progress, daily needing the intervention of the Holy Spirit in my sinful spirit to put my heart in the right place. And I include in here the quote that has helped me so much; maybe you, like me, could use a little encouragement in quieting your heart:

"I think I find most help in trying to look on all the interruptions and hindrances to work that one has planned out for oneself as discipline, trials sent by GOD to help one against getting selfish over one's work. Then one can feel that one's work - one's true work for GOD - consists in doing some trifling haphazard thing that has been thrown into one's day.
It is not a waste of time, as one is tempted to think, it is the most important part of the work of the day - the part one can best offer to GOD. After such a hindrance, do not rush after the planned work; trust that the time to finish it will be given sometime, and KEEP A QUIET HEART ABOUT IT"
-Annie Keary

thank you, Charissa

I was talking with a friend the other day about the changes in my life in the past year and how God has drawn closer to me than I have ever experienced... and more sentences than not began with the words, "Since Charissa was born..."

They say motherhood changes you. Before you have a child, I think you take that to mean in the external application of life... you change the way you live, you have less time for yourself, you can't be as selfish as you are by nature, you have to think and plan differently... all true in and of themselves, but in essence they have nothing to do with how motherhood changes you.

And I have grappled with it, loved it, wept over it, and praised my LORD for it... the substance of who you are changes, and it is a wonderful thing.

Was reading a short chapter about this in a book on motherhood that puts this better than I ever could, from the perspective of telling a friend how she will be changed by having a baby:
"I want to tell her that the physical wounds of childbearing heal, but that becoming a mother will leave her with an emotional wound so raw that she will be forever vulnerable. I consider warning her that she will never read a newspaper again without asking, 'What if that had been my child?' That ever plane crash, every fire will haunt her. That when she sees pictures of starving children, she will look at the mothers and wonder if anything could be worse than watching your child die...
I want to assure her that eventually she will shed the pounds of pregnancy, but she will never feel the same way about herself. That her life, now so important, will be of less value to her once she has a child. That she will give it up in a moment to save her offspring, but will also begin to hope for more years, not so much to accomplish her own dreams, but to watch her child accomplish [hers]...
My friend's relationship with her husband will change, I know; but not in the ways she thinks. I wish she could understand how much more you can love a man who is careful to always powder the baby or who never hesitates to play with his child. I think she should know that she will fall in love with her husband again for reasons she would now find very unromantic... I want to describe to my friend the exhilaration of seeing your son learn to hit a baseball. I want to capture for her the belly laugh of a baby who is touching the soft fur of a dog [or a cat, as was the case with Charissa the other night] for the first time...
I want her to taste the joy that is so real that it hurts"

Thank you, Charissa, for changing not just my life, but who I am in ways I never knew could happen and certainly never intended. Thank you for blazing into my world and shining the light of God's grace into this soul.

Thank you, Charissa, for making me a mother.

What else is life really about?

What's the point?

Working in ministry, there are so many motivations and reasons for doing what we do ... we're all in the same boat as far as that goes, i guess. We can look good on the outside, but what's the real point ...

Here's what I'm talking about: This morning Brad read some MacArthur comments about the state of the church and it's leaders... "The surest road to a church's spiritual stagnation, to the pastor's burnout, or to both is for the pastor to become so engulfed in activites and programs that he has too little time for prayer and the Word... it is lack of knowledge of God's Word and obedience to it, not lack of programs and methods, that destroy His people. When they fail it is not because of weak programs but because of weak teaching."

We are at the beginning of a new school year - talking with our staff about what we need to tweak to really meet the needs of the new "kids" we have coming. I automatically think methodology - what we need to "do" to keep their interest, to keep them coming back, to get them interested in the message and thus communicate Christ to them. This really pulls me back ... makes me examine not only my personal life, but what I'm communicating to these youth. Especially at a time when much of our focus is trained on the ministry center, we must work especially hard at maintaining our true purpose, to immerse ourselves in the Word of God and to hold it up high for others to see...

Following on the heels of this, I happened across a bit written by George Muller (in an appendix to Andrew Murray's With Christ in the School of Prayer) right at a time when he was expanding his orphanage to a bigger facility. (Very similar to where we are at with the ministry center process). This is a fairly lengthy quote, but worth sticking with. He says one of his main objectives in this was to prove the faithfulness of God to his orphans and others involved in the process. "My spirit longed to be instrumental in strengthening their faith ... to show them by proofs that He is the same in our day...
"When I began the orphan work in 1835, my chief object was the glory of GOD, by giving a practical demonstration as to what could be accomplished simply through the instrumentality of prayer and faith... this my aim has been abundantly honored...
"All this leads me to desire further and further to labor on in this way, in order to bring yet greater glory to the Name of the LORD. That He may be looked at, magnified, admired, trusted in, relied on at all times is my aim in this service; and so particularly in this intended enlargement. That it may be seen how much one poor man, simply by trusting in GOD, can bring about by prayer; and that thus other children of GOD may be led to carry on the work of GOD in dependence upon Him; and that children of GOD may be led increasingly to trust in Him in their individual postitions and circumstances, therefore I am led to this further enlargement."

All the perspective I need. Lord, make it stick!