UGGGHHH...

Well if you're reading this on my blog (and not in Google reader or something like that) you might see that things look a little different. I'm playing around with changing the look (and title!) of my blog and it got goofed up and I don't have time to do anything else, so for now (after I change just ONE more thing...) I'm just going to leave it alone and hopefully this weekend I'll have some time to work on it because I'll be at the coast with my hubby celebrating our 13th anniversary WITHOUT OUR CHILDREN and it seems very logical that I would spend some of my free ttime playing with my blog. Ideally, while I'm sitting on the beach listening to the waves. (Though I suspect the wind would blow sand into my keyboard and that would not be good... so maybe not on the beach.) Can I just tell you I can't wait????? Not to work on my blog... to get away! It's been a year since we've gone anywhere without the kids and while I love them dearly, I am really ready for a little time away - and I know I'll love them even more when I come home. : ) And I can't wait to spend some time reminiscing with my hubby about when we got engaged and stuff like that (b/c that's where we're going!) Maybe I'll see you there...

A Tree, A Curtain & A Stone

Once upon a time, a couple thousand years ago, a seed was planted… surely by the very hands of God. The Father, Son and Spirit must have formed this seed carefully, intently watching it fall to the ground, to be covered with earth and die so that it could live and grow. For this would be no ordinary tree. It would grow straight and strong and someday be cut down… to be raised up again so that the Son of Man could die upon it for you and me. It must have been a holy moment when the seed first opened beneath the ground, beginning to reach for the sun and the sky… And to this day it still points to the Son. I wonder. Did Jesus know? Did he ever walk by that tree and know it was the one? Was it already growing the night the angels appeared to the shepherds singing “Glory to God in the highest!”? Did it grow like a silent keeper of the time that was passing, of the time that was coming when Jesus would fulfill the prophecies and shed His blood so that we could be forgiven and one with the Father? For long before the seed was planted, a curtain was hung in the temple. Woven under the watchful eye of God by skilled hands, it stood as a symbol of the separation between God and man. Sacrifices were offered. Blood was shed. The merciful Father forgave, but knew that one day, the curtain would be torn! Not by human hands bent on destruction or even the passing of time, but by the mighty hands of God as Jesus cried “It is finished!” God reached down from heaven and tore the curtain in two from top to bottom! How He must have longed for that day to come! How all of heaven and hell must have been awestruck at the death of Christ giving way to this! The removal of the separation between God and man! The price was paid for all! Hallelujah!!! But those who loved Him didn’t understand. They didn’t know. And they came searching. Grieving. Mourning. They didn’t know that when the foundations of the world were laid, a stone was formed... a stone that would seal the tomb of its Creator, only to be rolled away on the 3rd day! The beloved women and astonished disciples came and saw that huge stone, rolled away to reveal the empty tomb and the fulfilled promise that Jesus would rise again. And they believed! The stone was rolled away. The curtain was torn. The tree had served its purpose. It was finished. And Jesus was alive!

The Matthew 27: 50-54

"And when Jesus had cried out again in a loud voice, he gave up his spirit. At that moment the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. The earth shook and the rocks split. The tombs broke open and the bodies of many holy people who had died were raised to life. They came out of the tombs, and after Jesus' resurrection they went into the holy city and appeared to many people. When the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus saw the earthquake and all that had happened, they were terrified, and exclaimed, 'Surely he was the Son of God!' "

A Hiding Place (Scripture Memory verse #7!)

My next memory verse/passage (as part of this) is Psalm 91. Yeah, the whole thing. I actually had it memorized several years ago, but it's been buried under all the mommy things in my head (hah! I have piles of stuff lost in my head just like in my house!) SO, in light of the intensity of life these last few weeks, God and I agreed it would be good to re-memorize it! I just wanted to share a couple of things I have already gotten out of studying the first two verses. It's neat (to me, anyway!) that in the first 2 verses alone, 4 of God's names are used by the Psalmist. I love that! Here is verse 1 with some other meanings of the words in ( ). 1 He who dwells (remain, sit, abide, inhabit) in the shelter (covering, hiding place, secrecy) of the Most High (Elyown – the Most High God) will rest (lodge, stop over, pass the night) in the shadow (shade) of the Almighty. (El Shaddai – almighty, most powerful) I just love this image. Sitting (makes me think of how hard it is for me to sit still…) or dwelling – staying in the hiding place of the Most High God… It’s not just a shelter, but a secret hiding place! I LOVE THAT… maybe because I feel so surrounded and watched by the enemy right now, the idea of having a hiding place in God seems like something I’m desperate for. So if I stay in the Most High’s hiding place, I will rest – pit stop! – in the Almighty El Shaddai’s shadow. I love the picture of being hidden in His huge shadow. Ahhh... 2 I will say (speak, utter) of the LORD (Jehovah - Yahweh), "He is my refuge (shelter – from elements or danger) and my fortress (stronghold), my God (Elohim), in whom I trust (trust in, be confident, to be bold, to be secure, to feel safe, be careless.)" God continues to put me (or allow me into) situations where my faith is tested and I am challenged to TRUST HIM. The other day I was at my old college without my kids and I stopped in at our old prayer chapel. It was the strangest thing to open those doors and walk into this little old building and feel like I had walked back into 1994. Same carpet, same smell, same pews, same pictures on the walls... That place is so special to so many people that I don't think anyone will ever let it be updated or modernized. I walked up to the front and found a binder from the years I was a student there. It contained prayers people had written, including some of mine. I found a few and one... well, let's just say it could have been written by me today. I was getting ready to graduate and nervous about the future and the change that was looming on the horizon. What's funny is that I had NO IDEA what really was in store for me in the months following that entry (some of you know what I'm talking about) but GOD KNEW. Even then He was calling me to trust Him and I knew that I could and had to. And HE WAS SO VERY FAITHFUL. I'm in another one of those places right now. Change is looming on the horizon and it's quite scary for me. I was so struck the other day by how much and how little has changed in the last 15 years. I still struggle with trust... but God continues to be faithful. He always will. I wonder if trusting ever gets easy. I sort of think that when trusting Him with some things gets easy, He just finds new things for us to trust Him with. Because if it wasn't hard, would it really be trust? I don't quite know how to explain what I mean... maybe because I need to go to bed. Maybe because it can't really be captured in words. But either way, I'm thankful for Psalm 91 and what God is reminding me through it. My job is to rest in Him and trust Him. His job is to protect me when I do. And I know He will.

Spring Fever

The trees are blooming (achoo!) , the sun is shining , I'm procrastinating (it's so hard to pay bills on a beautiful day like this!) and we are now the proud owners of 6 baby chickens! The kids each picked out two (Timothy had some help) and are enjoying watching (and playing with) them. It will be an interesting adventure. : ) Hopefully at least some of them are female so we'll get some eggs in a few months. If we end up with any roosters we'll have to send them out the my sister's farm. : ) (Where they will live happily with the other chickens, ducks, geese, goats, cats and cows.)

Look to me like hours of entertainment for the children... and trauma for the chickens! : )

Spring also means it's almost MCC Sale time and the playhouse is just about ready to be auctioned off! My hubby is so talented it's just amazing. : ) You all can feel free to come to the sale and bid on the playhouse next Saturday at noon! All of the proceeds go for disaster relief around the world. Can't beat that!

Happy Spring everyone!!!!! : )

I Will Give You Rest...

I'm so glad my God is a God who hears me when I cry to Him. As you probably saw in my last post, I've been feeling very tired lately. God has been continuing to call me to REST IN HIM, but I was having trouble figuring out how to do that. It seems that when I get wound up and tense, I just have no idea how to unwind myself, even if I want to. So, again, I am thankful for a God who chooses to quiet me with His love (Zephaniah 3:17?). Have I ever told you about my friend Lisa? I met her many years ago when her son, who is now in high school, was a hilarious student in my Kindergarten class. She had prayed for God to put him in just the right class, and He did. I loved her son. He added a lot of spice to my days. : ) But what neither of us had any idea about was how God was beginning a friendship between us that would be a GIFT for years to come. I love thinking back on the day when Diego was still in my class and she brought me a banana - because God told her to. : ) She wrote something on it... but I can't remember what. And I know she was a little disappointed, I think expecting me to say something about how I had just been praying for a banana! or something like that. : ) I just thought it was sweet and I appreciated it - but the real fruit of it was that I knew she was someone who listened to God. And that was significant. Anyway, several years ago we started praying together and eventually started praying together once a week at 5:30AM at my house. We never had an official agenda or format, other than inviting God's presence to be with us and telling the enemy to stay away and asking the Holy Spirit to speak to us about whatever we needed to hear from Him about. Then we just talk with God. We talk to each other some, but are really most interested in what God has to say. We listen to Him and through the years the time He has done SO MUCH stuff in our hearts I can't begin to tell you about it all. He is SO faithful to reveal what's really going on in our hearts and heads and what the TRUTH really is and when we agree with Him, so much freedom comes! I can absolutely say we are both very different people today because of what God has done in us during those sweet, sweet times. In the last year or so we've invited a few others to join us and it's been even better. The reason I even mention all that is to share what He showed me this last week. I was so tired and worn out from all of my worrying and God graciously took me in His arms and filled me with peace. I was just enjoying resting in His arms when Lisa had to keep praying asking the Holy Spirit to reveal any lies I was believing. I sort of ignored her because I was just enjoying Jesus at the moment. But then I started hearing the lie: you can't rest or relax because you're going to forget something! Something's going to fall through the cracks! That's what I had been believing and what had been keeping me from resting in Him. As I shared with her what I was thinking, I explained it was as if I couldn't sleep because I had to stay on watch, as if there wasn't anyone else to take the shift and what would happen if I let my guard down? Knowing even as I was saying it that God was reminding me that He never stops watching and I CAN let my guard down and rest because He's on duty. : ) Just the day before, Jennifer had sent me a verse on Facebook. It was Psalm 121:1-2. That morning with Lisa and I read Psalm 121 again and it was SO CLEARLY connected to what God was saying to me. Later that morning, I looked up some of the words from it and there are 6 times (in only 8 verses) where God says He watches over us, over my coming and going, etc. In other words, He's got my back. : ) The Hebrew word implies He's on guard duty so I can rest. So this half of March I'm memorizing Psalm 121 and thanking God for bringing me to a place of rest once again. Life is still sort of chaotic around me, but I'm feeling peace in the middle of the storm. Hallelujah!

Psalm 121

1 I lift up my eyes to the hills—

where does my help come from? 2 My help comes from the LORD,

the Maker of heaven and earth. 3 He will not let your foot slip—

he who watches over you will not slumber; 4 indeed, he who watches over Israel

will neither slumber nor sleep. 5 The LORD watches over you—

the LORD is your shade at your right hand; 6 the sun will not harm you by day,

nor the moon by night. 7 The LORD will keep you from all harm—

he will watch over your life; 8 the LORD will watch over your coming and going

both now and forevermore.

Break Through!

Hi friends! Just a couple of thoughts to share before I have to get my children fed and Timothy down for a nap. First of all, my husband and I are in a really challenging place in life right now. Don't worry... our marriage is fine. : ) But God is challenging us (and the enemy is joining in) and we could really use your prayers as we seek to walk by faith and not by sight or leaning on our own understanding. If you want to know more, you can email or call me. : ) But it sort of leads me to my second thought... How hard do I try to keep blogging? You've probably noticed I haven't been writing as much lately... certainly not for lack of stuff to talk about. There is SO much I'd love to share here, but I'm debating about whether or not I have time or if it's worth it. If it's just so I can keep a small handful of you informed of my life, I'd be just as happy (or happier) to chat with you more often on the phone! But IF there ARE more of you out there who would be sad if I quit blogging because you are somehow encouraged by the things I share, would you consider letting me know? (Comment, email or call me!) It might make a difference in whether or not I continue at this busy juncture in life. And if you do want me to keep blogging, would you also pray that God would help me know when in my week it fits in? My weeks are fuller than ever before and I'm not sure where the time to blog is. I promise I won't feel bad if I don't hear from you. I'll just take it as confirmation that I can stop for now and continue to focus on other things. : ) I hope I don't sound like I'm whining because I'm not... I'm just trying to be honest. : ) I know God is faithful and will never leave us or forsake us and that His grace is unfailingly powerful and abundant and available to us. I'm dealing with uncertainty and fear, but know that God is going to break through and our faith will be strengthened in the process. Last night I wrote a song - inspired by a time of prayer at the retreat and by reading the book of Micah (and some other stuff.) I'll leave you for today with the words from the song and pray God will break through wherever You need Him to in your life as well... BREAK THROUGH I am weak, I am weary You say, “Come! And I’ll give you rest” (Matt. 11:28) So I’m coming, giving all my burdens to You Show me how to let go Teach me Lord how to learn from You (Matt 1:28-30) You’re my Shepherd, and I want to follow You (Micah 5:4) But sometimes it seems like I’m locked up inside The walls are too strong and I can’t find the light In all Your strength and majesty and greatness… (Micah 5:4) Come and break through! (Micah 2:13) Lord Jesus, how I need You to Break through all the walls, shatter the darkness Break through I long to be free! And I have no strength on my own But with Your Spirit, I am filled with power and might (Micah 3:8) “All the nations may walk in the name of their gods We will walk in the name of the LORD our God for ever and ever.” (Micah 4:5) Come and break through! Lord Jesus, oh I know You Will break through all the walls, shatter the darkness You’re gonna break through “But as for me, I watch in hope I wait for God my Savior; My God will hear me… Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the LORD will be my light.” (Micah 7:7-8) “Enemy, don’t gloat over me!” (Micah 7:8) Lord Jesus, You are my peace (Micah 5:5) Oh God, speak and let there be Light! (Genesis 1:3) I will not be afraid, for the LORD Almighty has spoken. (Micah 4:4) 3.13.09