Softball Sunday

confessions

This past Sunday my family did something that we never do. We allowed our thirteen year old to participate in a softball tournament that carried over into Sunday play. Had they won all their games on Saturday, they would not have played on Sunday until 1:30pm, that would be well after our church service was over.

This is possibly her last year to play and this girl loves to play… and she loves being a part of a team. As a matter of fact several years ago, she had gotten in trouble for something. I really do not remember what it was, but the punishment was given in option one and option two. One of those options was being grounded for the weekend which would include no softball. She immediately chose the other option, not because it was lesser punishment for her, but because she already knew that some of the other girls were going to be gone that weekend and if she didn’t play the team would have to forfeit the game. She was thinking of her team, not just herself.

My husband and I have purposefully attempted to instill within our girls a sense of responsibility and the importance of keeping your word and your commitments. She made a commitment to this team, to the people on this team, not to softball. She made a commitment to these other girls and to the coaches that for this season she would do her best for them and they could count on her to give them her best efforts.

shelby's team 1

She would use this season as an opportunity to display what it looks like to do all things as unto the Lord… even play softball.

Our two youngest daughters (Shelby and Rebekah) have spent the last several years of their life at church almost daily and until 9pm – 10pm on Sunday and Wednesday nights. Shelby has served every Sunday morning in the nursery for probably at least the last six months because of adults who did not find their commitment to this extended care team important enough to show up or adjust their schedule around it. So Shelby’s commitment and dedication to the church was not in question for us, nor was her commitment to the Lord and learning and growing in His Word.

See we’re the weird parents that teach our kids the Word of God at home. We begin the morning with an in-depth precept upon precept Bible study and end the night with a bedtime devo. We listen to Christ exalting music in the car and at home. We also homeschool, so even their studies of math, science, grammer, ext are centered around Christ and growing in the knowledge of the Lord.

So missing a Sunday to play in a tournament in no way dishonored their God. He didn’t take the back seat. His Word and the truths that they have learned from Him carried right onto the field. He was right there with her and the rest of our family.

If God comes first, He comes first everywhere. I have seen God take the backseat inside the church doors as much as outside them. If just attending church and sitting half asleep on a pew every Sunday is someone’s definition of putting God first, they need to look back through the Book. If God is first He is first everywhere and at all times.

Children should be taught the Word of God daily in their home. Children should be learning the Word of God from their parents in the home and parents shouldn’t just be depending on the preacher or the Sunday school teacher to do it.

Children also need to see the Book lived out.

My daughters got to see the Spirit of God at work this past Sunday… even at a Sunday softball tournament. God actually gave me the opportunity to do something that I haven’t had the opportunity to do for a very long time… to hear Him and experience once again the unction of His Holy Spirit. Oh how I have missed that sinking feeling of churning within my gut.

Life has been so “busy” the last few years that any time for a “distraction” wasn’t possible. I had to be here, and here, and here, and have this and that ready, and make sure so and so was taken care of… the freedom to be freely moved was non-existent. My brain was too cluttered and my heart was hurting.

On the way to the ball fields we listened to a pastor preach on the book of Esther and he shared about God’s purpose and God’s ability to use all people and all things to accomplish His purpose. He also shared about how the only people who were in a hurry in the book of Esther were the messengers. The messengers that first went out saying, “You’re gonna die!” as they carried Haman’s decree to the Jews of the land and then the messengers that went out saying “You don’t have to die!” as they carried out Esther and Mordecai’s decree to the Jews of the land.

As I listened I said a quick silent prayer in my heart for the Lord to allow me to be a messenger of His gospel and His Word… Because of Christ we don’t have to die.

We arrived at the fields and made our way up after that atrocious $7 gate fee and found some of our fellow waiting parents. Then after a conversation on the bleachers with several of the other mom’s on the team, as we waited for our turn to get the fence front row, about how weird it felt not being at church… and how even our kids were experiencing the “weirdness” of it… (this was not a normal regular occurrence for any of us) it was our turn to take the field and set our cheering chairs up.

Now on each of our girls jersey’s there is an orange ribbon…

shelby with trophy

These ribbons are in honor of a young boy in Priceville who goes to school and to church with some these girls and he is fighting leukemia.

Shelby brx

His name is Braxton… the girls are trying to spell out Brax with their bodies here after they won the County Championship.

Now as the girls took the field this past Sunday one of the women on the opposing team asked who the ribbon was for. One of our parents explained the ribbon and that’s when the woman shared that she was currently fighting brain cancer. When the game got started the mom who had spoken with the lady shared with me about their conversation… as I located the woman with my eyes my gut immediately began to stir and I felt the Spirit prompt me to go and pray with her.

God allowed me to share the gospel of Jesus Christ and pray with a stranger right there in the stands. I was able to use the prayer bracelet that my daughter Bekah had made me to share my family’s story and right then the woman’s arms were covered in chills and I asked her if I could pray over her… I don’t know if this woman knew the Lord… but if she didn’t I got to introduce him to her. The Lord allowed our team and my family’s story to be a reminder to this woman that she was not alone… and her name was Stacy… that’s my sister’s name… so guess what I won’t forget her name and will continue to lift her up before the Father by name.

As I returned to my chair, Bekah asked me what I was doing… and after I shared with her what I had done, her first words were “what color is brain cancer“.

God is good.

So for parents who have never done the Sunday ball thing, for parents who know the importance of not forsaking the assembly, for parents who are doing all they know to raise their girls in a God-centered home… what I saw that Sunday at the softball fields were people. People with problems and hurts and souls. People who loved their kids and were trying to support them in their dreams. People who needed the love of Christ.

Maybe, it might be a good idea for those of us who don’t find Sunday softball as a regular occurrence to not get upset because these people don’t come to us at church… and do what Christ commanded us to do and go to them.

They have cowboy church for the rodeo circuit… racing chaplains for the racing circuit, maybe it’s time to get a little red wagon full of Bibles and free waters and build a boom box on wheels blasting Tomlin and get a pop up shade tent with a cross monogrammed on it and hold Softball Sunday Services.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.

Matthew 28:19-20

Ministry or Misery

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America is in the fast free falling process of seeing the family go down in flames. When I graduated high school in 1995 it was still pretty rare for the kids in my peer group to have parents who were divorced or to be a child born out of wedlock… possibly conceived out of wedlock, but usually born in. However within the next five to ten years that would change.

I remember the scare that went across America when we began to draw near to the new millennium. Y2K was in full media effect. People were buying toilet paper and non-perishables by the truck load… literally.

The world was freaking out.

How on earth could our beginning-to-be-technologically-driven world ever survive when the computers have to go to a 00 ending? What ever shall we do? The banks will crash, the stock market will plummet, hospitals will lose power and everyone will die!

I remember being my ignorant little southern early twenties self and thinking… really? Our world has survived for over 6000 years without all this tech stuff and we really think that a date roll is going to destroy it as we know it?

That, my friends, is how easily the media can create chaos and bring stupidity out in massive proportions. It’s propaganda my friends… and it has been proven over and over to work easily and quickly and almost flawlessly.

It plays on fear. And it plays on the fear of fear.

Whenever we make a decision based on fear you can almost guarantee it’s always the wrong decision. If we say the words, “I’m afraid that if I don’t then….” before a decision we are trying to make, then I suggest we stop and re-evaluate. Our decisions should be made based on the peace of God, not fear created by the words of man. If we are making a decision based on the words of people rather than the Word of God… then it is the wrong decision.

When the world shouts Y2K and is running around stocking up on toilet paper… the people of God should be found being still and knowing that He is God…

He is the One that controls the end of the world… not a date roll.

In the book of Nehemiah we read

Now the rest of the people, the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, the temple servants and all those who had separated themselves from the peoples of the lands to the law of God, their wives, their sons and their daughters, all those who had knowledge and understanding,

Nehemiah 10:28 (NASB)

Obviously the underlined emphasis is mine. Right here in this passage we see the only way that we can separate ourselves from the media induced crazy mass chaos of confusion and fear of the “peoples of the land” is to separate ourselves to the law of God. If you separate from it to anything else you are still in it… just from a different angle. You still will lack knowledge and understanding and find yourselves being led by the words of men and fear rather than the peace of God that surpasses all understanding (Philippians 4:7).

Today in America we see the family going down in flames. The peoples of the land are attempting to completely re-define family in general… and they are trying through television programs and other forms of media to make the family a joke and a place of aggravation and foolishness instead of the place of strength and confidence and safety.

In human context, a family (from Latinfamilia) is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity (by recognized birth), affinity (by marriage), or co-residence/shared consumption (see Nurture kinship). Members of the immediate family may include a spouse, parent, brother and sister, and son and daughter. Members of the extended family may include grandparent, aunt, uncle, cousin, nephew and niece, or sibling-in-law. In most societies the family is the principal institution for the socialization of children. As the basic unit for raising children, anthropologists most generally classify family organization as matrifocal (a mother and her children); conjugal (a husband, his wife, and children; also called nuclear family); avuncular (for example a brother, his sister, and her children); or extended family in which parents and children co-reside with other members of one parent’s family. 

~ wikipedia

The term nuclear family comes from the word nucleus in relation to atoms… you know the building block of all matter. The nucleus is the central and most important part of an object, movement, or group, forming the basis for its activity and growth. The family with a husband, a wife, and children is what is termed a nuclear family. 

We homeschool our children… and one of the largest fears of non-homeschooling families is the media induced lie of “socialization”. If our kids do not attend public school how on earth will they ever learn to function properly in society?

Y2K people.

Y2K.

Even wikipedia states the truth, In most societies the family is the principal institution for the socialization of children.” 

So here’s my question to the church… is the church participating in the destruction and decline of the family or are we working to strengthen and build it?

If your “ministry” is bringing misery to the family… specifically your own… then is it really ministry?

Let me ask you… how was Satan able to deceive Eve? Was she with her family? Or did he catch her while she was alone… separated from her husband.

Are the “ministries” of your church doing more to add stress to the families within it? Are they keeping the families separated… parents running crazy in fifty different directions all week… and constantly draining the families finances forcing parents to choose between buying their children shoes or sending them to dinner and a movie with the youth group? Are you constantly pulling kids away from their parents or planning events around the building up and strengthening of the relationship between parent and child.

Are you eliminating the possibility of a child who does not have a strong christian family with both a mother and a father in the home from experiencing the reality of one by always keeping them surrounded by only their peers for fear of them feeling “left out” because they don’t have a christian home?

In our attempt to “reach the children” are we helping to destroy the foundation that God Himself designed and laid as the tool to reach children… the family.

There is a reason that Leave it to Beaver was such a hit… kids who didn’t have this is reality got to see it in possibility, which meant they could see how to do things differently with their families one day.

I loved what I read the other day in a blog post by Connie Jakab,

Ministry needs direction, and our attention as well, but through this experience I’ve started to question ministry culture. We ambitiously build for the kingdom, but are we building something because “ministry culture” has told us to? Is it really necessary? Do I really need to slave away my time, energy, and resources on these things, or is reevaluation needed? This is a personal question only we can answer for ourselves as every situation is different. We need to look at what we do from an outside perspective to see if our work is producing the fruit God desires and if it creates health for our families or if it doesn’t.

You can read the full post here: When Family Pressures Threaten Your Ministry. However I believe the post title should have been When Ministry Pressures Threaten Your Family.

The health of our families should be a priority in our lives and in the ministry of the church. We as the church should never catch ourselves being a part of adding even more stress and unbiblical burdens and unwarranted guilt on our members. Because when the rubber hits the road… the family will stand before God by families… not by church membership.

The land will mourn, every family by itself; the family of the house of David by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Nathan by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the house of Levi by itself and their wives by themselves; the family of the Shimeites by itself and their wives by themselves; all the families that remain, every family by itself and their wives by themselves.

Zechariah 12:12-14

 

It’s Crystal Clear

confessions

 

As a believer there are all these “rules” out there… written and unwritten about who to marry and who not to marry. There are all these things in the church governments about what kind of people pastors can marry and what kind they can’t… and I am not talking about the whole gay contract call it a marriage issue… I am talking about the Genesis 2:24 covenant. I am talking about a man and woman who have chosen one another or unknowingly been chosen by God for one another.

My husband and I had made some terrible choices before we met one another… and I am sure that many thought that our choosing one another was just going to be another one of those terrible choices… as a matter of fact when I excitedly showed people the engagement ring, they did not say congratulations, instead they asked me if I was pregnant. Those who thought that way were wrong… and well truthfully there is really nothing more that I have ever enjoyed doing than proving other people’s assumptions wrong. This girl has always been up for a challenge. Whether it was jumping off a bridge, riding a real live bull, or jumping straight into until death do us part after a less than three month engagement.

Fifteen years ago today I walked down the isle with this man who I thought had the ability to lasso the moon. I saw in him a hard worker, a drive to push himself, a desire to be better, a man that could make me laugh and make me feel safe and protected while with him… whether we have been broke down in Atlanta or walking down the streets of New Orleans, I have never felt the slightest fear with him by my side. And because he was already a daddy… I also got to see how he loved his daughter.

As a believer there have been a lot of challenges that have come with the previous marriage thing. It seems that all sins of a man are forgivable and forgettable in the church except the sin of divorce… whether it was your fault or not… whether you were just a kid trying to do the right thing way back when is irrelevant. However had you not tried the marriage thing and just kept the kid out of wedlock and then years later married only once… that would be okay… because technically then you have only been the husband of one actual wife. So you can be forgiven and serve in a church leadership position after whoring around with as many as you want, just as long as you don’t marry any of them. Am I the only one who doesn’t get this?

Anyway, that was a side trip.

Many don’t know that it was my husband that sat me down and said we need to find a church… I was still a twenty-two year old, only been legal for a year, still wanting to bust up in the club and party girl. When my husband decided that this was not the scene we needed to be involved in… I was just a little disappointed. I mean he was eight years older than me, he had already been doing this a while, I however, was just getting started good… what on earth was he thinking?

I tell you what he was thinking… He WAS thinking.

So we began visiting churches… and within a year or so of attending church sporadically and after delivering our Shelby I found myself at the altar in tears experiencing revival and wholly surrendering my life to Christ… and we officially joined our church. Thanks be to this adulterer 😉

That, my dear beloved of God, is the redemptive work of the grace of God and the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There is no such thing as too late or too far where grace is concerned. The grace of God knows no limits. The grace of God is not bound by the interpretations of man. God can do whatever God wants to do with whoever God wants to do it with whenever God wants to do it.

We can’t make enough bad choices to cancel out the choosing of Christ. We broke all the “rules”, but we couldn’t break the call of God on our lives.

You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you.

John 15:16

 Just a few weeks after our marriage my Mamaw Dot came over for visit. Now remember, my husband was eight years older than me, we were from different ends of the county, and I had only known him a total of a year when we married. As my grandmother walked through our trailor (we started out our marriage in a brand new mobile home that we placed on my parent’s land) checking out my homemaking skills she came to the hall where I had hung family photos… she stopped and said, “Is that Fred and Jannie?

Now my husband and I had not communicated alot about family that was no longer with us on this earth… I just knew those were his grandparents, I had no clue what their names were. So I hollared down the hall to inquire of Patrick as to his grandparent’s names and well yes, they were indeed Fred and Jannie. Come to find out his grandparents and my great grandparents, now both deceased, were best friends and fishing buddies. My grandmother had grew up with his dad and uncles…

So since then I have always laughed and claimed that our grandparents did some matchmaking in heaven. I can picture them sitting up there in eternity telling the Lord that if He wanted to straighten the two of us out to stick us together, we would either kill each other or live happily ever after.

By the grace of God it’s been happily ever after!
through the yearsMy man posted this photo collage to Facebook early this morning with the caption, Left, wedding night. Top right, 10 year vow renewal ceremony. Bottom right, 15 years together. You can’t fake those smiles. Happy Anniversary Nicole Halbrooks Vaughn, I love you.”

My goodness I love him!

Fifteen years later and I love him more than I even dreamed was possible. Last night I looked up what the “15th Anniversary” tradition gift was and learned that this is the crystal anniversary year. Makes sense to me. Because after fifteen years with this man, it’s crystal clear that this man was meant for me and me alone. We make an amazing team.

Patrick Vaughn I walked down the isle to you to the song “Don’t Wanna Miss A Thing” and well you rocked my world then, and you rock it still. I love you so very much and I treasure every moment we have together!

Busy! Busy! Busy!

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I can’t stand your religious meetings.
    I’m fed up with your conferences and conventions.
I want nothing to do with your religion projects,
    your pretentious slogans and goals.
I’m sick of your fund-raising schemes,
    your public relations and image making.
I’ve had all I can take of your noisy ego-music.
    When was the last time you sang to me?
Do you know what I want?
    I want justice—oceans of it.
I want fairness—rivers of it.
    That’s what I want. That’s all I want.

Amos 5:21-24, MSG

I think many of us just need to let these words resonate and marinate and penetrate…

Not long ago I was told a story of a pastor of a church. He was a very revered pastor. As a matter of fact the story that was told me was that this man actually had an entourage of deacons that surrounded the man from his office to the pulpit every time before he would preach to make sure no one bothered him before he shared his message with the church.

At the first hearing of the story I thought, that must be nice. Before I go to the “pulpit” to teach I have to deal with at least one to six text messages of people who have decided that they are not coming to church and want me to find them a sub, make a mad dash across the street to the store to refill an empty pantry and fridge that was full when I left Wed night, separate sets of wrestling boys and chattering girls, explain once again the dates, times, and fees of events that I have posted on four bulletin boards, Facebook, the church website and emailed out, and locate materials and supplies that were “borrowed” yet somehow never made it back… and that’s on a good day.

However, the more I thought of this man’s guarded walk from his office to his pulpit… I thought how UNLIKE Christ this display was.

Christ never expected to be un-interrupted and He didn’t allow His disciples to treat Him as though He was too important to be interrupted. As a matter of fact Jesus rebuked them when they tried to do it.

Then some children were brought to Him so that He might lay His hands on them and pray; and the disciples rebuked them. But Jesus said, “Let the children alone, and do not hinder them from coming to Me; for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”

Matthew 19:13-14

Jesus always had time for others no matter what mission He was on. Interruptions were opportunities for Him to display His mercy and compassion… and to show that people were more important to Him than agendas. He was after people… not a pulpit.

The Word became flesh to dwell among us… To live right down in the nitty gritty unpredictable chaos of a world fallen and spinning ninety-to-nothing straight into the pits of hell.

In Matthew 9:14-17 we find Jesus right slap dab in the middle of some majorly deep teaching, as He was answering the disciples of John about why they and the Pharisees fasted and the disciples of Jesus did not, when a synagogue official came busting up into the room.

Jesus didn’t give him the hang on just one moment finger, He heard the man out and immediately got up to go to his aid.

While He was saying these things to them, a synagogue official came and bowed down before Him, and said, “My daughter has just died; but come and lay Your hand on her, and she will live.” Jesus got up and began to follow him, and so did His disciples.

Matthew 9:18-19

But that’s not all… on His way to raise a young girl from the dead a hurting woman sneaks into the crowd and simply reaches for the hem of His garment… she doesn’t want to cause a scene, doesn’t want to interrupt Him, probably doesn’t feel her problem important enough to concern Him with, or is just simply to humiliated by it all… but when she touches Him, He stops. He didn’t have to. He could have just given her a wink and a thumbs up. She would have been delighted with just that… but instead He stops. He stops and He acknowledges Her worth to Him by the giving of His time and His presence and His eyes. He SEES her.

I can’t help but wonder how long it had been since she had been SEEN?

The story goes on in Matthew 9…

Jesus makes it to the officials house and raises the daughter from the dead and on His way out from there two blind men ask Him for help… He stops and He helps.

As the blind men run out seeing a mute demon-possessed man is brought to Him and Jesus casts the demon out and the man speaks.

Jesus had the most important message in the world to share and He was surrounded by an entourage, but they were not there to keep the people from Him, they were there to learn how to get the people to Him. Jesus welcomed the interruptions… Jesus didn’t just welcome them, He made Himself available for them, He looked for them.

Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them, because they were distressed and dispirited like sheep without a shepherd.

Matthew 9:36

Can I just say that I have lost count of how many people I have seen come into a church seeking some type of help… they are usually a little dirty, smell like cigarettes, and sometimes alcohol… and people within the church walk by them as though they are not even there.

Because these people scare them, or make them uncomfortable, they pretend to not see them. I am guilty of having found myself wanting to do the same at times… but how dare I.

How. Dare. I. Refuse. To. See.

How dare I treat a soul as though it doesn’t exist simply because I am uncomfortable with the body that it comes in. Yes, this person might be a crook. This person might just be after enough cash to buy there next buzz. This person might have came in with full intentions to harm others in order to get what they want… but so was Judas and Jesus washed his feet.

If the extent of our Christianity is nothing more than religious meetings, conferences and conventions, religion projects, pretentious slogans and goals, fund-raising schemes, public relations and image making… and we just all gather up a couple of times a week for some noisy ego-music… and we call that church. Then we are sad pathetic lot. 

Then He said to His disciples, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Therefore beseech the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into His harvest.”

Matthew 9:37-38

If we are so busy, busy, busy with programs that we don’t have time for God ordained interruptions to display the mercy and compassion of Christ on people… both saved and lost, then we who once were blind and then could see, have now become blind again.

Might our Jesus reach down and have mercy and compassion on His church and give sight to the blind once again.

When You’re Waiting On His Will

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I am a full blooded American and I hate waiting.

I hate waiting in line to check-out anywhere… however Wal-Mart is the highest of my capability to despise.

I hate waiting at a red light… especially when there is not another vehicle visible for miles.

I hate waiting on a video or a picture to load to a computer or device… that spinning beach ball or arrow makes me want to throw my electronic device on the ground and stomp all over it while I scream out my frustrations.

I hate waiting in line to use the bathroom… the closer you get to your turn the less your post baby delivery ability “to hold it” becomes.

I.

Hate.

Waiting.

The word “wait” is used at least 142 times in the Scriptures according to the NASB. One Hundred. Forty-two. Times.

My life psalm is Psalm 25… the word wait is used three times in this one psalm. Three. Yeh.

In Psalm 25 the Hebrew word for wait is qavah it is a verb that means to wait for but more so probably originally twist, stretch, then of tension of enduring, waiting. 

Well, I can assure you that waiting indeed does does some major twisting in my gut, and definitely stretches my patience, and assuredly does a fantastic job of causing me to endure vast amounts of tension.

The Strong’s Concordance lists it as… gather together, look, patiently, tarry, wait for, on, upon. A primitive root; to bind together (perhaps by twisting), i.e. Collect; (figuratively) to expect — gather (together), look, patiently, tarry, wait (for, on, upon).

There is a scene in the book/movie Catching Fire where the tributes are first sent to the arena…

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Yeh, that one.

There they are standing on that little pedestal waiting. If they jump off too soon they explode and if they jump off too late they explode and even when they do jump off at just the right time, they still have no clue what is next.

That’s what this time of waiting feels like right now.

In April of this year my husband and I both new that the Lord was releasing me from my position as Children’s Ministry Director at our church. We both new the exact moment that this release came. So I sent in my resignation.

However, we had no clue what all was coming next…

We would find ourselves spending the next months with all our apple baskets overturned and our hands up in the air as we teeter tottered on the pedestal of waiting.

Waiting for His Will…

Make me know Your ways, O Lord;
Teach me Your paths.
Lead me in Your truth and teach me,
For You are the God of my salvation;
For You I wait all the day.

Psalm 25:4-5

So though I hate waiting… I love my Lord… so I wait… and we look expectantly for Him and for His direction for our family.

The Lord favors those who fear Him,
Those who wait for His lovingkindness

Psalm 147:11

We wait…

Yet those who wait for the Lord will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary. 

Isaiah 40:31

We wait because it’s when we run ahead of the Lord that we get weary and lose all our strength and stumble and fall. It’s when we run ahead of the Lord that we find ourselves caught and tangled up and face planted on the ground with no ability to see.

A ride on the wings of an eagle soaring gives us a much better eye view of what’s ahead.

For the vision is yet for the appointed time; It hastens toward the goal and it will not fail. Though it tarries, wait for it; For it will certainly come, it will not delay.

Habukkuk 2:3

***

For from days of old they have not heard or perceived by ear,
Nor has the eye seen a God besides You,
Who acts in behalf of the one who waits for Him.

Isaiah 64:4

So we wait.

We wait for direction for our family in ministry.

We wait for my Daddy-in-Law to regain enough strength to be able to begin chemo treatments to allow him to then undergo a surgery to remove his bladder.

We wait to see if the Lord will move on behalf of my Daddy and use the chemo treatments he is currently undergoing to destroy the lung cancer cells that have recently been discovered in his body.

We wait for a cure to come as my Sister-in-Law continues her battle with liver cancer.

We wait for the day that our Lord will come and redeem and restore our bodies and cancer will no longer be even a cause for concern.

We wait in hope against hope for that glorious day.

And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body. For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.

Romans 8:23-25

However until that day comes and as we wait… we love.

We love the Lord.

And we love each other.

And we seek to love others to the love of the Lord…

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to eternal life.

Jude 1:20-21

…knowing that He will use this waiting for His glory. He will use even this cancer for His glory. He will use us for His glory. For we are His and He is ours… and we wait for His will…

Not our will but His will be done.

When You Are A Prisoner of God

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But I am afflicted and in pain;
May Your salvation, O God, set me securely on high.
I will praise the name of God with song
And magnify Him with thanksgiving.
And it will please the Lord better than an ox
Or a young bull with horns and hoofs.
The humble have seen it and are glad;
You who seek God, let your heart revive.
For the Lord hears the needy
And does not despise His who are prisoners.

Let heaven and earth praise Him,
The seas and everything that moves in them.
For God will save Zion and build the cities of Judah,
That they may dwell there and possess it.
The descendants of His servants will inherit it,
And those who love His name will dwell in it.

Psalm 69:29-36

I was drawn to this Psalm on June 9th. My Jesus never ceases to meet me where I am and draw me into His presence. I claim to lift up His name in praise, but in reality He alone does the lifting. I am without the ability to even consider lifting His name in praise apart from His grace. He lifts me and He puts the song in my heart and He breathes out the words of exultation…. I breathe in His grace and with every inhale of grace the only possible exhale is praise.

Just like a fish out of water, when we are hooked and snatched and reeled out of the oceans of His grace we will find ourselves flopping around in confusion and panic on the hot stinging sand. We will also find ourselves in something like an asthma attack of discontent, grumbling, and complaining that is actually slowly but surely choking us to death.

Our bodies are designed to breathe in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. If one does not inhale, the level of carbon dioxide builds up in the blood, and one experiences overwhelming air hunger. This irrepressible reflex is not surprising given that without breathing, the body’s internal oxygen levels drop dangerously low within minutes, leading to permanent brain damage followed eventually by death (wikipedia)

So if we don’t we inhale we die… and if we can’t exhale we poison ourselves.

Our spirits are designed to breathe in His grace and exhale His praise… If we don’t inhale His grace then we discover that poisons are building up inside of us and we will begin to experience spiritual starvation… our ability to function faithfully begins to drop into dangerous levels and we find ourselves in survival mode. We find that we are unable to think clearly and discern as we once could… brain damage is underway.

However on the opposite end there is just as much danger. If you are one who breathes in His grace and yet never exhales His praise… you will find that grace turning into self-entitlement and arrogance and that poisons you in such a way that is worse than death.

If that’s you beloved… if you are breathing in His grace but breathing out only grumbles and complaints… you are choking my friend. You also will find that you are not just choking yourself but you are breathing out poisons that will choke everyone else around you too.

We, must both inhale His grace and exhale His praise. If we don’t we will discover that no matter how hard we try we simply are suffocating.

What happens when you can’t breathe is that you can’t speak either and you discover that you no longer even have the ability to cry out for help… and you look around in amazement at those who seem to walk right by you and smile and even wave and yet can’t see that you are struggling to just breathe. How thankful I am that the Lord doesn’t need our words… He hears our heart.

In one of my favorite movies, The Proposal, Sandra Bullock is having a freak out and in her freak out moment she gets thrown from the boat into cold Alaskan waters. The worst part about being thrown overboard is she can’t really swim. She somehow makes it to a buoy and she’s hanging on to it for dear life. The safety of that buoy is short lived and it is just going to toss her around and keep her afloat depending upon her own ability and strength to hold on to it. The buoy does not hold on to her, she holds on to it. Yet her rescuer is right there with outstretched arms ready to pull her into safety, but to get back into the arms of the one who loves her and will hold one to her, she must first let go of that floating buoy.

That’s where I am at.

Letting go of the buoys… and reaching for the arms of my Rescuer.

In letting go, I am still not sure what all I am letting go of. The Lord is actually more like prying things out of my hands, pulling loose one finger at a time to one hand at a time. As I question everything and here Him say over and over again, “how many times must I tell you

I am His and He is mine. I am a prisoner of His grace. He is calling me out upon the waters of the oceans of His grace and upon the great unknown… I don’t know what is coming next… I just know the One who is calling and as I stand upon these unknown waters I stand on feet that are shackled to the gospel of my God.

Releasing, letting go, waiting. I don’t care how deep He takes me… as long as I remain a prisoner of His presence.

Because when you are a prisoner of the Lord… He doesn’t allow you stay a captive to anyone or anything else long. I am indeed His prisoner… bought and paid for… I belong first to Him. And in my slavery to Him I can’t help but teach His Word and declare the glory of His grace… I must breathe in His grace and exhale His praise…

I must proclaim the gospel of Christ.

and pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak. Ephesians 6:19-20

My question now as I wait to hear more from my Lord is how, when, and where…

FireFall 2.0

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Woe to all of you who want God’s Judgment Day!
    Why would you want to see God, want him to come?
When God comes, it will be bad news before it’s good news,
    the worst of times, not the best of times.
Here’s what it’s like: A man runs from a lion
    right into the jaws of a bear.
A woman goes home after a hard day’s work
    and is raped by a neighbor.
At God’s coming we face hard reality, not fantasy—
    a black cloud with no silver lining.

Amos 5:18-20 (The Message)

I have often found myself praying for the return of the Lord as of late. Things seem to be growing worse in our society and those who want to serve the Lord with integrity and fervency seem to be lacking within the walls of the church… and it seems that those serving outside the walls do so only to advertise their particular “ministry” not to actually just share the grace of the gospel of God and Jesus Christ.

So for me, I had found myself just breathing in and out the words of the original greek in Revelation… “maranatha” (come quickly Lord Jesus, come quickly) as I wondered what in the world we who profess to know Christ were really all doing here… and actually needed to be doing here.

Then the inhale and exhale of my soul became “breathing in Your grace, breathing out Your praise

This was the perfect time to be handed the opportunity to read and review a new book by Alvin Reid and Malcom McDow on the subject of revival… because my spirit was indeed in need of revival.

As I began reading through this book and continued breathing in His grace and breathing out His praise I was reminded that as a believer in this day I needed to be praying for and seeking revival not the coming judgment of the Lord.

The passage above from the prophet Amos is a great reminder to us all to be praying for more of the grace of God upon those we see walking in rebellion instead of sitting back and waiting on God’s wrath to fall…

When His wrath comes it will not be pretty… and as Amos warns us… the closer that day comes the worse the world as a whole will get for the demonic forces of death will be stirred to action all the more as they see their day of destruction coming.

As much as I have my days where it all seems pointless and hopeless and I just ask God how much longer… I was reminded through FireFall that we are not to lose hope… but to look for revival.

I am a woman who does not appreciate sensationalism… I find it quite foolish and I only see it as something that preys on the easily convinced and impressed. Anything that overly attempts to stir my emotions as opposed to appealing to my fully capable of reasoning mind I automatically become skeptical of… and that even more so includes the things in today’s world of Christendom.

So what I appreciated about this book was the fact that it appealed to my spirit and my mind. Reid and McDow begin the book by walking through the documented revivals throughout history… beginning from the beginning.

Have you ever considered that the day God used Moses to bring Israel out of Egypt, He also instituted within them the spirit of revival?

What about Elijah and his standoff on Mt Carmel with the prophets of Baal… have you ever thought of that fire fall from heaven that consumed the sacrifice and the altar that day as the moment of the beginning of a revival within a nation?

What about that day in the upper room when the disciples of Christ gathered together and waited for the promise of their Lord to come and the tongue as of fire filled the room and ignited with them a fervency that led them to leave the locked doors of the upper room and fill the streets of Jerusalem proclaiming the salvation found only in the gospel of Jesus Christ?

Yes… Revival!

As I read through this book, I for the first time realized what happened to me on December 9, 2001. I have wondered for years whether that was my true salvation experience or if it was something else… I just started calling it, “wholly surrendered” because I didn’t know what else to call it.

The thoughts/teachings of some that it was a second baptism of the Holy Spirit didn’t theological measure up for me because God is quite clear that…

There is one body and one Spirit, just as also you were called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Ephesians 4:4-6

So as I read through this book Reid and McDow spoke of revival… I knew then that was what I experienced that day… revival. A revival that began that day and has carried me these thirteen years… and now I find that once again I am in need of revival… and I trust that my God will deliver… so I wait once again for the fire fall.

This is definitely a good read… and I would even say a must read for anyone who is seeking revival. One of my favorite perspectives within the pages of this book is the truth that revival will not come apart from prayer and repentance…

A revival was reported in East Africa that began in Kenya and spread outward. Times of prayer, fasting, and confession marked the revival. Its effect served to build the “fellowship of brethren in Christ recognizing no barriers but sin.”

Hansen and Woodbridge summarized the effect of the movement that spanned several decades in the middle of the 20th century:

The so-called East African Revival nursed the health of a growing church that would survive severe persecution and genocide during the latter half of the bloody twentieth century. Observers of the awakening insist the world has never seen anything like it. Decades later, nearly all of East Africa’s Protestant church leaders had been shaped by the revival.

A significant feature of this movement was the growth of the church in the face of tremendous persecution at the hands of men like Idi Amin in Uganda. Hansen and Woodbridge quoted Anglican Bishop Festo Kivengere who commented on the cost of revival:

“Revival doesn’t come to respectable Christians,” Kivengere wrote before the persecution chased him from Uganda. “If you think that because you’re a good church member, or because you belong to such and such an organization, you’re going to be revived, you had better forget it. The basis of revival is men and women shattered by their failures –– aware that all is not well, helpless to do anything about it.” 

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When You Can’t Breathe

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I really don’t know when I began this post… I suppose it will show when I finally click “publish”

I have been in a hard place for a while… (I had a whole bunch of added info here… but since I began writing this months ago… that emotion has passed so I deleted it… sorry the juicy stuff got trashed)

However, all of that aside, I know now that my “hard place” was not really because of any of that… but because I had not brought my hurt, my confusion, my anger, my disappointments in prayer to my God. I had not been before the throne of grace to find mercy and help in dealing with these things and therefore I had little mercy and grace to give to myself or others.

We simply cannot give of what we ourselves have not first from God received.

Granted, I have tried hard to not let my emotional junk outwardly show, because I learned a long time ago to obey truth, not my feelings… but my feelings God does see, and He wants grace and mercy to come from my innermost being, not just my outward motions.

What I have realized these past months, is that my “quiet time” had become solely “lesson prep” time… my time in the Word had become purely mechanical to provide food for others. I realized that I was starving myself in order to feed others…

I also realized that I was harboring a lot of stuff and well the way you deal with harbored stuff is to shelter it, and the way you shelter most stuff in order to protect it or hide it, is to throw up walls… and well likewise, in order to protect your heart many times the easiest thing to do is to just throw up a wall. But the problem with walls is that they are hard to see through. They are also hard to love through.

God knew that.

That is why He sent His Son, to tear down the walls, to rip through the dividing wall, to tear the veil that separates… but at the same time He sent Him as an example for us to follow in all things and in all areas of our life.

A balm began to be applied to my heart and soul as I began a study at the beginning of the new year in the book of John and as I have started back at the beginning with reading through His Word.

Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover, during the feast, many believed in His name, observing His signs which He was doing. But Jesus, on His part, was not entrusting Himself to them, for He knew all men, and because He did not need anyone to testify concerning man, for He Himself knew what was in man.

John 2:23-25

So this is where I realized I had found myself. A girl who once LOVED going to church… now taking deep breathes before she pulls into the parking lot because she doesn’t know who is going to be upset with her, complain about her, or even compliment her when she doesn’t feel at all worthy to receive compliments and doesn’t know how to respond to them… because deep down what she is hearing is not really a compliment at all, but a “thank God you are doing this because it means I don’t have to

Yet at the same time, knowing with all that is within her that God has called her… so she keeps pressing forward even though her heart wants to shrink back into the shadows and hide from everyone.

The breath of fresh air that I found in the book of John was timely and needed, reading how Jesus was accused of having a demon, of judging others unlawfully, of being a false teacher, of leading others astray… well it is a wave of relief to this girl who truly tries with all her heart to be faithful to her God and to speak truth, and live truth, and love in and with truth… but still stumbles, falls, and fails with the best of them… and has been accused, slandered, and even threatened by those who do not even know her.

As I studied through the book of John again… it was nice to be reminded that I was not alone.

However, as soon as I began to breath, the suffocation began again.

A new and different journey begins for me and my family today… the journey of releasing… and learning to once again to try and just breathe.

 

Engaging the Enemy

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I have been a published author since 2010. Let me tell you, this author gig is a tough business. If you don’t already have a “stage” in this world… or a long list of capitalized initials behind or in front of your name… your books just kind of sit in a box in your office.

I remember when my daughter was in public school and she was telling one of her teachers about my first book and the teacher said she wanted her to bring her one… when my daughter did and told her what she owed for the book, the woman told her she didn’t want it. My daughter handed the book back to me and was in tears as she told me of the encounter…

I am just a woman from a small town who married young and started out marriage with a family who fell in love with Jesus Christ and His Word… and was given as a gift of the Spirit of God the ability to teach and speak the Scriptures. Trust me it’s not me… it’s all Him.

I have spent the last four years giving away as many books as I could afford to buy, because my heart for writing them was always to share the Word of God and tell of the amazing scarlet thread that flows from Genesis to Revelation and to teach others how the beautiful Gospel of Christ is woven into the Law of God.

Biblical literacy is my heart’s cry for all who profess the name of Christ…

My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children.

Hosea 4:6

Now let me share with you how I was able to actually put these books into production…

When the Lord led me to write and submit Devotions From Genesis, It’s Not Just Ancient History my husband and I were barely making ends meat. The economy had plummeted and my husband had lost half his income (but not his job thanks to the amazing company that he works for) and I was a full time homeschooling momma. You can hear a little of that journey here: Money Matters.

When the Publishers sent in their acceptance of my manuscript, they also sent in the price tag it would cost for its publication. This price was not something my husband and I could afford.

So I resounded to be flattered by the acceptance and move on with our lives.

When my Daddy heard about my refusal to go forward due to the cost, he sat down and wrote me out a check to cover the publication and production cost. You see my parents believed in me and they believed that God had a plan for this book and this series. Had my Dad not helped me with Devotions From GenesisDevotions From Exodus Part One, Learning to Live in Freedom, would never had happened.

My Daddy has always been there for me…

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Yep there’s me in my high chair celebrating my Daddy’s birthday. I think anyway. There are too many candles on that cake for it to be mine 😉

And here he is getting ready to walk me down the aisle…

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Now here’s where the enemy comes in…

Three weeks ago my Daddy was diagnosed with lung cancer. The cancer is in his rib, collar bone, lungs, lymph nodes, adrenal glands, and tailbone. As best that we can tell, the cancer has invaded every week point in my Daddy’s body. In my Daddy’s life he had several bouts with pneumonia, had been thrown out of the back of a truck as a child and broke his collar bone, he broke his tailbone while building our house, he pulled muscles in his chest at work, and also fractured a rib. The cancer has found all these places of weakness and has attacked.

Isn’t that just what that slippery serpent from the pits of hell does. He seeks out where we are weak and he waits in the darkness as he evaluates his perfect strategic attack on us… but though he attacks our weakness this is what we know that our God has said to us:

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-11

My dad started treatments last week. So far there have not been many outward signs of the inward battle he is actively engaged in. However, today that changed. Today I received a text letting me know that the chemo was having its effect on my Daddy’s body.

So for those of you who see my Daddy on a regular basis… he will look a little different the next time you see him. As I shared this news with my husband he reminded me that my Daddy was in a battle… a real one… and in real battles we walk away with scars… and this was just a scar to show the evidence that my Daddy was indeed fighting.

Not only does this battle come with scars… it also comes with a price. Here is where you can help me if you will…

Do you remember that check that my Daddy wrote that allowed the door to this ministry to be open? Well, my contract states that if I sell a certain number of copies of my book, in either paperback or ebook, I receive a full refund of my author’s publication cost. I would love to be able to receive this refund so that I can return the money to my Daddy.

My Daddy has always given freely to his children and supported us in every way and never expected anything in return. I hope you can understand my heart’s desire to be able to do this for him.

Will you help me?

If you already have purchased the books I need as many reviews as possible up on Amazon. I have asked for this many times, and now you know why… it has never been so that I could get my own show on TBN… or make the best sellers list. I have always just wanted to share the Word of God and to sell at least enough books to give back what was given to me… its a validation of sorts.

So if you could please leave a review here, Devotions From Genesis and/or here, Devotions from Exodus Part One. I would be ever so grateful!

 

If nothing else, will you share this post?

Sharing just costs a click…

 

Less Cares Does Not Equal Most Blessed

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Some seasons in life are down right hard…

My family is in one of those seasons. We came through a very rough season in 2010 and here we are 2014 and we find ourselves in another one. I’ve been spending every morning in the Psalms… because that is just where you go when you need to be reminded that it is okay to wrestle with God and with emotions and with decisions, and with just life in general. Today I am in Psalm 65. It’s the 5th day of the sixth month and so today I breathe in the words of this song of David…

How blessed is the one whom You choose and bring near to You
To dwell in Your courts.
We will be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Your holy temple.

By awesome deeds You answer us in righteousness, O God of our salvation,
You who are the trust of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest sea;
Who establishes the mountains by His strength,
Being girded with might;
Who stills the roaring of the seas,
The roaring of their waves,
And the tumult of the peoples.
They who dwell in the ends of the earth stand in awe of Your signs;
You make the dawn and the sunset shout for joy.

Psalm 65:4-8

When things in this life are hard… it’s comforting to remember that my blessings are not measured by the ease of this world. The one with the less cares does not equal the one who is most blessed. My “blessings” have nothing to do with this life.

True blessings do not have anything to do with the material things in this world.

How blessed is the one whom You choose…

So if we stake our blessings on them, the things of this world, then our blessings are conditional and they are temporary. We are not to be satisfied with the goodness of our house (including all that is in it or how much land we have with it) or our temple (our bodies including our health, height, weight, or IQ)… but we are to find our satisfaction in and with HIS.

We will be satisfied with the goodness of Your house,
Your holy temple.

When we are satisfied in Him then it doesn’t matter what season we find ourselves in… because we know that He is there in it with us and we know that somehow He will show Himself glorious in it. He makes the dawn and the sunset shout for joy. The beginnings praise Him and the endings praise Him. There is reason to rejoice in every season because our blessing is in the knowledge that He has chosen us to be His. He is our trust.

When we find ourself before a mountain… a mountain that if we look at only it, there seems no way to get over it or around it… let us remember that He is the One who establishes the mountains and His grace finds us even there at the base of it.

When we find ourselves in the midst of the noise of the roaring seas and the waves crash so loud around our ears that we just want to grab our head and see if we can at least scream over their sound… let us remember that He is the One who has the power to still the seas and quiet the waves.

When we find ourselves at the base of the mountain or in the midst of the roaring seas let us remember to always breathe, just breathe… breathing in His grace… breathing out His praise… breathing in His grace… breathing out His praise… forever beloved, forever.