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I love Saturdays! It’s the one day I can wake up – stretch, grab my prayer journal, my Bible and pens and a notebook – and nearly three hours later find myself still sitting at His feet not wanting it to end. ❤️ Free from constraints of the work week, my self imposed schedules, and demands of the world – I am free and able to be lost in the wonder, love, and praise of His word and Prrsence. The house beckons for my attention – the laundry that I didn’t get finished, the patio that desperately needs power washed, the ferns that need watered – they all call my name but I push them aside – for He has drawn me in – It is SATURDAY – and I am free from their demands and I am utterly captivated by Him! 

Ladies, I’ve been running behind all week so when I wrote this in “my moments’ yesterday I didn’t think to or have time to share … not sure anyone will even see it now since by now everyone is another day ahead – but just in case someone out there ever deals with guilt or shame – I thought I would backtrack and share how God chose to use Luke 15 in my life yesterday – grace and blessings to you all ❤️12/13/2016 Tap to edit

Father, you heard me this morning – You alone know the whispers I heard from the enemy as I awoke this morning. You alone heard the lament of my heart and pen as I poured myself forth to you – the hurt of memories, the shame that flooded my soul, the guilt that sought to undo me so early in the morning – You knew and Your Spirit spoke back … Remember, you confessed those sins long ago and He was faithful and just to forgive you … Remember, there is no condemnation to those who belong to Christ Jesus … Remember, He throws your sins into the depths of the sea and remembers them against you no more … and with every whisper from the enemy, every attempt he made to wrestle me to the pit, Your Spirit spoke over the whisper with the TRUTH – the TRUTH that I have been set free, that Sin is no longer my master! Father, while these thoughts this morning shook me and surprised me – they didn’t surprise You. You knew … You knew and just minutes after i poured myself out to You – You met me there on the pages of scripture – scripture that I should have read two days ago – but instead found myself reading this morning – not by chance but because You knew I would need to remember you as the one who so long ago pursued me like the shepherd did his sheep, and like the woman looking for her coin – and You watched for me, the prodigal, You met me on the road home – celebrating my return ❤️and freeing me of my shame and guilt 🙌 what wondrous LOVE is this! Not just that You met me then – but that You met me here this morning with the reminder that I WAS lost but then was found! You have rejoiced over me – robed me in the blood of Christ – and stand with me this morning protecting me from the enemy’s accusations of guilt and shame! And to that inexplicable JOY I REJOICE as one who is FOUND and UNASHAMED❤️

In the Nicene creed study this past week – we studied how one of the jobs of the Holy Spirit is unifying believers – and the importance that plays in the role God has given us as “The Church” in this world. Unity is important and and how we respond will definitely speak volumes to unbelievers … As I began processing this Thursday night and grieved over the conflict arising from it – God took me to two examples in scripture – both of Christ – one where He ate with “sinners and publicans” and was questioned about it (Matthew 9:9-13); and then the time that he rescued a woman who would have by OT LAW been stoned to death for adultery (John 8:1-8). In both situations Christ takes the time to sit with them (“sinners”), or talk with her about her situation. In neither case did he condone what they were or the lifestyle she had chosen rather He lovingly pointed both the “sinners” and those who questioned Him to the Father ❤️ 

I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone else – but it’s what he’s given me – Bottom line for me is this – While I can’t agree with Jen and attend the marriages of my LGBT friends or agree with her that their marriages are Holy – I mean how can something that we believe to be sinful in God’s eyes be set apart for God – or considered sacred? I do however strongly AGREE with her in the fact that we are to love them! For goodness sakes we are all sinners saved by grace!!! The sinners and publican and adulterers and the divorced and the addicts and the LGBT and the myriad of other “labels” we place on ourselves or others SHOULD be loved by “the church” whether that’s in a “church” building or on the street or in our work places or neighborhoods … It’s in doing this we are loving like Christ loves and accomplishing The Fathers will ❤️ 

One other note – while we might agree or disagree with a stand someone has taken – when we plaster it all over social media I believe we do the work of God harm – for it emphasizes disunity and at best this confuses a watching world, or at worst condemns them – pushing them away from the very thing meant to save them.

For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not parish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him ❤️ John 3:16-17

We have been filled with the Holy Spirit and left here on this earth not to condemn the world but to love the world like Christ did –

See, now I’m giving you a new command – you must love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should also love each other ❤️

July 25

How can I say thank-you Father for this day? Perhaps one of the best days, longest days, quietly blessed day that I remember for a long time – a very long time – at least here at home ❤ The water, the sun, the ‘quiet’ noise of lawn mowers, children playing across the way, neighbors talking – the feel of a book in my hand, laundry going and sweat dripping.

It’s the Little Things!

Conversations by the pool with my girls, dinner prep in the kitchen, more pool time, dinner on the porch and sweet conversations – interrupted slightly by memories of Scott, but how does one have days here without that? – Anyway – one goes riding, one walking, and me – more reading by the pool – more quiet. The night grows cooler as the sun pushes further back – but then a late night swim – neighbors on their deck, children playing late into the night – Oh Yes LORD! Thank You for this very wonderful day ❤ I love you so much ❤

Father I literally run into Your presence, knowing the time ticks before me but blessed by Your Goodness to speak and intwine me in the pages of my morning devotional from One Thousand Gifts. 

You are Good!

Your words jump off the page to me – reminding me again of Your very real, very intimate, personal love! 

What a relationship we are building – You and me – Your Son the Chief Cornerstone, of course ❤ 

and then ‘brick by brick’  – these encounters – words from me – words from You – pages turning, seeds planted, watering, weeding – growing ❤ Walking and talking – long drives, silent sometme but often filled with language, anguish, tears, comfort ❤ Ah, so many different layers – some not so straight but their crookedness tells the story of the years where I veered off to the left or the right – some show cracks and crevices where I fell and You had to pick me up – but layer upon layer they are built – these years of knowing You – The Master Builder – Faithful – never walking off the job – always pursuing – always showing me how He could make it better – how we could get past the flaws and even use them to enhance the beauty – Your beauty Father – Your Face – Your grace – This morning – it’s all I see! ❤

I have to go now. I have to walk out the door into the unknown – But I’m blessed by the reminder I do not walk alone. ❤ 

IF you believe this is true then … 

What does it mean about God ?

What does it mean about You?

What does it mean about the world?

Some months ago my friend Renee introduced me to IF Equip, an online Bible study that studies passages of Scripture based on these three questions. I have been a student of the Word in some form or another for as long as I can remember. IF made it different though. IF made it real. IF  made it personal. IF makes me hunger for more.

Then … If Gathering 

One weekend … five friends … food … laughter … tears …  tissues and toilette paper when those were gone  …  more laughter … journals and pens … The Word … lots of words … sharing … conversation … brokeness … overwhelming – thought provoking words … powerful messages … God …. The Holy Spirit … Life changing …. Relationship enhancing … and so much more. 

Feed the soul … open the mind … change the heart … empower the vessel 

I haven’t blogged in forever and I don’t typically blog what others write but some messages are worth sharing and this is one of them. I wish I could say I had written it, it certainly resonated with every thing in my soul, but it is taken from a study that I am currently working through and it’s message is a great reminder, a great lesson for all believers everywhere. I hope you will take the time to read it (I tested it and it is a 7 -10 minute read), and worth every minute. I pray God will use it to sharpen us all as His vessels.

The topic of the study for this particular day was based on a passage, one of my favorites, from Isaiah 52:7-8:
How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of the herald, who proclaims peace, who brings new of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, “Your God reigns!” The voices of your watchmen – they lift up their voices, shouting for joy together; for every eye will see when the LORD returns to Zion.”

As the feet on the mountain top in Isaiah’s days were beautiful so were the feet of Paul, Timothy, and Silas in their day.
In 2 Thessalonians 3:1 we read where Paul specifically asked the believers there to pray that the message they shared would spread rapidly and be honored just as it had with them. They shared the message. “The word wasn’t going FedEx. It was going feet-first and, when not by those three pairs, by the feet of the messengers who hand-carried their letters. Dusty, blistererd, calloused, beautiful feet.” We only have to look back to Romans 10: 14-17 to remember the importance of his prayer then and now.

But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!” But not everyone welcomes the Good News, for Isaiah the prophet said, “ LORD, who has believed our message?” So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ. (‭Romans‬ ‭10‬:‭14-17‬ NLT)

“Whether or not we feel adequate for the task, we are the carriers now. We have vehicles for spreading the Word of God that our predecessors in the faith even a century ago couldn’t have imagiend. We each hold keys in our hands to the ignition of the gospel in our generation and sphere of influence.
Each day the sun comes up closer to the dawn of Christ’s coming. If the word of The Lord needed to speed ahead in Pual’s generation, how expeditious should it be in ours? These are days for deliberate acceleration. we have wheels. We have wings. We have ways. We have means. At least for now, many of us also have freedom of speech. Should that freedom be with withdrawn, we have an assurance tucked into the folds of 2 Timothy that is worthy of a standing ovation.”

“… The word of God cannot be chained!“ 2 Timothy 2:8-10 (9)

Hallelujah! “Feet can be chained, but God’s Word cannot. Believers can be bound, but God’s Word cannot. In 1573 a mother by the name of Maeyken Wens was arrested in Antwerp with other believers who refused to silence their declarations of Scripture. After she was burned at the stake, her son Adriaen, about 15 years old at the time, rummaged through the ashes that were left of his mother. There he found a telling keepsake. It was the screw they’d used to bolt her mouth shut.”

O for a thousand tongues to sing
My great Redeemer’s praise,
The glories of my God and King,
The trumphs of His grace!
My gracious Master and my God,
Assist me to proclaim,
To spread through all the earth abroad
The honors of Thy name.
Jesus! The name that charms our fear,
That bids our sorrows cease;
‘Tis music in the sinner’s ear,
‘Tis life, and health, and peace.
He breaks the power of canceled sin,
He sets the prisoner free;
His blood can make the foulest clean,
His blood availed for me.

“For every messenger silenced, another messenger spoke. In the words of Acts 12:24 ‘Then God’s message flourished and multiplied.’ That’s the beauty of gospel math. It prefers multiplication over addition.

One tongue turned into a thousand. The Word rang like a church bell from prison cells. it climbed the steepest mountaintops and crawled on bellies underground. It seeped beneath bolt-locked doors and bore holes through cement walls. It made its way to cotton fields, rice fields, and killing fields and to TV screens, laptop screens, and cell phone screens. We are the circuit runners now with a 25,000-mile marathon before us, wrapped like a belt around the bulging waistline of this planet. The job is not yet done because Christ is not yet back.
Many have not yet heard.
Many are not yet His.
We get to drive where our predecessors walked. it’s time to stomp the accelerator. We don’t have to be teachers, speakers, preachers, or communicators to become runners of the Word. We can take it with us in our bones. “For the word of God is living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of shoulder and spirit, joints and marrow” (Hebrews 4:12)Wherever we go, every word that abides in us arrives with us.” Boy, isn’t that a good reminder and reason to be hiding His Word away in our hearts, talking about it to our children, and carrying it with us wherever we go?

How about you, can you think of a few specific places you desire for the words of Christ that abide in you to arrive with you over the next month? If so it might free you up to hear these next words of this author, perhaps the most important of the entire lesson. “We don’t need all the answers to share the hope. We don’t need a class in methods to give a message. We don’t have to earn degrees in apologetics to evangelize. Filled with the ink of the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul did us an enormous favor. He put into words the things “of first importance” in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4 (3).

“… Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said, He was buried and He was raised from the dead, just as the Scriptures said.”

The author goes on to say, ” We want to spend our lives studying the Word of God. It is our daily bread. it is milk. It is meat. In the gorgeous words of Colossians 2:2-3, we want to pursue ‘all the riches of assured understanding and have the knowledge of God’s mystery – Christ.’ All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Him. … We aren’t throughly equipped for our God-ordained works with our Bibles closed (2 Timothy 3:16-17)
All we have to know to sprint off the starting block with the saving words of Christ is the thing of first improtance: Christ, the divine Son of God, came to earth and gave His life for our sins. He was raised from the dead so that we could receive eternal life. We hold fast to this testimony until our final breath. We invite others to come to know Him too through their confession of Jesus Christ as Lord and the belief in their hear that God raised Him from the dead. “‘For everyone who calls on the name of The Lord will be saved’ (Romans 10:13).

‘Everyone.’ What a spectacular word!”

Romans 10:13 leads us right back to a portion of Scripture that I pointed out earlier, and bears repeating as I wrap this up.
But how can they call on Him to save them unless they believe in Him? And how can they believe in Him if they have never heard about Him? And how can they hear about Him unless someone tells them? And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”
‭ (Romans‬ ‭10‬:‭14-15NLT)

One final word of encouragement from the author of this amazing lesson. “Since the fall of man in the garden of Eden, this earth has been riddled with thorn and thistles. The pavement gets hot. The sand, waist deep. you can get hurt out there, but here’s the thing: pretty feet are never beautiful feet.
Maybe we’ll prop them up at some point in heaven and let the swelling go down. Between now and then, tie your shoes, stretch your calves, tuck your coruage, and run your heart out with the news until the whole world knows.”

My day started with a scare as I drove to work and slid out of control after hitting a patch of black ice. Just before I would have slid over the hill the wheels quit spinning and the car was back under control – not my control – but the merciful control of God. There were two more patches along the way but none as bad as the first. My speed, of course was slowed and my awareness to the road in front of me was heightened; my heart raced both with the adrenalin that comes with the aftermath of fear and with gratefulness at the realization of Gods protective – and what I would later realize as sovereign control. A mix of snow and rain fell most of the day but visually amounted to little more than a cold, wet and dreary day – conditions I normally would have given little thought to – except for the fact that I still vividly recalled the events of the morning? The snow picked up and the temps dropped as the time drew closer for me to leave work and head to Huntington for a hair appointment. Anyone that knows me knows that I seldom, if ever, miss a hair appointment, but despite the fact that the roads looked perfectly clear, I couldn’t shake the earlier incident . I followed my ‘instincts’ (that still small voice) and cancelled the appointment and headed home. Once there, it seemed so silly to have passed on the hair appointment since the roadway was as safe as it had appeared, it wasn’t until later when I heard about a 15 car accident – on the road I would have taken and at the approximate time I would have been heading home – that I realized how God in His sovereignty had not only protected me from the near catastrophe of the morning but from what surely would have been a worse fate had I not heeded the internal voice of my faithful Shepherd.

The icing on the cake – my one word this year is faithful and today I vividly saw His faithfulness – what’s more is that my children saw it too. Throughout the evening there was much discussion of His sovereign and intimate care over us, and together we have given Him praise. To top it all off, as we opened our ninth day of Christmas adornament tonight – it was the staff, representing the Good Shepherd, and the scripture described Him faithfully and lovingly caring for His sheep . Coincidence? Not at all! It was simply the answer, with an exclamation point, to a prayer I prayed earlier this morning. I was going back to work after a nice quiet Christmas vacation,at home with my girls, so I asked Him to quiet my heart before Him and to help me be still and know that He is God. He faithfully and visibly answered – I am your God and I am with you wherever you go.❤️
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