Jesus loves me, this I know. This category is about Jesus, the Living Word, my prayers to Him, my worship of Him, His relentless pursuit of my heart and His invitation to me to come to Him in Sabbath, my Savior, my Rest.
Labor Day is a day off for the working citizens of America. Stop working. I mean it. Cease. Stop it! Quit working right now! This is a fedreally mandated day off, for crying out loud! Plus, God wants you to enjoy time off, too.
Jesus, as quoted in Matthew 11.28-30 (Amplified):
Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy-laden and overburdened, and I will cause you to rest. [I will ease, and relieve and refresh your souls.]
Take My yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am gentle (meek), and humble (lowly) in heart, and you will find rest (relief, and ease and refreshment and recreation and blessed quiet) for your souls.
For My yoke is wholesome (useful, good – not harsh, hard, sharp or pressing, but comfortable, gracious and pleasant), and My burden is light and easy to be borne.
My initial reactions are rage and disappointment. My first responses are deep grief and sadness, even anger. What are you thinking? What have you done? What happened?
Yet, I tread carefully. I start to judge you, lash out and condemn you in my mind, but I must not. Judge not that ye be not judged...It is not my place. And truthfully, any temptation to judge causes me to see my own sin and failure so vividly, I dare not go there. But what is this I feel, this nauseousness, this suffocating ache?
I grieve for the One who has blessed you with every good and spiritual gift, the One who made sure there was a way out of temptation, though you didn’t appropriate it…I grieve for the one who has walked beside you these many years and made you a better man and brought you honor in the city gates, covering you with her love and grace…I grieve for the three for whom, you having given the devil a foothold, will battle the enemy’s territorial claim on their souls and hearts. I grieve that you have removed the covering of covenant from your family and the wife of your youth and pitched your tent in enemy territory. I grieve for the pain of the ripped one-flesh.
When did sin take such a hold it made sense to you? Has there been unfinished adolescent business? Is there a wound you are trying to salve?
How have you justified this in your mind and heart? How have you calculated the cost, the sadness and the pain on your family, the church, your friends and sphere of influence, and reconciled it as being worth it?
What are you doing, man who has received the full grace of God for so long and in so many ways, son of a holy man, to repair the heart-wrenching, seemingly endless agony you have caused?
I grieve.
And I mourn.
I mourn for the anguish you are bearing, though it is of your own doing. Sometimes we hurt ourselves more than we do anyone else. I mourn for the distance you must be feeling right now from Father, though God promised to never leave us or forsake us, we find it hard to look at Him when we have taken an unholy path. I mourn for the damage this will do to your relationships with the ‘arrows of your quiver’ – your true heritage from God. I lament over the loss of holy love and weep over the consequences you’ll endure for your choices, however beautifully graced this may become, there will be a bitter fruit you must taste. There will be lasting evidence that effects all goings-forward.
On that sunny day in May, so many years ago, The Message, in Malachi, tells us:
…God was there as a witness when you spoke your marriage vows to your young bride, and now you’ve broken those vows, broken the faith-bond with your vowed companion, your covenant wife. God, not you, made marriage. His Spirit inhabits even the smallest details of marriage. And what does he want from marriage? Children of God, that’s what. So guard the spirit of marriage within you…God-of-the-Angel-Armies says, “I hate the violent dismembering of the ‘one flesh’ of marriage.” So watch yourselves. Don’t let your guard down. Don’t cheat.
God is the witness to the union, just as He is the witness on your behalf against the enemy. He is the One who formed you and created you with His intent in mind. He created and chose you – do you comprehend the miracle of this?
And so, because I have needed grace so desperately so much in my life, because Jesus has shown us that only he who is without sin may cast the first stone and that is not me, I am praying for you. I am praying that you will get wisdom and go after it with all your might! I am praying you will flee from the enemy and run to the Hiding Place. I am crying out to God to save you from that enemy, and from yourself (when you are own worst enemy). I pray you will repent fully and humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. I pray that you will experience a brokenness that knocks the wind from your body, a crushing that will release the power and presence of God into this situation. I pray you will let the Truth set you free, no matter how much that hurts or embarrasses you.
I pray that soon, you will be the free-est man I know, whole and restored, in spite of yourself.
I have you in my heart forever. You’ll always be the one who refreshed and welcomed me when I needed it so much. It is not forgotten and I want to offer you the same, with love…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Isn’t exposing sin and holding each other accountable to God’s grace (even if some one doesn’t want us to) more important than letting the enemy wreak havoc? Try to figure this out…
When you blog, there are “robots” out there crawling around on their slimy underbellies looking for places to deposit sick and disgusting “comments” with links to their perverted websites. These “comments” are generally 3872+ words long and they are all bad words, combinations, however, of the same limited, vile vocabulary used repeatedly ad naseum . So actually there are only about 78 words. They are just “creatively” re-arranged for “impact.”
Usually I just get rip-roaring ticked off, like how dare you crawl onto my site and leave this pile of donkey dung, but today, for just a moment I looked at it and had to laugh at the stupid nincompoop who sat and typed all that stuff out. It is every dumb, degrading, distorted and naughty word a 12-year-old boy heard on a bus and tried to impress his friends by repeating.
And people choose to make their living this way? I feel sorry for them because I heard all these words years ago and they can’t seem to come up with anything new for their own specialty lexis. What size must your brain be (and any of the other random parts of you that you seem to wish to discuss) if that is all that is in there?
Shut. up.
The thrill is gone, my friends, gone. You’re out of words, so shut up already! No amount of stringing these objectionable obscenities together can reward you with the pleasure and joy of discovery for the pure-hearted innocent. You wish you had what they have!
Stay off my site, you freaking idiots!What would your mother say? Sincerely…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Use words to bring life. “May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be pleasing in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer…” Psalm 19.14 NIV. Maybe I shouldn’t have called these people “freaking idiots”?
Heather and I commented on Chapter Ten here. Amy Jo shared her thoughts on both Chapters 10 and 11 here. And now our good friend, Candi shares some insights she has received from Chapters 10 and 11: “On the Road,” and “Desert Communion – Learning to Live on Heaven’s Shores” and I add my 2-cents’ worth on Chapter 11.
pictured: Heather and her family and Amy Jo and her husband
We are nearing the end of the book, The Sacred Romance~Drawing Closer to the Heart of God by John Elderidge and Brent Curtis. We have all been reading the book and jotting down our reactions and thoughts to share with you. I am glad to know some of you have read the book along with us and even though you didn’t necessarily wish to “tell all” via the blog, it has been good to hear how God has reaffirmed His love to you through the reading. If you want to re-cap where we started and see how far we have come during our “summer romance”, just click on the “Sacred Romance” category link on the left, or here to get you started.
Candi picks up at Chapter 10: I’ve been away from The Sacred Romance for awhile. Not THE Sacred Romance, but the book. In fact, although I’ve been out of the book I have completely had THE Sacred Romance on my mind the whole time. As I reread Chapter 10 (I’ve read it about 4 times now) I’m realizing that I AM starting to view things differently, from a different perspective. It is all about “wondering what God is up to in all of this.” Pg 145.
I’m ready for the Journey. From Pg. 149, “So much of the journey forward involves a letting go of all that once brought us life. We turn away from the familiar abiding places of the heart, the false selves we have lived out, the strengths we have used to make a place for ourselves and all our false loves, and we venture forth in our hearts to trace the steps of the One who said, ‘Follow me.’ In a way, it means that we stop pretending: that life is better than it is, that we are happier than we are, that the false selves we present to the world are really us.”As I prepare for the journey (finally!) I’m looking back at the many times I’ve desired to go on it but for various reasons have not completely surrendered to it. I’m starting to analyze past situations, relationships, thoughts, “Nits”, and my roles in them for what many of them really were, but I’m also asking what God’s real purpose is in all of this. It’s really been a path to discovery more than a hard road. And it’s all leading me to Jesus!
About 3 years ago I started realizing that my focus for salvation was for what I could get (the streets of gold!) rather than really desiring and fostering a relationship with God. A dear spiritual teacher (MaryJean!) gave me this and I pass it along because it really was the beginning to my Sacred Romance with Jesus:
It’s not healing I need – It’s the healer.
It’s not help I need – It’s the helper.
It’s not comfort I need – It’s the comforter.
It’s not teaching I need – It’s the teacher.
It’s not provision I need – It’s the provider.
It’s not protection I need – It’s the defender.
It’s not strength I need – It’s the strong one.
I don’t need to get a life; I need life, HIMSELF.
On Chapter 11: Now I find myself at a time of desert communion. I understand this as the path that I’ve been on from reading this. Had I written on this a month ago I wouldn’t have had much application. Just this past month my husband and I have completely stepped out of ministry at our church. A couple years ago our church faced a “perfect storm” scenario that if it wasn’t for God’s will and power I know it may not have survived. At times like this God calls you to help man the ship although you may not be the best sailor. You do the best you can through obedience knowing that He will provide the sails. Well, through God’s glory there has been much healing and the church is sailing on much more secure waters.
My husband and I were still a part of the crew. However, we were still feeling caught up in the “doing” of it all. I was trying to seek God in the aftermath, but too busy to really hear Him. Isn’t it funny we were “doing” church things? And so, for our various reasons we have stopped everything. In this break, I’m asking myself, “Is my identity synonymous with activity?” Pg. 163. “Am I experiencing my spiritual life not as a love affair, but as burdensome, heavy, exhausting and alien?” Pg. 165.
Jesus’ answer is this:
“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Matt. 11:28-30)
“Only Christ can carry us to rest. The kinds of ‘doing’s’ we have learned are not weighty enough to allow us to walk in the spiritual fields of the kingdom of God.” Pg. 169.
My next destination on my journey, I now know, is to “give up everything else but Him. We experience the freedom of knowing that he simply loves us where we are. We begin to just be, having our identity anchored in him. We begin to experience our spiritual life as the ‘easy yoke and light burden’ Jesus tells us is his experience.” Pg. 175.
Lord, I pray that I am always “hearing” your soft whisper and in turn whispering back to you. Forgive me for not always making our desert communion the focus of my spiritual walk, and instill in me a repentant attitude. Bring healing, rest, focus, and peace at this time, so I can serve once again with my whole heart to glorify your Name.
My turn on Chapter 11 (Jeanie):This chapteris about learning to rest in God and His unbridled love for us as we follow Christ’s own tradition (as well as early church “Desert Fathers”) to pull away from the restlessness and activity of life into the “spiritual disciplines of silence, solitude, meditation (heart prayer), fasting and simplicity” (Mark Buchanan includes these in his “holy habits” in the book, Your God is too Safe).
The author talks about that place when you really stop for just a minute, when you have pulled your heart away from your adrenalin-addicted, activity captivity and your heart tells you how truly tired and burdened and worn down you are. He said, “…it is of no use to ask God to give us energy to make our way back up the cliff over which we have fallen.” I had to laugh at that because I have tried. Lord knows I have prayed and prayed (God, heal me, give me energy to do kingdom work, yada yada yada) and made all my friends pray it, too!
But I love the prayer in the book, “Jesus, help me. All my lovers have failed me. Forgive me. I cannot quench my thirst. Give me the water of life.” It is prayer God can answer in the deep places of our hearts. And He’ll tell us, “Go, and sin no more.”
I’ve most recently been overwhelmed in the tiniest beginning of understanding about the Father-Heart of God towards me. And in that, God is practically leading me through verdant woodlands of his love, green lush life and babbling brooks of refreshment, a recognition that all He has is mine because, and simply because, I am His child. He is a few steps ahead and spreading the branches so I can navigate this place of purity and life. I keep getting glimpses, as He is calling me toward Himself, right over here, Jeanie, come on, and I can see my true homeland just beyond in fleeting moments. Just a few more steps and I may actually get this thing…
But I backslide. I slide back into thinking I need to impress Him with my righteousness or my work for Him or by “paying my own way.” Wait – the branches just moved. He keeps wooing me. My Father loves me. It is OK for me to go into the desert with Him. It is OK not to have an answer when some one wonders what all I have been “doing” for Him. He calls us to the Secret Place.
I so enjoyed the author’s word pictures describing the intimate and wild-love of the Song of Solomon in direct contrast to the imaginary couple at a sidewalk cafe, where as the bride-to-be is talking about her excitement for the upcoming wedding and how she can’t wait to get to know her lover better and be with him more and experience true intimacy, he, a cad, tells her, “I’ll send you a book that describes more about my life. I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of it,” and “…I’d like to send you to a weekend seminar [about intimacy with me] and that should be very helpful.” The writers pointed out that that is the way we very often carry on our love affair with God. When in reality, the conversation would be more like that in The Song of Songs, which everybody knows is some pretty hot talk! But on page 161 when the writer is explaining that God isn’t giving us this glimpse through the bedroom window at the love affair between Solomon and the Queen of Sheba just to be voyeuristic (but rather to realize that “this is the kind of passion He feels for us and desires from us in return”),I had to laugh!
It turns out I am, indeed, the Queen of Sheba! Spiritually speaking, of course, and you are, too!
Sincerely Yours, The Queen of Sheba, aka…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: So grateful for the friends who have so openly shared the glimpses of God’s work in their lives through their responses to this book. That ain’t always easy!
Sorry the quality is low on this graphic. But hopefully you can see what we’re looking for: new or nearly new Bibles, Children’s Bibles, Bible Dictionaries, Concordances, Bible Commentaries – those that you bought but just sit there on the shelf because you have a different favorite. If you have any of these that you’d like to see go to making an impact, GWO is taking a truckload down next month to supply the pastors and people of this four-corners, thousands of square miles Navajo Reservation. This was the thing they said they most needed at this time: Bibles!
C’mon, do you really need 11 copies of the NIV on your shelf?
Contact me if you’d like more information or have Bibles to donate. I’ll be happy to get them to Get the Word Out/Mary Jean.Hey-see if your church would send out an e-blast and gather a load this Sunday or next???
That post title, my friends, was just one of the amazing “thought-questions”posed in Mark Batterson’s upcoming tome.
I put aside both of the books I had been reading and skipped over the one I was suppose to start next to read a pre-released copy of Batterson’s Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God. Once I picked it up for a quick perusal, I was hooked.
He explains the title:
Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit–An Geadh-Glas, or ‘the Wild Goose.’ The name hints at mystery. Much like a wild goose, the Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger, an air of unpredictability surround Him. And while the name may sound a little sacrilegious, I cannot think of a better description of what it’s like to follow the Spirit through life. I think the Celtic Christians were on to something…
The author contrasts animals he got to observe living wild and free while in the Galapagos Islands (which he described as “Edenic” and a place that caused him to feel a great affinity to Adam) in contrast to those he was observing in a zoo a couple of months later. No matter how you slice it, those zoo animals are caged. The whole book plays off the premise that we live our lives in 6 “cages”: responsibility (where God-passions get buried beneath day-to-day living), routine (following our plans, never seeing another way), assumptions (those truths you begin to believe such as I could never…, I can’t…, I’m not…when you are living from your left-brain memory rather than your right-brain imagination). Then there are the cages of guilt (defeat over all our past sin and missteps), failure (doesn’t this one stink?? – trying and failing stops us from ever trying again), and finally the cage of fear (living life on the defense rather than the offense) and goes on to explore both Biblical and modern-day people who were able to break free of those confines.
Each chapter is complete and very-good-sermon-like, but Mark Batterson ties them all very well together as he leads us on the chase for the Wild Goose, living a life of adventure by the leading of the Holy Spirit.
It’s an easy and quick read, with great humor, some interesting character study and poignant story-telling. It’s kind of like Eldridge’s Journey of Desire or The Sacred Romance, but waaaaaaay shorter and more quickly to the point. He writes in a relaxing, conversational way that was not only engaging for the reading, but seemed to invite me into prayer as I read. That is probably what surprised me the most: how much I was drawn into an awareness of the Presence and His leading as I was reading. Batterson really had a way of posing thoughtful questions that immediately caused me to want to hear from God on the issue or confess and repent or ask for an answer or pray a commitment or something. I prayed my way through most of the book. Laughed and cried, too.
In that regard, I wholly recommend this book. It isn’t about earth-shattering new revelation necessarily, but it is a call to that which the Spirit of God speaks to us constantly and we often ignore – due to life’s “cages.” That is why it rings so true, I guess, and why my heart took a fancy to the book, the idea and the call to chase the Wild Goose. http://chasethegoose.com
Read it!…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: I am part of something bigger and more important than me: the cause of Christ for this generation.
SOME THINGS I UNDERLINED FROM THE FIRST HALF OF THE BOOK:
We try to make God fit within the confines of our cerebral cortex. We try to reduce the will of God to the logical limits of our left brain. But the will of God is neither logical nor linear. It is downright confusing and complicated. p.2
A part of us feels as if something is spiritually wrong with us when we experience circumstantial uncertainty…But [it] goes by another name: adventure. p. 2
…inverted Christianity. Instead of following the Spirit, we invite the Spirit to follow us. p. 4
…as I looked through the protective Plexiglas window at a four-hundred-pound caged gorilla: I wonder if churches do to people what zoos do to animals. p. 5
Just like the rich young ruler, we have a choice to make…We can stay in our cage, end up with everything and realize it amounts to nothing. Or we can come out of our cage and chase the Wild Goose. p. 10
Chapter Two: Goose Bumps p. 15
A few years ago I figured out how I want to die. p. 15
But I do want to die doing what I love. I am determined to pursue God-ordained passions until the day I die. p. 16
Start praying. Prayer makes us spiritually fertile. And the more we pray, the more passionate we become. Our convictions grow stronger and our dreams grow bigger. p. 26
When Christianity turns into a noun, it becomes a turnoff. Christianity was always intended to be a verb. p. 29
I don’t want to do things I am capable of doing. Why? Because then I can take credit for them. I want to see God do things in me and through me that I am absolutely incapable of so I can’t possibly take credit for them. p. 35
Concerning Nehemiah: If you are faithful in Babylon, God will bless you in Jerusalem. p. 40
Have you ever experienced an epiphany – a moment when God unexpectedly and unforgettably invaded the monotony of your life…The Celtic Christians referred to these kinds of moments – moments when heaven and earth seem to touch – as thin places. Natural and supernatural worlds collide. Creation meets creator. Sin meets grace. Routine meets the Wild Goose. p. 46
One name for God in Rabbinical literature is The Place. p. 47
Altars help us remember what God doesn’t want us to forget. They give us a sacred place to go back to. p. 48
change of place + change of pace = change of perspective p. 50
I know from experience that you can do the work of God at a pace that destroys the work of God in you. p. 53
Sabbath… creates a holy margin in our lives…The word Sabbath means “to catch one’s breath.” p. 54
Hurry kills everything from compassion to creativity. p. 57
We need to quit praying out of memory and start praying out of imagination. p. 60
Has God ever called you to throw something down? Something in which you find your security or put your identity? It’s awfully hard to let go, isn’t it? It feels like you are jeopardizing your future. And it feels like you could lose what is most important to you. But that is when you discover who you really are. p. 65
You have to be willing to let go of an old identity in order to take on a new identity. p. 66
Pride is offended when assumptions are challenged. Humility welcomes the challenge because the desire to know God is greater than the need to be right. p. 75
It’s never too late to become who you might have been. p. 79
This is a BEFORE and AFTER video, an extreme makeover that counts.
Before watching-keep in mind that this video is a local church thing and was originally used before taking an annual offering, I think. But no matter how you watch it-it is powerful. It’s basically a bunch of people lining up to give their “cardboard testimonies” on one side of a piece of cardboard telling who they once were. The other side proclaims who they are now in Christ. I cry everytime I watch it and it inspires me to look at people, really look at them – even when they are being the most annoying of Christians and wonder “What is your story, anyway? How did Jesus Christ change you? What did He rescue you from?”
The two that get me the most are the brain tumor and the couple who couldn’t have children.
I am trying to think about what mine might be.
Maybe, side one: rule-following, religious, pious, rage-filled church girl. Side two: exposed, accepted in the Beloved, dancing and singing, joyous worshipper.
Fun activity: Go to www.biblegateway.com (I LOVE this site!) and choose a book of the Bible. Turn up the speakers and let Max McClean read it to you. Have some paper and a pen and just write the phrases (don’t take dictation) that stand out to you – words that sizzle and pop in your heart!
Today I listened to a book with 6 chapters. You could listen and hear a totally different message, but you can see, for me, with a lifelong history and struggle with ‘fear of man’ (approval addiction, craving affirmation, jumping through people’s insatiable hoops, strong need to please) the power-phrases are about living to please God and God alone. In this book, the church was being led back into bondage through the issue of circumcision, but in our day it can be a prayer meeting (people either inviting you and treating you like less of a Christian if you don’t go, or even being told there is a prayer meeting going on that you are not invited to because it is only for deep intercessors) or your giving record or your church attendance or serving or lack thereof, really, any psuedo-super-spiritual way one Christian uses to make another feel less holy, condemned, enslaved. But here, God is saying You’re free. You’re a child and heir to the Promise, born to a free woman. Live a life of faith expressed in love. Receive grace and walk in the Spirit (not man-made law and control). There is good fruit there!
Guess which book of the Bible I was hearing and receiving….
sent not FROM men nor BY men…grace and peace from God and Jesus…who gave Himself to RESCUE us…I am astonished…you’ve turned to a different gospel…if anybody is preaching a different gospel – let him be eternally condemned…I received by revelation from Jesus…zealous…I did not consult any man…I went in response to a revelation…sent to spy on the freedom we had…to those who seemed to be important – they meant nothing to me…recognized the grace given to me…REMEMBER THE POOR…afraid of those who belonged to the circumcision…faith IN Jesus Christ, not by observing the law…If I rebuild what I destroyed I prove I am a lawbreaker…Who has bewitched you?…Are you trying to attain your goal by human effort?…believers are children of Abraham…The righteous will live by faith…Christ became a curse for us…To Abraham and his seed – one person, Christ…the law did not do away with the promise…the law…was because of transgressions…if a law had been given that could impart life…locked up until faith should be revealed…Baptized INTO Christ…Abraham’s seed and heir according to the promise…full rights as sons…no longer a slave, but a son, an heir…WHY ARE YOU TURNING BACK TO THOSE WEAK AND MISERABLE PRINCIPLES?…What has happened to all your joy?…zealous…for no good…It is fine to be zealous provided the purpose is good…slave woman – free woman…The women represent two covenants…(Be glad, o barren woman, Is. 54)…YOU…are children of PROMISE…we are NOT children of the slave woman, but of the FREE WOMAN…it is FOR FREEDOM that Christ has set us FREE…you have fallen away from grace…the ONLY thing that counts is FAITH expressing itself in LOVE…as for those [circumcision] agitators, I wish they would go the whole way and emasculate themselves…live by the Spirit and you’ll not gratify the desires of the sinful nature…but the FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT IS…Keep in step with the Spirit…
His yoke IS easy and His burden IS light. Just trying to keep in step with the Spirit today, joyfully, freely…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Lift my standards and demands off people’s necks, too, so they can stay free. If I am requiring anything of them God doesn’t, I become the ‘bewitcher’ – the yoke-inducing controller and manipulator, the one Paul curses to eternal damnation for preaching any other gospel…
Several of my family left Friday for the Home of Refuge in Venezuela. Our deal is: if they go, I pray. There is an awesome group of 11 who went including Mary Jean (my co-mother-in-law) and Tredessa who are leading the group, my baby girl, Stormie, my niece, Elise, and Stef, who worked so hard alongside us for Heaven Fest that I have practically adopted her.
Here are some things you can join with me in praying about as they are already there and hard at work:
That the kids in the neighboring village will hear the good news of Christ and be eternally impacted through the day camp they are having.
For wisdom and guidance for Mary Jean and Tredessa in leading this team of 9 young adults. Pray Ephesians 1.17-19 for them and for Tony & Rosa, the leaders fo HOR in Venezuela and Honduras.
For supernatural energy coming off of these busy last few months, and especially just following Heaven Fest-during which almost every single member of the team was intricately involved.
For unity as a team. No offense or problems.
That God would awaken His vision and unique calling for every team member on this trip.
Pray for the physical health of each team member – with all the change, demand and even shock that a mission trip can bring, a vulnerability is created which wears down the physical body. Also, the heat and humidity can be draining. Pray for wisdom for each of them – that they would listen to their bodies and take proper care of themselves. At least 2 team members were dealing with health issues before going. Also, the scheduleis to be very demanding.
Inflation is completely out of control in Venezuela. The rental for an OLD bus – and gas at 18 cents a gallon – is costing $1000 one way. 1 chicken (for dinner) costs $30. Pray for continued provision.
They are focusing their efforts on leadership development of the older kids at HOR. The kids will be assisting the team in running a 3 hour/day “camp” for the younger kids at HOR plus the kids in the surrounding neighborhood.
Venezuela has passed some new laws which make the country more tight, more controlled, more corrupt and more dangerous. Pray for safety and freedom from harm.
I miss you, my ones, but I also hear your cry toward heaven to be sent out. He has sent you and so I pray…Jeanie aka mom
NOTE TO SELF: “May the Lamb who was slain receive the reward of His suffering,” (the Moravian cry). Those sweet orphans are His reward.
Here is why I thought I was having a really tough and crappy day the other day. Within about 4 hours, I had spoken very harshly to some one I thought was being disrespectful to me, walked up on some one talking very loudly on the phone about how dissatisfied she was with certain arrangements about our ministry I was in charge of and had some one try to apologize to me for wronging me when I was unaware and in the attempt to make it right-just bungled it, which is almost the only way it could have gone because of the intensity of the day and my own fatigue. I got ignored by some one who shouldn’t have, spoken to condescendingly, which hurt my pride and had to deal with some one who has been hard to deal with. I got a lecture using scripture to really make me feel like poo and I just thought Can I get some covering here today? Yikes! Can I just get some protection, for crying out loud?
I have to be honest – I was tired. I was deep-into-the-bone tired. I was sensitive, raw and on edge over a million tiny HF details. Things that should have been done in my mind were far from it and it was heavy on my head. I just wanted some relief to get to enjoy the process after a year of preparations and instead was rushing to complete the irritating minutia, stuff that was suppose to be done a month ago. I was a big fat crap head. And very teary.
I spent most of the rest of the day walking around avoiding eye contact to try to protect myself from any possible further “abuse.” And feeling sorry for myself.
It was such obvious enemy distraction. I knew there was too much at stake to stay there. God doesn’t allow that in me. Man, He is tough.
All night long, I wrestled in prayer. I needed to sleep, but God was intent on talking with me. And do you know what He made me focus in on? Do you think it was the people I regarded as out of line, rude, ungodly? Do you think He’d let me hone in on being ignored and maligned by some one who should have known better? Do you think he was showing me that their opinions don’t matter because He loves me or that He would bring fire on their heads in my defense?
No. Nope. No way.
All He would talk about with me was how I hurt some one I love by my harsh words. All we could “discuss” as I tossed and turned were my actions.
The other people? He told me they were His problem and to understand that He will deal with the things they do. He gave me some insight on their behavior as reflective of personal issues and insecurities. I had to feel some compassion about that, but (because I am a big, fat crap head) I’d love to say, “Get over it-grow up!” But you know what? God and a gazillion other people could say that right back to me, people that I NEED grace from constantly. “None of your business,” He told me about other’s behaviors.
So, God makes me behave. He calls me to kindness.
But what about them, Lord? How come they can act like that?
Not your problem. Look at yourself. You be kind. You follow Me. You be nice. You talk nice. And you apologize for your unkind words, humbly – do it!
I have got to tell you – nice is not in my nature. I really don’t have a “nice gene.” But there is nothing like being required by God to apologize for my own behavior to motivate me to want to understand the power of being kind, of just being nice. Seriously.
So, I am praying that God will teach me to be clothed in kindness. I am asking Him to help me see people beyond the exterior as the valuable people they are. I want to see everyone I meet as people to whom I can express kindness – whether they reject or receive it. I want to be so kind in my deeds and words that I actually call forth the best from people, the greatness of who they really are. And I want to do it knowing that God will keep the score, even if I never know, and that is enough. I want to hear what He is requiring from me:
Just be nice, for crying out loud.
Ok, Lord, I am working on it. Keep me in the process…Jeanie
NOTE TO SELF: Express kindness even in the face of rejection or unkind treatment.
