Friends and Refreshment

I had the pleasure of sharing lunch and fellowship with some wonderful ladies this past weekend.  We met (some of us for the first time) at a local park.  I almost didn't go because it is the end of semester for me, and I am busy completing final assignments and the weather forecast was cool with rain in the afternoon.  Sounded like a better day to stay home and clean house and work on school assignments.  As luck would have it, I had invited someone to go with me, and she called Friday evening to take me up on the offer.  I had to go now. 

Saturday morning came and, as predicted, it was cool and overcast.  The sun wasn't shining, but the Son sure did!  One of the first persons that I saw as I got out of the car was a dear friend and mentor that I don't get to spend time with these days.  She has been so instrumental in my growth as a Christian that my spirit was lifted as soon as I saw her face.  In fact, I didn't truly realize how weary I was until I saw her.  The difficult times of the past couple of years have taken a toll on my physical body and my spiritual one as well.  Don't get me wrong.  I have clung tightly to my faith in Christ, and He is the reason that I have made it through these times with a song in my heart and a hope for the future. 

Spending time with Linda reminded me that I am happiest when I am growing in Christ.  I was so hungry for knowledge and growth when she came into my life 10 years ago.  Somewhere in my struggles, my hunger was lost.  I have been surviving; I need to be thriving.  Just like the flowers in my garden, I can survive with the bare minimum, but I need fertilizer and weed control to flourish.  Attending church on Sunday and reading the occasional devotion provide me with the minimum.  Reading my Bible on a daily basis, spending time alone with Jesus and worshiping Him daily give me the weed control and fertilizer that I so need.   I didn't know that Linda would be there Saturday, but God certainly did.  I am so thankful that He knows what I need and the right time to provide it for me.  Sometimes the rest and refreshment that we need is not found at home on the couch or in our easy chair.  It is found in the face of a friend and mentor.  It is found in sharing laughter and tears with others on this journey that God has placed in our paths.  

In closing today, I encourage you to take a look at your walk with Christ.  Are you surviving or thriving?  Are you weary no matter how much you rest?  Ask God to reveal the truth in you life.  If you are surviving, pray for God to show you how to thrive.  If you are thriving, pray for God to reveal ways for you to encourage and uplift others.  If you are weary, pray that God will refresh you with His word and with time spent with awesome women of God. 

Praying that you will find all that you need and even the things that you didn't know you needed as you spend time with God this week!

Muddy Boots

We have been blessed with plenty of rain in the past couple of weeks.  I say blessed, and I mean it because we have been in a drought for some time.  I live a mile down a dirt road that was becoming very dusty!  The financial struggles my family has been facing have taken their toll on that dirt road and my driveway.  The road is riddled with pot holes and my driveway hasn't seen a load of gravel for many years.  We have known for some time that we were going to have to get gravel and do some maintenance soon, but my return to college to obtain my teaching license has put some things, like gravel, on hold.  So, the once hard and dusty road is now the muddy and wet road.  The pot holes are now large mud puddles that have overspilled their boundaries as if reaching out for one another.  I used to take solice in the the fact that the road was a mess, but my drive and the place where I parked my car remained mud free.  I used to.  I'm not sure the day that it happend.  I'm sure it happened over the course of time, but it seemed to have happened overnight!  The gravel that was there has been swallowed up by the newly softened ground and in its place is water and mud, some of which fell off of the bottom of my daughter's truck because she, unlike me, takes great joy in the newly created mud that is all around us.  As I carefully walked out to my car to go to church Sunday, I began to think about the mud.  I had to pull down to the barn to check on my daughter's baby horse (some kids bring home orphan dogs...mine brought home an orphan horse), I began to wish that I had a good pair of muddy boots.  The kind that keep your feet warm and dry on the inside no matter how muddy they get, and you just spray them off with the hose before you go into the house.  As I was driving to church thankful that I had managed to somehow keep my shoes from being covered in the mud, I realized that sin in our lives is a lot like that mud.  The longer that we stay away from God's word and His people, the dustier our spiritual road becomes.  The dust is an aggravation, but it really doesn't bog us down the way that mud does.  God loves us, so He sends some rain to wash the dust away.  Sometimes that shot of rain is all we need to motivate us to get some gravel and start filling in the pot holes.  We know that we need to make repairs before the storm comes because we know that, eventually, the storm will come.  Sometimes, however, we keep pushing the pot holes to the end of our "to do" list.  The sin that was just an aggravation grows into an all-consuming monster with a life of its own. 

I don't know where you are on your spiritual road right now.  You may have made it on up to the pavement and dusty roads are a thing of the past!  If you have, please take time to look around you.  Take a trip down a dusty road or jump into the mud to help a friend or a stranger that God puts into your path.  You didn't make it just to be able to say you made it.  You made it so that you could look a hurting soul in the eye and tell them that you know they will make it because you have been in their shoes and you made it and you will help them make it too!  Some of you may just be starting to become aggravated with all of the dust and the pot holes.  Take time before the next storm to fill in the pot holes and clean out the ditches!  If you don't know where to begin, ask God.  He will either tell you what to do or put someone in your life who will.  Some of you may have just realized that you're in mud up to your kness!  It didn't happen overnight, but, just like that mud in my parking space, you wake up one day and are struggling to even pick your feet up because the mud and the muck are weighing you down. In fact, when you finally manage to pick one leg up, you realize that your cute little sneaker is still lost in the mud! Don't dispair! You are not alone in this mud hole! Reach out and reach up to take the hand of God! He may pick you up and sit you down on the other side of the mud; I hope he does. He may, however, give you a good pair of muddy boots (a friend or a word from Him), take your hand and lead you right on thru the mud and the mess so that you learn valuable life lessons that will enable you to help others on down the road. Either way, God is not going to let you go! The rain will stop, the sun will come out and, eventually, the mud will dry up and become hard ground that you can stand upon! 

Lesson Learned

It's late, and I really should be in the bed.  I had a final project due for a class tonight so I was up late completing it.  No, I didn't wait until the last minute to do it, but it was a rather tedious assignment that I have been working on for a couple of weeks, and tonight was my night to wrap it up and turn it in.  I really should have spent more than 2 hours working on it yesterday, because wrapping it up took longer than I thought.  My grade will be less than par for me, but I discovered something very important during this assignment.  Actually, I discovered a lot, but one thing in particular is so worth sharing that I had to write about it tonight.  Here it is.  All of my life I have been blessed with the ability to do well in school.  As long as I have put forth the effort, I have been rewarded with good grades.  Well, I have put forth a lot of effort on the project that I submitted earlier tonight, and I know that my reward for this one will not be a good grade.  I know this because we have a specific grading rubric, and I know that I didn't complete all of the components of it.  Normally, I would be very disappointed with myself for not making an A, but this is one time that I am just proud that I turned something in to the teacher.  Some of my difficulties came from underestimating the scope of the project and some of them came from being a 20th century learner trying to adapt to learning in the 21st century.  I won't bore you with the details of that, but I do want to tell you a little more about what I learned.

I learned that sometimes the final grade isn't always reflective of the effort that was put forth.  I learned that the process of learning was more important for my future success as a student and teacher than the final grade on this project.  As I thought about this project and what I have learned, I was reminded of my spiritual walk and immediately God showed me something.  Hang in there as I try to explain it....this is one time when the words may not be able to work for me.  Sometimes what we see on the outside of people or the outcome of situations is not reflective of their heart for God.  You see, despite my hard work and desire to make a good grade, it just won't happen on this project, but I did have a great learning experience that won't be reflected in my grade.  Sometimes, the outcome in my life or someone else's is not what I would hope or expect.  In fact, if I had to give myself or others a grade based on what I see as the finished product, I would be giving out a lot of F's for failure.  The truth is that only God can see the finished product in the work He has started.  What looks like an F to us may not be a true reflection of the work God is doing in our own or someone else's life.  I wish that I could say that I have never looked at someone's choices and said that I would never do that or how could he/she do that, but the truth is that I have.  Somehow, in this difficult school project, God has reminded me that I shouldn't say such things because what I am seeing on the outside may not be reflective of what is going on underneath.  Sometimes the lessons that I learned on the first time take someone else two or three or four or five or even 20; it doesn't make them any less in God's eyes, and it shouldn't make them any less in mine.  I need to start looking less at the grade and more at the experience.  I need to start looking for more ways to help people instead of deciding that they can't be helped or assuming that they don't want help just because they haven't been able to "make the grade" on their own.  I need to start showing God's "students" the same grace and mercy that He shows me every day.  Now, that is a lesson learned.

Don't forget to vote!

I have had several people tell me that they are not voting.  A few of them have never voted!  A couple of them are my nieces...they weren't sure of who to vote for.....they just didn't understand the importance of voting.  As I was driving to work this morning I thought about the two service men that lost their lives in Afghanistan this past week and the hundreds of thousands more men and women who have given their lives so that we can live in a country with so many freedoms, including the right to vote.  To not take the time to research the candidates and go to the polls and vote is not only irresponsible; it is disrespectful.  Can you imagine how the families of those men and women must feel to learn that millions of Americans don't even exercise one of the liberties that their loved ones died to defend?  Don't fall prey to the cynicism of our times and think that your vote doesn't count.  Every vote counts and everyone needs to vote!  If you are registered, please take time to vote.  God bless you, and God bless America!

Sunday Morning

Have you ever noticed that the times that it is the most difficult to get to church, are the times when you feel the most blessed for showing up?  That is what happened to me this morning.  I got up early and made a pot of coffee, but decided that we would leave early enough to grab breakfast on the way to church instead of cooking.  In my mind, we would leave at 10 and have plenty of time to eat and get to church before the 10:45 start time.  Well, you know how things always seem better in your mind!?  It was 10:15 when I got everyone to come to the car to leave....and then the car didn't want to run!  My husband, who never believes me about car stuff and thinks I am a car-hypochondriac, tried to tell me that it was the battery even thought the battery was showing full charge.  I, on the other hand, insisted it was something in the fuel system; a fact he didn't want to consider because he insisted in putting the cheap gas in even after I told him that my almost 12 year old car with over 208,000 miles on it really didn't run well with cheap gas!  Anyway, after a couple of laps around the yard and several restarts down the dirt road, we made it to the gas station with Hardees attached and got "better" gas for the car and breakfast to go for everyone.  Yes, there were a few times this morning that I thought about staying home!  But, I'm so glad that I didn't!  We were only a few minutes late for church, and I had a truly awesome worship experience!  One of the songs we sang spoke of how God has never given up on me and reminded me that, no matter what mistakes I make, He never will give up on me.  What a blessing!  One that I would have missed if I had given up easily this morning.  So, the point to this is that no matter what you may be going through, remember that God never gives up on you and use that knowledge to give you hope and strength to persevere and never give up on yourself.  It is often when things are the most difficult that something amazing is just around the corner.  Hang in there!  With God, all things are possible!

Guarding Your Heart and Mind

I have often been told and heard others say that it is wise to guard your heart and your mind.  I like to tell my children in a simpler way:  if you put good things in, good things come out.  If you put trash in, trash comes out.  So, what is the best way to guard your heart and mind?  Today, some verses from Phillipians, 4:6-7 from the NLT version, were on my desk calendar.  "Don't worry about anything; instead, pray about everything.  Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done.  If you do this, you will experience God's peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand.  His peace will guard your heart and minds as you live in Christ Jesus."  Immediately I thought of all of the times that I have either been told or told others to guard their heart and mind.  This verse really spoke to me today and reminded me that God will do the hard work for us if we let Him.  We don't have to guard our hearts and minds; God will do it for us if we just let Him.  If we will just choose to spend time with Him....if we will just choose to read His word.....if we will just open our hearts and minds to Him, His peace will guard them both!  I don't know about you, but my plate is pretty full these days, so I am very happy to take this off of my "To Do" list and hand it over to God. 

What do you do?

My heart is sad tonight as my dear friend learned that she had lung cancer and is waiting for an appointment with the oncologist to discuss where to go from here.  The one spot that she new of turned into multiple spots in multiple places, and she won't know anything definite until a biopsy is done.  I still remember that crushing feeling I got when I learned that my Mom had lung cancer.  It has been 8 years, but I still remember where I was and even the time of the call.  We were so fortunate that her cancer was isolated and in only one spot when it was found.  A portion of her lung was removed, not as simple as it sounds, and the cancer had not returned.  She was spared the difficult treatments that so many with cancer have to endure.  I'm afraid that my friend will not have that option, and she will have to make some difficult decisions in the days and weeks ahead.  As much as it hurts me to think of her having to suffer, I know that this amazing woman of God will allow God to use her and this situation to inspire others.  She has already been such an inspiration to so many people in her lifetime.  As we talked tonight, she shared with me her concern for her quality of life versus her quantity of years left.  She doesn't want to spend her last days enduring treatments that make her too sick to enjoy her family if that is what she faces.  She didn't want to sound selfish.  I assured her that she didn't.  I told her that she would know what to do when it was time to make a decision because I knew that she would be talking to God about it and that He would direct her steps; she has told me this same thing many times.  Her faith in God never waivers.  She has taught me more about trusting God in the past 3 years than I learned in my entire life prior to meeting her.  Her joy is unstoppable because, as she has told me often, it comes from the Lord.  I can only aspire to have her faith and be the Godly example to others that she is to me.  So, what do you say?  What do you do when you get the news that you didn't want to hear and you certainly don't understand?  You go to God.  My desk calender today sums it up....."God, through prayer, invites you to receive of His grace and mercy whenever you are in need.  He encourages you to ask, to knock, and to call upon Him so that you may learn His will, know His heart, and receive His answers."