What if?...(again)

I was thinking again, this morning, of what I want my life to look like and what steps I need to take to make these changes.   

Not to keep reposting old posts, but here is another post from my past that I remembered and wanted to share with you all.  I don't claim to have all the answers, but I do know that asking questions is a good place to start with change.

Click HERE to read the post in its entirety.

Below is the major portion of my blog:

A book that Abby lent us has definitely fueled our conversations. It is called Simple Spirituality. I highly recommend it to anyone who does not want to be “comfortable”; somebody who wants to be challenged in their spiritual walk and think more about how we as rich Christians should address our brothers and sister who live in poverty. 

A passage from Isaiah has also continually puzzled and challenged us. Here is the passage, from Isaiah 58:

2 Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God. 

3 “Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice? Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers.

4 Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to strike with a wicked fist. Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high.

5 Is this the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes? Will you call this a fast, a day acceptable to the Lord?

6 Is not this the fast that I choose:
To loose the bonds of injustice,
To undo the thongs of the yoke,
To let the oppressed go free,
And to break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, 
and bring the homeless poor into your house; 
when you see the naked, to cover them , 
and not to hide yourself from your own kin?

What is God saying here? What does this look like in the 21st century? Is it possible that as Christians, God is asking us to do more than go to church once a week and give a tithe? We have been asking God to show us what this means. How do we “loose the bonds of injustice” or “break every yoke?” 

I started to imagine what this might look like. What if…

Instead of thinking that adoption is only for those who cannot have children, every Christian saw it as an alternative to abortion, a ministry, a way to personally affect someone for Jesus? Fact: If only 7% of the world’s Christians would adopt a child the orphanages of the world would be empty. Also see James 1:27

Instead of adorning our churches with fancy decorations, we gave the money to poorer churches for their needs, or even to homeless and starving families? James 2: 5,15,16,Romans 12:13

Instead of thoughtlessly piling our food on our plates and eating until we can hardly walk, we spent some time at a soup kitchen or homeless shelter…and learned what it means to be truly thankful? 1 Thessalonians 4: 18, Colossians 3:17

Instead of building a bubble around our family, we learned about persecuted Christians in other countries and taught our children to pray for them? Hebrews 13: 3

Instead of building big churches, we had only house churches, and the money we saved could be used to support our brothers and sisters in need? 1 Timothy 6:6-10

Instead of mothers competing against each other through their children, they became like true sisters, encouraging each other and praying for one another? Philippians 1:27, Ephesians 4:1-3, 1 John 4:20, I Peter 4:8, Titus 2:3-5, I Corinthians 10:24

Instead of tearing down masculinity and waffling on family issues, churches powerfully and practically supported the men and their marriages? 1 Peter 5: 1-3, James 5:16, Titus 2: 2, 6, Ephesians 5: 25-31

Instead of believing that war is the only option, we truly believed that Love overcomes all things? 1 John 4:4, 8 and 5: 3-5, 1 Corinthians 13:8,13, Romans 8:31,37

Instead of criticizing our leaders and fighting each other along political lines, we remember that our kingdom is not of this world and we pray for those in authority over us? 1 Peter 2:13, Romans 13:1,2

Instead of spending on our money on beautifying large houses in the suburbs, going on expensive vacations, making payments on luxurious vehicles and buying a new wardrobe every season, we lived more simply and directed the money towards people who don’t know where their next meal will come from? 1 Timothy 6:6-10, Colossians 3:2,3, James 2:14-17

Instead of thinking that evangelism is only the work of missionaries, we resolved to get to know our neighbors, our co-workers, and to walk alongside them and possibly even tell them about Jesus? I John 3: 18, James 4:12, 

What would this world look like? 

A repost about Love

After writing my last blog, I was thinking of what is truly important in this life, and was reminded of a post I had written several years ago in 2009, concerning love, and what it might look like.

Here is the excerpt:

I heard God tell me, “It doesn’t matter if you attend a million-member church, or wear designer clothes. If you don’t have love, then you have nothing.” 

It doesn’t matter if I am a supermom and can bake all kinds of goodies, home school seven children and keep a nice garden…if I don’t have love, than I have nothing. 

It doesn’t matter if I move half-way across the world to become a missionary and minister to the poor….if I don’t love, than I have nothing. 

It doesn’t matter if I am a pastor or an amazing speaker and people want to read my books or blogs…if I don’t have love, I have nothing. 

It doesn’t matter if I have a business, serve on several committees and have appointments every night of the week….if I don’t have love, than I have nothing. 

It doesn’t matter if I’m a worship leader or travel the nations and lead healing and deliverance teams…if I don’t have love, I have nothing. 

God was telling me that none of my efforts really matter if I don’t love or have love. Like the Bible says, if I know and understand all mysteries, but have not love, I have nothing. If I have prophetic powers and have faith so as to move mountains but have not love, I have nothing. 

So of course I asked God, Well, what is love? And I only had to continue reading a few verses down to see that 

Love is patient, 

love is kind

love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude

Love does not insist on its own way

love is not irritable or resentful

Love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things

Love never fails

You can read the entire post HERE.

Bring on the new year!

This past year was a year of many changes for us: changes in jobs, living situations, schools...it felt like just about everything but family, thankfully.  We started the year with a very specific life plan and have ended the year looking deeply into the unknown.

My hubby and I just finished going through the devotional Moments with You, by Dennis and Barbara Rainey (excellent devotional book for couples, by the way!), and the last devotional of the year was thought provoking and quite suitable for our family.  You might say it is our family's theme this coming year.  The devotional talked of trusting God, in day and night, and quoted the first four lines of a poem, as seen below.

The lines are from the poem "The Gate of the Year", written in 1908 by Minnie Louise Haskins:

And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: 

“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”

And he replied:

“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God. 

That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”

So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night. 

And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.

So heart bestill:

What need our little life

Our human life to know,

If God hath comprehension?

In all the dizzy strife

Of things both high and low,

God hideth His intention.

God knows. His will

Is best. The stretch of years

Which wind ahead, so dim

To our imperfect vision,

Are clear to God. Our fears

Are premature; In Him,

All time hath full provision.

Then rest: until

God moves to lift the veil

From our impatient eyes,

When, as the sweeter features

Of Life’s stern face we hail,

Fair beyond all surmise

God’s thought around His creatures

Our mind shall fill.

Happy New Year!

I am ME

I am me and you are YOU.


God created me to be....me.  He did not create me to be just like Mary, or Sue, or Jane. 


He does not expect me to be somebody I am not.


How often I have admired other women, for their creative energies, domestic diva prowess, baking abilities, wise character, and so forth.  I am blessed to know a host of beautiful women, both inside and out.  And how quickly that admiration has turned into self-condemnation, the voices asking me, taunting me, Why am I not like that?  


Why cannot I be more like them? 


Have more energy?


Be more organized?


Be more spontaneous?


Cook gourmet meals?


Speak more words of wisdom?


Laugh more?


Need less sleep?


Be more creative?


Be more time-efficient?


Be more extroverted?


Spend more time with God?


Not be stressed with only 3 children?


and on, and on, it goes.....there is no end to the introspection.  There never will be, if truth be told, because I am a truly flawed and imperfect person, whom God loves, and has loved, since the beginning of time.

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

~ Romans 5:8

Meditate on that for a moment.

God loved me, before I started trying to be good, before I even knew that I was a sinner.  He loved me, loves me still, with ALL my faults.

If God can accept me as I am, loving me fully, can I not accept myself, and love myself for who He has made me?

I am NOT stating that we should never strive to be better, to become more like Him. Indeed, while He loves us as we are, He encourages us to be holy, as He is holy.  However, self-condemnation will never get us closer to Him. It only alienates us, from Him and from others.

There is a difference between striving to be more like God because we are in a relationship with Him and viewing others' gifts as an excuse to beat ourselves up.  God asks that we look to HIM, not others, as our example.  He needs to be our model.  

Remember, other people are not as flawless as you might think *wink, wink*

Scripture and a Snapshot

 “For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 

²⁶ Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? 

²⁷ And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? 

²⁸ And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin, 

²⁹ yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these. 

³⁰ But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you?You of little faith! 

Jesus - Matthew 6:25 - 30

There are many passages in the Bible that are daily applicable to my life, the above being one of them.  How often I read Jesus' words, nod my head and accept their quiet authority, and then not many days later, I realize that, once again, I have taken to worrying and carrying the heavy burdens of life.  How easily His truths slip through my fingers and steal away!  

God, grant that I may truly know you as my Provider of all things.

Scripture and a Snapshot (June 13)

This lovely bird sat right outside my boys bedroom window and spent most of the evening napping...our faces a mere few inches away, examining all of it's delicate features.

As I sat admiring his delicate feet and fine feathers, the verse in Matthew came to mind.

Is it Christian?

Life is so incredible.

I have times of happiness, laughter, joy and silliness, especially when my kids are involved.

But there have also been times of grief, sadness, frustration, and even....anger.

*gasp*

Did I really just say that?  But can I really be a Christian and be...angry?


I thought I was healthy.  I read lots of book, prayed, went to church, read my Bible, didn't smoke or drink.

But then my daughter died.

And it felt like a river of anger swept out of me, rushing forward, engulfing everything in it's path.

Yes, I was angry about my daughter.  But there was also anger from hurt in my past, anger that I had tried to suppress for so many years.

Because it isn't Christian.

Because when I showed my anger to other people, to other Christians, they ran away.  They didn't know what to do with it.  Add to that all the sermons and talk about loving your enemies, and where does anger fit in?  Or grow up in a family like mine, where yelling and copious amounts of anger were the norm, and you don't want to be angry...you've seen enough to last a lifetime.

Is it okay to be angry and still be a Christian?

What does the Bible say?

Most of us know the famous passage, be angry but do not sin.  Sounds to me like it is expected that we will get angry, that the emotion itself is not a sin, but how you handle it.  Do I tear into other people, smack my children around, and act out through ______ (insert any of the following: shopping binges, drinking, gambling, busyness, drugs, or any other addiction?)  Or do I write, draw, play music, exercise, or find somebody safe to talk to about my anger?

I read about Jesus, overturning tables and throwing a whip around, running people out of the temple.  I read in Psalms from David, who writes about crushing his enemies to a pulp.

It's been a struggle, but for the first time in my life, I am starting to understand that it's okay to be angry.  I am pushing back against the condemnation I feel, from both inside and out, that you cannot be a Christian and be angry.  I cannot heal until I have acknowledged my anger and have dealt with it.  Ignoring pain, acting like it isn't there, or saying, it isn't all that bad, only pushes the anger deeper, and there it festers, like a putrid wound, seeping into other areas of life.  Perhaps that is why the Bible states, Do not let the sun go down on your anger.

I recently heard the comment, Anger turned inward often turns into depression.  When I look at the number of people in America today, even the number of people who attend church, that struggle with depression, it makes me wonder...there are a lot of angry people out there.

We've all heard sermons about loving our enemies.  Wouldn't it be great to hear a sermon about anger?  To hear a whole discussion on righteous anger and how we deal with it, as a church?

Don't you ever feel angry about human trafficking?  About the millions of women and children who are sold into slavery each year?  About the number of babies aborted around the world?  About domestic violence? About the millions of children that die each year because they didn't have clean water to drink?  About the fact that our culture has so emasculated men, that nobody seems to know what a real man looks like anymore?  About the millions of orphans around the world that are left to themselves, or placed in ill-kept orphanages?

I do.

I feel angry about all these things.  In a recent discussion about anger, a woman stated, anger motivates.  When we feel angry about something, we are motivated to do something about it.  To initiate change. To become involved.

Perhaps anger isn't all that bad.

Everything a Season

Every season has it's high points and low points.  We live in an area with four seasons, so delightful after living in a country with only two seasons, wet and dry.  The temps varied some, but certainly not with the range we find here.

I peer out the window and catch little splashes of color, my daffodils, crocuses and hyacinths promising warmer days ahead.  The radio is forecasting a mix of rain and snow tonight.  *sigh*  Will the warmer weather ever come, I wonder?  It is hard to be patient.

For everything there is a season, He whispers to me.

And like the seasons, there are periods in my life that, try as I might, I cannot rush through.  Just as the farmer has to wait the days and months for the maturing of the seeds he has sown, so it is with me.  I cannot rush through my maturing.  The seeds endure days of heat, drought, animals and patches of tough soil.  And so must I.  

So must we all, if we are ever to become all that God has intended for us.

(photo above: a path through beans planted on the hillsides near Matagalpa)

This pondering, waiting, enduring season, knowing that time is ticking away and our bodies continue to age, fills me with frustration.  I want to go!  I want to minister!  I want to be there, to be in Nicaragua, living and working.

Godliness with contentment is great gain, He reminds me.

What is that really about? I wonder.

Learning contentment is not an easy lesson.  It can hardly be forced with a snap of the fingers.  Meditating on His word, and being in communion with Him daily, brings us to a place of realization.  That for everything there is a season.  And we cannot rush through the seasons, for there is so much to be gained, and learned, and treasured, in each one.


Ecclesiastes 3


¹ For everything there is a season,

      a time for every activity under heaven.
 ² A time to be born and a time to die.
      A time to plant and a time to harvest.
 ³ A time to kill and a time to heal.
      A time to tear down and a time to build up.
 ⁴ A time to cry and a time to laugh.
      A time to grieve and a time to dance.
 ⁵ A time to scatter stones and a time to gather stones.
      A time to embrace and a time to turn away.
 ⁶ A time to search and a time to quit searching.
      A time to keep and a time to throw away.
 ⁷ A time to tear and a time to mend.
      A time to be quiet and a time to speak.
 ⁸ A time to love and a time to hate.
      A time for war and a time for peace.

Like a Child

I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.

The words of Jesus, as recorded in the Gospel of Mark (Mark 10:15)

I watch my children play, quietly, innocently, as I hear reports of war, violence and poverty sweep across the globe. And yet, here they play, unaware, enjoying the moment, secure in my love for them, completely trusting that I will take care of them.

They have no worries.

They do not fear war, or poverty.

I love them, and they know it.

Unless you enter the kingdom of heaven like a child, you will never enter it. ~Jesus