Category: Friends

All Things for Good.... Even This

4/11/2014

Use it all God. Every hurt, Every heartbeat. I give it all to you. You use all things for good. Use me.

As I pray those words I can feel it, like a spring bulb emerging from the soil, life is coming out of the coldness and promising beauty.

Right now, my life is in a tender season where every hurt is deep and hard and every joy is brilliant as the sun.

God, in His great wisdom, has given me identical twin girls who now a battle a rare sickness before they are even born. And this has thrown my world upside-down. I left my husband in Russia to see the amazing medical professionals here in the United States. I left my daughter with my mother-in-law while I underwent surgery this week. I lie in bed now trying not to let every worry and doubt shatter my faith into pieces.

But, with every breath, I feel strength of a new and amazing kind burn within me. God is taking me to new heights, burning away the old and replacing it with a new kind of love and power that comes from Him.

And everywhere I look I start to see the changes and am amazed. I am closer to my mother-in-law, loving and appreciating her undaunted insistence to care for her family. I see and admire the strength and love of my sister who has taken me in to care for me even as she juggles her own full life. I thank God daily for the courage and trust of my husband who always knows just what to say to take away my worries and encourage me and I can feel his loving arms around me even though we are oceans apart.

Even when I had to go to Houston for surgery and every moment was a challenge just to remember to focus and breathe and pray, I was blessed with physicians, surgeons, and nurses who cared enough to hold my hand and even hug me in the hard moments. And my brother-in-law who has no experience with pregnancies and babies, took time off of work so that he could see me though the procedure, make me laugh in the hospital, and see me safely back home again.

I can see God smiling at me through every crack in this topsy-turvey world. His love shines out at me through a thousand souls who pray for us, hug us, love us, and offer a helping hand.

So, God, let me not see this as a time of pity, but a time for your power. Use it all for Your great good. I give it all to you.

Photo by Fountain_Head via Flikr

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Zoom, Zoom!!

11/11/2013

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Have you ever ran a race? Trained for one? I have and I loved it. You know, I'm not really that competitive either. The fun for me was the motivation, the excitement, and the comradeship as I trained and prepared to reach my goals. It seemed that once I found a group of people all excitedly aiming towards that finish line that I was no longer alone as I worked out and stayed fit. Those few months I felt physically better than I ever have.

Even right now, as I take on the task of writing a novel in month as part of National Novel Writing Month, I have a group of people with the same goals and dreams. We talk about our novels, write each other messages, call each other to check on progress and get each other over obstacles. Once again, this comradeship has gave me motivation and excitement to type closer to my goals. Zoom! Zoom!

Recently, God has powerfully shown me how important fellowship is. This concept I have always shrugged off when it came to my spiritual walk. That is embarrassing to realize, but I always thought that my relationship with God was purely between myself and Him and that involving other people in this aspect of my life was optional. I'm an introvert so this decision was easy to make. I'm refreshed and renewed by time alone so time alone with God made extra sense.

Then, my husband and I came to stay with a friend here in New South Wales. Our friend goes to a tiny church in a very small town and invited us to join him. I enthusiastically agreed. I love the music in church, the worship, the sermons and I figured it would be a nice change from my solitary daily devotionals and listening to KLOVE as I clean the house.

But, my expectations weren't what God had in mind at all. Because when I stepped into that church I experienced something else--something precious and irreplaceable...fellowship. Sitting next to me, greeting my family and I, and singing with heart-felt praise were fellow Christians.

I'd forgotten. With all the traveling we have done and the years of living in isolated areas, I'd forgotten that church is not just the singing and the sermons, church is about comradeship. Being in church is joining a group of people who are excited about God, ready to motivate others, and encourage each other in their walk of faith.

Fellowship. It is so amazingly powerful, so expressively beautiful.

My dad, being a rancher, has a phrase he uses often, "People are herd animals". We are. I'm not saying that we need to be with others. I'm saying that the power of a group of people headed in the same direction is a force to be reckoned with, a force that can change lives.

We only have a few more weeks here and then we'll have to move on and leave this group behind, but the experience has been amazing for me and I know now that having and being part of a church is very important and powerful in our walks with God.

So, from here on out, I intend on seeking out and surrounding myself with those fellow Christians because I know that the motivation and excitement of running a race with others is so much more powerful than ru

Photo by Danielle Walquist Lynch

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,

Hebrews 12:1

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Pain to Relate

9/27/2013

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A dear friend once unloaded on me, confessed his pain and his many problems. He came to me for comfort and advice and my inadequacy to the situation was horribly upsetting. He'd been involved in things that I'd only read about in books and watched on TV. I offered words like, "You're going to be fine." "God loves you." "I care about you." "You can get through this." But I could tell by the look in his eyes that those words were like putting band-aids on a lethal wound.

I prayed. I asked God to show me what I could do, what I could say, and His answer hurt me. He said I could do nothing. I could only pray for my friend, and show him how God's love never gives up.

What do we do when someone we care about has a problem that we cannot relate to? Sometimes it feels like unless I've been there, unless I've felt the same pain, I cannot completely connect with the torment they go through. I can feel sympathy, but I feel lacking in true empathy. And, often my advice is not what they need and not what they are looking for.

Many months later that same friend came back to me. He'd found God. With God's strength the demons had been defeated and hope found. And he told me something soul-wrenching. He told me he'd decided to be at peace with everything he'd been through, all the bad choices he'd made, and all the evil he'd allowed into his life. He said, that because he'd been through it all he could help others find their way out of their own horror.

It was a moment I will never forget. This man had decided to be thankful for the years of hurt in his life, because it would help him relate to others in need.

I stopped and took stock of my own hurt, pain, hardships, and imperfections and realized that God in all His Goodness could use everything about me for the good of others, if I let Him. Just like my friend, I need to let God have ALL OF ME. I need to have peace with the past and realize that it can't be changed, but that God can use it to guide others to healing.

God, guide us. I know there are things we go through that hurt, sometimes they hurt simply remembering them and we are burned by our shame and sadness. Help us to find peace giving those things to You, letting You use them. For we know that others are still struggling to find their way out of darkness and we dearly long to bring them into Your light.

Photo by Garland Cannon

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Closing Time

9/17/2013

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I hear "Closing Time" in my head as I get out the bags and boxes and begin to sift through my life. I long ago stopped thinking of moving as a time to dread, perhaps I've done it too much. We came here with three duffle bags...all and everything we should truly need for the next year. But, we've accumulated much more in the last 6 months. I took out the 3 duffle bags this morning and began to look at what we had.

This used to scare me. I remember when I went to Argentina I stuffed 4 dufflebags plumb full of clothes, books, miscilaneous items that I just knew I wouldn't be able to do without...and they were all just for me. Perhaps half or more of what I took to that country got left behind. I didn't need them and didn't have room for them when we left. And you know what? When I left those things behind I felt no sense of loss, only liberation. I wouldn't have to carry them around or keep track of them anymore for they were no longer mine.

Moving. Packing. Throwing away junk. Preparing for a journey. I am doing it all and I hear in my head the words to that song "Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end."

Those endings come with sadness, they always do. When you leave behind friends in another country you know there will be little chance of returning and seeing them again until you meet them in Heaven. We all say, "We'll see you again. We'll visit." But the words are said to ease the pain of parting. These are all people who held by baby when she was little and got to watch her take some of her first steps as she learned to walk. These are people who filled our lives with conversation and friendship even though we were foreign.

I know I will make new friends and with God's strength I look toward new beginnings with interest and excitement. I begin to fill up the three duffle bags, leaving behind the items that aren't necessary, trusting that along the way our needs will be provided for. God always does that, you see, and the more I trust in him and stop my worried planning, I find contentment and peace.

So, when the last zipper is closed and the bags placed by the door, I say a little prayer for me, for my little family, and I also ask God to be with all the other people who preparing for their own new beginnings. Hoping that we all will be given wisdom to know what should be left behind and have faith in the things that He will provide.

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Their Walks of Faith

6/23/2013

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“You are the salt of the earth. ....You are the light of the world."
Matthew 5:13-14

With all the ugly things that happen in life, the struggles, the distractions, the hurt..I find it amazing that my walk in faith continues. But, you see, it isn't the words of the Bible that keep my head and heart turning to God. It is the people of my life that make those words come alive that keep me hungering for God's presence in my own soul.

Who are these amazing people? They've been there through my whole life. The people who have shook me out of complacency and made me drive my life towards God are people who never made it onto the 7 o'clock news or made millions from writing and selling their biographies. No, they were all people with humble hearts who doused my world with their love.

One lady, I'll call her Ruth, had eyes with the light of God shining out from her soul so strongly she just seemed to glow. About the same age as my grandma, Ruth had a face of unearthly grace and when I grow into my years of maturity I hope I have smile wrinkles like hers. She taught my Sunday School class off and on when I was really young and gently guided me to my salvation.

My high school years were blessed with some incredible teachers. They looked at me and saw more than I did and were never settled with second rate. They believed in the possibilities of my future and I know they prayed for me. Those teachers were always bigger than life to me, because they gave unselfishly so much of themselves. Guess what, it turned out that each and every one was a Christian, evidence given by the cross around their necks or hanging up from the rear-view mirror of their car--a small defiance to keeping God out of schools.

And the list goes on.

A mother of a school friend always opened her home to me and a stronger woman I've never met. I still keep the bookmark she made me with the Bible verse embroidered on it.

A girl I met in college amazes me with her ready smile and how at ease she is defending her faith, never ashamed of God's place in her life.

A close friend and sister gives her life unselfishly everyday for her growing family and anyone else she can lend a hand to. I think God speaks from her eyes and she is the easiest person to talk to.

I could go on and on with this forever, but I think it is best that I close with one last word.

The biggest and greatest testimony to God we can ever share is just by letting God show Himself through the lives we live.

We are the salt of the Earth. We are the light of the world.

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Miracles Happen Everyday

All Things for Good.... Even This

Zoom, Zoom!!

Pain to Relate

Closing Time

Their Walks of Faith

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