WALKING IT OUT

Monday, August 31, 2009

KIDS....love em or....love em more!

I was the teenager who declared OFTEN, " I do NOT want children!" I was so happy being the Aunt that adored (and still do) my sisters children so much. What could be better? They were well behaved children who unconditionally loved me and we had great relationships.

Then one day - God got a hold of me and I found out that my desire was not that I didn't WANT children but that I was AFRAID to be a bad mother. Life lessons are hard when they are learned at the expense of our hearts being broken. My heart was so torn and so desparate to heal. It took a LONG time for God to finish the work in me. It took much longer for the pain of miscarriage after miscarriage to even sink in as real. However, once Jacob was born my sweet little man become so much fun. Even in his skillful deconstruction of things I was amazed at how much more I could love him.

Children require us to be parents with the type of love that grows stronger when their wills get in the way of right. I know that there are times when my children have completed a giant mess and felt so proud of themselves while all I felt was the anxiety of HOW to clean it! Yet, even in the nature of a childs imagination their desires to create must be somehow nurtured and sculpted. They MUST be disciplined when they know they are doing something wrong, but we have to give them an outlet to express all that creative energy.

Hopefully, your child will be creative with playdo instead of poop....or learn how to color with crayons and paper - not lipstick on the couch as mine did. Any way you slice child rearing you come up with the same solution....JUST Love them more. The bigger the problem, the more love you need. Sometimes that love is tough and demands boundaries. That's ok - keeping the boundaries will require lots of love anyway.

May you find joy and peace!

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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

BE The Church!!

I have been marinating on a word for a few weeks now. How to Be The Church....So, here is my digestion of the whole situation. We must indeed DO the WORKS not just SAY who works. I can be the church while I am in need of receiving something the "church body" can provide. I can be the church while I am meeting needs of others. I can be the church in leadership or in the most unseen servants position.
There is only one requirement to any of it...BE willing to accept who you are at any moment in time in your life.
This may seem like an easy requirement but I have meditated on it for the last few weeks as I have been in such a roller-coaster ride of purchasing a newly constructed home. I think if we look at ourselves square in the mirror and get honest we will find ourselves never really wanting to accept who we are in a particular moment. In the moments of great need, I have found myself stretching for the thoughts of plenty and in the moments of great joy I tend to look ahead to the next need. Not very many moments of our lifetimes are spent in the moment. IF WE DO NOT KNOW WHICH MOMENT WE ARE WALKING THROUGH WE CAN NOT FULFILL OUR CURRENT ROLE IN THE CHURCH BODY.
Are you in need? - Be honest and reach out to receive from God's people. (Whoever God sends, no matter what they may look like.)
Are you in a time of plenty? Money/Time/Man Power/Resources/Etc... - Be honest and reach out to give to others who GOD LEADS to you. (Whatever they look like.)
Are you walking through a time of contentment? Financially/Spiritually/Emotionally - Be honest enough to etify others in/out of the body of Christ. Give solid testimonies to others and reach out to offer some hope. (No matter how successful someone looks - testify any way, speak up in bible study, encourage in all things.)
We all too often forget that last question because we somehow don't think that we have anything to give while we may not have more supplies, we can provide MORE THAN FINANCIAL support with our WALK of FAITH. Show others that in your walk of Faith God has led you to a place of true peace - in plenty or in famine.
No matter what your circumstances, you are called to seasons in your life. Ecclesiastes 3:1 "There is an occasion for everything, and a time for every activity under heaven"
Accept that season, sow in it whatever you have to sow and you will find that God will turn that Harvest into the peace that flows when we function as He intended.
I pray that I will rejoice and be glad in each day and what that day holds. I pray for anyone who reads this: that they will see just how interconnected each of our life's moments are in the possible success of others. In Jesus' Mighty Name, Amen.

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Sunday, August 2, 2009

Ministers God trust!

If you have ever been exposed to churches in America, then you have possibly been exposed to a theology about mans laws. I pray that you don't know what I am talking about but if you do, let me share with you a few ministries that I place my trust in to take the GOSPEL of JESUS around the world.

Have you ever heard of James 1? Read this:
Verses 26-27: If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

These minsitries all do what James issues in the first chapter. This verse I listed is proceeded by a verse spoken of often - "Do not merely listen to the Word and so deceive yourselves. Do what It Says."


www.wcfym.com Kaye Beyer - meeting the Nations and delivering a mighty message of LOVE to all who come in contact with her team. Doing WHATEVER is needed in an area she is sent. Her and her husband (now passed on) have been missionaries for over 30 years. She continues to shine the light of Jesus with caring hands ready to pray and work. God's Glory falls on every hungry crowd that follows her ministry. The Glory of God shows up in signs, miracles and wonders...and each time you can tell that it takes her breathe away. She is so humble and worthy of the great work God does through her.

www.glenclark.net The Clark Family - an entire family devoted from the youngest to the oldest in sharing the good news of Faith in our Powerful God. AMAZING family of Musicians. They go were "Christians" dare not trot and they feed the homeless at ever turn, giving of themselves, they truely DID sell everything and give it to the poor...the cost of their missions is everything that they have at that moment...and God gives it all back and they return it to God by sowing into lost, broken and desparate lives.

www.michaeltyrrell.com Michael & Lillian Tyrrell - Michael is an amazing Man of God who flows in the TRUE prophetic realm of giftings, but his talent the lost FIRST see is the musical ability to draw you into every note he plays on any one of his guitars...with the power of Angels behind each. His messages of healing, true servanthood and the OBEDIENCE he has to do and go where ever God leads is hard to find. (Almost difficult to make out in this world.) Miracles and signs follow God's work, and Michael's personality of humility allows each audience or person to see that he stays amazed but could walk away from the signs and wonders any day of the week. Just something you don't find in every church.

www.ChurchOnTheStreet.com Atlanta, GA - The people and pastors and missionaries in this ministry spend everyday - each day of the year - rehabilitating, LOVING, caring for and ministering the Gospel's PEACE to the forgotten homeless of downtown & surrounding parts of Atlanta. There is so much I can say about this ministry, but seriously, the broken lives restored really says it all. They meet the REAL needs of people in food, LOVE, Jesus, housing and restoration.

If you think that God is not real, that the "evangelist" are fake and that God must be fake too? Then, listen to me when I say - GOD IS NOT A LIE - but sometimes the people who speak of him are. HOWEVER - there is NO REASON TO THROW OUT GOD just because the bath water got dirty. (Baby in bathwater theory.) God is moving in THIS TIME - IN THIS GENERATION - and in THESE DAYS - you just have to look in the places outside of where you thought he would be.

You won't find any of these ministries setting up a camp in a big church with stained glass, but occassionally you will find them roaming threw one to get people out into the streets...into the wastelands...and into new ministries.

I pray you find a ministry that really meets your needs in a church, but I pray more that you find a mission team to support and love and pray for, like the ones I listed above.

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