Gateways to Joy

I give thanks throughout the day, count gifts.  Though I don't count them by writing them down as often as I'd liked.  I count nonetheless.  Pay close attention. I give thanks and count gifts and fear disappears.  Tension is gone.  I'm awake to my surroundings—my life. I know and believe that I am loved with an everlasting love, of this I am assured. He loves me.  He tells me through the little ... the daily activities, the ones I often take for granted, how much He cares.  Ugly times come.  Ugly times are here.  Yet, I fret not. For I know He is working it out.  This is part of His plan.  He's got the whole world in His hands.  My problems are no problem for Him.   My truth:  God will be with me.  God is for me. It's the absence of the thing that startles:  I feel no fear. . . There is no choking angst.  I am not anxious and I breathe easy and that worry child I've clung to, she deserts. I...

"They say time is money, but that's not true.  Time is life, and if I want the fullest life I need to find the fullest time." ~ Ann Voskamp I look at the clock anxiously.  I need to get everyone in bed so I can get started on writing. My soul is longing for it ... calling out to it: serenity.  My head is filling with thougths that need releasing.  I have two books to read His and hers, then I want to get some journal writing in.  Today I added more gifts to my gratitude list!  I'm anxiously waiting for the moment to open up and ingest the words of Daniel .   He gave thanks three times a day, don't you know?  I long to follow. How often do you thank God during the day?  Do you see all your days as a gift?  It's easier to say, "thank you" when you believe what you have been given is a gift . My eyes are different, they are anew.  They search for gratitude.  Gifts from His hand. I wa...

`W hat are you doing Lord?" I asked. Times had gotten pretty bad for us financially, not to mention that I'd miscarried.  Bills were piling, rent was due.  The electricity had been cut on and off ... on and off.  My parents came to visit and my mother gave us her credit card to buy groceries, the kids clothes and myself clothes so that I could go to work.  For a while they even rented a vehcile for us too. My husband who had been a drug and alcohol counselor, prior to his stint with becoming a carrier went back to looking for work in that field, which was scarce.  He'd vowed before we moved to Houston not to do work that entailed his income depending on grant money as he saw that type of work as being unstable. I went looking for work too and finally found work with a temporary accounting agency.  Next we found a babysitter.  Thus my days began to consist of getting up at 4:00 am rushing, getting myself and the children dressed and ready t...

G od's will for your life ... Are you ever concerned with being sure you are fulfilling it? I think on this often, " What does He will for me today?"   Not in the complete sense necessarily, but I wonder,  "How will what I do today—my choice, effect the whole picture. I've been reading Philippians and in it I read these words by Paul,  "...but I press on so that I may lay hold of that which also I was laid hold for by Christ Jesus."   Then he goes on to say,  "Breathern, I do not regard myself as having hold of it yet, but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."  Many of us have problems with  "laying hold of that which also we were laid hold for."   Why?  We have a problem with moving forward.  Some of us get stuck, and even more of us get stuck in the past. Being stuck makes it hard for us ...

P ain.  Many of us despise it—find it despicable and do our best to avoid it.  Have you ever stopped to think, to conclude  that pain is not your enemy, and very well could be your gift? I know it sounds crazy, but what does pain do, what is it for?  It alerts us to problems or potential problems.  It tells us to check out a situation, to dig deeper and go further.  If there is no pain, how would we know to seek out the care of a medical professional?  If there is no pain, what would make us draw nearer to God? My hope this morning is to encourage those of you who are experiencing pain now, and for those who will come to experience it in the future to remember, " There is always purpose beyond our pain."  I f you take nothing else away from this blog today please carry that with you close to your heart.  And even more so remember that this is particularly true of pain when you are a child of the Alm...

`O nce upon a time there was an unhappy couple.  She said it was because they were so mismatched.  She married beneath herself.  In actuality, they were not altogether different.  After all, the reality is that baggage attracts baggage.  One set may have  looked more like a brown paper sack and the other like fine, leather Gucci, but it's all baggage  She kept a cold heart toward him because she knew he had to be bad.  Somewhere deep inside of her it was the very thing that had first attracted her, but she would never admit to such a thing.  Yes, she knew he had to be bad.  And just as she suspected, he was.  His sins were many and grievous—by anyone's standards.  Terrible and as broad in consequence as a thundering black horizon.  She caught him in his sin, and shame reverberated throughout the broken family.  He fell on his knees in repentance and begged God to save his life and spare his family.  He did....

W ords of Elisabeth Elliot after finding out her husband and the father of her young daughter Valerie had been murdered:  "I found peace in the knowledge that I was in the hands of God.  Not in confidence that I was not going to be killed.  Not in any false sense of security that God would protect me, anymore than He protected my husband, the four missionaries or Honorio from the wooden lances.  Simply in knowing that He held my destiny in His two hands, and that what He did was right." Isn't this why we love her so?  In her life we see ... not perfection, but a desire to live out what she had been taught about the Bible and God all of her life.   Perfect she is not.  A woman who loves her God and worked diligently to live out her faith she most certainly is. Let us learn from the legacy that Elisabeth has left for us to set the bar for living out God's Word high in our lives.  Let us remember, likewise, that God i...

O n my back!  That's the description of my posture this weekend.  Back pain had me down flat— pain and the drowsiness caused by the muscle relaxers I was popping.  In between pain and sleep, I found myself being supported by huge pillows in attempts to sit up and help my dearly beloved complete a 15 + hour test.  A test that really should have been taken weeks, if not at minimum, a month ago.  This is just the sort of thing in times past that would send my tongue on a lashing spree.  Not this thime.  This time I was his note taker—the bopping head one.  He would read, and I would write what was read.  I would doze.  And then I would write.   Sometimes I put tablet and pen down to sleep.  This worried the Husband. His composure told. I'm learning how to be the blessing.  The giver, especially to him. ...

M ay you slow your life down enough today my friend so that you catch a glimpse of your God in the moment.  Be intentional about it.  Look for Him.  Pray for Him to open your eyes—anew.  To bring forth noon light in a new way. Embrace the lifestyle of radical gratitude today, will you do that?

T oday we're going to look at part 2, of the video Beyond The Gates of Splendor . I hope you were blessed, last week, by the story of the five missionary men who gave their lives for their faith.  It is my hope, too, that you were inspired to make your ordinary life an (extra) ordinary life—just by doing whatever it is He's called you to. Wherever you are—yes, wherever,be all there and let Him work through you. These men and their families were no different from you and me.  If there is a difference, the only difference is they were obedient where some of us may not be.  I don't know.  What I do know is just like God used these men to impact lives in their time and season, He means for us to do the same.  And who knows 40 plus years later...someone may be reading or writing your story.  Sharing how you in your "ordinary" way impacted them extraordinary.  Remember— "What makes our labor holy, what makes it eternal...

Y esterday we shared our gratitude list...counting to our one thousand gifts.   Today is Tuesday, which means we will talk about our "words" and how we use them. Our words, our utterances, are used to convey messages in our spoken or written language.  For example: the Word of God.  God's written Word.  His language to mankind conveys various messages some being: How the world & its contents came about What His plan was & is for us How we're to live The consequences of living or not living as He wants and so forth In His written Word we learn that "A gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger." ~ Proverbs 15:1 In my personal experiences I've seen arguments dissipate right in front of me when I chose to speak gentle words and use a gentle manner.  However, I've also seen the opposite happen when I chose harsher words. I purposely say, "chose" because our word choice is simply that: our choice.  We ...