In Love W.I.T.H. Jesus

Perfect Peace

2012-01-31T07:30:00.000-08:00

True peace comes from embracing what is, not from ceaseless striving to change everything around me to make my life more safe, secure, comfortable.” Dan Meadows in the Mosaic

Recently making a comeback from the 60’s is the famous peace sign. My grandkids love it. For every picture we try to take someone can be seen giving the peace sign to the camera. One day I told them, ‘You know what? You guys have no idea what that even means. What true peace is all about?”

Stunned at grandma’s bluntness they stared at me like lost puppies. “It means no wars, doesn’t it grandma?” one of them quietly spoke up. “Yes and no,” I replied. During the times in which we are not involved in wars, that is called a ‘time of peace.’ But the main thing about peace is the peace we receive from within. Peace that comes from God alone.” I told them. Still looking like they didn’t understand I went on to explain.

Just like those 8, 10, and 11 year olds many people don’t understand what true peace is all about. The peace that is everlasting and untouchable. Peace that stems from embracing what is so we don’t have to think we need to change everything around us that can’t be altered.

Truth be known, probably everyone can pinpoint a time in their life when they couldn’t feel the peace of God. I know I can. Like it or not life can get complicated and Satan uses these moments to blur that vision of finding God’s peace. In my case, one day as I shared my tears with the church secretary she shared with me a scripture. It was a verse someone showed her when she was going through a similar situation that cleared her vision.

The scripture was found in Isaiah 26:3,4 that says, “You (God) will keep in perfect peace him (anyone) whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in You (God). Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, THE Lord is the Rock eternal.” Perfect peace! Doesn’t that sound appetizing? At the time I was struggling in my turmoil the idea of perfect peace was the key I was looking for but the last thing I could find.

I couldn’t find it because I wasn’t doing my part. I needed to trust the Lord to deal with my situation that would in turn eventually accomplish the steadfast mind leading to the promise of perfect peace.

Wow, it’s that simple. Trust God and receive a steadfast mind. A mind that is unwavering, unfaltering, committed, persistent, dedicated, and unswerving. I can do that! Wrong! In the midst of our troubles and turmoil’s the last thing our mind feels like is, “unwavering.” Thrust into a tailspin by the world and all that comes with it we easily get caught in the undercurrent and it makes it difficult to get out and establish that steadfast mind.

No matter what the struggle we need to stand by the fact that we can trust the Lord. It’s our job to claim daily His promises to never leave us nor forsake us. Allowing the knowledge that He is with us to dominate the feelings we may feel inside that have us in our wild and crazy and exhausting spin zone.

The truth is found also in Phil 4:4-7 when it says, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again; Rejoice! Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

We have our part which is pretty minimal when compared to what God does for us when we are willing to do what we need to do. Trust in the Lord. The Lord who is the Rock eternal!

Peace! God’s kind of peace, the perfect kind. Amen? Amen!!!!!

Our host today is Tami over at The Next Step. Run on over there as usual and get to sharing and reading what others have to say about today’s great quote. In the process stay out of the spin zone and stick with God.

Picture compliments of Cody, Anthony, Brooke, Aubrey, and Marissa

Job Description

2012-01-24T07:04:00.000-08:00

“We are women, and my plea is Let me be a woman, holy through and through, asking for nothing but what God wants to give me, receiving with both hands and with all my heart whatever that is.” ~~ Elisabeth Elliot

Sometimes at work when things get hectic I feel like hanging a sign on my back that says, “Leave me alone and let me code.” My plea to people is that they would just leave me out of the day’s politics and let me do my job.

That is the cry of Elisabeth in this quote when she said, “We are women, and her plea is for people to let her be a woman.” End of story. No, it’s just the beginning of the story. The story of figuring out what it means to be a woman. There are so many different definitions and visions that the picture often gets blurred.

At work we have what we call a “job description.” Well, we are supposed to have one. They have been written and re-written, forgotten and remembered time and time again. When properly done they describe what my job is. In the Bible there are two prominent areas where job descriptions for women are posted, one in Proverbs 31 and the other in Titus 2.

You can read them, re-write them, forget about them, remember them over and over again but they remain the same as the day they were written. They don’t need to be updated every century or 10 years to go along with an ever changing culture.

Indeed when you go to read those scriptures you often feel overwhelmed and this sign flashes before you in your mind that says, “Need not apply.” You think, “Wow I could never fill that position. Especially the part in Proverbs 31 that says ‘she opens her mouth with wisdom’ ” For someone who has never had any coding experience they need not apply for a coding job but we don’t need “experience” to apply for the godly woman position. What is required is the willingness to strive for the goals the Lord has mapped out for us.

Some qualities will come easy, some come with tears, some come with years and years of practice but if we continue working on it eventually we will get where we need to be. I may never speak with wisdom as other women of God do but that’s okay it’s still something to strive for. With God as our coach, our boss, our teacher, our mentor we can’t miss.

How many times have we stopped to remember our piano teacher, our football coach, our shop leader, our sewing instructor, and anyone else who worked hard at teaching us what we needed to learn? Be honest, at the time of learning you probably grumbled about having to practice, you couldn’t see the point in doing some of the things they required of you. After all who cares if the button hole didn’t line up exactly with the button we just sowed on.

Why do we treat God any different? He is there to teach us what we need to learn but we need to be willing to be a student. We have our moments of grumbling about the things He asks us to do but it doesn’t change the fact that we need to do it. Down the road we should look back with frequency at the things He taught us and the things we learned in the hands of His guidance.

Eventually when we stay with God we will reach that goal of being holy through and through asking for nothing but what God wants to give us. Truly welcoming all He has to offer with both hands and all our heart. The world will try to stop us from receiving these blessings but we need to be willing to stop it even if it takes hanging a sign on our back saying, “Leave me alone and let me be a godly woman.” Amen? Amen!!!

Our host today is Nina at Mama’s Little Treasures, hurry on over there and join in. Share and care what God has to tell us as women of God.

Barefoot and Praising

2012-01-17T07:02:00.000-08:00

“If I can’t find God in the ordinary places of life, either I’m not looking hard enough or he’s not nearly as approachable as I need him to be. This is a paradox too. God appears in all the ordinary places, burning bushes, naked Barbies, plumbing disasters. But when he does, those places become holy. Moses had to take his shoes off.” ~from an interview with Marcus Goodyear, Barbies at Communion

Oh dear, the list of paradox things we could come up with about God is a mile long. No, it’s as long as we make it. Why is that people like to find the “paradox’ or irony things, inconsistencies, or absurdities about God rather than the truth? Perhaps they are afraid of the truth or deny it even exists. Truths like the one Marcus Goodyear pointed out that, “God appears in all the ordinary places, burning bushes, naked Barbies, plumbing disasters, you name it He’s there.

Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord. Did I mention Praise the Lord! It is a wonderful, comforting, strengthening feeling to know God’s everywhere. Everywhere we are willing to look for Him and recognize Him when we see Him.

I love looking for God wherever I go, He can be seen in absolutely everything. One day as I was going to church I passed a park where a group of 15-17 year old boys were practicing fly fishing. As I watched the adults go from boy to boy showing them how to cast I thought about Jesus. ‘Oh I can write something about this,’ I thought. Yes, it would make a perfect picture for a story about becoming fishers of men. Half tempted to stop for a quick photo shop I kept on going to church in hopes of them still being there when I got out. They weren’t.

God was there and I wasn’t even looking. If I would have been quick on my thinking I should have taken off my shoes in the car because of where I was, was holy ground. Being the driver of the car that might have been a little awkward but maybe we need to do that more often. Do it as recognition of recognizing God when we see Him.

As God is everywhere we should be walking around barefoot constantly because there is no ground that isn’t holy knowing that God’s presence is everywhere. Instead of the cliché women hate about being barefoot and pregnant, we should be barefoot and praising. Praising God for the fact that He is everywhere. Praising Him for His presence. Praising Him for being near.

We must never doubt the fact that God is present in our current situations, He not just up in the snow cap mountains, the rolling waves of the ocean, or the chirping birds sitting in the trees. He’s present in our troubles, He’s with us in our marriages, He travels with us in our journeys, and everywhere else

At times we can’t see Him but it doesn’t mean He’s not there. Situations can cloud even the best of vision but it doesn’t mean God is gone. As the clouds cover the mountains near my home I can always rest assure when they gone the mountains will still be there. The same is with the Lord, when life has our vision distorted or blocked we need to stand by our faith that God is still there, He is present, Praise the Lord.

Where we are is Holy ground because where we are is where God is also. Barefoot and Praising is a place we all can and should be.

Our host today is Cynthia at Great Brain Ideas. Run over there and watch the presence of God arrive ahead of you as others talk about seeing God wherever they are.

**See God in the pencils? Yes, not having Jesus in your life is like an unsharpened pencil, THERE IS NO POINT. See Him in the sunset in Central Oregon? Who else could paint such beauty, He even makes a cloudy day look pretty, showing a bright side to darkened clouds.

Renovated

2012-01-10T07:21:00.000-08:00

"Without the renewed mind, we will distort the Scriptures to avoid their radical commands for self-denial, and love, and purity, and supreme satisfaction in Christ alone.” ~ John Piper

As the New Year begins the New Year resolutions begin as well. And because it’s January 10th they have already ended for most people. Just teasing! But it’s the truth isn’t it. It is for me anyway, guilty as charged! When it comes to the physical resolutions they tend to be quit smoking and start dieting. On the spiritual side we think of reading our Bible more frequently and serve the Lord greater.

Recently I heard one spiritual speaker talk about reading the Bible daily. One by one he listed the do’s and don’ts of reading the Bible. One of the don’ts was to DO NOT distort the Scriptures to make it read what we want it to read. There probably has come a time in most of our lives we have all done this very thing. Guilty as charged! Although it may give us a temporarily good feeling as we break our spiritual diet but it’s only momentary. It lasts about as long as that “need for chocolate” fix we are after as we break our physical diet.

The best solution is to renew our minds as we renew our resolutions. Dropping what doesn’t belong and keeping what needs to stay. This is done by setting for ourselves good reachable and obtainable goals that we strive for daily with the help of the Holy Spirit and self discipline.

It’s easy to join a gym or get on the “patch” to quit smoking but how do we renew our minds. To renew means to renovate, refurbish, repair, restore, mend, make good, and revamp. One day as I watched a remodeling process going on at an old business office I noticed them taking out lift-truck bucket loads of dirt out of the building. I thought maybe they were trying to dig a basement or a sunken waiting room or office space. Being a person who works around construction my husband informed me they were tearing out the old concrete floor as well as the old pipes and electrical wires to start over with their own layout.

That’s the kind of renovating, restoring, and revamping process we need to do ourselves spiritually. As we draw closer to Christ we should be taking out buckets full the old stuff that doesn’t need to be there and replace it with our own new wiring furnished by Jesus. We can’t make the mistake of thinking we can do it on our own and renewing with things we want dancing around in our heads. As if that ever worked! Guilty as charged, been there, tried that and it doesn’t work.

Things have a tendency to get into our minds way to easily that doesn’t belong. It takes a good look and a long commitment to decide to clean it up and replace it with things from above as Paul put it. Twisting the Bible to read what we want it to read only puts more of the wrong instead of right things into our minds.

Bottom-line is we are in charge of our own renovating process and it would do us well to read the Bible every day. To apply it to our lives, to use it to dispose of the old as we prepare for the new on an every day basis. Just as we would never renew a subscription to a magazine we didn’t like we need to stop renewing our subscription to the things that harm us spiritually. The Bible and its author is all the renewal we need to refurbish what needs to be in Christ, for Christ, through Christ for the benefit of all and to the glory of God’s kingdom.

Therefore, next time the Holy Spirit comes around knocking on your door asking you if you want to renew your subscription to the Bible tell him, “You bet I do and forget this 2 year, 10-year plan I’m going for all eternity!” Amen? Amen!!!!!!! I’m renewed, I am renovated!

Our host today is Urailak at LivingforGod . Run on over there and read and share with the others about today’s quote. Better yet for the New Year join us and be one of the Tuesday morning contributors to the quote of the week. We’d love to have you on board.

Always on Duty

2012-01-03T06:12:00.000-08:00

We live in a broken world full of broken people, But isn’t it comforting to know God isn’t ever broken? He isn’t ever caught off guard, taken by surprise, or shocked by what happens next. He can take our worst and add His best. We just have to make the choice to stay with Him and keep following Him through it all. Lysa TerKeurst

I must confess that at one point in my life I felt like the fairy tale character Humpty Dumpty. I was so shattered into pieces I figured there couldn’t possibly be enough of the King’s angels to put me back together again. The best I could do was lie on my bed and stare up at the blank ceiling above me and wonder if my prayers were ever going to make it past the roof of my house.

I looked at life through a broken lens, everything seemed cracked, and nothing seemed to be intact. Satan had me believing the lie that I was insignificant enough that I wasn’t worth keeping an eye on. Basically I was all alone with too many problems for a busy God to keep up with. There were more important people to deal with. Even the time clock at work confirmed my analysis as I clocked in each day when it would display the word, “insft.” To me that stood for insignificant not in shift.

Wow, how blind can we get by believing the lies Satan plants in our heads? The lies like God is broken, He’s caught off guard, taken by surprise and shocked at what is happening. It is a list that unfortunately can go on and on if we allow it.

The truth is God can and will take our worst and add His best but we have our part to play in the equation. We need to be willing to stay with Him long enough for Him to do His best in our lives. Often we either get too inpatient and go on our own way or we give up entirely not wanting to wait around for the “snail mail” our answers come in from Heaven. We want instant replies and on the spot results exactly as we think they should be answered. When they don’t come we figure God’s given up on us so we might as well follow suit.

Satan has it too easy. We give in too quickly, we fall for every lie Satan tells, and we flip the blame for everything going wrong in our lives onto God in a heartbeat. We are the ones with a choice to gloat over our worse or give it to God to add His best. God is not insignificant and neither are we when we have Him on our side. A Savior and King that is never off duty, always in shift watching over our every need.

Yes, Karen, there are enough of the King’s angels to put you back together again. Praise the Lord!

Our host today is Twinkle Mom at Sunflower Faith, this was a great quote today. You need to go over and visit her and see what others have to say about it.

Boots on the Ground

2011-12-27T08:20:00.000-08:00

It’s not so much that God has a mission for His church in the world as that God has a church for His Mission in the world.” Christopher J.H. Wright “The Mission of God”

In reading this quote I think of the phrase, “which comes first the chicken or the egg. Good question if you think about it. Same with this quote as the first thing that God created was the world, then He had a mission for the world, and then comes the church to be the one to perform that mission. With that all put in order one has to ask now, “What is the mission?”

What is God’s mission statement? In a writer’s class I was in the leader had the class write out our mission in 10 words or less. Being a woman of many words, especially typed words, that was not an easy task. To try and cram all I wanted to say in ten words or less seemed impossible. After all that count is only double the amount of words in the first sentence of this paragraph. Unfortunately I didn’t say all I wanted to say in that first sentence and five more words wouldn’t help.

After struggling with my assignment this is what I came up with. My mission statement: Enhancing within the House of God closer walks with Jesus. There you have it, plain and simple. God’s mission statement is plain as well, He is out to make disciples that are obedient to His will and purpose.

Our mission as the church is to carry that out and make disciples for Jesus. It starts with us and it spreads from there. It’s not a matter of numbers in a church building that can be counted it’s a matter of obedient boots on the ground disciples willing to surrender all they have to march in God’s army and follow Him.

From the original mission spreads many missions to accomplish, that once again starts with us. Boots on the ground ready Christians willing to do their part in furthering God’s kingdom, one disciple at a time.

Taking Ownership

2011-12-19T20:14:00.000-08:00

Christmas belongs to us, the believers of Christ, it doesn’t belong to the world. Christ needs to be elevated in our hearts year around. He didn’t come to be marketed as a seasonal gift on sale for half price. We were the ones that were bought at a price. David Jeremiah

When I think about this quote from David Jeremiah I zero in on the word “belongs.” We all have our posessions, our things that “belong to us,” and we are very protective of each and every item. If stolen we have no problem giving a detailed list of what was missing hoping for a speedy return of that which was taken. It does something to us to have someone steal our things. Once when this happened to my sister she told me after the person stole their mail and broke into their home that she felt violated and it really made her mad.

As Christians we should feel that protectiveness when it comes to the most valueable possession we can have, our relationships with Jesus. We should be so alert to it that we would know immediately if it was ever stolen. Unfortunately we aren’t that alert. Not like we are with our expensive camera, high definition TV, and mink coat. More often than not we don’t even realize He was stolen in the first place.

Recently at our Christmas program at the church it was time for the two-year-old through fourth grade kids to be front and center on the stage. As they prepared to do their play the whole stage was full of cute little angels tripping over their wings and playing with their halos. As they began their opening scene Mary and Joseph took their place kneeling behind the manger where a doll playing the part of Jesus was laying wrapped snuggly in a cloth.

As each child was busy speaking their part one of the angels, a two-year-old girl, caught site of Jesus. She was so fascinated by the baby Jesus that she would walk over to the manger and take Jesus out. After unwrapping Him she would walk Him off the stage and lay Him down in different places. Graciously the kids playing Mary and Joseph tried their best to deal with the situation. When the adult at the front of the stage distracted the little angel they would run and get Jesus and put Him back where He belonged only to be stolen again the minute the angel noticed He was back in the manger. Each time this took place those who could see what was going on roared with laughter. Those in the back that couldn’t see sat in silence.

Polical correctness, busyness, distractions, and selfishness all are working together to steal out of the manger of our hearts what needs to be there, Jesus Christ. What rightfully belongs to us is being stolen and we don’t even know it. We are like those in the back of the room that don’t have a clue what is going on.

Now is the time to be front and center on the stage of our lives paying attention to what is happening. So alert that when Christ has been taken away from us we know it instantly and we immediately get Him back to where He belongs. After all, Christ doesn’t belong to the world He belongs to us or better yet we belong to Him. He’s not a seasonal gift that is taken out of a storage box in time for Christmas only to be put away with all the other ornaments from the tree to spend another year in a darkened storage room.

Christ paid dearly for us to have Him in our lives, it would do us well to be protective of that and treasure it in our hearts. Instead of replacing Him with all the things we try to get done for the Holiday lets keep Him front and center where He belongs, in a place where we can see when He is immediately gone.

Its one thing to have something stolen from us but it’s a whole different ball game when we “allow” it to be taken out of carelessness. Indeed, carelessly neglecting that which is ours by actions of our own making. We need to stop it and take ownership of our relationship with Jesus and turn it into something worth protecting with a Savior worth keeping.

Is Jesus stolen out of your life or did you neglect the door of your heart and allow Him to walk away? Its never too late to get Him back. It’s never too late to start protecting that which is yours.

Merry Christmas everyone! Happy Birthday, Jesus. We love you!

Amazed Cycle

2011-12-13T06:37:00.000-08:00

Can we see that we are the shepherds? Can we with open eyes, see who we are and who He is and what He has done? Are we amazed. Rev Mark Shaw

I heard recently that the shepherds back then were equivalent to the homeless people of today. They were the poorest of the poor. They didn’t have the plush robs we picture them with, the finest staffs, or a nice trailer nearby they could call their home.

When you think about that you wonder, “why the shepherds?” Sound familiar? It should because that is often what we say, “Why me? I’m nobody. I don’t have all the finest things in life. Why would God want me?”

Looking at the shepherds it just goes to prove God doesn’t need the finest of the fine to get a job done. He needs someone who is willing to listen, do, and be amazed at what God has to say.

A few days ago we had an eclipse of the moon we got to observe. I don’t know about you but when I stood outside looking at it I was amazed. What I was observing wasn’t a mistake of nature, neither were the sounds I heard from the owl hooting, the roosters crowing, the pigs grunting, and my grandkids yelling at me, “Grandma is cold out here.”

The angels weren’t out to find the first person awake that night to tell the good news to. It wasn’t a mistake the shepherds were chosen. They weren’t the last on the list, they were the first.

We too are God’s shepherds, people out there available to Him to listen to what He has to say and take action. The only requirement to be one is to be willing to look with open eyes instead of a closed heart. The shepherds got to see only the beginning of what God was just about to do and yet they were still amazed.

Too often we treat God like, “Well come back when the job is done, then I’ll see if I’m amazed.” The other day I confessed something to my 10-year-old granddaughter. As I spilled out my confession she looked at me as if I was a little on the nutty side. That is a fact they’ve known for years but to what degree they weren’t sure. I told her about a writing piece I wrote. It was about going to heaven and what it looked like and how amazingly wonderful it was in mind and all the things I imagined I would see and experience.

So far I’ve never seen God’s finished project of Heaven only the beginning of what He created on earth yet I can still be amazed. We need to stop worrying about whom we are or aren’t and what isn’t finished and start living our lives in the “amazed” cycle. Amazed at what God does for us on a daily basis knowing we aren’t a mistake, we may make mistakes but we are not a mistake of nature that just happened to be. We have our worth as the shepherds did and we need to use that to further the news about Jesus coming to town.

After all, it’s not Santa Claus that’s coming to town, it’s Jesus. Spread the word! Finest of the fine, poorest of the poor, it doesn’t matter God wants us all. Listen as the shepherds did that night and get ready to live in the “amazed” cycle of life.

Welcome

2011-12-06T11:19:00.000-08:00

“We can thrive — and even offer life-giving rest to others — because God is at home in us.” Bonnie Gray Faith Barista blog

As I work in the medical field there is a diagnosis that comes up often with many patients, it is called “failure to thrive.” It is seen in those who have come to the end of their disease and are feeling too tired to be able to fight their disease anymore. It could be anything from old age, end stage renal, cancer, or whatever it doesn’t matter. The fact is they have reached a point where they don’t think they can go on any further and are diagnosed with “Failure to thrive.”

As Christians we should never get to that point where our physical body gets. To the point we are diagnosed with “failure to thrive.” With God at home in us we don’t have to feel as if we can’t go on any further. Often we get to the point where we would like to throw up our hands and say, “No, more. I can’t go any further” but we don’t have to listen to ourselves. Going to the local physician won’t keep that spunk in us but going to the Great Physician can.

Last week when our assignment was to write about our favorite scripture or quote I chose Philippians 4:13. The title of my piece was called, “I can, through Christ.” This past week when I was slipping quickly into a downward mood heading for the “failure to thrive” category I opened up my internet and the first thing I saw was my own blogspot. Staring me in the face were my own words, “I can, through Christ.”

Choking on my own words I had to re-read what I wrote myself. They are words we all need to be reminded of telling us we are capable of many things thanks to the Lord making his home in our heart. Our problem is we clutter the home of our heart with so many things that He can’t either get in through the debris in the front yard or He can’t get out because of the clutter of our collections on the inside.

It would do us well to clean the house where Christ is to make His home, our heart. Recently my husband and I put in new carpet in the living room. After the task was done and the big furniture was returned I marveled over how nice it looked uncluttered from all the extra stuff that was in there before. Reluctant to fill it back up with all the wrong things I got rid of what didn’t need to be.

It’s our responsibility to do that to our spiritual hearts. The point is, “we can” we can thrive and help others as well as long as we got our own spiritual homes in order. Properly putting God in His place instead of making it so He has to fight His way through the “extra stuff” we are reluctantly to dispose of. Such things as our attitudes, bad habits, disobedience, pride, and so much more.

“Welcome” at the door of our heart should mean just that, welcome not “enter at your own risk.” Praise the Lord, our God wants to live in our hearts, make His home there. The rest is up to us.

I Can, Through Christ

2011-11-29T06:26:00.000-08:00

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Phil 4:13

The night appeared to be a long one. The fight with my husband, the news of our finances, with the piles of other issues weighing upon me I turned to God’s word. Like magic my Bible opened up to Philippians 4:13. Well maybe it wasn’t so magical after all. Perhaps it was because I had been there so many times it left a permanent dent in that area of my Bible.

Although I know it by heart it did something to read it. It’s amazing how a small verse can carry such a large weight of influence. It is a bridge to many gaps and a life support system to people who often feel like they are dying within. An encouragement to those who are not like the storybook train named “Thomas” that made it up the hill saying, “I think I can, I think I can.”

I was the one who was always saying, “I know I can’t, I know I can’t,” but God through His word kept telling me “I can do all things.” The key to doing so was to do it through Christ who strengthens me. It was my own created strength that was failing me, not Christ’s. Like my mom reminding me over and over again to do my homework my heavenly Father through this one verse was reminding me, “I can, through Christ.”

Time and time again He would sit me down and go over the message frequently. “I can, through Christ” was the center of every lecture, the theme behind each talk my heart received. Once engrained in my mind the talk opened up to further things. The whole chapter of Philippians 4 that covered what Paul was talking about when he said, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

Paul’s list of things were: rejoicing in the Lord always, being anxious for nothing, praying with thanksgiving, meditating on things that are pure, noble, and anything praiseworthy. After that he put the icing on the cake when he said he had learned to be content in all situations, whether hungry or full, in need or in want. In other words, Paul could do it all because it was Christ who was giving him the strength to do it.

Over the years Satan’s number one attack on me has been, “No you can’t.” It was up to me to listen or not. God told me I could through Christ. The winner of this tug-a-war would be determined by me. Was I going to listen to Satan or God? I had a choice to make for every situation I was in. I’m ashamed to say Satan won a few rounds. However, the true victory continues to go to God as He never stopped reminding me that, “yes I can, through Christ alone.”

Too often we think since Christ has the strength then He should just do it for me. That’s not what the verse says. It says, “I can.” I had my part to play, my part to fulfill and with the help of Christ it would be possible. All it needed was a little initiative on my part to keep moving forward up the hill of life chanting to myself, “Yes I can, yes I can, thanks to Christ.”

And there my wonderful readers, is why this verse in my heart makes my favorite list every time.

Homage To, In Remembrance Of

2011-11-22T06:54:00.000-08:00

“Let us remember that, as much as has been given us, much will be expected from us, and that true homage comes from the heart as well as from the lips, and shows itself in deeds.”–Theodore Roosevelt

The declaration Theodore Roosevelt (26th President 1901-1909) spoke to the United States were good words to listen to. They started with the attention getter of, “let us remember!” Following his opening phrase came more to think about. He wanted the American people to remember the fact much was given them and much will be expected from them.

Next the President would give them the reason behind it all. The why of why he told them they needed to remember. It was because, as he said, ‘true homage comes from the heart as well as the lips and it shows itself in deeds.’

For being the youngest President up until then he really knew what he was talking about. They are words that not only pertain to us as citizens of America or wherever we live but they pertain to us as citizens of Heaven as well. Sad part is we are way too quick to forget and way to selfish to know what true homage is all about.

To pay homage to something means to show it respect, pay tribute to it and to find ways to serve and honor it. It is something that needs to come from our hearts as well as our lips to the point it shows up in our actions.

Too often we overlook what was given to us and we concentrate on what “we don’t have yet.” We think we are entitled to everything but don’t need to return anything. We treat our families, country, church, and God this way. As long as we get what we want that is all that matters. Wrong!

That is why it’s important that, we remember! Over and over again in the Bible we read about how altars were built, wells were given special names all in a process to help them to remember. Remember what? Remember what was done for them. The cross along side the road is there to remember the one who died there. The picture on the wall is there to remember a love one. The special token in a hope chest lies there as a reminder to the story or deed or person from which it came.

What are we doing today to remember what God has done for us and our country? We have kicked Him out of the schools. We’ve outlawed prayer in public places. We’ve taken His name out of Christmas. We want the words, “In God we Trust” taken off our currency. We compromise our beliefs in the church in order to bring in more bodies with voices to sing our jazzy songs. It’s almost like we forgot instead of remembered who God is and what He has truly done for us.

The fact that God is the same today as He was yesterday and will be tomorrow should give us something to remember. Remembering the reality that God hasn’t changed, we have. The only thing that needed to change over the years is technology not our belief system or values. There is no expiration date on the Bible or God. He deserves our honor and respect and we need to pay homage to Him by the way we live our lives.

Therefore, instead of kicking Him out we need to invite Him in. In to our lives, our country, our homes, our churches and give to Him the glory due His name. As another famous president once said, “It’s not what our country can do for us, but what we can do for our country.” It would serve our country and God well if we would teach our younger generation this forgotten trait and dying deed on how to pay homage to both their country as well as God.

In God we trust. As for as me and my household, we will serve the Lord!

Happy Thanksgiving

I heard on the news this morning people arguing over the fact that we don’t know if the pilgrims ate turkey on Thanksgiving or not. Who cares what they ate? Thanksgiving wasn’t for the purpose of the main menu but for the giving of thanks for the harvest and for what God had given them. It doesn’t matter if they ate tacos, noodle casserole, roast beef, or salmon. How utterly ridiculous this political correct garbage has gotten. Talk about paying homage to our country it would do us well to pay homage by allowing us to be ruled by values instead of what someone thinks is “politically correct.”

Running Wounded

2011-11-15T06:30:00.000-08:00

No wound? No scar? Yet as the Master shall the servant be, And pierced are the feet that follow Me; But thine are whole. Can he have followed far who has no wound nor scar? ~~ Amy Carmichael

Isn’t it funny how we think we can get through life without any wounds or scars? Too often we reason with the fact that Christ was the one wounded therefore we don’t have to be. We need to wake up and realize that wounds happen. Everyone is going to have their “scars” to heal and live with.

I love my Sunday school preschool kids. The boys are so cute when they get to comparing their scars received over the week. There always seems to be a skinned up knee or elbow to show off to the other boys who try to top each other’s wounds.

My grandson is one of those boys. He thinks he has the scar that could beat any other wound story in class. On his leg remains the reminder of the time when he was one-year-old and was burnt severely by McDonald’s coffee and air-lifted to a burn center 200 miles away.

It doesn’t matter who has the most wounds or who gets the prize for the “biggest” scar. The important part is in the healing. We can’t be afraid to get in and do certain things like witnessing for Christ in fear of being wounded. “Oh, what if someone says something to me or what if this happens.”

Revisiting the Garden of Gethsemane we find Christ was concerned about what was ahead of Him. Who could ever forget His prayer? “If this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.” In other words, “Not my will but Yours be done.” Its been said that the word BUT erases everything that came before it. In this case that is a good thing. In our cases it’s usually used to make excuses. “I would give more to the church BUT I need a new car. I would love to serve in the soup line BUT I just don’t have the time to go there.” No one likes to be wounded for any reason but (oh there’s that word again) it’s what we do with our wounds that make them important.

Recently as I was observing my daughter and things she was going through raising her four kids I noticed how she appeared to be “running wounded.” As life was throwing up one blow after another she was unable to recover from one before the next hit. She had no time to heal from the first therefore she was, “running wounded.” What was important was the fact that she kept on going, eventually the healing came, the scars formed but she was way ahead in life.

We need to keep on going and learn how to keep on “running wounded” until the healing comes. We can do this when we realize the person running along beside us has His own wound and scars such as it says, “pierced are the feet that follow me.”

I don’t know about you but I’m not proud of a lot of my wounds but I’m proud of my scars because of the healing they represent. Healing God has helped me with as He nursed my wounds and tended to my hurts. It begins with turning to Him and lifting up our wound before Him like a young child asking their daddy or mommy to kiss their “owie.”

We don’t have to run wounded forever if we run along side of God. Believe it or not healing is a choice. We can allow God to heal our emotional and spiritual wounds or we can sit around picking off the scabs before the scar of healing has a chance to even form. Sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves keeping our wounds open inviting in further infections and deeper damage.

Trust me, I’ve been there and done that and all I got was a deeper wound. Run wounded to God, stay there beside Him until the healing comes! For once again, pierced is the feet that follow me, He knows what its like to be wounded.

It Depends

2011-11-08T06:55:00.000-08:00

“And why should the good of anyone depend on the prayer of another? I can only answer with the return question. ‘Why should my love be powerless to help another?’ ” ~ George MacDonald

“It depends.” How often have we heard that in our lives? “We will go to the coast but it “depends” on this or that. We might be able to buy a new car but it “depends” on if I get my raise at work.” We even use that phrase on our kids. “Can I go to the dance this weekend mom?’ ‘Well it depends.”

The picture really gets dark and dim when we think of the fact that we also use this phrase on God. “I will be good to the person but it depends on how nice they are to me. I will give to the church but it depends on if I get what I want first.”

In life some things do depend on other situations or circumstances. However, when it comes to being good that is something that should never depend on anything except the fact we need to do it, no conditions attached. Our Christianity and the things we are suppose to be in Christ should never “depend” on something else. If you think about it and tear apart this formula we have created the “something else” always is centered on us getting something first THEN the later can happen.

It’s like the Psalmist who writes in the Bible, “God if you do this for me I will praise you.” No, we need to praise the Lord no matter what, not add a condition to it. Imagine that prayer, “God I will praise you but it depends on if my husband gets that job he applied for.”

What part of the word “No!” don’t we understand. When we allow our attitude and Christianity to be controlled by our circumstances then we have a problem. We are the ones that need to be in control. Recently as my husband applied for a job I read Phil 4:4-7 that talks about being anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication WITH thanksgiving let your requests be known to God. THEN the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and mind through Christ Jesus.

After reading that scripture I had to stop and examine my prayers asking myself, “Did I pray with thanksgiving or just a laundry list of why I thought my husband should be hired.” Behind the scene was I saving the “thanksgiving” part of the verse for after the “Depends on if my husband gets hired or not” clause.

To make sure I did it correctly I prayed once more and with thanksgiving as well. It felt good. I even made up a mock prayer praying for someone’s mom’s knee surgery to see if I could pray with thanksgiving with all my prayers. It was a good exercise for my heart.

This morning the news of my husband’s job came in. He did not get the job. Eleven long years of only hit and miss jobs will continue on. However, my goodness, my thankfulness, my gratitude and praise to the Lord doesn’t depend on the answer being “Yes.” As much as the job would have helped life, what I have with God is of more value. I can’t imagine waking up this morning thinking, “Well God no praise for you today because it depended on whether Don got the job or not. Good day, maybe tomorrow.” Yuk, it brings tears to my eyes to even think of such an attitude, to think my fingers could even type such a thing.

What I want is God to be able to depend on me not me living my life around made up conditions of if A doesn’t happen then B won’t happen either. I want the “depend” to be on me, that God and His kingdom can count on me no matter what the circumstance, no matter what the situation.

The best part of it all is the fact that we can depend on God. Amen? Amen!!!

**Before starting this today I didn’t know what I wanted to say about the quote. I just couldn’t come up with something to say. I prayed to God to take my fingers and give them something to say. Once I got started I couldn’t shut up. God is awesome isn’t He? Imagine if He was one of those who waited around for the “depends” to happen. We’d never be saved!

Lighter and Brighter

2011-10-31T19:54:00.000-07:00

We need to walk out of our worship time with God lighter than when we came in. Lighter because we left behind at the foot of the cross the things that needed to go. Left behind in preparation to learn and lean on the promises of God. Wayne Corderio

I don’t know about you but there have been many times I have gone to Sunday worship heavily burdened. The extreme weight from the week just seemed to follow me into the church building. The sanctuary was my refuge as I sought the strength needed to endure another week out in the world. What a blessing it was to see God at work as the promise of Matthew 11:28,29 came true. The promise where Jesus offered the invitation of, “Come to me all who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

Running to the foot of the cross with my arms held high and my hands waving in the wind I cried out in my heart, “I’m coming Jesus, I’m coming!” Each step closer to the cross of Christ allowed me to draw nearer to my ability to lighten the load my heart was carrying.

The more I worshipped, the lighter my load became and the brighter my light for Jesus shined in this domino affect of faith, trust, and obedience. What a praise it is to be able to have that place of refuge and strength to see us through life’s struggles. It starts with removing what doesn’t belong and replacing it with something of worth like the valve found in trusting in God’s promises.

As we eventually learn how to bundle up before going out in a snowstorm or severe weather conditions we need to learn how to bundle up in God’s promises. Wrapping ourselves tightly in God’s promises to protect us from the intense weather of the world. The world where storms are rougher, burdens are heavier, where no one is immune from extreme damage to their spiritual heart.

It’s not good enough to dump our burdens onto Jesus and run. What we need to do is learn how to lean on His promises. Making the decision daily to carry with us the strength they put out in order to face the world and the battles we come across.

Yep, lighter and brighter is the only way to go and it begins at the foot of the cross.

Thanks everyone for participating today. Happy November!!!!

One love, Two outlets

2011-10-25T06:29:00.000-07:00

“When you love the unloving, you get a glimpse of what God does for you.” Max Lucado

There seems to be two kinds of people in this world. Well maybe more than two kinds but for today’s quote let’s say “two kinds.” People who think of themselves as extremely loveable and those who don’t think anyone could possibly love them at all. For both species of human beings they have their eyes on themselves when their focus should be elsewhere. Instead they should be keeping their eye on the true target of God, the one who can love anyone in spite of their shortcomings.

To most people it’s a hard thing to love the unloveable as they don’t seem to care if they are loved or not. Although the unlovable won’t admit it they have put more condtions on their love than any one could possibly imagine. After attempting to love the unlovable we frequently throw up our hands and say, “I give up!”

Praise the Lord God isn’t that way. When Christ hung on the cross He didn’t throw up His hands to say “I give up, these people are way to unloving to be loveable.” No instead He threw up His hands to say, “I love you whether you think you are loveable or not.”

The important thing we need to do is remember that each of us in spite of personality flaws is loveable in God’s sight. Its something He has chosen to extend to us and in spite of the difficulty of it, we need to extend it to others.

All of us in our own ways are unloveable but that is what makes love so wonderful. It looks passed the unloveable characteristics to love anyway as God loves us. How dare we keep God’s love for us to ourselves and not pass it on to the next unlovable person in need of Christ’s love in their life.

Let’s change two kinds of people into two kinds of love. The kind of love Christ gives to us and the kind of love we can pass on to others. If you stop and look when the two are mixed together there really is only one kind with two outlets, heaven and our heart.

Praise the Lord God found a way to love us and we can find a way to love others too. Being loved by God is not a license to be rude, indifferent, disobedient, and disrespectful because after all He says He loves the unlovable. No, it’s an opportunity to give back what we don’t owe out of love ourselves to someone who cares enough to love us first.

One love, two outlets. God in Heaven and God in our hearts.

Staying Put

2011-10-18T06:57:00.000-07:00

“ When you have no helpers, see your helpers in God. When you have many helpers, see God in all your helpers. When you have nothing but God, see all in God. When you have everything, see God in everything. Under all conditions, stay thy heart only on the Lord. ” ~ Charles Spurgeon

On my kids blogspot http://www.karenskidskorner.blogspot.com/ I write devotionals using pictures. I call them my “picture DEES,” DEES standing for devotionals. I look for things I can use to write something about God for my grandkids. Over the years it’s been fun watching them catch on to the fun of finding things we can use for our “picture DEES.” They have gotten to the point where they can pick out a picture and what needs to be said about it regarding God.

What we use to do together soon became something they could do on their own. Something they would get all excited about when they came to my house on the weekend about a picture DEE idea they came up with during the week. After telling me their idea I would come up with a picture to put it to even if we had to “act out” a picture to use.

Indeed in the long run it has taught them to see God wherever they go, to look for Him in all they see. Charles Spurgeon in his quote today is trying to get us to do the same, to see God wherever we go and look for Him in all we see.

It doesn’t matter what we are looking at, how much we have we can see God in everything if that is what we are looking for. We see Him in our plenty as well as our poverty. God is there and our focus needs to be on Him. The circumstances, atmosphere, conditions or anything else doesn’t matter. What matters is the fact that we have stayed our hearts only on the Lord.

As I have tried to train my grandkids to see God everywhere we need to do the same because you know what? God is everywhere. We would like to think He’s not there watching us steal from the store, or drive under the influence of alcohol, or gossip at work, or tell the lie we just told but He’s there and it would do us good to remember that. God is not just there when we need Him, He is there always. Praise the Lord.

Our job is the get our hearts to see that and stay there forever. To be that stubborn person who refuses leave. One who says, “God’s with me and I’m with God and I’m staying put!”

Our host today is Jennifer on her blog, Scraps & Snippets. As much as I would like you to stay put on my blogspot you need to go visit Jennifer and everyone else and see what they have to share.

Beauty for every season

2011-10-16T10:26:00.000-07:00

People are often seasonal. One person likes the spring, another the summer, the next prefers the fall, and then there are always the winter folks. In every season no matter which one we prefer we can find beauty. My brother one day at our parents house, he's the one on the front deck there, said the popular tree next to the house has never looked so good. To him in the fall when the tree turns yellow that is when its has its true beauty.

No matter what season we are in we need to look for the beauty of that season. In our lives there are seasons as well. Times when things are blooming and going well. Times when things are at its best. Times when things aren't so well and everything seems to be fall apart like the leaves off the tress. Times of cold dark wintry days when there doesn't seem to be any hope for spring.

We need to look past the season and see God in each one. Look for the beauty hidden in each and focus on that. Even if the only beauty to be found is the fact that we have God at our sides walking us through these moments. We can't be like those who the minute one of their less favorite seasons comes close they start complaining. Over the years many seasons have come and gone and they will continue that way, how we live our lives thru these seasons makes a difference.

Best thing to do is to take a look, take a peak, and find God wherever your're at and allow him to walk you through each season of your life.

The Source

2011-10-11T06:30:00.000-07:00

“ The ethics of Jesus cannot be obeyed or even understood until the life of God has come to the heart of a man or woman in the miracle of the new birth. The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in those who walk in the Spirit. Christ lives again in His redeemed followers the life He lived in Judea, for righteousness can never be divorced from its source, which is Jesus Christ Himself!” author unknown

Often you hear from people about how “so and so is a good person.” We have gotten the thought in our heads that if we are “good” we have it made on our way to Heaven. We forget the fact that “good” outside of Christ isn’t good enough to get us where we need to be in Christ. Frequently we try to separate righteousness from its source and claim the act for ourselves. The Pharisees tried to do that and Jesus warned the disciples to not be like them.

Christ is our life and righteousness source when we walk and live in Him. It begins with asking Him into our lives and then being obedient to His ethic standards found in God’s word. We don’t get the pleasure of believing in Christ without walking or following in His ways. Likewise we don’t get the enjoyment of not accepting Christ into our lives so we don’t have to be obedient to the things He talks about in the Bible.

We need to get hooked up with the source that will take us places, Jesus Christ. He is our key into Heaven, our door into our future. Indeed the foundation of our strength, the basis of our love, the supply of our goodness, the source that supplies us with all we need. All we need to give us the ability to be obedient to His ethics, His ways, and His will.

Praise the Lord we come supplied when we have accepted Christ into our lives. The rest is up to us to use Him as the source of our resources not the rock to hide behind but the Rock to stand upon!

My latest book I have contributed to

2011-10-08T10:30:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in the mail I got a copy of my third book I have contributing writing in. Its a Devotional book put out by Bethany House by Gary Chapman called "Love is a verb." My piece falls on November 8th. Its so exciting to be a part of this. The devotion I wrote talked about how although I was diagnosed with cancer God's love for me was still forever enduring and I can be too if I allow Him to continue to work in my life.

As I recently told my team of chemo nurses who watch over me, "having cancer has a way of humbling you and making you trust in God even more. It does me well sometimes to remind myself that I may have cancer but cancer doesn't have to have me."

Thanks everyone for your support and encouragement with my writing as well as my new found disease.

Karen

ALLOWance

2011-10-02T19:28:00.000-07:00

“We must allow the Word of God to confront us, to disturb our security, to undermine our complacency and to overthrow our patterns of thought and behavior.” John Stott

Recently as I was reading in the book of Philippians something jumped out at me around the 20th verse in chapter one. Paul talked about how he didn’t want to do anything that would shame him. It made me think about how we have gotten away from that kind of stuff. We don’t worry about things shaming us because we aren’t ashamed.

As John Scott says in this quote we need to allow the Word of God to confront us and convict us and to realize there are some behaviors we should be ashamed of. The Bible wasn’t meant for our Sunday reading pleasure and a place to keep track of our family tree and who died when and when someone was baptized.

The Bible is there as our guide to better living. Often people say they wish babies would come with an owner’s manual. Truthfully if you think about it they do if we have our Bible near by. It gives us all we need to know in material that never becomes outdated. It works from infancy to our golden years and beyond.

As well written as it is it will never do us any good without allowing it to pentetrate deep down inside of who we are. It needs to get to the core of our being not the surface of our lives. Instead of turning our backs on it we need to confront it as it confronts us and our patterns of behavior. The patterns not pleasing to the Lord that should cause us great shame.

Years ago when I was a young Christian there were several scriptures in the Bible I thought were misprints or outdated material. For example the scripture that says that greater is He that is in us than he that is in the world. The way life was going for me at the time I just couldn’t see that as being true. It took awhile but finally God’s word and spirit was able to undermine and overthrow the lie I was trying to believe as the truth finally came out.

What good is love if we don’t allow someone to love us. What good is learning if we don’t allow someone to teach us. What good is being forgiven if we don’t allow ourselves to forgive. What good is God’s word if we don’t allow it to penetrate deep into we are or should be.

The choice is ours to allow God to do the work He needs to do in all of us. The work of undermining and overthrowing our patterns of shameful behavior that shouldn’t be. Its not always easy to step aside and allow it to happen but when we do we will never regret it.

God’s in the building up business not the tearing down. Its up to us to turn over the construction job of our lives over to Him and let the ALLOWance begin. The paying back of benefits reaped from trusting God and following His word to do what it was meant to do in our hearts. To confront, convict, and conceive a life born again in Christ, unashamed and fully devoted to our Lord Savior. Praise the Lord.

Karen's Crossings Her not Me

2011-10-02T19:09:00.000-07:00

Recently at a funeral of a local farmer killed in an accident my niece Stephanie had one of her seizures she frequently has. As I knelt nearby in support of her and my sister I began to cry as I watched her go through the motions I once did when I had seizures. Part of the tears that surfaced was tears from a longing to see her cured as I was cured.

However, the majority of the tears this time were from something I remembered her saying to me nine months ago. Just before Christmas when I was diagnosed with breast and bone cancer she revealed to me her recent prayers. “Aunt Karen,’ she said. ‘I have been praying for you to be cured of your breast cancer. I told God it was okay to hold off on curing me if it freed Him up enough to cure you Aunt Karen.”

The tears that flowed then are still flowing as I think about what she was saying. Although she has been dominated by seizures most of her life she was willing to set that aside to see me cured of my breast cancer. Her request to the Lord was, “Her not Me.” It was a precious thought that demonstrated her love for me in a very large way.

As I remained at her side while her seizure completed its course I thought of how wonderful it is to know there is enough of God to go around for everyone to love and enjoy. He is bigger than we think and more powerful than we could ever realize. He doesn’t have to hold off curing one person in order to be able to heal another. It’s not up to us to know why one person manages to get cured of their disease while another struggles with theirs. All that matters is our love and faith in the one who is capable of healing, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ

This week my niece is going in to the hospital again to have her seizures monitored in hopes of finding the cure needed to free her from her disease. During this time let us lock our shields of faith together and lift her before the Lord as we pray without ceasing for God to wrap His loving arms around her. That He will hold her there in loving protection as He works out His will in her life.

October is breast cancer awareness month. Let’s make it also the month of awareness of God and the greatness of His power and the depth of His love.

I love you Steph! I love you Jesus!

**This is a scarf I made in 2010 for Breast Cancer awareness month. Who would have known the next year I would be adding my own name. Trust, its all about trust. No one knows what the futures hold.

A Better View

2011-09-27T07:41:00.001-07:00

“‎ The God who walks in the paths of history through the pages of the Bible pins a mission statement to every signpost on the way.” C.J.H. Wright (The Mission of God: Unlocking the Bible’s Grand Narrative )

Its great having hindsight isn’t it? We get a better view and we understand a little more. Plus if it’s the hindsight from someone else’s journey we can breath a sigh of relief that we didn’t have to go through it ourselves. Sorry Noah, Moses, Daniel, and Shaddrach. Looking through the pages of the Bible we can see the messages on the signposts where to those who were currently traveling through couldn’t. Once again, we are the ones who get a better view.

It works no differently with our lives and the journey’s we are taking. We may see a mission statement here or there but they are not always visible to us. We can’t even pay attention to the warning signs along the way let alone the mission statements.

It would serve us well to learn how to probably travel. When you’re a business person on the road a lot you learn from experience how it’s done. Traveling in new territories you pay attention to the signs along the way. As fast as they come up on you sometimes they are easy to miss. “Oh that was the road we were supposed to turn on.” Even the good old faithful GPS’s have been known to lead people astray.

Six years ago when my grandson was severely burnt by McDonald’s coffee he was flown in a helicopter to a bigger and better hospital a hundred miles from where we lived. Thrust into the journey to follow the helicopter who took our precious one-year-old away in we set out for the big city. Needless to say at 11:30 at night we had to call the hospital to get directions to talk us in to where we needed to be.

At the time we weren’t looking for a duty roster along the way, just directions. Looking back at the situation I can see all sorts of things God had planned for us to do and learn during that time. What’s important for us to learn and live is knowing that in God’s society nothing is wasted. He can take anything and use it to His glory and our benefit.

Our assignment may not be as clear as that big billboard along the way but its there just the same. Like we had to trust the helicopter to deliver our young one to the right hospital and trust the hospital to give us the right directions to get us there, we need to trust God. Trust Him to know what He is doing, that He’s not out there leading us around in circles. He has a mission for us and we will eventually see that if we continue to look in the right direction, going forever forward to Christ alone.

The better view of our situations may not come until we reach Heaven but by then, who cares. We will be in the best view of all, in view of Jesus. Praise the Lord.

Journey forward, journey strong!

Door #1

2011-09-20T06:26:00.000-07:00

“‎ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10

The first order of business in this scripture is to identify the “they.” We live in a world where we don’t have a clue who “they” are. “They” said you can’t walk the grass. I don’t know but “they” said you have to do it this way” and the list goes on. In this chapter in the Bible the “They” are the sheep. Okay, those fuzzy furry rollie pollie creatures who never know how to get back in a field that they escaped from! Close but not close enough. They are those who enter via the Door which is Jesus Christ.

Now that we have established who’s coming in through the life giving Door in sneaks the “thief.” In the picture we are painting we all know who that character is. It’s Satan himself. What a complete difference between the two. One comes to steal, kill and destroy the other is here to give life so we can have it to the fullest. Now that we have all the figures right we must not over look our main character. Main character? I thought Jesus would be the main character? No, in this incident the main character is the “they.”

We play the part of the main character because we are the ones who get to pick and chose what side we want to be on. We can pick the side of the stealer or the One that gives. If you think about it there really is no choice. A wise and smart person would choose the giving side. After all who would turn down a free handout!

Problem with all this is the fact that people don’t realize what is being stolen and what is being handed out. Satan isn’t out for our prize jewelry. In my jewelry box right now that would be worth maybe $5.00 if I catch the jeweler in a good mood that day. He is out to steal our lives from us, our eternal hope of peace paradise and prosperity in Christ. He wants to take it away and destroy what rightfully belongs to us.

Too often people have the wrong idea of what God is handing out as well. They think that God should be handing them all they ever wanted or needed in life all under the phrase of, “well God wants me to be happy.” Too many people have put their spiritual lives on the line gambling on that point of “well God just wants me to be happy.” I was one of those people that got close to the edge of that phrase and was almost sucked into something I had no business doing.

God cares about our happiness but to Him our joy means more than anything. Happiness arrives from “happenings” in our lives that make us feel happy where joy is something that comes from within, from God himself. Something if closely guarded can never be stolen by the enemy.

The life of peace, paradise and prosperity that has been offered to us is ours if we go knocking on the right door, the door of Jesus Christ. We aren’t playing “Let’s make a deal” here where we get to pick which door we want and hope for the best prize behind the door we chose.

We don’t have to stand on the stage of life cringing with our eyes have shut as the door is swung open hoping we got the “big prize” behind the door of our choice. When we pick Jesus there is no fear of finding a goat, a broken down car, a pile of goose feathers we have to deal with, no we know before the door is even opened what our prize will be. Eternal life in Heaven with the One who came to give, not take away.

So the next time Satan shows up to try and steal from you, you need to slap him on the hand and tell him “NO!” and show him the door. The door of your choice, door #1 Jesus Christ. Then show him his door, the door to hell and tell him “don’t let it hit you in the back. My choice is Jesus as His choice was me, one of the original 'they's.' Praise the Lord."

Tattered, Torn and Faded

2011-09-13T07:10:00.000-07:00

“The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them; He delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Psalm 33:17-18

In my Bible the page this verse falls on is kind of tattered, torn, and faded. It’s a scripture I have leaned on so many times the imprint its left on my shoulder remains there like a fresh tattoo. In fact it’s where I am right now as I suffer from the heart disease called “broken” secondary to being crushed in spirit.

Each day as I read this scripture I curl myself up in a fetal position in between the “He delivers them from all their troubles” and “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted.” There I wait patiently for my Heavenly Father to put His arms around me and tell me everything is going to be okay.

Upon reading this scripture and believing the truth in it that God will hear the cry of the righteous and deliver them from all their troubles we need to know in our hearts that eventually things will be alright. Truly as much as we would like to have the added clause at the end of the verse that says, “PS Come to Me and you will never experience being brokenhearted or crushed in spirit” its not there. We can read it all we want, change translations, or peak in between the lines but it’s not going to show up it’s a waste of energy. When you are feeling brokenhearted the last thing you need to waste is your energy because you have so little of it.

What we need to be doing with our energy is turning to the Great Physician for treatment of our temporary disease. Crying out to Him and waiting for the delivery to happen. We can either do as we’re told or turn our backs on it pouting as we say, “If He really loved me this wouldn’t be happening right now.” It’s not God’s fault I am brokenhearted right now. He didn’t cause it but He can cure it with His love, strength, wisdom, grace and guidance.

The problem is we need to want to be cured, to take our medication of being patient and wait for the Lord to work in us. We need to know and believe in our hearts that we don’t have to wind up like Humpty Dumpty where there weren’t enough of the kings men to put him back together again. With our Lord and Savior, Kind of Kings there is enough of Him to put us back together again. Definitely enough of Him to heal the tattered and torn and faded spirit that lies in pain within us.

It’s our choice to make our pain a permanent tattoo or a temporary one that will eventually go away. We may not know when it will happen or what the process will be but that’s where faith and trust come in to sustain us. If we do this before we know it we will find ourselves rising from our fetal positions to stand strong before the Lord facing the world in His strength.

Our job is wound care, God’s job is healing. God can’t do His job if we aren’t properly taking care of the wound in the first place. Too often we like to pick at the scab, open the wound up all over again only to create a bigger irritation and more of an infection than we had in the first place. Nope, instead we need to pick up the Bible and spread upon our wounds the healing ointment of knowing God hears He’s not ignoring us. He delivers not abandons. He is close not far away. He saves He doesn’t throw away. He restores the tattered and torn and brings back to life the faded in spirit.

Praise the Lord for His healing, Praise the Lord for His care!

Winning for Jesus

2011-09-06T06:54:00.000-07:00

“He who has no sense of self-importance cannot be offended or defeated.” W. Phillip Keller

I’m not sure where the author of this quote was coming from but in one light what he said looks like a good thing. Those who have no sense of self-importance cannot be offended or defeated. Sounds good, sounds strong. “I cannot be defeated nor offended by no one! I have no sense of self-importance.” Now that didn’t sound too good.

In a different light we can see this as those who have no sense of self-importance can’t be offended or defeated because they have already defeated themselves practically. If you have no concept of self-importance then you don’t care what people may say about you because you feel that way already. You can’t defeat something that isn’t trying to fight or win in the first place.

Whatever the reasoning for this statement it is important to find a balance in all this. We need to find that area in between the typical two extremes of having too much sense of self-importance and those who have none at all. An area in the middle where we know and realize we are all important. We should never think of ourselves more important than others but we definitely are more important than what Satan would like us think.

I’ve lived on the extreme at the bottom where my sense of self-importance wasn’t worth a hill of beans. Hill of beans? Back then they weren’t that expensive but now-a-days it may be worth a lot more. Ha ha. Back to the subject. I didn’t figure I was important enough to be beat. There was no defeating me because I had already defeated myself. I was playing the part of my own worse enemy. Latter I found out that the thumb that had me pinned down to the ground was attached to me.

Once again we need to bring ourselves back the middle and find our balance. When we do this we will be able to stand up against the schemes of the devil and win for Jesus instead. In Eph 6:13 it talks about putting on the armor of God in order for us to take our stand against the devil’s schemes. It goes on to say after we have done everything to stand then we need to stand firm with the armor of God in place.

In other words, we are without excuse if we are defeated. We’ve been defeated by our own powers, our own attitudes, our own foolish thinking and choices. God arms us with all we need to win and we need to take advantage of that and do so. If we are important enough for God we need to be important enough to ourselves to do all we can to win for Jesus.

Filled to The Brim

2011-08-29T18:56:00.000-07:00

God is looking for F.A.T. disciples, disciples that are faithful, available, and teachable. We can’t teach others what we don’t know ourselves. Anonymous

When I look at myself in a mirror I can instantly say that God has Himself a “fat” disciple. The extra chin on my face shows it, the spare tire around my belly displays it, and the wing expansion in my upper arms verifies it. Yep, I’m a fat Christian. Nice try, Karen but that isn’t what we are talking about here.

What we are talking about here is the opposite of a being a physically fat person. It takes looking at something more reflective than a mirror and that is the image of Christ. Only when we look intensely at Jesus and the example He set for us to follow can we truly find out if we are as faithful as we need to be, available as we ought to be, as well as teachable?

We can lie about our weight all we want but it still shows. Years ago when I renewed my driver’s license the lady at DMV asked me if everything on my license was current. “Well of course,” I told her. I hadn’t moved so everything was the same as before. Looking one more time at my license then looking up at me she said, “What about the weight?” Okay maybe that part had changed. It was obvious I wasn’t the skinny girl I once was. To me I couldn’t see what it mattered to her if I was accurate to the pound on my weight or not. It really didn’t matter, that wasn’t the point. The point was the fact that it showed.

We can lie all we want about whether or not we are all we should be for God but eventually the truth will show. The first person we need to be honest with is ourselves. Can we honestly say our hearts reflect it, our actions verify it, and our attitudes display it?

It may not have mattered to the DMV lady but it matters to God if we are being the F.A.T. disciples we should be. God needs us to be faithful so He can count on us thru the thick and thin of life. He requires us to be available. What good is a disciple if they are never available to do the work they were given to do. Last but not least God needs us to be teachable. Too often we think we know it all and therefore we don’t need to listen to what others have to say including God. We need to be able to learn. Learn new things, learn from our mistakes, and gain a knowledge that can be passed along to the next generation.

If you think about it if we would consume spiritual food like we do physical food we would be the F.A.T. disciples the Lord is looking for. We can always manage to find a way to eat when we are hungry and even when we aren’t hungry but we don’t do that with our spiritual food. We set aside some quiet time for the Lord and reading the Bible but soon it gets crowded out of the refrigerator of our lives and we wind up eating off the junk food things of life we don’t need.

Although very few people make it their goal in life to be physically overweight we need to make it our goal to be plump for Jesus. People who intentionally fill themselves up on the spiritual food found in God’s word in order to be the Faithful, Available, Teachable disciples we ought to be. Disciples, who are filled to the brim with the Holy Spirit, filled to the rim with good spiritual eating.

Happy Spiritual Eating!

Dwell or Excel

2011-08-23T07:06:00.000-07:00

“The Christian often tries to forget his weakness: God wants us to remember it, to feel it deeply.” by Andrew Murray

I don’t know about you but when it comes to weaknesses the last thing I am able to do is forget them. For me they seem to pop up frequently, haunt me often, and Satan uses them as a board to beat me over the head with. They are the boots that stomp me in the ground when I’m already down. Over and over again its Satan’s voice I hear that reminds me daily of my areas of little strength. He is the first one to point them out and the last one to keep silent regarding them.

To me, God is the one who tells me not to worry about them because He has them covered. He is the support we need when we’re at our weakest. He is the strength we lack and the confidence we need to get by. That’s what God wants us to remember is the fact that He is there for us, that we shouldn’t worry about those areas in our lives because He has them wrapped up in His own strength and wisdom.

What God doesn’t want us doing is dwelling on these areas to the point we get stuck in our own flukes and flaws. Too often we like to use them as an excuse to get out of doing things for the Lord as well as other people. “Oh I can’t do that I’m too shy. I can’t serve God there I’m not talented enough…..” and the excuses go on.

There’s a balancing act here to be found. An act of balancing between dwelling on our weaknesses too much or not enough. We can learn from our weaknesses and become stronger where we once were feeble. We don’t need to dwell but to excel in these areas using the strength of God so that we can’t boast that we “did it ourselves.”

Where we are weak God is strong if we would only allow Him to be. God’s not in the stomping business but the carpentry business of building us up. The part we play is to want to be teachable. Learning from our own weaknesses instead of always trying to point out other people’s to make ours look better.

Dwell or excel the choice is ours. God makes the one possible, we make the other happen.

Follow Suit

2011-08-16T06:13:00.000-07:00

“ I must make a conscious, deliberate, daily choice to sit at His feet, to listen to His word, to receive His love, to let Him change me, and to pour out my heart’s devotion to Him. When I get into His presence, the whole world looks different. ” A Place of Quiet Rest by Nancy Leigh DeMoss.

If you think about it very few things in life “just happen.” There are a lot of things that do. For example the car accident I was in wasn’t intentional. I know for sure my breast cancer wasn’t intentionally either done. The head injury I received as a young child was intentional but the damage from it wasn’t.

Although there are plenty of things that happen unintentionally there is an even bigger list of things that need to happen intentionally. If we want to pass a test we need to intentionally study. If we want our finances to be good we need to intentionally manage our money. If we want to lose weight we need to intentionally go on a diet and change our eating habits. That one I’m still holding out for maybe happening by wishful thinking or something that doesn’t require any effort on my part. Nice try Karen but no cigars or should I say, “No candy.”

Our walk with the Lord is one of those things that require an on purpose effort on our part. We are the ones who have to make the conscious, deliberate, daily choice to sit at God’s feet to listen to His word. Doing so very patiently like Mary did that day in spite of the grumbling that came from the kitchen from her sister Martha.

It’s important to the health of our Christian lives to receive God’s love and allow Him to change us. The process begins with a premeditated effort to pour out our heart to God followed by the setting aside of ourselves for Him. Often we do things we haven’t thought out and it seems to backfire in our face. Other times we may have had good “intentions” but what we did just didn’t seem to come out as planned.

When we intentionally put ourselves into our relationship with the Lord it will work out. There may be some lumps and bumps along the way but the end result will be well worth the journey to get there. Sooner or later if we stay on track with our efforts the whole world begins to take on a different light and the road ahead doesn’t seem quite as long.

God already made His intentional move now it’s up to us to step forward and follow suit.

© 2011 Karen J Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Open Your Own Gifts

2011-08-09T07:07:00.000-07:00

“Don’t sing with a borrowed voice. The one God gave you is the one God wants to hear.”
by Jennifer Rothschild via Twitter 17 Nov 2010.

Why is it that what we have is never good enough for us? We want what others have and we are never happy with our own. We can’t blame it on today’s society because Adam and Eve suffered from the same disease. In the medical business they would mark that down as “family history” of. Family history of greed, discontent, selfishness, pride, and other emotions all mixed into one pot.

We need to learn to be content with what we have and use it to the best of our ability. Anyone with a good voice had to learn how to do it properly. They developed what they had and practiced it diligently. Same with any gift we have. You take ownership of what you have and develop it, using it to the best of your ability.

Trying to be like others because you think they are better than you is a type of “singing with a borrowed voice.” God gave us various gifts and talents, He gave us the voice we have and we need to use it for Him. It doesn’t matter if we can sing like a canary or croak like a frog it’s what we do with what we have that is important.

As I’ve said before it was always my desire to sing. As a kid I tried really hard to develop my singing voice but it just wasn’t there. All the singing talent in the family went to my kid sister eight years later. I could borrow all I wanted but it just wasn’t going to work. It was almost thirty years later when I discovered the voice God had given me. It was the voice heard through my writing. I had to learn to open my own gift instead of looking over at what others had.

The point is we need to take what is given us and use it properly. Use it to the glory of God and the benefit of others. We need to stop wasting our time wishing we had what others have. To borrow means you don’t have ownership of it, you eventually have to give it back. To “have” means it’s yours. Claim your ownership, develop your talents, and open your own gifts.

The Fourth Man In

2011-08-01T19:58:00.000-07:00

I looked tonight to see what the quote was going to be come Tuesday morning but I didn't see anything. In the morning at the crack of dawn my husband and I will be getting the grandkids ready for the county fair, five to be exact! We have chickens to catch and rabbits to cage up so we can get them to the fair by 7:00am. Its going to be a long day tomorrow, I can only hope for a long night's worth of sleep. Especially since those five kids are spending the night here. Ha Ha.

If I could type on something this Tuesday it would be on the love and support of family when the boat in life starts to rock and take on water. There are those who bail out the water trying to save the boat and those who jump overboard at the first sign of trouble. May we all do our part in holding together in the love God gives us to endure till the end. Trust is a major tool followed by the patience it takes to wait for the answers we all need and desire.

As I feel like life has me hanging upside down with my long hair almost touching the floor it seems like satan is shaking me to see if he can get anything more to fall out of the pockets of my life to steal. The choice is mine on whether I will allow him to play his games or not. I have to remind myself as well as him that my family and I have the God factor on our side.

What I have and what I am belongs to Jesus. It is through Him that victory will come. The most difficult part I play is being patient in the time being. Patient enough to step back and allow that to happen without holding a calendar in God’s face or a stop watch in my hand attached to my front pocket while my toe impatiently taps on the ground for every calendar day and second that passes by and answers are still pending.

It’s important to remember that although we go into the fire of life bound up we can come out with a friend. Something we didn’t even know we had, the fourth man in like Shadrach and his friends did in Daniel 3:25. Jesus is our fourth man in, the friend who is there when life’s trials heat up. He is the one who takes our mess and turns it into a message. He takes our manure and uses it to mature us.

What Satan finds in the pocket of our heart is exactly what we put there. The choice is ours.

Lord God, to You I give my family. Be the fourth man in. The one who will see us through no matter how rough the ride, no matter how long the road.

The test of Time

2011-07-26T07:53:00.000-07:00

“Inevitably, the calendar crowds out the Spirit and the face of the clock hides the face of God. Prayer ceases to be the free breath of a ransomed soul and becomes a duty to be fulfilled. From “Transforming Prayer” by Daniel Henderson”

Busy, busy, busy, we always seem to be busy don’t we? Our calendars show it; our amount of time spent on the run shows it. We don’t need to be someone on the road traveling across the country to be “busy” we can be too busy watching TV or being lazy to spend time with God.

It is said that if we look at our checkbook we can see what the most important thing in our life is. It reflects where God stands. Our time and how we spend it does the same. If we would stop and take a long look at what we have done with our time would our actions pass the “test of time?” How many times do we grab for our cell-phones verses grabbing for our Bibles. How important is it to us to read our emails than read God’s word. Do we talk more on the phone than we talk to God? Are we a lot more excited about getting a text message from someone than we are a message from God?

With my head bowed low I raise my hand in guilt admitting I’m one of those people that are anxious to see if I’ve got any “new messages” on my phone, facebook, or email. I have to stop once in awhile and ask myself, “How many times in a day do I do that with God. Anxiously looking to see if He had a message for me, eager to hear what He has to say.”

It’s important that our reverence for God be reflected in our time and on our daily calendar. If its not then soon our conversation with God becomes more of a duty to fulfill, “Oh I forgot to pray today I better hurry up and get it done,” rather than a random act of keeping in touch with our Heavenly Father.

As our calendars on our cellphones are set to remind us of an appointment or special occasion we need to add God into the mixture. “Need to add” is the key. It would do us well to remember the only things that get on our calendars are the things we put there. They don’t get there by themselves; we are the ones who have to make the effort to load it with its information. So the next time we are putting something on our calendars why not add, “Remember to spend time with God today!”

We can’t be throwing God the crumbs and leftovers of our time, efforts, energies or money and expect to get His full blessings. It just doesn’t work that way. It will never pass the test of time but adding God to our social calendar instead of taking Him off will. It’s a test that will show where our priorities are and where the waste begins.

Spoiling the Design

2011-07-19T07:20:00.000-07:00

“Non-eucharisteo, ingratitude, was the fall–humanity’s discontent with all that God freelygives. That is what has scraped me raw: ungratefulness.” ~~ Ann Voskamp

One of the biggest problems we face today is the problem of ungratefulnes. It started in the garden with Adam and Eve and it continues on. We’ve had it too good for so long that we expect everything for nothing. We have come to the point where we don’t appreciate anything until we lose it and even then we aren’t very grateful. Things such as the job we have, our love ones near by, our good health, and so much more.

We often think that in order to be thankful for anything we need to get exactly what we want when we want it. If we don’t, if there’s any kind of delay or tweaking in the answer we expected then all need for gratefulness is cancelled.

Boy, what a bunch of spoiled kids God created. No, what God created was His children, we are the ones who added the “spoiled” to the formula. We are the ones who have damaged seriously the disposition God intended for us by pampering with His design. We are the ones guilty of injuring, harming, and hurting His design to raise children with grateful appreciative hearts.

For years I struggled with the scripture that told me, “In everything…..with thanksgiving….make your requests known to God.” The “In everything” seemed to be impossible. I was weak enough in my Christian walk that I couldn’t see how I could possibly be grateful for what I was enduring in life. Over time I convinced myself the “in everything” surely didn’t pertain to me because of the degree of my pain and suffering.

There was no doubt about it I was living my life like the Psalmnist that said, “If you do this for me God, I’ll be forever grateful, I’ll praise you Lord. I promise.” I wanted God to go first then I would follow. After all isn’t that the way we were taught. God go first. We only follow that formula when its for our convience to shove God out in front. There we go again spoiling the design. Tampering with something that had purpose.

God doesn’t tell us to be thankful our husband was killed, or we are dieing of cancer, or that our child has turned on us, or we are both job and homeless. The thankfulness comes from being thankful we have a God to turn to, salvation, air to breath, other love ones to love, memories to share, others to make.

Life goes on and how we approach that determines the length of our journey. We can either grumble the whole journey or look out to find ways to be thankful. One makes the journey seem long, the other makes it go by quicker in preparation for the next adventure life has for us travel.

Stop spoiling the design and start using God’s formula. One where thankfulness is found in the first, middle and last in a heart prepared to travel through life’s journeys no matter what they may be.

God's Speed, God's Pace

2011-07-12T07:29:00.000-07:00

“ Yes, I understand that turning back or waiting for others slows you down, but only at first. The deliberate extension of goodness, generosity, and wisdom always wins out in the end.” ~~ Lisa Bevere, “Lioness Arising: Wake Up and Change Your World”

When I was first diagnosed with cancer the pain in my back where the bone cancer had showed up was tremendous. My co-workers who I had been walking with daily had to slow down in order for me to even slightly stay caught up. Often they would even put me out in front to establish the pace.

They definitely could have gone further and faster in the time we had to walk but they were willing to hold themselves back in order to help me. They knew the doctor wanted me to get my exercise and our daily walks during our breaks was a great way to get it. So they made the sacrifice.

Looking back over the years I can name several people who did that for me when I was a young Christian learning to walk. They definitely could have gotten where they wanted to be further and faster but they chose to stay with me and help me along at my current pace.

It’s like holding on to the hand of a two or three year old child just learning to walk. They slow us down a great deal but it’s important we stay with them for the time being. Give them a few years when they are 15 or 16 years old or even younger and they will be the ones running circles around us wondering why we’re not the one who are “hurrying up.”

Slowing down for someone else spiritually to walk along beside them at their pace doesn’t have to slow down our spiritual growth. Believe it or not it can help us grow further and faster when we use our energies to serve others in this way. The Bible tells us to pass along to the younger generation that which we have learned and we can do that by staying with them, not harping on them to “hurry up” but encouraging them that they can make it if they don’t give up.

God would have no children if He expected us to keep up with Him. He was willing to slow down long enough to get us going to where we need to be and we need to do the same for others. It is a journey that will get us to where we need to be further and faster than anything else at God’s speed, at God’s pace.

Right Fruit in the Right Basket

2011-07-04T16:29:00.000-07:00

“ We need to learn how to keep people through love. Despite imperfections, sins, and irritating habits of other Christians, they belong to Jesus and they need our love as a healthy climate for growth.” ~ John Wimber

Looking back at my younger years in my spiritual life I can remember being a real basket case. Instead of a basket full of the fruit of the spirit I seemed to have a basket full of imperfections and flaws. In love, the church took me in and housed me until I was mature enough to go out on my own to face life as a Christian. In other words they loved me through until I was able to go through on my own.

My part to play in the whole ordeal was to take that love and use it as strength in which to grow in not as an excuse to stay weak. Indeed I could remain the basket case I was full of faults and mistakes or I could use their patience and love as an opportunity to get something good growing in my life. The right fruit in the right basket you might say.

As much as we would like to think it, none of us are born fully mature as we all start out spiritually immature. Too often we act like the child who gets referred to as, “Being two going on twenty” as we think we are far more mature than we really are.

In spite of wanting to “act like a grown up” we aren’t and we need the love of those who have gone before us to get us there. The minute we walk in the door we don’t need anyone coming up to us with a measuring stick to see how mature or grown up we are. However, as time goes on we should have our own quantifying rod to go by to see if we are making progress in our growth.

For example, as an older woman invited a young girl to Sunday service the young girl declined saying, “I usually have a hangover on Sunday morning, I can’t come.” The older lady replied, “So, come anyway.” Eventually the younger girl did just that, hangover and all. It was an act of love on the part of the one that got the other coming. Time would pass and spiritual growth was reached.

Today she now is the “older woman” (if she’ll forgive me for using that phrase on her, ha ha) helping those once caught in her position. There was no measuring stick coming in but she eventually had her quantifying rod to see how far she had gone. To her it would be a tool that gave her confidence to reach out in that same kind of love. The love of those who belong to Jesus helping others get the right fruit in the right basket!

Pass it On!

2011-06-27T20:59:00.000-07:00

We will not hide these truths from our children but will tell the next generation about the glorious deeds of the Lord. We will tell of His power and the mighty miracles He did. So each generation can set its hope anew on God, remembering His glorious miracles and obeying His commands. Ps 78:4,7

While visiting San Francisco recently with my niece and sister we stumbled across what was called “The Disney Family” museum. Tucked away inside this long building was the story of Walt Disney. It contained everything from his first drawing of Mickey Mouse to his last movie production. To the family this was something worth passing along to the next generation to keep the memory of Walt alive for generations to come.

Although my family may think I have enough “stuff” in my house to pack a good size museum what I have to pass along cannot be stored anywhere but in the hearts of my love ones. If I do my job properly none of them will have to pay an entry fee to get in to see what I treasure the most, my knowledge of my Lord and Savior.

Yes, indeed somewhere along the line of generations to generations someone in each group did their part to pass along to me, Karen Gillett the message of Christ that arrived long before I ever did. In each passing the glorious deeds of the Lord were told again and again only to gain in value instead of declining in worth giving me the hope I would need to survive in life.

Unfortunately the one thing we can’t pass along is the desire to receive what is being handed down from generation to generation. Some look at the Bible as something out dated instead of a bearer of good news regarding our future. They think with every decade and century that arrives that a principle of God should expire.

In spite of the many times people have tried to bury the Bible it has out lived its pallbearers every time. Living 21 centuries later after Christ’s birth is no excuse to stop the flow of something that remains a preparation for our future not an index of the past.

If I could stop the flow from generation to generation of my breast cancer I would do it in a heartbeat. That’s the last thing I want to pass along to my daughter and three granddaughters. No I’d rather continue the flow of information about my Creator God and Friend. For as a part of the “next” generation they deserve to have the hope so many before them shared.

The time is now to keep to ourselves our spiritual cancers, bad attitudes, nasty habits, negative thinking, permissible ways, and sins in order to continue the flow of something greater. The flow of information about God, the hope He carries, the future He has in store for us wrapped up not only in information of the past but more of a knowledge of our future.

What once was still is and is yet to come again. Our knowledge of God can prepare us for that. Pass it on!

© 2011 Karen J Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Rest, Refuel, and Reconnect

2011-06-21T06:33:00.000-07:00

“The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is to succumb to violence . . .” ~Thomas Merton

In reading this quote I couldn’t see how getting caught up in life is a form of violence. To help me out to compare notes on what violence is I turned to my pocket pal Webster to look the word up. His view of the word was much different than mine. I see violence as something horrible done to other people, a force, a violation, a bullying type of behavior. Webster tells me it’s an exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse. It is a type of injury by infringement and intense, turbulent, or furious and often destructive action or force, or undue alteration.

With the new light I now had on the word violence I can see very well how it could be seen as violence. Busying ourselves with life, over booking our schedules, allowing ourselves to be carried away by a multitude of concerns eventually gets to us. If we do it long and hard enough it creates stress in our lives. A path that leads to an exertion of a physical force that is self-inflicted. An infringement or violation we bring upon ourselves.

Yep, self-inflicted violence, doesn’t that sound intelligent? Not really but we all do it to ourselves in one form or another. If not why is it that when you go to a doctor the first thing they ask you is if you have “stress” in your life. Well duh! Who doesn’t?

God created the seventh day of rest for a reason. It wasn’t just so He could take a breather. He knew we would self-destruct without it. We need it to take time off from life in general. A time to stop and look at where we are in our relationship with Him and assess how far away or close we have wondered or draw nigh to Him.

When we fail to take that time of rest, to let life go for a brief moment all we are doing is starting our six days of the week all over again. Soon it becomes another six and another six and the list goes on and the violence against self increases.

Wouldn’t it be nice if life halted on the seventh day so we could have a break from all that is going on? Unfortunately it doesn’t work that way. If you have cancer on Saturday you’ll have it on Sunday too. If you are having money problems on the sixth day you’ll have them on seventh day too. What we are doing is taking a break from getting all wrapped up in what is going on around us.

It’s taking the time to Rest, Refuel, and Reconnect with the Lord. Instead of getting a little R & R we wind up getting more with R & R & R! When we do this it makes dealing with the other six days possible. It therefore makes us more beneficial to those around us.

“Be still and know that I am God.” It’s sad how far away we have moved from the blessing of being still. The world tells us that being still is being stagnant. The affects of being stagnant only sink in when we are inactive for God. Being quiet before the Lord is an active task. There’s a big difference between active and busy. There are a lot of people who can be very busy yet get nothing accomplished. Let’s use our R & R & R to be active with Christ not over-busy with the world.

Let it Rain!

2011-06-14T06:01:00.000-07:00

“ Pay attention, heavens, and I will speak; listen, earth, to the words of my mouth. Let my teaching fall like rain and my word settle like dew, like gentle rain on new grass and showers on tender plants. For I will proclaim the LORD’s name. Declare the greatness of our God! ”
~ Deuteronomy 32:1-3 (HCSB)

Moses in this scripture was addressing the Israelites. As you read it you can almost imagine him standing up before them clearing his throat. Clearing it to get their attention and start his speech. As he opened his mouth he not only addressed the people but he even told the heavens to pay attention and the earth to listen.

What Moses had to say was significant and most importantly what he needed to do was vital to the people. He told them he wanted them to listen to the words of his mouth. He wasn’t up there giving a campaign dialogue or recognition speech. No, he had some teaching to do, teaching about the Lord.

Moses wanted his teachings to fall like rain, settle like dew, and shower down. He didn’t care how it came down whether it was a drizzle, mist, gentle rain, or downpour. That’s one thing about rain is the fact that when it comes down it comes down everywhere. It reaches everything and that is what Moses wanted. He wasn’t there to solely wag his finger at the audience and give them a lecture about how disobedient they had been. No, he was there to proclaim the Lord’s name and to declare the greatness of God.

That needs to be our goal in life to get out a message similar to Moses’ declaring the greatness of God. To get us started we can borrow the words Moses started with in verse four when he said, “God is the Rock, His work is perfect, for all His ways are law and justice. A God of faithfulness without breach or deviation, just and right is He.”

Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord. Did I mention, praise the Lord?! Just reading that adoration of the Lord should get us started. We should never be like the lawnmower or weed-eater that needs to be started several times before they get going. We shouldn’t need to be choked a couple of times by life to keep us going when it comes to proclaiming the greatness of God.

That one single line of Moses is the pulling of the rope that reeves us up. Here are more tugs of the rope of praise and adoration to God I’ve collected over the years to keep us up and running and worshipping God in our admiration.

“God is the God of radiant glory, mighty power, sovereignty, and full of great wisdom. It is His glory that we see at work, the God of a glorious name, creator of all, author and finisher of our faith. Redemption alone belongs to Him. He is a fountain of good, the one who conquerors all and inhabits eternity. King of King, redeemer, the first and the last, there is no other God like Him. From eternity to eternity He alone is God. No one can oppose what He does; no one can reverse His actions. He is our salvation and honor. He is our refuge and rock where no enemy can reach us. Indeed the hope of everyone on earth who faithfully answers our prayers with awesome deeds.”

Yes, yes, let it rain. Let it rain! We are the ones that control this cloudburst. We can’t turn on the faucet of the clouds to make them water our yard when and where we want it but we do have control over the faucet of our hearts. The very outlet that is there to rain down praises and adoration of God like the morning dew, the afternoon shower, the evening downpour.

Oh I don’t want to quit, I could type forever on this subject. It’s so important that we learn to give the Lord the adoration He so deserves. Turn the faucet on, go for the full water pressure not just a drizzle. Let others know what a wonderful, loving Lord we serve and admire as we adoringly bow our knees before Him. Let it rain!

Karen's Crossing--21 Year Mile Marker

2011-06-13T20:33:00.000-07:00

Hello Readers! Today was a special day in my journey through Karen’s crossings. It was the anniversary of the day I was cured of my epilepsy. For twenty one years this date has come and gone and quietly I have cherished it as the “day I was cured.” It was quite the accomplishment after being disabled for twelve years with my epilepsy to be finally freed.

Year after year I always looked forward to that special moment to celebrate silently to myself the “day of my cure.” However, this year as the date approached I began to notice new mixed emotions arriving along with it on the calendar year. They were feelings and thoughts that recently came aboard uninvited.

My little stowaways just couldn’t wait to reveal themselves unexpectedly. Therefore last night as my husband and I ended our day I started to cry. “What’s the matter, Karen?” he asked as he tried to get an answer out of me. “Oh, it’s foolish. Never mind.” I said as I cried harder and harder. My husband may have fallin’ for that answer several times over the years but he wasn’t going to last night. “No,’ he told me, ‘I want to know what’s wrong!”

Sob, sob, sob…..‘I can’t say it, I’m crying too much,” was my reply. Determined to get an answer from me I finally managed to calm down long enough to speak. I told him for 21 years a certain day has come and gone without too much notice but this year it was totally different. I was no longer ‘cured.” Puzzled by my answer I think he was wondering if I had a seizure after twenty one years and that meant I was no longer cured of my epilepsy. “No, it had nothing to do with my epilepsy,’ I told him. ‘It’s foolish. It’s foolish,” was the farthest I could get.

Impatiently waiting to hear my explanation I finally managed to tell him, that because of my bone and breast cancer I could no longer see myself as “cured.” For 21 years I rejoiced over being “cured” but I wasn’t any longer. As foolish as it sounded it was what was in my heart. I had got stuck on that word “cure” and didn’t even know it. Practically dumbfounded by my train of thought the best he could do was hold my hand in silence.

I don’t know how it made him feel after our talk but it sure helped me to get out what I was holding inside. Often in life that’s the best thing we can do for one another is just take the time to pay attention to other people’s silliness or foolish thinking when they need someone to hear. Our job is not to make sense of it all but just simply listen.

All throughout my epilepsy whenever I had a seizure people would reach out and hold my hand until my seizure had passed. I know in my heart that it will be no different with my battle with cancer. I have been cured of my seizures and that is still something worth celebrating. Where I got off thinking that would be the end of my bad health I don’t know. If you think about it the Bible never tells us that the blind beggar was cured and never got sick again. Or the epileptic boy was freed from his seizures never to have another health problem again.

Life happens and we have to take it one day at a time. We can celebrate the good, look forward to more blessings but always be prepared in our hearts to endure the roadblocks and stumbling stones we encounter along the way. I once heard that what we are filled with is what will come out of us when we are punctured by circumstances and people in life.

When I am punctured I want to be so full of the Holy Spirit that only it can be seen emerging out of my heart, soul, and mind. My goal, may it always be to get the Holy Spirit to flow quicker and stronger than the tears that want to surface. Perhaps someday the stowaways I have on board will be God’s angels on board for the ride in a sea of Holy Spirit, in a soul set on God.

Happy Anniversary, to my cure from epilepsy.
I may have cancer but cancer doesn’t have me!

None Too Little, None Too Small

2011-06-07T06:42:00.000-07:00

“ If we can trust God for our eternal salvation, how can we not trust Him to provide for the “little” things of life?” ~M.E.Howard

Where was it ever written that God was only in charge of the “big stuff” like eternal salvation? We can read the Bible from front to back and back to front and we will not find such a message anywhere. Unfortunately somewhere in life we started to live as if it was written, tried, and true that God was above dealing with the “little” things in life.

To be perfectly honest we would be the last to admit we are living off that theory. However, there’s enough evidence to prove otherwise. As noble as it may sound God doesn’t need our help with the little things so He can maintain the bigger things in life. What He needs from us is our trust with all areas of our lives not just the “bigger stuff.”

Think about it, it’s a wonderful thing to know that our needs, prayer requests, petitions are not weighed on a scale of severity. A scale where bigger things come first and then if God has time for the “little” things then He will eventually get around to it. In an emergency room in a hospital you may see a sign that says, “People are seen in the order of severity” but with God you won’t see such a sign. A sign that says, “Prayers are answered in the order of severity or size.”

Years ago when I was on switchboard at a doctor’s office I had a patient call me. Come to find out she was sitting at our urgent care center waiting to be seen. She didn’t think she was getting in fast enough so she called the switchboard hoping to get connected with someone who could get her in quicker. I reminded her of the need to see the more severe patients first and that they will get to her as soon as possible and they did. Instead of being labeled “left without being seen” her patience got her the attention she was seeking.

God doesn’t operate on “order of severity” there is enough of Him to go around for everyone. Years ago when my life was at its worse I seemed to be on the prayer sheet at church more than the standard weekly greeting at the top of page. I often wondered if I was taking God away from other things more important than having to deal with me.

How foolish! The fact is there is enough of God to go around. He is greater than we give Him credit for. One of the most wonderful things about God is the fact that He isn’t bothered with having to deal with the “little” things in life. To Him they are just as important as something as big as preparing our eternal home.

What is required of us is patience and trust. We can’t be like the lady visiting the Immediate Care Center thinking she wasn’t getting in fast enough. God cares about the little and the big, no one will be overlooked, overshadowed, or disregarded. Instead of leaving His presence without being seen we need to stay and trust that indeed there are none too little or none too small. Praise the Lord!

Show it to 'em

2011-05-31T07:28:00.000-07:00

“ To the faithful You show Yourself faithful . . .” Psalm 18:25

A few verses up in this Psalm the writer talks about how the Lord rewarded them according to their righteousness. That because of the cleanness of their hands God was going to recompensed them. Next they went on to talk about how you will show yourself pure to the pure, merciful to the merciful, blameless to the blameless, faithful to the faithful.

Some people read these verses and think it means you are to be all things to all people. Like we are to pick our quality and show it when we choose to show it to the right people. Others get the impression you should never show yourself pure to those who are impure, or faithful to those who are unfaithful because we are to be all things to all people. That isn’t what this verse is saying.

In reading the verse it says, “to the faithful you will show yourself faithful” and so forth. The key is in the “you will show.” To those who are pure they will see you as pure if you are indeed pure. To the faithful you should live your life in a fashion that you will show them your faithfulness. Bottom-line is if we are a Christian then we will show ourselves similar to other Christians in a way they could spot our qualities a mile away.

The verse following this says to the perverse (wicked, bad, mean) you will show yourself contrary (different, opposite). Bingo, another key is thrown in. The key point being that when it comes to those who don’t follow Christ we should be “different.” Not different in behavior just different in the way others see us. To a rude person we are not to show ourselves rude. To an obnoxious person we are not to show ourselves obnoxious. No we are not to be all things to all people. We are to let our Christian qualities come out and those who have them should be able to see them.

When dealing with those outside of Christ it should read slightly different. To the rude show yourself as patient and kind. To the obnoxious show yourself loving and caring. To the bitter and angry show yourself as forgiving with the ability to let go and go on. It’s not a matter of being all things to all people, its being Christ-like to all people.

Believe it or not what others see is what we show them. How they perceive it is a whole different ball of wax for another day and an additional devotion.

Daylight is Coming

2011-05-24T06:14:00.000-07:00

To those going through the valley and shadow of death, hear this word: Weeping will last through some dark, awful nights—and in that darkness you will soon hear the Father whisper, “I am with you. I cannot tell you why right now, but one day it will all make sense. You will see it was all part of my plan. It was no accident. It was no failure on your part. Hold fast. Let me embrace you in your hour of pain.” David Wilkerson ~ When All Means Fail (from his blog post on the day of his sudden death)

If you have ever cried yourself to sleep at night it is an overwhelming feeling that seems to last forever. A feeling of hopelessness surrounds you as it seems like you’re all alone in your own little world. As dark as things may seem at the time daylight is always around the corner as the moment eventually passes.

It’s in these moments that we need to just be still before the Lord and listen for that whisper in the night, “I am with you. I am with you.” One of our first reactions when we think God is near enough is to hit Him up with the “Why me?” question. Instead of trusting that God will see us through and that He knows what He is doing we instantly want the answers to our question of “why?” It reminds me of the grandkids when they were little. It didn’t matter what was going on the question of “Why Grandma?” always came up.

Often I couldn’t answer their question because not all situations or circumstances have an answer to why it happened. Like it or not they had to trust my judgment that I knew what I was doing and the reason why didn’t matter. We need to do the same with God. As much as I wanted to know why I got epilepsy, why I lost my job, why did it have to be me who couldn’t have more kids, why, why, why it wasn’t for me to know at the time. If I would have been listening at the time I probably would have heard God tell me, “Karen, I can’t tell you why just now but some day it will make sense.” And you know what? Twenty plus years after I was cured as the daylight appeared around the corner I can see many answers to my “Why me?” saga.

One of the reasons was to get the “Why me’s” out of the way in order to not be overwhelmed by my diagnosis of cancer. What I got out of dealing with my epilepsy, the strength and trust I learned were the very tools I needed in my pocket to see me through my breast and bone cancer that showed up more than twenty years later.

Thanks to lessons already learned I’m finding it easier to hold on fast instead of setting up shop to throw my all famous pity parties no one seemed to want to attend but me. Instead of lashing out at God for what was happening to me I find myself welcoming His embrace as I hold on to the source I know is there to walk me through the darkness until daylight shows up.

Remember as kids when your sibling or a friend accidentally hurt you and then they tried to comfort you in your pain you pushed them away. After all they were the ones who caused the pain in the first place. We do that with God way too often. We push Him away accusing Him of being the cause of the pain so we want Him to go away. Boy do we have it wrong. When we are suffering we like to pick an easy target to strike out at and it always seems to be God.

Life happens, pain will come and go. Darkness may be here at the present but daylight is just around the corner. God isn’t out to afflict as many people as He can in an end of the century quota He needs to fill. He is there to see us through these times. They are times of learning to trust, to strengthen our faith, and to get us to grow spiritually as we learn how to get through the night the best possible way we can by hanging on to the hand of the Lord.

More important than “why” is “how” we get through these times in our lives. We can go through fighting to win or go through defeating our own purposes. It’s not all in the answers, its all in our attitude. Daylight is on its way and we need to believe that.

Buckets of Grace

2011-05-17T06:29:00.000-07:00

Lord I crawled across the barrenness to you with my empty cup uncertain in asking any small drop of refreshment. If only I had known you better I’d have come running with a bucket.” -Nancy Spiegelberg

In life there seems to be those who run on the top half of their gas tank and those who live on the bottom. I was the type who lived off the bottom half. Recently I’ve been trying to change my ways and live on the top half. Doing so by filling my vehicle when it gets down to half instead of listening for the warning light to signal I need a refill.

Years ago that was the way it felt like I was living my life as well, off of empty. I would struggle during the week trying to survive on what fumes I could get and go to church to get a refill of strength. Sitting there come Sunday morning to comfort myself I would imagine myself sitting there with a gasoline tank nozzle stuck in my ear to take in more fuel from the Sunday service. It really got funny when I tried visualized the rest of the congregation doing the same thing.

I have to confess I came with a small gas tank. I was only after enough strength, grace, and peace to get me through the week. Often I got much more than that. It took me awhile but I finally turned in my red one gallon container for a much larger bucket as the strength I was given was more than I anticipated.

Shame on us for not knowing the Lord better, not anticipating that He could give us much more than we ask for or require. David Jeremiah once said, “God has a bigger shovel than our little shovel. We can’t out give God.” God has a bigger gas tank than the little thing we carry around. His has no bottom; there is no top half or bottom half.

It all has to do with our attitude. We can come to Him arrogantly expecting Him to give us all we want and will for. Then if we don’t get it we throw our little temper tantrum and declare there must not be a god. However, the better way to come to Him is humble, seeking, and trusting as we request access to whatever He has to give us. When approached correctly we find buckets full of grace in place of tiny tin cups of hope.

Praise the Lord we can’t out give, out stretch, out source what God has available to us if we would only come to Him. If we only knew Him as we should. Often you’ll find God has more faith in us than we do in Him. Shame on us. Praises on Him.

Beyond the Morning Mist

2011-05-10T06:49:00.000-07:00

For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Hosea 6:6

Reading through the whole chapter of Hosea we see where they are talking about Israel’s un-repentance. God had a whole list of things they were doing wrong to demonstrate their un-repentant hearts. God accused them of having a love like the morning mist or early dew that disappears. Wow, it must have been pretty weak, shallow, and temporary for Him to say that.

Later God goes on to say what He did in today’s verse, “For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings.” Too often we make the mistake of thinking if we sacrifice something like an hour of our time on Sunday, or a $20 bill in the offering tray, or allowing someone to cut in line at the grocery store that we have it made in our standing with God.

Boy, do we have it wrong. God says here He would rather have mercy and us acknowledging Him instead of other things we label “a sacrifice.” Sad part about the whole thing is the fact that we are cheating ourselves out of something that is tremendous. When we do that we not only have kind of love God describes but a relationship with Him too that disappears as quickly as the morning mist does.

Frequently you hear people say, “Well I pray to God.” “I read my Bible” and that is as far as it goes. Wham bang out with the morning mist. Acknowledging God and having that relationship with Him that can go beyond the morning mist is awesome. We have our responsibility to make it happen. We can’t sign up for it, the waters of baptism doesn’t wash it into our lungs and spirit. It’s a daily choice we need to make. A choice to choose God over the things we think makes us “look like we chose God” when really we haven’t.

We need to stop cheating ourselves out of something spectacular. Did I mention that before? Well it’s the truth. Don’t settle for the morning mist when you can have so much more with the Lord. Such as a full day, a full life, one that will take you further into a full eternity with Him. It begins with acknowledgement and it ends, well it will never end Praise the Lord!

© 2011 Karen J Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

And The Winner Is!

2011-04-25T20:27:00.000-07:00

Nothing irritates Satan more than us choosing God over our pain and suffering. We can endure everything if we know Jesus is sitting next to us. Joni Eareckson Totta

Have you ever been in a position where there was someone around you that was great to irritate or irritated you greatly? I would swear my brother liked to irritate me when we were kids but he would say it was the other way around. Just because I threw him between a barking dog and me after I “irritated” the dog my brother seems to think I like to torment him. Well maybe a little bit I do. Okay perhaps a lot.

With practice it doesn’t take much to figure out what buttons to push with some people to annoy them. Satan is no different. He knows what aggravates us and it’s important to know what gets on his nerves. The simple act of choosing God over our pain will do the trick.

Between kids, seeing who can irritate each other the most is a game they like to play. It’s a type of race to the top of the annoyance ladder to see who wins. However, when we choose God over our pain and suffering it’s not done in competition to get back at Satan for “picking on us first.” It’s not a game to play but more of a survival of the fittest. It’s knowing what works best and putting it into action.

What an awesome feeling it is to know that we can endure all things thanks to God. It is not because we outwitted, out annoyed Satan it’s because of our trust and faith in God that makes it possible. It is the knowing in our hearts that He is right there beside us as we live out that knowledge no matter what the circumstances surrounding us.

Too often we imagine God has abandoned us because we are experiencing “pain and suffering” but that isn’t the case. Instead of looking at pain and suffering as a weapon God is using to get even with us, we need to use it as a tool to further our growth as Christians. Christians who are willing to take a stand against Satan and his schemes and loudly say, “I choose God over all else.”

In my case, it doesn’t make sense to allow cancer to win in both areas of my life both physically and spiritually. I may never get rid of the bone and breast cancer my body carries but I can win spiritually by choosing a healthy life with God. A life strengthened in God, destined for eternity with Him and it begins with choosing God.

Most certainly opting God doesn’t get rid of the pain and suffering. I already had chosen God long before breast and bone cancer chose me but because I continue to make Him my number one pick I will come out ahead where it really counts, spiritually.

Indeed when we take the time to put the two on a scale it doesn’t take long to see which one out weighs the other: 1) Choosing the consequences of giving in to our pain and suffering or 2) Choosing God? And the winner is: God! And thanks to Him we can be winners too.

© 2011 Karen J Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

A Souvenir

2011-04-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

“Grace is Christianity’s best gift to the world, a spiritual nova in our midst exerting a force stronger than vengeance, stronger than racism, stronger than hate. Sadly, to a world desperate for this grace the church sometimes presents one more form of ungrace.” by Philip Yancey What’s So Amazing About Grace?

I hate to start with a disagreement but I have to. Grace is not Christianity’s gift to the world. Grace is God’s best gift to the world. It is something that the church and Christians need to practice but as far as the gift, that’s God’s best souvenir. It is what He brought to us when Christ visited earth.

Occasionally when I travel I like to pick up souvenirs along the way because its fun and I may never go there again so I better get them while I can. They may collect dust on my shelf at home but by golly molly I have my souvenirs. A cow from Texas, a necklace, from Hawaii, a domino from Las Vegas, a T-shirt from Disneyland, a cable car magnet from San Francisco.

Too often we treat God’s grace that same way. We grab it while its there only to take it home and place it on the shelf to collect dust. Grace is our gift to use and practice. It should never sit around long enough to collect soil, filth, and grime. What it needs to collect is souls, faith, and glory.

The problem with a souvenir such as grace is people tend to treat it like a toy. The cute little Holstein cow I bought in Texas that says, “I love Texas” to my grandchildren was a toy they wanted to play with but I wouldn’t let them. In the spiritual world some see grace as toy to play with.

Sinners on the outside toying with the idea that because of God’s grace they expect others to love them as they are with the ability to continue their sinful paths skateboarding on the free ride of God’s grace. Those in the church tinkering around kicking the soccer ball of responsibility to those they think should be in charge of that ministry. People like the preacher, missionaries, or youth group leader anyone but themselves.

We need to get it right. Grace is something we all need. Its something we all require. We are all one of those “sinners” on the outside of Heaven in need of it. In need of it to help us change into the children God wants us to be. It gives us the desire and ability to do it. Once we pick up that souvenir we can’t place it on the shelf to get dusty but we need to put it into practice on a daily basis.

It’s not a one time pass to a free concert we watch and walk away from. No it’s the door to a relationship with our Heavenly Father. It’s the beginning of a journey that has no end. It’s taking our life out of our own hands and placing it in God’s in a gesture alone that increases our value tremendously. Extend that gift to others. Bring it back not to be abused but used to glorify God and better ourselves.

I’ve got a souvenir; it’s the grace of God. Share it with me.

Excellent Driver

2011-04-12T06:51:00.000-07:00

“God is not concerned about what is around the corner. He created the corner.” Anonymous

Recently because my Durango is in the shop I’ve been driving our little Buick back and forth to work. It works great for that but when you try to fit four or more grandkids in the backseat it gets really crowded.

This weekend as we went around a corner I heard a peep out of the one sitting near the window. Apparently as the car made its turn the entire group of grandchildren shifted with it and the one on the end got squished.

Keeping silent from the front of the car I sat there thinking about the days when I was kid. Indeed with five kids in the car it was the perfect opportunity for revenge to purposely lean into the corners in order to get the kid lucky enough to argue their way to the “window seat.” “Payback is sweet,” we always use to say.

In life we encounter journeys of many corners. Sometimes it feels like life is seeking revenge on us as we fear going around each one. “What is this?’ we think. ‘Payback for something we did?” Too often we forget that God is not concerned with the corners because He created them. We forget He’s the one in the driver’s seat who sees them coming and knows what is around each one.

Another part of our journeys as kids was to ask our parents, “How many more corners till we get to Grammy and Papa’s?” That was our measuring stick since the road to their house was full of winding curves. Mom’s answer to us was always the same, “I don’t know but we’re almost there.”

Frequently in my life I’ve asked God the same question. “How many more corners God till I get where I need to be?” His answer has always been similar to the one mom use to say, “Karen, I don’t know but you’re almost there.”

If you think about it, corners require faith in the one that is driving. Faith that they know where they are going and that they will slow down to make the corner to prevent them from driving off the edge. We need to have that kind of faith in God going into the corners of our lives. Those scary dark moments, those uncertain times, and endless travels of asking, “Are we there yet?”

Corners weren’t meant to seek revenge; they aren’t there to make us car sick in our travels. They have their purpose. They break things up, they teach us to trust. Have you ever traveled down a straight road? After awhile you find yourself almost falling asleep because of the monotony of it. Corners wake us up. They keep us alert and trusting in the one doing the driving.

Recently when I was in San Francisco for the first time in my life I got the pleasure of trying out the cable cars. Looking at the steep roads we would have to go up and down I figured it was a good thing I was in the back where I couldn’t see. By stepping on board I put my trust in the one doing the driving that he would get us where we wanted to be.

It would do us well to be content to be in the backseat letting God do the driving, let Him worry about the corners. Trusting in Him that He isn’t going around these corners just to squish us in the backseat against others traveling with us.

As much as we would like to move from point A to point B in life without any ups and downs, turns, curves, frequent stops, and breakdowns it just doesn’t work that way. We learn how to travel when we travel under the conditions of winding roads verses straight ones. Such as the lesson of trusting the one in charge as we get on board and prepare to move forward.

If I was to look back at roads long since traveled I would probably find the corners I took where I felt like I ran straight into a wall or off the edge were corners I took alone without God. I had no idea what corners my head injury at the age of twelve would take me into but God was there with me in each one. I anticipate nothing different with my breast and bone cancer journey. God is still in the driver’s seat. I still need to trust Him with every turn.

We are not God's “Hot-wheel toy” to play with, we are His passengers. Oh what an awesome thought, as an excellent driver takes care of their passessngers and God is an excellent driver. Trust Him and the corners will take care of themselves.

Cheating on Our Diet

2011-04-05T05:13:00.000-07:00

“The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away; may the name of the LORD be praised.” In all this, Job did not sin by charging God with wrongdoing. ~ Job 1:21b-22 ~

It’s amazing to see how Job held up under the pressure of what was going on his life. God really knew his heart when He told Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, there is none like him in all the earth. He’s a perfect and upright man, one that fears Me (God) and shuns evil. He holds fast to his integrity.” And that is exactly what Job did. He may have struggled inside of himself but he held fast to the integrity, truth, honesty, reliability that got him where he was spiritually.

In the song “Blessed Be Your Name” written by “Tree63” they cover this well. They sing about blessing the Lord in all situations, good and bad. We’re not as unique as we think we are. We need to be like Job in our attitude. It doesn’t matter if we are living in the streams of abundance, desert places, wilderness or even where the darkness closes in on us we are to bless the Lord.

In other words if we are the kind of person we should be in Christ we are without excuse. If we are upright, one who fears God, shuns evil, and hold fast to integrity we will do as Job did. Too often we like to “mark” special occasions to use as an excuse to do what we want. Celebrating someone’s birthday gives us the excuse to go off our diet and eat cake. Breaking up with our spouse gives us the excuse to go out and get drunk. Losing our jobs is our excuse to go and take out our revenge on others.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer my husband and I were both on a diet. The news of the cancer was devastating and being the emotional eater I am it was the perfect excuse to go off my diet and eat something, anything but Don wouldn’t let me cheat on my diet.

We should be that lucky to have someone around that won’t let us cheat on our spiritual diet either. We are without excuse when the different situations happen to us. It doesn’t matter if God gives or He takes away it should be our hearts choice to say, “Lord blessed be Your name. Praise the name of Jesus.”

Blessing and praising God isn’t rejoicing that I have cancer. It’s telling the Lord I know you’re there and I still love you no matter what life swings my way and I know you still love me. Satan hates it when we do that. He’d rather we turned on God and started to blame Him for everything that was going on.

The one heart choice tears us down, the other gives us strength. I know, I’ve been there especially when I had epilepsy. My heart wasn’t choosing to praise the Lord then when I lost my job, my dreams, my choice of having kids, and everything else. I dealt with a tremendous anger that got me no where but further down. When I reversed that process and started to praise the Lord for who He was no matter what my situations on earth were I began to gain strength spiritually and stress seizures started to vanish.

It would do us well to learn how to properly praise the Lord. We are to be praising the Lord for all the things He is. It’s not praising Him for our new car, our million dollar bank account, our success. We can thank Him for those things but true praise needs to be centered on the characteristics of God. Praising Him for the earth He created, the oxygen we breath, the pull of gravity, His artistic abilities, patience’s, love, understanding, for being our Saviour, refuge, strength, and so much more.

Those things don’t require good times to do. They require a heart like Job’s. One that is upright, perfect, fears God, shuns evil and hangs on to integrity. Although there is pain in the offering, and frequently there is, still is no excuse to cheat on our spiritual diet and not praise the Lord daily as we should.

As with any diet when we cheat, we only cheat ourselves. Stay on track. Stay on your spiritual diet and praise the Lord frequently.

Inspired by God

2011-04-01T10:02:00.000-07:00

My health may fail and my spirit may grow weak but God remains the strength of my heart. He is mine forever. Ps 73.26

This picture is a quilt my oldest granddaughter Marissa is making for me. I thought that scripture fit well. She put the date I was diagnosed with my breast cancer on it and left an open space at the bottom for the date of my cure.

My car went to the doctor today via a tow truck. Hope there is good news there. My good news is my tumor markers continue to drop in half.

As my doctor said. We'll take that. I say praise the Lord. He is mine forever.

Luv
Karen

God the Answer

2011-03-29T06:37:00.000-07:00

I know now, Lord, why you utter no answer. You are yourself the answer. Before your face questions die away. What other answer would suffice? ~ C.S. Lewis ~

It’s amazing sometimes how we struggle to find all the answers to life. We go every where trying to figure it out. We search in places we have no business going. We try drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, sports, work, eating and anything else that will give us the answers. It’s like searching for those pairs of glasses we lost that were on top of our heads all along.

We do that with God. We look right passed the answer figuring there must be something more. After all believing and trusting in God is too simple, there has to be more. We overlook the true solution in search for what we think the answer may be. Truth be-known we’ve already came up with the answer in our minds and we keep looking until we find something close to it.

Lately in the news you hear a lot about different things going on. Millions of dollars wasted on a studying showing if you go to church you will end up fat. People get fat because of their eating habits not because they attend church once a week. Darwin thought he found the answers to things and look how far off he got. Later he came to the correct conclusion that there is a God who created us but everyone stuck like glue to his first answer. Why? Because it was the solution they wanted to hear for the answer they were seeking.

Many of our Bible Buddies like Eve went searching for answers in all the wrong areas. Her solution was a piece of fruit when she had the true answer all along, God. The tower of Babel incident that they thought was a great solution but wound up not being the answer at all.

Just because we find an answer doesn’t make it the right answers when the test of life gets handed in and graded. We may have thought we had the solutions to come up with the correct answers but they wind up being wrong.

In the end it comes down between our solutions or God the answer, which do we want to choose. The one will get us where we need to be, the other will only send us off searching for more solutions to find the right answer.

If you think about it the quicker the answers, the shorter the quizzes so why not go straight to the answer to them all, God. We don’t need to change a one answer quiz into a multiple choice test by the choices we make. There is no such thing as “all the right answers.” God is the right answer, no other answer will do. Choose the answer first, God and the questions in life will come.

Point A to Point B

2011-03-22T06:19:00.000-07:00

“In the darkest of our times, God is plotting for our glory. If we would believe this and remember it, we would not be blind when God reveals His grace.”~ by John Piper ~ A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God

I have a confession to make. In my darkest times when people would tell me that everything was going to work out for the better I didn’t believe them. At times it would make me mad, “why should I have to go through “point A” to get to “point B. Why couldn’t everything work out for the good now?” My night vision wasn’t what it should have been as my spiritual maturity level and ability to trust and believe in God’s grace wasn’t there either.

Little did I know it would be those walks in the dark that would help me gain the spiritual maturity needed to improve my night vision. I had to learn for myself that what they say is true, “our best understanding comes from looking back but life has to be lived going forward.”

We can’t live our lives like the young boy who spilled his milk on the kitchen floor and his mom asked him to go out on the back porch and get the mop to clean it up. “But it’s dark out there mommy,” he exclaimed. Reassuringly mom told him, “God was out there and there was nothing to be afraid of.” Next thing she knew she heard her boy opening the back door, quietly sticking only his head outside he said, “God since you are already out there could you hand me the mop?”

I think that is the way most of us are with our darkest moments. We quietly stick out only our head instead of our hearts to ask God since He’s already out there could He just hand over the good times, glory, and grace He has for us.

We’re so busy hovering in the corner that we miss out on the grace God has for us. When I first got cancer I wanted to just curl up in a corner somewhere and pull a blanket over my head. A month or more after my diagnosis a co-worker’s husband was diagnosed with cancer in his ear. Interestingly enough she echoed the same desire to curl up in a corner and hide.

Although that is what our flesh wants to do we don’t need to follow that feeling. What we need to do is believe that God is at work. He hasn’t gone off duty. He isn’t ignoring us. There was no mistake in the glory and grace machine in Heaven that withdrew our portion of it.

The beauty of it all is knowing and believing that God is out there. He’s not somewhere out of touch but close by. For the few days I felt like I wanted to hover in that far corner in the dark God was there with me with His arms around me quietly holding me till my strength returned. God hadn’t let me down. I had let myself down by not believing.

Our part is so simple. All we have to do is believe and trust and watch for His grace to arrive. Unfortunately we like to complicate things by impatiently wanting it now, not recognizing good grace when we see it, and wanting more at our demand and terms.

Often God’s best delivery time is between the hours of us traveling from “Point A to Point B” because He has our undivided attention. It would do us good to practice sticking out our whole hearts to Him and believe instead of only our heads and the fickle thoughts that often linger there. Amen? Yes, Amen!!!!!

God's Glasses

2011-03-15T05:53:00.000-07:00

“When we align our thinking with God’s, we’re given a glimpse of what it’s like to see through His eyes. When we’re able to view our storm from His perspective …it changes everything.” ~ Be Still by Cherie Hill ~

Years ago when I was in a situation someone told me I needed to see a person through the eyes of God. Try as I might I just couldn’t do it. The vision I saw through my eyes was the same vision almost when I tried to think about how God saw them. To me the person didn’t change from my eyes to God’s at all.

Come to find out the problem I was having in the vision process was my alignment was off. I need to align myself with God’s thinking. I needed to set aside Karen for awhile in order to get a better view of the things in front of me. Whenever my vision got blurry and went dark come to find out it was me sticking things in front of me that took my sight away from where it needed to be.

The person I was looking at wasn’t going to change just because I viewed them through God’s eyes. What was meant to change was my perspective of that person, my attitude, the way I handled myself. It’s not a matter of putting on these rose covered glasses and all is well. Its more of a way of putting storm windows on your house, it’s a protection against all the things our minds can create when we view things from our own perspective.

Recently in “Karen’s Crossings” I wrote about how glad I am that some people have different perspectives of things than me. It helps when things are down and the chips just don’t seem to be falling in what we would view “our favor.” My perspective of things was I felt like I was a sitting duck just waiting for something to happen to me. For my meds to fail, my cancer to pop up somewhere else, and all the other bad things my brain could dream up.

No! Okum smokum we don’t have time to stick to our perspective of things. We need to align ourselves with God. If we aren’t where we need to be in our perspective of things it isn’t His fault. His view of my storm is the shore ahead. My view is the rough waters I’m trying to dodge right now. His view is one of victory. My view is defeat. His view is one of building me up. My view is tearing me down. His view is calming the waters. My view is panic as I stand up in the boat rocking it back and forth.

Uh, uh I want God’s glasses. As much as my mind would like to keep my perspective of things dark and dreary, I want God’s glasses. I want to see it through Him. The choice is ours believe it or not. Every once in awhile when we get to thinking otherwise we need to stop and make sure we’re wearing the right glasses, God’s glasses. Ones not covered with denial but truth, strength, guidance, love, and the right perspective of things we need to endure.

Amen? AMEN!

Oh boy, I need to go cry. Luv ya all!

Walking and Talking at the Same TIme

2011-03-08T07:37:00.000-08:00

“It is no use walking anywhere to preach unless our walking is our preaching.” ~ Francis of Assisi ~

When I got back recently from San Francisco someone asked me if I saw any street corner preachers. I told her I hadn’t but after reading this quote maybe I saw more than I thought.

Every one of us whether we preach at the end of our walk verbally to someone is making a statement to others by how we walk in our lives. Intentionally or not we leave an example behind for others to follow.

Often our problem is we forget to look behind us and see that trail. We like to walk forward and stop long enough to tell the person next to us they need to quit smoking, or start exercising or clean up their lives when we are doing things just as destructive to our own lives.

Sadly enough we think we can do whatever we want because we don’t plan on preaching to other people. That gets us off the hook for being accountable in our own lives. We just don’t get it that more things are caught than taught. We don’t need to verbally preach with our mouths because our lives are preaching for us by the trail of examples we are leaving behind.

A few years ago I made myself a goal that I wanted to leave behind a tremendous paper trail of writings that people could follow and find their way to Christ. Although that is a very good goal I intend to keep I also need to realize that how I live my life surrounded by those around me is even a bigger influence and reflector of the truth of who I am.

That’s what is so wonderful about God. He is the same in person that He is in paper in the Bible. We need to be that way too, the same on paper if we are writers as we are in person. We can’t overlook the sin in our lives for the sake of pointing out the sin in other. We need to walk the walk which will qualify us to talk the talk.

Although some people just don’t seem to be coordinated enough to be able to walk, talk, and chew gum at the same time. It doesn’t have to be that way with us. As Christians we get our coordination from God. He is the one who helps qualify us to talk the talk when indeed our walking is our preaching thanks to following Him.

Karen's Crossings~~~~~ A Matter of Perspective

2011-03-08T07:18:00.000-08:00

Talking the other day with my mother-in-law about the news I got from the doctor she immediately jumped in and said, “Wow that is great news!” Great news, what was seeing we weren’t? After talking to her it was obvious to see what she was observing verses what we focused on. To her, she saw my tumor markers going down. To me, I was seeing them not quite back to normal yet. To her, she saw my medicine was working. To me, all I could see was the fact that I just learned I was going to have to be on them for life.

If you think about it we all have our own perspective of things. Some see things differently than we do and it can be helpful to get that fresh look. Personally it felt good to see it all from her eyes, the eyes of a breast cancer survivor herself. After all our focus was slightly blurred due to all the events that were happening lately.

Honestly whether we want to admit it or not it would be terrible if people encouraged us along the line of our current thinking especially when we are feeling down? For example, at the time I was feeling like a sitting duck. If my mother-in-law would have taken it from there and encouraged me in my own perspective or frame of mind it would have sounded something like this, “Oh Karen, sit still. Let life hit you. Remember you’re the sitting duck you have no hope, it’s just a matter of time so get over it. Let the situation pluck your feathers one by one.”

Praise the Lord her encouragement and the encouragement of many others have not been that way. I’m glad there are people around me that give me good encouragement who don’t build off my own frustrations. Encouraging people is what it’s all about. As stubborn as we would like to be it helps to have someone clear our vision for us to show us a better perspective of what we are looking at.

Currently I have a co-worker who is going through the cancer travel course herself with her husband. Because I am one step ahead of her in the game it’s been helpful for her to sit down and chat about things that are going on. God himself told us that we need to encourage others with the same encouragement we got ourselves.

People who encourage others are the cheerleaders along life’s road needed to give confidence to a weary soul. They have the ability to pick up and carry an exhausted passenger traveling down a road too long and hard for them to handle at the time. They often can serve as the rest stop needed to get a refreshing start to finish life’s journey. They are not there to take over and do our journey for us but they certainly help along the way.

It’s one thing to give encouragement and another to be able to take it. The last thing we need to do is stubbornly hold on to our first perspective of things when life hits us hard while we shut out anything others may have to say including God. Doing that only makes our journey longer and less fruitful in the end. The only person who can make me the “sitting duck” I thought I was in my first perspective is me if I decide to stay there in my thinking.

God hasn’t let me down. He’s lifting me up drawing me closer to Him day by day. That’s one perspective in my life that will never change. Oh, I’m being stubborn? No, I’m being truthful. Oh what a mighty God we serve.

Karen's Crossing---My latest adventure to the doctor

2011-03-01T17:11:00.000-08:00

I just got back from my oncology appointment today. Last month my doctor had told me the lump in my breast was gone. My tumor markers had dropped in half. She even took me off my pain medication for my bone cancer because of my progress. It felt good to hear good news for once. Our hope for success in beating the cancer was high.

As I visited with the doctor today she came to the question and answer session. Do you have anything you want to ask me?” she said. “Well how long will I need to be on the oral chemotherapy and the monthly bone cancer shots?” Just like the news of the bone cancer in the emergency room that night we weren’t ready for her answer. She told me I would have to stay on it perhaps for life. “Life?” “You mean like forever?” “Yes, Karen,” she said. “I wish I could give you better news but I can’t.”

The bottom-line is because my cancer is what they call stage IV which means it has spread in my body from the place of origin that it will never go away. I will have to remain on my treatments until they don’t work anymore then they will have to change my medication. They have several oral therapies they can use but when those are all exhausted out then I may need chemotherapy some day down the road. Even that will not cure me but only stop the spread of something that has come to live in my body. She said if it wouldn’t have spread they would have had a better chance of killing the cancer completely had it only stayed in my breast.

She said the pills work to trick the body to stop the spread of the cancer. However after awhile the body catches on and doesn’t fall for the trick and that’s when the medication stops working about the cancer begins to take off again. There are some people that beat the odds and don’t have this problem. I don’t know where I stand in all this. I may be one of those that beat the odds I’ll never know till it happens.

As much as I feel like a sitting duck waiting for what may happen next I have to take flight and not allow myself to stay in that position. There’s plenty to be thankful for, the cancer is in remission for now. I’m feeling great. I can’t sit around like an exploding time bomb waiting for the next implosion in my life. Time is too short for all of us whether we have cancer or not, I need to take flight in my spirit and let it soar in spite of what is trying to hold me back. Fly with what I know is definitely ahead of me, my relationship with my Heavenly Father. A journey that not to be feared but looked forward to.

Thanks for all your love and prayers,

Karen

**Here is a thank you note I wrote to my doctor’s just a week ago. My thanks to them remains. My love for Jesus grows stronger. I’m slightly scared of the dark but the light is there still shining in my life.

To the staff at my clinic:

As an employee here working behind the scenes, I’ve always been proud of those I work with and for. Unfortunately once in awhile life takes us from behind the scenes and places us up front as it’s done for me recently. Diagnosed with bone and breast cancer just before Christmas life forced me to seek medical attention and I did.

Second to receiving the diagnosis of cancer I was asked by several people what doctor I planned to see. Having the pleasure of working with the Oncology Department over the years I knew immediately where I wanted to go. There was no need for any other opinion. I had already had the first opinion of an ER doctor in Redmond. I didn’t need anyone else’s opinion but Dr. West’s. She handled my case very well as she was thorough, very aggressive, and encouraging.

The care and concern I received so well was not limited to the Oncology department as I found out one night shortly after my first oncology appointment. While I was at my house one evening the phone rang the caller ID indicated it was the clinic where I worked. Figuring it was Dr. West’s office calling to give me more test results I answered the phone. On the line was Dr. Rhode my primary care physician. Some how in the shuffle of the hectic process of being diagnosed with cancer she heard or read what was going on. She told me she was just calling to see if I was doing okay. It really meant something to me to think she had taken it upon herself out of her schedule to check on me.

As our CEO is always sharing patient compliments with us I wanted to make sure I got mine in to share as well because I think those involved need to know how much they are appreciated. It’s rough enough to get such a diagnosis thrown at you out of no where so it’s important to have great supportive care to go along with it. And that’s exactly what I got.

On my first office visit to see Dr. West, Dr. Braich met me at the door of the reception area. Overwhelmed with the news of the cancer thru tears I told him I thought I was going in the wrong door. He knew immediately what I was talking about since as an employee I had always came into their offices from the side doors but as a patient I was entering in a different door. To me it was the wrong door. I wanted to remain the employee not the patient. Dr. Braich was very encouraging that things were going to be okay. A few months have past and because of the care and support I’ve been receiving I have no doubt that I indeed had come in the right door.

Thanks everyone for your great care and overwhelming concern,

Karen J. Gillett, employee and patient

My great granddaughter adopted by love

2011-03-01T08:37:00.001-08:00

Cute as a bugs ear. No cute as a precious child of God's. Luv Grammy

Map of Common Sense

2011-03-01T05:44:00.000-08:00

“If you don’t change the direction you are going, then you are likely to end up where you are headed.” ~ ~John Maxwell ~

Whatever happened to good old common sense in this old world? Did it go out with the 60’s? Perhaps the 70’s stopped it from going any further or was it the 80’s that demolished it? As much as we like to blame the changing century’s and years for what is going on we only have one person to blame and that is ourselves.

Common sense tells us if we don’t change the direction we are going, then likely we are going to end up where we are headed. Problem is a lot of people don’t realize where they are headed. A lady I knew once told her daughter if you don’t deal with your daughter’s attitude now when she is five you are headed for big trouble. The daughter failed to see it coming but grandma could tell and what she predicted came true.

Perhaps our problem is also the fact that we lack real direction and vision. We can’t see where we are going because of the blurred vision we often use to guide us there. We stubbornly figure we can get where we are headed without the consequences others have faced when they got there. For example when our daughter was in High School they had over five deaths over a period of time of teenagers drinking and partying. It didn’t matter when the first one died after all, “that kid didn’t know what they were doing, it won’t happen to me” was their thinking.

Eventually kid number two died the same way and kid number three and so on. All of which could have been avoided if they would have stuck with the concept of “Oh, if we don’t change the direction we are going with partying like we do we will likely end up exactly where they did.” No, that didn’t pertain to them. They thought they could beat the odds in front of them.

Life isn’t a card game or a gambling board to play with trying to “beat the odds.” The fact that you reap what you sow pertains to all of us. If we go down the route of anger and bitterness we will wind up in further anger and bitterness situations. If we go head down the direction of smoking cigarettes we can wind up getting lung cancer. If we head down the direction of careless spending we will wind up broke.

It doesn’t take a lot of common sense to figure it out. What it takes is the willpower to take the time to look before you leap kind of thing. Years ago as I stood weeping over the harvest I had surrounded myself with the Lord told me, “it may not be what you like or wanted but it’s what you sowed.” Ouch!

We’ve all been given the map of common sense to follow but the problem is some use it and some don’t. We can stand there and hold a thousand maps in our hands but until we are willing to stop and use those maps to show us where we are headed they do us no good.

We are the ones who have the ultimate choice. The spiritual world is no different. We can live our lives is fashion that is pleasing to God or in a manner not so pleasing. Both will reap a harvest but the choice happens back in the sowing process. Indeed we pick what we harvest by our choice of what we sow or plant.

It’s never too late to start over once we see where we are headed. Praise the Lord!

The Heart Transplant List

2011-02-22T05:30:00.000-08:00

“Nothing humbles and breaks the heart of a sinner like mercy and love. Souls that converse much with sin and wrath, may be much terrified; but souls that converse much with grace and mercy, will be much humbled.”~ ~Thomas Brooks (1608 – 1680) ~

I don’t know about you but there is nothing greater than mercy and love. They are both things we need in our lives. No matter how good we try to be we eventually will require some kind of mercy. No matter how unloved we think we are, we are more than loveable in God’s eyes.

It’s sad to think there are souls out there that would rather converse or communicate with sin and wrath rather than mercy and love. Doesn’t make sense does it. It makes me think of someone who likes to play with matches. Eventually if they do it enough they wind up burning themselves. We can toy with the wrath of God all we want but eventually it will catch up to us.

To recognize the danger of a match you have to know what damage it can do. That’s what Smokey the Bear tries to do. To recognize the danger of a sinner’s heart we have to know the damage it can do to us. Once we come into awareness of it its up to us to do something about it. That’s where God’s love and mercy comes in.

In our physical lives if we find out we have a seriously bad heart we put ourselves on a heart transplant list to get it taken care of. If we are lucky to be chosen we may wind up with a heart that works. Spiritually the reaction should be no different as we put ourselves on the transplant list of God. There is no “if we are lucky to be chosen” fear as God so lovingly wants all of us too eventually wind up on “the list.” The list of those willing to accept that love and mercy He has to offer.

We do this by coming to Him with humble and broken hearts. Hearts that say I need you, I want to live for you not me. I have to confess I’ve been on the table several times getting a new heart transplant from God. I get one and then I damage it with things that shouldn’t be only to get another one to damage it as well. It’s not easy having heart problems, cancer, or other issues but its not easy having a sinner’s heart as well. The cure lies with us. The medicine we are required to take is God’s love and mercy.

The desire to be well has to come from us. Only we can prevent a sinner’s heart.

How Much?

2011-02-14T20:58:00.000-08:00

When I get anxious I know I have gone from God’s time to my time and it’s a waste of time. Charles Stanley

Back in the “good old days” when I had epilepsy and found out 90% of my seizures were stressed caused I had a lot to learn about the affects of being anxious. One of those lessons was exactly what Charles Stanley talked about in today’s quote when he said, “When I get anxious I know I have gone from God’s time to my time and it’s a waste of time.”

Every time I got anxious about something I would have a seizure. It didn’t matter if my anxiousness was visible to the entire world around me or hidden deep down inside the seizures were evident to all. They were the best gauge to measure just how anxious I was feeling inside as I couldn’t get away with being anxious about anything. If I did I would have a seizure and the “cat was out of the bag” that I was getting away from where I needed to be.

No matter how much I would hate to admit it being anxious never got me anything but stress seizures and therefore was a total waste of time. To be perfectly honest it’s the same with everyone. They may not have stress seizures but there are plenty of things that they do that indicates their anxiousness such as a quick temper, restlessness, discontent, and impatience.

When are we ever going to learn that worrying about something that is coming up never got it to arrive any sooner? That being concerned about an event we needed to undertake never solved the task we needed to perform. In fact, instead of being a solution the act of being anxious often becomes a part of the problem. Talk about a fritter away of time!

When I got cancer one of the biggest lessons my husband and I had to learn was the fact that life was too short. It was too short to allow some of the things we were allowing to infiltrate our lives. We learned in a heartbeat, unexpected, and suddenly any of us can come down with a deadly disease such as cancer, or get in a car accident or have a heart attack and life would be over as we know it. We can get anxious all we want, we can worry all we want but nothing is going to change that and if we try we’re just squandering away our time.

God’s timing is something that needs to be trusted. It’s not something we can control. Nor is it something we can speed up or slow down. How long I was going to be sick with my disease wasn’t in my control as much as it was His. Occasionally I tried my best to pull away from God’s timing in my spirit by being anxious but God’s love and grace brought me back to where I needed to be.

Daily He would remind me that His grace was sufficient. “How long,” wasn’t the question that needed to be answered by God. It was “How much of my time did I want to waste?” to be answered by me. Well duh, none of course! On that note I was going to have to stop being anxious and start trusting God as a common sense solution to an age old problem. A problem that started as far back as Adam and Eve and one that could end with me if I would only let it. How much, Karen? How much?

His Pace, His Speed

2011-02-08T06:16:00.000-08:00

“Learning to wait on God’s timing –and having the patience to follow his lead rather than running ahead of him –is essential to those who are committed to seeing their faith journey through to the end. God seldom rushes things along. Getting used to his pace will help you in the long run.”~ Essentials for Life For Women by Marcia Ford ~

Recently in my life’s endeavors I made what I called “every hour on the hour” prayer list of things to pray for my daughter and each member of her family. Trying to pick things that were vital to their Christian walk I inserted in the 5:00 in the morning slot “walking with the Lord and learning how to follow.”

As everyone knows the first thing we do when we get up in the morning is walk. We may not get up very gracefully but we still eventually will get to walking. It’s a trait we have to learn physically as well as spiritually.

One time at the clinic where I work with the physicians in their billing we were told we needed to allow them to crawl before they could walk. Kind of an odd request as it seemed like a waste of time but if you think about it though crawling is a first step in walking.

A young baby after learning how to roll over on their stomach discovers they can use their hands and feet to get around. The more they do it the faster they become. Soon you find yourself having to child proof your house as they begin to climb up on the areas where they’ve crawled. Next they discover they can take a step when they are standing. From there, well good luck keeping up with them.

That is what we need as Christians, to learn to walk. Too often we stay in the crawling stage and are content to not go any further. Then there are those of us who learned to walk early and a little too well as we are guilty of running ahead of God. Once way ahead of Him we stop long enough to turn around and give Him the instructions of what we think we need and want.

Wrong way to follow! We need to learn to pace ourselves, to run at His pace, His speed and not own. It’s hard sometimes because we are such an instant, fast, got to have it now society that the thought of taking the snail mail route is just unacceptable.

During this time of living with the bone cancer in my back I was the snail in a group of rabbits that wanted to go quickly. Many times I had to tell my husband and grandkids and friends that I just couldn’t keep up with their speed. Finally they got the message I was doing the best I could. Each one respected that and graciously took it at my pace.

Once I got back to work my co-workers told me they wanted me to start walking with them again everyday on our breaks. I was informed they would be willing to go at my speed. I agreed to their offer and for the first time I got to be the one in the lead as everyone did what they could to slow down to my pace. Occasionally they would find themselves passing me so they would have to stop and wait for me to catch up. Surprisingly enough we got where we needed to go. It may have been slower than usual but it did wonders to get out and walk.

We need to have that same attitude with God every hour on the hour, “God I want to stroll with you. We’ll go at your pace. I don’t care if it’s slower than what I want to do.” Wow, what a beautiful thing we can have with God as our walking partner. The art of striding is an art we all need to learn but we also need to learn how to follow.

Once we take that first step, well then, “Good luck in keeping up with us.” That’s the way it needs to be as the lead position never changes. We may get to walk beside Him at times. At other times we may even be carried by Him through the rough times, the slippery slopes, and dangerous ravines but the lead position never changes.

It’s our day to day task to look and ask, “Are we getting ahead of Him?” If we are we need to stop and wait for Him to catch up, or better yet go back to where He is. After all it’s His pace, His speed and our trust and ability to follow that will get us to where we need to be. It doesn’t work to get around behind God and shove Him in the back when we approach rough roads and tell Him, “You lead now” then when the roads are smooth and open we take over being the lead car.

No, no, no it’s His Pace, His Speed. Repeat that over and over again and live it every hour on the hour!

Good News

2011-02-01T18:54:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to let everyone know I got some good news today from my doctor. The lump in my breast is gone and in its place scar tissue is forming. My oral chemotherapy medicine appears to be working. Thanks so much for all your love and prayers.

Today before going to my doctor’s appointment a lady in my Bible Study asked me if I was keeping a positive outlook on life. I told her I was. She said it was great to hear that I wasn’t allowing it to get to me or fall into a deep depression over it.

After speaking with her for a minute I got to thinking about what she said. All the things she asked me about were things I went through when I had epilepsy. I struggled terribly with a negative outlook. I fell into the “why me?” trap hook line and sinker. I attempted to quit and give in on a daily basis. For years I fought more with myself thru all these things than I did my seizures.

It was after I found out that 90% of my seizures were stressed caused that I had to end the nonsense and get to living what I knew to be true. I couldn’t worry any more, I couldn’t harbor my anger towards the situation life had dealt me. I had to straighten up and stay strong. What a wonderful thing it was back then as well as now to watch God do just that for me. He supplied me with the strength required to endure.

Life’s interesting isn’t it? Today the good news was scar tissue was forming over the dead tissue of my lump. The bad news 20 years ago was that the scar tissue from a previous brain surgery was causing my seizures. I guess you never know but one thing is for sure, the Lord is the same today as He was back then and He will be tomorrow. You couldn’t ask for a better person to travel with.

Thanks everyone for traveling along with me and keeping me going in your prayers and encouragement. As I told my sisters I may not be out of the woods yet but I do know one thing I’m in the arms of the Lord and that is what counts the most.

I want to write more but I better run off to bed, it’s been an exciting day.

In love W.I.T.H. Jesus,

Karen

Moving Forward

2011-02-01T05:31:00.000-08:00

“I will never be the same again, I can never return, I’ve closed the door. I will walk the path, I’ll run the race And I will never be the same again.” ~ lyrics by Geoff Bullock ~

Boy, when it comes to Jesus and walking the walk He gives us, I can relate to what Geoff Bullock is talking about. As I carefully look back I can see where I will never be the same again thanks to Jesus. I wish I could relate to the next part as well. The part that says I can never return. Like the Israelites coming out of Egypt I always seem to grumble about something wanting to return but never fully succeeding in my momentary flashes of insanity.

Indeed the best thing we can do is close the door on the past and walk the path the Lord has marked out for us. The path that moves us forward to a race we can win. Our problem is we tend to want to keep one foot in the door so it’s slightly cracked. Cracked enough to peak in and pull out the things that should be behind us or the things yet to come.

When I was first diagnosed with cancer that was the first trip my husband and I both took, backwards. “Oh we should have done this. Oh the doctor should have done. Did we miss something? What if? What if? What if?” One time as I tried to go back to think something out my husband stopped me in my tracks and said, “Don’t go there.”

That is the attitude we need to have, a type of “don’t go there” attitude. Not to deny, ignore, or escape what we need to address or deal with it. It’s an attitude of making up our minds that we are never going to return to the way we were. We are closing the door on the things that need to stay behind the door. Our outlook on life needs to take us forever forward not blindly backwards.

Years ago on my kids blogspot I wrote in what I call my “Picture Dees” a devotion about having a window seat. My grandkids just like my siblings and I did constantly are fighting over who gets to be by the window, the window that opens of course. Having four grandkids and only two windows that open in my car it just doesn’t happen for everyone.

I talked about how as much as we would like to get a window seat on what our life has ahead of us it just doesn’t happen that way. To illustrate my point I took a picture of one of the chemo chairs in the chemotherapy room at work. I talked about how those with cancer would like to have a window seat to see what was ahead of them but not everyone gets that pleasure.

Who would have thought the day I took the picture and prayed for each person that ever sat in those chairs that some day I would be the one sitting in that very chair getting my treatment.

As much as I would like to dwell on that and shed an extra tear like I am right now I need to keep myself moving forward. Slam the door, walk the path, and run the race in that particular order. If I do that I can rest assure in my spirit I will never be the same again because of what God is doing for me spiritually in my heart.

I may not be where I need to be spiritually yet but I know in my heart I’m not where I use to be. Never the same again, always moving forward, thanks to Jesus my walking partner, my coach, and my Friend.

How long? For All Eternity

2011-01-25T07:18:00.000-08:00

“”Your worst days are never so bad that you are beyond the reach of God’s grace. And your best days are never so good that you are beyond the need of God’s grace.” ~ by Jerry Bridges ~

In chapter 13 of one of David’s Psalms we read about how David was struggling with wondering how long God was going to wait before coming to his rescue. He had gotten to the point where he thought for sure God had forgotten him forever. He wanted to know just how long God was going to hide His face from him.

At one point or another we’ve probably all been in the same position as David. A position of wondering how long was God going to hide from us. Years ago when times were tough, emotions high, and there didn’t seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel I asked God that very question, “How long Lord? Are you going to forget me forever?” Every time I asked He bounced me back to stand next to Paul in 2 Cor 12 to tell us both, “My grace is sufficient.”

As hard as it is to understand how God’s grace could be sufficient when things are going bad we have to take Him at His word. That is what trust and faith is all about. His grace is sufficient for the very reason Jerry Bridges gave, “Our worst days are never so bad we are beyond God’s reach. Our best days never so good we are beyond the need of God’s grace.” In other words, God’s grace is sufficient.

One of Satan’s biggest lies and worse tricks is getting us to believe this is not true. That God has forgotten us, that we are stranded in situations, emotions, and circumstances to tough to bear. Oh how not true that is. God is with us and we need to believe that and live what we believe. We must never get so down on ourselves that we think we are beyond His reach. We must never get so haughty that we don’t think we need His grace; we can do it on our own.

We can’t do it on our own. We try, we attempt, we may even succeed a little but in the end the truth still stands we need God’s grace for the final victory lap into Heaven. How long? As long as it takes should be our answer. As long as it takes to get us from where we are to where we need to be in God.

In my journal I’m writing about my journey with cancer I said it’s easy to pinpoint the beginning of a journey but we never can predict the end. I never would have known my journey with epilepsy was going to last twelve years. I don’t know how long my journey with cancer will be. All I need to know is God’s grace is sufficient to take me the full length of the adventure.

The question of how long are we going to struggle with things is up to us and our attitude. Its also up to our faith and trust in the One who is more than sufficient to see us through. God’s face is not hidden nor His grace too short.

How long? Shoot for eternity, the time frame we need to be focusing on, the length of God’s grace, and the length of His love.

Our host today is Jennifer at Scraps & Snippets. It’s a must that you get on over there and join in to see and share with others on today’s quote.

Face To Face with God

2011-01-18T06:02:00.000-08:00

“God loves you. He loves you so much that He’s allowed this trial to push you to the point where you have no choice but to look to Him.” ~ When Life is Hard by James MacDonald ~

Oh the “T” word, trials! Been there done that and seems like I keep going through them. Just the other day I was thinking about how they work. They say trials draw us closer to God but I was picturing in my mind how that is done. With some people when they are going through trials they tend to turn on God. They get angry with Him for “all the things they are going through.” Others rediscover a God they once ignored. Others get the pleasure of drawing closer to an already close God.

It’s probably safe to say people don’t instantly going running to God with a grin on their face saying, “Oh thank you Lord for this trial. Thank you so much I was getting bored and needed something new to go through.” No what generally happens is the fact that when we go through trials everything seems to be a total upset. Things get wild, crazy, depressing, and tough. Our natural tendency is to turn to a place of safety, a place we can lean against for strength.

For some that place of refuge is alcohol, drugs, sex, food, or other things rather than God. These all being temporary fixes that soon lose their ability to shield us from what we are going through. Eventually they wind up making our trial worse instead of better.

Experience and instincts have showed that God is that secure place we can run to. Not a place to hide or escape to but a place to lean upon. Therefore when life knocks us flat on our backs and we have no other place to look but up that’s where we need to go. However, amazingly enough even then some people will stubbornly lie on the floor of life with their eyes clinched tightly shut still refusing to look to God. As life knocks them down they shout out in anger, “if God really loved me He wouldn’t be allowing this to happen.”

Wow, what a horrible picture we have allowed the world to paint for us regarding God’s love. He’s not the one that puts in the order for X amount of trials to be sent to this person and that. Trials seem to show up on their own in the mailbox of our lives marked “occupant.” Whoever got it got it. Whether we want to admit it or not because of choices we make on our own we are the ones mailing ourselves most of our trials.

When properly handled trials can turn out to be something of worth. I know, you think I’m crazy but they do. Can you honestly say you would have looked to, leaned upon, relied on God as much as you do if it wasn’t for your trials? I ask myself that. I probably never would have been as close to God as I am today if it wasn’t for the trials I had to face in life.

They weren’t there as an “in my face” taunt that God didn’t love me. No they were there to get me to look God in the face so He could tell me how much He loved me. Words followed by the gesture of Him taking by the hand and walking me through each and every trial I was required to attend.

Recently with my diagnoses of cancer I told my sister Robin I felt like God was telling me, “I need to borrow you for a moment.” Where this trial will lead I don’t know but I know God is still looking at me in the face telling me He loves me. The question is am I going to look back and give Him the same the message? My actions will tell. My attitude will reveal the answer as I go face-to-face with God.

Shoulder Pads Installed

2011-01-11T07:26:00.000-08:00

“. . . to refuse to bend our shoulders to carry a load is to miss a new opportunity for growth.” ~ by J.R. Miller from Streams in the Desert ~

Reading this quote today takes me back a century or two. No I mean decade, I’m not that old. No comments from the audience please. Way back in the days when shoulder pads came into fashion to make women look better and more sophisticated.

Back then they were so popular they even sold them separately for people to add to their clothes if they didn’t have any. Every time you put your shirt on the first thing you had to do was adjust your shoulder pads to get them to lie correctly. After a few years of that when it was time for the fad to fade the first thing people did instead of installing them was to tear them out.

While the women fought shoulder pads men had their own shoulder adjustment to do. Squared shoulders were a sign of a strong tough man as they stood tall and firm. Lucky for them they did it themselves with no added padding.

We as Christians could take a lesson from the fashion world and the world of square shoulder men. We don’t need to be built like a tanker to do it or add extra padding. It’s done in our heart. Not to make us look better but to be better.

God is the tailor that installs that extra padding needed to have stronger shoulders. Shoulders that is capable of carrying heavy loads yet soft enough to absorb buckets of tears. If we were to get out and read the instructions we would find the first thing we need to do is bend our shoulders in order to accept the load given us.

We often think the bending is done under the weight of the load but it’s done when we first accept the load. To refuse to bend our shoulders in acceptance is like turning up our nose at Christ and telling Him to carry his own cross on the way to His crucifixion. Once our journey of carrying life’s load begins we find we are not alone. It may seem hard at times but our shoulders are squared for a reason. It’s because we have the Lord at our side lifting up our arms to keep us strong and upright.

Yesterday I told my sister occasionally in the middle of the night when the task of getting in and out of bed is difficult because of the pain of the bone cancer in my spine tears surface in my eyes. Same thing happened my first day back to work after being gone a month since I was diagnosed with cancer. As I laid my head down on my desk to take a nap (I know its everyone’s dream come true, ha ha) tears surfaced in my eyes.

The pinch of my load was getting to me but I had a decision to make. The decision to not bend under the load but bend to accept the load and walk side by side with Jesus to carry it through till the end. For every journey I’ve taken with the Lord each has produced a phenomenal crop of spiritual fruit. This journey will be no different because I refuse to be different.

We must never doubt the fact that God helps us carry our loads. When we get weak that’s where He gets strong. He is our shoulder pads installed, the reason we can stand tall. To bend under the pressure would be like ripping out the shoulder pads because we didn’t like the way they were hanging. We may need to reach into our hearts once in awhile to adjust them but that’s okay.

We don’t have an “oversized load” what we have is an enormous Lord. One that is bigger than anything life can throw our way. One that doesn’t burden us down but helps us carry our loads to the bitter or I should say better end! An end marked with victory and growth beyond measure. Praise the Lord!

Our host today is Tami on her blog, The Next Step so you need to get over there and join with us. If you think about it that is what being a Christian is all about, helping others bear their loads. We aren’t there to carry it for them but we can surely help. Thanks to all of you reading this for helping me carry a heavy load. As my sister said yesterday to me, consider yourself hugged!

Setting Into Motion

2011-01-04T07:34:00.000-08:00

“Faith is deliberate confidence in the character of God whose ways you may not understand at the time.” ~ by Oswald Chambers ~

Just as Oswald Chambers said faith indeed is an unhurried, slow, carefully thought out confidence in the Lord and His character. It begins with the knowledge of God and grows with experience as we spend more and more time with the Lord.

Our level of faith in God should never be tied to how well we understand what He does. Understanding and faith should never be required to fly together. We need to release the one from the other. We may never understand what God is doing but it should never stop us from having the kind of deliberate faith in Him we need to have. The more we’re around God the greater our level of faith will become in spite of whether the intensity of our understanding grows or not.

This is why the wise Solomon told us in Proverbs 3:5,6 to trust in the Lord and lean not on your own understanding. If you think about it we would never move ahead in life if we waited for understanding to arrive to take us forward. We need to accept the fact that it’s not for us to understand God’s ways. Some days we will, some moments we won’t and we need to be okay with that.

I would still be an epileptic to this day if I tried to understand why I had to be that way, why was I chosen, why did I have to deal with these out of controlled seizures. The stress of racking my brain for answers to my questions of why only would have created more stress seizures. My job wasn’t to find the understanding to the why but to set in motion my faith in God to see me through. Same with the diagnosis of cancer I carry today. It’s natural for the “why” word to come up but it should be just as natural for us to quickly bury it. Bury it not under the blanket of denial or fear but under the cover of having deliberate confident faith in God.

Yes indeed intentional, premeditated, conscious assurance in the character of God needs to be our walking stick to keep us moving. As God set into motion the rotation of the earth around the sun, the waves in the oceans, and the wind through the trees which continue without ceasing, (especially the wind, according to my mom here in Central Oregon. Right mom?) we need to set into motion our faith in God. When done confidently without leaning on our own understanding it too will continue on for all eternity. Praise the Lord!

Karen's Crossings---Getting to the Root

2011-01-04T07:30:00.000-08:00

This morning I was thinking about what the doctor said to me about my cancer. He told me I went at it backwards. Most people find the lump and the breast cancer first then they find where it has spread to.

I never was known for doing things in an orderly fashion. That was how it was with my stress seizures I once had. I would have a seizure and then have to back track to see where it came from. Once locating the stress issue that started the seizure I could apply the proper medicine needed to deal with what it was that was bothering me.

If you think about it there are a lot of things that work that way. Suddenly out of no where anger explodes inside of us and we have to stop and try to locate where it came from. Sometimes the culprit is easily found while other times it requires extra digging.

When we find ourselves in these moments we need to ask the Lord to show us the roots. Show us where this is coming from in order to deal with it properly. This is what I had to do as recently as, well last night! Evidently frustration had been sitting at the door of my heart ready to explode at any moment and it did. Venting what it was on my mind I not only had to ask the Lord’s forgiveness but I needed Him to show me the root of where this came from in order for me to take care of it.

Sure enough, there it was. It was good old culprit called, “worry.” My root had been exposed and God did not give me the option to dye it to try and hide it. No, like with my stress seizures He was asking me to dig it up before it did further damage.

I had clearly put the diagnosis of cancer in His hands but I failed to hand over the whole package. My sticky fingers had kept back parts for myself. After all they were minor little areas I thought I could handle alone while He took care of the “big stuff.” No matter how noble the thought sounds, it doesn’t work.

I came to realize that I don’t want a feather in my cap for taking matters in my own hands and dealing with my own problems. I want a jewel in my crown for trusting the Lord with the whole package of my life.

In spite of having gone thru this class before I evidently needed a refresher course. Maybe this time I’ll learn. If not I know I can rest assure my Teacher will be there again for me when I need Him the most, always willing to teach as long as I’m willing to learn.

****Today I start my treatment for my bone cancer. My doctor told me I won’t feel like moving around at first but I will have to force myself to exercise to loosen up my bones and get the medicine circulating through me. Don’t tell her, but I’m that way without a medicine. The part about not wanting to move around at first and having to force myself to exercise! Have a great day everyone.

In love W.I.T.H. Jesus,

Karen

Karen's Crossings Returns

2010-12-28T07:29:00.000-08:00

Way back as far as 2008 I was using Karen’s Crossings to talk about my adventure with my head injury, epilepsy, stress seizures and my cure from the disease the head injury created. Looking back 20 years ago I remember the talk my husband and I had with the surgeon the week of my second brain surgery. Just for the record we were wondering what this surgery was going to cause down the road. The first surgery I had to remove the blood clot on my brain created the epilepsy I had to deal with down the road.

So far so good the only thing the second surgery created was 20 years of being seizure and medicine free. Just because that went so well didn’t necessarily mean there weren’t more adventures for me yet to come. On December 12, 2010 I was to start a new journey down Karen’s crossings, a journey down the road of cancer.

Sitting there in the emergency room at two o’clock in the morning the last thing my husband and I expected to hear was “you have bone cancer.” Those four words would set in motion a trip of top speed tests, doctor’s appointments, fears, tears, and thousands of hugs.

As I stop to think about my previous journey through my head injury and epilepsy I find a connection that brings the journey’s in the past together with the journey of today. That is the grasping of a hand. In my journey with seizures whenever I had a seizure someone was always there grasping my hand while I had my seizure. It was the first thing I noticed when I came out of my seizure. It touched my heart so much I wrote my autobiography around this adventure and titled it “Grasp My Hand.”

The first Sunday after the news about my cancer came out as I sat in church a dear friend near by noticed the tears I was trying so hard to hide. Giving up her seat next to her husband she came to sit by me. As she reached out to grab my hand not only did the tears flow but memories as well. It was just like when I use to have seizures. Here I was again going through a new adventure but some things about it weren’t so new.

Things such as the grasping of my hand by others, the journey with Christ and the strength He would provide, the love of those around me and the guidance from God’s word to guide me. It may be a new adventure but that which got me through before was going to get me through again.

If you will lead me Lord, I will follow.
Once again I feel you grasping on to my hand
as you take hold of my heart.
I love you Lord.

**The news today is the bone biopsy showed it is breast cancer caused. The good news about that is the fact that there is no other cancer I have to deal with. Praise the Lord.

A Reminder

2010-12-28T06:30:00.000-08:00

“Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:9 ESV

In the start of the book of Joshua we find God giving Joshua his pep talk. After the death of Moses Joshua was the chosen new leader to lead the Israelites into the Promise Land. God encouragingly told him that no one was going to be able to stand before him because God was with him as He was with Moses. Therefore, He tells Joshua to be strong and courageous. After stating a few more things to Joshua God went back to reinforce the part about being strong and courageous while telling him to not be frightened or dismayed.

Why the reinforcement on that one issue? Was there something in Joshua’s eyes that made God re-enforce this message to him? Did he have doubt in his heart, hesitation in his actions, and insecurity in his own self that God thought He needed to repeat what He had already promised?

You would think the message of “I will be with you wherever you go” would have been enough of a message for him or anyone to put a spring in their steps with no need of reinforcement. Unfortunately whether we want to admit it or not we need that reinforcement. All it takes is one little doubt, one little hesitation, one little insecurity and we find ourselves losing our strength and courage to go on as God intended for each of us.

Boy can’t you just see your name written all over that verse, I can. “Karen have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

I must confess that with the recent diagnosis of breast and bone cancer I was frightened. What strength I had temporarily appeared to hide itself behind the diagnosis. The courage to go on looked a little bleak. But as usual God stepped in to give me my reminder that He had not forsaken me, He didn’t dump me along life’s road and go on to someone healthier. He was there with me, nothing had changed.

We need to remind ourselves of that simple truth right there, nothing has changed. God is with us He will never leave nor forsake us. The lies Satan tries to flash on the billboard of our lives telling us God has left us, He’s not really there, that we must have done something bad are just that, lies.

The more God reminds me of His love for me the more I need to remind myself that I accept that love. With that acceptance is the strength and courage to know that He is with me. It may not always mean a path of roses, blessings, laughter, lollipops and blissful joy but it means I’m never alone no matter what the journey. To me, as to Joshua that counts for more than anything else I could ever imagine.

God is with us wherever we go. That is a truth worth holding on to. A reminder worth repeating.

Spiritually Treatable

2010-12-20T20:10:00.000-08:00

Howdy everyone, I'm hosting "In Other Words" please join us!

It’s important we don’t get so caught up in our earthly suit that we miss our eternal heritage. Wayne Corderio

Over a month ago when I chose this quote from Wayne Corderio’s weekly teaching what caught my attention was the use of the word “suit.” It made me think of the season of Christmas and how we get more caught up in the “Santa Suit” than we do the true garment of choice, our eternal salvation through Jesus Christ.

Unfortunately between then and now a lot has happened and now my focus on this quote takes my mind in a different direction. Recently I was diagnosed with bone cancer with cancer spots on my liver and possibly in my breast. For the last week and a half tests have been done, doctors visited and fears and tears have surfaced. The focus for this time was strictly on my “earthly suit.” What did life have in store for it? Was it ruined? Was it going to survive? Had it been taken to the cleaner one too many times?

As all things pointed to the areas of my body where cancer was found it was hard not to think of anything but my earthly suit. Back pain, pain in hip, pain in my rib, pain in my breast all were grabbing for my undivided attention. Everything I did reminded me of what I was carrying around inside of me.

As much as our body may be crying out for the attention it needs it never gives us the excuse to ignore our spiritual well being. Many times before Christ cured people of their physical ailments He addressed their spiritual issues as well. Years ago Christ cured me of the epilepsy I once had. I made up my mind I was going for the cure and I did. I don’t know if I will be so blessed as to be “twice cured” but it really doesn’t matter.

What matters is focusing on our spiritual heritage, the one that is the same today as when we first inherited it unaffected by cancer, moths, erosion, or disease. The good news for me today was my bone cancer is caused by a type of breast cancer that is treatable. The liver spots they thought were cancerous are no more.

The good news for all of us is the fact that our problems that often get in the way of our spiritual heritage or well-being are treatable. Treatable thanks to the one whom Christmas is all about, Jesus Christ. It’s not a season about Santa suits or earthly suits but of our treatable disease called sin made right through the blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

We never get a say in the matter of what kind of breast cancer we may wind up with but we do have a say in what kind of condition our spiritual heart is in. Sin may be a deadly disease in the long run but its one that can be conquered. It’s up to us by the attitude we carry and the efforts we put into it whether we will be “treatable” or not.

Thanks to the Lord we all are spiritually treatable. The choice is ours, the decision is ours. Looking back over life and seeing how God has cured me of my epilepsy and my spiritual shortcomings in life I guess I’d have to say He’s already cured me twice!

Twice cured and more to go! Praise the Lord, I allowed my heart to be spiritually treatable.

In love WITH Jesus,

Karen or Karing as my sister calls me

© 2010 Karen J Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing

Garden Etiquette and My Cup of Tea

2010-12-14T06:55:00.000-08:00

“I am learning that praying for God’s will is harder than it seems. When God’s will is asked for in hopes of it agreeing with a personal desire, it is not asking for God’s will at all. It takes complete surrender and self sacrifice.”~ by Jayson VS ~ Loni’s son

I think the best example of praying for God’s will was Jesus in the garden. He couldn’t have given us better words to say, “Not my will but yours be done.” Long before saying that Jesus already made it clear that He would like to have a different cup than the one He was handed.

Boy if that isn’t the truth. There are many times in life we clearly don’t like the cup we are handed but the question we ask and the outcome should never differ. “Thy Will not my will be done.” Just yesterday I was handed a new cup to drink from. Unfortunately I wasn’t invited to pick out my own china. I didn’t get to line up all the options and compare what I saw with other dishes on the shelf or the color scheme of my kitchen.

No, from the mouth of a total stranger who was the emergency room doctor on duty that night delivered the message. As I laid on the gurney in pain from midnight to 8 in the morning at last he entered my room for the last time to give me the verdict. “You have bone cancer, Karen.” He said.

If it had been my will I would have taken his little cup of tea and threw it against the ER wall smashing it to pieces while telling him, “No thanks. I don’t want any.” Unfortunately I wasn’t given that option, after all, I already got in trouble from the ER nurse for my ER etiquette. Apparently the emergency room was full of people and she didn’t like the fact that I was crying out in pain as my left rib cage felt like it was going to explode. “You need to be quiet. The ER is full,” she said to me.

Did Jesus violate the garden etiquette when He cried out for God to take this cup from Him? No, for a moment there He was being human like the rest of us. He had His chance at being human and now we get our chance to be like Him and finish what Jesus did when He said in total surrender, “not my will but thy will be done.”

Easy? Oh wouldn’t we like to carry with us the all famous easy button that Staples put on the map and push it whenever needed. No what we need is totally surrendering to what God wants for us in life. Several months ago I made a white flag for me and one of my granddaughters that says, “Yes Lord” on it. I tried to explain to her what the white flag represents, total surrender but I’m not sure her nine year old mind grasped the concept.

Well what about my fifty two year old mind? Karen, do you grasp the concept? Now was the time to find out as I temporarily forgot the flag was even there. Putting my writing for IOW momentarily on hold I stepped away from my computer. As I walked over to my Bible I grabbed it by the dowel it was on. With no breeze going through my house at four in the morning I had to set it in motion myself. So as I firmly held on to it I waved it not in front of Jesus’ face but in my own face to remember what it is I have to do. Surrender.

It’s not asking Jesus to surrender to my wishes but me surrendering to His. It will be a long journey but as long as the outcome is the same, eternity with Jesus that’s okay. We should never require it to be an “easy” task just one that gets us where we need to be with Jesus.

Some of the best china sets I’ve ever seen over the years were ones that didn’t match but they fit well together. That’s me and Jesus and what life has handed me to stroll through on my way to Heaven. It may not be “my cup of tea” but it’s the cup I’ve been handed and Praise the Lord I have God. A God who will help me hold it up with my pinky finger extended out taking small quiet sips in proper “garden etiquette” of total surrender. Total peace.

Priority Mail

2010-12-07T07:53:00.000-08:00

“Prayer invites us to rest in the fact that God is in control, and the world’s problems are ultimately God’s, not ours. If I spend enough time with God, I will inevitably begin to look at the world from the point of view that more resembles God’s own. What is faith, after all but believing in advance what will only make sense in reverse.”~ Philip Yancey ~Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?

Prayer is such a wonderful experience simply for the fact that we do find rest and reassurance there. It gives us comfort to know that people are praying for us. It gives us strength to know we can do something for others. It was James who told us, “the fervent prayers of a righteous man are powerful and effective.”

The key word to James’ quote is “fervent.” In other words we are to be keen, eager, zealous, enthusiastic, and passionate in our prayers. The more we do it we find ourselves beginning to look at the world from God’s point of view. If you think about it prayer should be causing an adrenaline rush in us that no energy drink could top. Try selling that out in the market and see what you get! Prayer is something that comes not only with an energy rush but a time of great calming as well.

If you think about it we take prayer to lightly. We often treat it like express overnight mail all in one to get what we want as quickly as it possibly can arrive. That’s not their purposes. Prayers are not measured by how quickly they are answered or how many eloquent words we use to send them. Even Jesus warned about using a bunch of empty words just for show. They are a priority mail between us and God and like the postmen say “if it fits it ships.” Our prayers fit. There are none too small nor any to big for God to handle.

Our part in all of this is to have the faith and patience needed to send our prayers and wait for the answers to arrive. We can’t be like the disappointed kid who throws a fit at Christmas when they don’t get what they want. Our gift is more found in the sending of our prayers than in the arrival of the answers. We may not always get what we ask for but we can rest assure the answers are what were best for us.

This is where faith steps in as we believe in advance what will only make sense in reverse. God is in control and we hand that control panel over to Him when we frequently and fervently go to Him in prayer.

The Choice is Ours

2010-11-30T06:53:00.000-08:00

“There are two kinds of people: those who say to God, “Thy will be done,” and those to whom God says, “All right, then, have it your way” ~C.S. Lewis~

Years ago in a training class I attended to show us how people can think differently the instructor had an interesting project for us to perform. After sending around a picture for all to look at she asked those who saw that picture as “whatever it was she named” line up on the right side of the room. To those who saw the picture as “the second thing she named” line up on the left.

Just like magic that room was split practically in half. Moses couldn’t have parted the Red Sea any better. It was amazing to me to see how people do think differently yet at the same time think as others as well. There’s no doubt about it there are two kinds of people and in the spiritual world it’s no different.

There are those who say “Thy will be done” and others who because of their “I don’t care attitude” wind up hearing from God who says, “Ok then, have it your way.” Ouch! Ouch if you really think about it. I think some of the spookiest words in the Bible are the ones out of Romans 1. Several times it talks about how God gave them over and He gave them up. Whether we want to admit it we could be a part of the “them’s.” The people who don’t care what God’s will is, who don’t care what He thinks, who think they are smart enough to make their own decisions.

The fact is eventually God is going to say, “Okay have it your way” as He gives us up and over to our bad habits, our snotty attitudes, our “it’s all about me thinking.” That should scare us. Looking back at my life and my “less mature” moments the last thing I would have wanted was to be frozen in time right where I was. I have a long ways to go but at least I’m not where I was.

That is what is so wonderful about the Lord; He will never give up on us as long as we are moving forward in Him. As long as we are seeking His will. It’s those who could care less what He thinks and make no efforts to seek Him that He will eventually say, “Have it your way.” It’s a way that doesn’t have a pretty ending that leads us away from God instead of closer.

It’s not uncommon to struggle with trying to figure out what the will of God is, I know I did. “Should I do this? Do you want me to do that?” The list can appear to be endless with questions we find ourselves asking as we sort out what God’s will for us is. As tough as it may be to sort through it all, our main job is to say, “Thy Will be done, not my will be done.” Our task is to look for the areas in our lives we find God is blessing and follow His lead.

Believe it or not we get to choose which kind of person we want to be, the one who seeks God’s gain or the one who is after their own advancements. It takes a great deal of faith but that’s what it’s all about, trusting in the Lord.

Faith is living in advance what we one day will understand in reverse.

Spring Into Action

2010-11-23T07:07:00.000-08:00

“Won’t the awareness God loves us no matter what lead to spiritual laziness and moral laxity? Theoretically, this seems a reasonable fear, but in reality the opposite is true…the more rooted we are in the love of God, the more generously we will live our faith.” ~Brennan Manning, Lion and Lamb~

The answer to the million dollar question in our quote today is “Yes and No.” Different people handle the knowledge of God loving them differently. Some take advantage of the fact that “God loves them no matter what.” They figure they can do whatever they want and get away with it. Their relationship with Christ is as shallow as their reasoning. The model they use is the smaller the effort required to exert into the relationship the better.

However, those who treasure this knowledge do something with it as they spring into action. They build upon it instead of sit on it. They add increasing value to it through their faith and actions instead of devaluing a precious treasure. They set it aside as something personal instead of making it an impersonal thing they care little about as if it was an item to be pulled off the shelf and used at their convenience.

No, the knowledge of God’s love is something of priceless value. You would think after all He went through to show us what we are worth to Him we could at least get off our spiritual duffs and show Him back how much we care. We are as lazy as we make ourselves to be. Why are we so willing to stop at a good thing (knowing God loves us) when we can go on to even greater things such as a closer walk with the Lord?

Lazy. I’m sorry but that word just seems to fit. We think its all about receiving and not about the giving of ourselves in return. Our reasoning is, “God loves me so I should get all I want. The church is supposed to love me so they need to meet all my needs.” And the lazy attitude continues on.

People, people, people! Wake up! The answer is not to take away the knowledge of God’s unfailing love but to learn what to do with it. To enhance upon it as we move on to those greater things we can have in a closer walk with Christ. It starts with rooting ourselves in God’s love not hiding behind it. God’s love for us is so totally awesome, a treasure that will only increase in value if we allow it.

Only we personally can improve, increase, and add to this wonderful thing. We can’t outsource the job to someone else to accomplish. We can’t not feed it and still expect it to grow. We can’t take advantage of it and expect to get something in return. We are the ones responsible to take this knowledge and use it. Use it to grow closer to the Lord. To appreciate what He has done for us and look forward to the blessings to come.

The knowledge of the Creator of the Universe loving us should spring us into action not the other way around.

The Perfect Seat

2010-11-16T07:01:00.000-08:00

“Remember this. When people choose to withdraw far from a fire, the fire continues to give warmth, but they grow cold. When people choose to withdraw far from light, the light continues to be bright in itself but they are in darkness. This is also the case when people withdraw from God.” ~Augustine~

Aren’t people amazing? They think they can play with fire and not get burnt and move away from the light and still see. As much as we would all like to have that “perfect seat” we never seem to find it. At our family park around the fire pit the chairs constantly seem to be moving. If its not the smoke getting to them, the fact that the fire is too hot or not hot enough sends people around the pit in searching for that “perfect seat.”

The same is true with light. Yesterday as I went for my mid-morning walk with a co-worker someone back at the clinic was busy. An order from the “higher up” was given that all light bulbs needed to be working. The problem with that is the fact that some people didn’t want them working. Years ago we had made peace between those who like it dark and those who like the light. Eventually all had settled into their “perfect seats.”

However, just like that within a matter of minutes the seats of choice were no longer perfect. Old arguments arose once more about headache lights and hurt eyes. In either case whether we chose to sit close to the fire the fire continues to give warmth. Whether we like the lights on or off doesn’t change the wattage of the light itself when it shines.

The same is true with God and our relationship with Him. God is there whether we choose to live closely in the warmth of His love or walk in the brightness of His light or not. We need to be the ones who are willing to adjust our chair to get that “perfect seat.” The seat found near God. The one brightly lit with the rays of His Fatherly love and care. Over the years since the beginning of time we have always viewed the perfect seat as the one right next to God. Only Jesus belongs in that seat. Our seat is the one close by. It may be tattered and torn showing tremendous sign of wear over the years but that doesn’t matter. A seat worn and torn by our struggles in life while on earth that has been trial tested and endurance proofed as we did all we could to keep it near God.

It reminds me now of the song about the old rugged cross. For Christ it was the rugged cross, it was a symbol of suffering and shame. We have our old rugged chair that is the symbol of our suffering and shame endured over time in our quest to be the children God wanted us to be. It has nothing to do with our sufferings for doing wrong and making bad choices but our suffering to remain close to God no matter what the cost.

Eventually destiny has it that we will all be called home and there awaiting us will be God, Jesus, and that “perfect seat.” Oh, it makes me cry just thinking about it. How awesome can you get! It’s awesome to know we all have that opportunity but it starts with us today and how willing we are to adjust our seat here on earth. Adjusting it to stay within the warmth of God’s loving arms and the light of His glory and grace in Jesus. Hot or cold? Light or dark? Which is it going to be?

Wonders Beyond Measure

2010-11-09T06:47:00.000-08:00

“What wonders a bit of encouragement can do! It’s one of the most awesome treasures God has given us – the ability to inspire, motivate, and reassure others. ~Barbara Johnson~
Encouragement is a very big thing if you think about it. It’s something everyone requires. It’s something everyone needs to be able to give. It has the ability to be used for the good or the bad of others and ourselves. It carries with it tremendous power and the ability to perform great wonders.

Long before I was cured of my epilepsy I began to write my autobiography. I wanted to thank the people who were there for me through thick and thin during my epilepsy. The purpose was to express my gratitude for them being my encouragers, cheerleaders, and strength when I needed it the most. All of which stemmed from the encouragement they unconditionally had offered me. It wasn’t so much their words for me as it was the grasp of their hand. Even as I type tears revisit my eyes thinking about this special form of encouragement.

This silent form of support said a lot to me. For every seizure I had there was always someone near by holding my hand as they patiently waited for me to return from the seizure I was coming out of. The seizures have long since gone but the grasping of my hand will never go away or be forgotten. That is what encouragement is all about. It’s being there beside someone taking the time to reach out to say, “Hey, you’re not alone. You can do it. You can make it.” It doesn’t have to be in words it can be in a hug, a grasping of the hand, even a smile as they all carry their own message of support and love.

Encouragement indeed is a wonder that is world wide. A treasure or resource not restricted to one certain place, providence, or person. It’s the back-up we give out that will take others through tough times. For every note of encouragement we give the world is right there trying to match it with some sort of discouragement.

That’s why it’s important we should never leave a day behind without leaving some form of encouragement also. A card in the mail, a voice on the phone, a hug, and a smile may be the very elastic or inspiration someone needed to bounce them back in place to keep them from breaking.

A grasping hand holding on to a gasping heart does wonders beyond measure. God does it for us. We need to do it for others.

Harvesting Hands

2010-11-02T07:26:00.000-07:00

“Then Jesus made a circuit of all the towns and villages. He taught in their meeting places, reported kingdom news, and healed their diseased bodies, healed their bruised and hurt lives. When he looked out over the crowds, his heart broke. So confused and aimless they were, like sheep with no shepherd. “What a huge harvest!” he said to his disciples. “How few workers! On your knees and pray for harvest hands!”Matthew 9:36-38 (The Message)

Pardon the picture I’m about to paint but it’s the one that came to the canvas of my heart. Reading this verse from Matthew about going out into the harvest and how there is so much that needs to be done I think of dirty dishes. I told you, you wouldn’t like my picture but isn’t it true. The harvest of souls out in the world that are wandering around confused and aimless is never ending like the dirty dishes in the house. No matter how many dishes you do it seems like it never ends and there is always one dirty dish somewhere that you miss.

When Christ was here on earth He was constantly on the go from town to villages. He taught, reported, and healed. Occasionally, if not always, He would stop and look out over the crowds and it broke His heart. What He saw sheep with no shepherd wandering confused and aimless. His reaction then and still is, “What a huge harvest!” He recognized the fact there was a lot of work to do and He called on His disciples as He calls on us to help bring it in.

After a big meal when we see all the dishes that need to be done we can stand there in awe of what a big task we have only to discourage ourselves or we can jump in and get it done. The harvest of souls is big and we can’t look at it as a whole only to discourage ourselves. When we do we frequently convince ourselves the job is for the professionals. You know the preacher and the missionaries, that’s their job we often reason.

Like anyone is qualified to do the dishes, although try and convince your kids of that!  Sorry. Everyone is qualified to reach out and be a worker in the field for Jesus. Christ that day gave us the first step we need to take and that was to get down on our knees and pray for harvest hands. Not to pray for others to do what we could do but to pray for harvest hands from all.

When I see a school bus full of kids it just breaks my heart thinking about the souls on board. Who it is that is going to reach out to those kids? Who will be saved, who will be lost? Looking for the bus number I pray to the Lord for the kids. I could leave it at that or take it even further and that is what I hope my writing on my blogspot for kids is doing at karenskidskorner.blogspot.com is reaching out into the harvest of kids.

Someone else’s specialty or passion may be for young single women, or middle age men, or teenagers, or married couples, or mom’s or dad’s it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we are getting in and helping with the dishes, helping to show others what Christ in their lives can do and the blessing of being a sheep in His flock.

We can’t run from the kitchen, as you may have already found out there are no dish fairies that come out at night that does our dirty dishes for us. If we leave them in the sink they will be in the sink in the morning. We can’t leave the souls who have yet to find Jesus waiting, one soul at a time is a good way to bring in the harvest. As much as I would like to take that bus load of kids into God’s family all at once it doesn’t work that way. One child at a time beats no child at all.

The harvest is huge and the workers are few but we can change that if we are willing to be a part of “harvesting hands.” As a prophet said once, “Here I am, send me.” Let us carry the same attitude in our hearts. We may never need to travel the world to bring in God’s harvest but there’s plenty to done in our own backyard.

“Here I am, Lord. Send me.”
© 2010 Karen J. Gillett @ Pencil Marks and Recipes Publishing