Do you need to be revived, too?

Things are supposed to slow down after school’s out, right?  It doesn’t seem that way so far and it’s only been 2 days. 

But I’ve still be counting joys and I’m still wanting to get them recorded because it’s important to me to keep focus on the good things in every-day life.

It’s the discipline.

Or is it the routine I need?  A new routine needs to start now that it’s summertime.  During that routine, I need the discipline of reading and learning about His grace.  I need the discipline to journal.  I think I wouldn’t be a happy person to live or be with if I didn’t.  It’s renews me.

I love the words to this worship song:

You revive me, You revive me Lord
And all my deserts are rivers of joy
You are the treasure I could not afford
So I’ll spend myself till I’m empty and poor
All for You, You revive me Lord
Lord I have seen Your goodness and I know the way You are
Give me eyes to see You in the dark
And Your face shines a glory that I only know in part
And there is still a longing, a longing in my heart

I’m alive
I’m alive
You breathe on me
You revive me

(Words & Music : Audrey Assad, Chris Tomlin, Matt Maher and I love sung by our worship leaders at church but I don’t have a recording of that but I also enjoy it sung by Christy Nockels – click on to hear it too)

 

What renews or revives you?   (I’d love to hear what refreshes and revives you…feel free to comment below!)

 

It renews me each time to thank God for the gifts He gives each day and for these this past week:

#1437  The love these kids in Splash have for each other…it’s been 5 good years so far!

#1438  fun at field day

#1439  real happiness shown running and jumping

#1440  daughter made Honor Roll

#1441  being silly

#1442  celebrating last day of 4th grade

#1443  being silly with daughter

#1444  son making Honor Roll

#1445  son’s friends in 7th grade homeroom

#1446  the team of teachers son had this year….excellent!!!

#1447  celebrating last day of 7th grade

#1448  finally meeting son’s friend who liked my baking.  throughout the year son would share his lunch with him and this friend kept saying I was the best baker!  happy to make him his own batch of peppermint brownies the last day of school to take home.

#1449  husband’s brother and his family spending a few days with us

#1450  happiness playing at the park and riding rides

#1451  joy seeing children ride a merry go round

#1452  love our 3yr old niece has for her cousin

#1453  a fun, new puppy…or cousin… for our dog to play with

#1454  sister-in-law who knows how to bargain

#1455  sister-in-law who can make beautiful things out of what others see as junk

#1456  the love sister-in-law has for her family

#1457  the joy of a 13 month old niece

#1458  praying with a body of believers for and who are dear to the heart

 

joining in with Ann Voskamp

Remember Class Superlatives?

Joining in with Five Minute Friday and today’s word is “FALL”.

Go!

It’s here.  It’s the last day of school for my son’s 7th grade and daughter’s 4th grade year. 

Every year goes faster and every year I pray it’ll go slower. 

This week there’s been field days, parties, award assemblies, smiles and laughs and even some sad thoughts of the year ending because all of their teachers were SO GOOD this year.

Our son brought home a certificate from the superlatives from his class team where the students vote for their classmates whom they think best describes a particular characteristic… “Most School Spirit”, “Most likely to become the President of the United States”, “Best Smile”.  They go back a long way.  When I was in high school my senior year, I was voted “Funniest Laugh”!

Our son was voted “Most Likely to do the Right Thing”.  Wow.  Can that not make any mama smile?  I thank God that our son has been that example to his peers. 

It’s funny how the beginning of that honor is “Most Likely…”.  No guarantee it’ll happen but more than likely.  Hey don’t most of us want to do life the right way?  Often though, we end up doing what we wish we hadn’t done, or hadn’t said, or hadn’t thought.  

We all fall short of the glory of God.

Sometimes I feel like I’d be voted most likely to roll those eyes, or most likely to loose patience, or most likely to worry, or most likely to allow fear win over faith.

If God was voting in the school of life, He’d see each of us as “Most Loved”, “Most Beautiful”, “Most Gifted in….”, “Most Perfect the Way I Made You”. 

Jesus is chosen as …the “One with all Grace, all Mercy and all Love”.  He is the “One who Always Does the Right Thing”.  He is the “One with the Highest Leadership” and the “Most Spirit” and I’m sure the “Most Smiles”.  

Stop!

Have a great weekend…

Sometimes we have to…

 

In our human nature, we want certainty–not Questions

 

Yesterday I was talking with our neighbors…a father and his 5 year old son.  So many memories flooded back as this boy asked question after question after almost every comment that was said in our conversation. “Why did you go there?  Why did you do that?”  That was just like our son at that age… and it hasn’t stopped yet. 

I just love that he asks questions. 

When we ask questions though, more than often, we want answers NOW…and the answer to be just the way we want it to be.

This morning I opened the devotion book I’ve slowly been working through the past 2 years during the summer months, not knowing yet what gift He has waiting for me today.  This week’s theme: 

Questions.

And that I have many of for Him.

In our human lives, we want certainty.  

“But Jesus offers us a journey of faith.  Jesus doesn’t give us many answers; he tells us what the right questions are, what questions the human soul has to wrestle with to stumble onto Christ and the truth.” (Richard Rohr Simplicity)

These words also resonated in me and maybe you to?

“There are questions, lots of questions.  And it is good to live in the question.  A pat answer is closed, it is finished; that’s it.  It goes no where and leaves little room for hope.  A question, the mystery, opens the space for us.  It is full of possibility.  It gives hope of life and even more abundant life.  Our faith, solid as it might be is full of questions.  And therefore full of life and hope.         (emphasis added  M. Basil Pennington in Living in the Question)

As we ask God questions, be specific.  Don’t hold back.  Be honest.  Be vulnerable.  Listen. Obey.  And thank God for the gift of questions.

O God, Creator of all that is, give us the courage to wrestle with the questions you ask us rather than jumping to some immediate answer  – thereby cutting off any possibility or real growth of struggle. Help us stay in the question long enough to hear what it is You have for us there.  Help us not to assume conclusions before the answer has been given.  Help us to not give up hope that the question will never be answered.  Help us to have hope that the waiting time will be worth it.  Help us to be open to change while we wait for your perfectly timed answer.   God, let us hear your Voice as we listen.  In the name of Jesus.  Amen. 

 

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve posted joys and thanksgivings but I’ve still been counting… 

#1409  gift picked up – a book at the book store to be a gift for someone else

#1410  a week of groceries

#1411  my favorite flower bloomed – gardenias!

#1412  yellow finch OK and flew away after hitting the window (and I could get a picture of it before he left)

#1413  a weekend of no plans (the first in months)

#1414  worship songs at church Great is thy Faithfulness and Halleluiah

#1415  cut first roses to take inside

#1416  the fragrance of our roses

#1417  lunch with a new friend

#1418  husband’s encouragement

#1419  gift of laughter – daughter saying “I think I’m a mosquito’s buffet”

#1420  gift of laughter – daughter wearing “lambs ears” leaves as earrings.  Hey…it reminds us that Jesus is the Lamb of God!

#1421  anticipation of a baby bird’s first flight

#1422  lights on the porch late one night

#1423  hearing summertime crickets

#1424  seeing first lightning bugs of the season

#1425  playing tag with the family in the backyard

#1426  family strawberry picking and learning there are different kinds of strawberries!

#1427  a big bucket of fresh strawberries

#1428  the irresistibly of a strawberry you pull off the bush

#1429  seeing and hearing birds protect their eggs and next in a strawberry field

#1430  husband and son went to a concert together…and even when it was not dad’s favorite type of music.  but they sang about Jesus and that’s what matters!

#1431  a new idea/dream

#1432  running into a friend at Target at the right time

#1433  a snapping turtle stuck in our fence (although the turtle probably didn’t find that a joy)

#1434  lesson learned from that turtle about snapping.

#1435  the snapping turtle untangled itself from the soccer net

#1436  the gift of questions…even though they seem to be taking forever to be answered.

 

Joining in today with Ann Voskamp

What is your personal mission?

It’s Five Minute Friday and today’s word is “Imagine”

 

Some new thoughts and new dreams have been stirring in the heart this week even in the midst of some personal concerns.   There was a beautiful morning on the porch, in the Word, in conversation, listening…and dreaming. 

And that dreaming came from a Source other than my own.  Reminding me…

“God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.”  (Ephesians 3:20 The Message)

I was asked once,

“Do I have a personal mission that’s independent of circumstances?”   That if you had nothing to hold you back and it would come true, what would it be? 

Jesus had a personal mission:   Everything God wants Me to do is redeeming. 

God put that mission in His Son’s heart.  Jesus’ goal wasn’t to solve all the problems in the world.  His goal was to bring everyone to a relationship with His Father.

We have a choice to make: Life can be a mystery to unfold or life can be a problem to solve. 

God is so much more than our problem solver.  He gifts us, His children, with imagination and dreaming.  Every young child imagines and has superhero and princess imaginations.  They don’t have problems to solve or circumstances to worry about.  They just relish in their imagination and dreams.  And we are God’s children and He wants us to relish in dreams, too.

Over my head at my nook are the words “She knew who she was in Christ and she dared to dream big.”   So, I’m going to continue to do a little imaging and dreaming…and then have to step in faith that the needs to make them happen will be given as a gift from the only One who gives us those dreams.

 

.

Do you snap like a turtle?

While sitting on the porch feasting on Manna, our dog started barking. That isn't unusual because his passion is to chase and bark at squirrels in the backyard.  But he was at the fence, looking down just standing there barking.  From the porch I couldn't tell what it was but it was brown and right underneath the gate door at the side of the house.  I thought...oh no, a opossum or rabbit is stuck under the fence and is dead and I'm going to have to pick it up. 

Well, much to my surprise was a big, brown house on the back of a turtle.  A big snapping turtle.  In he middle of a suburban neighborhood. Interesting enough, our children saw that same turtle down the street from us at our other neighbor's yard several days ago. (Well, I assume it's the same turtle because we don't seem to see them around here often...if ever).  But it had the determination it was going to crawl right under that fence even though his trunk was a few inches higher than the space allowed.

So, I opened the fence door since he couldn't push it open himself and was curious to see what he would do next.  It sat there for about half an hour and I out of my curiosity I googled "snapping turtle" and found this:

They are warlike and aggressive "when out of the water with powerful beak-like jaws, and their highly mobile head and neck (hence the specific name "serpentina", meaning "snake-like") Snappers will travel extensively overland to reach new habitat and it is quite common to find them traveling far from the nearest water source. Snapping turtles have "fierce" dispositions; however, when encountered in the water, they usually slip quietly away from any disturbance. Snapping turtles have evolved the ability to snap because unlike other turtles, they are too large to hide in their own shells when confronted. Snapping is their defense mechanism.

I never knew a snapping turtle couldn't hide in its shell.  I thought all turtles could...that's just the unique ability that no other creature has.  But this turtle couldn't hide. So it snaps.

We can only hide for a little while.  Anger, bitterness, stress and worry hide in our depths until we snap.  Out of defense words bite and bring pain.  We snap at our children, our spouse, parents, co-workers and other people who are dear to our hearts.  And then we can't completely hide anymore once snapping words have come out.

Oh how I've seen myself similar to that turtle. I've been warlike in my attitude when I've been attacked by a "serpentina" of stress, worry and frustration that's been carried heavy on my back trying to hide underneath.
 
How I wish I could hide in a shell sometimes, but God doesn't want us to hide from relationships, lessons learned and joy, so He makes it difficult for us to hide for too long so others will see our vulnerability and needs. It gives the opportunity to show compassion and love in a world filled with war, internally and externally.
 
The only place we should hide is in Christ. 

This turtle welcomed himself into our backyard and carried his home with him as he appeared to be on a mission.  He crawled through our garden and what looked like the plans to go through the back gate I had opened for him to exit and go his merry, or belligerent way.

But he takes a turn. 

He doesn't go out the gate, he chooses to turn left and go through the natural area, and then to the soccer goal.

He's now stuck.

He's gotten himself into this net...or trap.  He's entangled and can't get out.  

I've never seen a snapping turtle stretch it's neck out either and boy, they have long necks.  My daughter said if we didn't see the shell, and just his neck and face, it would look like a huge, thick evil snake.  That's was it.  The things and people we snap at brings out the serpentina sin-net that satan wants to put over us as a tangling trap.

That turtle was fighting against that trap and wouldn't let me help him get out as he opens his mouth big as a warning to leave him along. How do we get caught up in the snare of a net that is so difficult to untangle?  A trap is always there waiting for us and if we're not alert and aware then we're in it until it's too late.  We don't take the long path around it to avoid the danger but just plow forward not thinking of the consequences. 

But there is a way out when help is offered. You may not like it and defend yourself in all ways possible but God is using others and His Spirit to untangle our hearts and minds from sin, worry, bitterness, anger and resentment.  

God rescues us and His grace untangles us and sets us free.

He sets us free.