Ah, patience. The one word that has been a theme of my life.
“Waiting patiently is suffering through the present moment, tasting it to the full, and letting the seeds that are sown in the ground on which we stand grow into strong plants." -Henri Nouwen
How hard yet how true are these words. Sometimes it seems as if life would be easier if we could turn off emotion and just ride out the storm, but I don’t think that is what the Lord wants us to do. I think He wants us to taste the suffering as well as the sweetness that life throws at us. To embrace the hard times knowing that sometimes the Lord uses fire to refine us and make us shine more brightly like Him, to make us to reflect more and more his beauty.
Lord, help me to remember these words when in the midst of suffering and in the midst of patient waiting that seems like it will never end.
Monday, November 20, 2006
Thursday, November 02, 2006
Open House Extravaganza
October 28th was the date of our Open House to celebrate the fact that Danita and I are now proud "new" home owners! It's crazy to think that the house that we have lived in for the last 3 years is now ours-ours to remodel, ours to repaint, ours to fix. It was almost like a right of passage, a stepping more solidly into the world of adulthood. There is no more fooling ourselves that we are still "kids" who have just gotten out of college.
We had stations that
The party was a blast! We had over 100 people show up to give us their support of our new endeavor and a whole bunch more that expressed to us that they wish they could have been there but weren't! I was blown away to say the least! We definitely don't deserve such amazing and seemingly countless people in our lives. I often get overwhelmed by the number of people I try to keep up with and then I have to stop and check myself to remember that not everyone is blessed with too many friends to see, or too many great opportunities to be involved in. There is no way that we deserve these blessings and yet the Lord has so grciously poured them out on us.
I have attached a few picts for the friends far away so that they can get a little taste of the Open House.
We had stations that people could visit that included a guest book where people could sign their names and take a picture, picking paint-we want to paint a couple rooms and asked people to cast their votes for color choices, the art station-we love to do art so we set up a place for people to try their hand at using oil pastels, gobs of food, and a clay and tile station-where people could decorate a tile with clay that we may or may not use to decorate! I think that people had fun with the activities and it gave the kids something to do.
Up above, 2 of my cousins are trying out the oil pastels! I think they made about 12 pictures each! And my friends Jess and Derek making some tiles! They are naturals with the clay!
Overall, I think people had a really good time. I know that we did. We even had one girl tell us that this was the best party that she had ever been to, so we were pleased!
We had stations that
The party was a blast! We had over 100 people show up to give us their support of our new endeavor and a whole bunch more that expressed to us that they wish they could have been there but weren't! I was blown away to say the least! We definitely don't deserve such amazing and seemingly countless people in our lives. I often get overwhelmed by the number of people I try to keep up with and then I have to stop and check myself to remember that not everyone is blessed with too many friends to see, or too many great opportunities to be involved in. There is no way that we deserve these blessings and yet the Lord has so grciously poured them out on us.
I have attached a few picts for the friends far away so that they can get a little taste of the Open House.
We had stations that people could visit that included a guest book where people could sign their names and take a picture, picking paint-we want to paint a couple rooms and asked people to cast their votes for color choices, the art station-we love to do art so we set up a place for people to try their hand at using oil pastels, gobs of food, and a clay and tile station-where people could decorate a tile with clay that we may or may not use to decorate! I think that people had fun with the activities and it gave the kids something to do.
Up above, 2 of my cousins are trying out the oil pastels! I think they made about 12 pictures each! And my friends Jess and Derek making some tiles! They are naturals with the clay!
Overall, I think people had a really good time. I know that we did. We even had one girl tell us that this was the best party that she had ever been to, so we were pleased!
Friday, October 13, 2006
Eye Candy
Fall is one of my most favorite seasons. Vibrant colors leaping out at you from every tree and bush. Swirling together in a type of rainbow that seems to glow and jump right out at you. Being a very visual person, the vibrancy of these colors are like candy to my eyes. I spent some time down by the Mississippi River one afternoon taking some pictures of the area and I wanted to share them with you.
Some flowers that look like they belong to the spring. They were just tiny and delicate.
I love the way the colors bleed from green to orange to red. Each leaf filled with every imaginable blend of color, no two the same.
Thanks Lord for candy for my eyes. For showing your love and your beauty through the magnificence of your creation!
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Standing Firm
As my family continues to be in the midst of falling apart I have found myself often in a place of struggling to trust the Lord. Struggling to trust in His goodness. Struggling to trust that He actually cares and responds to the prayers and petitions of His children. Struggling to believe that should the marriage of my parents end in divorce that my God would still be good. That He would still love me and care for me and be faithful to me as much as He has been in the past.
Marriage is meant to be a covenant that 2 people make before the Lord. A covenant that is binding and a covenant that should not be broken lightly. Why is it then that it seems as though God doesn't fight harder for that covenant? Why is it then that so many marriages have crumbled down around me? I am left standing amidst the ruins asking "Where is God now? Why doesn't He care for His children? Why doesn't He fight harder on their behalf for this covenant that was made before Him?" I have wondered for the last 6 or so months what a divorce between my parents would do for my faith. A few months ago when there was talk of it I became angry. I knew that if it should happen that my faith would be rocked-that my faith, already on the brink of collapse, would crumble and I would walk away. I would throw up my hands in despair and in anger at the God who would let something as sacred as marriage fall down broken before Him. In those moments I wanted to give up. Give up on hope, give up on trusting that the Lord and Father I had followed for so long was good and that He cared about the pain that His children were going through. I began to shut down and withdraw into myself. I closed down my heart and my mind because I felt like I couldn't take anymore. I couldn't care anymore. I couldn't hope anymore. It was too hard and it hurt too much. And I felt like my prayers, my cries, my pleas were falling on deaf ears.
Thankfully, I do have a God who is good. I do have a God who hurts when His people hurt. A God who longs just as much as I do for the covenant made before Him to not be broken. I often wonder why a God, who knows the depths of our souls and of our depravity, would choose to give His children free-will. Why He would choose to give His Beloved choices that will make them hurt. I wondered why I ached and prayed and longed so much for a marriage to be healed that was headed nowhere but towards and end. Couldn't I just accept it and move on? Move on toward the healing. Move on toward picking up the pieces of a broken family. But God hasn't let me. He hasn't given me a peace that this is what it is supposed to be. He hasn't given me relief from crying out day and night for my family to be made whole. For my family to taste His sweetness. For my parents to experience a marriage like the Lord created marriage for.
I don't know what is going to happen but I have learned that no matter what the end looks like, I DO have a God who loves me. I DO have a God who is crying because of the pain that I see on the faces of my parents. I DO have a God who wants to be good to His children, a God who loves and adores His children, a God who longs for us to crawl up into His lap to cry, to petition, to pray, to listen. I will fight to have hope in an end that doesn't include the words divorce and broken family. I will fight to believe in a God who can do immeasuarbly more than anything we could ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). An end that includes tasting the Lord's sweetness that much more because of the junk and pain and suffering that had to be waded through to get there. Because I have a God through whom nothing is impossible and all things are possible (Mark 10:27). A God who delights in showing up in ways we would never dream or expect.
"I will declare that Your love stands firm forever, that You established Your faithfulness in heaven itself."
Psalm 89:2
Marriage is meant to be a covenant that 2 people make before the Lord. A covenant that is binding and a covenant that should not be broken lightly. Why is it then that it seems as though God doesn't fight harder for that covenant? Why is it then that so many marriages have crumbled down around me? I am left standing amidst the ruins asking "Where is God now? Why doesn't He care for His children? Why doesn't He fight harder on their behalf for this covenant that was made before Him?" I have wondered for the last 6 or so months what a divorce between my parents would do for my faith. A few months ago when there was talk of it I became angry. I knew that if it should happen that my faith would be rocked-that my faith, already on the brink of collapse, would crumble and I would walk away. I would throw up my hands in despair and in anger at the God who would let something as sacred as marriage fall down broken before Him. In those moments I wanted to give up. Give up on hope, give up on trusting that the Lord and Father I had followed for so long was good and that He cared about the pain that His children were going through. I began to shut down and withdraw into myself. I closed down my heart and my mind because I felt like I couldn't take anymore. I couldn't care anymore. I couldn't hope anymore. It was too hard and it hurt too much. And I felt like my prayers, my cries, my pleas were falling on deaf ears.
Thankfully, I do have a God who is good. I do have a God who hurts when His people hurt. A God who longs just as much as I do for the covenant made before Him to not be broken. I often wonder why a God, who knows the depths of our souls and of our depravity, would choose to give His children free-will. Why He would choose to give His Beloved choices that will make them hurt. I wondered why I ached and prayed and longed so much for a marriage to be healed that was headed nowhere but towards and end. Couldn't I just accept it and move on? Move on toward the healing. Move on toward picking up the pieces of a broken family. But God hasn't let me. He hasn't given me a peace that this is what it is supposed to be. He hasn't given me relief from crying out day and night for my family to be made whole. For my family to taste His sweetness. For my parents to experience a marriage like the Lord created marriage for.
I don't know what is going to happen but I have learned that no matter what the end looks like, I DO have a God who loves me. I DO have a God who is crying because of the pain that I see on the faces of my parents. I DO have a God who wants to be good to His children, a God who loves and adores His children, a God who longs for us to crawl up into His lap to cry, to petition, to pray, to listen. I will fight to have hope in an end that doesn't include the words divorce and broken family. I will fight to believe in a God who can do immeasuarbly more than anything we could ask or imagine (Ephesians 3:20). An end that includes tasting the Lord's sweetness that much more because of the junk and pain and suffering that had to be waded through to get there. Because I have a God through whom nothing is impossible and all things are possible (Mark 10:27). A God who delights in showing up in ways we would never dream or expect.
"I will declare that Your love stands firm forever, that You established Your faithfulness in heaven itself."
Psalm 89:2
Friday, July 28, 2006
Tattered, Torn, Wrecked but in the end GOOD
"Here I am in my fifth YouthWorks summer, and nothing has been easy, mostly because of how often I have been confronted with my own sin and messiness. My impatience with imperfect people has distanced me from some of my staff. Selfishness has led me to fight every step of the way when things weren’t going my way – whether that means arguing with my boss or getting mad at God. Disobedience has made me resist the steps that God would have me take, and He’s had to drag me down the narrow road kicking and screaming at times. Laziness has made me complacent about spending time praying and reading God’s word. All of this has come together to make me crabby, emotional, irritable, and a generally not-nice person. I feel like this summer has brought out the worst in me, and I am wearing my sin like a dingy white t-shirt."
-Jenilyn
Wow! Thank you to my dear friend Jenilyn for putting words to my 5th YouthWorks summer. Last year(summer 05) was my fifth and by far the hardest summer personally/spiritually/emotionally yet! I left the summer feeling like I was thrown into a massive messed up heap on the floor with only the Love and Care of my Father able to pick me up and make me whole. I felt battered and beaten so often last summer that I just expected the blows to come. Blows of my selfishness, blows from my pride, blows from my faults so filling my vision that nothing else could be seen. And just when I thought I couldn't take anymore, another attack would come from the other side...totally taking me off guard.
The amazing thing is that I made it through the summer with my faith intact, barely. But God was there. He was there amidst my junk, my weakness, my ugliness. He was there with arms wide open ready to bring me back in, dust me off, glue back together the pieces of my shattered life to make me beautiful, to make me His Beloved.
I would pay to not have to go back to that place, but I am so grateful because I was able to leave that summer saying "My God is good. I am wrecked, but my God is good. I am shattered on the floor, tired, exhausted, weary, hurting, but my God is good."
Praise the Lord that He is a GOOD God. A God who loves His children so much that He allows them to be put through the fire (hot, intense, thick fire) only to come out on the other side reflecting more and more HIS beautiful image. Oh that I would rejoice in my sufferings because I know that in the end they are good.
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