It's almost September...

I go back to work in 7 days - after an entire year off. I think I probably have more anxiety about going back than the students do! I am sure once I am back, I will quickly fall into the swing of things and it will be like getting back on a bike after a long absence (minus the bike, but plus 120 students each day looking to me to know what I am doing!!)

I have learned that at least two of my students are girls that used to be in my small group when I was a youth leader. They are tremendous girls, and I am very excited - and ENCOURAGED - to have them in my classes.

Pray that I will be a light in my classroom and school, even when I don't feel very "lit up"!

For those of you who are students or teachers - have a great start to the school year!

Sadie

Sadie, I see you. I know that you are scared. I know that you are hurting. I want to help you.

I invite you to trust me with this pregnancy... in this complicated situation. I will strengthen you, I will uphold you, I will care for you. Look to me. Let me take care of you.

You are right in not liking the idea of having an abortion. It's not the way I would have you go. I say "Choose life!" Choose life for yourself; choose life for the little one growing inside of you. You will never regret choosing to let this baby live.

Those other voices you hear responding "BUT..." with a list of reasons why it would be better for you to "get rid of it"? They don't know what's good for you. They don't know how you will be plagued with regret and sorrow if you choose the path of destruction. Misguided, ignorant and selfish, they justify the killing of the innocent and helpless littlest one relying on your warm, protective womb to nurture, feed and give her life.

Oh Sadie, listen to your heart. Listen to my voice. Hear me say, "I love you!" I will never leave you or forsake you. As I gave my life so you might have life, Sadie, I ask you protect and cherish the life within you, no matter how inconvenient! My promise is that I will be with you - through it all. ~ God.

Soul Kitchen sisters and readers, please join me in praying that Sadie (not her real name and not her photo) will hear God's voice and submit to His invitation.

I went camping with my family and family friends last week. I haven't been camping in the better part of a decade and I forgot how... dirty it is. I used to like it. We used to go camping all the time, but this time wasn't like I remembered it. Maybe I was only remembering the good parts. Not the dirt, not the cold, not the... dirt. I don't like feeling dirty and, as my wise older sister said, "The next time I lie that close to the cold, hard dirt, I better be dead." I agree.

Please, don't get me wrong, I had a good time and I'm glad I went, just, next time, I'm going to get a beach house.

We went down the Oregon Coast to a little town called Cannon Beach and camped (in tents) at a campsite within walking distance of the town and the beach. What a beach it was too! My goodness! The sand was fabulous and stretched forever. The water was a touch cool so I never actually went swimming, but it was good for standing in and letting the waves crash over my feet (and up my legs and onto my rolled up jeans).

During the day we'd make forays into town. We went to Tillamook and went to the cheese factory and one day we went into Sea Side to go shopping (we may be camping, but that doesn't mean we had to rough it to much). Then, on the warmer days, we lay on the beach.

We had campfires every night and would sit around chatting while eating dinner. Then, shortly after dinner would come dessert. It's a novel thing, going on vacation, with my family. Usually, we eat very strictly. Almost everyone in my family has a "list" that our Naturopath doctor gave us that dictates what we should and should not eat and, for the most part, we stick to it pretty closely. It generally means, however, that we can't eat half the stuff that we love and would eat daily if we could. On vacation, though, we get to eat what we like, and trust me, we do :) (I will concede to admit that I spent the week not feeling so hot)

Although the trip ended with a very long car ride home in the back of Camry stuffed to the brim with camping gear and people, I had fun and enjoyed myself. But now, it's back to the real world and if I don't get up and get going, I'm going to be late for work.

What We Take For Granted

Today my family is celebrating my mom's birthday. We had fun at the park and now are spending some time relaxing at home. The plan is to make sure my mom has to do as little work as possible. As I was writing a birthday note for her, I was thinking about all the work she does for me every single day. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, driving, paying for stuff, organizing... she is constantly working. And I think I've always taken that for granted. I just assume that if I need something, my mom will be right there to provide it for me. So God's been showing me that I need to appreciate those things more... not take for granted the blessings He's given me, including the blessing of my mom. My question is, what do you take for granted? I encourage you to spend some time talking to God about those things in your life... and hopefully learn to appreciate them each and every day!

(Sorry, but no picture for today!)

Have You Been Robbed?

For the past couple of days, I have been trying to sort through a lot of things that have happened over the summer. I have gone from very, very high emotionally to very low at times. It has been a summer of intense activity. The pastor at the church we were attending yesterday spoke about "what is important to us." We can tell people what is important to us, but our actions really describe what that is. Matthew 6 tells us, "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

We all begin to realize at some point or another that if our treasure lies in people or things, we are eventually going to be let down. You can love someone for a list of reasons but that list eventually comes to an end. God's list never ends. He loves us continually without end. We tend to forget that we are in a battlefield with the enemy waging war against us... against our minds. Here's the thing... we get so sidetracked by our thoughts, that before we know it, Satan has sneaked in and robbed us of our most valuable possessions.

I found myself yesterday continually asking God to be my all consuming Fire. Each time my thoughts would wander to a longing for someone or something else, I knew that Satan was trying to make me feel lost and lonely. There is a song that I've been listening to lately. It has helped me in the times that my mind and thoughts bring dis-contentment. Charlie Hall and the Passion Worship Band sing it and it is called, "All We Need is You."

"Rich or poor God I want You more

Than anything that glitters in this world,

Be my all... all consuming fire."

"You can have all my hands can hold,

My heart, mind, strength and soul.

Be my all... all consuming fire."

"We have all we need in You.

All we need is You...

All we need is You..."

The Pastor also told us yesterday that if you love someone or something... you give it to God. When we love something whole heartily, we are willing to make a sacrifice.

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

...The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.

Galatians 5:1,6

Remain

I was doing my devotions yesterday, and I wrote a little prayer in my journal asking God to give me motivation to read His word. After being in Mexico, I had been really excited to spend time with Him and pray... but as time went on, I felt my excitement dwindle. So I asked God to show me something in His word that would reinforce that I need to spend time with Him. This is what He gave me:

⁴Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

⁵"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. ⁸This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

-John 15:4-8

Without God in my life, I am nothing. And how can I truly know God and have Him in my life if I don't spend time with Him? If His words are in me, I will become more and more like Him.
I was amazed by this little miracle that God gave me: an immediate answer to my prayer. Praise God!

He knows ALL

Our God is amazing. The more I discover about God, the more I'm amazed by Him... and realize I can trust Him. I will share my latest discovery. 

We all know that God knows the end from the beginning. He is outside our time domain, so unlike us, He doesn't operate on a time-line. The past, present and future are as one to Him. Because of this He can say, as Isaiah quotes Him in Isaiah 46:9-10, "... I am God, and there is no other; I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say: My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please."

The example I found in the Bible this week is in Zechariah chapter 11. I won't quote the whole thing but will highlight parts of verses 7 through 13 to emphasize the point of God knowing all things and stating them before they happen on mankind's time-line.

"So I became the shepherd of the flock doomed to be slaughtered... And I tended the sheep.....The flock detested me, and I grew weary of them. Then I said to them, "If it seems good to you, give me my wages; but if not, keep them." And they weighed out as my wages thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me, “Throw it to the potter”—the handsome price at which they priced me! (Catch the sarcasm.) So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord to the potter."

Zechariah, the priest and prophet, wrote this around 480 B.C.  Does this sound at all familiar to you? I don't remember noting this before, so to me, it was very "fresh" to see how familiar this sounded in Matthew's account of Jesus - Our Good Shepherd.

Matthew 27: 3-10

Then when Judas, his betrayer, saw that Jesus was condemned, he changed his mind and brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the elders, saying, "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood." 

They said, "What is that to us? See to it yourself." And throwing down the pieces of silver into the temple, he departed, and he went and hanged himself. But the chief priests, taking the pieces of silver, said, "It is not lawful to put them into the treasury, since it is blood money." 

So they took counsel and bought with them the potter's field as a burial place for strangers. Therefore that field has been called the Field of Blood to this day. Then was fulfilled what had been spoken by the prophet Jeremiah, saying, "And they took the thirty pieces of silver, the price of him on whom a price had been set by some of the sons of Israel, and they gave them for the potter's field, as the Lord directed me."

God has let us know - over and over again - in what He has said in the Scriptures (the Bible) that He is God, He is Good, and that He can be trusted to do what He says.

"Father, thank you, that you have revealed yourself to us in your Word. We are so thankful that we can see your redemption plan through Jesus Christ. You have made it so plain in your Word that there is no mistaking that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, and the coming King. Your plans are amazing! I ask you to break through my heart and mind so that I truly trust you in all the big things in life, and all the little things too. In every thing and every way I want to trust you. For you are good."

By His Wounds

The passage that we read in church today had a verse that said, "By His wounds you are healed."
It reminded me of the song by Mac Powell:

He was pierced for our transgressions
And crushed for our sins
The punishment that brought us peace was upon Him
And by His wounds, by His wounds we are healed

We are healed by Your sacrifice
And the life that You gave
We are healed for You paid the price
By Your grace we are saved
We are saved

Jesus suffered horribly so we could live and be free from sin. Although sometimes we may make light of this or think it's no big deal, it is. And that verse was just a reminder of the incredible gift our Heavenly Father gave us.

Oh Yeah!

I loved what Becky wrote yesterday.  It made me smile....so true and so simple, yet so profound.

Little Finn...He's got it.  And I pray that none of us ever forget it.

Girls...Our God is Big.

No matter what you got goin on....He's big enough to handle it.

I cannot tell you how many times in the midst of some kind of crazy worrying fit of anxiety, over who knows what, I have heard God's still small voice echo deep into my heart, "Am I not big enough to handle this situation?"  And I have had to release the grip those worries held over me to say, "Yes God...You are Big enough and I will trust You."

Praise you Jesus that You are Big.  Bigger than a blue whale.  Bigger than anything we hurt over.  Bigger than any problem we have.  Bigger than Life itself.

Philippians 4:6-7
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 transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.


1 Peter 5:7
Cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you.

Is God bigger than a blue whale?

My four year old, Finn, is just enthralled with ocean animals. Whales and sharks are his favourite, but he loves them all. He knows a shocking amount considering his tender age - in fact, age aside, he knows a shocking amount! I have learned more about the ocean and its inhabitants in my last year of life than I did in the 29 previous years! His vocabulary is astounding laregely because his favourite DVD to watch is the BBC's Blue Planet: Seas of Life series - an 8 part documentary about the water that covers the earth and all the strange and wonderful (and sometimes down right creepy) creatures that live in it. He listens to the dignified voice of Sir David Attenborough and incorporates (and correctly so) the same manner of speech and vocabulary into his own, four year old, everyday conversation. I am constantly surprised by phrases and words that he uses. The other day he informed me that copepods are a type of deep sea shrimp, and on the same day that he loves to draw bioluminescence!! What is perhaps more impressive than his vocab. is the intensity with which he takes in the information he has learned and really mulls it over. Quite often you can almost hear the cogs turning in his little brain. He processes the information and almost always connects it with something else he has learned, or is thinking about.

Did you know the blue whale is the largest creature on the planet? It can reach 30 metres in length and can weigh up to 200 tons (a baby blue whale is born at a meagre 3 tons!). Its tongue alone weighs the same as an elephant, and its heart the same as a car! Its arteries are so massive, that a toddler could crawl through them. This is a BIG creature! I can't even fathom this, despite the previous comparisons. Somehow, my four year old CAN fathom this!

One of Finn's favourite questions right now is asking how big God is. Is he as big as a house? A truck? It is when he asks me if God is as big as a blue whale that his mind really starts to ignite and his eyes really become large. In his mind, a blue whale is the ultimate in terms of measurement. There is none bigger than the blue whale, so when I tell him that God is bigger than this immense mammal, he is just floored!

So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing with which the water teems, according to their kinds... Genesis 1:21

A God that is bigger than a blue whale, that created the blue whale, is a God worth putting your trust in. He is worth calling to when you have had a nightmare. He is the One to whom we should ask for protection. He made the tongue that is as heavy as a car. He envisioned and set into place the network of mammoth arteries, and so He is the One that we ask to heal daddy's mouth after his wisdom teeth come out. He is the One that we call upon to help us find our favourite toy. He is the One that we serve.

I have a God bigger than a blue whale. That's big!!