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| I love coming home from a trip to have Jim waiting for me at the baggage claim.
I love keylime pie with hot coffee.
I love watching Katee preach.
I love walking through the back gate to be greeted by Chewbacca.
I love having a daughter-in-law who loves my son.
I love sleep number beds.
I love the young people in our church.
I love the youth pastors and sponsors who love the young people in our church.
I love With Abandon's human video.
I love a "free" breakfast buffet with really good oatmeal.
I love wireless internet.
I love my daughter's friends.
I love having grown children.
I love Will Farrow movies.
I love finding a lost credit card.
I love getting text messages from my daughter at 1:30 in the morning.
I love a son, daughter-in-law, dad, in-laws and sister who come to watch Fine Arts.
I love sharing things I love with people I love.
(This list is not all inclusive nor is it in order of importance.)
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| I have found a new friend. Jim introduced me to him. His name is Dallas Willard. He has written many books, but the one I am reading is The Divine Conspiracy.
He says,
"It is a great and important task to come to terms with what we really think when we think of God...We should, to begin with, think that God leads a very interesting life, and that he is full of joy. Undoubtedly he is the most joyous being in the universe."
I love that. Now that is a God I want to be connected with. I will leave the heavy burdens to all you who seem to enjoy carrying around all problems of the world...and President Bush.
The Family (all six of us) went on a two week road trip. We actually spent 90 hours in the car. We saw the most gorgeous stuff...mountains, cliffs, rivers, water falls, moose, bison, wild flowers, geysers, hot springs, bubbling goo in the ground...I stayed in complet awe for two weeks. Katee made fun of me for saying, "This is my favorite thing I have seen yet" so many times.
"Gradually there crept into my mind the realization that God sees this all the time. He sees it, experiences it, knows it from every possible point of view, this and billions of other scenes like and unlike it, in this and billions of other worlds. Great tidal waves of joy must constantly wash through his being." Dallas Willard
This makes me laugh. What a thought.
I begin a new journey today. A life filled with joy. Why not? Jesus' desire for me is "that (my) joy may be full." It is my choice and I choose it!
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| What to do with all the great ideas we have about changing the world...that is the question of the day.
I meet with a group of 15 ladies on Wednesday nights to come up with ways to
implement our dreams. Everyone has a dream...especially
these women when it come to ministering to other women. When
asked what they care about...the answers were as diverse as the women themselves. Single moms (housing, job training, childcare, teens, relationships), Mentoring (youth, younger women, young moms), Marketplace (businesses, schools, politics), Unity (among cultures, generations, race), Healing and Deliverance (healing of the brokenhearted, the depressed, the sick...breaking generational curses).
Huge challenges, big vision, bigger God! When we care about what
God cares about, surely He will make a way for the dreams to become reality. The thing is...it may include a cross....
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| Family. The greatest joy in life. The greatest pain in life.
Family is the people to whom you belong, the place from where you
come. You can walk away and leave your family, but they are
there, a part of who you are and who you will always be.
I just spent 10 days with my mom. It has never been just me and
mom...there has always been dad, or my sister, or my husband.
Mom has always thought I was beautiful...and talented...and
caring...and funny. She still does. Mom was always there to clean
up my messes, to bring some order to my life. Even after I
got married and had children, she loved to visit and clean and do
laundry and just help organize my life. On birthdays, she was the
only one who could say, "I remember the day you were born...it
was snowing outside and dad brought the other kids to stand
outside the hospital window to see you."
My mom doesn't remember much of anything anymore. The dreaded
disease of alzheimers has stolen her memory. But she still thinks
I am beautiful and she still finds value in folding towels and making
beds. There may be a time when she no longer does.
I see a lot of myself in my mom. Things I like and things I don't
like...but they are there. I use to hate it, but not so much anymore.
Family. You gotta love it.
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| WE HAVE A MIRACLE!!!
Today, Saturday, December 10, God brought Aric back to us! When we walked into his hospital room, he smiled at us. Jim said, "Hi Aric, this is Pastor." And Aric mouthed the word, "Pastor". Aric was smiling, puckering a kiss, mouthing words we said and other words on his own. He mouthed, "I love you." The best part was his eyes...he was actually looking at us and focused on us.
TO GOD BE ALL THE GLORY!..Thank you to all who have prayed for Aric. Keep praying for 100% healing. There has been a daily battle with infection, first in from his feeding tube into his stomach and now from his IV pic into his arm. They think there may be bleeding inside, so they took another cat scann today. As soon as all infection is gone and no other problems, Aric will be going to a rehab center.
God is alive and working in the earth today. "Your kingdom come, your will be done...here on earth, just like it is in heaven."
Yeah, God!!!
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