Supporting Scriptures

⁴ "Surely he has borne our griefs
    and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
    smitten by God, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions;
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
    and with his wounds we are healed.
⁶ All we like sheep have gone astray;
    we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all." --Isaiah 53:4-6 (ESV)

A word spoken through the prophet Isaiah in the Old Testament.  A prophecy foretelling the coming of Jesus, our Savior.  These verses tell us His purpose. These verses show us that Jesus took OUR sin upon His shoulders.  The punishment that we deserved, He took for us.  Jesus became something He wasn't (unrighteous) so that we could become something we could never be on our own...righteous.  Jesus became full of sin in the one moment that His Father God turned away from Him when He was on the cross.  Jesus died for EVERY sin EVERY human being has ever or will ever commit.  I once heard the author, David Platt say that when Jesus was sweating drops of blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, it wasn't because He was afraid to go to the cross and die...Jesus wasn't afraid to die...He was afraid of the moment when God would turn His back on Him because God cannot be in the presence of sin.  Jesus had never been separated from His Father before...they had always been One...Jesus couldn't bear the thought of being separated from His Father...can you?


^"12 Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men^[e]because all sinned— ¹³ for sin indeed was in the world before the law was given, but sin is not counted where there is no law. ¹⁴ Yet death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sinning was not like the transgression of Adam,who was a type of the one who was to come. ¹⁵ But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. ¹⁶ And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. ¹⁷ For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. ¹⁸ Therefore, as one trespass^[f] led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness^[g] leads to justification and life for all men. ¹⁹ For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous. ²⁰ Now the law came in to increase the trespass, but where sin increased, grace abounded all the more, ²¹ so that, as sin reigned in death,grace also might reign through righteousness leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." --Romans 5:12-21 (ESV)

To me, there really is no better set of Scriptures that explains this so plainly than the book of Romans, otherwise known as "The Roman Road".  Nothing else supports what I'm trying to say any better.  Sin came into the world through Adam...therefore, EVERYONE who was born after Adam was born into sin. Some religions or denominations do not preach this, that even infants are born sinful beings, but this is the supporting Scripture I use that defends that...this is what God's Word says and I'm not about to modify it, compromise it, or disagree with it:  "5 Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." --Psalms 51:5 (ESV)  There is another Scripture that talks about how sin starts with a desire and how that desire conceives and gives birth to sin and how that sin leads to death:  "¹⁵ Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death."  --James 1:15 (ESV) So, basically, we're born into sin, we deserve death for our sin, but our death won't justify us because we are sinful. Only ONE Person's sacrifice was sufficient to cover our sin and that's Jesus. Jesus was sinless.  Jesus was perfect.  He was the ONLY human being born to die for our sin.  It was God's plan from the beginning of Creation.  As soon as the first sin was committed, there was a need for a Savior.  This was God's plan from the beginning of time and Scripture is quite clear about it.

"1 The fool says in his heart, “There is no God."
They are corrupt, doing abominable iniquity;
there is none who does good.
2 God looks down from heaven
on the children of man
to see if there are any who understand,^[b]
who seek after God.
3 They have all fallen away
together they have become corrupt;
there is none who does good,
not even one."  --Psalms 53:1-3 (ESV)

"For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, 

¹⁰ as it is written:

'None is righteous, no, not one;

11 no one understands;

no one seeks for God.

12 All have turned aside; together they have become worthless;

no one does good,

not even one.'

13 'Their throat is an open grave;

they use their tongues to deceive.'

'The venom of asps is under their lips.'

14 Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness.'

15 'Their feet are swift to shed blood;

16 in their paths are ruin and misery,

17 and the way of peace they have not known.'

18 There is no fear of God before their eyes.'"  --Romans 3:9b-18 (ESV)

I don't know about you, but the above verses sound a lot like Newtown, CT to me. An unrighteous man who did not know God, who was swift to shed blood, who never knew and will never know peace, and who did not fear God.  A man left to himself, and quite frankly probably a child left to himself.  After what happened, I don't know about you, but it makes me long for Jesus' return...after looking in Scripture looks like I'm not alone:

"Oh that you would rend the heavens and come down,
    that the mountains might quake at your presence—
^2 [a] as when fire kindles brushwood
    and the fire causes water to boil—
to make your name known to your adversaries,
    and that the nations might tremble at your presence!
³ When you did awesome things that we did not look for,
    you came down, the mountains quaked at your presence.
⁴ From of old no one has heard
    or perceived by the ear,
no eye has seen a God besides you,
    who acts for those who wait for him.
⁵ You meet him who joyfully works righteousness,
    those who remember you in your ways.
Behold, you were angry, and we sinned;
    in our sins we have been a long time, and shall we be saved?^[b]
6 We have all become like one who is unclean,
    and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.
We all fade like a leaf,
    and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
⁷ There is no one who calls upon your name,
    who rouses himself to take hold of you;
for you have hidden your face from us,
    and have made us melt in^[c] the hand of our iniquities."  --Isaiah 64:1-7 (ESV)

We are ALL unclean and all of the good things we can do are like filthy rags in comparison to the GOODNESS, RIGHTEOUSNESS, and HOLINESS of God. There is nothing we can do on our own to be good enough.  In this nation, we no longer revere God or fear Him, as in RESPECT Him for His position and give Him the honor that He's due.  I'm not talking about going to church, praying, or doing what seems to be all the right things, I'm talking about every day in our DAILY living.  In the next blog, I will share the HOPE that can be yours.

Immediate Afterthoughts

Read my previous blog post first...

Only an hour after posting one post, my mind is still running.  I can already hear it..........all the opinions, all the politics, all the arguments....maybe I'm preceding something that may not happen, but with all the Internet traffic in the world and all the eyes.......there are always sides, beliefs, and opinions.

Adam and Eve is just a story and the Bible is just a book.......maybe a fairy tale.  It may be something that to you, may have happened so long ago you don't even believe it is real.  Maybe Jesus is just as fictitious as Santa Clause to you....just a story that someone made up for some kids.

Some days the only way I feel I can explain my faith is like the wind...you can't see it, but you can feel it and hear it to know it is there.

Some days I get really tired of reading everyone's opinions on Facebook and seeing all the politics fly back and forth like the food fight I remember having at the dinner table as a kid.  If I close my eyes, I can still see those mashed potatoes hitting the window and that chicken leg hitting the wall, and if you ask my sisters, they can also remember what we had for dinner that night.  If you really think about it, sometimes the arguments we have are just as ridiculous and childish and I just want to yell, "Two words people: GROW UP!"

What I really want more than anything most times, is for God to just set foot right in the middle of a conversation or an argument and just show up and say, "This is how it is!"  I mean sincerely...I wish God would literally show up, put His hand over our mouths and say, "Silence! Who made man's mouth?" and set us all straight the same way He did Job and say, "Excuse me, did YOU make the sun? Did you name all the stars? Did you create the world and everything in it? Did you put the moon where it is now? Who created your eyes? Who gave you that breath you just took? Who started your heart to beating and Who ALONE knows when it will stop?"  Sincerely....

No, sincerely....let's all take a step back for a second and think about it.  You gotta sit still and internalize and visualize with me for a second.  I don't know why I always do this, but I always think of celebrities for some reason.  I mean, someone I don't know who is far away. When you take a person...geez, anyone...Justin Beiber, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, Tom Cruise, sheesh, I don't know...anybody and you strip that person of their material possessions and you take all they own away, who are they?  Who are they without all their stuff?  So many people define themselves by their STUFF.  If you don't have all that stuff, the house, the money, the cars, the clothes, the jewelry, everything the WORLD has to offer, who are you?  Now get closer to home and apply that to yourself. When you take away your stuff, who are you?  Your house, your clothes, your job, your money, your friends, even your family...who are you?  Now, when I say, "who are you", I am basically asking....what stuff are you made up of?  When you're stripped bare of everything we know you as, what is left?

Here's the thing, when you die, when I die, when Justin Beiber dies, when Tom Cruise the Scientologist dies...what is left?  Who are we?  What are we made of then?  Listen, when it's all over, there's nothing left but our souls.  A person is really no more than their soul.  In the end, all that's gonna matter is "What is inside of your soul?"  Sincerely...think about it...after it's all gone...what else is there?  They put your body in the ground and your soul lives on.  Your body is just a mask, just a facade, it's what we know you as, but it's not who you really are. Think about it if you've ever been to a funeral....you're just looking at a vessel, but the person is gone, gone.  So....WHO ARE YOU?  In the end you are nothing but a soul standing face to face with your Maker.  You are stripped bare of the life and possessions you had to have in exchange for forsaking all that really matters.......which is what you do with your soul.

My prayer is that when I look at people...instead of seeing people, I will see their souls.  Everyone on the face of a planet has a soul.  EVERYONE.  Everyone from you to me to Osama bin Laden. Think about it...the only part of a person that's meant to live forever is a person's soul.  I can hear you already, I can hear you..."But what if I don't believe that?" Really think about it.  Just get quiet somewhere and think about it.  If what you believe were not true, would you still want to know it?  The answer for me is "No".  If what I believed were not true, would I still want to know it, and the answer is "No", I would want to know the truth. The purpose of this life is not to focus on the outside, the external, the temporal, the fading, the aging...the purpose is to focus on the inside, the internal, the eternal, the everlasting, and the part that will live forever.  EVERYONE on the planet will live forever in one of two places.  My pastor said it best.  If you are born twice, you only have to die once.  If you were born once, then you will die twice. Think about it...if you don't know what that means, just ask me.

First Thoughts on Newtown, CT School Shooting

It's hard to put feelings into words...................................numb is a good word. Shocked is a good word, amazed, surprised, sickened, horrified.  I'm not claiming to have all the answers, I'm just an American reacting to this tragedy just like you. As I was sitting in my living room, reading the news on Facebook, my children were playing on the floor behind my chair. They are 2 and 3 years old and had some toy cars and they were crashing them into each other. I heard one of them say, "I'm gonna shoot your car and kill your car!"  I immediately started balling. These are my children...only 2 and 3. They are too little to understand.  As a mother though, who has my 2 beautiful children at home when some mothers lost theirs today...I couldn't let this incident slide.

I asked my children to sit down on the couch and my oldest asked me why I was crying.  "Lord, how do I explain this?" I prayed. "Help me explain this in a way they can understand..." I prayed.  "Why are you sad, Mommy?" my baby boy said.  I said, "Honey, you can't say that anymore." and I explained to him that he can't say "shoot" or "kill" even if he's just playing or pretending (and I know he was) and when he asked me "why", I thought, "He's too young to understand...he's only 3...he can't possibly handle this...how do I explain this to him?"  So this is what I said:

"Honey, there are bad people in this world who do bad things." and he asked me, "Mommy, do they shoot people and kill them?" and I said, "Yes." and he asked, "Why, Mommy? Why they do that?" and I said, "Because of sin."  We have a Bible Stories DVD and Bible for Toddlers that we bought them a year ago and it has the story of Adam and Eve in it.  This is the most basic way the Lord gave me to explain this situation to my children.  I said, "Isaac, do you remember the Bible story we watched on TV about Adam and Eve?" and he said, "Yes." and I asked him, "What do you remember about watching that story?" and he said, "Adam and Eve ate the fruit because the sneaky snake told them to." and I said, "Uh huh, and then what happened?" and Isaac walked over behind the recliner and he said, "Adam and Eve hid from God like this..." and he crouched down behind the recliner and said, "Mommy, can you see me?" and I said, "Nope!" and then his little sister Jenna did the same thing.  She crouched down behind the couch and hid and said, "Mommy, can you see me?" and I asked them, "Why did Adam and Eve hide from God?" and Isaac said, "Because they didn't listen to God, they disobeyed..."  We've talked about this story A LOT.  I said, "Isaac, this man who shot those people did it because he had sin living in his heart...just like Isaac has sin living in his heart, and Jenna has sin living in her heart, and Mommy has sin living in her heart, and Daddy has sin living in his heart...we ALL have sin in our hearts that makes us bad..."  and then Isaac named a few of his friends from church and I said, "Yes, they all have sin in their hearts too, but you know what Isaac?" and he said, "What?" and I said, "Jesus is GOOD and Jesus came as a baby on Christmas Day to SAVE us from our sin...that's the whole reason why He came and why we have this tree up and why we are even celebrating His birthday at all...because He came to save us..." and I started crying again.

I don't know why we have to make it so hard.  Why do we have to complicate it so much?  The concept is really so basic that even a 2-year old can understand it. The very first sin ever committed originated with the very first people God created, Adam and Eve.  After that first sin, EVERYONE after them INCLUDING you and me sinned.  We've ALL done bad things, each one of us has gone astray, each of us to his own way, and there is no one righteous, not even ONE.  There is NOTHING we can do to make ourselves good enough, righteous enough, or right with God.  We can't do enough good deeds or works, we can't be good enough people, and there's nothing we can do ON OUR OWN to make it into heaven. We also have "the Christmas box" in our house.  It's nothing more than a Christmas tree shaped green box with a decorative, shiny lid.  I found it one year while we were pulling out the Christmas decorations and I thought, "What can we put inside of this little box?" and the Lord gave this idea to me.  He said, "Put Me inside that box." and He gave me this story to tell Isaac.  I took the Christmas box and gave it to Isaac and said, "Here Isaac, I got you a Christmas present!" and he opened it up and said, "But Mommy, there's nothing in here..." and I said, "Sure there is, Jesus is inside!" and I told him that Jesus is the best Christmas present anyone could ever receive and when someone hands Him to you, you pick Him up, put Him inside your heart, and then give the gift to someone else.  It's simple when you really think about it.  The only way that we can be made right with God because of our sin is to admit we are sinners, accept the free gift of salvation that the Lord Jesus gave us when He died on that cross, and ask Him to be the Lord of our lives.  Think about it...God made you so Who knows you better than anyone? Who better to trust with your whole life, your decisions, and your future? Who better to have control of your life than your Maker?  Before He formed the world, He knew you.  He's writing a story with your life.  He knows the beginning and the end...have you ever bothered to ask Him what it's about?  Have you ever bothered to ask Him which way to go next?

Ah...*sigh*.....it's cold and gray here today.  The weather I mean...it's dreary and sad.  I really believe that God makes days like this because He understands how we feel.  The Lord knew before any of us woke up today what was going to happen in Newtown, CT.  God knew when those children went to school today that they wouldn't be coming home again.  God knew those teachers and adults were going to die.  God knew that man would kill them all.  I'm not saying God made it happen and I'm not saying He caused it...but I am saying He allowed it...and the only answer I have to the question, "Why?" is "Because of sin."  The man who did this didn't know Jesus personally.......................but here's the thing..............Jesus died for him anyway.............Jesus forgave him too....................just like Jesus forgave me for my sin.................and just like He forgives you.  Do you want to know Him personally today?  After this shocking reminder that life is precious, I am reminded that time is running out............don't wait..................you may not have tomorrow. "As it is said, 'Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your hearts...'"  ~Hebrews 3:15

School Memories K-2nd Grade

This is more for my children's sake than anyone else's, but some of you may get a kick out of some of this if you and I went to school together anywhere in my life from Kindergarten to 12th Grade.  My children will never know this stuff unless I write it down.  I remember EVERYTHING and probably some things people have forgotten, but there are also some things I don't remember.  There are chunks of my life throughout school that I just plain don't remember, and actually have discovered it was probably when things were not going great in my life.  Looking back I have found that the years I struggled in school or got poor grades were the years that there was either a death in the family, or my mom had her stroke, or my dad had his heart attack, or something major happened in my life.

Anyway...kindergarten.  I remember my oldest sister Cindy holding my hand and walking me to the kindergarten schoolhouse from the car.  Geez, I'm already crying.  She is my oldest sister, we are 12 years apart and I don't have A LOT of memories growing up with her, but I remember this.  My kindergarten teacher was Mrs. Heidrich.  She used to swing us SO HIGH on the swings outside.  We used to have competitions with the first grade teacher and I would tell all of the other kids, "I bet MY teacher can swing me HIGHER than YOUR teacher..." nanny nanny boo!  One day during circle time, we were singing a song about a swan or a duck and I started playing footsie with the kid beside me and before I could blink, Mrs. Heidrich yanked both of us up by our arms and threw us in the closet and had a talking to with us.  I don't remember what she said because I was crying, but I do remember the scowl on her face and her pointing finger.  She slammed us back down in our chairs and yelled at me to keep singing, but I couldn't because I was crying.  Yes, this is the way I remember it...sounds violent doesn't it?  It was...to me.  :)  Teachers probably couldn't even do that nowadays without getting in trouble.  The other thing I remember about kindergarten were the birthday swats.  Mrs. Heidrich would give "pretend" birthday swats, but they SCARED me to death.  I almost got out of it because my birthday was on Christmas and we had no school, but she got me when school was back in session.  I also remember the snack wagon that would come in with cookies and milk on it!  I also specifically remember her teaching us the alphabet and the letter W and the Wh sound for "whale" (the picture on the alphabet border around the room) and I can still see and hear the magical way she taught us that sound by making a woosh sound and motion like wind with her hands and mouth.  I can hear her voice:  "Wh, wh, whale...wh, wh, whale..."  It was awesome and I will probably use that method to teach it to my kids.  I remember the play kitchen and specifically the blue play phone on the wall in the play kitchen was my favorite room in the schoolhouse.  I remember having a crush on a little blonde, blue-eyed boy named Stephen.  I remember making our handprints in this clay stuff and the smell of it made one kid sick and the janitor had to come clean it up.  Funny the stuff we remember, huh?

Okay, if you noticed in my roll call of teachers on Facebook, I have no 1st and 3rd grade teachers.  That's because I did not go to school in 1st and 3rd grade.  We were "homeschooled" by my mother and just skipped school in those grades.  For a small period of time, we went to this one room schoolhouse on W. Cherry Street off of the access road on N. Van Buren called "Victory In Jesus" and Beverly Schoonover was our teacher.  I think it went up to the 8th grade.  It was like a room full of misfits.  I do remember a few things from that place.  I remember doing math and her letting me use the guide to cheat with this math toy game that did addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division with buttons that lit up.  I remember having relay races up to the hill outside.  I remember having a crush on Chris Watkins.  I remember being an angel in the Christmas play that we performed in the food court at the Oakwood Mall.  The mall was brand new.  I must have been 7.  That's when Hastings and Beall's were there.  I remember feeling sick and dizzy during the play and they let me sit down because I couldn't stand up and hold my arms up any more.  I was the angel who said, "Fear not, for I bring you good news of great tidings and joy that shall be unto all people! For today a Savior has been born and His name is Christ the Lord!"  Something like that....I had jeans and a plaid shirt on under my sheet er...angel gown and a silver tinsel halo.  I think we have pictures of it in a photo album at my parent's house.

For 2nd grade, I went to Emmanuel Christian School.  I tested to see whether I should be in 1st or 2nd grade and they put me in 2nd.  I remember the office and the plants and the rail outside the office.  I remember doing Mousercise with Mickey Mouse in chapel.  I remember choir class with Mrs. Glazier.  I remember a song about angels and it was a BEAUTIFUL echo song that said, "They are above me (above me), they are below me (below me), God's angels are all around me...everywhere..." and the song was so beautiful, it made me cry.  I remember Grandparent's Day and holding up a poster with Angela Sayre and we had to say our poster and it said, "Grandparents are like Frosted Flakes, they're GRRRRRREAT!"  I remember the first friend I made at Emmanuel was Eva Sims.  I LOVED HER.  I thought she was so beautiful, sweet, and kind to me.  I remember another friend, Michelle Watkins.  I remember my friend Taylor Buckminster and he had an older sister Moriah who was in my sister's class in 4th grade.  I remember he used to love to run relay races with my sister Chantel before school.  I remember my friend Becky Faulk and going to her house for a school party and she had horses there.  I remember going on a field trip to the plant East of town and I remember them telling us not to breathe in the ammonia and I about passed out because I held my breath the entire time!  I remember going to the Cherokee Strip Museum in Perry.  I remember going to the fairgrounds for something and I got sick and had to go back to sit on the bus and my teacher, Mrs. Juliano sat with me until I felt better.  I also remember one day when this boy Shawn Campbell accidentally stapled his finger in class and it bled everywhere.  I remember the day that Angela Sayre's grandpa died and her dad came to pick her up early and he was all red-faced from crying and Angela cried and cried as she cleaned out her desk to leave for a few days.  I remember walking on the playground with my friend Tony Neis.  We were both sort of loners I guess...kids that didn't really fit in, but at least we had each other. I remember talking to him on the phone when we both got the latest Highlights magazine and doing the activity sheets over the phone together.  I remember going out with Jay Smith for like one day...he followed me around the playground and everywhere ALL day...just for one day though.  I remember having a crush on Chris Kohutek and I remember the day he found out about it and came in from lunch yelling, dancing around, and singing, "You like me, you like me, you like me!" and I was MORTIFIED.  I remember going to my friend Shanda Hogue's birthday party at Skatetown and it was the first time I had ever skated.  I was so scared to fall in front of my friends and make an idiot out of myself.  I remember we had coconut cake with white, coconut frosting on top...that might have been Becky's party.  I remember getting in a fight with my friends Angela Sayre, Katy Jenkins, and Courtney McGee on the playground one day while we were playing foursquare.  I can't remember what it was about, but I think it was because someone was being too bossy or something.  After that, they ignored me for a few days, but then we had a lesson about forgiveness and if there was anyone we needed to forgive, then we needed to talk to them and Katy came to talk to me to tell me she was sorry and to ask for forgiveness.  I remember thinking that my teacher, Mrs. Juliano was the most beautiful teacher in the whole world!  I loved her hair and her dresses.  I can honestly still picture some of them.  She had some black/white, and red/white, and blue/white ones that were similar.  She had a pink one with black polka dots on it.  I remember that she got pregnant in the middle of our school year and had to go on maternity leave.  I remember that my classmate Courtney McGee's grandma was our teacher after that.  I think that is all I remember about Emmanuel....just kidding...how could I leave 2nd grade without telling this story........the main story.  Two words...Chris Carpenter.  Four words....All Around the World.  All Around the World was a math game that we played with flash cards.  Simple addition and subtraction problems were on these flash cards.  The teacher would take two students and put them up against each other and show the flash card to both of them and the student who said the answer the fastest got to keep going and the loser had to sit down.  Well, I was GOOD at this...no I was GREAT at this game.  One day, we were playing this game and I went up against EVERYONE in the ENTIRE class and BEAT THEM...I was just about to get through the WHOLE class and be the All Around the World champion of the ENTIRE class when I went up against Mr. Chris Carpenter and he beat me and RUINED MY RECORD!  Since then we have reconnected and are like best friends....more like brother and sister.  He was the best man in our wedding actually and is my husband's best friend...we call him "Carp".

That is enough for now.......later I will start with 3rd grade...a year I actually didn't go to school and go from there.

Hide and Seek

Just processing through some stuff.  Haven't posted in awhile.....have a lot going on inside and lots of ideas churning in my brains all the time, but not always time to get it all out.  I wonder if I'm the only one who feels the way I do...if you feel like me...will you please tell me?  Was sharing this with a friend earlier...what are your thoughts?

I feel like people "think" they're connected because of social networking like Facebook, and they "think" they're really clued in to what's going on with people, but I think people have a tendency to stuff their real issues deeper inside because of things like Facebook.  Nobody cares to SINCERELY ask how someone is doing on the inside anymore.  On Facebook, you can be whoever you want to be, and say you're having a good day when you're really not.  People like Facebook, because they can HIDE.  People can be envious of your life, your vacations, your beautiful family pictures, your statuses about how great your life and husband (or wife) are, and you might just enjoy thinking that everyone envies you and you have it all together and everything's fine.....but what if it's not?  Who do you tell?  Here you are and you have a million "friends", but you feel lonlier and more disconnected than ever.  I think Facebook's slogan is "stay connected", but social networking actually creates a disconnection because nobody connects face-to-face, knee-to-knee, shoulder-to-shoulder in PERSONAL contact anymore.  Remember when AT&T or Southwestern Bell's slogan used to be "Reach Out and Touch Someone"....talking on the phone made you feel that close.  Nobody talks on the phone anymore.  I think it's made us all more coarse, cold and unfeeling....in a way.  People don't have to ask how you're doing or what you've been up to lately because they already know...they read your status on Facebook.

Please, don't get me wrong.  I have posted about this before.  I do think some social networking is GREAT and has connected people who have been out of touch for forever.  I'm sure we all have family and friends across the miles that you would never otherwise contact were it not for something like Facebook, or your iPhone, or email.  For people who are sharing great news and milestones about weddings, and babies, and life...it's all being shared in a great way.  My grandma and parents don't have Facebook or a computer though, so they are missing out and it becomes even more of a challenge to stay connected "the old-fashioned way".  

We used to go over to my grandma's house EVERY Sunday growing up and have "Sunday Dinner".  It was like Thanksgiving every Sunday.  Food, fun, and football.  Grandma's cooking and the Dallas Cowboys on TV...couldn't get any better than that.  It's been months since I've been over there and we live in the same town...how awful is that?  Things change...I grew up...got married....had kids of my own...my grandpa died...it's not the same now.  Some days I would give anything to be a kid again...playing football in my grandma's backyard with my sisters....climbing in the tree house my grandpa built with the sand pit underneath....swinging on the tire swing....riding our pony "Bucky"...riding our bikes in the neighborhood...swinging on the swingset...my grandma got rid of all that stuff after my grandpa died.  Now there's just a yard and grass.  She used to have one or two dogs outside and now she has one little yippie Yorkie toy inside....very weird.  

I don't like change.  I just feel disconnected.....disconnected from my family and disconnected from my friends.  Do you ever feel that way?

This I Know: Part 2

Okay, so this is what God has been up to in me from a spiritual perspective...

Being diagnosed with A-Fib has been a wake-up call for me.  Here I was planning, and planning, and preparing, and working, and planning some more for the biggest summer I had ever had since the kids were born, and God pulled the plug on ALL of it.  He sidelined me.  At first, I felt like I had got my legs just taken out from under me.  I was just stunned.  All I wanted to do was be back at VBS and back at church.  I have always been that way when something serious or life-changing is happening.  I remember the day my Dad had a heart attack when I was a sophomore at Enid High.  Bass Hospital is right by the high school and I was so upset that I had to leave school that day...I just wanted to go back to school.  It was my way of coping with it...I just wished it wasn't happening and that I could go on like it wasn't.  This time it was happening to me though.  I remember looking at the clock on Tuesday morning, the 2nd day of VBS and crying when it got to 9:00am because I knew the Worship Rally was starting and I wasn't there, but I was supposed to be.

Here's what God told me though..."Wendy, I don't need you there right now...I need you here."

Wow...that was humbling.  God told me, "Wendy, I run the world, not you. I cause the sun to rise every day, not you. The world doesn't revolve around you. This isn't about you, it's about me and about my glory being revealed through this situation, so you better stop looking at yourself and start looking at Me."  As my Sunday School teacher would say, "God just knocked me over the head with a 2x4." and it was just what I needed.  :)

Here's the thing, this is what God has been teaching me.  I don't claim to know everything, but this much I do know...every human being on the face of the planet has obviously been created and been born...and every human being on the face of the planet will one day die.  I don't know how that makes you feel, but it brings comfort to me.  When the doctors first told me I was born with a hole in my heart and it took 33 years for me to find out, at first I was a little scared, but then I thought, "Nothing has changed Wendy, it's just that you're just now finding out about it..." and God told me to simply celebrate the way I was made.  Here's the thing...God made me.  God formed me in my mother's womb...fearfully and wonderfully...He doesn't make mistakes.  How can I argue with what He's made? I barely made it into the world on Christmas Day 1978, but I believe that God was there on that day and that He alone breathed breath into my body.  He alone started my heart to beating when I was in my mother's womb....and He alone knows the moment, the day, the time, the second that it will stop....He's already chosen it.  So again, who am I to argue with what He's chosen?  My purpose is to find out why He lets me live another day...every day.  When I die, I don't want to have wasted the life He saved just living for me.  The purpose of this life is to share Jesus with as many people as I can.  That's it.  "Knowing You Jesus, knowing You...there is no greater thing..." yes, this is true, but it's not enough for me to just know it...I want everyone to know it.

There is so much inside my heart that I want to share.  I get so frustrated so many times because I feel stifled half the time and restrained and like I can't say what I want to say.  I'm the type of person who would rather be serious and sincere than sarcastic or joking.  I've always been that way.  Yes, I can joke and be silly from time to time and I like to let down and have fun as much as the next person, but the majority of the time I'd rather be sincere.  I'd rather say what I need to say now and tell you how I really feel in case I don't get another chance.  I'd rather tell you what you mean to me now than wait until one or the other of us is gone and I wish I would have told you sooner.

At this season in my life I feel God telling me to wait...He's still working on me.  He's got some very real, literal work to do on my heart before I'm ready.  Ready for what?  I'm not sure, but it's gonna be awesome.  So, I feel like I'm in some sort of a holding pattern...just waiting...I'm in the middle of the valley or passing through the mountains now...I'm in the middle of the fire...I haven't reached the other side yet.  I remember when I saw the Rocky Mountains in Colorado for the first time.  I remember asking Justin, "What's on the other side? Can you actually cross over to the other side?" and he said, "Yeah, there are passes that get you there." and that's where I am now...journeying on a pass.  When I get to the other side I will find my voice again and God will give me the words to say then.  Until that day...when my heart flutters, shakes, hurts...I look to God.  In my mind, that's why it's happening...to bring me closer to Him...to cause me to look to Him.  There's nothing "wrong" with me...this is the way He made me.  If anything, it causes me to just exist in awe of Him and His power and what He can do.

Our pastor said it best this past Sunday when he talked about his experience of jumping out of a plane this past weekend, "You better be ready to go before you go..." and "In God's eyes, in the grand scheme of life, this world, and creation, it's all small stuff compared to God's plan..."

I had planned to share some journal excerpts while leading worship for Falls Creek and although this isn't one of them, this one came to mind, "Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath. But now, Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you." ~Psalm 39:4-5, 7

I heard this song shortly after I got out of the hospital and it has encouraged me. Click on the title of the song below to hear it:

You Are My Shepherd by Tricia Brock

This I Know: Part 1

Wow...wow...wow......all I can say is WOW!  The past weeks and months since my last post have been QUITE an AMAZING journey!  I really don't know if I can put it all into words or contain it all in one post, but this is my feeble attempt to share what God has been up to in my life.  This first part is a basic rundown of facts of what God has been up to in me physically and medically.

Long story short...I lost my whole summer.  Very weird, but very wonderful at the same time.  When one summer of events is over, you already begin thinking about and planning for the next summer.  After Christmas, starting in January, our church already begins planning the summer events!  My summer events included 3 back-to-back weeks in a row of VBS (Vacation Bible School), Falls Creek, and VBS again at another church within our church's Association.  Here I am beginning planning in FEBRUARY!  Weeks and weeks of preparations, meetings, planning, practicing, etc. all leading up to one day.....June 11th.

Monday, June 11th - Day 1 of VBS.  This day would change my life forever.  On the Sunday night before VBS started, I stayed up late.  I stayed up late Saturday and Sunday night typing up PowerPoint slides for worship at Falls Creek.  In fact, I spent so much time on Falls Creek planning that I didn't learn ALL of the days of my VBS songs.  I knew enough for the first day and for the theme song.  I had planned to practice for the rest of the week on Monday afternoon/evening.  In the middle of the night on Monday morning, at about 3am, Jenna woke up crying.  She wanted to sleep in our room, so Justin went to get her and brought her in.  After that, I was awake ALL night until 6am, when I had to get up.  So, first day of VBS and I had ZERO sleep.  I drank a tiny bit of a breakfast shake, a LOT of coffee, a little bit of water, and headed out the door with the kids.  Right before the last class of the day, I got a little shaky, a little dizzy, a little light-headed.  I headed upstairs and grabbed a quick snack just to have something in my stomach.  I finished out the end gathering and drama practice and took the kids home.  Justin picked them up some lunch and we ate and I put Jenna to bed.  I was on my way to put Isaac to bed and after that I was going to take a nap myself.  Then, I went outside to throw something away and brought the trash can up from the curb.  That's when it hit...

My heart began thumping and racing and I immediately felt as if I would faint.  My hands got sweaty, I got dizzy, and I rushed inside the house and straight to the couch to lie down and put my feet up.  My heart was going at what felt like a million beats a minute.  Let me just say that this has happened before.  I have had heart flutters before and I have been able to make it stop by putting my feet up, drinking water, taking a nap, eating something, holding my breath, etc.  I had just eaten and drank some pop and was trying to make it stop, but I couldn't.  I began to panic.  I couldn't make it stop and it was going faster and faster and faster.  Isaac was still up so I asked him to bring me the phone.  I called my husband and told him I was going to pass out.  He said he was on his way home.  Before he could get there, I dialed 911.  I could not get my heart to slow down.  I thought, "Maybe they can help me get it down and treat me here at the house and not take me in..." but I also wanted to know what was going on and wanted a medical professional to look at me.  So, they showed up and tried to get it to stop and they couldn't either.  So, they took me in.

I arrived at the ER at about 2:15pm.  Long-story short, they diagnosed me with atrial fibrillation.  My heart rate was 225 when they picked me up and normal is 80-100.  I was in the ER until 6:30pm when they admitted me to a hospital room right outside of ICU.  Their original plan was to put me in ICU since I was a cardiac patient, but they didn't have a bed available in ICU.  My heart was in atrial fibrillation and out of rhythm until 9pm that night...for seven hours straight.  Finally, with the combination of 3 IV meds at once, my heart rate converted back to what they call "normal sinus rhythm".  Thank God, they didn't have to shock me!  I've heard they electrocute you with the defibrillator pads to get your heart to convert back and thank God they didn't have to do that to me!

So, the most basic way to explain atrial fibrillation is that there is an electrical misfire in my heart's electrical system....much like a car battery.  The misfire occurs and sends my heart into A-Fib.  A-Fib just means that the top two chambers of my heart are going faster than the bottom chambers.  A-Fib commonly makes the bottom chambers of your heart just stop...the top chambers just shake.  That's exactly what it feels like too.  The danger in this is that the blood can pool in the bottom of your heart, coagulate, and then send a blood clot straight to your brain and cause a stroke instantly.  So, the main risk is stroke.  So, I am on a medicine, a Beta Blocker that controls my heart rate and blood pressure and I'm also on 325mg of Aspirin to keep my blood thin.

So, my first night in the hospital, they over-compensated on the meds and I bottomed out.  My heart rate was 48 and the top number on my blood pressure was 74.  So, they stopped the meds at about 1 or 2am on doctor's orders.  By 7:00am I had tacked out again and was back up between 135 and 155.  Once I got a dose of the medicine around 7:30am, my heart rate converted again.  On Tuesday, they did an echocardiogram ultrasound on my heart.  This test revealed something I never knew...I have a hole in my heart.  It's called an Atrial Septal Defect and I was born with it....formed in the womb that way...everyone has a hole like this in their heart when they're being formed en utero, but some people's never close....mine never closed.  So...the hole COULD possibly be causing the A-Fib to happen.  This is the danger with ASD...you have oxygenated blood in your heart and you have de-oxygenated blood in your heart.  Because of the hole, I have what they call "cross-directional blood flow" and the blood mixes which means I have poor blood mixing with good blood and poor blood going out to my body which translates to poor circulation, fatigue, etc.  This also causes the right-side of my heart to work harder and the danger is right-side heart enlargement.  So, one heart, two conditions...and as far as I know right now, they're being treated as two separate conditions.  ASD's can cause heart flutters and abnormal heart rhythms and this could very well be why my A-Fib occurred, but they don't know that FOR SURE.

I went into the hospital on Monday and was out by Wednesday right before Noon.  I felt great on the day I got out because I had been lying down most of the time in the hospital.  On the second and third day out of the hospital, I just felt very tired.  The medicine lowered my heart rate and blood pressure so much that I was so dizzy and sleepy.  I called the doctor's office and asked if I could lower my dose and they said I could cut each 50mg pill in half and take 25mg twice a day instead.  I'm still tired and have received permission to half it again so, we'll see how that goes.

Since I got out of the hospital, I have missed VBS and Falls Creek, but did get to participate in the Associational VBS at Trinity Baptist, which was a blessing!  During that week I had two follow-up appointments.  One was with a heart specialist in OKC to talk about closing the ASD.  This visit was a referral and recommendation from the heart doctor in Enid who read my ultrasound.  Basically, they want to insert an occluder (clam-shell) device through a catheter in my leg and implant it over the hole.  They said that they can't get a real clear view of the hole through the ultrasound they did so they want to do a more invasive ultrasound called a TEE (transesophegeal echocardiogram) which is a camera tube down my throat.  The good news is that the hole does not appear to be very big and it's not going to get any bigger.  The right-side of my heart is slightly enlarged and there is minimal cross-directional blood flow.  They left it up to me on when I want to schedule the procedure.  My second appointment concentrated more on treating or possibly taking steps to cure the A-Fib.  A-Fib is treated with medication and blood thinners, but can only be cured through something called ablation.  Even then, ablation does not guarantee it will not come back again.  Here's the thing....if they close the hole first, then ablation would have to be done surgically or open-heart...actually through my side/rib cage.  If they do the ablation first before they close the hole, they can do BOTH procedures non-invasively with catheters.  The Enid heart specialist contradicted what the OKC specialist said a bit in that he said that he did NOT think that closing the hole would make me feel better.  In fact, he was concerned that it would make my A-Fib worse.  Basically, I think what he is most concerned about is that he wants me to have the A-Fib cured or treated before I get the hole closed.  So, he put me on a heart monitor for 48-hours to see if the A-Fib is still occurring even while I'm on medicine.  He said that I can be in A-Fib and not even feel it...it mostly occurs at night.  So...I take the heart monitor back in today for them to read it and tell me the results, but it's safe to say I will most likely be scheduling an ablation procedure soon and hopefully it works!  :)  The Enid doc said he knew an electrophysiologist (EP) in OKC who has a 90% cure rate specifically for A-Fib!

So, that's where I am physically and medically......the next part will be about what God is doing in me emotionally and spiritually......

Momma Said There'd Be Days Like This

Hey ya'll...I'm feeling...........depressed.  I don't really know why, I'm just in a funk I guess.  Doesn't this happen to all of us from time to time?  I'm just down in the dumps, not very cheery, and kinda "poor 'ol me".  Pathetic, I know.  I couldn't sleep at all last night, I was just wrestling with something internally and can't quite put my finger on it.  I'm just restless inside!  It's like all my thoughts were floating around and I just couldn't focus or get a clear view of any of them.  I've got a cloud hanging over me and I don't know what it is. 

If you're about to say, "Well, get in the Word and pray, Wendy."  I already have.  I've been reading my Bible, my devotionals, and books more lately than I have in a long time.  I actually even started journaling again.  It's crazy, it's like when I started journaling again, all this stuff got stirred up inside.  All of what I'm feeling might not make sense to any of you, but I'll just say it anyway.  This is the randomness that is in my head all the time right now.

I'm reading and hearing about what everyone else is doing for God lately and I feel.........left out.  Not like anyone is making me feel left out, but I make my own self feel left out.  Does that even make sense at all?  I'm hearing about these families doing awesome, amazing, life-changing things for God like moving their families to Africa, or going on amazing mission trips, or studying abroad in Europe, or writing books, and I'm like, "Hi, I'm a stay-at-home Mom raising two kids and.....I go to church.....that's pretty much it."  I just feel like such a dud.  Like on the movie "Charlotte's Web" when the goose tells Wilbur that one of her kids is a dud.  Never hatched, never developed, good for nothing.  That's what I'm feeling...good for nothing.  I'm at one of those points in my life where I don't feel like I'm making a difference, making an impact, changing anyone's life or even leaving an impression.  It all sounds really silly and if you think about it very "me-focused" and I know that's not right.  My heart is NOT in the right place, or maybe it is?  Maybe God wants me to be dissatisfied with the way my life is right now because He IS calling me to something higher and preparing me for something more.

I know I'm not supposed to live for man's praise and accolades, or compare myself to others, but one of my main love languages is Words of Affirmation and I just feel like I'm coursing through life right now going through the motions and just.....existing.  I'm just breathing in and breathing out and I'm tired of doing the same 'ol, same 'ol every day and every week.  I'm tired of the monotony and complacency of my life right now.  Maybe I'm just bored?  I don't know...I see all these other people doing ADVENTUROUS things for God and with their whole lives and I feel like what I do doesn't matter and even worse, won't matter in eternity.  I feel like my life doesn't count for much.  Isn't that like the worst thing I could possibly ever say?  CHRIST DIED FOR ME...I am worth the life of Jesus Christ.  How could I say my life doesn't count for much?  I guess what I AM actually saying is, "What have I done with the life that Jesus saved? What am I doing with my life? Am I living my life for me or for Christ? Am I in the middle of God's will? Am I seeking God's will?"  These are probably the healthier questions I should be asking.  I guess I just don't want to grow stale.

I guess I just need some reassurance, affirmation, and validation that I am in the right place doing the right thing right now.....that what I do actually matters.  I know the point isn't to be seen or heard or in the spotlight and that's not even what I'm asking for or what I want...I guess I just want to know that what I AM doing actually matters...is important...is appreciated.  I know it's not God's will for me to stay in this mindset of "No one would miss me if I was gone..." and it's not healthy either....but I still have days like this.  I still feel this way from time to time. We all need to hear encouraging words from time to time whether your love language is Words of Affirmation or not, but lately I feel really dry and really empty and need them more than most.

Prayerwalking

This is a story from our mission trip to Colorado.  Before I ever left, my Sunday School teacher Judy Fields emailed me a Bible verse to encourage me on my trip as she left for her own mission trip to Zimbabwe.  Here is the Bible verse she sent me:  "The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights."  Habakkuk 3:19  Like I said before, this was my very first mission trip and also the longest time I had ever left my children. 

One of our activities on the mission trip was to go canvassing across 3 square miles of neighborhoods to hang door-hangers advertising the Easter Egg Hunt for The Pursuit Church of Fort Collins.  You can learn more about their church and their ministry by clicking on their name above.  Our entire group did this together on Tuesday morning.  On Wednesday and Thursday morning, Justin and I took our family groups to go out canvassing again while the other family groups did different service projects back at Immanuel Community, the church where we were staying.  Whew!  Did we ever walk or what!  On our first day of canvassing, we got some apartments and had to scale several flights of stairs to reach each set of apartments.  Also, I was expecting it to be cooler than it actually was...it was in the high 60's to mid 80's the whole time we were out canvassing.  So, since it was also my first time in the Colorado climate, I had to adjust to the elevation, the altitude, and the thinner air.  I got out of breath a lot.

By Wednesday, I felt a lot better, more adjusted and could walk without getting winded.  By Thursday...I was just tired.  We had been canvassing for two days straight for several hours at a time and I was just worn out.  After breakfast that morning, my stomach felt a little uneasy, I had a bit of a headache, my legs hurt, and I was just tired.  While I was walking down the sidewalk of this neighborhood, I saw a young woman playing with her dog in the yard.  I walked up to her, showed her the flyer and explained the event.  I said, "If you've got kids or if you know any neighborhood kids, invite them!" and she looked down and said, "I don't have any kids..." and the way she said it to me meant that she couldn't have kids or wished she had some.  I don't really know her story, but the Holy Spirit interceded for me and gave me a little bit of discernment in this moment.  I walked away and immediately began praying for her. 

I remembered what Mick told us while we were stuffing the Easter eggs.  He said he wanted us to pray over each and every egg and for the families, the people, and the children who would touch those eggs.  I felt convicted because I hadn't applied the same concept to canvassing.  I immediately began praying over each house and singing to myself as I walked down the street.  "The Lord is my strength, the Lord in His power is my strength day by day and every hour..."  I just kept singing that old song over and over again.  There were a couple of times I just wanted to stay on the van and not get out again, but as I was walking the Lord reminded me of Judy's verse.  "The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to tread on the heights."  When I thought I couldn't take another step, I prayed and I asked God for the strength to keep going.  I said, "God, I surely didn't ride 10 hours over here so I could just sit in a van and wear out...I am Your hands and feet over here. I am an extension of First Baptist Church and our Body of believers in Enid. Give me Your strength..." and you know what...He did.  I started singing, "I wanna be Your hands, I wanna be Your feet, I'll go where You send me, go where You send me..."  I felt another surge of energy as my thoughts traveled to our missions team in Zimbabwe.  I wondered if they felt like I did.  I prayed for them and I prayed for my Sunday School teacher Judy.  God reminded me that He is the God of nearby and far away (Jeremiah 23:23-24).

I ran into a lot of people on the streets in passing.  Sometimes I got to talk to them, sometimes I didn't.  Sometimes they were the electricians, carpet cleaners, or cleaning ladies, but I always caught a glimpse of their name tag and said a prayer for them.  I prayed for their life, for their hearts, for their families.  I didn't know if they were Christians or had a relationship with the Lord or not.  For just those moments as I was walking though I thought, "This person is 4 feet away from a Christian and they may not know it. I am praying for their soul and their life and for them to have a relationship with Jesus before they die."  Even though the opportunity didn't present itself for me to witness to them 1-on-1, I still got to pray for them.  I still got to pray to the One who has the Power to Save them.  I believe that God honors prayers like that.  Maybe one day I'll meet that electrician in heaven and he'll say, "Thank you for praying for me when you passed me on the sidewalk that day."

Mission Trip to Colorado

Hey Everyone!

It's been a long time since I've posted!  I wanted to tell everyone about our mission trip to Colorado.  This post is probably going to be just a basic run-down of everything we did.  All of the intimate details and stories will probably become their own, individual posts.  There really is so much to write about and can't be contained in one post.

So, Justin and I went on a mission trip to Colorado with the youth choir from our church.  I have been singing in the alto section with the girls and playing my guitar on one of the songs.  Before we ever left for the mission trip, our music minister did something really awesome.  One night, instead of having our usual practice, he had the kids break up into different groups and each group picked a scenario out of a pile.  Our group picked a scenario about a homeless shelter in Denver and encountering a business man who was now homeless because he lost his IT job and his wife and family left him.  It was very hard for me to even read the scenario out loud because it was something we very well could possibly encounter there.  Our activity was for the kids to create their OWN skit based off of this scenario in just a couple of minutes.  IT. WAS. AWESOME.  The kids in my group incorporated a witnessing segment into the skit and showed how they would share Jesus with this man.  So touching, so amazing.  There were lots of other scenarios depicted in our skits...anything from nursing homes, to homeless shelters, to the churches where we would be singing, to the van ride on the way there and back and how we should interact with and treat each other.  Total group-building stuff.

So anyway, just to tell ya'll real quick, I have never really been on a mission trip before.  Ever since the very first time I went to Falls Creek to a college retreat in 1997 shortly after I was saved, I have felt a call to missions.  There was a group that was commissioned to go to Utah and witness to the Mormons and I remember feeling that tug on my heart then.  Ever since then, any time there is a video shown at church of a missionary's journey, I feel that same tug.  I am tired of just sitting on the pew and enjoying the nice videos and hearing the nice stories...God didn't create me just to sit comfortable in a well-lit, air-conditioned church...He created each one of us to GO and TELL.  So anyway...my heart is in Cambodia, but that is another story.  I figured I should start local and do missions close around here before I just ventured out overseas.  I don't want to be picky and limit God in that, but even going to Colorado was a walk of faith and trust for me.  (Sniff, sniff)  This is the first time I have ever left my babies for that long.  Now that I've become a Mommy and my kiddos are so small, I have always been worried to leave them.  Then, Dr. Bobby Kelly came and talked about "Anyone who does not hate his own father and mother, his own family, even his own life cannot be My disciple..." and he said God doesn't literally want us to hate our families or abandon them, but He wants us to LOVE GOD MORE.  So, God has been working on my heart on that.  My children are not mine...they do not belong to me...they belong to the Lord...my greatest fear is leaving them behind and possibly dying in the mission field, but what will they remember about me?  What will they know that Mommy was doing when she lost her life?  Loving God, loving others, and following God's call for my life...I would only pray they would do the same and that I would leave a legacy of love for the world behind for them.

So, on Saturday, March 17th, we departed at 6:40am.  I am a crazy traveler because like some travelers, I have "bathroom issues", hehe!  A "sensitive digestive system" is what my Sunday School teacher calls it, but my thing is just that I always have to know where the bathroom is.  :)  As long as the vehicle is moving, I am fine, but if we get locked down in bumper-to-bumper traffic and aren't moving for several minutes to an HOUR I could about go bonker nuts.  God has really grown me in this area with a long family trip to Illinois and getting stuck in Kansas City traffic at noon, and then this 10-12 hour drive to Fort Collins.  I can handle being in the car for long periods of time much better than ever now.  I didn't freak out once on this trip!  :)  Not even when we blew a tire on the way!  We were in the middle of a 3-van caravan and the church van in front of us with our kids in it, blew a tire!  Oh dear, can we say "Jesus, take the wheel!"  I can honestly say that I literally saw Jesus take the wheel in action!  Praise God, that He protected everyone and guided the driver safely to a controlled stop on the side of the road.  Within about 20-30 minutes we were back on the road!  We were about a half hour ahead of schedule anyway, so this just put us right on time!  :)

This was also my very first time to see the Rocky Mountains and very first time to Colorado.  When you get to Limon, CO on I-70 you can begin seeing mountains in the distance.  I will never forget that for the rest of my life.  As soon as we crossed the state line I began seeing evergreens.  In the West I could see the mountains...blue...purple...beautiful.  I knew it was gonna be beautiful and before I could even see them, every time I thought about it, my tummy flipped just like it does when you're in love and dating.  Every time I thought about God showing me His beauty like that, my tummy did flips and I got butterflies!  I was so excited!  God did not disappoint.  The mountains were GORGEOUS.  The first couple of days were a bit overcast and the cloud cover hid the mountains a bit, but the rest of our week was sunny, clear, and blue skies!  :)  I just cried thinking about the verses in the Bible that talk about the mountains.  The song I had in my head all week was, "I lift my eyes up, up to the mountains, where does my help come from? My help comes from You, Maker of heaven, Creator of the Earth..."  I thought about what it meant to have a faith that can move mountains and I thought about how big God is and how He could probably reach down and just scoot the Rocky Mountain chain over with His finger!  :)

Anyway, the first thing we did was sing for the Spanish Mission.  We stayed at Immanuel Community Church in Fort Collins, and on Saturday nights, the Spanish Mission comes in and does their church service there.  The entire service was in Spanish with a translator and that is the first time I have been able to be a part of something like that.  We sang songs and some of them were familiar to us, so there we were singing them in English right alongside the church who was singing them in Spanish...absolutely beautiful!  First time I've ever done that...at that moment it didn't matter if we were Hispanic or American...it just mattered that we were all Christians and believers glorifying one God together.  :)

After that, we went out for ice cream, pop, and fries at McDonald's.  My first observation about Coloradians?  Is that what you call 'em?  Anyway, people from Colorado, is that they definitely looked different, and I don't mean that in a bad way...I just mean that they all looked outdoorsy, and mountainy, and fit, and like athletic people who exercise, and just like they're very active.  We were near a college town or college campus so most of them looked like young college students.  So anyway, after our long drive there and long day, we were all TIRED.  So, we aired up our mattresses and zonked out back at the church!

On Sunday morning, we got to go to Sunday School with the youth group from Immanuel Community Church!  That was a fun and awesome experience!  Their group just got back from their third trip to Joplin, Missouri to help with tornado clean-up, so we got to hear about their experience and hear some awesome testimonies.  The Sunday School class I got to sit-in on was a group of 11th-12th grade boys and girls who were learning about apologetics and how to defend their faith.  Their leaders felt compelled to teach on that subject and equip their kids with the tools they need to make it in the world after they graduate...to learn how to defend their faith so they might not become swayed by every wind of doctrine that is out there when they leave home.  Very cool.  Then, we got to be a part of their worship service and lead a few songs, but also to hear a sermon from their children's pastor.  I must say that the entire environment at Immanuel Community was very open, very safe, very honest, very transparent, and very.........real.  Everyone felt safe enough to be real, be who they were, and to share what they were struggling with.  It was very challenging to say the least.

That afternoon we went to the homeless ministry in downtown Denver to sing.  Before we went in the door, our ministers talked to the kids about what they might see and what they might encounter when they walked in the door.  On the way there, the kids practiced sharing their testimonies with each other on the vans.  Our kids did such a good job at smiling, ministering, and just talking to everyone there.  I was so proud of them.  I must say it was very difficult for me to sing while we were at the homeless ministry.  I thought about the skit we had practiced at home about going to a homeless shelter...it was one thing to talk about it, but it was another thing to experience it.  There was a man leading worship there and he was singing things like, "All who are thirsty, all who are weak, come to the fountain, dip your heart in the stream of life, let the pain and the sorrow, be washed away, in the waves of His mercy as deep cries out to deep..." and "This is my daily bread...Lord You are...this is my daily bread..." and looking into the faces of people who had nothing but Jesus to depend on as their heavenly bread of life and water...ugh...tears just ran down my face the whole time.  Also, in one of the songs the choir sings, it's called "No Greater Love" and it talks about "For the city, for the world we pray..." and then, "To the city, to the streets we go..." and I'm like "We're in the city we've been praying for and we're looking at the last and the least that we were sent to..."  Balling, balling.....it was amazing.  They passed around a prayer request sheet for the people to write their prayer requests on, and I was so proud of our kids because many of them wrote down prayer requests too and they said, "I pray that many will be saved through our singing..." or "through our songs" or "I pray that the Gospel will be heard in Denver..."  So cool...That evening we rushed to a church service in Broomfield.  We did a full concert for this church and afterward they fed us a banquet spread fit for royalty!  It was AWESOME.

On Monday we met Mick from The Pursuit Church in Fort Collins.  They are a new church plant, about 18-months old with about 150 people.  Last year, they had an Easter egg hunt as an evangelism, outreach tool.  They didn't advertise very much, but 800 kids still showed up in the SLEET.  This time, we filled 15,000 Easter eggs for them and Mick asked us to pray over each egg.  He asked that we pray for each person and each family that would touch those eggs.  We filled Easter eggs for 4 hours!  So, now we are praying for good weather for the Easter egg hunt this year!  After we filled Easter eggs, we practiced witnessing to each other with the Evangecube and then we went to the park for street ministry.  Our heart and desire was to begin a game of flag/tag football and pray that some strangers might join us!  :)  Well, it turned out to be quite chilly that day and there weren't many people at the park.  We ended up doing our skits in the park and while we didn't get to talk to anyone, many people stopped to watch and I'm sure they were ministered to.

On Tuesday, we sang for an adult care facility and it was an awesome blessing!  Then, we met Mick and the pastor of The Pursuit Church at Fossil Creek Park in Fort Collins to begin canvassing the surrounding neighborhoods.  We got instruction to distribute and hang doorhangers advertising the Easter egg hunt and Easter services.  We canvassed for over an hour and would you know it that I met a lady from Enid, Oklahoma!  Well, sorry, she wasn't from Enid, but she had lived in Enid before when she and her husband were stationed at Vance AFB!  :)  What are the chances that out of ALL the houses we canvassed at that I would walk up to two ladies and one of them would know where Enid was!  Pretty cool.  Anyway...after canvassing, we went to Extreme Sports Challenge for a little fun.  They had all these indoor sport, obstacle course type games and challenges to do.  The kids wore themselves out on that and then we went out to eat at Casa Bonita.  It's an all-you-can-eat Mexican restaurant where each table has a flag on it, and if you raise your flag your waiter brings you whatever you want.  They also had a diving show there and everything, pretty neat.

On Wednesday, a group of us went canvassing again while the majority of the group stayed back and did service projects at the church.  They ranged from cleaning up yards, to helping a few elderly clean up their homes, to cleaning the church we were staying at.  We had one more performance at an adult care facility, and then that evening we had youth and church with the youth group from Immanuel Community.  WAY FUN!  We played some really fun games, participated in some awesome worship with their youth praise band, and heard an awesome sermon from their youth pastor about contending for the faith.

On Thursday, a group of us went canvassing to finish up, while the rest of the group finished up more service projects and canvassing for ICC.  After that, we went to Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.  We were supposed to go tubing that day, but it was so hot and we found out later that the tubing place was closed because it was too slushy.  It was definitely one of the warmer weeks that Fort Collins had seen.  Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park were BEAUTIFUL.  Seeing God's creation in that light was AMAZING.  We hiked up to Bear Lake, which was frozen, and walked a few trails.  So peaceful and beautiful.  My husband and I found a bench on the lake in some trees to sit on.  We watched the sunset there.  Everything was so still and so beautiful.  From now on, if I ever get stressed out, I am gonna transport myself back to that bench.  It was breathtaking and the sunset was so beautiful.

On Friday, we went to Eldora to ski.  I didn't ski, but a lot of our kids did.  It was VERY HOT there.  The ski instructors warned about the dry air and the sun.  They said the humidity was only 8% and the chance of getting sunburned and eye damage was very high.  A few of our kids still got sunburned even though they had sunblock on, but no major injuries.  :)

On Saturday, we drove home safely!  It was an amazing trip!  Please be praying for The Pursuit Church of Fort Collins and praying that the weather is good for their Easter egg hunt.  I am hearing in the news now about some wildfires southwest of Denver, so I am praying about that and maybe that they can get some moisture out there!

More mission trip stories to come!