Jesus & cookies

Today I’m so happy to host Christina Hoehn as guest writer.  I sat in her audience a few weeks ago as she shared these words at a cookie exchange.  Since then, she granted permission for me to post here, and I’ve edited only minimally in hope of you hearing her voice just the way she spoke to us.  The highlighting of verses and ingredients is simply to ease your referencing, in case you share with your group maybe on Christmas Day or Christmas Eve.  Now please allow me to introduce my friend Christina . . . **** You ladies may not know this about me but I love themes. For example if I'm making a meal, I think whats the theme? I'll decide on a picnic theme for example and start planning out the menu, burgers of course... In my world burgers can fit into any theme, I also need fries and fries fit any theme too... at least in my world. Now If I'm planning a party, I definitely need a theme, we'll go with Hawaiian, immediately I think cute little hula skirts, blue umbrellas, tiki torches. You see where I'm going with this. So when I asked to do the devotion for the cookie exchange, I immediately thought what's the theme? Of course it's cookies!!! Cookies...Wow, how in the world do I write a devotion about Jesus and cookies? This one ladies, had me stumped, maybe I could write about manna, that's kinda like a cookie, right? Well, I decided to keep praying and thinking about it for a few more days and as the days past the verse that kept coming back into my mind was PSALM 34:8 – “Taste and see that the Lord is good.” We as Christian ladies know this verse, we memorize this verse, we can quote this verse, in fact a lot of us have this verse up in our kitchens, I know I do, it's right next to my spatulas. But the question I ask is, do we ladies live this verse? Do our lives make others want to taste God? Look at the cookies placed in front of you, how many of you looked at them and thought man that's a good looking cookie, or thought that chunky one, that's the one I wanna try, or, they smell so so good... Insert lip smack right here! Well ladies, we are like that scrumptious cookie sitting right there in that box and everyday people are looking at us and what do they see, what do they smell? Are we big and plump and smell heavenly? Or are we brittle and burnt and taste disgusting? Let's think about that while we talk about what it takes to make a cookie smell and taste so good. We all know that to make a cookie you need ingredients and guess what? Our lives need ingredients too! (1) First we need to pour in our eggs. Eggs hold everything together. COLOSSIANS 1:17 says, “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.” This verse tells us, God holds everything together. Do people see that in your lives? Do they see God holding you together when things get hard, when you get a bad report from the doctor, when you lose your job, when your struggling with your kids? Are people seeing you run to God or running away from God? Do they see you have your sufficiency and secure in the One who holds all things together? He makes the difference. We need to tell people and show people. It needs to be modeled in our everyday lives. Let us seek out others and tell them what God has done in us. Life will go up and down, the tide goes in and out but God remains the same forever. When we're under His care He holds EVERYTHING together. (2) After eggs, comes some sugar. With sugar you get two things, one you get the taste of sweetness and two, baking in the oven you get the aroma of sweetness. Who doesn't love that? EPHESIANS 5:1-2 says, “Therefore be imitators of God as dear children. And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.” Some key words here are: be imitators of God and walk in love SO THAT we can be a sweet smelling aroma. And I'll add so we can smell like cookies... Personally I'd rather smell like a big juicy steak... But that's a whole other devotion. We need to be loving. We need to love the lost, love the broken, love the weary and love the lonely. We've all been there, we've all walked that road. We all have life lessons that we can share and relate to others with. Somewhere on that path God picked us up, dusted us off and put us back on our feet. It's time for us to help do the same for others, show them the love, someone showed us. When Wes Bentley was here he said something that struck my heart, let me share it with you. He said "take people into your lives, into your families, into your homes, take the oddballs, the ones that aren't so cute, the unloveable ones, look for the ones no one is ministering too." That quote right there sums up love. Our love to the lost world is the sweet sugar in our cookies. (3) Now it's time to add some flour. Adding flour to our mix gives our cookies substance. HEBREWS 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” How does our faith come across to others? Is our faith like that tree that's planted by the water? Strong and solid? Or is our faith like reeds that blow back and forth in the wind? Are we that wishy washy person that can't make up their mind? Our faith should not be blowing around at every thing that comes our way. Stand firm in your faith, stand firm in knowing all that Christ has done in your life. Live a life that shows others the solidity you have in Him. (4) After our flour we pour in a little baking powder, now baking powder helps lighten the dough, but for us it means we help lighten the load for others. GALATIANS 6:2 says, “Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.” This verse tells us that we should be helping to carry each other's load. What exactly does that mean? Well, it means that we should be available to each other by making time to pray with someone, perhaps grabbing a coffee with a friend or even someone you don't even know, calling someone up to see how they are doing, or sit with a crying friend. It means sacrifice a little of your time to be like Aaron and Hur. Do you remember what they did? In Exodus the children of Israel went into battle against the Amelikites and God had Moses stand there for probably what seemed like an eternity but He had Moses stand there with his arms raised up. As long as his arms were up the Israelites were winning, but as his arms lowered the Amelikites would start to win the battle. Well Aaron and Hur went along side Moses and helped him by holding Moses's arms up, talk about a heavy duty task. They could of easily been like PSH, uh no, it's hot outside and there's flies everywhere and my arms and feet will get tired and I'm a little hungry. But they didn't do that. They stood right next to Moses and battled along side with him. That ladies is an incredible example of lightening each other's loads. Btw, this doesn't mean be a doormat for everybody. Pray, use discernment, and see how God wants to use you. (5) Time to add a pinch of salt. A pinch goes aloooooong way. Two things we know about salt. One its a disinfectant and two it's a preservative. MATTHEW 5:13 says, “You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men.” Plain and simple, We need to be salt that rubs up against the broken flesh of this world. We shouldn't be distancing ourselves from people that need us. Ladies we need to be the light that is shining in the dark corners of the world. I heard it once said that "what we need is separation with contact without contamination." Let me say that one more time. What we need is separation WITH contact WITHOUT contamination. What does that mean? It means Be in the world but not of it... Be Set Apart but always be leading others to Him. (6) (7) We have two more key ingredients to add to our mix, vanilla and chocolate chips. I decided to put these two together because vanilla keeps our cookies from being bland and chocolate chips make cookies fun and both point to an exciting and enticing cookie or in our case an exciting and enticing life. PROVERBS 17:22 says, “A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones.” A lot of people live their lives thinking being a Christian is boring. Can you blame them? Look what they see on TV, read in magazines, see in some of our lives. But ladies being a Christian isn't bland or boring. Being a Christian is like those chocolate chips in a cookie, once you bite into it, you wish you had bit into the chocolate sooner. Show the world you CAN be a Christian and have fun, in fact it's like medicine for your body. Let the joy that's overtaken you ooze out onto them because Proverbs tells us a lost soul has dried bones. After all these ingredients have been mixed together our little dough balls get baked in the oven. Now ovens have to produce heat, in order to get beautiful cookies. It's the same for us, our lives are going to face the Refiners fire. But remember this... when the fire in your life is the hottest, stand still, for later on it produces a harvest and then we will be able to say with Job, “When he tested me, I will come forth as gold” (JOB 23:10). So ladies, as we go throughout the day, the week, the month and the year, let us remember to look at the ingredients in our lives and see where we need to add a little more to our mixture because we want to make sure that our lives are Taste and See.. worthy. ****

Radiant at Chick-fil-A

Question:  How does the Lord’s light shine through people?  Answer:  Visit Chick-fil-A.  One Saturday afternoon, the Lord introduced me to a man.  My husband and I entered the restaurant while this man talked at the door with some ladies.  Such contagious laughter drew me to glance a second time, and instantly I noticed his smile that beamed so far and so wide.  Even more, he seemed to honestly care for these ladies in a way that intrigued me.  Minutes later I saw the man more closely when he approached our table to offer a drink refill.  My husband handed him the single cup we shared, yet the man returned with 2 cups.  “My boss says people are important,” he grinned.  In that moment, my whole body paused to recognize the wisdom in his words.  Therein lay the reason his smile radiated so brightly.  So truly joyful was he in the moment and so content in his manner that I soon realized my eyes releasing tears, and I wondered why.  His thoughtful interaction with people and the ease with which he moved about—he portrayed a genuine love of life that lifted me out of our more commonly cynical world.  I regularly ask the Lord to impart to me His love of people.  I don’t know exactly what that love always looks like, but meeting this man gave me a good glimpse.  The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.”  And  I welcome His light to shine in my heart, both for my sake and for the sake of those I meet.  I sit to imagine what God’s glory looked like to shine over Bethlehem all those years ago.  A star that led people to know the purest of love.  A star that shines still now in the hearts of men.  May He shine His light upon you today.  May He shine through you.  Merry Christmas.

Heirloom Project

“Lord, why am I in a quilting group?  What’s my purpose?”  As much as I loved my new friends and as much as I now looked forward to Mondays, I still wondered what God had in store.  Then came this email.  My friend from Israel who ministers to Holocaust survivors sent a link to her Heirloom Project.  Anyone who makes handcrafts may donate their wares to a survivor, in turn providing a new heirloom the survivor can pass to their coming generations in replacement of what was lost in the Holocaust.  What was at the top of the Heirloom Project’s list of possible handcrafts?  Quilting.  So I wondered, “Lord, do you want me to make a quilt to send to Israel?”  Less than a week later, I’m at a friend’s house.  She’s a seamstress, so I share with her my adventure into quilting.  Suddenly her eyes light up, and she tells me to follow her to the attic.  She opens a box filled with quilting squares just waiting to be finished.  All these smaller squares were sewn by her mom’s friends who have now passed away, yet their handiwork lives on.  They need only to be incorporated into the larger size of the finished quilt.  The whole set of circumstances boggles my mind.  First the invitation to join the quilting group, which seemed such a foreign idea in the beginning.  Then the email from Israel.  Then the quilting squares in the attic.  To think how the Lord lined everything up so perfectly.  And no longer am I just hanging out with friends while they quilt.  No longer am I just the ironing girl who neatens everyone’s sewing seams.  I've now graduated to sitting at a machine to sew.  Our last meeting was my trial run.  With constant coaching and laughter mixed in, some somewhat straight stitching actually fastened 2 pieces of fabric!  We laughed away my initial apprehension when I stitched the wrong pieces together!  From hardly ever threading a needle to now having fun at the machine, the Lord has begun a work that I want to finish.  Experiencing His intricate planning leaves me in awe once again.

Only on Wednesdays

Something about Wednesdays.  October 8 - My car wouldn’t start.  October 15 - We were patching up plumbing problems, so I stayed at the house.  October 22 - The car wouldn’t start again, yet it worked just fine all the other days since we replaced the battery 2 weeks ago.  Each of these Wednesdays I’m not visiting patients in the hospital as planned.  I’m also not praying in front of the abortion center.  So I paused to think:  Why now?  What's happening now that might cause this?  Answer:  2 things.  (1) My husband and I set out to read the Bible in 90 days.  (2) I’ve been memorizing Romans 4 and 5.  Only these 2 things could I think of that were new in these recent weeks.  I asked friends for their insight, and most gave the same answer.  The chaplain at the hospital posed, “Do you get the idea the enemy doesn’t want you here?”  And that was pretty much what my friends said.  The Bible says in 1 Peter 5:8, “Be self-controlled and alert.  Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”  Yet 2 Timothy 4:18 says, “The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom . . .”  Second Chronicles 16:9 attests to the eyes of the Lord always roaming the earth in our defense.  So all the time the devil is on the prowl to destroy, the eyes of the Lord are on the alert for our benefit.  The battle is spiritual.  We feel the heat.  The gunfire scrapes pretty close sometimes.  While I don’t consider every trial to come from Satan, in this instance the timing is curious.  Hospitals and abortion centers are certainly battlegrounds.  If Satan is on the prowl and mad about my praying there, he could be extra mad about the Bible reading and memorization.  It's certainly his mindset to try to thwart anything the Lord loves.  But the Lord wins ultimately.  Through every trial, through every irritating event, through every attempt to distract, the Lord provides us a way out.  And for my husband and me, the distractions and the rescues continue.  For that second morning when the car wouldn’t start, the Lord pointed us to the perfect YouTube post to replace the starter solenoid in our old 2000 Expedition.  Next we realized the front brakes starting to grind, and the Lord gave us cool weather for replacing them on a Sunday afternoon.  Following that, I drove to the furniture store to pick up our new bed and realized it wouldn’t fit in the car.  But there again, the Lord supplied the idea to use ratcheting tie-downs across the luggage rack.  Then came an incident in the church parking lot, which was of a different nature this time and not a mechanical problem.  It was a case of my mouth spewing.  I complained about the way my husband parked the car, and he bit back with sharp words of his own, revealing just how on-edge we’d really been.  Our bundle of tension had sat barely beneath the surface all this time, and it was amazing how the Lord protected us that we hadn't erupted earlier.  Though now our damages reached into the heart, still they could be forgiven.  Altogether our problems have been merely hassles.  The tug-of-war has made us tired, yet the Lord has replenished.  And I'm determined all the more not to relent on reading the Bible or on memorization.  The song “Onward, Christian Soldiers” comes to mind, for Christ really does lead us against the foe.  You, me, all of us.  Be encouraged that He fights on our behalf.

90-day plan

My message delivered 3 different times.  First, it was the change of church.  The Lord stirred in us to begin attending Calvary Chapel, which emphasizes the reading of the whole Bible in sequence.  Second, it was a phone call with a friend who explained her recent thrill in reading the Bible in 90 days—every book, every chapter, every verse in sequence.  Third, it was hearing the testimony of Adam’s Road, a group of musicians who speak of having been saved from Mormonism.  Their conversion began with a Christian pastor posing the challenge to read the complete Holy Bible.  This message of entirety flashed bright for me like a huge neon sign I couldn’t ignore.  And my world has not been the same since.  My husband and I set out on this 90-day reading plan.  (If you're interested, just search "schedule 90 days Bible.")  Reading 10–15 chapters per night, we were blessed.  We came across verses I didn’t recall.  In Genesis 6:20 and 7:9, I didn’t remember that the animals came to Noah.  I’d imagined this picture of him loading the animals, but maybe I never pondered how he corralled them for loading.  In Exodus 6:20 and 15:20, I’d forgotten Moses, Aaron, and Miriam were siblings.  In Leviticus 4, there was this wonderful prominence of forgiveness that I thought of being more in the New Testament than the Old.  In Numbers 16:48, Aaron stops a plague just by standing amidst the people!  That’s absolutely amazing!  Then in the last chapter of Deuteronomy, the Lord gives this image of how personal He is for us.  Moses dies, and the Lord Himself buries him.  That idea sent my brain just wondering, just pondering in awe.  Seriously, how did God personally bury Moses?  And it’s been blessing upon blessing with each book we continue to read.  This Bible is God’s voice.  He spells out His love for us and His forgiveness, and the accounts of His presence thousands of years ago still affect us today.  May we encourage each other to read.  May we know Him personally therein.

Mountain range in the living room

Our washing machine quit washing.  The agitator quit agitating, though for 14 years it served us well.  We bought a new machine, and the fix should be simple, right?  But we rarely looked behind the old washer.  If we had, we would’ve seen the corroded water valves at the wall.  All right, point taken, we’ll just buy some new valves.  But wait a minute.  A closer look shows the old valves were soldered.  Soldered?  What?!  Soldering didn’t fit in our definition of simple.  Nevertheless, don’t fret.  Just check YouTube’s supply of fix-it demos, and usually that works.  And thereby we stepped out on our yellow brick road of plumbing repair.  We visited the plumbing aisle at Lowe’s and met a girl who was helpful.  Next trip, we met a guy who offered a slightly different idea on how to install in such a small space.  Lowe’s was out of one part, so we drove by Home Depot to talk to a third person who explained about using compression connectors.  The task at the house fared pretty well actually, except for some tiny leaks that bubbled at the connectors.  We finally opted to shut off the water and try again tomorrow.  By the time I entered the stores the next day, no one had those parts in stock.  Still looking to solve the situation, we wondered if one more turn of the wrench would make those bubbles disappear.  But as the wrench tightened, the copper tube broke and water gushed with full force.  Spewing straight up and arching straight down, that force of water flooded the room.  As fast as I grabbed towels, and as fast as my husband ran to turn off the water main and bring in the wet vac, the water won the battle.  It seeped underneath the wall and into the next room.  And no one enjoys a sloshy carpet, especially at 1 AM.  Seriously, as we assessed our situation, we were thankful the cats didn’t run away when we scrambled to lift the garage door.  Nevertheless we had a big mess, and all I knew was to ask the Lord what to do next.  We moaned to move furniture.  We groaned to lift the wet carpet.  But we lifted as best we could and propped the carpet on sawhorses to blow air underneath to dry.  In the morning, I just stared.  I took a deep breath and reluctantly touched the carpet, only to find water still seeping toward the piano.  The fans underneath had helped, but I needed a better way to separate the carpet pad.  At that point, my brain overwhelmed.  Emotional numbness set in, but I still had the awareness to seek the Lord.  Soon I found myself sitting to play the piano instead of trying to move it.  “I Have Decided to Follow Jesus” came to mind, and I sang a heartfelt rendition that freed my ability to think.  What had weakened in me now began to restore.  Psalm 46:1 says, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”  Soon the notion came to cut away the carpet pad and take it outside to dry separately.  That heavy carpet rolled back to a point I hadn’t reached before, and I pressed it with my knee in order to sop the innermost spots of water.  I lifted that bulky old carpet to an extent I could lay it up over the sawhorses I had repositioned.  I look back now and contemplate how amazingly the Lord made that happen.  Later some stronger connectors from a plumbing supply store solved our mechanical woes, but it was the Lord rescuing my mental state that saved the day.  He was my refuge, strength and help, just as the Psalm says.  Today I stand so thankful for having experienced the Lord’s rescue.  And humorously, the sawhorses holding the carpet provided our cats their own personal mountain range in the living room, which they quite fondly sat atop all the rest of last week. 

Paper-clipped

People devote themselves to things.  It’s a compliment, usually.  Merriam-Webster defines devotion in terms of loyalty and love.  To devote means to commit in a sincere and serious way.  So it’s curious about these writings we call devotionals.  We buy a book or subscribe to emails, and they’re short and quick.  They have a Bible verse, writer’s comments, and prayer all wrapped up pretty in a 5-minute package.  But what about the other 1,435 minutes in the day?  How devoted are we?  Consider someone devoted to gardening.  He tends his vegetables in all kinds of weather—rain, drought, sunshine, or snow.  Consider the devoted parent who exhausts his energy laughing one day and inevitably grieving the next, yet he perseveres.  How shallow or deep is my devotion?  It's not admirable that I sometimes postpone my time with God.  My brain entertains the thought, “Just 2 more emails and then I’ll pray.”  But when the emails finish, a friend calls to talk, and I find prayer postponing once again.  I hear people say they pray in the car on the way to work.  Praying in the car can be good, but if we postpone prayer in order to be in the car first, the prayer is secondary and not the purest of devotion.  We're paper-clipping God to another task.  If I set aside a morning stroll just to listen and speak with the Lord, that’s different than choosing vigorous exercise and paper-clipping prayer to the back side of my power walk.  In 1 Chronicles 28:9, David tells Solomon, “. . . acknowledge the God of your father, and serve him with wholehearted devotion and with a willing mind, for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts.  If you seek him, he will be found by you . . .”  In my laundry room, I have a box of colored paper clips from a bunco party.  The green, blue, and pink clips create a cute package, and they're much more fun than the plain old silver, yet it's the order of papers to be clipped that's more important.  Will the paper signifying my devotion to the Lord be first?  Will I clip the other sheets behind or in front?  What about you?  How do the papers line up in the 1,440 minutes of your day?

Donate & Dump

What’s the big deal about a bunch of rocks?  Seems crazy for me to wake up thinking about them, but actually the idea isn’t totally random.  Let me explain.  Last Saturday, our section of San Antonio was hosting Donate & Dump, which encourages residents to clean up and clean out.  The neighborhood brings in a donation truck for reusables and a trash truck for dumping everything else.  My husband and I loaded our give-aways into the car before we went to sleep Friday night, and I asked, “Lord, is there anything we should load tomorrow for dumping?”  At 4:30 AM, I awoke to the thought of rocks.  But what rocks?  And what would I do with these rocks?  I was too groggy to think.  When the clock glared 5:00, I was frustrated to still be awake, yet I began praying about many things and reciting my Romans 5 that I’ve been memorizing.  All the while, the idea of rocks kept recurring.  Next thing I know the clock shines 8:30, and my brain has progressed toward the specific thought of loading rocks from the backyard.  Suddenly I’m excited.  This is now making sense.  I throw off the bed blanket and walk into the living room to tell my husband.  For years, we’ve had piles of rocks in our backyard.  Trees have died, we’ve had to dig, the earth’s been rocky, and our regular trash pick-up doesn’t accept rocks.  The regular trash service says we need to drive our rocks across town to a landfill, and I’ve never arranged to drive that distance.  Consequently our yard has been decorated with piles of rocks that gradually blended into the scenery so much that I’d forgotten about them.  We just step around a pile here and a pile there as if they’re no longer eyesores.  So my husband and I happily loaded our rocks and drove over to Donate & Dump.  Everybody lent a hand to unload, and like shedding the thickest layer of any grime, what a relief came upon us!  We returned home to stand in the backyard and enjoy a gaze at clean land.  I’d forgotten what clean looked like.  The green seemed more crisp.  The brown appeared more fertile and fresh.  No clutter.  No blots on the landscape.  In fact, the air I breathed felt more free.  I wondered how we ever let those rock piles blend in.  Being without them now let me realize the hazards that build through carelessness.  The Bible talks about purity in Psalm 24:3-4, saying, “Who may ascend the hill of the Lord?  Who may stand in his holy place?  He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to an idol or swear by what is false.”  No heaviness of pressure or any hurdle of misplaced priority.  Just welcomed simplicity of living with the Lord.  So I encourage you to avoid clutter.  Avoid the piles of junk that interfere.  I thank God for waking me at 4:30.

My Hindu friend

Ever want to share your favorite thing with somebody, but they’re not interested?  When it’s your favorite flavor of ice cream, the disinterest isn’t earth-shattering.  When it’s trust in Jesus as Savior, the disinterest hits hard.  We’re talking an eternity of effect here.  There’s a lady I’ve prayed for, a lady I love, a lady I hope will ask Jesus to be her Savior one day.  Right now she professes Hinduism.  I want her to know the love of Christ, and I’ve asked the Lord to use me for her sake.  Yet He has shown me to wait on Him for timing.  So eager to share one morning, I walked to her desk, only to see her reading a book.  Not just any book, but a book by a Christian author who writes about Christian living in contemporary terms.  And suddenly my eagerness withdrew.  How gentle a gesture for the Lord to show me He had it covered.  He wouldn’t need my services that day; at least He wouldn’t be employing my lips right then to speak of Him for the sake of my friend.  And so no words did I utter.  Rather, I just grinned to witness Him at work.  Really He is miles ahead of us all the time, orchestrating the seconds and minutes of every hour.  And though my friend has not yet claimed Christianity, the Lord led her to a bookshelf where her fingers selected a Christian title.  My job is to pray and be ready, and I ask the Lord to spill His words from me at the perfect time.  Psalm 40 begins, “I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry.”  Verse 5 says, “Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders you have done.  The things you planned for us no one can recount to you; were I to speak and tell of them, they would be too many to declare.”  And on this day, the act of waiting actually posed pleasure.  To not be ashamed of the Gospel—yes, of course, be willing to share the name of Jesus.  But seek Him first.  Be content in His timing.

Splash into quilting

A fish out of water?  Why do people say that?  It’s when they’re out of their comfort zone and gasping for air.  Yet as a child of God, that figurative fish not only finds its next breath but actually flourishes.  My latest fish bowl is a quilting group.  I don’t breathe easily around sewing, and so I hesitated to jump in.  But the opportunity to spend a few hours with these new friends sounded such fun that I hopped in the car and drove over.  And I loved it!  Seems many of the girls have little experience with quilting, but Christianity has built their friendship and given purpose for them to thread their needles.  My first meeting, we brought out all the scissors and made blankets to donate to a nursing home in honor of a mom who passed away.  What a sweet, tender, fun time among friends. God has a way of weaving all kinds of us into a task.  Isaiah 11 says He brings a wolf and a lamb, a leopard and a goat, a calf and a lion to live at ease with each other.  He makes docile neighbors of those who usually aren't.  He makes swimmers of those who don't swim, and He brings together a quilting group of nonquilters, adding smiles and laughter to encourage along life’s roads.  So I ask you to think for a minute: Have you noticed any new fish bowls lately?  Ready to get wet?

Inspired like Fahrenheit

I’d been ignoring Him.  At least I didn’t want to deal with this one thing.  My time with theater had shown I could actually memorize a monologue I once viewed nearly impossible.  And the notion had repeated in my head that I needed to memorize more than just theater lines.  Memorization of Scripture would be priority.  One day I visited patients in the hospital, and a lady asked me to write down Scripture for her family.  Suddenly my mind went blank.  No verses from Hebrews.  No verses from Psalms.  Nothing I’d memorized long ago was coming to mind, and the emptiness hit hard.  How reliant I had become on a concordance and having a hard-copy Bible at hand.  Yet this emptiness and depth of sorrow set me on a very determined road.  First I prayed, “Lord, don’t let this family here in the hospital be devoid of Scripture due to my neglect.”  The Lord pointed me to a hard-copy Bible, so I copied verses, humbly handed them to the family, and proceeded home to begin memorizing Romans 5.  Aside from the Bible, one of my all-time favorite books is Fahrenheit 451, in which the firemen take the backwards role of igniting fires.  Bradbury makes us think.  Toward the end, he introduces us to the bearded men who memorize books.  These men memorize to keep their knowledge safe and intact and out of the hands of the firemen.  Their minds are libraries.  Today, in real life, I need the wisdom of the Bible safe and intact in me.  The task of memorization has led me to meditate and more closely appreciate the love of God.  How immensely I am pleased to now answer the Lord’s prompt to memorize.  I’ve experienced anew the words of 1 Corinthians 13:4 – “Love is patient, love is kind.”  Will you choose to memorize as well?     

Love prevails for sake of victims

Months of work possibly down the drain.  Eight months of writing this curriculum, and I didn’t want to accept that it was over.  Not that I wrote every day or even every week, but it had been an ongoing project, and God had inspired throughout.  Yet according to a single recent communication, we now stood in a bleak spot, as we would be denied the interaction we hoped for.  We had planned to implement this coursework to aid the victims next month, and it’s a drastic understatement to say sexual exploitation and trafficking is a serious topic.  Our hope was high for connecting with these girls and aiding their recuperation and re-entry into regular life.  And as highly as we had hoped and as deeply as we were stunned, God took this difficult situation and subtracted out any hint of despair.  As I drove to meet up with my friend who began this ministry to serve these victims, the Lord refreshed me.  Realizing human tendency would have me slump into a bad mood, I observed quite the opposite happening.  The Lord protected me from temptation and supplied me new joy.  From my motionless posture of slowly digesting the bad news, the Lord rescued me into a positive perspective that wouldn’t allow me to fall back.  This roadblock would not win out over our love of these girls who have been hurt so deeply.  John 16:20 says, “…You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy.”  This was a new version of God converting bad into good, for that afternoon my friend and I recognized some very exciting and unanticipated avenues for ministry.  Indeed our hope in Him is worthy to guide us through the ups and downs of the ordinary day.  His truths are tangible for you and me.

Medical words of a volunteer

Physical pain forces us to pay attention.  When it's intense, we have no option to ignore.  Last month, our family felt the panic of pain pressing through my daughter’s body.  Dizziness, high blood pressure, a racing heart, then a week-long host of physicians that didn’t agree.  All the while, she’s enduring pain that excruciates throughout her upper back.  We’re praying, we’re pleading, and we’re empathizing alongside.  Then one day at my daughter’s hospital, there’s this unexpected conversation with a volunteer.  The 2 girls hadn’t seen each other in a while, and my daughter realizes this sweet volunteer has experienced almost exactly the same set of symptoms.  Her words brought such a welcomed calm to our whirlwind pace.  It seemed the Lord anointed the conversation, as if to say, “I’m here.  I know.  I see everything that’s happening.”  Just hearing about it made my shoulders finally relax.  It wasn’t a definitive medical diagnosis, but even greater, it was the presence of the Holy Spirit.  Still now, a month later, the doctor appointments continue, yet this particular conversation has been a highlight.  For whatever reason the Lord has allowed these events, we have been blessed to witness Him at work.  With new fervency, we sought Him, and He has reminded us we’re never alone.  Psalm 121 begins, “I lift my eyes up to the hills—where does my help come from?  My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.”  Right there in our thick of things, right there in the eye of our storm, the Lord revealed Himself to us.  How I love Him for that.

God, my TV man

Last Tuesday, I had a problem.  My TV wouldn’t work.  I pressed the little silver Apple remote a bunch of times, but no Netflix.  Usual tendency would be to get frustrated, but the Lord kept me from it, as I remembered an experience He gave years ago.  One day I watched Little House on the Prairie and suddenly the TV blacked out.  It’s not a unique story really, except for the fact that I knew ahead of time I shouldn’t be watching TV.  Even if it’s a good show, the Lord had already let me know it’s not what He had in mind.  So fast-forward to last week when Netflix wouldn’t work, and the idea quickly comes that the Lord is serving as my TV man once again.  I knew Law & Order wasn’t what He had in mind for me, but I had taken the lazy road and thought, “I’ll watch this for 15 minutes while I comb out my hair and get ready.”  Nope.  It didn’t work then, and it’s not working now.  I needed to press forward with my curriculum writing.  I may have thought a 15-minute sabbatical would rest my brain, but not true.  So I pressed on, and the Lord provided energy and gave rest all at once, just as I needed.  After my curriculum meeting that afternoon, I returned home, and my husband turned on Netflix just fine.  Romans 8:26-27 says, “. . . the Spirit helps us in our weakness.  We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.  And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.”  I realize these verses talk about prayer, but I figure somewhere in all the ways the Lord intercedes, He certainly has the capacity to serve as my TV man when I lack the discipline myself.  When I falter, He takes the reigns.  And I love Him for that.

Answers in Genesis

How far ahead does the Lord plan?  How early does He set circumstances and move people in order to answer your prayer?  This past semester, my desire to study Creation deepened.  Something stirred in my heart beyond studying the Bible on my own.  For years I’ve wanted to study with my husband because of the way he understands science.  I researched festivals and conferences, but the logistics of traveling cross-country hadn’t fit.  Then came this compulsion to attend a new church.  “Lord, what is this?”  By our third Sunday, I see in the bulletin that they’re hosting Answers in Genesis on Fridays.  My heart leaps in an instant, and I sit there absolutely flabbergasted!  The thought truly amazed me that the Lord would love little ol’ messed-up me enough to plan a Creation study at a new little church that sits at an unassuming little intersection in San Antonio.  And He brought a small group of people to study alongside me too, for He’s working on behalf of many all at once.  One girl tells me, “Our church planned this a year ago, so the Lord must have been waiting for you to arrive.”  That means that for this single occasion of studying Creation, the Lord began orchestrating more than a year ago, which reiterates how personal our God is.  How intimately He works in us and amongst us.  In Malachi 3:10, the Lord says, “ . . . see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.”  May we anticipate His next answer to prayer with great joy.  May we savor the beauty of His handiwork.

God & the AC guy

Where do you mention God, and where do you not?  How openly do we include His name in conversation?  Various versions of those questions flashed through my head when talking with our air conditioner repair guy this week.  Glad to say he fixed our AC problem with just a pound of freon, but as I signed his service papers at our kitchen table, he mentioned his daughter leaving for college.  His voice dipped in sadness.  I looked up to see his eyes do the same, and what quickly came to mind was how the Lord eased me through that same situation with my kids years ago.  Right that second when the name of God hit, there was a hiccup in my heart.  Describe it as a point of crucial decision or maybe a spiritual test. If the Lord is prompting my heart, will I follow through?  Doubt rushes in, asking "Will I offend? Will it seem like I’m pressuring him? What if he gets mad?"  Actually the questions are valid, but in the end, whom do I aim to please?  For whose sake am I willing to risk?  I shared with our AC guy how I prayed in those years before, during, and after college.  He listened and never even hinted of becoming angry.  I knew great pleasure for having offered those few sentences.  I’ve felt those little tugs too many times to ignore them.  I’ve known blessings many times over for having followed through, and I trust the Lord blessed the AC guy to hear testimony about prayer.  All days of the week, in homes and workplaces and neighborhoods and schools, the Lord creates situations for us to serve each other.  I contend that we mention His name whenever and wherever He prompts—in public, in private, in whatever circumstances He calls.  He wants our entire world to know He is here and that He loves them. 

Funeral & speech therapy

Opportunities to pray come anywhere.  In April I met a girl at a funeral.  She’d entered college to study speech therapy and needed only to find somewhere to serve her internship in order to graduate.  So I prayed.  I was extremely excited to pray.  I told her I would pray.  All the while, I hoped to see her again to explain this particular joy that came in praying for her.  Then a couple of weeks ago, the 2 of us sat across a dinner table from each other, and the joy spilled over.  She smiled to tell of sending out bunches of resumés and receiving a single, unusual phone call in response.  That phone call was her answer to graduating.  Philippians 4:6-7 says, “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.”  Never should we underestimate any opportunity to pray.  Never rule God out, for He works anywhere and everywhere.  And how we’re blessed for Him to incorporate sinners like us into His work.

More than a UPS package

Last week I drove to the UPS Store.  My husband and I decided to discontinue cable TV, and the cable technician told me to take our equipment to UPS for shipping.  I had a bumbling array of boxes, cables, power supplies, and remotes, though my first trip from the car was actually a simple one.  Initially I needed to ask if the UPS worker understood his role the same way the cable guy did.  The second trip would be more of a balancing act, with the tricky part being to manage some free fingers to open the store door.  On the second try, I made it inside.  I approached the cash register and gladly unloaded my pile of equipment.  The worker snickered a bit, “Man, why didn’t she help you?”  I hadn’t known the UPS guy was even watching.  “Why didn’t she hold the door?” he finished.  Yes, I knew the lady he was talking about.  She entered empty-handed a few seconds ahead of me.  I smiled, “It’s okay.  I’ll let God handle it.  He knows what’s going on with her.  Sometimes I’ve been preoccupied myself.”  As the name of God rolled from my lips, my heart felt so free and full for having experienced the Lord’s orchestration of circumstances.  Never had I anticipated mentioning His name there that day.  So as it happened, UPS would deliver my package, and I would get to be a delivery person too.  Carrying God's name is a blessing.  We are humbled to realize we speak into a world where not every workplace and not every household reveres His name.

Hospital hassle

Oh, man!  I was 24 cents short. Now I’d have to leave my lunch tray, go to the locker room, get my wallet, and come back to pay.  On a day when I was really hungry, what a hassle!  The salad bar at the hospital cafeteria is fabulous.  Volunteers receive a lunch voucher, and I look forward to piling a high mix of greens and the works.  Usually tomatoes, egg, cheese, sunflower seeds, lots of veggies, and on special occasions, edamame.  Mine has delicate balance, so I slowly place my plate on the cashier's scale, wanting not to spill any portion.  The cashier takes my voucher and waves me through.  Except this time the lady’s eyebrows furled.  Squinting and leaning to double-check, she says, “Uh-oh.  You’re 24 cents over.”  I hadn’t brought my wallet to the lunch room in years, so I asked what to do.  “Go ahead," she tells me, "Just bring your money before I leave at 1:30."  No problem.  This was now an issue of honesty.  This was important.  I didn’t want to mess up, so I found a napkin and scratched a reminder.  Lunch proceeded with friends and laughter as usual, but I didn’t lose sight of my note on the napkin.  I walked to my locker, counted my coins, and felt joy swelling inside for this opportunity to let honesty shine.  This nuisance of an interruption had become sweet occasion for doing the right thing.  Just 2 dimes and 4 pennies.  I waited my turn in the cashier’s line and gladly presented my fee.  Proverbs 12:16-17 says, "A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult.  A truthful witness gives honest testimony, but a false witness tells lies."  Thank you, Lord, for shedding light once again.

Neighborly task gone awry

Your neighbors go out of town, and what happens?  Do you take care of their dog?  Maybe water their plants?  We’ve been recipient of neighborly kindness when friends feed our cats.  Recently, though, we had a different request come our way.  A neighbor asked us to help with his rent house.  As he had moved away years ago, he now had tenants getting ready to leave.  He estimated 30 minutes for us to conduct their exit walk-through.  Several days later, he apologized for the process taking much longer than 30 minutes.  And the task was still unfinished.  Due to problems with some walls and part of the ceiling inside the house, the final transfer of garage door openers and house keys had become complicated.  Our neighbor said, “Sorry for being such a pain.”  We knew he truly felt bad for the inconvenience.  But the occasion became blessed opportunity to explain our motivation for wanting to help.  Matthew 19:19 says to love your neighbor as yourself.  Managing properties long-distance isn’t easy.  If we were in his shoes, we could use the help.  Little did we know in the beginning how this walk-through would be opportunity to live out our Christianity.  Something so small became occasion to share the Bible.  And somewhere in all of this I've smiled to remember that VeggieTales tune:  “When you love your neighbor, loving means lending a hand.”  Those fun Veggies look up toward the music playing overhead to try to figure out where the song is coming from (I chuckle as they somehow hold things with their arms and hands that don't exist.)  I love how God works.

Wedding + rent cars = 8

One small wedding.  Granted, it was a destination wedding.  Savannah is one of the many sweet spots on this earth, and the details appeared finely tuned and ready to go.  With options for flying into Savannah, Jacksonville, or Charleston, we could grab a rent car and even stay the weekend just for fun.  Surely we could share the rent cars once we arrived.  The idea kept sounding good, but in actuality the car scenario wasn’t panning out.  On the day of departure, the bride and groom had trouble from the start.  An overturned concrete truck delayed traffic on the highway and caused them to miss their flight.  Oodles of phone minutes with airlines and $2,000 later, the bride was crying, and the groom's composure had clearly been tested.  The only available replacement flights were out of DFW instead of Love Field, with a return flight out of Jacksonville instead of Savannah, which they quickly booked, though knowing they'd have to sort details later.  They arrived Savannah and rented a car, and the next day the wedding ceremony was beautiful.  All those months of intricate planning certainly proved fruitful.  When the weekend finished and time came to head home, the couple’s rent car still required return to the Savannah airport in order to avoid stiff penalty.  Wanting not to worsen their already $2,000 in the hole, they returned the car as required and hitched a ride to Jacksonville with the bride's grandparents, who had also stayed the weekend to enjoy the city.  The grandparents' rent car had little extra room for luggage, as they never dreamed they’d be carrying the bride and groom on this 2-hour ride to the Jacksonville airport.  Trying to lessen the luggage load, they relegated transportation of the wedding dress to the groom’s dad because he was driving all the way home to Texas without any airport stops.  They carefully stacked 3 suitcases in the middle of the back seat to Jacksonville and hopped in the car for their 2-hour trek.  Considering the bride's family, the groom's family, and the 3 friends who decided to crash the wedding, I counted at least 7 rent cars for a relatively small wedding party, and that seems excessive.  But the cars proved helpful, especially when trying to sidestep the rain that loomed each day and handle various trips for make-up, hair, photos, and food.  I recall the early days of having prayed over this wedding, now realizing the Lord had reason for us to rent all these separate cars.  He knew from the beginning that the concrete truck would overturn and that He would love our family through each agonizing step of the whole ordeal, all the while using the potential catastrophe to actually deepen our confidence in Him as provider.  Everyone still made it to the wedding, and we saw opportunity to put prayer at the forefront once again.  Isaiah 58:11 says, "The Lord will guide you always; he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land and will strengthen your frame . . ."  How I love Him for loving us first.  I pray too for the driver of the concrete truck.

Bonanza & the Bible

Funerals are rough.  They hold all kinds of emotions.  When my brother-in-law passed away last month, we felt the whole gamut.  As people exited after the funeral, a neighbor stopped to introduce himself.  “My name is . . .  I watched westerns with your brother, and we read the Bible.”  He smiled to continue, “When Bonanza came on, well, it was TV time.  Then later we’d go back and read.”  With not too many words, this neighbor had garnered my complete attention, and I posed to shake his hand in admiration.  He was a guy who spoke the name of the Lord in the ordinary day.  He included the Bible just casually in conversation with whomever he met.  It’s part of what John 15 says in the context of the vine and the branches.  “If you remain in me and my words remain in you . . .”  This neighbor kept God’s word remaining in him as he opened the Bible’s pages and invited others to join in.  It’s encouragement for all of us to not wait for Sundays to roll around as our only Jesus Day.  Jesus says too in verse 16, “. . . go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. . .”  And as our world desperately needs the name of Jesus the entire 7 days of the week, may the Lord give us joy for walking through the different doors of conversation He opens.  The more we talked that afternoon at the funeral home, the more I loved this neighbor who spent time with my brother-in-law.  They barbecued, they read the Bible, they prayed, and I smile to imagine all the Bonanza and Gunsmoke episodes they watched.

Agony of carcinoma

The man finished brushing his teeth and swung his wheelchair away from the sink.  “No more prayer!” he exclaimed.  “No more prayer!”  I had simply knocked on his door with an offer to help.  Actually he did welcome me in, though his words turned sharp.  “I’ve been prayed for in Jerusalem.  I’ve been prayed for in Mexico.  I’ve been prayed for here in San Antonio.  God cannot change the carcinoma on my lung.  He cannot change any of this.  It’s written on my hospital papers.”  I silently nodded to acknowledge his words, and he leaned toward me, seeming disturbed that I didn’t quickly agree.  “I don’t think you understand,” he continued.  “God cannot change my diagnosis.  It’s on my papers,” and he pointed to the medical records area down the hall.  I followed his hand gestures and facial expressions closely, wanting to respect all of what he was telling, though it seemed my silence frustrated him.  Again he stated, “I don’t think you understand me!”  This time I replied, “We may just see things differently.”  I smiled in hope of easing any anxiety about our differences, but in actuality, the opposite seemed to happen.  With growing agitation, he posed the question, “Do you know the worst thing that can happen to a man?”  I waited for his answer.  “It’s pain,” he declared.  “My pain is awful.  It’s absolutely awful.”  And suddenly I wondered if all this time he was meaning something he really didn’t say.  He was exhausted and worn from fighting through pain, and maybe he didn’t want his diagnosis changed.  Perhaps he didn’t want to live anymore.  The possibility of someone praying to reverse that proclamation of death might cause him great heartache.  And in that moment, I did the very thing he didn’t want.  Not in spite, not as a slap in the face, but wholly in support of his dire situation, I quietly prayed for the Lord to touch this man who has had pain screaming at him so loud for so many years.  Colossians 3:12-13 says, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.  Bear with each other . . .”  This was my opportunity to bear with this man.  I came to his hospital room not to argue.  I watched for a pause in his words that I could politely exit, and he could then rest.  “I have been blessed to meet you today, Sir.  Thank you for your time to talk.”  I stood to smile, and he waved without any apparent angst.  May the Lord comfort him.

The cupcake lady

Cynicism is contagious.  It’s infectious.  The doubt and distrust become so deeply engrained that we don’t recognize the harm they cause.  But just when you’re convinced the whole world is horrible and that altruism is dead, here comes the cupcake lady.  She quietly sets up shop and exudes this wonderfully inspiring generosity.  My friend met her in the grocery store.  The cupcake lady approached the check-out lane where my friend is a cashier.  She loaded her groceries from the cart, and as my friend scanned each item, the cupcake lady planted a seed.  My friend saw the baking cups and all the cupcake ingredients and inquired as they rode the conveyor belt.  Little did she know she would ever meet the cupcake lady again.  Then came a particularly interesting bus ride.  It happened on another day that my friend and the cupcake lady rode the very same bus at the very same time.  Because cashiers at grocery stores see all kinds of people, some days are quite trying.  Too many instances of people mistreating their children, too many scenarios of people abusing welfare systems, and the list goes on and on.  So to meet the cupcake lady on the bus and realize she made some special cupcakes for a very sweet cashier was quite timely.  Her generosity hit the spot.  Why would the cupcake lady bake cupcakes for a cashier she hardly knew and make an extra trip to the store to deliver them, though she wasn’t sure the cashier would even be working then?  Here the Lord connects the 2 people on the bus, making certain the cupcake lady’s efforts don't go in vain.  How sweet is that!  I loved just hearing the story.  I'm inspired, and I’ve never personally met the cupcake lady.  And so I ask on your behalf for the Lord to send a cupcake lady to your neighborhood.  May the Lord encourage you and protect you from that cynicism to which we're all susceptible.