What Have I Done Becomes What Will I Do?

Although I am doing my best to be a courageous and transparent person when I write, there are still aspects about my life that I choose to keep personal and private.  A couple of those categories include politics and religion (please note...not faith, but denominations & buildings).

I avoid those two things because we all have the story that God is writing in us, for us, and meant only for us.  It shapes our choices.  It shapes our comfort zone.  It shapes our inner circle.  It is full of feelings.

With that being said...I am weary.  I am weary of the blame-game.  I am weary of the self-entitlement we give ourselves to share our opinion.  I am saddened by our world and the things that are taking center stage.  The war we are fighting my friends can not be won on social media, the nightly news, or a well-lit stage donned in red, white, and blue.  It can not be won in well-preserved buildings with beautiful stained glassed windows.  It can only be won in in our story, in the personal and private time we give to God.

Ephesians 6:12  for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.

When the first plane hit the twin towers, I was packing a diaper bag to take my 15 month old to meet my husband at the OB/GYN's office to hear the heartbeat of her future brother or sister.  As we entered waiting room, the second plane had hit.  All I could think was, "What have I done?  What I have I brought life into?"

  

This morning, fifteen-ish years later, as I sit drinking my coffee, reading my devotions, and journaling...I watch my once 15 month old pack her gym bag and grab her keys to drive herself up to the gym, and my thoughts remain on her future:  What does it look like in this world...what will it look like for her children?

Go get in your car, squeeze your hot-mess-of-a-self into your tiny closet, in the cleansing of a hot shower, on the beach (if you are so lucky), with your coffee on the porch, in the middle of a field at sunrise or sunset, in the front pew of an empty church...go get intimate, up close and personal, and humbled before God.  That is where the war begins...

He knows we are burdened.  He knows we have our own thoughts about how things should work.  He sees us doing life with and without Him.  Go get transparent with Him, wherever you feel safe or unkept, whatever your comfort zone or complete-and-utterly-alone zone - He will meet you right where you are.  

James 4:2  You desire and you do not have, so you murder.  You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel.  You do not have, because you do not ask.

What would you ask Him for today?

What is the big thing?  Our nation?  Race relations?  Organized Religion?  Poverty?  

Who or what has He placed specifically on your heart today?  

What do you need from Him?  Faith?  Financial relief?  Healing?  Rest?  Truth?  

My family got me a shirt for my Birthday that reads, "Not Today Satan".  I am thinking I should wear it more than just one day a week...I do not have time for his shenanigans. I can see him manipulating our world, but I am doing all I can to be a light and not a shadow.  I can feel him celebrating his division among God's people, but I will not be a part of his party.  Not.  Today.  Satan.  

The Armor of God.  Prayer.  Love that surpasses all understanding.  Let us vow today to stop seeking blame, and start becoming the solution.  I don't know what that looks like, but I am hitting my knees and praying to the One Who does.

Wilderness Walking

Mark 9:23-24 And Jesus said to him, "If you can!  All things are possible for one who believes."  Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, "I believe; help my unbelief!"

This story goes on to say that this curse can only be driven out by prayer.  Woo!  (said while loudly exhaling).  Some things, can only be driven out by prayer...I am going to let that marinate as I go into a little bit about why I have been away from the computer and some things that have taken place since my last post about my grandpa's hospital stay.

On June 17th I pasted (scotch-taped) a Facebook post in my journal from Heart of the Prophetic that shot an arrow straight in to my feels:

Embrace your wilderness moments.  Learn all you can.  There's surely a war ahead to obtain your Promised Land but you will strike down every enemy if you build your faith in the desert places. 

That same day a devotion read discusses that our expectations rarely align with God's timing.

In the the wilderness we can often:  See His miracles more clearly, feel His presence more intensely, worship Him more authentically, and obey Him more sincerely.  Even when we don't think He is working...He Is!

My prayer for myself at the end of journaling that morning was:  Steadfast in Prayer

Friends I feel I have been a 'Wilderness Wanderer' for most of the month of June, and therefore, for the most part, disqualified myself from trying to inspire you.  I knew it would be a busy month as I put two teenagers schedules into my calendar, but I could not foresee a few bends in the well-worn path as the month began.  Much like the wilderness, we can find a plethora of beauty, but some spiders and snakes makes us jump into patches of poison ivy when we least expect it.

My grandpa was released two weeks ago into the care of a skilled nursing center, with no improvement in memory or physical ability.  Still not eating or sleeping.  Last Thursday he was driven to the hospital with dizzy spells and continued kidney decline.  They admitted him, sent him back to skilled nursing Saturday afternoon, and that same evening we were back in the ER with extremely low blood pressure and readmitted.

When I walked into the room Monday morning, he burst into tears.  As I looked from him to grandma, completely concerned, her reply came, "he remembers".  Apparently he was allergic to the antibiotic they had been given him for almost a full month, topped with taking too much blood pressure medicine.  When all of that worked out of his system, all swelling left his body and his memory returned.

He cried and said, "this is the best day of my life".  I smiled through my tears with "well, I am not sure about that, but we will take it".  He asked, "you want to know the best part?  I got my wife back".  Although she had been there everyday, when he was "hanging out there" (his words), he thought she had gone for good.  So that is pretty great, but I am not going to lie, I was a little skeptical that we were just having a good moment.  But as the day progressed he was just so happy that he remembered.

Here is the cool part...how he remembered.  He didn't just get his mind back, God came to him and cast out the darkness.  His explanation:  We were all standing there, no one knew what was going on or what was going to happen, and then He just cast all the demons away.  His favorite song was playing, by his favorite singer during this "revival".  Although grandpa says it was waaaaay better than a revival!  As he told us, he just teared up and said, "God is so good, best day of my life".

And I love what God has done for him, and that He allowed us to pray it away.  Next to God casting out the darkness, my second favorite moment Monday was Grandpa praying over our lunch.  It was the best prayer I have ever heard in my life!  (I'm not sure about that, but we are going to take it!)  My plan from here on out is always to visit at meal time and hear as many of those that the good Lord will allow.

As thrilled as I am at the miracle healing that God is affirming for our family, I am sticking firm to my steadfast prayer for a friend whose brother has been in CCU for a little over a week now.  We are praying, interceding, and declaring that same miracle healing for him, and I am so excited for the work God is doing in His kingdom for His children.

At the beginning of June I got a summons for Jury Duty.  Each Friday I would call in and a recording would tell us that all cases had been settled or dismissed...except last week.  So I had to show up for the Jury pool this week, and then I had to go and get myself picked.  I have to say, I needed to have my faith in humanity restored.  Through deliberation and conversation, it was very interesting to be a part of.  Of course it gave me something new to pray for...

As I drove to the court house this morning, Casting Crowns song Just Be Held came on.  In it they sing, "Hold it all together, everybody needs you strong", "When you're on your knees and answers seem so far away" and, "Your world's not falling apart, it's falling into place" and the tear drops fell.  I have known I am wandering, that it has a purpose, not necessarily that things were falling apart, but they were not on the beaten path, and just trying to be strong...to survive the month, the unknown trail I was traversing.

Another post on my Facebook wall, just yesterday:  When you go through the wilderness, you understand that prophetic ministry is not about theology alone, it's also about experience.  - Jennifer LeClaire

I am reviewing this month blossoming with blessings, triumphs, emotions, illness, healing, civic duties, obligations, choices, prayers...and I am pleading with God to "help my unbelief!" - allow me to pray it away, to surrender to the path in the midst of tall trees of trials and tribulations, of discernment and compassion, of hope, faith, and love beyond any earthly revival.

Relying on God to be sovereign in His alignment of people, places, and events...
Praying even when we don't understand His ways...
Surrendering to His embrace when the worry of disbelief overgrows the rocky path...
The wilderness is about the experience...
Just be held...

Riding the Loop-de-loops

We all have those things in life that we pray over, are compassionate about, that draw a deep empathy, but in terms of experiencing it, we may not be able to relate.

I had a lady from church get a little shnarky with me in a bible study quite awhile back.  She was upset because, being recently widowed, she was concerned that there was no "widow care" in our church.  I tried to gently explain to her that I was praying for her, that I had deep compassion for her loss, but to know what her needs were or to be able to offer advice on how to put one foot in front of the other, I could not relate. That didn't mean I wasn't listening or available, just that I didn't have the words to make it better.

She wasn't concerned about widows in our church until it happened to her, and now she does a wonderful job checking in on our widowed population.  That is her new ministry, her gift.  Sadly, she had to experience it in order to find her passion for it.

This past couple of weeks has been a roller coaster ride, not the fun one that leaves you laughing so hard you pee a little, but the kind that leaves you with your hand over your mouth running for the nearest trash can.

My grandpa was admitted to ICU a few weeks back, worked through a couple of hard days of pain and something akin to a diagnosis (my critical self thinks we are still missing something).  He began to break the fever, the infection abated, and then a whole new crash of the kidneys and heart set in.  The doctor on duty told us to call in the family.  The next day he was sitting up, being his ornery self.  He was on a steroid to open up his lungs and he was WIDE awake from that day forward...

This lack of rest and battle with medications for which symptom to treat has left us in a long stay in the hospital, and a new relatable for me...dementia/hospital delirium.  We are at a point, where it may or may not correct itself once he gets stronger and dismissed from the hospital.  Either way, we have all experienced his inability to be aware and it is a whole new roller-coaster-grand-opening of emotions.

My grandpa is the strongest, most faithful, loving, joy-filled person I know.  He is my hero.  In his current state, his ability to talk about fishing and God is his "happy place".

As we left the hospital yesterday, he was able to call my husband by name twice.  It is not that he doesn't know me, I am just not sure he can connect it right now, and that is how I also felt this past Wednesday.  My husband said the best thing as he agreed with me..."even though he can't connect it, somehow he knows you are important".  And that is totally in line to what my heart was perceiving as I sat next to grandpa that morning: me reaching up to hold his hand, and him squeezing the circulation out of mine.  He just kept holding on tight.

Our relationship with Jesus is very much the same.  We are searching our hearts and minds, we know we should know Him, we know He is important, we just have to hold on tight and keep our hands and feet inside the cart, and wait to see where the ride takes us.

From Familyshare.com

I think every incline and decent of our amusement park lives is meant to teach us to rely on His strength, to acknowledge we are weary, and to simply be in the current moment to the best of our ability.

Isaiah 40:31...but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

Psalm 105:4  Seek the Lord and His strength; seek his presence continually!

Ephesians 6:10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might.

Psalm 46:1  God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.

Matthew 11:28-30  Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

We are indeed weary and relying on His strength.  It is like the roller coaster stop button is broken, and we pull through the platform and just keep going up, then we drop, then we take a hard right into the next loop, oh wait, double loop!  I think I can speak for my entire family when I ask, "can we get off now?".

I had to come to terms eight days ago that I may walk out of that hospital room and never see my grandpa this side of Heaven.  And boy-oh-boy did I shed some ugly tears in the darkness of my back deck over a glass of Moscato and lots of tissues.  But what I learned is that God will give me the peace to throw my hands in the air and let go...when it is time, although He may provide a trial run here and there.  God is the Great Healer, sometimes that occurs in this life, and sometimes that occurs in eternal life, either way, when we know we know HIM, we enjoy the ride all the more.

When all else is uncertain...remember to hold tight.

Thy Will by Hillary Scott

The Hard Is What Makes It Great

Well, the past month has been a little bit of a whirl wind:

We said good-bye to my Grandma Johnson.
Celebrated Mother's Day.
My P.E.O. group raised over $3000 for Women's Continuing Education.
I preached at church, twice.
I helped a lady from church clean out her closets and bid a fond farewell to several items.
We celebrated friends and Graduates.
Ended the last year in Middle School...I now have TWO high schoolers!
We attended a couple of baseball showcase tryouts.
We celebrated our Pastor who will be leaving for a new church in one short week.
We shopped for and settled on a car for my almost 16-year old.
I visited my grandpa in ICU and had a great lunch with grandma.
I attended an Unemployment "training" and was told to "weaken" my resume.
I have been trying to write as I can and blog when I have uninterrupted time.
I sat through a "Summons for Jury Duty".
Yesterday my Uncle passed away, my Grandma Johnson's middle son.
And today, well today I am blessed to claim 20 years of marriage to my wonderful husband and father of my spawn, who happens to be celebrating a birthday today as well...

The house isn't always clean, but the dog gets fed, laundry stays caught up, and there is always coffee pods for the Keurig and a cold beer in the fridge saying "try again tomorrow".

Twenty years ago...I was twenty...let that sink in.  We started off these twenty years with sexy lingerie (me, not my husband so much), two-door cars, Tuesday nights at Chili's, lots of burnt dinners, college classes, ski trips, baby faces, slimmer waist lines, and larger dreams.  We have lived through big bangs, white socks and Nike sandals, Jorts, denim and khakis, overalls, HairBands, Grunge, and the Atlanta Braves in their prime (RIP).

Those things gave way to larger waist lines, C-section scars, gravity, late-night feedings and diaper changes, not-so burnt dinners, careers, facial hair (My husband, me not so much), stay-cations, four-door cars, mini-vans, and SUV's, and reality.  We survived colic, bouts of the flu, depression, the terrible two's and the thunderous three's (twice), a big move, Tweens, and are learning to accept reality over big dreams, though some days are harder than others.

Marriage is hard, it is hard to think about that early on when everything is new, sexy, focused, and with vast possibilities.  I am so glad that I found someone that would walk the hard with me, that would love me no matter what my hair choices were, what kind of day I was having, or what kind of choice I was making.  Because walking away from the hard is not an option...the hard is what makes it great.

Adulting is hard.  Parenting is hard.  Making tough choices is beyond hard.  But coming through all of that together, hand-in-hand, weary but wonderfully worn, content to snuggle up on the couch and table another dream for another day, not everyone chooses to do it, and I am so glad we have stuck together to experience the great.

I believe the Bible is true, but I think it has to have left out some petty arguments.  I think that Eve probably just ripped Adam a new grape leaf off the vine rather than wash the same one over and over. I wonder if Noah ever saw his wife on the deck of the arc and thought "woman, I will push you over". I think the invention of pressing olives probably came from spouses needing to smash something in frustration.  And sweet Mary, "I am not walking, have you seen the size of my kankles?"  Humaning is hard...but the hard is what lends itself to love.  The kind of love we see in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8:

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never ends... 

As I look back on what this year has brought into our lives already, I am thankful for the man that God placed in my life to endure (with) me.  Surviving an aging dog, job loss, grief, sassy teenagers, 50 shades of Crae, road trips, leaky faucets, balanced budgets, sports try-outs, musical cars, and spicy food - We have survived 100% of 2016 so far, from one spectrum to the other.

I know we share this day with many other great couples - Cheers to us and to all of you who work through the hard and celebrate the great!

Hanging on to the Broken Mirror

Confession:  When I started this blog a little over a year ago, I was not entirely sure I would stick with it.  I was almost sure I would be criticized, judged, and defeated.  And while I am sure my critics are out there, because we all have them, I am beyond humbled by those of you who have reached out to me in response to a message that touched you.  I can tell you that those messages that pierce you right in the "feels", those are are not from me, but from Him.  I recently spent an afternoon going back and reviewing where I started and where I was finding myself.  And I cried at the things God used me to say.  The Letter To My 30-Year Old Self had me boo-hoo-ing at the healing and the scars that mark the journey ten years later.

And here is one of the first things I wrote in that initial blog, that first step into transparency, that embracement of vulnerability, that "let me invite you into my very imperfect world":

I feel called to share my Faith in a BIG way, but am becoming more aware each day that the SMALL ways are when He works most effectively.  If I can give one half of one ounce of HOPE to one person, then my day can be check-marked a success, and if not, I will mark the box that says "try again tomorrow".  I feel called to be completely ordinary, completely broken, and completely available to share how perfectly imperfect our brief lives are.

I have set a goal for myself, outside of this blog, to write one thousand words a day for thirty days.  Not including weekends because...Yeah!  Weekends!  Besides the fact that we are usually at baseball and if you could see the variety of activities that vomited on my June calendar this past week, well.  Yeah!  Weekends.  I have had some blips hit my radar and missed some week days, but the goal is to have a goal, do my very best to make it a priority, and have a giant cup of coffee and a whole lot of grace if the day goes otherwise.

I have a piece of broken mirror that I use everyday to check the back of my hair in the larger bathroom mirror.  This piece is the larger fragment of a small square travel mirror which I recently dropped.  But here is the deal, before I had this shard, I had been using another shard for almost five years.  It was a smooth triangular piece that came from a similar mirror that busted in conjunction with our lives being shattered by shady business deals, hail storms, break-ins, and bankruptcy.  We were having so much "bad luck" that that broken mirror had nothing on me!  So I kept it as a daily reminder of what we were going and had gone through, and how far we had come.  And just when I decided to get rid of it and let the past be the past, two days later I break the new mirror.

I realized that I need that little piece of brokenness to start my day each morning.  A small reflection to keep my humble and remind me that 7-years is 7-years:  bad luck, good luck, blessings, broken dreams, new paths, old dreams, new blessings, shorter hair, and a little larger waist size.  A reminder that beautiful things sometimes get broken in a thousand different ways, but that doesn't make them less useful, less important, less loved.

As I wrote this week of an event in my past, it drew out some crocodile tears.  I had a busy week last week and did not have a chance to finish a personal bible study I was almost at the end of.  I would like to draw attention to God's timing here because my True Spirituality book by Chip Ingram, in Chapter 22:  Will You Let Christ Heal You?, tells me that Forgiveness is a three-stage process.  My emotional surface was questioning this memory and debating if I had indeed forgiven.

Stage 1 - to forgive - is a choice; an act of the will.  You don't need to feel like forgiving someone to do it.  You need to choose to release any desire for retribution to God and treat them with mercy.

Stage 2 - forgiving - is a process whereby your choice to forgive begins over time to align with your emotions.  This process can take months or even years.  The key at this stage is prayer.  Prayer for the ability to let the bitterness and denial go...

Stage 3 - forgiven - is an alignment of the Spirit of God, your choice to obey God in forgiving, combined with the emotional experience of feeling genuine joy when blessing that person's life.  It is not an easy process!

My writing is the process I use to begin the work of letting the past go.  And as I read and reread these steps I come to the the conclusion that it is forgiven...but the brokenness remains.  Then I realized that just like my broken mirror reminder and the story that Paul shares with the Corinthians, I have a thorn in my side.  I have a weakness in this vulnerability that allows me to lean fully on the grace of Jesus.

2 Corinthians 12:7  So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited.

The other night I placed a notepad and pencil by my bed because I am pretty brilliant while I overthink at 2:00 am or in between sleeps and the snooze button.  The other day God said to my heart, "the world looks broken because we fail to be".  All the brokenness that we are trying to hide, the cracks in the glass, the kinks in the armor...those are being projected onto our world.  If I can just hide my flaws and failings, then I can project it onto something else and take the attention away from what is lying just skin deep.  The world is reflection of what we are.  And my friends, whether you like to admit it or not, you are broken.

We will never be whole in the way we were before we hit the ground and slivers of us were swept up and sifted through.  We have to embrace the fact that we are looking in one mirror to see what the other mirrors sees.  It is important to share our shards, our thorns, our stories.  In doing so, we are saying I will be the reflection you need to get up and keep going, I will be the rose to your thorn, I will be the chapter in the book that yells "plot twist!" and walks arm and arm with you into a world that yes, is broken, but is also a million plus different pieces of beautiful...

If you take nothing else from this today, please break yourself down for 3 minutes and 16 seconds to not just hear, but listen, not just watch, but absorb the words from my girl Francesca, "If We're Honest"...

Praying surrender, courage, acceptance, grace, mercy, forgiveness, and love over my readers today.  May you feel the brokenness that Christ endured pierce your heart in honesty.  Amen.

Hearts of Clay

I was honored this morning to be a part of a brief activity at our local elementary school.  Our small town boasts one of the only heart-shaped labyrinths in the world.  When we moved back, it was in the planning phases and now, almost ten years later...wow...it is a destination place for a variety of events. We talk about God's timing and trusting that He will bring all things to good - sometimes this takes years!  Moses wandered the desert for my entire life span.  The artists and committee who designed the "Heart In The Park", have been working on a project since that first brick was laid and now, ten years in the making, it is progressing toward fruition.

Every year the first grade class and new students in upper grades are asked to put their thumb print on a clay heart and decorate it any way they wish.  I watched all those little hands press into the soft, damp clay, determination on their young faces, and each one turned out exactly the way they wanted and no two were even close to being alike.  They wanted to know where clay came from?  How it got shaped like that?  How it gets changed in the fire?

Those little clay hearts are very much like our own hearts.  Each one has been imprinted on differently, has taken on its own identity, and is so soft and pliable when we are young and creative.   Then somewhere along the line, perhaps, bit by bit, we are hardened by the experiences.  The fires we face transform our heart into something a little more akin to stone and we don't even realize we are sitting in the kiln.  Where do we come from?  What shapes us?  How will we react to the fire?

What God worked on me today is that even hardened hearts are beautiful.  Even hardened hearts have a place in the bigger picture of this project known as life.  They are etched both with shallow and deep impressions; no mark is exactly the same as another.  Every heart has a story to tell, perfectly crafted by the Master Artist, and may take ten years or more to put the final piece in place. What one views as an "Oopsie," someone else is saying "Perfection!"

Romans 11:25 I want you to understand this mystery, dear brothers and sisters, so that you will not feel proud about yourselves.  Some of the people of Israel have hard hearts, but this will last only until the full number of Gentiles comes to Christ.

This verse adds to my current hope.  Hardened hearts only last until the time is right, and at that moment, it is not ours to be proud of.  God is in the lucrative business of changing hearts and has perfected His technique.  His refining could take hours, days, or years depending on the size of the project.  We all start out as clay in His capable hands and become crafted into something that he sees as "Perfection!"

Mark 3:5 He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts.  Then he said to the man, "Hold out your hand." So the man held out his hand, and it was restored.

It is really hard for me to know how to approach hard hearts; to help begin the restoration.  But, there is comfort in knowing that Jesus was sad and even angry at their stubbornness.  I realize that it is my job to authentically present the love and joy that can be found in Jesus, not church, but in Him alone. He will take it from there.  I visit with  many people whose hearts are hardened towards the church -please know that Jesus never intended for the church to be what it has become.  Let Him, not religion, work on your heart.   I would be happy to give you His business card.

One little guy asked me, "what if I move?"  My response was, "you always have something to come back to to call your own."  A little piece of heart in every project we have ever been a part of, coming together shape by shape, scratch by scratch, and scrape by scrape.  The hardened heart has a story to tell...peek into the kiln and find the beauty that is revealed.

Abundance and Need

The Mom Quilt (click to purchase) is out in paperback on Amazon!  What an exciting project to be a part of - It is both exhilarating and frightening to see your name in print!  The water well in Kenya has been fully funded through the initial PDF sales of the book and generous matching donations.  Check out this picture of the well being drilled - I helped with that!

So that is my exciting news for the week!  In other news...

My sweet grandma finished up her 96 years here on earth.  While we miss knowing that we can hug or see her at a moments notice, it is such a blessing to know her body, soul, and spirit are finally at rest.  I know that there were many people so excited to see her as she entered the gates.  I giggled yesterday as I pictured her at Jesus' feet shewing everyone else away so she could have some time with Him.

Philippians 4:13 is a favorite verse among many:  I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Taken as itself it is used by athletes to find inner strength, to encourage and persevere.  But I think, in actuality we have missed the original intent of the verse.

Philippins 4:11-12 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  (And now 13) I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Even when things don't work out the way we planned, when we have to say good-bye, when we don't live in our "dream house" working our "dream job" taking "dream vacations"...God is giving us strength in the hunger and in the need, getting us through one more day.  And we are to draw on His strength when we experience the defeat and grief, as well as when we receive the victory and the blessing.  We can do anything through Him...

We can fight cancer.
We can say good-bye to a loved one.
We can find blessings in whatever roof is over our head.
We can hold our head-up as we receive grace at the Food Bank.
We can face terminal diagnosis with an eternal perspective.
We can pray.
We can write.
We can wait patiently (or throw a fit while Jesus taps His foot)
We can count, at minimum...three Blessings in our day...we may not want to see the good, but it is there. It is up to you to see it, no one can do it for you.  Close your eyes and hold on to them with all your heart.
We can mend what was broken.
We can be found...
And yes, we can win the victory of the moment.

I have spoken to several people this week that are attending or returning from funerals.  Just this morning I saw that a High School friend lost his two-year old son...Dear Lord, in your strength keep them together.

Abundance and Need fill my heart this season of life:
Graduation and dreams of the future are everywhere for high school and college students.  I love watching their excitement!
Women and their babies are receiving fresh water in Kenya.  Thanks be to God!
People are grieving.
Grandparents are ill.
Babies are being born and babies are being lost.

In His strength you will without a doubt find abundance and need today.  That is life my friends.  May He surround you with angel armies and earthly embraces and celebrations as He meets you exactly where you are today!