Spiritual

Father’s Day is coming up in a few days! Obviously many of us will spend the day celebrating our dads, but I also can’t help but think about my Heavenly Father.

Your Heavenly Father cherishes you as his child. You are a child of the King. Actually, he absolutely adores you. He chose you. He loves you with an unconditional and everlasting love. Think about that. Take it all in. Let it resonate in your heart and soul. You are loved, cherished, treasured, and chosen by the Savior. What an amazing privilege.

But the question I ask myself is, Do I really live believing this? Do I really let it all sink in? I think if I really let myself realize the intensity of God’s love, I might live a little more confidently in who Christ is in me. Too often it is an afterthought or a forced thing. But I want it to be a natural overflow. Your Abba Father wants to do life with you. He wants you, He loves you, and He has a purpose for you. I need to spend time getting to know the character of my God. Just like any relationship, it takes time and investment. So the more I can just be with God, the more I will know him. It isn’t a formula or a certain number of times to pray or a certain chapter in the Bible. It is relationship. It is knowing a Father. And it is living in child like faith and humility of the God we serve. So the more I get to know Christ, the more I will know His love, and the more His love will flow out of me.

So this Father’s Day I want to find some ways I can celebrate and thank my …

Alot of things have been going on in life lately.  I haven’t been directly experiencing anything too crazy… except for normal life, which in a sense, always has its fair share of chaos. But I have been witnessing many storms happening to people very close to me. And because of the way I am wired up, I feel very deeply for the circumstance, the pain, the fear, the doubt, whatever emotion is joining that experience.  I want to help, I want to be there for the people, I want to lend a helping hand.  But in these certain situations, the distance is a little too far to stop by and drop in to help.  So it leaves me feeling a little helpless. Which in reality, it is not my fault if I cannot be there to chip in. It is a blessing to love to serve and love to help out, but I can’t take that to a whole other level of obligation.  If I believe God’s power is as mighty and powerful as God’s word and the truth I believe says it is, I have to believe in that power in situations where I feel helpless also.  Ultimately I have nothing to give in and of my own power.  My own strength, my own love for people, and my own servants heart belongs to the Lord.  So out of a position of gratitude, honor, and praise to the Lord I can sometimes be of help to people.  But I forget sometimes the best thing I can do is pray. Pray for them, pray with them, pray about them… Prayer is powerful.

So if God is the perfect peace in the storms of the Bible, he can also be the perfect peace in my life and the lives of those …

It doesn’t really matter the circumstances or the specifics…I am sure we have all had what seems to be the MOST terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day…week…month…year…or season in our life. We most likely felt like we were the only one undergoing such difficulties. It is so hard to keep a positive perspective during a horrible situation, especially when things seem to go from bad to worse. It is even harder to remember that trials are allowed by God in our life to refine our character. So how are we to respond in the midst of a really terrible day filled with frustration, anger, disappointment, hurt, fear…..the list of things that make up a “terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day” is endless.

It is hard to keep our cool and be kind when we have been unjustly wronged and inconvenienced. It is almost impossible to see the bright side when we are terribly disappointed in someone or when something doesn’t go as we planned. Harder still is knowing how to respond to the news of the death of a friend or relative. And when those situations produce a season of hurt, disappointment and pain that seems to last forever, we find it nearly impossible to cope at times.

I have been in a season of polar opposite emotions…from mountain top experiences of EXCITEMENT in our growing family, to deep loss and SADNESS.  I have experienced the loss of two dear friends in the past few weeks right on the heals of loosing my dad and my favorite uncle. Yet during this same season, I have been blessed with two new sons-in-law and many beautiful grandchildren. All around me friends are experiencing both of these types of joys and sorrows and yet we are finding ways to carry on. …

When I was growing up, Easter season began with a Passover Seder meal at my grandparents home where we retold the Exodus story and said beautiful Hebrew prayers. This tradition became more meaningful to me as I learned that Christ became the Passover Lamb and He was the perfect sacrifice for all men for all time. He was nailed to the cross on that Friday (what we call “good Friday”) and was raised from the dead on what we call Easter-Resurrection Sunday. Resurrection Sunday, Good Friday and Passover celebrations are a time to reflect on all that Christ has done for me.

As we raised our family, we incorporated the celebration of Passover with our Easter festivities for a rich tradition of Old and New Testament blending to tell the entire story of God reaching out to man to initiate and open the door for an intimate relationship with His children.

This year I had the awesome privilege of attending a Good Friday worship night with Bekah and Ashkon at their Christian Student Association at SGU in Grenada. It was a multicultural event including liturgical dance and worship for all with the worship team including special presentations from three groups of students singing in their native tongues-Indian, African and Spanish and two Asian students who shared a piano and violin worship song on prayer. The most moving part of the evening for me was the dramatic presentation of a skit done to a beautiful song called Everything-you can look it up on Youtube. If you have never seen this skit before, one version can be found here: Lifehouse’s Everything Skit Or you can watch the beautiful rendition we saw at the SGU worship service on Friday night..

After the skit the leader of the worship night spoke a bit about …

Does the title of this post make you squirm a little bit? It does for me. Not necessarily in a disagreeable way, but in a way that it gets me thinking. A few questions keep coming up. Am I willing to risk it all, or am I willing to risk just enough to still be comfortable? What am I willing to risk today, and what am I trying to hold on to? What is the difference between a big risk and a small risk? And what does it look like for me to risk everything?

Risk… it is the exposure to the chance of injury or loss; a hazard or dangerous chance, being in jepoardy, the unknown, a threat, uncertainty, and just pure possibility. People do not like the unknown. We like being in control and knowing what is going on and what will happen. Uncertainty can bring fear, instability, anticipation, and speculation. We would rather stay secure and safe in our own little world than take a step beyond our comfort zone. Risk doesn’t mean safe. It doesn’t always mean bad, but it doesn’t mean safe.

But that is exactly where we are supposed to be as followers of Christ.  Risking it all. Laying our life down so we can live for our Savior. Risk makes me think of a quote from the Chronicles of Narnia.
“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” So just like Aslan, our lives as believers is not safe, but it is good. Risking a life for Christ is not safe, but it is great, it is abundant, and it is worth it. So yes, it is unknown but it …

I had the wonderful opportunity to go on a women’s retreat last weekend. The main speaker, Dr. Rosalie de Rosset, a literature professor at Moody was incredibly intriguing and her messages were both challenging and enlightening. She wrote a book called “Unseduced and Unshaken” and her messages to us were a few of the foundational principles from her book. I was extremely challenged by her first talk on “Dignity”. She started by asking us some serious questions….

What kind of woman and I?
What am I becoming?
What do I want to be?
How does dignity fit in?

Dignity is defined as nobility or elevation of character, conduct or speech indicative of self-respect, a sign or token of respect. Our speaker described dignity by using a well known character found in the classic novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. Jane Eyre is a perfect picture of dignity. “A formidable self-possessed young woman with a fully realized, detailed moral sensibility.” Formidable means forceful, powerful, causing great respect, even fear. Self-possessed means having or showing control of one’s feelings and behavior especially when under pressure.

A dignified woman is a woman of great convictions, humble, spirited and honest. She stands up for what she believes in and is willing to stand when everyone else is bending and compromising to the whims of a changing culture. A woman of dignity thinks rationally and exhibits self-respect and chooses righteous behavior in the midst of temptation. A dignified woman lives above her emotions and uses objective truth, a conviction of faith and critical thinking with her sound mind when making decisions. She has a deep commitment to a solid foundation of faith and finds her value from her relationship with God.

A dignified woman knows that ALL of her choices MATTER! There is NO NEUTRAL. …