Mother’s Day

Yes, I guess there should be a day that Mothers are celebrated, after all no one is as important as a mother, if it were not for mothers we would not be here.

Mother’s Day for me, well…I have never really liked it. I have had some wonderful Mother’s Days and some really yucky ones. I think that I have finally realized that the reason I never really liked Mother’s Day is because when I finally got older enough to make this day nice for my mom…. she was no longer living. She was only 44 years old when she died of breast cancer and I was 22 years old, recently married and pregnant with Brittany, it's never a good time to loose your mom, but this was an especially sad time. To make the story even sadder, my younger brothers were only 17 and 8 years old. I think that now 22 years after my mom’s death, I realize now the full extend of how devastating life is when your mom dies. I felt deprived, I needed my mom, she only lived two miles from me, I was having my first baby why would God take her? My brother was a senior in high school, can you imagine going into your senior year, and two weeks prior your mom died? I know a lot of 17 year olds now that I am working with the High School students at my church, I can’t even fathom the pain they would have loosing their moms. Then you have this precious tenderhearted, eight year old boy, big brown eyes, curly hair, sweet as can be, (I was 14 when he was born I was so happy to be his big sister). Eight years old and your mom dies. The song “Christmas Shoes” pretty much sums up my little brother’s life at that time. I had to pull the car over the first time I heard that song, who would write such a sad depressing song, maybe someone that lived through the tragedy of loosing their mom when they were eight years old. There are many stories I could tell that came up for my younger brothers after my mom died, but the intent of this note is not to make you cry.

Christmas Shoes by Newsong,

"Sir, I want to buy these shoes for my Mama, please

It's Christmas Eve and these shoes are just her size

Could you hurry, sir, Daddy says there's not much time

You see she's been sick for quite a while

And I know these shoes would make her smile

And I want her to look beautiful if Mama meets Jesus tonight"

Why does God allow this kind of sadness in the lives of people that love Him? I am not sure I can really answer that question with completeness, but I can say with complete confidence, God does get us through tragedy. God replaced my mom with three of the most wonderful daughters, (later two sons!) Brittany was born three months after my mom died, then Courtney and Lindsay were born less than two years after my mom died, I was busy. I really could have used a mom to help with the girls, but I did it all myself, instead of going to my mom for help, I went to God for help and He came through in every single situation. My brothers also made it through, life has been hard at times, lonely, longing for a mom, graduations, marriages, divorce, serious life and death illness’, births, holidays, birthdays, firsts of all sorts, events that moms are usually the first person called. Each one of these events is a reminder that our mom was gone.

God is so amazing that He filled my emptiness with liveliness, as you can imagine there really hasn't been a dull or lonely moment since I became a mom myself. I have been blessed so far beyond my imagination, God me (?), a mother of FIVE? You trust me with FIVE humans? He trusted me, helped me and answered my prayers for my children. God has been faithful to me, He as seen me through extreme difficulties, life is tragic but livable when God is your strength.

Mother’s Day is a bitter-sweet event, for those of you that have your moms, love ‘em up this weekend, for those of you that have lost your moms or don’t have a good relationship with your mom, pour your love into someone else, the world is not lacking people that need to be loved.

“Help, God—the bottom has fallen out of my life! Master, hear my cry for help!
Listen hard! Open your ears! Listen to my cries for mercy.”

Psalms 130:1-2

H E A R T and S O U L

It’s hard to explain, wanting to share all that God has done in this seemingly bland life but not wanting to give others reason to worry that their life intertwined with mine might give them away. The deepest, most personal thoughts and feelings that are deep inside my heart and soul, are not just mine but they belong to others, can I tell my side of the story with out revealing someone else’s heart and soul?

Ephesians 4:32
Be kind and compassionate to one another,
forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.

The S O U L part is easy, my soul is who I really am, there is nothing to hide, nothing to fear, my soul is who I am, the part of me that God will keep after my old warn out body is gone. Whoa, the part that God will keep, why would He want to keep me? It’s hard to understand that God the Creator of everything would want to keep my soul. All that I am makes up my soul, the good bad and the ugly. But through acceptance of Jesus Christ, God’s gift to me, my soul has been turned pure white. Yes, the good that’s easy, the bad not as easy, the ugly, God took from me the day I turned my soul over to Him. With out Christ my soul would be nothing but a dirty disaster all mangled and twisted because of my own sin. So when I speak of my “heart and S O U L” I speak of the pure white part of me that will eventually live eternally with God.

Deuteronomy 4:29
But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your
H E A R T and with all your S O U L.

My heart according to the Bible is where my treasures are: Is my heart the keeper of my treasures?

Matthew 6:21
For where your treasure is, there your H E A R T will be also.

So what then do I treasure? Joy, pain, sorrow, happiness, loneliness, overwhelmingness, fear, excitement, unexplainable love, peace....are these my treasures. These are the things I feel in my heart. Some think that treasures are cars, homes, name brand clothes, extravagant vacations...you get the point. I am happy to say these are not treasures to me none of these things excite me and stir my H E A R T like joy, pain, sorrow, happiness, ect... So with the exception of loneliness all of my treasures involve relationships with someone human or super human and technically loneliness does involve a human or super human relationship, the lack of someone is loneliness.

So if my S O U L belongs to God, and my H E A R T is moved my people, do they even belong to me? Hmmm....wow, this is really a confusing question.

My H E A R T is moved by people. I see people differently than I use to, in the past I saw people for who and what they were at that moment. Today when I meet someone, I want to hear their story, I want to make a connection with them, I want to know them, why they do what they do, where did they come from, how did they grow up, what makes them who they are today. As I have said many times to younger women that I know, we all have a story, one that is orchestrated by the Creator of the universe. I find myself looking at people in light of what part of their story should they be sharing and what part are they living right now. Yet, I have not developed my story, not in a way that it can be shared coherently or in a way that it can be an encouragement to someone else.

What is my story? My life has been a series of events that have led me right to the feet of God. I have been the recipient of many answered prayers. Here are a couple of topics I think I could develop into a story: life, death, illness, healing, loss, gain, God’s protection for my family, troubles of all sorts, joy in sadness, receiving messages from God, not in a creepy way but in a real way, like the rainbow God placed in the sky for me, as He promised me that life was going to be ok, then it was better than ok. Healing of a broken heart, not just healing but then the replacement of things much better. Motherhood: sick babies, babies who had open heart surgery at 11 months old, doctors saying there was a chance she could die on the operating table, two babies at one time, surprise babies, growing babies to adulthood, boy babies and girl babies, preemie babies, happy health babies, the heart ache of adolescences, adult children, the joy of seeing my children grow in their walk with their Creator. Marriage: the good bad and the ugly, enough said. Finances: the Lord gives and the Lord takes. Church: the joy and sorrow of living in a community of sinners saved by grace. Ministry: the joy of spending time with high school students, what a gift God has given me in this area of my life. Career: the regrets, the gift of my job now. Extended family: differences, sorrow, choices made that have affected me. Ending of lives that seemed unfair, my mom, my niece, a cousin. This plus more makes my life a living testimony of where I’ve been, where I am going and the ability to have J O Y in the midst of anguish.

James 1:2
Consider it pure J O Y, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.

This is a partial list of areas in my life I could share with someone. In every single area of my life I have been blessed, but five years ago I may not have recognized the blessings, today my heart is overflowing and ready to explode with the JOY of answered prayer and the gifts in my life that I would have never even asked God for but He thought enough of me, to give me: a life full of goodness sprinkled with enough discomfort to keep me in HIS presences.

God is real. He’s here. He hears. He comforts. He moves.
He uses us to be a vital part of His plan.

Where do I start?

"We will overcome by the blood of the Lamb
and the words of our testimony,
everyone overcome"
Desperation Band

Snow Miracle

My sometimes cold, broken, melting HEART

resting on the Solid Rock.

Walking on water, turning water into wine, and talking donkeys, the list goes on and on and on, but do we ever see 21-century miracles or do we just read about miracles in the Bible? Being aware that God still does perform miracles is a difficult concept to explain, is it just a coincidence or it was a fluke? No, really it’s a miracle, a sign from God.

On Thursday February 18, this is really where the “Snow Miracle” begins. My sons needed to clean out the snow boarding equipment that had been left in the car from the night before so A.J came out to help put the SNOW boarding equipment away and discovered that a rock in our yard had melting SNOW on it, the SNOW melted in a HEART shape, he was so excited to show me this, so I took a picture. Interestingly enough miracles that are written about in the Bible do not have pictures as proof of their existence, we do. A cold hard rock that has been in the same place for many years, outside of our house where it is past by numerous times in a day by the many people that come in and out of our home. Frankly, I only ever noticed the rock there because I hid a house key under it for my daughter one time. The snow melted on top of the rock literally in a perfect heart shape except for a little line that had melted quicker that made the heart look like it had a little crack in it. The SNOW ROCK could be thought of as a fun little coincidence, but was it? I think not, I thought it may be more significant than a cute picture and it was confirmed by today’s SNOW day that God was giving me the encouragement that I was going to need for the two days I had ahead of me.

“Move”-ing ahead 24 hours; I was preparing to leave for a winter experience with the Middle school and High school students from my church. The title for the weekend was MOVE. Close to 400 teenagers, all piled on to school busses and made their way north. Do you know how many different circumstances these kids are coming from? Not one of these students has the same life story; their stories are incredible to think about. How much life experience can a 12-18 year old have, you wonder? Well as I have said before, our student ministry represents real life: broken homes, family problems, drugs, sex, eating disorders, self mutalation, loneliness, longing to be accepted and suicide it’s a long list of brokenness that comes with the HEART of a student. So here I am in the mist of students some that I know, some I don’t know and some that have really seeped into my HEART.

It’s a mystery how a high school retreat will go; expectations are always there but rarely are they ever as intense as God has planned. My HEART is overwhelmed with joy when I see students praising God, talking about spiritual issues, trying to figure out what is right and wrong through God’s eyes, and committing to be a part of God’s plan, planning "to be used not replaced". Then here I am, a Christian for 30 plus years, touched by the lives of these teenagers. Feeling extremely inadequate to be used as a part of God’s ultimate plan when sure enough, I am reminded by “SNOW” that I was right where God wanted me to be. Although the experience of this past weekend did not go how I expected it to, God has placed an understanding of the greater picture in front of me. Then HE confirmed it today by giving me a SNOW DAY from work. I had the whole week off last week, went to the retreat, and was filled with so many different emotions and thoughts my HEART ached, so as a gift to me God sent the SNOW so that I could have a day of rest, reflection, prayer and worship. I am reminded today that God loves me and wants me to be a part of His plan just as I tell the beautiful young women I am privileged to lead at church.

Human HEARTS that appear hard and cold, are really just like rocks covered with snow. God melts our heart into the shape that He wants it to be. How? By placing us in the lives of people that we can love and gives us those that love us. Shaping our hearts involves some pain on occasion (like heat that melts snow) even the little crack in the SNOW HEART was a significant part of this weekend for me. Ultimately God will shape our hearts, if we allow Him to.

HEART shaped SNOW on a ROCK, SNOW camp and a SNOW DAY off of work to reflect on God's love! Oh how He loves me!!! I didn’t even mention that my husband and three of my five children were at SNOW camp. Too much love from God makes me need a day off to fill bottles up with tears. You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book. Psalms 56:8 I feel so much better, the ache in my heart for these teens is fading a little, but only until I see them again.

"flash flood of God's joy poured on to me"

Last Sunday morning as I sat in the 10:00 service hearing the message on “ Reclaiming Joy”, I could hardly wait to share the joy God laid on me the night before.
For 21 years I have been praying that my five children would grow to love the Lord with all their heart, soul and mind. I’ve always wanted them to make Jesus their Jesus, not just a Sunday morning tradition.As life goes, our family has had its share of troubles, unexpected death, on going illness’, job loss, financial problems, and this is just a portion of the list. Life has been full of sad and depressing situations. But through them all I’ve always felt God’s presences and I knew He would never leave me, although many times it felt as if He had.
Last Saturday evening my husband and I along with one of our three daughters returned home from the HS WV mission trip. After sharing stories with our two sons and 2nd of three daughters I sat down to check email. As I did my daughter asked me to read her blog from a few days prior. And this is where the , “flash flood of God’s joy poured on to me.”

Below is a portion of our 19 year old daughter’s blog.

July 28, 2009

Unfailing God. Yew.. where to begin.. Okay so God + I time tonight was so needed, wow it is so crazy how God shows up the way he does! Setting the stage for my awesome God time; I am home alone for the week while my parents and twin serve in a devastatingly poverty stricken small town in West Virginia. My older sister is in South Africa for three weeks serving God there and my older, younger brother is also serving, in a predominantly Muslim community, I know it will be life-changing for him. Okay, so there you have it.. I am home with my youngest brother, whom I love and adore. …. There you go, that's the background for MUCH needed God and me time ..

more than a date with Jesus..…

but a true “encountering” of my God!

Her blog continued to express her love for Christ and His power to answer prayer. But for me, as I was reading her blog it dawned on me that God has answered my biggest most often prayed prayer. All five of my children love the Lord and are serving Him independently. In one week six out of seven family members were showing Christ’s love in four different communities of people across the world and the seventh family member radiates God’s love daily in his unusual love for people. Satan set up many doubts in our minds regarding the coordination of these mission opportunities, but God again prevailed and we are truly blessed to be a part of His plan. This is just a small portion of my story regarding “Reclaiming Joy“. I use to call it “unexplained” joy, but I know that the Joy I have comes directly from the creator of Joy, Himself.