Thankful..............

November is the month of Thankfulness.
Thanksgiving Day is the day we focus on being thankful. I’ve noticed several people I know have “taken the thankfulness challenge” and have been posting something every day that they are thankful for. It’s been encouraging to see them taking the time to develop the vision for them to notice, and note said things.

My thankfulness encompasses much this year, but it isn’t really a list of things, it is for one thing in particular.

It is for a new perspective. Yes, I’m thankful that God has changed me. I have a new perspective. My eyes are seeing things I never saw before, my ears hear things that I never heard before. AND I can honestly say that the method and means by which he allowed this to come to pass was not of my choice or choosing, but it was by His design that it came and I was changed.

2009 was the year that will live in infamy in our family. Not for the bad or hard things that happened but for the good and wonderful things those bad and hard things brought about.

-Helplessness at realizing you don’t really have control—you just told yourself you did.

-Sorrow at the realization that you not only have failed God, but that you have failed others too.

-Embarrassment at people seeing maybe you weren’t what you thought, they thought, you were. (are you following me?)

-Brokenness at realizing that no matter how hard you try you will never measure up to God’s standards—that is why Jesus came.

I’ve never felt as helpless, sad, embarrassed, and broken as I have this past year.

And that is O.K.—good actually.

For out of the helplessness came a dependency on God that had never been there before. I actually find it easier to allow horrible news to come, realizing now that I have no control over the outcome, I just need to stay close to my Lord, hide in Him and let Him battle for me.

Out of the sorrow came a joy over the things that really do matter, not what you thought mattered. There is a shock at taking stock; of getting a different answer when you add things up. Realizing what really matters results in a different outcome. It’s a relief really, letting things go that were once important, and suddenly you can’t remember why.

Embarrassment brought a new level of humility. There is shame in exposure of our lives, our true and real sorrows. We try so hard to hide them. But there is freedom in failure too. Being brought to zero allows one to start over again, reevaluate, and hopefully not make those same mistakes again.

Brokenness yielded the true realization that God loves me for who I am, not who I think I am, or am trying to be, but for who I am—because THAT is who Jesus died for—me. There is nothing I can ever do to EARN God’s love, favor, or approval; nothing. Read it again. Nothing. Jesus has already done that. He has God’s love, favor and approval for what He did—for us. If we are IN Christ we are there, right along with Him, receiving God’s love, favor and approval. Think about it. What do you do with that knowledge?

I can say that I am truly thankful for this past year of so much being stripped away, so much truth being brought to the surface. Fire refines, growth happens in the valleys, sometimes you’ve got to tear things down to start again; great analogies but the truth none the less. We forget when we hear those analogies, however, that fire hurts, burns, and can even destroy—but leaves behind the valuable. Valley’s can be boggy, dark, wet, and frightening places. But all the growth, the fruit, is usually found there isn’t it. Demolition is messy, sometimes even dangerous, but it clears away the weak, decayed, rotten, and makes way for the new stronger, sounder sturcture.

Yes, I’m thankful; thankful for God who doesn’t give up on me.
I’m thankful for God, who when I tell Him I want to be more like HE wants me to be, starts working on my right away.

I am thankful that I was the thief who was forgiven much, and was reminded not to go out and beat someone who owes me little.

I am thankful that I am the woman caught in adultery that Christ forgave, and reminded to go and sin no more.

I am thankful that I am the lost lamb that Jesus left the 99 and 9 for to hunt me down and bring me back to the fold.

Yes! I am thankful………….

In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. I Thess. 5:18

My entertainment

There is no end to the entertainment at my house these days............




BECAUSE...................





(it says "I do all my own stunts")

Music from a tree

I was raised to appreciate all music.
Like most people there is some I like more than others, but my appreciation for the people that create it and perform it is endless.
THIS however is beyond anything I have or could ever imagine. However as I watched, I realized that this could very well be an example of how music first began.

Diego Stocco - Music From A Tree from Diego Stocco on Vimeo.

"The heavens declare the glory of God and the earth proclaims His handiwork!"
PS 19:1
"I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."
Luke 19:40
Not an unheard of concept after hearing this.

"I don't know....."

This past year has brought me to the end of myself in many ways.

I’m looking for some new beginnings, and am praying to get whatever God may have in store for me off to the right start.

You see, one of the things that I believe is that there is a lesson God wants us to learn in every situation and circumstance. As my sister said when she was going through cancer: “Let me get whatever your wanting me to get this time Lord, I don’t want to ever have to go through this again!”

I thought perhaps a list might be in order to help me collect my thoughts about who I am, what I believe, where I stand on certain issues (irrefutable issues i.e. God DOES exist, etc. etc.) (can you put the existence of God in with the etc.’s?!) I won’t list them all here. (collective whew!)

As I explained to someone, “I’ve never heard myself say ‘I don’t know?’ so much in so many situations and circumstances as I have in the past year. My ‘don’t know’s’ far and away exceed my ‘knows’.

I realized something the other day that was somewhat of a light bulb which served to expose the empty space that is now “I don’t know.”

I was standing in a group of friends the other day, and everyone was talking, and reminiscing about raising their children. As I listened to them drop pearls of wisdom on childrearing and upbringing of kids; pearls that I too had espoused to as I raised two kids, I realized that even though I had myself thought those very statements to be true and foolproof, I could no longer state them as a fail safe formula for raising kids.

Those in the crowd commented to my sister after I left that “Andrea was really quiet.” I found myself listening to conversations that I had been raised around and taken part in all my life, that now with the frame of reference I have, I see totally different.

I feel like those war veterans who have been in the thick of battle, and come home to a culture and environment that is completely unaware of what they have been through and how it has affected them; life has continued as normal for these folks, while your acclimating back into what is now, a somewhat unfamiliar environment. I spoke with a friend of mine the other day who is on the other side of a rather messy divorce, and she understood exactly what I meant.

Some would say my confidence is simply shaken, others would say the tried and true are still the best, but let me tell you—I don’t know. I no longer ‘know’ A LOT of things. Listening made me feel bad about myself. Why wasn’t I able to get the same results they did using the same methods? Because as I heard a father of eight children say once, “there are as many different ways to raise children as there are children.”

-Looking back, and mind you hind sight is ALWAYS 20/20, I felt bad about the fact that I wasn’t strong enough long ago to go with my instincts many times and raise my kids the way my heart told me to instead of the way everyone else told me to. For example: I no longer believe that you must “buck up” when life is hard. Sometimes it is o.k. to go to bed and eat a quart of ice cream, and sometimes it is o.k. to come home with your tail between your legs licking your wounds. Because sometimes it is necessary to take time to heal and regroup, so you’re stronger to go back into the battle.

-I have experienced that as much as you might think you know what you would do in a certain situation, when it happens, what you wind up doing may surprise you—and be the best thing after all.

-I will never again say to someone “I know how you feel”; because I don’t. Until you have walked in someone else’s shoes, you can’t even begin to imagine how they feel. And because of that, I can’t possibly begin to give anyone advice or suggestions as to how their situation should be handled and I certainly am in no position to criticize.

-Even as adults we never grow out of needing other people to come along side us and just love us, and offer a helping hand, and not say a word.

-Sometimes in the Christian community our expectations of others often mirror society and its expectations of us more than we realize. And that sometimes the Christian community can inflict wounds that hurt far worse than the worlds.

-I would rather laugh than cry, a really good laugh that massages the insides and leaves you breathless, and stops you in your tracks. I am making it a point to look for more of those all the time.

Because of some of these things and many others that I’ve experienced firsthand, I find myself moving very slowly these days. I feel like I’m starting all over in so many areas of my life that if I hurry like I did when I was 25, I’ll mess it up, or miss it altogether.

Perhaps that is why I have slowed down. I know when I am sick, sick enough to wind up in bed with a fever and sick as a dog, things being done around the house or in the office, or out in the yard, or at church, or anywhere else for that matter—simply don’t matter; and they are always there when I feel better. They wait for you.

You may be reading this and thinking, “I can’t believe she didn’t know that?” But let me say, there is a vast difference in “knowing” (or thinking you know) something, and experiencing it firsthand. Now when I hear the phrase, “There but for the Grace of God go I”, I feel it in my gut.

I still don’t know so many things, and I’m pretty sure that I never will know as much as I should, so the best thing I am learning is that when I don’t know, and I’m at the end of myself I do remember that God loves me. THAT I do know!

Artwork by Mike at One at a Time Products

The Rainbow

I don’t usually write about my husband on my blog.
Rog is a quiet person, and loathes attention of any kind, much less being “featured” on one of my blogs. However, he shared this story in Sunday school yesterday (a public forum, so to speak) so I am sharing it too.

We are reading the book Crazy Love in our Sunday school class, Rog is the “facilitator” (we don’t use the word teacher :)) and he shared a praise at the beginning of class when we share our prayer requests and praises.

The past few weeks the guys have been pouring A LOT of concrete. It can be a stressful thing, especially when you take into account weather complications.

The basement they have currently been working on has presented some problems and as Rog said himself, “I have been finding in the past weeks that I need to trust God more.”

As they prepared for the pour on Fri. morning, there was a 60% chance of showers. Now in some parts of the world, 60% isn’t a lot, however for Kansas in Aug. when they say 60% you sit up and pay attention. He did.

He prayed about it, and asked God to show him what to do perhaps a sign that he was with him in this decision. He went ahead and scheduled the pour for early in the morning. The trucks full of concrete arrived as the sun was coming up, and they poured the floor without incident. The clouds were around, and yes it looked like rain in the distance, it even sprinkled a little bit after they were done.

Roger shared that as he stood in the sprinkles he was aware that they had done the pour without rain, but had he really heard from God, or was he going on his own instincts. Did God really show him………..

At that moment as they dug out the cold drinks for a break, the sun came fully up over the eastern horizon, and in the west a perfect full rainbow appeared. One of the most perfect and fully formed rainbows that either of us could ever remember seeing.

He said that at that moment he knew that rainbow was his.

I have no doubt of it either, and as we looked at each other with tears in our eyes we both knew that God in his faithfulness had answered Rogers prayer.

(picture credit John Wise.com)