Slow Down Hill Slide

Over the past few weeks I have been enjoying a nasty case of bronchitis, I am coughing horribly and can't seem to catch my breath. This is extra annoying for me because normally the sickest I get is a sinus infection. I have been feeling not quite right since Christmas and last week it got to the point that a quick trip through Wal-Mart left me completely exhausted. I make a terrible sick person, I hate to rest when I have things that need to be done, so I usually don't, then I wear myself out even further! I think I am on the mends now, but as always God taught me something that I thought I should share.

In December when I started feeling bad it was just a little yuck, nothing I couldn't ignore and live with, but over the next few weeks it progressed slowly but surely; so slowly in fact that I barely noticed. I didn't just wake up last week as sick as a dog, it sneaked up on me. It was a slow decline that I didn't do much about until it got to the point that going to the doctor wasn't an option. Had I gone to the doctor early it might not have taken shots and 4 prescriptions to help just start to feel better, but I waited and let it get pretty nasty before I took it seriously.

I think that is how we are with our spiritual health too. Just a case of the spiritual sniffles, like sleeping in a couple Sundays or being selfish here or there doesn't hurt much, but it rarely stops there. It slowly progresses, soon our Bible gets dusty, next we try to just figure most things out on our own without even consulting the one who made us and planned our every day for us! Then we feel so far from God that we don't know if you can find our way back. It didn't happen all at once, but one day we wake up with a full fledge case of spiritual bronchitis and wonder how in the world we slid so far away from the God we gave our life to when we excepted His Son. Had we address the problems when it was just the sniffles the solution would have been a lot quicker and less painful. Don't get me wrong, we are never too far gone for Jesus to restore us back to right relationship, but the process can be painful if we have let things into our life that need to be removed for us to be healthy again.

I am thankful for doctors and shots and medicine even though none of those things are particularly pleasant because I am starting to feel better and get some of my energy back. I am also thankful for the Great physician who cares so much about my spiritual health that He is willing to discipline me or take what ever necessary steps to help me get well again. He knows that we feel the best and have the most energy when we are close to Him, doing what He made us to do. The devil on the other hand loves for us to let those sniffles go ignored and end up super nasty sick, because then we are miserable and ineffective. Jesus told us that "the thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:10) Don't choose anything less than a completely full life in Christ, it such a waste to spend your days coughing and out of breath when you could be getting things done and breathing easy! :-)

Aaahhaaa!!!!!!

Have you ever had one of those moments when things just kind of clicked for you and you understood a little something that never made sense before? A "aha!" moment? Well I am having an "aha!" season more so than a moment. God is opening my eyes to remember the past and how that is useful in the present.

For a couple months now I have had the privilege of delivering the children's sermon at the beginning of our worship service. I love doing it, but a couple weeks ago the sermon was going to be over Paul's thorn in his flesh; something he asked God to remove, but God left so through Paul's weakness everyone could see God's strength. As soon as I saw this scripture I knew I was not going to enjoy talking about this, because it was pretty much exactly what God had been teaching me and it was going to get personal. It is one thing to sit in front of a congregation and cluck like a turkey (You had to be there I guess haha) it is an entirely different thing to sit in front of a congregation and expose your own weakness and weep for a couple hundred people to see. Many kind people approached me after my sobbing scene and thanked me for being vulnerable and through it God was teaching me. He showed me that I had to experience the "thorns" of my childhood and teenage years to be who I am today and that I need to be who I am to reach and love and minister to the people God has put in my life. If God had made everything perfect for me then I would be in no place to relate and emphasize with "my kids"! So I am learning to be thankful for thorns.

During this "aha!" season I have also been reminded of someone who was so very instrumental in pointing me toward God and encouraging me to find who I was and live as me. I found a note from one of my very dear high school teachers; a note of encouragement she had written me during some of the hardest days of my life. I thought the world of her and considered myself to be one of "her kids"! I cried as I remembered where I came from and how I am writing notes just like that to "my kids"! I could have crossed my name out at the top and hers at the bottom and readdressed it and no one would have guessed it wasn't from me, I sound just like her. That is crazy and humbling and overwhelming to me. I can completely empathize with "my kids" who are feeling alone or overwhelmed and need extra encouragement because that was me. She was EXTREMELY important in shaping my self-worth and choices during that time and to think I have anywhere near a similar influence makes me shake my head; God is amazing and He can use anyone! I needed her to be her who God made her to be so she could show me how to be who God made me to be so I could show others how to be who God made them to be so they will hopefully show others how to be who God made them to be and on and on! WOW!

All these "aha!"'s started me thinking about Christmas and how the great star breathing God could have thought of millions of options on how to arrive to redeem us, but He chose to come as one of us. He took Himself out of glory and became a tiny helpless baby, so that He could live like we do. He knows what it is like to be cold and tired and hungry, He has experienced loneliness and betrayal and has longed to just be with His Dad. He can empathize with us. Let that sink in... the God of heaven who created all things endured earth so He could empathize with YOU AND ME!! "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. ¹⁶ Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:15-16

During the middle of my thorny times or even as I was being encouraged I never once thought, "Someday I will be thankful for this, because I know God is molding me." But that is exactly what was happening and I can now say "Aha! God I see some of what you were doing!" I am so blessed and grateful to be where I am, doing what I am doing and I wouldn't trade any of the bumps and thorns and tears it took to get here!

WARNING!!

The last couples months have been difficult for me. I have been suffering from a very painful problem... a broken heart. I shouldn't complain though since I asked for it.

In September Tommy and I went to a Youth Minister's Conference called Refuge. It was an amazing couple of days meant to focus on God and refuel and those things were accomplished, but one of the songs we sang and prayed that week changed things for me. "Hosanna" by Hillsong United is a beautiful song with great words; I had heard it and even sung along before, but that week I made the bridge my prayer:

Heal my heart and make it clean

Open up my eyes to the things unseen
Show me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart for what is yours
Everything I am for your kingdom's cause
As I walk from earth into eternity

I have always been told to be careful what I ask for... this might have been a good time to heed that warning. The weeks and now months that have followed that simple prayer have been a little overwhelming. My eyes have truly been opened to the hurts and pains and fears of the students in my life and it honestly breaks my heart. I am assuming the people around me have always had these same scars and hurts in their lives to one extent or another, I have just never been so aware of them before. If I am experiencing even a minuscule percent of the amount God's heart breaks for them and really all of us, then God is far more compassionate and concerned and parental that I have ever given Him credit for. I mean I always knew He was all those things, but to actually feel it for myself brings new light on the tremendous love God has for His children. God's heart breaks when we are lonely, afraid, confused, exhausted, conflicted, hurt, scared, needy, unloved, under-appreciated, unwanted or even just tired. Everywhere I look there are people who are experiencing loneliness and fear and a whole spectrum of less than perfect conditions.

Compassion has always been something I have heard about and have been taught and even taught to others as something we should practice in our Christian lives, but I am learning that true compassion goes further than just feel bad for some one. The word compassion, on several occasions in the bible, is the word splagchinizomai which means to be moved to the pit of your stomach with love and pity. Jesus had compassion on the crowds in Matthew 14, it hit Him in the gut how helpless and hopeless the people were. I have been hit in the stomach myself lately, sick over the hopeless, desperate condition of "my kids". Jesus not only had compassion on the crowds, He did something about it, He went on to heal their sick and then feed all of them. I think that God lets us feel that pang in order to push us to do something about the problems we see. It would be easy for me to ignore what my eyes have seen if I didn't "feel" it for myself. Having my heart broken for the things that break God's heart and learning true compassion are honestly not the most comfortable warm and fuzzy things I have ever had to learn, but I know it is making me more like Jesus not to mention forcing me to lean even harder on the loving arms of my Heavenly Father.

So, be careful what you ask for, you never know when a simple pray will keep you up at night. But even more importantly please remember that God is not just a distant creator in the sky, He is deeply in love with His children and He wants to comfort them and hold them close through everything this world throws at them. If God can "show me how to love like He loves me," that will definitely make all this worth it.

Check This Out!

http://www.studentlife.com/blog/

Abs of Steel

Over the weekend I was able to meet up with one of my "kids" who is not so much a kid anymore. She knew me when I only had 2 little girls, when I didn't have any fine line around my eyes and 4 moves ago. I haven't seen her in about a year or two mostly because of my own doing. After we our move from Central Texas to West Texas I neglected many relationships with the students that I loved, mostly because it broke my heart to not be with them anymore. The last few months I have really realized how much "not myself" I had become. There were a couple years of my life that my heart got very hard and I lost a lot of who I was. It happened so quietly that I barely even noticed, but God noticed and He strategically placed people in my life to crack open my rock of a heart and teach me to love freely once again. I think I was scared to love students and others because love is risky and I have learned that in a very real and personal way. People can hurt us, situations change and my heart has been broken, so in an effort to avoid that pain I just closed myself off and played like I was alright and pretended to do ministry, which mostly involved hanging out and having fun, but not getting too attached.

Well needless to say God didn't like my plan, enter the students of Troup, Texas. Over the past maybe 6 months I have had the great privilege of getting to know these students in a way that I cannot help but have my heart broken for them and love them no matter the cost. Only when I

began letting myself become attached to them, did I realize what had happened to my heart. God is again showing me who I am and more importantly who He is and giving me assurance that I can love freely and fearlessly because He loves me and is always enough! He also showed me that in my fear and selfishness I hurt some of my "kids" by letting them think that I didn't love them anymore. And that broke my heart, so here is evidence of the stupidity of me trying to do things my way and protect myself, it didn't save me any heart ache it just wasted precious days of my life and opportunities that I will never have again. The pleasure of being involved in people's lives and seeing God work in them far outweighs the possibility of the pain that can result. Therefore I am letting go, giving up control and letting God use me, with no regard for what might become of me.

I tell you all that to say, my day with my "kid" who is now my friend was amazing! I laughed harder and longer than I have in a very long time. My ab muscles are still feeling the effects of that day!! I pray that God will allow me days to laugh and also to cry with many more of my "kids" in the future. And that I will have abs of steel and never again a heart of steel.

UNCTION!!

For as long as I can remember I have had a morbid way of thinking, I always have a sense of loss when I leave some one's company, for fear that it may be the last time I see them. I honestly don't know if I was like this as a child, but when I was a teenager, my younger brother was diagnosed with cancer and I know I have felt this way at least that long. A few years ago it was so intense that I would break down when people I loved had to leave or when I had to go back to college or where ever. Then more recently, I would actually mourn for the loss of my husband and my girls, when they were in fact fine. I have a feeling that I have always been this way, because my 8 year old thinks the same way. This was something I really had to pray through and give to God, so I wouldn't waste the time I did have thinking about the time that I might not have.

This week Tommy and I had the privilege of joining several hundred other student pastors from all over the place in worship and a time of refueling. For those of you who know me, you know how much I love words. I love weird words, and rarely used words. Yesterday a guy was preaching to us and he used a word that I had never heard before, so of course I thought he made it up. But I have an app for that, so I pulled out my phone and checked the new word out on dictionary.com and found that he actually knew a word that I didn't, shocking haha. He was talking about Psalms 39 which says our lives are like a mere breath, our days are short and we must remember that. David wanted God to help him remember that our lives are a vapor and then we are gone. There is where my new word came in, "unction" it means, holy urgency. If we are aware that our lives are shorter than short it should motivate us to live with a sense of urgency for God. I don't want to know when I am going to die, I would rather not know when anyone is going to die, but if I did, I think it would change how I spent my time, the words I said to my girls, the amount of time I wasted, the fervency with which I would share Jesus with others, in fact it would change everything. If I knew that I had a week or a month or a year to live, an unction, a holy urgency, would quickly develop in me. I am sure this is why David wanted God to tell him the number of his days, so he wouldn't get distracted by the world and all the temptations of it, but instead would focus the remainder of his life on what God made him to do.

I guess I have always has a sense of unction, I know that life is short, and I don't take it for granted, I feel urgent about it, but my unction has been missing the holy emphasis that it needs. Instead of living as sold out for God as possible, I just focused on the loss. God wants to change my morbid thinking to unction thinking. He wants to use this vapor of a life that He gave me for eternal things, not things that will perish when I do. I get so caught up in temporary, useless concerns that I don't always use the few days of my earthly life to bring glory to God. I do not want to wait to know death is coming before I live life! Because the truth is, death is coming, the breath of my life will soon fade and that is not me being morbid again, that is just me trying to keep things in perspective. I pray that I will always keep unction in mind and that it will transform how I use my days!!

Call the Bug Man

We moved into our house about 9 months ago and from day one was have been fighting to keep these little tiny nasty "German roaches" from taking over. It might seem for weeks that they are gone, then all of a sudden I start seeing a few of them again. Our house has been sprayed by the bug man more times than I can count. Seeing them in the laundry room, or bathroom is pretty disgusting, but the even nastier thing is what happens after he comes; I find tons and tons of dead bugs everywhere, the kitchen counters, the pantry, all over the house. That means that the day before the bug man came, those same bugs were alive in those same places, hiding out of site just waiting for the lights to go out so they could make their selves at home. So NASTY! (Please don't think we are dirty gross people, because we try hard to keep things clean and sanitary, but these little pests are more than we can handle sometimes. LOL!)

This week as I was reading in Ephesians I came across a passage that reminded me of my little roaches. "For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord. Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them. For it is shameful even to mention what the disobedient do in secret. But everything exposed by the light becomes visible, for it is light that makes everything visible." (5:8-13)

All of us have things in our life that we would rather keep hidden in the dark, secrets from others, secrets from God. We all have our roaches; our sins, our anger, our unforgivness. And as long as we keep the lights off they are free to roam and live and devour whatever they want. That is good news for the roaches but very bad news for our hearts' condition. God wants so badly for us to allow him to shed light in those dark places in our hearts so that he can exterminate the bugs and replace them with the "fruit of light"; good things that honor and please him. Jesus said "I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life." (John 8:12) Jesus longs to light the way for us and he is the only one who can. Without him we will be walking in darkness and also be full of darkness. I don't know about you but after just a few cloudy days I am longing for the sunshine. We are not like the roaches who prefer darkness to light, we are made to be Jesus followers made to thrive in the Light. The concealing effects of darkness maybe lull us into thinking everything is OK, but we are only deceiving ourselves. Roaches won't go away on their own, they are persistent pests, they reproduce quickly. True peace and freedom will only come when we open our whole lives to examination by the Light and let him clean house, after which we will be able to figure out what pleases God. And sense pleasing God is what we are made for, the roach free, lighted life is the most satisfying one out there! I am calling the bug man again today to come exterminate another generation of gross insects from my house. And I am praying that I will have the bold faith to allow Jesus to continual shine into my heart and keep the roaches out of his home in me!

Top 10 Positive Reasons for Back to School

I need to blog but I don't know what about...

So how about 10 positive things about school starting next week? ( I am trying to convince myself)

10. I will know what day of the week it is.

9. Everyone will be back at church since vacations are over.

8. Pep rallies and football games; though I didn't enjoy these in my younger years they are much more fun now as an adult and bystander! :)

7. Raegan and I will have more one-0n-one time to work on her reading skills.

6. Opportunities to meet new people and share life with strangers through the girls' classrooms.

5. More time to blog and write (maybe).

4. Fall might be coming sometime in the next few months bringing cooler temperatures?!

3. Returning to a bedtime/waking up schedule.

2. Enjoying delicious(lol) lunches with my youth at school!

1. I get to share my little lights (Hadley Morgan and Caedlyn Tatum) with a dark and dying world, kind of like mini missionaries!

Honestly after the bottom five I got stumped and had to stretch for the top 5, I guess I need more convincing than I thought. It would have been way easier to write a top 10 list just about the beauty that cooler temperatures will bring, like more comfortable outside time to go for walks or jump on the trampoline, fall leaves, cooler weather meals. See that's 3 without even thinking. Anyway I digress haha.

All good things come to an end, I guess, and this summer was a great one, we enjoyed Ranger's games, 6 flags, VBS, visits to family, tons of swimming and so much more. As much as I don't want to send the girls to school next week, I am trying to make a conscience effort to make the most of every opportunity (Colossians 4:5) and let God use me and my family in this season! I want to shine like a star for Him in any and every place He puts me and as of next week that will be as a mom/student pastor's wife in the school building. I pray that I might be radiant!

WOW

I have been so busy with my summer months that this blog is looking like a ghost town!! I am sorry that I have not kept you all up to date on what God has been up to, but believe me, He has been working!! Big time!! Our Student Ministry has bloomed like nothing we could have ever expected, the students are shocking me with their changed hearts and lives on a daily basis, they are learning to rely on God, be real with each other, be upcouraging :), serve, share and love! God has also used this summer to teach me so much! On more occasions than I would like admit I have found myself stressed about circumstances or finances, pointlessly worried about how something will work out. And yet even in my doubt and fear God has worked in out for us and every time He not only provided what we needed but so much more. Here are a couple examples: I needed to take my girls to Lubbock to stay with my mom while we took the youth to camp, so I needed about a $100 extra for gas money,that may not sound like a lot, but around here anything extra is a stretch! I asked God to take care of it and instead of giving me the money he gave me free plane tickets which saved me $100 and 14 hours that week!! AMAZING!! Then like the forgetful sheep I am, I started stressing about how we were going to afford school clothes and shoes and supplies, I figured we needed about $500 for all of that, so again I asked God to take care of that need, and through a very random string of events He not only gave us what we needed, but multiplied the amount I asked for and really blessed us. Lets just say that I was even able to get new shoes and a hair cut!!

There are several other examples I could share with you to show just how much God is making provision for us. This has shown me how dependent we are on God and how good He is to provide for us when we just come to the end of what we can do and admit that without Him it is impossible. The last few weeks on Wednesday night with our students we have been in a series called "Battle Ready" looking at some of the epic, unbelievable things God did and wants to do. Last night Tommy taught the youth from Philippians 4: 12-13 "I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength." And I can really relate to what Paul is saying here. We have had times of hardship in our life and are now experiencing a time of plenty and in both situations I know that it is only because of God that we can make it through!! To Him be the glory for the lesson I have learned in every situation!! With Him I can truly do ANYTHING!!

We Are The Body Part 1-What Big Ears You Have

I have been pretty sick this week and that helped me realize how much I take being well for granted and how much I need every part of my body to be working properly for my daily life to flow smoothly. And you guessed it, this also made me think about how the Bible says we (the church) are the Body of Christ and how badly the church needs all its members working properly for it to function smoothly as well. I think this will take more than one post because there is so much to be said, so I am planning a short series entitled "We are the Body".

So here goes... We are the Body Part 1- What Big Ears You Have

This weekend I had tons of family visiting for my middle daughter's 7th birthday party as well as for her baptism. Some came and left and a few stayed for most of the weekend. I loved it, but it is always a lot of work before, during and after family visits, and to make matters worse I started feeling bad on Friday. In an effort to make the most of the time I had with my family, I didn't slow down one bit and pushed through the weekend as best I could, but by Monday night I was in so much pain I got almost no sleep. My ear was swollen shut, my head was pounding, my face and neck were swollen and I was miserable. First thing Tuesday I called the doctor for an appointment and ended up getting 2 shots and four prescriptions, not to mention the "wick" she had to shove down my ear to help the medicine get past the swelling. My ear was the main source of my misery, it was throbbing with every heart beat, so swollen that my face was numb, I couldn't move my jaw to chew and even the outer part of my ear hurt, not to mention I still cannot hear out of it. In fact my ear hurt so bad that the air from a fan blowing on it was painful! I felt like the wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood" with ear so big anyone could notice but in fact, no one could tell. Except me that is, I could sure tell, other than the pain the worst part was the inability to hear. I guess I just take hearing for granted, but when I suddenly couldn't hear it was really a problem. My girls were getting annoyed because I they had to repeat themselves several times before I understood what they were asking me, I felt uncomfortable driving, the TV had to be turned up way loud for me to hear it and I felt like I was in my own little world. I know that if my hearing never returned I would somehow learn to manage life just fine without it, but I sure would miss hearing the girls laugh, the birds sing, the bugs chirp and reading closed captioning on the TV would be a pain. :)

This is how it is in the church too. The bible is very clear that all the Christians are meant to work together to make up the Body of Christ. Each of us has a certain job and in conjunction with one another we can do the work that Jesus has left us here to do.We need everyone, the ears, the toes, the shoulders, everything for the church to function correctly. And when any one member is either not letting themselves be part of the work or is not functioning properly the whole body suffers, just like the problem with my ear effected so many other parts of my body. So many times I have heard people say, "My relationship with God is between Him and I, it is personal and I don't need anyone else to love Jesus and serve Him." But I have to disagree, there is no way that one person can carry out all the jobs of all the parts of the body alone, we need each other, and that person that is trying to live for God in solitude is denying the body, as a whole the use of the gifts they have been given to contribute. On a daily basis my ears do not get a lot of specialized attention, except for a quick scrub in the shower, but I felt incomplete when they started not working. And the church is the same way, she has many people whose jobs may go seemingly unnoticed until one day they don't get done.

"And if the ear should say, "Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body," it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body." 1 Corinthians 12:16 It is my prayer that we are all using out gifts and abilities to build up the body or Christ and encouraging those around us to do the same. I hope my church never feels as bad and incomplete as I have this week, but enjoys the smooth flow of everything part working together properly with no extra big ears or missing toes!!