There is a very powerful blog called "Bring the Rain." It's written by Angie, the wife of a member of the Christian band "Selah." Their family has been through so much, including the loss of their daughter on the day she was born. The blog address is her name, Audrey Caroline.
Bring the Rain blog
The blog is about her dealing with her grief and handling every-day life as a Christian wife, mother and friend but most importantly, it chronicles her walk with the Lord and is so honest and powerful. It always inspires me.
Her most recent post (called "BLINK") speaks, in a roundabout way, of the idea of small sacrifices. It's the moment-to-moment reality of our faith that matters. It's embracing this very moment and not stewing over past mistakes or worrying about tomorrow--it's living in the NOW. Pleasing God in the now. Walking with him all day, every day.
I hope you'll check it out. If you need a good cry and/or a huge dose of inspiration, read the story about Audrey. It's one of the most moving real-life stories I have ever read, and it's still being written. This family is amazing.
The music on her blog is good, too! :)
Saturday, July 26, 2008
Drop by Drop
Here is Amy's response to my ideas about small sacrifices. I think it's worth a read! :)
"The truth of the matter is that most of our life is about sacrificing the small things. Drops of water don't seem to add up to much until you collect every one of them together and you find out that they can equal gallons of water. I'm sure God views our lives like that. He says every little, small sacrifice is noted and adds up to a whole life of sacrificial love and honor towards Himself and others.
Check out Eph. 5:21. You'll see it right there."
OK, here it is: "And be subject to one another in the fear of Christ Jesus."
Goes right along with the "It's not about me" idea, eh?
She also pointed out that this could be the reason behind why I felt the Lord telling me to step away from teaching the twos class every Sunday. He was ushering me into a new season. And probably helping me dodge the burnout bullet, too. It's funny how we can't see what's coming sometimes--but I'm glad I listened, even without knowing the "why."
She concluded with, "Drop by drop, your faithful life will add up to gallons of blessings, both to God and others."
Thank you, dear Amy!!
"The truth of the matter is that most of our life is about sacrificing the small things. Drops of water don't seem to add up to much until you collect every one of them together and you find out that they can equal gallons of water. I'm sure God views our lives like that. He says every little, small sacrifice is noted and adds up to a whole life of sacrificial love and honor towards Himself and others.
Check out Eph. 5:21. You'll see it right there."
OK, here it is: "And be subject to one another in the fear of Christ Jesus."
Goes right along with the "It's not about me" idea, eh?
She also pointed out that this could be the reason behind why I felt the Lord telling me to step away from teaching the twos class every Sunday. He was ushering me into a new season. And probably helping me dodge the burnout bullet, too. It's funny how we can't see what's coming sometimes--but I'm glad I listened, even without knowing the "why."
She concluded with, "Drop by drop, your faithful life will add up to gallons of blessings, both to God and others."
Thank you, dear Amy!!
Friday, July 18, 2008
Living Sacrifice
My discipleship partner, Amy, said the other day, "Read yesterday's My Daily Bread." No big surprise that when I picked it up, it spoke perfectly to the situation I was dealing with. I love it when God does that.
Romans 12:1 "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."
That's always sounded super-dramatic to me. A living sacrifice, WOW. Like Abraham putting Isaac on the alter, ready to be obedient, even if it meant killing his own son! A human sacrifice. Me, on the alter, willing to die for Christ.
But, oh, must it be so dramatic?? What if God is asking me to be obedient to sacrifice myself in small ways? My comfort, my time?
Just before I read the passage in The Daily Bread, my husband and I were talking about our home group. It has gotten to be more of a burden than a joy. Neither of us, aside from seeing our friends, look much forward to it. We feel like it would run a lot more smoothly, however, without the distraction of children being under-foot. It's hard to follow the conversation, let alone contribute meaningfully, when I'm constantly getting up to police our son or see what he's gotten into or stop him from pulling the dog's tail, etc. etc. I bet the other moms feel the same way. Possibly more about my kid than theirs, but I digress.
What to do, what to do?? I asked my husband to remind me of the point of home groups...??? ...and why we need to be doing them...?? He convinced me. *Insert smug smirk here* He's not an elder for nothin'.
"What if you watch the kids, Babe?" he asks me.
Oooooh, great idea. Cuz I just can't get enough of it, raising our son and helping my friend with her toddler daughter during the week. Yeah, I don't want to show up and be able to contribute and learn and talk without distraction, I want to keep the kids quiet and corralled in the kitchen for an hour. That sounds like a blast.
I finally told my husband, "Oh, FINE. I'm so tired of missing most of it to police our kid, besides being totally distracted by the other kids the whole time--I'll watch them! I'll do anything to avoid struggling through another group!"
Attitude check.
I read "The Daily Bread." A living sacrifice, eh?
Maybe God wants this itty-bitty little sacrifice from me. One hour a week. To spend with beautiful, sweet, lovable children. Hmm. That's not so bad. Considering all that Christ has done for me and all. Certainly, watching kids once/week is a perfectly reasonable service.
It's not very dramatic, but I felt like God was asking me to do it. Maybe the big ones are easier, in a way. This little one seems almost too little. They are much easier to brush off. Yet God wants me to be obedient. And I want to be holy and acceptable to God.
So, yes, home groups are important. I want my church friends to get as much out of it as they can. So I will be watching the kids.
My reasonable service.
Being obedient in the seemingly small things is probably a pretty big deal to God. The bottom line is, if He's asking me, the answer better be YES! I hope that, with this small thing, God will eventually entrust me with more.
Romans 12:1 "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service."
That's always sounded super-dramatic to me. A living sacrifice, WOW. Like Abraham putting Isaac on the alter, ready to be obedient, even if it meant killing his own son! A human sacrifice. Me, on the alter, willing to die for Christ.
But, oh, must it be so dramatic?? What if God is asking me to be obedient to sacrifice myself in small ways? My comfort, my time?
Just before I read the passage in The Daily Bread, my husband and I were talking about our home group. It has gotten to be more of a burden than a joy. Neither of us, aside from seeing our friends, look much forward to it. We feel like it would run a lot more smoothly, however, without the distraction of children being under-foot. It's hard to follow the conversation, let alone contribute meaningfully, when I'm constantly getting up to police our son or see what he's gotten into or stop him from pulling the dog's tail, etc. etc. I bet the other moms feel the same way. Possibly more about my kid than theirs, but I digress.
What to do, what to do?? I asked my husband to remind me of the point of home groups...??? ...and why we need to be doing them...?? He convinced me. *Insert smug smirk here* He's not an elder for nothin'.
"What if you watch the kids, Babe?" he asks me.
Oooooh, great idea. Cuz I just can't get enough of it, raising our son and helping my friend with her toddler daughter during the week. Yeah, I don't want to show up and be able to contribute and learn and talk without distraction, I want to keep the kids quiet and corralled in the kitchen for an hour. That sounds like a blast.
I finally told my husband, "Oh, FINE. I'm so tired of missing most of it to police our kid, besides being totally distracted by the other kids the whole time--I'll watch them! I'll do anything to avoid struggling through another group!"
Attitude check.
I read "The Daily Bread." A living sacrifice, eh?
Maybe God wants this itty-bitty little sacrifice from me. One hour a week. To spend with beautiful, sweet, lovable children. Hmm. That's not so bad. Considering all that Christ has done for me and all. Certainly, watching kids once/week is a perfectly reasonable service.
It's not very dramatic, but I felt like God was asking me to do it. Maybe the big ones are easier, in a way. This little one seems almost too little. They are much easier to brush off. Yet God wants me to be obedient. And I want to be holy and acceptable to God.
So, yes, home groups are important. I want my church friends to get as much out of it as they can. So I will be watching the kids.
My reasonable service.
Being obedient in the seemingly small things is probably a pretty big deal to God. The bottom line is, if He's asking me, the answer better be YES! I hope that, with this small thing, God will eventually entrust me with more.
Thursday, July 17, 2008
GRACE
Does God ever give you a theme?
A word or phrase that He wants you to think about and meditate on?
It starts showing up everywhere--in your daily devotions, on the radio, in Scripture, in conversations, emblazed on a card you receive in the mail from a friend who says, "I just thought you needed this." It may even come up in your life's trials and challenges.
You know God is trying to get your attention. He is trying to teach you something. It's important so you better be listening and paying attention. Chances are, if you fight it, dismiss it or you don't "get it" the first time and try to move on, He'll just bring it up again down the road.
Well, my theme right now is GRACE. I'm tuned in. I really want to "get it."
I only started cluing in about a month ago, when I began a discipleship relationship with my dear friend and sister in Christ, Amy. She started out having me read about my identity in Christ and about salvation and righteousness. Of course the emphasis of many of the related scriptures are about GRACE. At first, I thought, "Gosh, we're spending a lot of time on this." But I trusted her to lead me. We talked more and more about GRACE. Then I started realizing that, yes, I understand grace and I "get" the concept of how grace plays into my salvation and my walk with the Lord...but it was a head knowledge, not a heart knowledge. I hadn't yet fully embraced grace. I wasn't living in it.
It started sinking in more and more, the more I read and studied. "God wants me to think about grace. It's my theme." It has probably come up many times during my life but since I never "got it," He was bringing it up again.
Here's how God works. Not even a month before, I needed to choose a book for our mom's group to study. I looked at my book case and saw one I'd partially completed over ten years ago by Cynthia Heald. "Hm, yeah, it was pretty good," I thought, but I knew she'd authored several more in the same series so I looked her up on Amazon to choose one. Eventually, I settled on the first one I'd picked up, "Becoming a Woman of Grace." A couple weeks into discipleship, when I was working through the first chapter of the book, I cracked up when I realzed the connecttion. I called to tell Amy. She wasn't surprised. I hadn't had a clue when I chose that book, of how God was strategically weaving the GRACE theme into my life.
Then just last week, I went to the Women of Faith web site to check the dates for the upcoming conference here in the Phoenix area. Our church's women's ministry is going in lieu of our annual retreat. The theme this year? "Infinite Grace." I e-mailed Amy to have her take a look and she was equally ecstatic. But not surprised. I believe God will have a lot to tell me during that conference. It's still four months away so I know the grace theme will continue at least that long!
My husband knows about my grace theme. I was telling him about the conference and how excited Amy and I are. He was impressed (but not surprised). I said, "Isn't it cool how the grace theme keeps coming up??" And he said, "Oh, yeah. And even your blog address is 'Finding Myself in Graceville.'" EUREKA!!! I hadn't even thought of that, because while that is my original blog's address, the name has changed.
I named that blog over ten months ago. That's when this whole grace theme must have started. Man, I'm slow. My mentor says that I just wasn't ready until now. Thankfully, God says we can redeem the time. But when I decided on that name...Finding Myself in Graceville...I was definitely thinking about how I'm on this journey of trying to figure out how grace fits into my life.
I want to live in a place of grace. I want to find myself, yes, but I don't want to de-fine myself by how the world sees me or by who I think I should be, but by how God sees me. Who does HE say I am? Who did HE create me to be? How does HE want me to live?
So ten months ago, it started. Then I innocently chose a book for a Bible study. Then I hit a crisis point and said, "HELP! I need to get my spiritual life back on track!" Amy answered the call.
She knew what I needed.
God knows.
I need to embrace grace.
Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."
He is workin' baby. Stay tuned.
A word or phrase that He wants you to think about and meditate on?
It starts showing up everywhere--in your daily devotions, on the radio, in Scripture, in conversations, emblazed on a card you receive in the mail from a friend who says, "I just thought you needed this." It may even come up in your life's trials and challenges.
You know God is trying to get your attention. He is trying to teach you something. It's important so you better be listening and paying attention. Chances are, if you fight it, dismiss it or you don't "get it" the first time and try to move on, He'll just bring it up again down the road.
Well, my theme right now is GRACE. I'm tuned in. I really want to "get it."
I only started cluing in about a month ago, when I began a discipleship relationship with my dear friend and sister in Christ, Amy. She started out having me read about my identity in Christ and about salvation and righteousness. Of course the emphasis of many of the related scriptures are about GRACE. At first, I thought, "Gosh, we're spending a lot of time on this." But I trusted her to lead me. We talked more and more about GRACE. Then I started realizing that, yes, I understand grace and I "get" the concept of how grace plays into my salvation and my walk with the Lord...but it was a head knowledge, not a heart knowledge. I hadn't yet fully embraced grace. I wasn't living in it.
It started sinking in more and more, the more I read and studied. "God wants me to think about grace. It's my theme." It has probably come up many times during my life but since I never "got it," He was bringing it up again.
Here's how God works. Not even a month before, I needed to choose a book for our mom's group to study. I looked at my book case and saw one I'd partially completed over ten years ago by Cynthia Heald. "Hm, yeah, it was pretty good," I thought, but I knew she'd authored several more in the same series so I looked her up on Amazon to choose one. Eventually, I settled on the first one I'd picked up, "Becoming a Woman of Grace." A couple weeks into discipleship, when I was working through the first chapter of the book, I cracked up when I realzed the connecttion. I called to tell Amy. She wasn't surprised. I hadn't had a clue when I chose that book, of how God was strategically weaving the GRACE theme into my life.
Then just last week, I went to the Women of Faith web site to check the dates for the upcoming conference here in the Phoenix area. Our church's women's ministry is going in lieu of our annual retreat. The theme this year? "Infinite Grace." I e-mailed Amy to have her take a look and she was equally ecstatic. But not surprised. I believe God will have a lot to tell me during that conference. It's still four months away so I know the grace theme will continue at least that long!
My husband knows about my grace theme. I was telling him about the conference and how excited Amy and I are. He was impressed (but not surprised). I said, "Isn't it cool how the grace theme keeps coming up??" And he said, "Oh, yeah. And even your blog address is 'Finding Myself in Graceville.'" EUREKA!!! I hadn't even thought of that, because while that is my original blog's address, the name has changed.
I named that blog over ten months ago. That's when this whole grace theme must have started. Man, I'm slow. My mentor says that I just wasn't ready until now. Thankfully, God says we can redeem the time. But when I decided on that name...Finding Myself in Graceville...I was definitely thinking about how I'm on this journey of trying to figure out how grace fits into my life.
I want to live in a place of grace. I want to find myself, yes, but I don't want to de-fine myself by how the world sees me or by who I think I should be, but by how God sees me. Who does HE say I am? Who did HE create me to be? How does HE want me to live?
So ten months ago, it started. Then I innocently chose a book for a Bible study. Then I hit a crisis point and said, "HELP! I need to get my spiritual life back on track!" Amy answered the call.
She knew what I needed.
God knows.
I need to embrace grace.
Romans 8:28 "And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."
He is workin' baby. Stay tuned.
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