What do you do when you want something desperately and can't have it? Do you pout? Do you sulk? Do you yell? Do you try to manipulate to get your way? Do you sink into the pits of depression, defeat and/or discouragement? Do you pray? Do you seek the truth of God's Word? Do you seek the wisdom, counsel, encouragement or constructive criticism of Christian friends?

I had a personal experience with this recently, with something I wanted so desperately that I felt like I would go crazy or die if it didn't happen. That was my first clue that something was wrong. When someone wants something that badly, my belief is that it's a desire that hasn't been put under the cross and has reached unhealthy and unbalanced proportions. So on Saturday (March 25th) I was praying and talking to God about it. At first I begged Him to just make it happen. But I also was asking Him all along to guide my prayers, my thoughts, my desires and my feelings by His Spirit.

Linnea noticed that I was crying and asked what was wrong. I told her what I was feeling. Then I asked her what she thought. And God really used her words to bring a new perspective to my mind and heart. After our conversation, I felt a profound peace, that God is in control and He is guiding our steps. When and if it's the right time for this to happen, God will unite our hearts about it. Until then, I will wait on Him and trust Him completely, as always.

I originally posted this on 3/27/06. And then a very dear friend whom I trust whole-heartedly gently recommended to me that my choice of words might not have been the best. So I pulled it off and after prayer and thought, I have revamped it and am re-posting it today, 4/7/06.

At first I thought about just pulling it and leaving it pulled, but it's important to me to write this down for myself and for anyone else who might benefit from it, in order to call attention to some things. First, I don't believe that pouting, whining, a critical spirit, negative assumptions, cynicism, sarcasm, judgment and manipulation are part of God's plan for the relationships between His children. I hold fast to the simple yet difficult concept that a huge part of my calling as my husband's wife, the mother of our children and the female half of the leadership in our home, is to speak the truth IN LOVE, and to consistently pray for God's perfect will to be accomplished in our family, relationships and individual lives.

Secondly, I believe that as we whole-heartedly seek God's will and purpose for our lives, He will help us to want the things He wants for us. More and more in my Christian walk and in my life in general, I'm seeing that human beings typically follow the paths of their desires and wants. So my prayer every day, multiple times a day, is that God will shape my wants and my desires so that they will mirror His. And I can feel the power of His Spirit changing my heart and working in my life. All glory be to His matchless name forever!

Lukewarm Faith

This disturbs me greatly. In Jesus's message about those who cast out demons and did miracles in His name, and yet were cast into the Lake of Fire, those people were obviously expecting to go to Heaven. I believe whole-heartedly that there are millions of people in the world who would call themselves believers, who have said "the sinner's prayer", who are expecting to be in Heaven for all eternity, who will be sent to the Lake of Fire because they didn't really give their lives to Christ. My heart goes out to them! I want to find any and every way I possibly can to make God's Words and His Heart known to these people who believe they are safe and yet are so very far from it. No wonder being lukewarm is worse than being a total heathen.

Feet Firmly Planted on the Road to Life

I guess the most urgent feeling I have right now is that life is short, time is slipping by, there are hundreds of people within our circle of influence that are lost and on their way to hell, or lukewarm and possibly on their way to hell. We have this one life to live and to be faithful with, and a huge part of that is sharing God's message of hope and holiness with the world around us. When we get to heaven, heavenly things will be all that matter for all the rest of eternity. I want to serve others and to reach out and be God's hands in any way that He graciously allows me to be. I don't want to waste a second of my life doing anything other than what God wants me to do.

What God wants me to do is a lot. He wants me to pursue Him, to know Him intimately, to love Him more than anything or anyone, and to fear Him as much as I love Him (which manifests itself in complete, immediate obedience in all situations). He wants be to passionately be a wife to my husband and fulfill and satisfy him as a wife in all the ways that only I can. He wants us together to raise our children so that they will grow to passionately love and serve Him from hearts that love and fear Him more than anything or anyone else. He wants me to do my job whole-heartedly, giving my employer a job well done and giving them more than their money's worth because through my diligent submission to their authority, and if they have eyes to see, they may see God's light in me and be drawn to Him through it. He wants me to be an active, engaged member of the local church He's placed us in, freely sharing my talents and gifts and passions and ideas for the purpose of edifying His family and forwarding His kingdom. He wants me to guard and protect and value the relationships He's gifted me with, because relationships have eternal value and are incredibly important to Him. He wants me to reach out to the needy and forgotten in our community. He wants me to teach these things to our children. He wants me to reach out and speak and show God's truth and love to those around me at home, work, church and in the neighborhood. He wants me to enjoy the things He's created me to enjoy, but not to the point where they become idols or take the place of the things that are even more important to Him.

A lesson in submission....

Last week, on Tuesday night, March 7th, 2006, Linnea and Megan were in an argument and Linnea got so angry she lost her temper and hit Megan. Keith and I talked to them about it, but when he declared what Linnea's punishment would be, I thought it was quite harsh. I didn't say anything to him at the time, however, because when I do confront him about things he does that I don't agree with, I do it when the kids are not within hearing distance. I firmly believe that as my husband and the father of our children, he is the head of our household. The last thing I want to do is undermine his authority in the eyes and hearts of our children.

I didn't end up saying anything to him about my feelings that night, but the next day at work I was still thinking about the situation and getting more and more frustrated and upset. So I decided to send him an e-mail with my thoughts. By the time I went to write the e-mail, I was quite angry. Let me tell you-anger gives birth to eloquence. Because when I was done typing it, I read it three times through and thought to myself, "That is one well-written e-mail." It said exactly what I wanted to say exactly the way I wanted to say it.

But the problem was, I was not speaking the truth in love. I was being mean and cutting and harsh, with my main objective being to make him feel bad so he'd change his mind. Just as I was about to hit "send", I felt the conviction of the Holy Spirit that what I was about to do was sin. Yes, as Keith's wife and the mother of our children, part of my job is to tell him how I feel and how I see certain things, but it should never be through manipulation or an effort to control. Whatever I say to him should be spoken (or written) in love, and said with respect and honor, and backed up with lots of prayer. Because Keith is the ultimate human authority in our home, he will answer to God for any misuse of that authority. But if I rebel against Keith (unless he is telling me to do something that goes directly against God's Word), I am not only rebelling against Keith, I'm rebelling against God Himself, and I will answer to Him for that.

I've been learning a lot about obedience the last few years of my life, so when I felt the prompting of the Spirit, I immediately went to delete the e-mail. But, of course, the program gave me the option of saving it as a draft. I can't tell you how much I wanted to do that, to save the e-mail as a monument to my own anger-birthed writing skill and what I believed to be the unfairness of my husband. But because I truly wanted to be obedient to my Lord, Who I know always tells me to do things because they are what's best for me, I hit delete the final time. And the second I hit delete, God's peace flooded my spirit and washed away all the anger and frustration I had been feeling. I committed the entire situation into God's hands with complete surrender, and I've hardly given it another thought since then, except to praise the Lord for His constant and personal presence in my life.

On Sunday, March 5th, my daughter Linnea was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes and crying. She wasn't sobbing, but she had tears in her eyes. I asked her what was wrong and after a long wait she said she didn't know how to put it into words. I told her I was going to stand there and so was she until she told me what was going on, and finally she told me something like, "I know how hard you and Daddy are trying to teach me and Megan how to be good people. But God has been speaking to my heart, and I know the only way I'm really going to change is if I get to spend time alone with Him. Because He and I working together is the only way I'll really change. But I feel like I can't ever spend time alone with Him because someone always needs me. There's always something that needs to be done."

I really felt a sense of urgency, that this is a God-birthed need in her that should not be ignored. So I asked her what she thought of the idea of staying home from school one day. With Megan at school, Keith and I at work, and Rebecca and Stephen at daycare, she would have the house to herself for 5-6 hours. She shook her head and said it wouldn't work because with nobody home to keep her accountable, she'd be too tempted to watch movies or T.V. or play video games. So I told her I'd be willing to give her an hour a day, un-interrupted, alone in the bedroom she shares with Megan. She said she thought that might work out quite well.

I asked her what her plan was as far as format, and she said she was going to pray and read the Bible. She wants to read it from beginning to end. I told her that was a great idea. I firmly believe that all Christians should read the Bible all the way through as many times as they can in their lifetimes. But I also told her that being a 10-year-old, she might need some help understanding and applying some of what she was reading, so I thought a Bible study or devotional book geared towards preteen girls might be helpful. I told her I would find a time to take her to Christian supply, just her and me, and that we would look for a book together. She felt much better after we decided to do these things and was glad that I had urged her to tell me what was on her mind.

The next day, Monday, I left work at 3:30 so I could pick Linnea up and take her to Christian Supply. We prayed that God would direct our choices, and we looked through most of the devotional and Bible study books in the kids and teens sections. Finally Linnea decided on the book "Shine" by the Newsboys (or maybe it's about them). And I picked up a devotional book for girls for Megan.

On our way home, Linnea told me that her dream is to get through high school without having her purity compromised in any way (sex, alcohol, drug use, bad language, the wrong friends, etc), to marry the one man God wants her to marry, have 6 or 7 kids, and never get divorced. She's concerned that the enemy will succeed in getting her off the right track. I told her how proud I was of her, and how important it is that she consistently fill her mind with truth, because the enemy is out there and he's very good at deceiving people. But we're much less vulnerable to his attacks when our minds are filled with God's truth, our hearts are filled with His love, and we have godly friends and family in our lives to be accountable to.

Since then Linnea has had 5 of her hours alone with God. She says she can feel her heart changing, and that when she skips several days at a time, her heart gets "moldy." What an insightful comment! If water sits in one place too long without movement, it gets moldy and stagnant. When a Christian's heart sits too long without the refreshment of God's Word and presence, it gets moldy, too. And when our heart is "moldy", pretty soon our actions will reveal it.

The week before last, my husband Keith and I were talking to our 9-year-old daughter Megan about some of the choices she's been making lately. When she left the room to do something we had asked her to do, I told Keith I believe many of the behaviors we're seeing in our children are outward symptoms of heart conditions that only God (working together with the kids themselves) can really change. We can teach and lecture and punish and reward all we want, but true change is going to come from our kids choosing to agree with God and pursue Him. I told him my belief is that prayer should always be a vital part of any discussion we have with our children, and he said, "You're absolutely right." (Or something to that effect...)

So when Meg came back into the room, we talked a little while longer, and then we prayed together. It was a powerful prayer time, and God's presence was there in a very intimate, very real way. Keith and Megan both cried, and I felt like it. (I'm ashamed to say I don't cry very often--usually only when I'm hurt, angry, frustrated or feeling sorry for myself.) It was a very emotional experience.

After she went to bed, Keith and I listened to some Christian music together for about 45 minutes. During that time, we both had the urge to hear the same exact song at the same exact moment. That might not seem like much, but when there are literally tens of thousands of songs to choose from (Keith has a 1400 plus Christian CD collection), being led to the same song at the same time is quite significant. The song was "The 4 Horsemen" by Glen Campbell. While it was playing, God's presence in the room was so powerful that my body could actually feel it.

It was so great to experience God's personal working in our lives that evening. Keith has been working really long hours lately, and it's been hard to find time to talk together about spiritual things. Or about anything else, actually. So to have this evening of spiritual, emotional and relational connection was like finding an oasis after having been in the desert for a long time.

There's so much more I want to say, but it'll have to wait for the my next post...

Welcome!

This Blog has several purposes. First and foremost, I desire to glorify my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. The second purpose is to record what God has been saying to me, what He's been doing in my life and at least some of what He has done in my life in the past. For some time, I have felt that God is calling me to write about these things so that there will be a record of His works in my life that will be able to be passed down to my children and their children. Also, His Word says that there is power in our testimony. I want to share my testimony with anyone and everyone who will listen. Finally, we are commanded to go into all the world to preach the gospel. Maybe somehow, in some small way, I will be able to do my part to fulfill that commandment through this blog.

At one time I started to try to write out everying from the beginning of my walk with the Lord forward to this time. But after trying that and failing, I've decided, with His help, to write about what He's doing now and work backwards. I hope that through the stories of my experiences, God will bring encouragement to the discouraged, truth to the deceived, love to the un-loved, hope to the hopeless, and beauty from ashes.

May His glorious name be praised forever and ever!