Posted in Spiritual Life

The snow is piled up to the windowsills, the air is still frosty, and even though the calendar says spring is coming soon, it's hard to believe.  Seeing the metal sap buckets hanging from the maple trees near our house, however, is giving me a glimmer of hope.  Though the sap isn't running steadily yet, it won't be long until my husband is sitting in the sap shack, a fire on the hearth, the boiling pan full of maple syrup-in-the-making.

A change in season (or at least the anticipation of one in this case) always seems to put me in a relective mood.  I often think back over the previous season, and find myself looking over the events of the past year.  Lately, I've been doing a lot of this kind of reflecting.  Several defining moments have taken place since last winter, and the Lord has put my family on some unexpected paths in recent months.  At times, it feels as if we are in a holding pattern.  I find it hard to trust and wait on the Lord and on my husband.  At the same time, I am realizing that my loving Heavenly Father is trying to teach me something.  I wonder if it would be easier if I knew what it is I'm supposed to be learning.

I know He wants me to learn to be patient.  I also think He wants me to learn to be forgiving and compassionate, even when hurt.  He wants me to look to Him for strength and to lean on my husband for guidance.  And, as hard a lesson as it has been, I think He wants me to learn that others may hurt, betray, or even shun us, but He is "a friend that sticks closer than a brother".

I'm sure there are other lessons, but these seem to be the most important, and the ones I am struggling with the most right now.

I'm ready for a break in the weather, a change in the seasons.  Hoping for it won't bring it any sooner, though.  Better to sit back and let it come when it will.  And keep hoping for it anyway.

Posted in Spiritual Life

Here we are, at the start of a new year, and I have great hope for what will come.  Just within the first week of 2009, I have seen several answers to prayer.  2008 was a year of trials, changes, and blessings--2009 will be no different, I am sure.  I am so thankful that the Lord is faithful and I can trust Him.  We have no need to fear when we look to Him in faith. 

If you are facing a year of uncertainty, filled with questions and "what ifs", as I am, purpose with me to trust Him for whatever may come.  He is faithful and knows the end from the beginning.  And He blesses those who seek to honor Him. 

He is at work in me and in those closest to me.  We are seeing Him move among us in amazing ways.  We feel His hand at work in our hearts and lives.  Walking with the Lord is an exciting and thoroughly wonderful adventure.

Posted in Spiritual Life

Over the years, I have fought a long battle with fear.  Granted, at times, I have had a reason to have certain fears, and yet that does not lesson the fact that any fear is a result of a lack of trust in God.  Lack of faith is sinful.  Thus, I realize that my tendency towards fear is sin.  In spite of that, I am again fighting that familiar battle.  Tthere are so many unknowns right now: the economic situation, the coming election, the threat of terrorism.  So many reasons to fear.

As next week’s election draws nearer, I find myself growing more and more fearful.  The thought of having the few freedoms we still have in America taken away by the Marxist, socialist agenda of a man with known connections to terrorists makes me tremble.  I love my country and all that it stands for and the vision of our founding fathers, and it grieves me greatly that there is even a possibility that those who do not love or even appreciate that vision would be so close to gaining such great power.  And yet I know that God promises judgment on nations who stray from His principles.  The true greatness of America has from her beginning been her faithfulness to those principles, and yet those are the very principles that in recent years she has cast aside and turned away from.  That realization causes me to fear even more.  We deserve God's judgment.

It is often at this point in my line of thinking that I am convicted of the sinfulness of this fearfulness.  God is still on the throne, and He has promised to preserve a remnant of His people from every tribe and nation.  There is a faithful band in this country still praying and fighting for the vision of our forefathers, and I believe that number will grow in the coming years.

I do not know what may come as a result of the events of next week, but I do know that God’s providential hand is guiding it all.  Hard as it may be, I have to trust in that knowledge.  He is a faithful God, and He will do what He must to bring glory to Himself.  He will give the grace we need to face whatever comes.  When I rest in that, He also gives the peace I need to face any fear with courage.

Posted in Spiritual Life

I am not a patient person.  The hardest part of pregnancy for me is having to wait for nine months to actually get to hold that little blessing growing inside of me.  I get extremely frustrated with my dial-up internet connection.  I bring a book with me everywhere I go, a habit I began long before I had children because I couldn't stand not having anything productive to do if I ever had to wait at a stoplight or the bank drive-thru.

This particular area of my life seems to be a place the Lord has been especially at work in refining over the last couple of years.  I've had to do a lot of waiting.  My husband has had many a pep-talk with me in recent weeks, reminding that God's timing is not ours, that we need to keep our eyes on the long-term vision, that He sees the bigger picture.  It is so easy for me to forget that.  I so often find myself asking why I can't have what I want right now.  Why does the Lord continue to ask me to wait?  And then I realize again that perhaps He is making me wait because I am still so bad at it.  Because, as my husband says, He sees the bigger picture and knows the end from the beginning.  He knows what is best for me and as His child, it is my job to simply trust Him and wait on Him.  Easier said than done, I'm afraid.

Patience, my mother always told me, is a virtue.  It is one I would like to have.  It is one I have had plenty of opportunity to work on developing.  I think, however, it is going to be a very long process.  *sigh*  I can see it's going to be a long wait.

Posted in Spiritual Life

 Obviously, it is very important to keep my harp in tune.  In fact, it is absolutely essential to the ultimate enjoyment of the music.  Anyone who has ever played a stringed instrument knows just how much the quality of the music depends upon the proper tuning of the instrument.  In the same way, Christians must allow the Lord to tune our hearts. 

 My very favorite hymn (and incidentally the first song I learned to play on the harp) is "Come Thou Fount".  The first line reads "Come thou fount of every blessing, tune my heart to sing thy grace."  God wants to tune our hearts to His.  He wants to stretch us, just as the strings are stretched against the sound board of my harp.  Yes, the sound board strains under the pressure of the strings pulling against it.  The strings are under great stress.  But that is when they have the sweetest sound.  That is when the tone is clearest and the song is truest.  The song that comes forth from the strings of a well-tuned harp is bright and lovely and pleasant.  May our lives ring true like a finely tuned instrument of His grace.  May the pressure of the trials of life make the tone of our hearts clear and bright.  May the sounds that emanate from our lives be sweet and lovely and reflect the beauty of His work in our lives.

Posted in Spiritual Life

Several years ago, my husband and I made the conscious choice to limit outside-of-the-home activities.  At the time, our sons were involved in music lessons, martial arts classes, children's choir, Missions club, as well as other activities.  My husband and I sang in the church choir, taught Sunday school classes, participated in drama productions, and several other "ministries".  All the while, our family was literally falling apart.  What looked nice and normal and even attractive on the outside was miserable and displeasing to the Lord on the inside.  We appeared to have it all together--we were doing all the things Christians are "supposed" to do, but the Lord knew the truth, and eventually, so did everyone else.  Praise be to God, He showed us the error of our ways.  He shed light on our sinful hearts, and gave us the grace to turn it all around for Him.  Since that time, we have been very careful to keep our home and our family life at the center of our activities.  The Lord has brought us through a major family reformation, and He is now building our family into a strong force for Him and our home into a vibrant place of ministry.

For a long time, I was under the impression that pleasing the Lord meant doing church-related "ministries".  I thought that as long as I was involved in all the right programs and doing all the right activities, God would be pleased with my service.  I believed that the only way He could really use me was if I were teaching Sunday school or singing in the choir.  What I didn't realize at the time (but what He has taught over the last few years) is that I can be used of God much more effectively if I am doing it in the sphere He has designed me for.  Reaching out to others from the joyful, peace-filled environs of my home, and seeing my home as the center of ministry it truly is, has helped me to understand and fill my role as a Christian woman in a much more complete way.

The sweet, strong, wonderful relationship my husband and I are building is a clear testimony of what the power of the Lord can do in changing the lives of those yielded to Him.  Looking at our marriage, anyone can see the hand of God at work in two sinful human hearts, bringing us together in Him and making us truly "one".  God has used us to minister to others in ways we never expected; what a privilege it is to be able to point to Him and show the work He has done in us.

For us, rethinking what it truly means to "serve the Lord" has opened up opportunities for service we never would have dreamed of.  And our children are involved in ministry with us in a way that would not have been possible with our former mindset.  Our children, after all, are our greatest and most important area of ministry.  Building a godly family is the most important thing we can do for the Lord.  It is the surest way to have a multi-generational, far-reaching impact for His Kingdom.  Isn't that what ministry is really about?