Choosing to Trust

How thankful I am for the legacy of faith that has been passed down through the many generations before me. I have never doubted the existance of God, but I must say that very often I have had to choose to trust in His Soverignty and in His choices for my life. I wrestle with the will to hold onto my own plans and desires daily. This poem was penned by the hand of my sweet grandmother who has lived her life in surrender to a loving, gracious and intimate God. I am thankful for the reminder of the legacy of His grace and thankful the challenge to choose to trust Him in the midst of the uncertainties of life.

Choosing To Trust
by Joyce Hart
I'm groping along a dark pathway today -
My lamp has grown dim -
I'm not sure of my way.
I question my faith that I thought was so strong;
The days are so painful, the nights are so long.
Has God now forsaken me, left me alone?
My cries seems unanswered, the heavens like stone.
Shall I, in my bitterness, faint and rebel
Or shall I keep trusting, as when all is well?
The Evil One whispers, "See, God does not care -
You trusted, but He will not answer your prayer."
But where would I go, if my faith I should lose?
There's no other refuge - His way I must choose.
He comes to remind me that He's in command
And I am His child, so I'm safe in His hand,
For nothing can touch me unless He approves,
And all of it based on the fact that He loves.
He wept at the tomb where His friend, Lazarus, laid
"Behold, how He loved him, the bystanders said.
"Twas not for Himself that He wept, but His tears
Were shed for the grief we'd feel down through the years.
He wept so we'd know that our trial He shares -
In all of our heartaches, He knows and He cares.
We may endure trials, but someday they'll cease
And those who are His will know nothing but peace.
When tears are forgotten and all wiped away,We'll bow down and worship with joy at His feet. Our present afflictions will then seem so small
And the time we endured them like no time at all.
Then run with endurance the race you must runAnd fight the good fight till the battle is done. For faithfulness here He will give a reward;
Forever and ever we'll be with the Lord.
Joyce Hart

Pondering the path of my feet

"Let your eyes look directly forward, and your gaze be straight before you. Ponder the path of your feet; then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil." Proverbs 4:25-27

This past summer I got totally lost in a maze. I somehow got seperated from my giggling children as they ran headlong into one. It wasn't that big for goodness sake! How could I have possibly gotten so turned around? Panic even set in. It seems silly now. It's not like I would have to build a home there. I could somehow picture myself, though, after a few hours of wandering, having my husband find me huddled in the corner covered in dirt and in a fetal position. "Get a grip" I told myself. It's just a maze. Keep calm. Think.

Of course, I eventually found my way out of the maze and was met by the confused faces of my family who were obviously astounded that I could really get lost in a man made bunch of shrubs.

Go figure.

Today, I kinda feel that way. A little panicky. A bit lost. Maybe even feeling that I might want to curl up in a fetal postion and wait until help comes.

Change. I long to be spontaneous and adventurous and throw caution to the wind and just...I don't know...chill? I am not, however one of those people. I have known several people like that in my life and have so envied thier ability to really live. They also really annoy me.

Change hasn't been easy for me this time. Said some hard goodbyes to my family this last month Goodbye to a home we loved and people that we cherish and a dream of being able to serve our church. Said hello to a new life, new job, new friends, new home, new...everything. I tend to want to resort back to what is comfortable and what seemed to be so normal.

I recognize, through the Sprit's gentle whispers in my ear of late, that a life of comfort and "normal" is not the cry of my heart, however. I long to live richly, deeply in the comfort of HIM. Resting in HIS provisions for me. Both physical and spiritual. I long for the daily dependency that a life of faith can bring. I greatly desire for He alone to be my portion and my song. I just have to admit to feeling a bit lost on the path that brings me to that place.

That is why today as I read this verse over and over and over again I was so comforted in this leg of my journey. A note from Him today. Look forward. Keep walking. Don't swerve. Ponder the path of your feet.

I found in my Bible, some weeks back now a quote from someone, don't know who. It stated,

" You never know where faith will take you, but you can always see where faith has been."

Whew! Love that!

The God of yesterday who faithfully provides for me in all the best ways is the God of today and tomorrow. He gives what I need when I need it and leads me through this maze of emotions that I am struggling through today.

" He will my shield and portion be as long as life endures." -amazing grace

Celebrating Daddy

This morning began like all the others. Mostly.

I awoke to the sound of giggling in the kitchen which happens to be very close to right outside our bedroom door. The girls were up and happy. I could hear them empting cereal into a bowl and I could hear the POP from the toaster

I turned over in bed and was greeted by the sweet smiling face of my beloved friend and husband.

He smiled at me and touched my face, "Good morning" he said in a thick and low grumble.

We exchanged a smile as we heard the lilting laugh of our youngest. This particular laugh is one that has on more than one occasion been followed by a crash or a cry from her sibling, so it didn't take long for us to be quickly jolted out of our much loved sleepy state and jump out of bed in order to inspect what it was that she was laughing that laugh over.

Yes, the naughty laugh.

Rob opened the door quickly and yelled, "what are you doing?" and was met by the happy squeals of his little girls. Tragedy averted for the time being. No nasty spills. Just one saucy seven year old that got her older sister to laugh at her doing something...well...naughty.

It involved boobs.

By the time I joined them the coffee was brewing and the news was on and the girls were munching on their breakfast. I was met with a " Good morning, mommy!" and a soft kiss on my cheek from my hubby.

Ah.

I love these mornings.

Rob and I threw on our sneakers and headed out the door with our girls close on our heels. The weather was perfect. The sun was shining.

Morgan was trying to get the kick stand up on her bike. " Dad!" she yelled desperately. " Help!" The urgency in her voice was there because she had to keep up with her older sister who was already out of the driveway and down the street, breeze whipping her shining hair behind her.

" Don't worry, Morgan, I got it." She dazzled him with a your-my-hero-type smile and was off.

I turned to him then and told him what I have felt since the moment I met him.

" I like being with you."

And I do.

I truly love being with him.

He can make the simplest things of life an absolute joy to me.

How often I take for granted the daily things He does for me to make my day easier or to remind me that he cares.

At one poin this morning, Paige looked over at me and said, "Mom, can we do something today to celebrate dad?"

I had to smile at that thought.

We are all feeling a bit sentimental today.

He is leaving us for about two weeks. It has caused me to stop and appreciate him.

I wish I spent more days celebrating him. Every day should be a time to stop and be thankful for the richness of this gift to me. To us.

The silent ministries, the understated ones are often so overlooked. Pumping the gas in our car, emptying the trash, reading to the girls before bed each night when he is able ( he even reads "Mandie" and puts up with our teasing over it) Running flash cards with them during math, teaching them to ride their bikes, opening the car door, ( okay, that doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen), reaching for my hand in the car while we are driving, lifting those hands in worship during church. These are all things that his dear hands do in a day for us.

These are all things that I would miss so very much if they were gone.

I love this man.

I love being his wife and I truly am thankful to walk this road of life with him.

A new Thing

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now is springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the desert and streams in the wasteland."
Isaiah 43: 18,19

A way in the desert. Streams in the wasteland. Wow. That's a picture.

I love it that the Word of God speaks to me in ways like this. I am such a visual person. I have to see it to understand it.

I can see this.

I am living this.

The past four months have been tough. Not tough in the sense of loosing a spouse or a child. Not on that level tough. But painful.

This walkabout with God has revealed some wonderful things to me. About me.

He has taught me characters about Himself that have blown my mind and that when learning them, I have been healed of the hurt, the pain, the rejection, the loss and especially the fear of it happening again. ( and it will)

If I have learned MUCH, and I am excited to write them out, but the grreatest lesson is this one...

All things come from His loving hand. All things.

All things.

" I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted." Job 42:2

It took a while to sink in. But, I get it now.

For me, often, it takes things coming full circle for me to have faith, but it has been wonderful to experience God's presence and peace BEFORE all came full circle. For months we knew NOTHING. We heard nothing. We had no direction. Silence. We prayed. We cried. We mourned. We broke. We left.

He was there. In the midst of the storm. He is true to His character and true to His promises. He doesn't leave. He doesn't forsake. He is "I am."

If ever a time that I felt the support that can come from the family of God it has been now. Rob and I have never experience more love than in these last few months. (Eccl. 8:1)

It has increased my resolve to be sensitive to the hurting around me. And there are so many hurting. It has given me perspective on how to reach out and has taught me what not to say. (Phil. 2)

This time has been sharpening me to not pull back from relationships becuase I fear being hurt. Fear is not from God. Pain sometimes is. But, only because He loves me and because He will not leave me to just be hurt. Fear holds me back from experiencing and from giving love. I won't let the enemy steal that.

" The Lord Himself goes before you and will be with you;

He will never leave you nor forsake you.

Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged." Duet. 31:8

It has caused me to be cautious of those "joy robbers".

The big one being the improper use of the tounge. Having felt the ill effects of its improper use in our lives, Rob and I are more resolved than ever to clap that hand over our mouths and promote peace rather than destruction.
" Whoever keeps his mouth and his tounge keeps his life." Prov. 21:21

I have had to be reminded of my committment to hold true to the greatest goal in life . To glorify God. Not by what I am doing, but by who I am identifying with.

" Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,

who though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God

a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant..."

Oh, Lord, keep me there.

I am learning that hurt is going to happen here. Loss is going to happen here. Pain is part of the process here. It softens and readies my heart for heaven.

I have also learned that there is joy here. There is great delight in relationships here. There is peace in trusting ( sometimes blindly) in the gentle Shepherd.

"In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength." Isaiah 45:24

I am thankful for this journey. I am thankful for all that has happened. I am thankful for the joy and the hope I have, not from a situation changing, but from my Savior. The One who orchestrated this for me to "conform me to the image of His Son".

Thank you for praying for me. Because of His grace and His love, we are better than we have ever been.

Duet. 8:2b

" The Lord God led you and (tested) you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands. He humbled you...to teach you that man does not live by bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord...know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his son, so the Lord your God disciplines you."

Pondering in my heart

Memories.

I try to hold onto so many of them. Often I feel that I am grasping them as I would grasp for sand. I can't seem to hold onto them all. They slip through my fingers.

These times with my children are so precious to me. I wish I could capture every story they dream up, wish I could save every picture they draw, wish so much I could recall every reason behind that belly~laugh. These days are so fleeting.

If there is one memory I wish to cling to more than anything it would be the times the girls and Rob and I cuddle up and just talk.

These times are usually right before bed, with their little eyes nearly closing after a full day of fun, or in the mornings during our devotion time as a family. Though there be plenty of room to spread out, each girl must be in one of our laps curled up with a blanket.

"Daddy, do you remember what your first memory was?"

"Mommy, what was your favorite toy when you were little?"

They talk about their dreams.What will life be like when they "grow up". Who they will marry, what they will do with their lives. ( Morgan has informed us that being a drummer with pink hair lies in her future and that she will be some sort of philanthropist giving all of her earnings to the poor, and Paige told us just recently that God wants her to be a missionary, even though she doesn't really want to ...funny)

Sometimes Rob will get out his guitar and we will sing lullabies until their eyelids are too heavy to hold open; the yawns replacing their pretty melody. Soon they bury down into their cozy pillows.

These times with them are precious to me, and countless others.

But, if I could choose only one memory out of all these precious ones it would be when they talk to me about the Lord.

Their desire to know Him and obey Him astonishes their dad and me.
Astonishes!

I can't begin to explain to you how much of these bedside chats and these cozy mornings with them warm this mommy's heart.

I feel that in this one thing I can identify with Jesus' own mother who upon witnessing the wonder that followed the birth of the Messiah, " treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart."

They are truly a treasure and they are mine to be cherished forever. It causes my own heart to explode in worship to a God who created the universe and yet is close enough to whisper His love and His truth into the hearts of my little girls.

To watch their journey with God has been and will forever be one of the greatest experiences of my life.

I couldn't help but envision this morning as I listened to them lift up their own praise in the form of requests to God that heaven was smiling.

I know that I couldn't contain mine.

More than these

I have always had this love hate relationship with the Disney movie, "Mary Poppins".

I love how Mary brings such joy and life back into a typical dysfunctional, off-target family. I love Julie Andrews. Love the scene with Uncle Albert and Bert rising to the ceiling and having a good laugh over tea. Love it when they pop into a chalk drawing and spend the day riding merry-go-round ponies and saving that poor fox.

I hate. HATE the ending.

I hate that Mary leaves without ever saying a word of goodbye. I have watched that movie nearly a dozen or so times and the ending is always the same. Mary leaves on the wind with nary a look back. I can remember even as a child thinking "That's it? No closure?"

What I would have loved to have seen is what those poor little children did when they got home to see Mary had gone! Left them! Without even saying goodbye! There would be tears, I tell you! Wouldn't be such a happy ending then WOULD IT?!

I think that is why I love that Jesus, after His resurrection , appears to the disciples. I am so glad that He gave them (and us) some closure. Imagine if it had ended with Jesus dying on the cross; that horrible death, then seeing that He had risen, but leaving without saying His goodbyes! Am I alone in this??

Sure, it must have been quite scary at first. Obviously they were more than a little scared already since they were all together, hiding, with the door locked in fear of the Jews. He showed them his scars, gave them a word of exhortation. "Forgive." Awesome.

He went as far as to give Thomas the closure that He needed in his weak faith.

I love all of these scenes. Love the time He had with Mary in the garden. Love it.

But, I will say that a scene that has captured me of late has to be the one where Jesus and Peter are sitting together finishing breakfast ( yes, finishing BREAKFAST). Jesus turns to Peter and says, "Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?"

I often am too quick to move onto Peter's answer, which was an emphatic, "Yes, Lord!"

I have reflected of late on what Jesus was addressing when He said , "more than these". What or whom was He refering to? We know that the men were fishing by the Sea of Tiberias and so they must have been sitting by the shore together after having breakfast. What was Jesus looking at as He asked this question? I have only to guess that He was speaking of the fellow disciples. His brothers. His family.

Jesus asks this question to Peter three times and in three different ways, and always with the same answer by Peter. He grows more emphatic each time. I am stuck on the first time, however.

" More than these?"

I can relate to this scenario right now.

I feel that this is the burning question right now. I feel that Jesus is asking this of me.

" Annie, do you love me more than these?"

These...

mom. dad. sister. brother and sister in law. ministry. students. friends. image. home. security. future. children. finances...and yes, even closure.

The answer so often is a quick and resounding, "Yes, Lord!" Only to be met by daily struggles to let them go. It is a new chapter in our lives. We are moving on. We are saying goodbye to what was and even who we were and not just saying it. But living it. Walking it. Shouting it. Crying it.

I am thankful for a God who is real enough to sit with His disciples, make them breakfast and give them what they need to prepare them for the next part of their journey. I am sure in the days and years to come they clung to every word that He said to them in these poignant scenes.

I am thankful that this same God cares enough about me to challenge me to do what comes next, emphatic about the state of my heart enough to continue asking me to give up more in order to gain that which will never die.

I pray that I am a good student of this lesson, Lord.

"After saying this He said to him ( Peter), "Follow me." John 21:19

Walkabout- Tracing the Songlines

"God? What are you doing?"

I am pretty sure that question has been bouncing around in my head now for the last few months. I had just never uttered it out loud. I did the other day. I leaned in on my sink and peered into my reflection and said it out loud. Silence. Then this,
"I am taking you on a walk about."

Clearly, not the answer I was expecting. A walkabout? What was that? I pulled from the far recesses of my mind. ( Yes, frightening) and remembered hearing something about this in a recent movie that I had watched.

A walk about.

A journey. A spiritual journey. Here's what the wikipedia said about it...


"Walkabout refers to a rite of passage where male Australian Aborigines would undergo a journey during adolescence and live in the wilderness for a period as long as six months. In this practice they would trace the paths, or "songlines", that their people's ceremonial ancestors took, and imitate, in a fashion, their heroic deeds. Merriam-Webster, however, defines the noun as a 1908 coinage that refers primarily to "a short period of wandering bush life engaged in by an Australian aborigine as an occasional interruption of regular work."


I won't soon forget the look on Rob's face the night I came home from an outing with some ladies from church. I had never seen him look like that before. Head bent over his bible. Guitar out. He looked up at me and I saw the tears.

"What?"

" Annie, God wants me to say something tomorrow. It's different from the message that I had planned. It is from God. I might loose my job."

Gulp.

"K..."

I didn't hear much of his message on that next day. My heart was thundering in my ears too much. What I remember was him saying was that he couldn't pretend anymore and that he was dry and wanted more. I remember him talking about getting honest with God and not playing church. I remember kneeling with him on the front pew and looking up for a moment to see all 250 people in the room on their knees. " God of this City" was playing. The air was thick with something. People were crying. Husbands and wives were on their knees praying. Our precious teens. One man lying on the floor and another embracing him.

For about a week things were amazing. People were talking about revival and getting honest. Honest about sin, honest about thier homes, honest about their desire to appear perfect.

Then, out of nowhere it happened. The first rumor. Where did it come from?

"Rob wants to take over the church. He's ambitious. He's too passionate. He is going to take over the church."

What?

The enemy. It has to be. It is. We went from being on our knees to being at each other's throats and in and instant everything was lost in a puff of smoke.

One thing led to another. And another and another. Things unraveled so fast that my head is still spinning. Meetings. Phone calls. Accusations. Betrayal. Slander. Gossip. Destruction. SIN.

Even a suicide at our front door step didn't get the attention of our people. No one would listen. No one would hear. More meetings. Confusion.

Rob and I would go to our church on Saturday evenings with our two precious girls and we would weep and we would cry out to God to cleanse and heal and break and unite.

God heard us. He answered. Not in the way that I expected.

I wanted to be in on it. I wanted God to show up. To show off. I wanted to witness the transforming work of His healing power and restoration.

We went away for a few weeks. Two of the weeks were planned. The third week was all God. Our car broke down in New York and we were faced with this time of dependency on others and a complete visual of what the Lord was asking us to do. Our landlord called and told us that he was selling our house. We asked God for clarity and He spoke. This time it was clear as day. Released.

" I order your steps."


Rob resigned on a Wednesday. There was peace in the midst of the unknown. There was laughter mingled in with our tears. To let go of a dream and to relinquish it is both a frightening task and a liberating one. I can't really explain it.

We obeyed God. It wasn't neat. It wasn't pretty. It was downright messy. But, we obeyed.

So, right now we are on a walk about with God. Tracing songlines of our ancestors. Taking a faith walk. Praying that we would be faithful in this new task of waiting and as we walk this unknown path that we would learn more of ourselves and more of our God and that we would come through it changed.

We are broken. We are not lost.

"For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are those who wait for Him. He will surely be gracious to you at the sound of your cry. As soon as He hears it, He answers you. And though the Lord give you the bread of adversity and the water of affliction, yet your Teacher will not hide himself anymore, but your eyes shall see your Teacher. And your ears shall hear a word behind you, saying, ' This is the way, walk in it', when you turn to the right or when you turn to the left." Isaiah 30:18-21