Voice of God

Standing at the Crossroads (The Death of Signarama part 4)

/ Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 3 Comments

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“Should we file bankruptcy?” I asked God on May 11, 2015.  What a hard question to even consider.

Quite a few years ago Chris and I had asked God this same question every few months.  We had been living in Colorado and had gotten off course.  We had followed our most trusted friends and leaders into what we thought was the cutting edge of God’s will.  Unfortunately, this led to $70,000 in credit card debt and other bills that we couldn’t pay.

Every time we asked God about bankruptcy, He would clearly answer, “No, I will restore your fortunes.”

It would have been much easier for us if we had just done it!  We could have stopped all the creditors from harassing us.  We could have saved Chris from working two jobs for 4 years!

But we believed what God had said, and we wanted to pay our debts.  We didn’t think Christians should file bankruptcy.  Chris worked hard, the children and I missed him, and God did miracles.  Eventually it was all paid off!

We were convinced that we didn’t want to get into any more personal debt.  When Chris wanted to fulfill his dream by buying a business, we thought that business debt was different.  Almost every business person we knew accepted the fact that debt was part of the equation.

Now we had a lot of business debt and no way to pay it.  So I asked the dreaded question again.

“Should we file bankruptcy?”

I got the impression of 1 Thes 5:18 in my mind so I looked it up.

“Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you.”

Never in my 25 years of being a Christian and asking God questions had I gotten this verse with its clear message, “THIS IS God’s will for you.”

                On May 12th someone from Signarama gave us the wonderful news.  There were buyers interested in our sign shop!!!  This was amazing!  We would be able to pay off our debts and avoid bankruptcy.  I was happy, but also sad because we wouldn’t walk away with any profit, nor would our investors.

Chris and the buyers finally settled on the purchase price and the closing date was set.  Just a week before the closing, one of the buyers just disappeared.  He didn’t communicate or return anyone’s phone calls, not even those of his business partner.  The entire deal dissolved, and those words echoed in my mind, “this is God’s will for you,” and “give thanks.”

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I tried to be thankful but I went into mourning instead.  I was weighted down by the thought of all of our creditors suffering a loss because of us.  I wanted to pay them back every penny.  It felt like such a waste; the sign shop that Chris had poured into and improved was going into oblivion along with all that money!

God gave me Matt 26:6 which tells of the woman pouring costly ointment on Jesus’ head.  The disciples were angry and said, “Why this waste?”

That was exactly what I had been saying.  “Why this waste?”

Judas couldn’t understand why all that expense, enough oil to perfume a thousand people, should be poured out on Jesus.  I couldn’t understand why God couldn’t turn this situation around to allow us to pay our debts.  But it was not my place to judge His methods.  Perhaps He was working out something very important in our lives.  Perhaps He was working out something very important in the lives of our creditors.  I didn’t have the ability to figure it out.  All I could do was give thanks.

August 10th was the day that Chris and I went to the lawyer’s office to sign the paper work.  Before we left the house, I asked God for a word.

“Thus says the LORD, stand at the crossroads and look,

 and ask for the ancient path, where the good way lies;

 and walk in it, and find rest for your souls.” Jer 6:16

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This scripture sank deep into my spirit and I sensed that it was extremely important.  We were standing at a crossroads.  We could choose to continue to live as we always had, in denial of these painful circumstances.  We could curl up under the covers and cry for months (which is what I wanted to do).  Or we could stand and look to God.

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We could ask for a new way of living, an ancient path that is not well-known in our modern world.

I didn’t understand what exactly that ancient eternal path was, but I made it my mission to find out.  I posted Jer 6:16 on my mirror and read it every day.  I asked God to show me.

Jesus IS THE WAY (John 14:6)!  He is the path!  To walk in this way is to abide in Him (John 15:4).

This is not about working for the LORD, but walking with the LORD.

This is not a modern course to the American dream of success and comfort, but an eternal path of laying our lives down.

Somehow picking up our cross each day to follow him –

Somehow putting His yoke on our shoulders –

Leads to REST!

Over a year later that verse is still on my mirror and I am still reading it every day.

I am still striving to enter into that rest.

I am convinced that there is nothing more important or profitable that I could do with my life than abide in Christ.

If it took a bankruptcy to bring me to that realization then, “Thank you God!”

Wisdom is More Profitable Than Silver (The Death of Signarama part 3)

/ Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / Leave a comment

 

dsc_0145It is heartbreaking to watch a dream die.  It is scary to watch your livelihood slip away.  Yet, in times like those God draws so close and SPEAKS!  What could be more precious than the very WORDS OF GOD!

I was cozy in my “nursing mother’s room” at HealthSouth Pediatrics when I asked God this question.

“What about all your words to me about Signarama?  Words about success, a good harvest, and a good inheritance that would produce fruit for us?”

“Happy are those who find wisdom and those who get understanding,

                For her income is better than silver,

                And her revenue is better than gold.”

Proverbs 3:13 was the answer.

Another version says, “Wisdom is more profitable than silver and yields a better return than gold.”

                God hadn’t given us the money we had asked for, but He had given us something much more valuable…wisdom.  If we could only identify that wisdom and harness it for the rest of our lives, how profitable we would be!

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I was certain that Chris had gained much wisdom in the realm of business.  I began to ask myself what wisdom God had given me.  I came up with this list.

  1. Ask people to pray for you on a regular basis. Don’t be afraid or embarrassed to ask for help.
  2. Supernatural business (like ministry or anything else) flows out of who we are, not what we do. Who we are (identity) comes from intimacy with God.
  3. The presence of God and our relationship with God should be our priority every day.
  4. God has been purifying our faith which is worth more than gold.
  5. We cannot create or multiply wealth, but God can.
  6. We should live for God’s renown.
  7. We should seek His kingdom first.
  8. If we are not joyful, we are not recognizing His presence because in His presence is fullness of joy!

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I began to review all of the teachings and messages I had been absorbing in the past year.

  1. We should seek God to know Him, not to get a message to preach or even a healing. – Todd White
  2. Supernatural business keys are the presence of God and knowing your true identity. – Lance Wallnau
  3. Without intimacy, there is no fruit. – Heidi Baker
  4. We worship because we love God, not to get something. – Bill Johnson
  5. We shouldn’t ask God to bless our plans. We should find out what God is already doing and join Him. – Henry Blackaby
  6. “The Christian life wasn’t about running like a maniac; it was about walking with God….What is walking with God? Simple. Doing what He asks you to do each and every day.  Living in active relationship with Him.  Filling your mind with His word, and letting that word penetrate every waking moment.” – Phil Visher
  7. “To receive My Word into your heart must be your quest every day. Then you will begin to see…That is your whole purpose now – to walk closer to me each day.”  Jesus speaking to Rick Joyner
  8. The secret source to more success and fruit in business (and in everything) is the level of connection with the very Person of God. – Andy Mason
  9. There is a faith that you can reach out and grab onto. Not just faith for your current circumstances but faith to access a new life.  Reach out and grab hold of your sonship and your inheritance. – Dylan Krause

We may have many dreams and goals but…

God Himself is THE goal and THE prize and THE destination!

Those who seek Him WILL find Him…so how can we be disappointed!

 

 

Too Small a Thing (The Death of Signarama Part 2)

/ Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 1 Comment

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I honestly think that our failures are more useful than our successes.  They certainly provide us with the opportunity to humble ourselves and acknowledge our need for God.  God doesn’t waste anything, and failure is a treasure trove of learning if we will take the time to seek out that treasure.  It is painful to come face to face with our shortcomings, but oh so worth it!

As we were heading toward the end of Signarama, I took every available moment to seek God.  I needed to hear His voice because it seemed like our circumstances were contradicting everything I thought He had told me.

I thought He had told us to buy the business.  Despite my fears and uncertainty about it, He had given me supernatural peace.  I thought that He had promised to prosper Signarama.  I thought that He had promised to use it to bring us the wonderful provision that He kept talking to me about.  Through the four years of running the business, we experienced ups and downs, but mostly downs.  Yet through it all, I had felt the peace of God.

Now that we faced our own inability to keep the business going, I questioned whether I had heard God correctly.  Could I even hear His voice at all?  How could I ever be sure that I knew what His will was?  How could I avoid making the same mistakes in the future?

Annalise was just a newborn, nursing about 8 times a day for an hour at a time.  Nursing this sweet little girl was my full-time job.  I still had to take Ashlyn to therapy once a week at HealthSouth.  Ashlyn’s therapist gave me my own little office to set up camp during the hour and 45 minutes that we were there.  I could nurse, read, and pray in a quiet, private room while Ashlyn did physical and speech therapy.  What an amazing gift!

Each week I would get cozy in a chair with Annalise and a nursing pillow.  I would set out my Bible, journal, and pen on the little rolling desk. All my other children were in school or at home with my two teenage babysitters, and I had uninterrupted quiet times. I would ask God all my questions….and He would speak!  How precious those times were!

One day I was mourning the loss of our dream.  Chris always said during the pain and struggle of business ownership, “It just has to be worth it!”  I always felt that it definitely would be worth it…eventually.  Business people kept telling us that after 2-5 years we would really see the profits.  Eventually, if we had the right team of employees in place, Chris would be able to work less but make more.  He would have the freedom to pursue other investments, to spend time with the family, and to take vacations.  Signarama would be an investment that would bless us for the rest of our lives, and perhaps one of our children would want to take it over when Chris retired.

Yet, we couldn’t make it to the point of earning a profit.  We were facing the reality of losing everything we had put into it and moving backwards in our goals and finances.

It had not been worth it at all!!!

                God gave me the scripture Is 49:4.

“But I said, “I have labored to no purpose; I have spent my strength in vain and for nothing.”

Isaiah was describing exactly how I was feeling!  I continued to read.

“Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand, and my reward is with my God.”

Could there possibly be a reward in all of this?  We just had to trust God that He was holding our reward even though we could see nothing good in failure.

When I talked to Chris about all of this, he told me that he had been meditating on the same scripture!  God certainly was trying to tell us something.

Another day at HealthSouth, I asked God, “Was it your perfect will for us to buy Signarama when we did?”

He gave me Is 49:6.

“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant to restore the tribes of Jacob and bring back those of Israel I have kept. I will also make you a light for the Gentiles, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”

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God had spoken this to Isaiah right after he had lamented about spending his strength in vain.  Isaiah was being obedient to give God’s words to the Jewish people, yet he didn’t see any fruit.  No one was listening to him.  He was probably threatened and harassed for his message, and he couldn’t see what good could possible come from his pitiful ministry.

Yet God surprised Isaiah by telling him that his vision of bringing his people back to God (a vision that seemed totally unrealized) was way too small.  God was telling Isaiah that he would also bring the light of salvation to the non-Jews all over the world.  How could Isaiah have imagined how far his words would reach and how many people would be impacted by them?  For the past 10 years I have lived in the book of Isaiah!  The words of God recorded by that discouraged prophet have been a life line to me!

I bet Isaiah never imagined that a little mom and housewife in Pennsylvania would be forever impacted by his ministry.  Yet here I am, writing an article about him!  I bet most of you reading this have also been blessed by Isaiah.

I was very comforted by the thought that God was going to use our lives in ways we could not imagine, despite of, or maybe because of our failure.  Still, we were praying that God would do a miracle right now that we could see.  Resurrect our business, bring in the finances to keep going, bring us to the place where we could make a profit and recoup all our investment and more!  The days went by and no miracle came.  Why was God saying, “no” to our pleas?

After my time with God at HealthSouth, I began listening to some CDs that had been recorded at a recent conference at my church.  I came across a quote from Lance Wallnau that spoke directly to my heart.

“God says no to what you want simply because He has something better in mind.  If God isn’t answering Joseph’s plea to be released from the confinement of his prison cell, it’s only because Joseph, prophet, man of God, blameless as he may be, has a smaller perception of what prophecy fulfilled looks like than God has.  In other words, he was willing to settle for a whole lot less than God had in mind so God had to keep him in a place of contradiction until the timing was right for him to be released to the greater thing God had.”

Could this be what was happening in our lives?  God had promised prosperity, we had pursued prosperity, and we had failed.  God’s promise was still true, but His plan was even greater than we had originally thought.  Was Signarama “too small a thing?”  Did God have something much greater for us?

We purchased Signarama because we wanted something better for our family than struggling from paycheck to paycheck.  We were in pursuit of the American Dream; that if you worked hard with skill and determination, you would achieve a better life for yourself and your children.

“Is Signarama a picture of what we could do with our own hard work?” I asked God.

“We were with child, we writhed, but we gave birth only to wind.  We have won no victories on the earth.” Is 26:18 was the answer that I received.

Perhaps God’s dream was higher than the American dream?

“How gladly would I treat you like sons and give you a desirable land, the most beautiful land, the most beautiful inheritance of any nation.  I thought you would call me ‘father’ and not turn away from following me.” Jer 3:19 was the scripture I got next.

This reminded me of the book I had been reading, God with You at Work by Andy Mason.  Chris and I knew in our heads that we were God’s children and He was our Father.  Yet reading this book had made me realize that the way we thought and lived our lives were indications of an orphan mentality.  Truly being a son and daughter the way Andy described it was so foreign to my thinking that I could hardly understand it.

He said that the key to doing business in a kingdom culture was behaving like sons.  To live in our inheritance that Jesus already won for us rather than working so hard for payment.  To cease from striving and self-effort and to do all our work out of rest.  To not seek God to attain His blessings, but to seek Him for relationship simply because we love Him so much.  Then we would be able to watch the amazing things that God would do on our behalf.

People in the world are successful in business all the time with no relationship with God.  They have innovative ideas, work hard, and achieve great things while having no understanding of God as their father!  Why could WE not succeed even though we had sought God every step of the way and asked for His blessings?

Perhaps it was because we have also prayed crazy, outrageous prayers such as:

Give us more of you!

Give us YOUR dreams and visions.

Don’t let us fall short of YOUR plans for us.

Don’t let our lives be ineffective.

Let us impact eternity.

We want to see and participate in signs and wonders.

Bring all of our children into their destinies.

Prayers like that mean that a financial success out of our own hard work was “too small a thing.”  God has something bigger for us like he had for Isaiah and Joseph.  Something that requires us to actually become the people He intended us to be.  That can only happen by seeking Him more and more each day.  By being uncomfortable to know that we need Him.  By seeking His kingdom first.

We can never achieve this by working hard.  We can never step into our sonship and inheritance by working hard.  Signarama was all about working hard.  God cares about us too much to let us earn success from our own hard work.  He wants us to become a son and a daughter and to see real success happen out of rest.  Success that He brings about with His amazing power – not our own abilities or intelligence.

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I still don’t understand this whole “sonship” thing.  How can I just accept His unconditional love for me? How can I just live in my inheritance?  You mean I never have to work hard to earn it?  I never have to prove anything?  God delights in me just the way I am right now, failures and mistakes and all?

You mean I never have to worry about provision because God ALWAYS provides for His children?  I don’t have to seek after these things but can seek His kingdom? This I just don’t understand.

But at least now I KNOW that I don’t understand it.  I can ask God to show me and help me.  I have the death of Signarama to thank for that!

 

Oh Nards!

/ Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 2 Comments

You know when something unexpectedly horrible happens and your immediate response is to let out a loud expletive?  Well, mine is, “Holy CRAP!”

I don’t mean to say it.  It just comes out.  My teenage son is quite offended by it and constantly reminds me that, “crap is NOT holy, Mom!”  I heard Bill Johnson say that if we really understood the holiness of God, we would never pair the word “holy” with the word, “crap.”

My young children sometimes exclaim, “Holy Crap!” when they are upset about something, and I admit that it sounds very uncouth and disrespectful…and they learned it from listening to me!

Ok, point taken!  This is not what should be slipping out of my mouth at inopportune times.  I should have better sentiments in my heart to express.

That same teenage son began to say, “Oh nards!” He would say it very loudly with a smile on his face because it is such a humorous phrase.

I adopted “nards!” as my “swear” word of choice.  Whenever something annoying or dreadful happened, I would exclaim, “OH NARDS!”  It was so fun to say and so funny to hear that I would burst out laughing.  I would amuse myself to the point that the disaster no longer seemed so disastrous.  (As Joseph Garlington says, “If it’s going to be funny later, it’s funny now.”) The children would begin laughing as well.  My husband would chuckle at me and shake his head, wondering what had gotten in to me.

I continued this, “Oh nards!” business for months before I thought, “Perhaps there is some significance to this word that God would want to speak to me about.”

I looked up “nards” on Google and found that it is short for spikenard, a plant used for medicinal purposes.  It is antibacterial, anti-fungal, and anti-inflammatory.

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It is also the star of that beautiful Bible story in John 12 when Mary pours the pure nard on the feet of Jesus and the entire house was filled the fragrance of the perfume. The story (or perhaps a very similar but separate story) is also told in Matt 26.

Now while Jesus was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table.  But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, “Why this waste?  For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.” But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, “Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me.  For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me.  By pouring this ointment on my body she has prepared me for burial.  Truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her.”

It was clear that Mary loved Jesus deeply and wanted to demonstrate her gratitude and worship.  Perhaps she had planned this act, weighing what it would cost her to do so and judging that the cost was worth it.  Or perhaps she was so overcome with emotion that she impulsively grabbed her most precious possession and poured it out.  Either way, she deeply touched Jesus and ministered to Him just days before His crucifixion.  She had made a choice to lavish her love on Him despite what it cost her.

When the unexpected happens in my life and I shout out, “OH NARDS!” it is not quite the same as Mary.  When the child drops dinner on the floor or the teenager leaves the bathroom a mess or UPS has Chris work his 3rd 14 hour day, this is not my choice.  These circumstances have been forced upon me, and I have the right to be angry!

Don’t I?

What if I would make the choice to accept the circumstances with joy and worship God anyway?  Then perhaps my, “OH NARDS!” could be turned into the alabaster jar of Mary, ministering to Jesus with my love.

I read one article on the internet that spoke about the extravagant amount of nard that was poured out, probably 11 oz.  Anyone who uses essential oils knows how strong they are.  A few drops is all you need.  The fragrance of 11 oz. would have been enough to be noticed for quite a distance around the house.  If Jesus was to wash in a pool right afterwards, a thousand people could wash after him and leave with the expensive aroma.

Imagine all of that nard being absorbed into Jesus’ skin.  He must have smelled like spikenard for days!  Jesus did say that Mary was preparing him for his burial.  I always thought he was just speaking about the symbolic of the use of herbs in burial customs.  Days later when he was betrayed, arrested, abandoned, beaten, put on trial, ridiculed, whipped, and crucified…

I bet Jesus still carried the aroma of spikenard!  In His darkness hours, He smelled like perfume.  All who came in contact with this simple, poor man from Nazareth would catch a whiff of this very expensive oil.  As the people watched Him take the accusations without fear or anger, they could smell Him.  As they watched Him patiently endure suffering, they noticed the unusual aroma.  It was the fragrance of a King, not a common man.  It was a heavenly smell in the midst of tragic circumstances.

This smell of pure nard would forever be imprinted on their brains as the smell of the most unusual trial and execution they had ever seen.  For the rest of their lives, whenever they would catch a whiff of it, they would remember.  Maybe God could even bring them to the place of faith, recognizing the King and Savior Jesus in the form of a beaten and bloodied criminal.

When I encounter trials that make me want to cry out in disgust, “Why all this waste?!!”  perhaps I should worship instead.

When my husband is suffering with an excruciating headache for a week, unable to work or participate in much of normal life, my mind starts to say;

“Why couldn’t this have been a vacation from work to enjoy camping as a family?  We won’t get to take that vacation now.  Our budget only works if Chris is working.  How long will it be before he can start working again…days, weeks, months?  We are not even sure what is causing the pain or how to get rid of it.  I hate to see him suffering! What a waste!”

I have come to know God better than that.  Nothing is wasted in His kingdom.  He can use any circumstance for our good and for our promotion.  I can trust Him and worship Him in this.

For all of us, this pure nard should remind us that in the midst of suffering, we can love and worship.  And when we worship we release the distinctive aroma of our King…and the atmosphere of heaven.

OH NARDS!

A Really Bad Hair Day

/ Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / Leave a comment

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“Why did I even start this?  Why? Why? Why?”

I was reprimanding my reflection in the mirror.  One third of my hair was curled and the rest was straight.  I looked at the curling iron in dismay.  I never did know how to use that thing!  That is why I rarely attempt to curl my hair.  Why did I think I should do it today, when I was already running late for the Women’s Encounter at church, the one time during the year that I can leave my busy household behind and seek God with hundreds of kindred spirits?

I had gotten my hair cut a few days ago…six inches of dry, damaged ends gone!  I felt like a new woman!  The hair dresser curled my hair and said, “This is the way they are styling it these days.”  I looked at myself in the mirror and thought the curls looked a little haphazard and choppy.

“I’ll go home and fix it the way I like it, and it will be fine,” I thought to myself.

But when I arrived home I got quite a reaction from my children.

“I like it!” my teenage daughter said, and she made me think that I certainly must look trendy!

“You look pretty, mommy,” my boys said, and they almost never comment on my appearance!

My husband also gave my compliments that night, so I felt that the curls must really be something special.

Before the Women’s Encounter I had washed my hair and dried it with a circular brush as usual.  It looked really nice that way, straight and shiny.  But was it as cute as the curls that had earned so much praise from my family?  Probably not!

So I began to try and recreate what the hairdresser had done.

Bad idea!

                I was doing a horrible job on my hair!  I was supposed to be at the church early to greet the women coming in the doors, and here I was, still at home with part of my hair in awful curls.  I had no time to wet it down and blow dry it out again.  I had to just finish the curling.

“Why, oh why did I start this mess?  My hair looked just fine before!”

I couldn’t stop, so I proceeded to curl and spray, curl and burn myself, curl and mutter and groan, curl and get mad at myself (and anyone else who entered the bathroom)…and curl some more.

Finally I had a head full of funky, crispy curls.  This was not “me” at all!  They looked weird, but I didn’t dare run my hand through them for fear of disrupting the delicate hold of the hairspray and make it worse.

I rushed to gather my things.  My family could tell I was grumpy and tried to encourage me, but I wasn’t having it!  I rushed into the van and drove the five minutes to church.  I didn’t get to participate in the preservice prayer that would have most certainly centered my thoughts on Jesus.  I should have been praying for all the women attending!  I should have been there early to greet some of them.  But I had been too vain and concerned about my appearance to listen to the voice of reason that said;

“Put the curling iron down!”

Because I arrived at the church so late, I couldn’t find a parking spot.  I had to park all the way in the overflow lot which was quite a hike from the church.  I slammed the van door and started trudging up the hill, mad at myself.  It was unseasonably cold that April night, but I had stubbornly worn my new flip-flops because I wanted to feel “comfortable.”  Now I was freezing my little pink toenails off!

I got halfway up the hill when I realized that I had left my phone in the van!  I had to walk all the way down and all the way back up again, madder than before.

Finally I got into the sanctuary. Worship had been going on for a half an hour already.  The room was darkened and the colored lights around the stage were flashing with the music. It was packed full of women from front to back.  Where was I going to sit?  Thankfully someone had saved me a seat up front.  I set all my stuff down and turned my heart to the Lord.

“I am so sorry that I am so imperfect!” I said to God.  My faults flashed in my mind, and I was getting ready to repent of them one by one when…

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I felt Jesus rush in and give me a hug!  I couldn’t even begin to list what I had done wrong before He said to me, “I am so glad that you are here!  I love you!  All that you are worried about doesn’t matter.”

What an amazing feeling to be so loved by the Creator of the universe!  I tried my best to quiet my thoughts and just soak in His embrace.  The worship team was singing about supernatural love, over and over again.  This was a supernatural love!  I marveled at this love that could allow a perfectly holy God to come down and embrace imperfect humanity.

How was He able to draw so close to me?  Then my thoughts turned towards something the pastor had said the Sunday before.  He was referring to a burial shroud traditionally thought to be the actual one that had been wrapped around Jesus’ body when He was laid in the tomb.  It showed that He had been covered with blood from head to toe; that precious blood that allowed God to come and dwell with and around and INSIDE of us!  If we believe in that blood and accept it, He no longer has to withhold Himself!

The blood of Jesus that had covered Him from head to foot now covers me from head to foot!  He has made me holy!  There is nothing I can do that His blood can’t cover if I will let it.

In the midst of a grumpy, “bad hair” day…or in the midst of a no-good, awful “from the pit of hell” day…the moment we do one little thing right and turn our hearts to worship God…

God rushes in to embrace us and fill us to overflowing with His beautiful presence.

I still don’t understand this.

It is simply supernatural love!    

A Cure for the Negativity that is All Around

/ Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 2 Comments

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Have you noticed the negativity all around us lately, with the election and the terrorist attacks and the accusations of racism?  What a silly question!  We have all noticed it.  My last article was “How I feel About Donald Trump”, and I had never written anything “political” or “controversial” before.  I was expecting to be attacked by the negativity that has been so prevalent.  I was pleasantly surprised that most of the feedback was very positive.  Thank you, those who took the time to read my thoughts!  Thank you to those who have hearts open to hear a message of hope!  Thank you to those who gave me encouragement!  One word of encouragement is stronger than a thousand of negative ones!

I am not surprised at all by the negativity of the media or of non-Christians in general.  All of these precious people were created to be in a relationship with a God.  They have not yet encountered that perfect love and have undoubtedly had their share of hurt and disappointment.  They were created for a perfect place, yet live in a world full of sorrow and suffering.  They are angry and bitter and don’t even know exactly who they should be angry with.  Many of them fight with all their strength against the very thing that could heal their anger and put their world right again.  Before we as Christian judge them too harshly, let us remember the words of Abraham Lincoln when he was criticized for wanting to treat the South with compassion, “Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?”  Let us be encouraged by the story of Saul of Tarsus and dare to believe that the greatest enemy of God today could be His greatest champion tomorrow!

What I have been very shocked by is the attitude of many Christians in this elections.  Christians should not be impressed by the negativity that the media is trying to feed us.  We should not look at the world the way the “world” looks at itself.  Jesus said that we shouldn’t judge unless we want to be judged.

Yet I understand why Christians have been so very judgmental.  I make judgments all the time.  Most are unconscious – I just think I am observing and then coming to a logical conclusion.  I want to understand the world around me and why things are the way they are.  My brain gathers the information it is given, processes it according to my own experiences and my unique world view and comes up with a determination that makes sense to me.  My own wisdom provides a false sense of security.

It is false because my thoughts are not like God’s thoughts.  My ways are not like His ways.  He is so much higher and has a different perspective.  He sees all things that ever were, all things that are, and all that will be.  He sees with complete clarity from a heart of perfect love.

I am so thankful when God proves me wrong!  I love it when a person who I thought was mean and grumpy turns out to be my best friend!  I love it when a situation that appeared to be hopeless gets turned around and becomes the most amazing story of redemption! My incorrect judgments have been exposed enough times for me to realize that the kingdom of God is backwards according to my wisdom.  God loves to make the first last and the last first.  He loves to use the foolish things to confound the wise.  He loves to surprise us and do the unexpected.

I think the reason that Jesus spoke to the masses in parables was that he wanted true followers.  True followers are not those who are excellent at following the rules and what seems to be logical.  True followers of Jesus are those who have an active relationship with God, who listen for His voice every day.  We need His voice to navigate through this confusing world…and GOD DESIGNED IT THAT WAY!

When Jesus told the crowd, “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you.”, do you think He wanted the people to come to the most logical conclusion about Him…either that he was insane or had a morbid fascination with death?  He wanted as followers only those people who were willing to seek the voice of God to reveal to them the truth and beauty of His statement that was offensive to most.  Perhaps even more than that, Jesus wanted followers that trusted Him enough to follow even if they didn’t understand.  Their love and loyalty to this “Son of Man” who had proven His character to them again and again superseded their need to understand.

God’s wondrous plan of salvation for mankind was understood by no man on this earth while it was unfolding.  Even though Jesus explained it clearly to his closest disciples, they were in despair when it all happened.

Isaiah said this about Jesus;

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him.

He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering.

Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

If I had been there at the cross to see Jesus, beaten and bloodied so that he no longer looked like a man, naked and reviled so I would have to turn my eyes away; how would I have judged that scene?  How would I have judged Jesus?  I probably would have thought, “What a poor wretched man.  What did he do to deserve such a death?  This is one of the worst things I have ever witnessed.  This is one of the darkest hours in all human history.”

Yet this man was perfect, powerful, and indescribably beautiful.  He was not a lowly criminal but the King of the Universe.  He accomplished all that He had set out to do, and it was actually the most powerful moment in human history.  The moment that sin and death were defeated and all of us were set free…FOREVER!!!

We miss what God is doing because we are focused on the wrong things.  If something is despised or rejected by men…it might just be God.

Yes, we need to discern what is the Holy Spirit and what is not.  We need to understand what God is doing RIGHT NOW and join HIM in His work.  We need to seek His heart and come into unity with Him.

I am not talking about false hope or putting our faith in something that isn’t real.  I am not talking about closing our eyes to evil and pretending that it isn’t there. I hate that!  I hate believing in lies and I hate disappointment!  Yet, those who put their hope in God will not be disappointed!  I am talking about a reality that is more real than what we see around us.  I am talking about a reality that is higher.

Alaska. Bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) in flight. Wing span can reach 6.6 feet. Males can grow up to 9lbs in weight, 50,000 bald eagles live in Alaska.

Once I had to seek that reality just to survive.  How thankful I am for that time, for I will not be so easily deceived again.  You see, I was part of a church that specialized in showing people their sins.  They thought they were doing God’s work by helping to “perfect” all the people around them.  What they were really doing was speaking the words of the Accuser which only brought condemnation and despair.

They had been working to try and “fix” me for a few years.  They finally decided that I was too “broken” to remain part of the church.  They said nothing to me about this decision but discussed it among themselves.  That morning in my quiet time God gave me a scripture that I will never forget.

Comfort, comfort my people, says your God.

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her

that her hard service has been completed,

that her sin has been paid for, Is 40:1-2

 Even though God was speaking tenderly to me, the church was not. One of the church leaders called my husband to a special meeting and proceeded to tell him that our family could no longer be part of the church because of my sin.  She said that I was so deep into my iniquity (no specific sin was mentioned) that I was interfering with their prayers.  She said that I was keeping Chris from his destiny, and that it was never God’s will for him to marry me in the first place.  She believed that eventually I would leave Chris. Once that happened, he could return to the church.

When Chris told me what they had said to him, I felt as though I had been punched in the gut and had all the wind knocked out of me.  Did I believe the words of the Lord that I had received earlier in the day?  I am sorry to say that I did not.  The words of man are spoken so much louder and seem to be much clearer.  Chris and I spent many days in darkness and condemnation, trying to find a way out.

Still the voice of the Lord was whispering to me, and I sought Him like never before!  One night I was praying over our family and wondering what would happen next without our church, our friends, our support network, and our future as we had envisioned it.  I saw in my mind a picture of an eagle’s nest.  It was so high in the rocks of a mountain that you couldn’t see the earth below.  The nest was full of baby birds.  I felt God say,

“That is your family.  You are meant to be eagles and you are to raise your children to be eagles.”

            My first thought was, “How dangerous to raise my children on the side of a cliff.  What if they fell and went crashing to their deaths?”

But then I realized that eagles were born to be up there.  It was their natural habitat, and they were not afraid of it.  Babies eagles were born to fly, and fly they most certainly would!  They were born to view the earth from a different perspective, a higher perspective.

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They can see more at one time and see for longer distances than most animals.  But what if an eagle is confined to the ground, to see only what is right in front of them.  What if they are thrown down to the dirt and are unable to rise and feel the wind carry them above the smog and the grime.  What if they are down there for so long that they forget the beauty of the clouds and the heavens above?

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I imagine that they would get frustrated, then afraid, then angry, then bitter…just as I have in the past.  Just as many Christian have during this election.  I am so thankful that God has given me wings and lifted me up where I belong.

Children of God…you were born to fly!

But those who wait on the Lord

Shall renew their strength;

They shall mount up with wings like eagles,

They shall run and not be weary,

They shall walk and not faint.

 The other voices out there will yell at you!  They will attract your attention with flashing lights and mesmerizing images.  They will pull you in and hold you captive.  But the voice of the Lord is still and it is small.  In order to hear it, we must silence all other voices, we must silence our own thoughts, and we must wait on the Lord!

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Wait on the Lord!  For you are a great company of eagles born to fly!

 

How I Feel About Donald Trump

/ Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 22 Comments

In my junior high and High School years, I knew Donald Trump as the rich guy with the weird hair.  I honestly didn’t know what he had done to get so rich, and I didn’t care.  When his TV show, The Apprentice came on in 2004, I still wasn’t totally clear on what Trump actually did other than fire and hire people, but it was one of the few reality shows that I actually liked.

I have never spent a lot of time following the news or getting into politics…too many more important things consumed my life, like a new baby roughly every two years or so.  Still, I wanted to be a good American and a good citizen, so I always tried to vote and pray for whoever was in power at the time.

Around 2012 I saw a new book from Rick Joyner, I See A New America.  I purchased it on the spot (and I never do that!) because his previous books had been so powerful in my life.  I thought this was a book of new prophetic revelations and visions about our country, and I could sure use the encouragement.  I couldn’t help but notice that my nation was turning away from Christianity, one of my main reasons for homeschooling.

I excitedly dove into this new book only to be disappointed.  It wasn’t about visions at all, but observations of what was wrong with our country and the government and how we could fix it.  I read about halfway through this 300 page book before I could read no longer.  I was shocked and overwhelmed by how bad things really were, yet felt powerless to change anything.  What could I do, a housewife, to affect politics?  Perhaps one of my children would grow up with the honor, integrity, and self-sacrificing character to go into the government, but I certainly couldn’t.

What I did take away from the book was that the power had to shift from lawyers and professional politicians to real business men.  Only then could the noble purpose for government (serving and protecting the citizens) actually be accomplished, and done so efficiently.  If our government was a business, it would have gone under long ago.  If politicians lived by the same rules as the rest of us, most of them would have been put in jail.

I laid the book aside, but began praying more for our nation.  I also encountered more teaching (from folks like Lance Wallnau and Bill Johnson) that Christians had laid down their God given influence in the seven spheres of culture, government included, and it was time to take it back!  We couldn’t just hide and wait for the rapture! We had to use our gifts and talents to make heaven manifest on earth.  Our lives and our children’s lives depended on it.

I heard Launce during the 2015 Firestorm conference say something that changed the way I looked at voting.

“When Christians look at elections, they want to know, is the guy a believer?  That is really not the intelligent question.  What you want to know is; who is anointed for the assignment.  Now this is controversial because I wouldn’t think that God would actually be working with secular people and anoint them.  But I had to reconsider this for the simple fact that I am reading Daniel, and Daniel has an archangel that comes to him and says, ‘As you have been praying Daniel, in the 2nd year of Darius, I stood by to confirm and stabilize his reign.’ Which means that Darius is a heathen ruler, Darius and the Medes, they’re over the Jewish people; but God knows which heathen is going to be open to the kingdom and which one isn’t.  And archangels go to war to make sure that the right heathen gets elected.

“So you go back in American history, most Christians, they just don’t talk about this stuff – Lincoln was God’s chosen man for the complexity of the hour.  In retrospect, we look back at him and say – there was the right man for that crucible; but honestly, Charles Finney didn’t think he was, the revivalists in his day didn’t, because he didn’t make a significant enough profession of faith.  Now the people who made the great profession of faith were knuckleheads.  Because you can follow Salmon Chase and McClellan and see the arrogance and the ego in the guys who actually were evangelical.  But then you got a gifted heathen who discovers Christ in the crisis of the White House…

“The fact is, you have to know who God has anointed for the job, not who passes your Sunday School litmus test.

“Churchill falls into the same category.  Neville Chamberlain was a great evangelical.  Nevil Chamberlain, ‘Peace in our time,’ he totally goofed up.  He was trying to be a sheep dealing with a wolf.  Churchill from the beginning knew what Nazi Germany was.  Churchill was the guy who was anointed.”

That really got me thinking.  Lincoln is considered to be one of, if not THE greatest president this nation has ever had. Yet during his time in office, he was disliked, hated, and ridiculed by so many people.  I had learned a lot about Lincoln because we studied the Civil War for three years in homeschool.  I never planned it that way, but I think God was teaching our family something about the time we are now living in.

Abortion is the modern-day civil rights issue that has become socially acceptable just as slavery was in Lincoln’s time.  The Civil War was the terrible result of the sin of slavery.  Abortion takes away the rights of those who are considered subhuman to bring wealth to the few.  What will be the consequences of this heinous crime?  Lincoln fought for the humanity of the slaves without demonizing the slave holders and the south.  He knew that after the war, they all had to be united again.

I started asking God to show me who he had anointed for these very difficult and dangerous days.  Soon the new presidential hopefuls were all over the news.

I must admit, whenever I saw Donald Trump on TV, I would cringe a little bit inside.  Why does he have to seem so prideful and silly?  But most of what I saw were just small clips taken out of whole speeches which were then ridiculed by whatever media was showing them.  He didn’t look like the leader I had been hoping for, and I felt discouraged.

I heard Lance Wallau at our church again, and he spoke about a meeting that he been in with Donald Trump.  His view of the man was so different from what had been portrayed in the media.  Lance talked about a man who believed in the Bible, brought his Bible to the meeting, and listened and respected all of the Christians leaders present.  This started to give me hope.

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I decided to get Trump’s book, Crippled America from the Library to hear about the views and beliefs of this man straight from his own mouth, so to speak.  I really enjoyed reading this book and learned so much that I didn’t know.  Most importantly, it gave me hope.  Hope that someone actually understood what was ailing this country and had a plan to start to fix it.  His views were all truly conservative, and I didn’t find a thing that I disagreed with.  I did not find anything racist or sexist in the book.  Just the opposite.  Trump was putting women and minorities in leadership positions in his businesses long before it was politically correct to do so.

I had this book for six weeks, and no one else put it on hold.  I find it hard to believe that there is no one else out there wondering what Donald Trump really stands for and is willing to take the time to delve into this book rather than just take the media’s word for it.

Chris and I were business owners for almost four years and realized how hard it really is – not just because it is hard to take risks and strike out on your own – but also because the government seems to be trying to hinder you at every single turn.  Our business failed despite our best efforts.  I can’t convey to you how much respect I have for Donald; that he has been able to be so successful in so many different businesses when it is so difficult to do so.  Being in the business world and meeting so many other owners and entrepreneurs, we saw that it is difficult for everyone.

I can’t describe how amazing it was to read his book and realize that he understands how hard it is and how damaging the government has become for businesses, especially small businesses. He has a plan to change that.  Finally a person in politics who has been in the real world and who has had real world success.

In his own words, “The basic difference between the politicians’ way and my way is that I’ve actually had to do the things that politicians only talk about doing.

“I’ve hired thousands of employees.  I’ve had to negotiate with contractors and unions.  I’ve had to provide health care coverage for my workers.  I know what the real costs are, I know what the problems are.  I know what works and what doesn’t work.”

Trump has a great track record of taking over historic buildings that have been allowed to become rundown and revitalizing them under time and under budget.  You can’t mess around when you want to make a profit.  If the government were run like a business, oh how different things would be!

In conclusion, Trump says, “We can take a crippled country and make it great again.  Our country has been allowed to languish and become tarnished, second-class place in the eyes of the world…I have a vision and I understand the process by which we’re going to accomplish our goals, We need to strengthen our military, help our vets, stand up to our enemies, deter illegal immigration, rebuild our infrastructure, revamp our tax code and education system, and rip apart the ridiculous policies of the past, including Obamacare and the Iran nuclear ‘agreement.’

“Most important, we need to reinvigorate the American dream and give our country back to the millions of people who have labored so hard for so little…We are at a critical turning point in our history…Our time has not passed, it is here, and the potential is amazing.”

I began a second time to read Rick Joyner’s, I See A New America and this time I finished it!  This time I understood more of what he was writing about, having more experiences with government agencies and government regulations and taxes.  I also had more hope!  The amazing thing was that this book written in 2011 said many of the same things that Trump wrote in his book in 2015.  Some statements were almost identical, such as the fact that the government could be run with 20% of its present size.  With this type of efficiency, they could actually cut taxes, balance the budget, and strengthen the economy rather than incur more debt.

Rick writes, “The U.S. government was created to serve the people, not to be served by them.  It was created to protect our wealth and resources, not consume them.  Government workers, from the President down, were to be public servants, not the privileged class they have set themselves up to be…we must resolve to never again elect professional politicians, and determine it is one species we will make extinct in our country.  We, the people, must resolve that every elected office in government should be filled with leaders and managers who have a mission and know how to accomplish it…”

Is Donald Trump such a leader?  He says that he is.  Many people believe that he is.

So how do I feel about Donald Trump?  I think he may just have the very rare driven personality (that is willing to take risks and make people mad) that we need to lead us into something different, something better.  It may look like a wrecking ball making a big mess of things, but appearances can be deceiving.  The more I find out about “business as usual” in Washington, the more I think that unless it all comes tumbling down, we can no longer survive as a nation.  It may not be pretty, it may come in a way that none of us expected, but I know that God is doing something wonderful in our nation and in our government.

When I think about Donald Trump, I feel more hope rising with in me than I have ever felt when thinking about politics.  I am praying for him, for his safety, for his relationship with God, for his vision for this nation and his ability to carry it out.

But it really doesn’t matter how I feel about Donald Trump.  What really matters is who has God anointed for this hour.  If Christians could just seek Him for the answer to that question, we could shape the future of our nation.

Here is some food for thought:

Trump: God’s Chaos Candidate

What does the thoughtful Christian do in this election?

Review of Conversation with Trump and Ben Carson

Trump’s road to the White House: 1980-2

 

 

Areli’s Adventure in Australia

/ Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / Leave a comment

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Areli says that she is not a writer, so I will try to tell her story as best I can.  The real beauty of this article will be all the wonderful photos that Areli was able to capture on her Australian Adventure.

This adventure began back in September of 2015.  This was when the youth leaders, Ben and Dylan called a meeting for anyone interested in going on the summer missions trip.  I took Areli, who was so excited to finally get the opportunity to try missions.  I was thrilled as well, having done 5 trips as a young woman.  I understood how impactful and life changing they are.  We learned at the meeting that the destination of the trip had not yet been determined, but it would probably be somewhere in Africa, Asia, or Europe.  Oh my…that is most of the world…and so very far from home.

Areli jumped into the unknown with two feet; praying, seeking God, and participating in fund-raising events.

Sometime around February, the exact location had been chosen…rather revealed by God, and it wasn’t Africa, Asia, or Europe.

It was Australia!

                Someone had been praying for Dylan and prophesied to him that he would lead a team to Australia.  Then one of the girls on the team had a dream that they were all on a beach in Australia helping a man in a red shirt.  When the leaders shared this dream with their contact in Australia, Nick from Kenmore Baptist church, Nick said that they had a group in their church that wore red shirts!  They were called “The Red Frogs” and they ministered to young adults.  So Australia it was!

It turned out that the only time that the team could travel to the “land down under” was the perfect time to be there.  It was during their winter break when the Kenmore Baptist Church ran the Kids Holiday Club.  This ministered to 380 children, many of whom were unchurched children whose parents needed a safe place for them to be while they were at work.  Also, Georgian and Winnie Banov just happened to be at Glory City Church in Brisbane during this time as well!  I love how God works out the perfect place at the perfect time.

The team (which consisted of two guy leaders, two women leaders, 16 high school girls, and three high school boys) dove into training almost every weekend starting in April.  They had homework each week, to read a chapter of Translating God by Shawn Bolz and complete the workbook.  This included many practical applications such as giving encouraging words to three people during the week.  I highly recommend this book.  I have only read three chapters of it so far and I have encountered revelations from God’s heart that have opened my heart and mind with each chapter!

They practiced listening to God, praying and prophesying over each other, and praying and prophesying over strangers.  They practiced treasure hunting at Lancaster’s First Friday.  Areli and a group of girls prayed for God to give them clues that would lead them to His special treasure (a person who He wanted them to share His love with).  One of the girls got an impression in her mind of the name Angelica.  Areli decided to purchase a bunch of flowers and they started giving flowers away while they searched for Angelica.  It was time to return and they hadn’t found her, so Jessica yelled out, “Angelica!”

A girl close to them turned around and said in shock and amazement, “How did you know my name?”

“God loves you and he knows your name,” Andrea said.  They gave her their very last rose and Angelica walked away still marveling at the fact that God had called her out of the crowd!

Chris and I were a bit concerned about the $3,000 Areli needed for her trip.  “Where God guides, He always provides,” we used to say in YWAM, and Areli didn’t seem worried as she enjoyed preparing for her trip.  Almost immediately Areli received generous donations that covered her entire trip!

My mother’s heart was overwhelmed and undone, and I felt God say, “None of Areli’s faithfulness has gone unnoticed by me.”

You see, Areli works in the home day after day cooking, cleaning, doing laundry, and taking care of her special needs sister and her younger siblings.  She almost always has a good attitude.  If she worked out of the home doing the same things, she would have quite a nest egg by now!  She pours herself out every day for her family, and now her trip was covered!

She still needed spending money, some new clothes, and her dream was to get a new, better camera to satisfy her passion for photography.  Now we felt confident that God would provide all of those needs as well…and He did!

Quickly the time for the most anticipated trip had arrived.  The team was traveling on Air Canada, and I downloaded the App so I could follow their progress across the world and pray for them.  Throughout the day on Wednesday, June 29th, I saw that their first flight out of Baltimore was being delayed again and again.  They finally took off, but their connecting flight in Toronto was supposed to be leaving as they were descending into the Toronto airport.  Air Canada held the airplane as the missions team RAN through the airport and security as fast as they could.  They made it!

After a 5 hour flight to Vancouver and a 14 hour flight to Brisbane, they were there…and they had lost Thursday.  It was now Friday morning even though their bodies were ready for bed.  They decided that the best way to beat the jet lag was to stay awake all day and spend it at the beach, the Gold Coast Beach.  It was a little cooler there (sixties) being the dead of winter, but it was a lovely day!  They even found some strangers to pray for and encourage.

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On Saturday the team visited the Byron Bay Light House and explored and treasure hunted.  Areli’s group got the clue, “Bumble Bee” but they weren’t sure what that meant.  Later in the day, they saw a girl dressed in yellow and black and talked with her and prayed for her.

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Sunday morning the team had to pack up because they were leaving the basic motel where they had been staying.  The leaders were preparing the students for the worse, hinting that they would probably be roughing it in conditions far inferior to the motel.  Areli said they were all bracing themselves for what was coming next…when they arrived at a beautiful 10 bedroom, 6 bathroom mansion!  This was a “God thing” as the tennis team who had rented this house for the week had just pulled out before one of the leaders had called to inquire.  And it was less expensive than the hotels in the area.  It was right in the city and prefect for the youth training meeting that they would be hosting for Kenmore Baptist Church.

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The team threw a surprise party for Gillian

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Sunday the team went to encourage racers in the Gold Coast Marathon.  Dylan and Leah actually ran the half marathon while the other team members ran part of it or cheered and encouraged people from the sidelines.  Areli ended up speed walking for 6 miles and she was exhausted! The team still had energy to try some surfing.

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That evening they attended the service at Kenmore Baptist Church and met a lot of the members of the church that they would be working with.

Sunday night while they were all sleeping, it was just Sunday afternoon here in PA.  Chris and I decided to invite the amazing families of the missions team to our home for a cookout.  Many of the parents and their other children were able to come.  We had a wonderful time getting to know each other better and sharing the sketchy details that had been trickling in from our children.  Some of the parents had purchased international packages for their child’s cell phones and were able to talk or Skype, but not very much.  We hadn’t purchased one, but had hoped that Areli would be able to connect to Wi-Fi to message us.  It turns out that in Australia Wi-Fi is not such a big deal and hard to find.  Still, I had received an email and a text from one of the leaders, Amelia, who was able to send me a Picture of Areli smiling on the beach.  That warmed my heart and put my mind at ease.

Areli on Gold Coast

I thought about what faith my mom had to allow me to travel to Mexico for two weeks without hearing a word from us until we returned.  I missed Areli so badly and wanted to hear from her about all that she was doing.  Well, talking to the other parents was the next best thing.

Soon all the parents retired into the sitting room while the children went to shoot hoops at the park.  We had peace and quiet to share amazing stories and pray for the team.  There was such a sense of joyous expectation for what God was going to do.  I was sad that I wasn’t able to go to Australia myself, to participate in this wonderful trip.  Then I realized that I was sending my very heart and soul and DNA; all that I had taught Areli and invested into her was now being released to bless the people of Australia!  One Dad mentioned how a teenager grows and comes into their own on a trip like this in a way they never could do with their parents with them. Another Dad said he saw springs of living water welling up in the floor in the middle of our prayer circle and going out to all the world.  I was so encouraged by all of these things.

Monday the team spent the morning helping with the Kids Holiday Club and made some great friends.

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Areli and her new friend Alexia

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The afternoon was spent training the youth and young adults of the church in prophecy.  The Kenmore Baptist Church was just beginning to discover the gifts of the Spirit, and most of them had not prophesied before.  Prophecy is simply sharing with other people God’s heart of love for them, sometimes tapping into God’s knowledge of things that we would never know on our own. This was a key ministry and transforming for the young people of the church.  Some of them heard God’s voice for the first time!  Areli prayed for an Australian, Alexia who would become one of her best friends on the trip.  Areli had received the word “Hope” by one of the leaders.  Areli saw that Alexia was like a hope dispenser, giving hope to everyone she met.  Alexia was quite moved by this revelation.  (Sometime later in the trip it was clear that Alexia’s prophetic gift of bringing hope and encouragement had indeed been activated!  She went from person to person on the bus, praying for all who were present.  Then she continued praying for every shop with in sight.  She was catching God’s vision for people and the city and she just couldn’t stop!) Following the prophetic training, they all went out treasure hunting and then returned to the house for an American style Fourth of July barbeque.

Tuesday was more Kids Holiday Club, Prophetic Training, treasure hunting and a bonfire with the church youth.  Wednesday’s schedule was very similar with the treasure hunting taking place at Southbank.  Areli’s group received the clue “orange” so they walked towards the orange Brisbane sign and then towards an orange bridge behind it.  Once they got there, they saw a boy in an orange shirt.  They tried to talk to him but he spoke no English, only Italian.  This was discouraging because they had been walking for a long time and seemed to have hit a dead-end.

After walking a bit longer, Emma and Gillian both began signing the same song about a consuming fire, so “fire” was the next clue.  They encountered Ben who encouraged them that the Italian guys were probably a clue that was pointing to the Italian restaurant across the street.  As they walked towards the Italian restaurant, one the Australian guys said he got the clue, “woman” and “broken foot.” They saw another restaurant setting food on fire so they continued towards the fire.  Then they kept going towards orange traffic cones (from the original clue) until they got to the street corner.  Around the street corner they saw…a woman with a broken foot!  The entire group was taken aback by this very obvious fulfillment of the clue and how many clues it had taken to get them there!  They prayed for the woman and she was very blessed!

Another team was running along the streets because the time was running out.  One of the Australian guys stopped running and Andrea asked him why.  He said that he had an old ankle injury that prevented him from running.  He had been big into riding his mountain bike in competitions.  Andrea prayed for him and his ankle was miraculously healed.  (Later in the trip his wrist was also healed.  Another healing happened, but I am not sure exactly when so I will include it here.  Emma was praying for a teen who hadn’t been able to touch his toes since a childhood skiing accident.  He was healed and Emma got a video of him happily touching his toes about a thousand times!)

Thursday morning the team visited the Kai Coffee house, owned by a friend of Ben.  They prayed for and encouraged this friend and his family.

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After that, the team went hiking on the sunshine coast.

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They attended a revival meeting in the evening.

Friday they got to attend a leadership workshop given by Banning Liebscher of Jesus Culture.  That evening they went to Glory City Church for Georgian and Winnie Banov’s service.  They all prayed for people at the end.  Areli and a few other girls were praying for a woman and Jessica got the word “child” for that woman.  She said that she and her husband had been trying to conceive a child, so the girls prayed for God to send her that very special blessing!

On Saturday the team helped Kenmore Baptist Church with a service project.  They built a fence around the yard of a single mother who had two daughters.  One of her daughters had special needs like our daughter Ashlyn.  However, this girl couldn’t talk or walk at all.  Apparently she was very good at getting around despite her disability, because there had been an incident when the neighbors noticed the girl crawling down the street while her mother was unaware in the house…hence the need for a fence!  When I saw pictures of the white picket fence and the raised flower beds that they created around the yard, I was struck by how beautiful it was!

Saturday evening was spent helping Georgian and Winnie again.

Sunday morning the team went to street markets and did some shopping.  They visited the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary.

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After that they had fun on at a local watering hole.

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They attended the evening service at Kenmore Baptist Church.  Ben and Dylan preached and the team prayed for the people.  Many of the Australians went out to eat with them, and they said their tearful goodbyes.  The team had gained such wonderful friends, and they all want to go back and visit.

Monday morning began their 28 hour return trip home.  I was so excited the entire day and watched my phone to track their progress.  Cadin was counting the hours until Areli walked through the door because he was tired of cleaning the kitchen, he said.

Areli came home at midnight, tired but happy.  Over the next few weeks she has been telling us the marvelous stories.  She said that the biggest thing she learned on the trip was that praying for strangers and making new friends was not as hard as she thought!  The team’s love and wiliness to work impacted everyone they met.  What is more, the gifts that they helped to discover and activate in the youth of the Kenmore Baptist Church will continue to transform the Brisbane area and beyond with the love of a Good Father who knows each of His children by name!

Am I a True Believer?

/ Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 1 Comment

I had just struggled through the door of the orthodontist with my daughter.  Ashlyn is almost a teenager and in dire need of braces on her teeth.  Doing orthodontic work on a child who is mentally three is difficult enough.  Then there is her club foot deformity.  She can walk with braces on her feet, but she is very awkward.  Sometimes she almost pulls me down while trying to steady herself.  We took seats right inside the door.  I was feeling a bit self-conscious, expecting people to be staring at me and my special needs daughter.

I found myself in the middle of a conversation between two women.  Both were talking about how terrible their knees were.  One of the women was in her 40s and had just gotten cortisone shots in each knee which helped considerably.  The other women was in her 50s and she told about having trouble with her left knee since she was 24.  Back then, since she had some cartilage damage, the doctors decided to do surgery to remove all the cartilage.

“It has just been bone on bone ever since then.  It is awful, but I won’t let them cut me open again, no matter how bad it gets,” she said with passion.

“God could give her new cartilage,” I thought to myself. “Areli’s mission’s team in Australia has been seeing healings.  Why not here?”

I felt compelled to ask her if I could pray for her.  Suddenly I had another thought that stopped me in my tracks.

“You are sitting here with a hip that gives you trouble.  You have had prayer so many times and it is not better.  What makes you think that you can pray for this woman?  You are sitting right next to your daughter who is obviously in need of healing herself.  She is evidence that God doesn’t always answer your prayers.  It would be better for you to just keep your mouth shut than look like a fool.”

These thoughts all flashed through my mind in the span of a second, but they seemed reasonable to me, and I stayed quiet.  Yet I thought about it for the next few days.  When I shared this all with Chris, he said, “You know that was the devil.”

I hadn’t realized it, but now that I write it out, it sounds just like that liar!  Why do I fall for it almost every time?  Over the next few days as I was driving my children around town, I kept encountering God through the Word of Promise New Testament on CD, The Book of Mark.

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Jesus said to the father, “You said, ‘If you can!’ All things are possible for him who believes.” Immediately the father cried out, “I do believe! Help me to believe more!”

Jesus healed the boy despite the father’s doubts.

“Jesus, please heal my daughter despite all of MY doubts.  How can I obtain this healing for her that seems so mysteriously hidden and out of reach?” I prayed.

                Jesus answered “Have faith in God, I tell you the truth. You can say to this mountain, fall into the sea.’  And if you have no doubts in your mind and believe that the thing you say will happen, then God will do it for you.  So I tell you to ask for things in prayer.  And if you believe that you have received those things, then they will be yours.”

“And those who believe will be able to do these things as proof: They will use my name to force demons out of people.  They will speak in languages they never learned.  They will pick up snakes without being hurt.  And they will drink poison without being hurt.  They will touch the sick, and the sick will be healed.”

                “Wow,” I thought to myself, “I don’t think I am a believer in the way Jesus meant for me to be, because I don’t have much of that evidence in my life.  Am I even really a true believer? How can I increase my faith?”

I asked myself those questions all week long.  Finally an answer came in a most beautiful way.  The sermon on Sunday was being preached by the pastor of Christ Community Church, Dave Hess.  He spoke directly to my questioning heart, as though God had instructed him to do so. You can listen to the entire sermon on LCMI.TV.

He was talking about finding what was pleasing to the Lord.  He said that God loved it when we joined Him on His adventures, taking risks and seizing opportunities.  Our mission (found in Eph 5:8) is to take full advantage of everyday, to make the most of the time (Kairos time – a moment of opportunity that won’t last long).  When we see a chance to step out and show God’s love, fear comes from the enemy who is trying to keep us from taking an opportunity that he wanted to use.

Rev 12:12 says that a generation will arise that will make Satan furious because he has run out of Kairos time, which just means that he is getting ticked off because the opportunities that he used to take advantage of are now being overtaken by the people of God.

Then Dave shared about when he first started trying to get words of knowledge for people outside of the church in an effort to bring them healing.  He floundered around awkwardly and made many mistakes.

“You will make mistakes”, he said, “But it is worth every risk and mistake because God can use our most stupid moments and make something redemptive.”

Then he read a declaration over all of us that answered the cry of my heart for more faith.

You will live as a child with his Father, flooded with His revelation light.

You will learn to choose what is beautiful to the Lord.

His supernatural fruit will be seen in you – His goodness, His righteousness, and His truth.

You will live with true wisdom having discernment to fully understand His will.

You will take full advantage of every day, every Kairos moment, spending your life for His purposes.

You are going to maximize the opportunities that He brings to you.

I think I am going to write these out and post them on my bathroom mirror.  I can read them and build my spiritual muscles by adding faith to every word!

I Want My Life to Mean Something

/ Anne (Grace is my Superhero) / 2 Comments

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I just had to go to the bathroom!  However, on my way there I needed to yell out the window at a boy chasing a ball into the street.

“Calvin, I told you that you are not allowed in the street.  You have to play inside now!”

Then I had to stop to referee a fight between two other children.

“If this is Courage’s toy, you have to ask him before you take it!  And Courage, do not scream and cry.  Just say, ‘This is my toy.  Give it back to me please.’  You don’t get anything you want when you scream and cry.”

I feel like I have given this little lesson about five hundred and sixty-four times.  Why don’t they remember! I still need to use the restroom (it is getting quite urgent!) yet I cannot stop myself from picking the kitchen towel off the floor which I had already done twice that morning.

“We dry our dishes with this towel, people!” I think to myself.  I notice peanut butter on the otherwise white cabinet door.  I encounter shoes and the grungiest socks known to man thrown about the living room floor.

“Cooper!  Put these in the laundry room!” I call out in desperation, knowing that I will probably have to hunt him down and ask him again later.

I pass Ashlyn’s walking track.  She is supposed to be doing her walking exercises right now; building her muscles, organizing her brain, and increasing her balance.  She is laying on the sofa, nursing some sores on her feet.  I wonder to myself if all the therapy that I have done with her was in vain.  She can’t wear her braces if the skin on her feet break down.  And she can’t walk if she doesn’t wear her braces.

I get into the bathroom and shut and lock the door.  A moment of peace.  A quiet space.  Ahhhhhh…I can sit down for a moment.  WHAT IS THIS!!!!! PEE ON THE TOILET AGAIN!! I just wiped this toilet one hour ago, and the hour before that!

In the relative quiet of my stinky, dirty bathroom I am close to tears.

“Is this my life?  Working hard to clean a house that never stays that way?  Toiling to teach my children lessons that they never seem to learn.  Worried about not doing enough therapy with Ashlyn while simultaneously worrying about doing TOO MUCH therapy with Ashlyn.  I want my life to mean something,” I pray to God. “How can I know if my life is making a difference when I see so little good fruit?”

I just love it when I have a really productive day; wrote a blog article, organized an entire room, cleaned out the attic, or created a delicious meal with an abundance of bright colors and fresh ingredients.  But what happens when day after day goes by with no real progress of any kind.  Moms deal with this phenomena all the time.  We pour ourselves out, go to bed late, get up early, work hard; and when we stop to look around…it appears as though we have gotten absolutely nothing accomplished whatsoever!

I have been feeling the frustration and discontent that thousands of women have experienced.  We feel unnoticed, unimportant, and meaningless.  This has pushed many women to abandon their high calling as a wife and mother to pour themselves into other pursuits…just to feel worthy and fulfilled.

I KNOW that I have the most important career in the world.  I KNOW that my life is making a difference in this life and in the next.

It just doesn’t FEEL that way most of the time.

“God, help me to see things the way you do.  I need some encouragement here!”  I have prayed.

God is answering as He always does.  It may take a lifetime to understand all that He is saying and to unravel my own thoughts and ideas.  But I think I am making some progress.

I have been listening to the Bible on CD.  Listening to a cast of characters reading the Bible as though it were actually happening has helped me to see the stories in a different light.  It seems more real and more relevant.  Plus it is a different version than what I have read before, and it brings a new dimension to many verses.

As I look at the Bible as a whole; the story of God’s relationship with mankind, there is a common thread that I hadn’t noticed before.  God always had a plan.  He was always confident that this plan would work.  Very few humans actually understood His plan or knowingly helped God work out His plan.  The major events in the Bible were orchestrated and accomplished by God, not man.  Many times God worked through people and with people but most of the time He moved DESPITE people.

All the amazing events in Acts happened because of God.  The disciples didn’t get together after the resurrection and have an intensive strategic planning meeting to figure out how they would acquire the Holy Spirit or how they would add 3,000 people to their number in one day.  They didn’t go to college to learn the cutting edge strategies for converting the Jews and then the Gentiles to the Way.  (They didn’t even know that the Gentiles COULD be saved until God showed them.)

All the disciples did was wait on God and obey whatever He told them to do.  Many times they saw miracles, but more often they encountered opposition and persecution.  Often it appeared as though they were accomplishing nothing at all as the churches they planted fell into deceptions and wrong teachings.  Yet look at how their lives have affected the entire world!

When I look across all of human history, the person who had the most powerful participation in bringing God’s salvation to the earth was Mary.  This is just my opinion but you have to admit, she played a pretty big role.

But what did she actually do?

She BELIEVED what the Angel told her was true.

She SUBMITTED to God’s wonderful plan.

She MOTHERED Jesus.

Could I be as powerful in the course of human history as Mary if I just believe, submit, and mother?

If I could just BELIEVE every word God tells me.

If I could just joyfully SUBMIT, YEILD, and SURRENDER to God’s best for me.

If I could just MOTHER – love, nourish, carry, teach, serve, and protect each child God gives to me.

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Even Mary lost her most influential place of mothering for a while.  Maybe she didn’t agree with what Jesus was doing because it seemed too controversial or too dangerous.  Perhaps she was too weighed down with the concerns of her other children and life in general.  When she and her other sons went to see Jesus while He was teaching a large group, He didn’t go out to them.

He said, “Who is my mother?  Who are my brothers?”  He pointed to His disciples and said, “These are my mother and my brothers. Whoever hears the words of God and does them is my mother and brothers.”

If I had been Mary, I would have been devastated by His words.  Then I would have gotten really mad!  “Listen mister, I said yes to carrying you in my womb even though it sullied my reputation and messed up my life.  I gave birth to you and nursed you and took care of you during all the hard times!  None of these guys here know what the angel said to me.  They don’t know what Anna or Simeon said about you.  They didn’t see you take your first steps or nurse you through sickness.  How could you say that they are your mother!”

Yet she must have realized that Jesus was never wrong.  He was never disrespectful or vengeful or mean for meanness sake.  All His words were true…every time. Mary must have repented before God for not hearing His words and obeying them during this crucial time in Jesus’ ministry, because she was there with disciples in the upper room.

What this story tells me is that anyone, anywhere at anytime can have Mary’s impact if they simply hear God’s voice and obey.  To hear God’s voice we must love Him, wait on Him, spend time with Him, read His words over and over.  To obey Him is always to love because He is love.

In essence – to BELIEVE

TO SUBMIT

TO MOTHER

To live this kind of life takes faith to believe without seeing.

To live this kind of life is so much harder than just checking items off a to-do list.

To live this kind of life is something I am sure that I can’t do on my own.

To live this kind of life is the POWER and GLORY of my motherhood; to watch God take my little, seemingly insignificant acts of love and obedience and turn them into something

EARTH SHAKING

ETERNITY CHANGING

BEYOND MY IMAGINATION IMPORTANT