A LampPost Flickering

Caleb: "You know what Jesus is working on right now?" Big sigh, eyes sparkling. This is coming out of nowhere. Me: "What's he working on, Caleb?" Caleb: "He's making houses made of..." dramatic pause "... PURE GOLD! And all the streets are made of the best gold! And we get to be there!" His voice is trembling with excitement and anticipation, as if it were Christmas Eve all over again. "And then, there's this book with everyone's name in it! Except for people who don't love God," said with a downcast face, which soon brightens. "And maybe we'll get to see our own names written in it!" I don't have any pictures of this moment to show you, and it doesn't matter, because there's no way any earthly camera could have captured that look of love and anticipation from this child of the King. He was literally glowing, more radiantly than the purest of gold. His mind is so often fixed heavenward. *** ...

Today is Day 17. The past week has flown by, not really from busy-ness, although there is always that, but from lots of decisions and praying and more decisions. The worst part is that we are in a bit of a flux, and some of the decisions are not ours to make, so we must wait to even let anyone know "Here's what God is doing." I can say this: sometimes God closes every single door around you. You try all the handles. One by one, you get the same result: locked. You're starting to sweat and feel hopeless, helpless, trapped. Finally you're standing before the last door. You reach out a trembling hand, and somewhat to your surprise, and somewhat at your expectation--it is after all the last door, and God never abandons you to nowhere and nothingness--the handle turns. You are scared at what you might find behind that door, but when you turn back to look at all the locked doors behind you, you know that God has used those dead ends to lead you to this very door. This i...

Last week was really hard. But I guess if this were easy, it wouldn't be of that much worth to the Lord, and I want this sacrifice to be a costly gift to him. Physically: we're doing just fine. In just the past two days I've found myself having more energy and not feel so whipped. The mornings are a little sluggish, though, and it takes me a longer to get going. I now have to remind myself to drink my water and mealtime cup of juice. Today, I forgot to drink anything until after 2:00 p.m. Spiritually: we're growing and deepening. We see God's mercies every day all around us. Personally, I feel really close to Jesus throughout the day, like he's following me around, whispering guidance and love into my ear throughout the day. I know he's always with us, but his presence beside me is sometimes palpable. You know how you feel when your spouse is home from work early and your normal routine feels different or perhaps must now become different? How just havin...

You might want to grab a handful of tissues. Adoption1 Uploaded by ludo

Today I spent a lot of time searching. Not just searching for the remote control (Caleb is a complete remote hog!) or where Seth may have stashed Rob's lawnmower key...the only one we have. The search is based on this reflecting question: Are there dark spots in my heart that may be keeping God from answering my prayers? I asked God today to reveal my sins, even the teeniest of them, so that I could confess them to him and repent. Um, let's just say that God wasn't silent today. There's a lot of chaff in my life! Impatience, un-gentleness, laziness, worldliness, dishonesty...I could go on, and God DID go on, but this is awfully public and painfully personal. I can't tell you that God is gripping us punitively by the shoulder because of these, but I can say with certainty that it doesn't matter how small the sin is, it keeps us away from God. Sure, I know when I'm being rebellious, and at the end of the day, I do feel sorry for whatever it is, yelling at one ...

I thought today would be harder than it is. Sure, we're a little hungry, but the pangs are certainly not unbearable. My heart breaks for those families all over the world, even here in the prosperous US of A who do not get enough to eat. I'm a grown-up, and I can handle this, but I would be beside myself if any of my children had to go hungry. How many mothers across the world have to look into big,hungry eyes and not be able to meet that basic need for their children? The Church needs to work harder to do something about that...I need to do something about that. Part of my prayer time during this fast has included praying through some of the Psalms. One of today's was Psalm 61. I found great comfort in the words of lament that my own soul could not have expressed without help. "Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the ends of the earth I call to you. I call as my heart grows faint; lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been my refuge, a stro...

Today was a little hard, but not too bad. I had to stop myself from licking the strawberry jam off my fingers when I made the kids' lunch. I must admit, I knew for sure that I was going to have a craving for Saylor's chicken ranch pizza during this journey, so yesterday, before the fast started, the kids and I went out for pizza for lunch. And I bought a little Christmas chocolate from the clearance aisle. Hey, I know what I was going to be thinking about, and I wanted to ward off temptation...by giving into it before it was wrong! :o) "To thine ownself be true," quips Polonius, Hamlet's older and wiser friend, who surely would have nodded his approval at the Ghiradelli squares. I'm reading a book called, "Incredible Moments With the Savior: Learning to See" by Ken Gire. Today's encounter with Jesus revealed a bit of his compassion and self-sacrifice through the miracle of turning water into wine at the Canaan weding feast. Such an odd first publ...

Okay, it's been almost forever since I've talked to you. Sorry. Christmas really kicked my rear. I hope I can say that without sounding completely bah-humbug, because I'm not scroogey in the least. I love Christmas, truly, I do. In fact, my tree is still up and lit. Yeah, I'll probably take it down sometime this week, but I don't think I was really able to enjoy it with my full schedule until after Christmas was finished. The mom for whose two children I babysit took last week off from work, so HURRAY, I actually got a bit of a break! The kids and I basically spent the whole week recovering from merry-making. I do have one bit of SAD news concerning Christmas: Seth erased every single one of my Christmas pictures from our digital camera! I was, and still am, devestated; but then again, I'm the ding dong who put off uploading them from the disk to our computer. Arg. I did get our family's present-time recorded on the video recorder, but it's a little hard...