As You Give the Grace, I Will Sing....

 Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
      to be out of your sight?
   If I climb to the sky, you're there!
      If I go underground, you're there!
   If I flew on morning's wings
      to the far western horizon,
   You'd find me in a minute—
      you're already there waiting!
   Then I said to myself, "Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
      At night I'm immersed in the light!"
   It's a fact: darkness isn't dark to you;
      night and day, darkness and light, they're all the same to you.  ~ Psalm 139:7-10 (MSG)


You Are My Hiding Place - Selah


Is there anyplace I can avoid God's Spirit?

Sometimes, it feels as though I am alone, and even though I know in my head that God is present, sometimes it is just really hard to sense his Presence.


Psalm 139 speaks of being afraid, I'm not afraid, just exhaustingly tired. I'm beginning to suspect some of my medication either doesn't like other medication or it doesn't like me.  Either way, there seems to be a battle going on in my body that is creating cramps that are preventing sleep. 


I feel like the person in this picture.  Not only do I feel a bit alone, but in my fatigue the world seems blurry, out of focus.

This morning I sat down to journal. I felt I needed to write something since I have been silent since the weekend, but I didn't know what I would write.  I don't exactly feel joyful. At the moment, a gratitude might be difficult.

Then Sarah Young reaches out to me from her devotion Jesus Calling.

Does it ever cause you to pause and step back when you have been thinking about something and then you open a book, receive a note or an email... and it is like a response to the thoughts you have been carrying!

Ummmm... Sort of like a burning bush or a talking donkey! : )

"There is no place so desolate that you cannot find Me there. When Hagar fled from her mistress, Sarah, into the wilderness, she thought she was utterly alone and forsaken. But Hagar encountered Me in that desolate place. There she addressed Me as the Living One who sees me. Through that encounter with My Presence, she gained courage to return to her mistress." (Sarah Young, Jesus Calling)

This story comes from Genesis 16:7-14. Honestly, I had forgotten Hagar fled Sarah at the beginning of her pregnancy and then went back.

I respect those who believe these stories are literal, just as I always hope and pray these individuals will respect my belief they are sacred stories, to show me how to live, how to love, how to reach out to God......

I have preached and journaled about God's promises to always be near by, yet the reality is...there are days that feel blurry and out of focus.

God had made promises to Abraham and Sarah, in this passage from Genesis, God's promises widened to include Hagar when she was at a weak moment.  She ran away in to the desert or the wilderness....and it was THERE God found her.

Darn...in the wilderness!!!

I may google to learn how many passages in scripture deal with "the" wilderness.

Fact is, God has made promises AND I will make journeys into the wilderness. That is life and the reality is, I cannot run away from life.   I have to "go back" and simple BE.

Be with the pain.  Be with the fatigue.  Be with the blurriness.

Just be, and God will hear me and answer me...God will give me the fortitude to "live."

Sunday, during Parlor Conversations, I stressed the difference between someone saying, "I am living with cancer." and "I am dying of cancer."

My self talk, the words I carry in my head and in my heart...all those words create filters.  Those words are powerful and help me either LIVE and BE PRESENT or to simply fold in on myself and allow the fatigue to control my day.  

: ) Honestly, I don't choose to spend my day looking and feeling like this picture!

Zephaniah is one of those little prophet guys, stuck between Habakkuk and Malachi.  Zephaniah's voice kept telling the Israelites that "Yes" they had access to God, AND they also had to bother with people as well.  For me this morning Zephaniah 3:17 is telling me that "Yes, I have promised to be near you AND you have to continue living with the 'bothers' of your reality."

...don't despair.Your God is present among you,    a strong Warrior there to save you.Happy to have you back, he'll calm you with his love    and delight you with his songs.

My legs are still achy and my head remains fuzzy from lack of sleep...AND I am rejoicing to be alive in this moment of time!

The sky is blue with big white fluffy clouds.  The temperatures are cool.  Cooper has been here this morning, charming me with his smile...

Yes indeed.  Life is good. Thanks be to God.

I Will Sing ~ Don Moen

AMEN!

Many Blessings ~ Sandi

Hope

Hope is faith holding out its hand in the dark. ~George Iles

My Hope Is In You Lord - Aaron Shust

Yesterday, while driving, I became lost in my mental wanderings. I began thinking of those who preach of a spirituality that is "bigger or beyond" Jesus. I have to admit, I am a Christian who does not believe that Jesus is the only way...He's "MY" way, yet I cannot say he is the "only" way. I think because of my openness, those who believe differently than me, often feel comfortable sharing their own thoughts, their own wanderings and where those take them.

I believe that Jesus is bigger than my definition or understanding of him. I believe that he is present in places that would not be labeled as being "Christian."

How?

I don't know, he is Lord and in "my" mind, that means he is bigger and broader than I can comprehend.

Yesterday, thinking of these different pathways that are bigger/broader than any religion, I wondered where they find hope. I know that many who live from this position, live in the present moment, without concern for tomorrow because this moment is all we truly know we have...

2 Corinthians 5:7 says, "We walk by faith and not by sight."

For me, walking by faith, even though I cannot "see", I do see!

I see God all around me and I believe I see because of the grace found within Jesus and through the power of the Holy Spirit. Without the grace I have discovered in Jesus, I would struggle because it is my "hope" in him that helps me to ride the joys and the pains of this life.

This morning, I felt as though God was once listening in on my thoughts when I opened Sarah Young's devotional, Jesus Calling. For today, using Romans 12:12; 1 Thessalonians 5:8, and Hebrews 6:18-19 she writes:

http://www.markcassino.com/b2evolution/
index.php/2006_spring_wildflowers_viii

"Hope is a golden cord connecting you to heaven. This cord helps you hold your head up high, even when multiple trials are buffeting you. I never leave your side, and I never let go of your hand. But without the cord of hope, your head may slump and your feet may shuffle as you journey uphill with Me. Hope lifts your perspective from your weary feet to the glorious view you can see from the high road. You are reminded that the road we're traveling together is ultimately a highway to heaven. When you consider this radiant destination, the roughness or smoothness of the road ahead becomes much less significant. I am training you to hold in your heart a dual focus: My continual Presence and the hope of heaven." 

I smiled, appreciating and acknowledging the love of God that holds me and is within me as I read this passage. Because I'm warped, I looked up from the book and said, "Are you listening to every word I say or think this week?"

"Hope is a golden cord..."

We are living through the second drought in the same number of years. My family, my neighbors, many in my congregation depend on a good crop, yet for the second summer in a row, we are watching corn and beans "grow" in parched soil.

Without hope, I would be like those stalks of corn. I would be walking through this life, parched... Without the "living water" of my hope in Christ, my head would indeed droop, because living on this earth is painful, it is difficult. Hope is a cord, as Sarah Young writes, it is a "golden cord" a cord of great value that connects me to that which I cannot see except through the eyes of faith.

Today, I thank and praise you, Lord, for the gift of hope that resides in my heart! I thank and praise you for the teachers you send along my way, just when my head does begin to feel a bit heavy. I thank and praise you for people in my life who send encouraging notes or emails, they are woven within that golden cord that connects me to you for through them, I see you! I ask you blessing upon them, may their lives be touched by your love, may their sense of hope be strengthened, as they too walk by faith. AMEN.


Jeremy Camp - Walk by Faith... 


Many Blessings ~ Sandi

I become free...

One thing that has always struck me is how Jesus sent disciples out two by two. In the book of Acts, we hear  that same principle going on, normally there is someone traveling or working alongside another.  Well, PC(USA) is bringing the denomination together under one roof this weekend in Indianapolis.  It's called The Big Tent Event. I'm going up to volunteer as soon as I finish another appointment at 8:00. But, since we are called to work together...to build one another up, I wanted to share a devotion by Sarah Young from Jesus is Calling.

Sarah Young - Missionary

"I am the Truth: the One who came to set you free. As the Holy Spirit controls your mind and actions more fully, you become free in Me. You are increasingly released to become the one I created you to be. This is a work that I do in you as you yield to My Spirit. I can do My best handiwork when you sit in the stillness of My Presence, focusing your entire being on Me. 

"Let My thoughts burst freely upon your consciousness, stimulating abundant Life. 'I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.' As you follow Me, I lead you along paths of newness: ways you have never imagined. Don't worry about what is on the road up ahead. I want you to find your security in knowing Me, the One who died to set you free." ~ John 8:32; Philippians 2:13; John 14:6

I've so many thoughts...Thinking in terms of Lectio Divina, I will carry the words "As the Holy Spirit controls your mind and actions more fully, you become free in Me." with me into this day.  As I drive, I will say the words over again.  Although, already I feel the key words will be those I've underlined.

Many Blessings ~ Sandi

Frail and Glorious - VII

The surgery yesterday was long, thus I got home late and I began working on gathering supplies and running off power point note pages for the Lead Like Jesus Encounter today... I would say I'm stressed, but I'm too tired to be stressed. : )  Lord, help me remember I am not in charge of this world...Lord, help me remember I am yours and that you are the great I AM!

Sarah Young writes in her devotional, Jesus Calling,

"I the Creator of the universe, am with you and for you. What more could you need? When you feel some lack, it is because you are not connecting with me at a deep level. I offer abundant Life; your part is to trust Me, refusing to worry about anything. 

"It is not so much adverse events that make you anxious as it is your thoughts about those events. Your mind engages in efforts to take control of a situation, to bring about the result you desire. Your thoughts close in on the problem like ravenous wolves. Determined to make things go your way, you forget that I am in charge of your life. The only remedy is to switch your focus from the  problem to My Presence. Stop all your striving, and watch to what I will do. I am the Lord!"

I like this devotion book so much and that is honestly unusual for me.  I normally get bored with a daily devotion, but this one is different.

Frederick Buechner

As I prepare for yet another busy day...I found a quote by Frederick Buechner. I've actually copied it off and have put it inside my facilitator's notebook for today. I have been around so much death or dying this past week. Sometimes, as I go from one thing to another, I wonder what difference it makes? When I begin to get really tired, I sometimes go with harder questions of doubts, "Is this all there is?"  I actually had a conversation along that line with a family member of the woman who had surgery yesterday. When asked...I've never crossed over and seen with my own eyes!  Not being able to answer except from a place of hope and faith, the man began asking even more difficult questions...

"We find by losing. We hold fastby letting go. We become somethingnew by ceasing to be something old.This seems to be close to the heartof that mystery. I know no more now than I ever did about the far side ofdeath as the last letting-go of all,but now I know that I do not needto know, and that I do not needto be afraid of not knowing.God knows. That is all that matters." 

God knows...That is all that matters.

I'm so glad I am not in charge! My little corner of the world is enough chaos to keep my head spinning, I cannot imagine the awesomeness of God to know "me" within so much else.

Jeremiah 1:5 says,   “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,   before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”


Matthew 10:30 reminds me that,  "And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered."


John 15:10 promises that, "If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love."

In other words, God knows ME!  He knows my name. He even knows the number of hairs on my head, that is how special I am to him.  I'm frail and I'm glorious! How great is that! I cannot believe that I will be simply "forgotten" like a speck of dust if I truly believe I am known and loved.

I may or may not get an opportunity to journal about that little book I picked up at the garage sale.  Tomorrow is Sunday...another full day after several full days.  Still, with God's help, I can remain present within each day.

Lord, today is the long awaited Lead Like Jesus One Day Encounter for the presbytery.  So many of us who have worked on this are also pastors...solo pastors of congregations.  Lord, you know each of our hearts.  Lord, you know us...each by name.  Lord, fill us with your Spirit today.  Help us to be a blessing to those who are attending this day long encounter.  And Lord, help me to remember to seek your face in each one I serve today.  AMEN!


Many Blessings ~ Sandi