Listen, Listen

Listen and Obey?

I was at the jewelry store in Stoughton, WI, with my sister...looking at some of the jewelry there.  Much of it is inspirational.  The name of the shop is "Diakonos", and the owner of the shop feels it is not just a business, but a ministry. They carry many beautiful items of all types, but you can also build your own piece using the beads and charms they carry there.  

My sister and I had been talking early that day about her life and her challenges in raising two teenage sons.  She had made a declaration that she was going to really try to "listen" to her boys while she was in WI, visiting.  She wanted to ask them questions and truly listen to them.  From my experience, it is often difficult to actually listen and hear what our children are saying because we are continually responding to them the moment they speak...correcting them, disciplining them, encouraging them, challenging them...(if only in our thoughts). This makes it difficult to listen and take in the whole of who the really are.My sister's goal to "listen" made sense to me and I encouraged her to follow through with it.You see, my own children are all grown and have left to live their own lives.  She thinks I am "older and wiser". (Of this I am not so sure!) 

As we were shopping, we saw a very pretty set of earrings that said on one ear, "listen" and on the other ear, "obey".  I showed them to her and said she ought to get them as she was working on being a better listener.  Her reply to me was, "I'm interested in being a better listener, but I've never been good at the "obey" part, and I doubt that will change!" We both laughed at that, and went on our way.

I was thinking about that when I got home.  We usually expect our children or our significant friends or spouse to listen to us and change, or "obey", yet it is so hard for us to do it ourselves.  In the serenity prayer, we say we say we must accept the things we cannot change, and change "the things we can"....yes...WE are the ones who need to change!Change...aka..."obey"....is not that easy.

There is just something about the word "obey" that implies that there is someone or something over us, dominating us and directing us to do in a way that is contrary to our own self will.  I guess that's the point, though.  We forget that ours is a loving God, who cares for us and knows the power in following His(Her) will for our lives.  We must first "listen" and accept the call or direction when we hear it...and then ultimately we must "obey" and trust.

God Calling  (March 28th) says,"Faith and obedience will remove mountains of evil, mountains of difficulty.But they must go hand in hand."

Oh! How great it would be if the mountains of difficulty could be removed!  Obey!

P.S. I bought my sister a pair of earrings the other day that say, "Listen" and for the other ear, "Listen"! I thought that would be a good place to start! 

I have been encouraged to keep writing!

Ah-h-h-h, November!

I wrote in my journal many years ago..."Ah-h-h-h November!"

It creeps up on me so quickly and I am never ready for the feelings that hit me when it arrives.  The days are getting shorter and shorter, the skies have been gray and dreary all week and suddenly it dawns on me...oh yeah, it's November...and it all comes flooding back to me!

It is always amazing to me how everything that happens seems to start in November, situations and events in my life have left me stuck in despair, crisis, anxiety, and sorrow.  My mind has been battling with these thoughts all month and hence my lament...."Ah-h-h-h November!"

 
To name a few, so that you don't think I am a whiner....


November 1986-bed-rest and fear for the life of my baby 
November 1994-death of my father
November 1995-daughter breaks neck in gymnastics accident
November 2008-fear for health of father-in-law
November 2009-heart failure diagnosis, needed pacemaker
November 2009-dear friend loses battle with cancer
November 2012-mom in hospital after a fall

So I have made my list and I am doing my best to shake the gloomy feelings and turn my attitude around as I face another Thanksgiving this year.  It never ceases to amaze me how God uses the difficulties and the grief, the sorrow and the despair, the anxiety and the crises to draw me to Him and to  show me answers to prayer and His love for me.

I was in the hospital on the anniversary of my dad's death with my mom, who had fallen and injured her hip.  She was in a great deal of pain and I sighed and said something like, 

"I don't like November, it makes me feel sad and depressed.  I have too many memories that bring me down." (I was whining again!) 

My mom, bless her heart, responded, 

"I love November! Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I have so many wonderful memories of days spending time with family and close friends.  I never minded the work. I enjoyed cooking food and celebrating.  I have so much to be thankful for!"

Leave it to an almost 87 year old to take my "gloom and doom" attitude and turn it around and show me that the "gloom and doom" can be turned on its head to be a blessing.

So, as I look at my list and I review my depressing thoughts...if I put a new twist on them, I see with a new perspective...

My son, Michael, is alive and happy today.  He will celebrate his 26th birthday next week.  His very life is a miracle and a blessing.

My daughter, Michelle, survived and thrived after her accident in 1995.  She is a loving mom to my two beautiful grandchildren.  Her recovery was evidence of answered prayer.

My son, Matthew, is going to be a father in only a few short weeks! A new life and grandchild to bring life and hope into the world.

My dad and my dear friend were called home to be with God and is to my amazement  are still with me in so many ways.  Their lives have impacted me and shown me love.

My father in law has recovered from his illness and many prayers have been answered.  He is now active in church, a miracle of its own!

My heart still beats and I have regained some of my strength back with the help of the pacemaker. I am so thankful for that one medical miracle that has kept me going.

My mom is recovering from her fall at a local rehab facility.  She is well cared for and motivated to return to her home.  More evidence has been shown to me that prayers are answered.  

So as I approach Thanksgiving Day this year, I am reminded that I do have so very much to thank God for this day.  I am glad it is November again.  I am grateful for the blessings!

"Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again, Rejoice! ...Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."
Philippians 4:4

I Am Not Afraid!

"Don't you go! Don't you move!"


It felt like a prophesy over me...a word spoken by man, through a man, directed at me to inspire me, yet I believe the words were somehow from God.


I have gone to church with my friend before...and always sensed in myself a holding back, perhaps a "holding out" of letting the power of the Holy Spirit move in me.  Maybe I do hold back, maybe I do.  Lord, I am sorry for that.   Many years of upbringing in a quiet church setting...controlled and in control, I believe...yet I hold the Spirit at arms length away.  I still struggle with letting go....I fear losing control.


At this meeting, the speaker prayed over many of us as we walked through the line.  I boldly went forward committed to allowing the Spirit to fill me...as my time came up, I tried so hard to make it quick...to not be "touched" and have a stranger lay his hands on me! I actually tried to move on quickly and he spoke to me...grabbed my arm and pulled me gently toward him and placed his hand firmly on my head as though he was pushing me down (I felt like he was trying to get me to surrender...or he thought I would try to escape!)


"Dont' you go! Don't you move!"


"God says, "The spirit of the living God is gonna fall on you...Also...it's gonna fall on you like rain!  You're gonna see a cloud, like a cloud the size of a man's hand...but there's gonna be an abundance of rain...There's a refreshing rain that's coming to your life.  And you're gonna refresh others that are weary!"  He says, "I'm gonna put inside your mouth and on your tongue a word that will refresh those that are weary, and broken..."  All those things that you pass through in your life, God says, "There is a reason for that season!"


"Oh, my God, Hallelujah! Oh, my God!"


I did feel moved by the power of the Spirit....tears were streaming down my face, heart pounding within me!  I cried tears as the Spirit flowed through me and I kept thinking about the word, HOPE, again it came to my mind.  


The Lord has placed the word, HOPE in my mouth and on my tongue and I will meditate on it!


"Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their HOPE and confidence."
Jeremiah 17:7


"Don't you go! Don't you move!"


Gail, don't move away from the power of the Holy Spirit! Let it rain on you...(tears?) ...a cleansing abundant rain.


Healing rain is falling down
Healing rain is falling down
I'm not afraid! I'm not afraid!


Let go of the fear! Don't move!


Let me walk across the room, speak of my faith, and not be weird!

A Prayer for my Children

I was listening to my son's CD, "Money",  in the car,  and felt the need for prayer for him...for both of my sons, actually...make that my daughter,  too...no, make it all of us...the whole family....friends....the world.

maybe if I prayed the sun would shine for me? 

"Our father in heaven, hallowed be thy name

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."

take away all the things that trouble me?

"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

Lead us into temptation and deliver us from evil."

Fill my pockets FULL 

my fridge with food to eat?

"Give us this day our daily bread."

but I don't have the time.

"Oh, but you do! You took the time.  The words came from you. You wrote the words, sang the song, you thought the prayer in your head, in your heart...you did pray....you did take the time!" I wanted to call my son and tell him that.  

But, I just thought it and by my thoughts, it was also a prayer!

"For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. AMEN"

"I am good."

Another son, another place, different circumstances....yet he is a writer as well.  He writes his "mantra".  "I am good.  I am good."  Yes, son, you are good!  You are.  I love you. 

I am praying for you!




Only GOD can turn a MESS into a MESSage, a TEST into a TESTimony, aTRIal into a TRIumph, a VICTim into a VICTory. GOD is GOOD... all the time!

A post on Facebook, by my daughter...a prayer...going through a "mess"-
work, marriage, home, child, stress, money...


She is making life into a "test", a "trial"-
want to be perfect, want to be right, want to be successful,
so like me, so like her mother.

Yet...God can change things, God can help us be what we are on the inside,

"good enough"!

God is GOOD! All the time!

Thank you, Lord, for helping me sort out the thoughts of my family today!




‎"This life, therefore ... is not righteousness but growth in righteousness, .... not health but healing, ... not being but becoming, ... not rest but exercise. ... We are not yet what we shall be, ... but we are growing toward it. ... The process is not yet finished but it is going on. ... This is not the end but it is the road. ... All does not yet gleam in glory ... but all is being purified." 


Martin Luther

A Place for Me Among the Sunflowers in Spain

I was standing there, truly there, in Spain, and actually in a sunflower field, among the sunflowers.

It was hot, there was a little breeze, but the sweat was streaming down my back as I coerced my husband, Doug, to take pictures of me there. I was really there. I was among the sunflowers.

I was amazed actually, that I didn't feel more of a spiritual connection to the flowers. They surprised me with their dry furry stalks and the weeds that were on the ground, pricking my ankles made it difficult to walk. I wanted to feel something "special" there. I wanted to feel connected to the earth...but I felt hot, and slightly frustrated with my husband's off color comments about how I ought to "take off my clothes and run naked through the sunflowers".

That was what was on his mind, I guess. Not mine. I wanted a spiritual experience. I had looked forward to finding the sunflowers in Spain, and really "connecting" to that experience of looking up at the sun and feeling a connection to God. I was hoping for more than I got, I guess.

The flowers themselves surprised me...I always thought that they followed the sun with their faces, but really their backs were to the sun, kind of like it was warming their "back sides".

They are tall...almost as tall as I am. They truly are beautiful, too. When I think back on it, I am amazed at how they grow at all in that hot, dry climate. Their color is warm, yellow, orange and all shades of green. They are warm, like the hot Spanish sun that was beating down on us as we stood there studying them.

All in all, I know God was there...the hot sun felt overwhelming, like His love for us. His blessings to me were so obvious throughout the entire trip; family and friends in another country who love me and will always love me, the ability to speak and understand another language, the ability too, to communicate without language as Doug was so able to do, the opportunity and the resources to be able to go at all...were all gifts from God. He was there.

Just standing there, feeling the warm breezes on my face, seeing the colors of the amazing flowers, and reflecting on all of the blessings of my life and my trip. It was a spiritual experience after all. It also had a touch of reality, blessed reality.

Praise God for my moments of reality, "among the sunflowers!"

Mother's Day

Finding a Note

Tucked in my devotional book, a hand written note is there. Written on a piece of "grocery list" paper with a sunflower on it, I receive a note. It is written with childlike writing, printing, and the spelling is surprisingly correct!

"Dear Mom,

All you do for me is so greatly appreciated and I can never express how grateful I am."

My 23 year old son, an adult man in body only, still waiting for the maturity of a "man" to develop in him. I wait, I watch, but mostly I pray for him!

Lord, take care of him, draw him close to you again. Cleanse him from his sins, ....forgive him. He is my son, I love him. Now, he is in YOUR hands. AMEN

I am sitting here "thinking", knowing in my heart intuitively that even if there are troubles ahead for for my son, that if I am lost in my own obsessive thinking and all the excuses, lies and disappointments that are all signs, I must turn my focus away from that. I am simply having a relapse of thought.

"It's grace and mercy you give me..."

Today I refuse to ask questions. I put my doubts aside, I move on. I have a life to live, too. A good one....I have been blessed. I can extend God's grace and mercy only through the power given to me.

"I wouldn't have my life without u and even now I wouldn't survive.

Your son, with love"

I have had my Mother's Day card! I chose to take those words at face value, trusting with hope that they are based on love. I trust the love that I feel. I thank the Lord for it!

I go...face the day...one moment at a time.

"And when people escape from the wicked ways of the world by learning about our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and then get tangled up with sin and become its slave again, they are worse off than before. It would be better if they had never known the right way to live, than to know it and then reject the hold commandments that were given to them. They make these proverbs come true: "A dog returns to it vomit" and "A washed pig returns to the mud."

2 Peter 2:20-22