Monday Morning Changes

Well, it's Monday morning hello world. I feel like I am able to start anew today. It is so amazing how renewed and begin again I feel some Mondays. It's the same way I feel at certain times of the year. For me, there are several times that I feel as though I am beginning anew. A fresh new start at my work, my family, life, and so much more. For example, the change of seasons, a new year does that for me, or the birth of a new baby. I get excited again when school starts for all the children. Maybe it is from the change that I feel myself feel renewed.

I do love change. As a Christian, it seems that I am always in a change mode. Look at all of the things that made me who I am today many changes. For example, my Christan conversion. Many people grew up in the Church. They just know the church and have had a relationship with God forever as as long as they could remember. For me, it wasn't that way at all. I went through a conversion to become a Christian. It happened in some ways very fast and in others very slow. It was most definitely a "change".

It was all about change. It is the change that God was working in me. It began I suppose when I first enrolled my children in a small Christian school. God began God's work on me then. Through my children ever so slowly God molded me and reshaped me. One day I responded to all of that change going through me when I cried out for forgiveness and confessed to believing something or someone I had no real knowledge of Jesus Christ.

I suddenly felt a feeling of forgiveness that I will never fully be able to explain. God was continuing to change me as I responded to God's grace in repentance and faith. It's interesting that true repentance means change. A new direction for my life was on the horizon. Amen! I desperately needed it. Repentance and faith are the necessary responses to Jesus and His message of the kingdom.

I became gradually in ever way a changed person. Through my repentance and my childlike faith, the saving power and initiative of God was Immanuel to me. God is with us and with me specifically. God became part of my human experience. The rest is history as they say.

When I think today of change, the seasons, aging, time, children, I am reminded of a beautiful song which I love by Stevie Nicks. It's words haunt me at times. It is called "Landslide":

Well, I've been afraid of changing
Cause I've built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I'm getting older too

Well, I am building my world around God now as God is continuing to change all of us and everything for His divine purposes. God changes ever day as God recreates all things!

The Times We Need to Stop and Enjoy a Cup of Tea

I am watching "Expedition Impossible". In this show, several contestants are vying for the lead while journeying in Morocco. They all want to be the first to arrive at the goal line or face elimination. On this show, the teams must travel over mountains and rough terrain to get to their next stop. At one point, one team gets to a stopping place at a tea house where some members of the team want to stop for a cup of tea. They want to take time out to enjoy some Moroccan tea. They want to take time even if its just two minutes to have tea. They have the lead in the game. One member prophetically makes the statement "Why can't we stop? We are just flying though this thing. We have already accomplished so much let's take time out for some tea."

I am reminded how many of Jesus' journeys throughout the hills and desert of Israel required time to rest, ponder, pray and relax. He would often leave the masses and retire to the hills to pray. He could not take a steady stream of healing and preaching without rest, meditation and prayer.

We should aspire to Jesus' model in our own lives. So many times we rush through life like it it a contest to get to the finish line or be eliminated. In reality, we never reach the finish line in this life or the next. With and through Christ, it is always a journey that takes us winding through a variety of terrains. Some days it's mountains, some days lakes, streams or deserts. Each detour molds us to refine us to His image. It requires peace, patience, and prayer along the way. At times, it may even require a two minute cup of tea.

Life Unfolding

Hi all, I know it has been a while since I wrote anything. I have problems with discipline. I suppose I rebel from all of the discipline I had during my childhood. Anyway, I am thinking today about life and how it unfolds too quickly. For example, it seems as though the more I plan for the future the faster my life goes by. I can just remember what seems like a few months ago when it was the first of the year. Now the year is already 8/12th gone. Oh my!

I am reminded of the time that I worried so much about all of the years of my life that I felt I had wasted. What good had I done? All of the fear that I carried with me wherever I went. Life unfolded and I grew some in knowledge of the Lord.

I remember God's quiet words in my mind saying that even though the grasshoppers devour everything you have the Lord can give back in multitudes. It gave me such hope. Now hope is the assurance of things hoped for and the conviction of things not seen. I remember also fondly those words I learned from my children's Bible memory at the Heiskell School.

Oh how I miss those days of picking up my children from school and doing something fun with them each day. Some days it was just going to the mall to take Kevin to Gamestop. It was so fun and enjoyable just spending time with my children. Life has unfolded into a new time. I can still recall the warm feelings if I have to drive in the vicinity of their old schools. Where did the time go? Life is just unfolding.

Now I am lucky if I get to see my son as he passes by from one room to the next. My daughter calls randomly to say hello and oh by the way do you remember the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon, little boy blue and the man in the moon. "When you coming home, mom?" "I don't know when, but we'll get together then. You know we will get together then!! Life is just unfolding. Life is just unfolding.