Wednesday, September 18, 2013

God Still Sends a Rainbow......

For those of you that have followed or read my blog I'm sure you noticed the shift. My blog started out as a journal. I wanted to have every detail written down in regards to our adoption. The shift came and I started writing about facing giants and fighting a good fight. Since last November I have known something wasn't right with our agency. I knew then that God was calling me to do VERY hard things. He has raised me and many others up to be a voice for the fatherless.

You can continue this journey with me and the other families at: Speaking Out


Please continue to pray for sweet Rebekah. I have no idea where she is, but I know God is protecting her and watching her. We serve a great BIG God who SEES and knows everything. I trust Him and He is always sending me rainbows as a reminder of His faithfulness to me.

Monday, July 22, 2013

Facing A Giant

We all have heard the story of a little shepherd boy that defeated the giant with a stone and a sling. We have looked through picture books depicting David as a small, fragile, and weak looking boy.

I was crying out to the Lord about a certain situation I am currently in. I was asking Him how in the world could I face such a giant. He spoke and reminded me of David. A shepherd boy tending his flock, a boy that was dearly loved by his God. He was spoke of in Samuel 16:18 as, "a son of Jesse the Bethlehemite, who is skillful in playing, a man of valor, a man of war, prudent in speech, and a man of good presence, and the Lord is with him." David is described as, "ruddy, with beautiful eyes, and he was handsome." Something else we know about David was his musical talent and ability. So here we have a handsome young man out in the fields tending his sheep all the while humming a tune. I wonder if it was there God was preparing David? As David gently led his sheep. As he took his shepherd's hook and tenderly led one back to the fold. As he sang praises to God and made melody in his heart. Was it then that God was rising up a warrior? Did David know when he was single handedly slaying bears and lions for the sake of his sheep that this was a sharpening of his skills for war?

David was ready only because of his trust and faith in a holy God. He knew who it was that protected him and gave him strength. David said in 1 Samuel 17:37, "The Lord who delivered me from the paw of the lion and from the paw of the bear will deliver me from the hand of this Philistine." He trusted in the Lord so much that he took off the warriors armor and took up five stones. Can you imagine running toward a 9-10 foot giant with a rock? David trusted God.

I look at my own life and I wonder. I wonder if the trials that I have faced have prepared me for this battle? As the Lord looks upon me does He see a faithful servant, a warrior ready to fight?

He is worthy of this battle and I'm trusting Him to defeat my enemy. The Lord will prevail and I will give Him praise. It looks as if the enemy will win. Just like goliath my foe is a giant, powerful, and full of deceit. A liar that cloaks themselves in religious jargon and eloquent speech. There has to be a preparation time before we approach our enemy, we have to know their weapons. satan disguises himself as an angel of light, he is cunning, crafty, and sneaks in unnoticed. If it were possible he could deceive the elect of God. That is my enemies weapons of warfare looking so much like me they don't appear to be the enemy.

I am praying that God will prepare my heart, my soul, and my spirit for this battle. I am fighting it for HIM.....For His honor....And to bring Him glory.



Friday, July 19, 2013

The Brave Little Tailor

When our daughter auditioned for the play, "The Brave Little Tailor" little did I know it would change me.

A play, a childrens play, little kids reciting words learned, changed me. Through the plot, the courage and bravery of the Little Tailor, but mostly through a little boy. A little boy named Mark Kelly.

Mark Kelly has cancer. I have watched for weeks as he comes into play practice so eager to perform. His body is enduring chemotherapy, he has lost his hair, his skin is peeling, and he has blisters on his body. Lily tells me, "Mom if Mark Kelly has to vomit during the play we act it out like he always disappears."

I have watched this little boy run the race with endurance. No complaints, no negative words, just a little boy excited to play a part.

Mark Kelly has unknowingly taught me how to continue my race on this earth with joy, peace, and contentment.

It is no coincidence that he plays the part of the Brave Little Tailor. The story is one of bravery and courage. The Tailor is commissioned to save the princess from the EVIL giants.

I am currently fighting my own giants. I too am trying to save a little princess from the EVIL giants.

Mark Kelly has given me an example. Through this little boy God has shown me how good will triumph evil. How although he is physically suffering, his body hurting, his spirit is still soaring. He is battling out his faith on this earth. To us, to our human mind his suffering seems like a curse from God. We ask why? Why would God allow a little boy to suffer? I am one of the reasons. Through his suffering I am encouraged. There is a prize for our faith. As we run this race with Christ, He is faithful to help us finish it, and at the end He will crown us.

To you Mark Kelly....Thank you! Thank you for your bravery.....it is unmatched.......

Wednesday, July 10, 2013

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SWEET REBEKAH



It has been 15 long months since we slipped these shoes on our princess Rebekah. 






Got all of this paperwork to Haiti to start the process to make her our.......




We are have been devoted to prayer and diligent to pray her home. 




Today she is turning 4.






Without her FAMILY, cake, ice cream, the happy birthday songs, and presents galore. 



This beautiful girl, full of life, personality, giggles, and smiles. 







Is in a faraway land waiting for us to bring her home.





Longing for the Lord to perform the miraculous. Holding tight to the hem of my saviours garment as I rest in His plan for our lives. Longing to hold a girl that when ask in Kreole this Febuary who I was replied, "This is my mama!" The little girl that begged to go with me when I had to leave her behind. Listening as Lily and Sam pray EVERYDAY without fail, "Dear Jesus, Please bring Rebekah home soon."

Decorating a room for her. Picking bedding with a dollhouse and making sure it had a brown girl on it. Bunk Beds, a closet full of clothes, thoughts, and dreams of the added laughter in our house. Another little helper in the kitchen, snuggles, kissing ochies, and making everything ALL better. 

Please help me pray for our birthday girl today! Pray for her safety, pray for a quick homecoming, pray a special birthday blessing for her, and pray for her to know how VERY much she is 
LOVED! 

Friday, July 5, 2013

The Pearl Of GREAT price.

I am currently walking through a vast field of HARD. I can't go into everything my family and I are facing, but you all know about my dad. There is so much more, so complex, so deep, so difficult. I have news though, good news the Lord is with me. He is leading me and He is teaching me what true peace that passes understanding really is. I can say I now know how Paul counted it ALL joy.

God has been speaking to me throughout the day today. He has been bringing His perfect word to my mind. That is why it is so important to hide it in our hearts. He says to me, "I will go before you! I will fight for you! I love you with an everlasting love! I make your paths straight! I will NEVER leave or forsake you!" His word is a healing balm to my soul.

I ask my family to come together in the floor to cry out to the Lord. What I found in my prayer was only praise. Praise for the pearl of GREAT price. "Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it." Matthew 13:45 My name is written in the Lamb's book of life! I have a treasure hidden that some men can't even understand. This world will always be hard. Bad things will happen to good people. Evil looks as if it will prevail. The kids and I were just studying that fact this morning. I know a secret though found in the word of God. He wins! It is won! It is finished!

Jesus is looking for those who will worship Him in spirit and truth. Truth is light and light is truth. Light dispels the darkness and the darkness can't hide. The truth is He died, rose, and is seated at the right hand of my All Mighty Father making intercession for me. I may struggle, I may hurt, I may feel like my heart is breaking, but God is working in me and through me to accomplish His will.

Standing for truth, standing in belief that I have a pearl that was purchased by the blood of my Saviour. He is worth losing everything for. He says if I'm not willing to leave it all I'm not worthy of Him.

What are you holding on to? What has you bound to this world? What keeps you from looking toward your heavenly inheritance?

I say to you seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and ALL these things will be added to you. What things? Peace, joy, comfort, peace, joy, comfort, rest, and more peace.

I praise you Jesus for loving me, for sending the Holy Spirit to comfort me, for preparing a kingdom for me, a place of complete rest.

I want to shout HALLELUJAH! Praise you LORD!


Friday, June 28, 2013

Wrestling.....

Wrestling, continuing to wrestle, wrestling with God, with sin, with confusion, with the enemy, with fear, with doubt, wrestling with a world of hurt.

How do we walk through a world filled with sin? A world with broken babies, babies dead at the hand of their own mother, the hungry, the destitute, sin excused.

Jacob wrestled until God blessed him. He wouldn't let go of the ONE who holds the stars. He held on until daybreak, until his answer came, until he was BLESSED.

I wrestle with the will of God. The why? Is that a lack of faith on my part? Maybe. Faith is a gift of God and I need to wrestle in the closet, my prayer closet until I am blessed with faith. Faith to believe that a Holy God is on the throne ruling and reigning now. That no matter what darkness I walk through, how much deception I experience, how much pain that resides in my heart, I will trust HIM.

Wrestle until my soul is content no matter what comes my way. A little girl in a faraway place that needs a FAMILY. A little girl abandoned. Wrestle as the kids here at home pray for her. Wondering why does it take so LONG to rescue a ORPHAN. Wrestle with governments, powers of darkness, the enemy of my soul that doesn't want to see FAMILIES serving the ONE TRUE GOD.

Wrestle as I behold my dad. My strong daddy that is wasting away. Losing 20 pounds since April. Sad that he can't do what he's used to doing. Wrestle that he will one day leave me and go to heaven. Wrestling knowing that my Father in heaven says He will never leave or forsake me.

Wrestling with apathy and complacency. How can I be so dead when my God is living? He died so that I might live! Have an abundant life.

Wrestle with my sin. How can sin so easily beset us? Struggle with this flesh. The slimy pit of sin keeps my feet from walking the path of righteousness. The inside sins of pride, doubt, apathy, selfish ambition.

Fighting the fight of faith. Encouraged by these words this morning as I wrestle, "Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; For I shall yet praise Him, The help of my countenance and my God." Psalms 42:11

Seeking the face of God this morning as I wrestle......

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

The Swirling Winds Of Change

What do you do as the winds rip and tear, sucking the life, sucking your faith. When you hear, read, and feel the force of words spoken on public sites from people that claim the name Christ in their title of "Christian." Fighting a word war over orphaned children. What happens when you see your dad suffer daily, his body racked with pain from a disease that breaks the bones. When you hear of babies drowning under rubble. My faith shakes, swirls, it breaks, and bends. I cry out this morning, "God forgive me! Forgive me when I doubt, when I allow the enemy to sift me and rattle my soul when the winds rage."

I turn to His word, His infallible truth, the letter He left as a balm to my soul, all the answers are found there. To the weather and destruction I say, "But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything done in it will be laid bare. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming. That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells." 2 Peter 3:10-13 Heaven is my eternal dwelling place. This material that surrounds me today will be destroyed now or at His coming. I have the promise in His word that after His patience with humanity is played out He will come for me and take me HOME.

To the Christian that is fighting with their brother, picking up and hurling swords over babies orphaned, I say, "Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates a brother or sister is still in the darkness. Anyone who loves their brother and sister lives in the light, and there is nothing in them to make them stumble. But anyone who hates a brother or sister is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness. They do not know where they are going, because the darkness has blinded them." 1 John 2:9-11 Hate should never transcend truth. I believe truth should be spoken and children should be spoken for, but our hearts must remain pure in the process.

To the pain and anguish that attacks and kills our physical bodies I say, "Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this imperishable, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this perishable will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on the imperishable, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then will come about the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your sting?' The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law; but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our LORD JESUS CHRIST. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord." 1 Corinthians 15:51-58


The promises of God are my strength and my shield in the time of trouble. When the storms rage, the winds blow, the rain pours, I know and I'm persuaded that this trouble is meant to change me. I wrote a blog yesterday titled, "The Calloused Christian." I don't think I will ever post it, it was only meant to show me the condition of my own soul. I was becoming calloused (hardened) to this world. Steeped in self-pity and condemnation I was wallowing in the mire of my own sinfulness. The sin of doubt had taken me captive. As I watched the news and saw the crumpled buildings destroyed by the winds fury, I was changed. When my dad called to tell me his neighbor across the street that we had just seen on Friday being resuscitated died, I was changed. As I sat with my children today and taught them the importance of LOVE over the need for things, I was changed. Winds change us!

"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters. If anyone has material possessions and sees a brother or sister in need but has no pity on them, how can the love of God be in that person? Dear children, let us not love with words or speech but with actions and in truth." 1 John 3:16-18

Are you willing to be changed? Will you let the HARD winds rip through your pride, envy, and selfish ambition? Tearing apart your flesh and ripping out your sin. Can we forgive today as if it were our last chance? Repair and restore broken relationships, apply love to open wounds, seek the kingdom and it's riches of mercy. He says if we seek we will find, if we ask it will be given. Will you ask today for the winds of change to rock your world for the sake of HIS kingdom and glory?

I praise the MAKER OF THE STORM for walking with me through it.