Whenever there was a Billy Graham special on TV when I was growing up, my mom watched it. When my mom was in college at Iowa State University, she went to a Billy Graham crusade in Des Moines. There she gave her life to Christ. I am so very grateful for that. If she hadn't, would she have married my dad? If she had married my dad but not been a Christian, what kind of a childhood would I have had? I suspect it would be so very different from what how I did grow up.
Yesterday was Billy Graham's 95th birthday. There is a message from him floating around Facebook via YouTube. I embedded it here. Listen to it.
A quote from the video:
The
almost overwhelming thing is to think that Jesus became sin and it was
my sin and it was things that I've done that held Him on the cross. He
hung naked on the cross, bleeding in a shameful way so that I would
never have to be ashamed for the things that I have done. The truth is,
there is no other way besides Christ and what He did. There is no life
outside of that. There is no other way of salvation except through the
cross of Christ.
I am thankful for...
...Jesus Christ taking on sin for me
...salvation
...the hope of Eternal Life with God
...the Christian parents that raised me
...growing up learning about the Bible, about Jesus, about God's love for me
I have been doing something this year that I have never, ever done before.
I'm working on memorizing Bible verses. My goal for this year is to memorize twenty-four verses. As of today I am on Verse #15.
Last December, I was reading this blog post from Beth Moore. I have read Beth's ministry's blog for a number of years and was familiar with the scripture memory work she has promoted through that. For some reason (duh! I know it is the Holy Spirit at work here), as I read through that post and read Beth's suggestions and ideas for memorizing, I thought to myself, "I could do that!" Then I looked around the room to see if someone else had said that, surely it wasn't me..I don't do scripture memory.
But here I am at the beginning of the eighth month in the year and tonight I picked out the fifteenth verse.
Beth said in that December 17th, 2012 post:
This is work worth doing, Sweet Thing. Never – NOT ONCE – have I ever
known anyone to get to the end of a Scripture memory commitment and say
that it didn’t make any real difference.
Not a single time.
That has been so very true for me. Just last Monday as I was visiting a dear friend in the hospital, I was able to share one of those verses with her:
Isaiah 41:13 For I am the Lord your God, who takes hold of your
right hand and says to you, "Do not fear; I will help you."
There have been nights when I haven't been able to get to sleep because of insomnia (hello fifties) or just too many things rolling around in my head (hello worry-wart) that I have gotten out of bed and found my little spiral book of verses and my Kindle. Then I read my verses, one-by-one, and work them into my memory. Then I go into my Kindle to the Amplified version of the Bible and look up each verse to see what it says in that translation. That had helped me understand the meaning of the verse in a different way.
The last time I did this, I reviewed Isaiah 30:18 --
Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you;
He rises to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him!
I just love the word pictures this conjures up in my head: The Lord longing to be gracious to me, He actively shows me compassion.
Then I read this in the Amplified version:
And
therefore the Lord [earnestly] waits [expecting, looking, and longing]
to be gracious to you; and therefore He lifts Himself up, that He may
have mercy on you and show loving-kindness to you. For the Lord
is a God of justice. Blessed (happy, fortunate, to be envied) are all
those who [earnestly] wait for Him, who expect and look and long for Him [for His victory, His favor, His love, His peace, His joy, and His matchless, unbroken companionship]!
Read it again.
Go on. I'll wait.
What a picture, huh?
For the word of God is alive and active. ~Hebrews 4:12
Yesterday I was out and about running through a long list of errands. Lately, my drive time is increased because of road construction in town. The one road I can take into town (we live on the edge of town) is closed for a while, so I have to drive out into the country and round about to get into town. Kind of a pain, but I'm thankful it's not winter with snowy roads to deal with. And for an added bonus, there is more time to listen to music!
I don't know about others, but when I come across a song that is really speaking to me, I listen to it over and over and over and sometimes over again.
Yesterday's song was Victory in Jesus. An old hymn.
I got to thinking how I feel like an utter failure in so many areas of my life. I feel like my life is pretty fruitless right now. But there is one thing I can claim victory in. I have victory in Jesus because of His death on the cross.
O victory in Jesus,
My Savior, forever.
He sought me and bought me
With His redeeming blood;
He loved me ere I knew Him,
And all my love is due Him,
He plunged me to victory,
Beneath the cleansing flood
Jesus sought me. He bought me through dying on the cross for me. He loved me before I even knew Him.
I heard about His healing,
Of His cleansing power revealing.
How He made the lame to walk again
And caused the blind to see;
And then I cried, "Dear Jesus,
Come and heal my broken spirit,"
And somehow Jesus came and brought
To me the victory.
I know when I ask Him to heal my broken spirit, He will heal me and bring me the victory.
Who
shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship
or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? No, in all
these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I
am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,
neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor
depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us
from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
I am thankful for...
...the love of Christ
...the fact that nothing can separate me from that love.
The other day when I was getting new tires for my car, I was listening to some music while I was on the road. Whenever I drive somewhere by myself I love to crank some music and sing along at the top of my lungs. I currently have three CDs that I adore. One is Christy Nockels and the other two are Kari Jobe. This week I listened to Kari Jobe's song What Love is This. Awesome words.
You never change, You are the God You say You are
When I'm afraid You calm and still my beating heart
You stay the same, when hope is just a distant thought
You take my pain
And You lead me to the cross
What love is this, that You gave Your life for me
And made a way for me to know You
And I confess You're always enough for me
You're all I need
I look to You
I see the scars upon Your hands
And hold the truth
That when I can't You always can
I'm standing here beneath the shadow of the cross, I'm overwhelmed that I
Keep finding open arms
What love is this that You gave Your life for me and made a way for me to
Know You
And I confess, You're always enough for me
You're all I need
Jesus in Your suffering, You were reaching; You thought of me
Jesus in Your suffering, You were reaching; You thought of me
What love is this, that You gave Your life for me
And made a way for me to know You
And I confess, You're always enough for me
You're all I need
What love is this, that You gave Your life for me
And made a way for me to know You
And I confess, You're always enough for me
Always enough for me
Always enough for me
I am thankful for...
...music
...Jesus Christ and that He gave His life for me
...that I can have a personal relationship with Jesus
...that I can have eternal life
I read this some where before last month and thought it was quite profound:
A Christmas Tree means nothing if not for the Cross. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him will not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16
Even though I have been a Christian as long as I can remember, I don't think I really grasp the full meaning of what Jesus did on the cross. I wanted to write this on my blog so I can remember that Christmas really would be meaningless if not for what Jesus did at Easter.
I am thankful for...
...these thirty days to focus on what I am thankful for
But most importantly...
...The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. Out of His fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. (John 1:14&16)
My day is fast winding down and I have a set bedtime tonight, so I need to get today's post written.
Today I am thankful for my hubby. He is my voice of reason. He knows just when I am about to fall off the ledge of sanity and talks me back to real life. Because of my brush with the edge tonight, I have been given a bedtime of 9:30 and I am oh so very thankful! I love that husband of mine.
But as much as I am thankful for Hubby, I am endlessly thankful for Jesus Christ. He is my Redeemer.
As I was washing dishes tonight I was singing Keith Green's song (written by his wife Melody) There is a Redeemer in my head. Hubby was starting to play the piano. He played one song, turned the page and started playing There is a Redeemer! Howawesomely cool is that?!
I, of course, stopped washing the dishes and went to the piano to sing along.
I am thankful for...
...my hubby
...Jesus my Redeemer
...that Redeemer means: to buy or pay off
...that Jesus paid for all my sins with His life
...that Jesus is alive!
...that this list could go on and on and on and on and on...
With the death of my long-time friend, Pam, I've been thinking about this whole death and grieving thing. I really don't understand it. At all.
I remembered something I had read in a book a few weeks ago. The book is called Surprised by Worship written by Travis Cottrell. (Travis is the Worship leader for Beth Moore's Living Proof Live conferences. When I have gone to one of those conferences I can never decide which is better -- the teaching or the music.)
Anyway...
I read this book a few weeks ago and really enjoyed what Travis had to say about worship. It is so much more than what happens on a Sunday morning at church. Rather than try to summarize the book (go buy it and read it... you'll be glad you did!), I'll just tell you what stuck out to me in this time of grieving for my friend.
Quoting from the book:
"For those of us who have accepted God's gift of life through His Son Jesus, even grief in its rawest and most palpable state cannot help but be laced with hope. This doesn't mean that death no longer hurts. It hurts terribly. Sometimes the pain of our loss seems so devastating that we wonder if we'll ever recover. But our hope is in El Olam -- the Everlasting God. Our God who saved us, frees us, and holds us is eternal. And because He shares eternity with us, we don't weep as those who are without hope. We worship the One who has firmly "set eternity in our hearts." (Ecclesiastes 3:11).
Take that in. His Word tells us we are made for eternity. This is why death is so repulsive to us. We hate it; we resist it; it tears us apart. Why? Because we were not made for death. It insidiously invades our existence, but it is not the final event."
I think Travis hit the nail on the head, so to speak.
C.S. Lewis said in his book Mere Christianity, "if I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world"
***Just wanted to write these thoughts down and share them with my blog readers.***
I am thankful for...
...the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ
...the hope of eternity
...this blog so I have a place to write out my thoughts
The thing that makes me, me, the thing that is at my core is my faith in Jesus Christ. I cannot imagine my life without Him. I don't even want to know where I would be without Him. How would I deal with life without the Bible to guide me? I don't want to know.
I have no idea why this popped into my head tonight, but I went searching on YouTube and looked for Billy Graham videos.
(My mom came to Christ as a college student at a Billy Graham Crusade.)
Maybe this will hit home with someone reading this.
About the same time we moved to Minnesota after our three years overseas, another family moved to the same little town. They had one daughter who was in age, right between our kids. Like us, they were transplants to Minnesota. After they started attending the same church as us, we began to become friends. Like the friends we made when we lived in Singapore, we connected with them in this different "culture" because both our families had lived in completely different parts of the country. They were from the south and we had lived several different places in the Midwest and in Singapore. When you live in a small town, I think you bond more easily with others who also are not from that town.
We did a lot of things with this family. We shared Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. The mom and daughter would pop by our house to get a drink or use the bathroom when they were out on a run. We had lunch together after church on Sundays. We commiserated about sometimes feeling left out in that small town. Our kids even went on a vacation with them to southern California one spring break. Our kids and their daughter felt like siblings. The summer my hubby and I celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary, the mom, Karen, and the daughter, Rachel, and our kids fixed Hubby and I a fancy meal complete with a tiered chocolate cake and a veil for me to wear.
This family moved to Oklahoma after Rachel graduated from high school. It was a hard good-bye. Rachel was attending the college she always wanted to. Her mom and dad wanted to be near-by. She was their whole world.
When our son, Caleb was in his third year of college, he had a serious crush on a girl named Amanda. He worked for months to get up the nerve to ask her out on a date. A month before he did ask her out, he had a conversation with Rachel. They were talking online about Caleb's crush and Rachel's advice to him was to be "confident in his hotness" and ask Amanda on a date. (That phrase was sooo Rachel, it still makes me smile.)
That was the last conversation they had.
Our daughter reminded me this morning that today is the anniversary of our sweet, sweet friend, Rachel going to eternity. She and a friend were killed in a head-on car accident three years ago today. (I wrote about it here.) She wasn't even quite 20 years old. I sat on the couch this morning and just cried remembering the shock of the news and the grief I hear in her mom's voice whenever I talk to her. It's been hard on all of us and she wasn't even a part of our family by blood.
(I remember the day we heard the news. Our pastor had been trying to get confirmation of the death. I called Caleb who was working at his college newspaper that afternoon. I asked for him to look at Rachel's Facebook page. I will never forget his voice when he barely choked out over the phone, "Oh, Mom. It's true." He told me that he was so upset had to leave the newspaper and went to the only place he could think of. To Amanda's apartment. They had been dating about three weeks at that time. Caleb told me later that Amanda cried with him and prayed with him in his grief that day. That was when I was first endeared to the young woman who was to become my daughter-in-law.) (It was a Sunday afternoon when we heard. Our daughter, Megan, was a senior in high school and a young man named Zach was hanging out at our house that afternoon. It was tough to break the news to Megan. She and Rachel were like sisters. Zach was comforting to Megan that day. Little did we know that Zach would be our son-in-law one day.)
The huge thing, the thing that gives us peace, the thing that gives us hope, is that Rachel was a Christian. She loved Jesus more than anything. When I look at pictures of her, I hear her laugh and imagine her dancing and laughing with Jesus.
This afternoon I was listening to this CD. The hymn that got me deep in my soul?
It Is Well With My Soul. Written by Horatio Spafford written in 1873. Go here to read the story behind the hymn.
How do I express what it means to me to know that Jesus Christ, The Son of God, died on the cross for pay for my sins? This verse sends me to my knees in graditude every single time I hear it.
My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to His cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!
The response I have to that is a desire to live my life for Christ. To glorify Him with my life. To be obedient because of Christ bearing my sin so I don't have to.
Then one day, my faith shall be sight. With the sound of a trumpet, the sky will be rolled back and Christ will descend to take me and all those who follow Him home with him.
Rachel is there. I can't wait to see her again. And so many family members that are already there.
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."
So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."
I came across this saying in a book I have been reading:
Sticks and stones may break my bones, words destroy the heart and spirit.
That struck something in me.
I experienced some incredibly hurtful words spoken to me a few months ago. Satan has tried to use them to destroy my heart and spirit. I know the words were spoken in the midst of great stress and personal pain, but I think maybe those are the times when we need to guard our words the most. When you are hurting is when it's easier to say hurtful things. Words are powerful. I almost wish the person would have thrown a rock at me. In time, that wound would have healed and probably not left a scar.
Proverbs 15:4 says:
The tongue that brings healing is a tree of life, but a deceitful tongue crushes the spirit.
Recovering from hurtful words is very difficult. Healing from being crushed takes a long time. Those words, only five words, have affected how I look at all my relationships.
I realized yesterday that when I don't look at myself through my Father's eyes, I don't see what He sees. I don't trust His lavish love for me. I don't trust His plan for my life. It affects my relationship with Him.
I struggle with this with my husband too. I don't trust what he sees in me and how he loves me and why he loves me. It affects our relationship.
How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!
1 John 3:1a
I have been praying to see and feel that lavish love of God's. I know He showed it through Jesus and what Jesus did for my sins. I have asked God to show me in my everyday life.
I came across this quote in an article I was reading. (I don't remember who wrote it so I can give them credit.)
God can heal wounds and turn them into "holy scars" that declare God's grace, mercy and purposes.
I look forward to the day that I can look at this scar left by five words, and only see God's grace, His mercy and His purpose.
Adam bit Noah arked Abraham split Joseph ruled Jacob fooled Bush talked Moses balked Pharaoh plagued People walked Sea divided Tablets guided Promise landed Saul freaked David peeked Prophets warned Jesus born God walked Love talked Anger crucified Hope died Love rose Spirit flamed Word spread Godremained
We sang this Christmas carol tonight at the Christmas Eve service at church. These are some of the words that struck me:
It came upon the midnight clear, That glorious song of old, From angels bending near the earth, To touch their harps of gold; “Peace on the earth, good will to men, From Heaven’s all gracious King.” The world in solemn stillness lay, To hear the angels sing.
And ye, beneath life’s crushing load, Whose forms are bending low, Who toil along the climbing way With painful steps and slow, Look now! for glad and golden hours Come swiftly on the wing. O rest beside the weary road, And hear the angels sing!For lo! the days are hastening on,
By prophet-bards foretold, When with the ever circling years Comes round the age of gold; When peace shall over all the earth Its ancient splendors fling, And the whole world send back the song Which now the angels sing.
