God's Garden

I've lived within 30 minutes of Garden of the Gods my whole life and I'm still amazed every time I take it in. Wow. Incredible. Amazing. Astounding. No words can quite capture my awe at what God sculpted from stone and painted with the changing leaves of fall.

To share this beauty with friends added a layer of sediment to the bedrock of blessings on which God has planted my feet lately. Take a look at these views and praise the Artist who made them to His Glory and allowed us to enjoy them.

So, I'm blogging

Sorry it has been 3 months since my last post. For those of you who don't know, I've been a bit of a nomad. My house sold miraculously in 12 days and I have been living with my parents, my brother and sister-in-law, and have stayed with my friend Melody. I have truly experienced what scripture says about sharing hospitality without complaining!! So many wonderful church family members have offered me a place to lay my head or just hang out for a few hours. I have actually enjoyed the fellowship one experiences when the privacy of a duplex made for one girl and her dog is not readily available.

God has been challenging me a lot lately. He is teaching me about real, soul baring prayer. He is showing me the purpose of suffering for His Name's sake. We don't have much of a clue about that in the states, by the way. Our staff at Lakeland is reading "Let the Nations Be Glad" by John Piper. Don't read this unless you are ready to have most of your worldview challenged and stretched and somewhat shot to pieces and reconstructed.

I read it once before, but having a group of believers to discuss it with weekly brings new insights and depths to my understanding of it. Iron truly does sharpen iron. Interesting how God's Word is right about that too...

Anyway, I'm moving into my new duplex Friday. I can't wait to have people into my abode. That is part of what makes it a home. Family, friends, a piano, a dog, and some coffee. Who wouldn't want to live there? :-)

Until next time...which will hopefully not be December...

Update

Most of my blog readers are friends who have probably already heard about the recent developments in my life. I just wanted to make sure everyone knows.

I was offered a job teaching 1st grade in Carterville. Then, 12 days later, I got an offer on my house. God moved fast - I didn't even have a sign in the yard yet! I had been at Wal-Mart the day before to buy a sign and had to leave because I'd had two calls to show the house that night in the space of 5 minutes. Crazy!

Anyway, I'm getting ready for a garage sale with mom, the grandmas, and Bethany this Friday and starting to pack as I go.

Thanks for your prayers!!

Definition of a Sabbath?

I ran into a friend at the gym today and he posed an interesting question. Is it wrong for us to work out on the Sabbath?

My immediate response was that when I had earlier taken Griffin on a two mile walk, I was enjoying God's creation and listening to Pastor Phil preach God's word on my ipod. I didn't see how any of that could be wrong.

I continued to ponder and posed the question to my mom, A.K.A. Fount of Wisdom. :-)

She paused before replying that she and dad often take walks or play golf on sunny Sunday afternoons. She said that in Old Testament days, their daily lives entailed a lot of physical activity in order to accomplish anything. Therefore, a Sabbath Rest probably needed to be a physical rest as well.

Upon further reflection, I submit that a simple yes or no is not possible in this situation. It has to do with the attitude of one's heart toward God.

If a Sabbath is defined simply as "resting" in a physical sense - then it would be acceptable to lay on the couch watching reruns of Desperate Housewives all day. Clearly, this is slothful and will not work towards the sanctification of God's children. Comparatively, one should not use their work out time (on the Sabbath or any other day) for the purpose of looking like a Greek goddess and obsessing over their appearance. While not slothful, compulsively working out with an un-Godly focus is prideful and therefore also not a wise use of one's Sabbath day or any of their time.

I think if working out is done for the purpose of becoming more healthy and if the time is spent simultaneously focusing on God's glory (through listening to sermons or good music or having a Godly conversation with the person on the next treadmill) - then the day on which it is done is irrelevant - since it falls into what I have come to call a Sabbath lifestyle - a consistent resting in God's grace and reflecting of His glory at all times. This attitude requires a balanced approach to life with appropriate amounts of activity and physical rest. It requires wise use of time spent reading God's Word and other beneficial reading material, careful allocation of the resources available to you (i.e. time and money), generous doses of Christian fellowship, and a perpetual desire to further God's earthly kingdom.

I've obviously not exhausted the possible approaches to this question. Any pertinent thoughts would be welcomed.

Be blessed!

A Page is Turning

After several months in a season of prayer, I believe the Lord is drawing me closer to the community near my church - Lakeland Baptist in Carbondale. I will be using my spring break next week to put in applications to the surrounding school districts. I am not at all unhappy where I'm at, but I am excited to get more involved in the work God is doing in our church and the community. Your prayers are greatly appreciated as I seek a job and see what comes of it. -- In case anyone is curious, my principal and co-workers know about this and have said they would hate to see me go but are supportive - so this is not a secret. If nothing comes of this, I'll happily continue to work where I am and drive to Carbondale 2 to 4 times a week for church and other activities. To God be the glory! Thanks for your prayers.

Heavenly

Tonight I got to do several of my most favoritest (overdone superlative is intentional) things.

1. Worship the Father through the hearing of His Word and in song.
2. The above in Spanish, not just English!
3. Hold a chubby - ADORABLE - 4 month old until and while he slept.
4. Meet new people and hear their stories - partially in Spanish :-) .

I could go on, but it gets somewhat repetitive from there. Lakeland had a bilingual service tonight with the Hispanic mission church that meets in the old sanctuary on Sunday nights. We worshiped in both languages and Pastor Phil preached with another pastor translating. I have always marveled as I've talked to people whose heart language is something other than English. There truly is an unspeakable connection to them as my sibling in Christ that doesn't have to be communicated in perfectly spoken words for us to understand one another.

I got to visit with a 14 and a 19 year old. They were kind and patient with my pitiful attempts at Spanish after not really exercising my command of the language in about 4 years. We wound up speaking English most of the time, but we sure had fun trying to communicate in Spanish.

I'm so excited about the class I'm in on Sunday mornings at Lakeland to refresh my Spanish. Praise God for a church that sees a need for its people to be better equipped on the mission field (around the world AND in So. IL) with language - AND does something to help people acquire that language training.

Hasta luego!

Hope

This past Monday, I had a much needed day off from work. I'm not a lazy person, but most of my Saturdays are spent at speech tournaments with teenagers or sitting in class for grad school, so things that most people do like laundry, dusting, and cooking have become luxuries of late. Not to mention the beauty of sleeping in.

Anyway, I owe this day off to the incredible legacy left by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. His work is something I have always been amazed by. He refused to abide within the status quo. He was, in my opinion, quite a catalyst for change in this country.

I do wonder if he would be disappointed to see our nation today, though. It is better than he found it, for sure. But I sometimes wonder whether or not it is that much better than he left it...

However, I experienced evidence of continuing change last week. I teach 2nd grade, and we obviously study Dr. King's life around the time of his holiday. We read about his hometown and some of the things he did and then we began to talk about what the term 'segregation' means and what 'prejudice' is and the forms in which those existed during the Civil Rights Movement.

The expressions on my students faces told the most beautiful tale and the disbelief with which they spoke was music to my ears. They were astounded that ANYONE would ever be made to use a different water fountain, restaurant, or seat on a bus. They could not fathom not playing on the playground with someone because their skin was a different shade of, well, human. They demonstrated TRUE 'color-blindness' in its purest form.

I looked around my classroom at the kaleidoscope of cultures they represent (Filipino, African American, Hispanic, White, Indian, Asian American, and Native American) and thanked God for the chance to see a glimpse into the future of race relations. I have watched all of my students play happily together. And when they fight, it is over trivial matters like who took the last turn on the monkey bars or who should be first in line.

My long held belief that racism is taught, not innate, was confirmed yet again. I pray that it will continue to decline in the hearts and minds of children and that adults will pause to listen to the wisdom available from the 'mouths of babes'...