THE STUFF OF LIFE

Joy, pain, laughter, crying, sorrow, hunger, fulfillment, hurt, healing and I'm sure everyone else could add a few more. What a life it is. What more of a life it can be as we learn to abide in him. He can make all of these things wonderfully beautiful things in our lives. They are transforming experiences if we don't hide from them. I am also learning to appreciate the opportunity we all have in participating in the process in each other lives as Father leads us. In letting people that love us in, I truely believe that alot more of Christ will be formed in us as we truly learn what it means to care for and carry a brother or sister who is experiencing life in all it brings.

another really hot day here in the mid west

Rowing in a boat across Trillium Lake would be very refreshing I think. I experienced most of this trip by myself and those quiet drives to places like this left me in awe of God's creation. Such breathtaking places. I want to do this someday again with my family and some friends.

It's too hot

It is 100 degrees here today. I wish I was hiking on Mt. Hood. This is from my trip there last spring. Oh, it would be awsome right now.

God's mysterious ways

Nothing has been what I'd guessed so far.
Unforeseen, this most sweet, beautiful change.
( from the song, Beautiful Change, by The Innocense Mission)

What an amazing beautiful change this has turned out to be. Or as I have said before,"What A Beautiful Piece Of Heartache." The past year has been a wonderful time with the transforming work of the Spirit in my life. Gentle, caring, revealing, humbling, and healing are a few of the things that come to mind. For years I have tried to fix things myself to no avail. All it produced was frustration and anxiety for myself and my family alot of the time. When the time comes, this loving, caring Father goes to work on things we probably have been unware of deep inside us and brings forth something that is so far beyond what we could ever imagine. It is a BEAUTIFUL CHANGE........

Some food for thought for us parents

I picked up a book this morning I had read last year. "Plan B" by Anne Lamott. I certainly enjoyed "Traveling Mercies" better, but this one has some really good stuff in it also. The chapter titled Adolescence, had this conclusion, "My friend Mark, who works with church youth groups reminded me recently that Sam doesn't need me to correct his feelings. He needs me to listen, to be clear and fair and parental. But most of all he needs me to be alive in a way that makes him feel he will be able to bear adulthood, because he is terrified of death, and that includes growing up to be one of the stressed-out, grey-faced adults he sees rushing around him."

I think that is very good advice.

The Death-Dealing Sin, the Life-Giving Gift

I am reading through Romans in The Message and ran across this today.

Romans 5
20-21All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn't, and doesn't, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it's sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that's the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.

I love the emphasis here on the power of grace. IT WINS HANDS DOWN!!!!! What law could never do, the gift of the cross finished once and for ever. Also, the underlying power of sin after the cross is only a threat. The enemy knows that it is all he can do to keep us from entering into the place where grace will set us free to live in the safty of Father's love. Shame, guilt, fear, unworthiness and whatever else your brokeness might make you feel is a trick of the enemy to keep you from this life of freedom in Christ.