Friday, June 29

leaving...on a jet plane...



Barksdale left Tuesday....Court's leaving in the AM...I'm here and more overwhelmed with emotion than I thought....the good kind...the thankful for the blessings kind. I have seen Him working so much in my relationships over the last 3 yrs...particulary answering prayers the last 6 months. See my other blog for how I'm coping....it pertains to me now as the girl in nashville just trying to get by...and the woman He's shaping me to be as I prepare to travel to Africa....so I blogged over there. I miss you guys already!

Friday, June 22

Prayers lifted up

I just wanted to lift up one of His own in prayer. I have been attending Inversion at Fellowship for over a yr now and in that time Garrett Kell has taught at our retreat and one other time...I have been immenseley blessed on each occasion and He has spoken words to my heart through this man. He is a pastor out in Texas and soon will join our inversion pastor in starting a new church in Middlesex, NJ one of the most unchurched areas of the United States. Last wk, while helping a friend in her yard, he was badly burned by a flash fire on one side of his body-arm and face, 2nd degree burns. His fiancee has been updating everyone through his caring bridge website I linked below. Again, as I was reading through their journals, i was amazingly blessed by their spirit and attitude during this time as they continue faithfully and joyously walking with Him. Although, you may never have met him, I'm sure you too will be blessed and help us lift prayers up to Him. Thanks.

http://www.caringbridge.org/cb/inputSiteName.do?method=search&siteName=garrettkell

Wednesday, June 13

Time to BREATHE...

Ok, i'm having a major freak-out moment that's decided to stick around for more like a day...truth of the matter is...i don't think he's moving out for awhile...which is making me more stressed out.

I am by nature the very definition of type A personality with a strong dash of OCD thrown in to liven it up....on top of that, i'm a people person with a lot of friends in very different cricles i often try to juggle or consolidate and I have a laundry list of activities going on at all times. then there's work, errands/chores and breathing, sleep, and food to be found somewhere in the middle. did i mention my brother's living with me for the summer, my roommate's moving out and a new roomie in (who i've just met and am insanely exciting about getting to know )and i'm planning this trip to africa (and the near-future semi-move there) and finding an extra job to defray some of these costs; and drama-there's always drama...it always has a way of finding me at the inopportune moments. even still, most days....none of this even phases me.

One can gauge how stressed I am at any given moment by counting number of post-it notes and lists i have started...tonight, i stopped counting at 10....Since last september when I finally decided I was saying YES and going to Africa I did so with the stipulation that I would give everything up....no more worries, no more control, just HIM-he would work ALL details out and worry abt it all...every bit of my life...not just that part and that's how i've lived....it has all just been handed to me and intricately planned by Him (which is so cool to watch it all unfold)...when I would normally get stressed I have been miss cool of sorts (very near to making the team switch to type B) but the devil's funny....see blog below and perhaps i should reread as well....that's what you get for declaring with any authority anything. now, i'm totally finding everything He's been doing in me unravelling and quickly.....i know it will just be fleeting...but this tunnel's the darkest it's been in months. oh, and i'm running out of stickies and pens with ink.

Saturday, June 2

I think a change (a change) will do you good (will do you good)...

Lately, I feel as though I have encountered quite a few people truly searching for a change. They feel unsettled in their present path, as if where they are, what they are doing, and direction they are headed is not where they are meant to be. This is a hard place to be....and although one can recognize and acknowledge this...it doesn't necessarily come with the solution. However, this most likely means He is preparing you for a change...making you so uncomfortable that it will be near impossible for you to say no when the opportunity presents itself...maybe HE knows you too well. I do know that you have been called...since before you where even a fleeting thought, before your conception....you were life breathed for a purpose; finding and then fulfilling HIS is the hard part.

"O Lord, you have searched me and known me!...You hem me in, behind and before,and lay your hand upon me....For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them."
-Psalm 139:1; 5; 13-16

"But now hear, O (your name here) my servant, Israel whom I have chosen! Thus says the Lord who made you, who formed you from the womb and will help you: Fear not, O (your name here) my servant, Jeshurun whom I have chosen....Remember these things, O (your name here) for you are my servant; I formed you; you are my servant; O (your name here), you will not be forgotten by me. I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you. Sing, O heavens, for the Lord has done it; shout, O depths of the earth; break forth into singing, O mountains, O forest, and every tree in it! For the Lord has redeemed Jacob, and will be glorified in Israel. Thus says the Lord, your Redeemer,who formed you from the womb: I am the Lord, who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself"
-Isaiah 44:1-2; 21-24

I pray when you do see the opportunity that you will not be afraid to grab hold of it and live for Him...completely...that you will not hesitate as I so often have...that you will willfully go (easier said than do, i realize). That you have faith enough to not see, but believe that He is good and His plans are as well....He will provide everything....He doesn't deal in backup plans....quit attempting to create and hold on to ones...as if He's failed at anything. Leaving everything up to Him (even the smallest details) can be the most frightening yet freeing thing all at the same time. Be patient...He will reveal it in His own time.

"...This is the message from the one who is holy and true. He is the one who has the key of David. He OPENS doors, and no one can shut them; he SHUTS doors, and no one can open them. I know all the things you do, and I have opened a door for you that NO ONE can shut. You have little strength yet you obeyed my word and did not deny me."
-Revelations 3:7-8

"For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called YOU, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might"
-Epehsians 1:15-19

Thursday, May 24

the littlest lambs...

"I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me. Just as the Father knows me and I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep."
-John 10:14-15


"At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven? And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea."
-Matthew 18:1-6


"but Jesus said, Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven. And he laid his hands on them and went away."
-Matthew 19:14-15


....and we each are placed in a moment for that moment, to speak words of truth and wisdom from above into the ears of those that need His words.....her grandmother had been praying feverently by her bedside for over a wk now.....in tongues and for hours without stopping....i spoke for hours with the family about God, His love, and that the time had come...Kayla had nothing left in her, her prognois was terminal and after fighting for 3.5 months it was time to say goodbye. Her sweet parents marked the anniversary of the death of her sister just 1 yr ago last sunday....they lost a 22 wkr (1 wk from viability) and now had to watch this one be snatched from their grasp as well. From the moment I met the grandmother she said....awwww....my daughter has spoken of you. I know you believe I could see it in your eyes the minute I saw you...you can smell Him. You are an angel sent her to us and Kayla....you are here for things far bigger than you know....He has great plans for you. She went on....sometimes He uses an older Christian to help a younger one and vice versa.....thank you so much.


I knew the words coming from her mouth were straight from above and I also knew my task at hand: far too many times in the last 4 yrs I have been the one to help the families realize it is truly time to say goodbye and we have to let them go. Then helped them in that process....watching their greatest love slip from this earth. These little ones hang on till their parents are ready....they can see Him close at hand, sitting at their side, comforting them, angels watching over....and if you've spent time in any icu with a dying person, you'll agree....especially the smallest of His lambs. It is THE hardest thing a person will ever have to do....to decide to willfully remove life support from a kicking, crying, eye opening, finger-grasping, pacifier sucking baby small enough to fit in your hands (that should still be protected by your own womb)...only to spare them even more pain than they can bare.


Last night...her parents were ready in just the right moments...when her pain had far exceeded medications, and they knew that their battle wasn't more important than the one she was sticking out just for them.....she died peacefully (thank God) and sweetly in her mother's arm in a quiet room, being rocked lovingly into His merciful hands.


As I drove the 30 tearfilled miles home I listened to praise songs and still found solace...He is good. Hallelujah He is good....all the time.....and I came home to John 10:14-15 in my inbox....fitting and consoling. I believe she was with him before her birth, saw Him @ her side as comforter while on this earth, and returned home to Him to join her sissy, still remembering Him as her good shepherd.