Apprehend Help

I lift my eyes up to the hills-
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
Maker of heaven and earth. ~Psalm 121:1-2

{we have many questions and few answers except to do the next thing in front of us...keep walking the path we are on} With our life being a large question mark, we need help to move beyond this place of waiting. Really, we need help waiting! It's hard sometimes!

We can find contentment in waiting on God, but there is still the God-given desire to move forward. To move toward something. To progress.

I have often marveled at what urges a baby. What causes progress, the human desire or drive to do the next thing. First there is crawling...then walking...talking...

Within us all is the desire to apprehend. To move forward into the next thing.

But often there are waiting periods. My grandson didn't walk until he was 18 months old. The norm seems to be a year. We knew that his slowness was related to his natural bent toward contentment. That contentment was a gift to his mama, let me tell you!

So we waited and wondered "when?", we encouraged him, challenged him, and then there came the day. And all the days that followed. We knew it would happen. And now, whenever he comes into Namma's house, he runs in! He loves to grab my hand and say, "Walk?" because he wants to GO! I have a hard time getting a photo of him that is not blurry!!!

The day will come for the desire to be fulfilled. "This too shall pass" and we are on to the next thing.

Our lives here have been in the 'limbo' stage for the past three years. And it's not that our lives haven't been rich with blessings as we have waited this out. 

With our farm for sale, with selling our equipment, our animals, much of our excesses (those things that after use end up behind a door somewhere or in the basement or the shed) we are ready to move. Our farm has been on the market for much of the past two years. 

First Dale started working away. Iowa, Southwestern MN, Northern MN, Southeast WI. Then last year FL and MT. It's been quite a ride and I wouldn't want to have missed the dinners out or the beaches or mountains. I marvel as I look back at what God has given us in the wait!

But now, Dale is back working in Minneapolis, and the commute has become two hours one way~the traffic has increased over the time he was on the road. His job is extremely challenging. His days are long and hard. As long as we have our farm, he is stuck with the strain of his four hours on the road and the strain of work combined. So we continue to look to the hills for our help. It is sure to come, for we know that God has placed that desire in our hearts to move on and make the change. So we wait with hope and expectation that we will apprehend His help. Are you waiting for help? If you leave a comment I would love to pray with you for what you are waiting for. 

Others May––But You Cannot

My mentor gave me this on a little piece of paper a long while ago.

I wanted to share it with you in case you are one who cannot...

If God has called you to be really like Jesus in all your spirit, He will draw you into a life
of crucifixion and humility, and put on you such demands of obedience that He will not
allow you to follow other Christians, and in many ways He will seem to let other good
people do things which He will not let you do.

Other Christians and ministers who seem very religious and useful may push
themselves, pull wires, and work schemes to carry out their plans, but you cannot do it;
and if you attempt it, you will meet with such failure and rebuke from the Lord as to
make you sorely penitent.

Others can brag on themselves, on their work, on their success, on their writings, but
the Holy Spirit will not allow you to do any such thing, and if you begin it He will lead
you into some deep mortification that will make you despise yourself and all your good
works.

Others will be allowed to succeed in making money, or having a legacy left to them, or
in having luxuries, but it is likely that God will keep you poor, because He wants you to
have something better than gold, and that is a helpless dependence on Him, that He
may have the privilege of supplying your needs day by day out of an unseen treasury.
The Lord will let others be honored and put forward, and keep you hid away in
obscurity, because He wants to produce some choice, fragrant fruit for His coming
glory, which can only be produced in the shade.

He will let others be great, but keep you small. He will let others do a work for Him,
and get the credit for it, but He will make you work and toil on without knowing how
much you are doing; and then to make your work still more precious, He will let others
get the credit for the work which you have done, and this will make your reward ten
times greater when Jesus comes. The Holy Spirit will put a strict watch over you, with a
jealous love, and will rebuke you for little words and feeling or for wasting your time,
which other Christians never seem distressed over. So make up your mind that God is
an infinite Sovereign, and has a right to do as He pleases with His own, and He will not
explain to you a thousand things which may puzzle your reason in His dealings with
you.

He will take you at your word, and if you absolutely sell yourself to be His slave, He
will wrap you up in a jealous love and let other people say and do many things that you
cannot do or say. Settle it forever, that you are to deal directly with the Holy Spirit and
that He is to have the privilege of tying your tongue, or chaining your hand, or closing
your eyes in ways that He does not deal with others. Now when you are so possessed
with the living God that you are, in your secret heart, pleased and delighted over this
peculiar, personal, private, jealous guardianship and management of the Holy Spirit
over your life, you will have found the vestibule of heaven.

––The Biblical Evangelist

My Word {#Pic4Year} 2013

My one word last year was ONE. I carried it through the year. I wanted to experience being ONE with Jesus, to know I was all wrapped up in Him. That what I go through, I go through in Him and that all that comes to me comes through Him. I wanted to live the truth of Galatians 2:20 in my moments.  I wanted to experience victory over fear because the greatest force in the universe lives inside of me. The perfect Love that casts it out.

I wanted to experience that reality that I am a walking ark of the covenant.

This year, I read again about My One Word and immediately it came to me.

Apprehend.

 It's funny how clearly God speaks sometimes. Especially when you are waiting long for direction in another area and silence is your only answer. But there it was and I knew exactly what He was referring to. 

Philippians 3:12-14

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.

2 Peter 1:3

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.

And this quote from C.S. Lewis:
"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

{I will, by God's grace in 2013...apprehend all He has for me}

~And YOU?~

Joining Mary DeMuth here
 Peace For The Journey here

God Is

The dryer hums.

The furnace blows, then not. In rhythm.

Scarce snowflakes fall, barely seen but noticed.

The tree lights reflect *twinkling* in the windows as dusk descends upon the day.

The pace has slowed after the hustle of Christmas.

Serenity treats me on the other side of these holi-days...

The clang has turned to hum. 

The packages emptied.

The paper thrown.

The boxes burned.

The year has ended.

The memories traced.

The hopes established. 

Sovereign God...The answer in questions. 

Strength in difficulties.  Peace in storms. Light in darkness. 

Have a Blessed New Year dear friends.

Rest in God's love and power.

Read His word.

Stand firm in faith.
Pray continually.

Thoughts on Snootiness and Snippiness

Something has been bothering me

as I read around blogland...

It's the snootiness and snippiness of some people;

often people with a large audience~

snipping at,

 or about 

other people. 

I pray it stops.

I pray they will read some of Jesus' most profound words in

John 17:20-22

and get a fresh understanding of this:

John 13:35 says, "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” 

and Galatians 6:10 says, "Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers." {ESPECIALLY}

Au revoir 2012

For the past three days I've been reviewing 2012 via my three journals. It really takes my breath away!

I would never have imagined in a million years that because of my husband's job taking him to Florida for five months and then Montana for three, I would have six round trip flights. All but one were ten-day trips. And then two one-way flights so I could drive home with him to Wisconsin. All within nine months of 2012. Would you believe that I had my very first ever flight in 2003! {I am perhaps making up for lost time?}

We visited relatives in Kentucky, we met new friends from Missouri, saw old Presidents in South Dakota...and survived a tire blow-out on our car-hauler the busy interstate. My cousin drove us up Bear Tooth Pass from Red Lodge, MT  {I was forced to face down my fear of rolling off the edge of a mountain on the switchbacks!} And... I'm quite sure we experienced angels pushing us up the mountains when our truck was over-heating in North Carolina!

I also never imagined riding my bike on ocean beaches in the winter or in the Montana mountains in the summer. And today as I have been back to life-as-usual (mostly) since the end of August, it is hard to comprehend that it all really happened...

I never imagined either, that I would find myself on live radio sitting next to one of my favorite people, Susie Larson talking about being a recovering Pharisee. (with my friends Tami, Lauren and Bridgett)

Or on Live radio a second time praying with my friend Tami on Praise FM on the National Day of Prayer.

Then there is the wild and crazy story of selling our farm and dealing with the let-down of our buyers backing out five months later. And that right after announcing the closing of my little gift shop.

{Now. Who am I and what am I doing??? Though I know that I am not what I do...I still found my identity had wrapped itself up in my career as a gift-shop owner.} I am still working on closing my shop... and finding contentment in waiting on God to direct my steps.

After three years of my husband living away from home for work, he's been back at home since mid-August. That has been an adjustment!!!...him calling me at 4:30 asking me where I was and I was out 'doing my thing' as I had been free to do for those three years...and making meals? Oh that's right! We had to re-merge our lives.

 Who would have known that by years end we would be blessed with another grandson!?!

And a future daughter-in-love with an end-of-year engagement?

Today I was reading a blog about having a five-year-plan. I laughed a little thinking of how I could never have planned our 2012. Not in a million years. I do like the idea of a five year plan. I sent the link to hubby. I said, "We should do this separate and then come together and see how we converge." It will be fun to dream about what God might be up to in our lives in 2013 and beyond. {And our farm is still for sale...}

These are just highlights. There were also many challenges woven through our 2012 story. Challenges that had me reeling...
Our son and his girl were involved in a high-speed chase by drug dealers who believed he was someone else with the same car who owed money for drugs. The car was stolen from the driveway when they finally landed and jumped out. I got a call after the event while they were still waiting for the police...I waited at home alone. Wondering. Praying. The story was a nightmare. I prayed A LOT. The car was recovered two days later. Two of the three criminals were apprehended. Our families....and my heart is intact. Praise God!

There have been financial challenges, relational challenges and health challenges in the lives of my closest friends and relatives. And God has been faithful to answer my prayers, though I still wait on Him for some of the answers, I am confident that I will see His hand and beauty in every story. He is so very good!

It's true, it is true: God has a wild imagination. What a journey its been to walk with Him in 2012!!!

Are you recapping your year? Please leave a link so I can hear what God has been up to in your life!

Life is a Battle, Be Offensive.

Life is a battle. And if we lay down our swords and just play...we lose. We lose ground and allow the enemy to take ground.

The good news is that wherever we find ourselves...the MINUTE we turn to God we start winning again!

Put on your armor {Ephesians 6:10-20}, pick up your sword (God's Word) and shield (faith) and press on Mighty Warrior! In Jesus' Name!


Hover over these:

Hebrews 12:1

1 Timothy 1:18

2 Corinthians 10:4

1 Timothy 6:12

James 4:7

1 Peter 5:9

Then check out this old song:

!!!Fight*Fight*Fight!!!