Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Chris and Tracy Klicka
You write to me often, asking how you can pray for me.
You tell me almost every time that I talk with you, that you ARE praying for me. You can't begin to imagine how much those prayers mean to me!
Today, I'd like to ask you to also pray for Chris Klicka.
Chris has worked tirelessly for the Home School Legal Defense Association.
His articles in the HSLDA newsletters have been used of the Lord to sharpen many of us who have devoted our lives to homeschooling our children.
Chris also has MS.
It's a long story, and you can read it here, on his Caring Bridge site, but it appears that Chris is about to pass from this life, to life eternal with His Savior, Jesus Christ.
Would you please pray for his sweet family, and for his wife Tracy?
They are not at home with their many friends, their church or their family...but instead are diligently working to fly each family member out to CO, where Chris was at a homeschooling convention when he fell ill...
Please pray that the funds for those plane tickets will be available, and that Chris will be able to kiss his kids goodbye before he goes Home.
Pray that the God of all comfort and grace will sustain Chris' family through every breath in these coming days.
Thank you for praying for him and his family.
In love to you today,
Jes
Friday, September 25, 2009
What to Write When I Don't Even Know What to Say...
My husband, who is always prepared, had Googled maps, cross-consulted the atlas, and done his full due diligence in making certain that we'd reach our desired destination with no challenges of direction.
I was fulfilling my role as navigator, carefully reviewing said maps as we barreled down the interstate.
You'd have been proud...I wasn't letting any twist or turn escape me.
I was ON it! :)
Until...
until, that is, we traveled about 10 miles and then realized we were heading in a direction completely opposite of the one in which we were supposed to be going.
So, we exited, thinking this the perfect time to unload and take a potty break.
Ugh.
I was wrong.
Again.
First with directions, then in my skills of observation.
I can't remember the last time that my kiddo and I did our "business" that quickly! It was dark, and unfamiliar territory, and I just plain wanted back into the safety of my 1997 Chevrolet Chrysler mommy van!
(I never can remember the name of that van! Or maybe, to tell you the truth, I just like the fun of saying "Shevrilay" the way my Texan grandparents did.)
By the time that we got back onto the freeway, and were headed in the correct direction, Shane and I were both a little keyed up. We were tired, still had one kiddo that had "business" to do, and miles to go before we'd sleep.
I pulled out the Google maps Shane had printed off, and then looked and looked again at the atlas and we finally deduced that the error was not our own.
It was a mapping error.
Seriously!
Whew. Deep sigh....back on the road again...
And then, we hit traffic, and I'm not understating things when I say hit it!
One moment, we're zooming down the freeway and the next, we're at a standstill...no explanation. Traffic has funneled into two lanes, and we are creeping along at a snail's pace.
Then we see them...
flashing lights so bright that the night sky looks as if someone is setting off fireworks for a 4th of July celebration.
The children were amazed as we drove past, because they'd never seen a firetruck that close up at night.
I thank God that they are children, and that firetrucks still thrill them.
I thank God that they missed the other views of the scene that night.
I thank God again that they are children and that firetrucks still thrill them, and that they noticed nothing else....
not the woman who stood by the side of the road in shock, just staring down into the city lights below the freeway...
the guard rail all torn to shambles....
the large blue blanket covering the body of the person who had lost their life on the scene...
nor the hand...
the hand that the emergency workers failed to cover up.
Why the whole body was covered while one hand was allowed to remain sticking straight out, I'll never understand.
It took me a while, as we rode past the scene, to catch my breath.
A while to gather my thoughts.
In truth, I'm still trying to gather them.
Once words could again be formed on my lips I said to Shane, "That could have been us. Had we not gotten bad directions and then decided to stop for a restroom break, that could have been us."
I thought about how I could have been that person standing on the side of the freeway with my loved one's hand sticking out from under the blanket, while the rest of the world just zoomed on past....
I wondered, "Did that person know that they were created in the image of God? Did they know the Lord? Are they celebrating their life choices right now, or grieving them beyond words? Who will comfort that woman that I saw standing in shock on the roadside? "Oh Lord God, will you pour Your mercy upon her?""
And that night, my shot prayer was for her.
"Lord, You know her name, but I know only her stance of shock.
You know her heart, I but briefly witnessed her heartache.
You love her, Lord.
Please...love on her now."
It's taken me some time to be able to write this post, and I'm not even sure why I felt I needed to.
I hope we won't complain about missed exits anymore, and that each of us will remember what the book of James reminds us about our lives here on earth... our short, lives of vapors....
I love you tonight, sweet friends.
Jes
Come now, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit." |
Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are {just} a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. | |
Instead, {you ought} to say, "If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that." Blue Letter Bible. "James's Epistle 4 - (NASB - New American Standard Bible)." Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2009. 24 Sep 2009. < http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=Jam&c=4&t=NASB > |
Thursday, September 17, 2009
What Is On My Heart Today....
Sorrow over how human I am...how weak my flesh is...how much I mess up on a daily basis.
Other thoughts..probably due to the fact that we're on another "West Wing" marathon around here...
Am I praying for my President?
When President Bush took office, thousands of Christians across the world signed up with the Presidential Prayer Team to lift him up in prayer.
Have we done that for President Obama?
I'm going now...lots to do before tomorrow...but I'm going to pray for my President, for my Vice President, for their families...for all of those in leadership over us today.
May they know the grace and truth found only through a personal relationship with God through Christ Jesus.
May we who love the Lord be like Daniel, Joseph, Paul... may we show the power of the Risen Lord through lives surrendered to Him...that others will see the Holy Spirit giving glory to God, through us.
Just some random thoughts.
Love to you today,
Jes
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Winner To Be Chosen In An Hour Or So....
We have winners!
Thanks for playing! Your sweet comments were a huge encouragement to me...I'm going to be doing more giveaways. This was fun.
For the copy of Gladys Alyward: Michelle
(I gotta say, I love this..Michelle was a missionary to Russia, so I think it's pretty cool that she was the winner for this book. I love you girl! Send me your address and I'll get it right out to you.)
For the copy of the Kinsman Redeemer study - Kristi
(Congratulations, girl! May this study be a huge encouragement to you! I'll need your address too.) :)
For those of you who haven't registered for the free giveaway yet, I'll be drawing a name in about an hour or so....give or take a few hours of life in our crazy house!
We only need 3 more comments, and then I'll add a second drawing for a copy of the three week long Precept Upon Precept study on Ruth...
"Don't Despair...There's Hope! You Have a Kinsman Redeemer!"
Monday, September 14, 2009
I Have Formatting Problems...Can You Tell?
Saturday, September 12, 2009
A Full Post...and a Register to Win!
Leave a comment here or on my facebook page, and you'll be registered to win your OWN free copy! Please forward the link to your friends...let's see how many people we can give some goodies to! I'll close the register to win on Wednesday, late afternoon. :)
There is much on my heart to share with you tonight. So much, I'm not quite sure where to begin.
I was pondering Psalm 23 tonight, but in a brand new light.
Perhaps I should back up a bit...
I've been watching a DVD series by Ray Vander Laan on the Kings & Prophets of Israel. As I'm sure you've realized by now, I could sit and listen to him/watch him on site in Israel, for hours at a time.
He's a Biblical historian, and the way that he makes the stories of the land of Israel come alive...the way that he makes them real to me today, and helps me to see the application or the "Faith Lessons" as he calls them, is just life changing for me.
In one episode that I watched recently, he was discussing the difference between how a Westerner and an Easterner might describe God.
I'm going from memory here...so it won't be word for word, but he was explaining how a Westerner (American) might describe God as powerful or all knowing.
Yet, an Easterner might describe Him by saying "The Lord is my refuge, my rock. The Lord is living water, or my Shepherd."
Then this week, Shane and I were debating about whether or not to put Caedmon into an upcoming Latin class. Shane took Latin in high school (and maybe college too?) and has spoken of it many times, so I thought it was a no-brainer that we'd put Caedmon in it.
Yet, when Shane came home one night and we had time to discuss it, he said "Jes, they'll be translating Caesar."
"Really?!"
"That's what we did."
So, we thought about that some, about how that's contrary to what we want to be giving our kids at this juncture in their lives. You see, as much as possible, we want them to learn more like Easterners...from more of a Hebraic way of learning.
We've realized that there are two very different ways of learning. There's the Greek way...through philosophy and scholastic answers, which is what Shane and I both received
in school, and then there is the more Hebraic method...which teaches reasoning, both on an inductive and deductive level, and also teaches through imagery and keen observation.
The latter is what we want for our children.
We don't want great philosophers. (makes me think of that verse that talks about empty philosophy...)
We hope and pray for children who will know how to reason through any situation God allows into their lives.
Reason.
We've lost the art of reasoning through things in our culture, all too often.
We were trained to wave our little hands in the air, begging for recognition that we had the "right" answer.
Remember those days?
Ugh. Those were a drag.
Had we been asked, "Who is God," in the USA, would "He's Living Water," or "He's the Door" or "He is my cup and my portion forever" have been considered "right" answers?
What a difference it is to sit with a group of kiddos, all studying the same subject, and tell them "Listen, I'm not just looking for right answers. I'm looking for thinkers. I want you to dig deep into your minds before you answer me. I want to know that you can tell me the WHYs and the HOWs behind the questions that I'll be asking you."
See what I want from them?
I want them to learn to reason.
So, we'll be using our Bibles;
a missionary to India, who served to set children free. I think it will coincide wonderfully with our study on slavery, and I absolutely LOVE this series of books...so much so that we bought the whole set for our kids for Christmas a few years ago. They love them too!
And I'm so excited, because NOW they have curriculum guides to go along with the stories, to give you ideas of how to use the stories to create unit studies. Love it!
Heroes of History by YWAM, and on and on...
Today, we packed up our homeschooling items, and went down by the pond. We studied about Harriet Tubman, and even acted out one of the chapters of the book...the one when "Jim" didn't want to go on...he kept telling "Moses" that he wanted to just go back to the plantation and take his lashings.
Harriet encouraged him and cajoled him, and when nothing worked, she stuck a shiny silver revolver in his face and said, "You either gonnna press on, or you gonna die right here."
(I paraphrase a bit, but that was the gist.)
Seemed Harriet had to do that quite often.
Slaves would get part way through their journey of freedom with her, in the underground railroad, and they'd grow tired and weary, and want to turn back. Nothing but pure fear would motivate them to keep pressing on.
They'd known fear since childhood, so fear worked when grace didn't.
Yet, once to freedom, they thanked Harriet repeatedly.
Made me think about us.
You know how it's just plain HARD to keep our minds off of Egypt sometimes, figuratively speaking.
You know THAT sin..we all have it...THAT sin...THAT one that keeps you thinking it's alright to visit Egypt for the day. It's ok to go back to the plantation...just for the day.
I talked with the kiddos today about what the gun that Harriet pulled on Jim really represented.
I asked them first, if they knew....
Caedmon had some pretty deep insight.
Brennan thinks in word pictures...she must be Hebrew. :)
Then I told them...that gun represented the freedom of the slaves that she was transporting, as well as the ones along the line that may have been helping her out.
Then I boiled it down for them....
We ALL have to have Harriet Tubmans in our lives. We ALL have to have those people who can speak the scary, tough, and sometimes hard to hear truths into our lives, because what they want for us is total freedom.
We HAVE to have people who love us enough that their eyes are focused not upon the immediate, but upon our freedom.
Total freedom.
Yes, we are free in Christ...but some of us in Christ are still allowing ourselves to go back to Egypt for a visit, and we're justifying the whole thing.
I know I sure can...I find that I am not slow to anger. I am not slow to speak and quick to hear.
I hate some of the things that come out of my mouth...especially through this whole MS thing....talk about unglorifying!
Yet, I praise God for the people in my life who love me enough to get up in my face with that silver revolver called "words of love" and help me refocus, and then repent.
There is no justification for sin.
Ever.
Psalm 23 - ever read that like you're the sheep saying it?
Hmmm...that was so cool tonight...it's worthy of it's own post.
But first....a promised give away....register your comment on this post, and if you're the chosen winner, I'll give you a brand new copy of the very first "Christian Heroes: Then & Now" book that we ever read.
It's based upon the life of Gladys Aylward, and it's fantastic! Talk about growing your faith!
The miraculous story of Gladys' life will surely do it. How God worked through her will leave you dumbfounded, and hopefully inspired that He can use your life in amazing ways for Him, too!
So, just leave a comment here for me, or on my facebook page. If you add the name of someone whose salvation I can be praying for, you'll get entered into the drawing twice! :)
You can be anonymous in your commenting, but if say, "anonymous #3" ends up winning, I'll need your name then. :)
Hey! It's time to have some fun! Call it a blog party giveaway!
Please hit the envelope button below and send this to your friends....the more the merrier! :)
Maybe because it's late, or maybe because I'm crazy for people to grow in Christ.....I'm going to up the offer....if we can get 20 people to comment between now and next Wednesday, I'll offer a Precept Upon Precept study of Ruth, our Kinsman Redeemer, as well.
It's a life changer!
MMM..wonder what I'll give away if we get to 30?
Love you guys!
Jes
Thursday, September 03, 2009
A Plea for Prayer...Today!
You know...that's not really a fair name for you all.
Crickets do make noise...maybe I should call you moths.
Moths are quiet, like you all have been lately. :)
I need some comments. I feed off of them like catfish on hotdogs!
Quick prayer request...a selfish one.
OK, two actually...
1. I've been asked to share my vision for the women of our church tonight at our elder meeting. Please pray that God will speak, and that I'll be able by His grace to share what He has laid on my heart for all of us.
It's His vision and His heart for the women and girls that I want to be able to share...and my mind doesn't work the same way as it did a year ago...please pray for supernatural clarity.
Please pray.
2. Please pray that I'll be accepted as a patient into Barrow Neurological Institute, and that it will happen before the end of the year. You know, our deductible has been met for 2009.
My Dr., whom you've read about, has encouraged me to let another set of eyes look at everything, and we've decided to do that....please pray for clarity there, too.
Didn't you LOVE the post by Renae and the one from Nanners?
More guest bloggers to come...there are some amazing stories that are being sent to me...
I'm not proofing today...gotta get my act together.
Thank you so much for praying for me, and for sending in your prayer requests. I love them!
I love YOU! Thank you for being an encouragement to me during this tough time.
You are precious to me!
Jes
Wednesday, September 02, 2009
Precept Training in Phoenix, AZ 2009
Sept 18th, Word Studies; 9am-5pm
Sept. 19th, Basics of Precept Upon Precept; 9am-5pm
FRIDAY:
Learn to do Word Studies to uncover insights not readily apparent in English.
Discover how definitions and grammatical structures of verbs help in more accurately interpreting the text.
This workshop will qualify you to lead Precept Upon Precept classes after learning to do homework and how to effectively lead a discussion. Experience the joy of discovering the Truth of the Bible for yourself!
For additional info: PreceptBibleStudy@gmail.
Let's be on our faces, begging God for new studends and leaders to be raised up.
Jes
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Do You Have "Those People" in Your Life?
For almost a week now, I’ve been trying to figure out how to express what Bible Study means to me and how it’s affected my life.
How can I briefly explain something that over the decades has TOTALLY changed my thinking, behavior, priorities, reactions, desires, relationships, goals and my attitudes?
Not that I’ve arrived and have it all figured out and now live a sinless life….oh, no, not by a long shot. I’m very aware every day that I have a LONG ways still to go in my sanctification process and life-race.
Through the study of His Word, I’m continually finding new areas that need to come under the Lord’s control, sins that need to be repented of and confessed, and new things that I need to learn and apply.
However, it’s learning what God has to say that affects the way I spend my time, talents and abilities, money, energy, and the way I want to spend the rest of my life.
In God’s Word, the voice of God speaks directly & personally to us & He reveals His heart and His grace.
That’s a simple statement of truth, but isn’t it also staggering and mind-blowing?
To think that the infinite, all-knowing, all-wise, all-powerful, wonderful God of the universe would even be interested in revealing His heart and in speaking to finite, faint-heated, feeble, frail me is just beyond words and incredibly wonderful.
As a believer, I have the privilege of direct communication with God. WOW!
I can hear from God and find Him revealed in His Word. WOW again!
God’s Word is a living Word, so it carries divine quickening power in it. And WOW once again!
As Andrew Murray said, “The words in which God has chosen to clothe His own divine thoughts are God-breathed, and the life of God dwells in them. God is not the God of the dead, but of the living. The Word was inspired when first given and the Spirit of God STILL breathes in it.”
When we understand and believe that, the Bible is no longer just a book, it’s a letter written personally to us. When we’re receiving His Word in faith and hearing from Him, that’s when His Word comes alive for us and in us. And when that happens, in my experience, the WOW-factor never ends.
Prioritizing time in God’s Word and wanting to hear His voice more than the voice of our emotions and more than the input of the world is the desire that gives us an ear to hear and a heart to absorb His Word.
Only God Himself can be the Interpreter of His Word.
The Holy Spirit, who dwells within all believers, will reveal the spiritual meaning and power of the Word. Every day, with His help, the Word can be the means to a deeper revelation of God Himself and to our deeper fellowship with Him.
Asking the Holy Spirit to grant me comprehension and a heart to hear and obey, and then having confidence (believing) that God still wants to speak individually to me through His Word is what brings both light and life to my heart and spirit.
In the Word, God has revealed His heart and His will.
I could go on and on with specifics benefits of Bible Study, and I wouldn’t begin to cover what a blessing it is in my life.
To have access to the mind and thoughts and will and promises of God and to see how He’s worked and is continuing to work through history for His purposes and His glory is an incredible privilege.
For me to do a prayerful, consistent, organized study of the Word of God and to apply what I’m hearing and learning to my daily life, brings meaning, purpose, joy, peace and hope to my life.
I guess to sum it all up; hearing the voice of the sovereign God inviting me to intimacy and fellowship, and by His Spirit to be able to gain insight and understanding through His Word, is priceless and exciting and challenging and wonderful beyond what a million blog entries could ever adequately express.