Sunday, June 23, 2013

IT WAS ....

 In Charles Dickens "The Tale of Two Cities" he quotes "It was the best of times, it was the worse of times...
In the book of James he says " Consider it pure joy my brother and sisters whenever you face trials of many kinds."
Seriously? Let's face it, as humans it is either good times or bad times and I don't know many of us who are joyful when bad times come around. But as a Christians, we know...yes we do.
I would say this past year has been "the worse of times" for my family. And I can honestly say if it hadn't been for God I don't know how I would have got up each day. But I did because of Him. At the end of the day I would say "I made it. I'm still here. The world is still going on." But to be totally honest the "pure joy and trials" well... let's just say I wasn't feeling it. As far as I was concerned the trials could go away. I wasn't feeling the joy. Nope! Not this girl.

Thankfully, each day I read a word from God and if it was a bad day(and most of them were) He got me through it. If it was a good day I thanked Him. Hmmm... I was beginning to get it. Bad day...made it. Good day...thankful. Bad day... grateful I made it. Good day...grateful for it. It's not like my emotions are a switch you can turn off and on. I was choosing to find joy, gratefulness and love. I could either waddle in a pool of self pity or get up each day, lean on God and persevere.

Yesterday was a very good day and it was so easy to find the joy and be happy. Today not so much. It would have been much easier to just sit around and be upset. But I choose to be joyful. I choose to love and I also choose to forgive. It's true if you don't forgive you are the prisoner not the other person. They go on with their life not giving a care what they did to you. Forgiveness doesn't mean you condone the actions of the other person or you have to like them and be their best buddy. Forgiveness is releasing you to move on. It is one of the most powerful things you can do.

Like I said, today wasn't a very good day. I am concerned about our foundation and not having enough sponsors, donors and as for me enough time to work on this blessing God has trust me with. My desire is that I can work for our foundation. I never wanted to receive a paycheck doing this but in order to make this everything God desires it to be I need to work at it full time. Often our passions don't pay very well monetary but they do pay our heart abundantly!

I cried out to God and said "please Lord, show me what you want me to do."

Can I be honest here? I don't gamble but I was kind of hoping His answer would be "here is some numbers go down and buy a lottery ticket and your prayers will be answered!" Ahh yes. The easy way. I took some quiet time and waited for that still small voice. Sure enough I hear "reach for your bible." I have a small bible in our office. So I reached for it expecting some amazing scripture to jump out at me. Nope. Out slips a devotion card I had put in there a few years ago. One side had this quote from Washington Irving "There is in every true woman's heart a spark of heavenly love, which lies dormant in the broad daylight of prosperity, but which kindles up and beams and blazes in the dark hour of adversity." Wow...that spoke to me. On the other side was a scripture Hebrews 10:36 "You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of  God, you will receive what He has promised." At that moment I found pure joy in my trial. I knew I would find peace because God gave me the answer...PERSEVERE!

You see I may have my trials, we all do but I personally know of a couple of hundred precious children that God has placed in my life that have no food, no clean water, no education, some one parent or no parents. They have trials but whenever I am blessed to go to Ethiopia and visit them they are smiling  and hopeful because they know that myself and others who go with me are there because we care about them. They are not forgotten. We are going to make a difference. We tell them God loves them and He sent us to them and we share about the one true King. And the smiles get bigger.
Do I know what is going to happen with the foundation? No. What I do know is that God always finishes what He starts and on that word alone I will trust Him. He will provide a away for me and others to feed, cloth, educate, love and teach these little ones. They will learn that God provides. That God is always faithful and with God ALL things are possible!
Be joyful in all trials. To say that doesn't mean your not going to cry or hurt or be angry it means you will learn from these trails to trust Him. And once you put that trust in Him, that my friends is pure joy!
                                                    My Ethiopian Babies!



Our daughter Jordan with her new friend

She lost her family to AIDS.


This is Berharu. He was my sponsor son. He died last August. M
Heart broke like I never could have imagined. But I know he is in
heaven because he was sponsored and learned about Jesus and became
quite the little evangelist!

Monday, June 17, 2013

GOTCHA DAY!

HAPPY GOTCHA DAY!
 
18 years ago today this beautiful princess came home to her family. She has grown into an amazing young woman and we are so proud of her! Love you to the moon and back princess!
 
ADOPTION IS A BEAUTIFUL THING!

Sunday, June 9, 2013

THE GOOD LIFE

We are studying Job in our Lifegroup Class. Most people know Jobs story. If you don't may I suggest you read it. It pretty much explains why bad things happen in the world. What I took from it was bad things are going to happen but He never promised us a rose garden. Job was a Godly man. He honored God in everything he did. So why do bad things happen to good people? Read the story.
Job lost everything, was in pain, cursed his birth and asked God what did he do to deserve this. Sounds like his faith in God was gone doesn't it? Not so much. We are humans with human thoughts, human question and we want answers. God never said that was wrong. What times of trouble do is test us. It is during the worst times in our lives we will make one of two choices. We will either walk away from God or we will persevere and draw closer to God. And when you choose the to draw closer that is when you have the Good Life! God blesses those who hang in there with Him. For whatever Job lost in the end God gave him more than he had before.
Now that isn't why we should draw closer to God. We should do that out of our love and obedience for Him. The blessing area perk!
My prayer for you is if your going through a rough time in your life that you will hang in there with God. In the end you'll be glad you did!

Sunday, June 2, 2013

REDEMPTION & JUSTICE

Redemption is a beautiful thing. Hanging on to your faith when all else seems lost is a beautiful thing. Watching in awe as our God who is just rewards your faith and redeems...well there are no words to describe it!

I love the fact that we serve a God who is just. This means no matter what others say about you, think about you, how they act towards you or lie about you as long as your faith is strong God will take care of them for you. Oh, trust me it isn't easy to sit and wait on God. We are a "now" society! We want to see others suffer the consequences of their actions. But in the long run you have to keep your eyes on the goal and allow God to take care of you "problem." After all in the end He alone will judge all of us.

Those who know me well know that this past year has sucked for my family and that's a nice word. We've been lied to, lied about, treated like crap, talked about and some have turned their back on us. Those guilty of this are people we loved and thought loved us. But sometimes God allows these things to happen to bring us closer to Him. We had a choice and we chose to grow closer to God and let Him work in our lives.

Now if you are not a believer or if you view God as this tyrant, rigid King who sits on His throne and demands this and that you couldn't be more wrong. He is good and kind. He loves us with agape love and He cares for us. I also believe He has a since of humor. He knows my heart and how I was raised and sometimes my "old street school" comes out. I told someone the other day that I will fight for my family spiritually, emotionally, mentally and yes physically! When that last word came out I thought "oh oh that isn't right. I waited for my conscience to begin working on me but all I had was peace. A beautiful, serene peace. It was like God was saying "only if you had to Elaine." Yes, only if I had to. So just because I am a christian doesn't mean when I turn the other cheek I will allow you to attack my life and family.We can't make choices for others but we do have full responsibility for our choices. As for me and my house we choose to remain strong in our faith, our love for one another and mostly our love for God.
As my husband held my hand in church this morning and our children sat next to us and we prayed I thanked God for all He has given me. He chose this man for me. He blessed us with 6 amazing children and 5 soon to be 6 amazing grandest children and a beautiful daughter in love. Yes Redemption is a beautiful thing.
The last month has been crazy with proms, graduation, birthdays and Mother Day. So to my sisters, friends and anyone else...enjoy!
I love this crew!

Mothers Day



I think they are making a statement. Don't mess with our little sister!


Proud of our girl!


Celebrating Dustin's 24th birthday

Prom