Winds of Change

Sometimes it seems that change comes quicker than I can keep up with. This past year has been so full of change that if you had told me in the beginning of 2010 what my world would look like today I would have been completely shocked. And yet the changes have come and we have endured the storms and they have made us stronger.

Romans 8:28 is true. “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”

This new change is one that is both an end and a beginning. I stood at the end of a long relationship today and said some very difficult goodbyes. God has called us to move on from the Church we’ve been in since 1998. That is a very long time. There are people there we love dearly. But I know that we will have all eternity with them and loving them is not a good reason to be disobedient to Jesus. He must have a good reason to call us from there so we will go.

Tonight I am a little mournful because it feels more like the end than the beginning but I know deep in my heart that truly this is more the beginning than the end. We’re following the leading of the Spirit of God and how can that be wrong? The mournful feeling is just my flesh. When I pray about it I become excited because I know that our Father has new and wonderful things for our family. I’m asking God for wisdom and knowledge as we follow His leading.

“And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to those who have understanding.” Daniel 2:21

I’ll keep you up to date on our adventure as we look for our new Church home. I ask that you would pray for us as we go on our journey.

Here we stand, at the beginning and not the end…

Pruning Makes The Fruit Easier To See

Hmmm? Really? That’s what my husband told me yesterday as I went out to pick the blackberries. “I pruned the vines, it’ll make the fruit easier to see.” This is such a truth, not only in the blackberry patch but in our spiritual growth as well. Every vine God prunes bears fruit so that it will bear more fruit (John 15:1-8) but it also makes the fruit easier to see. I had never thought of this. Last year, about this time, I was thinking about being fruitful and asked God to make me more fruitful. I recall praying that in the blackberry patch, I love praying out there. My Father and I have some good talks in the blackberry patch. I didn’t realize how much pruning He would have to do in my life to get the fruit He wanted. Pruning is painful, but necessary. This past year there has been much pruned from my life. A job I loved. People I loved. Things I loved. All of them proved to be unnecessary. Now I am stripped down and bare; like a vine in the winter. I don’t see any fruit here but I’m sure that my Father, THE Master Gardener, knows what He is doing. I trust that Spring will come and fruit will burst forth, He is faithful. And as far as the Blackberries, well, they are so much easier to pick now. And though they are almost finished I still enjoy my time in the blackberry patch as much now in August as I did in July even if it is only every other day.

Here's The Buzzzzzzzz

One day while sitting in church the Pastor was preaching and he said that we should ask the Lord for a new Biblical name. It didn’t really make a whole lot of sense to me because honestly I hadn’t been paying attention, my mind had been more on whether Monkey was behaving in Sunday School so I missed the whole why thing, but I bowed my head and said, “God, I’m not sure why he said we should do this but if You want to give me a new name then I want all You have for me so…uhhhh I’d like a new name please, if that is Your will? Thank you? In Jesus Name, Amen”. Can you tell I was unsure on the whole thing? And that was that.

On to the rest of the sermon, I WAS paying attention, although I don’t recall what it was about now because it was in 2009 and what happened next trumps what Pastor had to say anyway. I’m sitting on the 4^th row from the front. Amanda H. was in front of me to the right in the center. Hubby was to my left and in my right ear (which I’m 40% deaf in) I hear a faint whisper, “Deborah”. I got all hot and sweaty. My heart was racing. No one was next to me on that side, I looked. We were the only ones on the whole pew! I looked behind me. No one. Hubby asked if I was okay and I nodded yes. I’m thinking someone behind us named Deborah must have a loud husband. Again it happened, only this time it’s louder and in both ears but also in my head I hear, “I will call you Deborah”. I thought I would throw up right there. Deep in my heart I knew it was for me but I asked hubby if he said anything. Nope, okay. Did he hear anything? Nope. Am I okay? Because my face is pale and I look freaked out! I picked up the Bible and looked in the concordance and guess what? There IS a woman named Deborah in the Bible. God has decided to rename me that. So, that is my Biblical name, I still go by Ann because it’s easier than telling people…well…this! But on my pray Shawl in Hebrew I have the name Deborah embroidered on the case.

I try to be completely transparent with this blog so I have one more confession to make here. Listening to the rest of Pastor’s sermon that Sunday morning was one of the hardest things I’ve EVER done because after God speaks something like that to you even listening to an anointed man of God preach an interesting sermon is difficult! All I wanted to do was devour the book of Judges! I’d never read it and knew nothing about her so I was itching to get home and dive in!

I’ve looked up why one would ask for a new name and here is what I’ve come up with.

1.      It changes your standing with God. Like Jacob (supplanter or deceitful) to Israel (prosperous). So he went from deceitful to prosperous.

2.      It is a fulfillment of a promise. Sarai (princess) which was a promise to Sarah (mother of multitudes) fulfillment of the promise.

3.      It indicates a change in the direction of the life of the one whose name has been changed. Saul’s name was changed to Paul.

So while my name change is only symbolic I believe it has impacted every area of my life as surely as if I had gone to the court house…

The name Ann means God favored me. I like that, He has favored me. He favored me so much He sent me Jesus Christ and THAT is favor.

Deborah means bee. How peculiar, my husband’s last name means keeper of the bees and my new name means bee…hmmmm?  You don’t mess with a bee. Bee’s sting and they can do quite a bit of damage but they also produce honey that is sweet and a little known fact about honey, it has no expiration date. Bacteria cannot grow in honey, it will never go bad. It is my sincere prayer that my works here on earth for Jesus Christ go on and do not “grow bacteria” so to speak. That I leave a legacy that will go from one generation to the next.

What To Do When The Test Isn't For You?

How do you handle it when the person you love is going through a time of growth and testing that affects everyone around them? Due to the situation of no daycare for Monkey, her seizures returning and me being unable to work things are stressful right now. I have gone through the testing of my faith with this (I know it’s an ongoing process), there is peace in my heart that regardless of circumstances we will have all our needs met and God will bring us through it. I thought for some strange reason that my dear husband was in the same place I was spiritually. Apparently I was mistaken.

So now we are in a place where all I can do is be supportive and pray which in and of itself is another test. How do you help someone else grow their faith?  How do you pass on to another what you have? Is there any other option to help them “get it” or do I just watch and pray? These are not rhetorical questions. These are real questions that I’m looking for answers for; this is the place I’m living right now.

On the one hand, I feel almost guilty that I’ve got peace and he doesn’t; on the other hand I want to shake him until he understands that God will never take us anywhere that He hasn’t perfectly planned and prepared already, even if it’s a scary place. We just have to TRUST JESUS!!!

I ask for prayers from you. Please pray my wonderful sweetheart gets a real up close view of just how BIG our God is and how He is capable of bringing us through this. Please pray that I am a good and loving wife to him so that he will see Jesus in me and that Monkey will not be affected by this time of testing. Up until now she is doing well. I know that stress and Monkey are not a good mix especially since her seizures have returned and up until now she has had a LOT of change, and there is more on the horizon.

To recap Monkey’s changes November 2010 we lost Cinny, our beloved daycare provider, Mommy is now home with her, her seizures have returned, and beginning Monday we will start with a new 1-1 riding to and from school and a new paraprofessional at school. WOW! Change…here we come! Maybe God is helping Monkey to become used to change so she will be able to handle it smoothly for whatever He has planned for us. I am trying to look at this positively. J

What if...

I'm sorry for my absence here, I believe the next few posts will explain why I have been gone...

What if God’s plan for your life was different than yours? What if it were so radically different you had never even conceived of the idea? What if it required for you to lay down everything that you thought would make you happy and content? What if it removed everything familiar and caused you to rely only on Him, not just saying it but really walking it out? Would you be open to this plan?

I’ve worked my entire life, started working as a teenager and have never been unemployed. The job I’m in now I’ve had for 17 years and 10 months.  I enjoy my work; I find pleasure in it and am completely fulfilled there. The people I work with are wonderful and seem like family to me. The veterans I serve are a blessing and it feels good to give back to them. So, if you are anything like me, you may wonder how this might not be God’s will for my life. I know I’ve done a lot of questioning and praying and pleading and crying and well, you get the picture.

But in October of 2010 I was hurt on the job, surgery was in November 2010 and the week after the surgery we lost our daycare provider that Monkey has been with since she was 15 months old. She’s the only other person on this earth I trust with her, she was the one who was with us through all the seizures, medicines, surgeries and diets. I love this woman as surely as I love my sister. She feels like my sister. She treats Monkey as her own. I grieved. They moved away, 2 states away. Thankfully, I was still out on Worker Comp, surely I could find someone else.

This proved a bit more difficult than I imagined. I’ve found on occasion God will close doors to keep us in places we would rather not be.