Great Quote from Oswald Chambers

I love this quote from Oswald Chambers. Enjoy the weekend!

Wisdom from Oswald Chambers

Wherever the providence of God may dump us down, in a slum, in a shop, in the desert, we have to labour along the line of His direction. Never allow this thought—“I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly can be of no use where you are not! Wherever He has engineered your circumstances, pray. So Send I You, 1325 L

Once For All

"The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!’”  John 1:29

The sins of the world were removed when Jesus died as the perfect sacrifice and price for our sin. Below is an outline of what is available to those who believe that Jesus is the Son of God, that He died for us and that He sent His Holy Spirit to indwell and live within and guide us.

1.     Redemption - we are redeemed from our own sin and depravity.

2.     Forgiveness - as God’s adopted children our sins are permanently pardoned.

3.     Justification - we are no longer guilty and sentenced to eternal damnation.

4.     Reconciliation - we are no longer dead in our sins and separated from the Lord, we are alive in Him!

Through Jesus’ sacrifice we are redeemed, forgiven, justified and reconciled to God. We now have an eternal relationship and everlasting life with the Father.

Do you thank Jesus daily for dying to take away your sins?

Lord Jesus I thank You for saving me from myself, forgiving me of my sins and providing a way to eternal salvation.  Amen. 

Warmly,

Jill

The Day-to-Day

Being a Mom to three 4 and under requires so much of my day to be the ordinary chores of life - breakfast, diapers, nap, snack, pack bags, head out, tie shoes, bottles, sippy cups, lunch, clean up, clean up more, naps, snacks, prep for dinner, diapers, play, read, craft, clean up, eat, baths, diapers, story and prayer time, rocking two of my babies to sleep, clean kitchen, etc, etc...

As someone who loves constant change, the day-to-day can be hard for me sometimes. Even though I love to slow down and have no problem kicking back and relaxing, I have to remind myself of the joy in the small, normal details of life.  Summer is full of excitement in our home right now. We are currently in the middle of our VBS week at church. Vacation is coming up and July is full with church activities, pool, and camp. I am diligently trying to keep my children in God's word this summer. I don't want them to miss the greatest treasure in the midst of our all our fun.

Enjoy this quote from Oswald Chambers!  It helps keep the day-to-day in perspective.

“We are not made for the mountains, for sunrises, or for the other beautiful attractions in life - those are simply intended to be moments of inspiration. We are made for the valley and the ordinary things of life and that is where we have to prove our stamina and strength.” 
― Oswald Chambers

Go be a light this summer to a world that needs hope!
Leeanne

Get up and do the Work

As all the hustle and bustle of summer begins I find the change of seasons and schedule refreshing. I am one who loves change. I thrive in it actually. When you have three children 4 and under you need routine and structure. It is imperative for a peaceful home but within that "daily schedule" I love the tides of change. So much of my time is consumed with meeting every little tender need, cutting the crust off PB and J's, changing band aids, filling up blow up pools with water, changing diapers, potty training my son, ballet practice, swim lessons, dinner, baths, unexpected ER visits for my son because he needs stitches, bathing them again, washing clothes, running back to the grocery store, caring for my husband, and somehow trying to love on friends and family and care for those in need there isn't much time for me.

I have gotten in the habit lately of feeling a little more entitled than I should. My kids should not need anything past 8pm, I should not have to fold one more piece of laundry after 8:30, I should be able to have a quiet time in the morning because I get up at 6am, why is the baby now waking up at 6:15, and so on and so on. And you know what is so funny? In the midst of my grumbling Saturday morning at 6:10am  I grabbed a bottle, stomped upstairs, and in the stillness of the moments my daughter smiled back at me, took her bottle and then said "hi", the Lord answered me.

In His quiet perfect voice He whispered, "if you want time with me then get up earlier."Most of the time when God speaks it is a quiet whisper. God could yell, split open heaven, or send lightning down to get my attention. But He didn't. He whispered to me and said "stop complaining and get up earlier".

This summer I am doing my own bible study in Nehemiah. What an amazing book of the Bible. So much truth in how Nehemiah viewed God. Nehemiah saw a need and he prayed. God answered him 4 months later. While Nehemiah prayed he was actively waiting. He was anticipating that when God moved and spoke he would and should be ready.

That simple truth spoke to me in this way: do the work. Anything that matters and has importance  requires work. I so desire to spend time with the Lord each morning. So, I need to do the work. I need to get up earlier. God didn't answer me with some big, long detailed explanation but a simple truth. Get up and do it.  What is also interesting about what God told me is that I feel He was speaking into many areas of my life. I am by nature a worker bee. Go go go...  So as you can imagine when I feel God telling me to "do the work" it sends me into a great state of excitement. What it means I don't know. I will just pray and actively wait.  Nehemiah modeled this so well. This study is incredible.  I can't wait to share more this summer.

More frequent posts are coming we promise!

With great joy,
Leeanne

^" I told them how the hand of my God had been favorable to me and also about the king’s words which he had spoken to me. Then they said, “Let us arise and build.” So they put their hands to the good work."
Nehemiah 2:18

Life, Hospitality, and Tozer

It has been too long since Jill and I posted something and the reality is there is no specific reason except life has been busy. Both our families had children who were sick for over a week, my husband's work has been crazy, and throw in a one year old who I can't take my eyes off, a women's conference at our church, and Jill's spring school schedule we are just in the throws of life.

I've learned over the years to not make excuses for things but just be real. We have six children between us and honestly some days I'm just glad I fed them all. I'm learning that to pour in to my children the way I desire I must let other things go. My oldest goes to kindergarten in a little over a year and I'm treasuring this time with her. I'm carving out specifics things we can do together just the two of us. I'm savoring our long conversations about Jesus, why butterflies fly, and who changes the lights from green to red.  She very much dislikes soccer but loves t-ball. She loves ballet and singing into her karaoke machine brings her great joy!

My boy keeps me equally on my toes.  I'm loving playing cars, trains, and learning all about Buzzlight Year, Woody, Mater, and Lighting McQueen. I love watching my boy make a bee line for the largest puddle of mud and dirt and see his eyes light up as he rolls around. I love when he asks me to look for worms with him. I love teaching him how to open doors for girls, and how he tells his sisters they are beautiful. He asks me to rock him each night just for a minute so I'm basking in the time I have to rock my son while he clings a little to babyhood by sucking his thumb.

I'm wonderfully exhausted from chasing my baby girl around as she discovers life is so much bigger than her days of crawling. I love her smiling face when I tickle her and let her eat new foods. I love how content she is in my lap when I fold laundry and how she loves to wrestle with her siblings even though she isn't quite big enough. I love that when we go to the park she just loves to put the sand between her toes and enjoys the swing. I can't wait to see what personality the Lord gives her. She seems to be our gentle smiling one. I'll take that.

So, that is what life has been for me. It is passing by so fast. Some days I collapse and debate whether to leave the dishes to the next day. Other days I find myself longing to keep my kids up extra late so we can have one more scooter ride up the street.

This weekend our church is having a wonderful Women's Conference. I'm excited to participate in it and talk about what biblical hospitality looks like. I'll share my notes after the conference but did you know what the Greek word for hospitality means?  Xenos means stranger and Phileo means love. It basically means loving strangers. The OT and NT have a lot to say about this topic as well as Jesus himself.

I've been rereading "Knowledge of the Holy" by A.W. Tozer. If you haven't read it please please do. It is a game changer. One thing Tozer writes that I cannot get out of my head is this:

"All the problems of heaven and earth, though they were to confront us together and at once, would be nothing compared to the overwhelming problem of God:  That He is; what He is like; and what we as moral beings must do about Him."

"You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy: at your right hand are pleasures forevermore" Psalm 16:11

JOY,
Leeanne

Holy Week

As we celebrate the Holiest of weeks in the Christian faith our prayer is that you would see that Christ satisfies. He satisfied it all on the cross 2013 years ago. What a joy that our King rose three days after Black Friday.  Below is a beautifully written exert on Black Friday and what it means.  May your Easter be filled with all the Hope, all the Love, all the Joy that only Jesus Christ can bring.

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 ESV 

But we see him who for a little while was made lower than the angels, namely Jesus, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. Hebrews 2:9 ESV

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In his Good Friday sermon of 1928, Dietrich Bonhoeffer drives this cosmic tragedy home like three cold steel stakes pounded through the nerves of humanity's own wrists and feet.

Good Friday is not the darkness that must necessarily yield to light. It is not the winter sleep that contains and nourishes the seed of life within. It is the day on which human beings — human beings who wanted to be like gods — kill the God who became human, the love that became person; the day on which the Holy One of God, that is, God himself, dies, truly dies — voluntarily and yet because of human guilt — without any seed of life remaining in him in such a way that God’s death might resemble sleep.

Good Friday is not, like winter, a transitional stage — no, it is genuinely the end, the end of guilty humanity and the final judgment that humanity has pronounced upon itself. . . .

If God’s history among human beings had ended on Good Friday, then the final pronouncement over humankind would be guilt, rebellion, the unfettering of all titanic human forces, a storming of heaven by human beings, godlessness, godforsakenness, but then ultimately meaninglessness and despair. Then your faith is futile. Then you are still in your guilt. Then we are of all people most to be pitied. That is, the final word would be the human being.¹

This is the awful memory Good Friday presses on us.

Humanity, aspiring in arrogance to become godlike, has slayed the God-man by both murderous intent and by woeful passivity. And in this crime, Bonhoeffer goes on to explain, everything else has been made futile. All our culture, all our art, all our learning, all our hopes, have come to a meaningless end once we have heaped on our own heads the murder of God’s only Son.

Thank God, the story doesn’t end here, but Good Friday presses us to imagine if it did. What if the story ended at the cross? What if the God-rejecting sin of humanity wrought despair to life now and nothing short of a godforsaken despair for eternity?

Divine words of accusation stab into the ribs of humanity:

You have swelled up around him like a wall of unfounded hate and vicious lies (Psalm 69:4).

You have circled him like ravenous dogs (Psalm 22:16).

You have ambushed the beloved son (Mark 12:1–9).

You have killed the Author of Life (Acts 3:15).

Let these hard words sting as we consider for a moment together how stupid and how foolish and how ignorant and how wicked is the human heart to have brought this end upon human history — the darkest day of mankind, the apex of human ignorance, a situation so hopeless that human history seems to have been brought to its very end. What now can we look forward to but only eternal despair and desolation forever?

But sinful mankind does not get the last word. How appropriate the prayer of the dying Christ — “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).

As a human race we can scarce understand what we've done, what we've unleashed in evil ignorance.

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¹ Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 10, Barcelona, Berlin, New York: 1928–1931 (Fortress, 2008), 487–88.

Amy Carmichael

No book has moved me recently like Amy Carmichael's "Let the Little Children Come". Amy was an everyday person like you and me. She trusted beyond her comforts, her dreams, her hopes, her circumstances in a God she knew was real. Amy was a missionary in India for 53 years without ever taking a furlough. God called her to go to the Indian people and she went. She loved the Indian people and spent the majority of her life rescuing girls who had been dedicated to the temple as prostitutes. The caste system was a brutal taskmaster and tradition upon tradition perpetuated this belief that girl babies were a curse and if they were dedicated to the temple, then surely in the next life the parents would gain favor. Many girls were dedicated from birth and given over at age 4 or 5. It is estimated that Amy rescued over a thousand girls. 

Why does Amy speak so deeply to me?  She has become such a spiritual hero and mentor to me that I find myself reading and rereading so many things she has written. The thing that has gripped my heart lately is she tells a story of a young girl name Mimosa who was born into her spiritual traditions and never heard His name but knew deep down there had to be "a God above all Gods they worshiped". One night she heard the name of Jesus, and she knew He was that God. She knew. She believed. For 26 years after her conversion she never heard a sermon, lecture, read a bible, sang worship songs, had fellowship with any other believers but Amy said "she was kept by Him for 24 years until she arrived safely in Amy's home". 

For 24 years the name of Jesus was enough to sustain her. Only The Name can sustain. So the question I ask myself now is what is sustaining me?  Where is my hope and peace and comfort? When I hear the name of Jesus am I stirred in my spirit?  Does it invoke emotions that cause me to fall down and worship?  Does it motivated me to tell others the glorious news?  

Those are the things I'm mediating on this Easter. We search so hard in this world for peace. I find my thoughts drifting more and more towards people like Mimosa and Amy Carmichael. My spiritual hero's. I bet a young Hindu girl in 1900 never dreamed a girl in North Carolina in 2013 would be praising God for her testimony of faithfulness and endurance. I can't wait to meet her in heaven one day. 

As Easter comes I don't want to forget the beautiful simplicity of the gospel. "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved" (Acts 16:31).

With great JOY,
Leeanne