The power of words

Death and Life are in the power of the tongue,

And those who love it will eat its fruit.

Proverbs 18:21

Pleasant words are like a honeycomb,

Sweetness to the soul and health to the bones.

Proverbs 16:24

...the words of the pure are pleasant.

Proverbs 15:26

Have you ever thought about the words you speak?  God created the world with his words alone.  We are created in God's image and carry great power in the words that proceed from our mouths.  I am challenged every day to speak life.  The Bible also says that from the outflow of the heart the mouth speaks.  Watch your words.  What are you words saying?  In light of the verse above, does it make you ponder what is in your heart?  I want to challenge us to really think about each word proceeding from our mouths.  Make those words be full of life and watch how the world around you changes!

Wow!

Wow!  It has been a long time since I last blogged.  It is now the end of summer, we are 10 days into our 200 days of home school.  It has been an amazing summer, after an amazing spring.  God just continues to take my breath away with his love, faithfulness, and beauty!  I want to just jump right into all that has happened since I was last blogging, but I feel strongly that some gratitude is in order!  Henry Ward Beecher once said that gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.  I would have to agree, on the days that I give thanks first, it changes my focus...takes it off me and my circumstances and moves it to the FATHER, who deserves the praise, honor, and love.  It is a gentle reminder of all the ways I have been blessed.  Gratitude is the way to live a life.  It is always having my eyes and heart open to the blessings, both big and small, that surrounds my every moment of everyday.  Gratitude most certainly combats the cares and distractions of this world by helping me be ever aware of the largeness of God's love for me.   I am going to journal my thankfulness and gratitude right here and continue weekly, if you care to join me, leave a comment and share what you are thankful for.  Once you start, you will find that the list quickly builds and your focus changes!
#1  My Abba daddy who loves me so much
#2  Words of life spoken by my Daddy and God
#3  The start of a new day, new beginnings
#4  Kendall
#5  Grateful, sweet children
#6  Fresh revelation
#7  Being my children's teacher, I love homeschooling
#8  morning hugs
#9  our home
#10  a good cup of coffee and my bible in the quiet of the morning

Blessings for this new day!  May you find the joy and gratitude that is all around you just waiting for you to notice!
 

Time

"The most powerful force for change is time."

Jeff Olson

People are fooled everyday around the world with the idea of right now.  Everyone knows about instant gratification, we have become a generation where even the mircrowave and the line at the local fast food stop is NOT fast enough.  The Bible teaches what you plant, you must cultivate and then harvest comes.  This is a concept that works everytime, however, most people don't have the patience for the cultivating, they want to move straight from planting to harvesting. 

These are our tomato plants.  We love homegrown tomotos, nothing in the world taste quite like that!  Planting and watching a plant grow until you can harvest is an amazing process. We found flowers on ours yesterday.  Isn't God just so creative!  I love it!  But we have to wait, we have to be patient for the growth to come and then the harvest.  It is this way in everything.  Let's use fitness as an example.  We get out of shape, our health declines based on small bad choices made on a daily basis in regards to our diet and exercise.  When we are told we need to get into shape, we do it for a while, but when they don't see the immediate change we want to see we quit.  We have no patience for the cultivation.  We go back to the bad choices.  Isn't it like that with our money as well.  What about our intimacy with our Abba Daddy?  Sadly, it is an epidemic that is spreading in our lives, taking over in our society.  I have done it, until now.  No more small bad choices that eventually add up.  I am choosing daily to make good small decisons that I will not be able to see the results of for a year or more--invisible results they are called.  Choices add up over time to be good or bad.  So I am choosing the good choices.  I am choosing to cultivate my intimacy with my abba daddy, I am choosing to cultivate my health, I am choosing to cultivate my finances I am choosing to cultivate my time.  People may be skeptical, that is fine.  In a year...or two...or three, the invisible resutls will become visible and I will be LIVING, instead of merely surviving.  So, who is with me?  Who wants to make the good choice? 

It's been a long time!

Wow, it has been a long time since I have last posted a blog.  We have been around the world and back.  I had great dreams of blogging each day while we were living on the other side of the world, but it was too overwhelming and honestly, I don't think I could have put into words what was happening, what we were experiencing.  Life changing for sure!  As my amazing husband continued to say "our flashdrives were full!"  Now we have been home a month, life is returning to somewhat of a routine, processing is occuring and I am about ready to burst with all I want to share.  But then, where to begin?  So I am going to start with NOW, this very morning. 

God is just simply amazing and good always.  He is always teaching and molding us, drawing us into a more intimate relationship with him.  One thing the Father has been teaching me is that renewing my mind is critical to walking in the kingdom.  I am not talking about positive thinking, I am talking letting Abba daddy change my thinking.  We have no power to change it in our flesh.  He changes and renews our thinking by redefining who we are.  When we define ourselves, His kingdom, our day, our very moments by HIS truth, we are renewing our minds to live with kingdom power.  Our truth puts limits on us that was not intended by God.  His truth brings freedom and power in such a way that the powers of darkness are dispelled and HE is released into the situation.  THEN, we EXPERIENCE the power of Christ!  That is what I want.  That is what I am going after.  You see as we pursue who our Daddy says we are, we are free to pursue to our destiny and purpose in changing the world. 

We have made some exciting decisions over the last few weeks that we know are answers to prayers. We are pursuing the Father with a new intensity and running hard after our dreams of changing history; bringing Christ, the only HOPE, to the people we come into contact with daily as well as the nations!  Stay tuned...this life is exciting!

The Nations for an Inheritance

"Ask of Me, and I will give you The Nations for your inheritance. 

And the ends of the earth for your possession."

Psalm 8:2

This is my deepest hearts desire.  The nations for my inheritance.  We are on the final hour countdown, just over 24 hours and we will be leaving the place we know,  for a people, a city, a nation that we do not know.  A people and a nation in need of Christ, the HOPE of glory!  A people and a nation that is KNOWN by my Abba Daddy, whom He loves, He sent Jesus for them!  They hear His small still voice in Mandarin, just as we hear Him in English. 

I have asked the Father several things over the last months.  I have asked to speak Mandarin, to hear Him in Mandarin, to prophesy in Mandarin.  Yes, just like the day of Pentecost when everyone heard the gospel in their own language.  God is just as powerful now as He was then...so yes, I am asking for the tongue of Mandarin. 

I have also asked Abba Daddy, how is it that I am to pray for this place that I do not know, this culture I cannot even begin to fathom, and He has said time and again, ask for it for your inheritance.  So I ask, no, I must say I am on my face crying out for these who do not know him and yet I already love. How is that? How does HE desposit that kind of love in me?  But you see it is not me, it is HIM in me that loves a people I have never met and a country that I long to call my home. 

I have asked God for the rains to fall, for the harvest to be ready. 

"then I will give you the rain for your land in its season,

the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, your oil.

Deuteronomy 11:14

During worship Saturday night a very dear friend came up and said she was praying for rain to soften the land of China, that we would walk in power and plant seeds, see the white harvest.  Then she said something that was amazing and crazy...so like God, she said I am praying for rain in the natural on the day you arrive to prophesy the rain in the supernatural that will occur.  We have been checking the weather there and there was no rain in the forcast.  When I got up this morning to see, there is now a 40% chance...

Rain God, bring your rain!  Bring your power!  Bring your Hope of Glory!  Give me the nations for my inheritance and the tongue of Mandarin!  We want to work where you work, do what we see you doing, say what we see you saying!  We want more of you!

Peace

There is a scripture that I have always known and most of us can quote:

"and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

Philippians 4:13

Our China journey has brought me to a place where I finally really understand the peace of God.  Sure, I have always thought I knew about it, but I still worried about this situation or that issue.  Never have I felt the peace that I feel sitting here 3 days before a trip that will change the course of the life of our family. 

It has been a busy, busy time for us.  We have made trips to see family, last planning for China, countless trips to Walmart (each time I say this will be the last time).  It is a challenge to prepare what to take to a place you have never been and don't know what's available. 

I had the honor of being a part of a most beautiful wedding ceremony for our dear friends' daughter.  I created the cake. 

Without a doubt it was my favorite.  It turned out exactly how the bride and her mother wanted.  I think it was my favorite because of the love I have for the family I got to serve.  The Stricklands are the picture of Christ--in their marriage, in their giving, and in their family, their parenting. Their lives reflect our Father in a georgeous way.  It is amazing.  They, like us, are called to "Go".  They are headed to Mozambique.  And, like us, love China.  Their 3 young sweeties are adopted from there.  The wedding was an amazing, blessed night! 

I had so many people leading up to the wedding ask me if I was "ok?"  And my only answer was a smile and a yes.  You see, God planned this week for me in the most spectaular of ways. I returned home from New Mexico in time to recieve a very special envelope that revealed to some very dear friends the gender of their upcoming baby.  I was to make the cake to reveal to them along with our small group.  

 

It is a BOY!!! Stephanie and Joseph have 2 other boys and have the honor of rasing these young men into warriors to take the kingdom of God to the nations!  To Bring Heaven to Earth!  We are so excited for them!! 

Then the wedding was next.  But God, in his mercy and grace, blessed me with a fun busy week that has flown by.  One that, in the midst of what some would deem as stressful, for me was full of joy, rest, and peace! 

My fleshly nature is one of control and planning, one that likes to know what is next.  And yet in the natural what is going on in this season of my family's life is full of questions and very few answers, where I have no control whatsoever.   However, I have more peace than I have ever had in my life.  It is supernatural, it is peace that can only come from my Abba Daddy.  I am confident that He knows the next step when we get off that plane in China.  He knows what the next month holds.  He KNOWS, so I don't have to know.  I just have to take the next step and trust, in faith that He will work it all out because he loves me and my family so very much.  We are the apple of His eye!  So, I have no stress...I am blogging instead of cleaning, doing  laundry and packing.  This peace that truly surpasses understanding is guarding my mind.  It is keeping out the fears.  It is fully allowing me to trust that my Daddy is NOT going to let us stumble or go astray.  I have learned that this kind of walking is the way I want to walk the rest of my life so that HE can work His good will in our life without my "help"- just my obedience to his every word. 

So I leave you with this scripture - Colossians 3:15:

"And let the PEACE of God rule in your hearts..."

And the challenge to really let that peace rule in your heart, nothing compares!! 

Now, stay tuned...the trip is literally, just around the cornor.

Homecoming

We all know the old saying "Absence makes the heart grow fonder."  I have to admit, I have thought it a cheesy saying from time to time.  But after a week of being my love being gone, I am not sure I will say that ever again.  It has been an amazing week for Him and the rest of the mission team, it has been an amazing week for me.  The Father has taught me so many things, one of the most important is that my husband and I, we are ONE.  I have missed him more than I thought possible, on several days, my heart hurt with the intensity of the longing.  I can hardly wait to see the joy in his eyes as he tells the stories and cry with him as he shares the deep emotions that he is bringing home. One thing is for certain, these 9 that left last Monday, are not returning the same.  I pray that I have the grace to handle the new heart that is returning to me.  For this week was ordained since the beginning of time and is really the beginning of an amazing journey that is going to take Kendall and I (and our children as well) a life time to live out.  I have never been more thankful for technology that kept us close...email, facebook, skype...I thank you.  While he was living an adventure, I got to live it thru the beautiful words he blogged and posted on facebook.  I have enjoyed good times with sweet, new friends, been totally attached to my computer as I did not want to miss a post or blog coming from Kendall or anyone who was with, I have had something special to do with my kids each day, stayed up too late watching the olympics, spent more time on facebook than I thought imaginable...I could not be more ready for my beloved to be home!  Although I don't believe life will ever return to normal after this trip, I can hardly wait for what is waiting around the next corner!  Isn't God good!!!  I love that His dreams are bigger than mine...I want your BIG dreams Abba Daddy, don't ever let Kendall and I settle for anything less !!

Welcome Home Beloved, I am Blessed to call you mine!