GROWING SEEDS: Unexpected Answers

"God delights to increase the faith [or condition the faith-muscle] of His children."

A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine asked to come sit on the dock and talk for awhile.  This wasn't unusual.....we sit together on the dock quite often, catching up with each others lives.....but there was something different in her voice this time.  My heart fluttered when she asked if she could come over.  

I was concerned.

As we sat down, she looked me straight in the eye and said, "The doctor thinks I have aggressive lung cancer."  I just sat there.....trying to process what she just said, staring at this friend who means the world to me....who God gifted me with years ago to help me find and get to know Him....and I let her words sink into my soul.

What do you say when someone you love says these words your heart can't accept?  

She was scheduled to go for more tests in a few days which would tell the doctor everything he needed to know.  Family was notified....a plan would be put into place....and a new challenging chapter was staring her in the face.

"We ought, instead of wanting no trials before victory, 

no exercise for patience, 

to be willing to take them from God's hand as a means."

I sat on the back porch swing a long time that evening after she left.  She had told me her prayer wasn't for healing....it was a prayer of "Oh Lord, if it is consistent with Thy will, may I feel Your hand and have peace in this difficult new chapter."  I repeated her prayer many times in the next few days before her tests, "Give her peace, Father....and if it's consistent with Your will, please heal my friend."

Two days later, she went in for the determining tests.  Many of her friends were fervently praying this same prayer that day.....waiting impatiently to hear the results.  When the news came, my friend wrote: 

"My peace this morning passes understanding.  A typo was made of size on first CT scan.  Follow up in 3 months and no COPD was found as originally thought.  Guess you're stuck with me for awhile longer!!"

"I say - and say it deliberately - 

trials, obstacles, difficulties, and sometimes defeats, 

are the very food of faith."

George Muller

Oh friends.....watch.... and wait....for the unexpected answers of God.

GROWING SEEDS: This Means War!

A few years ago, my friend Jill Lowry walked up to my front door and handed me a book called Fervent*.  She knew it would be like medicine to me at that time in my life and it continues to be even today.  

Friends, this book is about the strategies of Satan....and it's about your battle plan against those very strategies.  

Strategy 1 - He seeks to dim your whole desire for prayer, dull your interest in spiritual things, and downplay the potency of your most strategic weapons (Eph. 6:10-20).

Strategy 2 - He disguises himself and manipulates your perspective so you end up focusing on the wrong culprit, directing your weapons at the wrong enemy (2 Cor. 11:14).

Strategy 3 - He magnifies your insecurities, leading you to doubt what God says about you and to disregard what He's given you (Eph. 1:17-19).

Strategy 4 - He wants to disintegrate your family, dividing your home, rendering it chaotic, restless, and unfruitful (Gen. 3:1-7).

Strategy 5 - He constantly reminds you of your past mistakes and bad choices, hoping to convince you that you're under God's judgment rather than under the blood (Rev. 12:10).

Strategy 6 - He amplifies Fear, Worry, and Anxiety until they're the loudest voices in your head, causing you to deem the adventure of following God too risky to attempt (Josh. 14:8).

Strategy 7 - He tries to tempt you toward certain sins, convincing you that you can tolerate them without risking consequence, knowing they'll only wedge distance between you and God (Isa. 59:1-2).

Strategy 8 - He hopes to overload your life and schedule, pressuring you to constantly push beyond your limits, never feeling permission to say no (Deut. 5:15).

Strategy 9 - He uses every opportunity to keep old wounds fresh in mind, knowing that anger and hurt and bitterness and unforgiveness will continue to roll the damage forward (Her. 12:15).

Strategy 10 - He creates disruption and disunity within your circle of friends and within the shared community of the body of Christ (1 Tim. 2:8).

I encourage you to tear this page out of the bulletin and tape it to your bathroom mirror.  You've just been given the enemy's playbook.....now, use God's battle plan to win this battle!

*Fervent by Priscilla Shirer

Chuck Book and Chapters

55. 
    Lance Graduation - fight with old lady

50. Wheelchair races in Anchorage hotel & ship

40. Chuck and the Jetski with Dylan

21. riving RV - Ya Liz, you have at least 6” on this side before hitting the concrete barrier.

15. Roofing the GAzebo

6. Driving

16. My Honda Man is  harley-Want-A-be

CHAPTER 2

HEARING

48. Fairview State Park - Unhooked trailer and its rolling towards him; he can’t hear..

47. Chuck helping me back up in Rockport with 2-way radios

34. Chuck slept through the dam breaking...

31. Hang on Chuck; I’m turning

14. Munchkin has Bots (Hearing)

1. Hearing Impaired - Trip to Audiologist

26. Chuck directing me in the RV & can’t hear the traffic coming

CHAPTER 3

COGNITIVE

43. Wing Ding - Crazy Coffee Fit

41. NAVIGATION:  Chuck sends me down road with 12’9” clearance in FL

29. Chuck forgets my birthday

24. Chuck & Camcorder - Mt. St. Helens  / SF Bridge

13. Liz and hair grower Rogaine

4. Chuck does remember names....sordof

30. Chuck, my navigator

CHAPTER 5

DEPRESSION / PAIN

46. Chuck, Robe, Bristle Brush & Jen

42. The man rarely complains & has a great attitude

35. Camp Teepee

32. Chuck is Gladys Kravitz in suspenderes

Chuck the Dog Whisperer

20. Charlie meets new friends:  Manitou Springs - guy who is parked in our spot;
21. Kelso, WA - Guy at mall waiting on wife; 

12. Chuck Etheridge Fan Club

36. Chuck & Liz in Yellowstone

10. Dr. Frohman told me to smoke mariquana

CHAPTER 6

EXHAUSTION

25. Goodwill & Chuck

8. Sleeping at the Dentist, in car with Dad, 

3. Chuck sinus cat-in-heat noise

CHAPTER 7

EATING

54. Christmas snacks from Sarah and Matt

37. Charlie & Coffee

22. CA - Chuck eating powdered donuts & chocolate milk on Trike; Chuck sleeping on trike; arguing on the trike; 

18. He’s a Sam’s pretzel sticks / chocolate covered raisins

11. Blizzard

4. Eating everything...

23. Chuck & Ihop

VISION:

51. Peripheral Vision - Making faces while he’s driving;  boat hitting dock; wheelchair running into everything

MISCELLANEOUS

53. tarps

45. Chuck & Hand Cleaner

38. Is that a Deer or Elk on the wall in the dining room?

28. Dread and Terror Ridge - Oregon

19. Charlie’s in love with a Llama...

9. Ironing Jeans & suspenders

7. Abusive Husbands Club of America

17. He’s a Wal-Mart Kinda of Guy

39. We can turn Murphy into a “Service Dog”

49. Gas Passing

Treatments 

Bee Sting Therapy

Learning how to give a shot by closing my eyes and punching

GROWING SEEDS: Compassion

"God is our merciful Father of compassion and God of all comfort.  

He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others."  

2 Corinthians 1:3-4

There's a line from a great Indian epic, that goes something like this: "What is the most wondrous thing in the world, Yudhisthira?"  And Yudhisthira replied, "The most wondrous thing in the world is that all around us people are dying and we don't realize it can happen to us." 

This past week, I was visiting with a dear friend whose only daughter has been struggling with cancer for many years.  She's young....early 50's....and the bulk of her adult life has been spent in the chemo-chair.  Over the years, about the time the doctors would feel they had the cancer beat, it would show up somewhere else.  My friend and her daughter are mighty Warriors.....they have fought this invasive evil in her body for longer than I've known her.  But as I looked into the face of my friend this past week, I saw the face of compassion looking straight into the eyes of her daughter.

com·pas·sion

The definition of compassion is a feeling of deep sympathy and sorrow for another who is hurting, in pain, or has misfortune and is accompanied by a strong desire to help the suffering.  

It starts with the understanding that everyone we meet is fighting their own battle....a battle you and I know nothing of because they personally own it.  And compassion becomes easier to understand when we, ourselves, have been the recipient of someone having compassion on us.  My friend, she understands this thing called Compassion.  She's been a recipient of it first hand from others.....and she's chosen not to keep it to herself, but rather, to share this gift of compassion with those around her.  And wasn't that exactly what Jesus lovingly and compassionately instructed us to do?

"The parting words of Christ were calling his disciples to action. (Matt. 5:31)

When we feed the hungry, minister to the hurting, we are doing these acts of kindness TO HIM. 

Someday Jesus will place His pierced hand on your shoulder.

What will you do?" 

Max Lucado

GROWING SEEDS: We Are The Pottery

"We now have this light shining in our hearts, 

but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure."  

2 Corinthians 4:7

Each morning, I wake up within the skin of a house on Eagle Cove.  The walls of this house were "pressed on every side by troubles, but were not crushed" (2 Corinthians 4:8) a few years ago by lake water invading its perimeter.   We were "perplexed....we were scared....but never driven to despair...never abandoned by God".  We got "knocked down, but were not destroyed." (2 Corinthians 4:9)

Today's scripture speaks of our fragile human bodies which Paul metaphorically refers to as delicate clay pottery.  Our exterior shell is the holder of this magnificent and great treasure protected within its walls.  Deep within our Soul is a Light....Christ....buried within the confines of this fragile shell.  And just as Georgia and Hal Gibson mold beautiful one-of-a-kind jars out of clay and water by the simple and easily-broken-act of moving their hands, God molded each of us with His very own strong, yet gentle, hands.  We are one-of-a-kind with Christ's signature stamped boldly on us.  We are His walking-talking pottery that carry Him, our great Treasure, boldly with us as we walk through this world.

As I write this to you, I can't help but look around this room I'm sitting in at 89 Eagle Cove.....and remember that within the delicate shell of its walls, hidden behind sheet rock and bead board, is a great treasure.  Scripture.  Words.  Promises.  Touching each stud, each floor joist in this space, beside me and beneath me, are the promises and Light of Christ that many of you helped put there.  

We are the pottery, friends.....flawed and fragile.....given the responsibility of carrying the Treasure buried deep within us to the world.  

"Yes, we live under constant danger of death because we serve Jesus,

so that the life of Jesus (the Treasure) will be evident in our dying bodies."

2 Corinthians 4:11

GROWING SEEDS: Remember

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends.” 

—John 15:13

It's Memorial Day.  

As Americans, we know it as the first long holiday weekend to grill burgers on the dock, fire up the Jetski and to sleep late on Monday.  But why do most of us head into the Tuesday after Memorial Day without having given an ounce of thought to the meaning behind the significance of this weekend?

I'm guilty of this. I've never had a friend or relative come back in a pine box from war. I've not stood with a young widow at the foot of her husband's grave while holding the hand of her small child. I've just seen it on the news and read about it in books. It's never been a reality in my personal little world....fortunately.

Growing up, my Mom dragged us kids to the cemetery every chance she got. She would open up the trunk of the Buick, pull out her bottle of Windex and paper towels, knee down in front of the tombstone of her parents, and proceed to spray the granite with vigor. She would tell stories of her parents as us kids used the concrete curb around the family plots as a balance beam....yawned in boredom.....and waited impatiently for her to finish this ritual.  

My Mom knew the importance of Remembering.

And as Christians, we should have the importance of remembering etched solidly in our hearts. After all, Christians are "memorial people" because our whole faith depends on remembering. "Those who persevere into the future are those who remember the gracious past."* That's why God has surrounded us with memorials. The entire Bible is a Memorial.....Sabbath, the Lord's Supper, Baptism, Christmas, Easter.......

So friends, as we Remember on this Memorial Day....do it with overflowing gratitude for the men and women who sacrificed everything they had....who hugged their families goodbye and never returned. And remember how Christ did the very same thing for you. It's called Grace.

Let us make every day, as long as it is called Today, a Memorial Day.

* Jon Bloom

GROWING SEEDS: The Greatest Gift

Last weekend, my Dad's side of the family gathered together at a Riverwalk hotel in San Antonio for a Family Reunion.....a reunion that hadn't taken place since 1991.  My dad and his brother, Ray, are the last surviving siblings from a poor Alabama family of seven.  But what made this reunion even more special was.... it was the cousins of this family of seven siblings that reconnected last weekend after 27 years.  Last time we saw each other we were young.....and now we're old.

It was an amazing Gift bringing our common DNA thread under one roof. 

"On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place".  

Acts 2:1

As I was reading today's scripture on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2, I couldn't help but think about its similarity to last weeks Calloway Family Reunion.  The early Christians received the unfathomable gift of the Holy Spirit as they gathered together under one roof in Jerusalem....and so did the Calloway family on the 15th floor of the La Quinta.

We didn't see tongues of fire hovering over our heads or feel the rush of wind through our hair as they did in Jerusalem that day, but what we did see and feel were non-Christians sharing a pizza with Christians.....and what we felt was a merged love as we cried together watching old family videos.  

We felt the common thread of family that connected us as one....even with our many differences.  

And just as the early Christians spoke in languages unknown to them that day so others could understand, I pray I spoke in a way to my non-Christian family that they could understand my Christian language. 

The significance of Pentecost......what a powerful gift!

GROWING SEEDS: Mothers Day

Dorothy Calloway was a timid, insecure precious woman who lacked self-confidence ....yet....somehow she taught her own kids to stand up straight, be strong and pumped them full of boldness and self-assurance.  She never left the house without a scarf around her neck because she felt the wisdom-wrinkles occupying real estate on her neck were too unattractive.....yet.....she never failed to remind her chubby youngest daughter with a patch over her left eye from an eye disease that she was the most beautiful little girl ever.

Dorothy Calloway was a Mom.  She gave more of herself than she ever received and she always stepped back so others could shine.  She never had a new car.....she sweated in the summers working in a hot warehouse.....and her clothes didn't come from Macys but rather from Walmart.  She sacrificed so her kids didn't have to.

Dorothy Calloway was my Best Friend.  She was my first call about Anything.....she was the maid-of-honor at my wedding....

She was my Mom.

And when old age had its way with her, it was those very kids she infused confidence in....that she taught to be strong and bold and courageous and that she sacrificed for....who held the spoon that fed her when she no longer could.  As we tied the scarf around those wisdom-wrinkles one last time, kissed her good-bye and closed the lid on her life on this earth, we smiled and said, "Happy Mothers Day", Mom.

"I used to say that I was the apple and my mom was the tree and I certainly didn't fall very far.  

But that's not entirely accurate.  

If my Mom is the tree, then I'm the bird that grew up in its branches.  

I flew because of her."

GROWING SEEDS: Let Me Teach You Thankfulness

"LET ME TEACH YOU THANKFULNESS. 

Begin by acknowledging that everything - 

all your possessions and all that you are - 

belong to Me.  

The dawning of each new day is a gift from Me, not to be taken for granted.  

If you slow down your pace of life, you can find Me anywhere.  

The secret of being Thankful is learning to see everything....from My perspective." * 

GOD

Exactly six months ago this very day, a 51 year old man by the name of Glen Simmons went to work.....came home.....ate supper....watched TV with his kids.....talked to his neighbors and called his mom.  He and his wife of 30 years, Kristin, had the next chapters of their lives all mapped out.....once the kids were grown, they were going to travel, spoil grandchildren and grow old together.  But the next day, he learned he had Stage 4 liver cancer and very little time left to say what needed to be said.  Glen died on April 29. 

Life doesn't always go the way we planned.  Sometimes chapters are skipped in this book of our life and go straight to the last page of the book in an instant.  We are left wondering why......and wishing for more time.  But Glen and his family lived Thankfulness even....no, especially....through the last painful 6 months.   They were Thankful for the time they were given to say the things we put off saying till tomorrow cause we are too busy living today.  They were Thankful for just enough strength for Glen to walk his daughter down the aisle in January.  They were Thankful for a host of friends who loved them big and for family who told him he made a difference during his time on earth.....as they watched him fade.  I learned a lot watching this Simmons family walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.  

Everything that Glen was.....belonged to God.  He knew that the dawning of each new day was a GIFT from God.....not to be taken for granted.....but rather, to be cherished and handled gently and carefully.   

He didn't ask "Why Me?" but rather....."Why Not Me?".  

"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

In Me you have everything you need, 

both for this life and for the life yet to come."

*Jesus Calling, April 29

GROWING SEEDS: When There's Water In The Desert

I always thought it was my job to be responsible for someone else's coming to Jesus.....their walk with the Lord....their very salvation.  But one day, a friend said these words to me: "It's not your job, Liz, to save people.  That's God's job.  Your job....if you choose to accept it (sounds a little like Mission Impossible, doesn't it??) is to be obedient.  Your job is to live out Christ daily to the people He places on your path."

It was like someone released every single ounce of anxiety I was carrying around inside of me.  Really?  It's not my job to save them?  Really?

I love the story of Philip and the Eunuch-dude.  Check it out at Acts 8:26-40.  Long story short, an angel came and told Philip to scoot on over to a road in the desert..  It's my understanding that Philip was quite happy where he was.....and heading to the desert wasn't exactly in his top 5 places to go.  But....without questioning, he packed up his stuff, buckled his sandals, and headed to the desert.

We are only called to OBEDIENCE, not to the creation of the moment.

Here's the short version:  While Philip was walking along the dusty desert road, a chariot passed him with the eunuch dude sitting reading the book of Isaiah, not understanding a word of what he was reading (sound familiar??).  The Holy Spirit said to Philip, "Go over and walk along beside the carriage." So Philip obediently did.  And as he ran beside the chariot not fully understanding why, he asks eunuch-dude if he understands what he's reading.  He says "No, how can I without someone to explain it to me?"  At this point Philip hops in the chariot and rides through the DESERT (important point here, folks) explaining the Good News about Jesus.  They then came to some WATER (pay attention...) and the eunuch asked Philip to baptize him...which he promptly did.

There's a lot happening in this awesome story.....but the thing that makes me smile the most is the connection between it being a DESERT and them coming to WATER to be baptized at just the right moment.  It's not like there's water on every street corner in the desert, friends.  God always provides.  It's not our job to save those around us.....but it IS our job to be obedient.  When we hear the still small voice telling us to go to the desert...or help that family down the street....or share your testimony with the person at the laundromat cause your washing machine crashed and burned, That - Is - Our - Job.

Be Present.....Be Obedient.....first and foremost with God, then in the precious lives of those around you.