Prayer & Praise Follow-up

Prayer. I don't think we could be covered with too much right now. There are many things going on in our family & extended families. Most of them are appropriate for other posts or no posts at all. What I can talk about is the job situation I mentioned before in Prayer & Praise.

As far as CSR Technologies goes, there have been some great developments.

The first potential client I had mentioned has signed their contract with CSR Technologies so it's official. There are 2 more potential clients. One of which is reviewing their contract right now and wants to meet next week. PRAISE!

Further developments - other job/career opportunities (outside the scope of CSR Tech.) have been presented to us since I first asked for prayer. Now it seems we need prayer even more as we have some significant decisions to make. It's as if we are standing at a crossroad - turning in circles at the center.

Would you pray for wisdom, discernment, and anything else the Holy Spirit brings to your mind? Our hearts and minds are open to His leading...we'd just really like Him to paint His direction in the sky or something!

Randomishness

• Offspring.
  Directions: Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
  Applications: Endless. The most obvious is their grubby little spring-is-here-lets-roll-in-the-dirt physical bodies. But it seems, at least to me, to apply to so many other areas. Their roller-coaster emotions. Their mental I'm-10, 8, 6 or 3-and-I've-arrived attitudes. And their curious spiritual beings.
  Indications: I'm tired.
  

• I teach a scrapbooking class for high-school students. I shared some family albums with them this week. A few of the girls told me I looked like Catherine Zeta-Jones. Ok. So the pictures were from like 10+ years ago. But I'm gonna hold onto to Catherine for a little while because I coulda' swore that Russell Crowe was looking back at me from my bathroom mirror this morning.

• Some things I'm thankful for and/or blessed by right at this moment.
  
  1. A day spent with a friend. We are deepening our friendship and our understanding of God together. We are unalike and very alike. This journey is a little scary but promises to be exciting. It felt like God hugged us today.
  2. The AMAZING, BRILLIANTLY BEAUTIFUL, SUNSHINY DAY!
  3. Oh. And coffee.
     

Prayer & Praise

Some of you may know that earlier this year Clinton resigned from his position at our church. Nothing tragic. It had become clear to us that God had him there for a season, to fill specific needs and, those things being done, it was time to be done. We still attend church there and are so thankful for our loving church family. But that's not really what this post is about.

I'm petitioning prayer on our behalf. Our business, CSR Technologies, has been growing consistently over the past couple of years. Things are still moving forward and we are thankful. Now though, we are dependent on this business as our primary source of income. God has been so faithful. We know that it was His leading that brought us to this point. All of our needs have been met and, we trust, will continue to be. For all of this we praise Him!

Here is how you can pray along with us. We are praying specifically for 3 new clients by the end of the month of April. God helped us kick off the month with a bang. On Monday Clinton got a call from a business here in town. He has not initiated contact with this business previously. (However, he has mentioned to me many times that he felt like God was telling him that eventually they would become a client and we discussed the possibility of him going in to offer his services.) Another one of Clinton's clients referred them and they called him on their own. He met with them yesterday, April 1st, and they are very excited to have him on-board. Once he gets their proposal done, it should be all set. Isn't that cool!? Thank you God.

If you are so inclined, please praise God for these things and pray along with us for at least 2 more clients this month. Thanks so much!

So we fasted and petitioned our God about this,
and he answered our prayer. - Ezra 8:23

Daily Reading from John Eldredge

We Find Our Tears
10/25/2007

Part of the reason women are so tired is because we are spending so much energy trying to “keep it together.” So much energy devoted to suppressing the pain and keeping a good appearance. “I’m gonna harden my heart,” sang Rindy Ross. “I’m going to swallow my tears.” A terrible, costly way to live your life. Part of this is driven by fear that the pain will overwhelm us. That we will be consumed by our sorrow. It’s an understandable fear – but it is no more true than the fear we had of the dark as children. Grief, dear sisters, is good. Grief helps to heal our hearts. Why, Jesus himself was a “man of sorrows, acquainted with grief.” (Isa. 53:3)

Let the tears come. Get alone, get to your car or your bedroom or the shower and let the tears come. Let the tears come. It is the only kind thing to do for your woundedness. Allow yourself to feel again. And feel you will – many things. Anger. That’s okay. Anger’s not a sin (Eph. 4:26). Remorse. Of course you do. Fear. Yes, that makes sense. Jesus can handle the fear as well. In fact, there is no emotion you can bring up that Jesus can’t handle. (Look at the Psalms – they are a raging sea of emotions).

Let it all out.

As Augustine wrote in his Confessions, “The tears . . . streamed down, and I let them flow as freely as they would, making of them a pillow for my heart. On them it rested.” Grief is a form of validation; it says the wound mattered. It mattered. You mattered. That’s not the way life was supposed to go. There are unwept tears down in there – the tears of a little girl who is lost and frightened. The tears of a teenage girl whose been rejected and has no place to turn. No one understands. The tears of a woman whose life has been hard and lonely and nothing close to her dreams.

Let them come.

(Captivating, 101-102)

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Really!?

This makes the fourth time I have attempted to post an entry this evening. I begin...get a sentence out-maybe four...then I delete them...then start again...wash, rinse, repeat.

I think it is because I'm so overwhelmed. God has been showing me Himself...revealing His love, His purpose and very little of His plan to me.

God thinks about us...really! "How precious are your thoughts about me, O God...." (Psalm 139:17-18) He (the God of the universe and saviour of us all) thinks about me (one of billions of people who spends much of her time focused on her own needs/wants/desires)

I have "known" this for quite some time...but have I believed it? I can know something but if I really, truly believe - it should change the way I think and behave. I have spent so much of my life feeling like I couldn't be loved unless ______ . And so many things could fill that blank.

The truth of the matter is, He loved me before I had anything to offer, before I even knew He existed He "...watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. [He] saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in [His] book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed." (Psalm 139:15-16)

Not only does He love me, but He has a purpose and a plan for fulfilling that purpose...He wrote it down. Amazing. I could just go on and on...and I probably will next time.

Again, I know/have known some of this for so long but He is showing me that I have not completely believed. I'm so thankful that He is letting this wash over me - fresh and new. His patience is staggering and His careful-thoughtful persistence is unmistakable.

In over my head?

I had been wishing for some alone-time but it keeps coming as a result of illness. I’m done wishing. But for now, I will take this opportunity which my sinus infection has afforded me and make the most of my aloneness.

Humidifier billowing, dwindling box of tissues on one side and an ever growing pile of waded tissues on the other, I sit here in bed. Clinton took all the girls to church so, except for the pain pulsing through my head and sinuses, it is relatively quiet here.

I so want to write about God's great love for me. Should I be posting about something that I still can't wrap my brain around? It feels elusive and hard to understand even as I read, "How priceless is your unfailing love...." or "This is how God showed His love for us: God sent His only Son into the world so we might live through Him."

Ann Kroeker in her book The Contemplative Mom puts my heart into words.

"God lovingly placed you on this earth and gave you new life in Christ in anticipation of relationship. You are His child, His friend, His beloved companion....He is ready and willing--eager, even--to relate to you on an everyday, personal level. The problem I see most often in my own life is not that I need to be convinced of this truth, but that I need to be reminded of it--reminded of it so that I can act on it and consequently interact with God. I suspect that most of us, while we're busy scraping dried pancake batter blobs off the kitchen counter, need to be reminded that Christ is with us. We don't forget the truth; we forget to live the truth."

"We don't forget the truth; we forget to live the truth." - That is so me.

The fact that He has rescued me tells me that He loves me. The way he rescued me tells me that He loves me. His desire to relate to me tells me that He loves me. The fact that I am a stinking, rotten, selfish sinner and He extends His love and grace to me anyway tells me that He loves me. Ok...I get it. He loves me. I'm so thankful that, when I am watching and really paying attention (and sometimes when I'm not), I can touch, see and feel reminders of this love every single day.

Anyone else ever wrestle to get this...want so much to have this stamped on your soul?

More next time...