The following is a quote from the pastor of my home church in San Luis Obispo... and I am the second blogger to use it. "Parenting can be painful. We can only survive the pain if our kids are not the center of our lives - Jesus needs to be the center of our lives, so we have Someone to hold onto when life hurts."Our kiddos are now 26, 23, & 19 years of age. Side note here: How come I can remember their birth weights, likes, dislikes, whereabouts, etc. and can't remember these days where I parked the car, or set my purse or phone down...SAD, Sad, sad! Seems that parenting in many ways never gets easier than it does to live our lives as unto the Lord each day. We deal with growing pains, sleepless nights, and ATTITUDE non-stop, don't we. Big pay-back, I think. As I usually do these days, I find myself contrasting my own experience as a Mom to how God deals with us on a moment by moment basis. However, He responds differently than I....I, much of the time fail to "respond" and "react" instead. Everything is a picture of His relationship with us. The old hymnn goes like this, "I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazerene...and wonder how He could love me, a sinner condemned unclean. He took my sins and my sorrow, He made them His very own. He bore the burden to Calvary, and suffered and died alone. How marvelous, how wonderful, and my song shall ever be, How marvelous how wonderful, is my Savior's love for me."

Just a little something to get your long week-end a humming. Wish I could share a cup of coffee or tea with each of you! &;-)

CRAZY LOVE

I know it's been awhile since I've written but ... hopefully you will be able to see where I've been and continue to be. It's a good place, for many reasons. I haven't been hiding, but I have been searching, because this "journey" never ends. Life happens and the quest to figure things out don't satisfy except to eventually bring us to the end of ourselves and magnify the fact that all roads lead back to the heart of God...if we are ready to recognize that we are "finite" and He is "infinite." This excerpt from a book aptly entitled, CRAZY LOVE, is my next read. Having completed more books in the past two years (most especially the past 12 months), than the past twenty, I have come to the conclusion once again that it's not what I add to what I already know, but rather how little I know ... when it comes to God and how I fit into all of this. He only is my Creator, my Friend, the one whose greatest desire is to have a personal, intimate relationship with me on a daily basis...Good, bad, or indifferent. Read and see what you think. Does it whet your appetite to know more? Does mine.

"There is an epidemic of spiritual amnesia going around, and none of us
is immune. No matter how many fascinating details we learn about
God’s creation, no matter how many pictures we see of His galaxies,
and no matter how many sunsets we watch, we still forget.
Most of us know that we are supposed to love and fear God; that we
are supposed to read our Bibles and pray so that we can get to know
Him better; that we are supposed to worship Him with our lives. But
actually living it out is challenging.
It confuses us when loving God is hard. Shouldn’t it be easy to love
a God so wonderful?When we love God because we feel we should love
Him, instead of genuinely loving out of our true selves, we have forgotten
who God really is. Our amnesia is flaring up again.
It may sound “un-Christian” to say that on some mornings I don’t
feel like loving God, or I just forget to. But I do. In our world, where
hundreds of things distract us from God, we have to intentionally and
consistently remind ourselves of Him."
See for yourself ~ http://www.crazylovebook.com

Acts 5:38, 39

He leads,

He shows,

He reveals,

He gives,

He opens,

He closes,

He knows,

He arranges,

He challenges,

He asks,

He answers,

He speaks.

I'll Praise You in this Storm!

Now that's a huge task to fill...praising a God who we can't see, in the storms of life. One of the next lines in that song I'm listening to says, "every tear I cry, You hold in your hand." God has a way of whispering thru the rain, or the heat, or the wind at times, doesn't He? This morning our Pastor was speaking about the Israelites. When it was time for them to go into the Promised Land after wandering (in circles...sound familiar) for 40 years, many who had left Egypt were no longer living. Generations had died and now the younger generation for the most part, would enjoy that land God had promised them. Talk about being sheltered! All those years in the desert, with God Himself, and now they were going into the real world again. As a parent, God was trying to tell them to stay safe within His commands. It's an amazing story, and in fact, still rings true today.... that we are safest and free-est in every sense of the word when we stay within the boundaries of His love. I so often make things more difficult than they should be when I try to steer my own life. We ALL do it... over and over and over again. So, in reality we are just like those Israelites in the desert. All that has changed is our surroundings, right? Thankfully God is the same yesterday, today and forever as well. He never gives up on us, and is forever our faithful Father and friend. Hope this day finds you thankful that each moment is our opportunity to start over. "Only one life so soon will be past, only what's done for Christ will last!" *Listen to the words of the song as you read.