too much

Blackberry Farm. Bed bugs. Disney World. Piper's first birthday. Sickness. Sleepless nights. Christmas tree decorating. Thanksgiving feasts. Women of Grace........so much going on in life. Pictures of most of it. Too tired to blog. Maybe when I'm 80??? :)

large family...

(This is actually Anda writing): So I bought this book called "Large Family Logistics" hoping to get some helpful little hints for running the show around here. One of my kids sees the title and says "What? Is that book about how to have a large family?" A couple of the olders start giggling as I say "No...." And he says, "Oh yeah, y'all already know how to do that!" More giggles from the more informed of my offspring and the mama who can't suppress the laughter anymore. I love these kids!

Nothing important to say

There is just something so empowering about being able to type something that can immediately be seen by people all over the world even if nobody every reads it.

A haiku in honor of the fact that in just 2 short days my wife and I will be leaving on a trip to Tennessee without our children:

Silent pond. White chairs.

Rainbow trees. My Love and I.

Anticipation.

And in honor of my parents who will be caring for our children:

Loud noises. Children

in perpetual motion.

Whining, pain, and joy.

I love the noise and chaos of 7 children. Driving home yesterday I was overcome with gratitude at the blessing of the life God has given us. Every morning when I leave for work, I have the delight of eight people hugging me and telling me that they love me. What great way to start the day.

Thank you Jesus.

Randy

Love

Yesterday a.m. I was praying that the spirit of religion would be broken off of my community in Jesus' name. And He came and He broke a little more of it off of me. I was overwhelmed with gratitude yesterday at the outpouring of love in my neighborhood. There is a large church here that comes every year and heads up an outreach to Como. They join with our church and several other churches in Como. The Lord revealed my prideful attitude toward the volunteers who come to help - this is yuck, but sometimes it's easy to think that doing something like this outreach is just one more thing that people can check off their lists and then they get to go home while we're still here. (I told you this was a yucky attitude - brought out into the light, it loses its power). Anyway, yesterday when I was praying, I was asking once again for His love to be poured out on me so that I could really see and love the people in my hood. I suddenly saw that my neighbors aren't just strangers or the recipients of my condescending benevolence. They are MY people, like my family. When He showed me this, I was overwhelmed that so many volunteers would come and work their tails off to bless my people. This may sound simple and not that earthshattering, but it was a huge shift in my heart. More confession and repentance. I love the Body of Christ.

So I'm pondering the love of God again this morning....Seeing how little of my life has been spent actually obeying the Word of God. Let me explain what I mean. A couple of weeks ago in CORE a guy was teaching about the Great Commission and asked us what the last commandment was in that little section of Scripture. Several said "teach". He said "that's not what it says." He pointed out that it says "teaching them to OBEY". There is a real difference in teaching someone and in teaching someone to obey. One is a pouring in of information and quite necessary and good, but teaching someone to obey is discipleship and this is much harder. It is a pouring out of your own life. A guy in our class said that it's like the difference between a school teacher and a parent. One is in a classroom; the other is life on life. This was a huge revelation to me. Our culture in general is all about acquiring information, but actually pouring out your life to help someone follow Jesus - that's H-A-R-D. Simple, but very difficult to do. One of the last things the speaker said that night was that so much of what Jesus says in the Word is simple to understand, but hard to actually obey. So what we tend to do is make His teaching complex so that we can make it easier on ourselves.

So I've been thinking about "loving your neighbor as yourself." "Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets." Matthew 22:36-40

As I sit here this a.m. I have a picture on my piano of a man named Stanley Shipp. He's with Jesus now, but he greatly shaped who Randy and I are today because he was an amazing lover of people. In the picture he's sitting with a man in another country intently looking at him...sitting with him on the ground...getting in his world. Like Jesus. Stanley always said, "People will either be in your life or in your way." People were rarely in Stanley's way. So, yes, I do believe I'm rambling. LOL! But what I'm trying to say in all of this is that I want to know the love of God. And in knowing it, I want to love people. I have deceived myself into thinking I was doing this so many times, but God (in His GREAT mercy) is speaking through His Word and through the Body right now to show me that there is SO much MORE! And I want it...at least in theory. It. Is. Hard. And as I look at my life and realize how impossible it is to love like He has called us to love, I am encouraged. This is not an assignment for my dead flesh. Only the living Spirit of God in me can accomplish this unfathomable mission to love others as myself. Love this quote from John Piper's book, What Jesus Demands from the World: "We are in the company of incomparable superlatives - the two greatest commandments in the entire Word of God, and all of that Word hanging on them. We should take off our shoes in reverence here. There are few texts of Scripture greater than this....The second commandment seems to me to be an overwhelming commandment. It seems to demand that I tear the skin off my body and wrap it around another person so that I feel that i am that other person; and all the longings that I have for my own safety and health and success and happiness I now feel for that other person as though he were me. It is an absolutely staggering commandment. If this is what it means, then something unbelievably powerful and earthshaking and reconstructing and overturning and upending will have to happen in our souls. Something supernatural. Something well beyond what a self-preserving, self-enhancing, self-exalting, self-esteeming, self-advancing, fallen hunan being like me can do on their own."

And only when we see and receive the love of God for us can we even begin to be the expression of that love to others. I'm LOVING the love of Christ right now. And I'm beginning to see and enjoy and be fascinated with His creation, the beat of His heart. People. Sensing that the coming months will be more laying down of our rights for the sake of the Body and the lost. He is beautiful and I can't wait to see what He does as we just try to walk further in with Jesus. He is good. He is good. He. Is. Love.

the dance

The Religious can’t dance. I try. That’s the problem. When I am Religious, it is about me. How spiritual can I be? Have I checked off everything on my “this-is-what-people-who-really-love-God-do” checklist? As much as I know the utter loathsomeness of this thinking, I unconsciously slip into it over and over again. White-washed tombs, beautiful on the outside; full of death and stench on the inside. I have played this game much of my life, wanting everyone to think that I had it all together. I laugh as I think about how when I was a kid, the only people who went up front for prayer at our church were those who were really needy and quite frankly, “dysfunctional”. Now, I seek out prayer every chance I get at “ministry” time - I AM really needy and dysfunctional! This is a free place to reside. But how easy it is to slip back into the rigid reality of wanting to have it all together, wanting to get it right for God and anyone else who may be watching. And then I get shaken back to reality by my deadness and I realize that I have stopped dancing with Him. There is no freedom in religion. I can hardly even move my feet. And it is there, in that place, where I have a choice to make. Either continue in the “trying to get it right” where I just keep stepping on my own feet and ultimately crash to the floor...or surrender my trying, lean over against His chest, confess my brokenness once again, and let Him take the lead. His warmth, His love, His forgiveness and security envelope me and the dance resumes. And the knots in my shoulders dissolve and while the outside may not look at “beautiful”, the inside comes alive again and the fragrance of Christ becomes my scent instead of my dead religion. Today I come back to Him, the One who said, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” The One who “cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out.‘“ And Lazarus came out. Today I choose to COME OUT to Him and dance, leaving my stench behind for one more day. It's another day of grace.

my sad Malachi

There are hazards inherent to living with 6 siblings - you might get stepped on, you might get hit (not always unintentional), you may miss out on the last piece of cake if you're not fast enough...and then there are those risks involved that one would never dream up even in their most creative moments. You might just be trying to hug your daddy goodbye in the morning and get stabbed in the eye by your four-year-old brother as he passionately flings his arms around daddy's legs. Oops. It was an accident. Probably time to trim Isaac's nails? Sweet Malachi cried off and on ALL DAY. One trip to Daddy's office to get a diagnosis (abrasion on the cornea?) and then on to another doctor appointment at the opthamologist's. He patched it after putting some antibiotic cream in his eye. Mercy. Mercy. Mercy. There has been MUCH wailing today. But you have to admit that the little guy is just pathetically adorable! :) And, by the way, his eye should be much better by tomorrow (at least that's what we're praying)!!

Is this not a really cool worm??

Yes, this is a random post, but my little boys found this caterpillar outside the other day and I thought it was fascinating. The Author of the universe...quite creative.

melancholy night

Those of you who tend to be more melancholy understand maybe the desire to write more when you're down? Don't know; maybe that's just me. One week ago today I spoke at this small mom's get-together about the glory of God in my messed up life. :) Topic was walking in the grace of God - talked about things that kill grace in our lives and the weapons we need to use to keep walking in it. It was from God; it was much of my story, past and present; it was good stuff - wish I would listen to myself tonight! LOL! I know I'm different now. I know I don't believe all the old lies. I know He is here and He is with me. But it's as if the old demons love to rear their miserable heads right on the heels of me celebrating the freedom that God has brought and continues to bring. Sigh. So here I sit. Listening to my melancholy music. Writing my melancholy words. Kind of just wishing I had a two week break from life. But here is what I know that I know that I know (that I didn't used to know)...He is right here with me in my melancholy. And Hope whacks off the heads of the demons once again. :)

Josiah's baptism!!

After encountering the Lord in a pretty powerful way this summer at Op Camp, Josiah began thinking about surrendering his life completely to Jesus. He's been so excited about his decision to get baptized! His faith has been a HUGE encouragement to me lately and I can't wait to see the Lord's destiny worked out in his life. I love you, Josiah Paul, passionate, on-fire, Mighty Man of God!

his declaration of faith in our beautiful Jesus!

love that boy's daddy ;)

Chad Reisner praying blessing over him - love our CF body!!

lots of family to celebrate with!

7 Midland cousins came to celebrate with Josiah - such a blessing!

wonderful grandparents came too

our little family :)

awakening part 2

So again, while I may have intellectually conceded pretty much forever that telling people about Jesus was a good thing and definitely Biblical, I had somehow convinced myself that it wasn't for everyone, esp me. It was for those people with the gift of evangelism. And I've also believed that it doesn't work. Doesn't "WORK"? What in the world??!! Yes, as I've examined my thought processes over the past few weeks, I've realized that I've believed the lie that people don't want to hear some weird Christian trying to "sell" them something. But what has been the most startling is that I've seen that the root of not sharing Jesus with people is really just that I don't care about people. If I try to strategize and figure out the best angle and all of that, it becomes that - a strategy that makes that person a statistic. But if I look at them and really SEE them - I have begun to see that He is "exceedingly and uncritically fond of" the person checking me out at the grocery store or waiting on me at a restaurant or standing at my front door...you get the picture. And I'm beginning to truly have the revelation that this really isn't about ME at all. The parable of the sower has been a huge encouragement - the guy from Antioch taught on it. Here's a few nuggets: the farmer sowed generously and didn't evaluate/judge the soil before he flung the seed to see where it landed; only 25 percent of the seed sown actually produced fruit - encouraging as we see that rejection is pretty much guaranteed and to be expected; it was about the word being sown, not the farmer's skill. And look at how much fruit was produced by the 25 percent!! So in our sharing the gospel, we never know who is going to take it and become an on-fire passionate Jesus lover - the burden of that is on Him and not us. But the bottom line for me has been an awakening to the love of Christ for me and for the people around me. I'm starting to get delighted with people like never before. I'm judging less and less (which is a miracle from heaven, believe me). It's really HARD to bring up Jesus with people, but I'm starting to do it. Not sharing the whole gospel in 2 minutes yet, but I'm growing!! AHHH!! I LOVE it when Jesus takes us in all of our messed up weakness and invites us into His adventure with that big grin on His face! I'm so ready. Been stuck for too long.

And speaking of our messed-upness. One of the most encouraging parts of CORE so far has been our retreat in which we all shared our testimonies (there are 30 of us). It was amazing. That God could take this group of people and turn us into Jesus followers is a MIRACLE! There is HUGE power in the testimonies of the saints - it fuels faith in a very unique way, hearing the stories and sharing your own. Here's mine in a nutshell: Before Christ...self-absorbed, security-addicted, judgmental, critical, racist who didn't like children all that much and was suspicious and calloused to the poor. Now...learning to say no to self and yes to others, lives in the African American "hood", more full of grace because so aware of my own dysfunctional brokenness, have 7 children and our "ministry" is to children who are poor. It makes me laugh with JOY and amazed at the power of God when I consider what He has done and continues to do. And He gets ALL the credit because I CERTAINLY didn't make any of it happen! I always tell people that I am the least likely candidate they know to have 7 children and live in the hood. God definitely has a sense of humor! :) He is so good. Know that i'm rambling and that I really need sleep so I'll stop, but the word "awakening". I didn't really explain that. I just keep hearing that in my spirit. He is awakening me. I'm scared to death, but I love it and I'm ready to hand over my junk to the One who is worthy of all praise and worth all my affection and attention. HE IS SO BEAUTIFUL AND GOOD!! May you be blessed to really KNOW that the Father is exceedingly and uncritically fond of you right now! He really is!

awakening

I am so full right now. Been writing in my head for days now, but a little hard to find the time to sit down and pour out heart. :) Now is not a good time either, but I can't stand to wait anymore! Where do I start? Okay. I'll start with the recent and POWERFUL love revelation from the Father. Then I'll move on to evangelism...

About a week and a half ago we were at CORE (our church's discipleship training school - yes, we did it when we first moved here about 9 years ago and we were hungry for big change in our lives again, so we're doing it again - it's somewhat different now, with a lot of focus on evangelism, and led by our dear friends, Christ and Tiffany Guild). Anyway!! The speaker was talking about evangelism and he had us listen at one point that night to see what God would say about love, people, etc. That night I asked Him to open my eyes and to let me experience His heart for people, to really, really love people. I've been realizing lately that I lack deep love for people. And I love it when you get to a place in your spirit where you realize that there is absolutely no hope if Jesus doesn't show up and pour out HIS love in you. I was there. Thought I heard the word "callouses" but nothing more right then. A couple of hours later, RB and I were driving to the lake and I was pondering the meaning of a word I'd heard recently. RB hands me his Kindle and tells me to look it up in the dictionary. The word's meaning was "to be exceedingly and uncritically fond of". I cried and cried. There's really no way to describe everything that happened in my heart at that moment, but He removed one of the callouses as I heard Him speaking to my heart "I am exceedingly and uncritically fond of you." And right as I was seeing it for myself I began to see it and feel for others. And everything has been different since that p.m. I looked it up in another dictionary and the definition was "to be lavish or excessive in one's attention, fondness, or affection." The Lord reminded me of I John 3:1 the next day: "How great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" I couldn't stop smiling and still can't every time I think of my Father just lavishing Himself all over me. I have known intellectually for quite some time of the depth of God's love, but have rarely SEEN it in my spirit. It was one of those stake-in-the-ground, change-your-life-forever kind of revelations. Hebrews 4:12 - "For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints, and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart." Recently heard a guy teaching on this verse and how the "word of God" includes but is not limited to the written Word here in this verse. This was one of those "spoken" word times that went DEEP (and makes so much of the written Word come to life now)!

So on to EVANGELISM. What did you feel and think when you just read that word? I've been thinking about how just hearing or seeing that word affects my thoughts and emotions. It's pretty negative!! A huge part of the focus in CORE is evangelism. That's a big part of why I wanted to go through it again. Evangelism has pretty much never even been on my radar. But over the past year, God has been challenging me in this area, mostly because of some of my close friends who are always bringing up the Lord with complete strangers (i.e. my friend Ami while we were in NYC). So here is what God is showing me. I have compartamentalized (sp?) this part of my walk with Jesus when it is actually an essential and normal part of following Him.

bloggable Luke quote

Luke: "Mom, what would happen if you super-glued your buns together and then tried to poop?"

It's questions like this that make me thankful I have that college degree...

time

All I can say is that someday I might post again...when I find the time...tired...tired...so darn tired!

Days of Grace

I was reminded of where I got the title to this blog yesterday. Graham Cooke did this "talk" called the "Nature of God" several years ago. The woman who discipled me when we first moved to the Metroplex (mighty woman of God who changed my life!!) had me listen to it often. As I listened to it again this a.m., I realized again that listening to these words of truth played a role in getting me to Como. I just love God. I love how He uses seemingly small things or experiences to make such a huge impact in our lives. Anyway, here are the YouTube links - there are two parts and they're only about 20 minutes total. It's worth it to take 20 minutes and listen! You'll see where I got the title "Days of Grace." May you have deep revelation of the goodness of God today!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJr_P4U1RTM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TAx42twXbVI&feature=related

as if we're not weird enough...;)

Well, I'm not sure what happened over the last month or so, but I've become overwhelmed with how much our culture is controlled by media - the internet, tv, dvds, video games etc. I have begun using the dvd player as a babysitter a bit more frequently than I would like and so I began to wonder what would happen in our family and in our hearts if we "fasted" from all media for a short time - no internet (this is the hardest one for me) and no watching/playing anything. SO! Beginning tomorrow we are leaving the media frenzy for about 3 weeks - we will return on September 1st. I pray that we spend more time listening to God, reading our Bibles, talking to each other instead of staring into screens, and that we share books and more of life together. I guess we'll see what happens! If you need to reach us, you'll have to be crazy and CALL! :) I'll let you know how this experiment went in September!

Jesus

So I'm reading Ephesians this a.m. and I was struck by these phrases: "the unsearchable riches of Christ", the "riches of God's grace", "His glorious riches", "able to do immeasurably more." Wow. God is not holding anything back. We can't reach the end of His riches. We can't measure them. And His love "surpasses knowledge." Nothing to say but "WOW!" Then I picked up my book. Had just read in Eph about how God "made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions". From Jesus Manifesto: "Jesus did not come to make bad people good. He came to make dead people live." Amen! :)

Here's another good one about the kingdom of God: "Paul said that Jesus is 'head over all things [for] the Church.' Notice, Jesus is head over all things not for the state but for the church. All things are placed under His feet, Paul wrote, but Jesus has been appointed 'head' of 'all things' for the church. Some have made Jesus the chaplain of the American dream. Others have made Him the chaplain of the Democratic Party. Still others have made Jesus the chaplain of capitalism and Republicanism. All are equally blasphemous. Most blasphemous of all are those who would decapitate the head from its body and render Christ irrelevant."

Here's a great little section about the poor - and convicting as I remember that there is no loving the poor apart from Jesus. "We must never avoid social issues. But the distinctive mark of a Christian is that you don't begin with a social or moral issue. You begin with God. You start with God's revelation in Jesus, and the relationship of justifying/sanctifying/glorifying grace that the "heir of all things" releases in all of us. You make the Light of the World, not culture, your reference point. Our time should be spent figuring out our relationship to Jesus, and what He is doing in the world. Why? So we can join Him in what He's already doing. If we start anywhere else but Christ, we lose our way. If we start with the social and political as our reference point, the 'social gospel' becomes very much 'social' and very little 'gospel.' In truth, there is no 'gospel' that is not a 'social gospel'. For example, when we reach out to the poor and sick, we are not doing so because of some principle of justice, or some theology of poverty and sickness, or some political platform or legislation, or some responsible way of dealing with surplus wealth. We do so for three reasons:

1. The deepest hungers of the human heart are for forgiveness and reconciliation with God.

2. We are reaching out to Jesus Himself ('I was sick and you visitied Me'). In the poor and sick, it is Christ whom we attend and feed and love. Followers of Jesus exist for others, not for themselves.

3. The life of Christ within us compels us to reach out to such. The Galilean prophet who healed the sick and cared for the poor continues His ministry in and through us today."

Loving thinking about Jesus. Whole paradigm is shifting right now. I have only had love that stayed within the bounds of knowledge up until now and I'm ready for the love that surpasses knowledge! Come Jesus!

the prison of self

some of the girls from my cabin

my babies always have to get a shot with Josh Norman - they love him! (a camper years ago at the west texas op camp)

I have SOOO much to write about and I'm sure I don't possibly have time right now before my sweet children wake up, but let's just summarize the past week and a half by saying that God did AMAZING things - at Op Camp and in my own heart. More on that later, but right now I just wanted to post a few quotes from a book I'm reading called Jesus Manifesto. It has transformed my life. Desiring God by John Piper may be the only other book I can say that about besides the Word itself. This book is about Jesus. And about how we have stopped seeing that HE is IT. In the Church (esp. in America) we have made life about so many other things. We think that once you've been a believer for a while, it's time to move on to "meatier" aspects of theology. Wow. When you really ponder that thought, it's scary, but it's how I have thought for much of my life (until I started listening to my pastor preach the glory of Jesus week after week after week)! I'll share a couple of quotes (yes, they're LONG :)). Here's one: "So what is your chief occupation in life and ministry? Here's a hint: Whatever you are occupied with comes out of your mouth. It's what you talk about most of the time. For many Christians, their occupation has nothing to do with spiritual things at all. For others who are more inclined to divine matters, their occupation is evangelism. For some it's church multiplication that matters most. For others, it's memorizing the Bible and learning theology. Many Chirsitans are most occupied with social action, while others are most occupied with leadership and its various principles. Still others are mainly occupied with missions, or praise and worship; the casting out of demons, or healing; miracles, holiness, or the end times; spiritual authority and submission, justice, politics; and so forth. The list is endless. But all of these are just 'its' - just things. In fact, the Christian family has swung so far from its Lord that most of our preaching and teaching today is an 'it' rather than a 'Him'. The result: We focus on 'things' - even good and religious things. And the Lord Jesus Christ is pushed off into a corner. (He usually gets inserted somewhere in the message as a side dish, but He's rarely the main course.) Yet, the reality is that Christ trumps everything. All Scripture testifies of Him. The Father exalts Him. The Spirit magnifies Him. The angels worship Him. The early Church knew Him as her passion, her message, and the unction of her life. Christ was her specialty. He was her Bridegroom and head. She specialized in nothing else. All told, there's nothing worth pursuing outside of Chirst. To our minds, there is one reason why a Christian would not be absolutely occupied and consumed with Christ. That person's eyes have not been opened to see His greatness. The sad truth is that the Jesus who is preached so often today is so shallow, so small, and so uncaptivating that countless believers are enthralled with countless other things."

YES! So I'd been reading this when I went to Opportunity Camp last week. Of course, I was not all consumed with Christ - in fact, the few days before going I was quite all consumed with myself - how hard it was going to be doing camp with all my children, how tired I was, how I didn't want to spend the week with all my neighborhood children, ad nauseum (sp?). BUT my heart and mind were beginning to shift because I had been reading about Jesus (in another chapter, the authors just go on and on with scripture after scripture about Him). My eyes were just barely beginning to shift away from my own navel. I have been feeling for many years now, but esp lately, that there is something really sick in my spirit. I have known that I am just grossly concerned with self and how everything relates to and affects me. I suppose all of us are to some extent, but I could tell from having been around my closest friends that mine was perhaps a deeper sickness than most. I have known for years that my default thoughts are usually always about me. This is very embarrassing and even repulsive I know (but the beautiful news is that God is cracking up this faulty foundation)!! So I'll talk more about what God is doing in a minute (maybe, my babies are awake :)), but here are some quotes from the book that describe what I've been sensing: "Jesus' sense of self is God-centered, not self-centered....Is your faith based more on a flaccid 'What's in it for me?' than on pursuing your Lord and the concerns that He has? Then turn your head away from the reflective pool before you drown in the Narcissus Nirvana. Get outside of yourself and into Christ. In this way you will live beyond yourself to see others, not just yourself, and in seeing them you find yourself. (Maybe we need some "Drown Narcissus" rituals...like a fast from "self-help groups" - a favorite oxymoron - or self-help books)....You are not the point. And we are not the point. Jesus Christ always has been and always will be the point. All the arrows point to Him and not to us....Here's our answer: Get a fresh glimpse of your incomparable Lord, and you will be emboldened to stop spending your life on yourself. Connect with him who is life, and you will be empowered to deny yourself, live beyound yourself, and live outside yourself. Let go, break free of the self, the captivity of me. Only Christ can set you free from yourself - the old self that He nailed to His cross. No amount of willpower or good intention can accomplish this. So lay hold of Him and escape the straitjacket of the exalted, exaggerated, narcissistic, sense of self. You and your causes are not the center of the universe. You are part of a process of life that is greater than you. The self only exists at all inasmuch as it participates in the being of God. You are not the main character in your own story. God in Christ is."

All I can say is that I am beginning to experience the freedom that Christ promises. And it's not coming because I'm getting my way or because my circumstances are all that great right now (this sleep deprivation thing can really cause one to be a bit self-focused...:)) So here is my gross confession. I have been going to Op Camp off and on since I was 15 years old. And it has ALWAYS been about me. When I was a teenager it was about the current boy I was enamored with (ususally Randy Brown). I can't remember one camper and can remember very few experiences because I really didn't care a wit about the kids. As an adult going to Op Camp Como for the past few years, it has still been mostly about me. I always go and worry about whether or not I'm doing enough or if the campers like another mentor better than me or about how I'm feeling physically, etc, etc. (Like I said, this really is nauseating, but bear with me, Christ is about getting His glory and it's coming)!! I have always wanted to care - I mean really have compassion and deep love - for the kids, but quite frankly, it has been very shallow. This year was the first year that this was not my experience. Instead of walking in my self-conscious and insecure flesh most of the week (mind you, I'm not saying I didn't EVER go there - it was just less frequent:)), I experienced confidence in Christ and what He was doing or not doing. The best example of this was in a purity talk that I was asked to give to all the girls on the last day of camp. It was honestly the WORST job of public speaking I have EVER done. I did a terrible job of communicating and it just felt like a failure. And I walked away from it laughing (you have no IDEA how miraculous this is) because I had spent so much time praying about it that a.m. and in giving all of it to HIM. If anything good came from that little talk, it was all JESUS and not me. I think He wanted me to experience a little humiliation so that He could remind me again that it's not about me and my natural abilities.

So here's a summary of what God did at camp (okay, it's a long summary). To be honest, Randy and I have spent little time praying about camp. For some reason, this year, He led us to pray every night from midnight to 1 a.m. There were around 10 adult mentors crying out to God and worshipping every night at camp. We welcomed Him to come and do whatever He wanted to do. We began to feel compassion and let our hearts break for these kids. It rained on Monday and Tuesday and so the kids couldn't go swimming because of thunder. Needless to say, they were very bummed. On Tuesday, the power went out for 3-4 hours. At the beginning of dinner, all the kids prayed at once for the power to return, but it remained off. It was bounce house night and as dinner ended and we still had no power, things were beginning to look a little grim. RB and Van gathered up the kids again and as they were beginning to pray again that the lights would come on, they did! Some of the kids were yelling, "There is a God!" :) All I can say is that the Holy Spirit just showed up at the end of camp. On the last night, they had a powerful testimony from one of the counselors, followed by a skit about chains being broken in our lives. Randy just sent all the cabins outside with the instructions that they should pray together as a cabin before going back to their cabins. I was a mentor for a cabin of girls and so I went with them. They prayed and cried and talked a little and then I blessed them individually. But I never got to one of the counselors because she was filled with the Holy Spirit. The whole camp heard her crying and yelling and laughing (for about 15 minutes). I realize that some of you reading this are uncomfortable with this story - I was a bit uncomfortable with the situation at first - but then I remembered that we had been asking God to come and do whatever He wanted! So I just moved out of the way and let God do what He wanted. :) As this counselor was getting up to return to her cabin, McKenna came running to me crying and unable to talk. She finally communicated that God was speaking through a couple of boys from Josiah's cabin. And He was. They had just been filled with the Spirit. The whole cabin was weeping. And Tavius (one of our Mighty Men's little brothers) was prophesying and praying for one hour! He confessed and repented of everything he could think of, he kept telling everyone he loved them. He was praying things that he never would've known how to pray. Same with another kid from my boys' football team named Carl. They had been overcome with the love of God in the Holy Spirit and it was absolutely beautiful. Another one of our MM who was a counselor was weeping with Randy for a long time, just realizing how blessed he was and talking a lot about how much he had been given. He used to be one of these kids who didn't want to go home because home was so horrible (now his mama is a Jesus-lover!). His heart was breaking for them and gratitude was being released in him again. And I just have to add that he told RB that night that he hasn't looked at porn in 3 years and is still a virgin. YESSSSSS!!!! I just cannot TELL you how much that encouraged my faith!!! :) Anyway! At the end of the night (at 2 a.m.) Van Gravitt's oldest 2 boys were baptized! The whole night was such a faith-builder! We came home full and changed. And so did those boys. 7 boys went to church with us Sunday a.m. and then came to lunch at our house afterwards. Carl had been reading his Bible and could tell you the dimensions of the ark and that people used to live to be 900 years old! Tavius and Carl both said that they had stopped listening to rap and that they were now changed. And I have never heard such expression of gratitude in my home from these kids before. I heard more thank-yous than I ever have. The fruit of the Spirit is growing already!! And another cool thing is that I wanted them at my house. I wasn't feeling like some martyr because I was having to serve them etc. Trust me, this is a miracle from Jesus.

Mercy, this post is long! I just love it when Jesus takes us in all our brokenness and dysfunction and loves us and leads us into His love. That's what I"m asking for right now. To be filled with His love. I'm tired of being so in love with myself. And after experiencing a little taste of life being more outward focused in the last week, I'm ready for MORE! And trust me, apart from Him, it is IMPOSSIBLE! Okay, speaking of life being outward, I have to go love and train some sweet children now....JESUS IS BEAUTIFUL!!!

a few ramblings on grace

Reading Galatians in my time with Jesus right now. Amazed at my ability to return to the law over and over again. I want so much to have a system or a method or a set of rules to live by. But all it does is exhaust me. I was aware of this tendency in all of us, esp. myself when my friend and I went to New York City to encourage some moms in ministry. I'm sure they were expecting something a little different than what we offered. I would have been to! When anyone comes to talk to me about being a mama I want solutions; I want a system for getting my life and my children's to look like what I think it should look like. That's pretty much what every parenting book out there attempts to do (which, by the way, is why i LOVE Sally Clarkson - she stresses over and over again that she cannot give you a formula because every family, every child, every situation, etc. is different and it's about following the Spirit). So when Ami briefly says "I can't tell you whether or not you should homeschool. Ask Jesus." in response to the question "How did you decide to homeschool?" it was probably frustrating. When we said "pray in tongues, ask the Holy Spirit for answers when you don't have a clue what to do", it was probably frustrating. IT'S STILL FRUSTRATING TO ME ON ONE LEVEL! I want so badly for there to just always be an answer so I don't have to seek God! Just being real here people! But in reality, I find much freedom in seeking Him for everything. There is HUGE freedom in dependency. It is how He made it to work. So why do I keep wanting to return to prison?? "Before this faith came, we were held prisoners by the law, locked up until faith should be revealed. So the law was put in charge to lead us to Christ that we might be justified by faith. Now that faith has come, we are no longer under the supervision of the law." Galatians 3:23-25. So I am not saying that there aren't "laws" to follow and general principles that remain unchanging in any situation - the Word of God remains the Word of God - but I am saying that it comes down to slowing down, hearing His voice, and obeying. Although I could have told you that was true, I'm in a new season of it actually becoming more of a reality instead of just a mental assent to the truth. The question "What would Jesus do?" is really not the right question. I'm asking now, "What is He doing and how is He wanting me to obey and join with Him right now?"

Just started this book yesterday called Jesus Manifesto. Here's a great quote: "The question is only this: 'Do you love Me?' What does Jesus want from us? Leadership? Or love? Unfortunately, we cannot properly love Him if we haven't caught sight of how incredibly glorious His is. But once we do - once we catch a sighting of Jesus Christ in all His glory - we will gladly exchange our dusty rites, Christian-speak, and pop-culture church-building tactics for the joy of becoming a walking breathing 'Jesus Manifesto'."

I am really only longing for one thing right now - a revelation of His love. He has shown me lately that this is what is lacking. I was in I Corinthians 13 again recently and as I read the beginning it was startling. I'm at least doing some loving things for the poor (but trust me, I'm lacking compassion), I've been praying in tongues more than I ever have, I've even been hearing words for people in prayer maybe more than ever. SO WHAT?!! I saw again how those things are encouraging sometimes, but they aren't filling me with joy - I've known it, but the Word just reminded me of why. Because His heartbeat is LOVE. Right now I'm asking daily for a revelation again of His love because I absolutely cannot give what I have not received. If you're into intercession PRAY that RB and I will see JESUS and all that He is. I do not want to walk into Opportunity Camp this next week without seeing Him. He is all that matters. And loving people is what He is about - all the time. And there is freedom in knowing that apart from Him I can do absolutely NOTHING!!

Anyway, time to go feed sweet PJ, who I must say is the embodiment of joy! We have spoken it over her since before her birth. We know that it is who God made her to be in our family, but I am still amazed and so thankful almost daily! :) And now I think you need a picture of her (and her precious brother who's keeping us all on our toes!)

These two are quite the pair on bike rides with Dad!

All of that rambling to say that my goal this week is only this: Receive His love, rest in His grace. Love Him.

so much to write about...but it's 11 p.m!!!

I have no time to write. I rarely even complete a thought during the day, so thinking that I could possibly write a complete sentence is almost foolish. And since I'm extremely sleep deprived, I think that it would be foolishness for me to stay up one second longer to write on this blog. But for those of you who actually still check it occassionally, just know that I think whole blog posts multiple times during the day and perhaps at some point I may have a good 45 minutes to create a post. Until then, here is one picture...

My man has become what some might call obsessed with biking. RB, my oldest boys, and the Connally men rode the Trinity Trail to a Cats game a few nights ago, watched the game from a hill, and then rode home around 10:30 p.m! A great memory with the Connallys who will be moving in a couple of weeks. :(

And here's my one last thought about a revelation from Holy Spirit earlier this evening at our Como Bible study. In regard to the story of Jesus feeding 5000 people with 2 fish and 5 loaves, He KNOWS that all we have to bring to Him is very, very little as He's telling us to feed His sheep. He KNOWS!!! He just wants us to give Him all we have (which, again, I must say, doesn't feel like very much...because it's NOT). Then we can watch Him multiply it beyond our wildest imagination! I get messed up because I really start to believe that if I just try in my own power/strength to feed the masses, then somehow I can pull it off. Doesn't take long to realize that to think I can do anything apart from Him is utter CRAZINESS!! He knows our own resources are limited...and He knows His are limitLESS!! Love it when I sense His nearness. Good night!

Cow Adventure

It's McKenna again! Okay, so, my mom went to New York last weekend, and my dad stayed home with all of us. We found out that it was Cow Appreciation Day at Chick-fil-a on Saturday. If you were completely dressed like a cow, you could go and get a full free meal. Of course, Dad thought it would be just great to try it. But we didn't anticipate the neighbors coming over. :) So after the hour 1/2 it took to leave for Chick-fil-a, we ended up going with a few more people than were made for our 12 - passenger van...

We printed a bunch of spots, ears, noses, tails, and signboards off of Chick-fil-a's website.

kinda embarrassing...

Cute kids! :)

Dreaun, Blakelan, and Andre

Finally ready to go!

Isaiah, Josiah, and Luke got creative with the utters. LOL!

Anyway, it was a fun experience, though a little embarassing...;)

Haiti Trip!

Hey, this is McKenna! I wanted to blog a little about our Haiti trip! For those who don't know, Dad, Luke, and I went on a 6 day mission trip to Haiti last week. It was an incredible experience and I would love to visit again. Here are a few of my favorite pics:

We're off- on our way to Florida! Luke was allergic to something on the flight and broke out in hives. Luckily, God healed him really fast.

After a late night in Florida with Jack Walker and Sam Caire, we left for the airport at 4 a.m. We were all really sleepy and probably a little delirious...

There was something that made us a little uneasy about the crashed plane waiting for us at the end of the runway...

Our truck, with the rest of our team, was waiting for us at the Haitian airport.

There was trash like this EVERYWHERE driving down the street. My dad and I realized that you can't really capture Haiti though unless you have a scratch-and-sniff picture because the smells were a big part of it! They burned parts of their trash, so driving down the street, it smelled bascially like burning trash and dead animals. Gross.

Church behind a church building

Counting pills at the hotel for the next day's clinic

Monday was an awesome first clinic - at least for me. Dad got to pray for a lot of people, Luke got to help count pills, and I got to love on a lot of little kids.

Luke helped out a lot - in the pharmacy, taking pictures for the doctors, and playing with kids.

I got lots of special souvenirs after passing out crayons and index cards.

I met this girl named Vanessa who's also twelve. She spoke a little English and she and I hung out all day. It was really nice having someone my age there.

On Tuesday, we did a clinic at a place 2 1/2 hours away. It was a little more challenging than the day before, especially when Patti Griggs and I got CROWDED with kids who wanted to make their bracelets first. I can't even describe the grace God gave me that day though. Had he not given me Patti, I might not have survived! :) She helped by taking the kids and singing songs with them. I learned a lot from that day and think it was productive despite the challenges.

Daddy praying with a little girl

This is one of the few kids who would smile for the camera.

This was the building where the nurses did the pharmacy and the doctors examined people. The blue table in the back was the pharmacy.

Teaching (and learning) some songs with the kids

On Wednesday, we visited an orphanage. We did a small clinic for the kids, but mostly just played with them. I had tons of fun!! We passed out paper and crayons again, and I received LOTS of pictures!

"Smiling" for the camera

Lagina loved to sit on my lap and be tickled!

LOVE this pic of a little girl named Anne!

This was my favorite girl I met. Her name was Dielle and she was probably 5 or 6 years old. After a while, she fell asleep in my lap. I REALLY wanted to take her home with me! :)

After I told Dielle I had to leave, she didn't smile again. I was so close to tears, I couldn't talk to anyone. :( Really hope I get to see her again someday...

On Thursday, we went to a school right next to an orphanage to do a clinic. This day was nice because we left from there a little earlier than usual.

This boy wanted Luke to take a picture of him with the mermaid coloring book...? Lol!

Orphans watching us drive away

When we left the orphanage, we didn't notice the enormous rain clouds in the distance. A few minutes into the hour and a half drive to the hotel, it started POURING rain! The tarp we tried to drape over us was completely ineffective due to the many rips in it. Despite the amused looks from the community, we sang hymns ALL THE WAY BACK! By the end, no piece of luggage or person had a dry spot on them!

Patti Griggs and Tori wrestling with the tarp