In the God Zone

I missed my Dad last night. He went to heaven about 5 years ago. Last night was our denominational assembly on the district level (aptly named District Assembly), a gathering of all the area churches which takes place once a year. The evening services are always rich with good music and one of the leaders of our church speaks.

Last night was the ordination service where they give ministerial credentials to men and women giving their life in service to the church. It is a sacred time and always a teary-eyed time for me. They have a choir made up of ministers, and to look at those men and women, knowing the sacrifices they made to get there, the sacrifices they make on a daily basis to be the spiritual leaders wherever God has placed them touches my heart like nothing else.

I missed my Dad because he was a minister. He would have been among those on the platform last night.

Watching him, I was able to see first-hand what it means to give your life to the church. Sometimes it brings unexplainable joy, sometimes it brings earth-shattering pain, but no matter on which end of the spectrum he was...I always saw a satisfied soul, in the "God Zone", doing what he was called to do.

That's what we all should strive for. To be in the God Zone. That place where we are fully-surrendered to God's plan for our life. That's the place of total contentment, abandoning self to live life in the middle of God's purpose for us.

No other place will do.

No other plan will fit.

No other god gives us complete peace.

The cool thing about it...God gives each of us something different, a unique fit for our skill sets and abilities.

We ask? He show us.

We seek? He whispers His direction.

We follow? He leads us there.

To the God Zone.

Camp Report

I got through the camp speaker thing. It was such a fun experience, and a great stretching exercise for me. There was this one precious moment by myself, in my very nice room at the campground, where the Holy Spirit really spoke to me about what I was to speak about the next day. It was a different direction than what I had prepared for, but I really felt the presence of the Lord and the words poured out of me as I was writing.

I have been focused on prayer in my own ministry for the past few months. I wanted so badly to incorporate prayer into camp, and as I was preparing, I just hadn't felt any real direction other than speaking the whole week about Daniel, and his experiences with prayer.

But I told the kids on Thursday morning that I wanted them to spend some time listening to God. I went into a little detail about the different ways we have used prayer in children's worship and at the end of the service asked them to go out of the chapel and by faith, listen to hear the voice of God, come back into the chapel sometime during the day and write down what they had heard.

The responses were a little overwhelming for me. I was expecting a few of the kids to really get it, and most of those to be girls...but in the next 30-45 minutes, both girls and boys poured back in the door and came to the altar where paper and pens were ready for their responses.

Here are a FEW of them:
...I love MY Jesus My Savior. He gave me a new perspective on life AND he told me sometimes we have to let things go and move on.
...Have trust in your faith towards me. Be faithful towards me. I always know your name and I'll never let you go.
...Go share his message.
...Believe in me & love me.
...I know. (that one got to me!)
...I am always here for you, and I will help you be strong.
...He said, "I love you, I have plans for you, just do whatyou know is right."
...He said he loves me and I shouldn't leave anyone out.
...He said to never stop being myself.

So needless to say, the Lord really met these kids at camp. These 2 boys came up to me, and said, "Ms. Mary, we know you told us to pray by ourselves, but me and my friend here were finished praying, and we came around a corner, and there were these other 2 boys standing by a truck, and we just stopped right there and all joined hands and said a prayer together." WOW! Boys! Praying together!

I'm so excited about how the Lord worked, and I totally and completely give God the glory. I am such a weak vessel, and it is not me and nothing I did on my own!

Just a Little Touch of Jesus

Jerry, who works in our warehouse, had a visit from a man performing a routine inspection on one of our shipments last Wednesday. In the course of the conversation, the man said, "Jerry, can I put your name on my prayer list?" Jerry was certainly surprised by this request and told him sure! As the conversation progressed, the man went on to say, "Jerry, do you have a prayer list? Will you put my name on it?" I don't know if Jerry has a prayer list, or if he is a believer, but he told the man that he would be praying for him too.

As Jerry relayed this conversation to me, he was still processing this whole conversation and said, "I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna be praying for him. And he's gonna be praying for me. Isn't that amazing?"

You know...it is amazing. It's amazing what God can do with our obedience. Jerry got just a little touch of Jesus in this casual conversation-in a warehouse-on a Wednesday. And it really made an impression. So much so that he had to tell me about it. You can be sure that in the quiet moments, working by himself, he's replayed this conversation over and over in his mind, and remembering how it felt to have this random blessing bestowed on him. I've been praying that in these moments, that the Holy Spirit would speak to Jerry's heart. That a yearning for more and more of Jesus would grow.

So what about you and me? What is our response when our Master has someone who needs just a little touch of Jesus, and he needs us to be the vessel through which his strong hand is extended? We've got to be ready. Listening.

It's kind of exciting to think about isn't it?...being used by the Almighty.

I'm speaking at a PreTeen camp next week. Here's me...nervous...excited...panicky...sure...controlled...nervous...excited...you get it.

Here's God.


He's just there for me. He smiles at me through this process...maybe there's some eye-rolling, certainly some head shaking...but he's just there. For me. In all my weakness and human-ness.

Aren't you glad for that? In your own moments like this?

Blogger Disclaimer

I'm new to the blogging world. I've been reading many blogs to find out how what is up with blogging, etc...you know, if you come to the party you want to play by the rules. If you know me, then you'll find it odd that I'm even trying to find out the rules, not much of a rule-follower historically. But that's not the point for this post.



So I've found that many bloggers begin their blog with a disclaimer post. You know the one, I don't know what I'm doing, I hope you'll be interested in what I have to say, and blah blah blah...well this is my disclaimer post.



so now the disclaimer is out of the way.

and anyway...in the big scheme of things...it is what it is.

so let's go!

Don't Pour...Draw Out

I'm way behind on my reading. But I'm reading the new stuff first and then backtracking. So today, I'm reading in "K" Magazine an article called, "Unleash a Young Servant" by Tina Houser. I've just discovered Tina Houser, I went to her workshop at CPC in Nashville this year and she's got so much energy, and such great ideas! Love her!

Anyway, in this article she makes the statement "educate does not mean to pour into, but to draw out." That really got me thinking. The best teachers I've observed both in a traditional classroom in a school or in a classroom in the church live this statement. We're not talking pouring into in the context of relationships, but pouring into-in the context of the classroom experience.

I'm not sure I'm always there. Sometimes I'm a "pourer." But I certainly want to be a "drawer". I want the kids who are in my classrooms and those of my teachers to be able to draw out of kids so that they are involved in the experience of the Bible, instead of just being an observer.

Because after all, the Christian life is one of action, not observation!

Showing You What?

I received a huge compliment the other day. A co-worker said, "Mary-you are always happy. No matter what happens around here, I can count on you showing me happy." That made me feel really good, but also since then has caused me to make sure that he is continuing to see me "showing happy"!

See-when I interact with co-workers, friends or my family, I want to show them happy...sure!...but I really want to show them Jesus. I want to be an influencer-not just for happy, but for my Savior!

So what are you showing in your world? That's a heavy question for busy moms and dads, grandparents and caregivers. Are we showing faithfulness, compassion, forgiveness? Through the power of the Holy Spirit-we CAN !

Are we remembering that what we see for our children in 10-20 years...probably isn't possible for them right now? Are we showing them acceptance? Through the power of the Holy Spirit we CAN !

Oh my dear friends, I'm praying for you! That you can show Jesus everywhere. Maybe in your workplace, it's showing integriity. Maybe in your church, it's showing faithfulness. Maybe in your home, it's showing acceptance.

Oh yea, and the happy thing...is just a bonus!