Too Busy Not to Pray Study

Life is going well! Our bible study is something we really look forward to each week. It's awesome getting to know new people and share our lives with each other. Also great getting to know my sister-in-law better. Been so grateful lately for the wisdom God is giving me with that. Last week during the communion service I felt like the Spirit was strongly encouraging me to talk to Missie about the jealousy and apologize for the way it comes out. Basically since I'm envious, I act overly critical and superior in my head about other things. Unattractive to say the least. I've been praying about it. I let her know that I was sorry for being mean and critical and I wanted to fix that because she's my sister (in more than one way) and I loved that we were getting closer and I didn't want that between us. She was very forgiving and said that she hadn't noticed anything like that but I assured her that God wanted me to ask for forgiveness so He could get it out there. I have to admit that sometimes I'm a big meany - and in order to fix it, I really have to admit it. I've already found myself less critical. God works in mysterious ways..... :)

And another example (just for the week!) of successful prayer is Bob. He's been reading the 5 love languages and he's made some significant effort. I need to work harder too.... But it's just awesome to see how quickly God can start to work on things that we persistently pray about.

I love how God works!! And as our book is reminding us, the greatest motivator for prayer is answered prayer!

Mission Call

Sunday night I was able to attend the commisioning service for my friend Jenn as she departs for Malawi with a team from the Pittsburgh Presbytery for a 10 day trip. I am so excited for her and cannot wait to talk with her after she returns home to see how God uses this to deepen His presence in her life. The message the pastor gave was clear, this trip was a calling on them to be there at this time and each of them was being called to bring all that they had to this trip for God to use. Jenn and I have just recently rekindled our friendship and it is HUGELY exciting to see how God is in the middle of that newly rediscovered friendship. I am so proud to be her friend and am honored that I could be there to see her blessed like this.

While I was there I felt a longing for service. It was a combination of the Saturday community outreach giving out water that we coordinated for our small group and Tommy pushing me the previous week to go in and talk with a new person. Both were things I DID NOT want to do. Tommy challenged me and he challenged our group and truth be told - I liked doing both of those things even though I fought it. It seems that I don't do things that make me uncomfortable without a good bit of prodding. But a part of me knows that the discomfort is SO POWERFUL in the growth process. I long to be that uncomfortable again. I keep thinking back to the discomfort of my trip to the Caribbean with Clarence and in particular my climb up the saw grass steeps of El Toro. Tears and pain and frustation. And the biggest physical accomplishment of my life and the greatest sense of achievement. And I was far from God then because of some choices I was making. Most of the prodding came from a professor who I dearly loved. Can you even imagine being prodded by the loving all powerful God of the Universe and what an answer to that call might mean? Honestly, I can't fathom it. But someday I hope to go. Where? I don't know. When? I don't know. I especially don't know how. But someday I hope He asks and I say yes.

Loving IT!

The small group study I am leading right now is on Bill Hybel's book "Too Busy Not to Pray." It's encouraged me to take up journaling my prayers again and do something else that I haven't done in awhile - review my earlier prayers. It is truly amazing. Today, I read the prayer that I prayed on 12/25/2007 and it was astonishing the love that I gushed for God. Particularly interesting because I am having trouble right now in the adoration department of my prayer life. It was so genuine my wonder at where life had so recently been in comparison to where God was pointing us. I think right now I have to unlearn some things about my prayer life - something that has me checking off a box each day that I did it. I am such an organization freak that I think I lose some of the intensity of it because I'm just doing it - going through the motions. And as the song says, "Don't want to go through the motions, don't want to go one more day without your all consuming power inside of me. Don't want to spend my whole life asking, what if I had given everything, instead of going through the motions." So that is my prayer right now, whatever is holding me back, whatever I am doing or not doing in disobedience to God - please get rid of it!!! As I look back at my prayers for that day, I was begging for humility and obedience. He gave it. And so I beg for it even deeper. God give me what I am afraid to get.

Again - so very long!!

In the last 7 weeks my work life has changed enormously. It went from fearfully perilous to comfortably efficient. On June 3, the parent company I work for laid off half of their staff and cut our portion of the company off from any financial assistance. It changed everything. The place I hoped I would work until I no longer worked changed. It was no longer safe and secure. It went from being a family to being a job. I went from having a home away from home to an office again. I know it was supposed to be that way. Maybe God saw that I was becoming too comfortable and relying too much on that ease. It changed and so I began looking at things different. And things became very different. No longer was there an odd supervisory relationship between me and several EIP employees. Where there was once an authority exerted over me to establish the hierarchy, now there was no support at all. It was disappointing. But Joel was back to being my direct boss. Over these last few weeks, we've re-established our close relationship. He's sought my help with decisions and I've renewed my respect for the way he's been handling things - calmly and with a level rational head. He's been encouraging and grateful. And I've made sure that he knows that I'm here until they tell me to go.

I no longer have someone to back me up if I had a day off. So when I found out that EIP was working 8-4 shifts which I couldn't take advantage of, I asked Joel to let me work from home. He agreed and before the end of last month I was working from home. It's been a balancing act. I think I'm doing okay for the time being but balance has never been my thing. I feel like I've been getting a lot done at work and home is benefitting too.

So now I'm back. Lots of other things have happened over that time. Good stuff. Growing stuff. But that will wait. I'll catch this up soon enough now that life is back to strange normal..... :)

Lessons on the Commute

I got in the car this morning on the verge of overwrought over money. I decided that I needed to spend some time being quiet with God in the car – listening. I talked to Him and prayed some but I found my mind wandering a lot. So by the time I got through the light at Musik Innovations, I was way out there. So as I started up the hill, I think God said, “FOCUS!!!” Loudly. Seriously. So I did. I started telling Him how amazing He is and how much He’s done in my life…..

And out of nowhere, on the way up the hill, a little doe was walking across traffic. No warning except the brake lights of a car ahead of it and to the right (I was in the fast lane). The doe was ahead of me and I saw it and slowed way down – oddly in plenty of time to slow down, which really doesn’t make sense since it was all of sudden just there and I was probably going at least 40. It got confused, looked at me, and jumped the barrier and safely crossed with no traffic coming down the hill.

SOOOO!!! Since my mind was with finances it turned back there. If a little focus can save that idiot deer from getting smashed in traffic (and me from the drivers behind me that had to slam on the brakes) financial recovery should be a manageable task for God with a little focus from us……. I think if we pray and listen, he’ll let us know what path he wants us to take….

Northway Girls

Dear ladies of my Beth Moore group,

It has been an amazing journey. In the three years that I have been with the group I have learned far more than what Beth meant to teach. In 2006, I had never been part of a church family and in the next year and a half, I desperately struggled with the good and the bad of close quarters with my royal family members in the studies.

.....I learned to love those that at first I did not love.
.....I learned to see and admit my own faults more readily because of others openess and seeing the same faults in them....
.....I learned to abandon myself to my relationship with Christ by the way these women did.
.....I learned to swallow my pride and accept the authority of the leaders that were placed with us because this was God's will.
.....I learned to love others so deeply that I can't even put it adequately into words.
.....I learned to share what I knew with gentleness and kindness - not defensiveness and frustration.
.....I learned that it's okay not to agree with everything and that some issues just aren't a big enough issue to tackle.
.....I learned that prayer is the most powerful tool we can use to help others.
.....I learned that I can't do this alone. I need people and in the same way, others need me. God designed for me to share - not stuff myself in a closet.

So I walked out the door of the church last night toward a different goal. I will be leading my own study at Iron City Church and developing that family closer to "home." Providing a place where women can come and learn and grow together like that at ICC. But I will try my darnedest to stay in touch with as many of them as possible because, quite honestly, I love them and I know each of them was a gift from heaven.

Thank you, Father for giving me the gift of them.

Daniel 1 and 2
Fruits of the Spirit
The Tabernacle
Psalm of the Ascents
Esther

The best seat in the house

Thank you so much for anyone who has taken time to pray for my friend. She and her family have been blessed over and over in the last nearly two weeks. People have stepped up and heard God calling them to be generous in spirit in some way and it has been truly beautiful. We are all growing in this. And watching has been a gift that God has honored me with. Keep praying!

A Month of Kimptons

So this month has been the month of the Kimptons. Sarah came the first weekend, then came Easter and last weekend was Molly and finally this weekend we have Ben and Grace. It has really been fun. Sarah and I had so much fun. We got to talk and act silly and do fun things and I just really loved spending time with her. She's a lot of fun. Then last weekend Molly came. We did a bunch of things together and had a lot of fun too. I was a little sad that she's growing up and getting a bit adolescent - trying to not act as silly, concerned about how to behave grown up and sometimes distant. I know kids go through that but it was a bit sad for me. I guess part of me doesn't want her to grow up. However, those moments were punctuated with some great fun. We talked and hiked and goofed off. And we had a great talk after church about our yuckier selfish and mean sides. We're headed off to the zoo this weekend and it should be great fun and our first weekend with summer like weather!! I'm sure there will be pictures to post!

Prayer request

Hmmm. All those times when I read other blogs and people asked for prayer that is veiled out of courtesy and confidentiality, come back around. I have a dear friend who is going through a monstrously difficult time. I can't really say more than that but please pray for her and her husband and her kids over the next month.

I am so proud to be part of our church as I've seen so many people rally around them out of love. In fact it occured to me that having a church family is not only an amazing blessing but an exercise in humility. It's a step that God puts in place to ensure that we fully realize that we CANNOT do it on our own. It takes the swallowing of the pride to accept help from people. I know it would be ridiculously hard for me. But once you accept help from God's children, you begin to understand that it's His way of holding you and filling you up.

Pray for her peace. Pray for her patience. Pray for her strength. Pray for her love. Pray for her children. Pray that God will turn this into a reversal of destiny that we can't even imagine.

Oh Jealousy!

I wish it weren't true but envy is sometimes a humongous problem for me. As I may have mentioned in the past, unfairness is some kind of trigger for me. Don't know why. Seems to be woven into the fabric of me. Yuck. Might have been a brief twinge in the last few years. Nothing significant. Then a few weeks ago, it reared its ugly head and I had to literally give myself a time out and pray about it. Last week was worse though. It was like some horrible dragon inside of me and I became jealous of someone I consider my friend. What kind of friend feels that way? Um - one that has her own lion's share of sin to deal with. I was bad. And I unleashed it on Bob and he was flat out disgusted by it - should have been too. It was hard to take that - but I deserved it. I should have gone to God when I first felt it brewing and I didn't. Instead I allowed myself to compose a lengthy list of reasons that it wasn't fair..... and it got pretty bad. There was a lot of scolding and lots of crying. I need that kind of reminder that I have plenty of my own sins.

Tommy often talks about Satan getting at us where we live during weeks when we're up to big stuff at ICC. And I often feel out of the line of fire. It wasn't coincidental that the enemy attacked during the week before Easter. And he attacked in a way that would have an outcome on Easter morning. Fortunately, Christ didn't win the moment but he won the battle and as a result, there was joy and love on Easter rather than jealousy and envy. Take that Satan. I have weakness but you don't own it. I am not ruled by sin.