Checking In...

Well I've spent a couple weeks at home just living life near some folks I love a bunch and it has been GOOD for this girls heart. I've sat beside some of the people who remind me without saying a word who I really want to be. I've spent lots of time with my Bible open and my hand just caressing the page as I have sought God in ways different than I ever have before. I've rested. I've read. I've journaled. I've watched the sun rise and I've watched it set. I've listened to the birds make noises and the trees rustle and it has been sacred time.

Today I am going to a Women of Faith Conference in Columbus. As God would have it, some dear saint, has donated a ticket so I can go and be a part of that. I'm going ALL by myself, (I have NEVER done that before and would never have wanted to) but this year it sounded exactly like what I needed to do. Just Him and I. Will sit in a chair all by myself and just listen to Him and soak.

I am relishing in my time with Him right now. Felt like I was parched from the lack of doing so over the past couple of months. I don't know if any of you can relate, but I'm guessing something in that could resonate with a time in your life. Seems as though there are some times in life when you get no heart relief except through those times with Him and Him only. I'm a people girl to the hilt and so it's usually not difficult for me to just feel Him in the middle of all my favorite folks and give me a church setting with whole bunches of people loving Him and I'm in Heaven. Not so right now. It's completely different. I want Him, my Bible, a space in the quiet where I can just hear Him and be with Him. I thought something was really wrong and now I'm just starting to feel like it's way sweet time with Him.

He is faithful. He continues to be so incredibly faithful! I just want to encourage you that the God of the universe can handle your moments of doubt, your months of distance, your questions, your brokenness, your bitterness, your rebellion. All of it. Your God knows how to handle your heart and all that is within it.

I find peace there today! May you do the same.

Blessings abounding on you this day.

Invisibility...

You know it's one of the hardest places to be...that place of invisibility where you feel as though no one notices...notices your effort, notices your advice, notices your presence, notices your behind the scenes diligence, notices what would be missing if you weren't a part of it, notices...well just notices, noone notices.

Makes you think every once in a while that perhaps you should stop offering your effort if no one will notice doesn't it?? Oh come on we've all been there. Well if it doesn't make any difference, then I don't need to ____________, and if matters so little then I'll just show them what happens if I just do nothing. I've said it. I've said it lately even.

And then in this still small voice you know that someone bigger than you and all of them...well He notices. And you're working for Him anyway.

Nicole Johnson does a beautiful job in this short little video of showing the sacredness of invisibility. It is a sacred place to be. May we embrace it as such!!

He notices.

Here's the link http://youtube.com/watch?v=9YU0aNAHXP0

Worth the Watch...

Just wanted to alert you to a video I watched this morning that was touching to say the least. Very good. It's a Nicole C Mullen video called "One Touch."

Take a minute today and watch it. We're all dying for a touch in the middle of our broken places. This is a beautiful representation of that.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4Zw-9QLlSs

Blessings and Love.

Have you ever wondered how hurting so bad could ever be a part of God's plan for your life...like how to reconcile Him being my "protector" and choosing not to protect me from certain things that have broken my heart...

I'm in this new stage of relationship with God where I have more questions than answers about what following Him all the way to the cross means. I'm sure some of you are very familiar with this place, when God chooses to reveal Himself in harder more difficult ways because deeper requires it. It hurts like heck I've decided...and it's causing me to evaluate so much about what it requires of me to follow Him all the way to the cross.

What does that require when people falsely accuse you... when do you fight for justice and when do you stand silent before your sheerers? Do you ever fight for justice for yourself or are you only to be a voice for justice for others?

Do you speak truth when you know it or do you just wait for God to expose truth in His time? Where do I get in the way of God's timing?

How much pride factors into so much of what I decide to do with my life? Daily where is it hidden from my eyes and so visible to others?

How do you watch a dream die and relinquish it without getting angry or bitter?

If the cross means death and I am supposed to die, then it no longer matters whether I'm right, whether I'm offended, whether I'm hurt, whether I'm applauded, whether it feels good, whether I'm _________ because I'm dead and my "rights" died with it.

it just no longer matters -- but the road to the cross is long and it's hard and it's bloody and it's messy and you sweat and you cry and you struggle and you want to stop and quit and you break and you crumble beneath it - before you ever get to the dying.

So pray that I'll follow Him all the way there, that I'll die to myself...and that in the middle of the journey there that I'll honor Him and that I'll rest knowing that my "desire to please Him does in fact please Him."

no matter how messy it may look along the way.

This I Know....

Just a few things that I KNOW that I KNOW after I've spent a week back in the villages among the people...

I can sit beside the suffering and forget all about what color we are or language we speak and all at once this undeniable bond forms in spite of every difference we share...

Suffering has a way of putting everything back into perspective...

Arms are arms no matter whose they are when the pain is so great that you just need someone to hold you while you cry...

Dirty faces covering up hurting hearts have a way of removing your pretense and pride and I welcome that...

Sharing moments in sacred spaces like these does something that you have no words for...

Jesus lives among the brokenhearted, lowly, humble, and hurting and I see Him more clearly everytime I choose to live among them as well...

I want more than anything in this world to serve them well...

To Keep You Posted...

Hey all, for any of you checking this on a regular basis (again my apologies offered), we have a group here now...MY PEEPS ARE HERE!!!! The group from my home church has come and they are terrific people who have loved and supported us through the living here and we could not have done what we do without them. And now...we are hitting the ground running...

We were at Didasko children's home on Saturday, spent the day at Casa yesterday with our kiddo's, today we'll be off to the hospital...Casitas Kennedy...and the blind school, so our days are being filled with the blessing of giving yourself away to some folks who steal your heart and end up giving you so much more than you could have ever given. It's a beautiful thing.

If you'd like to stay up to date on the daily happenings...my brother Chris (yeah I adopted him too, I told you I LIKE big families) and besides that he's just doggone good stuff, is posting on the Captured Heart website, missions tab.

Here's the link, Missions Trip Updates, click and read...enjoy...and most of all please pray as we continue to attempt to be the hands and feet of Jesus.

Be blessed as you are a blessing!

May I Just Say...

She was beautiful...the day was blessed by God...Dorian was thrilled to behold his bride...and we were humbled to be a part of it.

I will post more pictures very soon, as for now the happy couple have set off for Costa Rica for 10 days.

Some things you just know were planned by God before the beginning of time. This is one of them!!

Your Praying Hearts...

Before another day passes I want to just alert you all to a family that could certainly use an army of prayer warriors.

Most of you who know me well, have heard me talk about Mark and Lori Connell. They are pretty near and dear to the heart of this place. Our children adore them, and we're not far behind in the adoring category. We adore them too!!

For a long time now they have been feeling God tug on their hearts to be down here full time being a part of the work in Honduras. Lori is the executive director for the Mi Esperanza project which many of you are familiar with that helps impoverished women learn a trade and begin to be able to provide for their families through the skills they've learned. That is a very poor description of the multitude of things they're accomplishing, it's amazing, but you can check out more about it at their website...it's linked on the right of this page. Mark is nuts, that's all there is to it, but he's also got a heart as big as Texas and he would serve till his knuckles were raw and does sometimes. He is joy personified and we love having him around here. Every summer he helps TORCH teams, he for lack of a better word "mentors" some little guys in a poor community called San Miguel, he serves and when someone recently described some of what he was doing, one of his very good friends said "real ministry just speaks for itself huh??!!" It's true, and it fits him.

Anyway, future plans are to build an artisan center here in Santa Ana to teach and employ even more women and so we've been singing Mr. Rogers theme song to them for so long begging them to be our neighbor's and live across the street from our project here at Casa. Handy huh??!!

So just a few weeks ago they made an announcement to come on board full time in Honduras with Mi Esperanza and various other projects here and we are DELIGHTED to say the least. If you're looking for a good place to spend a few bucks right now they could use some help getting their things down here and all the start up expenses that come with a move like this. If you're interested let me know and I can get you some more information on all of that.

As so many of us know, Satan never turns his head for a moment to things like a passionate devotion to Christ and a willingness to leave it all and go and so the attacks have begun. This last week or so their family has had a rough time and that's a tremendous understatement...I could tell you what I know about it, but Lori did a beautiful job of sharing her heart and so I'd encourage you to read what she wrote on her blog.

Then I'd encourage you to be a part of an army of prayer warriors who are pleading fervently for the heart of this sweet new mommy who should be getting to enjoy the stuffin's out of her baby right now who is struggling in no uncertain terms. Pray for her dear parents too who are watching their baby struggle. Not an easy thing to do we know. They could just all use some folks to hold them up right now.

Rise up my friends it's time for battle...better yet let's bow on behalf of them!! We'll win the battle there. He is faithful!!

Is it too late???

So my question is, is it too late to make a New Years Resolution??

Cause if it isn't I am RESOLVED to doing better about this daggone blog. Goodness, I used to write on here all the time and update you all. I have been so slacking, and it's not for a lack of things to tell you about. For one thing, our internet (which comes from satellite) has been undergoing rough times...slow as Moses times, so it takes 3 hours for a post to upload sometimes, which talks you clear out of the notion of wanting to post anything for sure. However, it is NO excuse for not filling you in on some way wonderful stuff that's been going on.

So my resolution is this...(Ashley inspired me)...that at least half the days of the month I'm putting something on here. 15 posts a month, yep gonna do it!! May be a one liner some days ... but you deserve better than I've done and so I'm buckling down, fighting off the demon that interferes with our satellite signal and producing some posts.

Think I'll start now. Might do a few today to catch up and we'll see what happens from here.

Much love!

Spoiled Rotten...

You know every once in a while, God shows us how incredibly spoiled we are and we have the sense to recognize it, and then there are those times in life when He overwhelmingly seems set upon it being in your face in HUGE ways. When your blessings could not be denied if you wanted to try, and where you feel so incredibly small as you run through the record of your spoiledness.

It's a fact, I am a spoiled girl. Sometimes a spoiled brat, I'd like to think most often I'm just a spoiled girl who is learning how better to handle that and share it and be a blessing because of it. I could spend a lot of time listing just the ways I'm aware of that I have been blessed far beyond anything I deserve, but it would leave out soooo many ways I still don't have sense to see, and it would take an awfully long time to list just the ones I do.

God help us. Help us to never believe we have any of this because we've done something to deserve it or because someone came along before us and was able to create for us a land that was entitled to blessings while others weren't. Help us to understand, to really get that You are the giver of every single one of them and you've asked one single thing of us in them...to be a blessing as we have been blessed.

Help us to understand that better every day that we live!!