I watched a man dying of cancer last night. He struggled to breath. All alone in a strange hospital room. And all he wanted to do was get up and go home. All he wanted was to be at home in his own comfortable environment with his familiar surroundings so that he could spend the last few days and minutes where he was comfortable. Yet, we struggled to put him and keep him in a bed in a cold, dark hospital room. I sat at the side of his bed and held his hand and watched him for what seemed like an eternity and asked, "Why? Why does he have to go like this?" What a way to spend your last few minutes of time on this earth. He was scared, alone, and all he had was us in those moments. All I could do was whisper, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus". Over and over I whispered, "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus". It was the only thing that brought peace into such a confusing, hurting, struggling, and angry environment.
We don't always understand why things occur as they do. We don't always like to watch people go the way that they go, but we have to remember that our ways, our thoughts, our ideas are not like God's. There is a reason and a season for everything, and we just have to trust that He has it all in control.
Sometimes we want to feel good. We want to be happy. We want things to work the way that WE want them to work.
And, sometimes God wants them to work the way He has planned for them to work, and He plants us in those places, in that place of uncomfortableness so that He can use us in those last moments, and we have to take our eyes off of the situation, off of what would make it more "ideal" for us at the time, and off of the chaos that is around us, and see how we can continue to show that love of Christ even to the very end to a dying person, who is taking some of his last breaths on this earth.
He said at one point that "it shouldn't be like this", and all I could respond to that was, "No, it shouldn't".
I don't have an answer to the "why", the one question that seems to be asked more than the others. But I do know how to love. I do know how to hold a dying man's hand and whisper the most precious name of all. I have been equipped by God to bring peace to an unpeaceful situation.
We don't always have to go the extreme to be used by God. Sometimes it is the simple action of speaking the most beautiful name on earth that brings a chaotic room to complete peace.
God is circling the Yahweh Sisters with looking beyond ourselves, looking past to the depths of comfort and likeness. He is showing each of us, with totally different situations, how to love and how to share His love with others. Because we can have the Lord in our hearts, but are we reflecting His love? It's not the good, sweet, Christian people that need to feel and see His love. But the dying, hurting, poor and needy ones that need to see His love and know He is there with them in those last few minutes.
I know that God is my God. I know that when I die, I will meet the Father and rejoice with the angels in heaven. I know that I will stand with the Father one day, but as I sat there last night and looked into the eyes of someone that was about to experience this personally, I thought, "wow, we will be in two different environments, but right now we are together and if I am the last face that he sees I pray that he sees God and feels His love before he stands before him and truly gets to see God and know His love."
Lord, help me with my actions, with my words, with my attitude that rises up so often in stressful situations. Help me to not get caught up in the chaotic, stressful environment, and forget why I am placed in every situation of my life. I want to be your hands, your feet, your eyes, your voice. I want to truly be able to be a glimpse of You on earth.
See, you don't know me, but I can be a very hard and abrupt person, and for years I have prayed for God to soften me and make me one of those kind, compassionate, sweet spirited Christians. I have to die to the fleshly personality of wanting to rise up and control situations A LOT. I struggle in this area. And, just as we all do, I find myself doing so good, and then I start to slip back into that hardness little by little until one day I am in the full blown, down right mean person again. We have to be careful. The devil will stick his pinky toe in the door and if we are not careful, he will have it kicked wide open and will be prancing right on in the room and find himself a recliner to sit in and kick his feet up, making himself right at home. Let's slam the door shut on his toe before this happens. Get accountability partners in whatever area that you need them in. We have to stay righteous in this unrighteous world.
Find at least one person this week to go above and beyond for and show the love of Christ to them. Look for the one that noone else wants to reach. Look for the person at the grocery store or at the mall that looks like they need "something" at that moment. Ask God to show you that person and to show you how to be used. You never know what impact you may have on an individuals life. Let's love like He loves.
God bless you this week
I am praying for God to open doors for us all to walk through that are uncomfortable and a bit challenging.
(hey, my mother-in-law is coming into town so I know the door that I have to walk through already) (JUST KIDDING...I love my mother-in-law).

Share His love
Be His hand
Be His light
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus....There's just something about that name.

Loving,
Jennifer

No other Gods.................

Exodus 20:3; You shall have no other gods before or besides me......... As I took care of this precious patient this weekend, I was blown away by this flashing green, red and yellow light in her room. The family had placed it there above her head. I was told not to get in between it and the patient. As I approached the device it would chant without stopping. I was so amazed. This was their god!!! Can you imagine? On the device was a half naked elephant. Come to find out this was the highest of their gods.

I ended up at first just staring at it not knowing what to do in a room that had idols set up. There were statues in different parts of her room and even gifts laid at one of the statues feet. The more I moved about the room I was totally like "Ok God, how is it that you could use me in this situation?" I knew I was totally out of my element. For those of you who do not know... Jen, Amy and I are all critical care nurses. I recently left our unit where we had all worked together on nights for over 5 years. I am now a part of a resource team and only go to Critical Care Units in different areas : Trauma, Neuro, Surgical, Medical or Cardiac. Sometimes the job can be very exhausting. You never know what you are going to walk into. It can break your heart and suck the life right out of you and leave you feeling that you have nothing else to give. I praise God that I work part time and I am able to stay home with my girls. I try to work 2 days a week, which are 12 hour shifts. I leave my house at 6am and return home around 8pm at night. Very long, exhausting days with very sick patients. But the reason I am telling you this is because Amy, Jen and I all feel that this job we do with the sick and dying are a part of our ministry. We feel with all our hearts that God has placed us with the sickest patients and the dying for a reason. We are sometimes the only light in the dark and have endured suffering at times for where we stood with God. But before I go to work every week I get up at 4:30 and I pray: "Father let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I yield my life to you. Use me today Father. Give me the patients that you want me to have. Let me be your vessel today. Whatever happens Father I trust you."
Then the flesh kicks in and I have doubt as I drive into this level one trauma center not knowing what God has in store for me. Where is my trust?
So Saturday when I arrived and there was a very sick patient with her god running off of electricity, I was like "Oh my God, How? How are you going to use me? I can't do this."
I didn't know whether to be mad or sad. At first I could even feel my flesh rising up in me and saying things like, "You're kidding. You have to plug your god in! MY God is plugged into me all of the time, and He doesn't need electricity. He invented the electricity for goodness sakes!!"
But thank God that I have the Holy Spirit that takes over. I went in and with an open mind, I began to have the desire to want God to use me in whatever way He wanted to. It began to rise up in me just as I had prayed earlier.
I took care of this patient and ended up being so blessed. I fell so in love with her family (which was extremely large). I hugged and met each and everyone of them. They were the most gracious and kind family that I have ever met. I would look at them and feel such love for them, Unexplainable Love. I can't even put it into words what I felt for them.
I would pray for them quietly as I worked in the room and I heard the softest little voice in my heart say to me: "Be the light with how you treat them, how you help them, how you respect them, show them MY LOVE!!! Show them His Love!!!!"
Can I tell you it was so easy!!! I was led by the Holy Spirit!! I embraced them. I showed them the Love of Christ!! The rest is up to God!! Praise Him that I can leave it at His feet. I was obedient and He will do the rest. What a relief to know that my God is so big that He can reach anybody if He chooses!
I wanted to share this with you because it is so easy for us in our little world where we Christians are in a protected little bubble A LOT of the time. We have to break out of our security nets and walk where Jesus wants us to walk. Where the dying and the hungry and the ones who have no idea who OUR God is!!! Step out of your comfort zone. Our God is BIG. Let's be careful not to put Him in a box. Sometimes all He wants for us to do is SHOW THE LOVE OF CHRIST!! He will do the rest. Remember LOVE is the greatest gift of all. LOVE your neighbor as yourself. Love others as you want to be treated.
Those precious people are my neighbors and yours. Stop stepping over the ones who need to know God to get to the ones who are like us.
You and I may never see the seeds that are planted until we stand in glory with God one day. But those seeds will reap a harvest!!! Spread the Love. Love the unloveable and please don't judge. God died for everyone. Make a choice. PUSH that Flesh down!! Push it down. The LORD has our heart. SURRENDER your life to him. He knows what to do with it.

Blessings to you all.

Learning to surrender,

Robbie

Prayer.............

Do I; do you realize what a gift that prayer is? Until Jesus came we didn't have access to God! Through His death the veil separating us from the presence of God was torn in two from top to bottom! God himself opened up the way for us to enter into his presence----through prayer!!

Praise God! Through prayer, we are invited to come into His presence as children come to their father. Jesus' death revealed the love of God for us.

Jesus prayed!!!!

If Jesus found it necessary to maintain a continual, active prayer life, what is your excuse for not praying? What is my excuse? I know that I complain that I don't have enough time. I also use the excuse that I am to tired. etc. What about you? What excuses are you using? If Jesus can pray the night before his execution then none of our excuses mean anything. We cannot get close to God without prayer. It is a gift!!

Do you want to know Him? Do you want to know him just casually like you would an acquaintance? Or do you long to know him like Adam, Enoch, Noah; where they walked with him and talked to him. When he was preparing the disciples for his departure they were devastated. Jesus was their friend. They were going to miss him. I want to know him like they knew him. I want to be OBEDIENT to his call on my life. I want to care more about what God thinks than what others think. I want to be God's friend!! Can you image him looking down from heaven and calling us his friends? We have to make a deliberate decision to seek to know God, and that comes from alone time with him in prayer and reading his word. However you are spending your time and with whom determines your wants and your desires and your dreams. It determines everything.

I know I have said this before that salvation is free but to follow Jesus will cost you everything. God has big plans for you and me. We have a purpose to fulfill for God! Jesus had a purpose to fulfill for God. In order for Jesus to finish God's work, Jesus had to keep the focus and embrace the purpose with a single mind and heart! He had to yield his life to God. (surrender, submit, humility).

If you and I are able to finish God's plan for us then we can't be satisfied with just squeezing by to get to heaven. We have to become single-minded and focused as we embrace God's purpose for our life. We have got to take our eyes off ourselves and put them on God! If not we will miss it. We will miss the most incredible gift of all : KNOWING GOD!!



Trying to put both eyes on the Father,

feeling a little cross-eyed!!

Robbie

I read an email yesterday that I thought was really good and kinda brings things into perspective. I am going to have to paraphrase (I do that a lot) because I deleted the email but it went something like this:

A mother came home exhausted from working all day and was greeted at the door by her 5 year old son.
"Mommy, how much money do you make an hour?"
The mom got upset that her son would ask such a guestion after she had worked so hard all day long.
"Son, that really is none of your business" the mom said.
The more the mom thought about how rude her son was, the angrier she got at him, but she finally gave in and told him, "Well, if you have to know, I make $20 an hour."
Then the son replied, "Well, mommy, can I borrow $5?"
This really set the mother off. She couldn't believe that he would be so selfish and ask for such a thing after she had worked so hard for the money that she makes. The mother sent the boy to his room.
The more the mother sat and thought about what her son had asked, the angrier she got. She was tired and couldn't believe that her child would be this selfish and self centered about such a thing.
But, then the mother thought that what if her son needed the $5 for something important, so she went up to his room. She sat on the side of his bed and asked, "Son, are you still awake?"
The son replied, "Yes, mommy I'm still awake."
She handed the boy the $5 bill. The boy sat up in the bed and pulled out more money from under his pillow. This floored the mother. How could her son ask for $5 when he already had all of this money stashed away. She began to get mad again. Just then the boy started to count out his money. He counted $15 and then turned to the mother, "Mommy I had been saving this money and when you said you made $20 an hour, I knew I only needed $5 more to make that."
He gave the money to his mother.
"Mommy, can I buy just one hour of your time? Will you come home early one hour early from work tomorrow and spend it with me?"

If we die tomorrow, the company that we work for could replace us within the hour, the family and friends that we leave behind would feel the loss forever.

Let's slow down, look around at what we have consumed ourselves with, and change it if we need to. Our family, our children, and the people that truly care about us are what is important in life. What kind of impression are we making on them?

Jennifer

I was looking back at some of my old journal entries and was in awe at what God was speaking to me then and where He has taken me over the years.
One of the entries was when God spoke to me through Isaiah and Jonah.
Isaiah, the prophet, is saying, "Look, what you see happening today also happened then." (paraphrasing of course)
Then you see Jonah, who turned and ran away from God BUT God captured Him. Jonah realized then what he had done, and "Oops, now I am in the belly of a whale." Jonah cried out to God to save him, and He did.
Things that occurred back then are still occurring today.
We are the same way. We constantly run away - in the opposite direction of what God wants for us - and then end up in a mess, and what do we do? WE CRY OUT FOR HELP. And, God helps us...it may not always be the way that we had planned for Him to help us out, but He will pull us out...sometimes with a lot of discipline to go along with it.
I know, believe me, I KNOW that God's ways are sometimes hard to travel and it is hard to walk away from somethings that are comfortable and that "feel good" to us physically, but listen to me for a second, we don't have a lot of time left on this earth. God is going to call His people home one day and we do not know when that may be. Let's not waste any more time living a life of "feeling good". Let's step out of our comfort zone. Let's stop saying, "Not yet God. I'm not ready just yet. I have a family. I have this house that I waited for so long for. I have a good job that I like. Can't you use me there? Come on God, do you really think I could do that?"
God will use the open vessels that say yes to Him. If He plants something in you and you resist it for too long, He will find a "rock to cry out for Him".
Seek Him, Find Him, Know Him, Follow Him, Live for Him, and Go wherever He wants you to Go.
Open your arms to Him today and commit yourself to go and do what it is He would have you to do. He will ALWAYS be right there with you even to the ends of the earth, He will not leave you or forsake you, cry out to Him to take you there, and He will.

Be blessed today

Jennifer

"For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise." Psalms 51: 16-17
Brokenness doesn't mean you are weak. It means you are submitted to authority. God is our authority. Submit to Him.
"Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law."
1 John 3:4
Sin is to violate God's authority. Sin is simply disobeying God's authority, will, or word.
All authority comes from God. God appoints all rulers. When you resist authority, you are resisting God.
Who wants to be the one that resist God? Not me, not on purpose at least. If we are not following God's calling and God's word, then we are resisting God. Let's not be known as individuals that resist God. Let's be known as broken hearts seeking out the will of the Father and living that will out in our lives.
No, it may not be easy, but I promise you that it will be worth it.
There is nothing good for you outside the will of God.
"Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning." James 1:17

Jennifer

I just spent an amazing afternoon with a group of women that God connected me to a few months back. God gave me a vision for some pillowcase dresses that I have seen online. I felt that God wanted me to send them to these third world countries that are so poor and in need and have orphanages and children on the streets without any clothes even on their backs. I tried to go down a few avenues but didn't get far until I met a wonderful woman that God hooked me up with (too long to explain how we met but we definitely had a spiritual connection). I shared my idea with her and had no idea that she would even be interested in what I was seeing God doing with these dresses; however, she took the idea and ran with it. She has a ministry called The Kilgoris Project that goes to help raise money for a village in Africa that her sister-in-law and brother-in-law are missionaries in.
So, we had a project day where a bunch of women got together, we advertised the event, and then we made these dresses, embellished them with different things, and they will be sold on Etsy and the proceeds will go to The Kilgoris Project and tohelping this village over there. Some of the dresses will go back with the sister-in-law (she is here for a little visit) and will actually clothe many of the children there in the village.
We made about 40 dresses in about 3 hours.
At one point one of the ladies looked at me and said, "Wow, this was your creation and your idea. Aren't you proud?". All I could say was, "No I'm not proud at all. I'm amazed at what God did with such a simple idea."
He never ever stops seeming to amaze me and WOW me with His goodness and provision and cleverness. It took a simple dress, actually made out of pillowcases, and made it something so wonderful for this small village in Africa to benefit from.
We have to look beyond what WE think can happen and see what GOD knows can happen.
We have to look around us and see what it is that God has gifted us with, what it is that we enjoy doing, what it is that we are naturally good at, and ask God to use us in that area. We are all born with some type of talent whether it is sewing, cooking, singing, talking to people, or having the most amazing smile in the world. God puts things in everyone that can be used for His kingdom.
Ask God what it is that He can use. And BE READY when He tells you what it is...it may be more than you could have ever thought it would be....But, then again, that's just how our God does things...He speaks and things happen...Let Him speak to you.

Jennifer