moving things around...

A few weeks ago as I was cleaning I found myself wanting to move things around in our office.  I've always felt that it was too crowded and as the years have passed it has become the place for everything...the computer, my sewing stuff, school supplies, book shelf, a couch, pictures (not in frames), even bills and old computer monitors and scrapbook stuff.  It catches everything that has no other home.
BUT, my daughter started taking guitar lessons and I needed somewhere for them to get away to so they could focus and not be distracted.  So, I went into the office, started cleaning, cleaning led to rearranging, and rearranging led to movement.  Before I knew it I had moved a deacons bench (that had no home in my house yet and was just stuck somewhere in a corner in my living room) into the office, I had moved the couch off of one of the walls and onto another, I had moved all of the school supplies and a lot of my sewing into the deacons bench and I had moved the table that I sew on onto another wall.  I moved the rug around and then cleaned it all.  I moved the lamps and the light that comes on with the switch and just did an entire makeover of the room.  When I stood back, it was such a change and I loved it. 
I find myself in this room a lot. I like to turn on my praise music and just sit on the floor or the couch and pray and spend time with God.
See, I need a retreat place.  I am not one that likes to be out in the middle of the living room overwhelmed with the space of it all.  I like to be in a room, with comforts like a couch and small lamp and things that I have created lying around, and I like to get down on the floor and find God there. It is my sanctuary.  I find peace in that room.  I find comfort in that room.  I find answers to life's questions in that room.  I find God in that room.  Don't get me wrong...God is everywhere in my home and I work hard to make my entire home a welcoming environment for the Holy Spirit to reign.  But, that room is my special place. 
We all need a special place that we can retire to, somewhere that is familiar to our spirit.  Some people lock themselves in closets to get away and rest in His presence....I've done that too. 
I challenge you to find a place in your home that you can make your sanctuary.  Put your bible there with your journal and a pen.  You may even want to put a candle or nice lamp in there. 
And then, spend time there getting to know the Father, spending time praying and worshiping Him.  You will begin to feel a peace as you walk into that area and you will know that it is the place where you have spent time with God in. 
It will bring you comfort and you can run to it when you are hurt and lonely.  He will meet you there. 
I have found peace in so many places over the years as we have moved from home to home, and there has always been one place that stands out in each of our homes...where is that place for you? 
Rest there...
Jennifer

god is love..........

 God is love..................

Giving thanks today...............for in the midst of all His ascended glory.....the Lord Jesus comes to speak to such an insignificant disciple...............simply saying........."Do Not Be Afraid." (Revelation 1:17)
His tenderness is inexpressibly sweet!

Me the one who craves the easy....... comes in begging for the more............ more grace please...me with my me-ism.........am I hearing? hearing Him speak? Or am I to wrapped up in the me?

The patients wife who holds the hand high..........the praise.......the seeing of one who hears..........
     The long skirt gave it away........the no make-up.... the simplicity of life.........the one who is ONE with the father.
She looks the tired from the living in a hospital room..........the husband who is on the breathing machine for a muscle disease.........can't protect the airway for the breathing..........

Her eyes were the lovely the kind that had lived the life.......with the stories to reveal...............

A greeting that started with the:  " let me ask you a question?"  Something about the will of God.......I continued to gaze upon her as I starred deep into her eyes to search for an answer that she would want to hear.

Me with my me-ism..... it is oh so clear to me now that I am to resolve..............resolve from my own evil heartaches and be with the people who are the most vulnerable................to be where there is the something.............the something tragically broken that is not of me.

To feel someones else's pain.

I need to exist........................exist out of my own..............me-ism world.

Maybe its the me who really does need the fixing...................the fixing of self...................the self that I cannot forgive..........................and a past that I cannot forget.

There is the something that happens...........when walking into another's life...........and listening...........really listening to their story.

     The Dr. walks in and tells the wife the one with her hand held high................its a choice that's coming.

It has to do with surgery....the kind which they cut for a trachea (which is an opening in the neck so they could move the breathing tube from the patients mouth to give him more comfort and it is used for patients who are going to be on a breathing machine long term); the Dr also stated that the patient would need a PEG tube! ( PEG is a surgery where they place a tube directly into the abdomen to feed the person)

The whole time the Dr. was speaking to the wife, I kept the looking at the wife deep....trying to see if I could see a response..........as I searched inwardly for my own answer.

The wife looked back at the Dr. with grace and poise.....she smiled a faint kind of smile and humbly thanked the Dr. for his time.

After he left the room I stood their with the no words.

Trying the hard to exist out of my own.................feeling the nothing..............watching this women who drew me in by her simple child like faith!

I quietly asked her if she had any questions? She raised that short little hand up to praise the Father..... the one she had become ONE with.....the one where the father had seen the something different.........a different kind of spirit.

She exclaimed by FAITH we are going to say NO..... to the cutting....and claim that it would not happen.

After all isn't Heaven the happily ever after?

Don't we all have darkness to walk through? With our own battles to fight?

She had faith! She believed....

As the days quickly turned to two......we had the bond!!! I to saw a different spirit in the her....

I even had the Amy come and meet her.....we sat at her feet looking and listening to her story.

She told us that years ago in a different kind of life.............she was the praying and felt the Lord speak directly into her soul.............he told her that she would never DIE! Never ever experience death! And she looked at the Amy and I and said, "girls I am 69 years old!"

"He's coming back and He's coming soon!"

Amy and I had the chill all over....the different spirit we could feel......felt like we sat down with Jesus himself.

She cried the long and hard when I told her I wouldn't be back for a week!

But on Sunday night my phone rang! I didn't recognize the number and didn't answer.  As I was listening to my message my heart skipped a beat as I heard the wife with the different kind of spirit say; "Robbie, please call me as soon as you can." I called the Amy,  me with my little faith knowing that they are wanting to do the surgery and thinking that she must be so upset. What am I supposed to say? After-all she had prayed and believed God!

I dialed the number back with the expecting.....expecting to hear the worst....she picked up the phone and I could barely understand because she was the shouting.......shouting HOLY, HOLY IS THE LORD.....he gave us a miracle today at 11:08am.......husband was taken off the breathing machine and was doing the great! I couldn't get a word in..........no surgery!!!! Here she screams you have to hear him speak!!!! You have never heard him speak!!! I know that God sent you to us...........you must HEAR his voice!!!

Husband on the phone..........."God gave me a miracle today!"

The tears that stung my face..........the humbleness that I felt.................the still small voice I could hear in my own heart...

Numbers 24:15-17:

the prophecy of one whose eye sees clearly,

 the prophecy of one who hears the words of God,
who has knowledge from the Most High,
who sees a vision from the Almighty,
who falls prostrate, and whose eyes are opened

I want so badly to have a different spirit..............like Caleb and like my new friend.........I want so badly for my eyes to be opened. Have I heard Him? Have I really ever listened? Listened to His still small voice? I must really listen and hear him speak! God is saying, "Here I am, over here, do you recognize My voice?"
"Have you ever heard Me speak?"  "You must HEAR my voice!"

all of grace,
Robbie

A Gift

As I walked into the Christain bookstore- I looked at the large sign in the window- Store Closing 20% off.  I had known the store was closing from an email Robbie had sent me. This small Christain bookstore had been in business at least 30 years. Closing because of a struggling economy- A very sad email led me to that store that afternoon.  I only had one of my boys with me that night- so I felt as if I could " look around".  The two of us looked around quickly showing each other this and that.  Not really looking for anything in particular, I remembered Robbie's book- " 1000 Gifts". A book that she will not even let out of her sight, much less let me hold or borrow  it. As I eagerly begin looking for that book, I laughed  to myself at her comments- You are not borrowing my book- it is a treasure- !!!!!!  I couldn't find it, so I went to the lady behind the register and asked her if she would look it up for me. As she looked ,she begin to tell me that her pray partner LOVED that book, and that it had truly blessed her. That made me smile, that someone else liked the book too. Robbie loves all books, and calls all of her books treasures- with that said, I was glad that I was going to soon have my own copy. At first the lady said that they did not have a copy, but they could order one from the warehouse- that several had already been ordered and were on their way. Oh..... wait- she said- I show here that we have one copy in the store. I followed her as she walked briskly through the store. There it was- at the bottom of the shelf, as I reached for it, she grabbed it- Let me look at it real quick. She flipped through the pages, as if to read the whole book it a minute. " I want a copy of this book so bad. I have heard such good things about this book". - Then the but..... came. " But since the store is closing, we have to move. The move is so expensive, and I cant justify spending money on a book right now. I'll pray about it, oh but I would love to have one. Well- right away I knew what I had to do!  I walked behind her to the register- Can you ring this one up and order one more- please. I will pick it up next week. As I paid for the books, I felt.... good- ! A good feeling, one that I was glad that my son would witness. She pushed the bag towards me, carrying that  precious book. I pushed it back and said, " This is a gift for you. I know that you will be blessed. I will pick  mine up next week". All she said to me was that she was going to cry.. I told her not too, that I wanted to give this gift to her. I walked out of the store, wishing I would have said more. I should have hugged her, I should have wished her safety with her move. I wish... I wish... WOW- it is quick how Satan can corrupt our mind and make us always feel inadequate! Those thoughts quickly passed, as my son said- " Mom, that was a really nice thing to did for that lady".
Thank you Lord- for allowing me to give this small gift in your name.
Amy

Weekends are for singing.................

Weekends are for singing..............shouldn't we be singing the everyday joys of our lives? ( my middle daughter singing)

Once a month the church has what is called "The Deep." It is when the older girls sing for the younger kids! Sing about our Saviour..........

Shouldn't we be singing the song's of our Saviour in the everyday?

Our Saviour is to be sung................

we need the emptying of ourselves...............of the pride............the vanity.............the insincerity...........

after the emptying comes the opening...................making room for the grace..........for the mercy

 it's the then when I see it.........open on the foyer dresser.............the gratitude journal........my journal........

I remember when the thanks was just a mumble before meals..........or when the something big happened..

Now after the reading  One Thousand Gifts; by Ann Voscamp my life is the forever changed....

Thinking about all those years how much I missed...........missed the God that was the everywhere....

the emptiness...............the emptiness of my life.....the gratitude journal that has opened the eyes of my heart......

how emptiness does sing...............sing for the everywhere Saviour!

Now I am a grace seeker.............begging for the more..........seeking the face of God...

I am the learning..........

May all your weekend wanderings.....be one of the seeing..............the singing..........and the seeking for the face of our Saviour!

 The teenagers gratitude journal.......................helping them to learn to sing so that they can do the seeing at an earlier age of our Saviour in the everywhere of the everyday!

all of grace,

Robbie

how to fight for Joy............

When you are feeling the sad....how do you fight for the joy?
A Christian book store.........the kind that's family owned........the closing down.............the urge to go........me the thinking the last thing I need is another book!
The spirit leads...........and I follow.............I sit a spell and I think......

I want it! I want to be that person the bible is calling me to be! My heart is the aching.... aching for the desire...........the desire of the one true God!
If it is true that we become the very thing we desire or love.................What am I? Who am I? What is in my heart?
Do I desire the comfort and the security more than I desire God?
Have I truly really tasted the living waters?

     I read a line out loud of (John Piper's book; "When I don't desire God,"; How to Fight for Joy)
"How we pray reveals the desires of our hearts. And the desires of our hearts reveal what our treasure is. And if our treasure is not Christ, we will perish.

How do we pray?
When all alone in the stillness of the dark....how do we pray? What is the treasure of our heart?

Then I read aloud the words............the words of Jesus:
Psalm 90:14;
 Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Psalm 51:8;
 Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice
Psalm 51:12;
 Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Psalm 90:15;
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Psalm 85:6;
Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?

I stand there in awe; we cannot miss this........God knows that we cannot make ourselves satisfied in God......Only God can!
The scripture is speaking......... we are UNABLE.........but God is ABLE.......
God has the right to do it and God is ABLE to do it, and does do it through prayer....

What are we praying for?

And when the author "John Piper," says:  Now there is only one hope, the sovereign grace of God...........God will have to transform our hearts..................to do what a heart cannot make itself do, namely want......, what it ought to want!!!
     Only God can make the depraved heart desire God.

We can pray for the desires of our hearts....we can lay across the floor weeping wanting what we want....but God is looking..........to and fro for a different spirit! 
"You ask and do not receive," James said, "because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." (Jas. 4:3) 
Anything that we desire should ultimately bring us closer to Him.....Christ is exalted when He is desired above all gifts!
Daniel was able to resolve (living in Babylon) ONLY because he was disciplined in his prayer life! Even when the King issued the decree that no one could pray to any other god but to the king himself or else "death." What did Daniel do?
His disciplined power continued to flow. Even after the decree was signed and in place Daniel went home and got on his knees and gave thanks before the Lord, just as he had before. He didn't pray for things for himself, he gave thanks! He had a different spirit! I want that spirit! Don't you?

Mark 10:27;
 Jesus looked at them and said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God."

all of grace,
Robbie

It's all about the praise.................

Enter his gates with thanksgiving,

and his courts with praise!
Give thanks to him; bless his name!
—Psalm 100:4

Every moment is an opportunity to praise Him......

I yearn for the coming of undone...........undone for Christ!
Holy ground is the everywhere......am I seeing? Seeing the ever-present God everywhere?
Every moment is a gift from God...So why then is it that I am not praising Him?

I walk in to work fast and hard..........trying to get there before I am late....I gently slide in my seat to listen to report from another nurse who is living the tired..........I look at her and smile and humbly speak....Is this an OK assignment? Knowing that I prayed the hard on my way in..........me the one who craves the easy..
After all I am feeling the boldness......I prayed............

How easily we are ensnared by Satan's lies..............the nurse smiled the faint kind of smile and says the words that I dread to hear........."It's not the good!!! It's the sad!"
As she proceeds to tell me one patient is the middle aged kind and has something growing in her lungs the unknown kind........ the sentence has been handed down.........two weeks..........
The color quickly drains out of my face as I go from the bold prayer warrior to the fearful me-ism....."what about me God?" Didn't I pray right? Didn't I pray hard enough? Why would you put me in this danger? I have a family!!!
The nurse tells the faith of the other patient whom is a 21 year old that is the sick of the sicks with unknown reasoning.....it could be a fatal disease as well...of unknown region......
My tongue starts the twitching of fire.........I am becoming overwhelmed......I ask with my head held low, are we treating this as contact precautions just in case?
She shakes her head the no........not the sure of what's taking them over and shutting down the organs but we are exposed...........
FEAR........my fair weathered friend..............welcome back I say....it's a never ending cycle...
Is God trying to kill me?
Exasperated over the report I slide down low in my chair wanting so badly to just disappear...
 It feels like a roller coaster ride..........one minute bold, the next minute fear.........I want off this ride!
     This is what God has assigned me.....after all I prayed!
This world is hard..........and then there is the death.......the dying kind..........must keep remembering.........there is life after death............this world is not the end!
Jesus is the gate.................cheering us on............looking to see a little faith!
God saw a different spirit in Caleb..................that is why he got to enter into the promise land........there was the something different with him........what spirit does God see in the me?
     Caleb knew this was not the end..........that this world was not the end.........that there is the life that still to come......the forever life.....his life was mirroring the eternity! What does my life mirror? You will become the things you love.

Out of our fears the healing comes..........
Out of what seems to turn us back to Egypt is the very thing that builds our trust....
The very thing that tears us down is the beginning of our very own resurrection....

     I stand in the noise of it all and I feel like a stranger to myself........the beeps, the sounds of all the monitors going crazy and I realize TRUST HIM................. even if we are placed in Babylon we must resolve....
 renounce is the only way to grace....... and remembering the one who has placed me here is the God who loves me all the more for the not sparing me..
all of grace,
Robbie

thankful today;
for kids who keep me up way too late
for all my teenagers friends who are always at my house
high-school girls getting ready for prom at my house
the flip-flops on the front porch
the face prints on the shower door
the heart that was drawn on the back of my SUV with dirt
the husband who takes a walk with me
the dog who follows me from room to room
the dog bowls that never have water
clean clothes
a new vacuum
clean sheets
new grace and mercy
a chance to start over

the unanswered questions are the ones we don't always answered

Lately, I have been faced with many different situations at work that make me question...how? why? what were they thinking?  what was going on? what do I say?
I could think of a thousand things that rush through my mind as a nurse sometimes when I am faced with the craziness around me.  I don't always have the right answers or right words to say and I long for them sometimes.
As I cared for a sick woman, struggling with lung cancer, I realized...I can do nothing for her at this point except pray...but the difference in our religion stood between me wanting to reach out.  I don't know why we think that just because someone doesn't believe exactly as we do that we can't reach out.  I did today.  I thought how badly I wanted to share my God's love with her, but wasn't sure how it would be received, if it would be received at all. 
But, as I held her hand I knew in an instant that I have a gift that was worth sharing, no matter how well it was received from the other party. 
I am very respectful of others and their beliefs.  I am not pushy, and in fact, I am sometimes the total opposite.  I hold onto that gift sometimes...maybe so that I have it all for myself?  I don't know.
But, today, I wanted to share.  So, as I held her hand, I asked, "can I pray with you?" and just as I have experienced many times before, she said, "yes". 
So, we prayed for God to come, heal, deliver peace, calm the anxiety that was overtaking her thoughts, and to just be Him. 
You see, God is more than we can imagine.  Just Him being who He is...is more than enough to want to share what it is He is.
God loves the ones that are different.  He sees the future of those that do not call Him Savior yet.  He knows the path that they will take, and He hurts for those who hurt.
Thinking back on all of the reasons that I went into nursing I am reminded over and over that "I am right where God wants me at for this moment".
There was a call the other night of a young man who had been found "down" from a suicidal attempt.  The age of this child overwhelmed me to the point of tears.  These are the situations that I cannot comprehend in my tiny little brain, and I want to run so far from nursing so that I don't have to know the details of what happened.  So many times we hear almost "too much" about circumstances and we build walls to protect the hurt that otherwise would flood in.  But, that night the walls crumbled down and all I could think was that this was someones child, and as a mother, my heart broke.
I don't understand everything that we do sometimes and what it is that keeps us doing it.  The pain that surrounds our job can be overwhelming and hard to swallow.  The questions that we want answered so many times seem to not get answered more than they do get answered. 
But, I cannot worry with the unanswered questions...because frankly, I am not sure if I would want to know all of the answers.
I just have to remind myself that "I am here for a reason".  God made us to bring light into a dark world and we have that opportunity almost everyday that we walk into our workplace.  Robbie, Amy, and myself have been blessed over the years to share in other's pain, hurt, loss, and joy...and we know that it is times like these mentioned that keeps us where we are at.

I pray for God's hand of mercy and love for all of the families and patients that we are able to serve everyday.  Sometimes hurt is not seen from the outward appearance and it takes God's discernment to recognize it.  I pray for God to use us in the situations that are most challenging and that our eyes are open to the surroundings so that we can bring that Light. Lord, thank you for feelings, for the ability to touch and hold a hurting hand, for a future that holds far more than what I can physically see on this earth, for patients that need and for providing me with the ability to give. 

Not all questions are answered, but I am not so sure I need to know all of the answers...I just need to trust that you have them.


Jennifer