Love Does...

Love washes the dishes,

many times over,

assuming responsibility

for the hearth and home

God gave her.

Love goes the second mile

in making sure needs are met

when Mama is tired,

or because older sister has

Lyme disease and

cannot fill her role

like she once did,

or would if she could.

Love sweeps off screens 

(without a grumble)

after she had helped to
wash them a few hours
earlier, leaving them
drying in the sun,
only to find them
 sprinkled with

 hay dust

(from her Farmer daddy's

love gift to her mama last week),

that is also wafting thru the air

(all our joy is touched with pain!)

;-)

Love notices the floors that

need to be swept,

and takes it upon herself to do it

quietly without being told.

Love notices the stack of

dresses that need mended,

collected over the years

of sewing mistakes, or

outgrown clothes that never made it to the top of the pile

(CAM could use those, she said).

Love rips apart a white dress that has lain for years,

waiting to be resewn because the pattern wasn't right.

(I'll do that for you, Mama, she said. 

And I'll even sew it for you, too.)

Love makes pancakes 

on a rainy evening,

when it seems all the 

women of the household

are craving them.

(the guys are equally

grateful, too).

Love cleans up the dishes

made from said

cooking endeavors.

Love holds babies at church,

and talks to the little children.

Love kindly reaches out
to those in her life
that treat her less than kindly
and gently smooths the
relationship ripples
that Satan brings her way.

Love cares about knowing God

and making Him known

to those He brings her way.

Love willingly peels peaches

when she would rather 

have been doing other things.

And love deep cleans,

because her Mama asked her to

even tho it looks much more

glamorous to be baking.

And about baking...

love bakes because she

loves her family

(and sugar, too! :/)

and stops baking so much 

when her mama says, 

"Slow down please.
Our bodies are important, too,

and we should ration out those
lovely foods you bake!"

Love goes on a Pinterest fast

because she wants to bless her Mama

by not baking so much,

so why not remove 'temptation'

for a while til we adjust?!

Yes, I'm talking about my youngest daughter.

Love does...

and she reflects that love from

Jesus to us very well.
And though she is still growing to maturity
(aren't we all?!),
I am so blessed by the love she has
let Jesus supernatually flow out of
her heart to others.

Love DOES...
And when love does,
there is joy.

When love does,
there is harmony,
and there is rest.

Go love your people today!

"My little children,
let us not love in word,
neither in tongue,
but in deed and in truth."
1 John 3:18

In Quietness and Confidence...

My heart echoes these words loudly!

I have made this the goal of my life

for many years, through thick and thin,

over hill and dale,

through stormy weather and calm.

As a homemaker, 

I am also a keeper of the home.

It is my duty to keep my heart

with all diligence,

because out of it flow the issues of life.

If I do not appreciate my calling,

and pine for another calling

outside my home,

it shows.

If I do not daily lay aside the petty cares,

the selfish wishes,

the fleshly 'lusts that war against the soul',

including the 'lust' to have others

love me as I wish to be loved,

it stacks up and I do not become

the woman of God that He has called me to be.

Home.

Would it not be so wonderful

if that word would invoke

warm thoughts and a longing to be there

in the hearts of all those who should

hear it from our households,

no matter their age,

no matter where they are?

I surely hope that it does so to my family.

To keep the home peaceful

I have found that as the keeper of my home,

I need to be prayed up,

and continually moving forward with the Lord,

as He sanctifies me in my words and in my thoughts.

To hold onto selfishness

only results in discord and unrest 

in my home.

After a bike ride recently...

Let us choose to let Him write His thoughts upon our hearts,

and walk by faith in the places He calls us to.

He is faithful.

And will do exceeding abundantly

above ALL that we could ask or think.

If we honor Him,

He honors us in ways beyond

understanding and comprehension 

sometimes!

"In quietness and confidence

shall be your strength."

Wonderful Words of Life...

On Being a Missionary...part 1

Steve Saint posted this recently on Facebook, bringing my thoughts on this to a blog post:

I sometimes cringe when I hear us saying,

"She/he is leaving for THE mission field,"

or when we ask youth what their aspirations are,

they sometimes tell us that they want to 

be a missionary in some foreign country.

Now, please don't misunderstand me.

I think it's wonderful that I have

brothers and sisters in Christ

serving the Lord in China,

and in Haiti, 

and in in Guatemala,

and in Thailand,

and I am so very blessed to know

that they carry the love of Jesus

with them in those places of the earth.

But what about those of us who live 

in America?

What about us?

Do we not know that wherever we are

is THE mission field?

Do we not know that even now

on American soil

there are sinners dying without knowing

Jesus Christ?!

 Do we not know that we have been

created to know Him personally

and making Him known to others,

and that this happens wherever He has us?

Why is it that we seem to think that

America is less in need than other

countries?

Or that if you don't go to another country,

then somehow you missed your calling in life?

Jesus said that that fields are white unto harvest,

but the laborers are few.

Let me tell you, friends, that as a discipler of

converts in America, I KNOW this with a

deep sense of disappointment and my heart

breaks at all the masses to be reached who seem

to be passed by as the church sleeps.

Jesus also said,

"Pray to the Lord of the harvest,

that He will send forth reapers."

So...could it be that we do not pray this because

we have no vision for 'mission' 

(making Him known),

or that we are afraid He will send us?

Whether you live in America or Haiti,

Ghana or Tanzania, 

please hear this:

If God calls you to Tanzania to cuddle little babies and to tend the broken bodies

while showing them Jesus who is the Answer to their heart's needs,

then GOD BLESS YOU! Do it with all of your heart.

If God calls you to China to tend the orphans and to teach in their schools,

then do that with your whole heart!

But if God has called you to America,

to preach the Gospel,

to birth and raise children for Him,

to disciple the converts,

to comfort the sick,

to visit the widows,

and the fatherless,

to adopt the orphan,

to help the homeless,

to send your youth to pick up

surplus apples and help

your fellow churches to

dry them for Haitian missions,

to help the elderly neighbor lady

clear her house roof of snow

when it worries her in winter,

to make meals for that busy mom 

in your church,
to care for the elderly,

to have your church families

over to your house for encouraging them

(and in turn yourself!),

to raise extra rows of veggies in your garden

to donate to the food pantries,

to show younger siblings what it looks like

to have Jesus govern your heart,

to help your parents (after they have spent

years raising you and you are now a youth)

to minister in your community in the

part/work of the Vineyard where God
has called your family...

then please know that this is just as important

as being in a country other than America,
and jump in there and do it with
ALL your heart.

There are great needs here.

There are great needs everywhere.

May the Lord depend on you?

Care.

Love.

Pray.

Do.

Be.

Jesus came to preach good tidings.

The good news?

You don't have to live in your

crummy, sinful, selfishness

a day longer than today.

He died to set you free

and He rose to cancel the power

of satan's hold on us on earth.

Do we KNOW this in our own lives?

If we do truly know

my guess is that we already are

making Him known.

Stay tuned for part 2 of

"on being a missionary..."

Love Does...

I recently was listening to Joey and Rory, a couple from TN whose music is maybe not to everyone's taste, but I heard this song awhile ago, and have been kind of following their story ever since.

That's Important to Me

Joey and Rory

They introduced me to this book:

Love Does

by Bob Goff

It's been a great read so far.

We often talk about love.

But how much do we really love?

How many of those walls that hold us back 

do we let down and let people really see

the love that Jesus gives?

I want to do a series of posts

titled 

"Love Does".

Mostly I will share pictures to show you

what love does...

Love takes the time

in the busyness

of farming,

to grind mulch hay

and spread it

over the garden

for the wife.

Yes.

Love does.

Sometimes it means

inconvenience.

Well, often it means that.

Because we all 

have our ideas of how

we will spend our days.

But love "does".

It begins in a heart

that has accepted the

love of Jesus

that is freely given.

It grows in the heart

that has purposed to

do life God's way.

I can't think of a better

person to write about

as I begin this

series.

My Farmer is

truly an unselfish, loyal

and kind man.

He takes the time out of his busy days

to answer a call from me when I

am feeling overwhelmed with schooling

'the boy', 

or when I need a lightbulb changed 

or salt added to the water softener,

and when I cried a few weeks ago 

(literally)

 that we miss him so much

since the busy farming season has kept him 

busy from morning til night,

he cleared his schedule and 

went on a few outings with us.

Love does.

And I am blessed to receive that love,

purposing also to give that love

as freely as I have received it.

"This is my commandment,

that you love one another,

as I have loved you."

~Jesus

(John 15:12)

Surrendering My "If Only's"...

My heart has been pondering this phrase ever since I found it a few weeks ago.

I echo an amen, after years of walking through surrendering many "if onlys".

I do not pine.

I choose acceptance of what God surely has 

allowed in my life.

Many of my 'if onlys' are God-designed...

things He has planned for His people,

but because of the choices of others,

they have not been fulfilled in my life.

I have had choices to make over this...

I can become a stubborn, bitter old woman

insisting that I get what I 'need' to be happy.

OR

I can choose isolation, retreating from the world,

and like Heidi's grandfather on the Alps,

spend my days simply enjoying beauty for myself

and holding people at arm's length so that I

don't have to be hurt or wronged again.

When I look at those choices, I firmly say NO.

I cannot imagine what my heart would feel like

if I would choose those ways. I believe it

would be crusted over with years of poisoned thoughts.

Instead, I surrender those 'if onlys',

and I make JESUS my everything.

He is the Answer to it all...

He is the answer when I am grieving

over the brokenness of familial relationships.

He comforts the broken in heart and binds up their wounds.

He is the restorer of my soul, and the lifter of my head.

When churches disappointed, one after the other 

and I would have fainted at the loss,

He has sustained me and showed me His way

to pray, love, and BE His

in spite of broken dreams and crushed hopes.

He is the Shepherd in whose pastures I feed,

and along whose sparkling streams I slack my thirst.

I am never in want. Ever.

And when three friends husband's chose to be 

unfaithful to them in one year's time,

leaving me staggering and hurting for them,

He has given me peace and wisdom, 

compassion and love in reaching out to

bless and support them in their hurt and need.

When forces that seemed out of my control

were influencing my son contrary to what

I spent years pouring into his life,

God gave me what I needed to 

calmly face the situations,

love my enemies, and do what was

needed to protect the innocent.

In the short 40 years I've lived life,

I have had many 'if onlys'.

And you know what?

God has never let me down.

He has taught me to praise in the midst 

of the brokenness...

to love in the midst of strife...

to do His bidding even though others

feel I should do others bidding,

and to keep my faith in Him

even though reason would say

'what's the use?!'

My experience has been

that if you keep calm 

and follow Jesus,

then things unfold for you

at just the right time.

And usually they are better,

but very different from what

I would have expected.

Go ahead. Surrender the 'if onlys'. *

The marriage that didn't work out how you thought it would.

The marriage that has not come at the age you thought it should.

The ministry you are called to do that you feel incapable of.

The ministry you wanted to do that has been given to another.

The location you wanted to live in but God called you elsewhere.

The family business you wanted your family involved in but

He has your husband busy elsewhere.

The family relationships that you wish to have but

walls you didn't make keep separation very real.

The children you hoped God would give you but He hasn't.

The friendships you dreamed of having but God has you

in a lonely place working in a briar-covered vineyard.

Whatever it is, surrender it to God.

He has a way of making beauty to come from ashes.

He knows how to perfect us,

and will use whatever means He must

in order to accomplish His plan.

Love Him and love others.

He takes care of the rest

far better than any of us can!

*The troubles mentioned in this article

are not necessarily all personal to me,

but some of them are. I have been privy

to alot of women's heartaches over the

years and generalized some of them here.

Wonderful Words of Life...