Category Archives: All Good Gifts

All Good Gifts, Faithfulness, God, Inspired, Neighbors, Seasons, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness

Finally, Spring

March 13, 2015 admindeb Leave a comment

“So let us know, let us press on to know the LORD. His going forth is as certain as the dawn; And He will come to us like the rain, like the spring rain watering the earth.” – Hosea 6:3

Our first March in this house, and we are surrounded by the gray, brown, and dark green of winter. After the cold dreariness of winter, you wonder if Spring will ever come. Then, the miracle of life unseen, nurtured somehow under the topsoil, unfolds itself pushing through to the sun. With the melting of our last winter snow, came the first flowers…as if by magic.

This time of year is such a mystery and a marvel to me. For months, the ground is gray-brown, seemingly barren. Dead. Dormant. Then the first signs of life, and each day more pop up, heralding another Spring. A picture in nature of the faithfulness of God – “as certain as the dawn”.Most of the green shoots appearing right now we didn’t plant. The last homeowner left us a beautiful garden that we now tend and make our own. Dave, the resident gardener who is my husband, has an idea of what all these plants are. For me, it’s enough that they are growing, inches a day, with the promise of flowers soon. It’s part of the wonder of Spring: what all must happen underground to yield all the green we see now, and the amazing colors we will soon see.

Dave did plant irises for us last June – they were a gift from our neighbor, Liz, who has a yard full of purple-blue, bearded irises. These remind me of my mom’s yard. She loved irises and I love them because of her. These iris shoots are coming up, and whether they bloom this year or not…just seeing them has given me that springtime hopefulness.

When we lived all those years in Morocco, Spring came early. By March, the temperate winter weather and soaking rains had already produced fields of flowers. We had pots of flowers on our apartment balcony all year round. I miss Morocco…and the glory of those early Springs.

Here, we plant in our gray-brown garden beds in March, trusting that just like with crocuses, daffodils, irises, and daisies of Springs before, we will watch seeds and bulbs do what they are created to do…grow and grow and grow.

We moved into this house the end of May last year. After living for decades in city apartments and rented houses, this was our first summer to enjoy a yard of our own. It was so beautiful, and we look forward to the return of all those flowers from last year. We will not wish one day away from Spring, though. Finally, it has arrived.

All Good Gifts, Faithfulness, Family, Give, God, Grace, Heaven, Inspired, Jesus, Lives Full of God, Monday Morning Moment, Pray

Today is What We Have – Fight for a Soft Heart Today – Praying for Kara

March 9, 2015 admindeb 1 Comment

No posts from Kara & Company over the weekend, and I was holding my breath. Kara Tippetts is one of the loveliest women I’ve never met. She is a Christ-follower, pastor’s wife, mom of 4, writer, and amazing sister and friend. How I know her is through the cancer she battles, through her faith, and through her writing…this is how I know her and how I love her.

Today, exhaling, a post came up on her Facebook page. She was writing about a friend, Jay Lyons, who was producing a documentary about her journey through cancer. She linked to the documentary as will I.

In the documentary, she talks about having to leave the party early.

[Sidebar: I write about sad things sometimes. Don’t leave the party early yourselves, dear readers. Her life is so rich, so real; I want you to know Kara. So hang in there with me. Her journey right now is so much more than sad; she has so much to teach us about life…don’t miss it.]

Kara says, “I know I’ve got cancer. I know I’m going to die of it, but I also know I have today, and so in this today, I get to live well.”

She talks about her husband, Jason. “Jason shows me the best of what life has to offer mostly in encouraging me to fight for a soft heart.”

Finally, she talks about the cancer and her Father, God: “I want to be able to share this story, that suffering isn’t a mistake and isn’t the absence of God’s goodness, because He’s present in pain.”

When Kara talks, those who doubt the goodness of God have no place to speak into her experience. She trusts God for today.

Pray for Kara and Jason today. Pray for a soft heart…for her, for them…for all of us.

Kara Tippetts – Facebook page

Kara Tippetts Blog – Mundane Faithfulness

Dying with Grace – By Faith Magazine Interview with Kara

Kara Tippetts Documentary Trailer

Kara’s book The Hardest Peace

Documentary Indiegogo Project Funding

Photo Credits – Kara & Jason Before Chemo and Kara & Jason After

All Good Gifts, Attending or Focus, Faithfulness, Give, Inspired, Lessons Learned, Life Skills, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness, Wednesday Worship, Worship

Worship Wednesday – Greed, Gratefulness, & the Generosity of God

March 8, 2015 admindeb Leave a comment

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. And he said, “Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.” – Luke 21:1-4

Years ago, an opportunity was afforded to me to teach at a very prestigious university. It would mean relocating to a new city, leaving family and friends, and taking a cut in pay. My current job had allowed me to live very well as a single woman, but I didn’t think a drop in salary would be that much of an adjustment. Unknown to me then was how much higher the cost of living was in the city where I moved. It wasn’t long after beginning life there that my finances were a mess. Running out of money well before the end of the month, I changed as much as I could to pull out of this situation. Eating oatmeal for dinner was one of my get-to-the-end-of-the-month strategies, and stopping giving money through the church was another. For the first time in my adult life, I didn’t tithe. It did not improve my situation.

During this time, there was this young graduate student I noticed at church who seemed to eat a lot of peanut butter sandwiches. As we became friends, he told me that he, too, was challenged financially, living off of a graduate school stipend. However, there was a big difference. When he received his check each month, the first thing he did was write another check…his tithe to the church. Then he lived on the rest, frugally, until the next check came. If I hadn’t noticed his simple meals, which brought us into conversation about finances, he would never have commented on his own situation. It was what it was, and he was grateful.

I would one day marry this young man.

This story was not to put him on any sort of pedestal but to consider three spiritual principles at play here.

1) Greed – Growing up, we probably all heard our parents say, “There is a big difference between want and need.” Along with that, need can turn into greed, if we are not careful in managing our heart’s desires. Through that financial downturn, I experienced great clarity. It was a scramble, but I finally got past that season of debt, bounced checks, and not tithing. Tithing is returning back a portion of our income (10% or more) to the Lord, in obedience to Him, for the sake of others in need. God doesn’t need our tithe. I need the tithe. It is a stewardship of what God has given me – obeying Him in tithing, then obeying Him with the rest of my resources follows.

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. – Matthew 6:19-21

Where your treasure is measures where you heart is. Not only that, my husband will say, but you can use your treasure to lead your heart. When you invest your treasure (whether it’s the stock market or to BGR, for example), you are going to pay attention to what’s going on with it. Where we put our treasure is where we tune our hearts. As we remember the heart of God toward those who need Him and toward those with other great needs, the resources He gives us become an extension of His hand of love…as we release them. Somehow, in our obedience (even when our heart is not fully in it), God will change our hearts. Hallelujah!

2) Gratefulness – Our children grew up with VeggieTales. The Madame Blueberry video about thankfulness was one of our favorites. The moral of this cute story was that being greedy can make you grumpy (adult talk: never satisfied). Also, the song goes with the story that “a grateful heart is a happy heart”. There is so much more to life than “the stuff”. Being grateful is a condition of the heart that can be cultivated. There is, after all, so much for which we can be grateful.

3) Generosity of God – God is wholly and perfectly generous toward us. He even challenges us to test His generosity (Malachi 3:10). We have sure found Him faithful. There may be long and difficult times of financial leanness in life. However, as we let go of a tight-fisted control of our money and what we want to do with it, God moves. Not always in ways we may “want” (again, it’s a letting go of control), but in ways that will truly satisfy, changing our hearts to be more like that of Jesus’ heart.

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord, as His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue. – 2 Peter 1:2-3

Share Your Story: Tithing – The High Calling

The Open Hands of the Gospel

Generous Giving: Questions about Generosity

Gratefulness and Tithing – Unlocking the Floodgates of Heaven

Tithing – Gratitude or Greed?

Generosity vs. Greed

Tithing, Giving, and Generosity

Be Generous with Your Master’s Money

Generosity Begins at Home

All Good Gifts, Family, God, Grace, Heaven, Inspired, Lessons Learned, Lives Full of God, Memories, Mom and Dad, Monday Morning Moment, Redeeming & Restoring, Walk with God

Cancer, Hospice…and All Those Beautiful Moments

March 2, 2015 admindeb 3 Comments

A good writer does more than draw you into her story. A good writer can illuminate parts of your own story, as you resonate with hers. Kara Tippetts is a young woman I only know through her writing, but, because of her writing, my understanding of God and life and love has become even richer. It’s improbable that we will meet this side of Heaven, but I know her as if she were a good neighbor…or even a close friend. She is that transparent…and more. Kara is luminous; she is full of light and shines that light into a dark place.

For you see, Kara has a breast cancer that will not let go of her. Still she will also not let go of God. She was diagnosed not long ago, just in 2012, but not two years later, and all the treatments have been exhausted. Barring a miraculous touch from God, she will die of this disease. Yet, Kara is one of the most alive women I have ever encountered. Read more of her story for yourself.

Where I resonate with her story, at this moment of my life, relates to her experience with hospice. When you think of someone needing hospice, you might not think of a young mom, deeply in love with her husband and four children who is still writing and squeezing every bit of good out of life. However, this is where Kara is…needing hospice.

My mom, only in the last 3 days of her life, had hospice support at home, and we were so thankful. Even after many years as a cancer nurse, it meant everything having those good and kind people around us. We leaned on them, especially I leaned on them. No matter what competency I had in care-giving…it was my mama this time, and my mind was numb. Now, years later, my dad has his turn with hospice. His cancer, diagnosed 10 years ago, has returned, and no more tests or treatments are planned for our dear 92 years young dad. Hospice is again our (and his) strong support.

Back to Kara, I want to leave you with her beautiful insight about having no more treatment options and fully supported by hospice:

It felt like a huge blow when my oncologist said it was time for me to enter hospice care. It felt like quitting. I felt like my body had failed and I was being pulled from the team and being benched. Benched in an awful permanent way…I was wrong. Hospice care has been truly amazing…It’s just an adjustment. A hard adjustment to go from treatment, tests, and fighting to not knowing and comfort…Now my fight is a passive one, now I’m fighting for good moments. My fight is for time and tenderness with my loves. My fight is to embrace the good moments hospice is giving me and loving my people well. It’s important – these moments.

Pray with us all for Kara and her family. She even signed a contract recently to write another book (or two). I so want to read that book. Also I want to express gratitude for all you who care for patients and families “in the midst of life’s hard“*. For many years, it was my joy to work alongside you. You extend the hands of God to those who need His loving touch.

Photo Credits – Kara Tippetts’ Blog & Survive and Thrive Cancer Support Groups Facebook page

Kara’s Breast Cancer Story

*Kara Tippetts’ Book The Hardest Peace – Expecting Grace in the Midst of Life’s Hard

Survive and Thrive Cancer Support Groups – a life-affirming cancer support system in Kingsport, Tn. Many, many years ago, I helped lead a support group called Take Time…to Help, to Heal. Really, those patients, families, nurses, and friends taught me so much more than I did them. The Survive and Thrive groups came out of that earlier group, under the continuing leadership of Kathryn Whitt Visneski.

All Good Gifts, Faithfulness, God, Gospel, Inspired, Jesus, Lessons Learned, Love, Reconciliation/Forgiveness, Redeeming & Restoring, Thanksgiving or Gratefulness, Transitions, Wednesday Worship, Worship

Worship Wednesday – You Love Me Anyway – with Sidewalk Prophets

February 25, 2015 admindeb Leave a comment

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. – Romans 5:8

“…and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” – John 8:32

Not knowing what is ahead can be a very uncomfortable place to be. Sometimes, it could be better than knowing, but the uncertainty of not knowing sits like a rock in the pit of our stomachs. Will I have a job after this company reorganization? Will I pass this exam? Will our church survive this downturn? Will my struggling friend find her hope again? Will we ever know that we did enough…that we were truly faithful in loving God and our neighbor?

What a morning! As I was wrestling with God through these actual right now situations, and looking up the song I had planned to use for today’s Worship Wednesday…You Love Me Anyway came up in the search list.

“You love me anyway.”

David Frey and Ben McDonald of the Christian band Sidewalk Prophets wrote this song about how our sin, that of every single one of us, was borne by Jesus on the cross. Such love! He loved us knowing us completely – every impure thought; every selfish act. He loves us anyway.

As I listened to that song, it wasn’t condemnation that brought tears to my eyes; it was the amazing truth of His love…a love that sets us free…in Him. Though we struggle with situations facing us that seem more than we can bear, what He bore for us should give us enormous confidence…and peace.

The not-knowing about jobs, exams, church, relationships is still in front of us, but peace has returned to my heart right now. The puzzle of have I done enough or will I do enough isn’t meant for me to solve. The answer to the question I didn’t ask is that “He’s done enough.” He loved us always and He loves us still…no matter what. It is the love of God through Christ that lifts our heads (Psalm 3:3).

Now…in this moment, with perspective restored, “I count it all joy” (James 1:2), and “we do not lose heart” (2 Corinthians 4:16) Beyond the cloud of these days of uncertainty shines an every-present Light – the glorious Person of God who speaks the truth of His love into every dark place of our lives. Hallelujah!

Worship with me:

You Love Me Anyway*

The question was raised
As my conscience fell
A silly, little lie
It didn’t mean much
But it lingers still
In the corners of my mind

Still you call me to walk
On the edge of this world
To spread my dreams and fly
But the future’s so far
My heart is so frail
I think I’d rather stay inside

(Chorus)
But You love me anyway
It’s like nothing in life that I’ve ever known
You love me anyway
Oh Lord, how You love me
How You love me

It took more than my strength
To simply be still
To seek but never find
All the reasons we change
The reasons I doubt
And why do loved ones have to die?

Chorus

I am the thorn in Your crown
But You love me anyway
I am the sweat from Your brow
But You love me anyway
I am the nail in Your wrist
But You love me anyway
I am Judas’ kiss
But You love me anyway

See now, I am the man that called out from the crowd
For Your blood to be spilled on this earth shaking ground
Yes then, I turned away with this smile on my face
With this sin in my heart tried to bury Your grace
And then alone in the night, I still called out for You
So ashamed of my life, my life, my life

Chorus

You love me, You love me
You love me, You love me
How You love me
How You love me
How You love me

YouTube Lyric Video – You Love Me Anyway

YouTube Video – You Love Me Anyway – Sidewalk Prophets

*Lyrics to You Love Me Anyway – Writers: David Frey & Ben McDonald

Story Behind the Song – You Love Me Anyway

Sidewalk Prophets Website

YouTube Video – Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir – Thou, O Lord

Photo Credit: maxresdefault.jpg for YouTube Lyric Video

All Good Gifts, Attending or Focus, Books, Faithfulness, God, Grace, Home, Inspired, Jesus, Lessons Learned, Lives Full of God, Marriage, Monday Morning Moment, Parenting, Walk with God, Word of God

Satisfaction & Contentment – a Journey and a Destination

February 23, 2015 admindeb 5 Comments

You open your hand; You satisfy the desire of every living thing.
The Lord is near to all who call on Him, to all who call on him in truth.
He fulfills the desire of those who fear Him; He also hears their cry and saves them. – Psalm 145:16, 18-19

Godliness with Contentment Is Great Gain – 1 Timothy 6:6

A summer day in a good book can change the course of your life…at least, your mind’s course in life. That morning, I was sleeping in a bit while our two-year-old slept on in her bed upstairs. Mine was a fitful sleep sorting through the conversation Dave and I had had the night before. Weeks away from having our second child, the CEO of our medical center had given me the opportunity of a lifetime. He offered me the directorship of the cancer center of our hospital. My husband and I had already made the decision together months before that I would stay home with our children. Having continued to work for the first two years of my daughter’s life, I was excited to dig into this new season of life. Then…the offer of an altogether different job…

Our conversation that night didn’t go well. How could I argue for a job that would take me away from our children not just during the day but into the night with other responsibilities pulling at my attention? The children are grown now, and I was with them growing up, but in those days, cancer nursing was my professional world with all that went with that. Purpose, capability, accomplishment…it was deeply rewarding and gratifying work. Mothering was still so foreign to me. Being a stay-at-home mom was a whole other life and I was afraid of it, really.

That morning, I came wide-awake, when Dave touched my arm. He was dressed and ready to leave, but he had a book in his hand. He asked me to read the chapter he marked in it, then he kissed me bye for the day, and was out the door.

It was Jerry Bridges’ book The Practice of Godliness. The place marked was a chapter on contentment. Bulls-eye! Right on the strained condition of my heart. On that sunny summer day, reading that chapter, the Lord helped me wrestle through the struggle of discontent and the idols that separated me from peace with God.

[Sidebar: This has nothing to do with whether a woman should work or stay-at-home with children. My circumstances allowed me a choice in that. We as a couple, he and I together, decided that this is what we wanted and could make happen for our family. It is possible I could have become the director, hired a nanny and a good administrative assistant, and still be on a Godly course in life…but I knew deep down that the struggle was a heart issue and a faith issue.]

Discontent was my problem and it would become my family’s, if I didn’t deal with it. Jerry Bridges wrote, “In all of the areas in which we are called upon to be content – whether possession, position, or the providence of God – the grace of God is the ultimate solution for our discontent.”

I didn’t take that position, but stayed with the job of stay-at-home Mom. It was one of the most challenging, glorious undertakings of my life. I am glad that Dave had the love and the courage to speak truth to me through that book that day. Cancer nursing is still a great love of mine, and my colleagues of those days are still heroes of mine. Still, having had these years with my children growing up, me with them, has been so much more valuable to me than the “what would have been.” I learned to be content in that and still have all kinds of impulses through life to remind me that content is where I want to stay.

Contentment is a destination. It applies to whatever situation we find ourselves. Satisfaction, as an experience somewhat different than contentment, is a journey. Beth Moore, in Living Free, talks about a soul hunger in all of us, created by God. She says, “The most obvious symptom of a soul in need of God’s satisfaction is a sense of inner emptiness. The awareness of a hollow place somewhere deep inside – the inability to be satisfied – ought to be a flashing caution light to every believer.”

We are meant to find our satisfaction not in possessions or position or even the providence of God*, but in God Himself. When we try to satisfy our longings in anything but Him, the emptiness continues to gnaw at us. The search for something, besides Him, to fill that void is never satisfied. A friend of mine shared with me just today how satisfaction is to contentment as joy is to happiness. It’s mining the deep riches of the Person of God. The more we know Him, the more we want to know Him. He fills us completely. He satisfies our souls. We don’t have to “chase after the wind” or try to “feed on ashes“. In times of spiritual hunger or thirst, it is God Himself who satisfies. Nothing else is ever enough.

Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. – Philippians 4:11-13

Living Free by Beth Moore

The Practice of Godliness: Godliness Has Value for All Things by Jerry Bridges

*Notes on Contentment from Jerry Bridges’ The Practice of Godliness

Satisfaction Versus Contentment from Watchman Nee’s book The Normal Christian Faith

Contentment Vs. Satisfaction from Seriously? No, SERIOUSLY blog by a young mom named Kas

All Good Gifts, Family, Inspired, Relationships, Seasons

Snow Days – Sledding & Snowcream & So Much More

February 21, 2015 admindeb Leave a comment

“Come now, and let us reason together,” Says the LORD, “Though your sins are as scarlet, They will be as white as snow; Though they are red like crimson, They will be like wool.” – Isaiah 1:18

“For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, And do not return there without watering the earth And making it bear and sprout, And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater; So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth; It will not return to Me empty, Without accomplishing what I desire, And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.” – Isaiah 55:10-11

The one great snow storm of 2015 in eastern Virginia has run its course. What a fine run it was, too. No school all week.

I love the snow…and the snow days it brings. Maybe if I endured it for months on end and had to slip and slide through it to work all winter, I wouldn’t love it. For all of us, though, there is something wondrous about fresh-fallen snow, sparkling in the morning sun, or brightening the colors of a gray winter world. Sledding and snow cream* were made for this kind of snow…new and unmarked.

My husband says shoveling snow is the adult version of playing in the snow.

I’m not sure our sons would agree.

Because of our Southern US family roots and our years living in Africa, we haven’t had many snow days. Once while we were back in the US with my husband doing graduate studies, we had a huge ice storm in North Carolina. Our youngest son had prayed for snow…and he got more than he prayed for.

Pine trees heavy with ice dropped limbs all over the yard. One actually pierced through our roof on its way down. We heard the hit and searched out the damage. Opening our daughter’s closet door, the branches from that limb whooshed out with that beautiful scent of pine and the wet cling of ice melting on the clothes. It was straight out of C. S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.

One winter just a few years ago, we knew the snow was coming, and we preemptively gathered our young adult children into one place for a few days. It is a sweet, sweet memory for me. Those days of “together under one roof” are rare and special, and snow days made it possible. They played and laughed together, and we drank hot chocolate and told stories in front of the fireplace.

That year a beautiful young friend joined us to make snow angels and would later become part of the family.

Another thing I love about snow is its whiteness. Even the Bible talks about how God makes the dreadful darkness of our sin white as snow. The white of the snow reminds me of those verses and God’s promises in those verses, fulfilled through Jesus. The sunlight glitters like diamonds on the snow in the early morning. That snow whiteness seems to highlight and sharpen all the other colors around it.

Then there is the quiet of snow. Only the crunch underfoot disturbs the silence of a world stopped by the soft white lightness of snow. The shovels will come out, by necessity, and the plows will scrape and clear. The families of little ones will make all kinds of happy noise outside . All those are welcome sounds, but there is something altogether other-worldly in the sunrise-quiet of a snowy morning.

Lastly, the birds in snow are such a mystery to me. How they fluff up their feathers to stay warm, how they forage for food in such a seemingly hostile environment. It seems a small kindness to feed the birds but in that I am reminded of how the Lord Himself cares for them (Matthew 6:26).

Tomorrow, the highs will soar to the 50s, and rain is predicted. These snow days of 2015 will be finished. It was a great run. Now, Spring, come.

Snowcream Recipe

Six Best Bible Verses About Snow

Photo Credit for Lucy Entering Narnia from the Wardrobe

All Good Gifts, Food & Drink, Friendship, God, Holidays, Inspired, Love, Relationships, Words

Valentine’s Day-Owning It

February 13, 2015 admindeb 1 Comment

Valentine’s Day, as a holiday, is ripe with all sorts of possibilities…and potential frustrations. It’s a day that picks at our contentment and whispers in our ears, “is this enough? this love I have? these loves I have?” I say we take this holiday, turn it on its head, and totally own it.

What do you love about Valentine’s Day? Most probably, you are women reading this blog, because men seriously don’t want any more information on how to celebrate this day. We women have this totally lovely day thrust upon us once a year to do with it how we want. ..so let’s get after it.

Here’s what I love about this day:

1) I can be as effusive and gushy as I want on this one day of the year. It’s allowed…tolerated…appreciated even. Cards, phone calls, and social media shouting out to those we love…there’s a lot of relational muscle pumped on this day…wouldn’t hurt to keep this going through the rest of the year. Words. Are. Powerful.

2) It’s a golden opportunity to hang with our best buddies. Not just husbands or boyfriends, but moms, grandmoms, the widow neighbor down the street. Those glorious women in our lives… Valentine’s Day is a fine excuse to have lunch together, cake together, movie night together. Whatever. How thankful I am for the great women in my life…from lots of places in the world.

3) This day lends itself to a total indulgence (guilt deferred) of sugary delights. My favorites are Hershey’s kisses, strawberries dipped in chocolate, conversation hearts, and heart-shaped Peeps. I know, right? Valentine’s Day blesses all excesses. [This particular love has sort of flattened for me because I haven’t eaten chocolate in over a year…that’s another story.] Whether I eat those foil-wrapped happy little candies or not, they still generate lovely thoughts for me on this day.

4) I love how cheery people are toward each other related to Valentine’s Day (kind of back to the gushy/effusive side of this day). Whether it’s decorating a colleague’s cubicle wall or lavishing gifts on your child’s teacher…it can make for a sweet day. Whether there’s a dear man in our lives or not, we can use this day to bless others…just for the fun of it (for them AND for us).Photo Credit: Cublical Decorating – Heather Teater

5) Last thing I love about Valentine’s Day is its celebration of love itself. The history of Valentine’s Day is far from the romance and roses we expect today. Yet, if there is something worthy of setting aside a day, it is love – real, deep, sacrificial and satisfying love. Maybe it’s a stretch to consider that sort of love on a day that’s been riddled with commercialism, but that’s where I would like to end. Today, more than anything I celebrate the God of love who teaches us best how to love. First loving Him and then, because of Him, loving each other as we love ourselves.

Jesus said to him, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” – Matthew 22:37-39

Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.Love never fails. – 1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Happy Valentine’s Day, Friends.

All Good Gifts, Faithfulness, Grace, Heaven, Inspired, Lessons Learned, Lives Full of God, Monday Morning Moment, Pray, Remembering

Passionate Living & Glorious Passings – 3 Women Who Are Teaching Me About Living…and Dying

January 26, 2015 admindeb 1 Comment

“For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us…if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” – Romans 8:18, 25

For half my adult life, I was a cancer nurse. In those years, when the question came up, “So what do you do?”, my profession was sometimes a bit of a conversation-stopper. Talking about working with patients and families in such great crisis does not lend itself to casual conversation. As I write today, I hope you will lean in to what you might struggle with at first – the reality of beautiful young women dealing with cancer and dying. If you pause to hear a bit of their stories, you will not be the same after. It was that way for me.

I didn’t meet these women in a cancer center. They came to me via Facebook of all places. In fact, I never met them face-to-face. Yet, they are as real to me as sisters, or nieces. I will only introduce them to you. Read more of their stories as they tell them themselves. Two are already with the Lord. They lived passionate, faithful lives and gloriously passed into the presence of God. One is still living, though dying. I ask you to read and learn from her…and pray for her. All three you will love to know.

[You men, if you’re still reading, will also be glad to know them. Their husbands, fathers, friends, and brothers could use men of understanding in their lives. Let their journey with God and these precious women guide you how to be such men.]

Abby Smith – so much joy and love and faith in this one. She died in December, 2013, at 24 years of age. I thank GOD for her. Watch the two videos of her below. Stunning. Her love for Jesus and the joy she had in Him, even in suffering gives me so much hope.

Here is a bit of her testimony: “If I could go back and tell myself what the hardest struggle was, it wouldn’t be cancer. It would be myself because I almost made it out to be even worse than it was. I was constantly having to deal with feelings of anxiety, fear, and all these things. If I would have only taken it one day at a time, only one minute at a time, one hour and put my complete trust in Christ. That is what I have learned to do and am learning to do each day.

Sometimes deadlines are great reminders of how short our time here on earth is anyway. However, I firmly believe that God is all about postponing “deadlines” too! As long as He gives me breath, I want to be shining brightly for Him and helping those who are hurting to experience the love He has for them. Going through this has made me realize more about who I am. This is the one life I get to live. The only thing that matters more than anything else is how I live it to glorify my Creator, Savior and King, Jesus Christ.”

Kelsey Kennedy – such great faith and fight in this one. She taught me so much about keeping the door open for God to work His miracles. As He chose. When Kelsey got too sick to write, her husband Chris kept writing. So thankful to him for that. Kelsey is whole in Heaven now, but she still ministers to my heart and the many who knew and loved and prayed for her.

“I have said more than once along this journey there are times I haven’t “felt” the Lord’s presence. I know the passage in Hebrews 13:5-6 (and so many others) promises He is with us – always – but it sure doesn’t always feel like it.

And yet, it is often when I feel most alone, a dear friend (or quite honestly a person I don’t even know) will encourage me with a timely scripture, a hand-written note or a simple text letting me know I am not forgotten. It is then I realize Christ’s presence is often “felt” most strongly through His body of believers. It’s as if He’s whispering to me, “You see, daughter, I do love you. I know you don’t think so, but I’m pouring out my extravagant love on you through others. They know and I know what is going on. We ache with you. You are not alone.”

Although, I continually ask the Lord to remove this painful thorn from my life, I am grateful for the ways He manifests His presence to me (through you) in the midst of great darkness. I know I never would have experienced His presence in this way otherwise. Truly, truly – we are never alone.” Pray for Chris, and their little girl, in these days…God keep them near to Him.

Kara Tippetts – living for God, even with cancer, as hard as she can go. Kara is a young mom with a husband and 4 children in this life and battle with her. Along with a ton of friends and family. I just met her (through Facebook) a few days ago. So enthralled with how she lives with joy and perseverance and hope. She is not afraid to talk about dying, and yet she is living to the full every moment she is. Just wow!

No quotes from Kara here – go to her blog. Like her page on Facebook. Pray for her with every prompting from God. Every day is precious. Thank you, Kara, for living and loving and writing about it.

Thank you, Sisters. Thank GOD for you.

“And now, dear brothers and sisters, we want you to know what will happen to the believers who have died so you will not grieve like people who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and was raised to life again, we also believe that when Jesus returns, God will bring back with him the believers who have died. We tell you this directly from the Lord: We who are still living when the Lord returns will not meet him ahead of those who have died. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet call of God. First, the Christians who have died will rise from their graves. Then, together with them, we who are still alive and remain on the earth will be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. Then we will be with the Lord forever. So encourage each other with these words.” – 1 Thessalonians 4:13–5:11

There Will Be A Day by Jeremy Camp

Mundane Faithfulness – Kara Tippetts Facebook Page & Website

Amazing Abby – Abigail Smith – She Lived and She Loved

Vimeo Video of Abby’s Journey of Hope and Video Earlier in Her Journey with God Through Cancer

Praying for Kelsey Facebook Group Chris Kennedy (Kelsey’s husband) & Blog

YouTube Playlist of Encouraging Songs Vimeo – Shane & Shane “Though You Slay Me” (featuring John Piper)

All Good Gifts, Faithfulness, Family, Friendship, God, Holidays, Inspired, Lessons Learned, Lives Full of God, Monday Morning Moment, Seasons

A Young Friend of Mine Turned 40 Today – and Because She Asked: 5 Bits of Advice

January 19, 2015 admindeb Leave a comment

I have never seen anyone else take on the turn of a decade like my friend, Beth. Surrounded by friends and family, she danced and laughed and ate ice cream and danced some more. That was this weekend, then she jumped on a plane to spend her actual birthday, today, in New York City. Read more about that here.

About six months ago, I received a letter from her. She wrote 40 women, older than her, about her fortieth birthday coming up and asked their counsel on these middle years of life. I am sure she heard back from all of them (us) because that was a small thing to do for someone as lovely as Beth.

I thought for weeks and weeks about what to write…What did I learn after 40? What could I tell her that might make a difference in an already amazing life? What could I say that she didn’t already know. Well, I gave it a shot…and finally sent that letter to her just before her birthday weekend.

Following are ___ of the bits of advice I gave to beautiful Beth.

1) “Love the LORD with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength”. This is key to everything. It was essentially the message of Jesus to Martha (Luke 10:38-42) which seems harsh except that we recognize how much He loved Martha. In ministry, we default to “love your neighbor as yourself”. We serve and serve and serve (like Martha did). Then there comes a time, if we’re not careful that we serve on empty. We keep those commands in right order because that’s what He intended for our sakes, and His glory. My nature is to be Mary, but the needs all around drives me to be a Martha. Folks around us don’t need a Martha; they need GOD.

2) Be a woman of prayer. Prayer is not a project or part of a program. It is meant to be our covering for every moment and circumstance of life. “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” – 1 Thess. 5:16-18. Whatever our situation, we need prayer and perspective that comes with prayer. Brother Lawrence’s “Practicing the Presence of God” was a great help to me in those earlier years.

3) Don’t wait for “life” to happen. Some unmet longings are beyond our control – that “right guy”, the healing of a friend, reconciliation that didn’t happen yet, that opportunity that went to another. However, I think we struggle with hammering through this season, longing for the next. I find it a discipline requiring my attention daily to LIVE the life I want…and to which God has called me.

4) Have men in your life – fathers, brothers, whomever. There were both single and married women in the company of Christ & the apostles. It helps us with perspective. In the Christian community, we too often separate out by gender. I understand how that happens, but we should figure out how to be in company with each other in wholesome and holy ways. It makes a difference…for us…and for them.

5) Keep Writing. We can’t all be in your life every day, but when you write, we are there. Thank you for your transparency and generosity, your gentleness and humor, and your deep love. Keep writing.

Any who read this blog of mine know I offered more than 5 bits of advice, but this is all I will repeat today.

Happy Birthday, Beth. You are a prize!

By the way, if you have any counsel for all of us as we course through this life, feel free to share in the comments section below. You, too, Beth.

I will leave you with what Beth shared on this morning of her 40th.:

“When you enter in to the places you thought you would never recover from, you will find something solid. The lie is that there won’t be anything solid for you to stand on. Your fear will tell you to avoid, but when you “go there” you will find yourself more anchored and trusting. You will learn about God and his heart for you and here’s the kicker, your heart for Him. If you follow Jesus, he gave you a new heart. This is the unshakeable foundation of your life – that no matter what does or doesn’t happen, He is trustworthy and has bigger dreams than you could ever dream for yourself, even in the midst of longing, loss, gains, and waiting. Especially in the waiting.”

Photo Credits – Beth Wayland

Beth Wayland Blog