Gratitude

A bouquet of praise………

“If anyone speaks, they should do so as one who speaks the very words of God. If anyone serves, they should do so with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.” 1 Peter 4:11

Corrie Ten Boom was released from Nazi Death Camp Ravensbruck due to a “clerical error.” All women her age were killed soon after her release. Shortly before her sister Betsy died there, she and Corry led church services from inside Barracks 29. She or her sister would read from their one “secreted” Bible. Here is how she describes one of those typical evenings there surrounded by the unspeakable evil of everything that was going on around them:

“At first Betsie and I called these meetings with great timidity. But as night after night went by and no guard ever came near us, we grew bolder. So many now wanted to join us that we held a second service after evening roll call. . . (These) were services like no others, these times in Barracks 28. A single meeting night might include a recital of the Magnificat in Latin by a group of Roman Catholics, a whispered hymn by some Lutherans, and a sotto-voce chant by Easter Orthodox women. With each moment the crowd around us would swell, packing the nearby platforms, hanging over the edges, until the high structures groaned and swayed.”
“At last either Betsie or I would open the Bible. Because only the Hollanders could understand the Dutch text we would translate aloud in German. And then we would hear the life-giving words passed back along the aisles in French, Polish, Russian, Czech, and back into Dutch. They were little previews of heaven, these evenings beneath the light bulb” (Ten Boom 1971, p. 201)

Betsie’s last words to Corrie before she died there in that concentration camp were: “…(we) must tell them what we have learned here. We must tell them that there is no pit so deep that He is not deeper still. They will listen to us, Corrie, because we have been here.” (Ten Boom, 1971, p. 217)

Corrie spent the rest of her life traveling around the world and speaking to people about all the things she had learned through her experiences. After every engagement people would gather around her and thank her for so greatly encouraging them in their faith. Every time she would give the glory to the Lord. She would go back to her room, get down in her knees, and present those compliments in thanks to God. She called it giving God a “bouquet of praise.”

I like that…….Corrie learned the secret of praise, and counting your blessings even when it seems there are none to count. She learned that if you start praising and thanking God, the blessings come……I am counting with Ann today and everyone else in the Gratitude Community, and remembering Corrie.

people who give even at the risk of their own life, people who have inspired me, encouraged me in my faith, some I have known, some I have not, people who have not only shared my burdens, but worn them, people that have stood behind me all my life so that I never had to go through anything alone, God who is faithful, who never asks me to do anything without His strength! 631-638

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Modern Day Miracles

“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ,” Ephesians 3:16-18

I have been extremely grateful, ever since I got back from my trip back home…….I got the chance to see again what miracles God is doing in the lives of people. At times, it leaves me speechless, and at those times I just breath a prayer of thanks and gratitude. Endless gratitude. God is performing miracles in the lives of people, yes indeed, and I got to see Him again at work in those I know and those I don’t.

I have heard about two families brought back together from impossible places, a family who was torn apart by addiction, both homeless and scattered across the far reaches of a place I can’t even imagine. Children who weren’t sure where their next meal was coming from or where they would stay the night….I think of the agonizing nights and days spent praying for these people, these children. Lives on the brink of ruin, close to death, living out destruction. They were prayed for by so many people, for so long. Everything was done for them that could be. But in a situation like that, there is only so much that can be done…..and then our prayers landed them in a mission. That mission gave them a roof over their heads, some food, the husband a job and the Good News of Jesus Christ. We kept praying that it would “stick.”

The wife came back, got sober and clean, and so did the husband! They have now been baptized into the family of believers……my best friend got to attend church with them, her Nephew and his family, when she was there. They recently got their 2  year certificate of sobriety…..To hear of this miracle from her, to know that 6 kids are now safe and doing well, against all the odds. That is something only God could do.

Yet another friend has also been released from the prison of addiction, one we didn’t even know about until recently, a friend from long ago. She is now clean and sober, part of the family of God reunited with her daughter. She is now working with other recovering women, her life a testimony of praise!

Two impossible situations, two families brought from death to life…….No, my friends, I do not need to see anyone walk on water to believe. I see change, real and permanent, and lasting. The power of the Living God at work……

The list goes on:

Changed lives around me
Our answered prayers
The tears of gratitude
The grace that was extended
A real apology resulting in changed actions…..not just words.
Courage to rise from the ashes of bad choices
Faith to believe it is real
The knowledge that it is real
Joy that comes from seeing the heart-changer at work
A testimony of changed lives in all of us…..#631-641

Endless gratitude today, celebrate it with me, Ann and so many others……

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This is how I write…….

“Now may the Lord of peace himself give you peace at all times and in every way. The Lord be with all of you. I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand, which is the distinguishing mark in all my letters. This is how I write……” 2 Thessalonians 3:16,17

I saw it laying on the table when I got home……a letter from my Dad. Again I thought, I will miss not seeing one of these, someday. So personal, handwritten letters. Like a bit of that person traveling across the miles. Their mark is on it, in their own handwriting. I call him before I read it, “He says to me, “Well, after you read it you may be sorry…..” I was not. Emails are great, they are instantaneous, they are convenient, but nothing beats a handwritten letter. There is much you can read in between the lines, you can sense the depth of their feelings and their emotions by how they form their letters, how big or small the writing is, how it scrawls across the page.

When someone sends a handwritten letter or card, they are saying to me:

“This is really important and I want you to hear what I am saying.”
“I want to show you how important you are to me.”
“I trust you with these feelings.”

It is hard for me to throw anything handwritten away……As I leaf through the pages of Dad’s letter, I feel that there are not so many miles between us after all.

A couple of times in my life I have gotten a long letter from my brother, one time very unexpectedly and at a time when I really needed it. I never forgot it, I remember riding somewhere on my bicycle with the precious cargo laying in my basket…feeling the strength from it.

Letters have tremendous power. In war times, letter carriers masqueraded as harbingers of hope or angels of death. We are all seen the bicycle-riding, telegram bearing scene in the movies, how everything and everyone stopped and held their breath, hoping that it wasn’t their house, their door……My Parent’s generation remembers those times.

Over and over in his letters Paul states……”I, Paul, write this greeting in my own hand” He wanted there to be no mistaking his message or who wrote it.

Maybe someone specific is on your mind today. Their name keeps coming up and won’t go away. I encourage you to sit and write them out a note, a letter. Maybe you don’t mail it, just leave it where they can find it. Maybe they will do the same.

Counting along with the gratitude community today…….toward 1000 but not stopping there, grateful for all the ways God speaks to me:

In the written word of ones I love, in the sunrise and sunset, His salutation of love, His Spirit who prompts me to love others, sparks of spontaneous joy at unexpected times, in the words of gifted teachers of the Word, through kindness of strangers, through answers to specific prayers, through hope that never leaves, nature who always speaks loudly of His touch, through the community of believers called His church…..#622-632

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photo from google images

Faith takes over…….

Sometimes the words aren’t there, but the gratefulness still is.
Sometimes faith has to take over when you have momentarily misplaced hope.
Sometimes you have to be reminded that God is still God, and that
everything is going to be okay.

And things are still very good indeed, it is your mind that is
temporarily looking at things askew. Temporarily is the key.
Because things always turn around, I know that for a fact.

I am so thankful for those in my life that have surrounded me over the years,
when I have felt like this, come alongside and believed with me…..

Yes, it will be okay.

There are many more reasons for praise than for despair.
You start counting, and before you know it,
you are restored, I am restored.

Thank you to all of you……….you know who you are.
This post is dedicated to you today.

sun through clouds, voices of hope, hands grabbing mine, prayers sent with my name on them, smiling eyes over lunch, beautiful songs that leave you breathless, God in the silence listening always, listening, dawn breaking inside and knowing where it is coming from, blogger friends, friends old and new, memories that bring smiles, laughter in the midst of tears…….#609-621

The LORD is gracious and righteous;
our God is full of compassion.
The LORD protects the unwary;
when I was brought low, he saved me. Psalm 116:4,5

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photos: google images

The Path to Freedom

You have made known to me the paths of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence. Acts 2:28

I have recently started to hit the trail a bit again, since the weather is so spectacular now here in Arizona. I grew up hiking, so it is something familiar to me. I greet the trail like an old friend. Hiking is a bit like life. I have been on some hikes that I absolutely thought I could go no further. The trail became the enemy and I hated every step I took, I cursed every bend and corner. The end result was the only thing that kept me going. That, and the fact that I had encouragers along the way. The funny thing was though, once I got to the top I tended to forget how hard it was. With distance, the pain faded a bit. Its easy to laugh about knees shaking like jackhammers after you’re off the trail.

In life and hiking there are times when you reach a point where you simply don’t have it in you to keep going.

In one of Martin Luther Kings recorded sermons he tells about such a time. He had just gotten another phone call, a death threat, threatening he and his whole family. Not long before he had been arrested and thrown in jail for driving 30 mph in a 25 mph zone. He was sitting at his kitchen table, a cold cup of coffee before him. He was trying to figure a way out. How he could turn it all over to someone else and go back to the quiet life of a scholar like he had planned. Here is how he describes that moment:

“I discovered then that religion had to become real to me, and I had to know God for myself. And I bowed down over that cup of coffee. I will never forget it……I prayed a prayer, and I prayed out loud that night. I said, “Lord, I am down here trying to do what’s right. I think I’m right. I think the cause that we represent is right. But Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now. I’m faltering. I’m losing my courage.”

It was then that he heard an inner voice…….”Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for justice. Stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world.”  Three nights later a bomb exploded on the front porch of King’s home, filling the house with smoke and broken glass but injuring no one. He took it calmly: “My religious experience a few nights before had given me the strength to face it.”

We have all reached that crossroads…….we ask the question: “How can I get out of this?” We can’t take another step. We want escape. But it is at that point where the Holy Spirit comes in and does what we can’t do. He takes over…….Peter was at that point after he denied Jesus, but what happened just a few days after that? The day of Pentecost! After Peter was done preaching those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. Acts 2:41

Lord, I am thankful for all those who didn’t give up in the fight for freedom. The ones still fighting today. I thank you for Your Precious Holy Spirit because now you are not only walking beside us, but are actually within us! Thank you for all those times when You picked me up when I thought I couldn’t go on. I continue numbering my gifts today, though I know I can never put a number on what you have done, it is infinite……the numbers teach me much about You……sleeping in peace without angry steps at the door…..getting to enjoy the view after the climb…..the prayers of encouragers along the way……freedom to learn……to go to school without fear….to worship without fear….open windows without bars……weakness that causes me to lean on You…..laughter to lighten the way……little streams that sing songs of hope….yes you can! #598-608

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On leaving 2010 behind……

Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things. Philippians 4:8

You know those Cd’s you can buy with highlights only? I have one with Phantom of the Opera. It’s what you buy when you don’t want to hear everything in between the parts you really like. It isn’t really fair because you are getting a cut and paste version of what was supposed to be a full story. Looking back over the past year is a bit like buying one of those cut and paste versions. Highlights rise to the surface, things I want to remember so I pause and turn them over again in my mind….they are important and I don’t want to forget.
I know the old year is gone and the new one has rushed in to take its place, very fast I might add……but still I find myself wanting to pause for just a moment, still caught a bit in the afterglow of last year. So I share these treasures with you as I hold them dear, I clasp them to my heart and commit them to memory. I write some down so they will be kept safe, though I know they are etched into my heart forever and have already become part of the fabric of my soul.
Catching the dogwood in full bloom in Yosemite……a nature poetry book given to me by my brother with the inscription, “I love you more than you know….”with another note beside his favorite quotation……

Praying with my Dad in the dark of a very early morning…. Hearing my Mom say to me….”That reminds me of a day with you….” After listening to the song A Perfect Day….Cold walks in the park in the evening with my Dad watching my niece hang upside down on the bars….

My wonderful and amazing friend who made my “prayer closet” like home with laminate floors she toiled and installed herself……Helping my Mom get her decorations out for Christmas one more time….surprising my Mom and Dad with a sign on the downtown marquee celebrating their 60th Anniversary.

A full five minute conversation with my very excited niece of 8, words and phrases all jumbled together, but I heard the love loud and clear and I couldn’t stop smiling because I have hoped and prayed for it for so long….I still hear it even now.
Conversations and good times with neighbors who have become friends…….a restored special friendship I thought lost.

Evenings by the fire and learning the hard way that you can’t re-light fake logs without creating much black smoke! Being caught in the rain on first evening in Monterey during sabbatical and running into a cozy pub for a bite knowing I had two months off work ahead of me….with pay….oh the joy, where did the time go?
Well, there are a few of them….I am grateful to God for each and every one of these moments, knowing that He holds them all together and binds us all together in love. I can’t imagine experiencing even one of them without Him in my life……Now make your own list, and see if you don’t smile in the remembering…..

Oh it’s such a perfect day,
I’m glad I spent it with you.
Oh such a perfect day,
You just keep me hanging on….Lou Reed
May your own 2011 be filled with many of those perfect days and God’s comfort and strength when they aren’t……I treasure each and every one of you my blogging friends and readers.
photo from my iphone, Pacific Coast Highway 1

Challenge: Make God part of your day

Are you making God a part of your plan today? You are in His plan, and thoughts…….This is what the Bible says:

“Evening and morning and at noon, I will complain and murmur, and He will hear my voice.” Psalm 55:17 NAS

“Thou hast taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Thy bottle; Are they not in Thy book?” Psalm 56:8 NAS

“You know when I sit and when I rise; you percieve my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down.” Psalm 139:2,3

“See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.” Isaiah 49:16

Get up early, find some time, get alone with the One who wants to know you……I am convinced that the heart that honestly seeks Him, finds Him. Just talk to Him, prayer is just that, talking to Him like you talk to your best friend. Pour everything out in your own words. He likes plain honest talk and He doesn’t care if you leave out the Thees and Thous, He just wants real honest prayer from your heart. He already knows your innermost thoughts, but it is amazing how much better you feel when you tell Him anyway!

Thank you, Lord for meeting me this morning. Thank you that I am always on Your calendar, even if You are not always on mine. I love you, God.

I continue counting toward one thousand today with many others in the Gratitude Community……….Glorious sunrise this morning, warm beds and heaters that come on, all the many promises in Your Word, for loving me even though I don’t represent You very well many times, for Your unending patience and grace towards me, for answered prayers always, for the knowledge that You hear my prayers, for family and friends that pray, for physical health and strength, for the stars that follow the cosmic dance You set in motion, the north star that always makes me think of You, Your glorious nature that speaks constantly of You……#585-597

holy experience Photo credit: icanhascheezburger.com

A Year filled with Promise


So far this New Year feels much like the old one for me, since I am working. As I stared out through the windshield on my morning commute, grateful that there was almost nobody on the road (hey there’s a blessing!) I thought about the New Year and what it means. I wonder how the year went so fast…..In my honest reflection, I had to admit that there are some circumstances that I do not feel positive about going into the New Year. But then I thought about the Big Picture. All the good surrounding me. Good friends, good family, and surrounding on every side are God’s promises. When I think of everything He has brought me through how can I be anything but eternally grateful and also hopeful for what’s ahead?
While we all wish each other a New Year full of  prosperity and blessings, we know that there will be things that happen that will stop us in our tracks, take the wind out of our sails, make us want to crawl through the wardrobe and find a secret world like the Narnia kids. Just today I heard of a dear blogger who lost her husband on Christmas Eve, and another who lost her home and everything in it and yet…..and yet…. she is grateful that they all escaped unharmed.

Sometimes you have to stare really hard through the fog of our circumstances to see the good that surrounds us. But it is getting easier for me to do this, I am happy to say. It is nothing that I have done, it’s everything He’s done and continues to do. This is not just looking on the bright side. What it is, is knowing, remembering, all those times before when I thought I couldn’t…… and He said….Yes you can, I will help you. I have promised to never leave you and I never will….It is knowing who He is.

As I was thinking these things, He gave me one of those confirmations. As I was praying the song I needed to hear, Mighty to Save came on the radio, and right after that, Jesus Saves. He was telling me twice, not to worry.

God is in the outfield, and you are the fly ball, He says, “I got it!”
He is also across the chasm with His hands outstretched, saying “Jump, I’ve got you!”

Just like He grabbed Peter when he started to sink……..Why did I ever doubt?

Isaiah 40:31 – but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.

Psalm 71:5 – For you have been my hope, O Sovereign LORD, my confidence since my youth.
Romans 5:2 – through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.
Psalms 27:5 – For in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling; he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me high upon a rock.
Ephesians 3:20 – Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…..

Christmas behind, Christ Ahead…….



As I begin to pack away the decorations, I am aware of the deeper reality that lies all around me. It was in the service yesterday, as we lifted our hands in worship. The power that cuts through time and eternity. The reality that the Christ whose birth we just celebrated is very much alive. That is the true nature of Christmas. The other is just “stuff.” I was aware of it as I heard the reality of an answered prayer just yesterday as I talked with my Mom on the phone. That is what we can celebrate……and keep celebrating, all year long. Immanuel, God is with us.

This living Christ, who was born, lived a perfect life, died a perfect death, and rose from the grave so that we might find redemption, this living Christ is working in my life. He is the reason we can look to the coming year with joy and hope. No matter what the economy does, no matter what the government does, no matter what happens in the life of each and every one who confesses Him as Lord.

Halleluiah. I can put everything away, knowing it is anything but over.

What do you put your trust in today? I pray that it is Him.

“Either this man was, and is, the Son of God or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit on Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us, He did not intend to.” C.S. Lewis

“But what about you?” he asked. “Who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “You are the Messiah.” Mark 8:29 

I am continuing the count today with a vast community of others who know the reality of Him who lives within us today and always……this list of thankfulness for the blessings of this Christmas: Unexpected answer to prayer when we needed it most, the kindness and hospitality of good neighbors and friends, a little excited voice on the phone telling me all about her Christmas, fellowship of other believers, joy despite having to work part of Christmas, freedom to worship in His house, good food, my family who though we are apart, we know we are knit together in His love which keeps us close, His Holy Spirit who helps us and guides us in His truth, being able to bless others with what He has given me……….#574-584

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He was born so we could be…..

“Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.

The process of conversion is the greatest miracle of our times. A dramatically changed life, as Augustine knew, is the most powerful testimony there is……an external change, something supernatural we can explain in no other way but through God alone. Jesus called it being “born again.”

“But you, O Lord, used the changes lives of other men and women like a mirror to keep turning me around to face myself. You set me in front of my own face so that I might see how deformed, how crooked and sordid and stained and ulcerous I was. Horrified, I turned and tried to run from myself–only to find that you were there, too, thrusting me in front of myself. You wanted me to discover my iniquity and hate it, because it bound me and kept me from going with you.” Augustine, Confessions 8

If you want to read about a powerful conversion, read the Confessions of Augustine; read the Apostle Paul’s from the book of Acts. Both dramatic and full of passion, but no less so than every one of us who has come to that moment when they know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they must go through that door, and there is no stopping it. In my own Baptist tradition, we made a public confession of faith through a walk down the aisle in the church, also known as the “altar call”, and then again in Baptism. It is powerful, it is heartrending,  and the nearest to Heaven that we will ever be this side of it. It is the most miraculous and most important moment in one’s life. The Bible says that angels in Heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents, either in front of a church or in their own car going down the road!

I have noticed a curious thing happening in several churches of my own evangelical tradition in recent years. When it comes to that time of decision there is curiously no more walk down the aisle. For me this has always been the most important moment in the church service. You remember your own walk, and you want to encourage others so you stand and clap for them as the praise team or choir gets back up to close the service. And when you see one of your own make that walk…….you can’t even describe it. Goosebumps all the way.

Some churches have changed this to a quiet moment of all heads bowed and a raising of hands for those who wish to “make a decision” to follow Christ. Is this something we are now ashamed of that we need to do without others eyes upon us? When did it become something we need to be embarassed about? Everyone Jesus called was called publicly. Should it still be the same today? Can you imagine Peter asking everyone to bow their head and raise their hands without anyone else looking? Why are certain churches treating this great miracle of conversion, this most joyous and radical thing into something to be done in secret?

Jesus was born, lived and died a terrible death very publicly so that we could be born again into new life. Shouldn’t we be just as open about confessing Him? I don’t want to step on any toes here, and I do want to be sensitive, but I welcome your thoughts.

What are some of your own church traditions/teachings on this?

“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. Matthew 10:32

Counting thanks in my heart today……time is pressing!

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