Sunday, April 19, 2009

Wake up

I was driving home from visiting a friend today and a car in front of me had all kinds of magnets and bumper stickers on the back. One stood out to me, "What part of Thou Shalt Not Kill do you not understand." (Talking about abortion). Then I looked and there was a political sticker promoting a candidate who promotes abortion! Quite interesting I thought. What's that scripture, "You can't be on both sides of the fence-------Which message are you proclaiming to the world? Are people confused by your stand? God says, "You are either for Me or against me"!

I went to a prayer retreat this past week and WOW, God amazes me as He continues to teach us His truth. I am still processing,eager to learn more and know Him more. Wake up, O sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you." Ephesians 5:14.

I want to pray this prayer of blessing on you, taken from You Are Blessed by Sylvia Gunter: "Beloved, child of God, invite your spirit to the front to receive the ministry of the Holy Spirit, to receive this blessing. Take authority over anything that would try to keep you from receiving this truth from the Spirit of truth. Wake up, slumbering spirit, and receive from the Light who created you and formed you and lives in you. Be blessed to become fully alive and responsive to God's light. Be blessed with God's richest blessings which he stored up for you before the said, "Let there be light: in the world. The resurrection power of the Son is actively working in you and for you. Jesus said that this is the day when salvation
and the favor of God profusely abound" Luke 4:19.
Spirit, be blessed to see who God made you to be. Be blessed to discover the wonder of who you are, a person after God's own heart, a unique spirit. When you are fulfilling his design of you, you will find marvelous freedom. Be blssed as you resonate with your Father's love that you were born to enjoy. He wants you to say "Yes and Amen" to the sparks of life he has placed inside you. Be blessed with being centered in his joy and peace, larger than soul joy and soul peace."

You can pray this for your prodigal also.

We invite your comments or questions.

Monday, April 13, 2009

Celebrate

The song we sang yesterday at church keeps ringing in my ears and coming off my tongue, Celebrate, Celebrate, the resurrection power of our Lord!! We went to church with our daughter Melissa and her family and it was a great service with lots of praise. At one point Melissa and I just hugged each other with tears of joy running down our cheeks. Our Lord is so awesome, that He would give His precious life for such a worm as I amazes me each time I think of it.

We had a blast hiding easter eggs with our grandson, Brett, and then letting him hide them from Papa and Daddy (20 in one spot but that's ok, that made it easier for those old bones leaning down to pick them up!)

I just reveled in the fact that we were all together, my Mother and Dad, our son Rob and his fiancee, Mel and Bryan, Brett and Bryan's Mother. Our other 3 grandchildren were at the beach with their other grandmother. They were sorely missed.

I and my dear friend Debbie are going to a prayer retreat on Weds. and we recieved an email not to be surprised if we experienced warfare with our families, our jobs, our health, tiredness, etc. You've read that we were working with a new computer program.....today we were 12 patients behind at one point. Now if you don't think that is pressure! People get mad you know. I kept praying, Lord just get me through these next 2 days.

I look so forward to our retreat and being in the presence of the Lord in new and exciting ways. I pray He will continue to teach me.

I hope your easter was all you hoped it would be as you celebrated with family and your church family. I pray you understand what the celebration is all about and that you are living in the resurrection power of our Lord Jesus Christ who is alive and seated at the right hand of the Father, interceding for you and me. What an amazing thought.

Sandra

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Happy Birthday Girls

What a weekend! My grandaughters are now offically 9. They had all sorts of celebrations. It all began with cupcakes at school, 50 of them. They are in separate classes. Two of everything you know. Gets rather expensive but they felt special and had a blast and that is what it is about right? Then they did the Chuckie Cheese thing with Mom and Dad and came to Mama and Papa's and had another party on Sunday with our family. Now that is the way to do it, string it out as long as you can.

Then came the dreaded first day of the new computer system at work. It went surprising well and I guess it is true that an old dog can learn new tricks. Whew. Feels like something in my head is expanding---could it be sawdust?

I ran across something pretty amazing in my reading. If you have never read any of Sylvia Gunters writings and prayers you must. I want to quote her from her "You are Blessed" book. I found this enlightening: "Years ago I heard Graham Cooke teach, "Take a step back into your spirit, and ask God what he sees, how he wants you to respond. This changes my observations of people and events around me. When God leads my spirit to respond to the spirit of others, I may see that their spirit is trapped in a dysfunctional arrangement of the soul being large and in charge. This allows me to bless the perfect work that the Holy Spirit wants to do in their spirit from his residence in them, even while I may suffer the consequences of the immaturity or carnality of their soul. The spirit of another person is not my enemy. Their spirit is made in the image of God, but their soul has been well-fed and catered to, and he may be dominating from his heavy-weight postion."

If we could past our soulish reaction to folks and allow our spirit to meet God's Spirit we might do more praying for and less talking about the issues our flesh sees that are wrong with them. Hope God spoke to you through that paragraph.

I try to go downtown to our office on Tuesdays and spend the day working, catching up and preparing for the newsletters and board meetings and correspondence. I don't usually have a lot of visitors but get a lot of work done. I could just spend hours there. On Wings Like a Dove is a ministry that reaches out to families of prodigals/prisoners. I spend many hours working on the ministry but I have such a passion to help those hurting folks that it not a burden, work on the other hand...............I really do pray that one day the Lord will allow me to minister on a fulltime basis. That is in His hands and His timing.

Yesterday I had a mother and her son come in to visit after their visit to the Tasc drug check office in our building. We have been praying for this son for a little while and it was neat to meet him and talk and allow the Lord to show me some things. He is definitely struggling with alcohol and drug addiction. Will you pray for him, his name is Joshua. Pray for his parents to have wisdom.

Monday night I met with a couple of Mothers to catch up on their son's and the struggles they continue to have. One Mother stated she had given up hope. I know she hasn't given up hope in the Lord, but has lost hope that things will ever get better with her son and his lifestyle. I understand that sense of hopelessness. When that happened to me I put my nose in God's Word and drew my very breath from those passages. It is good to allow God to take you where He will and to write down the promises in His Word. Put them on an index card and keep them close to draw on when the enemy seems to take over your mind and thoughts. Ask for the mind of Christ in your situation. If you are reading this and have a word for this Mother please submit it to us.

We march on as His soldiers.

Thursday, April 2, 2009

One hundred years old

I had the privelege of interviewing a lady today who was celebrating her 100th birthday today. We have to ask our patients to spell their names and give us their birthdate as a way of identification and I looked down and saw her birthday was 4/2/09. 1909 mind you!!!! She was sharp as a tack and still lives alone, cooks and gardens. She had a 67 year old son with her. Imagine that. I told her I hoped I looked as good as her if the Lord allowed me to live that long. I just couldn't allow her to leave without some sort of celebration, so I called down and got her a piece of chocolate cake. Now that has to make anyone's day, right.

I have pondered that age all afternoon as I calculated 40 more years and i can tell you with the way my joints are feeling on this rainy day I am not sure I would make it as well as she has. I thought about the changes I might see in the next 40 years. I can't imagine, can you? The verse, "the body is decaying" is more evident each day. Hopefully, my mind is being renewed, but there again........

We are learning a new computer program at work and I feel like my brain is on overload. It will start Monday so pray I can grasp it! We have a fellow nurse who will be retiring in June.....I am envious.

Our little four year old grandson, Brett and his Mom, Mel went to pick PaPa up this afternoon from a procedure. He was so concerned over how Papa was. I came home and he said, "something is very wrong with PaPa, he can't drive." So cute. Couldn't you just eat them up? He wanted to stay with us but Mom drug him to the car kicking and screaming. We reasurred him that we would see him tomorrow. We are going to our twin grandaughters birthday party at their school tomorrow. They will be nine tomorrow. Unbelieveable!

Now what do you do with the cake when one sister likes HS musical and the other Hannah Montana? You put HS musical on one end and Hannah on the other and pray they will be happy. I have to buy two of everything. Didn't want to buy two cakes!!!!
Next month their brother will be one! Isn't it fun?

Well the old gray mare is sinking and I need to rest up for tomorrow sooooooooooooo, good night.