The Lord Almighty is with us!

Last Friday I was at work when I received a call from Jimmy that my Dad had had a heart attack. He has not had any heart problems before so it was quite a shock to us all. My Dad has always been a model to all who know him, but no more so than to his daughter. I began immediately to cry out to the Lord for His protection. I walked to the nurses office and told the team leader that I had to leave.
I walked as fast as I could to the ED department all the way to the other end of Forsyth Medical Center.  I walked up to the desk, got my little sticker and walked into the ED to see my Dad laying on a stretcher in the hallway watching me walk towards him. He said the Dr. said he had had a mild heart attack and his enzymes were out of whack. They planned to keep him over the weekend and do a heart cath on Monday.
We stayed there all evening with him. The next morning God took me to Psalm 64. In that passage the thing that stood out to me was The Lord is with us!  That was written twice in that passage and I decided to repeat that over and over throughout our time at the hospital.
My Dad witnessed to everyone who entered the doors.  God was certainly glorified.  On Monday they did a heart cath and found one main artery 95% blocked and put a stent in place. What a blessing it was as we watched God working. I am not ready to let my Dad go...although I know he is ready to go.....but I am wise enough to pray God's will not my own. I am just grateful that I have him a little longer. I would miss seeing those emails and having him answer the phone in that reassuring voice. Thank you for your prayers on his behalf. He is an awesome man of God and apparently he has work left to do on this earth. Praise God is is back home and doing well.  I love him so! It was a great family bonding time as we had time to laugh, cry and share. It was a special time.

On Wings Spring Retreat: 2012

Three Ladies who are full of the Holy Spirit!

We had a great time of fun and fellowship this past weekend as we studied the difference between the spirit, soul and body.  We learned how to live in the spirit connected to the Holy Spirit instead of our souls (flesh).  We are often more interested in our outer man, the body than we are our spirit.  We often feed our flesh instead of our spirit.  God wants us to live out of our spirit.  It takes lots of work to do that but we must remain intentional on a moment by moment basis in our efforts.  Then we learned that there has to be a breaking in order for us to be poured out for His glory.  These ladies have endured the breaking and want to be used for His purposes.
 On Saturday morning as I was awakening I heard the dreaded raindrops outside.  Not what I wanted to hear because of our outside plans but I didn't have any control.  It was a major storm and believe me God was speaking loudly through the thunder, lightening and heavy downpour.  I couldn't sleep so I go up and began to prepare for the day.  I had chosen a passage to read that morning as a blessing on these ladies as follows:
 "Spirit, receive rivers of love, washing you with waves of liquid love, covenant mercy, compassion, comfort, and faithfulness.  Jesus, who walked on the waters, walks on your storm say "Peace, be still."  Dial down and know that he is God.  Receive him quieting the harassment of your spirit, soul, and body with his presence and healing Word.  spirit, rest in the love and mercy of your Father-God, knowing he pities his children.  He has compassion on you.  He is your consolation and comfort.
Receive river of the grace of God.  He is Ancient of Days.  He is the covenant-keeping God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  He made a covenant of grace with you.  You have been wounded by covenant-breakers, but God cannot break his covenant.  Be blessed with an infusion of the faithfulness of the heart of covenant-keeping God.
Be blessed to receive rivers of his peace flowing in and washing away all the striving, the lack, the holes, the dryness with a fresh clear stream of pure restoration and reconciliation of you to yourself and to God.  No more anguished cry of "God, where are you?"  Be blessed with reconciliation of your spirit with your soul, with your body, and with others." Taken from You Are Blessed by Sylvia Gunter.
He couldn't have given us any better word than He demonstrated to us with that storm that awoke us on Saturday morning.  There is a brook on the property that runs the length of it.  You could hear the roar of the water as it rushed down through there just like it said it was a demonstration of his river of love and compassion that rolled over us that whole weekend.  These ladies have experienced lots of pain and hardship over the years and God said,  Let me pour my love over you this weekend.....and so He did!