Post Retirement Decisions

I retired recently and have been questioning whether I should try to keep my nursing license active so that I could work IF it became necessary. I have also wondered if I should try another part time job like pet sitting, sitting with patients,  painting, selling Shakly, or writing. It is a little disconcerting to quit bringing in any monies upon retirement.  So I have been asking the Lord to show me clearly what He wants me to do.  I want to be obedient to His direction and have the faith not to second guess Him.

The other day I had my quiet time on the screened in porch.  I love to be outside listening to the birds (especially the cooing of the doves). I also enjoy the breeze marching through the trees and watching the flowers as the butterflies come and go.  Often times I can also have a quick visit with a neighbor as they pass by.

I decided to go down into the flower garden the other day and left my Bible open on the porch.  The breeze blew my pages and when I returned my eyes fell on Psalm 45.  As I scrolled down that chapter one verse got my attention:  "My heart overflows with a "godly theme; I address my psalm to a king.  My tongue is as the pen of a ready writer."  I believe God was saying this is what I want you to do; write.  Now I am not the best writer in the world, but I love to journal about how God has worked in my life or shown me direction or spoken from His word.

So I have made a commitment to blog again and I want to submit some articles to some magazines and see if I can get any interest from them.  Pray for me as I pursue this adventure.  

Moving into our New Office

As I sought the Lord, He
took me back to 2 Chronicles and Solomon’s prayer
of dedication for the Temple. In 2006, I had this
same scripture for our
first office. Let me share
it with you. In Chapter 6,
verses 14-15, it proclaims
that there is no God like
Him and that He is a covenant keeping God. Read as
follows: “and he said:
“Lord God of Israel, there
is no God in heaven or on
earth like You, who keep
Your covenant and mercy
with Your servants who
walk before You with all
their hearts. You have
kept what You promised
Your servant David my father; You have both spoken
with Your mouth and fulfilled it with Your hand, as
it is this day.” II Chronicles 6:14-15
Verse 40 is our prayer for
God to hear the prayers
offered up in His house.
“Now my God, I pray, let
Your eyes be open and let
Your ears be attentive to
the prayer made in this
place.” I Chronicles 6:40
In Chapter 7, Verse 12, He
declare that He has heard
our prayers: “Then the
Lord appeared to Solomon
by night, and said to him:
“I have heard your prayer,
and chosen this place for
Myself as a house of sacrifice.” II Chronicles 7:12
In verses 15-16, He says:
“Now My eyes will be open
and My ears attentive to
the prayer made in this
place. “For now I have
chosen and sanctified this
house, that My name may
be there forever; and My
eyes and My heart will be
there perpetually.”
He has chosen to set apart
this house for his Name’s
sake. Don’t you just love it
when He speaks so clearly
to you through His Word?
It was written long ago but
it is so applicable to our
daily lives today. He has
confirmed to us His blessing on our new home and
that His ear will be attentive to our prayers.
We have set aside a prayer
room and we meet together as staff to have our
time of sharing and prayer
before our day begins. It
is very special as we share
the Word and how God has
spoken and worked in our
lives during the week. We
look forward with anticipation to how God will move
in each life that comes to
us.
Sandra

Our New Office Space

It is with great excitement and anticipation that
we announce our new office
location as of June 1, 2013.
Our physical address will
be 455 South Church
Street in Winston-Salem,
N.C., 27101. The house is
located in God’s Acre at
Old Salem. (See picture
above.) Our mailing address will remain as P.O.
Box 557, Clemmons, N.C.
27012 although we will now
be able to receive mail at
either address.
I asked God to show us
something only He could do
in regards to the move.
We looked at several spots
and God closed the door on
all of them. Michael Gwyn,
a Christian realtor, helped
us along the way to view
spaces. One morning as I
had my time with the Lord
He directed me to the passage in Joshua 3:5,
“Sanctify yourselves for
tomorrow the LORD will do
wonders among you.” I
said, “Okay Lord, I am
ready to see great wonders tomorrow. I received
an email from Michael the
next morning, saying that
the owner of the office we
had been looking at had
decided to change the
terms. They were terms
that we could not comply
with.
In the same email he suggested that we consider
another space that he had
listed in Old Salem. They
were asking a price that
was above our range but we
decided to go see it. It
was a house with 3200
square feet. I was thinking that this would be a
wonder the passage has
spoken of if we could come
to terms with the owners
on this property. We made
a proposal and I had this
scripture: “The Lord of
Hosts has sworn saying,
Surely as I have thought
and planned, so shall it
come to pass; and as I have
purposed so shall it stand”
Isaiah 14:24.
To make a long story short,
God answered our prayers
and has done above and
beyond our expectations as
He has brought us to this
property. We are rejoicing
in His provision and looking
forward to His opportunities for expanded ministry
in the future.
He showed me the following scripture in Zephaniah
3:17, “The Lord your God is
in your midst, a victorious
warrior. He will exult over
you with joy. He will be
quiet in His love. He will
rejoice over you with
shouts of joy.” I had a
note in my Bible: Rejoice
means to turn around and
around in a violent emotion.
I can just envision the
Lord rejoicing over what
He has provided for us,
can’t you? I have felt like
standing in the front yard
on Church Street and turning around and around with
rejoicing over what He has
done for us.
We have been in our current space for going on
seven years and God is
moving us out to something
even better and we are
overwhelmed with His
goodness. He has provided
direction through the
whole process and the following is His final word to
us: “Look, the Lord your
God has set the land before you; go up and possess
it, as the Lord God of your
fathers has spoken to you;
do not fear or be discouraged” Deuteronomy 1:21.
So we are going up to possess it. Come see us! We
will have a formal open
house sometime in the fall.
Sandra
On Wings Like a Dove
A newsletter from On Wings Like a Dove Ministries June 2013 Vol. 9 Issue 6
A Ministry for the Loved ones of Prodigals and Prisoners Psalm 55:6

Jewish Roots Retreat

God has been connecting
me with people over the
past few years who were
either Jewish or had a
heart for the Jews. I
began to see Him working as He laid on my
heart a desire to learn
more about my Jewish
Roots. It was my desire
to share Jewish Roots
with our families so they
could also grow in their
walk.
Apple Hill Conference
Center was the final
piece of the puzzle. After Louise, the owner,
explained how God prepared it to be an endtime refuge for the persecuted Jews, I knew
this was God's choice
for our Retreat.
Tammy Priest was gracious enough to make
herself available to
come and teach. God
used her Jewish heritage to weave together
the Old and New Testaments in a way that gave
us deeper understanding
of the scriptures. There
were many WOW moments.
Patti Sheets guided us
in a project to make a
Star of David for framing as a reminder of
what God taught us on
that mountain. She also
painted a picture during
our worship time from
which we will make
prints. If you are interested in one let me know
(see back page of the
newsletter). The prints
are $20.
Randy Bigbie and Helen
Morris led the beautiful
worship times. We worshiped, danced, and sang
praise to the Father.
Patty Chamovitz prepared Jewish foods for
us to sample and Cindy
Miller made Haman Hat
Cookies that are served
during the Feast of Purium.
Here are some comments from the weekend:
"I can't begin to even
put into words this past
weekend. There are no
words....I think I am still
overwhelmed."
"Amazing."
"I had a wonderful time
this weekend and I'm
still trying to process all
that I learned."
"It was the best ever. I
wouldn't have changed a
thing."
Our Fall Retreat will be
October 4-6 at Lake
James. I encourage you
to register as soon as
possible—first come,
first served. Cost will
be $50.00. (Includes
materials for our sessions; scholarships
available).
We will visit The Cove
on Saturday. If you
have never been it is
quite a treat. Email me
or call 336-972-4213.
Sandra

Replacement of the Door

After we had a leak in the ceiling at the office of On Wings the landlord had come to check out the damage.  We had just replaced the tiles in the ceiling and now they were lying on the floor and several others were stained and water had run down onto our TV.  I said, "Lord, what is the purpose of all this?"  As our landlord was leaving I asked about the possibility of using the room which is connected to our office and he told us we were welcome to use the room at no extra charge. WOW! 

The room was filled with trash and materials left by a former tenant.  It didn't take me but one day to get the cart and get the room cleared out for use! The trouble was that in order to use the room we needed the door to be replaced  because it been busted after an attempt by a burglar before we even opened our office.
Afterseveral attempts to get someone to come down to On Wings office to take care of the problem I decided to make one last ditch effort last week.  I called my Dad and said, "Is there any chance I could get you to come down and see what materials we need to be able to lock the door?"  He came down later that day and we went to the third floor to get a door that the landlord told us we could use.

There was a young man working alone there and we introduced ourselves and told him our plan.  He came down and assisted us with picking out the door that was hinged in the same way the door we were replacing was.  He walked off and I thought we were on our own until all of a sudden he reappeared with tools to help.  Then he helped to carry the door downstairs for us (I did not know just how heavy the door was; my Dad and I could not have managed it on our own).  Think God knew that?

Then the young man, Maurice, began to survey the door frame which was also busted and set about repairing it from materials upstairs.  The more I watched him work, the more I was amazed at God's provision for us that day.  If I hadn't seen Maurice later in the week I might have thought he was an angel sent by God to get a lock on that door.  We thought he was an angel anyway.

You see God had opened the room for us to use just in time to collect the shoe-boxes we needed to store and work on for the children for Christmas.  It was an awesome reminder of God's faithfulness to get the work accomplished.  He is always right on time.  Sometimes He just has to demonstrate in a way that you know could have ONLY been Him.  We all rejoiced that day together (with Maurice) that God had him in place for such a time as that.  I just love it, don't you?

Worthy Vessels

We took our families from On Wings on retreat in September and our topic was the Potter and the Clay.  The first night Patti Sheets came to teach us by taking a piece of clay and molding it into whatever shape we chose.  It was a great way to begin our weekend together.  She will fire our vessels and get them back as a reminder to us of how the Potter forms us into His useable vessel.  Thank goodness the eye of the potter sees beyond the shapeless lump of clay to the finished product.  Never having made any pottery it was unclear to each of us just how our vessel would shape up.  Some had to reinforce their piece where it was weak.  Some were given the choice to completely start over.  Some added adornment and sayings on theirs to make it their own creation.

I thought of how Elohim takes us in our unformed state and molds us and makes us just like He desires.  We are all unique, with our own flare of color and design.  I hope He has as much fun creating us as we had that night gathered around the kitchen table, oblivious to the outside world.

One of my favorite parts of the book, Worthy Vessels by Nell Kennedy, is the story about the beginning of the process of firing.  Ladies of olden days would make their baskets from the reeds in the field and then go out to pick berries.  The trouble came when they would lose the berries through the holes in the basket. So one day they decided that they would line the basket with the clay of the ground and let it dry.  This provided a container that had no holes in it.

One day the women were in the fields collecting the berries when a fierce fire started in the field.  The ladies gathered their babies and ran, leaving the baskets there.  Upon return they discovered that the basket had been burned away and had left a beautiful vessel that was now able to contain liquids.  The berries inside the basket had left a beautiful color as it was fired that day.  Thus became the beginning of the kiln in which the vessel is placed for firing today.  The Potter knew just how much fire each individual pot could stand.  He would place the pot in just the right place, sometimes even within a vessel that was more sturdy and could with stand the fire.  He was always there watching the temperature so that the pot could be of use when it came out.

That my friend is what He does with us.  We may have to walk through the fire but He is right there with us each step of the process.  He knows just what me need.  Why then do we hesitate to trust Him when He promises to never leave us nor forsake us.  Thank Him for the fires.  It is through them that He transforms us from weak, changeable people into strong, useful vessels.

What a Happy Day as Brett was baptized!

What a glorious day it was as our family gathered to witness the baptism of our grandson, Brett.  What made it even more special was the fact that his great grandaddy was able to perform it.  What a great feeling of satisfaction it is to know all in the family have the Lord Jesus Christ reigning in their hearts.  Now we await little Kane's decision to follow Christ.....but he is only four and also safe for now.
God has been so faithful to our family and I just wanted to stand up and shout it from the rooftops.  We are certainly praising the Father this day.  Afterwards we had a celebration around the table with fellowship and thanksgiving.  We've come a long way, baby!!!!!
I pray Brett will always honor God with his life.  Thankfully his parents have lived an example before him and been faithful to have him in church so he could hear the word.