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Monday, October 29, 2012

Hurricane Sandy

Just watching the news and I am shocked at the magnitude of the damage Hurricane Sandy is doing.  I know what we went through during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  We did not have electricity for 2 and a half weeks, no phone for a week, no water for a week and a half to two weeks.  We lived through it but we did not see the news coverage until much later when we saw reruns.  I live in a rural area so it was not as bad as living in a congested city and having to go through it.

It seems surreal now to watch the tremendous flooding and wind damage happening in the northeast. The sheer size of the cities in the path of this massive storm system bare witness to the many millions of people it will affect. Although it brings back memories it also brings the knowledge that when these people who are being affected by this storm system wake up tomorrow morning their lives will be changed in some way. 

They won't wake up and just start their day as if nothing happened.  Businesses will be closed due to massive power outages or damage and continued flooding.  There will be massive cleanup to do.  There will be boiled water alerts.  Power companies, police, fire departments, hospitals, ambulances, disaster relief agencies and the National Guard will all be overwhelmed and their limits tested. 

Let us all pray for their safety.  The coming storm is here!  May God grant them peace and comfort in this stressful time. 

 

Monday, October 22, 2012

Prelude to Thanksgiving

As we look forward to Thanksgiving we can be thankful for the bountiful blessings God provides us.  So many times we take for granted even the simplest of blessings because we expext them instead of being grateful for them. 

Since we have another month until Thanksgiving I want to start now by preparing my heart for being thankful.  I want to become thankful for even the tiniest of things in my life. 

When I drink a glass of water I want to be thankful I have that glass of water.  I want to be thankful that I didn't have to go to a well, or across town, or for miles to get that glass of water.  And then I want to pray for all the people who are not able to turn on the faucet and have clear, clean running water. 

When I am hungry I want to be thankful I can go to my pantry or refrigerator and satisfy that very basic need.  Then I want to pray for all the people around the world who can't do that.  There are too many to count who go without basic needs every day. 

When it is cold outside I want to be thankful I can be warm inside.  For everyday I wake up I want to be thankful.  For everyday I am not sick or in pain I want to be thankful.  For a loving family I want to be thankful.  May we never take each other for granted. 

I hope if you are reading this you are thankful.  Start your own mental list of what you are thankful for. And, next month when Thanksgiving comes around I wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving. 

 

Saturday, October 20, 2012

Help My Brain Is Frozen


When I have had a hard day or a hard week at work I can often feel somewhat empty.  Anyone who has ever had writer’s block knows what I mean.  Whether it is writer’s block or just brain freeze it is the same feeling.  You try to write something or think something and there is nothing.   You think, Lord help me, give me the thoughts and the words to speak or write.  Again nothing, just silence.  You think at least give me a feeling, just something that can grow into a thought or story.

The harder you try the less comes out.  This sometimes translates over to my prayer life.  I promise myself to be faithful.  I promise I will pray every day regardless of how my day went or how busy I am.  I remember having a conversation with my friend, Gina, a few years ago where she confided she had gone though a spiritually dry period in her life too.  We all go through it at one time or another.  I will never forget the words of wisdom she imparted that day. 

She told me she started small.  Even though she didn’t feel anything and didn’t know what to pray for she would start praying the Lord’s Prayer.  The more she did this and made it a habit the more she started to feel that God was working to free her from the emptiness she felt.   She told me that after a time she noticed she no longer was just going through the motions but that the relationship she had with father God was back.  She felt renewed and strengthened.  She felt that regardless of what was going on in her life that she could feel the comfort of the Holy Spirit. 

Even if we don’t mean what we pray when we pray it.  If we are faithful to do what he wants us to do, God will bless our effort.  He will bless us, and eventually he will bless others through us.  He can take the emptiness and make it beautiful and perfect as he heals our wounded dry spirit.

The prayer as it occurs in Matthew 6:9–13 (ESV)

 

"Our Father in heaven,

hallowed be your name.

Your kingdom come,

your will be done,

on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread,

and forgive us our debts,

as we also have forgiven our debtors.

And lead us not into temptation,

but deliver us from evil."

 
Thank you for listening to the words we speak and the feeling behind them.  Thank you for the times when we don’t have the feelings but say the words anyway knowing that you can take that small effort and turn it into much more then we could ever think or ask. 

Friday, October 12, 2012

Love Is the Greatest Gift


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. I Corinthians 13

Yes the greatest of these gifts of the spirit is Love.  Love of mankind in general, love of an animal, love of God, Love of family, yes, Love is the greatest gift.  When we lose someone we love it causes great emotional pain.  It creates a deep sense of loss within us and creates emptiness.  In the end love must endure all.   

Clark just lost his Grandmother; Gail and Carla and their sisters lost their Mother. I lost my Parents four years ago and although it doesn’t ever go away it does get easier.  Our family recently lost a family pet that had been a part of our family for years.  Today we buried one of the newest members of our family, Patton, Hilary and Andrew’s puppy who was killed by a vicious attack from a pit bull.

We grieve, we continue on, we heal, we love.  And the greatest of these is love.  I am thankful I serve a God who loves us and will never leave us regardless of what we go through.  He is there to help us to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things.  He gives us faith. 

Lord, help us today to realize the extent of your love for us as we examine the extent of the love we have for others, both human and animal, in our lives.  Help us to understand how much greater your love is for us then we could ever imagine.  Thank you for giving us the capacity to love even a fraction of how you love us. 

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Have You Lost Something Lately?


We have all lost things.  I regularly lose my keys, my phone, and my channel changer just to name a few of those things.   I could probably make a career out of losing things. 

But, I was struck by a scripture I read this morning from Psalm 12:8 which says “The wicked freely strut about when what is vile is honored among men”.  Wow.  I had to just pause and think how far a society has to come when they would honor something God considers vile. 

I only have to turn on the TV or a movie to find that the world has lost it’s values and civility but has excepted brutality and hate as the norm.  We are exposed continually to outrageous public behavior, both immoral and violent, that every generation before us would be shocked by.  There are no longer any rules of decorum.  We as a society have lost are ability and right to have a code of rules to define what is good or bad behavior. 

Decorum is defined as breeding, civility, conduct,  convention, correctness, decency, dignity, etiquette, form, habits, order, orderliness, politeness, being proper, propriety, protocol, respectability.  Therefore the absence of decorum is bad behavior, bad manners, impoliteness, indecency, rudeness.

Yes, we have lost our decorum.  A word we rarely use anymore, that we no longer understand the meaning of.  How sad.  It is not only sad for us, but for generations to come. 
Lord, I pray today that we as Christians find our decorum.  We have lost it and we want it back.  I pray that the change it makes in us would radiate to a world that desperately needs rules of decorum.  I pray they find it.

Looking for help?  Recommended reading:  The Bible