It is Well...

Dear Blogging Friends,

It seems like it has been a while since my last blog. I want to update you on my life, with all of our children and craziness, but this is just too good pass up. I promise to write and catch you up on soon. This blog was written by a friend of mine in who lives in Southeast Asia.

I wanted to share it with you, because I feel it captures the essence of why we worship this amazing God. He alone is worthy of our praise. I can clearly remember times hearing and sometimes feeling, "Worship was just not that good for me today," or "I just couldn't get into worship today." While we know that we sing to the Lord, sometimes we forget that worship never was and never will be intended for us. It is intended to glorify Jesus, to bless His name. When we worship, we are filled and do end up "feeling good," but if that is why we worship, then we have fully missed the mark.

I love the lady who has written this note to me, she is an amazing woman of God. I can only pray that the Lord continues to mature me to this place of really seeing and worshiping Him for who He is. Lord may I live my life completely abandoned to You, serving You wherever You go, and however You call us.

Today's service was absolutely awesome. I cried all the way through worship (so what's new :). This was just a tad different however. As we were waiting for the service to begin, the musicians were practicing and the song being sung by a lovely woman was "It is Well With My Soul." Alone, that is a very moving song in and of itself. As they were practicing, I shared with Harry a comment from one of the visiting professors just before she left to go back to the states. She'd seen me with several of our girls and I was sharing a birthday coffee with her and several ex-pat ladies, when another couple of my girls saw me and yelled across the room, "Hi mommy!" I responded with thrown kisses to them and proudly claimed as "mine". When the visiting professor, Carla, said goodbye to me the night before she left, she said, "I think you've found your home." That statement has haunted me ever since and today was the first time I uttered those words out loud - to Harry.

I have no idea of the full capacity of what that statement means. Is God leading us to live in Southeast Asia? Is our calling to young people of high school age? Is our home in Arizona soon to be exchanged with somewhere else God will lead? Only God knows. The one thing I can hang my hat on, however, is this: God knows and if we keep our hearts open to Him, He will lead us and we will not have to stumble along trying to find His way.

All through the service, God continued to "prime" my heart as He spoke to me in so many different ways.

First song up, "Great Is Thy Faithfulness." WHOA!! The words are like a love letter from God to us. Every morning He floods us with His new mercies and He provides everything I need. For each new day, He provides His presence to cheer and guide me and He freely gives me His strength for the now, and His bright hope for tomorrow. Tomorrow!!! That means tomorrow and the next day and the next day and the next day ... for however many days He has numbered my life.

Second song up, "Because He Lives." Because He lives, I CAN face tomorrow. Because He lives, all fear is gone. Because I know HE holds the future, life is worth living just because He lives. His promise to me is that because He lives and reigns in my heart and life, whatever tomorrow brings, I can face it because He will be in it and I have no need to fear. He holds all the my future in His hands and every breath that He gives me will be worth it, regardless of what it holds, because He lives in and through with me. WOW!! What a bargain.

Third song up, "Offering." You may not be too familiar with this one. I'd sung it a few times before but many years ago. The chorus goes like this, "I bring an offering of worship to my King. No one on earth deserves the praises that I sing. Jesus may You receive the honor that You're due. O Lord, I bring an offering to You." When you cling to the promises of God ... that He holds your future ... that you do not need to fear ... that He lives in the future with you - praises to Him just spill out everywhere - almost every orifice on the head for sure. If my ears could cry, I'd have a waterfall goin' on :)

Fourth song up, "Find Us Faithful." Oh my goodness - are there still tears left??!! "Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful. May the fire of our devotion light their way. May the footprints that we leave lead them to believe, and the lives we live inspire them to obey. Oh may all who come behind us find us faithful." "After all our hopes and dreams have come and gone and our children sift through all we've left behind. May the clues that they discover and the memories they uncover become the light that leads them to the road we each must find." Even as I sit and type these words, I am overcome at the desire of my heart that this sentiment be true in my life. That not only my children, but my grandchildren see through our lives and the things left behind that are important to us, that being faithful to God was the hallmark of our life and inspire them to follow in those footsteps.

Last song, "It is Well with My Soul." God what are you trying to do with me, wring me dry!! The enormity of the words from this song still hang in the air. "Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come, let this blest assurance control. That Christ has regarded my helpless estate, and has shed His own blood for my soul." "My sin, oh the bliss of this glorious thought! My sin, not in PART but the WHOLE, is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more, Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, Oh my soul!!" That is the message in it's entirety!!! This is the message that the whole world needs to hear. This is the message I want to share to those who will listen!!

I'm not even sure how to conclude this missal. I guess I just needed to share my heart and I love that you understand it. Thanks for doing just that - listening. I just find that God continues to break me before Him. I think He's still trying to root out of me, Me!! So there's more room for Him. I know He wants to lay us bare before Him so that all we want - we thirst for and cling to - is more of Him. Oh I want that with every fiber of my being and I know He has to do a lot of "house keeping" to make that even possible.

If every fiber of our being could be saturated with Jesus! Isn't that our goal? To live is Christ and to die is gain? I often wonder if I am living my life as Christ would live it for me. I wonder what opportunities I have missed with my Savior due to business and distraction. I wonder what opportunities I have missed to share the Glory of the Lord with a person, who is dying and going to hell.

Jesus would have me be on purpose for Him. Giving my all to this loving savior. He would not have me think of all the what if's, but live as reckless abandon trusting in Him. I don't want to be safe, I want to risk it all. I want to live on the edge, following His lead, and be fully saturated with my Jesus.