HAIRBRUSH, an EXPERIENCE of BETH MOORE at an AIRPORT

HAIRBRUSH, an EXPERIENCE of BETH MOORE at an AIRPORT
Beth Moore is an outstanding speaker and Bible teacher, and the author of several excellent Bible studies. She and her husband of a number of year live in Texas and have two grown daughters. This is one of her experiences:

April 20, 2005, at the Airport in Knoxville, waiting to board the plane, I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon what I was doing. I'd had a marvelous morning with the Lord. I say this because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have the Spirit of God really working in you. You could end up doing some things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons, not the least of which is your ego.

I tried to keep from staring, but he was such a strange sight. Humped over in a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt. His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones.

The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy, gray hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back. His fingernails were long, clean but strangely out of place on an old man.

I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort burning my face. As I tried to imagine what his story might have been, I found myself wondering if I'd just had a Howard Hughes sighting. Then, I remembered that he was dead. So this man in the airport....an impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us somewhere? There I sat; trying to concentrate on the Word to keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served on a wheelchair only a few seats from me. All the while, my heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for him.

Let's admit it. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true concern, and suddenly I was awash with aching emotion for this bizarre-looking old man.

I had walked with God long enough to see the handwriting on the wall. I've learned that when I begin to feel what God feels, something so contrary to my natural feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be embarrassing.

I immediately began to resist, because I could feel God working on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind. "Oh, no, God, please, no." I looked up at the ceiling as if I could stare straight through it into heaven and said, "Don't make me witness to this man. Not right here and now. Please. I'll do anything. Put me on the same plane, but don't make me get up here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience. Please, Lord!"

There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness, "Please don't make me witness to this man. Not now. I'll do it on the plane."
Then I heard it... "I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to brush his hair."

The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness to the man or brush his hair? No-brainer. I looked straight back up at the ceiling and said, "God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to witness to this man."

"I'm on this Lord. I'm your girl! You've never seen a woman witness to a man faster in your life. What difference does it make if his hair is a mess if he is not redeemed? I am going to witness to this man."

Again as clearly as I've ever heard an audible word, God seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind. "That is not what I said, Beth. I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to go brush his hair."

I looked up at God and quipped, "I don't have a hairbrush. It's in my suitcase on the plane. How am I supposed to brush his hair without a hairbrush?" God was so insistent that I almost involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came to me from God's word: "I will thoroughly furnish you unto all good works." (2 Timothy 3:17)

I stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking I could use one myself. Even as I retell this story, my pulse quickens and I feel those same butterflies. I knelt down in front of the man and asked as demurely as possible, "Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?"

He looked back at me and said, "What did you say?"

"May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?"

To which he responded in volume ten, "Little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you're going to have to talk louder than that."

At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out, "SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?"

At which point every eye in the place darted right at me. I was the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr. Longlocks. Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, I watched him look up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, "If you really want to." Are you kidding? Of course I didn't want to. But God didn't seem interested in my personal preference right about then. He pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, "Yes, sir, I would be pleased. But, I have one little problem. I don't have a hairbrush."
"I have one in my bag, "he responded.

I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and knees and unzipped the stranger's old carry-on, hardly believing what I was doing. I stood up and started brushing the old man's hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled and matted. I don't do many things well, but must admit I've had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two little girls. Like I'd done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands, remembering to take my time not to pull.

A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that old man's hair. Everybody else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me. I brushed and I brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of that hair. I know this sounds so strange, but I've never felt that kind of love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I - for that few minutes - felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and making Himself at home for a short while.

The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God's. This man's hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant's.

I slipped the brush back in the bag and went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees, put my hands on his knees and said, "Sir, do you know my Jesus?"

He said, "Yes, I do." Well, that figures, I thought.

He explained, "I've known Him since I married my bride. She wouldn't marry me until I got to know the Savior." He said, "You see, the problem is, I haven't seen my bride in months. I've had open-heart surgery, and she's been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself, what a mess I must be for my bride."

Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we're completely unaware of the significance. This, on the other hand, was one of those rare encounters when I knew God had intervened in details only He could have known. It was a God moment, and I'll never forget it. Our time came to board, and we were not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I'd acted earlier and would have been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.

I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, "That old man's sitting on the plane, sobbing. Why did you do that? What made you do that?"

I said, "Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!"

And we got to share.

I learned something about God that day. He knows if you're exhausted, you're hungry, you're serving in the wrong place or it is time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He knows if you're hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you're sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or, He knows if you just need your hair brushed. He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need!

I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the way. . . all because I didn't want people to think I was strange. God didn't send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.

John 1:14 "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We Have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth."

Life shouldn't be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather, to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly shouting, "Wow! What a ride! Thank You, Lord!"

Don't tell God how big your troubles are - tell your troubles HOW BIG your GOD is!

May you always have love to share, health to spare, and friends that care.

Rick Warren: still driven by Purpose

In an interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, Rick Warren said:

People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond, In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were made to last forever, and God wants us to be with Him in Heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body - but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillion of years in eternity. This is the warm-up act, the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense.

Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one or you're getting ready to go into another one. The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort. God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life: The goal is to grow in character, In Christ-likeness.

This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you got to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore. Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believ'e that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.

And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for. You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness, "which is my problem, my issues, my pain."

But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others.

We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people...You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life.

Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instanfly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I had never had to deal with before.

I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for you to own ego or for you to live a life of ease. So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, notoriety and influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, Corinthians 9 and Psalm 72.

First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our lifestyle one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan - to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I started the church, and I gave it all back. It was liberating to be able to serve God for free.

We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes (for my life)?

When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say, God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better...God didn't put me on earth just to fulfil a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do. That's why we're called human beings, not human doings.

What's on your "to do" list???

Giddy up!!!

Teenagers raising the dead.... check it out!

Here's an excert from a recent email. Cool stuff.....





Dear friends,

This is a testimony from a young lady in our church ( 14) , who was part of team used by God to raise a stillborn baby from the dead in Guatemala. We know this young lady personally. Her character and integrity are without reproach. You are about to read a bonafide, contemporary Lazarus resurrection story. This is as close to the flame of a literal resurrection from the dead as we have ever been!

BIG blessings,
Dave and Anita

Testimony from Abby:

My name is Abby. I am 14 years old. I live in western North Carolina. During the summer of 2008, I went on a ministry trip to Guatemala. During part of the trip, we divided up into small ministry teams (5 to 7 people) and visited different villages in the San Pedro La Laguna area. We traveled from village to village telling the Indian people about Jesus. On one particular day, we were visiting in the home of young woman. She lived in a small village of about 14 or 15 houses. We were trying to lead the young lady to Christ, but it was not going very well. After awhile, we decided to move on. Before leaving, we asked the woman if we could pray with her about anything in her life. She told us that just the day before, she had given birth to a stillborn baby and that we could pray with her about that.

In Guatemalan culture there is great shame and condemnation on mothers who give birth to deformed or stillborn children. We prayed a simple prayer that everything would go well with the funeral and burial of the baby and that the mother would be spared the shame and condemnation associated with having given birth to a stillborn child. As we were praying this simple prayer, my friend and fellow ministry team member, Julia (age 17), told me that we needed to pray over the baby's body. I thought she was crazy to suggest this and that it was not a good idea. Julia was persistent. She said again that we really needed to pray over the baby's body. She told me to ask the mother if she still had the baby's body. When I asked, the mother told us the baby's body was wrapped up in a burial cloth in the backroom. I asked her if we could pray over the body. The mother hesitantly said, yes. We went into the backroom and saw the baby's body wrapped up in a bundle on the bed. Julia poked her head out of the back room and asked if she could unwrap the baby's head. The mother said, yes, if we wrapped it back correctly when we were done. Julia picked up the body and unwrapped the head. The baby's head was tiny and pale. The baby was stillborn and had been dead outside the womb for 27 hours. Her skin had turned shades of purple. Our entire ministry team, five of us, began crying and praying over this baby. We prayed for thirty to forty minutes. At the end of that time, Julia screamed out to God, telling him that she believed with all of her heart that this baby could be raised from the dead. After Julia screamed out, everyone was silent. We were quietly interceding and praying. Within a few minutes, the baby started moving. Then the baby coughed and began crying. The mother came rushing into the room. She was screaming, what is going? No one could answer her. We were just staring at the baby, who had come back to life. The mother asked us again, what is going on? She began crying as she saw that her baby was alive. She ran out of the house and banged on every door in the village, telling all of the people that God is real because her baby was alive. Within about thirty minutes, the baby's skin tone and movements had become completely normal.

The other villagers came to the house to see this amazing miracle. They asked us which of the Indian gods we had prayed to for such a miracle to happen. We told them we had prayed to the biggest God ever and we began to explain to them about Jesus. Soon, we realized we would not have time to minister salvation to each person individually. So, we gathered all the villagers together, turned on our little sound system and explained the way of salvation. Everyone in the village, 80 to 90 people, prayed to receive Jesus. Each of them was baptized in the Holy Spirit and began speaking in tongues. Many would fall to the ground as the power of the Holy Spirit came on them.

Five days later, we returned to the village to check in on the mother and the baby. The village had prepared a big dinner in honor of our team. We enjoyed a wonderful time of fellowship together. The baby, whom they named Julia, was perfectly healthy and had gained weight. Even after five days, the mother was still shaking from the impact of God on her life through the resurrection of her child. Two days after our follow-up visit, the mother brought baby Julia to church. The mother was still shaking from the power of God on her life following this astounding miracle.
Abby

Yours, Mine, and Ours

Didn't think of this one....

Last week the five of us went out to eat at a local Korean restaurant. The owner/chef lady came out of the back and was talking to us as we stood by the door to leave. (Tim ALWAYS makes friends with the owners of these Asian places! They adore him!) Anyway, I was watching her look our three girls over and could tell she just couldn't figure things out! Tim was holding baby Kate, and the older two were standing close by. Finally, with a crinkled brow, she asked me:

"So. Is she [Kate] his? And these two [Callie and Claire] yours?"

Yep. He dumped his Asian bride. I left my white man, and we hooked up. Cool family, huh?!

She was still scratching her head as we left! I love it!

On the run

Today I'm especially running after my God..... My hands and feet have more pain than "normal", and I'm being s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d to trust my Lord and my hubby to watch over my sweet 8 year old who is on her first trip to Six Flags (someone was just killed there 2 days ago).

We should continually RUN after our Lord. Our Lover. Our Bridegroom. Not just on days that we are seeking refuge, but CONTINUALLY.

How 'bout you? Got your Nike's on???

What Jesus do you pray to???

Sunday our pastor preached on "My Relationship with God is Dependent upon my Concept of God!"

How do you view your Heavenly Father? Jesus? The Holy Spirit? When you pray, what mental image do you have of the Divine Being to whom you're conversing??? We all do that. We all have a picture in our heads of God when we pray. And being creatures of habit, that image is probably one we've had for a very long time.... What do you think Jesus, the Father, and the Spirit are like???

My image of the God-head varies. My picture of the Father is something like my earthly father ~ with potential for wrath, but mostly loving, compassionate, patient and gentle. I like to picture myself sitting on His lap and Him holding me. I like to listen for His heartbeat, though I know He doesn't have a physical one.

My picture of Jesus changes vastly. I love to see Him as a love-sick Bridegroom counting the minutes until the wedding feast. I love to see Him as my Best Friend. My Lover. My King. My Saviour. This picture is by far the best way I love to visualize my Jesus:

The Holy Spirit's image is a little more illusive to me. I pretty much picture Him as a very sensitive Spirit-Being.

Our pastor used an excerpt from a movie scene as an illustration ( he didn't necessarily recommend the movie BTW):

dinner scene: (Ricky begins dinner prayer):
"Dear Lord baby Jesus lying in a manger...."

His wife interrupts: "Jesus did grow up you know!"

He replies: "I like the baby Jesus. When I pray that's who I like to pray to! When you pray, you can pray to grown-up Jesus, teenage Jesus, or bearded Jesus, whatever YOU want!"

He begins to pray again: "Dear Lord baby Jesus, with a fleeced diaper, wrapped up all snug and warm, curled up asleep in a manger...."

Grandpa then confronts him: "He was a man! He had a beard for Christ's sake!"

Ricky then states: "Well, I like the baby Jesus the best!"

His friend Cal says: "I like to picture my Jesus in a tuxedo T-shirt, because it says, 'I want to be formal, but I'm here to party' ~ cause I like to party, so I like my Jesus to party too!"

One of his sons then says: "I like to picture my Jesus as a ninja fighter fighting off all the evil samurai."

His friend Cal says: "I like to picture my Jesus with large eagles wings and singing lead vocal for Lynard Skynard and a huge angel band!"

So, WHAT DOES YOUR JESUS LOOK LIKE???? Is he a stern father figure sitting on a golden throne waiting to bash you for wrong doings? Is He a large, grandfather figure with a long white beard like Gandalf? Is He the sweet baby Jesus in the manger? Do you always picture Jesus as a Caucasian male???

Do tell!

Love shoes??!

Good friends of ours just opened a fabulous shoe store here in town. Do you live close? Do you love stylish, comfortable, casual, did I mention ADORABLE footwear? Check it out....
On Walnut, behind Talbots. One of a kind!

Why DID the chicken cross the road???

BARACK OBAMA:
The chicken crossed the road because it was time for a CHANGE! The chicken wanted CHANGE!

JOHN MC CAIN:
My friends, that chicken crossed the road because he recognized the need to engage in cooperation and dialogue with all the chickens on the other side of the road.

HILLARY CLINTON:
When I was First Lady, I personally helped that little chicken to cross the road. This experience makes me uniquely qualified to ensure -- right from Day One! -- that every chicken in this country gets the chance it deserves to cross the road. But then, this really isn ' t about me.......

DR. PHIL:
The problem we have here is that this chicken won ' t realize that he must first deal with the problem on ' THIS ' side of the road before it goes after the problem on the ' OTHER SIDE ' of the road. What we need to do is help him realize how stupid he ' s acting by not taking on his 'CURRENT' problems before adding ' NEW ' problems.

OPRAH:
Well, I understand that the chicken is having problems, which is why he wants to cross this road so bad. So instead of having the chicken learn from his mistakes and take falls, which is a part of life, I ' m going to give this chicken a car so that he can just drive across the road and not live his life like the rest of the chickens.

GEORGE W. BUSH:
We don ' t really care why the chicken crossed the road. We just want to know if the chicken is on our side of the road, or not. The chicken is either against us, or for us. There is no middle ground here.

COLIN POWELL:
Now to the left of the screen, you can clearly see the satellite image of the chicken crossing the road...

ANDERSON COOPER - CNN:
We have reason to believe there is a chicken, but we have not yet been allowed to have access to the other side of the road.

JOHN KERRY:
Although I voted to let the chicken cross the road, I am now against it! It was the wrong road to cross, and I was misled about the chicken ' s intentions. I am not for it now, and will remain against it.

NANCY GRACE:
That chicken crossed the road because he ' s GUILTY! You can see it in his eyes and the way he walks.

PAT BUCHANAN:
To steal the job of a decent, hardworking American.

MARTHA STEWART:
No one called me to warn me which way that chicken was going. I had a standing order at the Farmer ' s Market to sell my eggs when the price dropped to a certain level. No little bird gave me any insider information.

DR SEUSS:
Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes, the chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed I ' ve not been told.

ERNEST HEMINGWAY:
To die in the rain. Alone.

JERRY FALWELL:
Because the chicken was gay! Can ' t you people see the plain truth? ' That ' s why they call it the ' other side. ' Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media white washes with seemingly harmless phrases like ' the other side. That chicken should not be crossing the road. It ' s as plain and as simple as that.

GRANDPA:
In my day we didn ' t ask why the chicken crossed the road. Somebody told us the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough.

BARBARA WALTERS:
Isn ' t that interesting? In a few moments, we will be listening to the chicken tell, for the first time, the heart warming story of how it experienced a serious case of molting, and went on to accomplish its life long dream of crossing the road.

ARISTOTLE:
It is the nature of chickens to cross the road.

JOHN LENNON:
Imagine all the chickens in the world crossing roads together, in peace.

BILL GATES:
I have just released eChicken2007, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your check book. Internet Explorer is an integral part of the Chicken. This new platform is much more stable and will never cra...#@&&^(C% ......... reboot.

ALBERT EINSTEIN:
Did the chicken really cross the road, or did the road move beneath the chicken?

BILL CLINTON:
I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What is your definition of chicken?

AL GORE:
I invented the chicken!

COLONEL SANDERS:
Did I miss one?

DICK CHENEY:
Where's my gun?

AL SHARPTON:
Why are all the chickens white? We need some black chickens.

My baby girl is ONE today!!!

Photo and video editing at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Today is already tomorrow

Tomorrow, June 11, Kate Ha Mee will be one year old! But, it's already tomorrow in Korea. I knew I would be thinking about her birth mother and foster mother tomorrow, but TODAY I'm totally consumed in thought of both of them. It is overwhelming to think this child, my child, has been so dearly loved by THREE mothers. Birth mother, foster mother, adoptive mother. Kate Ha Mee has already been on a tremendous journey in her short life, but with a triple blessing.

Father God does the same for each of us. No matter how hard our journey, He ALWAYS gives us what we need in advance, and in abundance ~ no matter what the circumstances seem like.

Move over Rachel Ray!

My friend Marianne is known for the STELLAR birthday parties she throws for her kids. I'm talking all out, over the moon kind of fun! One year she served up these WONDERFUL chicken fingers she made from scratch. I had to have the recipe and we've been eating them ever since. I just made them again the other night and thought, gosh, these are just tooooooo good not to share!!!

BREADED CHICKEN FINGERS

Boneless, skinless chicken breasts cut into strips
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg, beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
~~~~
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup seasoned bread crumbs
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 tablespoon Tony Chachere's original creole seasoning

Combine the top four ingredients and refrigerate 2-4 hours, or overnight. Mix together remaining ingredients. Remove chicken from buttermilk mixture and dredge in flour mixture. Fry til golden in small amount of oil in a nonstick pan. Yummmm!

So, what are you doing to conserve?

With gas closing in on $4. a gallon, food prices rising, and the cost of living heading through the roof, are you finding ways to conserve your resourses? Here's what I'm doing:

• consolidating trips for errands


• keeping the thermostat at a higher temperature


• running the dishwasher on a timer in the middle of the night (hopefully a cheaper time frame to use it)


• making baby food / baby wipes (can't make myself use cloth diapers!)


• considering an outdoor clothes line


• being more conservative / creative with leftovers


• doing my own hair color / pedicures


• realizing how big a treat it REALLY is to eat out!

OK, a lot of this stuff I did anyway! But, now I'm way more aware of them! What about you? Any tips to share?

What's up with that.....

The evolution of man and TV

I stole this from another blog. Thought it was great!

Mama said there'd be days like this....

Nice, relaxing holiday weekend is over, and my butt is so dragging today. Kicker is, we relaxed all weekend! Tim's back to work, laundry is piled up, groceries to be bought, attitudes to be checked, and oh, I'm soooo tired today....

I love this poem, and I'm trying to keep it in mind as I do my mommy stuff today:

Three Mothers

Once a woman came upon three mothers at work.

"What are you doing?" she asked one of them.

"I'm doing the weekly washing," answered the first.

"I'm doing a bit of household drudgery," replied the second.

"I'm mothering three young children who someday will fill important and useful spheres in life, and wash-day is a part of my grand task in caring for these souls who shall live forever," replied the third.

Only she had caught the vision of the great work she was doing.

Isn't she lovely....

Kate has been home 10 1/2 weeks, and boy, has it been a wild ride! A little over a year and a half ago, I cried for 2 weeks when I realized Tim was serious about a third baby! (God just had to take us both down special paths to prepare our hearts for her!) Now, I can't imagine my life without my three girls! I've been asked repeatedly, "How does it feel to now be the mother of three?" I can tell you that it feels wonderful. My life feels so incredibly full, complete, and happy. I don't know exactly what it is, but I seem to treasure the moments more... I guess with Callie now 8, I'm realizing that life, indeed, is incredibly fast, and before I turn around, Kate will be as old as Callie. It feels easier, and even more fun the third time around! Kate brings us so much joy!

Of course, it is a lot easier to say this now that full adjustments to her homecoming have been made. Claire and Callie both have adapted beautifully and love for Kate continues to blossom in the hearts of all of us.

The emotional side of adoption amazes me. It's true. What I've always heard. I love Kate just as much as my biological daughters. To me, that's miraculous. I know it's just a reflection, a picture, of the love my Heavenly Father has for me....

"In love He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with His pleasure and will ~ to the praise of His glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding...."

Ephesians 1:5-8

It's just incredible, practically incomprehensible, that our Heavenly Father loves us as much as His Son, Jesus. And, that it was "in accordance with His pleasure and will" that He predestined us to be adopted into His family. He wanted us, just like we wanted Kate! It was His pleasure to welcome us as His child, just like it is our wonderful pleasure to welcome Kate into our family and make her a co-heir. Think about it! (AND, I'm sure God didn't cry for 2 weeks at the thought of adding more kids to His family!)

Lose yourself in a good book this summer

Lose more than yourself ~ Lose your religious ideologies of God.

I just finished this today. This book will leave you longing to cozy up to the Triune Godhead of the universe. It's an easy reading novel (not boring theologies) that will blow the lid off the box you've kept God in for so long.....

"This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress did for his. It's that good!" - Eugene Peterson

Mackenzie Allen Philip's youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, apparently from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgement he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare. What he finds there will change Mack's world forever.

Square in a round world...

"A round watermelon can take up a lot of room in a refrigerater and the usually round fruit often sits awkwardly on refrigerator shelves. Smart Japanese Farmers have forced their watermelons to grow into a square shape by inserting the melons into square, tempered glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine."

It's all good...

We're finally back in a routine! Every time my previous post came up with the photo of Kate crying in her bed, my four year old, sweet Claire kept saying, "That's poor. That's poor. That's poor." I wasn't quite sure what she meant by that... poor blogging, poor photo, but I suspect she was trying to say, "poor Kate"! It was the very next night, as I was questioning my sanity, that Kate whimpered a moment, then slept 11 solid hours. Oh, that's rich!

Coffee anyone?

So, I've been following another adoptive / blogging family who have a baby girl from Ethiopia (she's SO cute!) They have a passion to help orphans worldwide and started Gobena Coffee where 100% of the proceeds goes towards orphan care.... So cool! I'm thinking Father's Day presents for my hubby and father-in-law. Click on the name above to get to the store. Buy something. Help an orphan. Enjoy a cup of joe.