Friday, November 28, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving



At the table of plenty...



Dayana's First Thanksgiving!

Pondering life and Thanksgiving...

While the computer keyboard has been silent the last few weeks, my mind has been staying active...and I've been doing a lot of thinking.

I guess things just haven't been the same since I came back from Bangladesh....it wasn't long....my time over there, but I have to admit, it has really given me a fresh perspective on life and service...I just don't see things in the same light anymore. What exactly God is doing in my heart, I don't know...but whatever it is, I pray He will keep doing more.

Yesterday was THANKSGIVING!! It's a Holiday that holds many memories and sentiments for me. Many good, some sad! It was on this day 11 years ago that my Holland family and I lost our dear Debbie. She was only 25 and died from Colon cancer. At the time I didn't understand "why" God let her die...I still don't. But now...I've come to realize even when I don't understand "why" certain things happen, I can still trust God!!

Thanksgiving is also a very happy time...and is a time to reflect back on the years and how God has blessed. It's the favorite Holiday of my family in Arkansas, and it's a holiday that I have only missed celebrating with my Mason family three times in the last 15 years. (Once because I was overseas, and the other two times have been the last two years since I've been living out here in CA! I guess I'm growing up more and more, and at the same time, it's not so easy to go home when home is over 2,000 miles away!)

But what is "Thanksgiving" really all about anyway?? Is it just a time to spend with family stuffing our faces? Is it just a time to spend goofing off and enjoying friends?? I mean, I can't point any fingers...that's what I've been doing. And yesterday was just another one of those times!! Had a blast at my best friend Valerie's home, and enjoyed the time with our Loma Linda friends....had a great meal....didn't get too stuffed, but was sufficiently filled....took a walk, sang our lungs out around LLU campus, played word games, and watched an inspiring movie "The Sixth Inn of Happiness." It was a great day.... Yet behind the gaiety and fun, my heart was burdened...and there were questions in my mind...questions that have been plaguing my heart ever since I walked the poverty laden streets of Bangladesh. "Isn't Holidays like this and my life suppose to be about soooo much more?? How I can enjoy this bounty when there are sooo many starving around the world?? How can I sleep in peace when so many can't sleep at all??"

I am probably sounding very "melancholy" at the moment...and it's probably because I am! But God is doing something special in my heart...and I don't know what He has in store or where He is taking me! But I guess it doesn't matter....as long as He walks beside me!

"And the LORD, He it is that goes before you. He will be with you, He will not leave you nor forsake you; do not fear nor be dismayed." Deut 31:8

Singing "I will wear a crown in my Father's House"

Thanksgiving walk around Loma Linda University

Friday, November 07, 2008

Dayana and Mel ~ 5am Prayer time



This morning, about 4:55am, Dayana and I once again found ourselves on the steps of Burden Hall, waiting for Prayer Group to begin. The weather was crisp and chilly and we clutched our blankets close as a shooting star zoomed overhead. It was beautiful! I opened my Bible to Psalms 92 and began to read about the magnitude and wonders of our God. Then we just sat in "awe" of it all for a few moments...

Then I broke the solemn silence in laughter... "Look at us Dayana! We can't even get our colors to match. We look like Hobos here clutching our blankets!"

And it's true! We did! We both had rolled out of bed at 4:45am and had to work to pry our eyes open. I had put on black sweats and a blue sweatshirt, a black scarf and a brown hat. I'd pulled on soft rainbow blue socks and quickly jumped into cheap white tenni shoes. And now I sat wrapped in a bright green blanket! What more amusing site could I be?? Dayana's attire wasn't much better...And yet, here we were, bowing before the God of the universe, pleading for His Holy Spirit and blessing...

Would we dare to go dressed like this before some earthly magistrate or king?? Would we dare to even go to work dressed like this? Of course not....yet, here we were before the King of the Universe...looking just like Hobos!

After I'd finished laughing about it, I paused to contemplate it all. Whether I was wearing nice clothes or a mismatched rainbow of styles, it didn't really matter to God did it? The most beautiful clothes I could wear, or the greatest deeds of love that I could summon forth, were only but filthy rags anyway....for it says, "We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away..." Isa 64:6.

Yet, I am sooo grateful that the God I serve, takes me, in all my amusing and hopeless styles of filthiness, and holds me close, and says, "Come now and let us reason together. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be white as snow..." Isa 1:18

Amusing as this whole situation was (And I took pictures just to prove it), it reminded me of this quote from steps to Christ.

"Jesus loves to have us come to Him just as we are, sinful, helpless, dependent. We may come with all our weakness, our folly, our sinfulness & fall at his feet in penitence. It is His glory to encircle us in the arms of His love, and to bind up our wounds, to cleanse us from all impurity." pg 52

Wow - what a beautiful personal and loving God we serve!!!

The Hobos come to pray...

Saturday, November 01, 2008

In a World that's dying...



I'm back, but WHERE am I??

This is the all too sobering question of the moment....I'm back home, in my snug little comfort zone again, with all my friends, and all those that I love, but WHERE am I?? Something seems amiss! Something seems wrong...

Could it be that God doesn't expect me to stay here...could it be that He opened my eyes in Bangladesh, not so I would SEE better....but so that I would become something MORE??

I'm still pondering this question, as I sort through the maze of my life....a life filled with trials and challenges, a life filled with joy. I've made my mistakes, and I've stumbled and fallen, yet with God's strength, I've picked myself back up, and I've moved on. My life has been filled, my life has been full. And it's been full of good things. This last month has been especially rewarding as I've focused my time around service and around ministry....around doing good....to the least of these! I can surely be proud of that fact, right?!! Or can I?? Does it really matter what I've done?? With the billions lost and hurting on our planet, does my little feeble efforts really matter? Maybe they do...maybe they don't! Maybe it's not about ME anymore....maybe it's not about what I've done or where I've been....

Maybe WHERE I am is not where I am suppose to stay....maybe God is asking for MORE....

I just listened to an incredible sermon by my friend, Eric Ludy! And it's challenged me to the core, in a new way....like never before...I encourage you to LISTEN and be challenged as well!

http://www.ericludy.com/ericludy.com/Featured.html

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any [man] will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me." Matt 16:24