Phone Calls and Football

God’s been challenging me in a lot of ways lately, but He is also very kind to fill me up with sweet pleasures out of the blue. This past Friday, I missed a call from Derek and was so sad since I haven’t talked to him since we were there to visit. But last evening my phone vibrated during devotions at small group. I looked down to see it was an incoming call from Georgia. My heart skipped a beat; I was so excited. I felt pure delight as we talked and even after I hung up. I know there was an afterglow on my face. It made my whole day.

And earlier that day, I was watching Zach play in the back yard with a few friends. I could just see him from afar and tell that he was in pure heaven hanging out and playing with his great friends. I was thanking God for the gift of life and for bringing boys along side Zach that bring him so much joy. I was delighting in God and all that He is to our family.

I want to hold on to that delight as I head into the week. Zach loves sports and loves me to pitch football to him. He begs me to play almost every evening after dinner. He will even start on the way home from school, “Think we can play football tonight, mom?” I always say something along the same lines… “Probably, let’s see.” I find I love to play with him and very thankful that my 15-year old still enjoys sports with me, but sometimes I’m just tired and want to chill with a book. So I answer slightly in the affirmative with wiggle room to let me off the hook if I so choose.

Yesterday as I was visiting with a neighbor, she said that she saw Zach and me in the backyard the other evening. She said watching me, as his mother, throw the football to him brought tears to her eyes. That touched me. I never thought that a simple act of playing sports with my second born could affect someone else.

I thought last night and this morning that those precious opportunities that God gives me with my boys, friends, or a neighbor should never be wasted. As a matter of fact, God had told me that a few days ago when He gave me this Scripture - Ephesians 5:15-16 “Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.”

Living Water

I've been camping on John 7:38 for the last two days. "Whoever believes in me, as the scriptures has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." I was was intrigued with the idea of streams of water flowing. I was thinking yesterday what that really looks like for me when I wake up each morning.

If "Jesus is the well that won't run dry. Jesus is the drink that satisfies" as we sang in church this morning, then how is that expressed in my everyday life. If I believe it (and I do), then what am I doing and how am I living that creates a desire in others to have that same living water flow inside them? I meditated on that Friday night and all day yesterday.

Today at church as we studied out of the 18th chapter of 1 Kings where God showed up mightily in a rain of fire on the alter to prove He was the one and only God, I wrote the question: What is my Baal? I thought...what is my false god...what interferes in my relationship with Jesus Christ that forces the living water inside me to go from a stream to a trickle?

God clearly brought two things to my head and heart. Both are intangibles. One is a character flaw that must be stomped on and disposed of once and for all and the other is actually something I thought brought me closer to Him, but in fact, has recently been drawing me away. I never realized that until today. Both will not disappear without a great deal of prayer and meditation, but I am convinced on the other side, there is a new Germaine just waiting.

I was thinking what I would look like with both of these issues gone from my life forever. The thought is captivating. Wow! How deep I could go with my Savior? I can't wait to find out. In the meantime for those of you who read my blog, please pray for me. It is going to be a very, very tough road for me to let go of things I been living with for years and years. But I am determined with my God to have beautiful streams of water flowing within me and from me for all the world to see.

35 Hours of Family Bliss

Zach and I hit the road on Thursday afternoon. We were headed to Columbus, Ga to visit Derek at Ft. Benning. He had a 35-hour pass and we had him on our minds. Nashville was our old stomping grounds ten years ago and that just happened to be half way. We pulled in Thursday night and I was not expecting the intensity of the emotions that began to fill me. The familiar sites and signs brought back such a wonderful flood of memories…then the painful tears wanted to come. Those memories involved four people and now we are a family of three. But that’s my bubble. I stay on it all the time. The immense joy…then the pain of my loss…it’s just my life.

We got in to Columbus late Friday afternoon and scouted out the area before getting Derek the next morning. I was so pumped to see him. Zach was excited, but he is a 15-year old boy and doesn’t get all giddy like his mama. By the time I began driving through the base a little before 9am on Saturday, I was shaking. Derek saw me from afar and began running to me. He said he couldn’t miss me with my pink “Army Mom” shirt and all.

It was pure joy for me over the next two days. We laughed, we told stories, goofed off and we ate…we ate a lot! I was thinking how wonderful it was to be with both my boys every single minute of the day. I remember that being such a special part of our mission trip to Mexico in 2007. From the time we boarded the plane, we spent 24 hours a day together for 8 days…that’s exactly how all day Saturday and Sunday was. I wouldn’t trade that time for anything. And as I chatted with Derek, I learned he loves the idea of serving his country as much as ever and has stood firm in his faith against the tide of his unit. He is a solid young man with a very big heart. I could not ask for much more!

I could still feel the bubbling affect of my joy as I sat down to eat dinner with Zach last night after arriving home. I just giggled at every silly comment he made. And then the giggles turned into full blown howls where I couldn't catch my breath and tears streamed down my face. My stomach hurt…but it was a good hurt.

I was thinking today about living more fully in priority and with the same level of joy that I felt for those 35 hours.

Psalm 30:11-12 “You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy, that my heart may sing to you and not be silent. O Lord my God, I will give you thanks forever.”

In Motion

I always feel like I’m in motion. God always seems to be on the move in my life. He challenges me, teaches me, and convicts me. This keeps me mighty busy. I was thinking this past weekend that there always seems to be something that He is asking me to work on. My mind is always trying to sync up with my heart and connect with exactly where God wants me to be. It’s a 24-hour a day process that would appear exhausting on the surface, but I find quite exhilarating.

The latter part of last week wasn’t the best for me emotionally, but God never stopped working. He reminded me that He is challenging me to fight through difficult times so I can be stronger and more able to fight other battles that He has in mind. So I keep at it. I pick myself up and fix my eyes in that holy direction. I just keep moving. If I stop, I don’t grow. If I’m not moving forward, then I’ve accepted my character just as it is. No, that’s not an option.

I also want my boys to see that movement as well. I want them to shape their thinking around God’s way of thinking. So in letters to Derek and conversations with Zach, I speak boldly about issues they face as teenage boys. I remind them that the wisdom I bring to them is not mama’s opinion, but God’s instruction. I want them to catch the hard stuff and have their character shaped by it.

So I have to stay in motion. They need to see me living it first, and then they need to claim it for themselves. Zach and I have had some pretty tough conversations lately about boy teenage stuff that can get a bit tricky for a mama to address, but I go at it unrelentingly. I will never assume they understand the Biblical perspective on something. I want them to hear it from my lips.

When Derek writes to me from Basic training camp and lets me know he’s finishing his 12th book of the Bible and can’t wait to share with me what God has been teaching him, I know that God is on the move with him as well. I know that he caught some of what he’s witnessed in my life, some of what we’ve discussed and has been open enough to let God in to work.

So I stand here in glorious celebration of God’s movement in my life and that of my boys. I’ll keep at it and hopefully He’ll see fit to use me a bit along the way.

Falling So I Could Stand

There’s an old saying that goes ”If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.” I’d like to think that as I go through life, I stand up for Jesus. I’d like to think that what He tells me is important is what truly drives me. I’d like to think that I don’t fall easily. I was confronted with that reality last Thursday on my mission trip.

I had such an incredible week serving. I loved the relationships that I developed, not only with team members, but with the owners of the home I worked on. I sat quietly each day and asked God to teach me and He did. And I had a lot of fun…I laughed at times until tears streamed down my face. I felt joy and was greatly blessed.

On Thursday morning, I was on the roof of a house where I had been all week. We put a tin roof on one side and were now working on the other side. It was raining so we worked intermittently between the rain drops. At one point, I was on the edge of the roof as I crouched down to put the last row of screws in a 3 foot piece of tin. My left foot slipped. As I tried to catch myself, my right foot hit the wet tin and in seconds I realized both feet had slipped and I was going down. In that moment, I looked down and saw that a deck and metal table below were about to greet me. Pure terror went through my veins. I remember thinking, “This is it.” And then I fell.

The pain that encompassed my body was worse than child birth. As I laid on the gurney in the ER for over 2 hours, I just talked to God. He taught me about my attachment to this world. He revealed areas of my life that I held on to a bit too tightly. I knew things needed to change. I was so thankful for that time with Him and that teachable moment that changed my perspective.

Later, the doctor told me not a thing was broken and I was free to go. I was still in great pain, but I was healable. I was up walking and talking and felt such joy and freedom that by the time I reached the parking lot of the hospital, I was dancing. I know without out a doubt, I fell into the arms of Jesus. I did not actually bounce off a deck as my team members witnessed. I’m sure it just looked like that to them.

So I may, at some point, physically fall again, but have pushed my faith stake deeper in the ground and I will always stand up for my Jesus! Two scriptures come to mind as I think about this world - Ecclesiastes 2:11 "Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind: nothing was gained under the sun." and Psalm 127:1 "Unless the Lord builds the house, it's builders labor in vain."

I must concentrate on the things in this world that have eternal value...nothing else much matters.

Loving Deep in the Mountains

Zach and I just got back on Friday from our mission trip to Frakes, KY. It's on the border of TN in the Appalachia mountains. It was an awesome trip serving the poor in that area. I was blessed beyond measure in all that God taught me, the relationships that were formed and the joy of helping create a better home for several needy families.

The day before I left, God opened my eyes to the heart of neglected children in a way that was seared deep within. A few weeks ago, I realized all the letters I was sending Derek while he was in Basic training were not getting to him because I had the address wrong. I was so haunted by the fact that my firstborn spent the first four weeks not getting a single letter from me and thought I didn't care enough to bother writing. The pain was very difficult for me to pray through, so I knew there was a lesson in that. I asked God to reveal it to me.

Last Saturday, I was watching a video on friend's blog about how orphans are often brokenhearted because they may never get a birthday card from family and then later that night I began reading a book about a guy who spent his adolescent years in abusive foster homes. He said, "My only real sadness was that no one in my family every tried to make contact with me." I began to cry. I felt their pain. I could only think of the deep hurt that must have gone through my son's heart and he only had to go four weeks without hearing from me...what if he had to carry that same pain for a lifetime. It was almost more than I could bear.

As I sat in Frakes, KY on Sunday night listening to the pastor speak from Isaiah 6, I could feel my heart begin to ache again. He quoted Isaiah when he responded to God by saying, "Here I am. Send me!" (v8) Each time I leave Danville to serve, I am gripped by the fact that my mission is the same whether I'm here in Indiana, Kentucky, Mexico, or Africa.

I am called to serve and to love with all my heart. This life is not about me! "Not to us, O Lord, not to us but to your name be the glory, because of your love and faithfulness." Psalm 115:1