Linda's Journal - January 19, 2010

I realized that I have not talked very much about the Inn lately… mostly because we haven’t had very many guests here at all. I suppose this is because this time of year can still be considered the “slow” season. The reservations calendar is looking like it will be picking up a little in Feb, March still looks a little bleak but then in April it starts picking up again.

Last Sunday Tom and I went to a baptism. There were several people in the Home Fellowships that we have attended that wanted to be baptized so they were able to make arrangements at a local church to use their baptismal. There were six people getting baptized but we had only heard two of the six names and we really wanted to support those two and celebrate with them. When we got there we saw that we knew all but one of the people getting baptized! That was a very nice surprise :) One of the girls I had not seen or talked with in a few months and had just sent her an email asking her how she was. So, when I saw her I was very pleasantly surprised, not only to see her but also to be there for her baptism. She said she had planned to respond to my email but had not had the time yet. So that night I got her response and was very surprised at what she said! :

Hey dear friend,

So nice to see you, if only briefly today….

I also wanted to tell both you and Tom something that the Lord put on my heart the day that we met together and was intending to tell you the next time I saw you in person-- but we haven't had that opportunity.

When you were sharing the story with me about how you came to Labor Day and had no place to stay, I was instantly reminded that the Lord had placed on my heart -offering my place for the two of you to stay while I visited Alea.  I dismissed the idea, because I was only going to be gone a few days and didn't think that it would help. Based on your story, the day that the Lord gave you other provision was the day that I came back. The Lord's timing is perfect.

The Lord has forgiven me for dismissing His leading, but I need to ask you and Tom to do the same. It was particularly important for me that Tom know as he felt as though the Lord had not come through, when instead it was I who didn't follow through on what the Lord told me. 

I know that the Lord used you in Elena's life during that time, and He always makes provision, but it was a poignant lesson for me that I don't have to figure out how to do more than the Lord is asking me to do--just to listen to what He says to do.

Love to you both.  I'm so glad that you were there to share in my re-baptism and I look forward to the next opportunity to be together.

Blessings,

BS

Wow, how cool was that!?  I know that God knew what she was going to do so it all worked out in the end but still, it was interesting to hear that God had made that provision but she had reasoned her way out of it.  If she hadn’t we probably would not have been sitting a Panera until 8pm with no place to go wondering what the heck was going on… But He did make another way and we are so thankful for the body of Christ and all the prayers and support we have gotten through this crazy but wonderful time in our lives.

There are two things that I am still praying about. The first is whether or not to post my journal entries on my blog. Since we have settled into the Inn, things have slowed down and don’t seem “blog” worthy. There are a few things that are interesting but for the most part, it is just personal and seemingly uninteresting “to others” stuff. But, when I was praying this morning about it, I was processing the reasons for my hesitation. I asked myself, why I started the blog… answer; because God told me to. So, my next question was, has He told me to stop or am I just “reasoning” my way out of it? Good question! Am I projecting and deciding for myself what people will want to read or am I following the lead of the Holy Spirit to stop? As I write this now I am realizing that it is more than likely my “people pleasing” tendency that has caused my hesitation to posting. I don’t want people to be bored or disappointed in what I am writing so I have determined for myself to stop. But now I realize that it is not my job to decide what people will like or not, but to be obedient to the Holy Spirits leading and not worry about what others think. I see now that these “un-interesting” times are laying the foundations of the bigger things that God will be doing later on… sort of like the 540 highway, God has to do a lot of “prep-work”, plowing and clearing to do greater works in my life but these steps are VERY important for the bigger things to happen. Thank you Lord for your guidance and direction! Help me Lord to hear YOUR voice loud and clear when it is time to stop and not get caught up in reasoning my way out of it! (I suppose now I will need to go back and post all the entries so far this year… DOH!)

The second thing I am still praying about is my Thursday night women’s group.  The more I think about not doing it, the more “freedom” I feel. This is another thing that I may be doing because I have always done it but that God wants to end it completely and do a new thing? The analogy I thought of this morning was that I keep trying to “prop up” a dead body and make it interact with me, and then I get disappointed or frustrated when it doesn’t respond! But, on the other hand, when I send out emails of things I am learning, I get at least one response from the girls of how that impacted them (I get just a small “pulse” of life every once in a while). No one seems to be able to come to the group lately but they seem to like the emails I send out. Speaking of which, I sent out the email about doing “segments of time” to do specific studies and asked them what they wanted or needed and have only heard the birds chirping. So, that brings me to the next question; am I being co-dependent and trying to fix these ladies, and breathe life into them, when they don’t really want to be fixed? Should I just let it all go and when they are ready they can come to me (or someone else for that matter)? I guess I just want to make sure that it is God’s leading to let it go and not mine. I have let them know that I am taking off January and February so I will continue to pray about it and wait until the end of that time to make a decision. I have a good feeling that by the end of that time, I will have a clear leading and direction. I have peace about the “waiting” :)

Father, once again I thank you for your “miraculous” work in my life, whether it is exciting to others or not, I know you are “transforming” me into a new creation for YOUR Kingdom, Glory and Honor!  I am so excited to grow intimately closer to You and feel Your presence more and more every day.  You are God and there is no one like YOU. You are God and there is no other!  Amen!

Linda's Journal - January 16, 2010

So, Tom and I started the intimacy class last Wednesday. The first class was good, just your basic intro class and there are 20 couples that are a part of this class!! We ended up knowing two of the couples there which was kind of cool :)  But, the next day was even better. Tom and I took a couple hours Thursday morning before I had to go the Gerry and Faye’s and we started reading the book together… it took us two hours just to go through the “introduction” to the book!! Tom and I both are so ready (ripe) to move forward in this area that we both just shared all kinds of things we had never talked about before!!  Then when I got back from Gerry and Faye’s we worked on the actual chapters we were supposed to read from about 7:30 to midnight… it was a long but very good night and again, we worked through some more things that we really should have talked about YEARS ago!! This was a very good start to this class!  If we keep this up we should be about where we should have been about 20 years ago.

We were able to work on it Thursday night because no one from my group was able to come again. I have been in prayer about my group and I feel like the Lord wants to do something different… but I am not sure yet what that is. I talked with Tom about it a little and then I talked to Marsha and got some good thoughts and ideas from her. One of the things that Marsha mentioned was doing “segments’ of time instead of an “ongoing” group. Take about 6 weeks in each quarter and focus on something specific so that the girls have a “starting” and an “ending” time and it won’t seem so overwhelming to feel like you have to come to something every week. That was a good thought… and she also let me know, due to her family schedule, she needed to take off the month of Jan and Feb from the group. Well that just sounded really good to me so I decided to do that as well. That way I can focus on our intimacy study and continue to pray about what God wants to do with that night. I will continue to meet “one-on-one” with the girls that want to meet and continue with my emails and phone calls so they don’t feel abandoned, but will let God direct my time on Thursday nights the way HE wants it to go and not the way I think it should go.

Lord, again, I thank you for your amazing faithfulness and your loving kindness and detail in caring for us and our lives. You continue to amaze me with Your love, compassion and caring that you pour out upon us, your children. Lord, my heart continues to desire MORE OF YOU! Holy Spirit I continue to pray for help to walk more in YOU and less in my flesh. I continue to want to learn more about how I can walk more in the Spirit and see what amazing things You can do and not just settle for what I have now. More of You Lord and less of ME, in Jesus name I pray!

Linda's Journal - January 7,2010

So, in my time with the Lord this morning I picked up my “Authentic Relationships’" book to read the next chapter for my group tonight and guess what… it was a chapter on prayer!!… Yet another wonderful and quick answer to my prayer!  Lord, you are amazing :)  So, in this chapter Wayne Jacobson really hit on what it means to “pray in the name of Jesus”. He offered that it meant that we would pray with the same love, compassion and empathy that Jesus prayed with. He also mentioned that it is hard to pray for people you really don’t know and encouraged us to build those relationships so that our prayers would be filled with love and compassion for those we are praying for.  Anyway, I loved what Wayne said about prayer and agreed more with what he was saying about prayer than what Andrew was saying. Again, Lord, I don’t want to stick to things I am comfortable with but if I need to move out of my comfort zone, then please push me out of my “easy chair” and into the direction you want me to be challenged in and move me there!

Linda's Journal - January 6.2010

Tom and I were reading Oswald the other day and he used the scripture in John 13:38 “Then Jesus answered, "Will you really lay down your life for me? I tell you the truth, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times!” the version Oswald used said “the rooster shall not crow before you disown me…” That put a whole new perspective on that scripture for me!! It was like the rooster HAD to wait until Peter disowned Jesus three times before he could crow! I could totally see that the rooster was a part of God’s plan to help teach this lesson for Peter. Only God could command a rooster not to crow… He is such an amazing and awesome God where every little detail is planned and accounted for… even the crowing of a rooster, wow.

I was thinking the other evening about doing the “intimacy” study and then it dawned on me that that must be the reason why I felt the hesitation from the Lord on starting the “Love and Respect” series!! I have had the email in my “drafts” folder for about a month now and I have not felt released to send it yet and I think now it is because the Lord wanted us to do the intimacy study!  Now it all makes sense. I am so glad I waited and didn’t send it out when I wanted to!

Speaking of the intimacy study, the other night when Tom registered us for it I started thinking about what God would be doing with us in this study. I know I still have so much hidden in my “emotional closets” that He needs to bring out…. I started thinking about my issues with emotions and why I have them and how, for so many years, I had to shove down such HUGE emotions. I started crying when I was thinking of this because I started to feel those emotions already. I know that what I have come through in my emotional healing is just the tip of the iceberg and there is still so much more waiting to be released. Part of me is scared and part of me is excited… I know it will be hard but I also know that there is FREEDOM on the other side!  As big as those emotions are that are daunting and scary to me now, God is SO MUCH BIGGER and can fill those places much better with His love and grace than those other emotions ever could or did. Thank you Lord for your strength to endure so that you can set me free!

Speaking of God and His bigness.  I accidently left my cell phone at Elena’s last night (for some reason I have been forgetting a lot of things lately!) and when I realized that I didn’t have it, I felt a surge of… I guess panic would be the best word (although I am very embarrassed to admit that I felt that) when I realized just how much I relied on that phone!! I use it as my clock, an alarm clock, and it is my life line to the ladies, my family, pretty much every thing I do… When those feelings started to come, I reminded myself that even THIS situation and circumstance was not an accident and God knew very well what was going on and had a plan to use it for His Glory in one way, shape or form (my circumstances do not make me what I am  but they reveal WHO I am).  Then, I heard the Holy Spirit say to me, “Do you rely on ME as much as you rely on that phone?”…. oh my! That was a very good question!! I had to think about that for a minute… which was sad in and of it’s self. Do I rely on the Lord and the Holy Spirit as much as I rely on my phone? Well, you know, when I thought about not having the Holy Spirit, I realized that I probably relied on Him more than I am consciously aware of. I think if for some reason He was suddenly gone out of my life, I would REALLY notice it and realize how much I relied on Him and needed Him. But then, this situation also made me realize all the ways I DON’T rely on Him!! Just like my phone, there are features, or apps, that I have never used before… not that they are not available to me, but that I just haven’t taken the time to sit down and learned to use them. Oh Holy Spirit, I pray that You will help me to learn more about You and all the “features” you offer me that I have not taken the time to learn to use yet!! I feel like I have available to me amazing things but I am so ignorant of how to step into You and how to allow you to flow through me so that others are blessed and You are Glorified! Please take my hand and show me more of You!

You know, this reminds me, in the book that I am reading “A better way to pray” by Andrew Wommack, I feel like he is talking about things that are close…. but not quite there for me. I am not real sure I agree with all of His theology so I hesitate to step into what he says about how to pray because I don’t want to add to the “lies” I have believed but I do want to add to the Truths of God’s Word…  Like I have mentioned before, I like things that challenge me and make me think about what I believe and why, but I want any changes that are made to be used to help me grow in the right direction, towards God and His truth, and not away from that goal. I am still praying about what Andrew is saying and asking the Holy Spirit to confirm or deny these things so that I know where I should go next. I know I don’t “have it down” as far as prayer but I certainly don’t want to go backwards and thinking I am going forwards. But then again, I don’t want “fear” to keep me from moving into the Truth and allowing the Holy Spirit to use me more than before. What I do know is my focus needs to be on the Lord… His Kingdom and His righteousness and all these things will be added to me! 

Thank you Lord for Your perfect will and Your perfect timing.  Thank you that I can wait on You and know that You will show me all that I need to know, when I need to know it.  Help me to keep my eyes on You and trust you with the rest!  In Jesus name I pray, amen!

Linda's Journal - January 4, 2010

God has such a great sense of humor.  I have tried in so many ways, (via nagging, encouraging, reasoning…) to help Tom to want to get more exercise in his life.  When I finally give up and say “Ok God, I give up” He says, “watch this” and brings the geese.  Yep, geese.  I don’t know why, but for some reason (only God knows since He created him) Tom is very passionate about chasing the geese away from the lake!! No matter what time of day or how cold or no matter what he is doing, if he hears geese coming in for a landing, he is outside chasing the geese away!! I love it!! One day Beth came over when he was doing this and Beth said, “Tell Tom he doesn't have to do that” and I said “I am not telling him that!” It is the only thing that I have seen so far that will get him outside running around!! God, you are too funny :)

So, back to the “theme” of “intimacy” this year...  I got yet another email for a couples Bible study that starts this month!! I sent it to Tom and mentioned that it was too weird that this was the second “intimacy” email I had gotten this year… and it’s only the 4^th day. It is on Wednesday nights and Tom has a men’s Bible study on Wednesday’s so I just threw it at him to see how he felt about it. Guess what. He registered us to attend tonight!! How cool is that!??  I am so excited to see what God is going to do. Talk about an answer to prayer!

The weather has been really cold lately!!  The top of the pond actually froze up and Romeo had to be an Ice breaker to get to his food this morning!  The little ducks were actually walking on it!  I got some pictures of it because it was so cool looking. They are saying we may get some snow on Friday… we will see what happens.

Lord, I thank you for your attention to detail, your provision, your faithfulness, love, grace and mercy.  There are so many other things I could list but you know my heart and how much I love you.  I pray that you will help me each day to surrender to YOU and die to my flesh.  In Jesus name I pray.

Linda's Journal - January 2, 2010

I was thinking the other day about Tom and how there are still so many things about him that I do not know, even after almost 30 years of marriage!  He meets with Jeff once a week and I was thinking that Jeff probably knows more about Tom than I do… at least in some areas.  I know I have had “intimacy issues” for my whole life but I really feel like I want to push past where I am right now with this.  Then, I got an email from LIFE ministries promoting a series on “intimacy”!!  I felt like that was God confirming and encouraging me to pursue intimacy with Him and Tom this year in a deeper way than ever before.  Lord, I pray that you help me with this and guide me because I really do not know what I am doing!!

Thank you Lord for the many blessings You have lavished upon us and all the little things You do in our lives.  Lord, I lift up Dexter and Cynthia to you and ask that you work that situation out for Your glory.  Thank You Lord for this wonderful start to this New Year!