Linda's Journal - June 28, 2011

Well, we returned home safe and sound on June 15^th… a bit tired from our redeye flight home but still safe and sound :)  We had a great time at the reunion and seeing all the family again.  On Saturday we played games (like last year) and Tom’s team won the prize!  I won last year so we have to keep up the winning streak :)  Uncle Jean had a stroke a week or two before the reunion so we were all very concerned about him but he seemed to do just fine.  I think he enjoyed seeing everyone and being able to be a part of another reunion.  Saturday night we threw a surprise wedding shower for Sarah and Mike since most of us will not be able to attend the wedding in Canada in August.  They were very surprised and blessed by all the love and attention that was lavished on them.

Not surprisingly, in all the Lord’s goodness, He provided all the money we needed to make the reunion and expenses happen!  The weekend of the full house I think all the guests felt sorry for me knowing I was here by my self so I got the best tips we have ever gotten!  Then, the house/pet sitting and the wedding provided even more!  So, God came through with flying colors with the provision we needed to stay at a hotel, pay for the reunion expenses and buy a couple meals here and there while we were there… we were even able to give Mike and Sarah a shower gift and Adam and Candis an anniversary gift.  Just like God knew what He was doing and He planned the whole thing or something! :)

It took Tom a couple of days to get back to NC time and get adjusted to the hot and humid weather… I really don’t think he wanted to come back until winter! :)

The trip did seem like another whirlwind for me though.  I was so busy trying to get ready to go, and then before I knew it, I was back again.  I don’t think I got much R&R but I did have a great time with the family.  It was hard to rest knowing my time was so short there and I wanted to spend as much time with them as I could.

The last day we were there I was able to get together with my friend Blanca who recently “friended” me on Face Book.  I had not seen her in almost 20 years!  It was so great to get together and catch up with her.  She had gotten married in the last 20 years so we met her husband as well.  They both had been going to Hope Chapel when we left so we talked a lot about the Lord and what He has been doing in our lives.  It was good stuff :)

So now, we are back and getting back into the groove of the Inn, the guests and the Lord’s work.  We don’t have another wedding scheduled until August 11^th so we have a month off for weddings but I know that God has His plans for us so we just need to keep our eyes on Him.

Father, I thank you so much for, as always, taking such good care of us.  Your provision is always there and it is always enough… and sometimes even a little extra!  “Your love, O LORD, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies.

Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your justice like the great deep. O LORD, you preserve both man and beast. How priceless is your unfailing love!” (Psalms 36:5-7)

The BLESSINGS of God?

I recently listened to a song called “Blessings” by Laura Story that a friend posted on Face book and I have posted here for you as well:
("Blessings" By Laura Story)

(Please listen to it before reading on if you can)

What are His blessings?

What I like about this song is that it challenges us and makes us think about what “blessings” really are.  Here are the words to the chorus:

…what if Your blessings come through raindrops
What if Your healing comes through tears
What if a thousand sleepless nights
Are what it takes to know You’re near
What if trials of this life are Your mercies in disguise

We typically see blessings as things that make us feel “good”, “safe”, and “comfortable” and give us “pleasure”… you know, things that make us "happy".  In the first verse of her song she sings:

We pray for blessings
We pray for peace
Comfort for family, protection while we sleep
We pray for healing, for prosperity
We pray for Your mighty hand to ease our suffering……

Those are the typical things that we see as blessings but… Does GOD think the same way we do about blessings?  Does he consider all those “good things” that we ask for as blessings? Here is the rest of the verse I wrote out above:

…All the while, You hear each spoken need
Yet love us way too much to give us lesser things

That is an amazing TRUTH that we so often miss!!  He loves us WAY TOO MUCH to give us “lesser things”!  THAT truth is truly God’s blessings and mercies.  We ask for what we think we need or want, but He typically gives us what we REALLY need … because HE LOVES us that much.  Just like our earthly fathers did when we were kids… “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:11)

Do We Trust Him?

So, I am compelled to ask this next question.  Do we trust His love for us or will WE define what His love should look like?  When things go wrong in life… like death, accidents, loss of a loved one, physical infirmities, loss of a job, financial difficulties… do we question His love for us?  Do we question His goodness?  Can we trust that He loves us no matter what “hard” things happen to us in this life?

We pray for wisdom
Your voice to hear
And we cry in anger when we cannot feel You near
We doubt Your goodness, we doubt Your love
As if every promise from Your Word is not enough
All the while, You hear each desperate plea
And long that we'd have faith to believe

I know my Lord and so I know that, because He is not limited to the “here and Now”, He is far more concerned about the “eternal perspective”!  Our "eternal life" is more important to Him than our life here in the temporal world.  If trials, tragedies and suffering, will bring you closer to Him, then that is His first priority… He desires and longs for a greater relationship with US and our eternity with HIM.  This life is just a blink of an eye but eternity is forever. He loves us THAT much.

So, I ask again. Can we see God's Love for us in ALL of our circumstances, trials and suffering?  And if difficult things come our way, does that mean that God loves us less? Will we allow the worlds definition of "happiness" define God's love for us? Or will we look to God for HIS definition of His love for us?

Here is the last part of the last chorus from Laura’s song:

What if my greatest disappointments
Or the aching of this life
Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can’t satisfy
And what if trials of this life
The rain, the storms, the hardest nights
Are Your mercies in disguise

Oh Lord, help us to wrap our minds around this truth!

May 16^th - Oswald Chambers;

The Habit of Recognizing God & His Provision

2 Peter 1:4 “Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.”

“… The first habit to develop is the habit of recognizing God's provision for us… Does it really matter that our circumstances are difficult? Why shouldn't they be! If we give way to self-pity and indulge in the luxury of misery, we remove God's riches from our lives and hinder others from entering into His provision. No sin is worse than the sin of self-pity, because it removes God from the throne of our lives, replacing Him with our own self-interests. It causes us to open our mouths only to complain, and we simply become spiritual sponges --- always absorbing, never giving, and never being satisfied. And there is nothing lovely or generous about our lives.,,”

Father, I pray that we all can see Your blessings with Your eyes.  Help us to not “define” for ourselves what Your blessings are but allow the Holy Spirit to reveal them to us.   Lord, I am full of pride and selfishness and I need Your rod and Your staff to guide me into Your truth!  Open my eyes to see you clearer and to receive Your blessings, no matter what they look or feel like, with grace and thankfulness.  In Jesus name, Amen!

Linda's Journal - June 7, 2011

Ok, so here I am, ON THE PLANE to LA!!  All I have to say is, what a whirlwind it has been up to this point!! It has been incredibly busy but God has been amazing in what He has done.  The first thing, besides the ticket to CA, is that He gave me a new laptop!!  Well not “new” so much as new to me.  My old one was really giving me some problems and it seemed like it was on it's way out, and FAST.  It was really slow and I had to take the battery out and restart it many times because it would get stuck in “hibernate”.  Then it would just freeze up on me and, well, over all, I knew it wasn’t going to last me much longer.  So, I was meeting with a new friend that God recently sent to me (who I will call MH) on Thursday and she had her laptop with her.  Which reminded me that Tom had my net book with him (which was also my back up computer!) so I couldn’t bring that with me which I usually do.  So, at some point in our conversation, computers were mentioned and in sharing my issues and difficulties with mine, I randomly said “you wouldn’t happen to have an extra computer laying around would you?”  Well, to my complete surprise, she say’s “well, actually, I do”.  It just so happens she has her own business in repairing computers, which I knew before hand but, how many people actually have an “extra” one just laying around that is functioning??  Then she say’s, “I can give it to you if you need one…”  I felt so bad that I had said anything, because I did not want her to feel obligated, nor did I intend for her to give me her computer so I said “before you just give it to me, you need to pray about it and ask God and make sure that is what He is directing you to do”.  I really did not expect her to just give me a computer so I just let it go and trusted God with the one I had.

So, that was just before the Memorial Day weekend and I had two rooms booked for Friday, three for Saturday and Sunday, and two for Monday night.  At some point in time I heard the Lord tell me to invite MH to breakfast as a blessing to her so she joined us on Monday morning, and as God would have it, she was an immense help and blessing to me at the Inn!  As it turns out, she said she had prayed and God told her to give me the extra laptop she had.  Wow God, you are just too amazing for words!  So when she came for breakfast, she asked if she could take my old computer and transfer the files over to the new one and then bring it back to me the next morning.  That was fine with me as I had a meeting that night and probably wouldn’t need it.  So, she did that and said that my old computer had 4 viruses and 27 spyware attachments!  She said “no wonder you were having so many problems!”  So, then, she cleaned that one up and updated it and brought it back to me!!  So, now I have two laptops!!!  I am sure God will let me know what He has in mind for the extra one but it was just too cool. 

The next day when she brought it back, I had so many things going on at the Inn that I was so grateful and thankful that she was there to help me out again!  Isn’t that so like God? Here I am thinking I will bless her by inviting her to breakfast and then she turns around and blesses me even more with assisting me when I needed it!  God knew I was going to need help so he had me line it up ahead of time :)  I know it was a blessing for us both and that is just how God rolls :)

Then!  On Tuesday night, Oma day with Wesson, I am driving him home and my check engine light came on and then the transmission gets stuck in second gear…  Oh, my.  I see a church up ahead and pull in and turn the car off and started praying.  What was I going to do?  I needed to get Wesson home.  Fortunately I wasn’t far from Elena’s so if I had to, I could call and she would pick us up.  I decided to give it another try and turned the car back on and drove down the road again… and it shifted!!  I was SO thankful!  So, then I called Bryan and spoke to his wife because he was in a meeting.  I told her what just happened and she said the same thing happen to her and as long as you pull over, turn the car off and reset it, you can go again (another one of God's provisions!).  So later Bryan calls me back and tells me to bring the car in to his shop Wed. morning.  He checked it out and found that the solenoid pack had gone bad and said that he has a buddy in Apex that has a transmission repair place.  He said his buddy was expecting me the next morning at 8am and everything else was taken care of… I am standing there, overwhelmed with the news of the transmission and then with what he just said and I said “everything?” and he looks at me and says “everything!”  I cried on my way home overwhelmed with awe and amazement at God and the generosity of his servants!!  Who are we that we would be SO blessed!!??  So, I called Cecelia and asked if Big Blue was available the next day because the car would take many hours to repair and she said it was.  That also gave me an opportunity to hang out with her for a little while and catch up.  So, with in a week’s time, God blessed me with a trip to CA, a new laptop AND a transmission repair all for free!!  OH MY GOODNESS!  I am humbled, amazed and in awe of God’s provision and care in our lives!!  Only HE can do things like this!  This is proof positive that He really does “pay for what He orders”!  :)

Aside from those amazing miracles, He performed daily miracles in keeping me on track and accomplishing all the things that needed to be done while Tom was gone. Did I mention that we had committed to house/pet sit for Tina before we know Tom was going to stay in CA??  So, I house and pet sat for Tina, took care of a full house of guests for four days, maintained my regular schedule with my ladies, never skipped a beat with the car, hung out with the grandkids on Tuesday, and then geared up for the next weekend of guests and a wedding…. Which I had to cook for, whew!  I am so thankful for God’s joy and strength to be able to get through these VERY full days!!  I could not have done it without Him.  And now, I am on the plane headed for CA, Tom and, hopefully, some R and R on my very much needed vacation :)

Thank you so much Father for Your faithfulness and care.  Only You can provide and only You can meet our needs according to YOUR riches and glory!!  Only You can satisfy and anticipate the things that we will need.  Everything has already been accounted for, planned for and taken care of before time began.  I am Your humble servant and I am at your service, my Lord and my King!!  Amen.