Author: Carolyn

I am a Christian, a sinner saved by God's amazing grace. Much like my life, my blog is a work in progress. The main objective I have for this blog is to "proclaim the praises" of the One who called me out of darkness and into His marvelous light! (1 Peter 2:9)

Prayers for Jeff

Carolyn

This is our friend Jeff.

He and my husband hiked the Alps back in 2007 and again in 2009 when my husband was researching the trilogy that he is now near completing. (Convenient, wasn’t it, that he set the books in a place like Switzerland that required several “research” trips!)
It takes a good friend to go up in a helicopter like this in the Alps and fly down into the mountain canyons and against the steep slopes! I think they both thought the pilot was going to crash a few times!
Jeff’s wife Elizabeth and I have said we all 4 need to go to Europe, but our children were rather young then, and we weren’t up for that much hiking and adventure! We’d travel a little differently, I’m sure.
We met Jeff and Elizabeth when we all lived in Charlottesville. They were doing their medical residencies and working while my husband was working on his Ph.D. in Religious Studies. We were in small group together with them and 3 other couples.
Here is most of our small group at a Tennessee football game.
Here we are hiking in the Smokies together.
Hiking was a huge part of my husband’s life until living in the Midwest! Chicagoland is not like Virginia or East Tennessee where he lived in the mountains as much as possible through college and grad school.
As the years passed, we kept in touch more with Jeff and Elizabeth because we all had family in Memphis, and they lived in TN, making it easier to connect. They were there with us around the time our daughter was born 3 months early while we were in Memphis. I flew down to St. Jude when their son was diagnosed with leukemia. Jeff has visited us in Chicago when in town for medical meetings. We’ve overlapped our trips in summers and holidays in Memphis where we’ve had countless dinners and times where we talk about a lot of theology or medicine.
Jeff and Elizabeth recently adopted a little girl from Ethiopia. While there, he got sick, was taken to the ER where they discovered a brain tumor, and he was medically evacuated back to the States and told to undergo emergency brain surgery upon arrival in Washington DC.
7 months later, we are still praying for a miracle. We went to visit them this last Thursday (Thanksgiving) and Friday for just about 24 hours, a quick flight in and back out the next evening. It was good to be with them and see and understand more of what they are experiencing.
When I think of Jeff, I think of the verse in Micah about what the Lord requires of us: but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God. I think that verse well describes Jeff.
As Jeff wrote in October:

“I continue to pray for complete healing and am still thankful for every moment God gives. This is a challenging prayer because, at least at times, my logic and God’s logic do not match up. Then I must rely on Him.

‘… yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.’ Habakkuk 3:18″

If you are one of the few people who read my blog, please say a prayer for Jeff and his family if you think about it.

Friends Adopting

Carolyn

What a sweet morning of worship at church. It was a joy to see our friends dedicate their three daughters whom they adopted from China. You can read about their journey and their beautiful family at my friend Laura’s blog. Laura and her husband were in our small group for several years and she is also in my prayer group. She has always been such an encouragement to me in my faith through her own faithfulness to God and life surrendered to Him, and I am thankful for her and her precious family. They are also now in the process of adopting a boy from Ethiopia!

Another couple who was in our small group is currently in Ethiopia in the adoption process with their son who is friends with the boy Laura’s family is adopting. Mike has written a beautiful post you can read here. He and Sasha inspire me through their love for others and the world, flowing out of hearts of love for God and His love for them!

And a third couple who is still in our small group leaves this week for Ethiopia for the adoption process of their son (who is friends with the 2 boys being adopted by the couples above). They don’t have a blog, but their journey has been exciting. My friend Mary is one of the most compassionate people I know.

I am thankful for these three families and how God has used them in our lives and for their friendship. It has been a privilege to watch as God has moved their families to lead them to adoption and the beautiful picture it is of God the Father adopting us as His children.

Studying God’s Word

Carolyn

There is nothing like spending time in God’s Word! I have been enjoying studying the gospel of John, just little chunks each morning and then wherever that leads. What a blessing to study the life of John the Baptist (a different John than the author of the gospel of John), to think about the call on His life as the forerunner of Christ, and to consider how he must have felt with how his life ended (with imprisonment and beheading).

It took me on all kinds of extended study to find out how he knew about the call on his life (the angel visiting his father in Luke 1 and the word of the Lord coming to him in the wilderness – Luke 3). I explored his question once imprisoned as he wondered then of Jesus, “Are you the Coming One?” Can you imagine how he felt, making the way for Jesus and expecting certain things, only to end up in prison confused. And Jesus replied to him “blessed is he who is not offended because of me.”

There were all kinds of practical applications as I looked at John the Baptist and his father Zacharias. I laughed to think of Zacharias who – after this angel appears to him in the temple and announces John’s birth – says, “How shall I know this?” Hmmm… maybe because an angel is standing before you!

And yet how could I criticize poor Zacharias or John when my own faith is oftentimes so similar. God says something to me through His Word or His Spirit and it’s all so exciting, but later when it is hard, I wonder “did I get that right?” or “how do I know I can trust You, Lord?”

This week I’ve also looked at how Jesus met the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. It was a divine appointment! My Bible says that when Jesus left Judea to depart for Galilee, “He needed to go through Samaria.” I love seeing how personal Jesus is. He knew exactly who He would find at that well and what would transpire because of it! I prayed for my home and family, “Please need to come through our household, too! Make a stop here and draw us all to Yourself.”

To read God’s Word, to observe and study, to make personal application, what a treasure, what a gift, what a blessing.

He gives such encouragement and fills me with such hope. He’s shown me so much about purpose and meaning and wrong conclusions I’ve had over the last couple of weeks about the brevity of life. It’s in seeking Him that we find. His Word does not return void.

I hope you know the joy of reading and studying God’s Word. If you are looking for a place to start, try John. I think you’ll be blessed.

Peace

Carolyn

Last summer Tim Keller came to my home church in Memphis. I was in town, but getting over being sick and did not go. I ended up getting the tape of it, and he preached on Philippians 4:4-13. It was a message that at that time was very timely for me to hear. I ran across my notes from it the other day and thought I’d share some of the things he shared:

“There’s a difference between a morally restrained heart, a heart that has its impulses and its emotions tamped down, controlled from the outside by will power, and a supernaturally, gospel-changed heart, a heart that’s got its dispositions, feelings, orientations and attitudes changed from inside, long-term, permanently by the gospel.”

Keller said that there are 9 traits of a supernaturally-changed, gospel-changed heart; those are the fruit of the Spirit that are found in Galatians 5:22-23.

His quote resonated with me because it’s easy to have a life managed by will power and think then that everything is right in life, but when a supernatural change comes that is fueled by the gospel and the Spirit, even if things look similar to the outside world, the change is absolutely incredible. And to those who really know you, the difference will be obvious.

I know this from experience – trying so hard to live well, perfectly, yet so unhappy, and not realizing I was missing something called the Spirit-filled life and joy. Not that I now have things perfectly in order (I hardly have anything in order these days!), but there has been a fundamental change that only the Spirit could produce. Reminds me of Paul’s words in Philippians 3:12-14.

Keller went on then to talk about peace from Phil. 4:4-13 and what we are to think about. He described the character of peace–what it is. It is a deep, inner equilibrium, deep contentment in all circumstances, a tranquility, a lack of anxiety. The apostle Paul’s life was an example of one of peace in spite of torture, imprisonment, death.

Keller said there are many books on stress that talk about emptying the mind of negative thoughts – “just stop those thoughts” and “just don’t think about it” – and how calm in our culture means emptiness.

But the peace that Scripture teaches is not the absence of thoughts, but the presence of a Living Power. You can lay down and sleep knowing you have soldiers encamped about you. You have something greater than what’s wrong.

There was much more to his sermon (disciplines to develop peace, how the gospel produces peace, etc.), but these particular thoughts above really ministered to me, so I thought I would capture them here.

Brevity of Life

Carolyn

Last May, it seemed like everywhere I turned, I was running across passages on the brevity of life:

Psalm 103:15-16 “As for man, his days are like grass; as a flower of the field, so he flourishes. For the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more.”

I Peter 1:24 “For, ‘all flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off.'”

Psalm 144:4 “Man is like a mere breath; his days are like a passing shadow.”

There were others, but you get the idea. As these passages kept coming before me during my time in the Word, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Lord was preparing me for something, and I didn’t like the thought of what that might be, so I kept pushing the thoughts from my mind.

This summer, when I started some Scripture memory, I was randomly selecting passages and some of the first ones I memorized, without remembering their content, were James 1, I Peter 1, and Psalm 103. As I memorized these passages, all containing verses on the brevity of life, I came to see that the last year has been filled with lessons in this truth:

  • My father-in-law retired last May.
  • My step-father died last July.
  • Our very close friend was diagnosed with the most aggressive form of brain cancer in the prime of his life.
  • I left a job I had loved and was called to in 2005, one that had brought me great joy and close friendships.

Retirement, death, sickness, job change, loss.

This phrase from Psalm 103: “Its place remembers it no more.” I drop my kids at school and watch the others who are now doing my former work. I’m glad for such great new additions to the school. It is, though, as I knew it would be — once you are gone, new folks take your place, and “its place remembers it no more.” That’s just life. I’m not even bemoaning these facts or sad about them, but merely acknowledging them.

What it has done for me is have me ask the question: What counts? What matters? What is my purpose? Is there any purpose in what I am doing? I pour myself into something for 5 1/2 years, and in an instant, it’s over. Whom did I do it for? Did I do it well? Was it worth the sacrifices? Did it bring God glory?

Now theoretically and intellectually maybe I know the answers. But I really want them rooted in my heart. If I’m not doing everything for the glory of God, does any of it matter? Probably not. But there is a resounding “yes” that there IS purpose in this life and that we find it in Christ, but what does it look like? What is it like to live in that truth daily?

Last week, as I began putting all of these thoughts finally together in my mind, the Lord took me to Psalm 90. It is on the transitoriness of man and the eternality of God. It began to give me some answers:

“So teach us to number our days,
That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.
* * *
O satisfy us in the morning with Your lovingkindness,
That we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
* *
Let Your work appear to Your servants
And Your majesty to their children.
Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us;
And confirm for us the work of our hands;
Yes, confirm the work of our hands.”

I also see that in Psalm 103 and I Peter I, after talking about the grass withering and the flower fading, they immediately tell though what lasts — the Word of the Lord (I Peter) and His mercy that is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear Him (Psalm 103).

I feel a bit like the Lord has had to undo some things in and around me to open me up to see things more clearly, to be filled more with His purpose. I feel like He’s beginning to teach me anew now that I am ready.

In the midst of my thoughts these last couple of weeks, our pastor began a 7-week series on revitalizing your life. It began with “Purpose” and then “Challenge” the first two weeks. Jesus asks us to “follow Him.” Will I follow Him wherever He leads? Do I find Him worthy of giving him ALL that I am?

I am so grateful for what God has done for me, how He has led me this last year as my Shepherd, for how He has positioned me in something new and unexpected, and no doubt right and good. I wouldn’t change a thing. I am processing it all now, but so excited to see what He will show me, as well as where He will lead and what He will do as I seek to follow Him and live life with His purpose.

I hope this post won’t be seen as depressing, because for me, it is actually full of hope. It’s not the mid-life crisis that it appears to be! It’s wrestling with biblical truth, but it’s a good thing. I am thankful.