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)

Happy Anniversary!

Carolyn

My mom and step-dad celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary last week. As I was driving home today, I thought it worth a blog post to wish them a Happy Anniversary! Why is 25 years so significant? When they married in 1983, my mom was the age I am right now, and my step-dad was 64. Given that most everyone I had known and loved had died prior to getting to age 64 (I have more memories of funerals as a child than birthday parties!), I have to admit I did not have high expectations of a long marriage.

My step-dad was hospitalized a couple of years after they were married. He had one problem, and while that was going on, his appendix ruptured, and during that surgery, they discovered the early stages of colon cancer. I was convinced he was going to die. I remember sitting in the hospital room for hours during his recovery. I would beg God to let him live and let them have a good long marriage. It just didn’t seem right for my mom to be widowed twice.

As I reflected on this today, I see how kind God has been to them. Nearing 90, my step-dad is in great health, has a great mind, and is still strong and active. He has survived two bouts of colon cancer and a broken neck that put him in a neck halo for 8 weeks a few years ago after a car wreck. No one expected him to come through that the same, but why should we limit God?

During his second colon cancer a few years ago, my mom and I committed to pray nightly at 9 p.m. from our separate homes each night leading up to the surgery, instead of choosing to worry. We gave it to the Lord each night, and I was amazed at the things God showed us each day during that time. When the surgery day came, my mom said she had a peace unlike she had ever known, which was quite extraordinary given her propensity to fear things like that.

After surgery, I had to go back to my home 550 miles away while they were still staying at the hospital. One morning, I was with the kids going to Target. As we drove out there, a song by Steven Curtis Chapman was on called “This Day.” “This day, all your mercies are new, this day every promise is true, Father help me to believe, give me faith I need to know You, and trust You, this day.”

After it was over, I told my kids that this was taken from Lamentations 3:23, and I prayed it for my mom and step-dad. When I got home, I called mom and she shared how they had had a terrible morning, felt oppressed in the room, and it had been very upsetting. She said, “we quoted Scripture, and the one that meant so much to us was from Lamentations 3:23.” I know this was not an accident!

I was amazed at how God constantly wove our thoughts and prayers and minds as we were deliberate in seeking Him together for this, how He gave us the same prayers and verses and reassurances. And my step-dad survived and has done well since!

So as I considered some of these things today, I thought God has been really good to them, to us! And 25 years is a big milestone and something to celebrate! We don’t know how long their marriage will be, but the years they have been given together have been good and sweet! Praise You, Lord!

My Daughter’s Christmas List

Carolyn

I found this one day when I came to the computer. My 8 year old daughter had put together her Christmas list.

My Wish List:
The 1st one is the one I want the most

1. A Cross-Stitching Kit
2. Water Color Paints
3. Kaya/Kiristen/Look-Like-Me-Doll the American Girl Dolls
(4. I don’t think this will happen, but for Jesus to come back.)

I think it’s sweet she’s thinking about Jesus’ return, but love her honesty that #1 is what she really wants most!

Our Great Shepherd and Savior

Carolyn

When we decorated the tree this year, I saw this little ornament and it reminded me of a great, true Christmas story from 2005!

A little background… I have a dear friend whose husband walked closely with the Lord and was used by God in the lives of so many people through his passionate zeal for God. Somewhere around 1998, he decided he wasn’t so sure anymore and he decided to set his faith aside and wanted no more to do with it. My friend kept looking to the Lord and praying and waiting and hoping that God would bring her husband back to Himself.Fast forward then to 2005. By this time, it seems highly unlikely he will ever return to the Lord, from a human perspective. He’s a great guy, super nice, leading a good life, why does he need anything more? Our prayers continue. In the times of discouragement, the Lord continued to sustain and encourage my friend, and there were times where you just cling to the words of truth and hope found in Scripture and continue to believe God is able.

In April 2005, right after I had surrendered my life to the Lord more deeply, I was praying each day and asking the Lord what He would want me to do each day… someone to reach out to, something He wanted me to do. One day, I couldn’t get my friend’s husband off my mind. I felt like there was a book I should share with him and that I should encourage him that the Lord loved him and was seeking him still. But how? It seemed the right way was to call. He’d surely never read a letter.

I was nervous to call. I wanted a sign. I told the Lord that it would be great if a certain song would play on the radio, then I could know. It was a song that echoed the message of the book, but they weren’t playing it as much anymore on the radio. As I stood confessing to the Lord that I shouldn’t have to have a sign, I finished praying, and what song should start… yes, Much of You by Steven Curtis Chapman, the one I wanted to hear. As the song ended, the radio announcer came on, and they were having a pledge drive, and the voice said, “Make the call. Make the call.” How funny. They were referring to the call the radio station and pledge, but I took it to mean, “ok, here’s the song, I’ll make the call.”

I dialed their number, got the machine, nearly hung up, but held on and waited for the beep and started talking. I don’t even remember what I said, but I think it was mostly telling him that I knew God loved him and wanted him to return, that He was seeking him, and that there was a book I thought he would like. I mailed him the book, and that was the end of the story. No great turnaround, that was it.

So fast forward to Christmastime 2005. It’s been 8 months. I’ve never spoken to him since that message. It’s about December 23, and I called my friend at home. I was totally unprepared for when her husband answered the phone. It’s that brief moment of confusion when you hear a different voice and think “who did I call,” and then I realized who it was and thought “now what!?” She wasn’t home, but he was working from home. I was nervous that I was interrupting his work, so I hesitated to keep him on the phone, but I felt I should address the call in April. I did. I can’t remember the exact conversation, but he was nice, said it just didn’t work for him, that’s fine for me and he understood my calling if that’s what I believe. He is a really smart guy, and I just remember feeling like such a fool after he explained his way of thinking. I didn’t even reply much because I knew he was working and so that was it.

I hung up the phone and sobbed. Shamefully, part of my tears were out of embarrassment, but most of them were over the fact of how hard his heart seemed, and was there ANY hope that God would change this heart. I went to my bedroom and grabbed my prayer book (Face to Face) which I had not read that day. As soon as I opened it, the first verse was, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of salvation to all who believe.” I lay on my bedroom floor and cried and prayed for him.

I later heard something break. We had had our Christmas tree up for 2-3 weeks now, and my children knew not to touch and had not touched the ornaments! In fact, the tree had fallen on my daughter after she pulled it a year or two before, so she had proper respect for the tree and always kept her distance. But for some reason, she uncustomarily had touched a gold ball, and there it was broken on the floor.

As I was cleaning it up, I was on my hands and knees under the tree, and I looked up and my eyes caught this ornament right in front of me, hidden back in the tree, but now in my face. It’s just a little cross stitched ornament that I had never thought much of that someone made me years before. It says, “Joyful Spirit Jer. 33:11” — that’s the meaning of my name. As I looked at it, it puzzled me why someone would choose a verse from Jeremiah for “joyful spirit.” Aren’t there lots of psalms about joy?

Anyway, I went to my Bible to look up the verse. It said: “the voice of joy and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the voice of the bride, the voice of those who will say, ‘Praise the LORD of hosts, For the LORD is good, For His mercy endures forever’ — and of those who will bring the sacrifice of praise into the house of the LORD. For I will cause the captives of the land to return as at the first, says the LORD.”

When I read this, I knew it was about my friend’s husband! I almost felt it was the Lord saying not to fear, that He would cause this captive to return as at the first! I was later able to share with my friend the events of the day, finding this Scripture. To my amazement, she replied, “You have no way of knowing this, but that is the passage I’ve prayed for him (her husband) for the last 7 years!”

Well, the story continues, and there are many other amazing things that God did over the next 2 years to continue to encourage us that He was at work and would bring this man back. And yes, my friend’s husband DID return to the Lord in 2007, slowly at first, but now completely and with his full heart! It’s been remarkable to see what God has done in their lives since then.

I could blog story after story of what God did in this, but today I wanted to remember Christmas 2005 and the ornament, what God spoke through it. I’m thankful that God pursues His people, the great Shepherd who seeks his lost sheep. His timeline and ways are not the same as ours, but they are good and right. We should never lose heart.

Praise Your Name, Jesus. At this season of Christmas, we remember that You came to earth to save us, so that sin should no longer have a hold on us. You deliver Your people from bondage and set them free to love and know You. And You fill us with great joy! Your sacrifice for us has given us new and eternal life in You, and our sins are forgiven through faith in You.

Praise the LORD of hosts, For the LORD is good, For His mercy endures forever!

Weakness and Self Humiliation

Carolyn

Tuesday was perhaps the lowest moment of my entire “professional” life.

I’ve struggled to think if perhaps there’s been a worse moment for me in all my years of working, but only one can even compete (and that’s a story all unto itself… litigation involving accusations that pesticides required a family to abandon their home led to a document production at the abandoned house in East Texas back in the spring 1994… we wandered through a football size field of grass up to my waist… opposing counsel was there zipped into the most enormous yellow protective suit — to protect him from the snakes and pesticides… I’m there with our 2 laywers calling it all bunk, and I’m hoping they’re right as the other lawyer questions them about taking me into that house for documents given that I’m of childbearing age! By the time I had wandered through those fields, scared to death of snakes, wondering how I got dragged into this, my allergies kicked in, and my nose ran, my eyes watered, I sneezed again and again, and I had not so much as a tissue for the next couple of hours. I sat on the porch of that dusty, abandoned house trying to control all this, while the lead lawyer says to me in disbelief, “What’s WRONG with you?” “Allergies,” I answer. Truth is, I don’t even really have allergies, but anyone who wades in waist deep grass for a stretch in the hot Texas sun can develop them immediately, I found.). I realize that was a long parenthetical, but alas, that day did not compare with this past Tuesday.

I was taking part in a video shoot. Interestingly, I had prayed at length about this. I had recently read a John Piper article on words — and so my prayer had been that the Lord would keep me humble and Himself exalted. I wanted to be guided by the double criterion Piper describes: self humiliation and Christ exaltation.

I had no idea what that prayer would lead to — true self humiliation, sheer embarrassment even, tears as I couldn’t articulate a compelling message for the video, despite probably 5 hours of preparation. We’ve yet to see if any of those words can even be used, but my suspicion is, if they are, given my complete and total inadequacy and failure, Christ alone would be able to make it something where He can be glorified.

In spite of it all, I’m thankful for it. It’s one of those moments you know God designed to be just what it was. And He revealed to me some other things I needed to know — “Cease striving,” I felt. “Quit trying so hard to be all things here. Be about the other things I’m called to be.”

Should I blog about my single worst moment? I don’t know. I’ve already been so reduced, it seems of little consequence to share it on my blog. I guess I like the fact that God uses the weak; He gives us His strength even when we can’t see it; and He is sovereign and purposeful. So I praise Him for these things today!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Carolyn

Hebrews 13:15 “Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name.”

I’m a day late. But how can I hope to give praise to the Lord through this blog and skip this holiday of giving thanks? It was a great week having family in town, going to a school praise night on Tuesday, going to a Thanksgiving eve service at church on Wednesday, and celebrating Thanksgiving with extended family yesterday. What a full few days it has been!

How can I measure the fullness of what God has done and for which I should be thankful? For starters, I think of the amazing list in Ephesians 1 & 2 of what is ours through Christ; in Him, I am:

loved,
blessed,
chosen,
adopted,
accepted,
redeemed,
forgiven,
predestined,
sealed with the Spirit,
called,
rich,
given grace,

and I have:

obtained an inheritance,
been brought near by His blood,
been made alive,
been raised up with Christ,
been seated with Christ in the heavenlies, and
been given access by one Spirit to the Father.

My mind can’t totally comprehend, my eyes don’t often clearly see, and my heart too often fails to even acknowledge it. I too often sit “full, but unfulfilled,” a phrase I just picked up from a book called Making All Things New by Henri Nouwen. Nouwen suggests we are full, meaning busy with our lives, yet unfulfilled, as in bored or depressed in the midst of our being busy.

Nouwen urges his reader to seek the things above and His kingdom, and set our hearts on Christ through the spiritual disciplines of solitude and community.

Solitude. Time alone with God in a small room or area of a room or prayer closet where we close out the distractions, begin reading Scripture, pray, and allow ourselves to hear the voice of God’s Spirit. Even just 10 minutes a day — it can be in small doses, but needs to be consistent & regular. It’s something we can dread to start until we begin to see what God does through time spent with Him.

I need to go back to cultivating the discipline of solitude. (Although since “solitude” is about being alone, I guess it’s not really solitude since the Lord is there!) But time with Him to read the Bible and pray and let His Spirit lead and speak.

I find I am forgetful, just as the Israelites of old were. Thus the many reminders throughout Scripture to “remember:” “Remember what great things He has done for you.” I want to remember. I want to meditate on His greatness and power, on who He is, and on who I am because of Him.

And in remembering His great mercy and love, lavishly poured out on me through Christ, I want to give Him thanks and praise Him today and always.