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)

The God Who Speaks

Carolyn

I love that we have a God who reveals Himself to His people. He is so personal with each of us.

As I studied Genesis and Exodus a couple of years ago, I couldn’t help but notice all the names of God that are introduced and how He spoke so personally. In Genesis 17, He said to Abram, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.” This was the first time God used the name Shaddai for Himself. To Hagar in Genesis 16, He revealed Himself as El Roi, the God who sees. And in Exodus 3:6, God revealed Himself to Moses as “the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Later in verse 14, God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM” declaring Himself to be the Eternal One, uncaused and independent (according to my Bible notes).

Those are just examples of the ways God revealed Himself in those days, and yet today, He is still a God who speaks and reveals Himself. He does this first and foremost through His Word and through His Spirit. And He can do this in innumerable ways because He is so vast and beyond comprehension; God cannot be put in a neat box that we can understand. I am stunned by the personal nature of how He speaks and reveals Himself to His people.

One way God ministers to my heart is through music. This is something that began in April 2005 after I really surrendered my life to Him. I was so thrilled by what I was discovering about God and so sick of being “lukewarm” and having a faith that God would want to spit out of His mouth, that I went around ecstatically proclaiming what God had done for me everywhere I went. I remember our small group meeting at our house, and I just went on and on about it! I started to wonder if I was being a little overboard with all my gushing. The only thought that kept going through my head though was “If you don’t praise Me, the rocks would cry out” (a reference to Luke 19:40).

I traveled to Memphis that next week in May 2005 for Mother’s Day and to see a friend whose son had just been diagnosed with leukemia and was being treated at St. Jude. At church that Sunday morning, the anthem was about this very thing that had been on my heart all week:

“If we keep our voices silent,
All creation will rise and shout,
If we fail to praise you, Father,
Then will the very rocks cry out!”

I’d certainly never heard this song or an entire anthem declaring this message. In the past, I would have questioned “coincidence”? But God had been revealing Himself so clearly in so many ways, that I didn’t doubt this was from Him.

I flew back home and was feeling led to do a neighborhood Bible study that summer. As I prayed about it, there were so many ways that God answered and led so clearly. I did though wish after my quiet time one morning, “I’d love to have a song for this, but I know there aren’t really songs about your neighbors!”

As I went to start breakfast, I turned on the radio in the kitchen, and the words to the song that were playing by Steven Curtis Chapman were: “Wake the neighbors! Get the word out! Come on, break out the music, climb a mountain and shout. This is life we’ve been given, made to be lived out… so live out loud!” That became my neighborhood Bible study song.

I literally have a song for most major events in my life. And when I hear them, I can remember how actively God revealed Himself during a time in my life (my grandmother dying, selling our house, my son’s broken wrist, etc.).

One last quick song story. I have a benign kidney condition where my kidneys are misshapen and I therefore have lots of stones and diffuse calcification throughout. After being diagnosed a few years ago and finally figuring out the source of the pain, I was told I’d need lithotripsy every year or two to manage this. Each checkup revealed more stones and more concerns from the tests they had done.

As I was preparing for my next visit, my quiet time that morning was in Habakkuk 3. As I finished, I decided that whatever I learned at my doctor visit, I would need to give the Lord praise. I then started ahead on my day, but then realized, no, I need to know specifically what I am going to say because otherwise, I will forget to praise Him, especially if the news isn’t good (which is what I expected because I was hurting). I went back to Habakkuk and noticed 3:2: “Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, O LORD. Renew them in our day…” So the phrase I took to remember was “I stand in awe of You.” No matter what I’m told, Lord, I will say “I stand in awe of You” for You have done great things for me.

Later at my doctor visit, I sat waiting. The doctor rushed in with one of my reports and sat down. He then proceeded to tell me how wonderful it was: “What are you doing? How has this happened?” He went over every level, with each one saying how great it was! I felt like a school kid being praised for doing well on a test. He kept saying how great this was and how this was the best report he had seen from a patient with this condition, on and on. I just started saying in my heart, “I stand in awe of You! I stand in awe of You.”

I left and went to get my kids at a friend’s house. As I was telling them the story and how we needed to say thank you to the Lord, and I was describing to them how I praised God with “I stand in awe of You,” I could hear the music playing on the radio in the background. It was playing an old, but familiar song “I stand in awe of You:”

“Yes, I stand in awe of You, Jesus,
Yes, I stand in awe of You.
And I let my words be few… Jesus I am so in love with You.”

Now, I did still have stones, and I’ve not been healed, but each subsequent visit has held a good report: “This is awesome!” a nurse told me at the next visit. Awesome, indeed.

I love it that God speaks through songs. I’d love to hear the ways He speaks to you, too. He is so personal, so real, so near. I praise the God who speaks in such personal ways!

Trust in the Lord

Carolyn

Psalm 118:8 “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.”

With school starting on Tuesday, and kickoff activities beginning tomorrow, I thought I’d share how it is we ended up on this road of helping start a school and being so involved in its growth. This is not something I could have ever imagined!

We had put our son in the public school for Kindergarten, but felt that it wasn’t challenging and I, having had Christian elementary education, missed the Christian foundation. We decided to homeschool for one year, but knew that we were not long term homeschoolers. In November 2005, my brother-in-law dropped off a packet of information about a new school. As I read the information about classical education (a model my husband and I both embraced and which I had gained more exposure of through homeschooling), I wondered if (and secretly hoped) this was the answer for our children’s education.

Unbeknownst to me at the time, a couple had felt called of the Lord to start this school and by themselves had put together this information packet, set up an informational meeting, and sort of laid a fleece before the Lord, asking Him to provide at least 3 other families by year’s end if they were to move forward. At their first prayer meeting on New Year’s Eve, they had 3 other families.

For us personally, we began to pray about it that Thanksgiving, but did not know how we would afford private education. We went to the first interest meeting in early December, even recruiting other families to come. We began praying.

Then one morning that winter, I woke up with the words “one eighteen eight” going over and over in my head. What did that mean? Since yielding my life to the Lord and seeking Him that previous April, there had been a couple of times like this where verses were spoken in my head in the night, and both of the other times, it was very clear what it meant. But in this case, I wasn’t as sure. I knew that there was only one book of the Bible with that many chapters — Psalms. So I looked at Psalm 118:8 “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.” Hmmm. “That’s good,” I thought, “and I guess I could apply that to many things, but Lord, I’ll just wait for You to show me what it means.”

A few days later, I decided to go to the school’s webpage that had just been constructed. When it popped up, there was a tree spreading across the homepage. That was significant to me because during our year of homeschooling, our theme was a tree. We had memorized Psalm 1 (also a passage within the school’s website), and we had a tree in the yard named “Roots” that we watched throughout the year. My son would journal about its changes. We studied the fruit of the Spirit and hung fruit on our tree. We wanted our lives to be like the tree firmly planted by streams of water.

But not only did the webpage come up with the tree, it came up with a verse, Jeremiah 17:7, that slowly moved in and out: “Blessed is the man whose trust is the Lord, whose confidence is in Him.” I knew immediately — That’s it! That’s the same verse as Psalm 118:8. In fact, when I looked it up in my Bible, to the side of Jeremiah 17:7, it said “Psalm 118:8.” They are the same thing. It’s better to trust in the Lord than put confidence in man! “Yes, Lord, I will trust You. I will follow You in this!!”

As we moved ahead, God graciously provided me a job at the school doing administrative work to help solve the question of financing private school education for our children. We met with the other “founding families” every Saturday to pray for the school. We saw God do amazing things with such specifically answered prayer regarding everything from teachers to location to curriculum.

Sometimes I think the call was so clear because the road would be so hard! At every point of doubt or discouragement, I could remember what He had shown us, and keep moving forward, despite the obstacles. And He met us every step of the way! He has used it as a means of our sanctification, too, which I had not expected.

We started in the fall of 2006 with 23 children, had 49 during our second year, and have 64 enrolled this fall in pre-K through 6th grade. We look forward with great anticipation to what God has in store as we continue to trust Him for what He has brought together.

To Know Him

Carolyn

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As we began teacher & staff orientation and training at school last week, we began by each of us sharing our personal testimonies of how the Lord had drawn us to Himself and to the school. What an amazing, beautiful thing to sit and hear testimony after testimony of what God had done in the lives of those around me. This was a great way to start our year!

We also reflected and remembered what God had done to start the school by hearing about its history and its vision. God tells us in the Bible to remember the things He has done lest things are going so well and we are so full of the good things that we forget that He is the One who did them (Deuteronomy 8). We stopped to talk about those “stones of remembrance” (as in Joshua 4) God has given us, while acknowledging that each one is to the praise of His glory, not to us (Psalm 115:1).

How was I drawn to God? The answer was so clear — through His Word and the power of His Spirit. As I have written before, when I began to spend time daily in God’s Word, I began to understand and learn, and over time, He began to change my heart. As He promises in Scripture, He will reward those who seek Him, and He did. In His perfect time, He revealed Himself to me in power, and I found a joy I had never known.

On April 27, 2005, we were concluding Women’s Bible study for the year at my church by having a brunch. At that time, women would be offered the chance to share what they had learned during the study of Mark and Judges that year. We were told in our groups for a few weeks in advance to be thinking about what we might share. I, of course, would never dream of sharing to several hundred women at once, so I never even considered that!

The day of the brunch came, and I woke up early and felt like I was supposed to speak. “But that’s crazy,” I thought. “I don’t speak publicly, and I have nothing to say.” But the sense was so strong, I decided to just go look at my notebook from the study and see if anything jumped out at me. Well, to my surprise, it was so clear exactly what I was supposed to say! There was a prayer at the beginning of the study that I had written, and an answer to a question at the end of the study, and that’s what I was supposed to share.

The gist of the prayer was something like, “I’ve wanted all of Your blessings and benefits and none of Your sufferings, all without seeking you daily and counting the cost. I’ve put other things in front of you, like my kids, TV, our health, and not been wholeheartedly consumed with You. I want to do what You’ve called me to, …” Then the prayer at the end was written as I considered the cycle of sin that the Israelites went through in the book of Judges. I wanted to change the way I lived and do what is right in God’s eyes, not mine, and move forward in faith, not fear.

I wrote these things down on an index card to further consider whether I should really share. God had never “spoken” to me in this way before (not that this was audible, but with this strong sense that I was to do this), so I wanted to know for sure.

As I began making my bed, there was a song I was singing — you know, the kind of thing where you’re singing and don’t even realize you are, but then you realize it and stop to hear what you are singing? I was singing, “Your grace is sufficient for me; Your strength is made perfect when I am weak. All that I cling to, I lay at Your feet; Your grace is sufficient for me.” So I wondered, “Lord, are you telling me that I am weak, but You will be my strength?” Again, I doubted, “no, He doesn’t speak this way to me.”

I went on with my morning. I was supposed to bring donuts to my daughter’s class that morning (both my children attended the children’s ministry that met while the women’s Bible study met). As we drove down the street to Dunkin Donuts, there was a song on the radio: “Give thanks, with a grateful heart; give thanks to the Holy One; give thanks, because He’s given Jesus Christ, His Son…. And now, let the weak say ‘I am strong,’ let the poor say ‘I am rich,’ because of what the Lord has done for us; give thanks.” I pondered again this theme of His strength and my weakness. Different song, same message.

I went in Dunkin Donuts, and the same radio station was playing in there, and the same song continued. As I stood in line waiting, listening to, “Let the weak say ‘I am strong,'” I decided I would have to share. This was too convincing.

I went to drop off the children in their classes, and as I did, I turned back to my son and said, “Did you memorize your verse.” He responded, “Yes, Mommy; ‘this is love for God, to obey His commands.'” Aaahhh, that went straight to my heart — “this is love for God, to obey His commands!”

It wasn’t so much what I would share, as much as whether I would just stand up and say it! It almost seemed like a test of my faith — do I really believe Him enough to get up on my feet and speak? I had never had this kind of sense that He was leading me to do something so strongly, and if He does exist and is true, then He could certainly nudge me in this way. I almost felt that He just wanted me to obey Him.

By this time, I had entered the large gathering hall for the brunch, and was starting to feel nervous, but very convinced this is of the Lord. I nervously got my food, and sat down by myself at a table to think. As I did, I looked at the program that was sitting on the table. I flipped it over, and there on the other side was a printed song, Give Thanks! “… and now, let the weak say ‘I am strong‘; let the poor say ‘I am rich,’ because of what the Lord has done for us, give thanks.” Wow! 3 times, same message in 2 songs.

As the brunch began, I knew I needed to stand immediately as soon as they asked if anyone had anything to share. My legs didn’t want to stand — I don’t like public speaking — but I knew it was just my telling the Lord, “I believe You, I want to obey You.” I stood to my feet and with tears read my index card. That was it; nothing earth shattering; I simply said what I knew God wanted me to.

As ladies continued to share, a lady from my small group that year whom I had not seen that morning, stood up at another table. She said, “This is not what I had planned to share, but you know how sometimes, God just speaks to you and you know this is what He wants you to share. Well, I woke up at 3 a.m. last night, and this is what He said to me, well, you all know it, from II Corinthians 12:9-10: ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness….'” Wow! Those are the words to the song I was singing when I made my bed, and God had spoken this to Jan in the night to speak today; I couldn’t believe it!

Another girl shared how it had been hard being a mother; at the end, she threw in the words as she sat down, “He’s strong when I’m weak!”

At the end of the brunch, we all stood to our feet and sang Give Thanks, the song on the back of the program. I was just stunned with this same message over and over. I went through the day pondering it, feeling so blessed. I took my son to afternoon kindergarten, then drove to Starbucks with my daughter to get some gift cards. As we sat in the car in the drive through, I put on a CD that a friend had given me a few months back, a homemade CD, one I was not familiar with, and not of the greatest quality. I couldn’t hear the song that came on, so I just hit the arrow button to jump to a new song. The car was dead silent as I waited for the song to come on in that drive through. Suddenly, it burst out into the car, “Your grace is sufficient for me; Your strength is made perfect when I am weak, All that I cling to, I lay at Your feet. Your grace is sufficient for me.”

I know these are not the kinds of things you can write about and it even make sense to the reader; it was one of those moments God had prepared for me, and I was stunned, in awe. I felt I had nothing left to do but give Him my life entirely. I had known all about Him all my life, but not really even known Him or what He wanted of me. But that day, after hearing the same message 7 times, I knew I needed to believe Him and follow Him fully.

The next morning, I knelt beside my bed, and I must say, I did think, “This is going to be boring” as I committed to give up TV (not because it’s bad in and of itself, but because I was addicted to it!), to seek to know and obey Him and His ways, to read my Bible and study it, and so on.

But the truth is, I’ve never been bored since! I haven’t missed the TV at all. Such joy poured out over me that I had never known in all my previous 35 years! The path of obedience and faith is the path of blessing. When I obey God by doing what He commands in His Word, I demonstrate that I love Him. But I won’t obey Him if I don’t believe Him. That day, I believed God, and by His grace, I pray I will the rest of my days!

From April 27, 2005 on, life has been an amazing adventure. I realized He rewards and blesses those who seek Him, not what He can give. He has revealed so much to me and I’ve experienced things that I never had before. I have found that God does speak and reveal Himself to His people, yes through His Word, but also through the indwelling Spirit! What a gift!

I am humbled to be His child, His servant, that He would save me through Jesus’ shed blood, and I want to live for Him. This is what the blog is really about, proclaiming who Christ is and how He can change a life. He is full of power and might and has done great things! I stand in awe of Him!

Waiting on God

Carolyn

I am too exhausted to blog, but too full of praises not to!

I’ve been running like crazy the last week getting ready for the new school year to begin. We have faculty/staff orientation and training beginning tomorrow. We have an amazing group of teachers joining us this year that God has faithfully provided. Several wonderful teachers trained in this classical model sought out our school without us having to even search! We have seen God’s hand of blessing on this endeavor since the very beginning, and those are stories I will love to share when I have time.

But for now, I have another simple praise. My husband has received an offer for a book contract! Though he has published an academic book (he is a theology professor), he started writing fiction on the side and began working on his first book. In God’s perfect ways and timing, a publishing house that he submitted it to wants to publish it!

We are excited to see how what we felt like was God’s leading in this turn into a reality. You pray and believe that you are moving where God is leading, but then there is often a wait in between the thought and the reality. And in this case, there was a long wait! But it’s a sweet time of excitement that his story and characters will actually come to life. We are thankful, and we know this is from the Lord. We want to give Him all the praise and glory!

Happy Birthday!

Carolyn

Psalm 145:6 “Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts, and I will tell of Your greatness.”

On July 29, 2000, just before 5:00 p.m., we welcomed the arrival of our precious daughter at 27 weeks, 1 day. Her due date was October 27, 2000. Though I had been in the hospital 23 days and was ready to be at the end of such intense physical pain, I knew that the end of my pain would mean the beginning of hers.

Because I was under general anesthesia for the c-section, it took several hours for me to wake up and regain clear vision. When I did at around 3:00 a.m., I told my husband, “I can see; show me the pictures!” He turned on the light in my hospital room and handed me the two polaroids that the nurses had taken. There she was, so small, looking just like her older brother did at birth (he was 9 lbs.), but smaller (she was 2 lbs.), and with a severe grimace on her face, with tubes everywhere. I cried out, “We have to pray right now!” It’s all I knew to do, helpless as we were.

As we prayed, the neonatologist came in: “I saw your light on…. I was hoping I would find you awake to talk to you… she’s touch and go…. we don’t know what will happen….” She had had a reaction to something called surfactant, a substance given to help premature babies’ underdeveloped lungs. They had sucked it back out, and she was on full vent, maximum oxygen, struggling for her little life. That wasn’t the only problem, but one of many.

The following day, I was wheeled to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit to see her for the first time. She was on a small rectangular flat bed, covered over tightly with what looked like a piece of saran wrap. I just looked at her and talked to her and prayed for her.

I spent the next 3 months going back and forth to the hospital, taking care of my son at home and taking care of her in the hospital. Little by little, day by day, enduring many ups and downs, we got to her original due date and discharge on October 27, 2000.

I saw God’s hand in so many details. We have so many amazing stories of this time. The verse at the top is significant to me because it’s one the Lord gave me as I was awaiting her eye surgery. She had “retinopathy of prematurity” which had advanced to stage 3, level 2. ROP has 5 stages with stage 4 being retinal detachment and stage 5 being blindness. They were prepared to do the surgery at her stage 3 to stop the rapid progression. I was told that the surgery was effective in 80% of the cases, but I also knew that the surgery could bring long term negative side effects regarding her vision. We prayed intensely for the 3 days leading up to the surgery.

The day of the surgery arrived, and they sent me across the hall to the waiting room so they could check her eyes before they began. As I continued praying, I opened the Bible in the waiting room and saw this verse from Psalm 145:6 “Men shall speak of the power of Your awesome acts, and I will tell of Your greatness.” I knew in my heart at that moment that she would not need the surgery, that it would be an awesome act on her behalf, and that I should profess to the eye surgeons God’s greatness.

The nurse came to get me very soberly, saying, “They want to see you now.” As I walked into the NICU, the two doctors were standing there, and they turned around to see me with their faces beaming. “We wouldn’t have expected this!” one of them said. “Her eyes have improved! They’re not totally better, but we aren’t going to do the surgery. We’ll come back and check them in a few days.” Though her eyes were followed regularly for the next several months, she never needed surgery and today is only borderline for glasses (slightly nearsighted). I told the doctors, “The Lord did this” and did testify to His greatness.

This is just one example of many where I saw God intimately concerned about the details of our lives. In fact, I would tell people when I would tell them about her in the days and years that followed that “we saw God in every detail”!

About 4 or 5 years after she was born, I found a journal I had kept when I was pregnant. At that time in my life, I did not regularly journal, but every so often, would attempt it, and it would last for a few entries, then be set aside! So I was surprised these years later to find an old journal with a few entries of when I had been pregnant. I read and found that I had been in a bit of a spiritual pit, not seeking the Lord as I should, feeling very depressed. I journaled as I was flying to Memphis about the pregnancy and not knowing what was going on, but it didn’t seem right. I then wrote something to the effect of “I would hate for something horrible to have to happen to my baby to make me see that God is involved in all life’s details.”

Stunned. I was simply stunned by this. How could I have written this and gone on to have this premature baby who did indeed teach me that God cared for us in every detail of our lives! This was the reality I had learned that I had verbalized to everyone since her birth. And here I was reading this journal entry that that’s what I had been needing to be convinced of. And I was. And God is good. And His ways are right. And I love Him. And I give Him praise. And I thank Him for being in all life’s details.

Today, she is a healthy (though still small), 8 year old little girl. She loves stuffed animals, arts & crafts, writing, reading her Bible, but most importantly, she loves God. I am sharing above a picture from family camp last week. They did facepainting at the carnival at camp, and she asked if she could have this painting on her face.

She writes poetry constantly. Below is just one of her poems. They are always very theological and praiseworthy. When I wonder where she gets these thoughts, I am reminded of all those prayers when she was in the incubator that God would be close to her when no one else could be there or hold her. I trusted that He held her, and I see indications that He has made Himself known to her in very real and powerful ways. I praise Him for all He has done and all He will do in this precious one’s life.

Jesus, I love You

“Jesus, I’ll tell people about You,
Then they’ll actually know You’re true.
So that’s why Your love keeps pouring out over me;
Because I love You and I know You’re holy.
So breathe into me breath so I can tell people about You
And then they’ll know You, too!
So Jesus, You’ll be in my heart forever
And stop loving You is what I’ll do NEVER!
Because You are my King,
and You love everyone and everything!
And I’ll meet you in the holy place;
and then I can actually see Your face!”

Praise You, Lord! We weren’t promised 8 seconds, 8 minutes, or 8 days, and yet, here we are at 8 years! You have been gracious to us, patient with us, revealed Yourself to us, and lovingly helped us. To You alone be the glory!