Archive for category: Personal Thoughts

There is a scripture in Isaiah 49:16 that reads, “Your walls are continually before Me.”

I have been feeling a bit hemmed in lately. Impatient to break free and grumbling to God. After all, can’t He see that these walls are hindering me, hampering me? I am feeling cramped and want out! Sooner rather than later.

This morning as I went for my early morning walk – to try to beat the heat – I began to ponder again this idea that if He sees the walls and the frustration they bring to me, why won’t He take them down?  Set me free. Here I am trudging along with all of nature praising God – the trees with their limbs lifted high, the birds singing in an orchestral chorus – and I am one of His creators grumbling about what He isn’t doing in my life! Who do I think I am?

Then I began to ponder “walls”. Walls don’t just act as a barrier to keep us from being free – they protect us! Walls strengthen. Defend. Mark territory. In biblical days, a city without walls was exposed to great risk.

So these walls that I was grumbling about have been placed by God to protect, strengthen, defend and mark me as His own child. So I can praise Him for these walls…He is working to make me all that He wants me to be. The walls don’t hinder Him! My job  is to confess my grumbling, “murmuring”, and begin to trust His plans and purposes for my walls. He is protecting me – perhaps from myself!

I have been a number of places recently including California to speak to the President’s Forum weekend for Partners International. It is a wonderful organization that finds out where God is at work in the hardest to reach places around the world and supports the indigenous ministries. I loved learning about them, meeting their folks and hearing about the ministry they have around the world. The people I met are not into “kingdom building” for themselves but are humble, sweet people with servant hearts. Jon Lewis, the president, is a dear man. I loved being with them. You might want to peek at their website: partnersintl.org to learn more. It is a very worthwhile, faithful organization. I commend it to you. I plan to use their catalogue to give gifts this Christmas. Instead of giving my grandchildren things they do not need I plan to give them a Partners International catalogue with a $25.00 check made out to Partners International so that they can sit down and choose a gift for someone else.

Last weekend my husband, his 3 sons and my grandson (all about the same age) returned to Angola Prison to attend the rodeo and minister to the prisoner-pastors and interns as well as the wardens and those attending the on-site Bible college. We were so blessed. The boys were amazed that men convicted of such heinous crimes were kind, full of joy and peace – a testimony of God’s grace and redemption. There are 5200 inmates – all there for life sentences. It used to be the most notorious prison in America – certainly the most bloody. But God, through Warden Burl Cain, has turned that place around. It is a wonderful  experience to be there and meet the men. We stayed on campus – there are 18,000 acres, surrounded on 3 sides by the Mississippi River. We never felt that we were at a maximum security prison unless we looked at the rolls of razor wire. There is no graffiti, no swearing, no cat calls – just a lot of respect and peace. That doesn’t discount the sadness and struggle these men experience for the victims of their crimes and their own families. They have loneliness and fears and needs – like all of us. But they are rebuilding their lives in a way that will bring glory to God. We came away, as we did before, with a profound respect for the chaplains that minister day in and day out. As we were accompanied by the head chaplain, Robert Toney, we saw the respect and love they have for him.  It is a remarkable place.

These same prisoners built my mother’s coffin and have built my father’s: a plain plywood box lined with a mattress pad – the same that they use to bury the inmates who die in prison.

If you don’t know about Angola Prison, read Cain’s Redemption. It is the story of Angola Prison.

I am home for a few days and will enjoy getting back into the yard to “winterize” it.

I am having the joy – and responsibility – of doing many interviews to promote my book, Fear Not Tomorrow, God Is Already There. I love talking to folks all around the country – these are radio interviews I can do by phone from home. By the way, the companion devotional book will  be out by Christmas. It is the same title but called “The Devotional Book”. I wrote it for myself as  much as anyone else as I was facing uncertainty in my own life. So, if the book is nothing else it is authentic!

For fun…did you know that grasshoppers have white blood? Butterflies taste with their hind feet and have about 4000 muscles? An armadillo can walk underwater? (The boys saw an armadillo for the first time while we were at Angola.) And minnows have teeth in their throats? Just a bit of trivia I gleaned form Jodi Picoult’s  book, Handle With Care. She is one of the authors I read when I travel!

Yesterday was another beautiful fall day here in Virgina – as is today. October is known for it’s “bright blue weather”. It was good to get in the yard and clean up after summer’s ostentatious bounty. While I have been traveling the deer have had a smorgasbord in my garden – astilbe, tomatoes, sweet potato vine, hydrangea…I hope they got indigestion! I have a very effective spray that my husband orders online: Deer Off. It works well if you are home to spray it! It is all natural and based on mint so it doesn’t stink! I recommend it.

However, back to my yard… it had begun to look messy and needed some freshening up. So I pulled weeds, trimmed things back, turned the soil, threw some plants away that had passed their peak. At one point my wagon was so full and heavy it got away from me running down hill and burst through the board fence! There are many illustrations of our Christian life that we can pull (no pun intended) from the gardening analogy and I do that in our Ruth Graham & Friends “Get Growing” conferences but I don’t feel like that today. It can be overdone. I just enjoyed getting in the yard. I find it a stress-reliever.  And had I time to go by a garden center to pick up a big beautiful mum and other winter hardy plants to replace the things I had to toss. I found various sizes of pumpkins and gourds to stand guard outside my front door. So…now things are looking fallish around here. I feel satisfied.

I also had time to run by a nearby Christian radio station that was having it’s annual share-a-thon. I think Christian radio is important – especially in these times – and I think we need to support it. It is a voice that needs to continue and it can only continue if we give. We are living in an increasingly secular society we need strong voices proclaiming the Christian world view. I donated a copy of all my books, including the just released, Fear Not Tomorrow, God Is Already There, for them to offer as an incentive for listeners to give.

So from my yard and pumpkins to Christian radio…and a special birthday dinner for my husband with good conversation. A full, satisfying day. God is good!

I am home and it is a beautiful day. It is a day to go get some exercise, do laundry, go to the grocery store and get sorted out after so many days “on the road”. I am trying to come down with a cold and can never remember if it is “starve a cold and feed a fever” or the other way around! My mother believed in lots of Vitamin C. This morning I was reading Psalm 135 and it is a wonderful reminder of just who God is and what He has done for us. Our response is to praise Him. I suggest taking a moment to just praise Him for who he is. Use this Psalm: He is good. His name is pleasant. He has chosen us to be His treasured possession. He is great, greater than any other gods. Read the Psalm for yourself and find things for which to praise our marvelous God. You may not feel like praise but try it and see if your mindset changes. He will bless your efforts.

If you like to use screen savers on your computer, I would love to share this graphic with you.  This image is from Jim and Mary Whitmer who work with me in the “Get Growing” conferences.  Just click on this image and a full-sized image will download to your computer, and then you can right click on it to save it.  Enjoy.