Windows of the Soul
Butterfly at butterfly house in King's Garden
It is with much sadness that we draw our time here to a close. We had a wonderful weekend celebrating our time with the people who have become very dear to us. (I will share more below) Now, however, we want to thank all of you for your faithful prayers on our behalf, and a huge thank you to those who performed many tasks,large and small to tend to things there so that we could be here. Several looked after our house, some plowed our driveway, cut grasses, saw to repairs on the house, paid bills and provided help with finances there, picked us up and delivered us to the airport and many other things. (we even several times had a pot roast waiting for us) We do not have adequate words to say thank you for your support and encouragement over these years. How very blessed we are to have such amazing friends! We are so grateful for all the help. Literally, we couldn't have done it without so many of you!
Last Bible study in our home with my Bible study group
We had a very special weekend on April 27th-28th. It was amazing and emotion-packed as we said goodbye to many people in our church who have become very dear to us. We have been blessed by our interaction with these people. They have enriched our lives; we are changed for the better because of our interaction with them. Our church family surprised us with a lovely dinner on Saturday evening with some beautiful gifts, wonderful expressions of appreciation and prayers over our future endeavors. We thank God for leading us, and this is is another life memorial. When God places before you an open door that involves risk and is scary, following His call can lead to great joy and blessing on the other side. Oh! What we would have missed had we not been willing to take the risk. Our God is so faithful. He promises His presence will go with us, and He promises His strength and empowering in place of our weakness. (Exodus 33:14/ 2 Cor. 12:9 )
Saturday night fellowship and Dinner
One of the dear families in our church
Lovely Gifts!
A dear man of God
One of our very important Sound Controllers on Sunday mornings
2 of the children giving ups gifts.
Our darling Ezra
I recently read a book called Windows of the Soul by Ken Gire. This book caused me much contemplation and thought. I tend to have a one track mind, and I fear I often miss much in the everyday experiences that God desires to show me. I am also very goal oriented, and I fear in reaching many of those goals, I have missed seeing windows of the soul along the way. Benjamin Warfield said this: "A glass window stands before us. We raise our eyes and see the glass; we note its quality, and observe its defects; we speculate on its composition. Or we look straight through it on the great prospect of land and sea and sky beyond." Gire says that we reach for God in many ways. Through our sculptures and our scriptures. Through our pictures and our prayers. Through our writing and our worship--and through them He reaches us. His search begins with something said. Ours begins with something heard. His begins with something shown. Ours, with something seen. Our search for God, and His search for us meet at windows in our everyday experience--windows of the soul. In a sense, it is something like spiritual disciplines for the spiritually undisciplined. In another sense, it is the most rigorous of disciplines--the discipline of awareness. For we must always be looking and listening if we are to see them. We must be aware at all time and in all places, because windows are everywhere, and at any time we may find one. Or one may find us. Though we will hardly know it...unless we are searching for Him who for so long has been searching for us. Gire says we have to be willing to see beyond the surface--something that has the power to change the way we think or feel, something that may prove so profound a revelation as to change not only how we look at our lives but how we live them.
Ladies Bible study presentation
Jesus lived His life that way, seeing beyond the surface--the widow at Nain, the woman at the well, the tax collector in the tree and the thief on the cross.
For example, Jesus saw beyond the widow's tears for her dead son. Jesus saw how much she needed that son to fill the hole left by her deceased husband. Beyond the Samaritan woman's veil, He saw five marriages that had failed, and beyond that, the emptiness in her life that grew bigger with each divorce. Beyond power and wealth of Zacchaeus, He saw a small man with a big hole in his heart that all the power and wealth in the world couldn't fill.
Leadership Team Prayers
Abraham Heschel said, "To sense the sacred is to sense what is dear to God." All of us go through life from one threshold to another. And at those thresholds, most of us stand on very tentative legs, wanting to take a step but we're hesitant, unsure. We wonder what lies ahead? and what has to be left behind in getting us there? We go from threshold to threshold with something pulling us forward and something pulling us back. We are tentative, hesitant, unsure. How does God feel about us when we are at one of these thresholds? Is He saying, "Grow up, get a grip. Get up and get on with your life." Or, is He wanting to sit beside us, put an arm around us and tell us a story of the thresholds His own son had to step across, at Bethlehem, at the Jordan River, and at Gethsemane? Times when He felt something pulling Him forward and something pulling Him back. Times when He was tentative, unsure, and yes, even afraid. I pray we can take more time to be aware of what God is revealing in the everyday pictures everywhere around us. May we see beyond initial appearances and the surface level. Whatever God has in store ahead, we know He will be there, and He will provide His strength even when the road seems scary or risky, and when we are unsure.
I'm not sure what was so funny--but we have come to love this man and his family
Children singing a blessing song on our last Sunday
A Prayer for Awareness: Help us to be aware of the pictures in our lives that are everywhere around us and at all times showing us something we need to see, telling us something we need to receive. Help us to look beyong the surface of those pictures to see windows. Give us eyes to see, ears to hear, and hearts to receive what You are offering us through those windows, that we might sense what is dear to You so that it might become what is dear to us. (Ken Gire)
Dave and I had a chance to speak at the annual retreat for Faithful Heart Foundation
This couple are pastor and wife as well as parents for one of the homes in Faithful Heart Ministry. Please pray for this couple as they have a heavy load but dear, sweet hearts for God and the children they minister to through FHF.
Sienna gets cuter every day--sweet personality
Again a huge thank you for prayers, support, and encouragement over these 3 1/2 years. Please pray that we can finalize everything and have room to pack all the "necessary" things. And our final goodbyes! Leaving these 2 sweet children will be extremely difficult.
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