God in the pillows

So, last night I was done! I was tired, grumpy, achy, and ready to go to bed. As I sauntered into my bedroom I realized to my dismay that there were no sheets on my bed. I had stripped it to wash the sheets and had not put any back on. The last thing I wanted to do at that point was put on clean sheets. So, knowing full well that it was unacceptable to SH, I crashed on top of the bed and pulled up a blanket. I was warm, had my soft, squishy pillows, and drifted effortlessly to dreamland.

Some time later (I was asleep, so I have no idea how long...) SH comes upstairs and wants to put sheets on the bed. As talented as he is, he apparently did not take the hospital candystriper class about how to change the sheets when someone is bedridden. We had a pull and tug fight about it, but finally there were sheets on the bed and I did not have to put my feet on the floor. He covered me back up and I was getting ready to drift again when I realized I did not have my pillows. I figured he was still working on them and would take care of it as I drifted again.

As the night wore on, I became very uncomfortable and realized I had no pillows. Now, for someone whose pillow situation is very important this was a tragedy! However, my exhaustion won out and I suffered all night without my precious pillows.

Finally it is 5:00 AM and my wonderful alarm goes off reminding me of the pleasures of my quiet early mornings. As I go to stand up and walk over to the alarm, I realize my pillows are right beside my bed on the floor. Right beside my bed. All I had to do was reach over with one hand and grab them and my night would have been so much better.

My help, my relief, my comfort, was right beside my bed; but I was too wrapped up in my own misery to try to find it. And it was right beside my bed.

If there is not a spiritual lesson in that, I don't know what one is. Even in your misery, if you just reach out with one hand to your Help, He will be there. Right beside your bed.

Reach for it, friends.

O:)
Melissa

Me on TV!!!

WZTV FOX 17/Nashville :: Music Beat

This was made when I went to see Beth Moore last week at LifeWay. I promise I'll post pictures later!

O:)
Melissa

A to Z Challenge

In digging around tonight for someone I found this awesome blog that is about a year or so old. It is a book person like myself who challenged anyone to read through the alphabet. I'm thinking it would be a great thing for my kids this summer in lieu of the reading programs at the library where they only read a few books and get a bunch of trashy toys. Hhm...anyone else interested in joining us?

O:)
Melissa

Snow and ice and more snow....

I know many of my FB and bloggy friends have been chatting away about all the fun they had outside playing with their kids and sledding. Well, we don't have any hills around here, but we do have a slide!




Enjoy!

O:)
Melissa

Thoughts and musings on my recent trip to Mazatlan

How would you describe God work in/through the Church here in Mazatlan?

It has to be the Sunday morning service when they received the deed to the land for the new church building. To have something they prayed for IN FAITH for almost 20 years to finally become a reality gave me hope in issues that I have been praying about for many years also.

Also, when we were out inviting the locals in Bugambillias to the Festival of Hope the first day, we met a woman who told us she went to another church in town, but had had a vision that a church was coming to their area. She saw it clearly with mountains in the background, and assumed it would be on one side of the town, but Spirit and Truth will be on the other, which also will have mountains in the background. Sometimes we get “visions” from the Lord and then without all the details we use our human minds to fill in the details, without waiting for God to do that.

What did God teach you or reinforce to you?

Prayer is not only the work before the event, but it IS the work. At some events we went to I did not have an officially assigned job to do (which annoyed me immensely at first) so I gave myself the job of just praying the entire time. Angela Rankin gave me a little prayer card that I carried to near tatters the entire trip with various scripture to pray over the lost and that became my mission. Sometimes it may have looked like I was just walking around aimlessly or sitting like a lazy bum, but I was nearly always in prayer for the people around us.

In the devotional book, “My Utmost for His Highest” for October 17 (the first event and day I felt most uncertain about what I was supposed to be doing) reads, “There is nothing thrilling about a laboring man’s work, but it is the laboring man who makes the conceptions of the genius possible; and it is the laboring saint who makes the conceptions of his Master possible. You labor at prayer and results happen all the time from His standpoint. What an astonishment it will be find, when the veil is lifted, the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you have been in the habit of taking orders from Jesus Christ!”

What did you see God do through this week that can only be attributed to Him?

Rain, rain, go away! Nearly every time we had an event scheduled, it rained. Not little rain, but buckets beyond belief. In fact, Saturday morning we saw a scene straight out of the Weather Channel with cars driving in the road, while the water in the road was well over their tires! But, with only God, it blew over, and the Festival of Hope was able to proceed with sunshine and changed lives.

Sunday we went to Catarina, a small village tucked in a valley. Before the event was to take place, we saw dark clouds and lightening and heard thunder. But God not only kept the rain away, He gave us a rainbow the entire service to remind us He would keep it away!

Wednesday dawned with torrential rain again, winds like crazy (we later found out it was hurricane/tropical storm/whatever) and we again thought our outreach at el Rincon would be washed down the tubes for sure. It had already been rained out the day before. But sure enough, my God, who is bigger than the storms, provided for us and we ended up having a beautiful, blue sky afternoon with many kids and adults attending and receiving the life giving water they needed from Jesus.

An interesting note about the water. Johnny Paine, with whom no words can describe, reminded us specifically on Tuesday night that we should be very careful about praying for the rain to go away. They have been in a drought all summer and need the rain badly. So is it selfish of us to ask for the rain to stop so it will be easier to do what we want to do? Another spiritual lesson I see.

What habits or truths do you learn that you want to continue to apply when you go home?

Pray without ceasing for the lost. Yes, it was “easy” to see the lost on a mission field in a third world country. Is it as easy to see the lost souls at the grocery store, at my kids’ school, at our church? I want to keep that tattered card and pray when I am in the grocery, when I am eating lunch with my kids at school, and when I am at church. Better yet, I want to memorize the prayers/scripture, so it can just flow out of me.

Who do you need to tell these stories to?

My children. My Sunday School class. My church, Anyone who will listen to understand why, while there is a plethora of wealth and goodness you can get from God in church, in Bible Study, etc, until you go out and experience something like this, whether it be in a third world country, a poor Appalachian county, or wherever, I believe you cannot grasp all that the Lord has. Yes, I could have lived my life just fine with Jesus by my side had I not gone to Thailand and Mazatlan, but oh how much sweeter and richer my life is because of it! I think it should be a requirement for all members of the body, but at the same time, you must go with a willing heart. Willing to throw it all on the table and say, “Lord, here am I. Use me.”

O:)

Melissa

If you are interested in more details or pictures, e-mail me at bibliomaniac@bellsouth.net and let me know! I'll be happy to share!

The Party Girl

So tonight we celebrated the first full week of school for everyone, including Katie who has now gone a full 7 days with everyone in her class. We stayed up late watching a cute movie, so it was about 10:00 and I could tell Katie was SOOOO tired. Conversation:

Me: Boy Katie, this is really late for a kindergartener to be up!
Katie: It's only 10:00, that's not late. I've stayed up later before, like maybe 1:00 or 2:00.
Me: When?! When have you stayed up that late?
Katie: I don't know, maybe at a party or something like that (!)

Not a response I expected from my 5 y/o! Maybe a 15 y/o, after which we would have words, but I'm not really sure what kinds of "parties" Katie has been to where she stays up that late! Ha!

Good laugh for a good night!

O:)
Melissa

One thing I will miss....

Yesterday I told Katie that after the girls got on the bus we would go on a walk/bike ride, then go to Kroger to go grocery shopping. You would have thought I told her we were going to Disney because she got so excited! Indeed, Super Target and Kroger are her two favorite places to go, so it was really no surprise to me that she would be so thrilled. Even last night when she was getting ready for bed she said she could not wait to hurry up and get up....this is one thing I will miss. It may be the last grocery run during the day that we have together for a while....

O:(
Melissa