Springs of Living Water

Be still & know that I am God...

I am back from the gargantula Las Vegas high school basketball tournament where there were 900 teams...we fundraised all year to get to go...didn't quite turn out like stellar week we had hoped for...

Never found my glasses...lost my cell phone off the roof of my rental car, yes the roof...long story...so what am i thinking about? I also lost the replacement eyeglasses. Too often I want God to "fix" my life...change my circumstances, protect me, make my life easier, change the externals. What am I thinking? What about the internal moment of what is happening in the core of my heart? My God lives within me to even change my prayers from my insisting He "fix" things for me to realizing He may be giving me the courage to act when I can't see without glasses or talk on the cell...

I have been reading The River Within this week while I was gone and it was right up there with one of ten best books I have read...it is about living carefully/timidly between morality and mission OR RIDING OUT THE CURRENT OF OUR DRIVES & IMPULSES THAT MAKE US FEEL ALIVE...living beyond duty, life to the full...Jeff Imbach paints a great picture of the story of his old life as a Christian focused on exhortation, performance, dedication and purity RATHER than on responding to the life of God within him. He says 3 million evangelical Christians no longer go to church according to some unbelievable survey. Exhausted.... carrying a miserable load of Christianity.... instead of being energized by Life within. If you are in the desert, God turns the desert into water. Isa. 41:17,18...

So, back to the bball tournament. The timing of reading this book while I was there was very good. I realized from my reading that God within me was moving...not to "fix" my world, not to "fix" my problems but I realized He was giving me: The courage to act in the midst of being mishandled. The courage to move to respond and love in midst of a little controversy. The courage to love when I was not being loved. The courage to speak when I needed to instead of hiding. The courage to respond to Him for my longings to "belong" and for "intimacy." He was there at that basketball tournament in ways I might not have found Him.

Psalm 46:1-5 was an encouragement to me this week...the psalmist described the chaos going on round him and some of you have so much chaos going on...and he used images of tidal waves and earthquakes to describe what was crumbling around him. Verse 3 says there is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy place where the Most High dwells. God is within; you will not fall. Verse 10 ---- we are invited to relax and "know that I am God." God spoke to my heart as I struggled throughout the week...I have such a long way to go from leading a shallow life that I thought was full. Ambivalence raised its ugly face...was it really a good hard week? Once again, people didn't respond like I thought--- and what will I do with that? All I know is that I am not beating myself up as much as I usually would. I blame so much on myself. And I am taking the intensity of the temptation as a measure of how deeply my God wants to speak to me. An invitation. I need Him more than ever. I want Him more than ever. I am a mess more than ever. But the God of the universe lives within me and I want to keep going to Him. Bringing my desires to my awesome God. Opening my desires in His presence for He wants to love me. I do belong....

I stood in front of this exquisite fountain one night with tears trickling down as I gazed into the streams springing, swirling, swishing, spilling, streaming out...and I thought about that spring of Living Water offered to the woman at the well..."everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst for it will become in him a spring of water welling up..."

I can always buy a new pair of glasses, a new phone...but I can't buy back my experiences. I want to be grateful for all the moments of my life not just when and if things go right. I want to live better. Every mundane moment, every magnanimous moment is sacred because God is alive in us and moving through us if I would just let Him.

"God is within you...be still and know that He is God." Psalm 46:10

S.O.S.

I just can't wait to get to church on Sunday mornings! I can't wait!!! I was on time yesterday and was so excited about going to church when "it" happened...I lost my eyeglasses right off my face in my house...on my way to church on Sunday morning...and what happened to them? They fell off my face in my house, I guess. So I took off anyway in the car and three blocks down the road I ran out of gas (the gas gauge said I had 24 more miles!) and coasted straight into a gas station---right smack to the pump that was covered with a trashbag--- that station was out of gas too...closed for business...someone didn't want me at church...I did make the second service after being rescued by my kind husband in 90 degree heat... and if I told you what happened to me in the second service, you'd know why it happened that I missed the first one...and I just have to also add that the presence of God in our worship in that second service was overwhelming to me, simply overwhelming and at one point most of the congregation spontaneously stood to praise our God...so thrilled to be there...even with gas and no glasses...

I haven't seen too many blogs that post about missing items. Could it be most of my blogging friends are not approaching 100 years old like I...seems to me that my misplacing of items right off my face is growing greater. Please help mom find her purse, her keys, and her glasses in random order.

I have frantically searched nooks and crannies of my home only to find a $50 check I didn't know my son was missing (thought it was in the bank) and a present I had not opened and some mail that had fallen behind the hall table. No glasses...vanished into home air.

Britt and I leave on Friday for his 5-day basketball tournament and I'll be there but won't be able to see him on the court if I don't find these tri-focals. He will be like an ant on the court---forget that analogy---he will be like a skinny tree moving on the court among 9 other slender trees. Won't be able to decipher which tree belongs to me. Yes, tri-focals---- and I can't order another pair in less than a week.

So, I am probably the first blogger to post an SOS for help finding glasses...I need peace. I need wisdom where to look again. I need peace, did I say that already? I need peace to board Friday's plane with limited vision. Seriously, I really appreciate every time you pray for me and my family and bring us before our Father who cares about everything about our lives, especially my coming to Him to find peace and rest for my present persistent teeny troubles.

Gotta go...and where are my car keys?

Pizza in the Playroom

every three months, i take six high school students from my son's school to volunteer at our local children's hospital through a great organization i support...

tonight was our night to serve a pizza dinner to the cancer patients and their families...a taste of pizza...pizza in the playroom

tonight, instead, they served us a full plate...

there was a very brave five-year-old little boy who was so thrilled for a listening ear...

there was a longing three-year-old who just needed to be held for 2 hours by one of our teens cause her mom couldn't be there...

there was a tender mom who shed tears for the touch to her six year old son...

there was a newly acquainted with sickness five-year-old who needed support...

instead of us giving our time and free pizza...these precious children and parents gave us a tangible taste of what it means to capture and cherish and taste the moment you have been given...

Better is One Day ...

THREE DAYS IN DENTON...

Spent past three days in DENTON at Britt's basketball tournament, Denton Shoot-Out, with so many teams---like scores of teams. Won our first five games---woo hoo!---then lost tonight and we are back home in Benbrook.

All day long a song has been going through my head, "Better is One Day" in My House than a thousand elsewhere and I found out in church this morning that the "elsewhere" in Psalm 84 means "of your choice"---like a basketball game OR a place we go in our thinking when we make bad choices...like pretending everything is okay when it really is not...pretending that we are not angry...pretending that we are happy...pretending that I am not hurt when I am bleeding...pretending all is well with my walk with God when I feel His absence.

All I have is this day, this moment to live----however many more breaths God gives and I don't want to live in pretense. Better is one day with our God than anything this life has to offer...any event, any experience of our choice. So where am I spending my days "elsewhere?" I so long for eyes to see what I am really doing with my life. I so want to change and live free-er than ever.

Have thought so much this 4th of July week about freedom...what does freedom look like when we live free to love our husband, our children, our friends...what does it mean to love well, to live well, to suffer well, to serve well... . A friend of mine says freedom comes first then love---how can we love if we are not free?

I've also been thinking about a quote from Mere Christianity. C.S. Lewis wrote: "No man knows how bad he is until he has tried very hard to be good." I am amazed tonight trying to comprehend that all our sin, all our darkness doesn't require me to perform to overcome it. It's already taken care of.

Someone said to me this week: if you are 2 months pregnant, how do you get to 9 months? Can't make it there overnight. Can't force that growth---growth will occur. But I can quit trying so hard to make it happen...I can surrender to find rest in my God's sovereign loving hand and plan. So what does that look like tonight? Right where I am ...

Back in Benbrook once again and better is one day with Him than where?

Tonight is Britt's birthday party at The Main Event from 6-10pm...would you like to play a video game vicariously Brooke? Join Britt & The Main Event crowd and send him a text tonight 817.915.3349 for his birthday.

SWEET SIXTEEN

Happy Birthday Britt!

Sweet Sixteen...

We blinked & you grew up

how fast it's flown by

how proud we are of you

how thrilled to call you our son

how grateful for that day 16 years ago

you are way more than we ever dreamed

out of all the boys in the world we got you!

becoming a young man wanting to live for God...Happy Sweet Sixteen Birthday!

I remember touching your toe when you were born to make sure my dream had really come true. And you keep on being a dream come true for me especially this year. May God's hand be on your life as you walk to seventeen! I love you, Mom

Sleepful in Seattle...Hopeful at Home

Back from Bainbridge Island to Benbrook...

A wild and wonderful week...

Back from Bainbridge Island

to Benbrook...

A week I will never forget...

Touched by some women full of Beauty & Courage...

Hey Katie...send some Snapfish photos

I only have 3 photos of the whole week!

Hey Heather....will get to the group blog

as soon as I can catch my breath & sleep.

Signed: sleepful from Seattle

hopeful at home