Salado Shines

This weekend we are in Salado, Texas, one of my favorite places to chill out. We are with Sam & Kathi Rhodes and having a blast. The food is delightfully delicious, the activities are fun with an emphasize on frolic and the company makes love go around. Thank you Lord for the lovely world and loving friends you created.

Some of the Women I Love

I was thinking this morning on the women I love. The list is very long. To me, that means I am very blessed. I love these many women for different reasons on one hand and for some of the same reasons on the other. The following fall in the "same" category (you know how I love categories):
* I love them for the life that exudes from their being
* I love them for their beauty - though varied, they are all beautiful
* I love them for their laughs - they all have wonderful laughs
* I love them for their mischievousness - with some, you must dig deep to see, but all have it
* I love them for their love of the Trinity -Father, Son & Holy Spirit- & how they relate to Him
I could go on (I love lists as much as categories), but what about their differences that I love?
This is harder to express, but not hard to feel, because, sometimes when I thing of them as a group, all their faces and their attributes, gifts, personalities, etc., get mingled and mixed in a lovely pool of memory for me. But, I will list those loved ones that come to mind and one of things I love about each. Keep in mind, they may share some of these attributes too, but in my opinion, each one owns the one listed with passion and excellence:
* I love Kathy Hawk for her spiritual passion and strength (definitely birthed from her joy) which enables her to look for the righteous and loving way, no matter how painful.
* I love Erica Prosser for her sense of humor and her conflict of person. For although this conflict causes her pain, I believe she uses it to choose God in her weakness and therefore she is strong. She inspires me to do the same with my conflict.
* I love Trish Trueblood for her pure heart. She continually meets hard situations with a positive outlook and a trust in her God.
* I love Ashlee Bradford for her encouraging and kind words which heal my heart.
* I love Pam Park for her mix of great intelligence, great passion and great humility. Her love for me sooths my soul.
* I love Francesca Hafner for the way she submits herself and all of who she is to God and out of that submission her being she is evolving into a mighty ministry to people. My heart melts when I observe how she strengthens others and leads them out of captivity as she also leads me.
* I love Cherith Newman for her depth of maturity clothed in a protection of innocence. Your pure heart with protect your destiny.
* I love Amanda Chavez for her love of life, although she sometimes protects it from showing, God will use this love of life to bring people to righteousness: Enthusiasm in humility of heart breads life.
* I love Jennifer Chavez for the passion of her quest. The enemy has attempted to destroy her through very deep heart wounds, but she has look on the face of Jesus and she shall never turn back from that light. The light is and will do surgery to heal the wound and bring new flesh to her heart.
* I love Rachel Laughlin for her kindness. She chooses humility and kindness and yet is not afraid to delve into the detail of the hard decisions and how they need to change her.
* I love Candy Hallford because she never gives up, never stops seeking Jesus, never stops seeking His prize, though she dies in the process and though she doesn't seek perfectly.
* I love Ashley Caperton for her strength of faith and how she continually unwaveringly applies it to her life and prayer for others.
* This brings me to Ginny. I love Ginny Hawk for her strength of covenant intertwined with her pureness of heart. She will love to the end.
* I love Krissy Hawk for her deep passion and prophetic nature which she has used as a bridge to leave off all fear and seek God with no reservation - no matter what it looks like.
* I love Donna Halliburton for her infectious laughing spirit and her strength to serve which is birthed from the deep joy it brings her.
* I love Gail Vinson for her faithful friendship and her unconditional love - she always makes me feel safe.
* I love Brandi Wilson for her example of how to be a princess with a heart of humility. She doesn't know this, but her princess heart has helped free me from a poverty mentality.
* I love Becky Cauthen for her heart of longing for freedom, freedom for herself, her family, her church, for all. I love they way she goes for her passions at the risk of failure, but with the fruit of great success. She, like Erica, allows her inner conflict to spur her on to righteousness.
* I love Monica Reid for the calming love she wraps others in. She is trustworthy.
* I love Amy Yates - to use a cliche: "her beauty is not just skin deep". She also has a princess heart wrapped in humility. Many of the lovely women I love will be or are now becoming queens and learning how to rule with love - Amy is a prime example.
* I love Kristina Reedy - her energy and fountain of the life of Jesus is very powerful in her.
* I love Rose Melton - my beautiful rose. Her humility and faithfulness astound me. Her hugs are a healing tonic to our bones and spirits.
* I love the lively Kristi Ancheta. I love her innocence and mischievousness. I love the root of deep love in her that motivates her to serve and faithfulness.
* I love Kristi Belcher and her adorable sense of humor which springs from a spicy and loving heart. Her enthusiasm for life and ability to lead inspire me.
* I love Wendy Barron. She may be the most "I will obey my God and never give up on what He has told me to do" person I know. She is a sweet friend.
* I love Dana Bell. How I love Dana. She has become a great joy to me. I love her passion for people. I love her many stories. I love her faith and faithfulness - because of which she has and will be healed completely: body, soul and spirit.
Now you see some of the many reasons I am blessed among women, blessed among friends, blessed among sisters.

Are We What We Eat? Is Our World What We Eat?

I am blessed to know so many awesome, loving, unique, creative, beautiful, full of life people. One of these lovely ones is lovingly nicknamed Pamelotta or Pammy. This faithful friend of mine recently gave me a book called "The Omnivore's Dilemma". I have begun reading this delicious combination of science and philosophy (a combination which Pam and I commonly adore) and would like to share. I have often been interested in food, food of every kind, every kind of food for the body...every kind of food for the soul...every kind of food for the spirit. Food: anything that sustains; anything that nourishes; anything that brings life (of course this is the definition in my mind). "The Omnivore's Dilemma is about the three principal food chains that sustain us today: the industrial, the organic and the hunter-gatherer." (p. 7) The following quote gives an example of how delightfully our eating networks with areas we don't often think of:
" 'Eating is an agricultural act,' as Wendell Berry famously said. It is also an ecological act, and a political act, too. Though much has been done to obscure this simple fact, how and what we eat determines to a great extent the use we make of the world - and what is to become of it. To eat with a fuller consciousness of all that is at stake might sound like a burden, but in practice few things in life can afford quite as much satisfaction. By comparison, the pleasure of eating industrially, which is to say eating in ignorance, are fleeting. Many people today seem perfectly content eating at the end of an industrial food chain, without a thought in the world; this book is probably not for them. There are things in it that will ruin their appetites. But in the end this is a book about the pleasure of eating, the kinds of pleasure that are only deepened by knowing." (p. 11)
Isn't this route of thinking so true of our being, not just our eating? Just as how we eat effects our bodies, our economy, our politics, our culture, our environment and probably more I haven't thought of, so what we feed our soul and spirit affects all that and more. Isn't connection beautiful? Isn't connection satisfying?
Lord, I submit another level of control to you - a level I haven't seen before. If I control what I feed my body, soul or spirit, then there will be times that what I feed myself will bring an unacceptable outcome. I want to come into my highest potential for this life you have created. Therefore, you must be in control of all of me. I give you control of what I feed myself. I do not give up control to the law, although you created the law. I do not give up control to my mind, will, emotions, body or spirit, although you created them too. I give up control to you Holy Spirit. Control based on relationship and not law. Control based on love. Control based on your love which says what I eat is not what defiles me, but what comes out of me.

What to Do With a Rift?

What to do when there is a rift. How I despise them. Why must the pain of the rift be greater than the pain of the conflict? Long ago I had pride (before my fall) that I was so good at relationship that I could prevent any rift. That was not true. That would only be in the hands of my God. Only He could prevent rifts. What do you do when the pain of relationship seems too hard? What do you do when you've given many chances - it seems an infinite number - and the chances are dissolved into each betrayal? What do you do when you gave your heart and your "friend" (knowing you, you thought) found greater pain in having relationship than in destroying it? What do you do? You forgive. You continue to give chances. You love with His love, not your love. You "feed on all that is gained and nothing that is lacking" (I love your words Bill Johnson). You "plant the seed of your lack by giving it back to God in thanksgiving, so that it may reap the spiritual justice and good fruit instead of barrenness, death, loneliness and infinite lack". I will choose to believe and not fear, because my God is pouring out His grace on me and on my weakness. His grace blows into my limp, hollow life like breath blows up an empty balloon, so that it is tight and round and full and ready for it's destiny. Without Him, I am nothing. His grace washes over my parched and cracked and hard heart, changing me from old and leathered like an ancient skin to new subtle, fresh and elastic, like a baby. Like a baby from the inside out, from elastic bones to subtle skin - resilient. My God is resilient, therefore, so am I. I love Him. Everything He asks is worth it. One last note: With the pain of this, we step further into our destiny, not because God brings pain, but because He brings the way out and shapes us into something new in the process.

My Window

I love the shining light pouring through my foyer window
no matter what the source, I love that shining window
sometimes the light is very bright and hot - you might say scalding
and sometimes it is comfortingly warm, flowing soothingly through that window
Warmth is a very interesting thing, from soothing to annoying
it may chase the deepest cold from your bones
or cause tossing to keep you from sleeping
Heat is evidence of energy imparted:
a loving hug, a healing touch, a love just started.
no matter what years have passed, I long for that energy
from my God, from my friend, from my sweet love's kisses
as I said it matters not the source of warmth and light
from moon and stars to shining sun, from God direct - He is so bright,
but though all the light and all the heat have some positive contribution
without a doubt, it is His light that has changed my constitution

Thanks God for Sharing Your Resurrection in so Many Ways

I had the most wonderful birthday this year. My birthday is in spring, April 8th (1954 if you would like to know). I am a glorious 53 years of age, and I do mean glorious. Sometimes my birthday falls on Easter Sunday. I love birthdays, not just mine, but all birthdays. I love celebrating the glorious miracle of people. I also love spring. Spring is my favorite time of year. Spring is another miracle I love to celebrate. I think our culture should have a "Celebrate Spring Holiday" and we should all have a grand party with many flowers and brightly colored clothes and trays of the lovely first fruits and vegetables of spring. I know that this might sound like Easter, but we need another day to just concentrate on the glory that God communicates through spring. (You might hear me blog in the other seasons my love for them, but in the gauge of loving seasons, spring is definitely my favorite). I also love Easter. (I definitely need to find some more descriptive and definitive words to describe levels of positive emotion and attraction other than love.) Well, back to my wonderful birthday. Every time my birthday falls on Easter, I feel so honored and loved by God that I could share his blessed day. (That really emphasizes my "I" personality doesn't it.) This Easter could not have been more enjoyable to me. God poured his love on me in a special way through many joys, hugs and kisses from heaven. Below is a list of the ones I can think of at this moment:
*my husband sang happy birthday to me and gave me a wonderful card, expressing his love in just the right words
*I got to go to church with my beloved God family
*I got to worship my great living God with my beloved God family
*Pam Park told me happy birthday right before worship with the sweetest, most genuine smile of love
*Cherith picked wonderful songs (she actually always does this)
*I got to go to my best friends house (KH) for lunch with my Hawk relatives
*I made a chocolate meringue pie and a coconut custard pie for lunch and they turned out great and everyone had a fit over them
*Gail Cleveland made a coconut cake (my favorite) for the party and God told me it was my birthday cake - for some reason I don't get many birthday cakes, so this was very special
*My husband didn't ask to leave the Easter lunch until I was ready to go
*I got to visit with so many of my lovely God family about God and Easter and babes and food and the weather and love and miracles and Bryan's sermon...
*My precious prophet leader, Bryan Cauthen, gave a radical life changing sermon and gave an awesome analogy - he is so brave and walks with abandoned love for his God
Thank you God for Easter and for my birthday and that you really really love me - I will always be grateful. Let us all be grateful for his sacrifice, for his resurrection power, for his living in us now.

Praises to my God

My heart is full of praise for you
Full and overflowing
My mouth is full of praises too
Full and overflowing
I'll sing of the great things you've done
And your mighty works to come
What great changes you've begun
I'm full and overflowing