A SIMPLE THANK YOU

Our neighborhood association attaches American flags to the mailboxes of all the homes in our subdivision for Memorial Day, July 4th, and Veterans Day. Our small way of saluting our country and the ones that stand in the gap to preserve our freedom.

I was doing my part to help get those up this morning when a couple from down the street pulled up beside me to say hello. I know that they are both very patriotic from their license plate which reads "Proud American" to the flag that proudly waves in their front yard. I asked how they were and then I asked him,

"You're a veteran, aren't you?" (I was pretty sure he was)

He nodded yes.

"Thank you" I said.

I wish you could have seen the expression on his face. His wife must have known I'd hit a nerve for she smiled and reached over and patted his leg. He could not utter a word, but nodded his thanks, smiled through what I'm pretty sure were tears and quietly drove off.

I was as surprised at his reaction as he was at my statement.

Such a simple thing...just a "thank you". But to the hundreds or maybe thousands of veterans we come in contact with day in and day out, it means the world.

They laid their lives on the line for us. Some were prisoners of war. Some suffered injury or came back totally changed by what they saw. Most of us will never know what it was like for them, no matter whether it was in WW II, Korea, Vietnam, Kuwait, Afghanistan or Iraq. Yet I would dare to say that very few have ever had anyone say the simple words "Thank You" for the service they have rendered on behalf of this country and for each one of us.

Monday is Memorial Day. So I am writing this today to ask you look around you over the next several days. See who you know that is a veteran. Maybe it's a neighbor. Maybe it's a family member. Maybe it's someone at church or in your office. But will you seek them out this weekend, either in person or by email or a phone call and do one simple thing.

Just say "Thank you" for serving our country.

And to any of you who may be reading this today....if you are a veteran, may I be the first to say to THANK YOU! May God bless you for the sacrifices you made. We appreciate you!!!

God bless America!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

KINGDOM TAPESTRY - Part 4

I had thought I was through with this series, but I read a statement yesterday that was SO much a part of the whole idea of Kingdom Tapestry that I just had to share it!

First a little background....


It's not a sight any parent is prepared for, their child in a hospital bed with a trachea tube in their neck, but Jon and Kari Underwood say it's far better than what they could be dealing with.

"I wouldn't like a scar on my children, but we'll take this scar," said Kari Underwood.

Wednesday night two and a half year old William Underwood fell in the nursery at Bellevue Baptist, hit his neck on a piece of furniture and broke his wind pipe.The woman watching him knew something was wrong and took him to another nursery worker who immediately jumped into action."Within 30 seconds of falling his breathing was in distress," said Penny Williams.

Without even thinking about it, Penny Williams told someone to call 911, kicked off her shoes and ran with William to a first aid station. By then he had already stopped breathing."We put oxygen on him and tried to contact his parents," said Williams.

Penny, who wasn't even suppose to be in the nursery that night, also sang to William and rode with him in the ambulance to Le Bonheur Children's Medical Center.

"I have daughter with medical problems. She has some of the best surgeons (at Le Bonheur) and on the way I was just praying the right doctor would be here and when we got here it was Dr. McDonald and when I saw him I knew he was okay," said Williams.

William had to be rushed into emergency surgery to repair his trachea. His parents had no idea how serious the situation had been until the surgery was over, but say the outcome couldn't have been better.

"I didn't know Penny's story that she had a child here, I didn't know she knew what she did, but God did and he put her in that hallway," said Kari Underwood."One thing that became clear to me is the minutes counted. If there had been any delay we could have had a completely different outcome," said Jon Underwood. (copied from WREG.COM)


I saw this story on the news on Thursday. I was thrilled that this little boy's life had been saved and just as thrilled that all of this was allowed to be told on the 5:00 news! (Hats off to WREG in Memphis...God bless you!!) How often do we get to hear God given the glory for anything in the media these days, but HE was all over this story.

Yesterday while on FACEBOOK, I saw an entry by Kari Underwood, William's mother. One paragraph just jumped off the page to me,


"God uniquely prepares us for events in our lives that we don't see coming. One question Christian detractors often ask is, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" We may never get the whole answer to that question until we meet again in Heaven, but I can give you a tiny piece of the answer right now. Penny [the nursery worker who ran with William] did not know 18 years ago when her daughter was born needing multiple surgeries, that one day she would be at the right place at the right time and know just what to do when William was injured. She didn't know. But God gave her the grace to handle that experience at that time, and the preparation for my child's distress and my own subsequent measure of grace. She learned empathy through that experience. It changed her life. This will change mine. Picture the butterfly making its way through much effort out of its cocoon. Or imagine the chick breaking its way through the egg. Science will show that the effort is part of the process; without the trial during transformation, these creatures can fail to thrive and develop. As His creatures, God uses our trials to develop us and help us to become better people.

God wove the threads of Penny and Kari and William's lives together over a number of years to suddenly intertwine on Wednesday night. It was no accident. It was not a coincidence. It was all part of God's Kingdom plan.

As I read from JESUS CALLING by Sarah Young this morning, she echoed those thoughts,

"Come to Me with your plans held in abeyance. Worship Me in spirit and in truth, allowing My Glory to permeate your entire being. Trust Me enough to let Me guide you through this day, accomplishing My purposes in My timing. Subordinate your myriad of plans to My Master Plan. I am sovereign over every aspect of your life! "(May 18)

"I am your Lord! Seek Me as Friend and Lover of your soul, but remember that I am also King of kings---sovereign over all. You can make some plans as you gaze into the day that stretches out before you. But you need to hold those plans tentatively, anticipating that I may have other ideas. " (May 16)

"Oh Father...today I pray that you will order my steps in YOUR way. I recognize that you are weaving the threads of my life into a pattern that I may not be able to see. But help me to trust you...to yield my will and my way to You. Help me to submit my plans and my TO DO list to you today and allow you to orchestrate my day as You see fit. Help me not to turn to the left or the right, but to follow Your steps where You desire me to go. Put the words in my mouth that You want me to say. Help me to give encouragement and comfort where needed; to lavish grace with patience and kindness when my flesh would rather be otherwise. Help me to turn a deaf ear to the whispers of Satan who desires to steer me off course and to distract me from Your way. You, O Lord, are the Master Designer. Make something beautiful out of my life....in Jesus' name I pray. Amen"

DON'T LET LIFE PASS YOU BY

Life is precious. Most of us don't realize just HOW precious until we come close to losing it.

We had a discussion of this in Sunday School this past Sunday. There were several in our class who have come close and it has changed them forever. When you find yourself looking death in the face, you wonder if you will ever have a "normal" day again. Suddenly what once seemed ordinary and mundane in a "normal" day, looks remarkably different. You yearn for "normal" again. You pray that you WILL have "normal" days again.

But more than that...you realize suddenly what was really important and what was not. And, as a line from an old John Wayne movie says "You better get busy living or get busy dying."

A young mother who is a friend of a friend took her baby for a 6 month check up last week. Within just hours her world was turned upside down as she learned that her baby had a brain tumor. Talk about rocking your world!!!!!!!!! In her words, "Thursday my biggest 'worry' was whether or not he'd have an allergic reaction to bananas. Oh, how priorities change in a hurry and what has weight in my life flips around. The budget, summer plans... did I really spend energy worrying about these things before this weekend? " Baby Josiah was operated on Monday and they are currently waiting on the pathology reports. Please pray for this family as God brings them to mind.

Life is precious. And we need to be about the business of enjoying every second of it we can. None of us know what tomorrow brings. No one knows when we are coming to our last day. Don't let life pass you by worrying about insignificant things. Don't miss opportunities to go to lunch with a friend, read a book to your child, play ball with your son, go fishing with your grandchild, or to chat with a neighbor.

God gives us so many wonderful things to enjoy every day and yet most of the time we are too busy to notice. We are so caught up in making a buck or checking things off of our TO DO list, that we miss the really special moments God has put before us. Open your eyes today. Do not let life pass you by. Point of Grace says it best in the following song....I hope you'll think about these words and ask yourself as you do, "Am I living life or just killing time til time kills me?"

Wake up to the sunlight with your windows open
Don’t hold in your anger or leave things unspoken
Wear your red dress use your good dishes
Make a big mess and make lots of wishes
Have what you want, but want what you have
And don’t spend you life looking back


Turn up the music Turn it up Loud
Take a few chances Let it all out
Because you won’t regret it
Looking back from where you have been
Because it’s not who you knew and it’s not what you did
It’s how you Live


So go to the ballgames and go to the ballet
And go see your folks more than just on the holidays
Kiss all your children Dance with your wife
Tell your husband you love him every night
Don’t run from the truth cause you can’t get away
Oh no
Just face it and you’ll be ok


Turn up the music Turn it up Loud
Take a few chances Let it all out
Because you won’t regret it
Looking back from where you have been
Because it’s not who you knew and it’s not what you did
It’s how you Live

Where ever you are and wherever you’ve been
Now is a time to begin

So give to the needy and Pray for the grieving
Even when you don’t think that you can
Cause all that you do is bound to come back to you
So think of your fellow man
And make peace with God and Make peace with yourself
Oh yeah
Cause in the end there’s nobody else

Turn up the music Turn it up Loud
Take a few chances Let it all out
Because you won’t regret it
Looking back from where you have been
Because it’s not who you knew and it’s not what you did
It’s how you Live

Because it’s not who you knew and it’s not what you did
It’s how you Live

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

Well, Happy Mother's Day to me....

My day started off well. I woke up at 12:30 am....again at 1:00 am...again at 2:00 am...and again at 2:55 am, after which I could not go back to sleep! So after lying there for another hour, I finally just got up and decided to read. 5:30 the alarm goes off to awaken my husband and I stumble to the kitchen to fix him and me a cup of coffee, only to find that the congealed salad that I made to take to my sister-in-law's for lunch today is still sitting on the kitchen counter! Hmmmm...is it still good? Cream cheese and sour cream topping, sitting there since 10:30 pm the night before..........??? Then, before I could make that crucial decision, I notice that an army of ants are marching, two by two, across the topping of the blueberry salad. Guess I got my answer. Down the disposal it goes! Now what?????? Must find another recipe that I can make without making a trip to the store. Thankfully, I found one!!

Now time to get ready for church..........sure hope Pastor Ernie has a rip - roaring message this morning. I'm going to need it!

But...even with all that..........that just comes with the territory of being a homemaker, a wife and a mom. Never a dull moment!! And yet I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. Being a mother is the hardest job you'll ever love, but I DO love it!

My daughter-in-love held her 5 month old bundle of joy the other day and as she snuggled her close for another kiss, she said "No one could have ever told me the love I'd feel for this little baby........NOTHING could have ever prepared me for THIS!!!" And that about sums it up!

I truly believe that the bond between a mother and her child is unique and unlike any other relationship under the sun. Not that daddies do not love their children...they do and very much. But the relationship between a child and a mother is just different. I believe that while daddies love their children, mothers fall in love with their children. That nine months of carrying a child, knowing that your life is sustaining their life, feeling that life within you is like nothing else in this world!!

God knew that a child would need both the love of a mother and a daddy. Both have different gifts to share and different strengths to give to their child. A child needs the strength and stability of the dad, and the tenderness and gentleness of the mom. (That's why a child does NOT need 2 mommies or 2 daddies!) God had the perfect plan when he created the family unit. His ways are always perfect.

I have had the privilege this year of teaching a sweet group of mommas and one grandmomma like me in our Mom to Mom group. Oh how it blesses my heart to see them desiring to raise their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. It's a tough job. Mothering isn't for sissies! Nor is it for the lazy and undisciplined!!

I am so thankful that God allowed me to be a mother. I am so thankful for the two children He graciously blessed me with. I am thankful that I got to have both a boy and a girl. I am eternally grateful for the blessing that they have been and continue to be to my life. I cannot imagine my life without either of them.

And what double joy to see them become parents!! Watching my daughter with our little granddaughter is pure joy to me. She is such an awesome mom!!!!! Much better than I ever was. Seeing my son with his little daughter with his new baby for the first time melted my heart. One of my most treasured photos is of him shortly after she was born, with a tear running down his cheek. Nothing could have prepared him for that moment!! Although he dearly wanted a little boy, this little girl captured his heart from the moment he saw her. And these two little grand-angels are a double-dip delight to this Mimi and their Papaw!

God just keeps blessing and we thank Him for each one. Sooooooooo, although the ants may have made extra work for me and the old eyelids will grow heavy today, I am still one blessed momma and grandmother today and all I can say is THANK YOU LORD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! My cup runneth over!!!!!!!! And to my children and grandchildren, I LOVE YOU WITH ALL MY HEART!!!!!!!!!!!!

KINGDOM TAPESTRY PART 3

My daughter loves to take her daughter to the zoo...it is one of their favorite things to do. She also has a group of friends who often meet her there with their children which makes it a fun outing for all. A few weeks ago, she had not planned a zoo trip, but received a call from one of their group who called to say she was going and just wondered if my daughter might be going the same day. Since she had planned to be in the area, she thought "Why not? We can stay for an hour or so". So the two of them hooked up and began their trek with their little ones through the zoo.

As they were walking they were also catching up with each other. Somehow the conversation came around to church and my daughter remembered that this friend went to Bellevue Baptist Church. She asked her if she happened to know Jean Stockdale. "Oh yes!" her friend replied, "I'm in her Mom to Mom group. She is a fantastic Bible teacher! Why do you ask?" My daughter told her that I had been teaching Mom to Mom at our church and that we were using Jean's videos and how much we loved them.

Then her friend went on to tell her that Jean was just amazed at how well these videos had been received. "In fact," her friend told her, "there is this one group that has planned a dinner party just for her with all their women because they are all so anxious to meet her! Can you believe it?! Jean is just blown away and almost a little nervous. She doesn' t see herself as anyone special...and because we've known her so long, she's just "Jean" to us...not a celebrity like Beth Moore or Kay Arthur. But to others who have never heard her before, they are just blown away by her teaching! So Jean has had us praying for her that she won't be a disappointment to these girls when they meet her in the flesh. She is just so humbled that they would go to this much trouble just to meet her."

My daughter was speechless and then began to laugh. "Uhhhh....you're not going to believe this, but that woman who is hosting the dinner party would be MY MOM and that group is HER Mom to Mom group!" How ironic is that?!

Again, we see the threads of God's amazing tapestry weaving their way through our lives. Here we see a godly woman God has raised up to teach and disciple young moms. She's been doing this for over 20 years now...it is God's calling on her life. She doesn't see herself as anything special. Yet God has blessed her ministry and now enlarged her territory as she has been lead to write out and publish her material and create the video series to go along with them. (See her blog on my blogroll) Now she is able to reach even more young mommas for Him. Still, she just sees herself as a momma and now a grandmother who is teaching what God taught her along the way. She is humbled and amazed that her name is being spoken of in the teaching realms of Beth Moore, Anne Graham Lotz and Kay Arthur. But those of us who have sat under her teaching would have no problem saying that. She is without a doubt a very gifted teacher.

It was my joy to host this dinner party in honor of both my girls and Jean. I felt it would be a blessing to them to get to meet her up close and personal. We have done two of her studies and they have been such a blessing to all of us. Seeing someone week after week on a video is one thing, but getting to actually meet them, sit down and talk with them over a meal and see them face to face, just intensifies your relationship and deepens their credibility with you. Jean was so gracious to agree to come and meet with us and I was shocked to learn that she was a bit nervous about meeting us.

But, I thought how sweet it was of God to allow me to know how Jean felt before she got there, so that I could pray for her to be at ease. However, my greatest prayer was that God would honor that time of fellowship in the lives of those who came, that they would be blessed by the evening and most of all that HE would honored and lifted up.

You see I believe with all my heart that is why God gave us this house...to use for His glory and to point others to Him. So it thrilled my heart to be able to host this dinner for these young mommas and to bless Jean by affirming to her that God is using her in a mighty way. I believe that Kingdom fruit will be born from that evening. I may never know this side of Heaven what it was, but I believe with all my heart God blessed and it will be used of Him for His glory.

And all of that was orchestrated BY Him as part of His Kingdom plan. Threads of the tapestry being woven together in our lives. There were 14 women there, not one of them (including me) was there by accident. He was weaving threads of His tapestry in each of our lives that night. Threads that will cross and interweave in the days and weeks and months ahead. It will be exciting to see how they fit into the total picture one day.

It is the glimpses of these threads God is using to weave His marvelous Kingdom tapestry that has thrilled my soul! It has encouraged my heart because it shows to me that even when we don't SEE the threads being woven, the Master Designer is STILL at work, behind the scenes, orchestrating, weaving our lives into His plan in ways that we cannot begin to fathom. It encourages me because there are situations that I have prayed over, lives that I have prayed for for years and I see very little that appears to be changing. I will not give up trusting in Him. I know that He is at work even though I cannot SEE what He is doing. And just as we have studied in our Esther study, His timing is always, always, always PERFECT!! But He has been so gracious to allow me to see in just these few scenarios how He weaves our lives together, people that we don't even know are praying for us. He is using people to cross paths with those we are praying for that we don't know about and that they have no idea HE is using. There is much going on in the unseen realms and we must learn to trust Him, the Master Weaver, as He orchestrates and weaves the colorful threads of His Kingdom tapestry. One day soon the tapestry will be complete and we will get to see it in its entirety....all the threads of our lives woven together over all the ages and it will do one thing...........magnify and glorify HIM, the one and only true God, the King of King and Lord of Lords.

KINGDOM TAPESTRY CONTINUED

FACEBOOK can be quite addicting. As you become part of a community of friends and family, you can keep up with what is going on in everyone's life at a glance. But it seems that new faces are always cropping up. Someone you had not seen or heard from in years suddenly appears as a "mutual friend". That happened to my daughter a few weeks ago.

As a neonatal intensive care nurse, she often keeps up with babies that have been through their unit. So was the case a few weeks back, as the mom of one of her previous "preemies" added photos to her FACEBOOK page. As she was looking at this mom's page, she noticed someone that might be a "mutual friend". She recognized the first name, but not the last. She contacted this person to see how she knew the mom. To her surprise it was a girl she had gone to high school with. She was a few years younger than my daughter. It seems that this girl now lives in the same neighborhood with the mom of the preemie. As they began to talk, it suddenly dawned on this young woman that my daughter had been the nurse mentioned in all of the mom's prayer requests. Each day as her daughter was fighting for her life in the NICU, this mom would send out specific prayer requests and she would always include the names of the doctors and nurses who were caring for her on that given day. My daughter's name was one of the 3 nurses who continually cared for this little angel!

My daughter loves her job. It's all she ever wanted to do and God has definitely equipped her for it. Not everyone can be a nurse with tiny, premature babies with numerous problems. I couldn't. I'd bawl every single day. But not my daughter. God has gifted her for this job without a doubt. I pray for her daily and I pray for her as she works to be a blessing to the babies, to their parents and to those she works with. Others in her family pray for her as well.

But little did she know that a girl she had not seen in years and did not even know that well was praying for her as she cared for this little baby. Their paths had not crossed in all these years (and probably wouldn't have again except for FACEBOOK). Yet God gave her a glimpse of His Kingdom plan at work, threads of His tapestry being woven in her life. He showed her that He has lots of people praying for her that she doesn't even know about on any given day. Prayers being lifted to the throne for her, blessing her, equipping her, strengthening her. He is orchestrating protection and blessing for her sight unseen and in realms unknown to her. Wonderful threads of love and blessing and prayer being woven into her life every day. He is doing the same for you and for me.....all part of the kingdom tapestry!

KINGDOM TAPESTRY

We have all heard the analogy of a tapestry being a picture of our lives. We see the underside of tangled threads and it looks a mess! But God sees it from above and sees the beautiful weaving of its threads to form a masterpiece.

God has given me a greater view of that this week and it has really thrilled my heart as I've caught a glimpse of it.

Sunday morning my daughter shared a series of stories with me...little snippets of different things going on in the lives of several different people she knows. As she shared one after another, I just saw so vividly how God had intertwined all of them together, just like threads in a tapestry. Although not all of them were related, they WERE all related within the scheme and scope of God's Kingdom plan!

You see, God has a plan for each of our lives. Jeremiah 29:11 tells us that "I know the plans I have for you' declares the Lord,' plans to prosper you, to give you hope and future." God has plans for each of our lives..... good plans. He has things He desires to accomplish in each of our lives. Each of our lives has a purpose that only we can fulfill. Whether that gets done depends a great deal on how much we yield ourselves to His will and His way. But each of those individual plans fit within a greater plan..His kingdom plan.

God's kingdom plan is for Him to be sovereign, to be our one and only God, to be glorified on this earth, to redeem fallen man and to defeat Satan and banish him once and for all. From Genesis to Revelation we see His kingdom plan revealed and we see Him at work in bringing it all to pass.

Although Satan fought at every turn to keep the Messiah from coming, He came just as God had planned. Although Satan fought to keep Him from going to the cross to pay for our sins, He DID go to the cross and paid for our sins, to redeem us from the penalty of sin. And though he tries every moment of every day to keep man from coming to Christ, daily men and women, boys and girls give their lives to Jesus. Still, he will continue to do all he can to stop those still unredeemed and in addition, will do all he can to render those who are redeemed from growing, maturing and especially from sharing Christ with others.

What I caught a glimpse of this week, is how our lives are so intertwined in ways we cannot begin to fathom. God's perfect timing is incredible!!!!!!

We have been studying the book of Esther in a Beth Moore study and throughout the story, the one prevailing theme has been God's timing! Oh, I can't wait to share with you how exciting this is!!!!!!!! More tomorrow!