Barb's shoppe

Please check out my friend. Barb's new online gift shop A Chelsea Morning's Little Shoppe. She makes fabulous stuff and she's a real sweetheart too!

Sound asleep...and its night, mind you...

Tell me a Story, please.

I was reminded today of one of the believers greatest treasures...one of our greatest weapons against depression, apathy, discouragement, and unbelief. One of the strongest tools for building up ourselves, or brothers and sisters and the entire church.

That secret weapon..that incredible tool is simply this...

The power of the word of our testimony.

How many times in scripture did the Lord admonish the children of Israel to remember...remember aloud...to each other and to their children, to rehearse what God had done, to tell and re tell the story...to paint His words and works on the door posts of their houses so that they might be reminded in their comings and in their goings, to build alters of remembrance. How many traditions do the Israelies have, even today that stem from the telling of God at work in their midst.

This is one of God's simplest yet greatest lessons that the church today gives very little attention to yet if practiced can build up not only ourselves but the body of Christ. I've seen this practice at work and boy does it work.

Think back to when you've had a mighty work of God in your life... what made it more real? ...the telling of it...

What about when you began to hear of the possibility that God might be bigger than you thought...might work the impossible? had done so for someone you knew or knew of?....

What happened in you when you began to hear of God's workings? Didn't faith rise up inside of you? Didn't you think to yourself...Yes, Amen!...I knew He was like that!...somewhere inside you really already knew He was greater than you had imagined..you only needed to hear the testimony of it to be encouraged and reminded.

There was a time when our church wanted to reach out to our neighborhood (we met in a house church setting)..to let them know that we weren't nuts, nor were we dangeous...:) we were just really serious about the Lord and having the church in our city. We invited people from all the churches we knew who were like us and we all met up in our neighborhood one Sat. morning. We had planned a weekend of meetings at the local highschool and had already invited the neighborhood through flyers, radio ads, etc. Now we took it to the streets. We prayed in the front yard of one of the saints then with banners and poster signs in hand we began marching down the streets of our neighborhood toward the highschool for our first meeting. There were probably about 100 of us and we sang as we went. It was a bright fall day with crispy air and the strength of numbers gives you courage so we sang loud and strong. Many of our neighbors waived as we passed by. It was a beautiful thing...right up until we got almost to the school...suddenly the police arrived...one of our neighbors had called them...and some of them came out on the street to yell at us and shout obscentities at us...but guess what? We had permits and had done everything rightly so the police proceeded to protect us rather than remove us...:) They escorted us into the highschool and advised our unruly neighbors to depart.

Later that day and on through the weekend different neighbors tentatively came into our meetings. They were able to see for themselves that we posed no threat to the neighborhood and actually served the same God many of them did.

Was anyone saved that weekend, you ask? Well not unless you count the brothers and sisters in the church there. The messages preached that weekend became the ground work for a deep move of God in that church. For years afterward the saints there and those who had joined us that day referred back to those meetings as a beginning reference point for an entire eyeopening journey in Christ. (the Lion and His Lioness)..and we had the added benefit of now being "public" in the community...no longer hidden but a light set on a hill. Personlly I will never forget the experience nor what God did that weekend in me, in my children, in my church family. It was deep, powerful, and lasting...and as long as those of us who were there tell the story...well ...you see my point?

This is just one testimony of God's amazing greatness...and I am encourged myself just hearing it again.

So I'm issuing a challenge to you...think back to some times that God has been faithful in your life...to some times when he has moved in you or your family or your situation...remember how good He was then or how miraculously He intervened. Now tell me about it. I don't want to hear about lepers in Africa being healed...I want to hear about something first hand. You can write it here or you can do a post of your own and drop me a line to let me know..but I'd love to see this practice reinstated in the church...the practice of His saints reminding themselves of Who God is, what He has done and just How faithful He really is.

Let us remember... Let us declare our Lord!

...and then let us tell it to our children's children and write it on the doorposts of our hearts!

In the News

I don't know about you but I am very disturbed by the situation happening over in Texas with the 400+ children being taken into protective custody. I know and agree that we as a society must protect the innocent among us and we cannot tolerate physical or sexual abuse of children, that goes without saying. However removing over 400 children from the only life they have ever known as well as their mothers with no evidence of abuse other than the testimony of a 16 yr old who cannot be found and the perception that these people are weird...well this is very distrubing to me. It is a very strange situation but there has to be a better way to handle it. If homeschooling is wrong then many of my friends could be in danger of losing their kids, if wanting to isolate your children from this world is wrong, then many a movie star should be scrutinized for keeping their kids behind walls and bars and having nannies and governesses to shelter their kids from the world. Just because these people are different, are isolated, are naive to our modern world, doesn't make them child abusers. These kids are isolated and naive to our culture, they don't know TV or video games or even dolls and crayons! Their very culture may define abuse but no one knows yet if these things they are accused of are true...and in the mean time hundreds of kids have to be being traumatized by the very government trying to protect them! There has to be a better way!
I heard today that the men of the compound have offered to leave if the government will allow the mothers and children to return to the compound with social workers and guards to watch over them there. This seems like a reasonable idea to me, comfortable familiar surroundings...safe and secure in the only world they have ever known. I realize that no matter what your beliefs, if they transgress the laws of the land, you are subject to those laws and we cannot allow even religious beliefs to cross certain lines... so this must be sorted out... but it is a very difficult situation for everyone involved - parents, children and government officials as well.
There really does have to be a better way! I'm praying someone finds it, I'm praying for everyone involved.

April 18th update:
The state is apparently bringing testimony that several minor girls under the Tx marrying age of 16 either are pregnant or they have given birth before the legal age. From what I am hearing there was/is more concrete evidence of the practice of marrying underaged girls off to older men or men in general with or without the girls' consent other than the sixteen year girl's testimony. This is, of course, unacceptable. Children need protection and either their mothers are unable or unwilling to provide that protection so I would think the state has no choice. So sad.

Guess what?

My youngest daughter started school today! Hooray! She is enrolled in a Dental Assisting program and can go on into Dental Hygiene if she wants..and she wants..it is what she has been interested in for a long time. So glad she's finding a path!
...And to celebrate...
she and I are going here

How cool is that?!?

Proud Mama

He did it !!

Now to get him to shave that beard...:)

In the Motherhood

if you haven't seen this hysterical web show called
In the Motherhood...you have to!
Taken from real life stories from real life moms, each webisode is about 7 minutes long and they are So funny.