50 Reasons...

50 Reasons that I am THANKFUL for 2013:

1. Wally - mi esposo &  amigo mejor
2.  Elliott's great grades
3. Max's undefeated soccer season
4. My parents' new home
5. Education
6. 10,000 Reasons
7.  Brothers and Sisters in Christ from Costa Rica
8. Hot Showers
9. Car
10. MacBook Pro
11.  Middletown Christian Church - Live it out!
12. My Colleagues in ministry
13. Bless Team
14.  Jeff and Roseanne McKenney at Loma de Luz
15. Time spent with Anthony in Costa Rica
16. Wally's job
17. My in-laws who keep our sweet dog Remi while we are away
18.  Bible
19. IPhone
20.  Real Conversations with my small group
21. Books that inspire
22. Roof over my head
23. Food on my table
24. Lifelong friends like Julie Sharoudi
25. Diet Dr. Pepper
26. Monday Morning Breakfast at Chickfila with Max
27. Elevate: Elliott's Band
28.  ARISE Youth Center
29.  Teachers at St Matthews Elementary
30. Teachers at Crosby
31.  Mountains
32. Oceans
33. El Camino Bilingual School
34. Sanctuary House Loma de Luz
35.  Ian and Liz McKensie
36. Lisa Bradley
37. Butch Lewis - Fellowship with Christ Ministry
38.  Remi - our dog
39.  Acceptance
40.  Opportunity to serve as Senior Minister for June, July, August
41. Family: Blessed with great family on both sides
42.  Wendys Chicken Nuggets
43.  Good health for our family
44.  Freedom of Religion
45.  Chuys
46.  Bama Football
47.  UK Basketball
48.  Elliott's willingness to tutor at TLC
49.  Spanglish
50.  69 miles on Bike to Beat Cancer

Thanksgiving Meditation

When I think of scripture that reflects "thanksgiving" - I usually first think of Psalm 100.  "Enter His gates with THANKSGIVING and his courts with praise. Give THANKS to Him, bless His name.  For the Lord is good; His lovingkindness is everlasting and His faithfulness to all generations."

I am thankful this year for God's faithfulness to all generations.  I am always reminded at Thanksgiving of the faithfulness of my grandmothers.  They both passed away in 2011.  It was a sad year for me.  Although sadness still enters my heart from time to time, the thanksgiving overcomes the sadness.  I'm thankful for their integrity, their humility, their tenacity, their boldness and their faith in God.

Francis Frangipane - "It does not matter what your circumstances are; the instant you begin to thank God, even though your situation has not changed, you begin to change. The key that unlocks the gates of heaven is a thankful heart.  Entrance into the courts of God comes as you simply begin to praise the Lord."

Hungry

A Few Reflections from David Emery's sermon "What's for Dinner? Bless and Break" Mark 6:30-44

Today, I came hungry to church.  Not physically but spiritually.  I came hungry for God's Love, God's Peace that passes all understanding, God's healing and God's teaching. 

I came to church today asking God to feed me!  I came to church today asking God to feed the multitudes through music, baptism, meditation at the Table and spoken word.  Wouldn't you know it?  God feeds me every time I ask.  I wondered today how many of us ask God to feed us before going to church on Sunday morning. Do we come hungry for his love, for his peace, for his healing for his teaching?

There's a blessing that comes as we hunger for God's righteousness.  Even in the desert of our lives there is always bread from God.  Even when there is no physical bread, I must believe that God provides spiritual bread.  In our hunger, God desires to feed us at the deepest level. 

One way that God feeds me is through the offering of my resources.The boy offered 5 loaves and 2 fish - his present resources.  I wonder what that little boy thought as the 5 loaves and 2 fish kept multiplying.  I imagine his heart began to overflow with the fullness of God. 

On my recent trip to Honduras, I became so inspired by the movement of God at Loma de Luz.  God was very clear in telling me to offer my resources to help build the Bi-lingual School so that Loma de Luz can continue raising the next generation of Christian Leaders for Honduras.  I came home and told Wally what God had said to me.  We prayed and made a significant gift to the building of the Bi-lingual School.  And, I know as we watch the walls go up and as we watch children's lives being transformed by Christ - we will be filled. 

We must realize that as Christ-followers, we are to share our resources - our assets for the building of God's Kingdom here on earth.  May God multiply the resources I offer.

How are you defined?

In world that is defined by performance, I have to realize that God is more concerned about my presence than my performance.

Be still and know that I am God! Psalm 46:10

Richard Rohr says...We are defined by our relationship with God and He is more concerned about our Presence than performance.

Let the Afflicted Hear and Be Glad

I'm reading "Walking with God through Pain and Suffering" by Timothy Keller

Here are a few reflections so far....

Psalm 34:1-3
I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul makes its boast in the Lord; let the afflicted hear and be glad.  O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.

Keller says that "troubled times awaken us out of our sleep of spiritual self sufficiency into a serious search for the divine."  

Recently it seems so many people from our congregation at Middletown Christian Church are suffering.  Either they or their family members are suffering from cancer, cancer and more cancer.  My prayer for those struggling with cancer is that their suffering pulls them into a deeper experience of God's love and grace.  What else is there to pray?  Sometimes I try to pray too much instead of letting God just intercede in the silence.

I am thankful, however, that although I have walked through the furnace of suffering - I was not consumed.  I know that Jesus as the Son of God faced his own greater furnace of affliction when he went to the cross. God (Father, Son & Holy Ghost) is "walking with us."  He is truly "God with us."

You Give Them Something to Eat

Reflections on The Feeding of the 5000 - Mark 6

You Give Them Something to Eat...
What are we giving our family and our neighbors to eat?  Are we offering only physical food or are we offering spiritual food as well?

Jesus' authority came from authenticity...
Jesus was who he said he was.  As Christians - we must be believed to be heard.  We must walk the talk.

Compassion is more than relief...
Relief is just the beginning of compassion.  But, as Christ followers - we are called to do more than just provide relief.  We must walk alongside of those who live in poverty (physical and spiritual) to help them change their circumstance.

Compassion is entirely unreasonable...
Why didn't Jesus just make all of the food appear?  He wanted the disciples to see that we offer what we have and it is Christ who multiplies it. Why are we afraid to simply offer what we have?

Falling Upward

My small group is a reflection of the GRACE of Jesus Christ. We laugh, we cry, we eat, we read scripture, we pray but most importantly we listen to one another. This is one of few places that I am able to truly reflect my struggles, my questions and my JOYS!  I am challenged to do more of this reflection through blogging.  Our small group is reading Falling Upward by Richard Rohr.

The message of Falling Upward is straightforward and bracing: the spiritual life is not static. You will come to a crisis in your life, and after the crisis, if you are open to it, you will enter a space of spiritual refreshment, peace and compassion that you could not have imagined before.

Rohr's framework leans heavily on Carl Jung. The spiritual life has two stages. In the first half of life, you are devoted to establishing yourself; you focus on making a career and on finding friends and a partner; you are crafting your identity. Spiritually, people in the first half of life are often drawn to order, to religious routine. We are developing habits and letting ourselves be shaped by the norms and practices of our family and community.

Then—a crisis. "Some kind of falling," Rohr says, is necessary for continued spiritual development. "Normally a job, fortune, or reputation has to be lost," writes Rohr, "a death has to be suffered, a house has to be flooded, or a disease has to be endured." The crisis can be devastating. The crisis undoes you. The flood doesn't just flood your house—it washes out your spiritual life. What you thought you knew about living the spiritual life no longer suffices for the life you are living.

In the main, however, Rohr brings us good hope for a journey with the Holy in our second half of life: we do not travel alone; there is redemption in the pain and loss we all experience; we grow deeper into the heart of God. This is good news as we feel ourselves falling, upward!

Rohr challenges readers to examine the following questions as you think about your first half of life:

Who are my people? Where do we come from? Where do I fit into my family? Who was I closest to in my family? Who are the people closest to me now? Who has had the most influence on me? How have the places I’ve lived shaped me? How did I find my work? Have I found my purpose or calling?

By God's wonderful grace, I am reflecting and answering these questions...

COURAGE...COURAGE...COURAGE.....I SEE IT AT LOMA DE LUZ!

Joshua 1:9 - Have I not commanded you, Be strong and Courageous.  Do Not Be Afraid!  For the Lord your God is with you where ever you go!

The Cornerstone Foundation was begun in 1992 by Jefferson C. McKenney, M.D., and Rosanne Lillard McKenney, R.N.  It was formed to serve the immediate need as the organizational framework to coordinate, administrate, and send out support to a planned mission hospital, Hospital Loma de Luz and to serve similar needs in the future. The vision for Hospital Loma de Luz  was to provide modern medical care in an area where there was none, and in the process to give an ongoing present witness to the truth of the gospel of Christ to a people and a region which had neither medical care nor ongoing Christian witness.  Through years of faith, hard work, and the generosity of many, and particularly through the evident grace of God, both the organization and the mission hospital have come to be a reality.  Loma de Luz, with its bilingual school, Children’s Center, Sanctuary Housing, Agricultural Ministry, Church Planting, and Community Development, has come to be much more than just an excellent mission hospital. Though the Cornerstone Foundation and Loma de Luz are distinct entities, their history, operation, and personnel are inextricably intertwined.

The vision of Loma de Luz is one of a diverse community of Christian believers cooperating to provide medical care and a constant, present, on-going hearing of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the people of the north coast of Honduras, and ultimately the inland, the Mosquita, and to national and international sailors in that part of the Caribbean.

In order to accomplish this task, a tertiary care referral hospital is the structural hub of various services and outreaches that include education, foster children’s care, agricultural projects, public health, chaplaincy,community development, home health nursing, and pastoral and Christian leadership training. We work daily for it to be an outreach that not only meets physical needs, but also the needs of the spirit and the soul.  We pray for the hospital and community surrounding it to be a city set on a hill that cannot be hidden. It is our goal that the people who would come to the hospital for medical care, the people who would find employment related to the hospital, and the people who would benefit from other connected services would not only hear the gospel preached, but also see it lived out in the lives of the missionaries and Christian workers.- all information taken from Cornerstone Foundation website (www.crstone.org)

By God's Grace....

I am only one, but I am one;
I cannot do everything,
But I can do something.
What I can do I ought to do,
And what I ought to do
By God's grace I will do.
-Edward Everett Hale

Where You Lead, I will Follow

I recently traveled with a group of 9 people from Middletown Christian Church to Honduras to spend time with missionaries at Loma de Luz.  As we traveled many miles on this road, I was reminded of Psalm 25:4-5:

"Show me the path where I should walk, O Lord; point out the right road for me to follow. Lead me by your truth and teach me, for you are the God who saves me. All day long I put my hope in you." 

Nothing We Do Is Complete

Today I'm grateful for the seeds being planted in the life of Elliott! He turns 14 today!

...Unless a seed falls into the ground and dies:  it cannot bear fruit or bless others' lives...
John 12:24

Oscar Romero wrote "It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.  The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts:  it is beyond our vision. We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is the Lord's work.  Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the Kingdom always lies beyond us.  No sermon says all that should be said. No prayer fully expresses our faith. No confession brings perfection. No pastoral visit brings wholeness. No program accomplishes the Church's mission. No set of goals and objectives includes everything. That is what we are about. We plant the seeds that one day will grow. We water seeds already planted knowing they hold future promise. We lay foundations that will need further development. We provide yeast that affects far beyond our capabilities. We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.  It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest. We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the Master Builder and the worker.  We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.  We are prophets of a future that is not our own."

...The Book of Common Prayer