August 27th Streams in the Desert

"Taken aside by Jesus,

To feel the touch of His hand;

To rest for a while in the shadow

Of the Rock in a weary land.

Taken aside by Jesus,

In the loneliness dark and drear,

Where no other comfort may reach me,

Than His voice to my heart so dear.

Taken aside by Jesus,

To be quite alone with Him,

To hear His wonderful tones of love

'Mid the silence and shadows dim.

Taken aside by Jesus,

Shall I shrink from the desert place;

When I hear as I never heard before,

And see Him 'face to face?"

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If you want to see recent pictures of the kids- check out my blog
www.eclecticmomma.blogspot.com

Have you ever felt like this?

This is Buddy's pose during a thunderstorm. He can hear thunder before we hear it. Sometimes in life, we feel like Buddy. We feel like hiding behind a bunch of pillows in a safe place. We are overwhelmed by the world and we're scared. But we have a promise to carry with us.

Jesus says to us in John 16:33
"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Can you take it in stride when the floor's caving in?

It is hard to take life "in stride". Tera's room had a mysterious hump in the carpet which has gotten worse. The dip near the hump is now very weak and saging. So basically it seems the floor in that spot is caving in. JP has reassured me that won't happen but with everything else we have had to deal with it is hard to take it "in stride". We have left a message for the landlord about it but we will have to wait and see. As I was on the verge of tears this morning, I sat down with my devotional books- a mom's devotion and my Oswald Chambers "My Utmost Devotion Bible". That is usually where I head when things to me look darkest and it always seems there is something there that speaks to my situation. The first thing I read was that God is our rescuer and we need to wait patiently for him to deliver us. It may not be the way that we would like but He never abandons us or deserts us even when the floor around us seems like it is caving in. In Oswald Chambers the devotion was entitled "The Shape of the Vision".

It reads:
Thank God for the sight of all you have never yet been. The vision is not an ectasy or a dream, but a perfect understanding of what God wants, it is the divine light making manifest the calling of God. You may call the vision an emotion or a desire, but it is something that absorbs you. Learn to thank God for making known His demands. You have had the vision, but you are not there yet by any means. You have seen what God wants you to be but what you are not yet. Are you prepared to have this "iron dug from central gloom" battered into "shape and use"? "Battering" conveys the idea of a blacksmith putting good metal into right useful shape. The batterings of God come in commonplace days and commonplace ways. God is using the anvil to bring us into the shape of the vision. The length of time it takes God to do it depends upon us. If we prefer to loll on the mount of transfiguration, to live on the memory of the vision, we are of no use to live with the ordinary stuff of which human life is made up. We have not to live always in ectasy and conscious contemplation of God, but to live in reliance on what we saw in the vision when we are in the midst of actualities. It is when we are going through the valley to prove whether we will be the "choice" ones, that most of us turn tail; we are not prepared for the blows which must come if we are going to be turned into the shape of the vision.

I definitely will not tuck my tail between my legs and run away from the battle but I will learn to rely more and more upon the One who has already won the war!

Wisdom from The Railway Children

I am reading The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit to the kids one chapter at a time. They really enjoy this classic story of three children whose father is falsely accused of a crime and imprisoned. The children are not aware of what has happened for most of the book. The book focuses on their adventures as they move into a very modest country home by the railroad with their mother. Their mother writes stories as a means of support for herself and the children. This is a quote from today's reading:


(Mother talking to Peter)
"Don't you think it's rather nice to think that we're in a book that God's writing? If I were writing a book, I might make mistakes. but God knows how to make the story end just right-in the way that's best for us."

"Do you really believe that , Mother?" Peter asked quietly.

"Yes," she said, " I do believe it- almost always-except when I'm so sad that I can't believe anything. But even when I can't believe it, I know it's true-and I try to believe it."

I really like that conversation. When things are hard, we know that God is working everything out for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. Let our hardships and struggles give Him glory always and point others to Him.

Overtime Shuffle

We haven't updated recently just because for me personally I haven't really had a stream of creativity. JP worked 14 hours of overtime last week and is set to have 7-8 by the end of this week with July Fourth off. This will continue he has been told until the end of the month. He comes in an hour early and stays an hour late. This does help us financially but we are all tired. JP accidentally overslept this morning and had to rush out the door to be an hour late for work. He is a very conscientious worker so he felt really bad about it. I felt bad for him too.

My constant prayer has been for God's provision during this difficult time and He has been faithful to do it through JP's work and other means we never planned on. We have to trust God that right now He is using this overtime as a means of provision for us. We also rely on His promise that He will not put more on us than we can bear. God is taking care of us each step of the way and we are learning more and more to trust Him. After you have been a Christian for a long time, there is a temptation to become comfortable where you are and not realize the extent to which we are so far from where we should be. This experience has shown me that to grow closer to God we have to be willing to be tested by fire and refined as silver.

I was reading in Psalms 66 yesterday and these verses stood out to me:

For you, O God, tested us; You refined us like silver.

You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs.

You let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and water,

but You brought us to a place of abundance.

Did you noticed how many You's with a capital there are in those verses? God uses hard times in our lives to bring us into a place of spiritual abundance. I am learning to let go and let God work and move. He is so much more equipped than I am.

Update

The temptation of having a blog is to create elaborate posts that are attention grabbers like magazine articles. Well...I like that so I will keep doing it! But for this post I thought I might update all our friends and family. First, I have to tell everyone that I have gone to a first shift (7-3:30) position while I wait for an opportunity to re-apply to Denso Manufacturing. I was not hired on my first attempt most likely due to my lack of manufacturing experience. I was told I could re-apply in six months. I had been working second shift but Christy did not like being home alone at night so I requested this change and they granted it. I did move however from the electronics plant across the street to the starter/alternator plant. It's more like a traditional factory and much more relaxed. I like it a lot even though I caused three trays of starter housings worth about $120 to fall on the floor on my first day!

Another recent event was our District campmeeting. It was out at the Foothills campground (our Nazarene campground). The services were held in an open-air tabernacle. Now that was an experience! I actually liked it. It wasn't too hot even though the weather was blistering. The fans and shade of the building along with a cool breeze made for an enjoyable service. I got to meet our D.S., Rev. Ron McCormick and his wife as well as many other folks on the district. They were all exceptionally nice to us and welcomed us to the district with open arms. I was surprised, after all we came moving in without an invitation and without taking a church, I assumed they would at least be suspicious. We explained we were on a Sabbatical and felt God leading us into some non-traditional ministry. They were very encouraging and offered to help in any way they could!

Things are going fairly well at home as well. We got the fence up in the back yard and I fixed a doggie door in the screening that originally was for some kind of small toy dog. I added some 2x4's to make it bigger for Buddy to use and he seems happy. He goes out back, does his thing and is back in about 3 minutes waiting at the sliding glass door! He is warming up day by day but is still very shy. We knew it was time for the doggie door when somebody in the neighborhood was putting up siding with a nail gun the other day and Buddy was so scared that he ran up the porch steps lept over the metal part of the porch door and came right through the screen! How he did it I will never know! I am still trying to figure out how he jumped from five feet of steep steps through the door without cutting himself to pieces on the sheet metal.

The kids are enjoying summer vacation from homeschooling (and I think Christy is too). They are learning somethings to earn special treats like going out for ice cream. Daniel learned how to write his name and count to twenty and Tera learned multiplication table up to 3 (multiplied by 1-10). Christy said she was able to complete all the multiplication problems 0-3 written out randomly in less than three minutes! And in our devotional time we have been learning scripture memory verses. For months now we have been working on Psalm 23 adding a verse every couple of weeks. Daniel and Tera were able to recite Psalm 23 clearly and perfectly word for word! These kids scare me sometimes.

Well I suppose that's all the latest news I have for now other than what we put on our other blog posts. Thank you all for checking in on us and praying for us.