Responding In Faith

Our family had a great weekend.  We attended the Virgina Mennonite Conference here in Hickory at Lenoir Rhyne College.  Actually, I didn’t attend as Sonya, I attended as Chatter Box!  I was clowning for Jesus with Will Rejoice…aka Anthony.  It was a wonderful experience for the both of us.  We got to be a part of the children’s conference and perform skits that went along with their daily Bible stories.  We also got to perform one skit in front of the entire assembly!  It was most exciting!  Anthony was a bit exhausted from the whole thing and wasn’t sure if he was going to hold up, but he did it and we were very proud of him!  I hope we get the opportunity to do something like this again!

I had a lot of fun interacting with the kids, but I think I had even more fun interacting with the adults.  There is something about walking up to complete strangers and having a little fun with them.  Most people there didn’t have a clue who I was!  It gave me oppportunities to share Jesus with others who weren’t a part of the conference.  There was a maintenance man who said I made his day and he could continue the day with a smile on his face.

Being a clown is so much fun.  I have to admit, getting up this morning and not putting on my clown face made me a little sad.  Chatter is such a fun character to become.  She has a certain pizzaz to her that I normally don’t have.  She allows me to be a little bolder in sharing my faith with strangers.  I guess in some ways I feel a little more confident as Chatter in that aspect.  Maybe I have a few lessons I could learn from Chatter about being bold and sharing my faith! 

I do not want to be the kind of Christian that needs to hide behind a mask.  I need to learn to take the characteristics that I like in Chatter and make them a part of my daily life.  Each day I need to be able to accept the assignments that God sends my way.  Maybe it is just offering a word of encouragement to a stranger or sharing Jesus’ love with the woman across the street.  I want people to see Jesus in me.  I want to be bubbling over for Christ just like Chatter does.  I want to be bold and strong for Jesus!

As my weekend comes to an end, I am completely exhausted, but I am on fire even more for Jesus!  Clowning 4 Jesus re-energizes my soul!  Hope you enjoy the pictures!!! 

I want to apologize for previous post…I did not mean to divide our church into two camps.  I think everyone wants to see growth within the church and to bring people into the body of Christ as well.  I don’t think I worded my entry well.  My apologies to everyone.  The conversation that I had made me feel like people had forgotten how to step out in faith.  I think that we need to come together to reach the common goal of a stronger church so that we can build a stronger faith.  It was a poor example.  Again, I am sorry if I offended anyone.  I believe we can all find common ground to get to the same goal!

This morning my daily reading was focused was on Proverbs chapter 16.  There is so much wisdom in this book.  I think that I could read Proverbs again and again and always find something new.  I would like to share with you the verses that really spoke to me this morning.  I entitled today’s entry Oh Ye of Little Faith because I believe that as believers and followers of Christ, God wants us to step out in faith.  I hope that this will encourage you in some way today!

“Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed.” Proverbs 16:3  Has God ever given you a vision?  What did you do with that?  Did you step out in faith and take action or did you just sit there and say to yourself, “If it is supposed to happen it will grow legs and move forward.”  God wants us to succeed.  He wants us to have faith, even if it is just as small as a mustard seed.  At our church there has been talk about adding on a multipurpose room with some additional classrooms.  It is a vision that some share and others don’t.  Those who share this vision want to see the church grow, they want to see more community outreach, they believe that we could be a part in something bigger then ourselves.  It would be a great opportunity to really outreach to the youth, that next generation that is coming up!  Then there are those in the other camp.  Those who think things are fine the way they are.  It is almost as if they are against change and growth.  This is the camp that worries about the money and how much of a nest egg needs to sit in the bank. 

In my mind, the two groups could come together and reach a happy medium.  I do believe that it is should be the church’s vision to grow and outreach.  After all, the money sitting in the bank is not the church’s, it belongs to God!  We need to be committed to the Lord and take action. 

I had a conversation once with some women in our church kitchen.  They were dreaming about that new addition to the church and really getting excited.  They were talking about how the kitchen should be set up and how it could be made more functional so that we could serve more people.  But then the vision was lost.  Someone said, “But I don’t think we will ever get the money to do that.”  I looked at this dear woman and asked her why not?  With God all things are possible and we have to be willing to step out in faith.

Sometimes I think that the term stepping out in faith has been lost somewhere in the deep, dark closets of society.  I see it in our church and across the nation.  The church will die without vision.  Without growth, Christianity will die.  God wants us to call on Him and believe.  We need a fire lit underneath us to get us going!

Let me give you another example.  Our Liberian adoption.  When God gave our family this vision, we could have said that it would be impossible to pull together that kind of money.  We could have listened to others who said this will be impossible.  We could have listened to those who said you can’t bring a child from Africa into your home.  But our faith was bigger then that.  God gave us a vision of what He wanted us to do.  In order for that plan to succeed, we had to step out in faith and take action to make it happen.  God has done amazing things with our adoption.  He has brought a whole community of believers together and gave them the vision too.  Our boys will be coming home only because we had faith enough to believe and move forward.

“In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps,” Proverbs 16:9  So God gave us the vision and we prayed and planned our course.  God determined how we would move forward.  He brought certain people into our lives that shared a similar vision for bringing our boys home.  God stirred desires in peoples hearts so that they would give through prayers, support and financially.  God made it happen.  But if we would have said no, we would have never birthed these precious boys into our hearts.

“There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death,” Proverbs 16:25  If we would have said no to God’s vision for our family because it didn’t seem financially possible, our adoption would have ended up in death.  Not physical death, but death of what God had planned for us.  God isn’t going to make us do anything.  He will give us opportunities, but we have to make the choice if we are going to make it happen.  God did not make us puppets.  He gave us our own minds so that we could make choices in our lives.

So today I encourage you to take action.  Throw yourself at the foot of the cross and say “Yes, Lord!”  Take those baby steps forward and walk in faith.  Trust what you can not see.  Help God’s kingdom grow by believing in what God is stirring up inside of you!

“Without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Hebrews 11:6 NASB

My prayer focus for myself today was on faith.  Believing what we cannot see is living in faith.  According to the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, faith means: belief that is not based on proof; the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved. 

As I grow closer to my Heavenly Father, my faith increases by leaps and bounds.  I begin to hear God’s voice in the little things in my life.  I begin to thank God in advance for answered prayers, for I know by faith that they will be answered. 

There are days when I hear God tell me to trust in Him and to wait patiently for Him to answer a prayer.  That can be a hard thing for me to do at times.  Especially when I have heard a clear direction or path that God is taking me on.  I have to cry out to God and say “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.  See if there is any offensive ways in me, and lead me in the way everlasting,” (Psalm 139:23-24). 

Many times my offensive ways are when I want to take control of the path that God is taking me on.  God wants me to sit back and be patient and I want to hit the gas peddle and zoom right into the situation.  It is at these times that my faith increases, if I allow God to control how fast or slow the drive goes.

God has shown me things that I do not yet understand.  But He wants my faith to increase and I must choose to believe what I cannot yet see.  God is asking me to trust in Him.  So daily I will seek Him out and let Him know that although I do not understand, I will trust Him.  I want to please my Daddy, for He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Today I encourage you to diligently seek God and trust in the things that He has laid upon your heart.  Seek to please your Heavenly Father and wait patiently on Him.  Ask God to increase your faith so that you may receive all that He has in store for you.

“It’s not who you knew.  It’s not what you did.  It’s how you live.”  These are the words from Point of Grace’s new song How You Live.  We got to hear this song last night live after the Crawdads’ baseball game.  This song really touched my heart.  (You can hear it by Going to the Point of Grace website http://pointofgrace.net/index.html.)    The song reminds us to take the time to enjoy our families, to spend time with one another as friends, to wear that red dress hanging in our closets and to use those good dishes!  It doesn’t matter who we knew in the past or the mistakes that we have made in the past, but how we live now.

It made me think of my kids and husband.  Am I really taking the time to live my life with them?  What are my priorities and where is my focus?  Do I have a balanced life or am I being pulled in too many directions?  I think that we all need to ask ourselves that question from time to time and re-evaluate what our priorities are.  Sometimes we can get so caught up in everything else around us that we can forget how we are supposed to live and who we are living for.

As I have been trying to become the wise woman in my house, I learned that God has to be first.  If I am putting Him first, the rest will fall into place.  My priorities become more focused around God and that flows down to my family and then my daily life.  It is so easy for us to say that we don’t have the time to put God first, but if we don’t make Him our first, He becomes our last.  And if He becomes our last, we have to ask ourselves if that is the way we want to live.

Have you ever heard the song, “Cat’s In the Cradle”?  It speaks of the dad who always put his work first.  There is no mention of spending time with God,  no mention of spending time with his wife and no  mention of spending time with his son.  The man’s son ended up growing up just like his dad.  His priorities were wrong.  How he lived his life reflected on his family.

I hope that I never turn into what that man represents.  I don’t want my time to ever be so self consumed that I don’t take the time to notice the little things with my kids.  I don’t want to walk around oblivious to my surroundings.  I want to continue to dance with my sweet husband in the kitchen and laugh out loud with my children.  I want to smell the roses and breathe in the sweet smells of my Heavenly Father.  I want to have my feet tickled by my children and laugh until it hurts.  But most of all, I want to continue walking closer to my Lord so that my children can see Jesus in me. 

So as you look at this coming week, I challenge you to evaluate how you live.  Listen to the song.  Let it speak to your heart.  Take the time to put God first.  Ask yourself if you are living a balanced life.  And if the answer is no, I challenge you to take action today!  Its never too late to dance in the kitchen, walk bare foot in the grass, or to just laugh out loud with a close friend.  It’s about how you live!

“O Lord, I call to you; come quickly to me.  Hear my voice when I call to you.  May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.” Psalm 141:1-2

This week I have been crying out to my Heavenly Father asking Him to give me news of some sort…anything that I could just hold on to…hope for a light at the end of the tunnel.  We have been waiting so long to hear some sort of good news about the boys…our precious boys!  Russell called Liberia yesterday morning (Thursday) and spoke with Seide.  He said that it was very difficult to communicate…he wasn’t sure if it was the accent or the connection.  During the conversation, he mentioned Samuel Gray and she understood that very clearly.  Seide told Russell that they were anticipating that they would be going to court next week.  Before we all get too excited, we do need to remember that this is African time and not American time!  But I choose to believe that they will get everything ready and onto court.  I had cried out to God to give me hope and this is what I recieved.

What exactly does this mean?  Well, from my understanding, these will be the next steps:

1.  We have heard that the court process can be done in about a month or a little longer.

2.  After court, Seide will pick up the documents (i.e. birth certificate and adoption decree)

3.  Then we receive the documents and we file our I-600.

4.  Then the boys will apply for their passports.

5.  Then they get their medicals done.

6.  After that, we travel to bring them home!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please continue to pray for this process as it is finally making progress!  Pray that Seide will get everything in to the courts early next week.  Once in the court, please pray that it will move swiftly through.  Passports have been the big hold up once through court.  Please pray that these will be received in a timely manner.

Thank you again for all your prayers and suppport.  God is so good!  He is faithful to His word.  Praise be to my Heavenly Father!  For without Him, none of this would be possible!

“The wise woman builds her house, but with her own hands the foolish one tears hers down,” Proverbs 14:1.

I am on an organization mission!  I have always been a “fly by the seat of my pants” kind of girl.  I’m a creative person and always thought that routines and schedules would hold me back.  But then I started seriously looking at my life and realized that I live in chaos!  I started thinking about my Heavenly Father.  Now He is creative!  I look at the beautiful splendor of all that He has composed and orchestrated here on earth.  My flower gardens are filled with His art work.  The colors, smells, and shapes of each flower holds a beauty that I could never have dreamed up. 

So as I take in all of this splendor, I realize that my God is NOT the God of chaos and disorganization.  He is a God of order and tranquility.  Despite all of the orderliness, He remains to be very creative.  Somehow He even manages to have stupendous time management skills!  These are all things as a mother of five (soon to be eight!) that I desire to have.  I am supposed to strive to be like my Heavenly Father.  Now I must put my old ways behind me and  concentrate on the ways of God.  He is my mentor!

It has only taken me 36 years to figure this out!  I guess with age comes wisdom!  My gray hair is slowly coming in, so I guess I can say I am beginning to receive my crown of widom!  I long to be wise so that I may build my house up and not tear it down.  I long to have order and uniformity within my walls.  As the woman of my house, I need to be a good manager.  I wear many hats through out the day.  I am a mother, wife, a sister, a grandaughter, and a daughter.  But through out any given day I am also a nurse, a short order cook, an accountant, a house cleaning service, a laundry mat, a lover, a teacher, a mechanic…my list could go on. 

With all of these responsibilities, I need order in my life.  I need to have a sense of tranquility, a calmness in my inner spirit.  I can only receive that from God.  By studying His word and spending time in prayer, He guides my ways.  I haven’t always focused on God in my life.  Those were the times when my life was stuck in pandemonium.  But I prayed to God to open my eyes and give me ears to hear.

God wants to give us wisdom as women.  He does not want to see us tear our homes down.  He wants to give us a life that is focused on Him, our Almighty Father.  I encourage you today to spend time with the Lord and ask Him to show you how you can build your house up and not tear it down.  For me it has involved formulating a plan to become more organized.  I need orderliness in my life and part of that orderliness is giving God all my firsts!  He gets the first part of each of my days.  By starting my day out with God, my life falls into place!  He will give me my portion and through that, He will give me wisdom!

Samaritan’s Purse is in Monrovia!  Please pray for them as they are reaching out to this war torn nation!  Thanks Brenda for sending this!!

samaritanspurse.org/LiberiaMicro.html.

“I am the Lord your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.  If only you had paid attention to my commands, your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea.  Your descendants would have been like the sand, your children like its numberless grains; their name would never be cut off nor destroyed from before me,” Isaiah 48:17-19.

This was the passage that I read this morning that really spoke to me.  I read and reread the same passage.  I felt God saying to me, “Sonya, how many times have you heard my voice and doubted that it was me?  How many times have you not paid attention when I spoke?”  I really believe that God takes us through different stages in our faith walk.  Our walk with Christ is much like our growing stages.  We are formed in our mother’s womb, then we are born, then we begin our many different growing stages.  God is the potter and we are the clay.  He is constantly taking us and shaping us and molding us.

God gives me His word.  He tells me time and time again, “I am the Lord your God.”  Why is it we can’t believe when He gives us His word?  Why is it we can’t believe when He gives us a vision or a color or a quiet whisper?  Through out the Bible God’s people constantly had to question Him.  We can’t hear it once and believe, we have to ask God to confirm it in another way.

A dear friend shared a story with me the other day.  She had told me that someone had shared something with her in confidence.  This young person did not want her mom to know.  My friend said that she knew she needed to share this with the young girl’s mother, but did not want to lose the relationship that she had developed with the young girl.  So my friend prayed.  She asked God to show her what was right.  She threw out her fleece and said, “God, if you want me to tell this young girl’s mom, have her call me now.”  A few minutes later, the mom called.  My friend could not believe it.  She spoke with the woman, but continued to doubt.  She said nothing.  After they hung up, she cried out to God again.  “Lord if this is really what you want me to do, have her call me again.”  Sure enough, after she finished her call, the mom called her up again.  She knew at that point that she was supposed to speak to the mom about the lie her daughter had told her.

Why do we have to doubt God?  Is our faith so small?  God wants to direct our paths.  He wants to teach us.  He wants us to have peace in our life that flows like a river and righteousness that is like the waves of the sea.  When we receive a word from God, it is ok to ask Him to show it to us again for clarity.  But at some point we do need to respond, just as my friend did.  God wants to direct our paths.

I encourage you today to act upon God’s word in your life.  God wants to bless you and He wants to bless me.  He wants us to receive His peace in our lives.  God can move in great ways in our lives if we only let Him.  Invite God this morning to show you His plans in your life.  Throw out your fleece before Him and ask for clear direction.  He will show it to you in a way that you will understand.  Make His desires your desires!

I recently went to the She Speaks conference put on by Proverbs 31 Ministry.  It was the most awesome conference that I have been to in quite some time.  I went to learn to become a better writer, a better speaker and to learn how to be a woman who could reach the hearts of other women.  The message and gift that I received from God was so much more! 

God did inspire me that weekend with my writing and reaching the hearts of women, but there was something that was deeper in my heart that God was wanting to heal in me.  What I experienced that weekend changed my heart.  Just as Jesus did for Saul, Jesus did for me.  He removed the scales that were covering my eyes.  He removed the false image that I held in my mind and heart of someone I hold very dear to my heart.

This is really not something that I wanted to share, but the response that I have received from a few very close and dear friends made me realize that I do need to share this because many of you hurt in the same way and need to feel encouraged.

On the last evening of the She Speaks conference, Lysa TerKerust gave her testimony.  It was one of those testimonies that when you hear it, you need to make sure you have a tissue close by.  After her testimony, she asked us to do something that I was not expecting.  Lysa asked us to take the note card from our binder and to write down on it whatever had been keeping us from having a closer relationship with God.  It could be a heavy burden or a sin…whatever that thing was that was preventing you from becoming one with God.

I had been carrying around in my backback for quite some time the relationship that I have with my earthly father.  It is a relationship that I had always wished had been different.  I don’t want to focus on the details at this time, but I want you to know the heavy burden that I had been carrying around for so long.

At that point, I knew that this was what I was supposed to lay down at the foot of the cross.  You see, we were asked to write down this “thing” that prevented us from walking with our Lord and to take it to the front of the room and to lay it down at the foot of the cross.  With a heavy heart I wrote my note to God.  My head was pounding.  I was moving into full blown out migraine from all the excitement and lack of sleep from the weekend.  My heart was pounding.  Yes, now was the time to give this to my Heavenly Father. 

I went before the cross, knealt down, and laid my piece of paper at the foot of the cross.  Tears came flooding from my heart and my eyes.  Inside I was shaking uncontrollably.  I laid it all down before my Heavenly Daddy.  When I arose, I knew something was different.  My headache was completely gone.  (For those of you who suffer from migraines, that is not an every day occurence!)  I felt light and free.  The next morning when I awoke, God poured words in my heart that I will share with you now:

June 24, 2007

Oh Lord, You have kept your promise to me.  I awoke this morning and I am filled with your joy!  Last night I laid my earthly father at the foot of the cross…I laid down the fact that I will NEVER receive his blessing; I will never be a beautiful princess in his eyes; I laid down all the emotional pain.  Last night You said to me, “Sonya, let it go!  You are released from the hurt and shame.  When the morning comes you will see me with new eyes.  In the morning you will have joy!  I have chosen you, Sonya, because you are my daughter.  I will sing to you My song because the shackles that have been hanging around your neck have been lifted away!  You may dance before Me for I sing My song for you!  You are My princess, Sonya.  Come, rest in My arms!”

What a powerful night!  Last night I felt as if this burden was just lifted from my shoulders.  But this morning I am experiencing joy a new!  I had this verse underlined in my Bible and there it lay wide open for me to read this morning:

Isaiah 41:9-10  I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you.  I said, “You are My servant; I have chosen you and have not rejected you.  So do not fear; for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God.  I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

WOW!  When I first underlined that passage, I looked at it so differently.  But this morning I see it with new eyes.  I read it as a message that was written to me.  And not by just anyone.  It was a message written to me from my Daddy!  A message written to me from the Lover of my soul.  It was my love letter this morning.

You see God pulled me-screaming and dragging my feet-from the farthest corners of the earth.  He called me!  Not because I was better then anyone else.  Not because I had done extrordinary things.  Not becasue I was perfect in anyway.  He called me because I was broken and beautiful in His eyes.  He called me as I had always hoped my earthly father would.  He called me to give me confirmation that I am His child!

God opened my eyes to the reality around me and my  life.  He showed me what I was clinging to that was preventing me from having a full and complete relationship with Him!  My Heavenly Father is the only one who could ever be the lover of my soul.  My Heavenly Daddy is the only one I will ever be able to dance for with a song that is only sung for me.  My Jesus is the only one who tells me, “Just be real, for I made you and that is the way I love to see you!  You are so very precious to me my beautiful Sonya!  You are my daughter.  All your brokenness makes me love you even more.  I give you rest.  I give you peace.  But most importantly, I give you joy!  Dance before me.  Lift your eyes up to me so that I may lift you up!  You are my precious daughter.  I love you!”

So now I arise, a daughter of my Savior.  He has given me renewed strength.  He is tugging on my heart laying out plans that I do not fully understand.  But I know He will be there right beside me.

Thank you Daddy for calling me your princess and loving this broken vessel!

That was the gift that God gave me!  In my heart, it is such a precious gift.  God never intended my earthly father to meet all of my needs.  But in my mind that was what I wanted.  In my mind I wasn’t realizing that it is not my earthly father’s job to do any of the things that I had expected.  Only God could do that.  My earthly father, my husband, my pastor, my children….none of them can meet the needs of my heart.  Now that I understand what it means to really have an intimate relationship with my Heavenly Daddy, I see my earthly daddy with different eyes. 

I actually have a better relationship now with my dad.  It is not that he has done anything differently, it was that I had a heart change.  I hated the attiutude and the behavior that I saw, but I did not want to become that.  But I was afraid I would.  God gave me a heart transplant.  He gave me new eyes.  He showed me that He is truly my heavenly Daddy.  I can feel His presense around me and I can hear His song for me!  I dance freely now!  I dance for my King!