An Arrow in Your Hand

One Father's Day a few years back I was asked to share. This is a little note I read to my Dad:

Dad you'll never know how you guided me as a child. For as a little girl I saw you pray. I saw you kneel beside your bed and not just once or in a time of special need or trial but every night before closing your eyes. You probably didn't know I saw you there.

You demonstrated what true love was as I saw you love my Mother. You did not show a lot of outward affection as we see so much of today, but you showed true love when you treated her with honor and respect. I never heard you fight or felt discord in our house and you never embarrassed her or spoke disrespectfully to her. I just want you to know I noticed.

I saw the passion you felt when you talked about God and you made me hunger and thirst for righteousness too. You showed me that there was always more of God for me and sometimes it required sacrifice and decisions that others might not understand. Did you know that is what you were teaching me?

I saw you battle a disease that you could not overcome, until you were so week you could not get out of bed, yet, I never heard you complain. And in the end I felt the presence of God fill the room you were in, Jesus was there... God had come for a man who had lived his life as an example not only for his children and grandchildren but for all who knew him and set a mark for them to follow. Thank you for the life you lived, the example you left, and the mark that you set before me. You pointed me in the way that I should go.

From an Arrow you once held in your hand. I miss you Dad.

I pray that you consider the arrow that you hold in your hand. Are you leaving an example that will help them hit the mark and follow the path that God has planned for them?

The Temple in the Times of Christ

I have been rereading a book I have had for years and I am dumbfounded, that's right dumbfounded, amazed, staggered, and stunned by the shear measurements of the temple of Solomon! The book is called THE TEMPLE, it's MINISTRY and SERVICES as they were at the time of CHRIST by Alfred Edersheim. It is an amazing book about the Temple in the Times of Christ.

Did you know:

• The Temple was so large it could hold 210,000 worshipers at one time.
• It was as large as two, that's right two, colosseums like the one in Rome.
• It had immense foundation stones of solid blocks of white marble covered with gold!
• Those foundation stones were 67.6 x 9 feet according to Josephus' record! And archeology!
• The altar for burnt offerings (the one with the horns at the corners) was 15' high!
• They have found stones in the bridges that led to the Temple that were 20-40 feet in length and weigh up to 100 tons!!! Single stones!

How unbelievable it must have seemed to the disciples when Jesus, speaking of the temple, forewarned: "there shall not be one stone left upon another that shall not be thrown down".

I'll try to give you some more unbelievable facts as I read. Amazing isn't it!

Hello Again!

If anyone has read this blog they know I am not an everyday blog kind of person! sorry :) It has been two years now since we returned from Ethiopia with Jericho! He is doing great. He is in pre-school for 3 year olds and loves it. Gunner will be turning 7 this month and growing up faster than I want him too.

They finally caught up with Osama Bin Laden last week. My reaction was less than enthusiastic (to my suprise I might add). Chuck says it's because I have an international view now? since going to Ethiopia my world has changed. I am experiencing a renewing of an old desire to be a "missionary" and a cooling of my patriotic fervor I once held dear.

Now, Chuck and I are mission directors at our church and God seems to be stirring us up! I use to be so patriotic and I couldn't imagine loving my country more than I did. But, I am finding that the phrase "this world is not my home" is becoming more and more a reality. I belong to the Kingdom of God and my allegiance is truly shifting to the heavenly kingdom. I thought I already felt that way but it is different this time.

I love a phrase that the Moravians quoined "For Christ and His Kingdom, that he might receive the just reward of His suffering". The Moravians had an ongoing prayer meeting that lasted 100 years and 60 % of their congregation became missionaries, John Wesley thought he was saved until he met with Moravian missionaries on his way to the colonies.

Christ did not die for me to enjoy the abundance of Capitalism, but for me to know Him and share in His suffering that he might inherit the nations. Now what that truly means I am still learning. There is a burning within me to not be satisfied with the American dream but to be like the rich young ruler who sold everything and followed the Jewish Rabbi. For now I pray: keep my heart burning until your desire is completely formed in me to both will and do your good pleasure.