Soul Sister Time

              I love the saying: When I have a lot to do, I make sure to scratch nap off my list first .   I love a good Sunday nap.   I take Sabbath rest literally and use the day to restore my body, mind and spirit.   When I have extra things to do on Sunday I feel it the rest of the week.             When I forget the benefit of rest during a busy season of ministry or family life, I soon feel the demand from my body or my spirit, whichever one gives out first.   God did not rest when He was tired.   He rested when it was time to rest.   Rest for our bodies, minds and souls is mandatory to be faithful to our kingdom work.             So why do I have to crash before I remember to rest?   It has to be my pride that tells me I can do everything I want to do.   I need to recognize when enough is enough.   God demonstrated the rhythm of rest from the beginning of creation.   Jesus spoke about rest in Matthew 11:29:   Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle a

            These words of Jesus to Paul haunt me as I pray for the Christians on the hill in Iraq.   They are literally the light on the hill that cannot be hidden.   God is calling all of us to pray, give, love and support.   Jesus is being persecuted.   I remember the words of a short term missionary who went to a communist country and was arrested and held for a few days before released.   The pastor who was arrested with him told him.   Tell the Christians in America that we are able to get through this because we know they are praying for us .   The man just smiled and nodded.   He did not have the heart to tell the pastor that the Christians in America don’t really pray much for the persecuted church.   We are about other things and fail to see our connection to the Christian’s across the world from us.             God has allowed the people on the hill to draw our attention to the reality of the persecuted church.   We cannot ignore the atrocities of this world.   Will y

                Life on earth requires grace to be in the reality of sin.   I never feel this more intensely than when I return from a mission trip to a country where poverty and human suffering are experienced in far more extreme ways than I see here in America.                 The living conditions I experience up close and personal turn my stomach with sorrow and pity.   It’s only after I meet the individuals, the children, the workers, that I discover the power of grace.   Amidst the smells, the squalor and the absence of common decencies, there is an aura of grace that sheds light that makes the impoverished conditions have a golden glow.                 Often the richest person is impoverished compared to the poor.   I see this in the way the children respond to a simple sticker or a small balloon.   The joy they receive from the smallest gift is humbling and blissful to experience.   There is a gift of grace from having little.   There are fewer worries about robbery o

              This has been a week of twists and turns.   What I set out to do each day rarely matched the God-given agenda I actually experienced and I’m loving it.   It has taken me 50 years to accept the unexpected as an opportunity to remember how much I need God!             The unexpected makes me uncomfortable, sometimes hungry, most of the time spending more money than I had planned, always mysterious and often unexplained in the end.   I’ve learned to accept the value of the experience for what it is.   It is a privilege to go somewhere, meet someone or add some skill I never knew about before.             Perhaps it was the overwhelming experience of losing my husband suddenly that puts all the other unexpected experiences in context for me.   All I know is that something has changed in the center of my soul as I have relaxed rather than react when everything goes haywire, especially the big things.             I just wish I could be that way when people stay