Coffee and Tea with Me

This Christmas morning while reading my Bible and praying I got a fresh sense of God’s presence, a refreshing in my spirit and a reminder of my salvation when I received new life in Christ. I was born again in the spring of 1980. My eyes were suddenly open and I saw Jesus! The brightness of His Glory filled my vision! He was more beautiful and more to be desired than anything I had ever pursued or desired. I wanted Christ in my life, in me and a beautiful thing happened in my heart. I once was dead to my sins and I became alive in Christ! Christ became my greatest treasure. All other things I ever pursued or desired were nothing compared to Christ. God gave me a new heart. I was a new woman with new eyes that saw God’s word as living and active. Christ was alive in me! I had been spiritually blind but now I see. Christmas is not just about the baby in the manger. It starts in the beginning with God. For Jesus was with God in the beginning. “In the beginning was the Word, a...

The following excerpts from the book, A Gentle Thunder, by Max Lucado really touched me: “[This is what Jesus said about death:] “Don’t let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me. There are many rooms in my Father’s house; I would not tell you this if it were not true. I am going there to prepare a place for you. After I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me so that you may be where I am.” (John 14:1-4) What kind of statement is that? Trust me with your death. When you face the tomb, don’t be troubled—trust me! You get the impression that to God the grave is a no-brainer. He speaks as casually as the mechanic who says to a worried client, “Sure, the engine needs an overhaul, but don’t worry. I can do it.” For us it’s an ordeal. For him it’s no big deal. . . For God, death is no tragedy. In God’s economy, the termination of the body is the beginning of life . . . By calling us home, God is doing what any father would do...

11 Years  ago on 9-11-01 the United States was changed forever because of a terrorist attack. 11 years ago today on Thanksgiving Day 11-22-01 our son Micah fell out of a tree and our family’s lives were changed forever. God poured out His love and grace upon our family as we found out not only did Micah have a broken leg, torn spleen, a small hole in his lung and a crushed vertebrae, but he had leukemia. Micah fought leukemia for four long years but was not able to overcome this sickness in this life. I praise God for the greater victory that was won! Micah trusted Christ as His Lord and Savior and he persevered in the faith, living and dying for the glory of God!  He fought the fight of faith to the end through all the pain and all the suffering. Now he is rejoicing and pain free, suffering no more, safe in the arms of Jesus. The longer I live the more grateful I am for God’s precious gift of Jesus. God knows how it feels to have your son die. I am so thankful...

One of my favorite accounts in the Bible is 2 Chronicles 20. It tells what happened when the people of Moab , the people of Ammon, and others with them besides the Ammonites, came to battle against Jehoshaphat. It reminds me to look to the Lord for help and to trust Him because He is bigger than any problem I have. It puts people in perspective by reminding me that God is big and people are small. Our God is mighty in battle and awesome in power! The Lord fights our battles for us as we look to Him, ask him for help and praise Him! 2 Chron 20:3-5 3 And Jehoshaphat feared, and set himself to seek the Lord, and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah . 4 So Judah gathered together to ask help from the Lord; and from all the cities of Judah they came to seek the Lord. 5 Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem, in the house of the Lord, before the new court, 6 and said: "O Lord God of our fathers, are You not God in heaven, and do You not rule over...

Know wisdom, perceive understanding. A wise man will hear and increase learning and a wise man will attain wise counsel. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge, But fools despise wisdom and instruction. (Prov 1:7) Wisdom is calling you! She raises her voice. She cries out She speaks her words. Are you loving simplicity? Delighting in scorning? Hating knowledge? Turning from wisdom’s rebuke? Refusing counsel? Disregarding wisdom’s hand? Distaining her counsel? Having none of her rebukes?  Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their own way, And be filled to the full with their own fancies. For the turning away of the simple will slay them, And the complacency of fools will destroy them;  But whoever listens to me will dwell safely, And will be secure, without fear of evil." (Prov 1:31-33) Wisdom is calling you! You have a choice. Will you choose to fear the Lord? Will you receive wisdom’s words? Treasure her co...

                                                                                       Working at Home for the Glory of God Part 2 “That at the first, at the beginning of everyone that ever was, there is this braving of the pain and no one tells you that this is the way it will always be now– because love is always worth the pain. Just ask any mother — love is a willingness to suffer. Love is patient —  and patience is always this willingness to suffer. Love is patient and patience is this willingness to suffer —   to put aside plans for a person, to lay aside self to serve, to set aside agendas to step up to an altar. This is the work of a mother — this strange and peculiar joy in letting go of self to make the joy of another large” ...

2 Cor 5:9Therefore we make it our aim, whether present or absent, to be well pleasing to Him. What we do in this life is based on what our goal or aim in life is. We make choices in life. Either we choose to please ourselves and live with self on the throne or we choose to please God and live with Christ on the throne. Ultimately, if we choose to live for self, life will be hard and we really won’t be happy. But if we choose to die to self and live for Christ we will be truly happy.  When we walk in the counsel of His word, we are blessed.  A wasted life is one in which we live for ourselves. I have made it my goal and aim to please God. That means dying to self because life isn’t about me. It is about Christ. My goal is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. I agree with Caroline Mahaney who said, “My goal as a mother is that my children would treasure Christ and live passionately for His glory. As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  My ultimate go...

The characteristic that sets Mark ‘apart’ from other fathers is that he does not point to himself but continually points his family to Jesus as our  treasure , to glorify God and enjoy Him in all things. On our wedding day, Mark sang a song to me by Paul Clark called, Now and Forevermore . (you can hear this on Lala song player) It is from the scripture, “As for me and my house we will serve the Lord, now and forevermore.” This has been the theme in our home. God has poured out His grace on Mark to be a faithful man for almost 25 years of marriage and 9 children. He has been a faithful leader, provider and protector. He has sacrificed his own aspirations to lay down his life for his family, continually pointing us to Jesus.             We have gone through many trials, we never imagined 25 years ago, including loss of job, pain and suffering of cancer and the death of our son. Yet, Mark was a solid rock and stood stea...

God is Sovereign. He is in total control. In His sovereign plan He has ordained that man do the good works He has planned for him to do. Man must trust in God’s Sovereignty as he does the work he is responsible to do. He must come under the authority of God’s Word and under God’s grace. Then he is truly free to do the works God has called him to do. The man who thinks he doesn’t need to depend on God is blinded by pride. He thinks he is strong enough and doing great works on his own without Christ, but he is truly weak. It is when we recognize we are weak and needy people who need to depend on Christ that we are truly strong. In fact as Elisabeth Elliot says, you must be dependent on Christ to truly be His disciple. Elisabeth Elliot says in her book Discipline: The Glad Surrender, “Jesus, in response to the will of the Father, demonstrated what it means to be fully human when He took upon Himself the form of a man and in so doing voluntarily and gladly chose both dependence and...

How do you define success? In the world’s standards, climbing the ladder to make more money, have more prestige, power and fame; is success. But as a Christian, Christ’s standards are just the opposite. He tells us to die to ourselves, lose your self for Christ, let others be first and you last. To be great in the kingdom of God is to do His commandments. Matt 5:19-20 19 Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. NKJV             Without the sacrifice of Christ, I would be pursuing my own glorification, but because Of Christ, I have been transformed and now I am pursuing God’s glory.             C. J. Mahaney puts it well in his book, Humility True Greatness “Consider your own life fo...

Relationships can’t work without a spirit of forgiveness. This is so true and it is the heart of the gospel. Until we recognize how great a sinner we are and how great a savior Jesus is we will not have a truly humble heart of forgiveness. God told us “do not let the sun go down on your anger” for a reason. We will not have peace unless we deal with unforgiveness. We are commanded to seek and grant forgiveness daily! Jesus has forgiven us our great debt, we should be able to forgive our brother’s small debt. “Should you not also have compassion on your fellow servant, just as I had pity on you?...So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses.” Matt. 20:33, 35 Nancy Leigh DeMoss said, “Too many of us live with a chip on our shoulder, as if the world owes us something. “You ought to do this for me. You ought to serve me. You ought to meet my needs.” But the humble heart – the grateful heart- says, “I don’t d...

                                                    Joy and Sorrow From Lord of the Rings, book three. As Gandalf and Pippin gaze out over Gondor, on the eve of the battle. Are you angry with me, Gandalf?' he said, as their guide went out and closed the door. 'I did the best I could.' 'You did indeed!' said Gandalf laughing suddenly; and he came and stood beside Pippin, putting his arm about the hobbit's shoulders, and gazing out of the windows. Pippin glanced in some wonder at the face now close beside his own, for the sound of that laugh had been gay and merry. Yet in the wizard's face he saw at first only lines of care and sorrow; though as he looked more intently he perceived that under all there was a great joy: a fountain of mirth enough to set a kingdom laughing, were it to gush forth.' This is life as a Christian. We go through times of ...