I'm Sorry...(Yet Again)

I have been working with God on the problem of pride lately. This is sort of an ongoing struggle for me. I think its probably a common sin to get wrapped up in. But I don't want anything at all to do with it. So I try to keep a close eye out for ways pride might be creeping in to my life. I can claim some victory here, things are much better than they used to be. But still, some sins are just a life long struggle, and pride just might be one of my ongoing construction zones.

I had a victory this morning! Its a small thing really, but its the small things that lead to bigger things, so I'm going to celebrate where I can.

It all started about 5 or 6 weeks ago. I was at the grocery store, pushing a cart full of groceries, with two wiggly kids, heading for the checkout isle. I also happened to be in the midst of a horrendous sinus infection. So I was kinda primed to act not-so-nice. That is when it happened.

I was about one cart length from the end of the checkout line, clearly about to enter it. A woman with an equally full grocery cart approached appearing as though she needed to pass through the line and keep going. I politely backed my cart up and gave a little wave of my hand to indicate that she could cut through before I officially got in line.

To my great dismay, instead of cutting through and passing by, she stole my place in line! I couldn't believe it! I still can't decide if she was taking advantage of me or if she really thought that a hunched over woman, with two highly active kiddos, a cart full of groceries, and tissues in both hands really intended for a relaxed, well-dressed, no children luggin' woman to just go on ahead. Anyway, being the restrained southern belle that I am, I seethed and thought ugly thoughts at her instead of saying anything.

Naturally, by the time I got to the front of the line, it was time for the cashier to end her shift. So I had to stand there another several minutes waiting for the drawer to be switched out. The very friendly and polite check out woman gave me a big smile and said, "It'll just take a minute, I'll be right with you."

I scowled at her. Then I let out a big exasperated sigh to make sure she understood how displeased I was with this whole scenario. She got my drift. Her smile disappeared, she started moving very quickly, and she didn't say another word to me. The equally cheery bag boy gave me a big grin and said, "How are you this morning? Do you want paper of plastic?"

"Paper," I whisper-shouted, because I was pretty sick, remember.

"You sound terrible," he helpfully added.

I just glared and him and decided I had said enough. We walked tersely to the car and I drove away in a grumpy funk.

I hope I don't have to tell you that I felt bad about it, almost as soon as I got home. It has bothered me ever since. I hate it when people are rude to customer service employees. I've worked in those types of jobs several times, and I know the abuse that gets heaped on them. I didn't want to be one of those rude, angry customers.

But every week, when I have seen that same woman working in the check out line, I have deliberately gone through another aisle. I was afraid she would remember me as that mean, loudly-sighing woman. And I was too proud to apologize for my rudeness.

Until today. As I have been praying about keeping my pride in check and cultivating a humble heart, God kept pricking my conscience about that grocery store incident. It was a sort of, "how can you ask me to use you in mighty ways and root out the pride in your heart when you are too stubborn to even apologize to a stranger, much less someone who is close to you?"

So I decided to offer her an apology. I prayed that she would be working this morning. There she was when I walked in the door. As I wove through the grocery isles, I kept checking to make sure she was still there. She was. As I finished getting everything on my grocery list and headed to check out, I was all primed and pumped up to give her an apology. But suddenly, she walked away from her register!

Confused, I made a hard right back into the frozen food section and looked at some truly disgusting frozen stuffed mushrooms for a few moments. After reading the ingredients and turning the mushroom box around a few times, the cashier came back to her line. Whew!

As she was scanning my items, I did it. I offered her an apology. She seemed confused at first, but eventually she understood what I was saying. Of course she couldn't remember the incident, I really didn't expect her to. She said she always figures someone is just having a bad day when they act ugly. But she smiled and thanked me for apologizing. I had shared with her that I was sick that particular day.

Right before I walked off, she asked, "Are you feeling better now?"

"Oh, yes," I answered. In more ways than one.

Proverbs 29:23

"A man's pride brings him low,
but a man of lowly spirit gains honor."

Good Friday

I literally do not have the time to write a post this morning. But I read something during my quiet time today that is too good to keep to myself. So, forgive me if I misspell a word or use incorrect grammar. I've just got to share this!

Today Christians worldwide celebrate or observe Good Friday, the day that Jesus Christ was crucified on the cross and took upon Himself the just wrath of God. By taking the wrath and punishment that WE deserve, He provided the only way that any of us could ever come before the Most Holy and Most High God, and not just come before Him, but dwell with Him in peace for eternity.

Before Jesus was betrayed by Judas, and taken to the cross to die, He observed the Passover meal with all of the disciples.

That is what I read this morning that is so cool! My reading was Psalm 113. I always read the footnotes in my Bible before I delve into each Psalm, because they hold a wealth of knowledge that I am woefully ignorant of. Here is the footnote that I read this morning.

"Psalm 113-118 were sung during the Passover, so it is likely that Jesus and His disciples sang them during their last evening together."

How amazing to have come to the songs that Jesus likely would have sung the night before He was to endure the cross. Consider these verses from Psalm 113, verses 5-9.

"Who is like the LORD our God,
Who dwells on high,
Who humbles Himself to behold
The things that are in the heavens and in the earth?

He raises the poor out of the dust,
And lifts the needy out of the ash heap,
That He may seat him with princes--
With the princes of His people.
He grants the barren woman a home,
Like a joyful mother of children."

Two things I want to point out. First, we know that Jesus was not just a man, but was also God Himself, one part of the Trinity. Did you see that God, who dwells on high, is even practicing condescension to behold the heavens and the earth? That is how high and how holy God is. Even to consider the heavens and the earth are an act of humbling for God. Now contrast that with how amazing it is that Jesus, God Himself, would come and be born on earth, would walk around and experience all that we experience, hunger, cold, weariness, poverty, etc...

Whew! How can we ever accuse God of not loving us?

Second, it is almost more than I can wrap my mind around to imagine what Jesus must have been thinking as He sung the words describing the poor, the needy and the barren. Do you realize that He was singing about us? We WERE the poor, the needy and the barren. And by the work accomplished on the cross we were raised and lifted above our natural condition. We were able to become joyful mothers, who had been barren women.

And of course, it is so like our loving and gracious God, that it gets even better. He doesn't just lift us out of the dust and ash heap. No, He goes that extra step further. He seats us with princes. We go from sitting in the dirt to being seated with royalty, to eating at the table of the princes of His people. (I don't have time to look up the verse right now, but maybe I will add it to this post later. There is a verse that describes us as not just being with Christ in eternity, but of reigning with Him as brothers, or more specifically, as joint heirs. So in essence, we become the princes of His people!)

**Here is the verse:

Romans 8:16-17

"The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together."

So today, as you consider the suffering that Christ endured on the cross, in order to receive us as His people, also think about the humanity of Jesus, who sang the words of Psalm 113, knowing full well the trial that was immediately before Him. But because of His overwhelming love for us, He faced it willingly, so that we could be lifted and raised.

Hebrews 12:2

"looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God."


One more thing. Today is the one year anniversary of an amazing lesson that God taught me about prayer. If you are new to this blog, I encourage you to read it. It's a bit long, but I hope you will think it is worth it. Just click here.

Prayer Request

For any of you who log on to this blog between now and Wednesday morning, March 19th, would you say a prayer for me?

I am sharing my testimony with my MOPS group. I'm very excited about the opportunity to share what God has been working in my heart and life, but the problem is, I have too much to say. I have spent weeks thinking and praying about what I need to share, and what I need to leave out. I thought I have figured it out pretty well, and I finally got an outline down on paper.

Then, I decided it might be a good idea to do a practice run and actually say everything in my outline. It took about an hour and a half to get through it, which is problematic because I can only speak for about 30 minutes!

So, obviously, I am going through everything again and trying to determine what really needs to be shared and what might best wait for another opportunity.

Its a good problem to have, that God has done so much amazing work in me that I can hardly explain it all in half an hour. But I want to be effective in sharing parts of it, so please pray that I will be able to whittle it down to an honest and concise testimony.

I'll let you know how it goes!

And the Peace of God....

Philippians 4:6-7

"Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present you requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

I said that verse at least 217 times to myself on Friday. It began to rain, very heavily, for a many hours on end. And the weather radar showed only more heavy rain headed straight for my area. To understand why this distressed me, you must realize that my house is only a few feet away from a small creek.

Well, it is only small when the weather is normal. When we get a lot of rain, all bets are off. By Friday night, I had white water rapids about 10 feet from where I sit and post all of these entries to my blog.

At several points during the evening, I seriously asked God what the difference was between being anxious and having a healthy dose of panic when confronted with a potentially dangerous situation. Because the only way I felt anything like the "peace that transcends all understanding" was when I remembered that everything in my home, all that I have, all my stuff, all my treasures--were just things. And they didn't really matter all that much. Even if my whole house was swept away by a flood, God would take care of me.

But I'll be honest, I was having a hard time reminding myself that all my "things" didn't really matter when my husband's car was about to be swamped by the river that had once been my driveway. Sigh. I just want all of you to know that I am not perfect. I am a normal person just like you. I am susceptible to the normal ups and downs of any relationship, including my relationship to God. That does not mean I am defeated in anything, it just means I have to work harder sometimes to get the desired result.

One of my worst nightmares is for someone to read this blog, or even just know me as a person, and credit my happiness and joy to having some kind of perfect life. Believe me, I don't. But I have grace, and I have Christ, and they are much better than a perfect life (or in this particular example, perfectly unruffled trust.)




This is normally my driveway. Don't miss those plastic buckets and tubs floating away. You can't get a sense of it from this picture, but the water was flowing very quickly through here. It was also just starting to rain heavily again, as you can see by the raindrops.

The back garage, which my husband uses as a woodworking shop, underwater. And that small vegetable garden you see on the left, with the plastic tarp behind it, is usually about a foot above the ground.

I know this picture is kind of dim, but this is my backyard, completely level with the creek that runs next to our house. Yes, that is whitewater you see in the middle of the picture, right between my camellias.




See my nice outdoor furniture cushions floating toward the back of this pond/backyard? And don't miss the garden hose floating through the center of the picture.



Before my husband came home and opened up this back gate, clearing away a bunch of debris, the hinge at the top was bent by the pressure of the water trying to push through.


Oh, we are all fine and dried out by the way. Thanks for asking! And despite the ominous predictions of the weather radar, it did stop raining before my actual house was flooded. Whew! Believe me, we were praying really hard.

Another Divine Appointment

I had a strange morning today. I gave a stranger a ride home. I don't usually pick up people walking on the side of the road. In fact, I am probably more paranoid about picking up strangers than your average person, because my husband and I wasted a lot of time and money trying to help someone that we picked up on the side of the road several years ago. But that is another story.

I had been at a friends house and was leaving her neighborhood. As I pulled up to a Stop sign, waiting to pull onto a busy road, an older-middle-aged woman walked up to my window. She was well dressed, in slacks and a stylish sweater. She had on lipstick and jewelry, I could even smell the perfume she was wearing. She asked if I was heading toward a certain neighborhood. I could see that she had been crying. In fact, she was wiping tears off of her cheeks the whole time I talked to her.

I was not heading in the direction she asked about, in fact I needed to be somewhere in the opposite direction in 25 minutes. Plus, I am not the kind of person who gives rides to strangers.

Here is where the story gets interesting. All of this was happening, literally, right across the street from my church. I could see that there were several cars in the church parking lot, and I knew that our church secretary was there as well. I tried to talk the distressed woman into walking across the street and getting help from someone inside. She didn't want to do that. I asked her if I could call someone, and she only cried more and said "no." I tried to ask her if she was in trouble, or if she needed some help, but she just kept saying that she wanted to go home.

At that point she left the side of my car and started walking back down the road. It was 77 degrees and sunny, and based on the place she had asked me to take her, I knew she had a long way to go in the heat. I thought for a moment, but decided that she was probably a woman who was stranded and in real need of help, and not some scam artist or dangerous person. I mean, she was very well dressed, she was even carrying a nice black leather purse. I think it was the lipstick and nice perfume that made up my mind. It would be like my mother or my mother-in-law being stranded and needing help from a stranger.

I pulled into the parking lot of my church, and walked inside. One of the secretaries was standing right there. I asked her if she could ride with me, and I briefly explained what was going on. She grabbed her purse, hopped in my car, and we drove down the road and picked up the distressed woman.

She was very glad to have a ride. As soon as she got in my car, Debbie, the secretary from church, asked if she could pray for her. So as I started driving, she and Debbie held hands and prayed. Then she told us a little bit about why she was stranded and needed a ride.

She told us that she was married to a very mean and controlling man, who treated her very badly. They had been going to marriage counseling, and she said he just lied about everything. She said she just couldn't take it anymore, and walked out. I assume that meant she had just left the marriage counseling and was trying to walk home when I picked her up.

We let her talk for a while, she was still crying, and giving us some more of the story. I'm not going to give you all the details, that is not what is really important. Debbie asked if she had a church home, and she said no. Then she started crying some more and saying she wouldn't go to church with her husband. Debbie wrote down our pastors name and phone number. We gave it to her and told her that she certainly did not have to come to church, but that she could always call if she needed help, or just a person to talk to.

When we got to her house, I asked her if I could pray with her again, and she let me. I don't really even know what I prayed about. I just wanted her to know that I cared, and more importantly, that God cared. I helped her out of the back seat of my car. She cried some more, thanked me and gave me a hug. I can still smell her perfume on my shirt.

I have no idea if she will ever call our pastor, or go to any church. But I have been praying for her all day. I sincerely believe that I was supposed to give her that ride today. I mean, what are the chances that all of that happened randomly? Right across the street from my church? That Debbie would be standing right there when I walked in, and would be able to ride with me so I wouldn't be nervous about giving a stranger a ride?

I wonder if I am supposed to be learning something from this. This is the second older woman in distress that I have encountered recently. Maybe God just wants me to remember that underneath the nice, socially acceptable facade that people present, there are real hurts and needs. Believe me, I spend a lot of time around people who seem perfect. People who seem to have it all. Women with nice black leather purses, stylish sweaters and lipstick perfectly applied. But every once in a while, people will let you see behind it all. Maybe I'm just supposed to remember to keep looking.

Rain, Rain

Psalm 147:7-8

"Sing to the LORD with thanksgiving;
Sing praises on the harp to our God,
Who covers the heavens with clouds,
Who prepares rain for the earth,
Who makes grass to grow on the mountains."

It is pouring here right now. I don't live near Atlanta, but I am in Georgia, and the whole state has been pretty dry. I just checked weather.com, and although it doesn't look like Atlanta is getting any rain, I am thankful for what we are getting in South Georgia.

When I heard the rain start pounding on the roof, I stopped what I was doing and said a prayer of gratitude. I heard a sermon about prayer once that reminded us to pray and thank God when He answers our prayers. For instance, how many times have you prayed and asked God for a safe road trip? When you got to your destination, did you say another prayer of thanks? I've been trying to put that into practice ever since.

Just like living through a literal drought makes me thankful for rain, it is often when I have experienced a spiritual drought that I newly appreciate the manifold blessing given to me by God. I am taken to a place where I must realize all over again, how deep and wide and amazing God's grace is. When I see myself as I am, and when I see God as He is, I am astounded. That He not only accepts me, but loves me and calls me His treasure is beyond my ability to understand.

That is why God's gift of faith is required for us to understand. Because, really, it makes no sense at all from our perspective.

Trees of Righteousness

Just a quickie note. I memorized Isaiah 61:3. I will often make up little songs to help me memorize verses. Silly, but very effective.

"That they may be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that He may be glorified."

That is my prayer for my children, that they will grow into trees of righteousness, planted by the LORD, so that He will be glorified. I'm going to pray it over them every day.

I love them so much.

The Best Present Ever

This happened very soon after the message that Paul Kooistra delivered on prayer. (See my post entitled Prayer-it is so cool.) Because I don't believe in coincidences, I feel like this was something that God set in motion to teach me a valuable lesson and to encourage me at the same time.

My husband and I were eating at a Mexican restaurant on a Sunday night. He happened to pick up a copy of one of those free newspapers that sit in wire baskets near the doors of some businesses. It was a weekly publication aimed at college students and it had articles about bands, bars, albums, entertainment, that sort of thing. I don't remember the exact name of it.

Anyway, on the first inside page was a big ad for one of my favorite places to eat. I love the pizza there and so the ad caught my eye. But to my horror, it was an ad for a "Live Girls Gone Wild" taping to be held at that restaurant (which becomes a bar at night.) Just in case you don't know what that is, let me fill you in. Girls Gone Wild (GGW) is a series of soft core porn videos that are sold on late night tv and online. It is mostly footage of very drunk young women pulling up their shirts and exposing themselves to the camera. There are also scenes of scantily clad young women "making out." You get the idea. I have never actually seen a GGW tape, but I have seen commercials for them on tv, and they don't leave much to the imagination. The GGW franchise started out by going to college spring break destinations and taping drunk college students who were in the midst of a party atmosphere and probably thought it was a great prank to flash the camera. What many of them didn't realize was that they were being targeted by professionals bent on exploiting their drunken state and general bad judgment. I'm sure that many of the stars of GGW tapes regretted their actions immensely when they had sobered up and had a chance to think about it. But the damage was already done. And they were now stars of soft core porn that was being aggressively marketed and distributed world wide. There have been many lawsuits resulting from these tapings, but so far the only images that have been successfully challenged are images of girls who were under the age of 18 when they did the flashing, etc...

As time has gone on, GGW has started traveling around the country and throwing parties at which to perform their tapings. I can't imagine why any woman would want to go to one, but many apparently do. And although most of them probably don't intend to take their clothes off, inevitably they start drinking and find themselves very encouraged to participate in all of the "fun." Now, I am not going to act like I think all of these young women are innocent victims. Undoubtedly some of them think that being in a GGW video is great idea, and they seek out the opportunity. Maybe even most of them feel that way. But GGW is also notorious for predatory behavior and they are professionals who have pretty sophisticated means of getting what they want. I'm not going to elaborate on that here. There are plenty of places where you can find more information about that online.

So anyway, you can imagine my shock as I read that a GGW party was set to happen in our town, which has a church on every corner, AND at a restaurant that I happen to eat in very frequently. I was more than disturbed about it. I couldn't stop thinking about it. I determined that I needed to do something to keep this from happening, but I wasn't sure how to progress. At first I thought that I should call and email all the women I knew, and get us all stirred up and form some kind of public protest. But my husband did not want me to be publicly involved in anything like that. He thought the idea of the GGW party was disgusting, just like I did. But he did not want me to draw attention to myself over it. And as it happened, most of my good friends were out of town on spring break when I saw the ad for the party. It was set to happen 5 days from the time I first became aware of it.

I was casting about in my head trying to decide what I, one little homemaker, could do to thwart this professional organization from coming and victimizing young women in my town. And then I remembered Dr. Kooistra's message about prayer. And I decided that I would pray about it, because even though I was one small person without much power, God could accomplish anything.

I need to digress a little bit here and explain why this GGW party bothered me so much. Yes, it is a gross thing, and I find it very offensive that young women could be so exploited (by their own choosing), but there was more to it than that. I had been a pretty wild child in college. I wasn't the worst of the bunch, and there were a lot of things that common sense kept me from participating in. I'm pretty sure that I would never have taken my clothes off in front of a camera at a party. But there were many times when I was drunk enough, that if someone had wanted to take advantage of me they certainly could have. God was really merciful in sparing me serious harm as a result of my foolish choices. Plus, I couldn't help thinking that a young woman who went to that party and did take her shirt off might become a Christian at some point. And even though she would be forgiven, she would have to live with the thought that somewhere she was featured in a video, being played over and over again, and leading men into destructive lustful thoughts. I hated the idea that that could happen to any young woman in my town.

So I prayed. I mean, I really prayed hard. I prayed about it all day long, as I went about my normal routine. It was all I could think about. In everything that happened to me during those 5 days, a part of me was lifting this matter up to God. I had faith that God heard my prayers and would do something because of them. I realized that I might not ever know the difference my prayers made, but I trusted that they would make a difference. Even if God kept one woman from attending that party, and I might never know about it, I believed that He would be faithful because of my prayers.

I did do one other thing. I called the restaurant/bar where the party was to be held and asked to speak to the manager. In as polite and considerate a way as I could possibly manage, I asked him to reconsider having the GGW party. I told him that they were a very disreputable organization that engaged in predatory tactics to take advantage of young women. I also told him that if the party did happen, I would be unable to frequent that restaurant anymore, and that I hated to make that decision, because I really did enjoy his pizza. He was very polite in return and sounded almost apologetic about the whole thing. But he said that the owner was the one who wanted to have the party and it was out of his hands.

So I just kept praying. The day before the party was to happen, I got my Bible study ladies to pray with me. We prayed that the GGW bus would have flat tires, that the camera equipment would malfunction, and that all the young women who planned to attend would break out with blotchy rashes all over their bodies. (I have heard a great story about a woman who was saved from committing adultery because that very thing happened to her.)

The morning of the party arrived. I was in a frenzy of prayer. I mean it when I say it was the only thing I could think about. I'm sure my husband thought I was acting pretty strange about this whole thing. I even drove by the location of the party and "threw firey darts of prayer" at it from my car.

Mid afternoon I got a phone call. A friend was calling to tell me that the GGW party was canceled. I couldn't believe it! She said that apparently all of the waitresses had refused to work at the taping. They all threatened to quit rather than take part. I was ecstatic! It was like a hundred Christmas mornings all rolled into one. I felt like God had given me a huge present wrapped in exquisite paper with a huge gold bow on top, and just grinned while I opened it. I dropped to my knees and thanked God with the best words that I could come up with. My daughter thought it was great fun, and knelt beside me repeating words like "magnificent, glorious, gracious, miracle." I had literally never dropped to my knees in gratitude before that moment. But it was such a feeling, I can't even describe it. God had answered my prayer more abundantly than I ever imagined. I knew He would be faithful, but I didn't think He would cancel the whole thing! It was almost too much for me!

In reflection, I have to say that the best part is that I did not arrange a public protest. If I had done that, then I would be able to take credit for the result. But God wanted me to know that HE was the one in charge, and HE brought about the request. He did it in a way that was way better than my plan.

I think God works in ways like that very often. Someone without faith could look at the situation and decide that it was a coincidence, that it just happened to work out that way. But we know better than that. Don't miss God's work on your behalf. He really does do things for us because we pray about them. I will never doubt it again.

I have to add one more thing just so you don't misunderstand what I am trying to say. Two weeks later a dear dear friend called with devastating news and asked me to pray that God would spare her from something very specific. I prayed over it just as hard as I prayed over the situation that I just related to you. But God did not do what I asked. It wasn't His perfect will for that situation. But I was glad I prayed about it anyway.


Romans 11:33-36


"Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?
Who has ever given to God, that God should repay him?
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen."

The coolness of prayer

Last spring, our church had a missions conference, and the main speaker was a man named Paul Kooistra. He is the head of the mission sending branch of our denomination, called Mission To the World. He is an amazing speaker, and our church had to book him, literally, several years in advance to get him to come speak. One of the sermons he preached was about prayer, and how often we Christians forget what an amazingly powerful thing it can be. Well, he really spoke to me that night and I want to share a little bit of what he spoke about. It had a profound impact on my prayer life. Maybe it will on yours too.

This was the verse that just hit me so hard:

James 5:17 "Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced it's fruit."

Now, several things about that verse are very noteworthy, but this was the thing I could not get over Elijah had "a nature like ours." That means he was just like us! He had doubts, he had fears, he probably wondered if God could really make a difference. In fact, it didn't rain for such a long time (3 and 1/2 years!!!) that he probably wondered whether God had anything to do with it at all! Aren't we all just like that? Something miraculous happens, and we don't see that it was God, we just see it as the way things worked out that day. I know I have been guilty of that.

When I heard the sermon on prayer, I had been spending a lot of time studying through the Old Testament. So although I had not been reading about Elijah in particular, I had become well aware that the people recorded in the Old Testament were not superheros. They really were just ordinary people that God chose to use in extraordinary ways. And most of them had some pretty big problems in their lives. They were far from perfect people. (By the way, why do we give our kids the impression that the people in the Bible were somehow perfect and abnormaly great? I'll save that for another time :))

So there it was, Elijah, who was just a person like me, kept rain from the land for 3 1/2 years by praying. Stop and think about that for a little while. My daughter is 3 1/2 years old. That really put it in perspective for me. Prayer can do amazing, unexplainable, miraculous, extraordinary things. And we have the power to access prayer anytime, anywere for any reason! I hope all of you realize that I am not trying to tell you that God will do whatever you want Him to just because you prayed about it. Certainly not! But you can ask, and God can do it. And sometimes He will do it, just because we asked Him.

And Elijah's story gets even better. Picture this with me. Here is Elijah who has prayed every day for 3 and a half years that it would not rain. And it hasn't. Now all of a sudden he needs it to rain. Big time. I don't know about you, but I think I would be tempted to think that it might not rain again, ever. And I certainly would have issues of doubt about whether I could call down the rain anytime I needed just by praying. But that is EXACTLY what happened. No rain for three and a half years because Elijah prayed. Then, Elijah prayed one day, and it poured, the "heaven gave rain". Wow! How cool is that!

I was so encouraged by this. It inspired me to pray for really big things. And because this is already too long, I won't tell you my great story about an impossible thing that God did for me because I prayed about it. I will save that for another time when I just can't help myself. But let me tell you, it was really cool too.

Phillipians 4:1 "Therefore my beloved and longed for brethren, my joy and my crown, so stand fast in the Lord, beloved."