Reflection of Providence

What a glorious New Year it has already been! I have just spent New Year’s Eve with my church family. There is no better way to celebrate the hope and promise of a New Year! Oh, the things that we as a family agreed upon. I pray the same for each and every one of you, that we all my fall into true obedience with the Lord and seek His truth and gracious love each and every day in our lives. May we become the spirit of worship so others can worship Him. May we die to ourselves so that He can be manifest. The Christian walk is not painless, but it is the most joyful journey anyone will take. Let us not be scared to dive in deep with Him. I love you all. I pray for health, joy, peace, and a great big heaping of blessings on your life this year. Know that I hold each of you close to my heart and my prayer is that God will reveal the destiny He has for you and you will heed it with little fear and no hesitation. Grasp hold of Him! I promise to write more… Melissa Gracious Lord fill our cups ...

I’m thankful for… 1. I have been given an abundant life. 2. God whispers to me through the beauty of nature. 3. I have Godly parents who sought to take me to church and raise me in a Christian home. 4. I have more abundance than I could ask or imagine, and truly I don’t deserve. 5. I have my health. 6. God has provided a joyful place for me to work. 7. My family loves me. 8. The church that God has provided for me fills me to overflowing. 9. I have friends that love me, care for me, support me, and make me laugh…(lets keep changing the world, at least in our minds) 10. I have the privilege of living in the United States; this is a very fortunate and puzzling gift. 11. The Lord had His hand on me from the beginning. 12. Oh that He would save a wretch like me. 13. I’m thankful that he is Sovereign over all things, and that He has cared and carried me all the days of my life and brought me to this place. 14. He speaks to me. 15. He restores me. 16. He has only my good in mind. 17. His gra...

...from the Ren Festival 2007 (more coming soon)

There is restlessness within my spirit as of late. I cannot place my finger on it or why it is there. I have a hunger for something more and an apathy and sluggishness to not grasp after it. I don’t know what it is. I mean of course I should seek Christ. I am striving to just seek Him, but I’m so used to seeking my own desires and ambitions that it is hard not to slip back into the idea that this Christian faith is really all about me. However, I’m cleaving to what Gayla told me, to seek Him and that is what I’m striving to do. I’m on a new journey of surrender that I wish I was on the other side of. 9/23/07 was the first day of FALL, and despite the warm weather I am still so excited about this time of year. I’m like a giddy school girl over the coming season and I am trying to wait with joyful anticipation. There are so many wonderful things that this time of year holds and it truly is when I feel most alive. I wish everyone could know me this time of year. However, it is also one of...

So, I say that it is about surrender or the “art of surrender”, but I’m struggling to know how to do that, what it really means to surrender my all to God… I think first we have to know the character of God. My pastor has been talking a lot about God’s justice. It is nice to be familiar with God, but do we sacrifice reverent fear for comfortable familiarity. God really isn’t “my bro”, “the big man in the sky”; “my homeboy”…to say these things is to cheapen the very essence of who the Divine is. He is holy, set apart, other! It is great to liken Him to your husband, which is the status I find most familiar with myself. However, HE is also the Lord Almighty, Loving King, Gracious Father, Prince of Peace, Lamb of Judah, Rock of Jesse…all powerful, all knowing, all in all…I AM! He is the same God from Old to New. We cannot embrace the God of the New Testament dismissing the Old as irrelevant. Jesus is God! I think we have lost sight of God’s justice, Sovereignty, Power, Majesty…we don’t tr...

Lord, I don’t even have the words to say. Come Father! Make Your path clear. Let us rekindle our hearts to one another!... I’m caught somewhere in the middle . The past tugs and whispers and pleads…it is like a tempting mirage in the desert. The voice trembles with passion, “Remember when we had so much fun?” It pulls at my heart, my fleshly desires quake under the touch, my body weak, and my heart feels hollow. My mind is playing cruel games on me again, a game I try to win through perpetuating fantasies. The old is choking the new. If I surrender will I lose all control… Praise Him that I’m not where I was, that He brought me further than I ever thought I could or would dare to go. I thank Him that He is still pushing me further and further. I want Him to become so real to me that I can feel His breath on the back of my neck. I want to be quick to listen to Him and do His abundant will, to be slow to speak my desires to Him, and slow to become angry with Him when I don’t get my way (...

In showing “Christ” to the ‘least of these’ should I only give bread to the hungry, or the bread of life to those whose spirit is starved, should I only give the thirsty a cup a water, or take a cup of living water to a war torn soul, am I not the first person to share what I have with a friend in need and leave a stranger out in the cold, should I only give clothes to those without, or also clothe my enemy in prayer (and a shirt if he/she needed it for that matter.) I believe we create boundaries in our hearts for who we consider ‘least of these’. It is usually those we feel most comfortable helping. I know I do, I know I’m self-centered. Instead of helping someone take their groceries to their car, I sneer when I have to wait behind them in line, their heavy burden an annoyance. My pastor recently said, “Humility is not thinking of you at all.” How easily it is about me, and not the ‘least of these’. It isn’t social or economic status (or the lack of it). It is a bleeding broken hear...