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Showing posts with label testimonies. Show all posts
Cafe Chat Soundtrack of Faith
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Tell about one time in the past 5 years where you took a HUGE Step of Faith in your journey with the Lord. What was the outcome?
I am hearing music everywhere! The sounds of a life of Faith.
If my life....If your life... had a soundtrack created for it....What would it sound like?
Light and melodic ? Brassy like clashing cymbals? Soft and tender? Loud and dramatic?
When God listens to the Faith soundtrack of my life, Does He hear a Worship Song?
The music is complex. Filled with wild rhythms, crescendos, and sometimes mesto (mournfully sad). The sounds are sometimes pesante (Heavy, ponderous) or filled with tenerezza(tenderness).
I love listening to the faith of your lives. Watching as the music is written note by note. Hearing the stories of risk taken, steps of faith both large and small, harmonies of lives that effect another.
Faith is being sure of what we hope for, and certain of what we do not see.
Hebrews 11:1
Wonder what the soundtrack for these scenes would reverberate like?
Wonder what the soundtrack for these scenes would reverberate like?
By Faith God accepted Abel's Gift.
By Faith Enoch was swept away without dying.
By Faith Noah built a boat.
By Faith Moses delivered God's People.
By Faith the walls of Jericho fell down.
By Faith Rehab was spared.
By Faith Sarah gave birth to a child.
Or this moment in time taken from God's Word. Daniel 3
Three Men refusing to bow down. Standing up for Christ! Thrown into the fiery Furnace.The music is solemn, grave. Suddenly in their midst is the saviour! Can you hear the music? They are protected...not even a hint of smokey smell on their garments. The one in whom they put there trust has come to the rescue.
All who witness...All who see their salvation...All who listen to the music of their faith respond with Belief. "For no other God can do what this one does" Daniel 3:29
I often wonder how the music would change with the ending.
What if God showed up in the fiery Furnace for Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego.....held their hands...offered comfort...looked into their eyes as... they perished, as the were consumed by the flames. How would the witnesses respond? How would their families and friends remember their story, their song of faith?
A Crisis of faith perhaps..... Or simply acceptance for Gods plan.
A Crisis of faith perhaps..... Or simply acceptance for Gods plan.
This is my story, This is the story of my baby sister Michele.
Shelly changed her address to heaven last year and now lives in a home created especially for her! This was my Crisis of Faith. The moment when I had to choose to believe, accept God's will, or sit in sack cloth and become bitter, angry and un trusting of God and his plans.
Shelly was an ordinary girl, you wouldn't notice her in a crowd, and she preferred it that way. She was a young women with no hidden agendas, or ulterior motives. Simple Girl, Simple lifestyle, extraordinary heart.
At the Age of 21, in school to become a nurse with the intentions of becoming a foreign missionary and living her life in extreme areas of poverty, my sister learned she has a brain tumor that was inoperable and given 6 months to live.
God had other plans and so did she. He provided 1 of 2 doctors in the states willing to take the risk of operating on her tumor. We new the risks. 80% chance of Loosing all sight, altered personality, vegetative state.....But what choice do you have at 21 years of age. God was there, a miracle was performed, she recovered from a partially successful surgery and was left with no harm and a shunt in her head that allowed spinal fluid to drain into her abdomen. God Provided a Miracle for my family.
6 weeks later she was on the ground in Romania ministering to Gypsy children. She came home with no shoes and very few clothes. She gave them away to anyone who asked.
Christ became my sisters beloved! She had no earthly love except him. I can recall 2 kisses from boyfriends. But nothing serious. How do you start a relationship, a family, when you know that you have heard from God and He is saying your life on this earth will be very short. She obtained a job working with Alzheimer's patients and continued to travel the globe.She devoted herself to the people in this world with no voice, no hope. She shared the hope she had flowing from her soul. The hope of Christ.
She would endure 8 years of brain surgeries, (7), excruciating pain, migraine headaches masked by medication....several healing touches from the master, open heart surgery at 28....all while returning to Romania or Kenya shortly after a quick recovery against the advice of her doctors.
At the age of 30, lying in a hospital bed, she developed a brain infection. She was surrounded by family. Especially my Mother and Father. My Mom traveled the country with her...to special research hospitals, rehab centers for traumatic brain injuries. My Mom lived in hospitals and hotels for nearly a year. She would sit by my sisters side and then leave her room and minister to other families in traumatic events. Pray with them. Lead them to Christ. Share the testimony of God's faith fullness to our family and speak of a heaven that awaits those who love Christ Jesus. I know of many who received Christ. Whose lives were strengthened as a result of the path God had chosen for my sister and our families.
One thing I am sure of...She was in perfect Peace at all times! Never complaining always gracious...I Know it was God at work in her, in the midst of the fire, holding her hand while she was consumed!
She was at peace.......
She was at peace.......
Outwardly this was no peaceful thing. Death was not pretty, dignified, or gracious to her. My family suffered, our hearts cried out, pleaded, begged, bargained, accepted.
We watched as our God who can heal the sick, save the soul, command the wind, Raise the dead, we watched as he held her hand and allowed her to suffer and die. This is a Crisis of Faith.
We gathered together as she was dying, singing songs and praise and rejoicing in the healing that was about to take place, we read scripture, we cried, my mother talked her into the arms of Jesus.
When she was finally absent from the body and present with the Lord my dad gathered us around her, we held hands.
He prayed this prayer through tears, traumatic pain and agony......He could barely utter the words.............
"Father God I give to you my child...my baby girl...
The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, In all things Blessed be the name of the Lord."
We sang a song of Praise to the creator who held our hands as we were consumed.
This is my crisis of Faith. It is being worked out on a daily basis.
" I know whom I had believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I've committed unto Him against that day!"
My perspective has changed. My view of Life and Gods plan. I am much more focused on preparing for the gazillions of years I will spend in the presence of Christ than in the insignificant things, material possessions, and nonsense of the world. I seek after the eternal. The things that will last. I am teaching my children to long for the eternal while experiencing to the fullest all Christ has for them in this world.
I am trusting with blind faith in the things I do not understand. Gods ways are higher than ours, His plans are greater than ours. Of this I am certain.
I wonder what the music sounds like?
I Hope the soundtrack of my faith walked out is pleasing to my savior.
"Take Joy My King in what you hear. May it be a sweet, sweet sound in your ear."
Cafe Chat: Book Title
Saturday, July 26, 2008
What would be the Title of a book about your life?
Dot 2 Dot
As a young girl growing up, Saturdays in my family were simply "Silly Days"! My younger brother, baby sister, and I could hardly wait each week for the day to arrive. We would pile up in the living room, watch cartoons, munch on candy, and color or play games like connect the Dots.
"Connecting the dots" always fascinated me. You start with a piece of paper with numbered or lettered dots and begin to connect the lines, one at a time. Sometimes they were easy, sometimes they were difficult. One step at a time you draw from dot 2 dot until a picture begins to form. Sometimes you could guess right away what the final image would look like, sometimes it was harder to figure out. If you follow the directions carefully you end up with a perfect picture every time.
As I grew older I began to think "If only life were as easy as connecting the dots." Instead I felt as if I was holding a piece of paper with half of the image missing. Trying to move from point A to point B can sometimes be difficult. Especially when you are convinced you already know the final answer... but it doesn't seem to fit together right!
No mattered how hard I tried to connect my own life with real meaning, purpose and vision...Well it just kept on looking like scribble and doodles!
It took a long time for me to realize the problem.
I was not listening to God.
I was not reading the directions.
I was simply trying my best to make it all work on my own. It took me a long time to understand the answers. Lots of heartache, struggles, loss and pain for me to let go of the pencil!
I finally realized that I could not connect the random dots of my life! I had to submit, surrender the control, the pencil, to God and allow him to connect the Pieces of my life. It is a beautiful process! I give up control and Listen...God leads the way and makes the connections. I make mistakes...He erases them away for me!
I don't know exactly what the final picture will reveal in me. But it is getting clearer every day. Life is connecting, pieces are forming and God is still revealing the Big Picture. I can't wait to see........
Isaiah 30:21 (NIV)
21 Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, "This is the way; walk in it."
Psalm 73:24 (NIV)
You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory.
Isaiah 48:17 (NIV)
This is what the LORD says— your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: "I am the LORD your God, who teaches you what is best for you, who directs you in the way you should go.
