Happy February: Both E-books FREE today only!
Thank you so much for all your enthusiasm and encouragement regarding Plenty and Let In Light! I’m so glad that many of you have been able to enjoy these little 31-day devotionals. Since it’s the start of a new month, we’re offering both these e-books FREE again today only, if you’d like to give them away as gifts (or if you haven’t had a chance to get yours yet!). You can click either book at the right, or click here for Plenty and here for Let In Light.
Also, if you have read one or both, would you take a moment and write a review on Amazon? That’d be such a blessing! Thanks so much for spreading the word so women everywhere can be encouraged by God’s truth every day.
Thanks for your support. And guess what? A brand new e-book’s coming next month! Stay tuned. Have a great weekend, and thanks for reading.
"I knew this day would come!!!"
“THANK YOU GOD!! THANK YOU GOD!! THANK YOU GOD!!! THANK YOU GOD!!”
I was downstairs mopping the floor. The kids were upstairs playing quietly (yes, that does happen occasionally) when I heard Dutch yelling –YELLING — at the top of his lungs.
“THANK YOU GOD!! THANK YOU GOD!! THANK YOU GOD!!”
I ran around to the stairs, looked up, and smiled. Dutch was jumping up and down hugging … Max.
~
It had been a rough week. Wednesday night we put out an APB. The tears were flowing. We were searching. Dutch was frantic.
Where was Max?!
In our home, the Maxes are sacred. Each child has one, a small stuffed puppy, and for whatever reason both kids named theirs Max. So Heidi’s Max and Dutch’s Max are best friends and both kids sleep with their own Max tucked into bed with them. But then the unthinkable happened:
Max went missing. We looked high and low. Dutch sobbed. We prayed.
Still no Max.
For days this went on. Dutch prayed everyday.
Still no Max.
Then that Saturday morning I heard the yelling celebration and took the stairs up two at a time. At the top I slowed to peek at the celebration scene, and as I reached the top of the stairs I saw Dutch jumping around the room, beaming, holding his stuffed puppy. I stayed quiet, just watching, and he exclaimed,
“I knew this day would come!!”
I knew this day would come.
First off, I love my boy. He talks like he’s 40. But secondly, What an exclamation of hope.
I knew this day would come.
The next morning I rolled out early for my quiet time. Honestly, things had felt dry. There are plenty of things I’m praying for that, shall we say, haven’t appeared quite yet. I quietly and tiredly asked God to please throw me a bone because I could really use a Word from Him. I opened to Mark 9.
The scene is roughly the same as ours was when Max was lost–crisis and commotion. Jesus asks the crowd what’s going on. A man steps forward and explains that his son has a problem a lot bigger than a missing stuffed animal. He has a spirit that makes him mute, seizes him, throws him down; he foams at the mouth and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid, and the disciples couldn’t do anything about it.
The kid was demon-possessed.
Jesus asks the boy’s father: “How long has this been happening to him?” The boy’s father responds:
“From childhood.”
Oh God. Almost this boy’s entire life was characterized by suffering, torture, torment. The man had seen no relief. How many times had he asked for prayer? How many time had he himself pleaded for his son to be healed? He’d been disappointed more times than he could count.
And yet he asks one more time.
He risks the crush of disappointment and asked one more time for his son to be healed. And when Jesus questions his faith he replies,
“I believe! Help my unbelief!”
Yes. He believed long. He held onto hope. And for that part of his heart where he knew he could no longer believe he cried out to Christ and asked, “Help my unbelief!”
Help me believe long.
The boy is healed, completely, miraculously. Jesus commands the spirit to never enter him again. The boy is freed forever.
Because his dad kept on believing.
Sometimes heaven seems silent. For days Dutch prayed for Max, to no avail. For years the man sought help for his son and found none. For decades some have interceded for wayward children, for healing, for breakthrough.
Some of you have endured those long seasons of silence.
In prayer it is God’s job to conquer us. It is our job to believe long. No matter how long, we keep believing.
Because you just never know when Jesus will come on the scene.
And when he does, we can jump around like crazies and confidently proclaim,
“I knew this day would come!”
Believing long, with you. Thanks for reading.
When you feel like God is silent …
Hi. It’s me. This isn’t really a post this is just me saying hi, and I’ve had something on my heart this week. All week I’ve had this sense that we need hope.
We all need hope. You, your days are long and the challenges are real and you’re looking for real answers and real solutions and and the stuff you’re up against isn’t just fluff. Can I just tell you my inbox is full this week with precious notes from you — one of you in Indonesia has a husband on the brink with dengue fever, one of you in North Carolina is about ready to call it quits with a job that’s sucking you dry. One of you is facing a scary diagnosis, one of you just plain has too much to do. You’re all in need … and I am too. And sometimes when we pray, all we hear is silence.
Jesus had that happen too.
Jesus cried out on the cross, “My God, My God, why has thou forsaken me?”
Knowing Christ prayed these words reminds us of this: A season of aloneness, of silence, of nothingness, are not necessarily because God is displeased with you or that you have committed some horrendous offense against heaven. In fact, the two times I have keenly experienced this have been after making significant decisions to deny myself and follow Jesus. One such experience was in San Jose. That was by far the darkest night of my soul. Heaven was iron. There were no responses. And yet, it passed. That season was for nine months, and then some of the most glorious blessings followed.
The other season was 5 1/2 years ago, when we’d moved in with my parents and I was coming apart at the seams. Nothing seemed to offer any solace and there seemed no good outcome to our circumstance. That too passed.
Richard Foster calls those times “The Purifying Silence.” Though we often cannot tell, even afterward, exactly what God’s reasons were for His prolonged silence, we can often see a spiritual growth afterward that is unrecognizable in the middle of the storm. The further we get from the incident, the more clear it is.
What is beautiful about these seasons is that we realize that we cannot manipulate God. As Foster says,
“God refused to jump when I said, “Jump!” Neither by theological acumen nor by religious technique could I conquer God. God was, in fact, to conquer me” (p22).
The beauty of unanswered prayer, and of silence, and even of suffering is that we cannot control or manipulate God. Strangely enough, the waiting times work in us perseverance, or patience, and this patience produces in us …
Hope.
Are you waiting right now? Is everything silent? Are you knocking on the door but no one’s answering? God is faithful and the silence will not last forever. I pray for strength today to trust Him and hold onto hope. More on this (and a fun story) tomorrow …
Thanks for reading.
*Portland-Area readers: Tonight 1/30 from 6:30-8pm I’m doing a Faithfully Frugal workshop at a local church. It’s free and I’d love to see you there. More info here!
When you're just about to quit …
“So, you have someone who will watch Heidi while you speak?” I thought about this for a moment. Yes, now that you say it that would be the logical thing to do. But no, I don’t have someone. I suppose she’ll just be with me while I speak…
Hmmm…
It’s true that sometimes I agree to things before I’ve thought through exactly how it’ll all work out. Call it faith or call it stupidity, but the way I see it either God will come through mightily or I’ll learn a humbling and valuable lesson.
Either way is fine.
So I took Heidi (she was 2 at the time!) to a women’s retreat where I was speaking. To be fair, I did figure that in a group of 25 college women someone would be willing to help me, right?
We left on a Friday afternoon. Heidi took her responsibility as “mommy’s helper” very seriously. She had her Dora backpack, her pink pillow, her purple sunglasses (I think she thought the “beach” would be sunny?), her Tinkerbell flashlight and her pink “laptop.” She clutched it tight in her arms, held her head up high, and marched out to the car ready for the long weekend in Yachats.
By Eddyville she was fast asleep.
Of course the reality of having a 2-year-old with me was far different than the dream.There were two of us women and two small children sleeping in one bed (!), very little sleep, and a handful of other challenges that are just bound to happen (Oops forgot a towel, oops forgot soap, oops the bathtub doesn’t plug so Heidi can’t take a bath, oops brought the wrong cellphone charger so my phone is dead, oops there’s no CD player to play the songs I brought, oops I guess it’s that time of the month (!), oops had no sleep…).
I will confess I got up Saturday morning and typed out a text to Jeff: “Help! I can’t do this…on the verge of tears, we need to think of something.”
But my cellphone died before I could send it. 
God won’t let me quit even when I try.
Did I forget that when I’m weak then I am strong? (2 Cor. 12:10)
Did I forget that His power works best in my weakness? (2 Cor. 12:9)
Never before had I more experienced the truth of this than I did that weekend. Heidi sat with me during all five sessions. She was at my side every waking moment. My normal times of stealing away to be alone and prepare just didn’t happen. I couldn’t rely on my own ability to stay calm, cool, collected, rested. Perhaps for the first time in retreat-speaking I was truly and completely throwing myself at the mercy of God and resting in grace. Providence again….
Our topic was GRACE.
The gospel of grace is what changes us from the inside out.
I’m not sure if anyone learned it more than me. And truly, again by His grace, it was probably one of if not the most powerful retreat times I’ve ever had. It. Was. HIM.
Again, the gentle and kind reminder: Why do we so often stick to the known, the comfortable, that which is in our control when there is grace and mercy for the desperate. There’s filling for the hungry. Satisfaction for the needy. Strength for the weak.
Do I let myself get weak? Get hungry? Get weak? Do I let myself get to that point where I’m just about to quit, so that He can swoop in and display His power?
Sisters, where are you weak? Where are you desperate? Where are you hungry? Where are you needy? Where you are just about to quit?
That is exactly where God desires to pour out His power and grace.
For me, that Saturday morning God prevented my text message from going through. Kept me from throwing in the towel. Made me wait just a little bit longer.
Where do you need to wait just a little bit longer for His grace to be revealed?
Wherever you’re about to quit, hold on just a little bit longer. Grace is on the way.
Thanks for reading.