happy birthday b, love you very much sis! save some kids today – ha!

Wait for the LORD;
be strong and take heart
and wait for the LORD.

then this morning i read from good old oswald chambers’ devotional my utmost for His highest and this really stood out to me:

Our problems arise when we refuse to place our trust in the reality of His presence.

as i’ve been waiting on the Lord, feeling quite challenged to be still, trust, and know He is near, i began to wonder: if more people knew they could access the power of the Almighty, would they then believe? if people understood that the most amazing mystery of Christianity is that the Almighty, All-Powerful God of the Universe really does want to talk to them, to engage with them and give them the ultimate freedom for life that can only come from Him. if people knew that as mere human beings we can access that power and His infinite wisdom, would they want it? would they consider knowing Jesus?

Jesus gave. His life was about nothing less than sacrificial giving. He gave His life. for ALL of us.

what will i give? will i give freely? or will i give with expectation of something in return?

matthew 22:37-39

Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’

Lord, help me to give love just as you commanded.

you can see more of her fabulous talent at her blog industrious emily endeavors. so proud of you em :-)

the five dysfunctions of a team by patrick lencioni

great book! i’m the kind of reader that picks up a book, gets a little ways in and is super bored. in fact, if you pulled any given book off my bookshelf at home i can pretty much guarantee you’ll find it dog-eared at about 40-60 pages in. i kid you not. it is a horrible habit and one i wish i could break!

anyway, this book is not one of those. i seriously could not put it down. it’s a great book on leadership, that’s for sure. but it’s also a really good read. many, many people have read it… i’m a bit late to jump on the bandwagon, but i had to recommend it anyway. whether you work on teams at work or in ministry, it’s super practical and i highly reccomend it.

back to the narrow place in the path.

it was really narrow. to the left was a massive boulder. to the right was a 30 to 40 foot drop. a 30 to 40 foot drop down some major rocks. as we passed through the narrow part, i was a little nervous (i have had a heightened awareness of my own mortality since i attempted to summit mt. rainier) but it wasn’t until it occurred to me that peter, tall, like six-foot three tall peter was behind me. maneuvering around the branches on this narrow part of the path was hard enough for me at five-foot five and the branches were at my face–i couldn’t imagine having branches starting at my chest and trying to push them all out-of-the-way while crossing this super narrow space with gaps between the rocks we were walking on.

whew. we made it through the narrow part.

todd sets our ropes and peter and i prepare to repel down the wall. we put on our harnesses and enjoy the beautiful weather the Lord blessed us with and being outside with good company.

todd finishes setting the ropes and asks us if we’re ready to repel. we look at our harnesses and todd says, “hey peter, you gotta double-back your harness. i’m pretty sure lindsey would like you to make it down the repel and live the rest the day.” for those that don’t know, when climbing, you have to double back the waist belt and leg loops of your harness. that way they won’t come undone (like that crazy scene in the beginning of cliff hanger when sylvester stalone can’t rescue his woman… her harness wasn’t double-backed).

that’s why we have safety checks. so peter double-backed his harness and we were all set. all three of us repelled down the wall and enjoyed a day of climbing from that point forward.

but something really struck me in that moment. something i wasn’t prepared for and something that has stuck with me since last saturday. for the past three years since i’ve started climbing i haven’t really been all that concerned about the danger of it. i simply went about doing things that people might consider dangerous because it seemed like fun. it’s exciting. but something changed that day. suddenly i realized, there is this person i deeply care about doing this crazy dangerous stuff with me. suddenly the danger seemed to overtake the feeling of adventure. suddenly all that was at stake became real. one slip on the path, one lapse in safety measures and nothing would be the same.

this might seem overly dramatic to some, but i don’t think it is. through this experience the Lord showed me something profound. the greatest step of faith in my life to date, is choosing to trust God with peter’s life and my life. and committing to peter, means i’m committing to trusting God’s will for both of us. i know, duh linds. but when mortality comes into the picture, decisions take on a whole new perspective.

before i was blessed with peter i found it easier to trust the Lord with my life in these dangerous situations. truly believing (i know, this might sound morbid to some) that God has my life and if He chose to take it while doing some crazy dangerous thing that’s okay with me. but bring peter into the picture, and wow, my thoughts and feelings change dramatically.

i don’t naturally trust the Lord with peter’s life like i have trusted the Lord with my own. i want to hold tight to peter’s life, protect him, ensure he’s safe and cared for. but i can’t control his life. God is in control, God is sovereign. and walking by faith means trusting the Lord with EVERYTHING, including the lives of the people we love.

i didn’t see this side of trust coming my way. but it makes sense to me. am i going to trust the Lord and His leading knowing He can change the course of things at anytime? am i going to step out in faith in this relationship and know that the Lord promises to be with us no matter the storms, trials, difficulties?

without faith it is impossible to please God. i want to please God. trusting God with this relationship with peter is my greatest step of faith yet. and i praise God for it.

ecclesiastes 4:9-12

⁹ Two are better than one,
       because they have a good return for their work:

 ¹⁰ If one falls down,
       his friend can help him up.
       But pity the man who falls
       and has no one to help him up!

 ¹¹ Also, if two lie down together, they will keep warm.
       But how can one keep warm alone?

 ¹² Though one may be overpowered,
       two can defend themselves.
       A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.

the other day i was running with my separated at birth running partner. truly, i think God made my friend ashley and i to be running partners. same pace, same determination, same expectations, etc. it truly is a running match made in heaven :-) so we were running and came up to a stop light and i noticed she was blinking her eyes pretty extensively and looked a bit uncomfortable. mind you it’s pretty toasty out and we’ve been running for 25 minutes at this point so we’re quite sweaty.

as we’re standing at the light i asked her if she was okay. she said she was fine she just had some sweat get in her eyes. i looked at my synthetic wicking shirt and thought this shirt is not gonna help. i looked at hers and thought the same thing. i didn’t want her to have to go the rest of the run though with her eyes hurting so much.

and then, it appeared… a super white, like hotel white, just bleached towel was draped over the electric box (i think that’s what it is, one of those things that controls the traffic lights). we looked at it,  there wasn’t a blemish on the thing. it was so random and so perfectly placed right where ashley needed it. i don’t know whose it was, it was just sitting there as if the Lord had put it there just for her.

YAHWEH Yirah. He shows Himself even in the small things. now if i could just get myself to a point where i’m always looking for it. i bet i’d see Him so much more :-)

You see, when I was younger my hair was the bane of my existence. And I am not exaggerating. I was made fun of from the time I was 10 years old to probably 15 for this hair of mine. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t try to tame this mane. All in all I think my hair has cost me more money than anything else in my life. And I promise it’s not because I am vain, I just wanted to look normal.

So you see the “irony” in someone telling me they think my hair is pretty? But I say “irony” in quotes like that because I was reminded of something by this silly little story. It’s just like our Father in Heaven to take that which is ugly to us and make it pretty to others (okay so the Scripture says take that which is intended for evil and use it for good, but give me a break here, you know what I’m getting at).

If you had told me when I was 13 years old and getting called horrific names that sent me home crying on a pretty consistent basis that one day someone would like my hair I would have stared at you in disbelief. But that really is what our God does isn’t it? He takes things that we think are impossible and He makes them possible. He makes beauty out of ashes.  He takes the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.

Who knew hair could spark such appreciation for my Savior :-)

“One of the signs that you may not grasp the unique, radical nature of the Gospel is that you are certain that you do.”

- Timothy Keller, Senior Pastor, Redeemer Presbyterian Church, NYC   

this book flipped the parable of the prodigal son on its back and is really challenging me. thought i’d share :-)

Water You turned into wine
Opened the eyes of the blind
There’s no one like you
None like You

Into the darkness you shine
Out of the ashes we rise
There is no one like You
None like You

Our God is greater
Our God is stronger
God you are higher than any other
Our God is Healer
Awesome in power
Our God, Our God

and if our God is for us
then who could ever stop us
and if our God is with us
then what could stand against

As I look into the stars
Pondering how far away they are
How You hold them in Your hands
And still You know this man
You know my inner most being, oh
Even better than I know, than I know myself
What a beautiful God
What a beautiful God
And what am I, that I might be called Your child
What am I, what am I
That You might know me, my King
What am I, what am I, what am I
As I look off into the distance
Watching the sun roll on by
Beautiful colors all around me, oh
Painted all over the sky
The same hands that created all of this
They created you and I
What a beautiful God
What a beautiful God
And what am I, that I might be called Your child
What am I, what am I
That You might know me, my King
What am I, what am I
That You might die, that I might live
What am I, what am I, what am I, what am I
What am I
What am I
What am I
What am I
What am I
- Shawn McDonald

¹“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser.

 ²“Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit, He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit, He prunes it so that it may bear more fruit.

 ³“You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.

 ⁴“Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.

 ⁵“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.

 ⁶“If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.

 ⁷“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.

 ⁸“My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.

 ⁹“Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.

 ¹⁰“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.

 ¹¹“These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and that your joy may be made full.

Choosing JOY this Monday because God’s Word is alive and TRUE. I sense the Lord pressing in me to simply abide in Him; to cease striving; to cease what I think is right in His eyes and to just BE. To just be in His presence, in His will; to remain in Him. There are so many things I can get caught up in―my service, the amount of time I spend studying my Bible, wondering if I’m grasping what God wants me to grasp, striving to hear from Him. And those things aren’t bad per say. But for now, for this very day, for this very week, I sense Him saying, just abide in me. Ask nothing, seek nothing. Just abide in Me, the One who created you, the One who loves you beyond reason, the One who will see My glory in you because I created you for that.

Finding JOY and receiving JOY today because His Word is alive and TRUE and He LOVES ME :-)

so, this made me happy this weekend:

why? because my fabulous friend heather will be sleeping in this room in my house for the next few weeks. hence the title house friend. she’s not really a house guest as she’s such a wonderful woman of faith and has been such a blessing to me. she’s not really a guest, she’s quite a bit more and i can’t wait for her to get here and enjoy some quality girl time–something we haven’t had in quite a few years.

truly praising God for the blessing of beautiful friendships :-)

some small town norman rockwell-esque photos. it’s such a cute little town :-)

my sis and her cute little fam :-)

“if we postpone our journey till the storm dies down, we may never get started.”

- JI Packer

Lord – you are as close as the mention of your name and You are the calmer of the storms. let us trust You no matter the situation and circumstances. cling to what is true! we are warriors :-)

can’t wait to see them! love you girls :-)