Ten Thousand Reasons

Scripture Memory:

We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints,

(Colossians 1:3-4 ESV)

Insights:

When I first memorized these two verses, the phrase that jumped out at me was on verse 3 "when we pray for you," in particular the word "when." I wrote down "continual intercession for my brothers and sisters in Christ should be a part of my daily prayer life. My prayers should not just be focused on my comfort and my needs alone (and there are many). Like my reading in Revelation 5 this morning, it says that my prayers are like incense in a golden bowl. May it be a pleasing aroma to God, my Father!"

That was on February 15th. I thought I was done. A short and concise post - for a change.

But at the last minute, God gave me something else.

As I have shared with a friend, so far life has been a tad hard the last couple of days, weeks, months, okay, really it's the whole year. I suppose when you start 2012 with a visit to Urgent Care for your child it is sending you a message: "Girl ~ Hi, this is 2012. You're in for a ride. Watch out!" Thanks, 2012 I hope the Mayans were right about you.

Inspite of the challenges though, I find myself clinging more to God lately in the form of a song. "Bless the Lord, o my soul, oh my soul, worship His holy name, sing like never before, O my soul, worship Your holy name."

At home = sing. At church = sing. At work = sing (softly). In the shower = sing (LOUDLY). Earlier when I read Ann Voskamp's blog, she had a link to a YouTube video - and I couldn't believe it - it's my song! Well, it's Matt Redman's actually but you know what I mean. I felt like I just received a kiss from God. I took out my headphones and spent my lunch hour just singing, praising and crying. I felt my soul soaring. That is my when eyes fell on Colossians 1:3 "We always thank God...." In this context, my song sounds even better especially after reading the rest of the lyrics (I was stuck in the refrain). I'm posting it below. May it bless you as it has blessed me.

Matt Redman - Ten Thousand Reasons (10,000 Reasons) (Bless the Lord), New Album - 10,000 reasons, Year: 2011

Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning
It's time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes

Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

You're rich in love, and You're slow to anger
Your name is great, and Your heart is kind
For all Your goodness I will keep on singing
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find

Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still my soul will sing Your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore

Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name

Jesus, I'll worship Your holy name
Lord, I'll worship Your holy name

Sing like never before
O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name
Jesus, I'll worship Your holy name
I'll worship Your holy name

May you find your 10,000 reasons to praise God today.

Adventures in Colossians

Hi, again. Excuse the dust. I have been busy posting twice a week on this blog and have neglected this one. You might ask, "But, Grace & Peace, you can't even keep up with this blog, why start another one?" Trust me, I'm asking that question myself. All I can say is: It's all God's fault. :) It's His idea not mine.

Sometimes God can be a tad...demanding. Not only does He want me reading His Word daily in 2012, He also wanted me to memorize Colossians in a year. Ahem, actually, He asked me to do that last year. But due to my son's illness (and my inherent laziness), I let it fall through. So, truthfully, it's not His fault.

What I plan to do is to post the two verses each day (or week or let's be realistic, however long it takes me) plus the insights that He gives as I ponder those two verses. I chose the ESV instead of the NIV used in Ann's blog (see, another excuse - I'm good at finding those).

Shall we begin?

I admit my weakness, I'm motivated by cute. And this notebook I found at Staples from the Martha Stewart line is very cute:

I printed the verses on the Avery 8164 labels (6 to a sheet) so I couldn't use the excuse of "I don't have time to cut and paste the verses!" The label fits perfectly in the notebook. It was done in no time!

What are we waiting for? Let's go!

[x] Memorize:

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother,

To the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae:

Grace to you and peace from God our Father.

(Colossians 1:1-2 ESV)

Insights:

Paul became an apostle by the will of God. He was a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5-7) and in his own words, a "persecutor of the church." But God (I love this phrase - anytime you see that it means something good is about to happen) had something in mind for him (see what I mean?). Something that is beyond his imaginings. Paul preached the gospel to the Gentiles and his writings live on today.

God can give someone a Damascus experience where the blindness and scales will fall afterwards. No one is beyond the reach of God's mighty hand. Amen and Amen.

What hope that gives me!

An Invitation

How is 2012 so far? Are you keeping your resolutions? If one of them is to go on a deeper walk with God, perhaps I can help in some way. Some friends and I are reading through the bible here. Will you join us? We would love to have you there.

May this year be more fruitful than the last.

Happy New Year!

Birthday Blessings

I took the day off. A good start!

Then I decided to commemorate my 47 years with 47 minutes in the elliptical machine.

(Proof!)

All I can say is, I hope Jesus comes back before I turn 48 because I barely survived that. (I admit, I'm a wimp.)

My husband was supposed to pick me up so we can have lunch but that changed when I received a call from our son, P, "Uhm, Mom? The awards thing is today at 11:40." So, change of plans to meet at school and have lunch there somewhere instead.

After lunch, I went to Abercrombie (and held my breath the entire time I was there) to exchange the 2 things my husband bought for me the night before. They were size extra small. Bless his clueless heart. Got a nice, sensible gray sweater instead.

I picked up P two hours later (did I really spend two hours walking around? Why, yes, yes I did.) We went to Costco to buy flowers because they are $5 cheaper than the florist down the street. Of course $111 later....

Anyway.

The bagger at Costco commented on the beautiful bouquet. I told him it was for my Mom. He asked if it was her birthday and I replied, no it's mine. Oh, he was so tickled that I'm buying flowers for her on my birthday. He said that was the sweetest thing. He had the biggest smile that I didn't have the heart to tell him I was taking it to the cemetery.

(Thank you, Mom.)

Leaving the cemetery, we saw this: waterfall in the sky!

Blessings are pouring forth! And indeed they have:

• Calls and text messages from my family, near and far.
• Birthday greetings and prayers from friends, near and far.
• A special blog post from a dear friend from college whom I have reconnected recently. It's a bonus that we are both Jesus girls now.
• A poem from another college friend. She is embarking on writing a thousand verses to glorify God. She is also a Jesus girl.
• Dinner with my extended family including my sister, who shares the same birthday though 8 years apart. (My mom is known for her timing.)
• Seeing our boys play together.

On the way home, P took a picture of the sunset. When I looked at it later in the evening, it reminded me a lot of the Calvary Chapel dove! Compare:

Yes, Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

As I wrote my blessings on my notebook, my mind drifted back to what the first graders (dressed as little pilgrims!) sang during the awards program: "Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One, give thanks because HE has given Jesus Christ, His Son."

That is the greatest gift of all.

Counting God's Gifts

"Ingratitude is a sin." - Chuck Missler, Koinonia Institute, Haggai/Malachi class

I did a double take when I heard it, not because it was foreign to me, but because I have heard it before.

From all of our beginnings we keep reliving the Garden story.

Satan, he wanted more. More power, more glory. Ultimately in his essence, Satan is an ingrate. And he sinks his venom in the heart of Eden. Satan's sin becomes the first sin of humanity: the sin of ingratitude. Adam and Eve are simply, painfully, ungrateful for what God gave.

Isn't that the catalyst of all my sins?

Our fall was, has always been, and always will be, that we aren't satisfied in God, in what He gives. We hunger for something more. Something other."

- Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts, page 9.

After reading this book. I started keeping my own list of One Thousand Gifts. That was February 13, 2011. I started with 7 or 8 per day. There was always something, even something small. Little did I know God was using this practice of looking daily for His blessings, to help me focus on Him six weeks later. It was then I realized not all gifts are good and easy. In fact, some blessings are downright hard.

My then 10-year old son, "Phineas," came down with a headache that Thursday morning. It did not go away even after the Tylenol I gave him before going to school. He stayed home the next day and the fever still didn't go away. On top of it he was acting really strange and I could not understand what he was saying. I told him, "Son, if this is an April Fool's joke, it's not very funny." When we went to Urgent Care, the doctor took one look at him and sent us to Children's Hospital for a possible brain inflammation. He was admitted to Children's Hospital with a meningitis diagnosis- viral, the good kind, they said. Then he was discharged - prematurely, I thought - two days later.

I was right.

By Wednesday night I found myself calling 911. We found ourselves back to Children's ER in the early hours of Thursday, April 7th. It was to the longest day of our lives but the practice of listing my gifts continued:

558. A son being carried by his Dad

559. No waiting in the ER! (This was a first)

560. Prayer requests sent at 3:16 a.m. to my sisters-in-Christ across the country

561. Response at 3:18 a.m. from Tennesee

562. Phone call from North Carolina

563. Real men do cry (my husband).

P's condition continued to deteriorate. By 11:00 a.m., he was non-responsive and it was the most frightening thing I have ever seen. My normally vibrant, intelligent, talkative son has been reduced to someone catatonic with a vacant stare. I had just downloaded YouVersion on my phone and decided to play the Psalms in audio. I held it over him and prayed that God's word can penetrate the recesses of his brain. When they were ready to take him to the CT scan I leaned over and whispered, "Son, I don't know if you can hear me but all those bible verses you've memorized for the Awana Bible Quiz and the Bible Bee? I need you to think about those right now, okay?"

The CT scan came back normal and they scheduled an MRI and his 3rd spinal tap at 3:00 p.m. After the MRI:

572. Nurse was paying attention when P had the seizure and aspirated

573. Running, running to his room - it felt like forever

574. Code Blue and all medical personnel descending to his room

I don't think I will ever forget turning around and seeing my husband, the one who has been indifferent to God, huddled under a desk, tears and terror in his eyes. This particular son - this is his "Isaac." The hospital personnel took us to a different room where we prayed. My husband was on his knees the whole time. They eventually stabilized P, moved him to the ICU and hooked him to a ventilator. They sent my husband and I (and by this time, our older son who insisted on flying back from college when he learned P was sick) home. I wrote down every blessing that day. I ended up with 55. It was the most I have ever written.

P spent a week in ICU and 4 more weeks in recovery. Some days were good (646. He opened his eyes) and some were difficult like finding out that it wasn't just meningitis but something else that affected not only his brain but also his spinal cord. The neurologist was not sure if he will be the same again. But every night without fail, as soon as I finish making my makeshift bed and he is asleep, I take my red notebook out and write my blessings. And I found this to be true:

"It is suffering that has the realest possibility to bear down and deliver grace…emptiness itself can birth the fullness of grace because in the emptiness we have the opportunity to turn to God, the only begetter of grace, and there find all the fullness of joy…" Ann Voskamp, OneThousand Gifts

Looking back, I am amazed at what God has done. I belong to a group of sister believers who pray for our unsaved/not walking with the Lord spouses - their husbands started praying when they heard about what happened to my son. God kept me healthy even with minimal sleep. I did not get sick at all and I was not even crabby. The peace that passes understanding in Philippians 4:7? I experienced that. The prayers of faithful (Awana family, church, online friends) sustained us. God introduced me to other families in the ICU and I was able to minister to them. And the most amazing thing of all? After my son was discharged on May 6, my husband came to church with us that following Sunday. I have been praying for that for 7 years and tried everything in my arsenal from manipulation to guilt. Nothing worked. Until God stepped in. And His timing was perfect. It was the best Mother's Day ever.

This is the first time I am putting this experience in writing. I wish I could tell you everything that happened during and after those weeks. I just wanted to share my testimony for whomever may need it today. Let this be my offering of gratitude to God for what He has given us.

Psalm 136:1-3

¹O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever.

²O give thanks unto the God of gods: for his mercy endureth for ever.

³O give thanks to the Lord of lords: for his mercy endureth for ever.

God still works miracles, in ways we never expect. He restored my son. He is restoring my husband and our marriage. I don't want to forget -- and waste His gift, ever.

Hello, again!

It has been a while!

God and I have been on a ride these past few months. But that is another post. For today, let's start with something light.

My husband just came back from a business trip in Japan. Usually when he comes back from a trip, he brings some sort of cold virus with him. But not this time! There's nothing like experiencing two 6.0 magnitude aftershocks to make one's immune system go on high alert and behave.

Anyway he brought some goodies with him.

Pretty, right? I don't know what's in them but I love the colors.

For the boys, he bought this for our older son:

You use the hammer on top of his head to knock off the colored cylinders so his head connects to his base. Loud!

And then this mysterious box for our young one. We can't figure out how to open it. It's a 12-piece puzzle. Both of them tried it and they have only gone as far as to move two slots:

Finally, for me. He said he chose this dessert that is very special because it is only good for two days! We must consume it! Immediately! So, while he headed for the Baggage Claim section, I carefully unwrapped the package and saw these:

Uh-oh, I think we're too late.

He laughed. No, that's how it looks! Go ahead and try it. Since I love him, I ate one. But only after he did.

And we are still alive. (But in case it is a slow acting mutant virus, go ahead and change the caption to the picture as "Exhibit A")

It's good to be back.

A New Heart?

I'm taking The Way of Agape class by Nancy Missler. On our lesson this week Nancy said once we accepted Jesus as our Savior, God gave us a new heart. This surprised me the most when I heard it for the first time. I have been thinking about it for a over a week and I'm still not sure I can wrap my head around this! She said that our new hearts "are totally pure, totally incorruptible, and completely holy because it is now God's life and not our own." Christ in us the hope of glory.

A new heart? Really? How come I can't tell the difference?

And how do we explain these scriptures?

Eccl 9:3 This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead. How it says in Jeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it? (NIV)

And in Matthew 15:19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander.

Nancy said that the evil heart pertains to unbelievers. Looking at the context in the above verses seem to confirm that. Especially this one: Matthew 12:34 You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees when He said this.

Unbelievers cannot do anything with the conditions of their hearts. No matter how hard they try. Before my husband became a believer, I remember him swearing to me that "I'm going to be a changed man!" But that would only last a day or so. After that, it would revert to the old ways or -- even get worse! (Lord, I assumed that when he said "changed man" that he meant for the better!) To be fair, I have a string of broken New Year's resolutions myself.

"Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." David asked God in Psalm 51:10. I looked up the word "create" in Hebrew:

Strong's H1254 - bara'

1) to create, shape, form

a) (Qal) to shape, fashion, create (always with God as subject)

1) of heaven and earth

2) of individual man

3) of new conditions and circumstances

4) of transformations

Did you see that? Always with God as a subject. That means only God can do this.

This would then explain the verses found in:

Proverbs 27:19
As water reflects a face, so a man's heart reflects the man. (I know people who have that "glow" in their faces. They are Spirit-filled believers. I also know plenty of people whose face show the ravages not only of age but of the hardness of their spirits.)

Luke 6:45
The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks

I learned another lesson today. It just dawned on me that those scriptures I read about the evilness of our hearts became a convenient excuse. If my heart is beyond cure and no one can understand it, then when the things spoken of in Matthew 15:19 come out (aka the "uglies"), I can't do anything about them, right? The message I was sending was, Hey, I know I'm a professing Christian but I really can't help the way I act at all. It's my heart! See, it's evil. Why bother trying if my heart is going to revert to its original evil nature. It absolves me of responsibility of exercising the new willpower that God gave me. How misguided I have been...

I started to feel condemned, but I realize where that condemnation is coming from. It's not from God, it's from same source of the lie about the condition of my heart. Now I come before our Lord with repentance and hope.

Ephesians 1:18

I pray that your hearts will be flooded with light so that you can understand the confident hope he has given to those he called—his holy people who are his rich and glorious inheritance. The phrase "flooded with light" reminds me the picture of a submitted life from whence God's love can flow. I pray that from this day on, I will remember that I carry a brand new, clean heart created just for me by God. Yet another gift from my Savior.