VBS ~ already

WOW here it is that time when i kick it into fast drive and start plannin' worship for VBS. Sure it's not until July but shoot do you have any idea how much time it takes to plan one of these things. Ok it sounds like I'm complaining NO WAY!!! this is what I love. Find songs, 16 new songs - learn 16 new songs - choreograph 16 new songs - make training DVD for 16 new songs - teach 16 new songs to a worship team, 10 - 12 people. Then it will be here, the craziest, no sleeping most exciting week ever - VBS. Lord give me 16 new awesome songs: songs that will minister to every person in that Gym from the little 4yr. old to the oldest 75 year old. May we be a sweet sweet sound in Your ear. Here is what I'm playing with right now, does anyone have any to add to this list:

Never Will - by Tim Timmons
With All Of My Heart - by Stand In Awe
You Are the One - by Lincoln Brewster
Joyful Sound - by Scarlet Hope
Big House - Audio Adrenalin
Sing Sing Sing - Chris Tomlin

I want that Mountian!

I wonder if Caleb knew what that mountain would hold for him. Did he just see the biggest one and desired to bring glory to God by wanting what seemed the most impossible without the empowerment of God. Sure he remembered the promise of God to have it but here was this mountain full of enemy, full of what would seem everything most difficult and all Caleb can do is stand on the promise of God and desire with his whole heart that mountain. Change is good - painful, sad, and lonely but when it means to be able to bring glory to God then change is perfect, sweet and full of peace.
Where is my ginormous mountain? I want it!

#200

OK this snuck up way to fast but what in the world could i do for my #200 blog post???? So I know you're praying that I won't do something crazy like list 200 _ _ _ _ _ (fill in the blank) well I wont because quite frankly I can't even begin to think what I would put in that blank. So let's just bless everyone and say a hip hip hooray I actually have made it to 200 post. See I do know how to be sweet and simply.

Guess what I got for Valentines?

When Donna passed, I prayed for almost a year that I would have a dream to see her face again. How I longed to look in those eyes and see that smile again. But, no that would never be my dream. I eventually decided to just let it go, trusting my Jesus that he knew best as He has with everything else, so I let that desire go and moved on from those thoughts. But how very odd that I never dreamt of her. Along with those days I often regretted time that I could have spent with her that I chose not to out of pure laziness. Lord was I wrong in not taking every single moment I could have ever spent with her???
So this morning at 3:45am I awoke from the best gift I could have gotten on this Valentine's Day. Dreaming that Donna came back from heaven and we were hanging out in her house like we used to. It was a normal day. When I woke up I was so full of love and thankfulness. The thing that struck me most was that I wasn't doting over her, it was just normal how we always were before. What this gave my heart was no more regrets of if I never spent enough time with her. I felt like the Lord was telling me -' no Susan it was as it should have been and having her back the 2 of you would fall right back into the same perfect way'.
So this day I am thankful that I have finally had a dream about Donna just hanging, laughing, talking, just sitting with her - just being who we always were.

So thank you Jesus for my Valentine's gift.

So how was the rest of the RETREAT

Our Leader's retreat was so amazing. This year more then ever it seemed as if God did so many different layers of hard work in the lives of so many of us. For me retreat started back in August as I began to make certain commitments to the Lord as to how I would pray and what I would be willing to do leading up to and at retreat. This was the first year that I started a prayer journal that I was committed to writing and although I regrettably did not write every prayer I did manage to write appox. 600 7 1/2 by 10 1/2 pages of prayers / thoughts over a period slightly over 5 months. This morning looking over this journal and reading so many prayers and the constant theme of "Lord whatever it takes may we be yielded to the process of consecration so that our hearts will be pliable ready to receive all that You want and need for us" "may we learn love for one another as this process gets messy, offensive, and often fighting mad" " give us Your strength to exercise love, grace, compassion and mercy living in an understanding way with one another". WOW what was I thinking praying those crazy difficult prayers - lol

The week before retreat I was so super blessed to be ask of God to head up a prayer and fast vigil for our leadership team for the process of praying for our retreat / ministry and each leader and the spiritual needs of all of us. This was such a great work of God. We started the night 18 strong ( way more then I could have ever believed would come) and ended the next day 8 strong. It's hard for me to write about that time of praying all through the night with a group of ladies but I am sure your mind can fill in the blanks. The thing I took away from that night was freedom - for me in ways I never knew I wasn't living in freedom with. Cleansing - healing and a strengthening of my ability to Believe that He is more then able!!! I had to just lift my hands to the Lord and smile saying " of course there's 8 of us standing - this is a new season for our ministry. ( 8 - the number of new beginnings) I love how God loves to work in the details - that is often where I hear His voice the clearest. Well this laid a solid foundation for us getting ready to go the following week up to that mountain, in that house, with 24 women ready to seek God with all their hearts, souls, minds, and strength.
So retreat came and we worshipped, gurlll did we worship - I'm sure Lori must have known putting me in charge of worship what that could potentially look like. O how I love to worship. And guess what I had a giant answer to prayer - I was able to let myself go and have freedom in worship. It's a crazy prideful thing but in a group of people I get so caught up in my inabilities that I never let go and let God, well not this weekend - it was me and my Jesus lovin each other up. Do you have any idea how loud one can sing "Jesus Lover oF My Soul" ? - lol LOUD!!!!!

Okay let's sum this up - how was retreat?
The Word - came forth in Power and with great conviction challenging us to make the final choice either "Yes Lord I will obey' or " No Lord I chose DISOBEDIENCE" so which camp each heart is on remains to be seen but shoot I'm way to terrified to not chose obedience.
Thank you Lori for being willing to go to the hard places of truth with us.
Prayer - much needed and a lot really alot of praying
Worship - now I'm super partial but this was good worship - I only regret that I didn't add more. Not sure anyone else holds that truth but i do (lol)
Praise - we are growing in this - WOW what a year we could have if we allow this work to grow in our lives.
Discussion Time - this was a great new addition to our retreat. To sit after the teachings and reflect on what we heard / felt and questioned. This for sure gave us insight into what is going on in all of our heads.
Fellowship - good solid times: long over due apologies / difficult conversations that needed to happen for walls to be torn down / funny stories / sad stories / many nails to be painted / catching up with friends that we barely get a chance to really talk with at church / sitting in silence just holding each other / things happening in bedrooms with one another that well guys think they only hold those things sacred (tee-hee) / stories stories and more stories that knit us closer together / friends running away to the loft to let God do the needed work to take the friendship to the next God level. So much good stuff
Food - I'm not at liberty to disclose anything in this category for fear of being accused of gluttony :0D but when you get this many women together and so many of us love to cook well you can imagine - like I said sinful gluttony!!! :0D
Weather - sunshine/fog, sunshine/rain, sunshine/snow, sunshine/hail - we had it all and it was all beautiful. Even the foundational leak that got me wet had it's purpose. Funny thing there, so I'm standing in my socks praising God and all of the sudden my socks are soaking wet - literally that much water. When it first started happening I thought Lord what is going on my feet feel wet, what does this mean - DUH !!!! It meant my stinkin feet were wet. shoot you know me I'm always lookin for a spiritual picture. It was pretty funny though. So 4 blankets, 20 towels, 10 sheets later that small little area where I stood finally was dry enough for me to stand once again in socks.

O by the way our retreat was

Devoted - Mark 12:20 Love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.

We have been greatly challenged in this verse and we come home with lots of homework. May this time next year each one of use point to this retreat as the crossroads that we picked His road. Hard YES regreats NO worth it YES!!!!

Going into retreat I had shared with Lori that I knew I was going to get the word obey or yield. It just seemed like in all my conversations and in all my studies that those were the resounding ideas. I hadn’t been ready to let go of my last year’s word “BELIEVE” and get a new one. I was actually a bit sad, because God had tested me so much in that word over the year and I felt like I was just beginning to live in a place of victory in it. So when it came time to receive the new word I had to really take a moment to pray and tell the Lord that ‘yes I was ready and could receive it in faith that He had a good work for me in the new word”. Looking at these pretty little red bags, which one Lord do I grab? I took the one closest to me. Unzipping it revealed the word YIELD. My heart was beating so hard, it was this complete sense of thank you Jesus, You told me this and yes I heard. Do what you need and want Lord. Sharing my word with many of my friends it became comical because of course that’s what I got.
I choose not to do the study time for my word during the designated time. I just wasn’t ready yet. So come Sunday morning I sat down in a very quiet private living room to look at my first verse for YIELD. There it was Joshua 24:23. Now what you need to know is that Joshua is my current Bible boyfriend. In ‘k’ group we are inductively studying the life of Moses but ever since the beginning when Joshua is mentioned in any small verse I am drawn to him, what he is doing, what he is not doing and am desiring to acquire his character. So here I was with my new word ( that God had already prepared me to get) and looking at my first verse (in the book about my Bible boyfriend). How could I not believe that God was showing me something solid to start my year off on His path.
Joshua 24:23 "Now then," said Joshua, "throw away the foreign gods that are among you and yield your hearts to the LORD, the God of Israel."

Great verse but as I sat there and thought Lord what are my foreign gods? Nothing came to mind. Well I’m not one to be deceived by my self in thinking that I’m doing great. So I sat there and told the Lord I wouldn’t move on to the next verse until I could dig through my deceptive heart and hear truth from Him, in what my foreign gods were. I decided to read the verse in context. And of course guess what was the ending verse of that - - obey. The other word I thought I might get. So now I knew God was trying to reveal something to me just in case my flesh or the enemy wanted to deceive me. Good grief how could I not see His fingerprints all over this. I sat there for awhile and still nothing. By this time there were the kitchen girls up getting coffee / breakfast started. Joanne, Mary, Becky, and Nidia. I knew what I should do, humble myself enough to go to them and ask them if they would please be willing to share honestly with me what they thought my foreign gods are. Yes I know CRAZY-COO COO. Who does that??? I'll blame it on sleep deprivation ;0D
Well Joanne piped in right away (this girl loves me so I know anything she says comes from a pure heart of love towards me). She looked at me and said,” your expectations of people” uuhhgggg – the rest of her words are a blur because as the words came out of her mouth I knew exactly what she was saying. OUCH this hurt so much but I knew she was right. Then Becky came over and sat at the table with me. Now Becky is someone I am barely getting to know. She sat there and shared with me that she sees in me a mom that has expectations on her son that is driving him to become a bitter angry person. She didn't say it that matter of fact but that was the bottom line. “O God rescue me from this conversation – I’m dying here” As we sat there and talked I could see the wisdom in what was being said. Now I knew that everything that God was preparing me for over the past very long time, was for this moment. This was MY RETREAT moment. The faithful God in Heaven who loves me with that perfect relentless love had prepared me for this truth. A few things flooded my mind: In the months leading up to the Prayer / Fast vigil that I organized, the main thing God asked of me was to not have any expectations on who I thought "should" be there. For months I was tested over and over again, but I can stand with honest words saying that I did it, I made it to the very end not assuming who should be there – I chose to barely have any conversations with people except that which was necessary. In fact walking in that was a lesson in love that I could have never understood not walking it the way I did. The other thought was how I had handled things at home with Aaron ( school ), for the last 2 weeks, I had made the decision to make school simple. We did 2 subjects a day. I did this for selfish reasons, not wanting the 3-6 hour fighting battle that I deal with on a daily basis. With the prayer / fast vigil and then retreat I needed to have a different focus ( so I thought that was the only reason I was doing it) Well what came out of that was a kid that was excited about getting his work done, a light-heartedness in him that I never saw with school. Aaron saw that he could do it! I saw a glimpse of a child I pray constantly that I would have. So you see when these 2 women spoke these difficult truths to me I was well prepared by the Lord to receive them. So now here I am beginning my year (Leaders Retreat always marks the beginning of my new spiritual year) with a solid truth from God as to the road He is taking me on. I am both thankful and scuuurrreeed!!!!. But in both I BELIEVE He is in it, He will walk with me through it all, and that somewhere along this year I will become a yielded heart to my Jesus.
So in closing to all of you that I have ever not loved purely because I put expectations on you. If I have ever hurt or offended you please forgive me. Never my intention EVER. I don’t get all of this yet I only have this first step of obedience that I need to walk. I know that as I take this step God will bring clarity to my mind and show me the next step. Please be patient with me.

Thank you Becky and Joanne for loving me enough to be boldly honest!

Thank You Jesus for loving correction - I love You and feel Your love right back to me

Happy Birthday Bobby

Yesterday was Bobby's birthday. What a kick in the pants time we had with some friends at the House of Blues Gospel Brunch. Awesome food - crazy fun music and super friends. We had a blast. They took Bobby up on stage and he danced his hiney off - well sort of lol !!! it was so much fun. Now that's how you celebrate a Birthday - hint hint hint hint!!!!!!

By the way did you know you can sing "Jesus" for about 10 minutes and its AWESOME!!!! - I just kept thinking Danette should have been there, she would have been lovin' that up.

Happy Birthday Honey

16 years with Jesus

42 years on this earth