In the Midst...

How my heart longs to post a picture that is serene and peaceful. How desperately I want to tell you that the storm has passed and I am safely on the other side. How I cry to God saying, "please, let this cup pass. I can't do this Lord." But it isn't over yet. Instead it grows in intensity and I am bent nearly over. Oh, but there is hope in the midst. There are prayers going up in the midst. There is God...God is in the midst and I will not break. Though I bend so far that my forehead scrapes the ground...there is strength in the midst. And for that I can praise God! There are better days to come my friends. And to those of you who have stood with me for over a year, I want you to know that you are certainly in the midst with me and you are surely helping me to stand.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way

and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam

and the mountains quake with their surging.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;

God will help her at break of day.

Psalm 46:5

Please remember Kyle. Would you pray God's protection around his little heart and mind. Pray that I will have the strength and courage I need to be a great mommy in the midst of my heartbreak.

This is Joe. Pray that God would still do a miracle. He is in the very center of the darkness. Ask God to be merciful.

Your prayers are sustaining me as I pass through the worst days of my life. Please pray that I will be still and let God work. I am literally living one hour at a time. Please pray that I will trust God to do what He has to do and that He will never fail me. I love you all. I can't imagine going through this nightmare without the prayers of faithful friends like you. I will continue to keep you updated and when I can, I will fill in the details.

Hanging on. Please keep praying.

Please pray.

Iris

I got a new digital camera for Christmas. I've been wanting one for the past few years so I was excited to find it under the tree! I'm enjoying playing around with it. Here is my favorite so far. Hope you enjoy.

Lessons from the Weasel

Calling someone a Weasel is generally considered an insult. However, after reading an article written by Annie Dillard in 1982, I have decided to claim the weasel as the animal I would most like to be like as I walk this difficult path. Consider the following and see if perhaps you don't find yourself admiring this little 'Mustelid':

[The Weasel] "stalks rabbits, mice, muskrats, and birds, killing more bodies than he can eat warm, and often dragging the carcasses home. Obedient to instinct, he bites his prey at the neck either splitting the jugular vein at the throat or crunching the brain at the base of the skull, and he does not let go. One naturalist refused to kill a weasel who was socketed into his hand deeply as a rattlesnake. The man could in no way pry the tiny weasel off, and he had to walk half a mile to water, the weasel dangling from his palm, and soak him off like a stubborn label. And once, says Ernest Thompson Seton--once, a man shot an eagle out of the sky. He examined the eagle and found the dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to his throat. The supposition is that the eagle had pounced on the weasel and the weasel swiveled and bit as instinct taught him, tooth to neck, and nearly won. I would like to have seen that eagle from the air a few weeks or months before he was shot: was the whole weasel still attached to his feathered throat, a fur pendant?"

I have asked God today to make me like the weasel: tenacious, never quitting, holding on with a fierce will and determination! I have had set before me a vision from God that I am not to quit, and so I am sinking my teeth in deep and no matter where I am taken, be it to the depths of despair, or dangled precariously over the most jagged peaks, I will hold on until I hear my creator tell me to let go.

Annie Dillard ends her story with this final thought:

"I think it would be well, and proper, and obedient, and pure to grasp your one necessity and not let it go, to dangle from it limp wherever it takes you... Seize it and let it seize you up aloft even, till your eyes burn out and drop; let your musky flesh fall off in shreds, and let your very bones unhinge and scatter, loosened over fields, over fields and woods, lightly, thoughtless, from any height at all, from as high as eagles."

This is my message to the father of lies, this is my cry to God, this is my promise to my husband, this is my call. I will not relinquish what I believe to be true no matter how much easier it would be to just... let... go...

A Mighty God

Today, I finally saw The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I've probably read the book about 20 times so I was anxious to see how the movie stacked up. It was awesome! However, it was one of the final lines of the movie that has stuck with me and made me both tremble and feel hope at the same time. Mr. Tumnus is speaking to Lucy after the Coronation. They are watching Aslan from a balcony as he is walking away from Care Paravel and Lucy is sad that he is leaving. And Mr. Tumnus says..."He [Aslan] is after all, not a tame Lion." And Lucy replies, "Yes, that's true... but he is good."

As the credits rolled at the end of the movie, I sat in my chair and thought about that statement. My first thought was that I sometimes forget that God is fierce and powerful and a force not to be toyed with. It's easy to get caught up in the comforting idea that God is this kind, benevolent old man that sits up in heaven and watches over us. I once wrote a blog about God allowing difficulties to come into my life in order to work change in me and someone commented that her loving 'Abba' God would never do that. I think that we're falling prey to lies if we don't see God as a fierce Lion who can do what He wills with our lives. That being said, Lucy's reply is what fills us with hope...God is good. No matter what happens to us, it will be for our good and ultimately, He will win every battle and His goodness and love will prevail over evil.

As I, His child walk this road, I must remember that the God of the New testament is the same as the God of the Old, only now I have someone to intercede on my behalf, someone who bore my sins for me. And like Edmund in the movie, someone died in my place. May I never forget that I am worthy of death and an in this knowledge live my life as befitting His grace!