I’ve always said I need a good secretary to keep details straight for me. Last night was another good example of this. I had a quartet practice where we are preparing for a big occasion the first of September. The date had been set but then adjusted from a Saturday to a Friday. I had the Saturday date in my calendar but neglected to adjust it to Friday. Thus, I had myself in Montana when we were to sing. As hard as I try to keep these things from happening, they just do. I contacted the superintendent when I got home and he’s working with his team to adjust the days to the week before or the week after. Tracking details like this just never seem to develop into a strength!

Tonight Kathy and I will meet with a couple whose marriage is highly at risk. I’ve mentioned the husband contacting me last week. I have no idea what we will accomplish in the time but I have surrendered it to Jesus and asked His Holy Spirit to completely lead. I pray for the Light of Hope to come. This couple has 3 boys and have been married over 20 years so there are huge reasons to work this through letting God take charge of their lives personally and together. How much I love this Father of ours! He cares so deeply.

I am starting my 50th year working in education. Yet, in all of these years I still forget how tight time becomes at this starting point. The details are lengthy and the importance of meeting everyone’s expectation weighs heavily on you. All this said, as I work with several administrators I see this over and over and I’m reminded how much I always felt this pressure at this time of year. Helping them address this with less anxiety and more assurance is a big item. God is the Master at taking care of details and reminding us of our part and letting Him do His.

Someone I’m very close to is relying heavily on God’s leading today. I can’t go into detail but I am assured that God is already taking care of them. God’s Presence through His Light disallows any darkness to remain. How I pray for His Light to shine brightly in this very day!

Yesterday turned out to be a full and good day. The class of men going through Mending the Soul topped the list for me. It is so tough to admit what one has kept buried inside oneself for one’s entire life. It brings tears to my eyes each week as I listen to these men gruelingly tell their connections to the questions we process. I know their responses so well and it brings back horrid memories of my own. Yet, I know this freedom they don’t yet know. Hope is the ingredient which brings them back each week. One gentleman yesterday said right up front that he was not going to give a response to one question. It was the question, “What secrets are you still carrying inside as an adult?” However, by the time all of the rest had shared, he said, “If I’m going to have freedom from this bondage I will need to share–right?” We all said together, “Yes!” He said he would share next week. God is working! How I love Him for this!

Well, the excitement of picking beans turned into finally having 50 jars canned by evening. My grandson who was taking care of our place while we were gone stayed and helped me pick and snap them which, if he didn’t, I think I’d still be in the process. He’s one good kid!

While we were snapping the beans to get started canning my phone rang. It was a man from our Celebrate Recovery who faithfully attended a few years ago but had dropped away. He wanted to know if he could meet with me? I told him to come at 7 last night thinking I’d be done with the canning by then. When he arrived I had 9 minutes left for the pressure cooker. We talked for a moment while I watched the gauge and then went to our back room for the visit. I won’t go into details, but his marriage is likely ending and he isn’t sure even if he does change it would make the difference. He opened up with a good deal of detail and is truly broken. He had already given himself a couple of healthy assignments which I reinforced. However, I suggested a simple adjustment to them and for him and his wife to meet with Kathy and me. He wasn’t sure that would happen because she was no longer willing to take this step. However, this morning I had a text which came after I’d gone to bed saying his wife was willing. She and Kathy know one another quite well.

God is so amazing! This couple has the potential to impact many. Satan sure doesn’t want this to happen, but God is the Almighty One, not Satan. “One day at a time, one moment at a time, accepting hardship as a pathway to peace.” This quote from the Serenity Prayer is a powerful guide as we begin to implement change in our lives. God is never done with us if we will simply follow this guideline. This one step gives HOPE where Satan wants us to think we are hopeless.

The district work is finished for this trip and God was glorified. It is so nice to do this work with a believer at the helm. I went in early so the superintendent and I could talk for a moment about the gifts God had given him for this point in time. Then, we talked about how he could use them during this present work. It was an enjoyable moment. It was also interesting how one of the admin opened up with me privately to share that she had lost her husband suddenly 4 years ago and she just wasn’t sure about moving forward. She said she was a believer and needed to know God’s place for her. We were able to do some processing along this line trusting God’s leading.

It seems funny, but now I get to fly home this morning and then pick beans from the garden so I can can them. I’m almost more excited about doing this than I was about coming to this new district! God is so good and it is such a privilege to serve Him!

I’m sitting at breakfast in my motel and suddenly remembering I didn’t write my blog entry earlier when I’d finished my devotions. My mind has been full from yesterday’s work and today will need to make goals from yesterday’s conversations. I start with the superintendent this am and because he’s a Christian I sense the Holy Spirit nudging me to bring Him into this conversation. I had already prayed He’d lead today but now I know I’m to call Him by name. God is so good. What an honor it is to serve Him in our world of work whether it is secular to man or not. It has taken me a lifetime to come to this reality.

The journey has me in Montana. I flew here yesterday and drove 3 hours to get to the district I’ve agreed to work with a couple days a month this year. I was here last month to only get acquainted with the district and to meet the superintendent, get to know him and his hopes and dreams for the district. Yesterday I met with the rest of the admin team supporting the buildings. Today I will meet with the site admin teams during the am and pm. I will then meet tomorrow with all of them together so we can determine the actual goals we want met throughout this school year. The bottom line is always to be the students’ learning. However, one thing we know well is that if a teacher or admin is struggling with their relationship with one another, student learning suffers. So I will start here.

As I was processing all of the above with God this morning I was taken back when God reminded me how much easier this work is today now that He and I have a more secure relationship. I use to say that God may have created me but He didn’t really like this creation very much or He’d stood His ground with him when he was younger. My relationship with Him didn’t come close to the trust I have in Him today. Little did I know how much my Heavenly Father grieved during those abusive years. Now that I understand and rely on God’s leading more fully I can rely on my trust with Him as I do this work. He truly is AMAZING and as I do this work the results are also more amazing to watch as He leads.

Today the journey brings a smile to my face as I begin to write this entry. I am enthralled with the teachings of Jesus to His disciples as I continue to read in Matthew. I also love the way Joyce Meyer brings practical reality to the scriptures both in her own life and for the lives of others. How often do I forgive my earthly father as memories come up–“seventy times seven”. How often do I forgive my brother–the same. Do I let the memories haunt me and trigger hatred and bitterness? Or, do I let these memories remind me of Jesus’ teachings to His disciples–forgive as the Father has forgiven you–seventy times seven.

God is making very clear that there is nothing I should be hanging onto as far as sinful acts done in the past. He has forgiven them and I am to do the same no matter how often Satan tries to have me do the opposite. In fact, just reminding Satan that I am a follower of Almighty God and He is making me into the likeness of His Son Jesus empowers me to want to forgive. Through forgiveness and through prayer I can have on “earth what is in heaven”. The more I get to know my Heavenly Father and His Son Jesus and His Gift–The Holy Spirit, the more I understand having on earth what I will have in abundance in heaven.

Doesn’t this wonderful reality bring a smile to your face? It sure does mine!

This morning is one where sleep wasn’t to continue past 4:00 am. It wasn’t as though I’d gone to bed at 8 pm. God just needed to talk with me and have me do some listening. Yesterday, when I got home from the school district about 4:00 pm, I picked 5 gals of blackberries and called my niece who was taking them. They don’t live very far from me so they were here in about 15 minutes. Her husband was with her. Her husband is the one battling cancer. His body is being treated weekly with IV chemo prepping for a major surgery for the 2nd time. I am going to their place tonight to pray and anoint him for healing. After his first surgery (stem-cell transplant) the cancer went into remission. It’s back.

As I was having my devotions this morning I was reading in Matthew 16 & 17. These are powerful chapters where Christ is preparing His disciples for his crucifixion and resurrection. He wanted them to know that He came to die, but to not just die, but to die so that He could rise again and in so doing–overcome the permanence of sin in death once and for all, for all of us. There is more to living that this fleshly living, there is eternal living to follow which Christ Jesus made possible for everyone of us.

What was standing out to me in reading these chapters was that we aren’t to just live to be alive in our flesh, we are to be alive to live for Jesus in our flesh. Until my own recovery I have lived to die. I was of the belief that only in death could I be free of my past’s bondage. In these most recent years where freedom is alive have I found the truth of being alive to live. I don’t know the outcome of my nephew’s life, but I do know God is wanting him healed to be alive each and every day living for Him! God has a time for all of us. But, until that time He wants us to be fully alive for Him. This is my own awakening and I want the Light of Jesus to awaken this truth for all of us.

Yesterday turned into a leisurely, yet emotionally difficult day. Our class, Mending the Soul, did much of the lesson on the make up of an abusive home. It reawakened so many dysfunctional memories of unmet needs and the ugly memories of sheer physical and mental/emotional abuse. Then, last night I happened to watch on TV the movie, “I Can Only Imagine”. Good grief, it was like pouring salt into an open wound that had been freshly reopened. I ached as I went to bed wondering what I was to do with all of this pain? This morning as I entered my devotional time my emotions had subsided and I was able to hear God tell me to place all of them into the same “safe place” I put all of those memories while in therapy. He reminded me that those memories are of a time past. I don’t need to be shackled by them if I give them to Him. I gave them away and all is at peace–Praise God.

Today I return to the cycle of school district work. I had an introduction to this last Friday, but today is the formal beginning of the new year. I give this to God and ask Him to take the lead. I am His servant and I choose to make Him my Master. What a magnificent God we serve!