There are very few words that can effectively explain where I’ve been this last year and what God has done in my life. It would take a very, very long time and so I will sum it up by quoting John Piper: “Life is hard and God is good.”

Today I need to praise God. My time right now is a time of praise. I can’t find the words to explain the deep, violent, passionate craving I have in my heart to praise God today, but I will try my best. Perhaps the best way to explain is to use God’s word.

Job 1:21

The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised.

I love how Job put this. Very few people have experience what Job experienced. I still find it mind-blowing that Job is completely aware, and completely satisfied in knowing that the Lord was ultimately the One who took everything from him, and yet he chooses to praise God. I always looked at Job’s story as a kind of cruel joke God allowed to happen. He was so certain that Job would remain faithful to Him, and it honestly turned my stomach and frightened me a little that God would allow that kind of treatment and affliction to befall who He admittedly called one of His most faithful children.

And yet, as I contemplate Job’s struggle deeper, I realize that the deeper his afflictions broke him, the more astounding glory God received when Job declared “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised.” I think very few people will experience the same eternity that God will reward Job with.

My struggles have been nothing compared to Job’s, but they have been my struggles, and I am so thankful to be able to say, MAY THE NAME OF THE LORD BE PRAISED IN MY LIFE!

Acts 2:25

I saw the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand,
I will not be shaken.

This verse has been a major comfort and encouragement in my life since I memorized the book of Acts for Bible quizzing in my early high school years. I feel like I did fail for a while, where I did allow what is essentially evil to shake me to my core, but this is why I am so very devoted to praising God now – because He did not let me go. He pulled me back to Himself and rocked me gently like a child, and set me back on my feet.

Hebrews 13:5

Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, ”Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.”

He never left me, He never forsook me, and He has been gently reminding me of this in my daily life in some really wonderful and empowering ways. Just yesterday I was getting into my friend’s car to go Christmas shopping with her and someone I have never met before (but who knows my husband and some mutual friends) was jogging down the street. He stopped and came up to me and said that God told him to tell me something, and would I like to hear what it was? Of course I did! He said to me,

“I am with you through the seasons, and if you let me, I will stand by your side through it all.”

I thanked him and climbed into the car in a bit of a daze. I quickly typed it into my blackberry so I wouldn’t forget, and marvelled at how wonderful it was that my God decided to give me a word of encouragement to let me know He wasn’t just with me, He had never left me, and He wouldn’t leave me. It said a lot more to me than that, but that’s between God and I.

I was writing this blog and I was still viewing the “seasons” part of that message as winter, spring, summer, fall – He’ll be with me all year, every year, through everything. But God just gave me this passage from Hebrews, and I am amazed by this…

Ecclesiastes 3:1-14 says:

There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:

a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,

a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,
a time to embrace and a time to refrain,

a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away,

a time to tear and a time to mend,
a time to be silent and a time to speak,

a time to love and a time to hate,
a time for war and a time for peace.

What does the worker gain from his toil? I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live. That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God. I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him.

This is what He has been saying to me over the last 3 months: I will be with you, I won’t leave you no matter what I will allow you to endure, and your job is to toil and struggle, while remaining thankful, happy, and satisfied in Me through it all. Is there a higher calling?

Psalm 40:2

He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.

Things haven’t just hit a honeymoon stage, and I’m coasting on adrenaline. This change in my life is for real. He removed me from the life I was living and placed me in on firm ground. It’s not going to be perfect or easy. Not many things that are worth much come easily. But He will not leave me or forsake me.

Romans 8:31

If God is for us, who can be against us?

Seriously, if God will never leave me or forsake me, what on this earth or into eternity can I truly be afraid of?

Thank you Father, for weathering this portion of my life with me, for standing with me through the storm.

As I read the passage from Ecclesiastes, I can’t help but shudder at some of the seasons. But God just promised to be with me through them all!

Psalm 27:1

The LORD is my light and my salvation— whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life— of whom shall I be afraid?

The hooves of horses!
Oh! witching and sweet
Is the music earth steals from the iron-shod feet;
No whisper of lover, no trilling of bird,
Can stir me as much as hooves of horses
Have stirred.
- Will H. Ogilvie

I’m overwhelmed with love for my horse tonight. I am so thankful for Bas. He brings me such joy and such peace. If you’ve never had your own horse, or even leased or taken lessons with the same horse for a period of time and really got to bond with each other, it’s very difficult for me to explain the relationship and the amazing connection that goes on between horse & rider.

There is trust. I trust him not to hurt me and he trusts me to portray what it is I’d like him to do with kindness and patience. If I didn’t know any better, and maybe I don’t, I would say that Bas can read my mind. He knows what I want before I know myself, and he is so eager to please me that he often does it before I even ask. I have never felt so safe on the back of a horse as I feel when I am riding Bas. He is considerate (Knee Knocker and Marilyn’s Hill proved that several times this year) and he is patient (there is a trail Gwen now refers to as “Amber’s Landing” – ask and I will tell).

There is grace. It is a rare thing to see such a noble and majestic animal surrender its freedom literally into your hands, and lend you all that it possesses. They have served men in wars, famines, depressions and poverty. They have brought joy and happiness and healed women’s broken hearts. They have carried us off into the sunset. They have cantered through children’s dreams. They have left hoofprints on our hearts. They ask for nothing in return but a kind word and a rub of the neck.

There is wisdom. I’ve learned more about myself while in the saddle than just about anywhere. You find out what you’re made of, how tough you are, and the satisfaction and pride that comes with climbing back on when you’ve taken a good fall. When a person knocks you to the ground, they are not so quick to help you get back on as a horse is. There is patience – I can’t tell you the number of times I have asked my sweet boys (for my dearest horses have both been geldings) to do something the wrong way and still they try and try until we figure each other out. Horses don’t hold grudges either. There are days I don’t want to get out of bed. I struggle with being wife, mom, businesswoman, entrepreneur, friend, sister, daughter, aunt and photographer. When I’m riding Bas, I can just be Amber.

I love you Bas, and you are a gift from God. I give Him all the glory and thanks for the blessings he has given me through you. I am truly rich because I have aquired the love of a good horse.

I struggle with keeping God #1. I struggle with saying and believing the nice fluffy Sunday school lines like “Give it over to God – He will comfort you!” and “He wants to carry your load – do your best, God will do the rest!” Awww… There’s my cosmic teddy bear again, wanting to make all the trivial little dramas in my life go away.

I know I’m not even giving God the chance. I get a really upsetting phone call. My heart is broken, my soul is wrenching, and I can’t quite find an emotion to stick with – I’m all over the map. I’m a mess. What makes me feel better – email a close friend to “vent.” Venting. What a ridiculous notion. I need to vent to someone to feel better? I need to freak out and spew out all of my pent-up resentment and frustrations and anger to someone I trust? Bull***. I want someone to feel sorry for me, and I want someone to hop onto my pity-party train and take a ride with me. It makes me feel good. For like 10 minutes. Then I want to vent to somebody else.

WHY don’t I vent to God? WHY don’t I go into my closet and shut the door and weep and cry and freak out on God? He knows EVERY EMOTION I’m hitting on this Behemoth today. He is with me, in my head, in my heart, in my subconcious – he knows why I feel the way I feel when I’m trying to figure out what exactly it is that I’m feeling! He’s with me on so many levels, that I can’t even understand how much more He knows about me, let alone my problem. But I feel better writing an email? What’s wrong with me??

A close friend I’ve cherished since high school wrote me today. She knows a sliver of what has been happening between Owen & I, and instead of asking for all the gossip, and trying whatever she can to squeeze some juicy information out of me, she writes to encourage me. I don’t know what you’re going through, I don’t know what’s wrong, but “I love you and I pray things are getting better for you day by day…”

She goes on to write “If I could give you a little advice from my own marriage trials, is not to expect a change overnight, and to learn to work on one thing at a time and not try to fix everything at once. It took (her husband) and I three years to finally feel “in love” and feel like newlyweds. We’ve just now learned to love each other with our love languages and to put the other first. Although it’s not pefect some days, we are trying to make an effort.”

This is the sound of me breathing a deep, refreshed sigh. Thank you. I’m not the only one going through this, I’m not the only one struggling in my marriage, and here’s some sound advice that I learned the hard way and I hope means something to you too. That’s a friend right there.

So although I didn’t go lock myself in a closet like I probably should have, God decided to speak through one of my fellow sisters in His family and give me something I needed to hear.

Marriage is hard. She also wrote “I’m a firm believer that marriage is the hardest thing a person will do in their life. It’s really the only thing you have to commit to. If your job sucks, you just get another one. If you don’t like your look, you change it. There are so many things in life that if we are unhappy, we can walk away fromy. Marriage is one of the only things that requires true committment and really shows what a person is made of when they choose to stick it out, and in the end, it makes them into stronger and better people…”

Marriage is like a roller coaster. It really is. There are high times, there are low times, there are times when you’re getting really high, and you hear that clicking, and you know it’s going to be crazy soon, so you just hang on and hope for the best. Sometimes it’s insane – you want OFF NOW. The trick is learning that, just like on a roller coaster, getting off isn’t an option. They don’t stop the Behemoth every time it gets to the highest point, so the people who’ve changed their minds can climb out and go down the ladder. You got on it – you gotta suck it up and stay on it til it’s done and those chest bars lift up! The quicker you realize this is up to you. You can decide to give it all you’ve got – heck, you’re going to raise your hands above your head and let it exhillerate you on the way down! Or you’re going to clutch the seat and scream and hate every second. Regardless, you’re on the ride. What are you going to make of it? It was DESIGNED FOR YOU, to bring out the best in you, to comfort and encourage you, to delight in and rejoice in. It was God’s ultimate day-to-day gift to us in our crazy life – someone to serve the Saviour beside, and in total union with. And we are so selfish that we turn it into something miserable.

Everything comes easy these days. You don’t have to sit down for breakfast as a family anymore – get a microwavable bagel that takes 30 seconds and you can eat it on the run! Grab some instant oatmeal bars and throw them at the kids in the back seat on the way to the bus! It’s that easy! Feeling empty? Don’t pay for 12 months! Fill up your house with more crap you don’t need so you can feel better right now!  Sale! Everything must go! We’ve gotta make room for the next batch of useless garbage! You HAVE to have the newer upgraded cell phone, the old one just WILL NOT satisfy you! Keep up! We’re moving faster than you are, and you’ve gotta have all this crap too, or you’re just missing out on living life to the fullest! You’re filling a void that can’t be filled with any of this stuff, so keep cramming, at least some days you’ll feel some temporary relief!

WHERE HAVE WE PUT GOD?? We are living so far away from Him, that nothing satisfies us anymore. We want more, more, more. Yes, it’s human nature. Exactly. We can put aside our human nature and live HOLY lives if we buckle down and decide to. I always wondered HOW people did that? How do you live so satisfied in Christ, how do you actually live IN His Spirit? How are you so filled with the Holy Spirit that His presence in it spills over and produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and (the fruit I believe our culture is lacking above all else) self control. How do you do that? I believe the answer is so simple, when you truly grasp it, you’ll feel like you got a boot shoved up your butt for not seeing it sooner.

Every. Single. Decision. In. Life. From how to respond when a telemarketer calls at supper time, to whether or not to get pissed off when someone cuts you off in traffic, to that extra little bitg you squeeze out of someone because you know you can. It’s all there – the choices are black, and white. We make them grey because we don’t want to do the white stuff when it all boils down to it. There is no room for grey with God. It’s black and white. Make the right decision to glorify Him, or don’t. Every single time you make the right choice; say the right words; do the right thing… You are giving God the glory and inviting a little bit more of Himself to fill you up and make YOU, HIS temple. WOAH. Seriously, if you truly grasp what that means, how can it not knock you to your knees? Literally. Are you still with me? Can I get an AMEN?? (I never understood that sentence but I get it now!)

When God asks us to do things in secret, it’s because He KNOWS we are truly doing it to glorify Him! Who else gets the glory if He’s the only one who it was meant to be seen by? When He tells us that good things done for the attention or praise or thanks of others here on earth is all the reward we will receive – He means it! He’s a righteously jealous God who wants all the glory to Himself – He’s the only one who deserves it. He will have it, at the end of all things, be it from the bowed knees and the confessing tongues of the people who slandered Him through their entire life on this earth, or through the satisfaction of saying “Well done, good and faithful servant” to those who grasped this concept and actually applied it to their life. He WILL have His glory. It’s only His, it will only ever be His. I want to give it to Him every day. I want to store up my treasures in Heaven, where moth and rust do not decay, and theives will not break in and steal. I can’t even conceive of the life He has promised me – how could I deny Him the trivial tasks of delighting in Him every day of this short life?

FILL ME! God, I choose You right now. I choose YOU when I stub my toe and I want to curse. I choooooose you when my dog takes a crap in my living room and I am so angry I can’t see straight. When I don’t feel like starting another load of laundry. When my son has an accident in his pants and I want to scream instead of hugging him and cheerfully cleaning up his poop. Those are the moments when I normally want to do things myself. I want to get angry, and cranky, and I don’t allow your joy into my heart. It’s that simple. Every, single, minute, there is a chance to accept God into your life – into the little moments that ARE your life! Not just on the big steps when we really do need a divine intervention. We only want Him around when we feel like we’re in over our heads. He wants to be a part of ALL of it! Every second! Everything – the laughing, the crying, the toe stubbing, the delicious bite of apple crisp. He wants to be WITH us. And it’s easier to shut Him out until the big stuff comes – and we wonder where He is, when He’s sitting across the room smirking at us and our selfish stupidity.

Help me, Lord, to choose You in EVERYTHING I do. What a broad sweep of so many tiny little details. “Everything.” Yes. EVERYTHING.

John Piper states that “God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in Him.”

Can I get an AMEN!?

Isaiah 42:5-9
“This is what God the LORD says – He who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and all that comes out of it, who gives breath to its people, and life to those who walk on it: “I, the LORD, have called you in righteousness; I will take hold of your hand. I will keep you and will make you to be a covenant for the people and a light for the Gentiles, to open eyes that are blind, to free captives from prison and to release from the dungeon those who sit in darkness. I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you.”

I watched the movie 300 with Owen on Halloween night. It really blew me away that these men believed their life’s purpose was to be warriors – to protect and uphold the city they came from, and would give their last breath fighting for that city. What an amazing conviction. As I watched these 300 men sweep through millions of their enemies, it made me wonder if perhaps this was what the armies of the Lord were like in the old testament. So many times God would annihilate enormous armies with His small but mighty army of His chosen men. I wish they would make movies like this about Gideon’s 300.

I went into the kitchen to get a drink, and God spoke to me. I’ve never understood, and part of me never even believed, that God could still speak to people in this day and age. But I heard Him, and what He had to say was very inconvenient, considering the emotional state I have been in for the last week or so. Owen was fixing a snack and I was afraid to tell him what God had told me. I was afraid he would think I was crazy. I was afraid he would make fun of me. My pride was bigger than the message God had just given me. So I told him that God had just told me something amazing, and I was afraid to tell him about it. He encouraged me that he would never make fun of me or tease me about something like that. So this is what I told him:

I really connected with the Spartan women in the story. They had a tough life – their babies would be taken away and examined – if they weren’t good enough they were tossed over a cliff. If they were good enough, they were brutally trained and taken away from their mothers at the age of 7 to become the most brutal warriors anyone in their time had ever seen. Then they had to support their husbands as they went out to fight, knowing they likely wouldn’t come home. They had to believe in them and give them the support and encouragement they needed to go off to war. Many of the men drew strength from the women they loved. Every person, in every time, in every culture, in every walk of life, has a job to do. Whether their job is to be a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker, or a king, they all have a calling on their lives. We all have the choice to either live that life to the glory of God, or live it essentially in vain. Every decision we make in our lives – in cutting corners or doing our jobs to the best of our abilities – either gives glory to God, or it doesn’t. He gives us that choice – to live for Him, or not. This is why He asks us in Colossians 3:23 & 24 “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

On a side note – whether we glorify God of our own accord or not – we will, in the end, glorify Him. At the end of this world, when every knee is bowing, and every tongue is confessing, we WILL all glorify God. Our reward for accepting Christ’s salvation and living our life to glorify Him is an amazing place in heaven with Christ, for eternity, with whatever wealth we have accumulated in heaven during our breath-in-the-wind life on this earth. Where moth and rust do not destroy, and thieves do not break in and steal.

Every time we do our jobs to the fullest of our capabilities – even things like, for me, cleaning the house when I feel like going on the computer, or not getting frustrated with the kids when they do something wrong, but taking the opportunity to teach them a little bit about Jesus in the everyday moments – we are glorifying God. When we continue to glorify God in every decision, in every obstacle, in every word that comes out of our mouth – we are living IN Him. We are living in the Spirit, and we are bringing glory to God and pleasing Him. We are storing up our rewards in heaven. This is why He says that when we do things for the thanks of others here on earth, that is all the reward we will get. It wasn’t actually FOR Him.

My calling is to be Owen’s wife. My calling, and what will glorify God the most, is to stand by him, as his helpmate, and be a living example of Christ to my children. Owen will be the first to admit that he is difficult to live with. He is struggling very deeply with being bi-polar. He is struggling with a dependency. He is struggling in a very dark place right now. God knew what Owen was going to need in a helpmate. He needed a woman who would love him through thick and thin, who would stay loyal to him in every way. He needed a positive, encouraging, cheerful woman who could pull him out of his funks. He needed me. And I have been falling farther and farther away from the calling God has laid on my life. I have been making the wrong choices every single day, in all the little things, and I have not been glorifying God. It has been harder and harder to live with Owen, because I’m no longer living in the Spirit. I no longer have the fruits of the Spirit in my life. I used to radiate them to everyone around me – ask anyone I went to high school or college with. I was the happiest person most of them had ever known – I literally shined God‘s love. The farther from God I drifted, the dimmer that light got. The harder my calling was to handle. The burden got heavier. The load wasn’t as light. I wasn’t sharing it with Christ anymore. I really believed for a very long time that it was Owen’s job first to do the right thing. I hid behind the fact that he was the spiritual leader of our home – that he was supposed to set the example first. I watched him struggle and then I blamed him for not being stronger. I wasn’t doing my job. I was doing the opposite. I was supposed to be his helpmate, his rib, his other half, and instead I was resenting him and blaming him and discouraging him for his struggles. What a poor excuse for a wife I have been.

God told me, in my kitchen on Halloween night, that Owen’s choices, whatever they may be, were not my choices to make. MY choices, my response to God’s calling on my life, were the ones I would have to answer to Him for. I’m not living for Owen – I’m living for Christ. And in living for Christ, He will enable me to be the wife and mother Owen needs. God created me for a purpose, and He will be glorified in me when I obey his calling on my life. He will use me to help Owen in his struggles, and when Owen is glorifying God in his struggle, in his fight, in the Spartan war going on in his mind, God will be glorified, and Owen will become the husband I need, and the father his children need. And if Owen chooses not to glorify God in his life, I will still glorify God by obeying his calling in my life. I’m not responsible for Owen. Owen is responsible for Owen.

I understood all this, and it shook me to my core, but I didn’t know if I wanted to be up for the challenge just yet. It was so much easier to throw a pity-party and feel bad for myself for being in such a difficult marriage. I wanted to feel sorry for myself just a little bit longer – to rally support for my selfish cause. I saw Jonah standing on the edge of a dock. A ship is loading its last cargo. The sun is setting and the wind is calm and slow. He is on the run – for anywhere other than Nineveh. He can’t wait to get as far from that place as he can possibly go. The ramp is in front of him, and his bag is slung over his back. He feels that quiet whispering in the crevices of his heart. Jonah. Don’t go. I need you in Nineveh. He steps onto the boat. And he ends up in a whale.

Owen and I were in the whale. We weren’t obeying God’s calling for our lives, and we were just going to keep going in circles and ending up in the belly of that whale until we decided to step up to the task and glorify God with every decision, every day, in every moment of our lives. I had just watched Pinocchio with the kids the week before. When Pinocchio finds his father, he is in the belly of a whale. They can’t get out, they don’t know how. So they board a little raft, and set their ship on fire. They smoke the whale out, and he sneezes them out. I begged Owen to burn our ship. I wanted to light on fire our life until October 31st let the whale spit us out, and get our butts in gear and go to our Nineveh. I asked him to marry me again, I asked him to start over our marriage and start over our life. Miracle of miracles, Owen said yes.

So this is our struggle, our fight, our calling. We are simply to glorify God in everything we do. We aren’t doctors or presidents. When we introduce ourselves to people, we can say Hi, we’re Owen and Amber. We live to glorify God. We sat on the couch in the front living room and talked until the wee hours of the morning about this calling, what it meant to us, what our new life would be like. We talked about free will, and heaven, and knowing that humanity’s soul purpose is to bring God glory. We refreshed each other, we opened up to each other, encouraged each other, and most importantly, we fell in love with God, and with each other, all over again. This is where we stand. We are Owen and Amber Chudy. We are living our life together to bring glory to God. Our son will say someday, “I learned how to be a good husband from watching how my father treated my mother.” Our daughter will say, “I know how to be a wife of noble character because I had my mother for an example.” And our children will do amazing things for God because of a lifetime of watching their parents glorify God in their daily lives.

This is our war, and our struggle. This is our calling. I think we’ve got it pretty easy. I look at people like Paul and wonder how difficult it was for him to glorify God. I look at people like Noah, and Daniel, and wonder how I could have been so selfish to deny God in the everyday decisions. He isn’t asking for much. I don’t have to climb into a den of hungry lions, or build an ark and live through the flood and clean up after and feed all those animals every day on a tossing ship. But I serve the same God, and if He can enable those men and women to succeed at their callings – of course He will enable me to succeed at mine. His yoke is easy, his burden is light. When you make the decision to glorify Him, He will never leave you or forsake you.

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” – 2 Corinthians 5:17

I find such comfort in knowing that she knew the Saviour. Not only did she know Him, she led the church choir and taught everyone in her church to sing His praises.

Sitting at her funeral, I realized that every ballad she taught the choir, every cantata she directed, every hymn of every week over the last however many years, was all praising God for the moment that she just experienced – His acceptance of her into His kingdom upon her exit from this world.

What she praised God for ever week, was His sacrifice, so that we may have eternal life when we die. Aunt Dar reached that pinacle, that point in her eternity, even though we all see it as having been too soon. She came to that great precipice between here and forever, and she jumped head first into His arms, into eternity, and into heaven.

What a wonderful comfort.

I was listening to the radio on the way to the visitation. I was greatly comforted by Casting Crown’s song “Who Am I?”

The chorus goes like this:

I am a flower quickly fading,
Here today and gone tomorrow,
A wave tossed in the ocean,
A vapor in the wind.
Still you hear me when I’m calling,
Lord, you catch me when I’m falling,
And you’ve told me who I am.
I am yours.

How often do we sit and contemplate what those words truly mean? “I am a flower quickly fading, here today and gone tomorrow.” It’s monumental when you think of it. We each will come to the end of our life. We’ll all be as aunt Dar, here today, gone tomorrow. “A wave tossed in the ocean.” One wave, in the entire ocean? How tiny and insignificant and vast is that? it’s almost inconceivable that God could know each one, love each one, and usher each one into eternity with all the love of the universe. Yet I know without an inkling of a doubt, that He led my aunt Dar through heaven’s gates with all his grace and glory surrounding her. I am almost envious.

When we consider what a moment like that will be like, we are in awe. Yet why does the ache of her passing rip so bitterly at our souls? It’s so hard to let go, and be happy for her. My cousin Sarah celebrated her oldest daughter’s 2nd birthday by attending her mother’s funeral. It’s inconceivable that someone should face such a horrific experience. And yet we are told to rejoice, and given the chance and the freedom and the reason to rejoice. Aunt Dar is with her Saviour. Hallelujia!

Father, gather Sarah, Tara and MaKayla into Your arms. Comfort Michael and Candice and Olivia. Surround Uncle Paul as he goes to sleep with his wife’s place in their bed empty beside him. Fill their hearts as they sit down to supper without her. Speak to them when they would go to her for advice. Hug them, when they want her arms about them. Please be with them in each moment as their hearts yearn for their mother, their grandmother, their wife. And please, let them rest in the assurance that heaven awaits them, if they believe as she did.

It’s a long story, so I’ll try to give the “Reader’s Digest Version” as my dad always asks me for. I tend to be long-winded…

My husband’s oldest sister and I have not always seen eye-to-eye, to say the least. For the last five years I have avoided her, been intimidated by her, and deeply resented her for some misconceptions and miscommunications forming around our first meeting that were only fueled and twisted as the years went on.

It’s time to praise God for working it out! If you had told me I would say that sentence even a year ago, I would have said you’re crazy, and that book is too far gone to put a happy chapter at the end.

I don’t know when it happened, or what exactly happened, but I started to like Nic. I started wanting to hang around her. I stopped thinking she was full of it, and listened to what she had to say. It had a lot to do with reading her blog, I think. At first I thought she was writing it to sound important or intelligent, but as the months went on, I would occasionally jump over to it and see what she’d had to say recently. She really seemed to be “growing up” – not just as a person, but as a woman of God. And I deeply respected that. I saw the fruit of the spirit blossoming in her life, and that doesn’t happen unless a person is truly growing in the Lord.

We started really spending time together when our husbands started to train together. As I’ve mentioned before, my husband trains and fights mixed martial arts. Her husband does karate, and has recently been doing a lot of MMA with Owen. Since the guys were together, I headed out to Nic’s to scrapbook with her.

One night I poured out my heart to her, and instead of becoming condescending or judgemental, she really listened and saw things from my perspective. I started to think that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t out to get me. In fact, a lot of her advice was surprisingly compassionate. This was, after all, the girl I often thought of as the “dragon-lady” for the last 5 years. I really thought she had it out for me and would spout fire if I pissed her off. It’s funny now, it was excruciating then. It’s only funny because of how far off the mark I was.  Because I had my wall up to her, I didn’t let her see who I really was, so her attitude toward me and opinion of me was equally distorted.

I’m just really thankful that we’ve actually gotten a chance to get to know each other, but at the same time I’m frustrated that the last five years have been wasted. We could have had all that time to grow closer and stronger as friends and sisters. I don’t know that we were mature enough to handle the relationship. We are a lot alike and probably would have collided even if we had been more amorous towards each other. But being what it is, I’m thankful it’s worked itself out. Obviously there is a LOT more to it than that. I could write for days about all that I thought and felt and meant and believed. But for now, all is well.

I feel like I was just given another sister. And I really, really need her in my life.

When God asked Abraham to build an alter and sacrifice his only son, he was testing Abraham, and Abraham passed. I often find myself asking God “Please don’t ever ask that of me! Not my babies! I couldn’t do it!”

Oswald Chambers wisely wrote:

We seem to think that God wants us to give up things! God purified Abraham from his error, and the same process is at work in our lives. God never tells us to give up things just for the sake of giving them up, but He tells us to give them up for the sake of the only thing worth having, namely, life with Himself.”

That really stirred me. I seem to live my life and wait for the big test that God will someday throw my way. But the test is in the every day. The sacrifice is to live for Him day by day, not make one giant momentous sacrifice. Very few have the honour of being put to death for Christ, and what do the rest of us who are followers of Christ sacrifice?

Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. – Luke 9:23 

When Jesus was carrying his cross up the hill, and they pulled out a man named Simon and asked him to carry it for Jesus, imagine what a horrific experience that must have been for him. This man (Jesus) was being put to death, everyone was mocking Him and screaming at Him and torturing Him, and they put him (Simon) in His shoes and made him carry Jesus’  cross? How humiliating, to a man who likely had no idea who Jesus really was. Think of it – a man is being put to death, a criminal, and YOU are pulled from the crowd and asked to share in his punishment?

Taking up His cross is not an easy task, and will likely require the same outcasting from society that Jesus suffered throughout His life. That is the ultimate sacrifice – living every day for Him. When I think of it that way, perhaps it would be easier to have Him ask one giant sacrifice of me. But that’s not what He wants. He wants our hearts, our lives, every day, and in return He offers us glory! Eternity with Him in paradise. It seems like such a trivial little favour when you think of how this life is “a breath in the wind.” Why do I struggle to mention His name when a friend gives me the opportunity to share my faith? Why do I fear rejection? What a poor follower I can be. I find it easier to show Christ in the little things – giving of myself to people when they lease expect and need it, thinking of people in little ways that bless and encourage them. But without the stamp of Christ’s name on it, it’s just a nice person doing a nice thing. The glory doesn’t go to Him.

I was just chatting a few moments ago with an old friend I haven’t seen in years. He and his wife took me in for a couple of weeks the summer I was starting college when an uncomfortable living situation arose with the people I was staying with. He and his wife now work for Urban Ministries in Toronto, Ontario.

We were talking about the summer I stayed with them, and how I remember them packing up to move to Toronto, leaving a huge, lovely farm house near Niagara Falls to follow God. I remember wondering how they could possibly leave such a lovely place. Anyway, he was talking about how he probably wouldn’t be in Toronto if it were up to him, but following God’s will and doing His work has been far more fulfilling than living in the country. I talked to him about what I had just blogged and he posed a very good point.

He said to me, he focuses on the provision, not the sacrifice. “The Lord will provide,” he said firmly. It convicted me hardcore! I was thinking about what a sacrifice it is to follow Christ and he reminded me that he doesn’t even see the sacrifice anymore, he just keeps trucking along, doing God’s will, and God continues to provide for him, and THAT was the thing to stand in awe of. I was humbled. My priorities can get way out of wack and I am so thankful when God sends me a gentle reminder like that. Please pray for the work he and his wife (Peter & Lynda Kentie) are doing at Urban Promise. www.urbanpromise.com

God, please help me to remember, in those moments when my heart is pounding and my mouth won’t open, to give you ALL of the glory in my life. My husband, my daughter, my son, my home, my career, my everything – are all from You. I have no problem praising you in my heart or in  my own home. Help me to be proud of You wherever I go and whoever I meet. Everything I have is from You. Create in me the desire to share that with everyone I meet. I praise You and adore You with everything that I am and everything that I have! It is all from You. Help me to remember that YOU will provide for my needs. Worrying is not trusting you.

Daniel prayed and said: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, For wisdom and might are His. And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding. He reveals deep and secret things; He knows what is in the darkness, And light dwells with Him. I thank You and praise You, O God of my fathers; You have given me wisdom and might, And have now made known to me what we asked of You, For You have made known to us the king’s demand.”

This was my Daily Bible verse on Facebook and it just struck me. Tonight I am just in awe of my God!

Owen (my husband) posed an interesting thought to me on doctrine and faith. I appologize but you might need to know a little bit about ju jitsu to get this!

You can’t jump in and teach someone about a guillotine or a komora all out of nowhere. You have to start with the guard. You have to teach the mount. You have to go through the steps of how to grapple before you can start learning to pull off a submission.

It’s just like our faith. We can’t expect to be living examples of Christ right away unless we understand the basis and the basics of our faith and who our Saviour is. How can your faith be real if you don’t know what it truly means? How can you stand on something that you haven’t yet identified and understood?

We’ll never fully understand all there is to know about God. 

“He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” Ecclesiastes 3:11

But that doesn’t mean we aren’t called to study and continue to learn all that we can.

“And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God.” Colossians 1:10

That’s what brings us closer to Him!

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” Jeremiah 29:13

Just some quick thoughts.