Today’s Reading: Ezekiel 42:1-44:31

Some days writing comes so easily, others, not so much. Today was one of those days. I wanted to write, I just didn’t know about what. Nothing in today’s reading really jumped out at me as something that I was supposed to write about. I wasted most of the day moping and fretting over money. But this afternoon I realized that, as usual, I was looking at the situation all wrong; I was looking at the money instead of the source of it. And as far as today goes, more importantly, from whom God chooses to provide it through and the tremendous blessing that he is in my life!

My amazing husband, Sean!

This man came into my life as a Christmas present from a mutual friend in 1994.

She drew my name in our high school Colorguard gift exchange and knew that I had a crush on him so she talked him into going to the Christmas dance with me. We’ve been together ever since. Sean is one of those stand-up guys that everybody loves and wants to spend time with.

He’s a great listener, which is good because I’m a great talker! And he really is honestly my best friend.

This man would do anything for me, and he proves that every day in so many ways. Mostly just by putting up with me. On those days when I feel like no one else wants me, I know he still does. On those days when I feel like EVERYONE needs me, I know he’s the only one that really does, but he stands back and waits instead. On those days when I don’t feel very lovable, he seems to find yet another way to make me laugh and love me.

He’s the greatest dad to our children and they absolutely adore him!

Which makes me love him even more, but what’s even better than how much he loves our children, is how much he loves me.

Go back through and just look in his eyes, you can see it in there. It fills him, it consumes him and obviously has possessed him to do crazy things like work his butt off every day, all day, so that I can stay home and pursue this passion for writing and ministry that hasn’t made us more than $12 so far in three years. What kind of man does that? What kind of man works a job he’s not happy in anymore, has a derby tire business on the side in order to support his own passion, gets up before first light and works until well after dark most nights

and never complains about his wife literally sitting around all day reading, praying and writing and taking care of the kids of course… by playing with them at the park and the zoo!?! Who does that? What kind of love is that? And who in the world am I to deserve a love like that directed at ME?

And honestly, if that isn’t enough to make you fall in love with this wonderful man God has blessed me with, get this! The kids and I aren’t the only ones he serves. He is constantly helping others as well.

From trying to lead a men’s group at church and helping his buddies out in demo derbies;

to helping total strangers in the Tough Mudder, or little old ladies with restaurant doors, he never stops. He is always on duty.

Lord, I don’t know how I could ever thank You enough for my hard working man! Thank You for such a tremendous blessing that I get to love and cherish all the days of my life; may I always give him the credit he deserves. Please help me to bless him the way he has blessed me. Help me to be the wife and helpmate that he deserves. Help me to be there for him when he needs me, to hold him up when he’s low, to cheer him on when he’s tired and doesn’t want to go on. Help me to love him like no other so that he can feel Your love through me in whatever way he needs it most. Help me to put him first instead of my selfish self all the time. GOD BLESS HIM! Because you know I can’t bless him the way You can! Lay Your hands on him and pronounce Your Name over his head and his heart. He loves You Lord! Oh, how he loves You! Father, thank You for this man! May our son, and our future son-in-law, be JUST like him; because he’s a keeper.

Today’s Reading: Ezekiel 40:1-41:26

Some say a picture is worth a thousand words, Today God’s telling me this is all I need to say. J Bask in His beauty today, rejoice in the glory that surrounds us. He is here, we just have to open our eyes and look around.

Today’s Reading: Ezekiel 36:33-39:29

It’s HOT right now! I don’t know about you and where you live, but here in Indiana it is hot and dry! The once lush and fresh green grass in our yard now has large brown dead patches that just happen to be in all the sunny spots where it is the hottest. The ground has large cracks in it that have opened up and beg for the moisture from heaven to come and quench its thirst. But there is no rain to answer the ground’s prayer. It reminds me of the verses about the shrub and the tree in Jeremiah 17. The LORD tells Judah

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”

The first part of this verse sounds so harsh, CURSED is the man… shrub in the desert… no good will come his way… dwell in the parched places… wilderness… uninhabited. Yet look at WHY that man is cursed and living in parched places, his HEART has turned away from the LORD. If you read down to the very end of this section of Jeremiah 17 to verse 13 we may understand a bit better why turning away from the LORD would cause dryness.

Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well that “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink’, you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water…. Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4:10, 13-14) It’s funny; I’ve never noticed the significance of how Jesus began His conversation with this woman, “If you knew the gift of God.” The gift of God, THE stream of living water that springs up from within us, the Holy Spirit! (John 7:37-39) And KNOWING that gift, personally, intimately, its like nothing on this earth!

I’m still just beginning to learn how to tap into this spring of Living water and draw from the well of the Living, breathing Spirit of Life. The Holy Spirit was never really something we heard about much in church or Sunday school, when I was young or even still. Plenty about Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross, but mostly I just remember learning a LOT about how to be a good person. I’m only just now learning, through searching on my own, how being a good person is a FRUIT, a consequence of knowing this gift of God the Holy Spirit. A few years ago I was blessed beyond measure with the gift of speaking in tongues (read about this in more detail here).

Speaking in tongues is one of those things that I remember reading about in my Bible late one night in high school and thinking to myself, “You know, it’s too bad that things like that just don’t happen anymore. That’s really a miracle!” Up until only a few years ago I was completely clueless that there are entire denominations of Christians that not only believe in speaking in tongues and actually have the gift to do it, but they speak in tongues during their church services even!!! I had no idea! In Acts whenever the apostles came upon anyone who was a believer in Christ and hadn’t received the gift of God, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, they would lay hands on the believer and pray for them and they would not only receive the Holy Spirit but they would then immediately begin speaking in tongues and prophesying. The apostles saw this gift as a critical one for all believers. Why? I’m still not sure, but I’m working on it! All I know so far is that it was important to them to make sure that everyone received this gift, so it MUST be an important one… which is why I’m passing all this information onto you! The Holy Spirit, in at least the book of Acts, always came and then as if to prove that He was dwelling within that person allowed them to speak in languages that they did not know AND caused them to prophesy something reserved only for prophets until Jesus came along!

One day a man came to Jesus and asked Him “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.”  And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” (Matthew 8:19-20) This phrase “lay his head” is a very unique phrase in the Greek and it’s only found one more time in the Bible, you wanna know where??? At the most pivotal moment in all of history, the cross! “When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, ‘It is finished,’ and He bowed his head and gave up His Spirit.” This verse is so profound I have to take it slowly and allow us all to savor this bite of spiritual steak for a moment. “When Jesus had received the sour wine,” Let’s first focus on “sour wine”. In the Garden of Gethsemane in Jesus’ last few moments of freedom He prayed “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as You will.” That cup Jesus is speaking of, it’s not a literal cup of wine, it’s a spiritual cup, a cup filled with the grapes of wrath, all of The Father’s wrath and judgment poured out into that cup. While on the cross when Jesus was given a physical cup of sour wine, it was pointing us to remember the spiritual cup that Jesus was accepting on OUR behalf in that moment. And Jesus received it. He didn’t refuse it, because He certainly could have, but He didn’t. He then said “It is finished.” Not many words on this earth are more musical to our ears than those! Jesus took that cup of wrath, drank down the whole entire sour thing, slammed it down on the table in front of Satan and said IT’S FINISHED! They are paid for; they are free and clear, clean and MINE! And it is at THIS point that Jesus lays down His head. The man that wandered this earth for the last three years with not a single place to call His own and lay His weary travel-sore head down to rest, on the cross He finished His work and He rested. He wasn’t able to rest until WE were free! Jesus started this life free, but He would not rest, He refused to rest, until every last drop of that sour wine had been drunk down and sat there in His perfect belly. He drank the poison just for you. But wait, that’s not the end of the story! There’s still more to tell! Because then, after He bowed His head to rest, He “gave up His Spirit”! The words “gave up” in the Greek are so beautiful! It’s the word par-ad-id-omee, and it means to give over into (one’s) power or use: to deliver to one something to keep, use, take care of, manage,

When my husband and I had been dating for about a year, Christmas came around and I wanted to give him something that would tell him just how much I desperately loved him. I racked my brain trying to think of something that he would like but nothing was coming to me. Then one night when I lay down to go to sleep I snuggled up with one of the stuffed animals that he had gotten for me and looked at my ragged old white teddy bear “Snowball” that I had gotten when I was small and had slept with every single night since I got him. And then I knew what I would give him. The night came when the two of us exchanged gifts, I don’t remember what he gave me, but I’ll never forget what I gave him. I ran upstairs to my room and carried Snowball down behind my back and somewhat un-cerimonially handed him to Sean. He got the strangest look on his face so I explained to him that “since I now sleep with the stuffed lion that you gave me I no longer “need” Snowball, so I thought you would like to sleep with him so that it would remind you of me every night.” As I was explaining this my heart was ripping in two and the tears just flowed. Giving away my precious bear was much harder than I had expected it to be,(Garden of Gethsemane) but I wanted to show Sean how much I loved him and this was the way, I knew it. So I did it anyway. I was giving over into Sean’s power my beloved possession for him to keep, use and take care of. And while no where NEAR the sacrifice that Jesus made, I think it perfectly illustrates what He was doing in that moment on the cross. Jesus gave up His most precious possession, the thing that made Him who He was, who He IS. He gave up His SPIRIT. He gave it up for us to receive. It’s like we were sitting with Jesus at that table across from Satan and the Father and Satan is pointing his boney accusing finger in our direction and reminding the Father of every single thing that we’ve ever done wrong and trying to get the Father angry enough to pour out that sour wine into the cup and serve it to us. And He did. And so there we all sat at this table, with a cup filled with sour wine before us, and a cup filled with sweet Holy Spirit wine before Jesus and He reaches across the table and exchanges our sour wine for His sweet wine! Take, drink, this is My blood poured out for the forgiveness of many! And yet here we are, still today, only sipping away on that beautiful cup of sweet Spirit before us, allowing ourselves to become dry and crusty and dead. When all the time, there, right in front of our faces is a cup FILLED with LIVING WATER! It’s amazing to me.

In today’s reading God takes Ezekiel out to a valley filled with dried lifeless bones and tells him to prophesy (or speak a message from God) to these bones. It was WHAT God had Ezekiel prophesy over them that caught my attention this morning. “Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones, Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.” (Ezekiel 37:5) That word “breath” in Hebrew is the word ruach and means breath, wind, or spirit! But get this! Only a mere nine verses later God uses this very same word again when He says “And I will put My
Spirit within you, and you shall live,”

The scriptures make it very clear that the bones Ezekiel was speaking to were “very dry” (v. 2), yet all Ezekiel did was speak the Word of the LORD over those dry lifeless bones and they came to life. Yet it tells us that they still didn’t have “breath” or “spirit” and so the LORD God tells him, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath. Thus says the Lord GOD; Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.” God was having Ezekiel speak straight to the Holy Spirit to COME, breathe on these afflicted souls and bring them LIFE! The Spirit of the Living God brings LIFE! Drink Him up today! Soak Him in! Drain that cup before you, down to the very last drop! He is desperate for you and a relationship with you, do you want Him? Are you dry and thirsty and need a drink from the well of Living Water? Speak; prophesy to the four winds, “O Breath, breathe on me that I may live!” Ask the Holy Spirit to come, to fill you with His Holy fire! He is a gentleman; He does not go where He is not wanted, so you must ask Him from your heart, from your belly, your innermost being to COME. Speak it out with your lips “COME”, no more is necessary, just “Come”. He knows your heart; He can hear that it beats for Him.

As I am finishing this final edit before I post this, it is raining! Hallelujah! May the Holy Spirit rain on ALL the dry and thirsty souls today! May He FILL YOU UP with His sweet wine of victory! Amen!

Today’s Reading: Ezekiel 33:21-36:32

In today’s reading God shares His future plans with us, He tells us about the Spirit that He will put within us.

That word “heart” in Hebrew has the same definition as the Greek word translated “heart” that we discussed yesterday; it means the innermost being of a person. The phrase “heart of stone” is such a great visual isn’t it? This idea that our hearts can be hardened by the laws written on stone tablets and turned by the idea that our works have anything to do with our own success or failure in life.
For the last several weeks I have been chasing-the-wind-busy. So busy, that I have routinely neglected my private time with God. And while He has most definitely spoken to me through signs and wonders in this world around me, I haven’t taken any time to be still and really process those things that He has been telling me. I haven’t just taken a day where I could sit and type and think and rejoice about what He has done for us all. I’ve been “too busy” to spend intimate time with the One who loves me the most.

In John chapter six verse twenty-two through forty we encounter a crowd of people who have followed Jesus to the other side of the sea to Capernaum. The day before, they had seen Him performing signs of healing the sick and feeding the five thousand of them from a little boy’s lunch of five barley loaves and two fish and He had twelve baskets full of left-overs. So on this day, as the crowd is again approaching Jesus He says to them “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking Me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves.” Here I have to stop and point out why they were really seeking Him in this moment. They were not seeking Him to be His friend, they were not seeking Him to even help or heal them, they were seeking Him because they had seen Him multiply the food. Their wives labor hours every day to make bread because it is their staple food. The bread that only lasts a few days before it goes stale and is no longer any good to eat and can be fed to the birds. They pay a pretty penny to buy their food and here’s this guy that can make it multiply right before their eyes. In the response Jesus gives them you can tell that He knows, they aren’t seeking Him out for Him; they are seeking Him out for what He can give them, what He can do for them. They’re seeking Him so that they can have their bellies filled a second day in a row with a bread that doesn’t last. They are seeking Him to fulfill their desire for material things from this world. So Jesus explains to them:

Oh, how many times I have been caught in this very catch twenty-two! Where I am laboring for something that simply won’t last past today; worrying hard about the circumstance that will only last momentarily and then pass by me like the wind and be gone. What is this food that endures that Jesus speaks of and where can we get some???

Guess what the word “endures” means in Greek? ABIDE! Yup, you guessed it! But wait, there’s more!!! That word in Greek, Meno, is the very same word that Jesus uses over and over again when He is standing in the vineyard (John 15) giving His disciples an object lesson on how life in the kingdom works and He tells them “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever ABIDES (meno) in Me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing…. ABIDE (meno) in My love.”

Oh how great is the love of Jesus; great enough to BE the food that endures. THIS is true love; not how much we love God; that honestly doesn’t really get us very far. Look at the “super apostle” Peter. At the last supper he proclaimed his own dying devotion to Jesus, swearing that he would NEVER deny knowing Jesus and yet only mere hours later there he was three times in a row, within Jesus’ earshot no less, telling people emphatically and with curses that he did not know “that man”. No, our love for God doesn’t get us very far. Not that our love or efforts for Him are worthless; certainly not! It’s just not what we should be counting on, or abiding in, in this world or in the next. No. It’s GOD’S love for US that we can count on EVERY time. While we fail continually, He never fails. His faithfulness is unending and His love endures forever! As much as we love God, He will ALWAYS love us more. And it’s that love that we are called to abide in, to live in, to surround ourselves with and feed on. It is HIS unending perfect love for us that casts out our fears and drives away our sins from remembrance. As far as the east is from the west; that is how far His love stretches for us. While you can go north a far distance eventually you will end up heading south once more. No matter how far east you go, or west, you will never end up going the other direction. The east never touches the west; it is unending, just like God’s love for us… His love for YOU.

No matter what you’ve done, no matter what you’ve said, no. matter. what. God’s love can stretch father than your sin. He has cast that sin as far as the east is from the west because that is how much He loves you… and then some! He has forgiven you, now you need to receive that forgiveness and forgive yourself in the process. His Spirit abides in you, like an unborn child abides within its mother’s womb. And yet, supernaturally, we too are that child in HIS womb, His heart, His innermost being, His Spirit. His love is perfected IN us. His love isn’t perfect without you, because it’s missing a key element, you!

A few days ago I had a dream about a little baby girl named Rose. She was about six months old and all rolly-polly chubby with the bluest blue eyes you’ve ever seen. She was in my bedroom with me because we had taken her into our family and I was taking care of her. I was worried though because I didn’t have any diapers or food for her. But when I picked her up and she snuggled her precious little bald baby head into the crook of my neck I realized that she didn’t need any diapers or food, she just needed me to love her and that was enough. Then I woke up. For the last few days I have been seeking God’s interpretation of this dream asking, “Lord, who is Rose?” Today, through spending the entire day in prayer through writing and searching the well of His word for my Lifewater, He shared with me the interpretation and told me who Rose is. Rose is the child birthed from my marriage to Christ; she is the precious infant that needs no worldly food or possessions. Rose is just that, a flower in the garden of relationship to the One who loves us the most. She is the creation born from a love affair that will last for all of eternity. She is the combination of His Holy Spirit and my flesh abiding together in a perfected unity that can only exist within that secret garden where I meet intimately with my heavenly husband. I need not worry about providing for this little one, because all she needs is me. All she needs is for me to love her and hold her close to my bosom where she can hear my heart beat and know that beats for her Father. She is me. She is Him. She is Rose.

Today’s Reading: Ezekiel 31:1-33:20

A week ago today God gave me a vision of the bread cabinet in our RV “Rover”. There were several loaves of bread in it still from our trip last weekend and He showed me taking these loaves out of the cabinet and throwing them away. I argued with Him that it was such a waste to throw away perfectly good bread and He simply said “Fresh Bread”. Reminding me about this blog/daily devotional and what He had told me when I first started it. “Fresh Manna”. Meaning I was to always keep things current and fresh so that I wasn’t serving you stale old spiritual bread. But rather fresh and piping hot from the oven, bread that had just been baked; the Word that His Spirit had just spoken to my own spirit. And so I was all set to do that until I turned on the TV for my daughter that morning. The show that was currently playing was an interview of the author of a new book and she was sharing how she had stayed up until one in the morning reading another woman’s blog because she was so overwhelmed with this woman’s complete abandon to the Lord. I was immediately hooked and convicted. While I needed to make up some fresh bread dough that day, I decided to put it off a bit, just a little bit, so that I could share with you all my weekend. Which I do believe is what I was supposed to do. However, I wasn’t supposed to just write that first bit of the story and then move on with my day. No. God had called me to cease the business of my plans for that day and take the day to write and “catch up” on my bread baking. Unfortunately for me that’s not what I did. I continued pressing on and doing ALL the things on my very full calendar… skipping my usual mid-day quiet time. That’s the time when I do my writing and rest in the Lord while the kids are resting in their beds. You see for me just reading the word is only half the equation for me. God has made me to be a teacher, a teacher through writing, and when I’m not doing that I’m just not complete. If I’m not writing, I’m apart from Him. And when I go too long I can do nothing until I have fused with Him again and become a part of Him once more.

What’s really funny about this whole situation is how God has used it to perfectly illustrate a phrase I got stuck on the Thursday before we left for the mission trip.

Abide in Me, what does that mean exactly? Abide in Me. How do I do that? What does that look like? What does that feel like? How does that work, Abide in Him? And for almost two weeks now I’ve had that very question in the back of my mind rolling around with all the rest of my marbles fighting for a place to rest, until yesterday morning. I was sitting in my rocking chair, Bible open before me, the stillness of a new morning surrounding me and enveloping my chaotic spirit with His still waters the Father showed me a picture of abiding in Him. An embryo in its mother’s womb.

This child has no means to provide or care for itself. The child is abiding within its mother’s love snuggled safely within her protective womb filled with water and blood. To say that this child is dependent on its mother seems like almost an understatement. To abide in the Father’s love for us, in Jesus’ love for us, we stay there. We live in His protective care connected to Him through an umbilical-like vine that provides nutrition and waste management services all through one point of connection, our bellies.

In Bible times the belly was the seat of the spirit, it is where we feel many of our deepest emotions. These days, we call it anything from gut instincts to women’s intuition, but it’s there in our belly where we usually feel it the strongest. In the seventh chapter of John, he tells us “On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.'” Now this He said about the Spirit, whom those who believe in Him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. (verses 37-39) That word “heart”, in Greek, can also be translated as “belly” or “womb” and basically indicates someone’s inner man. When we accept Jesus as our spiritual husband, provider and loving life-long companion we receive His Spirit.

The Bible tells us that we are the Bride of Christ, when we accept Jesus we are choosing to spend the rest of our lives with Him as our heavenly husband. Now, stick with me here, after a bride and a groom become husband and wife there is a certain ritual that we all know and love… it’s called the wedding night. In that wedding night exchange the two become one flesh, not just in word alone, but in deed as well. These two halves of a single heart join and become whole, one completing the other in an inseparable bond for life. And it is in that very union that something is born created from those two halves and is knit together in its mother’s womb. When we spend that wedding night with Jesus we receive His spirit, the very spirit that He gave up on the cross after yelling “It is finished”. That Spirit comes to abide within our bellies and becomes for us a river of living water springing forth from our inner most being. His Spirit in us is the vine, the umbilical cord that connects us directly and immediately to the Father, our Creator.

Today’s Reading: Ezekiel 28:11-30:26

Monday morning dawned gloomy and dark after a storm had passed over the fairgrounds during the wee morning hours. We emerged from Rover surprisingly well rested and almost ready to hit the road for another day-long journey home. We quickly dressed and then dined on a breakfast of cold cereal with milk so that the packing could get underway. As Sean bustled around the trailer packing all the outdoor things away I was inside Rover getting all the inside things set in order and ready to roll. At one point I simply had to stop the bustle of packing and sit down on the couch due to the overwhelming thought of the consequences of those five Bibles. Salvation to five or more lost souls. It was absolutely incredible! The thought had no more than drifted through my brain when a white dog passed by our RV. Now, if you don’t know much about Biblical symbolism then that may not mean very much to you. However, I’ve spent quite a bit of time researching and learning it and so a white dog passing by meant a LOT to me.

You see the same God that gave Joseph his dreams, gives you and I our dreams. The same God that gave Daniel visions is more than willing to give us visions. And the same God who wrote the Bible, a book FILLED with stories and symbolism is in the process of writing our lives as well; equally filled with symbolism if we would just open our eyes and become receptive to His messages surrounding us everyday. I began learning these symbols through a dream interpretation book. I had been having vivid dreams for a while and was prompted by the Holy Spirit to buy this particular book in order to understand what God was trying to tell me through these dreams. The symbols in Christian dream interpretation are based on Biblical symbols. Again, God is the author of both the Bible and your dreams so He will use the same symbols. And being the gracious God that He is, He has placed every symbol’s meaning within the text of the Bible, when in doubt go to www.BibleGateway.com and type in your object of question and the first mention of it in the Bible should give you some clue as to its meaning. However, ALWAYS pray and ask God for the meaning and for the Holy Spirit to reveal it to you. And He will. God is always speaking to us and He LOVES when we actually listen. Ask and you shall receive, knock and the door will be opened unto you, seek and you shall find, God LOVES when we seek Him and His will in our lives. So, anyway, back to the dog.

As this white Labrador walked past our RV it immediately caught my attention because dogs are a symbol of unbelievers (Revelation 22:15), and that was who we had spent every penny to come and serve! I stood up and went to the open door so that I could just watch this dog. He walked along the riverside nosing his way through abandoned campsites looking for leftovers for his own breakfast. He had a blue collar on with tags, but no leash and no owner was in sight. I sat down on the step to continue watching him when another dog came around the rear of the RV and put his nose in my lap!!! He startled me, but I immediately recognized him as one of the dogs I had met earlier in the weekend. He belonged to one of the show’s promoters so I was really unconcerned about him. He was an incredibly sweet and docile brindle colored boxer. But something was missing from the last time I had seen him. This time he wasn’t on a leash! And neither was the white dog! No leashes, nothing on their collars to hold them back from loving God and restraining them from knowing Him intimately just like I had prayed that the unbelievers would! Thank You Jesus for answered prayers!!! I jumped up and went around to the trailer to tell Sean what God had just let me know. I explained to him how in the Bible dogs are a symbol of people who haven’t accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior yet, and how I was sitting there thinking about those five Bibles and how they could mean salvation to these lost souls, and then BAM, two dogs without leashes. They were roaming free and unhindered, just like when we accept Christ He sets us free and we are no longer hindered by sin and shame and can now have an intimate personal relationship with the One who loves us the most in this whole world and the next. Two free dogs equals two free souls!!! Hallelujah! Thank You Jesus! Sean didn’t seem quite as excited as I was, well, or maybe he was, he just doesn’t show it like I do, If I was overwhelmed by the possibility of our sacrifices saving one soul before I saw the dogs, now I was completely overwhelmed by what had just transpired. I again sat on the couch, allowing it to hold me up because I certainly couldn’t do it anymore, and this time I wept. Sobs of joy and gratitude flowed down my cheeks accompanied by the catches in my throat making it hard for me to breath. My son came in and concerned for my welfare asked “Mommy, what’s wrong??” And unable to answer for myself, my Beloved husband answered him for me (I love how he knows me so well). “She’s OK Buddy, she’s just happy. Mommy cries a lot.”

I have to wonder, is anyone else out there like me, when you get to that point of such overwhelming happy gratitude that all you can do is cry? Or laugh? God is so amazing that in His infinite abilities and power He chooses to set all that aside to allow US, imperfect and powerless us to be part of His salvation scheme! He is such a loving God!

Today’s Reading: Ezekiel 20:14-22:16

Thursday at a little after 4pm my husband sends me a text “I’m on my way!”, he had gotten off work a whole hour early! I was running around town like a crazy person picking up last minute things for our trip to Metal Mayhem seven hours away in Pecatonica IL to pass out Bibles. Six hours later we had the truck loaded to the absolute breaking point with all our camping gear ready to head north to the Farm where our RV “Rover” was waiting to set out on his first long trip in many many years. You see Rover has a history with the Knochel family. He belongs to my husband’s grandpa Knochel. Grandma and Grandpa Knochel, for many years, would take Rover (I doubt they called him that at the time it’s just what my kids named him this weekend) all the way out to California from Indiana every summer to build houses with their mission group the Nomads. So he has a rich history of mission trips. Two years ago our tent got left in a tub full of water after a camping trip and we honestly haven’t been brave enough to open it since! So last year when it was time for our annual camping trip with my parents we asked Grandma and Grandpa Knochel if we could borrow their RV to camp with this year. At that point it hadn’t been used in many years due to their declining health conditions so once we got it to our house it took me an entire week to clean the poor little guy out! After Rover had had his makeover my prayer partner and I went through the entire camper and prayed and blessed every cabinet, couch, chair, refrigerator, drivers seat, you name it we prayed over it because even then we knew that Rover was the one that would be taking our young little family to the places God called us to go. And I wasn’t about to leave without a proper blessing on the vehicle that was taking us there! (I’m a blessing wrestler like Jacob, I fight for blessings like they’re worth being fought for.)

When the winter season came and it was time for Rover to hibernate in the barn once more it broke my heart to leave him there all alone, I was honestly afraid that I might not see him again – this vehicle that had been blessed, anointed to take us where God told us He wants us to go. But I left him there all the same, forced to trust that God would bring us back together again in the spring. And as this spring has progressed and I have been busy, oh so busy, with ministry details I have to be honest when I say that my thoughts really haven’t been with Rover. Until a little over a week ago when God called us out into the open mission field to provide Bibles for anyone who wants one at the largest Demolition Derby in the country. We debated staying in a hotel, but considering the timing and the funds available to us we knew that the only real choice was to wake Rover from his hibernation and ride this faithful vehicle to this first mission trip for our family.

After a few days of preparation and a LOT of prayer we were off on the road in Rover headed to our destiny. A mission-minded family hoping to change a few lives while enjoying each other in our beloved camper Rover. As we pulled out of the farm driveway and onto the hot black top country road Rover’s belts squealed with excitement to be out on the mission field once again… at least that’s what I told my husband the mechanic anyway. He laughed and rolled his eyes at me. About a mile down the road there was a white road construction truck on the side of the road with its little yellow light flashing away on the roof. Over the years of being married to Jesus the two of us have come up with many inside “jokes” and “codes”. One of them is flashing lights on the side of the road. They are His way of showing me that He is clapping for me, cheering me on because I’m going the way He wants me to go, or doing the things He wants me to do. So to see this little white truck on the side of the road simply thrilled me. But then, as if that wasn’t already exciting enough for me, there was a sign too. Like, a literal sign! It said “Fresh Oil”. A few weeks ago I breathed a momentary prayer in the depths of my heart that God would anoint me with fresh oil, a fresh view of our mission and what HE wanted us to do in this brief whirl around the globe called life. And here was not only a truck flashing its lights, but a literal sign that said “fresh oil”! This was total confirmation that we were not only headed in the right direction but also an answer to a prayer that had never even been spoken or even thought but quickly drifted through my spirit like a wisp of wind on a breezeless day. And yet here was the answer to it staring me in the face! Fresh oil! What a way to start a trip!

I was so excited I hurriedly typed out a short text to some friends and Facebook telling about what I had just seen. Sometimes things just shouldn’t be left to a simple text – they just can’t convey the message you’re trying to convey. Almost immediately I got a message back via Facebook from my cousin, she hadn’t understood my message at all. What I just spent the last paragraph explaining I said in one sentence, it’s no wonder she was baffled! But while the Enemy tried his hardest to use her confusion to bring me down, it didn’t work, I was just too excited about what was happening around me. God was using ME! And more than that, I wasn’t alone either, I was surrounded by my family! We were in this adventure together! And what an adventure it was already turning out to be! We had already leapt off the face of the cliff in faith that God would provide the money necessary to get us all the way there and back home. Now the next task was to endure the next seven hours on the road in an RV without air conditioning! But since we all were so pumped about the adventure it wasn’t so bad for the first few hours. I sat in the passenger’s seat with my hair blowing every which way in my face because every window in Rover wide open to allow as much air in as possible. I felt a little like a dog with its head sticking out the window, without my head sticking out any window! I sat with my bare feet up on the dash board, the wind tickling my toes and the sun kissing my cheek; eyes closed breathing in that lovely scent of fresh air and old RV all mixed together. To say the least I was loving this trip so far. I was absolutely intoxicated by the closeness of my husband buckled into the drivers seat so near to me with no where to go and nothing to do but talk to me for hours on end. However, a couple of hours into our trip I got up to get a snack for the kids and I when I smelled something. It smelled like a mixture of gas and exhaust fumes, and it got stronger the farther back into Rover I walked. When I sat back down in the passenger’s seat I told my husband the news, I smelled gas. We stopped at the next station to take a break and while I was in the bathroom with the kids he checked out the situation. The exhaust pipe had been rusted through and was leaking directly under the back of Rover allowing the fumes to seep into the inside of the RV. After only a few minutes of being stopped with all the windows open the fumes had cleared out and we moved on. There was nothing that we could do but keep going at this point. We had already determined that Rover would need several stops along the route to pant and catch his breath, now WE would need the breaks too!!! Thank God I had asked LOTS of people to pray for Rover before we left!

Several hours later the heat, fumes and motion sickness got the best of me and I was forced to lie down to try and recover while my husband drove on. As I lay there I prayed, confident that I was in God’s hands. When I rolled over from my stomach to my back my eye spied out the window one of the most beautiful things. Deep green was everywhere but in the very middle of the green there was a piece of ground that looked like God had put His hand under the ground and pushed this piece up with His thumb. It stuck straight up out of the ground painted with browns and reds and tans all surrounded with green tree tops and grass covered in blue sky and puffy white clouds. It was amazingly beautiful, and the Holy Spirit whispered to me “The same God that painted that picture, painted you. That same God that sculpted that “mountain”, sculpted you in your mother’s womb.”

You may not like who you are, others may not like what you do or what you say, but through Christ’s blood God sees you as the creature He created you to be. Perfect in every way. When all we see is flaws and imperfections, He sees quirks and the things that make us who we are. Just like He planted those trees lovingly and precisely where HE wanted them, He planted your personality and your “imperfections” in you too. Those things that you see as downfalls, He sees as the very things that draw you closer to Him; those things in your life that call you to lean on Him for support and help. And anything that draws you nearer to Him in relationship is something that God cherishes! Just like a mother who cherishes the way her family needs her love and attention, God cherishes the way that you need His love and attention. He loves how you need Him. Don’t beat yourself up over the things in your life and personality that draw you nearer to the One who loves you more than His own life!!! Just press into Him and allow Him to fill you up with HIS love for you. Because that’s what really matters in life. “not that we loved God, but that HE loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.” Jesus loves you, that’s all that really matters.

So, I’m beginning to come to grips with the fact that God might not want me posting every day during the summer… Seeing as how He’s not letting me write at the moment!!! I was typing away, post half finished when the electricity flickered (they’re tearing down the abandoned house next door at the moment) my computer shut off and is now refusing to turn back on! So I’m typing this on my phone to be able to at least send you today’s reading. Ezekiel 20:14-22:16
Please pray for our family during this time. We are going through a lot of changes and with them challenges. Thank you my friends, and I will post again as soon as the Lord allows me to!