Hello all!

It’s been a while since I’ve updated you on what’s been going on here and thought it was about time! 🙂

This coming Saturday (the 17th) I will be doing another book signing at our local library Holiday Bazaar from 8-2. Then, I will be heading over to our church in Noblesville where I will be setting up for our first “Family Fire Sunday”. I will be leading a video lesson for a special once-a-month Sunday school class (9:30, open to all ages) followed by a family Craft activity (10:30) and Worship Service (11:00, I’m not doing the worship service, that’s just our regular service). At the moment, I am not using any of my own material to teach with… YET! But I am hoping to do so in the not too distant future, when I have something ready. God willing.

As you can see, it’s going to be a big weekend for us! One that I have been looking forward to for quite some time now. Obviously we could really use some prayer! God gave me Luke 14:23 this morning, “And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel people to come in, that my house may be filled.” This verse is found in the parable of the Great Banquet, where many are invited and one by one people say that they can’t come anymore, so the Master sends out His servant to “compel” people, anyone who will listen and attend, to come so that His “house may be filled”. This is my prayer for my ministry and for this weekend. That through the Holy Spirit I will be able to compel people to come to His house and meet my Beloved Friend Jesus. He’s a really cool guy ya know. 😉

Next month, we will be again doing the Sunday school class and a craft on the third Sunday of the month, but in addition to that we will also be having a Family Movie Night at the church where we will be showing “The Polar Express” to kick off the holiday season! We will begin with a casual carry-in dinner, then the movie and popcorn! How fun right!?! Prayers for this event would be greatly appreciated as well! We are hoping that it will be December 7th, but the date is still up in the air until I hear back from the church’s calendar keeper. 😉 God bless her! (She’s sick right now and could use our prayers as well.)

Speaking of sick! Sean and I both have been ravaged with something they tell us is viral. Cough and congestion like nothing else I know! Last night I felt like my body was trying to perform an exorcism on my lungs! But they refused to budge, thank God! My back and belly just ache from being wracked with coughing all night.  The day time seems to be so much better though. I can *almost* breathe normally! But once sundown hits, forget it for the rest of the night! So far the kids don’t seem to have gotten it and we pray with all our might that they don’t (In Jesus’ name) because it is simply miserable.

With Sean’s derby ministry, things are going well. At the moment, he is working on stripping a car that was donated to him, and finding all kinds of fun things in it! The two of us are dreaming right now. The other day we were watching a car show and they were building a workshop inside an enclosed trailer. I looked at Sean and said, “That’s what you need honey! Forget the garage, get an enclosed trailer and then you can take the garage with you to derbies!!!” He’s been obsessed ever since. So now we’re dreaming of the day when we’ll have the funds to get this black enclosed trailer that we have our eye on. The day he showed it to me, as we were pulling out of the parking lot he said to me, almost dreamily, “I can just see ‘Sheridan Slobberknocker’ and ‘7×70’ painted across the side of that trailer.” My heart skipped a beat, a rolling witness to Jesus and forgiveness! It cracks me up how different we are from most couples these days. While they’re dreaming about new bigger TVs and such, we’re dreaming about enclosed trailer workshops big enough to fit a car in with a ministry name painted on the side and a website so that people can look us up and receive the gospel message right on their smart phones while driving down the road. Hmmm, that might not be a very safe idea after all… 😉 And the thing that’s even funnier than that, is that just a few short years ago, we were those people dreaming about the material things instead of the ministry things. Oh, how the times have changed!

Now, don’t get me wrong, we do still dream about material things! In fact just yesterday I was dreaming about a new living room floor! But, that’s not what this blog post is about now is it? 🙂

For accountability sake, yes, I am still reading through the Bible in a year and writing as I’m doing it. I’m almost finished with Jeremiah! And I’m feeling like I may be close to finished with the note taking process on the Bible study, but then again I could be very wrong about that. This one feels like it’s going to take a while to finish.

If you’re wondering about my photography, it seems to be taking a backseat at the moment to the church involvement and Bible Study writing. And I’m OK with that because I know that the season has changed and with that comes activity changes. So I won’t cling to what was, but rather I will allow the focus to shift to the things God is calling me to NOW, instead of what He called me to then. I know I have a gift and He won’t let me waste it. But right now my prevalent gift of teaching is wooing me so heavily I can hardly stand it! Visions of lesson plans dance in my head through these long cough-y nights. The teacher in me has laid all too dormant over these last several months and she’s raging to come out with a bang! SO, now that I’ve tapped out these updates, I hear my lesson plan for this coming Sunday beckoning to be written down so I’d better get to it! I’ll do my best to keep you updated so that you can continue to pray for our ministry.

I thank you desperately for your prayers and your encouragement, they mean the world to us!!!

GOD BLESS YOU!!!!!

Most weekday mornings after I shove the kids out the door and off to school I stand with Skippy our dog at the corner of our street and wave to the departing bus, only to turn and walk with him in the opposite direction in order to get a few streets ahead and meet the bus once again so that the kids can see the dog and I walking. It’s silly, but we all love it. This morning was no different. A block to the west, a block to the south, another block to the west, wave as the bus drives by! J And then the awareness of the peace of a still dark morning falls upon my brain; the birds awakening from their slumber and singing us into a new day. The crisp air of fall surrounds me, beaconing me to walk a bit faster, breathe a bit deeper. I give thanks a bit more as the perfume of the fallen leaves mingles with the fresh evening rain intoxicating my senses. One block, two blocks, three blocks more, the dog pulls at the leash begging me to walk faster, run even, I refuse. He is cold and wants to go home, I want to stay in this moment, feet pounding, heart still. Four blocks, five, we round the bend and walk toward the rising sun dawning on this peace-filled town awakening to another new day. Doors to lit-homes open, wives kissing their husbands goodbye fill the backlit frames like a movie – fascinating. Six blocks, seven, maybe even eight, I’ve lost count at this point, my eyes are drawn to a dimly lit window framed in squares. This is my favorite window, I admit, I often peek into this one. It is the home of our wonder-sitter’s grandparents, strong Christian folks, elderly and sweet like most grandparents are. Most mornings I need squint in order to see properly as I walk briskly by, but not this one. As fall is deepening so are the shadows outside allowing the light inside to penetrate the darkness and creating crisper images within these frames of lives. There in the recliner next to a dim side table lamp sits the grandparent of the one we love, reading, leaning in toward the light ever so slightly, book angled in order to catch every ray of the small lamp. Glasses on and gleaming, radiating the light reflected from the white pages of a well worn book. And while I may not be able to see the title, I know it, because it is the most well-read book of all time. I feel privileged to peer in on something so sacred and private, yet so tender and loving. The eyes of the aged focused on the one thing in this world that brings abundant life and light, Jesus. Oh, how I love Jesus! Just this morning I was telling Him how much I yearned to tell others about Him and how wonderful He is, then to pass by and witness someone drinking from the same living well, not because they are thirsty but because they are hungry; hungry for wisdom from the wisdom giver; yearning for a Word to get them through yet another day in the valley of the shadow of death. It’s not about religion to them, they’re not reading because that’s what you’re supposed to do, they have a relationship where they read because they recognize their lover’s handwriting throughout the pages of the book. We read, because we can’t not read. We pray because we can’t help but talk with the One who fills the frames of life with moments like these. It is said, a picture is worth a thousand words, this hasn’t been a thousand words, but it’s a picture none-the-less. A picture of a life spent searching the pages of a book for ancient truths and answers to today’s issues; the issues that fill these frames with sadness and glee. These pages that contain words that bring hope to the hopeless, life to the dead and health to the sick. While I have walked block after block they have turned page after page, read word after word feasting on them with their eyes, drinking them deep down into their heart so that later those same words may spring forth like springs of living water from deep within where they were stored bringing life to the life-less and a home to the homeless.

I keep walking, stopping may be considered stalking after all. I walk one last block, turn one last corner to home, where I open my own door to my own lit-home where I sit before my own backlit window at my desk and begin typing a story, a frame from my life. Maybe someone passing by will peer in and be inspired by me. I hope so. I pray so. But even if not, I’ll do it anyway, because I love Him. And I can’t not write.

My dear friends, so much has happened since I last wrote to you! I have been studying and writing a Bible study on, of all things, stones. J I have heard the call of our Lord, and Love, to “get out there” and start getting my writing into the hands of those that wouldn’t be able to find it any other way than through a face to face encounter with me at a festival or bazaar. This has been difficult for me, I’ll admit. It’s so easy to tap away on a keyboard all day and say anything the Lord tells you, it’s a completely different thing to be standing in a booth, scripture all over the table and have people walk right by on the opposite side of the road, without a second glance, completely uninterested in what you have to say or sell. In fact, it’s quite heartbreaking. But I cling to Hope for them, He loves them desperately and one day they will know that full well. And I pray that I will have done ALL that I could to help them come to that realization.

I have come to grips with the long known fact that God has made me to teach. I’ve known it since I was in Kindergarten and yet somehow I had forgotten it somewhere along the way. I thought perhaps my call into ministry had changed that, I honestly don’t know what I was thinking. Last week God said to me, “Little girl, you’re a teacher, you’ve always known that, now start acting like one!” You know, when I was in Kindergarten, playing “school” during the summer and forcing my little brother to be my student so I could give him homework I never imagined that THIS is what God had in mind for me. Classrooms of a non-descript size, where my blackboard would be a computer screen and my students would be worlds away perhaps even across the ocean. Who knows! The sky is the limit… or is it? Are there limits to what God can do with us when we fully yield to His plan and His will? I don’t know. Maybe I’ll be lucky enough to find out.

In November I will be starting a once-a-month Sunday school class at our church. I am very excited about this! Although we will be starting out watching videos of other pastors and then discussing them afterwards in whatever time we have left. This is not my goal. Obviously! It is merely our way of building a class of diverse ages and stages in life, a good mix, in the hopes that once the class builds a bit I can begin teaching my own material. We will see where the Holy Spirit takes it, but that IS my desire. My prayer for our church is to draw the parents of the younger children into a much closer relationship with Christ in order for them to be walking, breathing role models for those young impressionable minds before them. The greatest way to raise a child up in the way that they should go, is to show them how it’s done. I learned from my parents, and I pray with every fiber of my being that our children are learning from us. I learned what a good marriage looks and feels like from my parents and, thanks to God and True Intimacy, Sean and I are passing that down to our children too. I want to teach others what God’s love can do for them, their marriages and their families.

I am struggling with what exactly to do with my photography business at the moment, I could totally use some prayers for that!

I’m also struggling with letting go of my Bible study group of friends. I’m just not sure what GOD wants us to do, where HE wants us to go from here. I feel Him leading me to focus my energies on our church and teaching, but at the same time, these gals are my SISTERS. They hold me up. I can’t imagine not meeting with them every week anymore, and yet at the same time I’m wondering if that is what God is calling us to do. I just don’t KNOW and because of that reason I can’t seem to let go. Do you know what I mean?

On a much more personal note, we’ve got a lot of stuff going on that’s not so fun. Financial issues, always. My Dad just had a hip replacement, which was extremely stressful, now over, but still a little in the air – blood clots are possible and pain is lingering. The day after my Dad’s surgery, my grandpa (Mom’s dad) went into the hospital with pneumonia and a small heart attack, he’s 90+! So there’s a *bit* of stress there. I know that my aunt has been dealing with major fatigue and pain, she could use some prayers as well. Sean’s Dad, grandpa and uncle are all headed out to Washington at the moment for a ceremony to honor Grandpa and his service to our country. That’s amazing, but could also use prayers for a safe journey and lots of laughs and good memories along the way.

I will say, God is good and He’s totally holding me together, but I could still use some major prayers for a lot of things on a lot of fronts. So much is going on in life right now! I have to wonder if it will ever slow down… and then I wonder if I would really want it to… I don’t think so, I’d probably get bored. Who knows though, I bet I could get used to it! J