I do not know where to begin...I do not know what to say...so I will start with I am tired.  I am not tired because I stayed up too late playing dominoes...even though I did.  I am not tired because my sleep was interrupted with intrusive dreams...even though they were.  I am not tired because my body is sore and I could not find a comfortable position to lay in all night...even though I could not.

I am tired because I have spent the night weeping and praying.  I am tired because my heart is aching and I am not quite certain what to do with the heartache.  My heart is aching for Moatza Ezorit Sdot Negev, Netivot, Ashdod, Beer Sheva, Moatza Ezorit Merhavim, Hatzerim and many more.  Do not worry, as I had never heard of any of these places until around 1:00 pm yesterday afternoon myself.  You see, these are all places in Israel who have been bombed since that time yesterday.  Allow me to explain how I have this information.

Yesterday July 29, 2014 at 1:00 pm, I decided to make myself more aware of what was going on in Israel by downloading "Red Alert" onto my IPhone.  "Red Alert" blares a siren each time Hamas launches a missile into Israel and those cities I mentioned above are their targets.  Since I downloaded that app, Hamas has launched 36 missiles into those cities.  At first I was becoming more aware, then the Holy Spirit grabbed my heart and asked me to start praying each time the siren blared on my phone and now on July 30th at 7:00 am and 36 missiles later, I AM WORN.

Just since midnight, there have been 16 missiles launched!  Each time the siren would blare, I began praying for the Peace of Israel.  However that prayer, "Lord, I pray for the Peace of Israel" became more and more real to me.  Suddenly I realized that I was not only praying for peace for a nation, albeit the most beloved nation in God's eyes; but, I was praying for peace of a People...God's CHOSEN..."O seed of Israel His servant, You children of Jacob, His chosen ones!"   I Chronicles 16:13  People God has set His heart on and has called out....the apple of His eye!  There are so many people in each of these cities who have not come to know Jesus their Messiah!  Oh, how blessed I have felt in the past 18 hours that I know their Messiah and that He has grafted me into the Vine.

I also began to feel the panic that I am certain they have felt each time that siren blared for them!  Panic that, if they have felt safe to leave their shelters, they have had to run to them again and again for safety.  Panic for the elderly who are unable, for many reasons, to make it into their shelters.  Grief for those who may have been injured or killed in attempts to get to their shelters.  I have also felt overwhelmed by the magnitude of their panic and heartache.

I am not going to turn the app off on my IPhone...how could I now?  I am going to continue to pray for the Peace of Israel...Peace of a People...Salvation for a CHOSEN one.  Since I began writing this blog at 7:00 am and it is now 8:00 am, 3 more missiles have been launched...one in Moatza Ezorit Eshkol, one in Moatza Ezorit Shaar Hanegeve and one in Ashkelon...and three more in my heart.  I pray God will continue to penetrate my heart with those missiles.  Shalom

Sacrifices of Joy

I Offer You Sacrifices of Joy

By:  Tameasa Shook Provencher

Psalm 27:6, 13&14

“…Therefore I will offer sacrifices of joy in His tabernacle.”  This really made me ponder many things that I had not thought to ponder in the past.  My favorite verse in the Bible has always been Psalm 27:13 and 14, “I would have lost heart, unless I had believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.  Wait on the Lord; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; wait, I say, on the Lord!”  However, I've always breezed right past verse 6 and offering “sacrifices of joy.”

How does one offer sacrifices of joy amidst heartache, grief, loneliness, illnesses and depression?  How can you be joyful when everything you've always known is collapsing around you and you feel helpless to do anything about it and prayer, at times, seems so futile?  How do you tell a young girl, who has aborted her baby, that there is HOPE and in the midst of her sin, and, yes, even her grief, there is forgiveness at the foot of the cross…only there can her shame and guilt be left and she can then, too, offer the sacrifices of joy?

Sacrifice is difficult…it is painfully difficult most of the time.  It is not for the faint of heart or the casual Christian because it requires surrender:  Surrender to one-self, control and surprisingly wallowing in the pains that keep us from the sacrifice.  Yes, wallowing…..sometimes we (I) am more comfortable with the difficulties that keep me from surrender and submission than we joy of our healing…difficulties that keep us from falling prostrate before God and crying out for forgiveness.  I find myself swimming in the “pool of wallowing …” OR not submersing in the Pool of Forgiveness…like the man in John 5 who, for 38 years, lived in his infirmity and never stepped into the Pool of Bethesda.  Then Jesus “comes” into his life and heals him.  He did not linger either…he did as Jesus said and picked up his bed and went home!  What an example of how we are to respond when Jesus moves in our lives!

However, sometimes we aren't completely healed like this man are we?  Sometimes Jesus moves and our infirmity, as it were, is left intact…like Paul’s “thorn in the flesh.”  Jesus then begins to teach us how to persevere in them because HE needs to work through them.  He wants to use them for His glory.  So that we may, as it says in 2 Corinthians 2:4, “That we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble, with the comfort with which we ourselves ARE comforted by God.”    Paul doesn't say, “have been” comforted; but, “ARE!”  That is a hard lump to swallow for me.  Oh, the times I have cried out, “Why don’t you just remove my depression or my diabetes or my paralyzed stomach, God?  Lord, it would be much easier for ME to serve YOU, if these things were removed.  Don’t you want me to be free and in complete service?  Lord, why are you holding me back?”

However, this morning, when He began teaching me about the “sacrifices of joy,” I realized that experiencing joy and expressing joy when we don’t feel like it, is very difficult.  It is easy to offer up praise when there has been an answer to prayer or a miracle in our lives; but, what about when you have been admitted to the hospital for the eleventh time in a year?  How do you express joy and serve Him joyfully when you have lost your spouse, parent or child?  What is easy about expressing or experiencing joy when you have been diagnosed with an inoperable, untreatable cancer and your days on earth are numbered?  Does being joyful come easily when your home is in foreclosure and you do not know where you will find a home for your family?  How do you offer up the sacrifices of joy then?

In Psalm 27:1, David was facing his enemies; yet, he said, “Of whom shall I be afraid?”  David declared that he would only desire and seek to be “hidden in the secret of His tabernacle.”  He said that then he could offer the “sacrifices of joy.”

Offering sacrifices of joy is done without complaining and can only be offered through the perfect love of Jesus.  Once you have exchanged lordship over your own life and made Him Lord it will be made easier.  It will still be difficult, at times, but we have to CHOOSE to offer the sacrifices of JOY.  Then we can declare verses 14 and 13, with David …but only then.

This picture reminds me of life! There have been many times that I have been overcome with life. I allow my mind to get so caught up in what is swirling like a winter blizzard around me that I take my eyes off Him who holds me. After awhile, when my eyes have been on the struggles far too long, I forget He holds me and then I start focusing on the rottenness and death lying around me. Thankfully God has placed the appropriate people in my life to help guide me back to where my focus should be...Him. Once I put my eyes back on Him, HOPE springs anew in me and I become like that little flower pushing up through the death and decay I allowed to become dominate for awhile. Sometimes it takes death and decay to overwhelm us in order for us to see life. God allows us to go through suffering, pain and loss so we can learn of Him and know pure joy and all for His glory. 

Hannah Hurnard said in "Mountains of Spices," "There is absolutely no experience, however terrible, or heartbreaking, or unjust, or cruel, or evil, which you can meet in the course of your earthly life, that can harm you if you but let Me teach you how to accept it with joy; and to react to it triumphantly as I did myself, with love and forgiveness and with willingness to bear the results of wrong done by others. Every trial, every test, every difficulty and seemingly wrong experience through which you may have to pass, is only another opportunity granted to you of conquering an evil thing and bringing out of it something to the lasting praise and glory of God.”

My prayer is that of David in the Psalm 51:10, "Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me." I want to be like the little flower piercing through the decay and spring forth with hope and joy for His glory!

It is early morning here at The Provencher Bordeaux and the house is very quiet. Everyone is breathing deeply, as they sleep...including the girls. Maggie stirred a bit when I got out of bed, but I think she prefers to stay snuggled up next to her Daddy for a bit longer. As I walked by Shelley, who was laying in the floor, she raised her head and "looked" at me (she's blind, so it was more of a sense of comfort to know I was there) and I reached down and rubbed her noggin...she flopped back down on the floor to enjoy the wee morning hours.

I can hear the kitchen clock...tick...tick..tick and I can see the soft glow of the light from the living room. Contentment rests over my soul and I feel the blessing of the Lord over my home and family.

I think about what this morning must have been like for Jesus so many years ago, on Palm Sunday, as he rode into Jerusalem...in a week more, He would be on the Cross of Calvary dying for our sins ... the sins of the world. Oh, what manner of LOVE is this? Day-to-day anxieties threaten to overtake me, at times, yet have you considered the anxiety He felt, as He faced Death and the Grave? In Luke 22:44 it tells of his agony..."And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground."

I have never experienced that type of agony...I thought many times I would never get through my trial, yet Jesus facing such agony cried to the Father, "Not my will but Yours be done!"

I am so thankful that the God of all Creation would humble Himself to the death of the Cross for me ... so unworthy and wretched that I am. Because of so great a love, I can quietly slip out of bed in the mornings and hear my family sleeping peacefully and count the many blessings He has bestowed on me.

Simply Trusting Jesus

 

Simply Trusting Jesus

 

 

Nothing seems simple when you are trusting the Savior...trusting Him to heal your precious friend who's body is ravaged by cancer.  As you stand by her bedside holding her hand, stroking her brow, wiping her tears and perspiration while she weeps in fear and pain...your heart quietly praying and singing..."Tis' so sweet to trust in Jesus....just to take Him at His Word..."  Just to rest...Rest...yes, resting in Jesus....simply trusting Him and resting in Him.

 

 

 

 

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest."  Matthew 11:28

I will give you rest...a promise sure and sweet from our gracious and merciful Father.  A promise we can certainly rest in...we can lay our burdens in...all of them.  
 

The burden of...

 

Cancer

 

Pain

 

Heartache

 

Fear...

 

 

Yes, FEAR....fear of the unknown...fear of leaving a young child motherless...fear of leaving a husband...fear of leaving a mother childless...fear of saying goodbye, too soon...fear of closing your eyes and not knowing if they will open again...fear of....

 

 

REST --- Oh, let me rest in You, dear Lord...let my sweet friend find perfect, assured, all-comforting rest for her mind, her body and her soul in You.  Rest...a release of mind-aches, heart-aches, soul-aches...Rest...that You have not finished with me...with her...Rest...in that there are still things to be accomplished in her, through her, with her, for her, because of her...BECAUSE OF YOU!

 

 

"Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:6

Simply trusting and resting in You, Jesus...taking You at Your Word, Lord...that You will perform it...TRUSTING SIMPLY. 



 





TIME

Have you ever sat down and thought about time?  How is your time spent?  How does it tick away on the clock?  Do you rush it or wish it would stop?

I've spent my time this past week trying to rush it!  We leave for vacation in The Outer Banks, North Carolina in just three more days.  I can barely wait to get there and smell the Sea.   I promise the Sea smells sweeter in The Outer Banks than it does in Florida. I don't know why...maybe because it is one of the fondest memories I have in my life. It always seems there that I am immune to the heartaches I've always had and that no one could hurt me there. Whatever it is, I cannot wait to sink my feet into the beautiful tar-filled sand, hear the Sea singing praises to the Lord and smell the salt in the air.  I cannot wait to see Cape Hatteras Lighthouse that I started a love-affair with 30 years ago.  Isn't she beautiful!?!

My time not thinking about vacation is spent, mostly likely, just like yours.  I have school carpools, my son's music lessons, church, meals to prepare and an a sundry of other things that require my time and attention.  At the end of the day, my husband and I collapse on the couch, talk about our day, talk about all we have to do the next day and wonder where our time has gone.  We have all looked forward to time creeping by while on vacation.  We plan to just go slow!  Here is the home we are renting for the week.  Doesn't it look like a nice place to let time slip by in?

Vacations are great for whiling away the time, but there is a better prescription that God has given us for rest from our busy, time-stealing lives.  It is found in Exodus 20:8, "Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy."  God gave us the Sabbath as a reminder to slow down and turn our hearts toward Him.  It wasn't given to us to perfect our salvation, as some believe, it was given to reflect on Him, who holds all of time in His hands.  We need to learn to rest in Him.  He does not want us striving, as if we have no Heavenly Father who loves us and who has numbered our days.

Each day set aside a period of time to meditate in His Word.  I recommend it be early, when you first arise, so that you can give Him your first fruits of the morning.  Spend that time reading, praying and mostly being silent so you can hear Him speaking to you.  He desires our time, our fellowship and our adoration.  That is why He created us in the first place...do not rob God of your time, Beloved.  Shalom!





Calvary Covers It All

 

By:  Mrs. Walter G. Taylor

Inspired by the testimony of Charles Crawford, American Bible Society

 

 

Far dearer than all that the world can impart

Was the message that came to my heart

How that Jesus alone for my sin did atone

And Calvary covers it all

 

 

The stripes that he bore and the thorns that He wore

Told His mercy and love evermore

And my heart bowed in shame as I called on His name

And Calvary covers it all

 

 

How matchless the grace when I looked in the face

Of this Jesus, my crucified Lord

My redemption complete I then found at His feet

And Calvary covers it all

 

 

How blessed the tho't that my soul, by Him brought

Shall be His in the glory on high

Where with gladness and song I'll be one of the throng

And Calvary covers it all

 

 

REFRAIN

 

Calvary covers it all

My past with its sin and stain

My guilt and despair

Jesus took on Him there

And Calvary covers it all

 

 

 

Yes, Beloved, Calvary does cover it all...for you, for me and for the world.  Will you meet Him at Calvary?