Big.

Ponderings and Wanderings

...of my heart.

Psalms 40.

Two verses that I have made my prayers.

The first---a promise that was made by God to me from ages past, but are the whispered cries to my Savior.

"Withhold not thy tender mercies from me, O Lord: let they lovingkindness and thy truth continually perserve me."

The second---a statement that I long to be able to say to the Lord without a single doubt to it truly being true.

"I delight to do they will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart."

Which is it?

Are you really brave if you show courage when others are around but run for your life when no one else is there?

For example, and just for example. If for instances, you atempt to kill two 6-foot-long snakes when other people are watching, even though they are hissing like crazy. But you bolt if you, by yourself see one cowered in the corner a couple days later?

Bravery or pride? This is the question.

And remember, its just an example.

Longing...

...for home.

Words in a text message shocked me this morning.
A friends of mine's mom found out this week that she has a horrible sickness. I don't know the lady myself...not even her name, but I have been putting her at the feet of my Savior all morning. A Savior who knows her name, agony, and soul.

I have yet to respond to the text message.

I read these words a little while after....

"Heaven is not here, it's There. If we were given all we wanted here, our hearts would settle for this world rather than the next. God is forever luring us up and away from this one, wooing us to Himself and His still invisible Kingdom, where we will certainly find what we are so keenly looking for."

Words from a Stranger.

Its a Saturday morning and I am cleaning my brother's room. Every now and again it needs a good cleaning to make sure no new fungi have grown. I am rewarded nicely by said brother, so no complaints there. As I am going through a mountain of books {a love of reading. one of the many characteristics my brother and I share}, I receive a text message from a friend, "Wanna go grab some lunch?" I reply with an affirmative. She comes by, asks a sister to go along and we get in the car to make the decision as to where to go.
A "quick service" place it is. We order our food, arriving at different times at our said table. It is lunch hour and the place is hopping. I sit next to my friend, my sister sitting across the table. She holds out her hands to both of us, and my friend thanks God for friends and food...two joys of life. Once she finishes, a man sitting at the next table with a lovely lady and three young children leans over and says,

"Thanks for showing my kids that big girls pray too."

um...why?

Some may have wondered, "why?" when they read this post that I wrote last week where I said that I had left Mexico. I could say so much in response to that question. I could explain....

*All the things I learned there.

* The conversations that I had.

* The time I spent with my Lord, growing in my relationship with Him and in the knowledge of Him.

* The hardships that have been faced. [And by no means would that be the bathroom experiences. Those where great pleasures. Seriously.]

* The friendships I made.

* The opprotunities I now have before me.

* The longings of my heart.

...yes. I could explain all that. But then I would only be explaining the how the Lord brought me here to Georgia again, not the why.

The why. His name is Erick. A shy young man. He lives in a moderate size town in the US of A. In my backyard, you could say. Today we did his homework together, stopping ever now and then to talk about whatever. We finished, joined the rest of the group of kids, sang "Happy Birthday", shared some cupcakes, and he went on his way with his mom.

While I had been talking with him, I stepped back and took a mental picture and thought, "Would I ever have believed that I would be here at this time and in this place?" The answer was a clear "No." and a "Thank You for doing things that only You can do, Lord."

Why the appearance of over-dramatization on my part, you might ask?

Because we shared that time together speaking Spanish.

Dreams, prayers rather, do come true when the are from the Lord.

Pulled

Have you ever tried walking two dogs at once? Its a crazy task. Get them all hooked up, they cross back and forth, twisting thier leashes and ending up going in two totally differnt directions.
I was in the middle of all that today when I looked up and stopped suddenly. I saw a reflection of myself in the window. Arms and legs spread wide, steaching as far as they could go in opossite directions. I was being pulled, but going no where. And I looked like an idiot.
And oh how that must look when I do the same thing when I attempt to live my life to please people. All strung out in different directions but going nowhere.
Oh to live life only seeing eternity and not get pulled from one side to the other!

"He leadeth me in the path's of righteousness for HIS name's sake."

Hast mostla.

We emerge from the wooded path into a clearing. There sits a little wooden house. The door stands open and two children stop their play, staring at the strangers that had just happened upon their home. Greetings where exchanged all around, and then a few words in a language unknown to me.
We walk up to the next home and enter the kitchen. Three very dear ladies are there, grandmother, mother, and daughter. Our greetings with them are filled with more warmth. Strong hugs and kisses on each cheek. Others are there as well, and formal greetings are exchanged once again. Then a few more words are said, again, just sounds that register nothing in my mind. They all stood up suddenly, walking down the hill to their bedroom. We all take seats, as their neighbors, the people we had just talked to moments before, begin to fill in. We begin to sing. Every now in then, David translates what is happening into Spanish, and I in turn translate to my sister Ashlyn. We sing from our hearts with praise to the Lord. We sing "Open the eyes of my heart Lord" and David asks Ashlyn and I to sing it in English. David shares from the Bible, and afterward we have a time of prayer.
We go back up to the kitchen to share a meal togther. We laugh and carry on, my friend Ana fills me in on what is happening. We had discovered this home only two weeks before, when those ladies trusted Christ. We are told that it is time to go. We go around the room, hugging the ladies and barely touching the fingertips of the men.
Ashlyn and I make it outside first. We walk quickely for a little ways, then stop, looking at each other. Tears fill our eyes.

We had shared our lives with those people. Yes, only over a few short weeks, and always with a translator or two, but we loved them and we knew that they loved us.
But we also knew that we would never see them again in this world. We were leaving. Leaving to go back to the country that we came from, with no expections of ever returning to that small clusters of homes, hours from any real town, in the middle of the mountains of Mexico.
We had shared our lives with them, but now we share, the LIFE, life eternal, and not through a translator, but through our mediator, Jesus Christ. Yes, life that transends all types of lifes, cultures, languages, and experiences. We are one in HIM.
So even though we knew what was coming, we never said goodbye but we did say "hasta mostla."

Or in other words....
See you later.