Ian & Larissa

Desiring God is highlighting the lives of Ian and Larissa (www.prayforian.com). I'm so glad their story is reaching multitudes. God has given them a unique story to exalt him.

  

In May 2006 Ian Murphy led my family group at the New Attitude conference (Next Conference), and that summer he was in Lancaster for an internship. I remember him giving me advice on changing my major at school. College kids with life ahead of us, I think so many of us felt the gut wrenching truth of how life really can be taken away in an instant as we witnessed what happened to Ian's life. He was someone who stood out in a group and was so passionate about God and life. If thi...s could happen to him....well, why not me?

As I read him saying "I would do this (disability) all over again if I knew it would affect this many people. God is glorious," it's really hitting me that God had a special leadership role for Ian in the body of Christ, different from what we may have thought back then. Ian seemed to be the kind of guy who naturally was gifted with influencing people, but then his accident happened and God has taken that and multiplied it in such a powerful way, not decreased it. Ian and Larissa are exalting Christ in the roles God has given them. They are persevering in the faith and treasuring Christ, taking each day and difficult moment at a time by the enabling grace of God.

Soli Deo Gloria

living today: a Turkish evening

So this week I've got easy material to post for "living today." 

My friend Chris Haughery designed the program/invitation for a wine tasting event fundraiser called Heart's Delight Wine Auction to benefit the American Heart Association. They gave him two tickets to a formal private $500 plate dinner at the Turkish ambassador's residence, and he asked me to be his +1. It was a pretty amazing experience. I was privileged and honored to go down to DC last Thursday for the dinner.

Here is the published information about our dinner.

Host: His Excellency Namik Tan, The Ambassador of the Republic of Turkey 

Chef: Hasan Siyam, Ambassador’s Chef
Wine: Collection of Turkish wines presented by Steve Feldman of Potomac Wines & Spirits
Residence of the Ambassador of Turkey 1606 23rd Street, NW
7:00 p.m.
Total guests: 28
Tickets: $500 

ready to go

taking the Metro there

inside the residence

dinner

dessert

do we look like we belong in there?

after a really great evening

I love how it's lit up.

A-mazing...yeah I spent the evening there dining with the Turkish ambassador and hobnobbing with about 25 other guests. Even made a new Turkish friend whose husband works on staff in the embassy.

It was such a treat, and so clear to me that my Father wanted to bless me in a unique fun way.

living today

So, I missed my post last week. I don't know what happened, but life suddenly is jam packed full every moment! I've been really thankful and enjoying it, though I'm exhausted and need to prioritize rest as well as keep tabs on quieting my heart in the midst of the flurry of activity.

Now this post will cover two weeks. :)

Monday, April 16th.

Kid History is a youtube series phenomenon all the rage in recent weeks. While babysitting the Weaver kids two Mondays ago, I captured several of their re-enactments. Here's one. These kiddos make me smile, and tired too. :)

Tuesday, April 17th.
At the end of Uncle Gene's visit he and my grandparents came to get a tour of our church building. Here they are afterwards looking very tourist-y.

Wednesday, April 18th.
This is so precious to me. My mom gave me a surprise visit at work in the morning and brought lilacs from home. I'm not sure if I've ever had a visit from her at work before, maybe once. It's just not anywhere near our end of town. This was so sweet to me because that morning I was feeling homesick and missing her because I hadn't been able to spend much time at home or with my family recently. One of those moments to tuck away and remember God's goodness.

Thursday, April 19th.
Kurt was on the porch and came in to tell Teresa and I  about a mother fox and her kits who were playing around their den and this tree. We took binoculars out and enjoyed a few moments watching their frolicking. You can't see them well here, but we got a pretty good visual. 

Then when I left work, this groundhog reminded me again of the fact that I work on a "farm." Pretty sure he lives right around there, as I've observed him on my walks to the mail. Loved unexpectedly seeing wildlife that afternoon!

Wednesday April 25th.
Professional Administrative Assistants Day (a.k.a. Secretaries Day).  My bosses/pastors did an excellent job of blessing Teresa and I. I love these flowers at my desk (still there!).

We took a tour of the building progress that afternoon. 

The amphitheater is looking green and lovely right next to the building.

I like this one. It captures just a little bit of the feel of walking through the building on a typical busy afternoon. Something is happening everywhere you look. Reminded me of a Richard Scarry book. :)

Thursday, April 26.
Little Miss Greta drew me a picture and gave it to me when I arrived to babysit.

Friday, April 27th.
I loved running an errand to Central Market to pick up a flower bouquet.  I felt so very feminine and metropolitan as I walked the city streets with a big beautify bouquet on that windy day.

Saturday, April 28th.
We had our Women by Design ladies day event. I really enjoyed helping out administratively during my work week and then coming together with the ladies from church on Saturday. The worship, teaching, fellowship, and food was all very good, and I'm very thankful we had that time.

Pretty bird and branch center pieces at our table.

Women by Design

I am very aware of my need for the grace of God to be a good helper and faith-filled like my name-sake. "And you are [Sarah's] children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening." (1 Peter 3:6) I so often fail in this.

Ultimately I need more than Sarah's example.  I need my Savior's, and the power of his life, death, and resurrection in my life.

Some notes from Pete's Women by Design message on Saturday:

• Jesus was full of grace and truth, not just truth without grace. 
• Ask for a gentle and quiet spirit so you can be a helper. 
• Men don't always recognize the help you are trying to bring. 
• Helping doesn't come through striving, but the Lord gives us grace to help even when we see they are going the wrong way.
• It is in cross-carrying and suffering that glorifies God best. 

"they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct. ... but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious." (1 Peter 3:1-4)

Being precious in my Father sight, oh what a secure thing to know the intimate care and pleasure of my Lord!

living today

This past week . . . 

Uncle Eugene visiting from Beirut, Lebanon

Sara Bruton's 25th birthday cards glowing.

Glow bowling with some of the Hanna care group for Sara's birthday last Friday.

Holly & Sara. :)

They were "dancing" to the song. It was cute. :)
Happy 25th Sara!

Some frisbee at the Sensenig family Easter this past Sunday.
Grandma and Granddaddy have such a pretty yard.

Some visiting kids placed these rocks on a stump at the church office over a week ago.
The evidence of their presence remains, and made me smile.

A sight I see 5 days a week.

living today

I've decided to start something new on this blog. Each week, probably on Monday, I'll post a photo, video, or snap shot in words of life in the past week. I'm calling these series of posts "living today," borrowing from my blog tag. It's similar to what I like to do with instagram, twitter, or facebook, but this will be more routine. I hope it to be a light and fun addition to my blog, helping to recount the moments, sights, and experiences God places around me each week.

This is the stuff life's made of, the stuff we live in today, the context that living today in light of that day is done in. This is the world we live in, the beautiful and the broken. Life is but a breath, and then comes that Day. "Til the day," here are some moments that have caught my eye in the life God's given me in the here and now.

Sunday April 1.
Aunt Cheryl drove up from Charlotte to spend a week with us over Easter.
She brought her friends Jay & Pamela and their two dogs.

Wednesday April 4.
I was getting over being sick the day before.
Skipped the gym and went on a morning walk instead.
Our road is more scenic & fresh than Planet Fitness by far!

Monday April 9.

Last week to file your taxes.

Lady Liberty dances in downtown Lancaster 

(missed the best parts, but here you go).

The Great Healer Mends Fractures

What a beautiful gospel connection on this Good Friday. I'm thankful for the hope filled insight in Stephen Altrogge's Blazing Center post from yesterday, excerpted below:

There is only one person who can cross the great divide between us and God and only one person who can mend the deep division in our relationships with others.

By his death on Good Friday and his resurrection three days later, Jesus has crossed the divide for us and is bringing us together as his people. Ephesians 2:12-14 highlights this beautifully:

…remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility…

Jesus is the great healer. In him, the fracture is being mended. Our brokenness is being healed. Our exclusion is being repaired. I once was far off from God but now I have been brought near. I once was excluded from the people of God but now the dividing wall of hostility has been torn down. I am now a son of God, and heir with Christ, and a member of God’s family.

Easter is a reminder that God has begun to heal the fracture that ripped the world apart. The break is being mended, the division being repaired! Someday, when Jesus returns, we will again be in the immediate presence of God. There will be no sense of exclusion, no sense of alienation. Everything will be made right again. I’m so looking forward to that day.

Ask for An Enduring & Thank-filled Faith

...we have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God. May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. (Colossians 1:9-14 ESV)

 Be patient, therefore, brothers, until the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits for the precious fruit of the earth, being patient about it, until it receives the early and the late rains. You also, be patient. Establish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is at hand. (James 5:7-8 ESV)

 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, (2 Corinthians 1:3 ESV)

This Father of mine not only has love in his heart towards me, but also the ability to act, completely unthwarted, on it. 
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Revelation 1:8 ESV)

Knowing God Personally

J.I. Packer on page 39 of Knowing God:

Knowing God is a matter of personal dealing, as is all direct acquaintance with personal beings. Knowing God is more than knowing about him; it is a matter of dealing with him as he opens up to you, and being dealt with by him as he takes knowledge of you. Knowing about him is a necessary precondition of trusting in him ("how could they have faith in one they had never heard of?" [Rom 10:14 NEB]), but the width of our knowledge about him is no gauge of the depth of our knowledge of him.
...If the decisive factor was notional correctness, then obviously the most learned biblical scholars would know God better than anyone else. But it is not; you can have all the right notions in your head without ever tasting in your heart the realities to which they refer; and a simple Bible reader and sermon hearer who is full of the Holy Spirit will develop a far deeper acquaintance with his God and Savior than a more learned scholar who is content with being theologically correct. The reason is that the former will deal with God regarding the practical application of truth to his life, whereas the latter will not.

May God give us much grace to be men and women who "deal with God regarding the practical application of truth" to our lives and not simply have all "the right notions" in our heads without it taking control of our hearts. What joy and peace there is in knowing God in this way! 

Father, please send your Spirit to open our hearts up to your word in our lives each day.

"Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous thing out of your law." - Psalm 119:18 ESV

photo: July 15, 2007; Tuscany, Italy

Jean Griswold, witness to Christ

Jean: It's sad to this day...but the Lord has given me so much....When I think about this, I cry and it's sad. It's part of me...the Lord had not kept my husband with me, and I still don't have the answers to that, really....I hope girls learn how to trust God for whatever comes. Life's not a bowl of cherries all the time. Maybe every once in a while. And you have to learn how to hold steady through the down times... 

me: How did you learn that? What did you learn about trusting God in the down times? 

Jean: Well sometimes I didn't. If there was not a deep sense in me that I had been born again, that God had met me, and Christ had come into my life, there was forgiveness, and there's cleansing in the blood, and we must keep knowing that....It was just lovely...but I got so hurt by the way he acted towards me. I don't know; I still don't know....I didn't always manage well. 

Doug: Sounds to me that your relationship with Jesus was the steel in the structure that kept this house from crashing down.

Jean: ...from me going down underneath it all, yes.

Doug: Losing a child, having a divorce some years later, and the awful things in between, it really comes down to a woman's walk and relationship with Jesus.
...
Jean: Just put first things first in your life. Have that which is important in God for you. Let the pressures of life fall away. I don't think we need to be struggling, Christian young women, if they know that their hope is in Christ.

me: And even after all you've been through, you can say that.

Jean: That's right. And that's what matters. You can get old like me and that's still what matters. Nothing else is as important as Jesus Christ.

This is a segment from an interview with Jean Griswold, an 85 year old lady in my church. My pastor Doug and I visited her one afternoon and captured such rich sweetness from a woman who's lived grounded in Christ in the reality of a broken world. I came away deeply affected and marveling at the paradox of a life of faith. Jean's faced a life full of many of my fears, feeling their reality deeply so that they are part of her even today and still bring sorrow and tears decades later. And yet they have not overcome her. God has proven true to his word in her life, and she perseveres for the realization of the rest of his promises. She is a radiantly beautiful daughter of God who studies and treasures his word and sings his praises in her life. 

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.  (Hebrews 12:1-3)

I'm thankful for the saints who have gone before me. And how blessed am I to be surrounded by so many of them! Both my parents have memories of times with Jean as single young adults in Community of Believers, or maybe it was called Lancaster Covenant Church by then (now going by the name of Crossway Church!)


You can listen to parts of our conversation with Jean on our church blog here. 

photo: August 13, 2011; last family vacation 

at the hunting cabin in Tioga county

A Father to orphans

1Hope4Africa-Mission Team and Muphamuzi Baby Home Opening!

The above links to a vimeo of the Muphamuzi Baby Home in South Africa that my friends Donovan & Heather Drew will soon be heading up. They've recently left Crossway Churh and Lancaster and will be traveling there in a few short months to lead this ministry to orphans in Donovan's home country.

What a privilege to watch God at work, and what amazing grace that he has saved us and allows us to participate in his work in this world.

“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you."
(John 14:18 ESV)

Free Grace at the Highest Price

It's not free. It's not simple to be saved. Somebody has to pay.

On the cross Jesus Christ was stripped naked so that we could be clothed in a robe of honor that we don't deserve. On the cross Jesus called, "my God, my God," the only time he never called him Father, because at that moment he was not being treated as a son so that you and I could be.

- Tim Keller

Sorrow and love meet face to face.

Friendship in Proverbs 17

Whoever covers an offense seeks love,

but he who repeats a matter separates close friends.

(Proverbs 17:9 ESV)

A friend loves at all times,

and a brother is born for adversity.

(Proverbs 17:17 ESV)

photo: August 13, 2011 at hunting cabin in Tioga County, PA

Who is like our Lord?

 The LORD is merciful and gracious,
  slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
 He will not always chide,
  nor will he keep his anger forever.
 He does not deal with us according to our sins,
  nor repay us according to our iniquities.
 For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
  so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
 as far as the east is from the west,
  so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
(Psalm 103:8-12 ESV)

Who is like our Lord?

That was shared during our worship service yesterday. It is both convicting and comforting to know there is no one like our Lord. None compares to his mercifulness, graciousness, slowness to anger, and abudance of steadfast love. Because I am in Christ, I do not need to lead a fearful life, waiting to be crushed, pushed down, or stifled. No, his wrath has already been poured out on Christ. I need not fear that from him anymore. And if the fear of the Lord is greater in me than fear of man, if his greatness is greater than anything else in my mind and heart, I need not fear what man can do to me.

 So we can confidently say,
 “The Lord is my helper;
  I will not fear;
 what can man do to me?”
(Hebrews 13:6 ESV) 

God is not like man. Man is made in his image and made to reflect him, but none truly compares with the Father. None truly has steadfast love or has sacrificed as much to lead and love me as the Son. When his image bearers fail to shine forth his glorious image, ask "who is like our Lord?"
Do not, oh my soul, confine your God to the failures of man.

photo: shadows in the kitchen 9/20/08

Romans 12

So thankful to my Father, who is not finished with me yet and who cares for me down to every detail. I am, and always will be, in desperate need of Christ. He is faithful to meet that need, to meet me in my weakness and grow me in the godliness he calls me to.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. -Romans 12:9-21

Thanks to Kurt Weaver for pointing me to Romans 12 today.

Hope for the Broken

Paul Tripp, in Forever:

The fact that this world is not an endless cycle of dashed hopes and fading dreams but by God's plan is marching toward a moment when all that is broken will be restored can fill you with a reason to get up in the morning and press on. Yes, life is hard and you will face things you never imagined you would face, but this world is not all there is. You are not living in the final chapter of the story. What is broken will be fixed, what has been bent will be straightened, and what has decayed will be restored. Eternity really does give you a reason to continue, even when nothing right now seems as if it is working. Eternity challenges my feelings of futility by reminding me that what I am experiencing right now is not permanent.

Wow, talk about hope! I'm growing more convinced of my need for an eternal perspective and clinging to Christ.
"All that has been broken will be restored." Brokenness does not have the last word. All of creation yearns for the return on the Lord, when he will put everything right. And he gives grace for us to hold on until then. We have hope, and God is with us even now. We live in the reality of the already but not yet.

The hope of the righteous brings joy, but the expectation of the wicked will perish.
(Proverbs 10:28)

May I delight and take joy in God's goodness today, for he is very good. I want each day to be a treasure hunt for him.

Taste

"We get a taste of God's good gifts in the here and now to keep us hungering for the full meal that is waiting for us in eternity."
Paul Tripp in Forever: Why You Can't Live Without It

Faith like Sarah

"And you are [Sarah's] children, if you do good and do not fear anything that is frightening."
- 1 Peter 3:6