Your Most Basic Act of Worship from 31 Days of Praise by Ruth Myers

"Lord, I'm Yours. Whatever the cost may be, may Your will be done in my life. I realize I'm not here on earth to do my own thing, or to seek my own fulfillment or my own glory. I'm not here to indulge my desires, to increase my possessions, to impress people, to be popular, to prove I'm somebody important, or to promote myself. I'm not here even to be relevant or successful by human standards. I'm here to please You.

I offer myself to You, for You are worthy. All that I am or hope to be, I owe to You. I'm Yours by creation, and every day I receive from You life and breath and all things. And I'm Yours because You bought me, and the price you paid was the precious blood of Christ. You alone, the Triune God, are worthy to be my Lord and Master. I yield to You, my gracious and glorious heavenly Father; to the Lord Jesus who loved me and gave Himself for me; to the Holy Spirity and His gracious influence and empowering.

All that I am and all that I have I give to You.

I give You my rebellion in me, that resists doing Your will. I give You my pride and self-dependence, that tell me I can do Your will in my own power if I try hard enough. I give You my fears, that tell me I'll never be able to do Your will in some areas of my life. I consent to let You energize me...to create within me, moment by moment, both the desire and the power to do Your will.

I give You my body and each of its members...my entire inner being; my mind, my emotional life, my will...my loved ones...my marriage or my hopes for mariage...my abilities and gifts...my strengths and weaknesses...my health...my status (high or low)...my posessions...my past, my present, and my future...when and how I'll go Home.

I'm here to love You, to obey You, to glorify You, O my Beloved, may I be a joy to You!"



I have appreciated this wonderful book that was given to me shortly after Joel's death. Current plans are to participate this fall in co-leading a "GriefShare" group with a good friend at our church.

Dottie















  

Heartprints

How many heartprints will you leave today? Will you share with a friend or give hugs away and join in the music, the singing, the joy? You can brighten the world as you go on your way. How many heartprints will you leave today? Will you listen with patience to what others say? How many heartprints will you leave today? A heartprint is formed when you do something kind. Your love touches others, leaving heartprints behind. So....what do you do? Well, that's up to you.You can smile at people you pass on the street. You can offer a handshake to soeone you meet. You can even pitch in for an hour or two to help out a friend with too much to do. Yes, each little kindness leaves heartprints that say, "A very nice person has been here today." Sometimes you'll reach out to someone in strife and do something thoughtful that changes a life. Or sometimes you may say the quietest thing and never quite know how you've made a heart sing. But this much is certain, our heartprints hold fast when others come first, and we put ourselves last. So...how many heartprints will youu leave today? Will you cheer up a teammate who's made the wrong play?Will you share a few laughs so a classmate will smile...or tend to a friend who's been ill for awhile? Even a wink of your eye helps to show you care about others and you want them to know. Yes, heartprints can heal us with the power of love. They lift up our spirits like the wings of a dove. And it's joyful to know in all that we do, the heartprints we give out make us happy too! So offer your friendship to each one you meet!

Taken from the book, Heartprints by P.K. Hallinan (I altered it just a bit!)

Found this book as I have been looking for library books for the students I tutor and just wanted to share it!
Thank you, each one, for all the special "heartprints" I have received from you over these last couple of years during Joel's illness and homegoing. 

Dottie

Joel's Earthly Birth Date

Today would have been Joel's 65th birthday. I chose to spend a quiet day here at home but was pleasantly surprised by  a dear couple who stopped by in remembrance of Joel's birthday.  Thank you Joe and Patti. The Lord is so good to continue to encourage me day by day through the actions of His family members.

Another encouragement came today from reading in Sarah Young's devotional, Jesus Calling.

"Waiting on Me means directing your attention to Me in hopeful anticipation of what I will do. It entails trusting me with every fiber of your being, instead of trying to figure things out for yourself. Waiting on Me is the way I designed you to live; all day, every day, I created you to stay conscious of me as you go about your daily duties.

I  have promised many blessings to those who wait on Me: renewed strength, living above one's circumstances, resurgence of hope, awareness of My continual Presence. Waiting on Me enables you to glorify Me by living in deep dependence on Me, ready to do My will. It also helps you to enjoy Me: in My Presence is fullness of Joy."

Lamentations 3:24-26, Isaiah 40:31, Psalm 16:11 (NKJV)

Thank you, Joanne, for the gift of this devotional!


Thank you, each one, as you reach out to others when the Lord prompts. Last week I was having a difficult day, and through three phone calls that came to me during that time, I became encouraged enough to start reaching out to others the Lord brought to my mind.  How blessed I am!!


Dottie

Crisis Man

I, Dottie, have just returned from Colorado due to my father's death. In route to and from Colorado, I was able to read some of Elisabeth Elliot's book, Shadow of the Almighty which was one of Joel's early favorites.

He had underlined or marked various quotes from Jim Elliott. Here are a few that stood out to me:

"Father make me a crisis man. Bring those I contact to a decision. Let me not be a milepost on a single road; make me a fork that men must turn one way or another on facing Christ in me."

W. Somerset Maugham, in Of Human Bondage, wrote, "These old folk had done nothing, and when they died it would be just as if they had never been." Jim's comment on this was,  "God deliver me!"

No legacy then? Was it "just as if he had never been"? "The world passeth away and the lust thereof, but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever." Jim left for me, in memory, and for us all, in these letters and diaries, the testimony of a man who sought nothing but the will of God, who prayed that his life would be "an exhibit to the value of knowing God."

"He is no fool who gives that he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose."

One treasure, a single eye, and a sole master."

God I pray Thee, light these idle sticks of my life and may I burn for Thee. Consume my life, my God, for it is Thine. I seek not a long life, but a full one, like you, Lord Jesus."

"How few, how short these hours my heart must beat--then on, into the real world where the unseen becomes important."

"Only I know that my own life is full. It is time to die, for I have had all that a young man can have, at least all that this young man can have. I am ready to meet Jesus."

Trust the Lord

So often during Joel's illness, he would share that his job was to just trust the Lord...something I, as his wife, saw evidenced daily. I, too, have been trusting the Lord and am happy to share some wonderful news of the Lord's provision in my life.

On January 31, 2011, I became a homeowner, once again. This is an obvious gift from the Lord. After Joel's death, I put a prayer request in the prayer bulletin at our church asking my church family to pray for local housing, a possible job, and wisdom to know the Lord's leading. A family attending Southwood saw that request and asked another friend to give information to me regarding low income housing in the development where they live. This friend did, and I submitted the necessary applications and was qualified and bumped to the top of a waiting list, I assume because I could purchase immediately through the use of Joel's life insurance funds; I probably would not be able to get a mortgage since I am unemployed, so didn't even pursue that route. The Lord seemed to confirm this decision to purchase through wise counsel from friends and also when the exact amount I needed for an initial deposit was left between the screen door and the door of the apartment where Bethany and I live without the giver knowing about the home opportunity...he said he was simply being obedient to the prompting of the Holy Spirit.

This little home is a "duplex" sharing one wall with another unit, 882 square feet, brand new, and located in a community where one has to be fifty-five or older to live there. Bethany can live with me, however, since she is over 19...soon to be 21! Snow removal and lawn mowing are provided and I am located between two families I already know! I could not ask for more...but there is more. Since the home only came with a stove, additional appliances are needed, and people have already contributed toward their purchase!! What a wonderful God we have who is the giver of all good and perfect gifts!

Amy Carmichael—The Cry of the Blood

This was influential in Dad's call to the ministry. It was printed on an insert in the program for the memorial service. For those of you who weren't able to be at the service mom wanted to post it on the blog.

 From Amy Carmichael’s book “Things As They Are” Amy was for 53 years of her life as a missionary in India.

The tom-toms thumped straight on all night, and the darkness shuddered around me like a living, feeling thing. I could not go to sleep, so I lay awake and looked; and I saw, as it seemed, this:

That I stood on a grassy sward, and at my feet a precipice broke sheer down into infinite space. I looked, but saw no bottom; only clouded shapes, black and furiously coiled, and great shadow-shrouded hollows, and unfathomable depths. Back I drew, dizzy at the depth.

Then I saw forms of people moving single file along the grass. They were making for the edge. There was a woman with a baby in her arms and another little child holding on to her dress. She was on the very verge. Then I saw that she was blind. She lifted her foot for the next step… it trod air. She was over, and the children over with her. Oh, the cry as they went over!

Then I saw more streams of people following from all quarters. All were blind, stone blind; all made straight for the precipice edge. There were shrieks as they suddenly knew themselves falling, and tossing up of helpless arms, catching, clutching at empty air. But some went over quietly, and fell without a sound.

Then I wondered, with a wonder that was simply agony, why no one stopped them at the edge. I could not. I was glued to the ground, and I could not call; though I strained and tried, only a whisper would come.

Then I saw along the edge that there were sentries set at intervals. But intervals were too great; there were wide, unguarded gaps between. And over these gaps the people fell in their blindness, quite unwarned; and the green grass seemed blood-red to me, and the gulf yawned like the mouth of hell.

Then I saw, like a picture of peace, a group of people under some trees with their backs turned towards the gulf. They were making daisy chains. Sometimes when a piercing shriek cut the quiet air and reached them, it disturbed them and they thought it a rather vulgar noise.

And if one of their number started up and wanted to go and do something to help, then all the others would pull that one down. “Why should you get so excited about it? You must wait for a definite call to go! You haven’t finished your daisy chain yet. It would be really selfish,” they said, “to leave us here to finish all the work alone.”
There was another group. It was made up of people whose great desire was to get more sentries out; but they found that very few wanted to go, and sometimes there were no sentries set for miles and miles of the edge.
Once a girl stood alone in her place, waving the people back; but her mother and other relations called, and reminded her that her furlough was due; she must not break the rules. And being tired and needing a change, she had to go and rest for a while; but no one was sent to guard her gap, and over and over the people fell, like a waterfall of souls.

Once a child caught at a tuft of grass that grew at the very brink of the gulf; it clung convulsively, and it called — but nobody seemed to hear. Then the roots of the grass gave way, and with a cry the child went over, its two little hands still holding tight to the torn-off bunch of grass.

And the girl who longed to be back in her gap thought she heard the little one cry, and she sprang up and wanted to go; at which they reproved her, reminding her that no one is necessary anywhere; the gap would be well taken care of, they knew. And then they sang a hymn.

Then through the hymn came another sound like the sound of a million broken hearts wrung out in one full drop, one sob. And a horror of great darkness was upon me, for I knew what it was — the Cry of the Blood.
Then thundered a voice, the voice of the Lord. And He said, “What hast thou done? The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground.”

The tom-toms still beat heavily, the darkness still shuddered and shivered about me; I heard the yell of the devil-dancers and weird, wild shriek of the devil-possessed just outside the gate. What does it matter, after all? It has gone on for years; it will go on for years. Why make such a fuss about it?

God forgive us! God arouse us! Shame us out of our callousness! Shame us out of our sin!

Gingerbread Pancakes On Hold

Here is a post from mom:

Christmas morning I was up early trying to surprise Bethany with a family favorite for breakfast—gingerbread pancakes—when the Lord surprised me with a special gift. It came so unexpectedly.

Remembering I would be seeing a friend later in the day who had sent me a Christmas card, I had decided to take my Christmas letter for her, but now also wanted to include a card with the letter. Lying on the kitchen table, along with the gingerbread pancake recipe, was a card I had just received in the mail the day before. It had not been signed because the sender had included a gift card and had apparently wanted to remain anonymous. (Thank you, whoever you are!!!) So . . . I decided I would quickly go to my stash of miscellaneous envelopes to find a replacement envelope so that I could "regift" the Christmas card for my friend! I was trying to follow my new "Fewer than Five" principle from Dr. Miller (if something is going to take fewer than five minutes to do, do it now.) Hence I pursued this project rather than making the pancakes which would definitely have taken longer than five minutes to prepare! After all, I would be "right back" to finish the pancakes in just a "few" minutes.

However, as I was looking for just the "right-sized" envelope, I came across additional cards, letters and miscellaneous items I have saved. One was an anniversary letter from Joel from our thirty-first anniversary. Another item was the printed-out scripture he had read from his wheelchair at our daughter-in-love's father's funeral last year—I Cor 15:51-58. We had included some of these same verses in Joel's memorial service. "Joelisms" by Tina Dischinger surfaced—statements Tina had recorded and shared with us in April of this year from Joel's sermons through the years. I next discovered Joel's summary letter from 2009 and then a booklet of comfort, "When Loved Ones Are Taken In Death" that had been sent to Joel as a sample in 2003. In glancing through these items I realized the Lord was putting his loving arms around me with His comfort and care, gifting me as only He can do. Though tears were freely flowing from my eyes, I was being ministered to in my heart and soul. The tears became ones of gratefulness. The pancakes were postponed.