Father's Love

Wednesday through Friday this week was the summer conference for our network of churches. This year the conference was titled The Father's Love. Such topics as Trusting the Father, Father Knows Us, Father Chooses Us and so on where addressed. There were a total of six sessions and one break out training session of our choice. One word to describe my time during this conference, AMAZING!

God spoke to me in some very profound ways. He showed me promises He was giving me and areas I need to work on in my life (worry being a major one) to better serve Him. Prayer Ministry time was so...... well you just had to be there because there is no word I could use to adequately describe it. I got prayer that totally rocked my socks off, nevermind that I was wearing flip flops every day! I felt the Presence of the Father so strongly! I felt cherished, loved, and protected.

It was not all about me though. The Father so touched me in the praying I did for others. If you don't go to my church or haven't been we pray as the bible teaches. Laying hands on someone and praying for them. When I say laying hands I don't mean we try to knock the people over! We just simply lay a hand on their shoulder. I digress. As I was saying I was so touched by the prayers I was praying over others. It is so amazing when the Holy Spirit tells me exactly what I need to pray over someone. I must say there are times I struggle with faith that God is going to make something happen with my prayers but this is an area He is working on in me. These last three days the Father showed up when I prayed. Things happened! I was able to hear him so clearly. I was even able to pray for someone for healing from physical pain and the Father moved as only He can. Can you tell I am excited? My words are running over each other in my head to say just exactly how I felt. Words just CANNOT express it.

Once again this is not about me! All the praise and glory for the Prayer Ministry time must go to the Father. He is good and wonderful and He loves His children. He wants nothing more than for us to completely put our trust in Him and to expect Him to show up and perform miracles in our lives. I am by no means a perfect Christian (anyone who professes to be is lying to themselves) but from now on as I pray, in my private time and for others, I am going to pray expecting the Father to show up. Truly this is how all Christians should pray!

Only the Father knows me completely and knew exactly what I needed from this conference. My heart is filled to overflowing with His love.

Psalm 139

God is Good!

Tonight I could blog about several whoa is me's but I am choosing not to. I am choosing to be positive. Don't get me wrong I have a ton of positive things going on in my life right now but right before I sat down to blog a ton of negative things rushed to mind. So on to the positive blogging.

My husband and I are small group leaders with our church. My husband primarily leads the discussions but due to his work schedule this summer I will be leading for the next couple of months. This thought has filled me both with dread and excitement. I must admit for my discussion topic tonight I underestimated God. The discussion topic was Building the Church, i.e. inviting new people to church and small group. I was concerned that our group members might not be receptive to this topic because of the difficulty many of us have initiating conversation with people we don't know. I prayed this afternoon that God would open their hearts to this topic. And you know what my God is bigger than my concerns!

I can't speak for the rest of our group members but I felt God's presence tonight. It was refreshing. It also told me I heard Him correctly while preparing this discussion. So many times I doubt and don't think I heard Him right. It is nice when He confirms things for me.

On to our group. I challenged them to step out of their comfort zones and pray that God would highlight a person for them to invite or talk to this weekend at church. I am so excited to see what God does with this. I know His hand was on us tonight. I pray that this means growth in numbers for our group as well as spiritual growth. So many times we are scared to answer the simple nudges God gives us. We fear the rejection or the difficulty of the task. I pray that God give me the boldness and courage as I step out in faith to do the work He has given me!

School again? Career change? Am I crazy?

Changing my career (temporarily) and going back to school at John A. Logan (online). Am I crazy? Some might say yes. But I have my reasons and the biggest one is a very good one. The biggest reason is over two foot tall and weighing in over 20 lbs .... BRAEDON. Enough said.

The second is job availability in SOIL and the economy. When I first lost my job I searched for new positions. I applied and either didn't get interviews or was told I was over qualified. All of the jobs in HR that I would be exactly qualified for, such as HR Managers and Directors, are already filled with people that plan on being there until they retire.

The third reason actually this should probably the biggest and should be first, God wants me too! God has been telling me He wants me to stay home with Braedon. But He has also told us He will make provision for us. I feel at peace and that I have His blessing to move on with this career change.

Now what am I changing my career to you ask? Medical Transcription. Why? Because I can work from home,I have always had connections to health care, and God wants me to. I plan to go back to Human Resources once the kids are in school. I say plan quite flippantly because this may not be what God wants from me. He may decide I need to continue medical transcription.

Once I am done earning my certificate I can be self-employed and continue to stay home with Braedon and any future kiddos. This is so nerve wracking for me because I have not been a student in forever! In addition to that it gets a little difficult when everyone knows I have a Bachelors degree looks at me funny when I tell them what I am doing. I have to remind myself these people don't know all the details. I am also a little excited too. I have always liked trying new things. I am excited to further diversify my abilities. I believe I am going to enjoy the career if not the school work!

Isn't it funny the twists and turns life takes us through. I look back where I started and can hardly believe everything that has happened to get to where I am now. But as I look back the most important thing is that I see God's hand on all of it. My Father has being lovingly and firmly guiding me through each twist, turn, mountain and kink in the road. So rather than despair over all the college education I am seemingly throwing out the window I choose to instead accept that my Father put me here for a reason!