Tag: Christianity

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Invited in

Tea

There’s something about being invited into the home of a person you hardly know for a warm cup of tea (and toast with nutella—yum!) when it’s grey and blustery out that warms the soul in a way few other things can.

That feeling of a mug warming your frost-singed hands is one that says, “You are welcome here. You are loved.”

That is what Port Alsworth has done for me in my first few weeks in Alaska.

Families and friends have welcomed me into their homes for dinner and tea—even though it’s the end of the month and everyone’s groceries are a bit scarce. Hospitality is so important here that no one has batted an eye at welcoming me in and sharing the little they have left. (Guys, these families in this village… they trust Jesus to provide in a way that has warmed my heart while simultaneously melting my brain. Their faith is ah-mazing.)

As I’ve settled in to my new home, I’ve wrestled with feelings of homesickness in the strangest of ways. I’m not homesick for the busy-ness of Denver or for Mexican food yet (although I could really go for Fuzzy’s Tacos, now that I mention it…) No, instead I’ve been homesick for the people whose hearts I call home and the way my friends in Denver filled the Yarrow House as a family would.

My stubbornness, pride, and independence would all like me to tell you that I’m completely fine here on my own– that every day I wake up ready to do the work the Lord has called me to do. While that is mostly true, there is still a hollowness and homesickness in this empty house that will remain until my students come on Monday and fill it.

But when I contrast the emptiness of my house with the way afternoon tea and deep belly-laughter with new friends has warmed my hands and heart, I see so much about the character of our beautiful God and what He is teaching me about Himself in this quiet time.

I have been constantly reminded here that God, like the people of this delightful little village, is a God who welcomes us in.

In Luke 14 Jesus tells a story of a great banquet that illustrates this characteristic of God.

“But He said to them, ‘A man once gave a great banquet and invited many. And at the time for the banquet he sent his servant to say to those who had been invited, ‘Come! For everything is ready now.’ But they all alike began to make excuses. The first said to the servant, ‘I have just bought a field and I must go out and see it. Please have me excused.’ Yet another said, ‘I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I am going to examine them. Please have me excused.’ And another said, ‘I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come.’

So the servant came and reported these things to his master. The master of the house became angry and said to his servant, ‘Go out quickly to the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in the poor and crippled and blind and lame.’ And the servant said, ‘Sir, what you have commanded has been done, and still there is room.’ And the master said to the servant, ‘Go out to the highways and hedges and compel my people to come in, that my house may be filled.’” (Luke 14:16-23)

This is what God has done for me here in Port Alsworth, but more importantly, this is what God has done for us all. He has invited us into His Kingdom, even though we are poor, crippled, blind, and lame.

He knows that we are imperfect, yet He calls us to Himself as we are.

He knows that I am poor in spirit and blind to His goodness most of the time, crippled by my own crap and sin, and oh so very lame, but He loves me anyway.

He loves you and me, and not just in the endearing, “I will take pity on you and give you the scraps from my feast,” kind of way. No, He loves us so much that He invites us in, out of the cold, grey climate of our hearts and calls us to sit at His table with Him.

Have tea with me. Tell me your heart. Let me love you. Let me heal you. Let me teach you what life is supposed to be like– life with Me. 

This is the call of the Creator of the universe.

Yet, I am so guilty of making up excuses, as the invited guests of the parable did. I have to clean the house. I have to do (insert important ministry task here) to ensure that (insert name here) gets to see Jesus. I have to… I have to… I have to… We all do it. I will never trivialize the importance of the daily tasks that God has called us to, or the life altering work that we have been called to as His followers.

But what if we are missing out on the most beautiful parts of our day? Our lives? All because we get caught up in the hustle of our lives and ourselves.

My hope and prayer is that Monday I would be able to stand undistracted, next to Jesus as my students show up at the front door of our new home, and I would be able to say to their hearts, “Welcome! Come in! There’s room for you here. Sit down, let’s have some warm tea and talk. I long to know you. I long for you to know my sweet Jesus the way I do. Don’t worry, He knows just how screwed up and crazy I am, and how scared you are to be in this new place with me. Yet loves us anyway.”

And as I get to do this in the middle of the Alaskan bush with the Tanalian Leadership Center, I hope that you can hear Jesus right where you are saying, “Come in! There’s room for you here, with Me. Sit down; I long for you to know Me and know the way that I love you. Don’t worry, I already know how screwed up and crazy you may feel, and how scared you are to be here with Me. But relax. I love you anyway.”

Oh, what the world could be like if we all looked to Jesus and held out our arms to the people He has placed in front of us, saying, “Come in! There’s still more room for you here with Jesus…”

“In this is love, not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God, but if we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.”

(1 John 4:10-12)

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Meanwhile, in Alaska…

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Lyle (my wild child pilot) and I, taking off for Port Alsworth.

I rode my boss’ fat tire bike down the airplane runway Wednesday and laughed to myself as my new neighbors passed me in their planes. Every one who sees me in the village glances at me with their heads cocked to the side while clearly thinking, She’s not from around here…

It makes sense.

The way they look at me, that is… I mean, my blue hair and the flowy hippie skirts covering my wool tights aren’t exactly the normal fare around here; but I guess I’ve never been great at “normal” anyway.

This week has reminded me that “normal” is all relative. Normal is dictated by culture, and lucky for me, I have half of a semi-useless Master’s Degree in studying culture and language.

My first week here in Alaska has been full of observation and laughter. I’ve loved keeping a running log of the hilarious and foreign things that the locals here say. But I think I love watching them re-experience their culture through my fresh eyes even more. We become so used to our “normal” that we forget to laugh at how incredulous our lives are sometimes. We all do it… it’s not just those living in rain forests or remote villages.

A few of my favorite quotes from the week?

  • “Well, I keep a 45 under our mattress and we took the screen out of the window just in case I see a moose or a bear in the backyard.” –Megan, a fellow TLC employee
  • “The smaller the grizzly, the better it’s gonna taste. Also, make sure you get a berry fed bear; the fish fed ones smell kinda funny…” –Steve, a new friend and local pilot
  • “So, in about a week you’ll want to stop by the veterinarian’s house, if she’s in town. She can take your stitches out.” –Wayne, the random Minnesotan ear, nose, and throat doctor that we roped into stitching my finger back together after I sliced it open working in my kitchen. (Nope, I couldn’t even do anything cool to necessitate stitches on my third day here.) But poor Wayne… He doesn’t even live here; he was just visiting for the week and was the closest sucker with a medical degree when I sliced my finger. (Mind you, the veterinarian quote was said about 5 minutes after he made an Uhhhh…uh oh noise before nervously laughing and saying, “Do over!” while re-threading a suture through my finger and asking me to assist him.) It’s always an adventure around here, I suppose…

This new normal is an adjustment, but it is far more of a gift than a burden. Yes, getting used to my severely rationed internet and sketchy phone service going out during rain/sleet storms has taken some getting used to. And yes, carrying bear mace in the pocket of my Mountain Smith makes me a little uneasy at times… Oh, and trying to find recipes for the tongue and leg of the moose that I butchered yesterday is an odd challenge. But I couldn’t feel more blessed to live in this beautiful place, and I know 100% that this is exactly where I’m supposed to be right now.

I am meant to be here, “off the road system”, figuring out what to do with bear meat—just in case the guys bring one home from their hunting trip. (How often do you get to write that sentence?)

But in all seriousness, I am just here, in the wilderness, preparing for the group of girls I will disciple and live with. This time feels like the calm before the storm (because it is) but it’s been nice to take some time and learn my way around the village by bicycle.

This week has has been full of simple pleasures like bike rides, learning to order everyday items like lotion and Qtips off of Amazon Prime (thank you Jesus for free shipping!), eating dinner with the sweet families of Port Alsworth, and stealing away for quiet mornings with Jesus in my hidden attic loft.

As I sit in my loft on the chilly days or in my hammock on Lake Clark when the sun is out, I can’t help but feel a little bit like I’ve moved to paradise. I mean, the scenery on my flight into the village on Tuesday brought me to tears at the Goodness of God. (That could have also been a reaction based in extreme sleep deprivation too… But I’m gonna go with the fact that it was a Jesus thing.) But no matter how many times I look at the snow capped mountains around me, I am constantly reminded that this is not paradise. No, it’s beautiful, but it’s not paradise because it is not completely saturated with Jesus.

Not yet, at least.

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Lake Clark and Mount Tanalian looking absolutely stunning

The breathtaking beauty around me (that I could easily mistake as the “main event” here) is meant to stir a longing in my heart for the one who created it all. I should long for His coming; I should long for His presence in the same way that I long to run down every dirt path in town. I should long for people to know Him and experience how truly lovely He is.

And so today, that is where I am trying to reside—in longing and anticipation of His great story.

I’m in excited anticipation for the day when these mountains resound with the sound of the Native Alaskan people (and the rest of the world) singing His praises. I look forward to the day when my Denver Street School and Park Church and biological and Scum of the Earth and Port Alsworth families will sing of the goodness of God for what He did on the cross. And by-George, we will be together and not separated by 2,500+ miles.

Until then, I’ll be singing worship songs, canning moose, and preparing to love the beautiful kiddos He has brought me here to do life with.

(P.S. My students will be arriving in Port Alsworth on October 5th! I would really appreciate prayers for them and our team as we all prepare to come together for the school year! In the words of United Pursuit band, “It’s gonna be wild; it’s gonna be good; it’s gonna be full of Him!”)

“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this tent we groan, longing to put on our heavenly dwelling, if indeed by putting it on we may not be found naked. For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened—not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee. So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, for we walk by faith, and not by sight. 

For if we are out of our minds, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for You. For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that One has died for all, therefore all have died; and He died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for Him who for their sake died and was raised.”

(2 Corinthians 5:1-7, 13-15)

(P.S.S. If you’re interested in learning more about my work here at the Tanalian Leadership Center or about how you can join my team through prayer or finances, click here.)

All of my Alaskan love,

Kacy Lou

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Sit and breathe Me in

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.”

(“The Road Not Taken” — Robert Frost)

I read this familiar poem on the side of a coffee cup the other day and couldn’t help but laugh to myself: Nope. That’s definitely not me.

You see, as an English teacher, I think this poem is… how do I say this?  Quaint. I appreciate it for the literary staple and genius it is, but it has never been the way that I handle life. No, I don’t methodically look at my options in life, nor do I opt to take the path less traveled– I take all of the paths possible.

Historically, my approach to life has been to run down every. single. possible. path that is laid before me and not stop running (to and from things) until God gently grabs my arm, pulling me back to His plan. (Or, sometimes if I’m being really stubborn, He constructs a wall for me to slam myself into at full speed, forcing me to stop.)

Hello, my name is Kacy and I readily admit that I am a runner by nature. (This is the spot where you say, “Hi, Kacy…” in the best monotone AA drawl you’ve got.)

As my Alaskan D-day has approached, I’ve sensed that running itch deep in my soul. But in true form to this season, and a promise that I felt the Lord give me back in April, He is doing a new thing in my heart.

He isn’t allowing me to run.

Every time I start to get antsy, God quietly tells me to put away the anxious tendencies of my past and simply be still.

For the record (and in case you’re new here), I don’t sit still well…

I run myself ragged at work and I hike and play volleyball on the weekends and I don’t sleep and then I go back to being awake 19 hours of the day, burning the candle at both ends. But I most certainly do not sit still. (Yes, I confess that I’ve purchased and subsequently drank the “You have to be ‘doing something’ to be valuable” American Kool-Aid. Busyness is an idol in my life, just as it is worshiped by our culture.)

But in this season, my running, Kool-Aid drinking tush has been benched.

Every stinkin’ time I’ve tried to run– be it to new experiences, or from pain and hard conversations, or prayer when I would rather be watching Law & Order SVU on Netflix– I’ve heard some variation of the instruction to sit and wait on the Lord.

For weeks the phrase I heard in my quiet time (as I tried to prematurely box up my life) was “Stay. Be present.” This gave way to God’s best ghetto command in the middle of relational upheaval: “Sit. down. and pray, child.” (I secretly love it when God goes a little bit “ghetto church lady” on me when I get a little too stubborn…)

I sat at ProsperOats (Hashtag: Shameless Denverite plug for my friends’ breakfast bar) ridiculously early one morning this week. As I sat and prayed, trying not to fall asleep in my smoothie, I asked the Lord if He had a new word to accompany the change of seasons I seemed to be teetering on the edge of. “Sit down and pray” just didn’t seem to fit right anymore.

As I meditated (slash napped with my eyes open…), “Sit down and pray” yielded to “Sit and breathe Me in”.

Hmmm… Another sitting commandment… Of. Course.

Lord, I’m so stinkin’ sick of sitting! I whined internally as I pulled out my pencil and jotted down this thought.

I felt a sudden, but hazy urge to study breathing. This led to a super theological Google search of the term “breathe”. Immediately an anatomy book diagram of lungs surrounding a heart popped up as the first search result on my phone. lungsheart

Too tired to think too deeply about anything, I grabbed my pencil and started sketching a pair of lungs. As I outlined and shaded in the sketch in my journal, the words to the All Sons and Daughters song Great Are You Lord started ringing in my ears.

You give life. You are Love. You bring light to the darkness.

You give hope. You restore every heart that is broken.

Great are You, Lord.

It’s Your breath in our lungs, so we pour out our praise, we pour out our praise to You only.

And all the earth will shout Your praise. Our hearts will cry, these bones will sing, Great are You, Lord.

I stared at the diagram on my phone and suddenly felt overwhelmed by realizations about life.

How beautiful is it that we are alive simply because of the breath in our lungs?

I mean, the breath that oxygenates and powers my severely sleep deprived body is a gift from God. That same breath is the breath that we sing out when we praise God– or that we heave out in between deep, broken sobs when we sit crying at His feet when things don’t go the way we think they should.

Our very breath is a gift from God that is meant to show us something about who He is.

And don’t even get me started on the fact that He created our lungs– the lungs that I have taken for granted as a mere organ that keeps me alive– to surround and protect our hearts in the most literal sense.

Are. You. Freaking. Kidding. Me?!

How crazy is that?

How crazy is it that when we are brokenhearted, but use His breath to sing out to Him, that we feel His protection and love in ways we didn’t think were possible?!

I know that’s not a coincidence. No, that is His beautiful creation.

And in the midst of a season where I feel a little bit over exposed and fearful, even a little under protected, it is His breath in my lungs that is protecting my heart in the most literal of senses. And that reminder? That has been all consuming in the best of ways this week.

It is His breath that brings hope, redemption, and allows for new songs to be sung in the midst of changing seasons. It is because of His protection and grace that I can sing out, “Great are You, Lord!” even when I have no idea where I’m walking to or why I can’t run there.

May you experience the goodness of God in the breath in your lungs today. May you see the way that He protects our hearts when we use our lungs and His breath in them to praise Him.

“I waited and waited and waited for God.
    He knelt down to me and listened.
He lifted me out of the ditch,
    pulled me from deep mud.
He stood me up on a solid rock
    to make sure I wouldn’t slip.
He put a new song in my mouth,
    a song of praise to our God.
More and more people are seeing this:
    they enter the mystery,
    abandoning themselves to God.”

(Psalm 40:1-3 MSG)

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You are my Treasure

It had been a long, emotionally-charged week and it dawned on me that somehow it was only Tuesday evening.

At that point, the majority of my belongings were already packed and I was sitting on a sofa that wasn’t mine in a house that I have considered my home for well over a year.

The mixed emotions of leaving and staying, investing and moving on, packing my home while I unpacked my classroom for a month more at the Denver Street School were making me even crazier than I usually feel. I tried to quiet my mind and focus on spending time with Jesus, but my brain continued to eavesdrop on my roommates’ conversation about some tv show in the front room. I pulled my headphones out of my bag, shoved them in my ears, and flipped open to a new page in my journal, fully intending to word-vomit at the foot of the Cross– something I’m a professional at.

As I traced my pen around the edge of my journal, my brain spun in a different direction.

Two days before, we had read Psalm 50 in church, and as I sat with my Bible balancing atop my knees, I heard verses 10-12 in my pastor’s voice ringing in my head:

“For every beast of the forest is Mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the hills, and all that moves in the field is Mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you, for the world and its fullness are Mine.”

“There is no sacrifice that you could give God that He needs. He does not require anything of us except an offering– a sacrifice of thanksgiving, verse 14 tells us.” I replayed Brian’s sermon yet again in my mind.

Lord, I know you don’t require my sacrifice, but I want to give it all for you. I mean, I’m leaving everything here in Denver to follow you. Do you even give a rip?? What kind of God would call someone to follow them and then say that they need nothing? Not even my love? What does sacrifice look like if it’s not something I tangibly give up? Is that even a sacrifice at all?

I sat on the couch and scribbled furiously in my journal as wave after wave of confusion and emotion washed over me. A conglomeration of this summer’s Psalms sermons all came to mind at once.

He doesn’t need our sacrifice; He doesn’t need our love. But not because He is uncaring, no. He doesn’t need our love or admiration because He is already complete. He is all powerful. All knowing. He is the God that delights in us– the one who sings over us and mends the broken hearts that we bring and sacrifice to Him.

As I sat and wrestled, unsure of what sacrifice looked like– in my life and just in general, my Spotify shuffled and Adoleo’s new song came on.

“My God, I seek you; I solely thirst for you. Because Your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise You. Like a treasure in the field, I’ll sell everything. To find You, to find that You’re worth everything. For you are my treasure and none compares with you. Your love is greater than all else I run to.”

As I took in the lyrics and haunting melody, I flipped to Matthew 13– “The Parable of the Field” that Emily was singing about in my headphones.

“The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in the field, which a man found and hid again; and from joy over it he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”

(Matthew 13:44)

Lord, I’m selling everything. Well, technically I’m putting it all in storage.. but You get the point. What are You trying to show me with this? I am sacrificing for You, but it doesn’t feel like enough. I feel like there’s something else that I’m supposed to see here…

I sat in semi-annoyed silence, my pen paused on my journal. And from the weird, deep Spirit place inside my brain, it came:

I am the one who sacrificed for you. You are my treasure– the one I sing over– the one for whom I am so jealous that I gave up everything I had and came for you– dying on the cross. I gave up my throne. I gave up perfect unity within Myself and I came for you. And not only did I come for you, but I came in Joy and bought you at the highest price. Because I love you.

After a week of meditating, wrestling, and praying through the way the Lord flipped this parable on its head for me, I have realized that it is true.

My sacrifices are not in vain; no, He see’s my sacrifice and He sings over it. Not because He needs it, but because He acknowledges my paltry offerings as the most that I think I can give and He loves them because He loves me. Unconditionally.

He sees my heart that is breaking as I say my good-byes and pack my favorite belongings back into boxes to be put back into storage for the umpteenth time in the last eight years.

He sees me and He sees you.

He knows what sacrifices we are making and yet even in the midst of those sacrifices, He reminds us– begs us to remember that all He wants is our hearts: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit and a repentant heart. O Lord, You will not despise.” (Psalm 51:17)

May we lay down our hearts today as we lay plans and dream dreams because God will not despise or shun our hearts if we are offering them up to Him.

He knows we are imperfect; He knows we will probably always strive to please Him and be caught up in the web of trying to work out our salvation in good deeds and sacrifices. None of that surprises Him and none of that could cause Him to look down on us or stray from His steadfast love.

The steadfast love that caused Him to give His life for us– to call us His treasure.

You are His treasure. I am His treasure.

Do you hear that?!

He came for us, died for us, and in His unbelievable power raised Himself from death to come back for us once more.

May we remember that today and live out of the truth of Love.

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When lightening strikes

10RainThere’s a phenomenon that occurs between a father and a daughter during a storm that one of my coworkers at the Street School recounted several times this last year.

When it rains in the afternoon, my 4-year-old always knows exactly where I am. She stands a few feet away at the window with her siblings, their faces smushed against the glass watching the rain blow sideways outside. They watch in sheer awe at the power of the storm. They ooooh and ahhhh at the thunder and lightening– until it cracks on the street right in front of our house. 

Before I can blink, my daughter becomes a scarf– her arms and legs somehow both wrapped around my neck as I lounge on the sofa and laugh.

She knows the storm is still raging just feet away on the other side of that window, but she also knows that she is safe in her daddy’s arms. Such is the case with all daytime thunder storms.

But when a storm breaks out in the middle of the night and the claps of thunder wake her, it’s a different story.

Our bedrooms are only separated by a 3-foot hallway, and yet when thunder breaks in the middle of the night, you can just about bet that it will be followed by a small, squeaky voice yelling across the hall.

“Daaaaddddddyyyyy?! Daddy, where are you?!”

I usually flip on the light and see Tenley’s little silhouette standing just feet away in her bedroom door– paralyzed by fear.

Fear of the dark, the noise, the unexpected wake-up call.

In these moments in the middle of the night, she rarely runs to me. Instead, she stands in her doorway, in her sister’s too-big nightgown, with tears running down her face and her arms outstretched for me.

“Come here. You’re okay. You’re safe with me.” I groggily beckon her forward with my hands. In an instant, she’s my scarf again– arms and legs entangled with mine as I hug her and wipe away her tears.

She knows she’s safe in her father’s arms.

~

Wednesday evening I sat in the rocking chair on my front porch and watched lightning spread over Denver. As I watched the light show and felt the thunder in my chest, I thought back to the metaphor of Tenley and Chris and mentally cataloged all the times throughout this incredibly rainy month that fear has stopped me dead in my tracks.

Like Tenley, I’ve allowed myself to be paralyzed by fear too many times lately. I’ve stopped, just feet away from my Heavenly Father with tears streaming down my face and my arms slightly outstretched, yet feeling incapable of running to my safe place.

I’ve never really been one to struggle with fear, but over the last month there have been days where my fears have consumed me.

Fear of rejection.

Fear of change and the unknown.

Fear of the darkness.

Fear of jumping into things too quickly.

Fear of not moving quickly enough and missing the boat on opportunities.

Fear of catching a bad case of revertigo and getting sucked back into less than Christ-like habits from my past.

Irrational fears and completely rational fears.

We’ve all got them– these fears that seem to cement our feet to the floor and keep us from running to God when the storm gets too crazy or too close for comfort.

These fears, if we let them, will leave us feeling just out of the reach of our Heavenly Father.

They will lead us to doubt His sovereignty and goodness. They will become a breeding ground for lies from the enemy– lies that seem to tell us that God doesn’t love us because He’s not “actively” rescuing us from our fears.

But I believe that He doesn’t rescue us all the time because He wants us to run through the fear, into His arms.

He wants us to run to Him through the storm– both in the daylight and in the darkness.

I get it. It’s terrifying and counter-intuitive to quiet yourself before God in the midst of a life-hurricane and submit our fears to Him. I would much rather over-process things to death and try to find a logical solution to my problems than pray and listen, but that is what we are called to do.

That is where we will find safety in our Father’s arms.

What is your reaction when the lightening strikes?

~

“The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”

Deuteronomy 31:8