The river can be deep and/or wide...but it's always cold.

4 Then Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the children of Israel, one man from every tribe; 5 and Joshua said to them: “Cross over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, 6 that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, ‘What do these stones mean to you?’   Joshua 4:4-6 (NKJV)

We take crossing a river for granted these days. Just driving to work each day, I cross over a river at 70 mph without a second thought. That's very much a new concept though in the big picture of human history...

For thousands of years, rivers were major obstacles in people's travels. Rivers have long been a huge problem in getting from point A to point B. Even today, many of our state borders  in the U.S. are defined by major waterways signifying their geographic importance.

 For me, the passage of Scripture from Joshua contains a strong metaphoric element that causes me to look at my own life obstacles (or rivers) that have hampered or delayed my personal path into God's promised Kingdom. There have been several, but probably none more significant to overcome than that period in my life I often write about on Kingdom Bloggers that I refer to as the dark years.

As for the stone I carry that's a physical reminder of God leading me through that darkness, I spoke about it back in September while presenting for a Wednesday night series at church where I attend on the history of the English-translated Bible. The series is called Essentials and has been received very well. I am one of three presenters in this ongoing series that looks at the fundamental elements of our faith...what makes us Christians. We don't get into denominational differences but rather look at the core Biblical principles of our theology.

Believing the Bible to be the inspired, inerrant word of God is absolutely pivotal to the foundation of our faith. I started my three night part of the series by sharing the story of a young man who went off to college and became lost in what I refer to as the pseudo-scholarship instructions of secular education (a term explained during a separate class) where skepticism is very often confused with critical thinking. To conclude that first night, I shared the 'rest of the story' you can see below...




Even though these days I use my smart phone or a reference study Bible my wife bought me a few years back in my readings and study, the Bible I hold up in the video is never far from me at any given time. It travels with me in the car, it stays on my desk or by my bed at home. That Bible that was gifted to me 30 years ago next May is the stone of remembrance I carry. Sure, the fact my personal stone is the actual living word of God helps remind me of the doubt that filled my heart those years ago, but that particular Bible also comforts me because I now know God was always with me as I crossed that river of doubt.

For that...I'm eternally grateful.


(If you're interested, you can check out and share the Essential Series on our church YouTube Channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/FFWBCCH)

How Gratitude Changed Me

I learned the lesson of gratitude at one of the worst times in my life.

It was in the year I turned 40 and my then-husband basically left me for a 30-year old. God provided for me because, although they knew nothing about my personal life, my work came to me and offered me $20K more per year if I'd move to a location about 90 minutes away from where we'd been living and work for them at that location. So I packed up my sons and our stuff, and moved us.

We didn't know anyone at this new location we'd moved to. I didn't know my way around. I was alone with my sons. I was grieving over the loss of a marriage, a mate, and a dream. I can remember holding it together to get everyone off to school in the morning, then crying all the way to work, then getting myself reigned in again to deal with my job, coming home and holding myself together for the boys throughout the evening, then wallowing in sadness through the night. This went on for weeks.

Then the Holy Spirit spoke to my heart that I had to start practicing gratitude if I ever wanted out of this deep pit of sorrow that was threatening to engulf me. He showed me that I was perseverating on all these hurtful things in my life, but that these sad things were not the only things in my life. That actually He was blessing me, but that I was so busy focusing on the hurtful things that I wasn't even noticing all the good. That every morning when I woke up I'd think about my broken heart and then the day would go downhill from there.

But I just couldn't seem to stop it. So I took a paper and wrote a few good things in my life on the paper; the fact that I had a job that paid the bills, that my sons are wonderful people, that we were all healthy. I taped that paper on the wall next to my bed so that the first thing in the morning when I woke up I would see that paper, read it, and thank God for those things.

Over time the list grew.

The list grew and so did the pattern of starting each day focusing on things in my life for which I could be thankful. I even began to do it throughout the entire day, whenever my spirit would be heavy, I'd start looking for what was good around me.

Eventually that heaviness was lifted and I experienced happiness, peace, and hope.

Prior to this time in my life, it would have been safe to say that I'd struggled throughout my adult life with depression and feeling really bad about myself. Whenever someone would read a list of characteristics that anyone who had 60% or more of these characteristics could be considered depressed, I'd always have ALL of the characteristics. Prior to that time in my life I'd struggled, not so much with guilt over specific actions, but just with feeling like I was a bad person.

Since then, I don't feel depressed, and I like myself.

That doesn't mean that I don't sometimes feel sad over sad events, or feel disconnected. It also certainly doesn't mean that I don't struggle with specific defects of character. But it does mean that peace, joy, and hope are pervasive in my life.

Gratitude changed my life.

Today I still seek to live in gratitude. I don't do it perfectly, but basically I'm constantly thanking God for all the good stuff He's giving me in each day. I have the freedom to just enjoy the little stuff; like beauty of the clouds in the sky, or appreciation for how my car always starts and gets me to where I need to go, or some nice little thing that someone did during my day that they did not have to do.

I like living this way.

What about you, what was a life event that helped you learn how to practice gratitude?

Grape Food?

I was sitting in a Alateen meeting in the spring of 1978. It was customary to go around the room and share problems & accomplishments. Me, I was there because I had a lot of problems, and my life had really gone off track. Let's just say my mother was kidding when she said "get help, or get out."

After a few meetings I decided to share a problem with the group. I don't remember what it was, but one of the girls there said quietly, "you need and attitude of gratitude."

It didn't compute, so I asked here. "What's grape food?" As gracious as most of the kids were, they still snickered. "Gratitude!" she replied. I felt embarrassed, but I didn't ask what that meant either, for fear of sounding even dumber.

Well, I have learned a lot about gratitude since that time. And this week, the faithful will be sharing their own experiences with the mood changing drug, gratitude.


I have to admit it, some days I am a glass half empty, and other days I am glass half full person. I know that part of that comes from my temperament mix, and part of it comes from some really poor choices that really did end me up in some stinky and depressing circumstances. I also noticed that I am a lot more positive when I can see my way out of a situation, even if it requires a monumental effort on my part.

I have heard lot of "positive confession" teaching over the years at church. Some of it is very good, and some of it was presumption and denial of situations and character defects that really needed to be dealt with.

If things aren't going well, I want to give you permission to say, "I don't feel good today." It is good to go to our Christian friends and ask for prayer. In those prayers God is able to show us: faithfulness, give us wisdom, peace and comfort. They are essential in us bearing one another's burdens. That's the good side of crying out.

The Bible also says that our words have power. If we can prophesy, then we can curse. Let's face it, if we can pray and believe that God will move on our behalf, then we have same power to be negative in the spiritual realm.

James 3:9a With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse.

It is very important to stay away from cursing ourselves and others. I am not thrilled with my job situation. So I am simply praying for a better job situation that is minus the hours of commuting. I ask for pray for the new situation while being attentive to the lessons I am supposed to be learning from this one.

If we belittle someone, or do any sort of name calling, we are cursing God's beloved. Look, I have kids who don't make the best choices all the time, but I always look for places to say, "You must be proud of yourself." or " You did a great job!" It is the focus on what is done right that creates and opportunity for them to do something else well.

My little one is ENERGETIC and runs in the house. Last week she took me out with two cups of hot coffee as I rounded the corner for the dining room table. It was very stupid of her. As upset as I was, I said "No more running in the house!"

And finally there are things we don't say, but run in our minds as an internal dialog. this in the one that i have the most trouble with. And it spills over to the tongue sometimes.

Proverbs 23:7 (ASV) 7 For as he thinketh within himself, so is he.

It is very truthful: I am what I think I am. Some days it is hard not say "I am a failure as a ________. or to not feel shame for something I should have said, or handled differently.

Thank God Jesus loves just the way I am.

How about you, what's your internal dialog like?

Memorial Day Gratitude

We learn things from our parents, even when they're not directly trying to teach us.

I can remember that my mother always got a lump in her throat when she looked at an American flag.

She and my father were both in what was then the Army Air Core (there wasn't an Air Force yet) during WWII. That's how they met. All of my uncles served in the military, and my son Devon graduated from USMA West Point last year and is scheduled to deploy this coming February, if not sooner. Through these people I hear accounts of war time experiences. (Although my father never shared a single war story. It is through my mother that I learned that he was a POW for a short time and had malaria.)

One of Devon's favorite quotes is from John Stuart Mills and I always think on it around Memorial Day:

"War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself."

As I think on those who have died in service to our country I don't have anything creative or clever to say. Just that I'm grateful for their exertions, grateful for what they gave.

Truth and Relationships

I'm more grateful than I know how to put into words that I grew up in church. Fond childhood church memories overflow my thoughts. I'm grateful that those childhood seeds that were planted took root and have blessed me in many ways as an adult.

Two words stand out when I think about my childhood church experiences: Truth and Relationships.

Sunday school, midweek programs like Sunbeams and GAs (Girls in Action), Vacation Bible schools, camps, choirs, short term mission trips - all of these were fun. The Bible was experienced as a delight, and that same feeling still exists for me today. Through all those years, and all those wonderful teachers, I was able to go through the entire Bible numerous time and develop a kind of mental frame work of how it all fits together (somewhat) that makes reading and understanding the Bible easier. Even though I know it's still all by the work of the Holy Spirit within me that the Bible becomes real and meaningful, all those experiences helped till the soil of my heart. I'm grateful to my parents for their own faithfulness and sacrifice to take me to, or send me out on, all those church related events and experiences.

None of my church memories feel like church was a place or limited to a Sunday service (although I do confess to tons of memories involving freeze tag played on the church lawns. What smart teachers thought to do that with a bunch of wiggly kids prior to trying to sit them down to teach them?!). Church was about relationships. I remember church people frequently being in our home. Back yard BBQs, people who were attending the denominational seminary over to share meals, English lessons through the Bible at our home...the people who we were in church with were in our home and in our lives. I can remember almost every Sunday when I was in elementary school either having my friends from church over after church, or going to their homes to play. I can also remember lots of different families, who didn't even have kids my age or kids at all, taking me with them to fun places like Disneyland or the beach or just to hang out and watch TV at their house and stay the night (as an adult I'm guessing that they did this to bless my parents with some adult time; but at the time it just seemed like that's what life was like). To this day when I think of my church the faces of numerous specific people come to my mind; my heart is filled pleasure as I think of these folks. Even though I may not be "best friends" with all of them, we are in relationship and there's not a doubt in my mind but that they know me (good and bad) and love me and even like me! I think that in this world that we live in that is saying a lot.

What about you, what are some of the seeds that were planted during your childhood church experiences that you see the fruit of in your life today?

Happy Thanksgiving

Today is Thanksgiving, and this is one of my favorite holidays.

Partly because I enjoy cooking, sitting down with people and sharing a meal and hanging out. Also because I have so much for which to be thankful.

I know me; I know how selfish I can be - yet God still loves me anyway. He came and took on human form and dealt with all that meant, then was betrayed, mocked, tortured, and died on my behalf. That alone is more than I can ever express my intense gratitude regarding.

Then there's the fact that I was born in America and all the freedoms I've experienced my entire life. Add to this the fact that I've always had food, shelter and clothing. I'm healthy in mind and body and have a husband who loves me. I have three healthy sons. I belong to a local church where there are people who sincerely care about me. I get to work at a job where we make a difference and where most of the people are good and kind.

I am blessed way beyond what I deserve and today I'm thinking on how thankful I am.

What I like about being Older

I find this post just as true today as when I posted it last December:

What I like about being about being older

My two younger sons think I'm ancient.

Just last night at the dinner table they were talking about people who are "as old as forty" as if these people were beyond the age of life enjoyment. Then they suddenly looked at me and started laughing, one of them said "sucks for you mom". Since we live in a culture that seems to practically worship youth, it's easy for the boys to think this way. Plus there's that invincible feeling that comes with youth, coupled with that experiencing things for the first time rush.

Today I find myself thinking about the fact that I'm happier than I've ever been in my life. So I decided to take a few moments and list out some of what I like about being older:

I'm more secure in who I am
I've noticed that from about age forty on, I've become more content with who I am. There's this feeling of self acceptance that I didn't experience when I was in my 20s and 30s. I was still trying to prove myself during those times of my life. Of course this can't be totally chalked up to age since there are many factors that account for this, but I do think years and experience play a major role.

Material things have less allure than ever
It's not like I've ever been a particularly materialistic person, but I find that the older I get the less and less I care about stuff.

It's easier for me to not be so hard on people
This is most likely because I've had so many years of messing up myself that I hardly feel qualified to be pointing any fingers at anyone else. Jesus once said that one who has been forgiven much loves much .

Making decisions and taking care of things is easier
Simply because I have a larger experience base, and more knowledge to draw from, when making decisions and dealing with people.

I'm more relaxed in my approach to life
I've seen good times come and go. I've been through the crisis in relationships and out the other side; so I have more confidence that I can do that again. I've had opportunity upon opportunity upon opportunity to see God come through for me, so it's easier to rest in the fact that I can always count on Him.

What about you? If you're over age 40 - what do you like about it? If you're younger, how do you feel about getting older?