ain't no Monday

The whilrwind has calmed a bit and we're in hunker down mode...Bryan and Ray left Sunday, Phil, Emily and Gail left today, and we're so thankful they were all here and that they are in our lives!

People come and go so much that we've come to realize that we can focus on them being out of lives with sadness and loss and discouragement, or we can focus on the fact that they are IN our lives to begin with, with joy and thanksgiving.

Now, we're doing more in the classroom and less in the kitchen, less planning for next year and more focus on thriving through this one!

And as much as we are missing missing Nikki and I'm grading workbooks till midnight and doing financial month-end all weekend long (Lily and Sofie are learning to do cash counts genuinely well!), and doing homeschool every spare second...I am truly enjoying the added precious time with my students, and the added precious time with my girls.  I LOVE learning with them, helping them learn, snuggling them on the couch while we read, dancing with them over victorious fractions and mastered multiplication tables, marveling with them over lessons of DNA...and the Revolutionary War...and Ghandi.  Even that which I do not have time to be doing, when I focus on being present in the doing of them, I'm finding joy.

I was renewed by a message yesterday from Brooklyn Tabernacle's Jim Cymbala.  He preaches SO simply, and his message yesterday was focused on laying down all our "causes" for the only cause that matters.  "Why not simply let your cause be Jesus?" he kept asking, and reminding me of the many times in Scripture we are reminded that we WILL be accountable for what we say, and how we say it.

Loving our friends and then calling our enemies idiots is compared, BY JESUS, to murder. It's so easy to get upset about things other than the cause of Christ...I'm thankful for the reminder to refocus, make sure that my mountains are Him, make sure that my burdens are His, make sure that my priorities are Him, make sure that my stands are full of ridiculous love and grace.

I was then renewed again in a Spirit-filled chapel service this morning.  I'm so out of touch with modern English worship and so familiar with modern Haitian worship that sometimes I find myself totally being spoken to...in my heart of hearts...through worship in Haitian churches and in chapel, and today was one of those days.

We were all just TIRED.  Everyone works all weekend and travels and preaches and does laundry and family and homework and lesson plans and I battled uphill with my English 2 students and subject and object pronouns all morning.  Then, we all battled through a slew of housekeeping announcements at the start of chapel, and I thought, "surely the day is just heavy and hot and one to just get through."

But the renewing, refreshing, rekindling Holy Spirit was moving through Sundy, and he and a few of our female students got up to lead worship and the chapel was consumed, I was consumed, with how apart from our circumstances our God is.  He is totally un-touched by our moods, by our monotony, by our defeats.

At His feet, it is not weary. It is not Monday morning. It is not hot. Not heavy.

What a glorious time of worship and corporate prayer ensued, and He met me strong right where I was sure He couldn't transform on a tired Monday morning.

I am thankful for the body of Christ, and for the way He uses members of it--when they're just being faithful and living their faith--to encourage and usher Jesus into other people's lives.

I hope I will never ever take for granted the privilege we have to openly come together and lift our voices in prayer and praise.  And I hope I never take for granted the power that we have in Him, power over fill-in-the-blank-today-all-of-it.

Love you.  I see your faces every time I write and thank my God for you.

This Monday, be encouraged! Be present in what's on your plate and enjoy it, for His glory. Be free: let your cause just be Jesus. Remember that God is with us, but totally above our circumstances and situations...MIGHTY in power.  Be the body of Christ that the body of Christ needs us to be.