A few days ago I headed down the stairs and my mom's old Bible popped out to me on the shelf. She had purchased it for my brother long before, and when he headed off to college unwilling to take a neon blue "NIV Study Bible for Kids : The Adventure Bible", she had taken it in as her own. It ended up being her last Bible, and I remember spending April and May of my freshman year with her stuck in a small corner of the Cleveland Clinic, watching her scribble endlessly into her "Adventure Bible."
Every note she ever made was a cacophony of thoughts. Register Lisa for camp ...don't live in the past (Isaiah 43:18)...meal for the Danec's ...allow God to share your burden ...buy milk.
It makes me feel better, sitting here with kids the same age hers were when she took the notes... realizing that's where I get it from, my still-paper calendar, my still-paper notes, a random jumble of important-to-me thoughts about God and the days ahead and Costco.
It has been a very busy week, but ever since that Bible caught my eye Monday, I've been little-by-little going through it when I have two minutes, and I can honestly say that it's the first time in 20 years that my mom has been speaking into my life fresh. I cannot remember her voice, but her tiny scroll is unmistakeable, and the first thing I saw when I pulled the first list out of her Bible was:
dark times call for deliberate prayers, NOT discouragement. Ps 42:11, expect God to act.
We have several major gaps at church right now that need filled, several teenagers going through some hard things (and making sure we're acutely aware :), several life and world things that have had me so discouraged. I literally used the word with my small group last week: I am just so discouraged.
The Lord got to me before my mom did with a "Your church, your family, your world doesn't need you to be discouraged. They need you to look to Me. Let them see you looking to me, not venting from a cloud."
I took my heaviness and turned it into detailed, bold prayers on a few 3x5 cards.
grow in our church a hunger for prayer, without begging
men and women to help with kids ministry, volunteering themselves
a youth pastor, dynamic and deep and sent
a children's pastor, equipped and patient and rooted
a GOOD and steady and refining job for Lily
good and sweet friends for my children
peace and your joy for Matt
These and several more discouragements all turned into prayers, and then I pulled a scrap of paper from my mama, and she told me so.
I love how there is nothing and no one and no situation that the Lord cannot use. I LOVE that my mama, gone now longer than I had her, was a woman. of. prayer. I love that those last grueling days I heard her praying again and again for the gaps she was leaving, for the Lord to fill them. I love that her notes (based on King David's notes) are ones the Lord is still speaking today, and I love most that there is NOTHING any of us are experiencing in the world that the Lord isn't STRONG and FAITHFUL in.
Whew! Good stuff. I love that you have your Momma’s Bible
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