.. more "juicy" tidbits of information :) ...

over the last few years so many of my friends have been commenting about how open and vulnerable I am when writing here..
truth is, I am trying to please God, not man, He loves me for who I am, He knows all that is going on in my heart and so why would I feel the need to hide anything from "whoever" ?
if it helps others to read about someone struggling with real life issues, and if it encourages or turns someone to Jesus by reading how when I fix my eyes on Him " all things on earth will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace"... then Hallelujah.. it is a good thing!!!!


so there is another tidbit of "juicy" information about me:
for the last 4 years I have been on an anti depressant... low dosage, not supposed to be addicting.. was supposed to get off it again after a year, but, lo and behold, right at that time my husband had just betrayed and abandoned me and both my Physician and me decided that maybe this was not such a good time to stop taking it..

the only real benefit I have ever noticed has been that I can fall asleep easier.. it seems I am more relaxed...

also, I am not quite as teary when watching shows or movies than I would usually be..
so I had come to the conclusion that maybe it was kind of balancing out my feelings.. well, I still cried a lot when going through the valley of separation and divorce.. since I have come out of it though I thankfully haven't had that much reason to cry.. usually...

just lately big changes in the make-up of my family have had me in tears and I have to admit, I was kind of surprised it is affecting me the way it does..
I really shouldn't be, surprised that is,  having had to grieve the loss of my marriage and all this meant, I am well acquainted with pain caused by losing someone you love.

once again my only comfort is found in the fact that God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow and He is trustworthy, He loves everyone involved and His plans are to prosper and not to harm.. to give a hope and a future..

I thank Him for the blessing of relationships and love and bonds being formed.. I thank Him for blessing me with 3 wonderful daughters, whose lives are a precious gift from Him and which will forever enrich my life.. I am thankful to God for caring as deeply as He does for all of us..
my tears are shed because hearts are breaking right now and that never is a nice thing... again I wish I could make it all better but I know that only One can.. praying that everyone will turn their eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face... and I know, that then the things on earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace...
Praise the Lord!!!

.... staring into the Light...

I was 4 years old when my mother had to take me to see an Orthodontist for the first time.. not long after that my brother got glasses... I remember holding a flashlight into my eyes for long periods of time in order to also need glasses... obviously it was cool to need glasses, or so I thought...

as much as looking right into light blinded my eyes, I never needed glasses ( until now that is.. readers :S ) 

at church this morning, my pastor summarized 2 Corinthians 3:18..

And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

and this is what he said:

continuing to look into the Light ( Jesus ) we see Him more and more and His glory is being reflected by us more and more.. as we seek Him, He transforms us and others can see Him in us..

ha.. very cool!! 

so staring into a flashlight.. blinding ,

yet looking into the Light, enlightening and transforming..

until the point when we will see Him face to face... fully transformed into His likeness then.

our faces are unveiled,  because Jesus did away with the veil..  Jesus once and for all satisfied the Old Covenant, by giving Himself as a sacrifice, the lamb without blemish for the sins of those who would believe in Him.. now the Spirit of the Lord sets us free and we can see...

as we draw near to Him He draws near to us and we can see His Glory... as we draw closer more of His glory is reflected by us.. and the reflected glory is ever- increasing.... how wonderful is this..

so, staring into the flashlight, not a good idea, praying to break my arm when skiing so that I wouldn't have to write at school and not practice piano and violin never worked either.. God is good!!!  :)

...Give thanks in all Circumstances????

Thanksgiving celebrated today in my favourite neighbouring country.. ;)
read a great post last night about  that we should have a Complaining Day once a year and Thanksgiving really should be a daily thing... so true...

“Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” —I Thessalonians 5:18

some of my friends prayed for me last Monday, praying fervently for something to work out peacefully... well, it didn't..

so does this mean that God didn't hear? or that He ignored the pleas my friend was making for me?
has He let me down by answering "No" ?

“Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” ....

in all circumstances.. the "NO" meant that through choices that were made by someone the incident was not a peaceful one, hurtful words were being said, a relationship damaged, not beyond repair, yet still damaged..
would I rather have it work out differently? for sure... would I have liked for God to incline the heart of this person, who does not know Him, favourably towards me... obviously..

but did He ignore me? I am sure He did not.. I know that He is intimately acquainted with my sadness.. He is deeply involved in my life.. nothing ever comes my way that has not been filtered through His loving hands... so, there is value in this situation not going well for me..
there are teachable moments... me realizing what persecution really looks like, the cost of standing up for what it means to be a follower of Christ.. not enjoyable yet another milestone of my journey with Jesus...

in it all, I am also supposed to be thankful... for this is God's will for me in Christ Jesus...
I am thankful for He will not waste my hurt.. in His goodness and love He will use what was meant for evil to bring about good... do I know what that looks like? not yet, but I am sure that I will get a glimpse of it sometime...

another opportunity that arises if our prayers are not answered is that we can see how much we really are trusting God.. the consequences of the outcome of this meeting could potentially mean a lot of trouble for me... but my Father in Heaven promises me to never leave me or forsake me.. He tells me to trust Him.. and so I will.

I know that He will never give me more than I can handle and that with Him all things are possible..
was praying a waste of time???
this is what it says:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. ( Philippians 4 :4-7 )

Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. ( John 14: 27 )

He gives us all that we need.. let us enter His gates with Thanksgiving.. Every Day!!!!!

..will you stay with me????????

core needs.. every newborn, made by God in the image of God, yet born into a fallen, broken world has them..

the need to know this without a shadow of a doubt:

are you welcoming me, are you excited to know me, know all about me?
do you love me?
will you stay with me? no matter what I might do?
will you keep me safe?
will you LOVE me.....

there is not a parent in this world that will ever get this right.. because we are all broken, selfish and even as we are being restored by God who is meeting all these core needs, we will mess things up.....

God is aware of that.. He allows it.. it is because He wants nothing more than for us to realize our NEED for Him.. that He alone will meet all these core needs.. He alone is able to meet them..

looking back on my childhood, my adulthood, my relationships, being a girl and relationships being what defines me, I can so easily see how I have been looking for those core needs to be met.. just to be disappointed again and again..

I met the One who meets the core needs almost 20 years ago... I know He will never leave me .. He will always stay with me.. I know that He delights over me with singing and is always right there and wants to know everything about me...
He is there to lead me and guide me and to work out in me this tension we as human beings just can't get our heads around: that He loves us the way we are and because of this love is constantly working on us to be even better... but that no matter what we will mess up on the way, He will never love us more than He did in the first place...

somehow in my life experience this makes no sense.. if I am challenged to be better, how can I be good right now? growing up in a perfectionist, critical environment, home, school and country really, if I needed to get better I definitely was not good at all.... the one little thing that was wrong totally negated anything that was good...  criticizing as a way of motivating one to do even better..... it is a harsh place to live in...

so.. He loved me enough to die for me when I never even did want anything to do with Him, when I so obviously was a sinner, nothing to offer to Him at all... huge, and so foolish in the world's economy..
yet it is true... He loves me so much, and since He made me, He knows my potential.. He loves me because of who He is, not because of who I am.. He loves me because I am a treasure to Him, for me to want to know Him more and more is to make Him VERY HAPPY...

as much as we as parents fall short of how we should love our children we can maybe understand a little the love He has for us... as parents we love for our kids to come to us, with all their hurts, fears and failures and all we want to do is to comfort them and to encourage them.. they can even hurt us and reject us and we still love them.. right???

so, do you know Him this way?? Do you believe that He loves you and that this love has nothing to do with how much you do or change for Him? do you realize that because maybe our parents loved us with conditions, we might have this wrong idea we have to earn His love? the truth is we never could... and He loves us anyway...  this is what makes me love Him even more and want to serve Him and please Him... not me trying to be worthy but worshipping Him in spirit and in truth because of who He is.. and because He first loved me.... <3

..healthy boundaries vs control..

I was 23 years old when I got married for the first time.. even though I was driven into this marriage by the OVERWHELMING need to find out if I could have a baby and to find a security other than what my father could offer me, and so obviously did not enter into this supposedly lifelong relationship for the right reasons, I indeed left my father and my mother and became a new cell / entity / family...
I had not the slightest idea what marriage was designed to be, and yet.. I did separate, leave my spot in my original family...

God, the Creator and Designer of marriage,  as in becoming one flesh and cleaving to one another works all this out on a deep soul level, no matter if we are aware of it or not...

For this reason a man shall leave his father and his mother, and be joined to his wife; and they shall become one flesh.  (Genesis 2:24)

having had this rather hurtful discussion with a member of my family accusing me of being a bad daughter, I have been reflecting about this and trying to understand what is going on emotionally, in me and in the one accusing me...

I did leave, I did not identify myself through whose child I was, not on the same level as my siblings anyways, too much still for a very long time, but not as much as they did and still do..
I remember as a teenager thinking that I did not fit in, that I would never want to have anything to do with what defined my family even then...

when I became a Christian and over the years learned what it meant to cleave to your husband, when I learned to stand by him even if it meant to stand up against my parents, I guess I separated on an even deeper level.. in the way I was meant to in the first place..

I think this is healthy, it is after all what God says needs to happen, and in a healthy parent-child relationship the parent will welcome and support the leaving and cleaving that happens when a child gets married.. not so in my case..

now, no longer married, obviously not my choice and not in accordance with God's will, I am not stepping back into my old place in my original family, I am first and foremost  a child of God, still my children's mother, and I am a servant of God ...

I am so very blessed that God has given me this ministry, that He has called me to serve Him where I can be used in a meaningful way... I am investing my time and my heart and soul in this service of Him because I love Him with all my heart, soul and mind... I have been bought at a price, I am His..

it is obvious that neither my parents nor my brother would be able to understand that this is where my allegiance lies..
as a child of my parents I will always honor and respect them, I will help them as much as my commitment to God will allow me to, I will be obedient to what God wants me to do in this area as much as I am trying to be obedient in all other areas of my life... but that is it...

even though they are not appreciating my commitment to something that amounts to nothing in their "economy" I will hold fast to it... it is hurtful to, once again, be the "Black Sheep"... but then again, that's what I have been all my life...

I am so thankful that I have learned about healthy boundaries a long time ago..

I know that if my parents don't give me emotional permission to be a separate person,
to make free choices about my life,
and to not feel guilty when I don't  do what they or my siblings want,
when this still governs my actions...
I have not grown up .. I do not have the proper boundaries in place.

as a Christian I am under God's authority, and His alone,  I have not been under the authority of my parents for a very long time since I got married when I was 23.. I am no longer to obey them but to honor and love them..

with family members like mine, that manipulate and control, standing up for what is right is rather hard.. no one likes to be persecuted.. but if that's what it takes , then so be it..

.. lest we forget..

very touching today, celebrating Remembrance Day at church..
we are blessed to have a church member who plays the back pipe, a Veteran of World War 2 and some others that are serving our country, that get all dressed up in their uniforms..
singing the National Anthem, the 1st, well known and the last verse.. the one that is usually not sung ever:

Ruler Supreme, who hears our humble prayer. 

Hold our Dominion in Your loving care; 

Help us to find, O God in You A lasting, rich reward, 

As, waiting for the Better Day, 

We ever stand on guard 

O Canada, Glorious and free, 

We stand on guard, we stand on guard for thee.

a sure sign that our heritage, like the one of our neighbouring country is indeed deeply rooted in Christianity...

 since the election south of the border, many Christian leaders have been posting about how we need to remember that Jesus is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.. that no matter who was voted to be the "Ruler" of our respective countries, ultimately our King is Jesus,  and with that our allegiance is to Him.

He tells us to "give to Caesar what is Caesar's".. that we have to pray for our leadership and obey the law of our land...

pretty straightforward I would say.

so I am putting the issue aside.. I am thankful to be able to serve the King of Kings and that I am free to do so in my country. I am free to minister to young women and tell them about the hope that I have...

what a tremendous privilege...

because of the hearts of the men that make up the leadership of my church, I am free not only to support but also to share the gospel with whoever comes to the Center.. pretty cool..

a wonderful blessing to be under the umbrella of God ordained authority.. a very safe place..

so thankful that He in His sovereignty has provided such a refuge for me.. that when persecution happens from inside my family, He has made me the daughter and sister of another family...

“Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me;  and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. ( Matthew 10: 37-39 )

While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him.  Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”
 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”( Matthew 12: 46-50 )

and lastly:


Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
 “Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.  Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you. ( Matthew 5: 10-12 )

truth is, that my Father in Heaven has made me His child, He has given me sisters and brothers, fellow believers, followers of Christ, my own family might say all kinds of things about me for doing what my Father in Heaven tells me to do, but I will rejoice and be glad... because " they do not know what they are doing"... the Word, (Jesus)  which ( who)  is my all in all, is foolishness to them that are perishing....

my prayer is that they too will see the light and be saved....

.. moving... finally :)

tomorrow afternoon I will be going to the church and I will be packing up all the things in the office of Hope for Life and carry them over to the house next door.. the new home for the ministry..

waiting for quite some time we have been patient and just relying on God's timing..  so finally now the time has come to move into this place God has provided for the Pregnancy Center...

very exciting... there will be a time of transition, as in we can not move all of the Care Closet over yet, but it is all good.. it has all worked out until now.. God will continue to provide....

it's now almost 2 years ago that the Elders of my church confirmed what I thought I had been hearing from the Lord.. almost 2 years that my ministry partner and I tried to figure out what God's will for Hope for Life really looked like..

one of the comments we got was that it would never work to be located in a church..  and yet we felt that God was indeed calling us to do exactly that.. in faith we went ahead preparing to use the space that was available to us in the church building ...

6 months later the little house next door to the church went up for sale.. and through more miraculous intervention from God the church was able to purchase it.. after lots of prayer and careful consideration by the leadership of the church it was decided that Hope for Life would be moving in as soon as the house would be ready..

so come Monday, Hope for Life, as a part of Living Hope Community Care Ministries of the Georgetown Christian and Missionary Alliance Church will have it's offices in a cute, cozy little house..

God has never let us down, clients have come to the church, we have been busy helping those that needed us since we opened in October of 2011..

with all the other services that will be provided, the community will become even more aware of what Hope for Life has to offer .. 

like I have said before, we are not praying for more young girls to become pregnant, but for those that are and that need help to know about us and find us..

once again I am in awe of the way my Father in Heaven provides..

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:10

thankful that He is in control and never fails to lead us so amazingly.. Praise be to Him forever more!

..disappointed yet determined..

in light of the brokenness and injustice all around me, in light of  my own disappointments and hurts,  still my soul rejoices in the Lord, the Maker of Heaven and Earth... because this is WHO He is:

I know that you can do all things;

    no plan of yours can be thwarted.

Job 42:2

Though the fig tree does not bud

    and there are no grapes on the vines,

though the olive crop fails

    and the fields produce no food,

though there are no sheep in the pen

    and no cattle in the stalls,

 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,

    I will be joyful in God my Savior.

 The Sovereign Lord is my strength;

    he makes my feet like the feet of a deer,

    he enables me to go on the heights.

Habakkuk 3:17-19

because of these truth, this is the Definition of Joy:

joy is the settled assurance that God is in control of all the details of my life, the quiet confidence that ultimately everything is going to be all right and the determined choice to praise God in all things.
by Kay Warren,  "Choose Joy"

and this is why my soul can sing forevermore:

Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!

Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!

Heir of salvation, purchase of God,

Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.

Refrain:

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior all the day long;

This is my story, this is my song,

Praising my Savior all the day long.

Praising Him and Loving Him today, tomorrow and for Eternity! 

.. it has been a BAD day... :(

a wise man just posted on Facebook:
"My concern is not for the economy, nor for the condition of political conflict. My deep concern and sorrow is for the 6 million unborn children that will be killed in the next 4 years. Lord forgive us and help us."


that's what breaks my heart right at the moment.. there are many more things that have made me pray and hope that Obama would not win the election, but his stance on abortion is what really had me routing for Romney..

now, I am a German turned Canadian and why do I even care?
fact is I do care about the babies that are being killed.. that will be killed. I do care about where this part of the world is going..  moving dramatically fast in the wrong direction.

liked Billy Graham's appeal to the nation:
"The legacy we leave behind for our children, grandchildren and this great nation is crucial. As I approach my 94th birthday, I realize this election could be my last. I believe it is vitally important that we cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel. I urge you to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me that America will remain one nation under God."

at a time when evangelical denominations are struggling with issues that stem from some walking away from the belief that has been firmly held for 2 thousands of years :
that the Bible is the VERBALLY INSPIRED, INERRANT Word of God.. given to us for guidance and protection.. not just a story book we can interpret which ever way we feel like.. giving in to the culture around us rather than upholding truth and standing firm on it, no matter what..


love this passage so much:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.
 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood ( John 1: 1-5)

the Bible is the living and active Word of God..  that is the truth !!!


my heart is saddened today because of all the personal issues I am dealing with.. everything just seems so very very complicated all the time.. but I am crying inside for how for another 4 years the killing will go on without restriction..

God is trustworthy and in control, He promised to make all things beautiful in His time, turning into something good everything for those that love Him and have been called according to His purpose..... a truth that comes in handy in times like this..