by Sharon O | Mar 31, 2010 | Uncategorized
“Only when the interior of a life becomes a chapel can the outward life echo with the clear word of the Lord.”
I read this on another writer’s blog and really wanted to share it.
(hoping it is ok).
Thinking about that concept I move into memories of when I have walked into a chapel type setting. I can see the stained glass windows. The wooden pews carved in ancient wood attached to the floor with black iron bolts. I visualize how many others have sat on those rugged wood seats or knelt down on knees ready to release the burdens they carried. I can see the variety of ages of singers in robes accompanied by the pumped organ.
The choir director standing with arms outstretched moving to the count of every note.
Old and young with voices mingled sitting together. Rich history accompanies every word in multitudes of notes sung from hardback hymnals donated by someone.
It is all visual… I can see it. I can hear it. I value the experience. I love the old fashioned worship. The hymns of long ago.
On a hill faraway stood an old Rugged Cross.
There is power power wonder working power.
Onward Christian soldiers.
Blest be the tie that binds our hearts in Christian love.
Can you go there with me in memory? Is the picture clear?
Just to say the word CHAPEL…. brings forward a reverence. A holy thought. A place of comfort and a place of welcoming.
If our interior condition is to be like a chapel. It means we would have a place carved out for the Lord, the word and the Spirit deep within our hearts. If we are not centered on the word, we cannot echo the Love of God to anyone.
It would not be possible.
Thinking about an echo… it is a sound that repeats whatever is heard. So if we hear and read and study the word then we will be able share … the sound with others.
I hope this brings you encouragement and moves you into a thinking process.
This writing is not to say I dislike the new way of worship.
I value it. The singers and muscians who bring it to us are gifted and talented.
As we worship by ourselves or with others. I am praying that our thoughts will bring us to a new kind of chapel. For that is when the Lord can use us.
by Sharon O | Mar 27, 2010 | Uncategorized
I love to iron.
Yes I know it is a strange confession.
But for me it is refreshing, and rewarding.
To look at a wrinkled piece of fabric and press onto it the hot warmth of the hand held iron.
Ah……. I breathe in the steam and it opens up my head.
I love for my husband to look pressed and ready for work. It makes me feel like I have done a good thing for him.
OK for those who do not like to iron, I might sound like someone who needs a therapy session. But in reality it reminds me of what the Lord does to me daily.
The hot iron of his word presses me as I allow the wrinkled crumpled emotions to breathe in the steam. The warmth and the heat have forced me to say on occasion “ouch that hurt”… as God gently presses me more. I don’t mind for I know just as I press the fabric to create a fine piece of clothing. The Lord does the same to my heart to create a better person.
Sometimes the heat is intense and the blast of steam brings me pain.
But the reward is worth it if I allow Him to do his work in me.
When my daughter was in junior high she would often come out of her room wearing something she drug out of her hamper or the bottom of her closet. I remember saying to her more than once, “You look like an unmade bed” and her quick reply would always be “Well I am comfortable.”
Yes an unmade bed is comfortable. It is inviting. A nap is always welcome.
But to walk around looking like an unfinished chore is not good.
Our hearts can look like that also.
So as I iron I pray.
Lord help me to allow the warmth of your love to press in and show me the wrinkled broken areas in my heart that needs changed. Help me to receive your correction as the fabric receives the hot iron. Just as I control what I press I pray for the willingness
to let you have full control of the journey of my heart.
by Sharon O | Mar 26, 2010 | Uncategorized
In 2 Kings 6:16-17 we read:
“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, “Oh Lord, open his eyes so he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
Isn’t that just an awesome passage for us to experience? Can you see it?
They are on the side of a mountain looking over a valley warriors are heading towards them.
The battle looked overwhelming and grim. They were going to go down defeated very fast. The servant with him said, “Oh NO we are going to die.”
[I didn’t read that I am just guessing]
Then….Elisha said, “Be still and do not be afraid.”
“I know we have a huge fight ahead of us. We are not alone. I want to show you to not fear and lose heart.”
His faith was so powerful. He reached out and claimed it so that those with him could SEE the power and majesty of what he knew to be true.
What an encouragement that had to have been.
In that MOMENT when the overwhelming feelings and fear was present, Elisha said, “Don’t be afraid.”
Reminding me of the passage in 2 Corinthians 4:18:
“So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
Wow… in verse 17 the verse before he says: “For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.”
It is a perspective that the writer is trying to reveal to us.
In this world we will have problems.
We will have issues and conflicts.
We will have relationships that will hurt us and battles to fight.
But if we know the spiritual side of it all…we are not alone.
The war we fight is not our own to try to win.
We have a great host of warriors surrounding us.
If only we could see them and pray Elisha’s prayer.
Shall we be bold enough to believe it to be true? As we pray for the Lord to open our eyes.
by Sharon O | Mar 25, 2010 | Uncategorized
I read a quote recently.. and wrote it down.
“Courage is… almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of readiness to die.”
Tonight I went with my sister in law, to sign her mom up for hospice services.
It was hard for her since it is her mom and she is the only daughter.
I am familiar with the hospice procedures and I was asked to be with her, hopefully it was helpful for me to be there.
The two hours it took to sign her up wasn’t as horrible as I thought.
Mostly signing papers and forms as the nurse explained the hospice process.
They become mom’s doctor.
They take care of her.
They are her voice.
The goal is to keep her comfortable.
They come weekly and later daily as she becomes worse.
She says she has no pain. That is good for now.
She said that many years ago after having a radical mastectomy surgery.
She said,”God protected me and I have no pain.”
Is that possible? With her, YES.
She is Mom O. She is the legacy of mom’s to all her children and grand children.
She is a prayer warrior.
Every day at 9 am she has her coffee, Bible, notepad and prayer list.
Dad O has to go down for coffee with the ‘old guys’.
She must be alone.
She will be deeply missed. Dad O is not doing well.
He is 87 and losing his first love.
July will be their 61st wedding anniversary.
It is a love story in the fullest form.
They met and three weeks later were married many years ago.
Six children and 60 years later they are still a family.
The oldest son passed on years ago.
Their heart broke in many pieces when he died.
Yet she had hope and continued to show hope
to others through the process of letting go.
She might not be here for the first great grand child in September.
One would wish she would be here, but logic says she will be home with the Lord.
This is a story of a mom who loved.
Who loved unconditionally.
Who loved always.
Who never judged.
I am writing this with tears as they fall down my cheeks…… for a family who loved.
Who continues to love each other deeply. They are parents deeply committed to their family.
He is a father who was close to his children, she is a mother who prayed intensely for all 6 of their children daily.
Her heart broke when her son died, yet she knew of a hope beyond what we can see……..
we dare to see and hope for… she knew it to be true.
God in his mercy… will give her rest.
God in his mercy ….will give her peace.
She knows the God of mercy and deeply loves Him.
I am writing this as the tears fall down my cheeks.
I remember…she loved with a love like Jesus.
She is the grandma who never chastised the sinner, who had a child out of marriage, she just smiled and said,”They all come in their own time.”
She is the grandma who loved…unconditionally the child who… made bad decisions…reminding them … “Next time you will think about it more.”
She is the mom who loved.
After everything else is said…: “She loved and she had compassion”.
More than anything else she is a …….A legacy to us all.
by Sharon O | Mar 21, 2010 | Uncategorized
Before I became a Christian.
My view of God was full of skepticism and unbelief.
He was like a Santa who gave things to people when they asked.
He was very far away and not an all knowing, GOD.
Jesus was a man in a story book.
I was not raised in a Christian home. Yet I do remember walking to a small church as a little girl to Sunday school. As I listened to the stories of the bible on flannel graph boards,
God and Jesus were unreachable to me.
They were characters in a hard backed book. I couldn’t touch them or feel them. They were songs sung to the music of an un-tuned piano. Jesus loves the little children… only I was not one of them.
The way God reached out to me is a wonderful and powerful reminder,
that HE does indeed listen to the prayers, of those who do not know Him.
He listens to the heart cries and He is moved with compassion.
In my freshman year of High School, I began to search the meaning of life. We had moved again to a new rental home and another new school. It was at the bus stop while waiting for the bus I would engage in conversation with a girl there. She was an honor student who lived with her parents in a normal stable family. I was very different. I would wear the Diana Ross ratted hair style, fake eye lashes (yes I did say that) and white eye shadow. Every day this girl would ask me questions. Pursuing me. Forcing me to ‘think’ about God and church and life.
Every day I argued with her.
My life experience had been much different than hers. My concept of ‘love’ was not something she could understand. We were two friends speaking different languages.
She talked often and gave me lots of questions.
As our friendship grew I began to listen to her.
I decided to test her ‘GOD’.
My sister Mary had been gone for many months on the street, living life as a drug addict and runaway. I missed her greatly and wanted desperately to see her. We didn’t know if she dead or alive and it was a heart ache I couldn’t take care of on my own.
I remembered this girl told me ‘GOD hears all prayers’.
I didn’t believe it but what could I lose by not trying?
One night as I was going to bed. Not knowing how to pray or what to pray or how it all all works for Him to hear you.
I prayed a simple prayer. A bold one.
A searching from the heart prayer.
I said, “God I would believe, I think I can believe you, if you can find my sister. The girl tells me you know everything, you see everything. So you should know how to find her. I want her home. IF you are God. IF you know everything then YOU can bring her home tonight. When I wake up in the morning I want her sleeping in her own bed. IF you can do that, then I will believe.”
I went to bed and fell into a deep sleep. Unusual for me at that stage of life.
You can imagine my surprise when I woke up the next morning, and saw her across the room sleeping in her own bed. The police had found her in the middle of the night and contacted our mother. She had been beaten badly but she was home, sleeping in her bed, in our room.
It was a miraculous reunion of sisters.
A cry from a young persons heart to a God who hears.
We were always hopeful she was alive, but never knowing.
Mary didn’t stay at home very long. She left soon after the first night, but my prayer was answered.
Now I had to deal with ‘the girl at the bus stop’.
I made the phone call telling her what happened. She told me about God, church and her youth group.
I believe God knew the only way I would trust, was for Him to show me an answer to a simple prayer. From a simple heart.
HE can do the unimaginable.
I trust Him.
The journey continues.
The girl at the bus stop is now my sister in law. We married brothers.
The years after God came into my life were not easy. But because of the strength HE gave I was able to trust Him through the process. He was hope when I felt hopeless. He was my peace when it wasn’t peaceful.
He was love on a Cross saying to me, “I care deeply for you”.
His ways are mysterious and wonderful and I am always in awe of His love.
I have never regretted that first life changing prayer.
I hope this finds you encouraged.
Our God is a God who hears the simple prayers of faith.
It doesn’t have to be fancy or elaborate it just has to be from the heart.
