I'm So Far Behind!!!

But at least I've got a somewhat decent excuse this time. That's nice, for a change. :-) We had prayer meeting every night last week and are in revival every night this week. Since my usual blog time is at night after the kids are in bed, it's just been pretty tough to work it in. I've been trying real hard to get to bed at a decent hour, too... which seriously cuts into my usual blog time. Ha! Anyway, thought I'd try to slap a quick one up here this morning.

We have been having a WONDERFUL Revival. Every night has been so different and just so, so, so good. Monday night Brother Butch preached about having the blood applied. We had good worship and a good prayer time. Carlos (Brother Juan's son) has been interpreting for his family throughout the revival and is doing a great job. Toward the end of the service he was interpreting for Brother Chris and he just broke down and started crying, then fell to the floor praying. The guys gathered around him and prayed for a while and he came up sanctified. :-)

Tuesday night Brother Butch preached a beautiful message on "The Way of Holiness." It was soooooo good and I just keep going it over and over again in my mind. He spoke of growing in the Lord and being sensitive to the things that God lays on our heart and simply obeying Him--and then sticking with them. If God showed you something 20 years ago that He wanted you to quit doing, then it's still wrong today. If He showed you something 5 years ago that you needed to do to better serve Him, then you'd better be still doing it today. There is NO unclean thing in the way of holiness and our lives need to be perfectly pure before the Lord.

Wednesday night we had good freedom in our song service and then a message about the Holy Ghost. It was a really good service and it felt like it was coming to a close, but not with our pastor. :-) One of the things that I love the very most about him is how easily and comfortably he can get people into the altar who otherwise wouldn't have come. Brother Chris asked if everybody had the Holy Ghost and even asked a few by name. "Do you want to receive the Holy Ghost tonight? Come on up here, I'll pray with you." He asked a young girl in the back if she was saved. "No? Do you want to get saved? Come here--let me pray with you." It's so strange because he IS putting people on the spot... but it doesn't FEEL like he is. It just feels like he's your best buddy--and he is--and he's just there to help you through. The kids just respond to him so well. Before long he had about ALL of the little ones up there on their knees praying and crying and seeking the Lord. I say "him"--I know that it's God who was doing the work and the blessing, but I love how He uses Brother Chris to get people up there seeking the Lord. It is so beautiful. The kids prayed for a long, long time and you could tell God was doing something special in their hearts. The young lady was saved and sanctified that night and all were richly blessed. I love seeing the kids in the altar, pouring their hearts out and learning to seek the Lord and feel after Him. It's the same thing the adults are still doing and it's beautiful to watch the little ones beginning to take those first steps of learning how to pray and surrender to God.

Last night Brother Butch preached a wonderful message about not doubting the Lord. He used the verse in Luke where Jesus said to His disciples, "Why are ye troubled? And why do thoughts arise in your hearts?" We need to hold fast to what the Lord has already revealed to us and not begin to question or doubt it. He spoke of the Hebrew children and how their faith never wavered. They didn't doubt God, they simply said "If God saves us, we're not going to bow to the idol; if God doesn't save us, we're not going to bow to the idol." Sometimes we go through hard and difficult things (I thought sooooo much about what Sam & Tammy went through last year--a year ago today and tomorrow, in fact) but we'll just stay true to the Lord and not doubt and question him we'll see Him revealed in ways we never have before. Jesus was with the Hebrew children all the while, but He wasn't revealed to them until they went through the fire. What a blessed thing to suffer for the sake of Jesus when you can experience Him in new and deeper ways! I'm not sure Brother Butch actually said all of those things, but that's the way my heart received them. :-) Last night was a bit of a struggle; like we were all distracted and having a hard time getting focused and finding freedom. But we prayed and prayed some more and God really moved and helped us. We had an older Nazarene couple join us last night and I know they felt the Lord. We pray they can't stay away and simply must come back for more. :-)

So there's the update on our revival so far. We're four services in, and we've got four to go. I've been LOVING it and I'm sad that it's already half over! I'm praying that the Lord will change me this week--work some things in my life (whatever He sees that I need) to help me to be more like Him. I don't want to just get blessed and go on. I want to be nearer to Him and more like Him--we've been praying that for all of our members here. God is helping us. It's exciting. :-)

In other news... Katie fell out of a tree the other day. No big surprise there, but how I found her was surprising. Her skirt had snagged in the very back, way down at the hem and she was HANGING by her skirt. The boys had come for help saying that Katie was stuck and when I came around the corner and saw her I stopped dead in my tracks and just started cracking up. There she was, suspended half way between the tree and the ground, her fingers and toes dangling a few inches from the dirt, her bottom up in the air and 2' of skirt up above her securely fastened to the tree. She was wearing bloomers (so was modest, at least to a degree) and I really, really should have just left her there and gone for the camera. It was truly hilarious. But alas, I missed the opportunity and went to release her instead. Still, I'm sure that image will be forever imprinted in my mind. :-)

Joe has been telling me this week how that some day I'm going to regret the fact that I make them "work" so much. "Some day, Mom, you're going to have grandkids that you'll never be able to play with because you've trained us that children are here to work; so your grandkids will be too busy working and working and working to ever be able to just spend time with you and play with you--and then you'll be sorry." HA! I've been dying over the way his brain works. Thinking that far ahead in an effort to get out of doing the dishes or making his bed. Ha!

And last of all...

Today is James' birthday!!! He is a whoppin' 31 years old today. I've been racking my brain all week to figure out how in the world I was going to get his present without him knowing it. I finally gave up because--though I'm certainly not comparing him to God in these ways--I've come to the bitter realization that in MY LIFE, James is omnipresent (everywhere I am), omnipotent (having very great or unlimited authority or power) and yes, even omniscient (having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things). I just came to this realization yesterday and I'm still struggling with unkindly feelings because of it. Ha! I NEVER go anywhere alone; if I need to go to town, all five of us go. In many ways it's a great blessing (James does nearly all of the shopping by himself, allowing me to very seldom leave my cozy little house--that's fantastic!) and I'm sooooo thankful for it... but it makes me realize that I've lost all of the independence I once knew (do I still know how to drive a car???) and it makes surprising James for his birthday pert near impossible. So yesterday I just told him we needed to go to town early for revival so we could go buy his birthday present. We went to Penney's and he helped me pick out his shirt and tie. ~sigh~ So sad. Actually, I did the picking out so I guess that's worth something. He found a really great jacket for cheap that will go with it great, too. I'll get the shirt ironed so he can wear it to revival tonight. I also told him that we need to pick up his cake from Sam's Club on our way to church tonight. It's so much easier this way than trying to sneak something by him. I actually pulled it off for Father's Day this year and I just wasn't up to trying another surprise. We were all at Barnes & Noble and I waited until he was looking at something, snuck up to the front and bought a Dilbert book, asked the happy cashier lady if she'd help me out (she was happy to); on our way out the door I followed behind the rest of the family, grabbed the book from the lady, threw the bag in the trash and shoved the book up my shirt until we got in the van where it was then deposited under my seat. ~whew~ Still not sure how James let that one get by. ;-)

So that's it--all of our news. We're hoping to have the Clarksons and the Booths up tomorrow for a picnic in the woods, then maybe back to the house for ice cream or something. We haven't had a chance to spend much time with the Booths this week, so I'm really, really hoping it works out. We're also hoping some of the Hatch folks will be joining us for service tonight and maybe staying over. That would be so great! Don't know that I'll be writing again until all of the excitement dies down--maybe Monday or Tuesday.

Before I go, here are the only pictures I've taken in the past week. These were taken at our Wednesday night service.





Ah, yes! We had a new snake in our yard this week! I almost forgot! The boys catch garter snakes down by the pond regularly, but a few days ago Joe came bursting through the door yelling, "Sam found a snake, and it's NOT a garter snake!!!" There have been lots of rattlesnake sightings up here (though I've not heard of any this year yet) and the biggest concern is that one of THEM would show up in our yard. I went running to the door and there was Sam, STANDING on a definitely-not-garter-snake. He had the snake trapped well, with it's head barely sticking out from under his shoe. I just said, "DON'T MOVE, SAM." But he moved. ~sigh~ The snake started slithering straight toward the front door. I was looking for rattles, but it's hard to see when it's moving around like that, you know?! The snake climbed up the little step and was apparently coming inside to visit a while (!), so I slammed the door. THEN I thought, "Oh, great--I just shut my kids out there with what might be a rattlesnake!" James and I went running through the house, out the back door, and around to the front porch... where the snake had found a hole under the house to escape to. It all happened so fast and we never were able to get a really GOOD look at it (it was moving too fast the few seconds we saw it), but we're about 98% sure it was just a bull snake. Still... 98% isn't sure enough when there's a possibility of a rattlesnake, you know?! I guess that's why we pray. :-) Joe saw it again about an hour later, but it was gone once we got there. It'll probably show up again one of these days. It made for some good excitement and a healthy rush of adrenaline, too.

Okay, that's really all. Wow, it really has been an eventful week around here! :-)