Oceanskater’s Blog

In the mornings, I try to daily spend some time with God. Today, I read from a little booklet called “Our Daily Bread”. The Scripture was Psalm 27.

To me, it served as an amazing reminder that we have so much to be thankful for.

“The LORD is my light and my salvation - whom shall I fear? The LORD is the stronghold of my life - of whom shall I be afraid? ” v. 1

It’s a psalm of King David. We know that he went through many trials. But in this psalm, he’s reminded himself of God’s goodness. He’s reminding himself that if God is for him, who can be against him?

“For in the day of trouble He will hide me in His shelter; in the secret place of His tent will He hide me; He will set me high upon a rock.” v. 5 (AMP)

“Although my father and my mother have forsaken me, yet the Lord will take me up [adopt me as His child].” v. 10 (AMP)

A quote from “Our Daily Bread”:

“So let’s look more closely at the psalmist’s hope. His expectation was not necessarily deliverance from bad circumstances but the hope of seeing ‘the goodness of the Lord.’ That’s something we can see even in times of trouble.”

“I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living.” v. 13 (NIV)

And in the end, he strongly believes that no matter what happens, he will choose to see the goodness of the Lord while he still lives.

Thanksgiving is an opportunity to remember all the gifts we have in our lives. It would be very easy to look around and see plenty of things we want that we don’t yet have. Often in life we walk around with the “glass half empty” mentality rather than the “glass half full” mentality. We can get stuck in the rut of constantly asking God for all the things we don’t have rather than remembering to thank God for all the things we do have. Of course, God wants us to be honest in our prayers and He does want us to ask for those things we need, but we have to remember to not get those focused on what we lack that we forget all the good gifts God has already blessed us with.

We have a lot to be thankful for. No matter what trials we are facing today, no matter who abandons us or what enemies we face, we can praise God for life, for breath, for all His gifts, and for His promise that He works out all things for the good of those who love Him (Romans 8:28). We can thank Him that when we wait on Him, He always comes through.

“Wait and hope for and expect the Lord; be brave and of good courage and let your heart be stout and enduring. Yes, wait for and hope for and expect the Lord.” v. 14 (AMP)

The world has been talking a lot about for forgiveness lately after the tragic deaths at the Amish schoolhouse. So many are amazed in particular at the humility of the grandfather of one of the girls who was killed.

But I’m not really surprised or amazed at all. Because I recognize the power of forgiveness and the freedom it has brought me in my own life.

People often think of justice first, forgiveness second. Forgiveness without justice seems unfair to people, even impossible. And forgiveness without justice also just seems unfair.

We can usually think of 100 reasons not to forgive. They probably sound something like this: He should learn a lesson. I don’t want to encourage irresponsible behavior. She needs to learn that actions have consequences. I was wronged - he needs to make the first move. He needs to ask for forgiveness. How can I forgive if he’s not even sorry?

We can usually think of 100 reasons not to forgive before we remember the one good reasons to forgive: because we have experienced the ultimate forgiveness through Jesus’ death and resurrection.

In the New Testament, the most common word translated as forgiveness means, literally, to release, to hurl away, to free yourself. On the flip side of that is resentment. It means, literally, “to feel again”: resentment clings to the past, relives it over and over, never allowing healing.Philip Yancey wrote this in “What’s So Amazing About Grace?”: “Not to forgive imprisons me in the past and locks out all potential for change. I thus yields control to another, my enemy, and doom myself to suffer the consequences of the wrong.”

What that Amish grandfather demostrated is really a very simple truth: our lack of willingness to forgive only hurts us.

“The first and often the only person to be healed by forgiveness is the person who does the forgiveness…..When we genuinely forgive, we set a prisoner free and then discover that the prisoner we set free was us.” Lewis Smedes in “Shame”

I’ve returned from the Land of Christian T-Shirts, also known as a Christian music festival called SoulFest. Officially, I was there to share a ministry display booth with ReCreation, another Exodus member ministry. While there, I got to take in some great music and read a lot of T-shirts. I’ve never seen so many Christian T-shirts in my life! I think it was even worse than last year. Some of them were clever, but most were just sort of silly and some offensive.

This shirt is is my least favorite:

While I understand the message they are trying to share with it, I definitely don’t think it’s the most effective way to reach someone who is pro-choice.

Some of the shirts made me wonder if the wearer only wears the shirt at Christian gatherings, like “Satan is a freakin’ idiot”. Would they wear that to the grocery store? At a certain point, I wanted to create my own Christian T-shirt. If I did, it would say, “does you life speak as loudly as your T-shirt?” and on the back it would say, “Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.” 1 John 3:18

On another topic, I got to see some cool bands. My favorites were definitely KJ-52 and John Reuben. It was really cool because they got to perform on the Main Stage, and it was packed! Unfortunately, I didn’t get any pictures of KJ-52 because I forget to bring the camera and had to have Roy bring it. But here’s John Reuben:

Why does he always have such funny looks on his face?

Chris Tomlin was also cool. Here’s a very bad picture of him (because we were so far from the stage):

I also got to have some great conversations with people. I went around to booths of other ministries and talked to people. A few wanted to hear more about what we were doing and even asked for literature. I also had some good conversations at our booth. Some were pretty random, but still good. It was a good time.

I also got to learn about some organizations that are doing great work. It was interesting because our new roommate (who is 18) was saying that she was concerned that her generation was not passionate about anything. I can see why she might be concerned about that, but I met some very passionate young people. Here are some of the organizations:

The Amazing Change (an organization with a campaign to raise awareness in the UK and US about modern-day slavery, and to help to free the 28 million modern-day slaves)

You should also plan on going to see the movie about William Wilberforce that is coming out next Spring.

Stand True (a pro-life organization)

Blood:Water Mission (an organization started by Jars of Clay with the purpose of building wells in Africa for people/communities living with HIV/AIDS)

To Write Love on Her Arms (a campaign to raise awareness about self-injury and offer hope to those who struggle)

I also need to post about our recent trip to New Orleans, but that will have to wait until later!

I’ve been a crazy traveling woman! First, I was in upstate NY at a family member’s wedding. Then I was home for a few and my mom came to travel with us to a family reunion in Amish Country, Pennsylvania. Now, we’re home again.

It was quite a different experience to see so many Amish and Mennonite folks all over the place. Quite honestly, I can’t say I know the difference between the two, but I’m told they wear different head coverings They run a good number of the grocery stores and other businesses around the area, and so they all shut down on Sundays. Not a bad policy. It is kind of strange to think about people who don’t use electricity running businesses that require electricity. We stayed with my great uncle who I haven’t seen in probably 20 years, so that was cool. He has a neat accent, and I’m told it’s actually quite mild compared to most native PA-ers.

I also got to have “church” with some of my relatives who are born-again Christians. We were all going to go together up the street to a church some of my family has visited, but when we got there, the doors were locked and no one was there for church! My uncle vaguely remembered the pastor at one recent visit saying something about concentrating on home groups and not meeting as a congregation for a few weeks. So I suggested I get out my guitar and we would have our own church service! It was actually totally awesome. God showed up and I was totally blessed, as were others. I know we blessed God’s heart as well.

Besides all that, everything was so peaceful there. It was hard to come back to the city, to all the hustle and bustle and noise, to the rude people with music blasting out of there cars, the pedestrians who walk out in front of traffic. Last weekend, I was so thankful to be back in the city. This weekend, not so much.

And I keep thinking about how Roy ran in the road after Noodles. He dropped everything without a second thought in order to make a mad dash for his beloved dog. How much greater lengths does our Heavenly Father go to to rescue us when we are in trouble. The greatest example is Jesus Christ. God sent His Only Son to earth to rescue us when we were in trouble. Awesome

My pastor was also on NPR, broadcast across the country.

Listen Here

My church is in the Globe!

From pulpit to iPod

How funny is that

I was thinking about something this morning. People who question the existence of God and/or Jesus always ask, “Why do bad things happen to good people?” What I was wondering is why no one ever asks why good things happen to bad people. Well, the people who wrote the Psalms in the Bible did, but today, no one asks that. Just a strange thought I had

As I think of faith and the Church, I think of the Sara Grove’s song “Awakening”. It’s one of my favorite songs.

Dress down your pretty faith, give me something real
Leave out the Thee and Thou and speak to me now
Speak to my pain and confusion
Speak through my fears and my pride
Speak to the part of me that knows I’m something deep down inside

I woke up this morning and realized
Jesus is not a portrait
Or stained glass windows or hymns
Or all the tradition that surrounds us
I thought it would be hard to believe in, but it’s not hard at all
To believe I’ve sinned
And fallen short of the glory of God

And it’s not just a sign or a sacrament
It’s not just a metaphor for love
The blood is real and it’s not just a symbol of our faith

So many in the Church today feel like they need to put on masks and pretend everything is fine when it’s not. They “dress up” their faith, as if trying to make it more attractive to non-Christians or trying to hide that they still have feelings and pain and struggles from their fellow Christians. In reality, I believe that what people want to see more than anything today is that faith in Jesus Christ makes a difference in our everyday lives - that it doesn’t just give us hope for eternity, but hope for today. I believe if the Church really were willing to be vulnerable and honest and open about today’s pain and tomorrow’s hope, we wouldn’t be able to keep people away.

I don’t know if anyone’s been following the news story of the pastor who was shot in the back by his wife, but I’ve been watching the case pretty closely.

‘Perfect wife’ confesses to preacher’s slaying, police say

I wonder what was going on with Mary Winkler that she couldn’t reach out to those around her and find help. That’s not what the church is supposed to be like. An article I read in a magazine at Roy’s office yesterday suggested postpartum depression. Maybe it was, but it still makes me sad that there was no one she could reach out to.

I read a couple of great quotes in Discipleship Journal this morning.