Hearts in Service

Another week. Another stretch of activity and lists and meetings. Another week of unknown. The other day I told my husband, Dan, that our life feels kind of surreal at the moment. Something seems "off" with everything and yet, I cannot quite put my finger on it. And this carries over into my dreams. Most nights, my dreams tend to center around ministry and the church. Last night was different. I woke up this morning from a dream where we were visiting my mother-in-law and she was in a locked hospital ward. She was in bed and crying in pain. My husband laid his hands on her and prayed. In my dream, she arched her back, sat up, stood up, grabbed me by the arms and started jumping up and down. She looked directly at me with cognition and said, "Look, Terri, I'm healed!"  Her reality is quite different. While she is out of the rehab center and in the assisted living facility with my father-in-law, she is in pain. Most of the time, there is mental fogginess and you c...

I've been enjoying taking a slower, meditative approach to Easter this year and walking through Lent through daily readings and a different prayer focus each week has been enjoyable. I hope you are finding these meaningful as well. You can find the free Guide to Help You Walk Through Lent on my website by clicking here. This week's focus is praying scripture. Often we may not have the words to pray and I have always found it helpful to pray God's word for different situations and people. The guide has been updated with these week's focus and I'm am posting it here as well.

Each Sunday afternoon or evening I sit down and look at my calendar and then start to write out my to-do list for the week. I include appointments I may have and write in what needs to happen each day. Some weeks I am overwhelmed and think, "I'll never get all this done." and yet, somehow I do. I am thankful for the normal ebb and flow of life and that many times, after a wave of busyness, there is a lull in the amount of meetings and activities I have. This is one of those weeks and I'm going to do my best to keep my schedule free. Yesterday, we had my daughter and son-in-law over to celebrate his birthday and it was an enjoyable afternoon. I had to laugh because my daughter told me she purposely wore a pair of jeans so I could take them up and hem them for her. I asked her, "What do you plan to wear while I do that?" 😀 I ended up lending her a pair of sweatpants. Today I'm making the hour drive to go take my father-in-law to visit my mother-in-law. I...

My word for this year is thrive, but I have to admit, that my life feels more like "hanging on for dear life" lately. I've thought that thriving should be more like abundance and joy and productivity. Yet, I think that's the point of thriving. It is being able to know where the source of life is even when in a season of hardship or drought. This verse in Jeremiah says that the man (or woman) who trusts in the Lord will not fear. Their roots go deep and know where nourishment can be found. Because they keep going back to the source of life, no matter what they are facing, they will thrive and bear fruit.  It is convicting for me because so many times while I do go to my source, I lack trust and give way to fear. I start to focus on what is not going well or I get consumed with anxiety over a problem or concern and feel like I need to take control and sort it out myself. Thriving means being still, drinking from the source of life and allowing Him to work in the situati...

  Today starts week #3 of Lent and the prayer focus this week is outreach. I have updated the Guide to Help You Walk Through Lent on my website and will also post this week's focus down below.  Our church has been attempting to do a better job of getting out of our comfort zone and getting out into the community. The event I participated in on Saturday was one of those ways.  There were only a handful of booths at the community event  and they were businesses with some free handouts for the kids and were passing out their promotional literature. We didn't do any advertising for our church other than the banner with our name on it, but our focus was to be present there and focus solely on giving to our community. My prayer is that we will continue to find ways to connect with people in our community and communicate the peace, love and mercy that Christ offers.

Monday is the day to look back over the week and give thanks for the many ways I saw God at work. It was a good week and while there were hard moments in the middle of some days, I still see God's blessings, even in the hard. 💓 I am thankful that even though my inlaws are separated at the moment (dad in assisted living and mom still in nursing home, rehabilitating), they are safe. We aren't having to worry about them being hurt and one or the other of them unable to call for help. My mother-in-law wouldn't even know how to call for help if something were to happen to dad. They are well-fed, have nursing care available, and many people to interact with on a daily basis.  💓 I am thankful that Dan was able to spend the day with both his parents on Tuesday and I spent the morning with his dad on Wednesday and took him out to lunch. It's mentally exhausting, but I'm thankful. I never want to look back with regret that we didn't make them a priority. 💓 My large lis...

As it often seems in life, multiple things are happening all at the same time. It's going to be a very busy week, but I am looking forward to it. This morning I'm headed to the local river walk (paved walkway by a river) for the annual Turn the River Green  event for St. Patrick's Day. I signed our church up to have a tent there and offer a free craft for children. Myself and another woman from church will be there to greet the approximately 2,500 people who attend. I'm hoping that there will only be about 320 children since that's all the crafts I have! 😂 Tomorrow night is also the start of our annual missions conference and we are hosting two of our International Workers for 4 days. There are events almost every day where they have the opportunity to share their ministry overseas. As always, there are a lot of moving parts to this, including multiple dinners and activities. After this morning's event I need to swing by the church and make sure we have all the...

Mark 14:3-9 ~ While He was in Bethany at the house of Simon who had a serious skin disease, as He was reclining at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of pure and expensive fragrant oil of nard. She broke the jar and poured it on His head. But some were expressing indignation to one another: “Why has this fragrant oil been wasted? For this oil might have been sold for more than 300 denarii and given to the poor.” And they began to scold her. Then Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why are you bothering her? She has done a noble thing for Me. You always have the poor with you, and you can do what is good for them whenever you want, but you do not always have Me. She has done what she could; she has anointed My body in advance for burial. I assure you: Wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what this woman has done will also be told in memory of her.” The sweet smell of perfume filled the air and all conversation came to a screeching halt. Nard, which is derived from ...

I updated the Guide to Help You Walk Through Lent with the prayer focus for this second week of Lent. You can find the complete guide here.   I hope you find this helpful. The prayer focus this week is revival. My prayer is that God would revive our church, as well as my own heart, with a renewed devotion to follow Him. It's so easy to become distracted and to lose focus. I want to renew my passion for His word, for prayer, to live for Him and bring His love to those around me.

The clocks sprang forward yesterday and while we lost an hour of sleep, it was so wonderful to have the light later in the day. Because it was also a sunny day I was able to go for a walk at my favorite place in the afternoon. I'm thankful for this little sanctuary that is close by where I can have some time to disconnect. I never quite know what type of wildlife I will see. I walk, think, pray and just enjoy the sights. It's been a tough week and a hard time in life at the moment as we continue to see my mother-in-law decline mentally with Alzheimer's. She is healing physically, but is becoming more childlike in her ability to cope with being in a nursing home facility. Until she is totally off the IV medication and also able to move with minimal help she cannot live where my father-in-law is living. She is angry and weepy and using language she has never used in her life. She says no one tells her anything even though we've told her exactly what is happening. But she ...

Yesterday was the beginning of Lent and for many people this is a time of self-denial and fasting from some activity. Unfortunately, it's also much like New Year's resolutions; the resolve to give up something often lasts only a day or so. Or many go through the motions of giving up something for Lent without really spending that time wrestling in prayer. I'm working through the readings found in the free resource I put together which can be found here: A Guide to Help You Walk Through Lent . As I read the passage found in Matthew this morning I noticed something about making resolves to follow God's leading. I highlighted the disciples' promises and actions in red and Jesus' actions in blue. The contrast is signficant.  Matthew 26:31-56 ~ Then Jesus said to them, “Tonight all of you will run away because of Me, for it is written:     I will strike the shepherd,     and the sheep of the flock will be scattered. But after I have been resurrected, I will go ahead ...

Lent has always seemed a primarily Catholic or Orthodox celebration and the church I grew up in never practiced it, so it's not something I gave a lot of thought about. But in recent years, I've seen the beauty in this time of the year.  The origin of the word Lent comes from the “Old English word for springtime, spring” and “from West Germanic word meaning long-days or lengthening of the day.”  As we begin to enter into spring and nature starts to wake from its long winter sleep, it is a wonderful time to reflect on the renewal of all things spiritually as well. As we focus on Christ's sacrifice on the cross it should bring about renewed gratitude in our heart. Lent is meant to be a time of repentance of our sins and a reflection on the events leading up to Christ's death and resurrection. It's not a time of shame, but of thankfulness for Christ's sacrifice for us. And it's a time of our own sacrifice through fasting and giving up something for a 40-day per...

  I'm probably a bit strange as I've always liked Mondays. To me, it feels like a brand new beginning. On Sunday afternoon I always sit down and write out my to-do list for the week and look forward to checking the items off my list. It's also the day I try and look back over the previous week and find some things I am thankful for, or ways I saw the Lord at work. I'm dragging a bit on this Monday because I started getting sick over the weekend. So my cold-induced haze is making my thinking a little foggy today. But I have so many things to be thankful for and want to list them here. 💓 The biggest thing is the physical improvement in my mother-in-law. She went from being at death's door to being able to sit up and eat. Unfortunately, her cognitive ability has taken a turn for the worse and her Alzheimer's has become more pronounced. She is in a rehabilitation center at the moment and we will find out at the end of the week where she will land (either assisted l...