July Twenty-Eighteen

July Twenty- Eighteen

pictures below from Seattle to California to India! Oh the places we have gone! 

Go before us, that we may follow your steps

Go behind us to steer us when we stray. 

Go behind us as our strength and joy for the journey...

We beseech thee, Lord, to help us to be

foolish enough to stand for you, 

foolish enough to trust you, 

foolish enough to call upon you, and 

foolish enough to wait on you. 

A true community is not just about being geographically close to someone or part of the same social web network. It's about feeling connected and responsible for what happens.  Humanity is our ultimate community, and everyone plays a crucial role.

-Yehuda Berg 

Forgive any reluctance

we might have to engage

fully with this new day...

Replace our detachment

with expectation,

for all we might achieve

if we put our trust in you

and your confidence in us.

-John Birch 

I love these words about marriage from John Gottman: "It's an honest, big-picture question. Really, what's the point? Happiness? Comfort? Solidarity? Companionship?

Sure, those are nice things. Important things, vital to a successful marriage. But they aren't the point. The point of marriage is growth.

Marriage is what Dr. David Schnarch, author of the book Passionate Marriage, calls a “Human Growth Machine.” Which means that when you make those vows, you agree to support one another and grow together in a positive way.

Not to deliver unending happiness (which sounds boring), but to grow and learn from each other through all of life's challenges and difficulties, as well as through the beautiful moments, too. Happiness will be there, and the more the better. And dedication to positive growth in your marriage is exactly what leads to the periods of happiness, trust, connection, passion, and commitment." -The Gottman Institute

All the darkness in the world cannot extinguish the light of a single candle.

- St. Francis of Assisi~

Disturb us, O Lord,

when with the abundance of things we possess,

we have lost our thirst for the water of life. 

- Desmond Tutu (adapted from Francis Drake) 

And I want to add to the beauty

To tell a better story

I want to shine with the light

That's burning up inside

This is grace, an invitation to be beautiful

This is grace, an invitation

Redemption comes in strange places, small spaces

Calling out our best

And I want to add to the beauty

To tell a better story

I want to shine with the light

That's burning up inside

 -Sara Groves 

I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples. 

-Mother Teresa 

So let me be content to minister regardless of the visible 

outcomes, trusting that the small mercies I 

extend will be woven into the larger theme of 

redemption at work in the lives of others 

as you woo them to yourself, drawing their hearts

by graces offered, and shaping my own heart too

in this process of learning to serve well, and 

by learning to serve well, learning to love well. 

When a man or woman has the conviction that he or she is doing the work God gave him  or her to do, there is a zeal and a courage in his or her soul that all the forces of this world cannot destroy. -Charles Stanley

"I know what beauty is, for Thou hast set the world within my heart; It's glory from me will not part; I never loved it more than now." -George McDonald

On May 28, 1972, the Duke of Windsor, the uncrowned King Edward VIII, died in Paris.  The same evening, a television program rehearsed the main events of his life.  Extracts of earlier films were shown, in which he answered questions about his upbringing, brief reign and abdication.  Recalling his boyhood as Prince of Wales, he said, “My father (King George V) was a strict disciplinarian. Sometimes when I had done something wrong, he would admonish me by saying, “My dear boy, you must always remember who you are.”  It is my conviction that our Heavenly Father says the same to us everyday: “My dear child, you must always remember who you are.”

May these pictures from our Children  of the Kingdom banquet in India remind you of the "great love that the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" 

“Do not be dismayed by the brokenness of the world. All things break. And all things can be mended. Not with time, as they say, but with intention. So go. Love intentionally, extravagantly, unconditionally. The broken world waits in darkness for the light that is you.” ― L.R. Knost