December 26, 2012 Greetings My Friend, My goal in life is to live for God and for God’s glory. I try to think about God and His ways throughout the day and then live as I hear God directing me. So Christmas and Easter are important holidays for me. I love contemplating the tiny baby Jesus. I love pondering that he was born like we are born from a woman. I love pondering Baby Jesus being a baby, needing His diaper changed and nursed. At this point in my pondering I begin to see that our Lord and Savior lived life on earth as we all do. We all don’t have the same story but we all know hunger, anger, joy and the list goes on. As I feel God’s loving arms around me I find that I am not afraid of being alone anymore. That is a feeling I have known for most of my life and these days I’m good with the fact that I am not popular, liked, wanted or whatever. I have God’s love and frankly that is enough. God does give me more than His love though and I marvel. I have Junior and since I fell and broke my vertebrae I have sensed Junior’s deep love for me. For the first time in my life I feel like a wanted person, wanted and loved. God continues to hug me and then pushes me out the door into the world to love others as He loves me. Being a loved wife is so precious. It isn’t about my looks or my fun way of being so much as the man flat out likes every part of me even when I am being difficult. For most of my life I have hated my nose. It is long and as a kid my family often teased me or when we played I had to be the mean mother or a witch because I had such a long nose. Then I met Junior and the man is in love with my long nose. He’d like to kiss on it. I won’t let him because I can’t breathe and that scares me. He thinks I have cute toes. It feels wonderful being loved. One of the statements I often reflect on is “God first loved us.” The longer I walk in faith the more I sense that love. God loves me enough to not let me do things that aren’t good for me. Sure I can take drugs and God won’t stop me, but I know I shouldn’t and God gives me the courage to stay away from drugs. This goes for just about anything in my life. The more I read my Bible and pray the more I begin to see how God wants me to be. We are all different. I tend to be able to relate to hurting women, often abused women. We tend to find each other and I believe that is because God places them in my life. Now Junior relates to some very unsavory types. Types of people I have never run into to be honest except briefly passing by type of thing. Junior hung with these types of people for a good many years and he knows them deeply. Again I think back to our trip to Wales. There was Junior standing in the middle of to me very scary looking guys. You know tattoos, piercings all over, big burly rather scary looking guys and there Junior is in the middle of them talking like an old friend. These guys were talking back and forth with Junior and Junior was telling them about Jesus. These guys were listening and not making fun of Junior. If I’d had tried to tell about Jesus these guys would have not “heard” me at all, maybe even tried to hurt me. With Junior, they listened and respected him. We have friends who minister to the foreign born in our country and if fact are getting ready to go to an Arab area to reach out to Muslims. They are in their 60’s and just starting to go into overseas missions. They generally have foreign friends hanging around. They know how to relate to them and help them and that is their calling. I know a young man that seems to have the ability to have people drift by his house as he barbeques. This is an awesome mission field as well, I’m not sure he is reaching out for Christ but people stopping by and hanging out and conversations can lead to how we trust in the Lord. He also could be encouraged to walk deeper in his faith with those that are. It is a wonderful mission field right there in his neighborhood. For me I have found that sharing my faith isn’t saying “Jesus” as often as I can as much as it is about sharing my love of life, love for others and living the best I can in the Lord. I do get a tad bit irritated when people tend to think that just because I am Christian that means I have every answer, every right way of being down pat. To me I am on a journey, some days are exciting, some are boring, some are tiring and so my journey takes me through many different phases. In those phases I learn and grow. In some ways I believe that we are preparing to live in eternity here on earth so we have many lessons to learn before entering heaven. If we don’t accept Jesus then we are preparing to live in hell. To me that would be living a life of addiction or murdering people or such. I believe we need to try to offer the hope we have the best we can to others. There is always that moment when you connect with someone and they begin to understand what you understand and they then go on to live a life in the Lord. For me it isn’t about getting someone to say the sinner’s prayer. I believe I am a seed planter so what I offer may be a nugget and another nugget is added by someone else and in the end God is the one who turns that heart toward Him. My goal is to live for Christ. I may fall down, re-learn a lesson or two and hopefully by the time I die I will be what God has shaped me to be so I can live forever and ever. That is a hard concept for me to grasp even now 14 years later on my faith journey. Can you imagine a life with no more pain, sorrow or sadness? I can’t. I find though that is the hope I live for though. Without that hope I would find life a very scary place to be. In hope I can face pain and sorrow. How about you? Where is your hope? May God bless you and keep you make His face to shine upon you. Love Janet