witnessing: the scariest thing I never did

There was an invitation for our men's community Bible study filled out in my wallet, ready to be given to a man I see at the grocery store nearly every week. I've been praying for courage to invite him, and knew that the answer to my prayer hinged on my obedient step of faith. Yet as I approached this man today, I could already feel my courage fleeing. He was engaged in conversation with another man, and what little resolve I had left fled as well. We had a short little chat and the cart moved on.

Yet I was reluctant to let this opportunity go by as so many have in the past. I grabbed the loaf of French bread that was on my list, then stood by the dried fruit and picked up some cranberries, contemplating my next move. Finally I circled my cart around by the bacon, stood quietly trying to gain courage, and suddenly saw my friend bid farewell to the man he was talking with.* As if on cue, I walked up and asked him, "Have you ever been invited to this?" and handed him the invitation. We had a good chat about the Bible study, churches, our families and jobs. "I really appreciate this," he told me as I walked away. It didn't work for him to attend right now, but he asked me to please remind him in the future.

To say that it makes me nervous to talk to people is truly an understatement. My parents can attest to the fact that I have been painfully shy since I was just a little tyke. Being left for Sunday School, preschool, or any other activity away from my parents made me wish I could vanish into the floor. Then came kindergarten screening. I made it about halfway through before someone began to grill me with questions and I shut down, completely unwilling to talk or go through the rest of the stations in the screening. Yes, I made it into kindergarten by the skin of my teeth. They let me try again another day, after my parents had a chance to talk some confidence into me. Even when I was 16 and got my driver's licence, the first time I went through a drive-through to order, I pulled up to the speaker, turned to the passenger seat, and asked my dad if he could please just place the order instead of me. My wise father would not relent even though I was ready to burst into tears. (Thanks to him I can do the McDonald's thing today!)

Talking to others does not come naturally to me. Witnessing is even more foreign. I can barely sum up the courage to invite someone to a Bible study! Yet I am compelled to learn to share Christ with others, because I believe that it is only by the truth of the gospel men and women will be affected for eternity. Yet as I survey Christian experiences, I'm not sure witnessing comes naturally to anyone. Jesus knew this to be true: it's why he told the disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit's empowering before witnessing to the world about who He was! We need the supernatural power of the indwelling Holy Spirit to testify to Christ.

I am not a good conversationalist since I've spent so much of my life waiting for others to draw me out, but I'm beginning to learn. And the best way I've found to learn more about others is to ask them questions. There is no subject most people seem to enjoy talking about as much as themselves. So asking questions is a natural way to learn about others, show love, and eventually share God's truth with them. Yet I have continued to hesitate to share my faith, unsure of how to get into spiritual conversations with others. I've been praying for boldness, opportunities, and words to be a witness. The opportunities have come and gone for lack of being acted upon, but my biggest question continued to be: "if" I do get into a conversation with someone (bigger "if" that I would like it to be!), how do I turn it to spiritual things?

This past week my questions were answered as I read the book One Thing You Can't Do in Heaven by Mark Cahill. This man is passionate about sharing his faith. He shares account after account and strategy after strategy, including a chapter entitled, "Say what?" with questions to ask people to transition conversations to spiritual matters. Here are some of the questions he suggested:

1. Where are you on your spiritual journey? or What is happening spiritually in your life?

2. If you died tonight, are you 100-percent sure that you are going to heaven?

3. If you were to die tonight and God asked, "Why should I let you into my Heaven?" what would you say to Him?
(Believe it or not, I did spend a week witnessing in New York City almost 6 years ago and this is a question I asked many people there. The answers you get are very interesting and almost always center around being a good person.)

4. When you die, what do you think is on the other side? What do you think is out there when you walk out of here?

5. Why do you wear that cross? (Or any other religious or political symbol?)

And the list goes on...these are great conversation turners, aren't they? I had another in my Bible study this week that may be good when speaking to someone who considers themselves to be religious: "What do you think is the difference between knowing about Jesus and knowing Jesus?"

Cahill's book is great place to start if you are interesting in getting serious about sharing your faith. In fact, it may make you seriously examine why you are not serious about evangelism. After all, which is scarier: starting spiritual conversations or the fact that souls all around you are headed for an eternity spent in hell? The good news of Jesus Christ is worth sharing with others. Souls are hanging in the balance, and God has given each of us the incredible privilege of snatching a few from the fire (Jude 23) to be won to Him.

I'm considering the risk and looking for opportunities. Will you?

Jer. 20:9 "But if I say, 'I will not mention him or speak any more in his name,' his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot."


*I wish I had been bolder so that not one man, but two, would have heard the invitation.

special visit

She was a young mother (that's the way things were back then), and young grandma, and even a young great-grandma, so my children have the privilege of knowing their great-great grandma. She's 97, and the first generation Christian on that side of the family. She came to Christ through her teacher's morning Bible reading in a one-room schoolhouse. For that reason, she was not happy when they took the Bible out of public school.

Snuggling with Josiah...she loved it. And he loved her.

Everything the kids did or said today was "sweet" and "wonderful."

Getting ready to give her a kiss...


She's a special lady. I'm thankful God has granted her to us for so long.

life moves us on

It is hard to look in the eyes of my 3-year-old son and realize I can barely remember what my 11-year-old was like at his age! Yet the nostalgia over yesterday gives way to the joy of who this boy is today. I'm so thankful for the way Micah is growing intellectually, socially, and spiritually. He is one of those kids who makes parenting look easy and makes us look like we know what we are doing. But we secretly know he's still a work in progress and in reality, it is God's grace that makes him who he is, not us!!

All this being said because in less than 10 weeks, we will have a 6th grade son who will go to Jr. High next year!! It can't be! But it is. And we are getting excited about the transition and what is in store for him. One of the things he has to look forward to is band!

Presenting...the Parkside Jr. High Fifth Grade Band. These are the kids he will be playing with next year! Micah told us it was awesome to hear everyone playing together for the first time. They only had two practices before their concert.

I'm not sure "awesome" would quite describe how they sounded, until I stop to consider that most of these kids have only been playing for 6 months. Wow!! They were awesome!!! And after my own band experiences, I understand what it must have meant to Micah to hear a full band sound for the first time.

We also heard the 6th grade band play (they were much better) and then the Jr. High Honor Band. This band was incredibly talented and quickly gained fans in the audience with the excerpts they played from the Star Wars trilogy.

It's a reminder to treasure each day with the three-year-old who is still at home with me all day, and to make the most of every opportunity with his older brother who is growing up much too fast. And an encouraging reminder there is life after potty training (this mission almost complete!)

water challenge, completed!

Last Friday was the last day of our family's 2-week water challenge to support the work of Blood:Water Mission. As promised, we celebrated with milkshakes and talked over what we had experienced and learned as a result. Here's a sampling:

How much did we donate?
Our family saved around $45 with four of us participating in 2 weeks of drinking only water. Without this challenge, I would never have realized we spend so much on beverages for our family! We drink juice for breakfast, milk at other meals, and water in between, so it doesn't seem like we have a particularly exciting or expensive beverage life. Now that I am noticing the price of such things, I have discovered that if we drank less juice and more soda, we'd probably save money. But why would I want to do that to my family? All in all, 2 weeks of water helped me appreciate the privilege we have to drink other things, and how rich we really are to be able to do so.

I'm thankful for the donors who gave $20 to help us increase our total gift! We were able to donate $65 all together.

How did you do?
My 9-year-old was sick and nauseous for part of the water challenge, so I backed off and let her drink juice and a little 7-Up to keep her hydrated. Otherwise, she didn't complain much but was definitely the most excited member of the family to have the challenge come to an end.

The 11-year-old found the challenge easy. He said only 1 friend at school asked why he was bringing water to school to drink at lunch, so he explained to him what we were doing. Otherwise, he gladly drank water and said next time he'd like to do the 40-day challenge.

My husband and I also found the challenge relatively easy to keep. Eric did miss his soda at work a bit, as it is a way to keep himself alert and a way to treat himself at times. I started to crave juice at breakfast by the second week, but found water easy to drink at other meals.

Anything else to add?
I found myself not just thinking of bringing clean water to needy, thirsty people, but of the souls of men, women, and children who would be affected by our little 2-week exercise of restraint. I don't want this challenge to simply be a "good work", but something that can last for eternity. How do these two aspects of helping others converge? When Jesus came to this world, He did so in a material body, willing to take on the experiences of mankind as the only way to deal with sin. As Christians, we are to take to heart not only souls, but also the material needs of the world around us. Tim Keller put it this way in his book, Prodigal God:

In Matthew 25, Jesus describes Judgment Day. Many will stand there and call him"Lord," but Jesus says, stunningly, that if they had not been serving the hungry, the refugee, the sick, and the prisoner, then they hadn't been serving Him (Matthew 25:34-40)... He is not saying that only the social workers get into heaven. Rather, he is saying that the inevitable sign that you know you are a sinner saved by sheer, costly grace is a sensitive social conscience and a life poured out in deeds of service to the poor...

Christianity...is perhaps the most materialistic of the world's faiths. Jesus's miracles were not so much violations of the natural order, but a restoration of the natural order. God did not create a world with blindness, leprosy, hunger, and death in it. Jesus's miracles were signs that someday all these corruptions of his creation would be abolished. Christians therefore can talk of saving the soul and of building social systems that deliver safe streets and warm homes in the same sentence. With integrity.

Jesus hates suffering, injustice, evil, and death so much, he came and experienced it to defeat it and, someday, to wipe the world clean of it. Knowing all this, Christians cannot be passive about hunger, sickness, and injustice... Christianity...teaches that God hates the suffering and oppression of this material world so much, he was willing to get involved in it and to fight against it.

I hope our family is a little less passive and more involved in the suffering of our world. And perhaps through this work, some souls will see His compassion and be won to Him.

the gift of the Spirit

"But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you..." John 16:7

I have been meditating this week on how good it is for Jesus to have sent His Holy Spirit. Through Him, we have continual access to Jesus' thoughts, words, guidance, teaching, encouragement, and power. No wonder the disciples were able to minister in such powerful ways after Pentecost!! And just think: we have the same access to that Spirit today.

Spirit of God, Descend Upon My Heart

Spirit of God, descend upon my heart:
Wean it from earth, thro' all its pulses move.
Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art,
And make me love Thee as I ought to love.

Hast Thou not bid us love Thee, God and King?
All, all Thine own: soul, heart and strength and mind.
I see Thy cross--there teach my heart to cling;
O let me seek Thee, and O let me find.

Teach me to feel that Thou art always nigh;
Teach me the struggles of the soul to bear--
To check the rising doubt, the rebel sigh;
Teach me the patience of unanswered prayer.

Teach me to love Thee as Thine angels love,
One holy passion filling all my frame:
The baptism of the heav'n descended Dove--
My heart an altar and Thy love the flame.


Note to Erin...I was so excited to get to use my new knowledge of the dashes in this post, but apparently it doesn't work to make an M dash in blogspot!

life with the 9-year-old

She loves to make cookies, and is getting pretty good at it! I wonder if she's busy today? We could use some freshly baked cookies around here.

The sense of humor continues to be under development.

Of course, this is her role model. His is still under development, too.

Hated to have to wash this off to go to bed.

There is no denying her math skills have improved this year. But this little display of confidence made me giggle.

longing for spring

After so many long, cold days of winter, the temperature today felt almost balmy, and the sunshine beckoned us outside. Though bundled against the wind, Josiah and I took the dog and escaped the stale air of the shut up house for the fresh air of an early March day. Never mind that there is still snow on the ground, never mind that the wind still has a good nip in it...spring is coming, and we are anxious to give it a greeting.

There's not much to see today, really. The grass is still brown, the trees are still bare of bursting buds that will soon become baby leaves. We walk both around and through the snow and splash through a couple of puddles where it is melting in earnest.

Yet down the street and around the corner we spotted something together: life emerging from the otherwise barren ground. Daffodils are pushing their way up, drawing life from the soil and strength from the sun. In my mind's eye I can see other stirrings under the ground, in places I cannot yet detect. There are bulbs, seeds, and root systems beginning to develop to support life. Yet even before these stirrings, there have been unseen forces breaking down the soil, working into seeds, preparing the perfect conditions for life to take root and grow.

There are times for each of us when our souls go through a "wintering." All around looks barren, broken, and signs of life are quenched. Yet in those cold, quiet days, there is a process God is working in us that is paving way for life. It may be quite unnoticeable to the eye of the one going through it or to those who are observing, but there is an unseen Force behind those difficult days. Then almost imperceptibly, the soul that has been prepared by the winter days begins to bring forth life. Time will show that life will not be held back but will burst forth in great beauty and strength.

When winter gives way to spring, there will be much rejoicing, yet that spring could not have come had it not been for the winter.

John 12:24 "I tell you the truth, unless a kernal of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds."

Hosea 6:3 "Let us acknowledge the Lord; let us press on to acknowledge him. As surely as the sun rises, he will appear; he will come to us like the winter rains, like the spring rains that water the earth."