'Into every life, a little rain must fall." Personally, I've always hated this saying. I'm happy ending kind of girl. You know, the ones where the good guys win over the bad guys. The girl or guy gets the person of their dreams and live happily ever after. It has provided some interesting moments in my life. It has only taken a few decades to realize that ideal has no root in reality. Have I ever mentioned that I can be a little slow on the uptake? I've been pasting some quotes recently & hope this habit doesn't annoy you all, but this one from Rick Warren is one that I believe is very appropriate right now.

It's Christmas. One of my favorite times of year. Very BIG in the Moore house. If you've been following my previous posts, you know that I've been dealing with some disappointments. So far, they've been only in one area of my life. But...

"Life is a series of problems: Either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.
The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort.
God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy.
We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in character, in Christ likeness.
This past year has been the greatest year of my life but also the toughest, with my wife getting cancer.
I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountaintop, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.
Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life.
No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on.
And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for."

Rick Warren

Just when you think it's safe to go back into the water... Rain falls whether you are ready for it or not. It doesn't wait until you have your umbrella, raincoat or rain boots. It usually comes when you left your car windows down. No matter what is happening in your life, the people you love can be standing in the rain, too. I guess it isn't all about me and mine, is it? The beautiful thing about God is that He can work and intervene in all our lives and all at the same time. And that while we all may be hurting, we can still take care of each other.

Are You Looking?

I'm on a list to receive a weekly devotion from Max Lucado. Here is the latest one. He ALWAYS gets to me! Don't forget to look, listen and pay attention this Christmas season. He has so much to share.

The Arrival

by Max Lucado

God had entered the world as a baby.
Yet, were someone to chance upon the sheep stable on the outskirts of Bethlehem that morning, what a peculiar scene they would behold.
The stable stinks like all stables do. The stench of urine, dung, and sheep reeks pungently in the air. The ground is hard, the hay scarce. Cobwebs cling to the ceiling and a mouse scurries across the dirt floor.
A more lowly place of birth could not exist.
Off to one side sit a group of shepherds. They sit silently on the floor; perhaps perplexed, perhaps in awe, no doubt in amazement. Their night watch had been interrupted by an explosion of light from heaven and a symphony of angels. God goes to those who have time to hear him—so on this cloudless night he went to simple shepherds.
Near the young mother sits the weary father. If anyone is dozing, he is. He can’t remember the last time he sat down. And now that the excitement has subsided a bit, now that Mary and the baby are comfortable, he leans against the wall of the stable and feels his eyes grow heavy. He still hasn’t figured it all out. The mystery of the event puzzles him. But he hasn’t the energy to wrestle with the questions. What’s important is that the baby is fine and that Mary is safe. As sleep comes he remembers the name the angel told him to use … Jesus. “We will call him Jesus.”
Wide awake is Mary. My, how young she looks! Her head rests on the soft leather of Joseph’s saddle. The pain has been eclipsed by wonder. She looks into the face of the baby. Her son. Her Lord. His Majesty. At this point in history, the human being who best understands who God is and what he is doing is a teenage girl in a smelly stable. She can’t take her eyes off him. Somehow Mary knows she is holding God. So this is he. She remembers the words of the angel. “His kingdom will never end.” (Luke 1:33)
He looks like anything but a king. His face is prunish and red. His cry, though strong and healthy, is still the helpless and piercing cry of a baby. And he is absolutely dependent upon Mary for his well-being.
Majesty in the midst of the mundane. Holiness in the filth of sheep manure and sweat. Divinity entering the world on the floor of a stable, through the womb of a teenager and in the presence of a carpenter.
She touches the face of the infant-God. How long was your journey!
This baby had overlooked the universe. These rags keeping him warm were the robes of eternity. His golden throne room had been abandoned in favor of a dirty sheep pen. And worshiping angels had been replaced with kind but bewildered shepherds.
Meanwhile, the city hums. The merchants are unaware that God has visited their planet. The innkeeper would never believe that he had just sent God into the cold. And the people would scoff at anyone who told them the Messiah lay in the arms of a teenager on the outskirts of their village. They were all too busy to consider the possibility.
Those who missed His Majesty’s arrival that night missed it not because of evil acts or malice; no, they missed it because they simply weren’t looking.
Little has changed in the last two thousand years, has it?

From God Came Near©

(Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2006)

Max Lucado

Psalm 100

(Amplified Bible)
Psalm 100
A Psalm of thanksgiving and for the thank offering.

1MAKE A joyful noise to the Lord, all you lands!

2Serve the Lord with gladness! Come before His presence with singing!

3Know (perceive, recognize, and understand with approval) that the Lord is God! It is He Who has made us, not we ourselves [and we are His]! We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

4Enter into His gates with thanksgiving and a thank offering and into His courts with praise! Be thankful and say so to Him, bless and affectionately praise His name!

5For the Lord is good; His mercy and loving-kindness are everlasting, His faithfulness and truth endure to all generations.

Thankful

In all this talk of valleys I think it's time to reflect. Yes, I know it's not an original thought, but let's do this anyway. Interestingly enough, when I begin to 'count my blessings', the valley doesn't seem so deep, so long, or so hopeless. To be honest, my position has not changed. My situation is still the same. Only my focus has changed. It's amazing how much this can affect your day!

Instead of looking at what circumstances put you in that valley, look at what (or Who) walks through it with you. Just to share my blessings with you, here are a few of them:

• Healthy parents who love me and each other.
• A sister who is my best friend.
• Brother, sister-in-law, niece & nephews who, while not with me, mean the world to me.
• A stable, Godly church, pastor and church family.
• A job & steady income.
• Friends who are less than a phone call away.
• A Savior who came to die for me.
• A Father who sent Him.
• A Comforter who is with me every moment of every day.

These are only a few of the many things I have to be thankful for. What things make your list? Celebrate Thanksgiving in Holland instead of Italy. That's where I will be celebrating.

Happy Thanksgiving, dear friends!

Welcome to Holland

Several years ago, I was facing a complete hysterectomy at the young age of thirty-five. Not only that, but I had never married or had children. This was and is one of the most devastating experiences of my life. Throughout this, I worked in an ob-gyn practice (lots of fun, dealing with pregnant ladies, when you are learning to face the fact that the person in the exam room will never be you). Someone, led by the Holy Spirit I know, told me the following story. I wanted to share it with you, my friends:

Welcome to Holland
Parenting a Special Needs Child
By Emily Perl Kingsley

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this:
When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip to Italy. You buy a bunch of guidebooks and make your wonderful plans: the Coliseum, Michelangelo's David, the gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.
After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."
"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."
But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland
and there you must stay.
The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.So you must go out and buy new guidebooks. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.
It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills – and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.
But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy ... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say, "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."
And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away, because the loss of that dream is a very, very significant loss.
But if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you many never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things about Holland.

There is so much truth in this that applies to every situation. Even infertility. I looked at my mother this afternoon (we are in this valley together) and we decided that it applied to us right now. We are going to celebrate through these coming days. We are going to find a way to enjoy the coming holidays. Even though it won't be what we had planned. Even though it won't be Italy, we will learn out how to celebrate in Holland.

Wrong Way

I had a strange dream this morning. REALLY strange. Let me tell you about it. A lady from my home church died and at her funeral, my friends and her brother were discussing an illustration she used to teach how to get to heaven. Now, as far as I know she has never taught this, so the only realistic thing was that her brother , whom I have never met, was there. We then struggled to cross a stream, the first of the steps, and began to try to 'work out our salvation'. For some reason, there was a time limit. Once you began the steps, you had to complete them within a certain amount of time. My sister, Lisa was struggling with one of the steps and we began to panic. I dropped and lost the things I was going to need for future steps. Panic was rearing its ugly head. I began to dig in the mud for what I had lost. Then I heard a Voice speak to my heart.

Why are you looking down?

Why are you digging in the muck and the mire?

In my dream, I recognized the Voice. My heart was lightened and I looked up to the sky. I spoke out, make that shouted out! "Stop! We are doing this all wrong! Each of us knows the path to salvation and this is not it! Our God is not in these works! Our God does not require that we dig through mud in order to be saved! He is with us and He is with us now! Look up! Let's get our eyes off of these tasks and off of all this mud! Look up!

We pulled ourselves out of the pit and the strange dream moved on to stranger and bizarre places. Then I woke up, groggy and still more than half-way in the dream. As I tried to wake myself up in the shower, I felt a drawing sensation to the dream. I didn't want to. I wanted to leave it behind and get started on my day. But I kept going back to the feelings I felt in the mud pit. I kept hearing that Voice. I realized that even in the Valley, He is with me. Stop looking and focusing on that valley. Stop focusing on how to get out of that valley. Stop focusing on the steps and the amount of time. LOOK UP!!! Stop looking the wrong way! He is with me. He is with you. Our way through and out of that valley is dependent upon nothing we do. It is all dependent upon Who we are walking with. The proper steps and clues that we have learned from this world are useless to us. We have nothing that can prepare us for this valley. That moves our dependence off of ourselves and onto our Lord.

Pursue Him. He will bring us through in His time. Breathe deeply of His Holy Spirit. Commune with Him. Let's take our eyes off of the mud, muck and mire. Take His Hand. He is a God of miracles. And even though there seems to be no way out, He will walk through this with us in His own time. He has chosen this path for us. And even though it seems to be a path of dread or pain, He walks it with us. Let us trust Him together.

Love from the Valley,

Lara

The Valley

I'm in a valley, right now. They can be such painful places, can't they?
This song, by Jars of Clay, has been a companion through some of the deepest, darkest vallies of my life.

Jars Of Clay

The Valley Song (Sing Of Your Mercy)

You have led me to the sadness

I have carried this pain

On a back bruised and nearly broken

I'm crying out to You

Chorus:

I will sing of Your mercy that

Leads me through valleys of sorrow

To rivers of joy

When death like a gypsy

Comes to steal what I love

I will still look to the heavens

I will still seek Your face

But I fear You aren't listening

Because there are no words

Just the stillness and the hunger

For a faith that assures

(chorus x 2)

Alleluia (x4)

While we wait for a rescue

With our eyes tightly shut

Face to the ground using our hands

To cover the fatal cut

And though the pain is an ocean

Tossing us around, around, around

You have calmed greater waters

And higher mountains have come down

(chorus) ...yeah

Alleluia (x4)

(chorus x 4)

Oh oh oh, sing of Your mercyMercy,

Your mercy.