Be Thankful It Hurts

"Can you feel this?" The surgeon took a needle and pricked each of my finger tips.

"Only my thumb. Ouch, by the way." I scooted closer to the edge of the examination table and crinkled the paper lining.

"Well Shannon," Dr. Maxwell replied. "After seeing both the MRI and how quickly you've lost feeling in your arm and fingers, I recommend surgery as soon as possible. The longer you wait, the more nerve damage you will cause. I can't guarantee how much damage might become permanent." 

Please continue on to the new site "A Quiet Place of Grace" for the remainder... 

If Your Christmas List Needs a Lift

Where in the world is a good, hydraulic couch cushion when you need one? I've finished my devotions and I can't get up. I can envision my Christmas list in a couple of years:

1. Replacement batteries for all seeing, hearing, and walking devices.
2. A memo pad that sticks to the refrigerator...bathroom mirror...kitchen counter...my kid...and all outside doors.
3. Extra shoe inserts for all foot maladies.
4. Fashionable reading glasses with lights (they make 'em).
5. Better tasting, fun-shaped Calcium supplements with Vitamin D.
6. A case of 5-hour Energy Shot drinks. Make that two cases.
7. And the big one I mentioned above...a portable, light-weight, hydraulic lifter I can use for any chair, couch, pew or car seat I happen to light upon.

To read the rest of this post, please continue to the new web site A Quiet Place of Grace

Looking For God's Samaritans

Please note, for this new blog post and all those in the future,

I'd like to direct you to A Quiet Place of Grace. You can click on the name 

to be directed to the new web site.

My hope is that the new site will not only contain periodic blogs, but will supply you with numerous and various types of resources that will encourage you in your walk with the Lord. 

God bless you and thank you for following so faithfully.

Who's In Control?

I've come a long way from the slightly obsessive, "need-to-feel-in-control" person I used to be. Years ago, the Lord put an older woman in my life that was a walking scalpel to my character. Despite the tears she brought to my prayer closet, the Lord knew exactly where my flesh needed to die, where sensitivities needed toughening, and I had no doubt...He let her know. 

One day we were going somewhere together and while she was telling me a story, she let go of the steering wheel to talk with her hands (Italians do that). I jumped and grabbed the wheel with a panicked death grip. Totally thoughtless reflex, but the look of disapproval made me let go immediately. I don't remember the exact conversation that followed, but I do remember the words, "Shannon, don't be such a control freak. The Lord's in control. You've never been."

It was a good "ouch," no matter how it sounded. Sometimes, the most nutritional food seems like it's delivered on a garbage can lid, so I want to throw it out. But the Holy Spirit washed over her words and fed it to my spirit every day for weeks. I saw how this "desire to control" infiltrated nearly every area of my life; it seeped into the ministry, permeated my work and sometimes caused friction in my relationships with other people. I was so blind, but when I saw, I understood. And such was the beginning of the Lord's deeper work in teaching me how to trust Him, letting go of fears, releasing self-preservation habits, helping me see Him as reigning over all, and then finding the joy in releasing others to be free and encourage them in the grace of God.

But...we are a project of the Lord's sanctification until heaven.

Have you ever prayed for something with such a depth of desire in your heart, that you felt you'd nearly have a stroke or heart attack if something wasn't done immediately? That crisis prayer of urgency that God MUST intervene or catastrophe is a surety? There was a day not long ago, that out of the abundance of my heart the mouth did speak, and out of the carnality of my flesh the emotions did boil, and I started pulling out a host of scriptures like a sword and wielded it at the Lord. "Father, You said in Your word..." and then I'd speak a promise not yet fulfilled.

Then...I paused...and heard a reverberation of the tone of my voice and the pride that infused my attitude. I felt my hands immediately jerk off God's steering wheel as I realized what I was doing-trying to control...Him. My sorrow, frustration, and heartache, over seeming unanswered prayers lept over my wall of faith right into Satan's arena of doubt and I found myself trying to manipulate the Lord and "make" Him DO SOMETHING. Do something to relieve pain. Do something to change circumstances and convert them into what I desired. Do something to take vengeance, reveal truth, bring justice and stop allowing storms to rage, lies to prosper, and tears to fall. "Just make it stop!" I cried out.

Why I wasn't a pillar of salt or pile of ashes is only because of His mercy. Jonah 4 came back to me as a tender rebuke. A completely reprobate city of people received the goodness, grace, and kindness of the Lord, instead of their deserved wrath and judgment. These people had committed mountains of sin against God and His people and Jonah wanted Him to deal with them. But when the Lord didn't do what Jonah wanted, (because the people repented), and didn't respond to his indignation and passionate desire to see retribution, Jonah became angry to the point of suicidal thoughts.

Jonah 4:4 "Then the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

Job 40:2 “Shall the one who contends with the Almighty correct Him?

He who rebukes God, let him answer it.”

As I walked beneath a shelf of fragile tea cups in my kitchen, I remembered my own frailty before a very powerful God. The chastening to my heart brought me to my face and I heard the words to my thoughts,  "Shannon, are you more righteous than I?"

I can become so myopic in my perspective of life. So self-righteous in my indignation. So frustrated when I feel helpless. So limited in my level of trust in a God that never leaves the throne, always reigns in righteousness and truth with a scepter of mercy and grace. I so easily forget His long-suffering towards me, His love that's covered the multitude of my own sin, the plain reality that He is God and I am not and His ways are always best.

So when you find His promises not yet fulfilled, and your heart is overwhelmed with a desire to see the Lord bring them to pass, pray them with a heart of trust and dependency on a God Who WILL bring them to pass...but in His timing and in His way. And remember...we're clay. Just like the tea cups.

Psalm 145:8 "The LORD is gracious and full of compassion,

Slow to anger and great in mercy."

Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways submit to him,

and he will make your paths straight."