• Beginnings,  The Gift of Vision

    Visions and “Wish Dreams” (continued)

    Now I was facing a dilemma. My faith was being tested.  My vision, my dream, was deteriorating.  I knew that God had the power to change Judd’s mind, and He had not.  And I  knew that since He owned the cattle on a thousand hill, He could have provided the financial resources we needed.   I also knew that I needed to support my husband and submit to something that he felt was right.  Now it was time to step out in faith, believing that God is sovereign and  I must walk a path that seemed so wrong to me. So I began to look for jobs. I had been…

  • Beginnings,  The Gift of Vision,  Uncategorized

    Vision and “Wish Dreams”

    I do believe that God plants into our souls an expectation of His miraculous presence in our world, and He is pleased when we do not simply submit to the mundane, to the ho-hum life of mediocrity, but press for the life that is “above and beyond all that we ask or think.” Perhaps, the verse “I would have fainted if I had not seen the hand of the Lord in the land of the living,” was the impetus to my vision, my dreams. I seemed to be blessed with vision; my dear mother accused me of wearing “rose colored glasses” in my early years. Maybe it was good that…

  • Spiritual Disciplines,  The Place

    Solitude (Part Three)

      And so in those first steps on the prayer trail I allow the vestiges of any mask to be gently erased by His love. A little uneven with a stubble of grass here and there, this trail has been tractor mowed specifically for anyone who would like to be alone with God.  It has been trodden not only by my feet, but by my children, my grandchildren, by neighbors, by friends, by students, by local pastors.  It has become hallowed ground.  We have all met with God, discussed with God, been encouraged by His presence, and dropped to our knees on this hallowed ground.  As I walk, I think of…

  • Spiritual Disciplines,  The Place

    Solitude (continued)

        This “walking-with-God path” I have loved to share with others.  “Go, listen to God up on the trail,” I have said to dear friends and students, fully expecting them to have the same conversations I have had.  But not everyone has been able to “hear” God in this way on this path.  Hard as it has been for me to understand this “deafness,” up there on the trail,  I have come to accept it.  I remember one of my dearest students had been searching for answers, for a sense of God’s presence and I had confidently sent her out to walk and listen.  She was gone for an…

  • Spiritual Disciplines,  The Place

    Celebrating Solitude

    “The aim of God in history is the creation of an all-inclusive community of loving persons, with himself included in that community as its prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant.”—Dallas Willard   I believe that building community with Him as our prime sustainer and most glorious inhabitant has at its core our personal communion with Him . . . sometimes in solitude.  The following is from an earlier entry: I pull my jacket closer to my body and quietly close the back screen door, not wanting to arouse Vince and Tiger.  I consider them my loyal “guard cats,” guarding the farmhouse from any additional forlorn feral cats that would like…