Hope against all odds

Out of a Far Country by Christopher Yuan & Angela Yuan

I talk to so many women who are looking for hope in their marriages and for their wayward children, so I was drawn to Angela Yuan’s story immediately.  She opens the door to her heart and let's us in to see her emptiness, pain, and hopelessness.  

Christopher’s honesty shocks and saddens me and opens my eyes to how so many young people are deceived and looking for happiness in all the wrong places.  He is raw and real as he tells about sex and drugs.   It is shocking just how good destruction can look.

This was not an easy book to read and yet from hopelessness comes hope, from death comes life, from the darkness comes light.  The Yuan’s show that a life turned to God, filled with prayer & patience, will always find Him faithful.  God can and still does the impossible.  An amazing story of one families life restored and revived will give great hope to others.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.

Marriage: Love and War

Storms, foxes, adventure, swords, and sex are just a few of the things John & Stasi Edlredge associate with marriage in their book, "Love & War".  Their willingness to be transparent and open up their own lives helps us see ourselves and gives us hope for our own marriages.

Where most women I know have read Stasi's book, "Captivating" and loved it; I'd never read it, but have read John's book "Wild at Heart" and loved it!  Telling life like it is - that raw honesty is what I relate too.  I love learning about God's plan for us as married couples.  "Love & War" reminds me of this and how we all are a mess and get it wrong time and time again but can be overcomers and live with our spouses and love them and bless them and get up and start again each time we mess up. 

This does not read like a Christmas letter where life is perfect and everything is rosy.  It is real life being played out and shared.  The Eldridge's share their frustrations, fights, demons, and more and how to step to a new level of marriage with prayer, reading God's word, obedience, and surrender of self; something we all need and thirst for but many times don't know how or are unwilling to find.

Their hands on approach and common sense makes this book very easy to read and understand.  The advice they give is easy to follow.  The prayers shared in the back of the book are wonderful.  I have so many highlights and have started sharing quotes with my friends because there are so many things to relate to.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review.
Thank you very much!

DELIGHT & DESIRE

"Delight yourself in the Lord."   Reflecting on that portion of Psalm 37:4, I was thinking about what "delight" means.  I recently was visiting my 6 month old granddaughter, Hadassah, and she is what came to my mind.  She is definitely a "delight".  She smiles and her eyes shine and when she looks at you, her face lights up.  She observes everything around her and kicks her feet up in joy, and there is no doubt that she enjoys to be with you.

So these are the questions I ask myself?

1. Do I smile at the Lord?
2. Do my eyes shine as I look to Him?
3. Does my face light up in His presence?
4. Do I observe HIs presence and kick up my feet (dance in joy)?
5. Does He know I enjoy to be with Him?

Oswald Chambers says  that there is a delight in despair, a joy in hopelessness;  and I see and talk to so many weary people.  He goes on to say that delight is knowing that there is something in us which must fall prostrate before God, realizing He is our only hope of being raised up.

Psalm 37:4 goes on says "And He will give you..." 

"He will"  means absolutely, for sure, never failing, no doubt, trustworthy, reliable, responibility.  

"Give you" ...... that means me, the one He created.

My mind and heart can't quite wrap itself around this truth.  And then it goes on and says He gives me "the desires of your heart".  Out of weariness, someone recently said to me "I don't know what the desires of my heart are anymore".

For me "Desires" are longings, stirrings, something inside of me wanting to be let out, a giving of myself which in turn takes in great blessing, not being stuck.  It's God's Holy Spirit covering mine.  It's a mystery.

"Of my heart" is:

• Longing for the presence of God 24/7 instead of visiting despair
• Relationships at peace put together by God, belonging to God, molded by God instead of trying on my own
• Wanting God to take my heart completely and transform it

(I get in the way in all of these)

God's instructions continue in this Psalm -- give Him my ways, trust, be still and wait patiently; then refrain from anger, do not fret.  That's overwhelming and failure seems inevitable.

Then little Hadassah's face & smile come to mind and I turn in abandonment to the only one who can make my face shine, my feet leap, and my heart smile. 

Fresh Joy

With a prompting from my husband this morning, with a question about being robbed of JOY, I ran to The Source of JOY and asked for some answers.  Here they are:

• The ability to find Joy is a tremendous strength
• Spend Joy with abandon
• Encouragement is a Joyous art form
• Recharge - roll down a green hillside with childlike Joy

Proverbs 8:30-31 "I was filled with delight day after day rejoicing always in His presence, rejoicing in the whole world and delighting in mankind."  Boy do I need HELP with this -- I am not rejoicing in the whole world or mankind.  Many times I think they stink.

• Absorb God's Joy more fully
• Joy - dance in the streets of Bethlehem
• The path of Joy runs straight thru the heart of pain and suffering
• Joy - fixing my eyes and my heart and my mind on Jesus, "who for the joy set before Him endured the cross"  Hebrews 12:2
• Joy - not growing weary and losing heart
• Joy is prayer
• Joy - burning with love  

Oh, how I want to burn with love.
And out of that fire Fresh Joy will be born.

I'M BORED

"I'm bored" my niece Mary said during our skype session.  And she repeated it 6 times.

Bored.  What does that mean?  I looked it up and it says world-weary, blase.  Blase means indifferent to or bored with life; unimpressed, as or as if from an excess of worldly pleasures.
Unimpressed with worldly pleasures -- when the world seems to say here I am, take me and you will be happy.

World-weary.  Weary - dissatified and unimpressed.

I think I'm bored too, and there's only one place to turn. 

Romans 12:2-5 (New Living Translation)

² Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.