A Life Well Lived

A family friend of ours died this past weekend, succumbing to cancer. We just returned home from stopping to visit at the family farm just a few miles away. In her last moments, she was surrounded by family and friends, coherent, talking, slipping from earthly conversations to heavenly ones. What a profound transition.

At the farm tonight, hands were busy serving food, giving hugs, passing around the plate of bars, grandkids tossing the ball around. The way it should be. Remembering a life well lived.

I am mindful tonight of the important things in life: my faith, my family, my friends. That the petty things in life are not important: money, material things, thoughts beyond my control.

JoAnn was a woman of excellence, humble, giving, & faithful. As I rest tonight, preparing for another day, it is comforting to think on a life lived to the fullest.

Resting in the arms of her Savior.

Live well, Laugh often, Love much.

Peace to you tonight~

Lori

Light vs. Darkness

I am a firm believer that light overpowers darkness. Today, I choose light. I have chosen to immerse myself in every sense of light I can find. I love candles, so they are lit. I have chosen to try and be a light to others today, so I have written a stack of encouragement notes to those who attended TYL Camp. I have spent time with the creator of light today and basked in His amazing grace.

I hate how darkness invades my light. How it creeps into my light gradually at first until it rears it's ugly head just to remind me of it's presence in the world. Have you noticed it? Just when I have experienced a period of gracefilled light, darkness tries to destroy it. Blah!

But today, I turn my face again to the light. Today, I will not fear the darkness.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear, of whom shall I be afraid". Psalm 27.

Light prevails ............... strengthen me with your light. Creep away darkness. You are not welcome here.

Captivating

I just returned from a week of TYL Camp. The acronym for Today's Youth As Leaders. It was an amazing week, but I am tired. I will be preaching in the morning at 9am and am feeling Spirit-filled yet needing some rest. Off to bed early tonight .... at least MUCH earlier than I have been all week.

My cabin girls and I stayed up a bit late most nights, with the exception of, ironically the night we all had cabin parties "officially", our cabin was all ready for bed. When planning for camp, I knew we had enough female Sr. Counselors to cover cabins and my intentions this year where to just float. To house in the Dean cabin and not with campers. Turned out we were short an adult female so I ended up in a cabin with my former YIAT Prez. who was one of my Jr. Counselors, another JC, and two camper girls ..... the five of us "in the house" and ended up being very cool.

God is just so funny at placing us right where we need to be. I'm the mother of two boys. I don't do all the girly stuff like curl and/or straighten my hair. I throw on a little bit of makeup in the morning so as to not frighten folks ..... but I really don't consider myself a "girly girl". Until this week.

I hadn't seen her since April, and we did not leave each other on the best of terms. It was a hard meeting for both of us, lots of changes and unanswered questions, an element of trust severed. We both knew it. It hurt on both ends. The past few months all I have known is prayer and that God is there and prayerfully expectant to carry us all into a new vision of youth ministry. We both had suffered from arrogance in ways, two headstong women leaders -- and then God blessed me through her this week in the most "captivating way".

She graduated from high school this Spring and received a wonderful book from her brother entitled, "Captivating" by John Eldrige and his wife. It's the girly version of his male based book "Wild At Heart". I've decided to purchase it for just about all my girly-girl friends. We normally have in cabin wrap-ups before bed, usually based on the scripture for the day. She had other plans the first night and began to read us excerpts of the book. She first led the cabin girls in a wild card game of Nurtz .... I watched and smiled.

Something has happened to her, an inner beauty that radiates in everything she does. Instead of leading, I want to just watch her ..... soak it all up. I walk through camp and slip into the workshop she is leading. It's the WAX (Worship & Adore Christ) who will be leading us all in worship Friday night along with the Drama workshop. She drips humbleness. There is no more upfront-I'm in charge-look at me. I sit and watch and learn.

She sits, sister on guitar by her side, candles illuminate the gym. Everyone is quiet and she opens her mouth to sing. Tears flood my face and she radiates the love of Christ. She is beautiful. She is gracefilled. She is God's. She is simply captivating.

Thank You Jesus.